Path planning for active tensegrity structures

This paper presents a path planning method for actuated tensegrity structures with quasi-static motion. The valid configurations for such structures lay on an equilibrium manifold, which is implicitly defined by a set of kinematic and static constraints. The exploration of this manifold is difficult with standard methods due to the lack of a global parameterization. Thus, this paper proposes the use of techniques with roots in differential geometry to define an atlas, i.e., a set of coordinated local parameterizations of the equilibrium manifold. This atlas is exploited to define a rapidly-exploring random tree, which efficiently finds valid paths between configurations. However, these paths are typically long and jerky and, therefore, this paper also introduces a procedure to reduce their control effort. A variety of test cases are presented to empirically evaluate the proposed method. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Management and analysis of mobility data

Mobility data describe the movement of objects in a time interval, such as vehicles, pedestrians, animals. Commonly, mobility data take the form of spatial trajectories, i.e. sequences of timestamped positions in a coordinated space. For example, GPS trajectories are a popular class of spatial trajectories collected outdoors. In this project, we consider a variety of mobility data, including indoor trajectories collected using a positioning infrastructure based on UltraWide Band (UWB). Goal of the project is to investigate on recent Moving Object database solutions for the management of UWB trajectories with focus on recent commercial databasesfor IOT data. In particular, the goal is to analyze a recent Moving Object database called MobilityDB

Multi-master ROS systems

This technical report introduces the concepts, problems and a possible solution for ROS multi-master systems, that is, systems build from two or more ROS networks, each with its own roscore node. In general this environment would correspond to multi-robot systems, either mobile platforms or manipulators. The ROS framework already provides a solution for such systems, multimaster_fkie, which is presented and briefly described in thisThe ROS framework already provides a solution for such systems, multimaster_fkie, which is presented and briefly described in this technical report, together with the network setup necessary to make it work properly. Two different configurations are discussed in this technical report, simple ROS networks with a single computer each, and more complex ROS networks with two or more computers each. In both cases, real examples are provided using robots available at IRI.Preprin

iCub platform: IIT workshop in Genova

This document outlines the most important concepts presented during a workshop about the iCub robot done at the Instituto Italiano di Technologia in Genova. Mechanical, electronic as well as rmware and software issues are presented, and the basic procedures to detect and solve the most common problems are described. The most important goal of this workshop was to get the necessary skills to perform the most basic maintenance of the robot without having to depend on the support from IIT. Also a brief introduction to the main issues of the control of the robot were provided.Preprin

The Almirall Project: a portal of 19 th century culture and thinking

The Ateneu Barcelonès is a civil, private cultural association that has been a part of Spanish society and culture since 1860, having been founded with the aim of promoting dialogue and disseminating knowledge about the country's artistic, historical and intellectual heritage. Since 2005, been taking part in various digitisation projects, including several digital projects. The Almirall Project aims to be a portal that explains, contextualises and inter-relates 19th-century works, thinkers, artists and schools of thought at Barcelona's Ateneu Library, providing access to digital copies lodged at other portals

Safety-related challenges and opportunities for GPUs in the automotive domain

GPUs have been shown to cover the computing performance needs of autonomous driving (AD) systems. However, since the GPUs used for AD build on designs for the mainstream market, they may lack fundamental properties for correct operation under automotive's safety regulations. In this paper, we analyze some of the main challenges in hardware and software design to embrace GPUs as the reference computing solution for AD, with the emphasis in ISO 26262 functional safety requirements.Authors would like to thank Guillem Bernat from Rapita Systems for his technical feedback on this work. The research leading to this work has received funding from the European Re-search Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 772773). This work has also been partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under grant TIN2015-65316-P and the HiPEAC Network of Excellence. Jaume Abella has been partially supported by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under Ramon y Cajal postdoctoral fellowship number RYC-2013-14717. Carles Hernández is jointly funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and FEDER funds through grant TIN2014-60404-JIN.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Near real time fraud detection with Apache Spark

Project that aims to put in practice the Big Data program Spark in a Bank fraud detection in real time scenario.Proyecto que pretende poner en prática el programa de Big Data Spark en el escenario bancario de detección de fraude en tiempo real.Projecte que preten possar en pràtica el programa de Big Data Spark a l' escenari bancari de detecció de fraud en temps real

Disseny d’una pràctica educativa per al taller mecànic de l’ESEIAAT, a partir de la revalorització d’un residu per obtenir una peça funcional final

Actualment estem vivint una època on la tecnologia i la ciència és una de les principals protagonistes en el nostre dia a dia, on gràcies a això hem pogut desenvolupar noves tècniques, nous reptes, i noves oportunitats que ens ajuda a dur a terme el nostre dia a dia, no obstant això el principal problema que tenim actualment, és la generació de residus i la seva gestió. Per això hem de posar mesures per tal de no posar en risc el medi ambient. En aquest treball donarem molta importància a aquest tema, fent ús de les “4R” (Reduir, Reciclar, Reutilitzar i Recuperar), i el concepte de economia circular. Veurem com a partir de residus podem fabricar una peça funcional, per això dissenyarem una pràctica educativa per el centre de la ESEIAAT( Escola Superior d’Enginyeries Industrial, Aeroespacial i Audiovisual de Terrassa), a realitzar en el taller mecànic. Com a partir de ferradures de cavall, a punt de ser llençades, podem re valoritzar-les i donar-li un altre ús. També prenem molta importància al pensament crític i creatiu dels enginyers, ja que és necessari per al desenvolupament de nous productes innovadors i competents

“Isla de información”: experiencia de cartografía ciudadana. Iniciativa para la Huerta de Murcia

“Isla de Información” fue una experiencia que tuvo lugar en abril de 2013 mediante la cual un grupo de ciudadanos, expertos y ayudantes en cartografía (arquitectos) peinaron una porción del territorio huertano a la búsqueda de indicios y de situaciones relevantes desde el punto de vista de la productividad o abandono, el patrimonio hidráulico, el patrimonio inmaterial, las redes familiares, ambientes naturales, conflictos de la accesibilidad, etc. Durante la excursión a pie de una mañana de duración, los asistentes pasearon, aprendieron, fotografiaron, debatieron y dibujaron el entorno huertano y sus particularidades. El objetivo era crear un denso mapa de virtudes, conflictos y oportunidades de un pequeño sector de la Huerta de Murcia entorno a un antiguo meandro del rio Segura. Si la acción significó el descubrimiento de un formato de taller adecuado para que todas las edades, incluso niños, pudieran participar con sus familias para disfrutar y compartir el medio huertano y subir los datos a internet, esta comunicación reflexiona, además, acerca de si la experiencia puede entenderse como un ensayo de empoderamiento de la ciudadanía a la hora de construir la representación pública de su paisaje y ciudad

Software-only diverse redundancy on GPUs for autonomous driving platforms

Autonomous driving (AD) builds upon high-performance computing platforms including (1) general purpose CPUs as well as (2) specific accelerators, being GPUs one of the main representatives. Microcontrollers have reached ASIL-D compliance by implementing diverse redundancy with lockstep execution. However, ASIL-D compliant GPUs rely on either fully redundant lockstep GPUs (i.e. 2 GPUs), which doubles hardware costs, or fully redundant systems with a GPU and another accelerator, which virtually doubles design and validation/verification (V&V) costs. In this paper we analyze the degree of diversity achieved when implementing redundancy on a single GPU, showing that diverse redundancy is not achieved in many cases, and propose software strategies that guarantee achieving diverse redundancy for any kernel on systems using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) GPUs, thus showing how to achieve ASIL-D compliance on a single COTS GPU in controlled scenarios.This work has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) under grant TIN2015-65316-P and the HiPEAC Network of Excellence. Jaume Abella has been partially supported by the MINECO under Ramon y Cajal postdoctoral fellowship number RYC2013-14717Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft