ICT integration policies in public schools in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country

En la Comunidad Autónoma Vasca se han tomado una serie de decisiones estratégicas materializadas en diversas políticas, planes institucionales e iniciativas con el objeto de integrar, usar e innovar con TIC en las escuelas. Desde iniciativas pretéritas centradas básicamente en la dotación de infraestructuras, pasando por el perfeccionamiento del profesorado, actualmente existe un modelo que intenta unir de facto la política de infraestructura y la formación del los docentes para una utilización eficiente de las TIC. La descripción y el análisis del impacto de las mismas en el entorno escolar es el objetivo de esta investigación. En este estudio se ha llevado a cabo una metodología de corte cualitativo basada en la recogida de ideas, opiniones y valoraciones de políticos, técnicos, directores de centros, así como de profesores mediante entrevistas en profundidad (N=25). Los diferentes agentes educativos entrevistados reconocen que a día de hoy el modelo propuesto que unifica lo tecnológico, lo psicopedagógico y lo organizativo adolece de falta de información eficaz y de financiación impidiendo claramente un impacto real en las escuelas.In the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country a series of strategic decisions have been made regarding various policies, institutional plans and initiatives for the integration, use and innovation of ICT in schools. From past initiatives primarily focused on providing infrastructure to the subsequent focus on improving teacher training, the current model attempts to integrate existing infrastructure policy and teacher training for a more efficient use of ICTs. This study aims to describe and analyze the impact of these tools on the school environment using a qualitative methodology based on the collection of ideas, opinions and evaluations regarding policies, technicians, school directors as well as in-depth interviews with teachers (N=25). The various educators interviewed recognize that the proposed model to unify technology, psychopedagogy and organization suffers from a lack of clear information and financing, which has a visible negative impact on schools

Failsafe Innovative Electromechanical Actuator with Advanced Electric Motor Control Technique Against Single Point of Failure

Electromechanical actuators (EMAs) begin to have a greater presence in current aeronautic designs due to the energy efficiency and reliability advantages they can provide. However, the conventional mechanical design with a single combination of a ball screw and an electric motor is subject to scenarios in which a single point of failure can render it inoperative. This paper presents a failsafe innovative EMA that gives a solution to the most typical jamming issues of aeronautical electromechanical actuators, either due to ball screw or electric motor failures. Different electric motor synchronization techniques applicable to the presented mechanical EMA design are analysed, and the benefits of the most adequate control strategy, the virtual line-shafting (VLS), are validated. Finally, the implementation of the control algorithm in a simplified virtual test bench with promising results is shown. The obtained results demonstrate that the proposed novel EMA mechanical design can enhance the failsafe capabilities of the current EMA designs based on a single ball screw and motor combination.The project leading to these results has received funding from the Clean Sky 2 Joint Undertaking under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement no. 755562

Enhancing VTOL Multirotor Performance With a Passive Rotor Tilting Mechanism

This article discusses the benefits of introducing a simple passive mechanism to enable rotor tilting in Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) multirotor vehicles. Such a system is evaluated in relevant Urban Air Mobility (UAM) passenger transport scenarios such as hovering in wind conditions and overcoming rotor failures. While conventional parallel axis multirotors are underactuated systems, the proposed mechanism makes the vehicle fully actuated in SE(3), which implies independent cabin position and orientation control. An accurate vehicle simulator with realistic parameters is presented to compare in simulation the proposed architecture with a conventional underactuated VTOL vehicle that shares the same physical properties. In order to make fair comparisons, controllers are obtained solving an optimization problem in which the cost function of both systems is chosen to be equivalent. In particular, the control laws are Linear-Quadratic Regulators (LQR), which are derived by linearizing the systems around hover. It is shown through extensive simulation that the introduction of a passive rotor tilting mechanism based on universal joints improves performance metrics such as vehicle stability, power consumption, passenger comfort and position tracking precision in nominal flight conditions and it does not compromise vehicle safety in rotor failure situations

Modeling and control of an overactuated aerial vehicle with four tiltable quadrotors attached by means of passive universal joints

We present a novel overactuated aerial vehicle based on four quadrotors connected to an airframe by means of passive universal joints. The proposed architecture allows to independently control the six degrees of freedom of the airframe without having fixed propellers at inefficient configurations or making use of dedicated rotor tilting actuators. After deriving the dynamic equations that describe its motion, we propose a linear control strategy that is able to successfully decouple rotation and translation, relying exclusively on on-board sensors. A prototype is built and preliminary experimental results demonstrate that the concept is feasible.Video: https://youtu.be/9ASP3FyhCJw.This research was supported by the ELKARTEK 2018 program of the Basque Government, grant agreement No. KK-2018/00082

Políticas sobre la integración de las TIC en la escuela de la Comunidad Autónoma del País Vasco

En la Comunidad Autónoma Vasca se han tomado una serie de decisiones estratégicas materializadas en diversas políticas, planes institucionales e iniciativas con el objeto de integrar, usar e innovar con TIC en las escuelas. Desde iniciativas pretéritas centradas básicamente en la dotación de infraestructuras, pasando por el perfeccionamiento del profesorado, actualmente existe un  modelo que intenta unir de facto la política de infraestructura y la formación del los docentes para una utilización eficiente de las TIC.  La  descripción y el análisis del impacto de las mismas en el entorno escolar es el objetivo de esta investigación. En este estudio se ha llevado a cabo una metodología de corte cualitativo basada en la recogida de ideas, opiniones y valoraciones de políticos, técnicos, directores de centros, así como de profesores mediante entrevistas en profundidad (N=25). Los diferentes agentes educativos entrevistados reconocen que a día de hoy el modelo propuesto que unifica lo tecnológico, lo psicopedagógico y lo organizativo adolece de falta de información eficaz  y de financiación impidiendo claramente un impacto real en las escuelas.In the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country a series of strategic decisions have been made regarding various policies, institutional plans and initiatives for the integration, use and innovation of ICT in schools. From past initiatives primarily focused on providing infrastructure to the subsequent focus on improving teacher training, the current model attempts to integrate existing infrastructure policy and teacher training for a more efficient use of ICTs. This study aims to describe and analyze the impact of these tools on the school environment using a qualitative methodology based on the collection of ideas, opinions and evaluations regarding policies, technicians, school directors as well as in-depth interviews with teachers (N=25). The various educators interviewed recognize that the proposed model to unify technology, psychopedagogy and organization suffers from a lack of clear information and financing, which has a visible negative impact on schools