A Ground Control Station for Collaborative Unmanned Surface Vehicles

[ES] El Centro de Control de Tierra (CCT) es uno de los elementos imprescindibles para la supervisión y control de vehículos autónomos que realizan misiones complejas. En la actualidad cada vez hay más aplicaciones donde se utilizan múltiples vehículos autónomos y el tradicional Centro de Control está evolucionando para ser capaz de gestionar diversos vehículos y operadores. Este artículo presenta las características más relevantes de un CCT adaptable y versátil, especialmente diseñado para que un equipo heterogéneo de operadores puedan monitorizar y supervisar el funcionamiento colaborativo de un conjunto heterogéneo de vehículos autónomos. Entre estas características destacan la posibilidad de, según las necesidades de los operadores y de la misión, 1) reconfigurar cuál (y cómo) es la información que se muestra de cada vehículo a cada operador, 2) definir alarmas que atraigan la atención de los operadores ante determinados eventos (y liberen su carga de trabajo mientras estos no se den) y 3) re-asignar en tiempo real la gestión de los vehículos a los diferentes operadores. Para alcanzarlas, se ha realizado un cuidadoso diseño de la arquitectura software del CCT, que se detalla en el artículo y que se encuentra formada por: un módulo de comunicaciones; un módulo planificador de alto nivel; un módulo (replicable en tantos equipos como se desee) de monitorización y supervisión de vehículos; y tantos módulos comandadores como vehículos diferentes existan en la misión. Este CCT ha sido desarrollado dentro del proyecto de investigación SALACOM (Sistema Autónomo de Localización y Actuación ante Contaminantes en el Mar), en el que dos barcos autónomos maniobran de forma colaborativa para desplegar una barrera para la contención de un vertido contaminante en el mar ydonde la incorporación del operador en la supervisión y control de las maniobras de los vehículos es un requisito imprescindible para dar seguridad y confianza a la operación realizada. Finalmente, se presenta un caso de uso del Centro de Control de Tierra donde se realiza una maniobra de seguimiento entre dos vehículos autónomos de superficie.[EN] The Ground Control Station (GCS) is one of the essential elements to supervise and control autonomous vehicles performing complex missions. The increasing number of systems that involve multiple autonomous vehicles is making traditional GCSs evolve to let them handle dierent vehicles and operators. In this article, we present the more relevant properties of a versatile adaptable GCS that has been especially designed to let multiple operators, each using a dierent computer equipment, be in charge of controlling a heterogeneous team of autonomous vehicles. Its main properties are the possibility of 1) reconfiguring which information is displayed to each operator, 2) defining alarms to draw the operators attention when required, and 3) re-assigning, in real-time, the vehicles to dierent operators. These properties are supported by a distributed design of the GCS software architecture, presented in the paper and consistent of: a communication module, a high level planner, replicable monitoring and supervising units, and as many commanders as vehicles within each mission. This GCS has been developed within SALACOM (an autonomous system for locating and acting against sea spills), where two Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) cooperate to collect a sea spill under the supervision of several operators that are responsible of the security of the mission. Finally, this paper also presents a case of use of the GCS within a real-world experiment involving two USVs performing leader-follower formation maneouvres.Los autores del art´ıculo quieren agradecer al Ministerio de Econom´ıa y Competitividad español su apoyo a través del proyecto SALACOM (DPI2013-46665-C2-1-R).Bonache Seco, J.; Dormido Canto, J.; Montalvo Martinez, M.; López-Orozco, J.; Besada Portas, E.; De La Cruz Garcia, J. (2017). Centro de Control de Tierra para Colaboración de Vehículos Autónomos Marinos. Revista Iberoamericana de Automática e Informática industrial. 15(1):1-11. https://doi.org/10.4995/riai.2017.8737OJS111151ASTM, 2017. Committee F41 on unmanned maritime vehicle systems (umvs). 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Journal On Advances in Telecommunications, IARIA 3 (3), 152-161.Burmeister, H.-C., Bruhn, W., Rødseth, Ø. J., Porathe, T., 2014. Autonomous unmanned merchant vessel and its contribution towards the e-navigation implementation: The munin perspective. International Journal of e-Navigation and Maritime Economy 1, 1-13.Cummings, M. L., How, J. P., Whitten, A., Toupet, O., 2012. The impact of human-automation collaboration in decentralized multiple unmanned vehicle control. Proceedings of the IEEE 100 (3), 660-671. https://doi.org/10.1109/JPROC.2011.2174104de la Cruz, J. M., Lopez-Orozco, A, J., Besada Portas, E., Aranda Almansa, J., 2016. Control de formaciones de vehículos marinos de superficie con restricciones de entrada. CEA, pp. 1044-1051.de la Cruz, J. M., Lopez-Orozco, A, J., Besada Portas, E., Moreno Salinas, D., Aranda Almansa, J., 2014. Seguimiento de caminos para formaciones de vehículos marinos de superficie.de la Cruz, J. M., Lopez-Orozco, J. A., Besada-Portas, E., Aranda-Almansa, J., 2015. A streamlined nonlinear path following kinematic controller. In: 2015 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). IEEE, pp. 6394-6401. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA.2015.7140097Heo, J., Kim, S., Kwon, Y., 2016. Design of ground control station for operation of multiple combat entities. Journal of Computer and Communications 4, 66-71. https://doi.org/10.4236/jcc.2016.45010Lalish, E., Morgansen, K. A., 2008. Decentralized reactive collision avoidance for multivehicle systems. In: Proceedings of the 47th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control. IEEE, pp. 1218-1224. https://doi.org/10.1109/CDC.2008.4738894Lapierre, L., Soetanto, D., 2007. Nonlinear path-following control of an auv. Ocean engineering 34 (11), 1734-1744. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2006.10.019LibrePilot, 2015. Software suite to control multicopter and other rc-models. [Online] https://www.librepilot.org/site/index.html, accedido en marzo de 2017.Lindemuth, M., Murphy, R., Steimle, E., Armitage, W., Dreger, K., Elliot, T., Hall, M., Kalyadin, D., Kramer, J., Palankar, M., et al., 2011. Sea robot assisted inspection. IEEE robotics & automation magazine 18 (2), 96-107. https://doi.org/10.1109/MRA.2011.940994MAVLINK, 2017. Micro air vehicle communication protocol. [Online] http://qgroundcontrol.org/mavlink/start, accedido en Marzo, 2017.Moreno-Salinas, D., Besada-Portas, E., López-Orozco, J., Chaos, D., de la Cruz, J., Aranda, J., 2015. Symbolic regression for marine vehicles identification. IFAC-PapersOnLine 48 (16), 210-216. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ifacol.2015.10.282Mupparapu, S. S., Chappell, S. G., Komerska, R. J., Blidberg, D. R., Nitzel, R., Benton, C., Popa, D. O., Sanderson, A. C., 2004. Autonomous systems monitoring and control (asmac)-an auv fleet controller. In: Autonomous Underwater Vehicles, 2004 IEEE/OES. IEEE, pp. 119-126.Murphy, R. R., Steimle, E., Griffin, C., Cullins, C., Hall, M., Pratt, K., 2008. Cooperative use of unmanned sea surface and micro aerial vehicles at hurricane wilma. Journal of Field Robotics 25 (3), 164-180. https://doi.org/10.1002/rob.20235Park, S., Deyst, J., How, J. P., 2007. Performance and lyapunov stability of a nonlinear path following guidance method. Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics 30 (6), 1718-1728. https://doi.org/10.2514/1.28957Patterson, M. C., Mulligan, A., Boiteux, F., 2013. Safety and security applications for micro-unmanned surface vessels. In: 2013 OCEANS-San Diego. IEEE, pp. 1-6.QGroundControl, 2017. A uav control station. [Online] http://qgroundcontrol.com/, accedido en Marzo de 2017.Ribas, D., Palomeras, N., Ridao, P., Carreras, M., Mallios, A., 2012. Girona 500 auv: From survey to intervention. IEEE ASME Transactions on Mechatronics 17 (1), 46-53. https://doi.org/10.1109/TMECH.2011.2174065STANAG4586, 2012. 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Magnetostriction reveals orthorhombic distortion in tetragonal Gd compounds

We report detailed thermal expansion and magnetostriction experiments on GdCoIn5 and GdRh(In1-xCdx)5 (x=0 and 0.025) single-crystal samples that show a sudden change in the dilation at a field Bâ for temperatures below the Néel transition temperature TN. We present a first-principles model including crystal-field effects, dipolar and exchange interactions, and the dependence of the latter with lattice distortions in order to fully account for the magnetostriction and magnetic susceptibility data. The mean-field solution of the model shows that a transition between metastable states occurs at the field Bâ. It also indicates that two degenerate phases should coexist at temperatures below TN, which may explain the lack of observation, in high-resolution x-ray experiments, of an orthorhombic distortion at the Néel transition, even though the experimentally determined magnetic structure breaks the tetragonal symmetry and the magnetoelastic coupling from our model is significant. These conclusions could be extended to other tetragonal Gd-based compounds that present the same phenomenology.Fil: Betancourth Giraldo, Diana Maria. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Área de Energía Nuclear. Instituto Balseiro; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Correa, Víctor Félix. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Área de Energía Nuclear. Instituto Balseiro; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Facio, Jorge Ismael. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Área de Energía Nuclear. Instituto Balseiro; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Fernández, J.. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Área de Energía Nuclear. Instituto Balseiro; ArgentinaFil: Vildosola, Veronica Laura. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; ArgentinaFil: Lora Serrano, R.. Universidade Federal de Uberlandia; Brasil. University of New South Wales; AustraliaFil: Cadogan, J.M.. University of New South Wales; AustraliaFil: Aligia, Armando Ángel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Cornaglia de la Cruz, Pablo Sebastian. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Área de Energía Nuclear. Instituto Balseiro; ArgentinaFil: Garcia, Daniel Julio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Área de Energía Nuclear. Instituto Balseiro; Argentin

Control of flow geometry using electromagnetic body forcing

Accepted versio

Randomized crossover pharmacokinetic evaluation of subcutaneous versus intravenous granisetron in cancer patients treated with platinum-based chemotherapy

BACKGROUND: 5-HT3-receptor antagonists are one of the mainstays of antiemetic treatment, and they are administered either i.v. or orally. Nevertheless, sometimes neither administration route is feasible, such as in patients unable to admit oral intake managed in an outpatient setting. Our objective was to evaluate the bioavailability of s.c. granisetron. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Patients receiving platinum-based chemotherapy were randomized to receive 3 mg of granisetron either s.c. or i.v. in a crossover manner during two cycles. Blood and urine samples were collected after each cycle. Pharmacokinetic parameters observed with each administration route were compared by analysis of variance. RESULTS: From May to November 2005, 31 patients were included and 25 were evaluable. Subcutaneous granisetron resulted in a 27% higher area under the concentration-time curve for 0-12 hours (AUC(0-12h)) and higher levels at 12 hours, with similar values for AUC(0-24h). The maximum concentration was lower with the s.c. than with the i.v. route and was observed 30 minutes following s.c. administration. CONCLUSION: Granisetron administered s.c. achieves complete bioavailability. This is the first study that shows that s.c. granisetron might be a valid alternative to i.v. delivery. Further trials to confirm clinical equivalence are warranted. This new route of administration might be especially relevant for outpatient management of emesis in cancer patients

Measurable Residual Disease by Next-Generation Flow Cytometry in Multiple Myeloma

PURPOSE: Assessing measurable residual disease (MRD) has become standard with many tumors, but the clinical meaning of MRD in multiple myeloma (MM) remains uncertain, particularly when assessed by next-generation flow (NGF) cytometry. Thus, we aimed to determine the applicability and sensitivity of the flow MRD-negative criterion defined by the International Myeloma Working Group (IMWG). PATIENTS AND METHODS: In the PETHEMA/GEM2012MENOS65 trial, 458 patients with newly diagnosed MM had longitudinal assessment of MRD after six induction cycles with bortezomib, lenalidomide, and dexamethasone (VRD), autologous transplantation, and two consolidation courses with VRD. MRD was assessed in 1, 100 bone marrow samples from 397 patients; the 61 patients without MRD data discontinued treatment during induction and were considered MRD positive for intent-to-treat analysis. The median limit of detection achieved by NGF was 2.9 × 10-6. Patients received maintenance (lenalidomide ± ixazomib) according to the companion PETHEMA/GEM2014MAIN trial. RESULTS: Overall, 205 (45%) of 458 patients had undetectable MRD after consolidation, and only 14 of them (7%) have experienced progression thus far; seven of these 14 displayed extraosseous plasmacytomas at diagnosis and/or relapse. Using time-dependent analysis, patients with undetectable MRD had an 82% reduction in the risk of progression or death (hazard ratio, 0.18; 95% CI, 0.11 to 0.30; P < .001) and an 88% reduction in the risk of death (hazard ratio, 0.12; 95% CI, 0.05 to 0.29; P < .001). Timing of undetectable MRD (after induction v intensification) had no impact on patient survival. Attaining undetectable MRD overcame poor prognostic features at diagnosis, including high-risk cytogenetics. By contrast, patients with Revised International Staging System III status and positive MRD had dismal progression-free and overall survivals (median, 14 and 17 months, respectively). Maintenance increased the rate of undetectable MRD by 17%. CONCLUSION: The IMWG flow MRD-negative response criterion is highly applicable and sensitive to evaluate treatment efficacy in MM

Bladder cancer index: cross-cultural adaptation into Spanish and psychometric evaluation

BACKGROUND: The Bladder Cancer Index (BCI) is so far the only instrument applicable across all bladder cancer patients, independent of tumor infiltration or treatment applied. We developed a Spanish version of the BCI, and assessed its acceptability and metric properties. METHODS: For the adaptation into Spanish we used the forward and back-translation method, expert panels, and cognitive debriefing patient interviews. For the assessment of metric properties we used data from 197 bladder cancer patients from a multi-center prospective study. The Spanish BCI and the SF-36 Health Survey were self-administered before and 12 months after treatment. Reliability was estimated by Cronbach's alpha. Construct validity was assessed through the multi-trait multi-method matrix. The magnitude of change was quantified by effect sizes to assess responsiveness. RESULTS: Reliability coefficients ranged 0.75-0.97. The validity analysis confirmed moderate associations between the BCI function and bother subscales for urinary (r = 0.61) and bowel (r = 0.53) domains; conceptual independence among all BCI domains (r ≤ 0.3); and low correlation coefficients with the SF-36 scores, ranging 0.14-0.48. Among patients reporting global improvement at follow-up, pre-post treatment changes were statistically significant for the urinary domain and urinary bother subscale, with effect sizes of 0.38 and 0.53. CONCLUSIONS: The Spanish BCI is well accepted, reliable, valid, responsive, and similar in performance compared to the original instrument. These findings support its use, both in Spanish and international studies, as a valuable and comprehensive tool for assessing quality of life across a wide range of bladder cancer patients

Limits on anomalous trilinear gauge boson couplings from WW, WZ and Wgamma production in pp-bar collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV

We present final searches of the anomalous gammaWW and ZWW trilinear gauge boson couplings from WW and WZ production using lepton plus dijet final states and a combination with results from Wgamma, WW, and WZ production with leptonic final states. The analyzed data correspond to up to 8.6/fb of integrated luminosity collected by the D0 detector in pp-bar collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV. We set the most stringent limits at a hadron collider to date assuming two different relations between the anomalous coupling parameters Delta\kappa_\gamma, lambda, and Delta g_1^Z for a cutoff energy scale Lambda=2 TeV. The combined 68% C.L. limits are -0.057<Delta\kappa_\gamma<0.154, -0.015<lambda<0.028, and -0.008<Delta g_1^Z<0.054 for the LEP parameterization, and -0.007<Delta\kappa<0.081 and -0.017<lambda<0.028 for the equal couplings parameterization. We also present the most stringent limits of the W boson magnetic dipole and electric quadrupole moments.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PL

Search for Higgs bosons decaying to tautau pairs in ppbar collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV

We present a search for the production of neutral Higgs bosons decaying into tautau pairs in ppbar collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV. The data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.4 fb-1, were collected by the D0 experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. We set upper limits at the 95% C.L. on the product of production cross section and branching ratio for a scalar resonance decaying into tautau pairs, and we then interpret these limits as limits on the production of Higgs bosons in the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) and as constraints in the MSSM parameter space.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PL

Measurement of three-jet differential cross sections d sigma-3jet / d M-3jet in p anti-p collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV

We present the first measurement of the inclusive three-jet differential cross section as a function of the invariant mass of the three jets with the largest transverse momenta in an event in p anti-p collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV. The measurement is made in different rapidity regions and for different jet transverse momentum requirements and is based on a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 0.7 fb^{-1} collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. The results are used to test the three-jet matrix elements in perturbative QCD calculations at next-to-leading order in the strong coupling constant. The data allow discrimination between parametrizations of the parton distribution functions of the proton.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Phys. Lett. B, corrected chi2 values for NNPD

Measurement of the photon+b+b-jet production differential cross section in ppˉp\bar{p} collisions at \sqrt{s}=1.96~\TeV

We present measurements of the differential cross section dsigma/dpT_gamma for the inclusive production of a photon in association with a b-quark jet for photons with rapidities |y_gamma|< 1.0 and 30<pT_gamma <300 GeV, as well as for photons with 1.5<|y_gamma|< 2.5 and 30< pT_gamma <200 GeV, where pT_gamma is the photon transverse momentum. The b-quark jets are required to have pT>15 GeV and rapidity |y_jet| < 1.5. The results are based on data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 8.7 fb^-1, recorded with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron $p\bar{p}$ Collider at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV. The measured cross sections are compared with next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations using different sets of parton distribution functions as well as to predictions based on the kT-factorization QCD approach, and those from the Sherpa and Pythia Monte Carlo event generators.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Phys. Lett.