Slide-Down Prevention for Wheeled Mobile Robots on Slopes

Wheeled mobile robots on inclined terrain can slide down due to loss of traction and gravity. This type of instability, which is different from tip-over, can provoke uncontrolled motion or get the vehicle stuck. This paper proposes slide-down prevention by real-time computation of a straightforward stability margin for a given ground-wheel friction coefficient. This margin is applied to the case study of Lazaro, a hybrid skid-steer mobile robot with caster-leg mechanism that allows tests with four or five wheel contact points. Experimental results for both ADAMS simulations and the actual vehicle demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Ground Extraction from 3D Lidar Point Clouds

© 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works Pomares, A., Martínez, J.L., Mandow, A., Martínez, M.A., Morán, M., Morales, J. Ground extraction from 3D lidar point clouds with the Classification Learner App (2018) 26th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation, Zadar, Croatia, June 2018, pp.400-405. DOI: PendingGround extraction from three-dimensional (3D) range data is a relevant problem for outdoor navigation of unmanned ground vehicles. Even if this problem has received attention with specific heuristics and segmentation approaches, identification of ground and non-ground points can benefit from state-of-the-art classification methods, such as those included in the Matlab Classification Learner App. This paper proposes a comparative study of the machine learning methods included in this tool in terms of training times as well as in their predictive performance. With this purpose, we have combined three suitable features for ground detection, which has been applied to an urban dataset with several labeled 3D point clouds. Most of the analyzed techniques achieve good classification results, but only a few offer low training and prediction times.This work was partially supported by the Spanish project DPI 2015- 65186-R. The publication has received support from Universidad de Málaga, Campus de Excelencia Andalucía Tech

Construction and Calibration of a Low-Cost 3D Laser Scanner with 360◦ Field of View for Mobile Robots

Navigation of many mobile robots relies on environmental information obtained from three-dimensional (3D) laser scanners. This paper presents a new 360◦ field-of-view 3D laser scanner for mobile robots that avoids the high cost of commercial devices. The 3D scanner is based on spinning a Hokuyo UTM- 30LX-EX two-dimensional (2D) rangefinder around its optical center. The proposed design profits from lessons learned with the development of a previous 3D scanner with pitching motion. Intrinsic calibration of the new device has been performed to obtain both temporal and geometric parameters. The paper also shows the integration of the 3D device in the outdoor mobile robot Andabata.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Asociación entre el miedo generado por los medios de comunicación y el nivel de conocimientos básicos sobre Covid- 19 en efectivos de la división policial Chimbote

Determinar la asociación entre el miedo generado por los medios de comunicación y el nivel de conocimientos básicos sobre COVID-19 en efectivos de la División Policial Chimbote. Material y métodos: Estudio observacional, analítico, transversal. Se encuestó a 188 efectivos policiales que representaron el 84% de los efectivos de las comisarías y departamentos de la División Policial Chimbote que se encontraban laborando durante el periodo de aislamiento social obligatorio. Las variables en estudio son informadas como frecuencias. La asociación entre el nivel de conocimiento y la percepción del miedo se halló mediante el coeficiente de Spearman. Resultados: El 72.3% tenía un nivel medio de conocimientos sobre COVID-19, siendo los suboficiales con la edad promedio de 35 años los efectivos con mayor nivel de conocimientos. El 42% de encuestados percibió que la televisión es lo que más le producía miedo. Además de que se demostró que quienes presentan menor miedo generado por los medios de comunicación son los hombres (RPa: 0,150; IC95%: 0,006-0,288; valor p=0,040), los oficiales (RPa: 0,268; IC95%: 0,127-0,398; valor p<0,001), no tener enfermedades mentales (RPa: 0.157; IC95%: 0.014-0.295; valor p=0,031) y Ha laborado en zonas de emergencia durante su periodo de actividad policial (RPa: 1.540; IC95%: 1,421-2,640; valor p<0,001) Conclusión: asociación significativa entre el miedo generado por los medios de comunicación y el nivel de conocimientos básicos sobre COVID-19 en efectivos de la División Policial ChimboteTo determine the association between the fear generated by the media and the level of basic knowledge about COVID-19 in police officers from Chimbote. Material and methods: Observational, analytical, cross-sectional study. 188 police officers were surveyed, representing 84% of the police stations and departments of the Chimbote Police Division who were working during the period of mandatory social isolation. The variables under study are reported as frequencies. The association between the level of knowledge and the perception of fear was found using the Spearman coefficient. Results: 72.3% had a medium level of knowledge about COVID-19, with the NCOs with the average age of 35 being the officers with the highest level of knowledge. 42% of respondents perceived that television was what caused them the most fear. In addition to the fact that it was shown that those who present the least fear generated by the media are men (RPa: 0.150; 95% CI: 0.006-0.288; p-value = 0.040), officers (RPa: 0.268; 95% CI: 0.127-0.398; p value <0.001), not having mental illnesses (RPa: 0.157; 95% CI: 0.014-0.295; p value = 0.031) and Has worked in emergency zones during their period of police activity (RPa: 1.540; 95% CI: 1.421 -2.640; p value <0.001) Conclusion: significant association between fear generated by the media and the level of basic knowledge about COVID-19 in members of the Chimbote Police Division.Tesi

Sistemas de documentación y elaboración de textos científicos: Una asignatura para aprender a publicar en ingeniería

Hoy en día, la elaboración y presentación de informes de investigación resulta indispensable para muchos profesionales de la ingeniería. En este artículo se describe una asignatura de máster universitario cuyo principal objetivo es proporcionar los conocimientos necesarios para poder escribir y exponer resultados de investigación en ingeniería mecatrónica. De esta manera, se complementa la formación de los ingenieros para que puedan desenvolverse con éxito en el complejo mundo de la investigación.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Project-Based Learning of Scientific Writing and Communication Skills for Postgraduate Students

Mandow, A; Martínez, J. L.; García-Cerezo, A.; , "Project-Based Learning of Scientific Writing and Communication Skills for Postgraduate Students," IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), pp.210-213, Oct. 2014 doi: 10.1109/FIE.2014.7044022This paper addresses education on scientific publication skills for post-graduate engineering students. In particular, a project-based learning strategy is proposed to lead students through the preparation a research paper. Expected learning outcomes are related to finding and evaluating the quality of references, editing and formatting text in \LaTeX, writing scientific papers with appropriate style and structure, peer reviewing, and making technical presentations. This approach has been developed to increase the internationalization and visibility of young researchers by improving the quality standards of their published works. The purpose of this innovative practice is that students confront the major challenges of the publication process in the classroom, which is in contrast with the traditional self-taught approach experienced by the authors and many senior researchers. The proposed strategy is being applied as a required course in the Master in Mechatronics Engineering of the University of Malaga. This paper offers preliminary results from this experience.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. This work has been partially supported by projects DPI 2011-22443 (Spanish CICYT) and PIE 13-155 (Universidad de Málaga, proyecto de innovación educativa `Aprendizaje basado en proyectos para mejorar la excelencia de publicaciones científicas y transferencia del conocimiento en ingeniería")

Multi-region System Modelling by using Genetic Programming to Extract Rule Consequent Functions in a TSK Fuzzy System

[EN] This paper aims to build a fuzzy system by means of genetic programming, which is used to extract the relevant function for each rule consequent through symbolic regression. The employed TSK fuzzy system is complemented with a variational Bayesian Gaussian mixture clustering method, which identifies the domain partition, simultaneously specifying the number of rules as well as the parameters in the fuzzy sets. The genetic programming approach is accompanied with an orthogonal least square algorithm, to extract robust rule consequent functions for the fuzzy system. The proposed model is validated with a synthetic surface, and then with real data from a gas turbine compressor map case, which is compared with an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system model. The results have demonstrated the efficacy of the proposed approach for modelling system with small data or bifurcating dynamics, where the analytical equations are not available, such as those in a typical industrial setting.Research supported by EPSRC Grant EVES (EP/R029741/1).Zhang, Y.; Martínez-García, M.; Serrano, J.; Latimer, A. (2019). Multi-region System Modelling by using Genetic Programming to Extract Rule Consequent Functions in a TSK Fuzzy System. IEEE. 987-992. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICARM.2019.8834163S98799

Full 0ℏω0\hbar\omega shell model calculation of the binding energies of the 1f7/21f_{7/2} nuclei

Binding energies and other global properties of nuclei in the middle of the $pf$ shell, such as M1, E2 and Gamow-Teller sum rules, have been obtained using a new Shell Model code (NATHAN) written in quasi-spin formalism and using a $j-j$-coupled basis. An extensive comparison is made with the recently available Shell Model Monte Carlo results using the effective interaction KB3. The binding energies for -nearly- all the $1f_{7/2}$ nuclei are compared with the measured (and extrapolated) results.Comment: 7 page