AGROTECH09: building agricultural robots with lego mindstorm. A multidisciplinary and multicultural approach

This activity has been designed in the context of an innovation project devoted to the coordination on mathematical, physical, and engineering contents for a transversal path on mechatronics, automated control and information and communication technologies (from now onwards AGROMECATIC) at agricultural engineering studies in the Technical University of Madrid. One of the main tasks has consisted on setting up a new subject, robotics in agriculture (equivalent to 7 ECTS), which is used as a platform to test the abilities of the students to apply various aspects of the knowledge gathered along the previous 4 years on agricultural engineering, with special emphasis on. The students are demanded to build a variety of basic mechanisms into an autonomous vehicle capable of performing user defined general and specific agricultural tasks (such as selective harvest, transport, loading and unloading of product). The robot is programmed using object oriented language (LEJOS, JAVA for LEGO) and has to cover a variety of behaviors: navigation, exploration, and previous defined agricultural tasks. As a mean to test the skills developed by the students and to reinforce the multidisciplinary nature of AGROMECATICS, a European contest: AGROTECH09 has been settled, which is co-organized by BEST (Board of European Students of Technology). The activity will take place between the 11 th and 14 th of May at ETSI Agrónomos and recognizes up to 2 ECTS of individual dedication. 40 students from 16 countries with large variability of backgrounds: computers science, agronomy, engineering, physics, tele-communication will work jointly to solve a challenge which will be public on the 11 th of May with all materials being provided by the organization

Fitting into their shoes: how robots help multidisciplinary approaches under cooperative learning

La enseñanza de ingeniería agronómica está poblada de asignaturas con contenidos altamente específicos pertenecientes a distintas ramas del saber que raramente se integran entre sí de manera profunda. En los últimos años de carrera resulta interesante plantear como reto a los alumnos la posibilidad de poner a prueba los conocimientos adquiridos en agronomía, física, matemáticas e ingeniería en el desarrollo de un robot capaz de realizar una variedad de tareas agrícolas. Este es el marco en el que se ha impartido por primera vez la asignatura Robótica Aplicada a la Agricultura, la adquisición de las competencias necesarias y la discusión de los resultados de aprendizaje son los aspectos que se desarrollan en este trabajo desde la perspectiva de los alumnos que han participado. Metidos en los zapatos de los alumnos

Multidisciplinary exercises: coordination practices and applications from fundamental to applied subjects in agriculture engineering

This activity is carried out in the framework of an innovation project, whose main objective is to coordinate mathematical, physical and engineering contents for a transversal educational path focused on mechatronics, automated control and information and communication technologies. In such sense one important task in this project is the elaboration of practices and joint applications which will be proposed to the students in successive matters upon different points of view: “Common Practices”. Through this activity students will be guided to establish relationships between their scientific basic training and their technological formation. The students will work on the same example during different academic years and semesters using common materials and working spaces. The whole experience will be displayed in Moodle, a virtual learning environment. A preliminary proposal of “Common practice” is presented in this paper as one example: “Design and Analysis of Suspensions Systems for Stabilizing the Roll of Spray Booms”. In this example students of different academic levels are asked to solve the complexity of the problem along different subjects: Field measurements (analysis of variability on chemical applications using a spray boom) will be realized in the Agriculture Machinery topic - equivalent to 4.5 ECTS -. Analytical models for the analysis of different suspension systems in the Mechanics and Mechanisms topic -4.5 ECTS -. In Agriculture Applied Electronics – 2.5 ECTS – sensors and actuators will be studied to design controllers. Control strategies for damping the resonance frequency of the suspension will be studied in Process Simulation and Optimization – 3.5 ECTS –. And, finally, the design and development of a vehicle with a spray bar and the corresponding suspension systems will be done in the Robotics topic – 7 ECTS –

Detrended fluctuation analysis for spatial characterisation of landscapes

The interactions among abiotic, biotic, and anthropic factors and their influence at different scales create a complex dynamic in landscape evolution. Scaling and multifractal analysis have the potential to characterise landscapes in terms of the statistical signature of the selected measure, in this case, altitude. This work evaluates the multifractality of altitude data points along transects that are obtained in several directions using Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA) in a protected area adjacent to Madrid. The study data set consist of a matrix 2048 2048 pixels obtained at a 5 m resolution and extracted from a digital terrain model (DTM) using a Geographic Information System (GIS). We found that the distribution of altitude fluctuations at small scales revealed a non-Gaussian character in the statistical moments, indicating that Fractional Brownian modelling is not appropriate. Generalised Hurst dimensions (H(q)) were calculated on several transects crossing the area under study, all of which exhibited multifractality within a certain scale range. The results show a persistent behaviour in all directions because all of the H(q) values exceeded 0.5 and because there were differences in the intensities of the multifractality. The analysis of the directionality by means of a generalised Hurst rose plot showed differences in the scaling characteristics both along and across rivers and reservoirs. This indicates a clear anisotropy that is mainly due to the directions of the two river basins located in the area and the basement movement as a consequence of gradual tectonic displacement, which must be considered in two-dimensional DFA

Detrended fluctuation analysis for spatial characterisation of landscapes

The interactions among abiotic, biotic, and anthropic factors and their influence at different scales create a complex dynamic in landscape evolution. Scaling and multifractal analysis have the potential to characterise landscapes in terms of the statistical signature of the selected measure, in this case, altitude. This work evaluates the multifractality of altitude data points along transects that are obtained in several directions using Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA) in a protected area adjacent to Madrid. The study data set consist of a matrix 2048 2048 pixels obtained at a 5 m resolution and extracted from a digital terrain model (DTM) using a Geographic Information System (GIS). We found that the distribution of altitude fluctuations at small scales revealed a non-Gaussian character in the statistical moments, indicating that Fractional Brownian modelling is not appropriate. Generalised Hurst dimensions (H(q)) were calculated on several transects crossing the area under study, all of which exhibited multifractality within a certain scale range. The results show a persistent behaviour in all directions because all of the H(q) values exceeded 0.5 and because there were differences in the intensities of the multifractality. The analysis of the directionality by means of a generalised Hurst rose plot showed differences in the scaling characteristics both along and across rivers and reservoirs. This indicates a clear anisotropy that is mainly due to the directions of the two river basins located in the area and the basement movement as a consequence of gradual tectonic displacement, which must be considered in two-dimensional DFA