Multi-mobile robot and avoidance obstacle to spatial mapping in indoor environment

The advancement of technology and techniques applied to robotics contributes to increasing the quality of life and safety of humanity. One of the most widespread applications of mobile robotics is related to monitoring indoor environments. However, due to factors such as the size of the environment impacting the monitoring response, battery autonomy, and autonomous navigation in environments with unknown obstacles, they are still significant challenges in the diffusion of mobile robotics in these areas. Strategy adopting multiple robots can overcome these challenges. This work presents an approach to use multi-robots in hazardous environments with gas leakage to perform spatial mapping of the gas concentration. Obstacles arranged in the environment are unknown to robots, then a fuzzy control approach is used to avoid the collision. As a result of this paper, spatial mapping of an indoor environment was carried out with multi-robots that reactively react to unknown obstacles considering a point gas leak with Gaussian dispersion.This work has been supported by FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UIDB/05757/2020. Additionally, this work was supported in part by the National Counsel of Technological and Scientific Development of Brazil (CNPq), in part by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Level People (CAPES).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Fault-tolerance in cyber-physical systems: literature review and challenges

Modern industry demands techniques that ensure the operability of its processes, and even though the exponential technological advance in the last two decades in the manufacturing field, failures, waste, and unexpected interruptions are still present in this sector’s daily routine. Within the Industry 4.0 context, fault-tolerant (FT) production systems remain a complex issue and sometimes represent a vulnerable aspect. Faulttolerance techniques dedicated to autonomous and distributed systems, in a cyber-physical system (CPS) perspective, need to be investigated to follow the evolutionary pace of the manufacturing scenarios. This paper overviews these concepts and analyses the current situation in developing FT for CPS systems through a systematic literature review. The paper also discusses the research challenges in this new kind of FT systems due to new distributed architectures and emerging technologies, matching the several fault-tolerance phases.This work has been supported by FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UIDB/05757/2020. This work has been partially supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Interreg Spain-Portugal V-A Program (POCTEP) under grant 0677 DISRUPTIVE 2 E (Intensifying the activity of Digital Innovation Hubs within the PocTep region to boost the development of disruptive and last generation ICTs through cross-border cooperation).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A linear regression based-approach to collective gas source localization

This work addresses the problem of gas leaks and proposes a search strategy for identifying the source of a gas leak within a virtual simulation environment. The research focuses on designing and implementing simulation, control, and gas source search packages using swarm robotics. The simulation employs numerical integration strategies, while the robot swarm control is based on potential fields theory. The location of the gas source using a weighted linear regression strategy is used to estimate the gas concentration gradient, which plays a crucial role in the optimization strategy employed. The paper presents an overview of the key concepts employed and their relevance to different stages of the problem and highlights the main results achieved through the chosen strategies. A significant outcome of this work is the development of reusable software packages applicable to various research contexts in mobile robotics.The project is supported by National Council for Scientific and Technological Development – CNPq (process CNPq 407984/2022-4); Fund for Scientific and Technological Development – FNDCT; Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovations – MCTI of Brazil; Araucaria Foundation; and the General Superintendence of Science, Technology and Higher Education (SETI).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Vitamin D and inflammatory markers: cross-sectional analyses using data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA)

Recent evidence suggests that low vitamin D concentrations are associated with increased levels of inflammatory markers. However, there are limited studies investigating associations between vitamin D levels and inflammatory markers in the general population and much of this evidence in older adults is inconclusive. Therefore, this study investigates the cross-sectional association of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) levels with inflammatory markers in 5870 older English adults from wave 6 (2012-2013) of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). ELSA is a large prospective observational study of community-dwelling people aged 50 years and over in England. Serum 25(OH)D levels, C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, plasma fibrinogen levels, white blood cell count (WBC), age, season of blood collection, waist circumference, total non-pension household wealth, measures of health and health behaviours that included depression, number of cardiovascular, non-cardiovascular conditions and difficulties in activities of daily living, smoking, and physical activity were measured. There was a significant negative association between low 25(OH)D levels (≤30 nmol/l) and CRP (OR 1·23, 95 % CI 1·00, 1·51) and WBC (OR 1·35, 95 % CI 1·13, 1·60) that remained after adjustment for a wide range of covariates of clinical significance. However, for fibrinogen, the association did not remain significant when waist circumference was entered in the final model. Our findings showed that 25(OH)D levels were associated with two out the three inflammatory markers investigated. The independent and inverse association between serum 25(OH)D levels and inflammation suggests a potential anti-inflammatory role for vitamin D in older English individuals from the general population

Multi-robot preemptive task scheduling with fault recovery: a novel approach to automatic logistics of smart factories

This paper presents a novel approach for Multi-Robot Task Allocation (MRTA) that introduces priority policies on preemptive task scheduling and considers dependencies between tasks, and tolerates faults. The approach is referred to as Multi-Robot Preemptive Task Scheduling with Fault Recovery (MRPF). It considers the interaction between running processes and their tasks for management at each new event, prioritizing the more relevant tasks without idleness and latency. The benefit of this approach is the optimization of production in smart factories, where autonomous robots are being employed to improve efficiency and increase flexibility. The evaluation of MRPF is performed through experimentation in small-scale warehouse logistics, referred to as Augmented Reality to Enhanced Experimentation in Smart Warehouses (ARENA). An analysis of priority scheduling, task preemption, and fault recovery is presented to show the benefits of the proposed approach.This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior—Brasil (CAPES)—Finance Code 001 and in part by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Spatiotemporal assessment of particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) and ozone in a Caribbean urban coastal city

Air pollution has become a critical issue in urban areas, so a broad understanding of its spatiotemporal characteristics is important to develop public policies. This study analyzes the spatiotemporal variation of atmospheric particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) and ozone (O3) in Barranquilla, Colombia from March 2018 to June 2019 in three monitoring stations. The average concentrations observed for the Móvil, Policía, and Tres Avemarías stations, respectively, for PM10: 46.4, 51.4, and 39.7 μg/m3; for PM2.5: 16.1, 18.1, and 15.1 μg/m3 and for O3: 35.0, 26.6, and 33.6 μg/m3. The results indicated spatial and temporal variations between the stations and the pollutants evaluated. The highest PM concentrations were observed in the southern part of the city, while for ozone, higher concentrations were observed in the north. These variations are mainly associated with the influence of local sources in the environment of each site evaluated as well as the meteorological conditions and transport patterns of the study area. This study also verified the existence of differences in the concentrations of the studied pollutants between the dry and rainy seasons and the contribution of local sources as biomass burnings from the Isla Salamanca Natural Park and long-range transport of dust particles from the Sahara Desert. This study provides a scientific baseline for understanding air quality in the city, which enables policy makers to adopt efficient measures that jointly prevent and control pollution

Bio-inspired distributed sensors to autonomous search of gas leak source

This work presents multiple small robots in an unhealthy industrial environment responsible for detecting harmful gases to humans, avoiding possible harmful effects on the body. Mixed reality is widely used, considering that the environment and gases are virtual and real small robots. Essential components for the experiments are virtual, such as gases and BioCyber-Sensors. The results establish the great potential for applications in several areas, such as industrial, biomedical, and services. The entire system was developed based on ROS (Robot Operating System), thus the ease in diversifying different applications and approaches with multiple agents. The main objective of small robots is to guaranty a healthy work environment.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Spatiotemporal assessment of particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) and ozone in a Caribbean urban coastal city

Air pollution has become a critical issue in urban areas, so a broad understanding of its spatiotemporal characteristics is important to develop public policies. This study analyzes the spatiotemporal variation of atmospheric particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) and ozone (O3) in Barranquilla, Colombia from March 2018 to June 2019 in three monitoring stations. The average concentrations observed for the Móvil, Policía, and Tres Avemarías stations, respectively, for PM10: 46.4, 51.4, and 39.7 µg/m3; for PM2.5: 16.1, 18.1, and 15.1 µg/m3 and for O3: 35.0, 26.6, and 33.6 µg/m3. The results indicated spatial and temporal variations between the stations and the pollutants evaluated. The highest PM concentrations were observed in the southern part of the city, while for ozone, higher concentrations were observed in the north. These variations are mainly associated with the influence of local sources in the environment of each site evaluated as well as the meteorological conditions and transport patterns of the study area. This study also verified the existence of differences in the concentrations of the studied pollutants between the dry and rainy seasons and the contribution of local sources as biomass burnings from the Isla Salamanca Natural Park and long-range transport of dust particles from the Sahara Desert. This study provides a scientific baseline for understanding air quality in the city, which enables policy makers to adopt efficient measures that jointly prevent and control pollution