An AER-Based Actuator Interface for Controlling an Anthropomorphic Robotic Hand

Bio-Inspired and Neuro-Inspired systems or circuits are a relatively novel approaches to solve real problems by mimicking the biology in its efficient solutions. Robotic also tries to mimic the biology and more particularly the human body structure and efficiency of the muscles, bones, articulations, etc. Address-Event-Representation (AER) is a communication protocol for transferring asynchronous events between VLSI chips, originally developed for neuro-inspired processing systems (for example, image processing). Such systems may consist of a complicated hierarchical structure with many chips that transmit data among them in real time, while performing some processing (for example, convolutions). The information transmitted is a sequence of spikes coded using high speed digital buses. These multi-layer and multi-chip AER systems perform actually not only image processing, but also audio processing, filtering, learning, locomotion, etc. This paper present an AER interface for controlling an anthropomorphic robotic hand with a neuro-inspired system.Unión Europea IST-2001-34124 (CAVIAR)Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIC-2003-08164-C03-0

Spike-based control monitoring and analysis with Address Event Representation

Neuromorphic engineering tries to mimic biological information processing. Address-Event Representation (AER) is a neuromorphic communication protocol for spiking neurons between different chips. We present a new way to drive robotic platforms using spiking neurons. We have simulated spiking control models for DC motors, and developed a mobile robot (Eddie) controlled only by spikes. We apply AER to the robot control, monitoring and measuring the spike activity inside the robot. The mobile robot is controlled by the AER-Robot tool, and the AER information is sent to a PC using the USBAERmini2 interface.Junta de Andalucía P06-TIC-01417Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TEC2006-11730-C03-0

Scorecard and KPIs for monitoring software factories effectiveness in the financial sector

Financial corporations and especially banking institutions have important needs concerning to the development of software around their business core. The software, that traditionally had been developed in house by the IT departments, is now usually outsourced to IT firms. These firms work under the software factories model. An important feature within this sector is that usually the financial groups keep the ownership of these firms because the strategic value of the software for the core business. These firms work almost exclusively for the owner financial group developing their software, but they have to demonstrate that they are so profitable and competitive like any other firm. The organizational structure of these firms has some differential features. Top level tasks (software design and project management) are usually performed by the IT firm but the development is usually subcontracted to other software companies. Although financial corporations have always paid a special interest to investing in management and organizational policies to improve their efficiency, there have being always an important lack regarding to the control and monitoring of the software projects. They do not have suitable tools for monitoring actual process effectiveness. Adapting scorecards to this environment could be a useful tool for monitoring and improvement the process. Scorecard could here be used both as a tool for internal effectiveness measurement as well as externally, presenting sustainability indicators for the shareholders, the financial institutions. This paper aims to identify and define a collection of Key Performance Indicators which permit effectiveness to be improved under this context, focusing in the specific supply-chain model given by owner (financial group), software factory and software developers (subcontracted)

A Protocol Generator Tool for Automatic In-Vitro HPV Robotic Analysis

Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) could develop precancerous lesions and invasive cancer, as it is the main cause of nearly all cases of cervical cancer. There are many strains of HPV and current vaccines can only protect against some of them. This makes the detection and genotyping of HPV a research area of utmost importance. Several biomedical systems can detect HPV in DNA samples; however, most of them do not have a procedure as fast, automatic or precise as it is actually needed in this field. This manuscript presents a novel XML-based hierarchical protocol architecture for biomedical robots to describe each protocol step and execute it sequentially, along with a robust and automatic robotic system for HPV DNA detection capable of processing from 1 to 24 samples simultaneously in a fast (from 45 to 162 min), efficient (100% markers effectiveness) and precise (able to detect 36 different HPV genotypes) way. It includes an efficient artificial vision process as the last step of the diagnostic.FIDETIA P055-12/E03Ministerio de Economía y Competitivida TEC2016-77785-

Seats and their anchorages strength in coaches under rollover.

The introduction of safety belts in the passengers’ seats of coaches could have important repercussions increasing their safety under frontal impact and rollover. This type of vehicles has a particularity from cars or trucks: the safety belts are fixed directly to the seats and not to the vehicle structures. A lot of work has been made in Europe (and it is being made) to define requirements for seats, seats’ anchorages, restraint systems and safety belts’ anchorages to guarantee the correct retention of the passengers in their seats under frontal impacts. In case of rollover, the belted passengers increase the energy that must be absorbed by the superstructure because some of their mass must be considered us rigidly joined to the vehicle. This situation has been taking into account in the current European legislation (Regulation UN-ECE 66, Revision 01). This version of the Regulation has increased the requirements for the superstructure to assure that the behaviour of the superstructure is as good as in the vehicles without belted passengers preserving the survival space. This new revision is going to be mandatory for new types from October 2010 (and for new matriculations from October 2017), but a considerable number of coaches’ manufactures are modifying their structures under this new revision because they take in mind that if the safety belts are yet included in the coaches, the superstructure must be in accordance. This is an important effort of redesign: more resistant structures but without weight increase

Building Blocks for Spikes Signals Processing

Neuromorphic engineers study models and implementations of systems that mimic neurons behavior in the brain. Neuro-inspired systems commonly use spikes to represent information. This representation has several advantages: its robustness to noise thanks to repetition, its continuous and analog information representation using digital pulses, its capacity of pre-processing during transmission time, ... , Furthermore, spikes is an efficient way, found by nature, to codify, transmit and process information. In this paper we propose, design, and analyze neuro-inspired building blocks that can perform spike-based analog filters used in signal processing. We present a VHDL implementation for FPGA. Presented building blocks take advantages of the spike rate coded representation to perform a massively parallel processing without complex hardware units, like floating point arithmetic units, or a large memory. Those low requirements of hardware allow the integration of a high number of blocks inside a FPGA, allowing to process fully in parallel several spikes coded signals.Junta de Andalucía P06-TIC-O1417Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TEC2009-10639-C04-02Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TEC2006-11730-C03-0

Synthetic retina for AER systems development

Neuromorphic engineering tries to mimic biology in information processing. Address-Event Representation (AER) is a neuromorphic communication protocol for spiking neurons between different layers. AER bio-inspired image sensor are called “retina”. This kind of sensors measure visual information not based on frames from real life and generates corresponding events. In this paper we provide an alternative, based on cheap FPGA, to this image sensors that takes images provided by an analog video source (video composite signal), digitalizes it and generates AER streams for testing purposes.Junta de Andalucía P06-TIC-01417Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TEC2006-11730-C03-0

Live demonstration: Neuro-inspired system for realtime vision tilt correction

Correcting digital images tilt needs huge quantities of memory, high computational resources, and use to take a considerable amount of time. This demonstration shows how a spikes-based silicon retina dynamic vision sensor (DVS) tilt can corrected in real time using a commercial accelerometer. DVS output is a stream of spikes codified using the address-event representation (AER). Event-based processing is focused on change in real time DVS output addresses. Taking into account this DVS feature, we present an AER based layer able to correct in real time the DVS tilt, using a high speed algorithmic mapping layer and introducing a minimum latency in the system. A co-design platform (the AER-Robot platform), based into a Xilinx Spartan 3 FPGA and an 8051 USB microcontroller, has been used to implement the system

Neuro-inspired system for real-time vision sensor tilt correction

Neuromorphic engineering tries to mimic biological information processing. Address-Event-Representation (AER) is an asynchronous protocol for transferring the information of spiking neuro-inspired systems. Currently AER systems are able sense visual and auditory stimulus, to process information, to learn, to control robots, etc. In this paper we present an AER based layer able to correct in real time the tilt of an AER vision sensor, using a high speed algorithmic mapping layer. A codesign platform (the AER-Robot platform), with a Xilinx Spartan 3 FPGA and an 8051 USB microcontroller, has been used to implement the system. Testing it with the help of the USBAERmini2 board and the jAER software.Junta de Andalucía P06-TIC-01417Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TEC2006-11730-C03-02Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TEC2009-10639-C04-0

Live Demonstration: On the distance estimation of moving targets with a Stereo-Vision AER system

Distance calculation is always one of the most important goals in a digital stereoscopic vision system. In an AER system this goal is very important too, but it cannot be calculated as accurately as we would like. This demonstration shows a first approximation in this field, using a disparity algorithm between both retinas. The system can make a distance approach about a moving object, more specifically, a qualitative estimation. Taking into account the stereo vision system features, the previous retina positioning and the very important Hold&Fire building block, we are able to make a correlation between the spike rate of the disparity and the distance.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TEC2009-10639-C04-0