Sistema de percepción para un vehículo autónomo submarino

La necesidad de la industria off-shore para compartir información y recursos de energía a través de cables y tuberías submarinas conduce a un creciente despliegue de infraestructuras sumergidas. Esto requiere de un posterior mantenimiento preventivo. Los vehículos autónomos submarinos (AUVs) representan una alternativa para llevar a cabo esta tarea. En base a la percepción, estos vehículos deben estar equipados con distintos dispositivos de sensores como cámaras de vídeo, dispositivo rastreador electromagnético, sonar de barrido lateral, ecosonda muti-haz, como así también dispositivos de ubicación como sistema de posicionamiento global, sistema de navegación inercial, brújula, entre otros. Cada uno de estos dispositivos hay que tratarlos por separado para la captura e interpretación de datos, pero en conjunto para la búsqueda de conocimiento útil que modifique el comportamiento on-line de un AUV. Este documento presenta el diseño y desarrollo de una arquitectura de software de un sistema de percepción para un AUV (PS-AUV). La arquitectura emplea como entrada datos provenientes de dispositivos de sensores interconectados aplicando distintos procesos, y como salida, conocimiento que alimentará al modelo del mundo del robot que se encuentra implementado en forma de un sistema basado en conocimiento.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

Particle Filter based Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Navigation System aided thru acoustic communication ranging

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are platforms suitable for a wide variety of applications in the marine environment with economic and operational advantages. In these applications an AUV performs a given task as a mission. During the mission execution, the AUV will move around the environment following paths that allow it to fulfill the mission's objectives. To achieve this, a reliable Navigation System (NS) is required. In addition to this, the current operating concept includes the deployment of multiple AUVs on a given area, thus a communication system between vehicles is also required. In the underwater environment both navigation and communication systems deals with the particular characteristics of the medium that limits the use of conventional techniques. In this work, a complete NS for an AUV is presented. The developed NS is based on an inertial navigation scheme with velocity and position aiding. The position aiding takes advantage of the communication system onboard the vehicle, which avoids the use of additional positioning systems. The fundamentals of the applied solutions are described and experimental results and implementation details are provided. Also conclusions and future works are presented

Integration of ROS and Tecnomatix for the Development of Digital Twins Based Decision-Making Systems for Smart Factories

Digital twins employs simulation in conjunction withvirtual environments and a variety of data coming from differentplant equipment and physical systems to continuously updatethe digital models of the world in a feedback loop schemeto facilitate the decision-making processes. The heterogeneityof existing hardware and software requires the developmentof software architectures able to deal with the informationexchange due to the integration and interaction of several systemcomponents and autonomous decision-making systems. In thiswork we propose the design and construction of a softwarearchitecture that integrates a manufacturing process simulatorwith the well-known robot operating system (ROS-RobotOperating System) to easily interchange information with anautonomous decision-making system. The proposal is tested withthe simulator Tecnomatix®and the freedistribution ROS Melodic.We present an instance of software architecture for a typicalcomplex case study of manufacturing plants and demonstrateits easy integration with an autonomous decision-making systembased on the reinforcement- learning paradigm

ECOPAMPA: A new tool for automatic fish schools detection and assessment from echo data

Accurate identification of aquatic organisms and their numerical abundance calculation using echo detection techniques remains a great challenge for marine researchers. A software architecture for echo data processing is presented in this article. Within it, it is discussed how to obtain energetic, morphometric and bathymetric fish school descriptors to accurately identify different fish-species. To accomplish this task it was necessary to have a development platform that allowed reading echo data from a particular echosounder, to detect fish aggregations and then to calculate fish school descriptors that would be used for fish-species identification, in an automatic way. This article also describes thoroughly the digital processing algorithms for this automatic detection and classification, as well as the automatic process required for surface and bottom line detection, which is necessary to determine the exploration range. These algorithms are implemented within the ECOPAMPA software, which is the first Argentinean system for marine species identification. Finally, a comparative result over experimental data of ECOPAMPA against EchoviewTM Software Pty Ltd (formerly Myriax Software Pty Ltd), is carefully examined

Integración de ROS y Tecnomatix para el desarrollo de gemelos digitales en sistemas de manufactura flexible

Los gemelos digitales emplean la simulación en conjunto con una variedad de datos provenientes de diferentes equipos y sistemas físicos de planta, para mantener actualizados continuamente sus modelos digitales del mundo en un esquema de retroalimentación en un entorno virtual que facilita la toma de decisiones. La heterogeneidad de hardware y software existente requiere del desarrollo de arquitecturas de software para que los diversos componentes se integren e interactúen mediante el intercambio de información. En este trabajo se propone el diseño y construcción de una arquitectura de software que integra un simulador de procesos de manufactura con el sistema operativo de robots (ROSRobot Operating System). La propuesta se prueba con el simulador Tecnomatix de Siemens® y la distribución libre ROS Melodic. Se presenta una instancia de la arquitectura de software para un caso de estudio complejo típico de plantas de manufactura y se demuestra su fácil integración con un sistema autónomo de toma de decisiones

Optimización y control del flujo de materiales en procesos de producción flexibles utilizando aprendizaje profundo

Industry 4.0, currently on the rise, demandsincreasing flexibility and adaptation of production systems tochanging products demands and external factors. The adaptationof the production systems implies frequent and often abruptchanges in the configurations of the shop floors and consequentlythe movement of materials must be re-planned. Materialhandlingis significant in terms of operative costs and times and it doesnot add value to the end products. It is desired to optimize theperformance of the system based onthe degree of movements,buffer usage and waiting times, such that the combinationof these minimizes the impact on the process costs. Machinelearning algorithms incombination with powerful computationalsimulators can be mutually leveraged to give rise to solvethese kinds of real-world problems, typical of smart factories.In this work, for the optimization approach, we develop aclosed-loop decision-making system with a deep reinforcementlearning algorithm based on a discrete-event simulation modelfor material handling. In addition, our proposed approach usesthe communication architecture Simulai, which allows interfacinga computational discrete-event simulator and the proposed deep learning-based decision-making algorithm. The functionality ofour proposal is evidenced through the obtained results and anoptimal solution for the problem stated is reached, proving thatan intelligent agentcan collaborate in making multiple decisionsfor smart factories

The Cuba-United States Thaw: Building Bridges Through Science and Global Health.

AbstractBeginning in 2014, there has been significant progress in normalization of relations between Cuba and the United States. Herein, we discuss the history and recent progress in scientific collaboration between the two countries as well as the continued challenges. Science and global health diplomacy can be key tools in reestablishing a trusting and productive relationship of mutual and global benefit, bringing about better and healthier lives for people in both Cuba and the United States

On the feasibility of a channel-dependent scheduling for the SC-FDMA in 3GPP-LTE (mobile environment) based on a prioritized-bifacet Hungarian method

We propose a methodology based on the prioritization and opportunistic reuse of the optimization algorithm known as Hungarian method for the feasible implementation of a channel-dependent scheduler in the long-term evolution uplink (single carrier frequency division multiple access system). This proposal aims to offer a solution to the third generation system’s constraint of allocating only adjacent subcarriers, by providing an optimal resource allotment under a fairness scheme. A multiuser mobile environment following the third generation partnership project TS 45.005v9.3.0/25.943v9.0.0 was also implemented for evaluating the scheduler’s performance. From the results, it was possible to examine the channel frequency response for all users (four user equipments) along the whole bandwidth, to visualize the dynamic resource allocation for each of the 10,000 channel realizations considered, to generate the statistical distribution and cumulative distribution functions of the obtained global costs, as well as to evaluate the system’s performance once the proposed algorithm was embedded. Comparing and emphasizing the benefits of utilizing the proposed dynamic allotment instead of the classic static-scheduling and other existent methods.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Ictiobot-40 a low cost AUV platform for acoustic imaging surveying

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are suitable platforms for a wide type of applications in the oceanic environment. These applications are developed in various fields such as scientific surveying, off-shore industry and defense. The employment of AUVs requires less human support and reduces operation costs. Due to the changing marine environment these vehicles must deal with uncertain and hostile conditions to perform its tasks. In the marine robotics matter, the INTELYMEC group has developed in 2012 an AUV prototype called Ictiobot, a low cost experimental platform for multipurpose missions. In this paper an upgrade of the original prototype is presented, the Ictiobot-40, conceived to perform acoustic imaging surveying missions of up to two hours and maximum depths of 40 meters. The new software and hardware architectures and mechanical structure improvements, are detailed. In addition to these technical details, initial experimental results of the AUV performance in quiet waters will be discussed. Also, the new approaches for systems under development are presented.Trabajo presentado en OCEANS 2019 (Marsella, 17 al 20 de junio de 2019