Bilateral teleoperation under time-varying delay using wave variables.

Bilateral teleoperation systems submitted to time delay are affected by serious stability problems. It's well known than even a small amount of time delay in a closed-loop control system, if untreated, can cause instability. Anyway stability remains the first requirement for any dynamical system. Wave variables method is an important approach that guarantees stability regardless of the time delay. However this method is able to deal with constant time delays. In the thesis wave variables method is reviewed. Particular attention is focused on bilateral teleoperation schemes under time-varying communication delays. Based on the wave variables framework a method to treat with time-varying delay problems is also developed and systematically analyzed

confined spaces industrial inspection with micro aerial vehicles and laser range finder localization

This work addresses the problem of semi-automatic inspection and navigation in confined environments. A system that overcomes many challenges at the state of the art is presented. It comprises a mu..

Genetic variants in novel pathways influence blood pressure and cardiovascular disease risk.

Blood pressure is a heritable trait influenced by several biological pathways and responsive to environmental stimuli. Over one billion people worldwide have hypertension (≥140 mm Hg systolic blood pressure or  ≥90 mm Hg diastolic blood pressure). Even small increments in blood pressure are associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events. This genome-wide association study of systolic and diastolic blood pressure, which used a multi-stage design in 200,000 individuals of European descent, identified sixteen novel loci: six of these loci contain genes previously known or suspected to regulate blood pressure (GUCY1A3-GUCY1B3, NPR3-C5orf23, ADM, FURIN-FES, GOSR2, GNAS-EDN3); the other ten provide new clues to blood pressure physiology. A genetic risk score based on 29 genome-wide significant variants was associated with hypertension, left ventricular wall thickness, stroke and coronary artery disease, but not kidney disease or kidney function. We also observed associations with blood pressure in East Asian, South Asian and African ancestry individuals. Our findings provide new insights into the genetics and biology of blood pressure, and suggest potential novel therapeutic pathways for cardiovascular disease prevention

Genome-wide association study identifies six new loci influencing pulse pressure and mean arterial pressure.

Numerous genetic loci have been associated with systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) in Europeans. We now report genome-wide association studies of pulse pressure (PP) and mean arterial pressure (MAP). In discovery (N = 74,064) and follow-up studies (N = 48,607), we identified at genome-wide significance (P = 2.7 × 10(-8) to P = 2.3 × 10(-13)) four new PP loci (at 4q12 near CHIC2, 7q22.3 near PIK3CG, 8q24.12 in NOV and 11q24.3 near ADAMTS8), two new MAP loci (3p21.31 in MAP4 and 10q25.3 near ADRB1) and one locus associated with both of these traits (2q24.3 near FIGN) that has also recently been associated with SBP in east Asians. For three of the new PP loci, the estimated effect for SBP was opposite of that for DBP, in contrast to the majority of common SBP- and DBP-associated variants, which show concordant effects on both traits. These findings suggest new genetic pathways underlying blood pressure variation, some of which may differentially influence SBP and DBP

Autonomous navigation of mobile robots: From basic sensing to problem solving

Autonomous navigation is a complex task that requires both sensing capabilities to react to sudden environmental changes or map the environment and reasoning to schedule the next action to perform. Starting from basic sensing technology used in the majority of mobile robotic systems, the introduction of sensor fusion techniques allows to obtain useful information to solve the localization, mapping and navigation problems. Applications of these methods to achieve specific robot capabilities will be presented starting from object detection and recognition, passing to scene classification and ending with an industrial related application: the visual inspection of industrial facilities by means of a flying vehicle

Autonomous exploration of indoor environments with a micro-aerial vehicle

The paper presents a system designed for micro-aerial-vehicles capable of autonomously explore an indoor environment, detect objects in the environment and build a map of the environment structure with reference to objects locations within the map. The found objects are saved in an internal database containing all previously recognized objects. The system allows fast exploration time and it is characterized by lightweight computation algorithms for the localization, map building and navigation components. The environment map is built as a set of 2D feature map layers where each layer corresponds to an environment floor. For each framework component a simulated testing scenario is presented to evaluate the capabilities of the designed algorithms. The introduced system is efficient from the computational cost point of view and allows fast exploration time that is critical for battery powered systems

Portable Haptic Interface with Omni-Directional Movement and Force Capability

We describe the design of a new mobile haptic interface that employs wheels for force rendering. The interface, consisting of an omni-directional Killough type platform, provides 2DOF force feedback with different control modalities. The system autonomously performs sensor fusion for localization and force rendering. This paper explains the relevant choices concerning the functional aspects, the control design, the mechanical and electronic solution. Experimental results for force feedback characterization are reported

Visual navigation of mobile robots for autonomous patrolling of indoor and outdoor areas

In many applications, robots should be able to move autonomously in semi-structured or unstructured environments. Autonomous robots can be employed for instance in area patrolling tasks in order to perform surveillance of sites. To autonomously navigate in an unknown outdoor scenario, a robot should be able to acquire sensible information about the environment by means of its own sensors and at the same time perform some reasoning to decide where and how to move. In this paper, we present a vision-based solution for the decision making and a behavior based low-level control for the navigation. Three different testing scenarios have been employed to assess the capabilities of the proposed approach: a computer simulated scenario, an indoor test on a real robotic platform and finally an outdoor test in a city park

Energy recovery in time-varying delay teleoperated system using wave-variables

Selected Video contributio

A Multimodal Learning System for Handwriting Movements2014 International Conference on Intelligent Environments

Learning to hand-write is a complex task and is fundamental for the development of a correct language reasoning and understanding. This work presents a multimodal system that focuses on the learning of handwriting movements. The system is thought for children usage providing engaging graphics and novel feedback technologies to accelerate the learning process. The main characteristic of the system architecture is its scalability in hardware and software components so that it is possible to employ it in any domestic setup