ICINCO 2016 Abstracts


Area 1 - Industrial Informatics

Short Papers
Paper Nr: 131
Title:

Impact of Machine Reliability on Key Lean Performance Measures: The Case of a Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS)

Authors:

Wa-Muzemba Anselm Tshibangu

Abstract: Uncertainty in production systems may arise from different sources including machines, parts, tools or material handling failures. For this reason the need for the production system to be flexible enough to respond to unanticipated breakdowns or failures become highly recognized. This paper considers a flexible manufacturing system (FMS) and analyzes the effect of a combination of various design and operational parameters on the overall system performance under different machine failures/breakdowns patterns. Three performance criteria including throughput rate (TR), mean flow time (MFT), work-in-process (WIP), are analyzed for various machine and AGV scheduling rule combinations over a range of AGV fleet size. These key Lean indicators are selected because they are tenants of Little’s Law considered as the backbone equation in Lean Six Sigma methodologies as it advocates the reduction of waste, variability and work in process around the process in order to reduce the cycle time while increasing quality. Comparison is made with the performance profile of a system operating in a failure-free mode. The results reveal that machine and material handling scheduling rule combinations together with the maintenance policy in use may affect significantly the performance of a production system. The results also show that there is an acceptable level of machine breakdown (reliability) for which the system performance is similar to a failure free system.
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Paper Nr: 138
Title:

Reactive Control System to Manage Strain Situations in Emergency Departments

Authors:

Farid Kadri, Sondès Chaabane and Christian Tahon

Abstract: Current dysfunctions observed in emergency departments (EDs) are mainly due to the unsuitable organization, constraints and changes in their missions, as well as the mismanagement of process flows (patients, information’s, resources, etc.). This often results in strain situations. ED managers must master these problems, as well as the internal restructuring reflected by resource pooling, including technical platforms. To make these decisions, they need an adapted decision support system to anticipate and manage such situations. This paper focuses on the development of decision-making model for reactive control of strain situations in EDs. The target is to help ED managers in the choice and the implementation of appropriate corrective actions to manage each potential occurrence of these situations. A case study is used to evaluate the reactive management of strain situations in the paediatric emergency department (PED) at Lille regional hospital centre, France.
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Paper Nr: 151
Title:

Software-defined Networking for Real-time Ethernet

Authors:

Jia Lei Du and Matthias Herlich

Abstract: Real-time Ethernet is used in many industrial and embedded systems, but has so far mostly been statically configured. However, in the future these network configurations will be required to change dynamically, for example for highly flexible production lines or even software upgrades in modern cars that add new features which require changes to the in-vehicle network. Software-defined networking (SDN) is already increasingly used to dynamically configure non-real-time networks. In this paper we explore the idea of a software-defined real-time Ethernet. We analyze the features of current real-time Ethernet protocols, the applicability of SDN and give an overview of potential advantages of software-defined networking for real-time communication which can enable features not achievable using current solutions. In the future this development will likely lead to more flexible, efficient and robust real-time networks.
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Paper Nr: 155
Title:

Making Sense of Manufacturing Data

Authors:

Jon Kepa Gerrikagoitia, Gorka Unamuno and Anne Sanz

Abstract: A fast and successful digitation of the industry is meant to be a key issue for Europe in order to maintain its leading role. The new industrial revolution will be based on data as raw material, where the digital economy will merge as a real economy. The challenges for a “hard” sector where traditionally the “soft” has not been considered as an asset are evident and notorious. In this paper IK4-IDEKO, as part of a machine tool builder group, DANOBATGROUP, provides a vision of the challenge and the approach for the solution, supported by results of the current work.
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Paper Nr: 180
Title:

HPC Mobile Platform for Solving Oil Recovery Problem

Authors:

T. S. Imankulov, D. Zh. Akhmed-Zaki, B. S. Daribayev and O. N. Turar

Abstract: The paper describes applying of mobile computational tools to numerical solving of full value industrial problems. As an example, we used surfactant/polymer flooding problem with thermal effects. The problem solved by using different graphics processing units including the GPUs of mobile devices. Parallel implementation of numerical algorithm was launched on the following devices: NVidia GeForce 770, NVidia Tesla K20 and mobile GPU NVidia Tegra K1. We developed mobile application implementing the algorithm. The application was tested and compared with desktop GPUs of same microarchitecture. Results of the tests shows that calculation on the mobile devices gives the same computation efficiency as desktop GPU with average characteristics.
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Area 2 - Intelligent Control Systems and Optimization

Full Papers
Paper Nr: 10
Title:

The Sourcing Problem - Energy Optimization of a Multisource Elevator

Authors:

Chloé Desdouits, Mazen Alamir, Rodolphe Giroudeau and Claude Le Pape

Abstract: As the interest in regulating energy usage and in the demand-response market is growing, new energy management algorithms emerge. In this paper, we propose a formalization of “the sourcing problem” and its application to a multisource elevator. We propose a linear formulation that, coupled with a low level rule-based controller, can solve this problem. We show in the experiments that a compromise between reducing consumption peaks and minimizing the energy bill has to be reached.
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Paper Nr: 17
Title:

Nonlinear Second Cumulant/H-infinity Control with Multiple Decision Makers

Authors:

Chukwuemeka Aduba

Abstract: This paper studies a second cumulant/h-infinity control problem with multiple players for a nonlinear stochastic system on a finite-horizon. The second cumulant/h-infinity control problem, which is a generalization of the higher-order multi-objective control problem, involves a control method with multiple performance indices. The necessary condition for the existence of Nash equilibrium strategies for the second cumulant/h-infinity control problem is given by the coupled Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equations. In addition, a threeplayer Nash strategy is derived for the second cumulant/h-infinity control problem. A simulation example is given to illustrate the application of the proposed theoretical formulations.
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Paper Nr: 19
Title:

Weighted Voting of Different Term Weighting Methods for Natural Language Call Routing

Authors:

Roman Sergienko, Iuliia Kamshilova, Eugene Semenkin and Alexander Schmitt

Abstract: The text classification problem for natural language call routing was considered in the paper. Seven different term weighting methods were applied. As dimensionality reduction methods, the combination of stop-word filtering and stemming and the feature transformation based on term belonging to classes were considered. kNN and SVM-FML were used as classification algorithms. In the paper the idea of voting with different term weighting methods was proposed. The majority vote of seven considered term weighting methods provides significant improvement of classification effectiveness. After that the weighted voting based on optimization with self-adjusting genetic algorithm was investigated. The numerical results showed that weighted voting provides additional improvement of classification effectiveness. Especially significant improvement of the classification effectiveness is observed with the feature transformation based on term belonging to classes that reduces the dimensionality radically; the dimensionality equals number of classes. Therefore, it can be useful for real-time systems as natural language call routing.
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Paper Nr: 35
Title:

Following a Straight Line in Visual Servoing with Elliptical Projections

Authors:

Tiantian Shen and Graziano Chesi

Abstract: The problem of visual servoing to reach the desired location keeping elliptical projections in the camera field of view (FOV) while following a straight line is considered. The proposed approach is representing the whole path with seven polynomials of a path abscise: variables in polynomial coefficients for translational path being zero to represent a minimum path length and for rotational part being adjustable satisfying the FOV limit. The planned elliptical trajectories are tracked by an image-based visual servoing (IBVS) controller. The proposed strategy is verified by a simulational case with a circle and a superposed point, where a traditional IBVS controller directs the camera a detour to the ground, the proposed approach however keeps straight the camera trajectory and also the circle visible. In addition, a six degrees of freedom (6-DoF) articulated arm mounted with a pinhole camera is used to validate the proposed method by taking three Christmas balls as the target.
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Paper Nr: 38
Title:

Lithium-ion Batteries Aging Motinoring Througth Open Circuit Voltage (OCV) Curve Modelling and Adjustment

Authors:

Loic Lavigne, Jocelyn Sabatier, Junior Mbala Francisco, Franck Guillemard and Agnieszka Noury

Abstract: This paper is a contribution to lithium-ion batteries modeling tacking into account aging effects. It first analyses the impact of aging on electrode stoichiometry and then on lithium-ion cell Open Circuit Voltage (OCV) curve. Through some hypotheses and an appropriate definition of the cell state of charge, it shows that each electrode equilibrium potential, but also the whole cell equilibrium potential can be modelled by a polynomial that requires only one adjustment parameter during aging. An adjustment algorithm, based on the idea that for two fixed OCVs, the state of charge between these two equilibrium states is unique for a given aging level, is then proposed. Its efficiency is evaluated on a battery pack constituted of four cells. This adjustment parameter can thus be viewed as a State Of Health (SOH) or aging indicator.
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Paper Nr: 59
Title:

Fuzzy Rule-based Classifier Design with Co-Operative Bionic Algorithm for Opinion Mining Problems

Authors:

Shakhnaz Akhmedova, Eugene Semenkin and Vladimir Stanovov

Abstract: Automatically generated fuzzy rule-based classifiers for opinion mining are presented in this paper. A collective nature-inspired self-tuning meta-heuristic for solving unconstrained real-valued optimization problems called Co-Operation of Biology Related Algorithms and its modification with a biogeography migration operator for binary-parameter optimization problems were used for the design of classifiers. The basic idea consists in the representation of a fuzzy classifier rule base as a binary string and the parameters of the membership functions of the fuzzy classifier as a string of real-valued variables. Three opinion mining problems from the DEFT’07 competition were solved using the proposed classifiers. Experiments showed that the fuzzy classifiers developed in this way outperform many alternative methods at the given problems. The workability and usefulness of the proposed algorithm are confirmed.
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Paper Nr: 61
Title:

Passivity-based Control of Surge and Rotating Stall in Axial Flow Compressors

Authors:

Gholam-Reza Sari, Ouassima Akhrif and Lahcen Saydy

Abstract: In this work, we address the stability of compression systems and the active control of performance limiting phenomena: surge and rotating stall. Despite considerable efforts to stabilize axial compressors at efficient operating points, preventing and suppressing rotating stall and surge are still challenging problems. Due to certain passivity properties of the widely used Moore and Greitzer model for axial compressors, a robust passivity-based control approach is applied here to tackle the problem. The main advantage of this approach is that robust stabilization and high performance control can be achieved by simple control laws and limited control efforts. Analytical developments and time-domain simulations demonstrate that the developed control laws can effectively damp out rotating stall and surge limit cycles by throttle and close-coupled valve actuations. The robust performance of the controller is validated in the presence of bounded mass flow and pressure disturbances, as well as model uncertainties.
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Paper Nr: 96
Title:

3D Path Following with Remote Center of Motion Constraints

Authors:

Bassem Dahroug, Brahim Tamadazte and Nicolas Andreff

Abstract: The remote center of motion (RCM) is an essential issue during minimal invasive surgery where the surgeon manipulates a medical instrument inside the human body. It is important to assure that the tool should not apply forces on the incision wall in order to prevent patient harm. The paper shows a geometric method computing the intended robot velocity vector for respecting the RCM constraints. In addition, the proposed solution deals with the latter constraints as the highest task priority. A second task function is added, which is projected in the null space on the first task, to follow a 3D path inside the cavity. As result, this method helps the surgeon to execute more sophisticated motion within the patient body with high accuracy; since the results shows standard deviation around 0.004mm and 0.089mm of RCM task error and positioning task error, respectively.
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Paper Nr: 97
Title:

Application of Trajectory Optimization Method for a Space Manipulator with Four Degrees of Freedom

Authors:

Tomasz Rybus, Karol Seweryn and Jurek Z. Sąsiadek

Abstract: Planned active debris removal and on-orbit servicing missions require capabilities for capturing objects on Earth’s orbit, e.g., by the use of a manipulator. In this paper we demonstrate the application of a trajectory optimization algorithm for free-floating satellite-manipulator systems in two cases: a planar system with 2 degrees of freedom manipulator and a spatial system with a manipulator having four degrees of freedom. For the case with planar system, results of experiments performed on an air-bearing microgravity simulator are shown. Quadratic norm connected with the power consumption of manipulator motors has been used as a cost functional that is minimized. Optimal trajectories are compared with straight-line trajectories and it is shown that the optimization allows reduction of the power use of manipulator motors (for the planar system 30 trajectories based on randomly selected initial and final end-effector positions were analysed and the cost functional was, on average, reduced by 49.4%). The presented method could be modified by using cost functional that would, e.g., minimize disturbance on the satellite.
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Paper Nr: 168
Title:

Automatic Fongbe Phoneme Recognition From Spoken Speech Signal

Authors:

Fréjus A. A. Laleye, Eugène C. Ezin and Cina Motamed

Abstract: This paper reports our efforts toward an automatic phoneme recognition for an under-resourced language, Fongbe. We propose a complete recipe of algorithms from speech segmentation to phoneme recognition in a continuous speech signal. We investigated a strictly fuzzy approach for simultaneous speech segmentation and phoneme classification. The implemented automatic phoneme recognition system integrates an acoustic analysis based on calculation of the formants for vowel phonemes and calculation of pitch and intensity of consonant phonemes. Vowel and consonant phonemes are obtained at classification. Experiments were performed on Fongbe language (an African tonal language spoken especially in Benin, Togo and Nigeria) and results of phoneme error rate are reported.
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Paper Nr: 172
Title:

A Matheuristics for the Single-period Lot Scheduling with Component Availability Constraints in a Partially Closed Manufacturing/Remanufacturing System

Authors:

Davide Giglio and Massimo Paolucci

Abstract: An integrated manufacturing/remanufacturing system is considered in this paper with the aim of scheduling the operations of the manufacturing plant. The system is partially closed in the sense that the raw materials, necessary for assembling the final products, can be obtained both from an internal remanufacturing plant (which disassembles returned products) and from external suppliers. The manufacturing system is modelled as a flexible flow shop whose stages represent the different assembly phases leading to the final products. In this paper, an original event-based mixed integer programming (MIP) formulation is presented, whose objective consists of minimizing, as primary objective, the weighted number of tardy jobs and, as secondary ones, the fixed and variable purchase costs of raw materials possibly acquired from external suppliers. Due to the complexity of the problem, the MIP formulation can be used to solve only small instances. For this reason, a matheuristics is proposed, which consists of three interoperating mathematical programming models: the first model assigns the jobs to the machines; the second model sequences the jobs on the machines; the third model defines the external supplies, taking into account the component availability constraints. A preliminary computational analysis shows the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
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Short Papers
Paper Nr: 9
Title:

Speaker State Recognition: Feature Selection Method based on Self-adjusting Multi-criteria Evolutionary Algorithms

Authors:

Roman Sergienko and Elena Loseva

Abstract: In supervised learning scenarios there are different existing methods for solving a task of feature selection for automatic speaker state analysis; many of them achieved reasonable results. Feature selection in unsupervised learning scenarios is a more complicated problem, due to the absence of class labels that would guide the search for relevant information. Supervised feature selection methods are “wrapper” techniques that require a learning algorithm to evaluate the candidate feature subsets; unsupervised feature selection methods are “filters” which are independent of any learning algorithm. However, they are usually performed separately from each other. In this paper, we propose a method which can be performed in supervised and unsupervised forms simultaneously based on multi-criteria evolutionary procedure which consists of two stages: self-adjusting multi-criteria genetic algorithm and self-adjusting multi-criteria genetic programming. The proposed approach was compared with different methods for feature selection on four audio corpora for speaker emotion recognition and for speaker gender identification. The obtained results showed that the developed technique provides to increase emotion recognition performance by up to 46.5% and by up to 20.5% for the gender identification task in terms of accuracy.
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Paper Nr: 48
Title:

Comparison of Two-Criterion Evolutionary Filtering Techniques in Cardiovascular Predictive Modelling

Authors:

Christina Brester, Jussi Kauhanen, Tomi-Pekka Tuomainen, Eugene Semenkin and Mikko Kolehmainen

Abstract: In this paper we compare a number of two-criterion filtering techniques for feature selection in cardiovascular predictive modelling. We design two-objective schemes based on different combinations of four criteria describing the quality of reduced feature sets. To find attribute subsystems meeting the introduced criteria in an optimal way, we suggest applying a cooperative multi-objective genetic algorithm. It includes various search strategies working in a parallel way, which allows additional experiments to be avoided when choosing the most effective heuristic for the problem considered. The performance of filtering techniques was investigated in combination with the SVM model on a population-based epidemiological database called KIHD (Kuopio Ischemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study). The dataset consists of a large number of variables on various characteristics of the study participants. These baseline measures were collected at the beginning of the study. In addition, all major cardiovascular events that had occurred among the participants over an average of 27 years of follow-up were collected from the national health registries. As a result, we found that the usage of the filtering technique including intra- and inter-class distances led to a significant reduction of the feature set (up to 11 times, from 433 to 38 features) without detriment to the predictive ability of the SVM model. This implies that there is a possibility to cut down on the clinical tests needed to collect the data, which is relevant to the prediction of cardiovascular diseases.
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Paper Nr: 53
Title:

Middleware Communication System for Fixture based Flexible Manufacturing Systems

Authors:

N. Chiraga, A. Walker and G. Bright

Abstract: Today’s factory floors are a distributed system of heterogeneous components. They exist a high degree of production customization to cater for this most factory floor systems are being adapted for customization. Most current manufacturing communication systems do not have a flexible architecture to serve the changeable and dynamic market needs thus presenting a research gap in flexible communication. This paper discusses a middleware communication system that allows for flexible optimal control of information flow in a fixture based production system. The architecture of the system aims to integrate seamlessly a heterogeneous factory environment, for autonomous monitoring and control of information on the factory floor.
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Paper Nr: 54
Title:

Autonomous Decisional High-level Planning for UAVs-based Forest-fire Localization

Authors:

Assia Belbachir and Juan-Antonio Escareno

Abstract: This paper addresses the problem of forest-fire localization using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Due to the fast deployment of UAVs, it is practical to use them. In forest fires, usually the area to explore is unknown. Thus, existing studies use an automatic or semi-automatic exploration strategy following a zig-zag sweep pattern or expanding spiral search pattern. However, such an approach is not optimal in terms of exploration time since the mission execution and achievement in an unknown environment requires autonomous vehicle decision and control. This paper presents an enhanced approach for the fire localization mission via a decisional strategy considering a probabilistic model that uses the temperature to estimate the distance towards the forest fire. The UAV optimizes its trajectory according to the state of the forest-fire knowledge by using a map to represent its knowledge and updates it at each exploration step. We show in this paper that our planning and control methodology for forest-fire localization is efficient. Simulation results are carried out to evaluate the feasibility of the generated paths by the proposed methodology.
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Paper Nr: 68
Title:

Ensemble of Multimodal Genetic Algorithms for Design and Decision Making Support Problems

Authors:

Evgenii Sopov, Eugene Semenkin and Ilia Panfilov

Abstract: Many problems of design and decision making support can be stated as optimization problems. For real-world problems, sometimes it is necessary to obtain many alternative solutions to the problem. In this case multimodal approach can be used. The goal of multimodal optimization (MMO) is to find all optima (global and local) or a representative subset of all optima. In recent years many efficient nature-inspired techniques have been proposed for real-valued MMO problems. At the same time, real-world design and decision making support problems may contain variables of many different types, including integer, rank, binary and others. In this case, the weakest representation (namely binary representation) is used. Unfortunately, there is a lack of efficient approaches for problems with binary representation. In this study, a novel approach based on a selective hyper-heuristic in a form of ensemble for designing multi-strategy genetic algorithm is proposed. The approach controls the interactions of many search techniques (different genetic algorithms for MMO) and leads to the self-configuring solving of problems with a priori unknown structure. The results of numerical experiments for benchmark problems from the CEC competition on MMO and for some real-world problems are presented and discussed.
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Paper Nr: 84
Title:

Evolutionary Optimization Algorithms for Differential Equation Parameters, Initial Value and Order Identification

Authors:

Ivan Ryzhikov, Eugene Semenkin and Ilia Panfilov

Abstract: A dynamic system identification problem is considered. It is an inverse modelling problem, where one needs to find the model in an analytical form and a dynamic system is represented with the observation data. In this study the identification problem was reduced to an optimization problem, and in such a way every solution of the extremum problem determines a linear differential equation and coordinates of the initial value. The proposed approaches do not require any assumptions of the system order and the initial value coordinates and estimates the model in the form of a linear differential equation. These variables are estimated automatically and simultaneously with differential equation coefficients. Problem-oriented evolution-based optimization techniques were designed and applied. Techniques are based on the evolutionary strategies algorithm and have been improved to achieve efficient solving of the reduced problem for every proposed determination scheme. Experimental results confirm the reliability of the given approach and the usefulness of the reduced problem solving tool.
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Paper Nr: 98
Title:

Balancing Skew-Hamiltonian/Hamiltonian Pencils - With Applications in Control Engineering

Authors:

Vasile Sima

Abstract: Badly-scaled matrix pencils could reduce the reliability and accuracy of computed results for many numerical problems, including computation of eigenvalues and deflating subspaces, which are needed in many key procedures for optimal and H∞ control, model reduction, spectral factorization, and so on. Standard balancing techniques can improve the results in many cases, but there are situations when the solution of the scaled problem is much worse than that for the unscaled problem. This paper presents a new structure-preserving balancing technique for skew-Hamiltonian/Hamiltonian matrix pencils, and illustrates its good performance in solving eigenvalue problems and algebraic Riccati equations for large sets of examples from well-known benchmark collections with difficult examples.
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Paper Nr: 106
Title:

μAUV2 - Development of a Minuscule Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

Authors:

Hendrik Hanff, Korbinian Schmid, Philipp Kloss and Sven Kroffke

Abstract: Small sized robotic systems have operational advantages compared to large systems. They can also operate in fields of application where bigger systems would fail. This paper describes the specifications and the design of the autonomous underwater vehicle µAUV2. Technical details of the system regarding sensor setup, motorization and computing power are given. Furthermore, we present details about the system identification process and the implemented controller structure. Possible scopes of the µAUV2 are underwater exploration, inspection tasks, development and evaluation of algorithms, education and competitions.
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Paper Nr: 112
Title:

Recognition of Affective State for Austist from Stereotyped Gestures

Authors:

Marcos Yuzuru O. Camada, Diego Stéfano, Jés J. F. Cerqueira, Antonio Marcus N. Lima, André Gustavo S. Conceição and Augusto C. P. L. da Costa

Abstract: Autists may exhibit difficulty in interaction (social and communication) with others and also stereotyped gestures. Thus, autists have difficulty to recognize and to express emotions. Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) researches have contributed with robotic devices able to be mediator among autist, therapists and parents. The stereotyped behaviors of these individuals are due to their defense mechanism from of their hypersensitivity. The affective state of a person can be quantify from poses and gestures. This paper proposes a system is able to infer the defense level of autists from their stereotyped gestures. This system is part of the socially assistive robot project called HiBot. The proposed system consist of two cognitive subsystems: Hidden Markov Models (HMM), in order to determine the stereotyped gesture, and Fuzzy Inference System (FIS), to infer activation level of these gestures. The results of these simulations show this approach is able to infer the defense level for an task or the presence of the robot.
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Paper Nr: 130
Title:

Evaluation of Hip Kinematics Influence on the Performance of a Quadrupedal Robot Leg

Authors:

Navvab Kashiri, Arash Ajoudani, Darwin G. Caldwell and Nikos G. Tsagarakis

Abstract: As a major inspiration of biologically inspired systems, multi-legged robots have been developed due to their superior stability feature resulting from their large support polygon. The leg design of a majority of such robots is motivated by the skeleton of vertebrates such as dogs, or that of invertebrates such as spiders. Despite a wide variety of multi-pedal robots on the basis of the two aforesaid leg designs, a thorough comparison of the two underlying design principles remains to be done. This work addresses this problem and presents a comparative study for the two mammal-like and spider-like designs by looking at the joint torque profile, the responsive motion of the legs, and the thrust force applied by the robot. To this end, a set of performance indexes are defined based on the gravity compensation torque, the dynamic manipulability polytope and the force polytope, and evaluated in various leg configurations of the two designs.
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Paper Nr: 143
Title:

Decentralized Supervisory Control of Discrete Event Systems: Using Multi-Decision Control as an Alternative to Inference-Based Control

Authors:

Ahmed Khoumsi and Hicham Chakib

Abstract: Some years ago, a decentralized architecture, qualified as inference-based, has been developed for supervisory control of discrete event systems. One of its essential principles is to associate ambiguity levels to local decisions. More recently, a decentralized control architecture, qualified as multi-decision, has been developed. Its main principle is to use several decentralized control architectures in parallel. So far, multi-decision control has been mostly studied as a solution to generalize inference-based control, by using several inference-based architectures in parallel. In the present study, we regard multi-decision control with a different perspective. Instead of using multi-decision control to generalize inference-based control, we will rather use it as an alternative to inference-based control. More precisely, our objective is to avoid using inference-based architectures, by using instead several simpler architectures running in parallel.
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Paper Nr: 150
Title:

The Temperature Control System of Continuous Diffusion Furnace

Authors:

Xianxin Ke, Zhitong Luo, Yujiao Zhu and Yang Liu

Abstract: The diffusion furnace is an important and indispensable equipment in the production process of solar cell,it plays a crucial role in the photoelectric conversion efficiency of the solar cell. Production efficiency and temperature control precision of traditional closed diffusion furnace is low. To solve this problem,this paper presents a temperature control system of continuous diffusion furnace. The system uses PID cascade control algorithm based on Smith estimating pre-compensation to achieve the temperature control of furnace and ensure the uniformity and stability of the temperature, so as to ensure the uniformity of the dopant diffusion. The simulation results verify the effectiveness of the control algorithm; and practical experiments prove the feasibility of the temperature control system.
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Paper Nr: 152
Title:

SmartDeviceLink Application to Intelligent Climate Control

Authors:

Oleg Gusikhin, Omar Makke, Jeffrey Yeung and Perry MacNeille

Abstract: SmartDeviceLink (SDL) is an open-source software development kit (SDK) that enables a smart-device to connect to the vehicle, providing functions for safe and easy access to the vehicle human-machine interface (HMI) and the ability to programmatically control vehicle functions. This paper discusses a framework for developing intelligent control applications that implement personalized and context-aware features for automotive climate control systems. There is also a discussion of integration of wearables, internet-of-things (IoT) sensors, cloud and mobile machine learning.
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Paper Nr: 166
Title:

Output Tracking Control for Networked Control Systems

Authors:

Tiago G. de Oliveira, Reinaldo M. Palhares and Víctor C. S. Campos

Abstract: This paper aims to compare alternative time delay relaxations for a class of nonlinear systems controlled via network and described by Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy models. In this regard, three alternatives were proposed and compared with a very recent relaxation proposed in the literature. Basically, the changes are made at two strategic points. The first point is the Lyapunov functional proposed and the second one is related to the introduction of different integral inequalities conditions. A numerical example of a network-based fuzzy tracking control systems is presented to highligth the advantages of the alternatives relaxations.
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Paper Nr: 174
Title:

Model Predictive Control for Y-source Boost DC-DC Converter

Authors:

Jean Thomas

Abstract: Recently a new topology called Y-source impedance network has been proposed to enhance the performance of boost dc-dc converters. The Y-source boost dc-dc converter has shown its ability to offer high gain voltage with small duty ratio. This paper presents an algorithm based on Model Predictive Control (MPC) to control the Y-source boost DC-DC converter. An analytical MPC algorithm reducing the computation time is proposed. Using this technique a fast response and steady state output can be achieved. Besides, the proposed controller controls directly the switch position, so Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) is not required in this technique. The proposed algorithm offer optimal solution in reasonable time and it is not considered as a computation burden, thus real-time implementation is possible; overcoming the inherent drawback of classical MPC controller. Simulation results, demonstrating the controller capabilities to produce the required high gain voltage, are presented.
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Paper Nr: 20
Title:

A Novel Implementation Approach for Resource Holons in Reconfigurable Product Manufacturing Cell

Authors:

Ahmed R. Sadik and Bodo Urban

Abstract: Holonic Control Architecture is a successful solution model for reconfigurable manufacturing problems. Two well-known different technologies have been used separately to implement the holonic control model. The first technology is IEC 61499 standard, and the second is autonomous reactive agent. Both of the previous mentioned technologies have its own pros and cons. Therefore this research is merging the two technologies together in one solution body, to magnifying their pros and reduce their cons. Ultimately; it provides a novel implementation model for the manufacturing holons, to be followed in similar reconfigurable manufacturing problems. A human worker in cooperation with a safe industrial robot, has been selected as a case study of a reconfigurable manufacturing problem. The proposed holonic control solution has been applied to the case study, to evaluate the ability of the solution to satisfy the requirements of the case study. The results show the ability of the proposed control solution to provide a flexible physical and logical interaction framework, which can be scaled over more workers in cooperation with more industrial robots.
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Paper Nr: 147
Title:

Coverage-guided Intelligent Test Loop - A Concept for Applying Instrumented Testing to Self-organising Systems

Authors:

Jan Kantert, Sven Tomforde, Susanne Weber and Christian Müller-Schloer

Abstract: Multi-agent systems typically consist of a large set of agents that act on behalf of different users. Due to inherent dynamics in the interaction patterns of these agents, the system structure is typically self-organising and appears at runtime. Testing self-organising systems is a severe challenge that has not received the necessary attention within the last decade. Obviously, traditional testing methods reach their limitations and are hardly applicable due to the runtime characteristics and dynamics of self-organisation. In this paper, we argue that we run into a paradoxon if we try to utilise self-organising testing systems. In order to circumvent parts of the underlying limitations, we propose to combine such an approach with instrumented testing.
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Paper Nr: 154
Title:

Lessons from the MOnarCH Project

Authors:

João Silva Sequeira and Isabel Aldinhas Ferreira

Abstract: The paper describes the main conclusions issued from three years of development, of which approximately eighteen months of observations, of an autonomous social robot interacting with children and adults in the Pediatrics ward of an Oncological hospital. After this long period of trials and continuous interaction, the integration of the robot in that particular social environment can be considered highly successful. The results taken from all the long run experiments yield valuable lessons in what relates social acceptance and user experience to be considered in the case of robot deployment at institutions or even at households. These are detailed in the paper.
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Paper Nr: 160
Title:

Perspective Method for Determination of Fire for Effect in Tactical and Technical Control of Artillery Units

Authors:

Martin Blaha, Karel Šilinger, Ladislav Potužák and Bohuslav Přikryl

Abstract: This paper is focused on perspective method for determination fire for effect in tactical and technical control of artillery units in the perspective of automated artillery fire support control system and deals with a proposed method of adjust fire. This method is designed for artillery of these armies that are using the field artillery. Artillery units of the Army of the Czech Republic, reflecting the current global security neighbourhood, can be used outside the Czech Republic. The paper presents problems in the process of adjust fire method, from results arising from creating a fictional auxiliary target; by using an adjustment gun; Abridged preparation and Simplified preparation. The paper compares these methods in terms of time, accuracy (probable error in target distance and target fire direction) and frequency of use in peace and war.
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Paper Nr: 171
Title:

A Novel Strut-type Modular Robotic Structure using Rigid Node

Authors:

Weibing Li, Robert Richardson and Jongrae Kim

Abstract: This paper proposes a novel way of constructing strut-type modular robotic structures to avoid some diffi- culties of designing and implementing ideal compliant nodes. Rigid nodes are employed to replace the ideal compliant nodes and to reduce the structural complexity while the feasibility of hardware implementation is dramatically improved. To release some kinematic constraints caused by the rigid nodes, we introduce robotic struts that consist of two prismatic actuators linked by a passive revolute joint. Physics-based robot models are constructed using a robot simulator. A scalable distributed control method is implemented using coupled central pattern generators. And, for comparison, the same control method is applied to conventional and the proposed strut-type modular robotic structures. Simulation results show that the proposed strut-type structures have several advantages over the conventional ones including less number of passive joints and shape-maintenance property.
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Paper Nr: 173
Title:

Towards Preventive Control for Open MAS - An Aspect-based Approach

Authors:

Mohamed Sedik Chebout, Farid Mokhati, Mourad Badri and Mohamed Chaouki Babahenini

Abstract: In Open MAS (Open Multi Agent Systems), agents can freely join and leave systems at any time. The inherent specificities of such systems like dynamicity, non-determinism and emergency make their target states difficult to achieve. Agents, in Open MAS, are often heterogeneous, self-interested with conflicting individual goals and limited trust. Consequently, newly entered (external) agents are often considered as a potential disturbance of systems. In this paper, we present a novel preventive control approach based on Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) paradigm for mastering Open MAS’ behaviour. The proposed control process is mainly accomplished in two steps: (1) Observing agents movements by intercepting all external requests of agents wanting accessing to the system. A request analysis process will be held in terms of compliance capabilities presented by this agent, and (2) Deciding, based on AspectJ constructors, either to allow agents if the capabilities they have enable a possible progress in actual system state to the target state, or prevent it otherwise. The proposed approach is illustrated using a MaDKit-based application.
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Paper Nr: 185
Title:

Choice of Spacecraft Control Contour Variant with Self-configuring Stochastic Algorithms of Multi-criteria Optimization

Authors:

Maria Semenkina, Shakhnaz Akhmedova, Christina Brester and Eugene Semenkin

Abstract: Command-programming control contours of spacecraft are modelled with Markov chains. These models are used for the preliminary design of spacecraft control system effective structure. Corresponding optimization multi-objective problems with algorithmically given functions of mixed variables are solved with a special stochastic algorithms called Self-configuring Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II, Cooperative Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm with Parallel Implementation and Co-Operation of Biology Related Algorithms for solving multi-objective integer optimization problems which require no settings determination and parameter tuning. The high performance of the suggested algorithms is proved by solving real problems of the control contours structure preliminary design.
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Area 3 - Robotics and Automation

Full Papers
Paper Nr: 3
Title:

GPU-accelerated Multi-sensor 3D Mapping for Remote Control of Mobile Robots using Virtual Reality

Authors:

Sebastian P. Kleinschmidt and Bernardo Wagner

Abstract: In this paper, a new virtual reality (VR) control concept for operating robots in search and rescue (SAR) scenarios is introduced. The presented approach intuitively provides different sensor signals as RGB, thermal and active infrared images by projecting them onto 3D structures generated by a Time of Flight (ToF)-based depth camera. The multichannel 3D data are displayed using an Oculus Rift head-up-display providing additional head tracking information. The usage of 3D structures can improve the perception of scale and depth by providing stereoscopic images which cannot be generated for stand-alone 2D images. Besides the described operating concept, the main contributions of this paper are the introduction of an hybrid calibration pattern for multi-sensor calibration and a high performance 2D-to-3D mapping procedure. To ensure low latencies, all steps of the algorithm are performed parallelly on a graphics processing unit (GPU) which reduces the traditional processing time on a central processing unit (CPU) by 80.03%. Furthermore, different input images are merged according to their importance for the operator to create a multi-sensor point cloud.
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Paper Nr: 33
Title:

Radar and LiDAR Sensorfusion in Low Visibility Environments

Authors:

Paul Fritsche, Simon Kueppers, Gunnar Briese and Bernardo Wagner

Abstract: LiDAR sensors are unable to detect objects that are inside or behind dense smoke, fog or dust. These aerosols lead to problems for environmental modeling with mobile robotic platforms. For example, if a robot equipped with a LiDAR is surrounded by dense smoke, it can neither localize itself nor can it create a map. Radar sensors, on the other hand, are immune to these conditions, but are unable to represent the structure of an environment in the same quality as a LiDAR due to limited range and angular resolution. In this paper, we introduce the mechanically pivoting radar (MPR), which is a 2D high bandwidth radar scanner. We present first results for robotic mapping and a fusion strategy in order to reduce the negative influence of the aforementioned harsh conditions on LiDAR scans. In addition to the metric representation of an environment with low visibility, we introduce the LRR (LiDAR-Radar-Ratio), which correlates with the amount of aerosols around the robot discussing its meaning and possible application.
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Paper Nr: 44
Title:

Facilitating Robotic Subtask Reuse by a New Representation of Parametrized Solutions

Authors:

Jacob P. Buch, Lars C. Sørensen, Dirk Kraft and Henrik G. Petersen

Abstract: In this paper, we suggest a coherent way of representing results from experiments associated with robotic assembly. The purpose of the representation is to be able to reuse the experiments in other assembly settings. A main novelty in our representation is the inclusion of fine grained experimental uncertainties such as e.g. deviations between a sensed object pose and the actual pose, and we discuss why it is very important for the reusability of experiments to include these uncertainties. Under the reasonable assumption that we can represent the uncertainties as a region around the origin in a potentially high dimensional Cartesian space, we show that we can efficiently represent the studied deviations by storing experiments on a so called spherical lattice. We illustrate that the representation works by studying simulation experiments on two different industrial use cases involving grasping an object and mounting an object on a fixture.
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Paper Nr: 47
Title:

roboBAN: A Wireless Body Area Network for Autonomous Robots

Authors:

Lukas Gisin, Hans Dermot Doran and Juan-Mario Gruber

Abstract: In this paper we describe a Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) designed and implemented for an autonomous robot. We concentrate in particular on the ultra-low power radio aspects. We compare and contrast standard and proprietary solutions before deciding on a proprietary radio SoC in the 2.4 GHz. band. We describe the protocol implementation and tests on both a test jig and on the robot itself at sampling rates of up to 1 kHz. and conclude that the principle of a robot based WBAN works well. We also show that the proposed WBAN is suitable for connection by nodes employing energy harvesting.
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Paper Nr: 64
Title:

Redundancy Resolution in Minimum-time Path Tracking of Robotic Manipulators

Authors:

Alexander Reiter, Hubert Gattringer and Andreas Müller

Abstract: Minimum-time trajectories for applications where a geometric path is followed by a kinematically redundant robot’s end-effector may yield economical improvements in many cases compared to conventional manipulators. While for non-redundant robots the problem of finding such trajectories has been solved, the redundant case has not been treated exhaustively. In this contribution, the problem is split into two interlaced parts: inverse kinematics and trajectory optimization. In a direct optimization approach, the inverse kinematics problem is solved numerically at each time point. Therein, the manupulator’s kinematic redundancy is exploited by introducing scaled nullspace basis vectors of the Jacobian of differential velocities. The scaling factors for each time point are decision variables, thus the inverse kinematics is solved optimally w.r.t. the trajectory optimization goal, i.e. minimizing end time. The effectiveness of the presented method is shown by means of the example of a planar 4R manipulator with two redundant degrees of freedom.
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Paper Nr: 91
Title:

Dynamic Model-based Control of Redundantly Actuated, Non-holonomnic, Omnidirectional Vehicles

Authors:

Christoph Stöger, Andreas Müller and Hubert Gattringer

Abstract: Vehicles with several centered orientable wheels have one of the highest maneuverability and are hence an excellent choice for transportation tasks in narrow environments. However, they are non-holonomic, in general redundantly actuated, and additionally suffer from configuration singularities, which makes their modeling and control challenging. Existing control approaches only consider the vehicle kinematics whereas the required torques are commonly controlled by classical PD motor controllers. However, this leads to considerable tracking errors and a violation of the constraints especially during acceleration phases. Moreover, actuator counteractions and an undefined torque distribution can be observed. This paper introduces a model-based control concept that overcomes these issues. It resolves counteractions and distributes torques according to physical limitations which significantly reduces slippage and the energy consumption and further reduces the tracking error. To this end, an inverse dynamics solution of a redundantly parametrized model is used. The method is robust to configuration singularities. This is confirmed by experimental results.
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Paper Nr: 102
Title:

Design, Implementation and Experiments of a Robust Passivity-based Controller for a Rolling-balancing System

Authors:

Martin Crespo, Alejandro Donaire, Fabio Ruggiero, Vincenzo Lippiello and Bruno Siciliano

Abstract: In this paper, we present the design of a robust interconnection and damping assignment controller for a rolling-balancing system known as the disk-on-disk. The underactuation feature of this system hampers the control design, and since we consider matched disturbances, the problem becomes even more challenging. To overcome this difficulty, we propose to design first a controller to stabilize the desired equilibrium of the case where the disturbance is not present, and then we robustify this controller by adding a nonlinear PID outer loop that compensates the disturbance. Finally, we evaluate the practical applicability of the control design by implementing the controllers on a real hardware for the disk-on-disk system.
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Paper Nr: 104
Title:

An Optimal Trajectory Planner for a Robotic Batting Task: The Table Tennis Example

Authors:

Diana Serra, Aykut C. Satici, Fabio Ruggiero, Vincenzo Lippiello and Bruno Siciliano

Abstract: This paper presents an optimal trajectory planner for a robotic batting task . The specific case of a table tennis game performed by a robot is considered. Given an estimation of the trajectory of the ball during the free flight, the method addresses the determination of the paddle configuration (pose and velocity) to return the ball at a desired position with a desired spin. The implemented algorithm takes into account the hybrid dynamic model of the ball in free flight as well as the state transition at the impact (the reset map). An optimal trajectory that minimizes the acceleration functional is generated for the paddle to reach the desired impact position, velocity and orientation. Simulations of different case studies further bolster the approach along with a comparison with state-of-the-art methods.
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Paper Nr: 134
Title:

Analysis of Input Delay Systems using Integral Quadratic Constraint

Authors:

Gabriella Szabó-Varga and Gábor Rödönyi

Abstract: The L2-gain computation of a linear time-invariant system with state and input delay is discussed. The input and the state delay are handled separately by using dissipation inequality involving a Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional and integral quadratic constraints. A conic combination of IQCs is proposed for characterizing the input delay, where the coefficients are linear time-invariant systems. The numerical example (a vehicle platoon) confirm that using this dissipativity approach a more effective method for L2-gain computation is obtained.
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Paper Nr: 136
Title:

The Design of Finite-time Convergence Guidance Law for Head Pursuit based on Adaptive Sliding Mode Control

Authors:

Cheng Zhang, Ke Zhang and Jingyu Wang

Abstract: The high-speed target interception plays a vital role in the modern industry with many application scenarios. Due to the difficulties of direct interception in high speed, the head pursuit intercept is frequently considered for the target of re-entering flight vehicle. In this paper, a novel terminal sliding mode control method is proposed for the interception of high-speed maneuvering target, in which the finite convergence guidance law is initially designed under the constraint of intercept angle. By introducing the mathematical model of correlative motion between interceptor and target, the sliding surface is researched and designed to meet the critical conditions of head pursuit intercepting. Meanwhile, considering the dynamic characteristics of both interceptor and target, an adaptive guidance law is therefore proposed to compensate the modelling errors, which goal is to improve the accuracy of interception. The stability analysis is theoretically proved in terms of the Lyapunov method. Numerical simulations are presented to validate the robustness and effectiveness of the proposed guidance law, by which good intercepting performance can be supported.
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Paper Nr: 163
Title:

Gait Transition in Artificial Locomotion Systems using Adaptive Control

Authors:

Jonas Kräml and Carsten Behn

Abstract: This paper deals with the modeling, analysis and controlled gait transitions of terrestrial artificial locomotion systems. These systems are inspired by the motion of earthworms and are firstly moving unidirectionally. In contrast to the analyzed systems in literature, the mechanical model in this paper consists of a chain of 10 discrete mass points. The theory is not restricted to a specified number of mass point, just to a fixed, but arbitrary number. Recent results from literature present investigations of short worms (n < 4). The movement of the whole system is achieved by shortening and lengthening of the distances between consecutive mass points, while they can only move in forward direction. To inhibit the backward movement, a spiky contact to the ground using ideal spikes – preventing velocities from being negative – are attached to every mass point realizing the ground contact. The changes of the distances combined with the ground contact results in a global movement of the system, called undulatory locomotion. But, to change the distances, viscoelastic force actuators link neighboring mass points and shall control desired distances in using adaptive control strategies. Specific gaits are required to guarantee a controlled movement that differ especially in the number of resting mass points and the load of actuators and spikes. To determine the most advantageous gaits, numerical investigations are performed and a weighting function offers a decision of best possible gaits. Using these gaits, a gait transition algorithm, which autonomously changes velocity and number of resting mass points depending on the spike and actuator force load, is presented and tested in numerical simulations.
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Paper Nr: 187
Title:

Swing Leg Trajectory Optimization for a Humanoid Robot Locomotion

Authors:

Ramil Khusainov, Alexandr Klimchik and Evgeni Magid

Abstract: The problem of walking trajectory optimisation for bipedal humanoid robots attracts many researchers because of excessive interest to bipedal locomotion. The main focus is usually on robot dynamics and trajectory planning for predefined walking primitives. In contrast to other works, our paper targets to obtain optimal walking primitive for swing leg trajectory of bipedal humanoid robot walking. Optimal walking primitives are obtained taking into account velocity and acceleration physical limitations of each joint and are derived for different walking parameters such as step size and hip height. To obtain a desired time-optimal trajectory dynamic programing approach is used. It is shown that a new trajectory is performed within a shorter time comparing with commonly used locomotion trajectories for bipedal robots control. The results allow us to assign walking parameters and corresponding walking primitive that maximize robot velocity for predefined environment constraints.
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Short Papers
Paper Nr: 14
Title:

Control of Uncertain Robot Manipulators using Integral Backstepping and Time Delay Estimation

Authors:

Yassine Kali, Maarouf Saad, Khalid Benjelloun and Mohammed Benbrahim

Abstract: In this paper, a novel controller is proposed and applied for high accuracy tracking trajectory in the workspace of robot manipulators in presence of uncertainties and external disturbances. Most of nonlinear controllers are based on the mathematical model of robot manipulator, but a lot of robotic systems do not have exact model. This novel approach which consists on designing an Integral Backstepping with Time Delay Control (IBTDC) can estimate uncertainties and keep high tracking performance. The proposed controller is able to stabilize the robot system, and also to drive the trajectory tracking errors to converge in finite time. Furthermore, experimental results are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method applied to the 7-DOF ANAT robot arm.
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Paper Nr: 16
Title:

A Generation Method of Speed Pattern of Electric Vehicle for Improving Passenger Ride Comfort

Authors:

Hidetake Fuse, Tohru Kawabe and Masayuki Kawamoto

Abstract: This paper deals with the passenger ride comfort of electric vehicle. A generation method of speed pattern is proposed for improving the ride comfort against the longitudinal acceleration/deceleration. The speed pattern generated using proposed technique is based on the general optimal control theory with evaluating the acceleration and the jerk which is time derivative of the acceleration. The effectiveness of the present method is demonstrated through numerical experiments.
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Paper Nr: 18
Title:

Temperature Correction and Reflection Removal in Thermal Images using 3D Temperature Mapping

Authors:

Björn Zeise and Bernardo Wagner

Abstract: Many mobile robots nowadays use thermal imaging cameras (TICs) in order to enhance the environment model that is created during exploration tasks. In conventional thermography, thermal images always have to be carefully revised by human operators, which is not practicable in autonomous applications. Unknown surface emissivities are the main source of misinterpretations in thermal images. In this work, we present two methods dealing with these misinterpretations by exploiting the TIC’s changing point of view. While the first approach classifies the regarded material in order to estimate improved surface temperature values, the second one is capable of detecting and removing thermal reflections. The spatial relationship between the thermal images and the regarded surface is made by using a rigidly mounted sensor stack consisting of a TIC and a 3D laser range finder, whose extrinsic calibration is described. During evaluation, we demonstrate the functionality of both approaches.
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Paper Nr: 25
Title:

Online Action Learning using Kernel Density Estimation for Quick Discovery of Good Parameters for Peg-in-Hole Insertion

Authors:

Lars Carøe Sørensen, Jacob Pørksen Buch, Henrik Gordon Petersen and Dirk Kraft

Abstract: Learning action parameters is becoming an ever more important topic in industrial assembly with tendencies towards smaller batch sizes, more required flexibility and process uncertainties. This paper presents a statistical online learning method capable of handling these issues. The method uses elimination of unpromising parameter sets to reduce the elements of the discretised sample space (inspired by Action Elimination) based on regression uncertainty. Kernel Density Estimation and Wilson Score are explored as internal representations. Based on a dynamic simulator setup for a real world Peg-in-Hole problem, it is shown that the presented method can drastically reduce the number of samples needed. Furthermore, it is also shown that the solution obtained in simulation by our learning method succeeds when executed on the corresponding real world setup.
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Paper Nr: 30
Title:

Grasp Quality Improvement with Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) for a Robotic Hand Holding 3D Objects

Authors:

Venkataramani Rakesh, Utkarsh Sarma, Murugan S, Venugopal Srinivasan and Thondiyath Asokan

Abstract: Automated grasp planning for robotic hands is a complex problem when compared with the ease with which human hands grasp objects. Research in robotic grasp synthesis attempts to find novel ways in which a stable grasp can be achieved reliably. In this work, we present a grasping methodology that achieves optimized force closure grasps on 3D irregular objects. 3D objects in the form of polygonal meshes are parameterized to 2D shapes in order to reduce the search space by constraining robotic hands finger tips to be in contact with the objects surface. We use a Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) based framework to optimize an initial grasp. The scheme has been validated on test-case 3D objects represented with surface tessellation for a 5-fingered DLR robotic hand.
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Paper Nr: 43
Title:

Augmented Postprocessing of the FTLS Vectorization Algorithm - Approaching to the Globally Optimal Vectorization of the Sorted Point Clouds

Authors:

Ales Jelinek and Ludek Zalud

Abstract: Vectorization is a widely used technique in many areas, mainly in robotics and image processing. Applications in these domains frequently require both speed (for real-time operation) and accuracy (for maximal information gain). This paper proposes an optimization for the high speed vectorization methods, which leads to nearly optimal results. The FTLS algorithm uses the total least squares method for fitting the lines into the point cloud and the presented augmentation for the refinement of the results, is based on a modified NelderMead method. As shown on several experiments, this approach leads to better utilization of the information contained in the point cloud. As a result, the quality of approximation grows steadily with the number of points being vectorized, which was not achieved before. Performance costs are still comparable to the original algorithm, so the real-time operation is not endangered.
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Paper Nr: 51
Title:

Near-duplicate Fragments in Simultaneously Captured Videos - A Study on Real-time Detection using CBVIR Approach

Authors:

Andrzej Sluzek

Abstract: CBVIR approach to video-based surveillance is discussed. The objective is to detect in real time near-duplicates (e.g. similarly-looking objects) simultaneously appearing in concurrently captured/played videos. A novel method of keypoint matching is proposed, based on keypoint descriptions additionally incorporating visual and geometric contexts. Near-duplicate fragments can be identified by keypoint matching only. The analysis of geometric constraints (a bottleneck of typical CBVIR methods for sub-image retrieval) is not required. When the proposed method is fully implemented, high-speed and good performances can be achieved, as preliminarily shown in proof-of-concept experiments. The method is affine-invariant and employs typical keypoint detectors and descriptors (MSER and SIFT) as the low-level mechanisms.
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Paper Nr: 52
Title:

Unsupervised Contextual Task Learning and Recognition for Sharing Autonomy to Assist Mobile Robot Teleoperation

Authors:

Ming Gao, Ralf Kohlhaas and J. Marius Zöllner

Abstract: We focus on the problem of learning and recognizing contextual tasks from human demonstrations, aiming to efficiently assist mobile robot teleoperation through sharing autonomy. We present in this study a novel unsupervised contextual task learning and recognition approach, consisting of two phases. Firstly, we use Dirichlet Process Gaussian Mixture Model (DPGMM) to cluster the human motion patterns of task executions from unannotated demonstrations, where the number of possible motion components is inferred from the data itself instead of being manually specified a priori or determined through model selection. Post clustering, we employ Sparse Online Gaussian Process (SOGP) to classify the query point with the learned motion patterns, due to its superior introspective capability and scalability to large datasets. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is confirmed with the extensive evaluations on real data.
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Paper Nr: 56
Title:

Towards a User-wheelchair Shared Control Paradigm for Individuals with Severe Motor Impairments

Authors:

Alfredo Chávez Plascencia and Jaroslav Rozman

Abstract: This paper presents a work in progress study of a novel user-wheelchair shared control paradigm for individuals with severe motor impairments, which consists of an optimal distribution between several modes, from full user control up to autonomous driving one. To this end, a C400 Permobil wheelchair has been equipped with a control command communication interface and with a scanning laser and a RGB-D sensors to carry out the automation algorithms that are part of the robot operating system (ROS) framework. Moreover, sensor data fusion for map making based on the Bayesian method is applied to the Xtion Pro Live RGB-D camera and the Hokuyo laser sensor data readings. These latter are interpreted by a probabilistic heuristic model that abstracts the beam into a ray casting to an occupied grid cell. Preliminary pilot tests were performed in two different room shapes. The first one in a two room laboratory with a narrow doorway, and the second one in a corridor. The former experiment was dropped due to failure to success, whereas, the latter was a successful one. This has been tested with three different modalities; hand-joystick, tongue-joystick and autonomous modes respectively. The successful results of the second pilot-test have proven the feasibility of using a combination of autonomous and manual control of a powered wheelchair in order to continue development towards a shared-control paradigm.
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Paper Nr: 60
Title:

Adaptive Control of Mobile Manipulator Robot based on Virtual Decomposition Approach

Authors:

Abdelkrim Brahmi, Maarouf Saad, Guy Gauthier, Wen-Hong Zhu and Jawhar Ghommam

Abstract: This paper presents an adaptive control scheme for a mobile manipulator robot based on the virtual decomposition control (VDC). The control strategy was tested on three degrees of freedom manipulator arm mounted on two degrees of freedom mobile platform to track a desired trajectory. The desired trajectory is obtained from the workspace trajectory using the inverse kinematics. Differently to the known decentralized control that divides the mobile manipulator into two subsystems, in this paper, the mobile manipulator has N degrees of freedom, divided virtually into N subsystems. The applicability of the proposed scheme is demonstrated in real time validation. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the VDC approach.
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Paper Nr: 63
Title:

Researching Attitude-control Algorithm of Ejection Seats based on Time-sharing Strategy

Authors:

Minghuan Zhang, Ming Wu, Yu Su and Cheng Zhang

Abstract: An attitude-control algorithm for ejection seats on “H” shaped motor is presented in this paper. The control algorithm is based on time-sharing strategy, and the parameters in algorithm are optimized by using PSO method. Through simulating under Matlab/Simulink in different ejection conditions, the infection of time-sharing strategy in attitude-control is analyzed, and the minimum safe altitude is compared with K36D-3.5A, ACES II and 120 ejection conditions in GJB 1800A-2007. The simulation results and analysis show that this control algorithm on “H” shaped motor can improve escape performance at low-altitude and adverse-attitude, thus proving the algorithm in this paper to be reliable and effective.
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Paper Nr: 74
Title:

The Dead Zone Determination for Exoskeleton Arm with Double Mode Control System

Authors:

I. L. Ermolov, M. M. Knyazkov, A. N. Sukhanov and A. A. Kryukova

Abstract: The main goal of this paper is to determine the dead zone of control signal to provide the modes shift in the exoskeleton control system. The kinematic system consists of two subsystems for left and right hands. Each subsystem has 4 DOF and it is controlled individually. The control system for the designed exoskeleton device is based on bioelectric potentials processing. It uses the information about muscular activity to form the rotation speed of exoskeleton drives. The exoskeleton’s servo drive system is based on the feedback technique of acquiring information from the actuators and passing it to the control system via the HMI. The dead zone of control signal allows shifting control modes to let the exoskeleton device running in two modes – the setting speed mode and angle tracking mode. The dead zone of control signal also allows signal noise and positioning error reduction. The proposed idea is the definition of the dead zone as nonlinear function of joint coordinates.
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Paper Nr: 76
Title:

Experimental Evaluation of Some Indoor Exploration Strategies

Authors:

Jens Wettach and Karsten Berns

Abstract: A key capability of any indoor service robot is to explore arbitrary, unknown environments in order to record a complete and correct map in minimal time. Such a map is a prerequisite of common tasks like surveillance, transportation as well as search and rescue. In recent years a series of solutions has been proposed by the authors: a dynamic enhancement of the frontier-based approach, ground plan-based exploration and a hybrid combination of both. This paper evaluates the performance of each of these strategies within an everyday office scenario in simulation and reality and discusses their pros and cons.
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Paper Nr: 78
Title:

An Approach to Off-talk Detection based on Text Classification within an Automatic Spoken Dialogue System

Authors:

Oleg Akhtiamov, Roman Sergienko and Wolfgang Minker

Abstract: This paper describes the problem of the off-talk detection within an automatic spoken dialogue system. The considered corpus contains realistic conversations between two users and an SDS. A two- (on-talk and off-talk) and a three-class (on-talk, problem-related off-talk, and irrelevant off-talk) problem statement are investigated using a speaker-independent approach to cross-validation. A novel off-talk detection approach based on text classification is proposed. Seven different term weighting methods and two classification algorithms are considered. As a dimensionality reduction method, a feature transformation based on term belonging to classes is applied. The comparative analysis of the proposed approach and a baseline one is performed; as a result, the best combinations of the text pre-processing methods and classification algorithms are defined for both problem statements. The novel approach demonstrates significantly better classification effectiveness in comparison with the baseline for the same task.
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Paper Nr: 83
Title:

Exploration of Unknown Map for Gas Searching and Picking Up Objects using Khepera Mobile Robots

Authors:

Sara Ashry Mohammed and Walid Gomaa

Abstract: In this paper, the integrated approach for searching, detecting the source of gas leakage and capturing object using Khepera III mobile robot is introduced. It was tested in natural grid environments as shown in experiments but it is usable in vast areas; e.g. houses and labs to pick up gas victims. Experiments are performed using a master Khepera robot equipped with a gas sensor and two slave robots equipped with grippers to take the best path to pick up the object. Moreover, this paper proposes an improvement of Albers exploration algorithm to reduce the time required to explore an unknown map with different polygon obstacles. The proposed approach aims at minimizing the overall exploration time, making it possible to localize gas source in an effi- cient way, as demonstrated in V-REP simulation as well as real world experiments. A comparison among both algorithms has shown the effectiveness of the proposed one, where the percentage of performance speedup is about 30% to 57% depending on the size of the map and number of obstacles.
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Paper Nr: 86
Title:

Learning Global Inverse Statics Solution for a Redundant Soft Robot

Authors:

Thomas George Thuruthel, Egidio Falotico, Matteo Cianchetti, Federico Renda and Cecilia Laschi

Abstract: This paper presents a learning model for obtaining global inverse statics solutions for redundant soft robots. Our motivation begins with the opinion that the inverse statics problem is analogous to the inverse kinematics problem in the case of soft continuum manipulators. A unique inverse statics formulation and data sampling method enables the learning system to circumvent the main roadblocks of the inverting problem. Distinct from previous researches, we have addressed static control of both position and orientation of soft robots. Preliminary tests were conducted on the simulated model of a soft manipulator. The results indicate that learning based approaches could be an effective method for modelling and control of complex soft robots, especially for high dimensional redundant robots.
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Paper Nr: 87
Title:

3D Object Categorization and Recognition based on Deep Belief Networks and Point Clouds

Authors:

Fatima Zahra Ouadiay, Nabila Zrira, El Houssine Bouyakhf and M. Majid Himmi

Abstract: 3D object recognition and categorization are an important problem in computer vision field. Indeed, this is an area that allows many applications in diverse real problems as robotics, aerospace, automotive industry and food industry. Our contribution focuses on real 3D object recognition and categorization using the Deep Belief Networks method (DBN). We extract descriptors from cloud keypoints, then we train the resulting vectors with DBN. We evaluate the performance of this contribution on two datasets, Washington RGB-D object dataset and our own real 3D object dataset. The second one is built from real objects, following the same acquisition conditions than those used for Washington dataset acquisition. By this proposed approach, a DBN could be designed to treat the high-level features for real 3D object recognition and categorization. The experiment results on standard dataset show that our method outperforms the state-of-the-art used in the 3D object recognition and categorization.
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Paper Nr: 90
Title:

Design and Analysis of Cascaded Variable Buoyancy Systems for Selective Underwater Deployment

Authors:

Thiyagarajan Ranganathan and Asokan Thondiyath

Abstract: Variable Buoyancy systems for selective deployment has been designed and the analysis of dynamics is discussed in this paper. Multiple interconnected VB modules have specific advantages in positioning the payloads like sensors and communication equipment at various depths to collect strategically important subsea data. The design of metallic bellow based Variable Buoyancy Systems (VBS) is presented along with the dynamic analysis of the module. The dimensions of the VB module are optimised to give best performance at the desired depth of operation. Effect of anchoring the module to a base station and cascading multiple modules for deploying at various depths have been studied in detail. Simulation results show that the cascaded VB modules can be successfully deployed for selective applications under various operating conditions.
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Paper Nr: 92
Title:

A Task Space Approach for Planar Optimal Robot Tube Following

Authors:

Matthias Oberherber, Hubert Gattringer, Andreas Müller and Michael Schachinger

Abstract: The classical optimal path following problem considers the problem of moving optimally along a predefined geometric path under technological restrictions. In contrast to optimal path following, optimal tube following allows deviations from the initial path within a predefined tube to reduce cost even more. The present paper proposes a modern approach that treats this non-convex problem in task space. This novel method also provides a simple way to derive optimal trajectories within a tube described in terms of polygonal lines. Numerical examples are presented that allow to compare the proposed method to existing joint space approaches.
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Paper Nr: 93
Title:

Wheelchair Assistance with Servo Braking Control Considering Both the Gravitation-Negating and the User’s Intention-based Assistance

Authors:

Daisuke Chugo, Nobuhiro Goto, Satoshi Muramatsu, Sho Yokota and Hiroshi Hashimoto

Abstract: This paper proposes a novel driving-assistance system for manual wheelchairs with consideration of both uphill and downhill conditions. On an inclined road, there is a high risk of a wheelchair moving in a direction that the user does not intend. In our previous works, the user has driven our assistive wheelchair in the usual manner. Our proposed system estimates its user’s intentions and passively works to complement their intentional force by negating the wheel traction that is generated by the road’s inclination using only the servo brakes on each wheel. Nevertheless, in some cases, our system fails to assist the driving motion of its user because the user drives the wheelchair in several ways that depend upon the environmental condition, for example, during uphill or downhill driving. The required assistance is not constant according to the situation, and it is difficult to assist with one wheel-control algorithm. Therefore, in this study, we first investigate the required assistance condition according to the driving situation by conducting a preliminary experiment with wheelchair users. Considering the results of this investigation, we then propose a novel user interface that intuitively shows the system information and a wheel-control algorithm that selects a suitable wheel controller according to the driving situation.
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Paper Nr: 105
Title:

Integrated Object Segmentation and Tracking for 3D LIDAR Data

Authors:

Mehmet Ali Çağrı Tuncer and Dirk Schulz

Abstract: This paper proposes a novel method for integrated tracking and segmentation of 3D Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) data. The conventional processing pipeline of object tracking methods performs the segmentation and tracking modules consecutively. They apply a connected component algorithm on a grid for object segmentation. This results in an under-segmentation and in turn wrong tracking estimates when there are spatially close objects. We present a new approach in which segmentation and tracking modules profit from each other to resolve ambiguities in complex dynamic scenes. A non-parametric Bayesian method, the sequential distance dependent Chinese Restaurant Process (s-ddCRP), enables us to combine segmentation and tracking components. After a pre-processing step which maps measurements to a grid representation, the proposed method tracks each grid cell and segments the environment in an integrated way. A smoothing algorithm is applied to the estimated grid cell velocities for better motion consistency of neighboring dynamic grid cells. Experiments on data obtained with a Velodyne HDL64 scanner in real traffic scenarios illustrate that the proposed approach has a encouraging detection performance and conclusive motion consistency between consecutive time frames.
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Paper Nr: 108
Title:

Model based Detection and 3D Localization of Planar Objects for Industrial Setups

Authors:

Basak Sakcak, Luca Bascetta and Gianni Ferretti

Abstract: In this work we present a method to detect and estimate the three-dimensional pose of planar and textureless objects placed randomly on a conveyor belt or inside a bin. The method is based on analysis of single 2D images acquired by a standard camera. The algorithm exploits a template matching method to recognize the objects. A set of pose hypotheses are then refined and, based on a gradient orientation scoring, the best object to be manipulated is selected. The method is flexible and can be used with different objects without changing parameters since it exploits a CAD model as input for template generation. We validated the method using synthetic images. An experimental setup has been also designed using a fixed standard camera to localize planar metal objects in various scenarios.
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Paper Nr: 111
Title:

First Experiments on Interaction Quality Modelling for Human-Human Conversation

Authors:

Anastasiia Spirina, Maxim Sidorov, Roman Sergienko and Alexander Schmitt

Abstract: This work presents the first experimental results on Interaction Quality modelling for human-human conversation, as an adaptation of the Interaction Quality metric for human-computer spoken interaction. The prediction of an Interaction Quality score can be formulated as a classification problem. In this paper we describe the results of applying several classification algorithms such as: Kernel Naïve Bayes Classifier, k-Nearest Neighbours algorithm, Logistic Regression, and Support Vector Machines, to a data set. Moreover, we compare the results of modelling for two approaches for Interaction Quality labelling and consider the results depending on different emotion sets. The results of Interaction Quality modelling for human-human conversation may be used both for improving the service quality in call centres and for improving Spoken Dialogue Systems in terms of flexibility, user-friendliness and human-likeness.
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Paper Nr: 113
Title:

Pedestrian Trajectory Prediction in Large Infrastructures - A Long-term Approach based on Path Planning

Authors:

Mario Garzón, David Garzón-Ramos, Antonio Barrientos and Jaime del Cerro

Abstract: This paper presents a pedestrian trajectory prediction technique. Its mail novelty is that it does not require any previous observation or knowledge of pedestrian trajectories, thus making it useful for autonomous surveillance applications. The prediction requires only a set of possible goals, a map of the scenario and the initial position of the pedestrian. Then, it uses two different path planing algorithms to find the possible routes and transforms the similarity between observed and planned routes into probabilities. Finally, it applies a motion model to obtain a time-stamped predicted trajectory. The system has been used in combination with a pedestrian detection and tracking system for real-world tests as well as a simulation software for a large number of executions.
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Paper Nr: 116
Title:

A Fuzzy Controller for GPS/INS/Odm Integrated Navigation System

Authors:

Mounir Hammouche, Samir Sakhi, Mahmoud Belhocine, Abdelhafid Elourdi and Samir Bouaziz

Abstract: Navigation technology has an important role in designing intelligent vehicles and advanced robots. To have a continuous navigation solution that does not suffer from interruption, GPS (Global Positioning System) data is merged with relative positioning techniques such as inertial navigation system (INS) or odometry (Odm). To accomplish the reliability and integrity desired, it is therefore necessary to take into account physical capabilities and limitations of each sensor during navigation. A fuzzy switcher controller (FSC) is well suited for this task. FSC is an Expert rule-based method for choosing the best fusion from multiple redundant integration methodologies (GPS/INS, GPS/Odometry, Odometry/INS or GPS/INS/Odometry) based on navigation conditions and accuracy of the navigation systems.
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Paper Nr: 117
Title:

Mechatronics Design, Modeling and Preliminary Control of a 5 DOF Upper Limb Active Exoskeleton

Authors:

Abdelkrim Abane, Mohamed Guiatni, Djahid Fekrache, Saad Merouche, Abdelouahab Otmani, Mouloud Tair and Noureddine Ababou

Abstract: In this paper, we present the mechatronics design, modeling and preliminary control of a new 5 degrees of freedom (DoF) exoskeleton, dedicated for the upper limb rehabilitation. The designed exoskeleton allows the shoulder rotations as well as the elbow movements. It combines the advantages of both parallel and serial mechanisms. It has been designed by considering the main factors in designing a general use robotic force-feedback device and the human upper limb specications. This active device, as a kind of haptic device, provides two ways communication in both position and force, and allows patients to interact with the virtual reality system and practice activities of daily living (ADL) assistance. The kinematic model of the exoskeleton is presented. In order to evaluate the performance of the exoskeleton, a preliminary position and torque controllers have been implemented.
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Paper Nr: 119
Title:

Time-optimal Smoothing of RRT-given Path for Manipulators

Authors:

Burak Boyacioglu and Seniz Ertugrul

Abstract: Trajectory planning is one of the most studied topics in robotics. Among several methods, a sampling-based method, Rapidly-exploring Randomized Tree (RRT) algorithm, has become popular over the last two decades due to its computational efficiency. However, the RRT method does not suggest an exact way to obtain a smooth trajectory along the viapoints given by itself. In this paper, we present an approach using a timeoptimal trajectory planning algorithm, specifically for robotic manipulators without using inverse kinematics. After the trajectory smoothing with cubic splines in an environment with obstacles considering not only velocity and acceleration but also jerk constraints; the study is simulated on a six degrees of freedom humanoid robot arm model and always finds a solution successfully if there is a feasible one.
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Paper Nr: 124
Title:

Robust Output Control Algorithm for a Twin-Rotor Non-Linear MIMO System

Authors:

Sergey Vrazhevsky, Alexey Margun, Dmitry Bazylev, Konstantin Zimenko and Artem Kremlev

Abstract: This paper addresses to the problem of a non-linear MIMO systems control. A class of non-linear parameter uncertain systems operating under unknown bounded disturbances is considered. It is assumed, that mathematical model of such system can be decomposed on linear and non-linear dynamics. Proposed control algorithm is based on the method of consecutive compensator. The only required parameter to be known for the controller synthesis is a relative degree of linear part of plant. The effectiveness of the control method is demonstrated experimentally using the laboratory platform named «Twin Rotor MIMO System». The proposed method is compared with standard PID controller. Experimental results show that the transient behaviour of the developed control algorithm provides higher accuracy and performance, especially for the case of model parameters deviation from their nominal values.
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Paper Nr: 132
Title:

A Robust Approach for Improving the Accuracy of IMU based Indoor Mobile Robot Localization

Authors:

Suriya D. Murthy, Srivenkata Krishnan S, Sundarrajan G, Kiran Kassyap S, Ragul Bhagwanth and Vidhya Balasubramanian

Abstract: Indoor localization is a vital part of autonomous robots. Obtaining accurate indoor localization is difficult in challenging indoor environments where external infrastructures are unreliable and maps keep changing. In such cases the robot should be able to localize using their on board sensors. IMU sensors are most suitable due to their cost effectiveness. We propose a novel approach that aims to improve the accuracy of IMU based robotic localization by analyzing the performance of gyroscope and encoders under different scenarios, and integrating them by exploiting their advantages. In addition the angle computed by robots to avoid obstacles as they navigate, is used as an additional source of orientation estimate and appropriately integrated using a complementary filter. Our experiments that evaluated the robot over different trajectories demonstrated that our approach improves the accuracy of localization over applicable existing techniques.
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Paper Nr: 135
Title:

Autonomous Surface Vessel based on a Low Cost Catamaran Design

Authors:

Santiago Puente, Francisco Candelas, Fernando Torres and Dzmitry Basalai

Abstract: Nowadays, Robotics is increasing its importance for the marine environment in our society. It allows to perform surveillance and data sampling tasks reducing the current cost of these tasks. This paper presents the design of a prototype of an Autonomous Surface Vessel (ASV) based on catamaran shape. It uses the screw theory for the propulsion system, which provides high manoeuvrability to the vessel. Furthermore, the parts of the ASV are designed to be printed by a RepRap 3D printer. This gives flexibility to check the performance of the vessel. Also the software control scheme of the vessel is presented.
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Paper Nr: 144
Title:

Development of Self Support Device and Control for Operating the Wheelchair for Upper Limb Disabled Persons

Authors:

Taku Itami, Toshihito Yabunaka, Ken’ichi Yano, Yasuyuki Kobayashi, Takaaki Aoki and Yutaka Nishimoto

Abstract: Nowadays, it has been actively expanded to develop assist robots attached directly. In this study, we focused on developing an exoskeletal robot, specifically, a force transmission robot with a rotary drive type ratchet mechanism, to enable users with upper limb disability to make use of their residual function to achieve better function of their upper limbs. A lock/unlock mechanism on the elbow joint is effectively used to transmit the user’s residual function around the shoulder to the hand. We conducted verification experiments on whether the developed mechanism enables the user to transfer the remaining force in the shoulder joint to operation force in the hand. Three subjects with C5 and C6 spinal cord injury with disabilities affecting their hands, lower limbs, and trunk muscles performed the verification experiment with the developed device. We confirmed that they could operate a wheelchair on a slope and on grass when using the developed device, and they could use their residual function around the shoulder more strongly. It can be expected to rehabilitation effect.
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Paper Nr: 148
Title:

Vision System of Facial Robot SHFR- III for Human-robot Interaction

Authors:

Xianxin Ke, Yujiao Zhu, Yang Yang, Jizhong Xin and Zhitong Luo

Abstract: The improvement of human-robot interaction is an inevitable trend for the development of robots. Vision is an important way for a robot to get the information from outside. Binocular vision model is set up on the facial expression robot SHFR- III, this paper develops a visual system for human-robot interaction, including face detection, face location, gender recognition, facial expression recognition and reproduction. The experimental results show that the vision system can conduct accurate and stable interaction, and the robot can carry out human-robot interaction.
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Paper Nr: 157
Title:

A Compliant Actuation Dynamics Gazebo-ROS Plugin for Effective Simulation of Soft Robotics Systems: Application to CENTAURO Robot

Authors:

Małgorzata Kameduła, Navvab Kashiri, Darwin G. Caldwell and Nikos G. Tsagarakis

Abstract: Despite the important role of simulation in the development and control of robotics systems, the majority of open source simulation tools has however paid no attention to the progress and paradigm change on the robot design in the past 15 years with the consideration of soft actuation technologies as a mean to power new robotic systems. More specifically, the integration of series elastic actuators (SEAs) into robots modifies significantly the dynamics characteristics of the system while the incorporation of the passive compliance into the actuators is not applied in conventional simulators. This paper introduces a scheme for the implementation of the SEA dynamics on a Gazebo-ROS framework exploited for the simulation of a new centaur-like robot. This approach is based on designing a custom control plugin embodying the passive compliance dynamics so that the controller associated with each joint receives both collocated and non-collocated feedback. A simulation comparison with Matlab validating the performance of the designed control plugin is demonstrated. In the end, a whole-body simulation of the centaur robot driven/controlled by the proposed plugin is presented.
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Paper Nr: 170
Title:

Skill Level Evaluation of Motion Curved Surface Character

Authors:

Kaoru Mitsuhashi, Hiroshi Hashimoto and Yasuhiro Ohyama

Abstract: The skill teaching/succession method is not quantitative but qualitative, which is abstract oral or gesture expression. Quantitative teaching is difficult for teacher/instructor. In previous research, Expert and beginner perform the sports and entertainment motion, and the character of the motion curved surface is analysed using Microsoft Kinect (RGBD camera). The character is the maximum curvature and surface area. However, the usage of characters is uncertain. In this research, we investigate the correlation of maximum curvature and surface area from motion curved surface in before and after training. Therefore, we visualize the different correlation of experts and beginners from the characters and the transition of the skill training.
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Paper Nr: 176
Title:

Functional Evaluation of the Solid Model Creation using 3D Direct Drawing System

Authors:

Kaoru Mitsuhashi, Hiroshi Hashimoto and Yasuhiro Ohyama

Abstract: 3D model of computer is usually created using 3D CAD software, but 3D direct drawing method is still developing the research. In this paper, we suggest and construct the 3D direct drawing system with ARToolKit and develop the required creating methods and tools. The method is the creating solid algorithm using projective methods. The algorithm is the converting multiple surfaces into a solid. After that, the functionality of the methods and tools are evaluated using the Taguchi method (quality engineering). In addition, we investigate the optimal condition of the creating methods and tools required for modeling.
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Paper Nr: 189
Title:

Dynamic Coupling Map: Acceleration Space Analysis for Underactuated Robots

Authors:

Ziad Zamzami and Faïz Ben Amar

Abstract: Swing-up and throwing tasks for underactuated manipulators are examples of dynamic motions that exhibit highly nonlinear coupling dynamics. One of the key ingredients for such complex behaviors is motion coordination to exploit their passive dynamics. Despite the existence of powerful tools such as nonlinear trajectory optimization, they are usually treated as blackboxes that provide local optimal trajectories. We introduce the Dynamical Coupling Map (DCM), a novel graphical technique, to help gain insight into the output trajectory of the optimization and analyze the capability of underactuated robots. The DCM analysis is demonstrated on the swing up motion of a simplified model of a gymnast on high bar. The DCM shows in a graphical and intuitive way the pivotal role of exploiting the nonlinear inertial forces to reach the unstable equilibrium configuration while taking into account the torque bounds constraints. In this paper, we present the DCM as a posteriori analysis of a local optimal trajectory, found by employing the direct collocation trajectory optimization framework.
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Paper Nr: 28
Title:

A Multi Finger Haptic Hand with Force Feedback

Authors:

Mina R. Ramzy, Emam F. Mohamed, H. E. A. Ibrahim and Yehia H. Hossamel-deen

Abstract: This paper presents a proposal for a twelve degrees of freedom robotic hand system controlled via haptic technology with force control and force feedback. This robotic hand can be used in hazardous environment, deserted places, or aerospace. To achieve this goal, an experimental set up in addition to a computer simulation of this robotic hand system have been carefully designed and built. The experimental set up consists of three main modules which are: the control Glove, the robotic hand, and a microcontroller. An integral controller algorithm is applied to make the robotic hand track and follow the position and movement of the haptic glove with force feedback. Three modes for force limitation are considered according to the application, which are suitable for grasping of: brittle, elastic, and hard components. For computer simulation of the system, a mathematical model has been derived considering a 3 DOF for each finger. To be compatible with robot hand used in the experimental work, only four fingers are considered i.e. total 12 DOF. The experimental work shows good gripping abilities following the glove movement and acceptable force feedback to the user hand, while the simulation results give a qualitative agreement with the experimental ones.
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Paper Nr: 31
Title:

Occupancy Grid Mapping with Highly Uncertain Range Sensors based on Inverse Particle Filters

Authors:

Timo Korthals, Marvin Barther, Thomas Schöpping, Stefan Herbrechtsmeier and Ulrich Rückert

Abstract: A huge number of techniques for detecting and mapping obstacles based on LIDAR and SONAR exist, though not taking approximative sensors with high levels of uncertainty into consideration. The proposed mapping method in this article is undertaken by detecting surfaces and approximating objects by distance using sensors with high localization ambiguity. Detection is based on an Inverse Particle Filter, which uses readings from single or multiple sensors as well as a robot’s motion. This contribution describes the extension of the Sequential Importance Resampling filter to detect objects based on an analytical sensor model and embedding into Occupancy Grid Maps. The approach has been applied to the autonomous mini robot AMiRo in a distributed way. There were promising results for its low-power, low-cost proximity sensors in various real life mapping scenarios, which outperform the standard Inverse Sensor Model approach.
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Paper Nr: 39
Title:

A Particle Filter based Multi-person Tracking with Occlusion Handling

Authors:

Ruixing Yu, Bing Zhu, Wenfeng Li and Xianglong Kong

Abstract: A multi-person tracking method is proposed concerning how to conquer the difficulties such as occlusion and changes in appearance which makes algorithm hard to get the correct positions of object. First, we indicate whether the target is blocked or not, through computing the Reliability of Tracklets (RT) based on the length of tracklets, appearance affinity and the size. Then, we propose a “correct” observation sample selection method and only update the weights of particle filter when the RT is high. Last, the greedy bipartite algorithm is used to realize data association. Experiments show that tracking can be successfully achieved even under severe occlusion.
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Paper Nr: 41
Title:

Autonomous Exploration and Mapping using a Mobile Robot Running ROS

Authors:

Rachael N. Darmanin and Marvin Bugeja

Abstract: This paper proposes a practical solution to the autonomous exploration and mapping problem using a single mobile robot. Moreover, the authors implement the proposed scheme within the Robot Operating System (ROS), and validate it experimentally using PowerBot, a real wheeled mobile robot equipped with a 2D laser scanner. In essence, the proposed scheme integrates an efficient particle-filter-based SLAM algorithm, two different exploration strategies, and a path-planning and navigation module. The modular nature of the proposed scheme is intentional and advantageous. It allows the authors to compare the two exploration strategies under investigation objectively and with ease. Finally, hypotheses testing is also used to strengthen the results of the comparative analysis.
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Paper Nr: 49
Title:

An Advanced, Adaptive and Multimodal Graphical User Interface for Human-robot Teleoperation in Radioactive Scenarios

Authors:

Giacomo Lunghi, Raul Marin Prades and Mario Di Castro

Abstract: In this paper we present the user interface of a tele-robotic system, which allows CERN users to perform visual inspections and tele-manipulation tasks inside the CERN accelerator complex. This graphical user interface has been designed to be simple to use, in order to provide the operator with a comfortable system. Moreover, the user interface is robot independent and it adapts itself to the robot configuration, in order to provide a general way for controlling any kind of robot used at CERN. Furthermore it allows the operator to choose between different kinds of input (e.g. keyboard, joypad, haptic device, etc), in order to provide the most easy human-robot interaction interface, which is a fundamental requirement for safe operations.
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Paper Nr: 72
Title:

Multilink Micro Robots Designed for Inspection in Pipes of Small Diameters

Authors:

M. M. Knyazkov, E. A. Semenov, A. N. Sukhanov and A. A. Kryukova

Abstract: The importance of designing robotic platforms for pipes of small diameters inspection is connected with necessity of efficiency improvement in technical diagnostics of pipelines of different use, especially in mechanical engineering. This paper is devoted to in-pipe micro robot design. Different techniques of the robot’s motion inside a pipeline have been discussed. The proposed design of the in-pipe robot may be used in experimental investigation of different inspection techniques. The method of determining the speed of micro robot allows finding the speed of micro robot when it moves in different environments with different viscosity under the absence and presence of excessive pressure in the piping system.
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Paper Nr: 107
Title:

Generation of Data Sets Simulating Different Kinds of Cameras in Virtual Environments

Authors:

Yerai Berenguer, Luis Payá, Oscar Reinoso, Adrián Peidró and Luis M. Jiménez

Abstract: In this paper a platform to create different kinds of data sets from virtual environments is presented. These data sets contain some information about the visual appearance of the environment and the distance from some reference positions to all the objects. Robot localization and mapping using images are two active fields of research and new algorithms are continuously proposed. These algorithms have to be tested with several sets of images to validate them. This task can be made using actual images; however, sometimes when a change in the parameters of the vision system is needed to optimize the algorithms, this system must be replaced and new data sets must be captured. This supposes a high cost and slowing down the first stages of the development. The objective of this work is to develop a versatile tool that permits generating data sets to test efficiently mapping and localization algorithms with mobile robots. Another advantage of this platform is that the images can be generated from any position of the environment and with any rotation. Besides, the images generated have not noise; this is an advantage since it allows carrying out a preliminary test of the algorithms under ideal conditions. The virtual environment can be created easily and modified depending on the desired characteristics. At last, the platform permits carrying out another advanced tasks using the images and the virtual environment.
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Paper Nr: 109
Title:

Gamepad Control for Industrial Robots - New Ideas for the Improvement of Existing Control Devices

Authors:

Maximilian Wagner, Dennis Avdic and Peter Heß

Abstract: In the scope of this work, a frequently used gaming device—the gamepad—is investigated as a control device for industrial robots in order to extract new ideas for the improvement of existing control devices. Thus, an approach for the integration of a gamepad control in a common industrial robot system is developed and implemented. The usability of the gamepad control is improved by adding a smartphone to the gamepad, which serves as a display to show information to the user. Finally, the developed gamepad control is compared with the operation via conventional control device.
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Paper Nr: 121
Title:

Calculation of the Boundaries and Barriers of the Workspace of a Redundant Serial-parallel Robot using the Inverse Kinematics

Authors:

Adrián Peidró, Óscar Reinoso, Arturo Gil, José María Marín, Luis Payá and Yerai Berenguer

Abstract: This paper presents the workspace analysis of a redundant serial-parallel robot. Due to the complexity of the robot, the complex constraints (joint limits and no-interference between the legs of the robot), and the globally serial structure of the robot, a discretization method based on the forward kinematics would be most appropriate to compute the workspace. However, this widely used method can only obtain the external boundaries of the workspace, missing the internal barriers that hinder the motion of the robot, which may exist inside the boundaries. To avoid missing these barriers, we use a discretization method that uses the solution of the inverse kinematic problem of the robot. By studying the feasibility of attaining a desired position and orientation by the different branches of the solution to the inverse kinematics, the proposed discretization method is able to obtain both the external boundaries and the internal barriers of the workspace. Some examples are presented to show the importance of these internal barriers in the motions of the robot inside the workspace.
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Paper Nr: 125
Title:

Putting Cloud 9 IDE on the Wheels for Programming Cyber-Physical / Internet of Things Platforms - Providing Educational Prototypes

Authors:

Andrej Skraba, Vladimir Stanovov, Eugene Semenkin, Andrej Kolozvari, Radovan Stojanovic and Davorin Kofjac

Abstract: The paper describes the development of educational Cyber-Physical Robotic Platforms, remotely controlled via cloud technologies. The platform is implemented using Parallax ActivityBot kit (only for mechanical part), controlled by Arduino, and includes a Quad core ARM-processor Mini PC MK802 V5 LE running Xubuntu Linux. The programming on the developed platform could be performed in JavaScript and HTML, providing the web interface for controlling the system through Wi-Fi. Programming the platform is possible through the Cloud9 IDE web interface, enabling rewriting the code or running different programs by the user. Four equal platforms were implemented to address the need for the easily accessible educational Cyber-Physical Robotic Platforms / Internet of Things hardware for students and tested in the experiment.
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Paper Nr: 133
Title:

Efficient Deployment of Energy-constrained Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in 3-dimensional Space

Authors:

Hunsue Lee, Junghyun Oh, Jaedo Jeon and Beomhee Lee

Abstract: In this paper, we present an efficient approach to deployment for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). For a number of scattered tasks, we aim to minimize the duration of time that all UAVs reach their task locations. In our previous work, we suggested the collaborative deployment algorithm for mobile robots using a carrier robot which transports and deploys the mobile robots. However, the method worked only in 2-dimensional plane where UAV could not be applied. Therefore, this paper extends the previous work on 3-dimensional space and gives the relevant algorithm. Finally, we presents the feasibility of the proposed algorithm by simulation results.
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Paper Nr: 141
Title:

State Feedback Control Solutions for a Mechatronics System with Variable Moment of Inertia

Authors:

Alexandra-Iulia Szedlak-Stinean, Radu-Emil Precup, Stefan Preitl, Emil M. Petriu and Claudia-Adina Bojan-Dragos

Abstract: This paper presents details regarding the design of two state feedback control (SFC) solutions for the position control of a mechatronics application represented by the Model 220 Industrial Plant Emulator. Since SFC is not effective in terms of zero steady-state control error, the SFC structure of both solutions is inserted in a control loop that contains a PID controller with or without low-pass filter. This leads to the two SFC solutions proposed in this paper and dedicated to mechatronics applications with variable moment of inertia. The PID controllers are tuned by the Modulus Optimum method to ensure high control system performance expressed as increased phase margins and improved tracking performance. The performance of the proposed SFC solutions is illustrated by case studies that deal with experimentally identified parameters in two situations, rigid body dynamics and flexible drive dynamics. Simulation and experimental results obtained for the three significant values of the moment of inertia of the load disk are given.
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Paper Nr: 153
Title:

Fast Deployable Autonomous Systems for Order Picking - How Small and Medium Size Enterprises Can Benefit from the Automation of the Picking Process

Authors:

Marco Bonini, Augusto Urru and Wolfgang Echelmeyer

Abstract: The paper focuses on a recently introduced paradigm for the logistic process of picking, with respect to the man-to-goods and goods-to-man concept: the robot-to-goods. First the task and system architecture of the fast deployable autonomous commissioning system are described, then the economic efficiency of the system is analysed in a real business case scenario using a simplified method, which is explained and discussed. The clearly positive Net Present Value of the investment and the short Payback Period obtained in the business case prove how the robot-to-goods paradigm for the commissioning process, implemented through the automation of the forklift platform, is economically attractive for small and medium size enterprises.
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Paper Nr: 167
Title:

Methodological Aspects for the Development of Information Systems of Unmanned Mobile Vehicles

Authors:

Sergey Sokolov and Andrey Boguslavsky

Abstract: In the work there is analyzed a process of developing and arranging information support systems of mobile vehicles with the enhanced autonomous level and fully autonomous. There are reviewed current trends in creating this sort of systems. In order to increase the effectiveness of processes of creating intellectual autopilots it is proposed to introduce into the review the space of similar systems configuration. The space axes are: sensors, models of environment, and algorithmic support. The points of this space are “assemblage points” of particular application systems. The configuration space enables to efficiently resolve the process of creating information support systems with the help of compliance matrixes, evaluate possible options of arranging the particular system. There are proposed solutions on components per each axis of the configuration space. As the basis for mobile means information systems the real time multifunctional vision systems and software-hardware unification is proposed. In terms of the hardware components, there are reviewed, in detail, arrangements of real time vision systems. The construction of external world models is proposed to establish on the interpreting navigation concept. In terms of algorithmic support, the combination of the split-level processing algorithms is proposed to implement based on large-scale frames and unification of software implementations. Examples of using the above-described approaches and solutions are presented.
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Paper Nr: 175
Title:

Human Tracking in Occlusion based on Reappearance Event Estimation

Authors:

Hassan M. Nemati, Saeed Gholami Shahbandi and Björn Åstrand

Abstract: Relying on the commonsense knowledge that the trajectory of any physical entity in the spatio-temporal domain is continuous, we propose a heuristic data association technique. The technique is used in conjunction with an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) for human tracking under occlusion. Our method is capable of tracking moving objects, maintain their state hypothesis even in the period of occlusion, and associate the target reappeared from occlusion with the existing hypothesis. The technique relies on the estimation of the reappearance event both in time and location, accompanied with an alert signal that would enable more intelligent behavior (e.g. in path planning). We implemented the proposed method, and evaluated its performance with real-world data. The result validates the expected capabilities, even in case of tracking multiple humans simultaneously.
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Paper Nr: 183
Title:

3-D Position Detection of Partner Robot using SURF Descriptor and Voting Method for Indirect Cooperation Between Multiple Robots

Authors:

Toyomi Fujita and Kento Yamada

Abstract: In some practical work by robots, it may happen that a working robot can not detect a target object for handling due to a sensor occlusion. In this situation, if another cooperative robot observes the working robot with the target object and detects their positions and orientations, it will be possible for the working robot to complete the handling task. Such behavior is a kind of indirect cooperation. This study considers a method for such an indirect cooperation based on an observation by the partner robot. The observing robot will be able to perform such a cooperation by obtaining feature points and corresponding points on the working robot with hand and the target object from multiple captured images, then computing 3-D positions of the targets and motion of the hand. In this study, we mainly focus on 3-D position detection of the working robot and try applying SURF (Speeded Up Robust Features) descriptor and a voting method for detecting the feature points and corresponding points. The 3-D position of the working robot is then computed from these corresponding points based on stereo vision theory. Fundamental experiments confirmed the validity of presented method.
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Paper Nr: 184
Title:

Generalized Disturbance Estimation via ESLKF for the Motion Control of Rotorcraft Having a Rod-suspended Load

Authors:

J. Escareno, A. Belbachir, T. Raharijaona and S. Bouchafa

Abstract: The aim of the paper is to propose a navigation strategy applied to a class of rotorcraft having a free rod-suspended load. The presented approach relies on the Linear Kalman Filter to estimate the not only the state vector but also a generalized disturbance term containing parametric, couplings and external uncertainties. A simple hierarchical control is used to drive the motion of the rotorcraft, which is thus updated with the estimation of the disturbance evolving during the a navigation task. Despite the time-scale separation due to the underactuated nature of the flying robot, the estimation approach has shown its effectiveness considering the same sampling time. A detailed simulation model is used to evaluate the performance of the proposal under different disturbed scenarios
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Paper Nr: 186
Title:

Design of a Micro Piezo Actuated Gripper for a Swarm Robotic System

Authors:

Batuhan Kaygusuz and A. Emre Turgut

Abstract: In this paper, we introduced a novel micro swarm robotic platform, called the AttaBot, designed specifically for complex systems and swarm robotics research. The novelty of the AttaBot platform is two-folds. (1) Artificial pheromones are implemented, (2) Each AttaBot has a gripper to grip small discs on the ground. In this way, AttaBot platform can be used in many different swarm scenarios including foraging, collective motion and collective transport. We introduced the design of the AttaBot, focusing mainly on the gripper design. We designed a novel gripper using off-the-shelf piezostack materials. We simulated the performance of the gripper using COMSOL and depicted the results. We showed that the current design with the proper piezostack material is feasible and it can used in AttaBot.

Paper Nr: 188
Title:

Evaluation of Local 3-D Point Cloud Descriptors in Terms of Suitability for Object Classification

Authors:

Jens Garstka and Gabriele Peters

Abstract: This paper investigates existing methods for local 3-D feature description with special regards to their suitability for object classification based on 3-D point cloud data. We choose five approved descriptors, namely Spin Images, Point Feature Histogram, Fast Point Feature Histogram, Signature of Histograms of Orientations, and Unique Shape Context and evaluate them with a commonly used classification pipeline on a large scale 3-D object dataset comprising more than 200000 different point clouds. Of particular interest are the details of the choice of all parameters associated with the classification pipeline. The point clouds are classified by using support vector machines. Fast Point Feature Histogram proves to be the best descriptor for the method of object classification used in this evaluation.
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Paper Nr: 190
Title:

Stereo Vision on an ARM/DSP Multicore Platform based on Code Generation using the MATLAB Embedded Coder

Authors:

Dennis Schuldt, Jörg Thiem and Semir Mustedanagic

Abstract: Vision based techniques are by now well established means for contactless measuring applications, e.g. in industrial automation, optical inspection, medical imaging or robot navigation. However, the development and implementation of these applications on small-sized embedded systems is still challenging, because image processing algorithms require quite a lot CPU performance. Therefore, code optimization has to be considered in the development process. In this work we present our results on implementation and benchmarking of stereo disparity algorithms on an ARM/DSP embedded multicore platform. The algorithms are developed with the computer algebra framework MATLAB from Mathworks®, which allows to generate generic and processor-specific C/C++ code automatically. The analysis of the code generation process and the benchmark of the target performance are the main focus of this contribution.
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Area 4 - Signal Processing, Sensors, Systems Modelling and Control

Full Papers
Paper Nr: 22
Title:

Camera based Identification and Control of the Waelz Process

Authors:

Jörg Matthes, Patrick Waibel, Hubert B. Keller and Lutz Gröll

Abstract: TheWaelz process is the most common technique for the pyro-metallurgical treatment of zinc-bearing residues using a rotary kiln. However, this process will only result in a good zinc recovery, if the temperature of the material (slag) within the kiln is controlled at specific optimal setpoints depending on the material mixture. Until now, slag temperature measurement is carried out by pyrometers which give only pointwise information that can be disturbed by cold slag lumps. Additionally, the temperature control is performed only manually by operators, who have to adapt the amount of process air frequently to keep the process stable at the desired setpoints. In this paper an infrared-camera based measurement of the slag temperature using image processing techniques is presented. Based on that temperature measurement a process model is conducted. Its parameters are estimated by a model-output-error based process identification. The process model is used for the tuning of parameters of an automatic closed loop control. Finally, results from an industrial application of the new camera based slag temperature control are given.
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Paper Nr: 32
Title:

Joint Integrated Track Splitting for Multi-sensor Multi-target Tracking in Clutter

Authors:

Yifan Xie, Haeho Lee, Myonghwan Ahn, Bum Jik Lee and Taek Lyul Song

Abstract: Automatic object tracking for track initialization, confirmation and termination can be realized by using the probability of target existence, which is a track quality measure for false track discrimination. In this paper, we present a multi-sensor multi-target tracking application based on the probability of target existence and multi-sensor joint integrated track splitting (MS-JITS), which is an extension of JITS framework to multisensor systems. For fair comparison, incorporation of the target existence paradigm and the S-D assignment is implemented. This work also consummates the S-D assignment based estimators for track management by the probability of target existence.
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Paper Nr: 45
Title:

Statistical Modeling and Calibration of Triangulation Lidars

Authors:

Anas Alhashimi, Damiano Varagnolo and Thomas Gustafsson

Abstract: We aim at developing statistical tools that improve the accuracy and precision of the measurements returned by triangulation Light Detection and Rangings (Lidars). To this aim we: i) propose and validate a novel model that describes the statistics of the measurements of these Lidars, and that is built starting from mechanical considerations on the geometry and properties of their pinhole lens - CCD camera systems; ii) build, starting from this novel statistical model, a Maximum Likelihood (ML) / Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) - based sensor calibration algorithm that exploits training information collected in a controlled environment; iii) develop ML and Least Squares (LS) strategies that use the calibration results to statistically process the raw sensor measurements in non controlled environments. The overall technique allowed us to obtain empirical improvements of the normalized Mean Squared Error (MSE) from 0.0789 to 0.0046.
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Paper Nr: 55
Title:

Fuzzy Kalman Filter Modeling Approach from Experimental Data

Authors:

Danúbia Soares Pires and Ginalber Luiz de Oliveira Serra

Abstract: A strategy to system identification based on Fuzzy Kalman Filter, is proposed. A mathematical formulation based on fuzzy Takagi-Sugeno structure is presented: the algorithm FCM estimates the antecedent parameters; from the data input and output of dynamic system, the ERA/DC algorithm based on FCM clustering algorithm, is applied to obtain the matrices A, B, C, and D (state matrix, input influence matrix, output influence matrix, and direct transmission matrix, respectively) to each rule of the consequent parameters. The Fuzzy Kalman Filter is applied to estimate states and output of a nonlinear dynamic system and computational results show the efficiency of the proposed methodology, once that the TS Fuzzy Model Based on Fuzzy Kalman Filter follows the dynamic behavior relative to output and states of a dynamic system.

Paper Nr: 57
Title:

Symplectic Discretization Methods for Parameter Estimation of a Nonlinear Mechanical System using an Extended Kalman Filter

Authors:

Daniel Beckmann, Matthias Dagen and Tobias Ortmaier

Abstract: This paper presents two symplectic discretization methods in the context of online parameter estimation for a nonlinear mechanical system. These symplectic approaches are compared to established discretization methods (e.g. Euler Forward and Runge Kutta) regarding accuracy and computational effort. In addition, the influence of the discretization method on the performance of an augmented Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) for parameter estimation is analyzed. The methods are compared with a nonlinear mechanical simulation model, based on a belt-drive system. The simulation shows improved accuracy using simplectic integrators in comparison to the conventional methods, with almost the same or lower computational cost. Parameter estimation based on the EKF in combination with the simplectic integration scheme leads to more accurate values.
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Paper Nr: 70
Title:

Dynamics Calibration of a Redundant Flexible Joint Robot based on Gyroscopes and Encoders

Authors:

Dennis Schüthe, Felix Wenk and Udo Frese

Abstract: In this paper we show the identification of the dynamic parameters of a redundant flexible joint robot with a flexible bearing in the first joint. The bearing leads to distortions of the link velocities measured by gyroscopes. The bearing flexibility is not modeled explicitly, resulting in a very simple model. For the joint positions encoders are used. We show how to pack the calibration problem into the sparse least-squares on manifolds toolkit (SLOM) and present the results. For verification we compare the measured data with the predicted data computed using the identified dynamic parameters.
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Paper Nr: 85
Title:

A Mathematical Model for Signal’s Energy at the Output of an Ideal DAC

Authors:

Paola Loreti and Pierluigi Vellucci

Abstract: The presented research work considers a mathematical model for energy of the signal at the output of an ideal DAC, in presence of sampling clock jitter. When sampling clock jitter occurs, the energy of the signal at the output of ideal DAC does not satisfies a Parseval identity. Nevertheless, an estimation of the signal energy is here shown by a direct method involving sinc functions.
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Paper Nr: 115
Title:

On Nonlinearity Measuring Aspects of Stochastic Integration Filter

Authors:

Jindřich Havlík, Ondřej Straka, Jindřich Duník and Jiří Ajgl

Abstract: The paper deals with Bayesian state estimation of nonlinear stochastic dynamic systems. The focus is aimed at the stochastic integration filter, which is based on a stochastic integration rule. It is shown that the covariance matrix of the integration error calculated as a byproduct of the rule can be used as a measure of nonlinearity. The measure informs the user about validity of the assumptions of Gaussianity, which is adopted by the stochastic integration filter. It is also demonstrated how to use this information for a prediction of the number of remaining iterations of the rule. The paper also focuses on utilization of the integration error covariance matrix for improving estimates of the mean square error of the estimates, which is produced by the filter.
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Paper Nr: 118
Title:

Tactile Display Design for Securing Flight and Reducing the Saturation of Pilot’s Visual Channel

Authors:

Khaled Fellah and Mohamed Guiatni

Abstract: Visual channel dominates the design of the cockpit, and auditory channel is progressively being used as well. However, tactile displays are almost abstract in the cockpit designs. Whereas, many research proved that several applications exist where the tactile displays may become an important or even essential choice. This is due to the fact that the visual feedback is not suitable, not adequate, or surcharged and that the visual attention is usually limited to a simple entity. In this paper, we propose a design of a low-cost tactile feedback system to provide the pilot with better insight in the flight path and prevent limitations during flight. In the first part of the paper, we develop an effective control strategy based on inverse dynamic to solve the problems of use of the low-cost tactors. The obtained results showed reduction of 48 % in settling time. The second part describes the use of Fuzzy Logic Controllers (FLC) to compute a new form of tactile output of the translation of a pertinent flight data information and flight envelope to vibrotactile feedback signals. And in the last part, we develop a wireless (and USB) vibrotactile feedback device consisting of 16 embedded tactors controlled with an inverse dynamic strategy via an arm Cortex M3 architecture. Pilots equipped with the developed tactile display were capable of successfully flying in a simulator. They confirm that tactile feedback is an interesting way of feeding back information about the airplane’s state, in order to give a better understanding of what the airplane is doing during controlled flight.
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Paper Nr: 126
Title:

Evolving Fuzzy Modeling Approach based on Maximum Likelihood with Participatory Learning

Authors:

Orlando Donato Rocha Filho and Ginalber Luiz de Oliveira Serra

Abstract: This paper presents a fuzzy clustering algorithm based on maximum likelihood with participatory learning. The adopted methodology is based on an online fuzzy inference system with Takagi–Sugeno evolving structure, which employs an adaptive distance norm based on the maximum likelihood criterion with instrumental variable recursive parameter estimation. The performance and application of the proposed algorithm is based on the black box modeling of nonlinear system widely cited in the literature.

Short Papers
Paper Nr: 11
Title:

Autonomous Mission Management for Forest Search with Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Authors:

Kemao Peng, Feng Lin and Ben M. Chen

Abstract: An autonomous mission management (AMM) system is designed with the enhanced hierarchical-distributed methodology (HDM) for multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to search a field of forest together. The main ideas of the enhanced HDM are hierarchical control and distributed implementation. The event control law is partitioned into the group and individual event control laws. The group event control law is to coordinate the group of UAVs to complete the designated mission and the individual event control laws are to complete the assigned submissions/ tasks accordingly. The group event control law is executed by the leader and any member can be designated or selected as the leader on the rules. The forest search is applied to verify the designed AMM system in simulation. The simulation results demonstrate that the designed AMM system is successful to complete the designated mission by collaborating the group of UAVs.
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Paper Nr: 21
Title:

Modelling Radar Signal Error Performance under Atmospheric Refraction and Clutter Attenuation

Authors:

Chiemela Onunka and Glen Bright

Abstract: Radar signal error performance was modelled in the presence of atmospheric refraction and clutter attenuation. The models presented in the paper exploited prior information on atmospheric refraction properties and conditions such as partial pressure, water vapour, atmospheric temperature and the associated clutter. The atmospheric properties and characteristics were used to model random and bias errors experienced in radar systems. Errors which were associated with azimuth, elevation and target velocity were considered in the performance analysis. Range resolution and Doppler resolution were key mechanisms which were implemented in the analysis of the radar signal error performance. The radar error performance was analysed using residual error, signal-to-clutter + noise ratio and thermal noise error. Errors from azimuth, elevation and target velocity were combined in investigating the total effect of errors in determining the desired signal-to-clutter + noise ratio. The results discussed in the paper enhances target detection and tracking towards optimising the navigation system of autonomous and semi-autonomous robotic systems using radars.
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Paper Nr: 24
Title:

Development of a Simulink Dynamic Matrix Control (DMC) Block for Use with an RCP System and Its Application to Motor Control

Authors:

Young Sam Lee, Jinsuk Choi, Sugkil Seo and Yeong Sang Park

Abstract: In this paper, we present the implementation method of a Simulink block for dynamic matrix control (DMC) that can be used in a rapid control prototyping (RCP) environment and consider the speed control of a DC motor using the developed DMC block. Firstly, we introduce a lab-built RCP system briefly. Secondly, we present a method to implement the DMC block using C-language, which enables DMC algorithm to be represented in a library block that can be used in Simulink environment. Finally, we use the developed DMC block for the speed control of a DC motor, through which we show that the DMC-based control system can be easily implemented and it can be applied to real-time control of systems with relatively fast sample rates.
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Paper Nr: 29
Title:

A Reduced Order Steering State Observer for Automated Steering Control Functions

Authors:

Enrico Raffone

Abstract: State observer design is one of the key technologies in research for autonomous vehicles, specifically the unmanned control of the steering wheel. Currently, estimation algorithms design is one of the most important challenges facing researchers in the field of intelligent transportation systems (ITS). In this paper we present: mathematical model and dynamic response identification of electric power steering column by least square identification experiments; observability analysis of identified models; model simplification via mechanical approach and singular perturbation model reduction; and two reduced order steering Kalman filter syntheses for estimation of steering column states and disturbances. The simulation and experimental results conducted on a steering test bench executed in the FCA Technical Center show that designed Kalman observers have good adaptability for steering wheel position control and safety aims. This can be useful in intelligent vehicle path tracking in outdoor experiments.
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Paper Nr: 34
Title:

OpenCL-accelerated Point Feature Histogram and Its Application in Railway Track Point Cloud Data Processing

Authors:

Dongxu Lv, Peijun Wang, Wentao Li and Peng Chen

Abstract: To meet the requirements of railway track point cloud processing, an OpenCL-accelerated Point Feature His-togram method is proposed using heterogeneous computing to improve the low computation efficiency. Ac-cording to the characteristics of parallel computing of OpenCL, the data structure for point cloud storage is re-configured. With the kernel performance analysis by CodeXL, the data reading is improved and the load of ALU is promoted. In the test, it obtains 1.5 to 40 times speedup ratio compared with the original functions at same precision of CPU algorithm, and achieves better real-time performance and good compatibility to PCL.
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Paper Nr: 37
Title:

Experimental Results of Trajectory Tracking Control of Robot Manipulator using Time Varying Sliding Mode Controller

Authors:

Yasuhiko Mutoh and Nao Kogure

Abstract: The author et al. proposed the design method of the sliding mode controller for the trajectory tracking control problem of nonlinear systems. This controller consists of the conventional sliding mode control and the pole placement controller for the the linear time varying approximate model of the nonlinear system around the desired trajectory. In this paper, this controller is applied to the trajectory tracking control of the actual 2-link robot manipulator, and, experimental results are shown.
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Paper Nr: 46
Title:

Real-time Simulation of Distributed Control Systems: The example of Functional Electrical Stimulation

Authors:

Daniel Simon and David Andreu

Abstract: The paper presents a real-time open software simulation framework, dedicated to the analysis of control systems deployed over distributed execution resources and wireless links. It is able to consistently simulate in parallel the numerical devices (real-time tasks and communication links) and the evolution of the controlled continuous time plant. It is applied to foresee future enhancements of a Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) system used in therapy for rehabilitation or substitution for disabled people. It is a distributed control system using electrodes to interface a digital control system with livings. Hence the whole system gathers continuous-time (muscles and nerves) and discrete-time (controllers and wireless links) components. During the design process, realistic simulation remains a precious tool ahead of real experiments to check without danger that the implementation matches the functional and safety requirements. The simulation tool is especially devoted to the joint design and analysis of control loops and real-time features.
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Paper Nr: 62
Title:

Existence Conditions of Asymptotically Stable 2-D Feedback Control Systems on the Basis of Block Matrix Diagonalization

Authors:

Giido Izuta

Abstract: This work is concerned with the existence of asymptotically stable 2-D (2-dimensional) systems by means of a feedback control model represented by the system of partial difference equations and their Lagrange solutions. Thus, the goal is to establish a controller that provides a feedback control system with state variables depending solely on its Lagrange solution in the sense that the solution to the variable state is not a linear combination of other Lagrange solutions. Roughly speaking, the results showed that, to achieve such a control system, the controller has to diagonalize the block matrices of the matrices composing the system description model. Finally, a numerical example is presented to show how the controller is designed in order to generate a stable feedback control with given Lagrange solutions.
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Paper Nr: 82
Title:

Development of Discrete Mechanics for Distributed Parameter Mechanical Systems and Its Application to Vibration Suppression Control of a String

Authors:

Tatsuya Kai, Kouhei Yamaki and Shunpei Koike

Abstract: In this study, a new stabilization method by blending discrete mechanics and nonlinear optimization for 1- dimensional distributed parameter mechanical systems is developed. Discrete mechanics is a kind of numerical solutions for distributed parameter mechanical systems and it is known that it has some advantages in terms of numerical errors and preserving property of the original systems. First, for discrete Euler-Lagrange equations with control inputs, we formulate a nonlinear optimal control problem with constraints by setting an objective function, and initial and boundary conditions. Then, it is shown that the problem is represented as a finite-dimensional nonlinear optimal problem with constraints and it can be solved by the sequential quadratic programming method. After that, a vibration suppression control problem for a string is dealt with as a physical example. As a result, it can be confirmed that vibration of the string is suppressed and the whole of the system is stabilized by the proposed new method.
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Paper Nr: 89
Title:

Tracking of High-speed, Non-smooth and Microscale-amplitude Wave Trajectories

Authors:

Jiradech Kongthon

Abstract: In this article, an inversion-based control approach is proposed and presented for tracking desired trajectories with high-speed (100Hz), non-smooth (triangle and sawtooth waves), and microscale-amplitude (10 micron) wave forms. The interesting challenge is that the tracking involves the trajectories that possess a high frequency, a microscale amplitude, sharp turnarounds at the corners. Two different types of wave trajectories, which are triangle and sawtooth waves, are investigated. The model, or the transfer function of a piezoactuator is obtained experimentally from the frequency response by using a dynamic signal analyzer. Under the inversion-based control scheme and the model obtained, the tracking is simulated in MATLAB. The main contributions of this work are to show that (1) the model and the controller achieve a good tracking performance measured by the root mean square error (RMSE) and the maximum error (Emax), (2) the maximum error occurs at the sharp corner of the trajectories, (3) tracking the sawtooth wave yields larger RMSE and Emax values,compared to tracking the triangle wave, and (4) in terms of robustness to modeling error or unmodeled dynamics, Emax is still less than 10% of the peak to peak amplitude of 20 micron if the increases in the natural frequency and the damping ratio are less than 5% for the triangle trajectory and Emax is still less than 10% of the peak to peak amplitude of 20 micron if the increases in the natural frequency and the damping ratio are less than 3.2 % for the sawtooth trajectory.
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Paper Nr: 100
Title:

Robust Control of Uncertain Linear Plants in Conditions of Signal Quantization and Time-delay

Authors:

Alexey Margun and Igor Furtat

Abstract: The paper is aimed to the robust control of parametric uncertain linear plants in conditions of signal quantization with time delay and bounded external perturbations. State vector of control plant is unmeasured. Output of control plant is measured only via quantizer with transport delay. Control algorithm is based on consecutive compensator method. Proposed algorithm provides convergence of tracking error to the reference signal with prespecified accuracy for bounded time delay in quantizer. Limitations on value of delay providing stability of closed-loop system are obtained.
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Paper Nr: 101
Title:

Hybrid Modeling and Identification of Dynamic Yaw Simulator

Authors:

Abdelhafid Allad, Lotfi Mederreg, Hocine Imine and Noura Achour

Abstract: The objective of this work is the study and execution of a dynamic model reproducing the dynamics of a road vehicle to implement it in a vehicle simulator. To do this we will use a generic approach using Matlab to model different phenomenons related to the vehicle. In this research, we have taken into account all relevant parameters in vehicle dynamics, specifying the longitudinal and lateral forces of wheel/ground contact. For the calculation on an operational dynamic model of the vehicle, we chose the essential compnents to reduce system complexity while ensuring a degree of realism and effectiveness of modeling, integrating a status observer by sliding mode to reconstruct or estimate in real-time, the system status.
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Paper Nr: 110
Title:

Comparison of Various Definitions of Proximity in Mixture Estimation

Authors:

Ivan Nagy, Evgenia Suzdaleva and Pavla Pecherková

Abstract: Classification is one of the frequently demanded tasks in data analysis. There exists a series of approaches in this area. This paper is oriented towards classification using the mixture model estimation, which is based on detection of density clusters in the data space and fitting the component models to them. A chosen function of proximity of the actually measured data to individual mixture components and the component shape play a significant role in solving the mixture-based classification task. This paper considers definitions of the proximity for several types of distributions describing the mixture components and compares their properties with respect to speed and quality of the resulting estimation interpreted as a classification task. Normal, exponential and uniform distributions as the most important models used for describing both Gaussian and non-Gaussian data are considered. Illustrative experiments with results of the comparison are provided.
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Paper Nr: 145
Title:

The Compression Algorithm of the S-Transform and Its Application in MFCC

Authors:

Zihao Cui, Limei Xu, Min Chen, Jianwen Cui and Yuzhuo Ren

Abstract: The S-Transform which is used in many fields, is better in the methods of time-frequency analysis. Although the S-Transform improves the time-frequency analysis, it also increases the algorithm complexity, resulting in rapidly increasing the computing time and needing more memory. Therefore, the S-Transform is difficult to be applied for real-time procession of signal. Based on the characteristics that human being is insensitive to the voice frequency resolution, in this paper, we propose a compressing algorithm of the S-transform. Through re-sampling frequency, the algorithm decreases data size, the computing time and computer memory usage in the S-transform. The application of the algorithm in MFCC analysis shows the results is reliable under the condition of re-sampling frequency resolution .
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Paper Nr: 156
Title:

Soft Variable Structure Control in Sampled-Data Systems with Saturating Input

Authors:

Przemyslaw Ignaciuk and Michał Morawski

Abstract: In the effort to achieve high convergence rate, at the same time avoiding implementation difficulties and poor robustness of time-optimal controllers, the concept of soft Variable Structure Control (VSC) may be applied. The classical formulation of soft VSC in continuous time domain assumes smooth switching among an infinite number of controllers. Since nowadays control laws are implemented digitally, changing the control structure is limited to sampling instances, which leads to quasi-soft VSC. The paper investigates how the favourable characteristics of dynamic soft VSC can be extended to input-constrained systems with finite sampling. The design procedure and stability analysis are conducted directly in discrete time domain. The resulting nonlinear control law is synthesised into a form substantially different from its continuous-time counterpart. However, smooth control action and fast convergence of continuous soft VSC is retained. The properties of the obtained control system are formally proved and confirmed experimentally.
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Paper Nr: 162
Title:

Modeling and Simulation of an Energy Efficient Skid Conveyor using ZIZO

Authors:

Oussama Khlifi, Christian Siegwart, Olfa Mosbahi, Mohamed Khalgui and Georg Frey

Abstract: This paper introduces a method for modeling and simulation of a production system with different energy modes. We aim to save the energy in an assembly automobile production line platform using sensitive sensors. A new prototype model is proposed using an extension of Petri nets called GR-TNCES (generalized reconfigurable timed net condition event systems). We also present a simulation of this model with a proposed tool ZIZO to show the energy gain compared to standard production line model.
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Paper Nr: 165
Title:

Object Slippage Prevention using Different Control Strategies

Authors:

Pavel Dzitac, Abdul Md Mazid, Guy Littlefair and Ashwin Polishetty

Abstract: This paper presents experimental results obtained using a friction-based slippage and tangential force sensing device that has been developed for the purpose of reliable object slippage prevention during robotic manipulation. The experimental results obtained demonstrate that the developed slippage sensing strategy is rugged and reliable even in its current “rough prototype” state of development. This work has the potential to yield a low cost and highly customisable slippage and tangential force sensing device for a variety of robotic object grasping and manipulation applications. It is envisaged that the work presented here will be beneficial to researchers in the area of object slippage prevention.
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Paper Nr: 12
Title:

Numerical Research on Water Hammer in Propellant Filling Pipeline based on Spectral Method

Authors:

Youhuan Xiang, Ping Zhang, Jianguo Pang, Hui Zhang and Quansheng He

Abstract: In order to research the water hammer problem in the filling pipeline during the rocket propellant filling process for the spaceflight launch site, improved schemes are proposed. Chebyshev spectral method is adopted to solve the water hammer problem in the paper. The law of pressure change is analyzed when water hammer occurs, and the results calculated by the spectral method are compared with the results calculated by the characteristic line method and the experimental results. The results show that the proposed schemes can effectively weaken the water hammer in the pipeline during the filling process, improve the reliability and security of the filling system, and verify the feasibility that adopting the Chebyshev spectral method to solve the water hammer problem in the filling pipeline.
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Paper Nr: 15
Title:

The Real-time Tracking Servo Control of a Rodless Pneumatic Actuator System under an Asymmetrical Load via the Feedback Measurement System

Authors:

Hao-Ting Lin

Abstract: Due to the nonlinear and time-varying characteristics, pneumatic servo control systems are difficult to realize real-time path tracking control, especially for the rodless pneumatic cylinder which has relative larger friction force. An asymmetrical vertical load resulting from the gravity makes the motion control in the vertical direction more difficult. This study develops a rodless pneumatic actuator system for the real-time tracking servo control with an asymmetrical vertical load. First, the dynamic models of the rodless pneumatic actuator system will be established and simulated by the Matlab software. Then, the test rig layout will be proposed and experimented under the asymmetrical load via the feedback measurement system. Finally, the experimental results show that a rodless pneumatic actuator system with the asymmetrical vertical load is successfully implemented for the path tracking profile.
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Paper Nr: 27
Title:

Closed - Loop Control of Plate Temperature using Inverse Problem

Authors:

Dan Necsulescu, Bilal Jarrah and Jurek Sasiadek

Abstract: In this paper the temperature at one side of a plate is used to control in closed loop the temperature on the opposite side of the plate. To solve this problem, Laplace transform is used to obtain the quadrupole model of the direct heat equation and the analytical solution for the transfer function for the inverse problem. The resulting hyperbolic functions are approximated by Taylor expansions to facilitate the real-time closed loop temperature control formulation. Simulation results illustrate the advantages and permit to identify the limitations of using inverse problem to closed loop control temperature of a plate.
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Paper Nr: 66
Title:

Fuzzy Control with Friction Compensation for a Pneumatic Positioning System

Authors:

Kuo-Ming Chang, Yung-Tien Liu and Sheng-Jung Hsieh

Abstract: In this paper, a fuzzy control with friction compensation is developed to deal with a nonlinear pneumatic positioning system characterized with friction, unknown system model, and external disturbance. In order to enhance the positioning accuracy, a control scheme is designed for compensating the friction effect of the moving stage. Positioning experiments based on the derived control strategy were performed to show and validate the proposed control performance. As two experimental examples of positioning results in a total of 30 experimental trials for the stepwise input positioning controls, the positioning accuracy with less than 30nm was verified for both forward and backward actuations with step commands. Hence, the control scheme provided in this paper that could significantly improve the positioning performance of a traditional pneumatic positioning system is demonstrated.
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Paper Nr: 79
Title:

Electric Power System Operation: A Petri Net Approach for Modeling and Control

Authors:

Milton Souza, Evangivaldo Lima and Jés Cerqueira

Abstract: In this paper the operation of electric power system is treated as a discrete event system and a Petri Net is used as formal tool to achieve it. Each component of power system is modelled as a single Petri Net and the complete model is reached by composition of these single Petri Nets. Properties such as: parallelism, conflict, concurrency and others are used to study the operation of the modelled system. In this study are detected undesired behaviors on the dynamics of system. The theory of supervisory control is used to avoid these undesired behaviors forcing the system to have a controlled behavior. To obtain a controlled system a set of constraint are modelled by linear inequalities and the systems is forced to obey it. A case study application is presented to illustrate the proposed model here.
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Paper Nr: 80
Title:

Development of a Cost-effective Data Acquisition System using an Open-source Hardware and Matlab/Simulink

Authors:

Sugkil Seo, Yeong Sang Park and Young Sam Lee

Abstract: This paper proposes a new cost-effective data acquisition system using open-source hardware and Matlab/Simulink. The proposed data acquisition (DAQ) system has features that it uses the framed data protocol based on hex encoding, it can acquire multiple data which are not of the same type at different sample rates, and the system receives data through USB communication or serial communication. The software of the proposed system consists of the firmware of a microcontroller and user-defined Simulink function block. The firmware of a microcontroller is in the form of a header file, and the data acquisition can be easily achieved by calling a few functions defined in the header file. The developed user-defined Simulink block can get multiple data at different sample rates by configuring the GUI parameters appropriately. For implementation of the system, we use the Arch Max, which is the open-source hardware with an ARM Cortex-M4 core, and also use a user-defined c-code S-function of Matlab/Simulink. For the demonstration of the superiority of the implemented system, we compare the proposed system’s performance with that of the data acquisition system provided in Matlab/Simulink Instrument Control Toolbox. Finally we illustrate how presented system can be actually used by applying the proposed system to DC motor control.
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Paper Nr: 95
Title:

Feature Extraction and Recognition of Rotational Target under the Sea Background

Authors:

Bing Zhu, Weixin Gao, Yali Qin, Wenfeng Li and Xianglong Kong

Abstract: Considering the impact of sea clutter on target classification and recognition, a method based on RBF is proposed to restrain the actual sea clutter, which can be converted the sea clutter into random noise. After denosing, a S transform time-frequency approach is used to obtain the two time-frequency distribution images. They are helicopter and propeller aircraft images with nosie. Then extracted the invariant moment features of images for target recognition. The simulation results have shown an average accuracy of 85%, which validates the effectiveness of this method.
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Paper Nr: 120
Title:

Peaks Emergence Conditions in Free Movement Trajectories of Linear Stable Systems

Authors:

Nina A. Vunder and Anatoly V. Ushakov

Abstract: The paper considers a asymptotically stable linear system with real eigenvalues of state matrix. It was found that a peak in free movement trajectories arises. Geometric interpretation of peaks emergence was presented through eigenspace. Quantitative estimate of the peak was obtained by using the condition number of matrix of eigenvectors.
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Paper Nr: 177
Title:

Steerable Filters for Rotation Invariant Salient Feature Points Applied to Monocular SLAM

Authors:

Younès Raoui and El Houssine Bouyakhf

Abstract: In this paper, we propose a new detector descriptor for the visual salient points and use it for a monocular visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (visualSLAM) application. Because in SLAM, the landmarks should be indexed with distinctive features, we aim to build a detector descriptor insuring the invariance to the rotation and the scale. First, the detector starts filtering an image with a steerable filter set, extracts Harris corners from the convolved image, next it clusters these corners, then it calculates a resulting set of feature points. We show that the repeatability of the detector is higher that other detectors like SIFT, SURF, CENSURE and BRISC. In addition, we implement the descriptor using color attributes. We represent the color at the location of each feature point with a pyramid characterized with many levels of quantization, and we calculate the entropy at each level. We make a simulation of Visual SLAM with known correspondences using these features to prove their efficiency in the localization and the map management of the robot.
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Paper Nr: 182
Title:

A Hybrid Visualization of the Environment using Smart Ultrasound-based Sensor Arrays

Authors:

Emir Sokic, Kenan Softic, Mina Ferizbegovic, Jasmina Zubaca and Melita Ahic-Djokic

Abstract: This paper presents the work in progress on the design and testing of a distributed ultrasound-based sensory system for hybrid 1D and 2D environment visualisation. Many common sensors used in robotics, such as infrared and ultrasonic sensors, cameras and lasers mainly focus on quantifying distances and shapes, while rarely have the ability to differentiate among different sensed surfaces/materials. We propose an inexpensive prototype sensory system based on popular ultrasonic sensors which uses ultrasonic reflections to determine the acoustic reflection coefficients. This additional feature allows differentiating among sensed objects. Moreover, the developed ultrasonic cells are equipped with a microcontroller for basic signal processing and a communication link for integration into a sensor network. In this paper, we discuss the possibility of fusing obtained sensor array data and laser measurements.
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