http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/ en Copyright 07:57 PM Wednesday 22, 2012 IFAC-PapersOnline http://www.ifacpapersonline.com 07:57 PM Wednesday 22, 2012 07:57 PM Wednesday 22, 2012 ET webmaster@ifac-papersonline.net webmaster@ifac-papersonline.net http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/45055.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 This paper describes a concept for a behaviour-based integration of tele-operator commands into the control system of a mobile robot. The control system presented features different control modes which allow for pure tele-operation, assisted tele-operation, and fully autonomous navigation. It is explained how the tele-operator can influence the robot's motion at any time and how he can simply and continuously change the degree of his influence. http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/45035.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 This paper presents an user interface study to control a highly distributed system. The user interface is developed to control a multi-robot system, which is based on ``component-based'' architecture using hardware abstraction. This paper present the general principles of the user interface and provides an example of Graphical User Interface for controlling a generic fleet of machines. http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/45063.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 One of the most acute problem of large urban agglomerations is the efficace management of their traffic infrastructure. Due to the socio-economical dynamics, it is a fact that the number of cars is increasing at a far more important rate than the infrastructure, resulting, especially at peak-hours, in traffic congestions that affect the quality of life, in terms of stress, noise, safety and pollution. These problems can be solved, at a certain level, by pollitical measures and public education, but they also need a technical approach related to the adaptation of urban traffic functioning at real context. More speciffically, traffic congestion can and should be avoided, in certain circumstances, by adaptating the duration of traffic lights to the car flow, this being an approach that necessitates the lowest investments in infrastructure modifications. Higher investments and different approaches can be justified when the problem became insolvable by traffic light control. The paper presents a software platform that was conceived for supporting the traffic light control approach for avoiding traffic congestions. The structure and functioning of the platform is related to the agent-oriented modelling approach for the traffic infrastructure, that will be described in section I. The agent-oriented approach is justified both by the difficulty of globally modelling a traffic network, with high dynamics and large-scale, complex structure and by the necessity to offer to the platform users a flexible, open-system environment for building their own process to analize. Basically, an agent is managing a crossroad, thus including information on its physical structure (number of input/ output car flows, structure of light cycles), links with adjacent agents (capacity of input roads) and functioning context (car-flows, actual durations for traffic light cycles etc.). The formal modelling approach is a hybrid one, taking into account both the continuous approximation of the car flow and the discrete structure of traffic lights cycle. http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/45019.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 Telematic control systems have a lot of potential applications in teleservicing of remote sites: they range from surveillance of regular operations over optimization of existing processes to remote error resolving. In this paper, we describe the general architecture of a telematic control system employed to survey an industrial work cell, and show how Augmented Reality (AR) can support an operator in grasping events and conditions at the remote site more clearly, thus getting a better situational awareness. After describing several specic examples from the AR tool-range, potential uses of the system are presented. http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/45021.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 Currently, ecological monitoring is an important issue of discussions in science, industry, and politics. This work presents a distributed telematics infrastructure which allows for flexible ecological monitoring of large areas. By interconnecting beehives, a large network of distributed sensors is installed, which allows not only for a detailed long term and near real-time monitoring of the bee behavior in different environments. Also the information which can be deducted from the bees themselves (e.g. about pollution) can be collected this way, which enables monitoring of large areas surrounding the hives. In this work, a system is proposed which provides the telematics infrastructure to realize this method of ecological monitoring. It can also be extended by mobile robots with special sensor equipment to get more detailed and accurate measurements in zones of special interest. Details on requirements, system design, and the implementation are given. http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/45049.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 This paper presents the calibration procedure of a car-like mobile robot with a high-precision positioning system. The mobile robot, which was calibrated, is a small outdoor vehicle designed for teleoperated missions. The aim of the calibration is the achievement of an accurate locomotion, therefore the incremental propulsion sensor, the gyroscope, the propulsion actuator and the steering actuator were analyzed with the help of an active optical high-precision positioning system. http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/45031.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 This paper presents a research project for a CBRNE hazard detection robot prototype for the German Military Forces. One of the main design principles is the usage of commercially available sensors that can be exchanged and upgraded easily without touching the underlying robot platform. First assistance functions on the way to semi-autonomy, like GPS waypoint following are introduced. http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/45001.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 In this paper a new traffic management approach towards co-operative intersection management systems based on wireless exchange of traffic flow information and analysis shall be proposed. This proposal uses in-vehicle equipment combined with an innovative traffic control system. This main communication concept is placed into a modular unit in order to make the Floating Car Data of the vehicles directly available to the traffic management units by using the automotive communication technology IEEE 802.11p. This enables the availability of current information for the local and global traffic management and furthermore traffic light information for the individual traffic. Together the usage of this data offers advanced and cooperative applications for traffic management scenarios. http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/45053.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 This paper describes various mechanisms for supervisory remote operation of an UGV. Contrary to common Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11) approaches our approach enables communication via a lossy low-bandwidth radio link. The mechanisms include the massive reduction of environmental sensor data for transmission to the operator. The vehicle itself is capable of semiautonomous control. Doing so, the operator is removed from the high frequent vehicle control loop and maintains situational awareness. http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/45015.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 The paper proposes a new control architecture for risk management in industrial processes. In case of a hazard situation, extreme caution must be taken in operating industrial facilities. Such plants quickly reach critical conditions, far from the nominal regime, and require special control in order to keep operating safely. In case further operation is not possible, the plant must be safely shut down. This new approach will be achieved by implementing a new hierarchical decision level implemented in a remote location, using high-tech products and technologies along with new algorithms and strategies. http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/45005.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 Observed engineering challenges of developing water quality monitoring networks are presented in this paper and appropriate solution approaches are proposed. Water quality monitoring stations are important tools in the area of environmental water science that are used to collect measurement values. Because of missing plug-and-play support in prevalent field bus systems and lack of semantic information available in sensor devices, the installation and maintenance of monitoring stations requires much more effort than desirable form the perspective of engineers and users. An approach is proposed to reduce this effort by providing a catalog of predefined devices that contains all necessary semantic information. Finally, requirements for advanced field bus systems in the domain of monitoring automation are derived in order to encourage future improvements that minimize engineering effort. http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/45025.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 - http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/45043.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 Design of the topology is a time challenging task even for simple demands for network reliability. If the demands for the reliability are more complex (e.g. different number of independent paths in different parts of the network), the design will need a huge amount of time. If we want to apply the network in the control engineering, we do not have another choice than design a reliable network which will not be expensive. Therefore, we must use an algorithm that designs the reliable network even if it is time demanding. For that reason, we propose a parallelization of the network design algorithm. This parallelization significantly speeds up the whole algorithm and allows designing medium sized networks as well as vast networks relatively fast. http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/44999.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 Stationary detectors together with Floating Car Data (FCD) are used today to generate information about the current situation on the roads. Without the need of equipping vehicle fleets with FCD sensors or installing lots of stationary detectors, the novel technique of Floating Car Observer (FCO) offers an alternative for capaciously measuring the oncoming traffic. Thereby, the speeds of oncoming vehicles are measured from a moving vehicle using a special sensor module. According to this principle, a low-cost visual sensor module has been developed. This sensor uses the reflection capability of passing vehicles’ number plates in order to achieve data about driving direction and speed of these vehicles. The detection capabilities of the developed FCO module has been tested in several field tests. In urban scenarios the detection has been adapted to public transport requirements where the highway scenarios have been specialised concerning the detection of traffic situations in roadwork construction sites. This paper describes the hardware and software components of the sensor module as well as the field test results with detailed explanations. http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/45051.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 The paper is reviewing several technical solutions supporting seamless care, focused on homecare and continuity of care. The comparison is made exploring mainly the technical solution, but also end users benefits (patients, healthcare providers), number of participants and structure of the consortium developing the project, budget, and duration. A good healthcare strategy is built around the principle of citizen-centred, seamless service structures. Among the main targets are: the horizontal integration of services (social, primary and secondary care) and the development of shared, coordinated services delivered closer to home. In modern societies citizens and patients are envisioned as informed and participative agents in the healthcare delivery process. To realise this vision, the use of ICT is essential. A technical model and the structure of the teams that can develop such applications paving the way towards regional level service provision and improvement is suggested. http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/45061.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 The concept of intelligent ambient supposes the user benefits of services and facilities in an ad-hoc manner, seamless in a defined area. This particularly requires finding certain solutions to communicate and control remotely the specific appliances and devices. The category of individuals that need teleassistance includes persons with special needs (i.e. elderly, chronics, etc.) whose life style should be monitored and guided according to personalized plans. The communication and virtual interaction diverse persons is very important so that the dedicated information must be delivered to the human subject at the right place and just in time. In this paper it is proposed a system for remote control of the TV-sets in a residence so that they become able to receive and display some thematic programs running on an embedded PC, which is generally placed into other room. The system includes two parts: one is dedicated to the remote control of the TV-set and the other is to transmit the movie from PC to TV. A key issue to solve the problem was to assure the remote control of the TV-set by PC without user action involving and also avoiding any modification inside the existent equipments. The approach was finalized with an original system for controlling and monitoring the state of the different type of TV-sets in order to receive the information from the PC unit placed in other location. The proposed solution is based on a special programmable unit which manages a radio receiver module and an IR transceiver. The programmable unit learns previously the certain code from the original TV remote controller, and then it is able to receive via radio channel, from the homologue transceiver plugged into the PC the certain commands like switch-on/off, AV mode, sound volume, etc. As the set switch-on AV mode the PC unit delivery the film via a PC to TV wireless converter. The entire process’s timing and the task control is done by a custom designed software application. http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/45057.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 - http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/45003.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 Typically, traffic in large conurbations is regulated by an expensive and complex traffic management centre. In smaller cities, the implementation of a traffic management centre may not be an appropriate solution. A new approach is the development of a decentralised network with the splitting of work and competencies on all actors in a community with equal rights and responsibilities. This paper describes a new method to share traffic data in a cost-efficient way without the implementation of a traffic management centre. http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/44991.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/45039.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 Today’s performant equipment and high speed connections make network control systems a reality. For a series of teleoperation applications like the ones from network control systems domain it is essential to estimate the time delay between the acquisition moment of primary data that needs to be sent and the moment it is available for the receiver’s use. This paper presents a methodology for estimating the time delay from experimental measurements, while also taking into account the information loss during transmission. A series of unwanted exceptions that may occur in signal transmission are identified and solution methods are proposed. Based on the above study, three real scenarios were designed for three TCP/IP network types. These scenarios were implemented through simulations for a telecontrol system that uses adaptive PD compensators for the time-varying delays. Finally, the improvement in the system’s performances with the PD compensators were validated using real life scenarios. http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/45041.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 Under lab conditions various autonomous behaviors are realized and simulated today, but there is still a long way to everyday applications using these capabilities. Therefore this paper will describe our current research results under competition conditions where, in opposite to presentations or test runs for validation and detailed analysis of algorithms, not everything is planable in advance. We will describe the importance of robustness and intuitive control panels, as well as the "follow the leader" capabilities of our technology demonstration vehicle, using different levels of autonomy, starting from direct control through teleoperation, finally to fully autonomous terrain-based optimized following. This will bring us to the description of adaptive robot control, where the method for robot control depends on the terrain, the mission, and the availability of supervision by a human operator. Therefore several underlying technologies have been extended or newly developed directly, like an specific A* algorithm, that considers non-holonomic constraints and some basic researches on global optimization methods, like mixed integer programming, and its combination with local reactive collision avoidance methods like VFH+ or Fuzzy Systems. http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/45017.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 Conventional approaches for the implementation of modern user interfaces for teleoperation of mobile robots in ad-hoc networks target to optimize only the communication link. Thus, remaining effects from network behavior in the user interface are still visible to the human operator. Here an approach is presented which aims to minimize also the perception by the human of these effects. This work shows and compares the behavior of three different user interface implementations which are capable for mobile robot teleoperation via ad-hoc networks. As starting point, a user interface is used which is not reacting on the situations of the communication link. Here, all changes in the network topology and network configuration, as well as the effects of the network load are directly visible for the user. The traditional approach uses an intelligent traffic shaping between the mobile robot and the user interface. Thus, short disruptions of the communication link or small delays are avoided. Nevertheless, a longer communication break down is still influencing the teleoperation capabilities of the user. The "predictive interface" which is is presented within the frame of this work also allows for teleoperation of the mobile robot while compensating longer communication losses. Finally, this work discusses constraints and requirements for a successful realization of predictive interfaces for mobile robot teleoperation via ad-hoc networks. http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/45029.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 The exploration and three dimension map building of mobile robot tasks in an unknown environment are normally do not have any future reference information. The mobile robot has to estimate positions and poses itself. Finding the distinguishable objects in environment are also required in order to create the pose reference points. Therefore, the selected sensors and register mapping algorithm are significant. The sensors which can provide both of depth and image data are still deficient. Recently, the Photonic Mixture Device camera (PMD) is a three dimension sensor which generates real-time high rate volume output of surrounding scenario as well as gray scale data. However, one PMD camera drawback is low resolution output. From this problem, the idea to fusion another high resolution CCD camera to PMD depth data is purposed. In this study hence presents the mobile robot exploration using integration of CCD and PMD camera in order to create the three dimension mapping. The Iterative Closest Point (ICP) algorithm is used for matching clouding points and minimizing the interval pose of the two scans. Eventually, the difference three dimension mapping output between fusion CCD camera and use only pure depth data are presented and evaluated. http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/45033.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 With the standardization of communication done, reliable power sources are the main challenge faced by wireless system in industrial automation. While primary cells are suitable power sources, they still require maintenance after several years which increases the total cost of a wireless network. In this paper we analyze the state of the art with primary cells and the standard electronics and show possible approaches to increase the service life of wireless industrial devices. http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/Detailed/44997.html 04:00 PM Wednesday 31, 1969 The task of optimizing a mixed-signal system for low power operation is a constant trade-off between consumption and performance that requires fast and accurate power consumption data on each step to evaluate its results. A power profiling system based on current mirrors and an energy driven approach was developed. Its main advantage in comparison to standard shunt based measurement techniques lies in the fact that it is a non-intrusive system that can be automated and targeted for specific blocks of code in an embedded system or to hardware blocks in a mixed-signal system. It was tested and implemented in an ABB project aiming for the autonomous and low power operation of an industrial temperature measurement device. http://www.ifac-papersonline.net/static/luna/images/ifac/icon-download.gif