2021
Autores
Zawadniak, PVF; Piardi, L; Brito, T; Lima, J; Costa, P; Monteiro, ALR; Costa, P; Pereira, AI;
Publicação
SN APPLIED SCIENCES
Abstract
The micromouse competition has been gaining prominence in the robotic atmosphere, due to the challenging and multidisciplinary characteristics provided by the teams' duels, being a gateway for those who intend to deepen their studies in autonomous robotics. In this context, this paper presents a realistic micromouse simulator developed with Unity software, a widely game engine with dynamics and 3D development platform used. The developed simulator has hardware-in-the-loop capabilities, aims to be simple to use, it can be customizable, and designed to be as similar as possible to the real robot configurations. In this way, the proposed simulator requires few modifications to port the microcontroller code to a real robot. Therefore, the framework presented in this work allows the user to simulate the development of new algorithm strategies dedicated to competition and also hardware updates. The simulation supports several mazes, from previous competitions and has the possibility to add different mazes elaborated by the user. Thus, the features and functionality of the simulator can serve to accelerate the project's development of the beginning and advanced competitors, using real models to reduce the gap between the mouse robot behavior in the simulation and the reality. The developed simulation environment is available to the community.
2021
Autores
Cassola, F; Pinto, M; Mendes, D; Morgado, L; Coelho, A; Paredes, H;
Publicação
2021 IEEE CONFERENCE ON VIRTUAL REALITY AND 3D USER INTERFACES ABSTRACTS AND WORKSHOPS (VRW 2021)
Abstract
The use of VR in industrial training contributes to reduce costs and risks, supporting more frequent and diversified use of experiential learning activities, an approach with proven results. In this work, we present an innovative immersive authoring tool for experiential learning in VR-based training. It enables a trainer to structure an entire VR training course in an immersive environment, defining its sub-components, models, tools, and settings, as well as specifying by demonstration the actions to be performed by trainees. The trainees performing the immersive training course have their actions recorded and matched to the ones specified by the trainer.
2021
Autores
Adao, T; Pinho, T; Padua, L; Magalhaes, LG; Sousa, JJ; Peres, E;
Publicação
APPLIED SCIENCES-BASEL
Abstract
Business models built upon multimedia/multisensory setups delivering user experiences within disparate contexts-entertainment, tourism, cultural heritage, etc.-usually comprise the installation and in-situ management of both equipment and digital contents. Considering each setup as unique in its purpose, location, layout, equipment and digital contents, monitoring and control operations may add up to a hefty cost over time. Software and hardware agnosticity may be of value to lessen complexity and provide more sustainable management processes and tools. Distributed computing under the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm may enable management processes capable of providing both remote control and monitoring of multimedia/multisensory experiences made available in different venues. A prototyping software to perform IoT multimedia/multisensory simulations is presented in this paper. It is fully based on virtual environments that enable the remote design, layout, and configuration of each experience in a transparent way, without regard of software and hardware. Furthermore, pipelines to deliver contents may be defined, managed, and updated in a context-aware environment. This software was tested in the laboratory and was proven as a sustainable approach to manage multimedia/multisensory projects. It is currently being field-tested by an international multimedia company for further validation.
2021
Autores
Guimaraes, V; Sousa, I; Correia, MV;
Publicação
SENSORS
Abstract
Gait performance is an important marker of motor and cognitive decline in older adults. An instrumented gait analysis resorting to inertial sensors allows the complete evaluation of spatiotemporal gait parameters, offering an alternative to laboratory-based assessments. To estimate gait parameters, foot trajectories are typically obtained by integrating acceleration two times. However, to deal with cumulative integration errors, additional error handling strategies are required. In this study, we propose an alternative approach based on a deep recurrent neural network to estimate heel and toe trajectories. We propose a coordinate frame transformation for stride trajectories that eliminates the dependency from previous strides and external inputs. Predicted trajectories are used to estimate an extensive set of spatiotemporal gait parameters. We evaluate the results in a dataset comprising foot-worn inertial sensor data acquired from a group of young adults, using an optical motion capture system as a reference. Heel and toe trajectories are predicted with low errors, in line with reference trajectories. A good agreement is also achieved between the reference and estimated gait parameters, in particular when turning strides are excluded from the analysis. The performance of the method is shown to be robust to imperfect sensor-foot alignment conditions.
2021
Autores
Öztürk E.G.; Rodrigues A.M.; Ferreira J.S.;
Publicação
Proceedings of the International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management
Abstract
Sectorization refers to partitioning a large territory, network, or area into smaller parts or sectors considering one or more objectives. Sectorization problems appear in diverse realities and applications. For instance, political districting, waste collection, maintenance operations, forest planning, health or school districting are only some of the application fields. Commonly, sectorization problems respect a set of features necessary to be preserved to evaluate the solutions. These features change for different sectorization applications. Thus, it is important to conceive the needs and the preferences of the decision-makers about the solutions. In the current paper, we solve sectorization problems using the Genetic Algorithm by considering three objectives: equilibrium, compactness, and contiguity. These objectives are collected within a single composite objective function to evaluate the solutions over generations. Moreover, the Analytical Hierarchy Process, a powerful method to perceive the relative importance of several objectives regarding decision makers' preferences, is used to construct the weights. We observe the changes in the solutions by considering different sectorization problems that prioritize various objectives. The results show that the solutions' progress changed accurately to the given importance of each objective over generations.
2021
Autores
Carvalho, C; Moreira, RS; Torres, JM;
Publicação
2021 IEEE 11TH ANNUAL COMPUTING AND COMMUNICATION WORKSHOP AND CONFERENCE (CCWC)
Abstract
This project proposes a machine learning (ML) pipeline for inferring office employee's well-being, from heterogeneous sources of contextual data (cf. physiological, social and workplace environment), which brings several demanding issues. In this paper we focus specifically in raw data collection problems and pre-processing challenges. To start with, context data was collected in real environments, during weeks, in several office organizations and involving employees along theirs daily working routines. Moreover, data collection resort to a wide range of sources (e.g. sensors, questionnaires, apps, etc.) that were subject to potential interferences and noisy conditions. Given the influence of data quality in ML algorithms results and considering the number of instruments used, it was essential to implement a pre-processing stage to automate and improve the quality of collected data. Hence, the usefulness of the proposed DQVA tool, which computes several common statistical measures and provides also graphical and tabular visual insights about the data. For example, it allows to: i) compare data sources from different participants and organizations, on a per sensor/data source basis (through data tables, data distribution histograms, and visualizations); iii) check and pinspot the existence of outliers; iv) visually spot signal gaps; etc. Therefore, we argue that the proposed DQVA tool allows to evaluate, per sensor and per individual, raw data quality, on the integration stage of our classification pipeline. It proved to be an agile, useful and simple to re-use tool for detecting raw data irregularities, thus increasing data quality assurances for the next steps of our classification pipeline.
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