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- Dynamic waste collection strategy to optimize routes using open-source toolPublication . Silva, Adriano S.; Brito, Thadeu; Díaz de Tuesta, Jose Luis; Lima, José; Pereira, Ana I.; Silva, Adrián; Gomes, Helder
- Deep learning method to identify fire ignitionsPublication . Mendes, João; Brito, Thadeu; Pereira, Ana I.; Lima, JoséThe SAFe project aims to create and implement a set of innovative operations that minimize the time of forest ignitions identification contributing to the development of the Trás-os-Montes region. Thus, it is intended to locate a set of sensors in the forest, data information will be collected, and the artificial intelligence algorithm Deep Learning will be applied to achieve the intended end. Numerical results demonstrated the approach reliability.
- Robot-assisted rehabilitation architecture supported by a distributed data acquisition systemPublication . Chellal, Arezki Abderrahim; Lima, José; Gonçalves, José; Fernandes, Florbela P.; Pacheco, Maria F.; Monteiro, Fernando C.; Brito, Thadeu; Soares, SalvianoRehabilitation robotics aims to facilitate the rehabilitation procedure for patients and physical therapists. This field has a relatively long history dating back to the 1990s; however, their implementation and the standardisation of their application in the medical field does not follow the same pace, mainly due to their complexity of reproduction and the need for their approval by the authorities. This paper aims to describe architecture that can be applied to industrial robots and promote their application in healthcare ecosystems. The control of the robotic arm is performed using the software called SmartHealth, offering a 2 Degree of Autonomy (DOA). Data are gathered through electromyography (EMG) and force sensors at a frequency of 45 Hz. It also proves the capabilities of such small robots in performing such medical procedures. Four exercises focused on shoulder rehabilitation (passive, restricted active-assisted, free active-assisted and Activities of Daily Living (ADL)) were carried out and confirmed the viability of the proposed architecture and the potential of small robots (i.e., the UR3) in rehabilitation procedure accomplishment. This robot can perform the majority of the default exercises in addition to ADLs but, nevertheless, their limits were also uncovered, mainly due to their limited Range of Motion (ROM) and cost.
- Optimum sensors allocation for a forest fires monitoring systemPublication . Azevedo, Beatriz Flamia; Brito, Thadeu; Lima, José; Pereira, Ana I.Every year forest fires destroy millions of hectares of land worldwide. Detecting forest fire ignition in the early stages is fundamental to avoid forest fires catastrophes. In this approach, Wireless Sensor Network is explored to develop a monitoring system to send alert to authorities when a fire ignition is detected. The study of sensors allocation is essential in this type of monitoring system since its performance is directly related to the position of the sensors, which also defines the coverage region. In this paper, a mathematical model is proposed to solve the sensor allocation problem. This model considers the sensor coverage limitation, the distance, and the forest density interference in the sensor reach. A Genetic Algorithm is implemented to solve the optimisation model and minimise the forest fire hazard. The results obtained are promising since the algorithm could allocate the sensor avoiding overlaps and minimising the total fire hazard value for both regions considered.
- Honeycomb map: a bioinspired topological map for indoor search and rescue unmanned aerial vehiclesPublication . Rosa, Ricardo; Wehrmeister, Marco Aurelio; Brito, Thadeu; Lima, José; Pereira, Ana I.The use of robots to map disaster-stricken environments can prevent rescuers from being harmed when exploring an unknown space. In addition, mapping a multi-robot environment can help these teams plan their actions with prior knowledge. The present work proposes the use of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the construction of a topological map inspired by the way that bees build their hives. A UAV can map a honeycomb only if it is adjacent to a known one. Different metrics to choose the honeycomb to be explored were applied. At the same time, as UAVs scan honeycomb adjacencies, RGB-D and thermal sensors capture other data types, and then generate a 3D view of the space and images of spaces where there may be fire spots, respectively. Simulations in different environments showed that the choice of metric and variation in the number of UAVs influence the number of performed displacements in the environment, consequently affecting exploration time and energy use.
- Intelligent collision avoidance system for industrial manipulatorsPublication . Brito, Thadeu; Lima, José; Neli, Roberto Ribeiro; Costa, Pedro GomesThe new paradigm of Industry 4.0 demand the collaboration between robot and humans. They could help (human and robot) and collaborate each other without any additional security, unlike other conventional manipulators. For this, the robot should have the ability of acquire the environment and plan (or re-plan) on-the-fly the movement avoiding the obstacles and people. This work proposes a system that acquires the space of the environment, based on a Kinect sensor, verifies the free spaces generated by a Point Cloud and executes the trajectory of manipulators in these free spaces. The simulation system should perform the path planning of a UR5 manipulator for pick-and-place tasks, while avoiding the objects around it, based on the point cloud from Kinect. And due to the results obtained in the simulation, it was possible to apply this system in real situations. The basic structure of the system is the ROS software, which facilitates robotic applications with a powerful set of libraries and tools. The MoveIt! and Rviz are examples of these tools, with them it was possible to carry out simulations and obtain planning results. The results are reported through logs files, indicating whether the robot motion plain was successful and how many manipulator poses were needed to create the final movement. This last step, allows to validate the proposed system, through the use of the RRT and PRM algorithms. Which were chosen because they are most used in the field of robot path planning.
- Wireless sensor network for ignitions detection: an IoT approachPublication . Brito, Thadeu; Pereira, Ana I.; Lima, José; Valente, AntónioWireless Sensor Networks (WSN) can be used to acquire environmental variables useful for decision-making, such as agriculture and forestry. Installing a WSN on the forest will allow the acquisition of ecological variables of high importance on risk analysis and fire detection. The presented paper addresses two types of WSN developed modules that can be used on the forest to detect fire ignitions using LoRaWAN to establish the communication between the nodes and a central system. The collaboration between these modules generate a heterogeneous WSN; for this reason, both are designed to complement each other. The first module, the HTW, has sensors that acquire data on a wide scale in the target region, such as air temperature and humidity, solar radiation, barometric pressure, among others (can be expanded). The second, the 5FTH, has a set of sensors with point data acquisition, such as flame ignition, humidity, and temperature. To test HTW and 5FTH, a LoRaWAN communication based on the Lorix One gateway is used, demonstrating the acquisition and transmission of forest data (simulation and real cases). Even in internal or external environments, these results allow validating the developed modules. Therefore, they can assist authorities in fighting wildfire and forest surveillance systems in decision-making.
- Micromouse 3D simulator with dynamics capability: a unity environment approachPublication . Zawadniak, Pedro Victor Fontoura; Piardi, Luis; Brito, Thadeu; Lima, José; Costa, Pedro; Monteiro, André Luiz Régis; Costa, Paulo Gomes da; Pereira, Ana I.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, The Author(s).
- Data acquisition filtering focused on optimizing transmission in a LoRaWAN network applied to the WSN forest monitoring systemPublication . Brito, Thadeu; Azevedo, Beatriz Flamia; Mendes, João; Zorawski, Matheus; Fernandes, Florbela P.; Pereira, Ana I.; Rufino, José; Lima, José; Costa, Paulo Gomes daDeveloping innovative systems and operations to monitor forests and send alerts in dangerous situations, such as fires, has become, over the years, a necessary task to protect forests. In this work, a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is employed for forest data acquisition to identify abrupt anomalies when a fire ignition starts. Even though a low-power LoRaWAN network is used, each module still needs to save power as much as possible to avoid periodic maintenance since a current consumption peak happens while sending messages. Moreover, considering the LoRaWAN characteristics, each module should use the bandwidth only when essential. Therefore, four algorithms were tested and calibrated along real and monitored events of a wildfire. The first algorithm is based on the Exponential Smoothing method, Moving Averages techniques are used to define the other two algorithms, and the fourth uses the Least Mean Square. When properly combined, the algorithms can perform a pre-filtering data acquisition before each module uses the LoRaWAN network and, consequently, save energy if there is no necessity to send data. After the validations, using Wildfire Simulation Events (WSE), the developed filter achieves an accuracy rate of 0.73 with 0.5 possible false alerts. These rates do not represent a final warning to firefighters, and a possible improvement can be achieved through cloud-based server algorithms. By comparing the current consumption before and after the proposed implementation, the modules can save almost 53% of their batteries when is no demand to send data. At the same time, the modules can maintain the server informed with a minimum interval of 15 min and recognize abrupt changes in 60 s when fire ignition appears.
- Real-time monitoring and controlling of Internal parameters for smart buildingsPublication . Lima, José; Brito, Thadeu; Nakano, Alberto YoshiroHealth risks caused by air contamination have become increasingly worrying, especially when it comes to indoor air quality (IAQ), where there is a lot of concentration of gases such as carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2) and volatile organic compounds (VOC), and it is where people spend the most part of the day. With that in mind, this article presents a research that is being done in the area of intelligent building automation, which aims to develop an IAQ monitoring and control system using internet of things (IoT) technology. For this, some sensor modules will be connected, such as the BME680 and the AMBIMATE MS4, to the ESP32 microcontroller that will send the collected information to the monitoring and data storage platforms using the Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) data exchange protocol through of the Node-RED online tool. With this device, in addition to being able to monitor the internal parameters of the environment where it is installed, it will be possible to detect any adversity that may arise in the place and providing autonomously an output signal that can trigger an actuator capable of stabilizing the system, that is, without the need for any human action.