Low-Cost Portable System to Support People with Visual Disabilities

[abstFig src='/00290001/20.jpg' width='300' text='Bird songs recorded and localized by HARKBird' ] Understanding auditory scenes is important when deploying intelligent robots and systems in real-world environments. We believe that robot audition can better recognize acoustic events in the field as compared to conventional methods such as human observation or recording using single-channel microphone array. We are particularly interested in acoustic interactions among songbirds. Birds do not always vocalize at random, for example, but may instead divide a soundscape so that they avoid overlapping their songs with those of other birds. To understand such complex interaction processes, we must collect much spatiotemporal data in which multiple individuals and species are singing simultaneously. However, it is costly and difficult to annotate many or long recorded tracks manually to detect their interactions. In order to solve this problem, we are developing HARKBird, an easily-available and portable system consisting of a laptop PC with open-source software for robot audition HARK (Honda Research Institute Japan Audition for Robots with Kyoto University) together with a low-cost and commercially available microphone array. HARKBird enables us to extract the songs of multiple individuals from recordings automatically. In this paper, we introduce the current status of our project and report preliminary results of recording experiments in two different types of forests – one in the USA and the other in Japan – using this system to automatically estimate the direction of arrival of the songs of multiple birds, and separate them from the recordings. We also discuss asymmetries among species in terms of their tendency to partition temporal resources.

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A portable system for the measurement of the temporal parameters of gait

Prosthetics and Orthotics International ◽

10.1080/03093640108726581 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 25 (2) ◽

pp. 96-101 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

V. Kyriazis ◽

C. Rigas ◽

T. Xenakis

Keyword(s):

Gait Analysis ◽

Gait Cycle ◽

Low Cost ◽

Single Step ◽

Healthy Adults ◽

Cycle Duration ◽

Temporal Parameters ◽

Step Duration ◽

Portable System ◽

Single Limb Support

An easy-to-use, low cost, portable system is presented. It consists of a transmitter, four electrical sensors, a receiver and a PC with the appropriate software. The system can assess footfall timing, that is the single limb support, double limb support, single step duration values, and the gait cycle duration.This system has been tested for its accuracy with known signals. Then, measurements on a group of twenty (20) healthy adults were performed, with statistically insignificant (p>0.2) results to those reported in the literature. The above prove the system's validity for temporal gait analysis

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Utilización de la Comunicación por Radiofrecuencia para la Detección de Vehículos en Movimiento: Revisión del Estado del Arte

KnE Engineering ◽

10.18502/keg.v3i1.1503 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

pp. 821 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Antony García ◽

Yessica Sáez ◽

José Muñoz ◽

Ignacio Chang ◽

Héctor Montes Franceschi

Keyword(s):

Fixed Point ◽

Public Transportation ◽

State Of The Art ◽

Low Cost ◽

The State ◽

Visual Disability ◽

Visual Disabilities ◽

The Public ◽

Detection Of Objects ◽

Public Transportation System

This article presents the state of the art on the use of radiofrequency communication for the detection of objects and vehicles in motion, through the interaction between transmitter and receiver devices using ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical) bands. By quantifying parameters such as the absence or presence of signals and their intensity, it is possible to approximate the distance between an emitting device and a receiver, localized in the vehicle and a fixed point, respectively . The study of the methodologies used in this article aims to develop a system oriented to guide people with visual disabilities in the public transportation system, taking advantage of the main characteristics of radiofrequency communication: low cost, easy implementation and full compatibility with electronic boards built on embedded systems.Keywords: radiofrequency, ISM bands, detection of vehicles in motion, support for visual disability people, ETA

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A MEMS-Based Multi-Parameter Integrated Chip and Its Portable System for Water Quality Detection

Micromachines ◽

10.3390/mi11010063 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 63 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Ziyue Wu ◽

Jiaqi Wang ◽

Chao Bian ◽

Jianhua Tong ◽

Shanhong Xia

Keyword(s):

Water Quality ◽

Copper Ions ◽

Detection System ◽

Low Cost ◽

Temperature Response ◽

High Sensitivity ◽

Integrated Sensor ◽

Quality Detection ◽

Portable Detection ◽

Portable System

As an important means to protect water resources, water quality detection is of great social and economic significance. Water quality detection sensors processed by micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) technology have the advantages of low-cost, small size, and high sensitivity. In this paper, a multi-parameter water quality detection integrated sensor chip is further studied, and a portable detection system using this chip is developed. Temperature, pH, oxidation-reduction potential (ORP), conductivity and concentration of copper ions (Cu2+) are selected as typical water quality parameters. Experiments of sensor calibrations using this portable detection system were performed in standard solutions. The sensor has a sensitivity of −57.34 mV/pH in pH detection and 5.95 Ω/°C in temperature response. ORP is directly detected by Pt microelectrode on the chip and the relative error is less than 3%. The electrode constant of the sensor is 1.416 cm−1 and the linearity is 0.9995 in conductivity detection. With the gold nanoparticles deposited on the electrode, the detection peak of Cu2+ appears at 280 mV and the sensor shows good linearity to the concentration of Cu2+ in the range of 0–0.6 mg/L. The detection limit of Cu2+ concentration is 2.33 μg/L. Through measurement and calculation, the accuracy of the portable system is within 4%. This portable multi-parameter water quality detection system with the MEMS-based integrated chip shows great potential in the field and fast detection.

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