A novel tracking system for human following robots with fusion of MMW radar and monocular vision

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yipeng Zhu ◽  
Tao Wang ◽  
Shiqiang Zhu
Keyword(s):  
Sensor Fusion ◽  
Tracking System ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Point Clouds ◽  
Human Detection ◽  
Multimodal Fusion ◽  
Target Person ◽  
Fusion Algorithm ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Tracking Method

Purpose This paper aims to develop a robust person tracking method for human following robots. The tracking system adopts the multimodal fusion results of millimeter wave (MMW) radars and monocular cameras for perception. A prototype of human following robot is developed and evaluated by using the proposed tracking system. Design/methodology/approach Limited by angular resolution, point clouds from MMW radars are too sparse to form features for human detection. Monocular cameras can provide semantic information for objects in view, but cannot provide spatial locations. Considering the complementarity of the two sensors, a sensor fusion algorithm based on multimodal data combination is proposed to identify and localize the target person under challenging conditions. In addition, a closed-loop controller is designed for the robot to follow the target person with expected distance. Findings A series of experiments under different circumstances are carried out to validate the fusion-based tracking method. Experimental results show that the average tracking errors are around 0.1 m. It is also found that the robot can handle different situations and overcome short-term interference, continually track and follow the target person. Originality/value This paper proposed a robust tracking system with the fusion of MMW radars and cameras. Interference such as occlusion and overlapping are well handled with the help of the velocity information from the radars. Compared to other state-of-the-art plans, the sensor fusion method is cost-effective and requires no additional tags with people. Its stable performance shows good application prospects in human following robots.

scholarly journals Visual Sensor Fusion Based Autonomous Robotic System for Assistive Drinking

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (16) ◽  
pp. 5419
Author(s):  
Pieter Try ◽  
Steffen Schöllmann ◽  
Lukas Wöhle ◽  
Marion Gebhard
Keyword(s):  
Sensor Fusion ◽  
Robot Control ◽  
Control Algorithm ◽  
Visual Servoing ◽  
Tracking System ◽  
Single Point ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Physical Contact ◽  
Fusion Algorithm ◽  
Assistive Robots

People with severe motor impairments like tetraplegia are restricted in activities of daily living (ADL) and are dependent on continuous human assistance. Assistive robots perform physical tasks in the context of ADLs to support people in need of assistance. In this work a sensor fusion algorithm and a robot control algorithm for localizing the user’s mouth and autonomously navigating a robot arm are proposed for the assistive drinking task. The sensor fusion algorithm is implemented in a visual tracking system which consists of a 2-D camera and a single point time-of-flight distance sensor. The sensor fusion algorithm utilizes computer vision to combine camera images and distance measurements to achieve reliable localization of the user’s mouth. The robot control algorithm uses visual servoing to navigate a robot-handled drinking cup to the mouth and establish physical contact with the lips. This system features an abort command that is triggered by turning the head and unambiguous tracking of multiple faces which enable safe human robot interaction. A study with nine able-bodied test subjects shows that the proposed system reliably localizes the mouth and is able to autonomously navigate the cup to establish physical contact with the mouth.

scholarly journals A Quality Evaluation of Single and Multiple Camera Calibration Approaches for an Indoor Multi Camera Tracking System

2014 ◽  
Vol XL-5 ◽  
pp. 9-15
Author(s):  
M. Adduci ◽  
K. Amplianitis ◽  
R. Reulke
Keyword(s):  
Camera Calibration ◽  
Quality Evaluation ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Tracking System ◽  
Point Clouds ◽  
Human Detection ◽  
Sensor Calibration ◽  
Single Camera ◽  
Detection And Tracking

Human detection and tracking has been a prominent research area for several scientists around the globe. State of the art algorithms have been implemented, refined and accelerated to significantly improve the detection rate and eliminate false positives. While 2D approaches are well investigated, 3D human detection and tracking is still an unexplored research field. In both 2D/3D cases, introducing a multi camera system could vastly expand the accuracy and confidence of the tracking process. Within this work, a quality evaluation is performed on a multi RGB-D camera indoor tracking system for examining how camera calibration and pose can affect the quality of human tracks in the scene, independently from the detection and tracking approach used. After performing a calibration step on every Kinect sensor, state of the art single camera pose estimators were evaluated for checking how good the quality of the poses is estimated using planar objects such as an ordinate chessboard. With this information, a bundle block adjustment and ICP were performed for verifying the accuracy of the single pose estimators in a multi camera configuration system. Results have shown that single camera estimators provide high accuracy results of less than half a pixel forcing the bundle to converge after very few iterations. In relation to ICP, relative information between cloud pairs is more or less preserved giving a low score of fitting between concatenated pairs. Finally, sensor calibration proved to be an essential step for achieving maximum accuracy in the generated point clouds, and therefore in the accuracy of the produced 3D trajectories, from each sensor.

The cost-effectiveness of insulin analogs and regular insulin for diabetes control: a case study in Iran

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (4/5) ◽  
pp. 323-331
Author(s):  
Mohsen pakdaman ◽  
Raheleh akbari ◽  
Hamid reza Dehghan ◽  
Asra Asgharzadeh ◽  
Mahdieh Namayandeh
Keyword(s):  
Cost Effectiveness ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Regular Insulin ◽  
Diabetes Control ◽  
Diabetic Patients ◽  
Insulin Analogs ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Patients With Diabetes ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Cost

PurposeFor years, traditional techniques have been used for diabetes treatment. There are two major types of insulin: insulin analogs and regular insulin. Insulin analogs are similar to regular insulin and lead to changes in pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties. The purpose of the present research was to determine the cost-effectiveness of insulin analogs versus regular insulin for diabetes control in Yazd Diabetes Center in 2017.Design/methodology/approachIn this descriptive–analytical research, the cost-effectiveness index was used to compare insulin analogs and regular insulin (pen/vial) for treatment of diabetes. Data were analyzed in the TreeAge Software and a decision tree was constructed. A 10% discount rate was used for ICER sensitivity analysis. Cost-effectiveness was examined from a provider's perspective.FindingsQALY was calculated to be 0.2 for diabetic patients using insulin analogs and 0.05 for those using regular insulin. The average cost was $3.228 for analog users and $1.826 for regular insulin users. An ICER of $0.093506/QALY was obtained. The present findings suggest that insulin analogs are more cost-effective than regular insulin.Originality/valueThis study was conducted using a cost-effectiveness analysis to evaluate insulin analogs versus regular insulin in controlling diabetes. The results of study are helpful to the government to allocate more resources to apply the cost-effective method of the treatment and to protect patients with diabetes from the high cost of treatment.

Robust-PCA-based hierarchical plane extraction for application to geometric 3D indoor mapping

2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suyong Yeon ◽  
ChangHyun Jun ◽  
Hyunga Choi ◽  
Jaehyeon Kang ◽  
Youngmok Yun ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Principal Component ◽  
Point Clouds ◽  
Previous Method ◽  
Divide And Conquer ◽  
Sensor Data ◽  
Estimation Accuracy ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Extraction Algorithm ◽  
Plane Extraction ◽  
Scan Data

Purpose – The authors aim to propose a novel plane extraction algorithm for geometric 3D indoor mapping with range scan data. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed method utilizes a divide-and-conquer step to efficiently handle huge amounts of point clouds not in a whole group, but in forms of separate sub-groups with similar plane parameters. This method adopts robust principal component analysis to enhance estimation accuracy. Findings – Experimental results verify that the method not only shows enhanced performance in the plane extraction, but also broadens the domain of interest of the plane registration to an information-poor environment (such as simple indoor corridors), while the previous method only adequately works in an information-rich environment (such as a space with many features). Originality/value – The proposed algorithm has three advantages over the current state-of-the-art method in that it is fast, utilizes more inlier sensor data that does not become contaminated by severe sensor noise and extracts more accurate plane parameters.

scholarly journals Gas Detection and Identification Using Multimodal Artificial Intelligence Based Sensor Fusion

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 3
Author(s):  
Parag Narkhede ◽  
Rahee Walambe ◽  
Shruti Mandaokar ◽  
Pulkit Chandel ◽  
Ketan Kotecha ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sensor Fusion ◽  
Network Architecture ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Sensor Data ◽  
Dense Layer ◽  
Gaseous Emissions ◽  
Multiple Sensors ◽  
Single Output ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Single Sensor

With the rapid industrialization and technological advancements, innovative engineering technologies which are cost effective, faster and easier to implement are essential. One such area of concern is the rising number of accidents happening due to gas leaks at coal mines, chemical industries, home appliances etc. In this paper we propose a novel approach to detect and identify the gaseous emissions using the multimodal AI fusion techniques. Most of the gases and their fumes are colorless, odorless, and tasteless, thereby challenging our normal human senses. Sensing based on a single sensor may not be accurate, and sensor fusion is essential for robust and reliable detection in several real-world applications. We manually collected 6400 gas samples (1600 samples per class for four classes) using two specific sensors: the 7-semiconductor gas sensors array, and a thermal camera. The early fusion method of multimodal AI, is applied The network architecture consists of a feature extraction module for individual modality, which is then fused using a merged layer followed by a dense layer, which provides a single output for identifying the gas. We obtained the testing accuracy of 96% (for fused model) as opposed to individual model accuracies of 82% (based on Gas Sensor data using LSTM) and 93% (based on thermal images data using CNN model). Results demonstrate that the fusion of multiple sensors and modalities outperforms the outcome of a single sensor.

Job crafting, workplace civility and work outcomes: the mediating role of work engagement

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anuj Gupta ◽  
Pankaj Singh
Keyword(s):  
Life Satisfaction ◽  
Work Engagement ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Job Crafting ◽  
Intention To Quit ◽  
Work Outcomes ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Content Type ◽  
General Life Satisfaction ◽  
Workplace Civility

Purpose The antecedents and consequences of work engagement have been extensively discussed and analyzed in the previous literature; however, identifying cost-effective measures that can sustain work engagement to boost work outcomes has received sparse attention in the Indian information technology (IT) context. This study aims to provide new insights concerning the associations of job crafting and workplace civility with work engagement and its corresponding outcomes, such as change perception, general life satisfaction and intention to quit. Design/methodology/approach Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling on data obtained from 369 software developers in India using questionnaire surveys. Findings Results confirmed that work engagement partially mediated the association of job crafting and workplace civility with the perception of change and general life satisfaction. The negative associations of job crafting and workplace civility with the intention to quit were also partially mediated by work engagement. The findings can be used to inform human resources strategies to boost work engagement and subsequent work outcomes. Research limitations/implications The results of this empirical work will offer insights to managers who are looking for cost-effective interventions and behaviors aimed at increasing work engagement and, consequently, achieving effective work outcomes. Originality/value This study contributes by empirically testing the application of novel employee-driven practices in improving work engagement and work outcomes, particularly in the context of IT companies in India.

Multimodal Sensor Fusion for Indoor Occupancy Determination

2015 ◽  
Vol 764-765 ◽  
pp. 1319-1323
Author(s):  
Rong Shue Hsiao ◽  
Ding Bing Lin ◽  
Hsin Piao Lin ◽  
Jin Wang Zhou
Keyword(s):  
Bayesian Networks ◽  
Sensor Fusion ◽  
Dynamic Bayesian Networks ◽  
Sensor Nodes ◽  
Detection Accuracy ◽  
Multisensor Fusion ◽  
Fusion Algorithm ◽  
Improve Energy Efficiency ◽  
Occupancy Detection ◽  
Automation Systems

Pyroelectric infrared (PIR) sensors can detect the presence of human without the need to carry any device, which are widely used for human presence detection in home/office automation systems in order to improve energy efficiency. However, PIR detection is based on the movement of occupants. For occupancy detection, PIR sensors have inherent limitation when occupants remain relatively still. Multisensor fusion technology takes advantage of redundant, complementary, or more timely information from different modal sensors, which is considered an effective approach for solving the uncertainty and unreliability problems of sensing. In this paper, we proposed a simple multimodal sensor fusion algorithm, which is very suitable to be manipulated by the sensor nodes of wireless sensor networks. The inference algorithm was evaluated for the sensor detection accuracy and compared to the multisensor fusion using dynamic Bayesian networks. The experimental results showed that a detection accuracy of 97% in room occupancy can be achieved. The accuracy of occupancy detection is very close to that of the dynamic Bayesian networks.

A revised FMEA application to the quality control management

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (7) ◽  
pp. 788-810 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Paciarotti ◽  
Giovanni Mazzuto ◽  
Davide D’Ettorre
Keyword(s):  
Quality Control ◽  
Failure Modes ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Weight Functions ◽  
Time Saving ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Complete Procedure ◽  
Medium Enterprise ◽  
Control Management ◽  
Critical Situations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a cost-effective, time-saving and easy-to-use failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) system applied on the quality control of supplied products. The traditional FMEA has been modified and adapted to fit the quality control features and requirements. The paper introduces a new and revised FMEA approach, where the “failure concept” has been modified with “defect concept.” Design/methodology/approach – The typical FMEA parameters have been modified, and a non-linear scale has been introduced to better evaluate the FMEA parameters. In addition, two weight functions have been introduced in the risk priority number (RPN) calculus in order to consider different critical situations previously ignored and the RPN is assigned to several similar products in order to reduce the problem of complexity. Findings – A complete procedure is provided in order to assist managers in deciding on the critical suppliers, the creation of homogeneous families overcome the complexity of single product code approach, in RPN definition the relative importance of factors is evaluated. Originality/value – This different approach facilitates the quality control managers acting as a structured and “friendly” decision support system: the quality control manager can easily evaluate the critical situations and simulate different scenarios of corrective actions in order to choose the best one. This FMEA technique is a dynamic tool and the performed process is an iterative one. The method has been applied in a small medium enterprise producing hydro massage bathtub, shower, spas and that commercializes bathroom furniture. The firm application has been carried out involving a cross-functional and multidisciplinary team.

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