scholarly journals Multi-Agent Robot System to Monitor and Enforce Physical Distancing Constraints in Large Areas to Combat COVID-19 and Future Pandemics

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (16) ◽  
pp. 7200
Author(s):  
Syed Hammad Hussain Shah ◽  
Ole-Martin Hagen Steinnes ◽  
Eirik Gribbestad Gustafsson ◽  
Ibrahim A. Hameed
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Robots ◽  
Physical Distance ◽  
Present System ◽  
Distributed Network ◽  
Precautionary Measure ◽  
Large Area ◽  
Robot System ◽  
The Past ◽  
Multiple Regions ◽  
Multi Agent

Random outbreaks of infectious diseases in the past have left a persistent impact on societies. Currently, COVID-19 is spreading worldwide and consequently risking human lives. In this regard, maintaining physical distance has turned into an essential precautionary measure to curb the spread of the virus. In this paper, we propose an autonomous monitoring system that is able to enforce physical distancing rules in large areas round the clock without human intervention. We present a novel system to automatically detect groups of individuals who do not comply with physical distancing constraints, i.e., maintaining a distance of 1 m, by tracking them within large areas to re-identify them in case of repetitive non-compliance and enforcing physical distancing. We used a distributed network of multiple CCTV cameras mounted to the walls of buildings for the detection, tracking and re-identification of non-compliant groups. Furthermore, we used multiple self-docking autonomous robots with collision-free navigation to enforce physical distancing constraints by sending alert messages to those persons who are not adhering to physical distancing constraints. We conducted 25 experiments that included 15 participants in different scenarios to evaluate and highlight the performance and significance of the present system. The presented system is capable of re-identifying repetitive violations of physical distancing constraints by a non-compliant group, with high accuracy in terms of detection, tracking and localization through a set of coordinated CCTV cameras. Autonomous robots in the present system are capable of attending to non-compliant groups in multiple regions of a large area and encouraging them to comply with the constraints.

New Approach to Optimize Cooperation Mobile Robots for Ideal Coverage with an Architecture Designed with Multi-Agent Systems

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 49-65
Author(s):  
Mami Mohammed Amine ◽  
Khelfi Mohamed Fayçal ◽  
Zineb Laouici ◽  
Benyettou Noria
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Robots ◽  
Mobile Robotics ◽  
Optimal Solutions ◽  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Robot System ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
The Past ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
Uniform Manner

Mobile Robotics have taken an ever increasing role in everyday life in the past few years. The main objective often reflected in research is to try to have an optimal cooperation between the different robots to achieve a given objective. This cooperation allows one to have optimal solutions for sharing and resolving conflicts. This article proposes a solution to solve the problem of the coverage in environment with obstacles and the cooperation between several mobile robots. The authors developed a heuristic algorithm to optimize the coverage in a multi-robot system, while maintaining the connection between the robots. The proposed algorithm is based on the propagation of the robots as a function of the expansion of a wave in a uniform manner. The authors also integrate a self-reorientation approach to failure if a robot becomes out of race. Finally, this approach is modelled with the ADMs.

Variable oil and argumentative conflict in the Middle East

2020 ◽  
pp. 824
Author(s):  
Malik Daham Mata’ab
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Large Area ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World

Oil has formed since its discovery so far one of the main causes of global conflict, has occupied this energy map a large area of conflict the world over the past century, and certainly this matter will continue for the next period in our century..

Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning

2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (5) ◽  
pp. 1-35
Author(s):  
Shubham Pateria ◽  
Budhitama Subagdja ◽  
Ah-hwee Tan ◽  
Chai Quek
Keyword(s):  
Reinforcement Learning ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Open Problems ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning ◽  
The Past ◽  
Agent Learning ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
Supplementary Material

Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning (HRL) enables autonomous decomposition of challenging long-horizon decision-making tasks into simpler subtasks. During the past years, the landscape of HRL research has grown profoundly, resulting in copious approaches. A comprehensive overview of this vast landscape is necessary to study HRL in an organized manner. We provide a survey of the diverse HRL approaches concerning the challenges of learning hierarchical policies, subtask discovery, transfer learning, and multi-agent learning using HRL. The survey is presented according to a novel taxonomy of the approaches. Based on the survey, a set of important open problems is proposed to motivate the future research in HRL. Furthermore, we outline a few suitable task domains for evaluating the HRL approaches and a few interesting examples of the practical applications of HRL in the Supplementary Material.

scholarly journals Towards National Archaeological Mapping. Assessing Source Data and Methodology—A Case Study from Scotland

Geosciences ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Łukasz Banaszek ◽  
Dave Cowley ◽  
Mike Middleton
Keyword(s):  
Laser Scanning ◽  
General Purpose ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
Large Area ◽  
The Past ◽  
Airborne Laser ◽  
Source Data ◽  
Collection Strategies

While the National Record of the Historic Environment (NRHE) in Scotland contains valuable information on more than 170,000 archaeological monuments, it is clear that this dataset is conditioned by the disposition of past survey and changing parameters of data collection strategies over many decades. This highlights the importance of creating systematic datasets, in which the standards to which they were created are explicit, and against which the reliability of our knowledge of the material remains of the past can be assessed. This paper describes issues of data structure and reliability, then discussing the methodologies under development for expediting the progress of national-scale mapping with specific reference to the Isle of Arran. Preliminary outcomes of a recent archaeological mapping project of the island, which has been used to develop protocols for rapid large area mapping, are outlined. The primary sources for the survey were airborne laser scanning derivatives and orthophotographs, supplemented by field observation, and the project has more than doubled the number of known monuments of Arran. The survey procedures are described, followed by a discussion of the utility of ‘general purpose’ remote sensed datasets, focusing on the assessment of strengths and weaknesses for rapid mapping of large areas.

ElectroTextiles - Technology to Applications

2002 ◽  
Vol 736 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elana Ethridge
Keyword(s):  
Small Companies ◽  
Large Area ◽  
Stages Of Development ◽  
Commercial Products ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Technology Area

ABSTRACTElectroTextiles is a technology area that is in its formative stages of development. Over the past three years, several government and industrial workshops as well as international conferences have discussed and presented fundamental technical approaches and a few small companies are starting to offer commercial products. The combination electronics and textiles offer a new and unique way to fabricate novel large-area, flexible and conformable military and commercial systems. This paper will discuss the some of the challenges that need to be addressed for this technology to mature in the future.

scholarly journals Verification of visibility-based properties on multiple moving robots in an environment with obstacles

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 172988141878665 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Narenji Sheshkalani ◽  
Ramtin Khosravi
Keyword(s):  
State Space ◽  
Autonomous Robots ◽  
The State ◽  
Robot System ◽  
Discrete State ◽  
Verification Method ◽  
Distributed Processes ◽  
Analytical Proof ◽  
Motion Strategy ◽  
Multi Robot

A multi-robot system consists of a number of autonomous robots moving within an environment to achieve a common goal. Each robot decides to move based on information obtained from various sensors and gathered data received through communicating with other robots. In order to prove the system satisfies certain properties, one can provide an analytical proof or use a verification method. This article presents a new notion to prove visibility-related properties of a multi-robot system by introducing an automated verification method. Precisely, we propose a method to automatically generate a discrete state space of a given multi-robot system and verify the correctness of the desired properties by means of model-checking tools and algorithms. We construct the state space of a number of robots, each moves freely inside a bounded polygonal area with obstacles. The generated state space is then used to verify visibility properties (e.g. if the communication graph of robots is connected) by means of the construction and analysis of distributed processes model checker. Using our method, there is no need to analytically prove that the properties are preserved with every change in the motion strategy of the robots. We have implemented a tool to automatically generate the state space and verified some properties to demonstrate the applicability of our method in various environments.

Practical Methods of GIS for Archaeologists: Viewshed Analysis – The Kingdom of Pylos example

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
George D. Malaperdas
Keyword(s):  
Multidisciplinary Approach ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Residential Facilities ◽  
Large Area ◽  
Observation Station ◽  
Visibility Analysis ◽  
The Past ◽  
Viewshed Analysis ◽  
Area Of Study

Visibility (or Viewshed) Analysis in archeology is a function given through GIS, in purpose to contribute in the field of archaeology and especially in landscape archeology, by reconstituting the visual panorama of a study area of the past.  The concept of landscape archeology is a multidimensional research process that is not limited to archaeologists but places a special emphasis on a multidisciplinary approach. Mycenaean Messenia was the area of study and analysis of the visual panorama for two important reasons. First of all, it is a large area, which presents territories of varying heterogeneity in terms of morphology, while having a large sea front and an open observation horizon. Secondly, it is one of the continental regions of the Mycenaean period, which has evoked the largest number of residential facilities, structures and tombs, and also has been extensively studied by archaeologists since the 1920s. The main aim of this paper is to make an effort to identify archaeological information, through the bibliographic references of the archaeologists who studied the area, with the GIS visibility analysis. For that reason, the author tries for those residential locations that have been assigned a role or function of the site by archaeologists, such as an observation station, to be controlled in parallel and on the basis of new technologies (GIS and Viewshed Analysis) if this view is verified.

Run-Time Compositional Software Platform for Autonomous NXT Robots

2019 ◽  
pp. 649-662
Author(s):  
Ning Gui ◽  
Vincenzo De Florio ◽  
Chris Blondia
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Robots ◽  
Software Systems ◽  
Robot System ◽  
Unstructured Environments ◽  
System A ◽  
Adaptive Middleware ◽  
Context Knowledge ◽  
Run Time ◽  
Compositional Software ◽  
Robotic Applications

Autonomous Robots normally perform tasks in unstructured environments, with little or no continuous human guidance. This calls for context-aware, self-adaptive software systems. This paper aims at providing a flexible adaptive middleware platform to seamlessly integrate multiple adaptation logics during the run-time. To support such an approach, a reconfigurable middleware system “ACCADA” was designed to provide compositional adaptation. During the run-time, context knowledge is used to select the most appropriate adaptation modules so as to compose an adaptive system best-matching the current exogenous and endogenous conditions. Together with a structure modeler, this allows robotic applications' structure to be autonomously (re)-constructed and (re)-configured. This paper applies this model on a Lego NXT robot system. A remote NXT model is designed to wrap and expose native NXT devices into service components that can be managed during the run-time. A dynamic UI is implemented which can be changed and customized according to system conditions. Results show that the framework changes robot adaptation behavior during the run-time.

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