scholarly journals Extending QGroundControl for Automated Mission Planning of UAVs

Sensors ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (7) ◽  
pp. 2339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristian Ramirez-Atencia ◽  
David Camacho
Keyword(s):  
Flight Control ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Mission Planning ◽  
Human Computer Interface ◽  
Simulation Environment ◽  
Test Bed ◽  
Multiple Vehicles ◽  
Operator Workload ◽  
Selection Of

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have become very popular in the last decade due to some advantages such as strong terrain adaptation, low cost, zero casualties, and so on. One of the most interesting advances in this field is the automation of mission planning (task allocation) and real-time replanning, which are highly useful to increase the autonomy of the vehicle and reduce the operator workload. These automated mission planning and replanning systems require a Human Computer Interface (HCI) that facilitates the visualization and selection of plans that will be executed by the vehicles. In addition, most missions should be assessed before their real-life execution. This paper extends QGroundControl, an open-source simulation environment for flight control of multiple vehicles, by adding a mission designer that permits the operator to build complex missions with tasks and other scenario items; an interface for automated mission planning and replanning, which works as a test bed for different algorithms, and a Decision Support System (DSS) that helps the operator in the selection of the plan. In this work, a complete guide of these systems and some practical use cases are provided

scholarly journals Simulation Tools for Underwater Sensor Networks: A Survey

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anjana P Das ◽  
Sabu M Thampi
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Underwater Sensor Networks ◽  
Simulation Tool ◽  
Simulation Environment ◽  
Test Bed ◽  
Simulation Tools ◽  
Data Links ◽  
Practical Challenge ◽  
Complete Test ◽  
Selection Of

In underwater sensor network(UWSN) research, it is highly expensive to deploy a complete test bed involving complex network structure and data links to validate a network protocol or an algorithm. This practical challenge points to the need of a simulation environment which can reproduce the actual underwater scenario without the loss of generality. Since so many simulators are proposed for UWSN simulation, the selection of an appropriate tool based on the research requirement is very important in validation and interpretation of results. This paper provides an in-depth survey of different simulation tools available for UWSN simulation. We compared the features offered by each tool, pre-requirements, and provide the run time experiences of some of the open source tools. We conducted simulation of sample scenarios in some of the open source tools and compared the results. This survey helps a researcher to identify a simulation tool satisfying their specific research requirements.

PyDOSS: An open-source Python-based communicable disease outbreak surveillance system designed and used in a COVID-19 community care facility (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Fang ◽  
Jonathan Kia-Sheng Phua ◽  
Terrence Chiew ◽  
Daniel De-Liang Loh ◽  
Lincoln Ming Han Liow ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Surveillance System ◽  
Community Care ◽  
Communicable Disease ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Disease Outbreak ◽  
Disease Spread ◽  
Healthcare Team ◽  
Increased Risk

BACKGROUND During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, community care facilities (CCF) were set up as temporary out-of-hospital isolation facilities to contain the surge of cases in Singapore. Confined living spaces within CCFs posed an increased risk of communicable disease spread among residents. OBJECTIVE This inspired our healthcare team managing a CCF operation to design a low-cost communicable disease outbreak surveillance system (CDOSS). METHODS Our CDOSS was designed with the following considerations: (1) comprehensiveness, (2) efficiency through passive reconnoitering from electronic medical record (EMR) data, (3) ability to provide spatiotemporal insights, (4) low-cost and (5) ease of use. We used Python to develop a lightweight application – Python-based Communicable Disease Outbreak Surveillance System (PyDOSS) – that was able perform syndromic surveillance and fever monitoring. With minimal user actions, its data pipeline would generate daily control charts and geospatial heat maps of cases from raw EMR data and logged vital signs. PyDOSS was successfully implemented as part of our CCF workflow. We also simulated a gastroenteritis (GE) outbreak to test the effectiveness of the system. RESULTS PyDOSS was used throughout the entire duration of operation; the output was reviewed daily by senior management. No disease outbreaks were identified during our medical operation. In the simulated GE outbreak, PyDOSS was able to effectively detect an outbreak within 24 hours and provided information about cluster progression which could aid in contact tracing. The code for a stock version of PyDOSS has been made publicly available. CONCLUSIONS PyDOSS is an effective surveillance system which was successfully implemented in a real-life medical operation. With the system developed using open-source technology and the code made freely available, it significantly reduces the cost of developing and operating CDOSS and may be useful for similar temporary medical operations, or in resource-limited settings.

scholarly journals Design Considerations and Selection of Cost-Effective Switched Reluctance Drive for Radiator Cooling Fans

Electronics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 917
Author(s):  
Ickjin Son ◽  
Grace Firsta Lukman ◽  
Mazahir Hussain Shah ◽  
Kwang-Il Jeong ◽  
Jin-Woo Ahn
Keyword(s):  
Low Cost ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Magnetic Characteristics ◽  
Switched Reluctance Motors ◽  
Switched Reluctance ◽  
Design Considerations ◽  
Cooling Fan ◽  
Cooling Fans ◽  
Power Switches ◽  
Selection Of

Switched reluctance motors (SRMs) are simple in structure, easy to manufacture, magnet-less, brushless, and highly robust compared to other AC motors which makes them a good option for applications that operate in harsh environment. However, the motor has non-linear magnetic characteristics, and it comes with various pole-phase combinations and circuit topologies that causes many difficulties in deciding on which type to choose. In this paper, the viability of SRM as a low-cost, rugged machine for vehicle radiator cooling fan is considered. First, necessary design considerations are presented, then three commonly use types of SRM are analyzed: A 3-phase 6/4, 3-phase 12/8, and a 4-phase 8/6 to find their static and dynamic characteristics so the most suitable type can be selected. Simulation results show that the 8/6 SRM produces the highest efficiency with less phase current which reduces the converter burden. However, with asymmetric half bridge converter, eight power switches are required for 8/6 SRM and thus put a burden on the overall drive cost. As a solution, the Miller converter with only six switches for four phase SRM. To verify the proposed idea, the 8/6 SRM was manufactured and tested. The results show that Miller converter can be used for the proposed SRM with slightly reduced efficiency at 80.4%.

scholarly journals An IoT-Based Participatory Antitheft System for Public Safety Enhancement in Smart Cities

Smart Cities ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 919-937
Author(s):  
Nikos Papadakis ◽  
Nikos Koukoulas ◽  
Ioannis Christakis ◽  
Ilias Stavrakas ◽  
Dionisis Kandris
Keyword(s):  
Smart Cities ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Negative Influence ◽  
Asset Tracking ◽  
Tracking Tasks ◽  
Tracking Process ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Operation Center ◽  
Safety Enhancement ◽  
Selection Of

The risk of theft of goods is certainly an important source of negative influence in human psychology. This article focuses on the development of a scheme that, despite its low cost, acts as a smart antitheft system that achieves small property detection. Specifically, an Internet of Things (IoT)-based participatory platform was developed in order to allow asset-tracking tasks to be crowd-sourced to a community. Stolen objects are traced by using a prototype Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)-based system, which sends signals, thus becoming a beacon. Once such an item (e.g., a bicycle) is stolen, the owner informs the authorities, which, in turn, broadcast an alert signal to activate the BLE sensor. To trace the asset with the antitheft tag, participants use their GPS-enabled smart phones to scan BLE tags through a specific smartphone client application and report the location of the asset to an operation center so that owners can locate their assets. A stolen item tracking simulator was created to support and optimize the aforementioned tracking process and to produce the best possible outcome, evaluating the impact of different parameters and strategies regarding the selection of how many and which users to activate when searching for a stolen item within a given area.

scholarly journals Hybridization of ring theory-based evolutionary algorithm and particle swarm optimization to solve class imbalance problem

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sayan Surya Shaw ◽  
Shameem Ahmed ◽  
Samir Malakar ◽  
Laura Garcia-Hernandez ◽  
Ajith Abraham ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Particle Swarm Optimization ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Class Imbalance ◽  
Ring Theory ◽  
Class Imbalance Problem ◽  
Minority Class ◽  
Swarm Optimization ◽  
Imbalance Problem ◽  
Representative Samples ◽  
Selection Of

AbstractMany real-life datasets are imbalanced in nature, which implies that the number of samples present in one class (minority class) is exceptionally less compared to the number of samples found in the other class (majority class). Hence, if we directly fit these datasets to a standard classifier for training, then it often overlooks the minority class samples while estimating class separating hyperplane(s) and as a result of that it missclassifies the minority class samples. To solve this problem, over the years, many researchers have followed different approaches. However the selection of the true representative samples from the majority class is still considered as an open research problem. A better solution for this problem would be helpful in many applications like fraud detection, disease prediction and text classification. Also, the recent studies show that it needs not only analyzing disproportion between classes, but also other difficulties rooted in the nature of different data and thereby it needs more flexible, self-adaptable, computationally efficient and real-time method for selection of majority class samples without loosing much of important data from it. Keeping this fact in mind, we have proposed a hybrid model constituting Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), a popular swarm intelligence-based meta-heuristic algorithm, and Ring Theory (RT)-based Evolutionary Algorithm (RTEA), a recently proposed physics-based meta-heuristic algorithm. We have named the algorithm as RT-based PSO or in short RTPSO. RTPSO can select the most representative samples from the majority class as it takes advantage of the efficient exploration and the exploitation phases of its parent algorithms for strengthening the search process. We have used AdaBoost classifier to observe the final classification results of our model. The effectiveness of our proposed method has been evaluated on 15 standard real-life datasets having low to extreme imbalance ratio. The performance of the RTPSO has been compared with PSO, RTEA and other standard undersampling methods. The obtained results demonstrate the superiority of RTPSO over state-of-the-art class imbalance problem-solvers considered here for comparison. The source code of this work is available in https://github.com/Sayansurya/RTPSO_Class_imbalance.

scholarly journals Theoretical and Empirical Characterization of Water as a Factor: Examples and Related Issues with the World Trade Model

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 459
Author(s):  
Ignacio Cazcarro ◽  
Albert E. Steenge
Keyword(s):  
World Trade ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Virtual Water ◽  
Considerable Change ◽  
Water Research ◽  
Trade Model ◽  
The World ◽  
Main Model ◽  
Selection Of

This article originates from the theoretical and empirical characterization of factors in the World Trade Model (WTM). It first illustrates the usefulness of this type of model for water research to address policy questions related to virtual water trade, water constraints and water scarcity. It also illustrates the importance of certain key decisions regarding the heterogeneity of water and its relation to the technologies being employed and the prices obtained. With regard to WTM, the global economic input–output model in which multiple technologies can produce a “homogeneous output”, it was recently shown that two different mechanisms should be distinguished by which multiple technologies can arise, i.e., from “technology-specific” or from “shared” factors, which implies a mechanism-specific set of prices, quantities and rents. We discuss and extend these characterizations, notably in relation to the real-world characterization of water as a factor (for which we use the terms technology specific, fully shared and “mixed”). We propose that the presence of these separate mechanisms results in the models being sensitive to relatively small variations in specific numerical values. To address this sensitivity, we suggest a specific role for specific (sub)models or key choices to counter unrealistic model outcomes. To support our proposal we present a selection of simulations for aggregated world regions, and show how key results concerning quantities, prices and rents can be subject to considerable change depending on the precise definitions of resource endowments and the technology-specificity of the factors. For instance, depending on the adopted water heterogeneity level, outcomes can vary from relatively low-cost solutions to higher cost ones and can even reach infeasibility. In the main model discussed here (WTM) factor prices are exogenous, which also contributes to the overall numerical sensitivity of the model. All this affects to a large extent our interpretation of the water challenges, which preferably need to be assessed in integrated frameworks, to account for the main socioeconomic variables, technologies and resources.

Physically Self-assembled Au Nanorod Arrays for SERS

2006 ◽  
Vol 951 ◽  
Author(s):  
Motofumi Suzuki ◽  
Kaoru Nakajima ◽  
Kenji Kimura ◽  
Takao Fukuoka ◽  
Yasushige Mori
Keyword(s):  
Raman Spectroscopy ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Major Axis ◽  
Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy ◽  
Nanorod Arrays ◽  
Au Nanorods ◽  
Surface Enhanced ◽  
Surface Enhanced Raman ◽  
Oblique Deposition ◽  
Selection Of

ABSTRACTWe have demonstrated surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy on arrays of Au nanorods aligned in line by a dynamic oblique deposition technique. For the light polarized along the major axis of the nanorods, the plasma resonance of the Au nanorods has been tuned to a wavelength suitable for Raman spectroscopy. The Raman scattering on the discrete nanorods is enhanced significantly compared with that on semi continuous Au films. Since the preparation process is physically bottom-up, it is robust in its selection of the materials and is useful in providing the SERS sensors at low cost.

Improving quality of life for dialysis patients through telecare

2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 80-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl A Stroetmann ◽  
Peter Gruetzmacher ◽  
Veli N Stroetmann
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Video Communication ◽  
Daily Routine ◽  
Dialysis Patients ◽  
Home Dialysis ◽  
Service Support ◽  
Initial Results ◽  
Selection Of

Home dialysis can improve the care and quality of life for patients with renal failure. We have explored the possibility of extending home care to more patients needing continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) using telemedicine. We tested videoconferencing support for five CAPD patients using low-cost ISDN equipment (128 kbit/s). Initial results indicated that it was possible to integrate video-communication into the daily routine of the clinic and the response from patients was surprisingly positive. Selection of appropriate, affordable technology and the ISDN service support by the telecommunications provider proved to be considerably more difficult than anticipated. The first indications also suggest medical advantages for home teledialysis.

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