Telerobot-enabled HUB-CI model for collaborative lifecycle management of design and prototyping

The HUB-CI model is investigated in a telerobotic system in a client/server network to manage the lifecycle of engineering design and prototyping. The purpose of this platform is to support collaborative engineering design and proof of concept to enhance distributed team collaboration and resource utilization. The suggested platform is exemplified in two collaboration support tools and a physical prototyping platform. Structured Co-Insight Management is developed to support innovative idea exchanges and the consensus decision-making during the design process. Conflict/error detection management helps preventing conflicts and errors during the lifecycle of design and development. Physical collaboration over the network occurs when a team controls the telerobot operation during prototyping and testing in design cycles. A pilot system is implemented with a group project for the design of an electronic circuit (including both hardware and software designs). The functional assessment method is used to compare this platform to other collaborative design tools. The system presented offers unique qualitative advantages as an integrated collaboration support system.     

Online FPS games: effect of router buffer and multiplexing techniques on subjective quality estimators

First Person Shooters are a genre of online games in which users demand a high interactivity, because the actions and the movements are very fast. They usually generate high rates of small packets which have to be delivered to the server within a deadline. When the traffic of a number of players shares the same link, these flows can be aggregated in order to save bandwidth. Certain multiplexing techniques are able to merge a number of packets, in a similar way to voice trunking, creating a bundle which is transmitted using a tunnel. In addition, the headers of the original packets can be compressed by means of standard algorithms. The characteristics of the buffers of the routers which deliver these bundled packets may have a strong influence on the network impairments (mainly delay, jitter and packet loss) which determine the quality of the game. A subjective quality estimator has been used in order to study the mutual influence of the buffer and multiplexing techniques. Taking into account that there exist buffers which size is measured in terms of bytes, and others measured in packets, both kinds of buffers have been tested, using different sizes. Traces from real game parties have been merged in order to obtain the traffic of 20 simultaneous players sharing the same Internet access. The delay and jitter produced by the buffer of the access router have been obtained using simulations. In general, the quality is expected to be reduced as the background traffic grows, but the results show an anomalous region in which the quality rises with the background traffic amount. Small buffers present better subjective quality results than bigger ones. When the total traffic amount gets above the available bandwidth, the buffers measured in bytes add to the packets a fixed delay, which grows with buffer size. They present a jitter peak when the offered traffic is roughly the link capacity. On the other hand, buffers which size is measured in packets add a smaller delay, but they increase packet loss for gaming traffic. The obtained results illustrate the need of knowing the characteristics of the buffer in order to make the correct decision about traffic multiplexing. As a conclusion, it would be interesting for game developers to identify the behaviour of the router buffer so as to adapt the traffic to it.     

A web-based platform for biosignal visualization and annotation

With the advent of wearable sensing and mobile technologies, biosignals have seen an increasingly growing number of application areas, leading to the collection of large volumes of data. One of the difficulties in dealing with these data sets, and in the development of automated machine learning systems which use them as input, is the lack of reliable ground truth information. In this paper we present a new web-based platform for visualization, retrieval and annotation of biosignals by non-technical users, aimed at improving the process of ground truth collection for biomedical applications. Moreover, a novel extendable and scalable data representation model and persistency framework is presented. The results of the experimental evaluation with possible users has further confirmed the potential of the presented framework.     

A multipurpose audio aggregation watermarking based on multistage vector quantization

Watermarking technology can achieve multipurpose such as copyright protection, copy protection, and integrity authentication. We propose a novel watermarking approach which involves robust watermark and fragile watermark in a two-stage quantization technique. Traditional watermarking algorithms mostly have poor performance in imperceptibility as the codeword selected from the modified codebook is not optimal. In our method, we select the codeword in the original codebook to ensure optimality. Furthermore, we use Huffman encoding to pick up property which is sensitive to many attacks in the entire aggregation. For copyright protection, the proposed scheme can resist attacks such as lossy compression, noise addition, and normalization. As for content authentication, the proposed scheme is sensitive to various attacks provided by Stirmark Benchmark for Audio. Experimental results show that the proposed method can be used respectively for protecting the copyright and authenticating the integrity of the audio aggregation.     

Using self-organizing maps with complex network topologies and coalitions for time series prediction

A Self-organizing Map (SOM) is a competitive learning neural network architecture that make available a certain amount of classificatory neurons, which self-organize spatially based on input patterns. In this paper we explore the use of complex network topologies, like small-world, scale-free or random networks; for connecting the neurons within a SOM, and apply them for Time Series Prediction. We follow the VQTAM model for function prediction, and consider several benchmarks to evaluate the quality of the predictions. Afterwards, we introduce the CASOM algorithm (Coalitions and SOM) that uses coalitions to temporarily extend the neighborhood of a neuron, and to provide more accuracy in prediction problems than classical SOM. The results presented in this work suggest that the most regular the network topology is, the better results it provides in prediction. Besides, we have found that not updating all the neurons at the same time provides much better results. Finally, we describe how the use of coalitions can enhance the capability of SOM for Time Series Prediction.     

Studies of distributed parameter systems: Decoupling the state-parameter estimation problem

The problem of state-parameter estimation is considered in terms of decoupling the estimation procedure. First, the theoretical preliminaries necessary for the mathematical statement of the problem are defined. Then using the extended Kalman filter (EKF) approach, the state and parameter are estimated by applying the solution techniques to a distributed parameter system. Next, the state estimation problem is decoupled from the parameter estimation problem and by using a numerical example, the advantage of this decoupling procedure is demonstrated. The numerical results show that convergence can be improved when this decoupling procedure is employed. The effect of the location of the measurements on the estimation problem is also analysed in this work. The results show that the convergence of the problem depends on the location as well as the number of measurements.     

Reciprocal Tree-Like Fractal Structures

Sometimes the complex structures of nature inspire human constructions. Gothic construction has shown that forces can cross space along intricate paths that may even be arbitrary if correctly dimensioned. In some way, ribbed structures are like trees where the branches conduct forces instead of sap; they operate as branches and trunks descending by fractal ways. Here we discuss reciprocal tree-like fractal structures and the difficulty in their design and erection and solutions for constructive details, as well as the possible analytical questions and automatic generation by means of proper software. The results are shown in the design of the Natural Interpretation Centre in Melilla where we have proposed two connected trees like shown at figures included below.     

DMTO – a method for Discrete Material and Thickness Optimization of laminated composite structures

This paper presents a gradient based topology optimization method for Discrete Material and Thickness Optimization of laminated composite structures, labelled the DMTO method. The capabilities of the proposed method are demonstrated on mass minimization, subject to constraints on the structural criteria; buckling load factors, eigenfrequencies, and limited displacements. Furthermore, common design guidelines or rules, referred to as manufacturing constraints, are included explicitly in the optimization problem as series of linear inequalities. The material selection and thickness variation are optimized simultaneously through interpolation functions with penalization. Numerical results for several parameterizations of a finite element model of a generic main spar from a wind turbine blade are presented. The different parameterizations represent different levels of complexity with respect to manufacturability. The results will thus give insight into the relation between potential weight saving and design complexity. The results show that the DMTO method is capable of solving the problems robustly with only few intermediate valued design variables.     

基于A-VFSA粒子发生器的PSO算法的研究

对超快速模拟退火算法进行改进(A-VFSA),并以此为粒子发生器,提出了PSO-PG算法.该算法通过粒子发生器对搜索域内粒子进行改进,从而生成一个精英粒子池;并根据随机策略从粒子池中选择粒子,作为初始种群,采用PSO算法进行优化,得到全局最优解.相比于标准PSO算法和LDW算法,PSO-PG算法拥有更好的稳定性和优化精度,能够更加快速地收敛到全局最优解,在一定范围内几乎不依赖于初始参数的选择.     

快速鲁棒特征算法的CUDA加速优化

提出一种基于统一计算设备架构(Compute Unified Device Architecture,CUDA)的快速鲁棒特征(Speed-up Robust Feature,SURF)图像匹配算法。分析了SURF算法的并行性,在图像处理单元(Graphics Processing Unit,GPU)的线程映射和内存模型方面对算法的构建尺度空间、特征点提取、特征点主方向的确定、特征描述子的生成及特征匹配5个步骤进行CUDA加速优化。实验表明,相比适用于CPU的SURF算法,文中提出的适用于GPU的SURF算法在处理30MB的图片时性能提高了33倍。适用于GPU的SURF算法拓展了SURF算法在遥感等领域的快速应用,尤其是大影像的快速配准。