Embedded control systems usually are characterized by its limitations in terms of computational p... more Embedded control systems usually are characterized by its limitations in terms of computational power and memory. Although this systems must deal with perpection and actuation signal adaptation and calculate control actions ensuring its reliability and providing a certain degree of fault tolerance. The allocation of these tasks between some different embedded nodes conforming a distributed control system allows to solve many of these issues. For that reason is proposed the application of smart devices aims to perform the data processing tasks related with the perception and actuation and offer a simple interface to be configured by other nodes in order to share processed information and raise QoS based alarms. In this work is introduced the procedure of implementing a smart device as a sensor as an embedded node in a distributed control system. In order to analyze its benefits an application based on a RGBD sensor implemented as an smart device is proposed. the adaptation of the provided high level information to a low level actuator signal. Nevertheless, this article will be focussed on the implementation of smart devices as sensors and its characterization as vision sensor due to the range of its possible applications [FER-NANDES, J. 2013] , focusing in this concrete case to support robot navigation [CHIEN-HUI, L. 2014] [GRZEJSZCZAK, T. 2012]. It will be also remarked the importance of being adapted to the system requirements [LEE, C.S. 2013]. In order to provide this adaptation capability some Jimenez-Garcia, J.L. et al
The inclusion of embedded sensors into a networked system provides useful information for many ap... more The inclusion of embedded sensors into a networked system provides useful information for many applications. A Distributed Control System (DCS) is one of the clearest examples where processing and communications are constrained by the client's requirements and the capacity of the system. An embedded sensor with advanced processing and communications capabilities supplies high level information, abstracting from the data acquisition process and objects recognition mechanisms. The implementation of an embedded sensor/actuator as a Smart Resource permits clients to access sensor information through distributed network services. Smart resources can offer sensor services as well as computing, communications and peripheral access by implementing a self-aware based adaptation mechanism which adapts the execution profile to the context. On the other hand, information integrity must be ensured when computing processes are dynamically adapted. Therefore, the processing must be adapted to perform tasks in a certain lapse of time but always ensuring a minimum process quality. In the same way, communications must try to reduce the data traffic without excluding relevant information. The main objective of the paper is to present a dynamic configuration mechanism to adapt the sensor processing and communication to the client's requirements in the DCS. This paper describes an implementation of a smart resource based on a Red, Green, Blue, and Depth (RGBD) sensor in order to test the dynamic configuration mechanism presented.
The vision system provides to a humanoid robot the most complete information about the environmen... more The vision system provides to a humanoid robot the most complete information about the environment, having thus visual information extraction a great influence in the decision process of interaction with the environment. It represents one of the most resources consumer in the system, so it has to be efficiently designed without compromising the reliability of the provided information. Software implementation of an accurate vision system is one of the more distinctive elements in RoboCup competitions, especially in the RoboCup, where normative is becoming more and more restrictive and no hardware modifications can be made. In embedded control systems, management of the available resources is crucial to achieve a good performance and get the most from them. Focusing on the Robocup SPL, Nao robot has the CPU as the main shared and limited resource and, to a lesser degree, wireless network and memory should also be considered. In this work, the design of the vision module and the abilit...
ABSTRACT This paper presents a control kernel based middleware description. Capabilities and deve... more ABSTRACT This paper presents a control kernel based middleware description. Capabilities and developed functionality are enhanced. The establishment of a event-based middleware control system offers a more reliable and efficient way to perform control tasks by ensuring a proper distribution of the requirements, actions and services between the system devices according to their availability of resources. Middleware is able to perform its capabilities over a distributed or partitioned system allowing to the programmer the control application design from a topology-independent point of view of the whole system. Quality of service (QoS) concept are introduced in data exchange providing a real-time communications between nodes. Data distribution system (DDS) is used as base to achieve this reliable communications. A user interface has been designed to help the programmer in the middleware configuration task.
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 2014
ABSTRACT This paper introduces how a mobile robot can perform nav-igation tasks by taking the adv... more ABSTRACT This paper introduces how a mobile robot can perform nav-igation tasks by taking the advantages of implementing a control kernel middleware (CKM) based system. Smart resources are also included into the topology of the system for improving the distribution of computa-tional load of the needed tasks. The CKM and the smart resources are both highly reconfigurable, even on execution time, and they also im-plement fault detection mechanisms and QoS policies. By combining of these capabilities, the system can be dinamically adapted to the require-ments of its tasks. Furthermore, this solution is suitable for most type of robots, including those which are provided of a low computational power because of the distribution of load, the benefits of exploiting the smart resources capabilities, and the dynamic performance of the system.
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 2014
ABSTRACT In this work is presented a general architecture for a multi physical agent network syst... more ABSTRACT In this work is presented a general architecture for a multi physical agent network system based on the coordination and the behaviour management. The system is organised in a hierarchical structure where are distinguished the individual agent actions and the collective ones linked to the whole agent network. Individual actions are also organised in a hybrid layered system that take advantages from reactive and deliberative control. Sensing system is involved as well in the behaviour architecture improving the information acquisition performance.
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 2014
ABSTRACT The vision system provides to a humanoid robot the most complete information about the e... more ABSTRACT The vision system provides to a humanoid robot the most complete information about the environment, having thus visual information extraction a great influence in the decision process of interaction with the environment. It represents one of the most resources consumer in the system, so it has to be efficiently designed without compromising the reliability of the provided information. Software implementation of an accurate vision system is one of the more distinctive elements in RoboCup competitions, especially in the RoboCup, where normative is becoming more and more restrictive and no hardware modifications can be made. In embedded control systems, management of the available resources is crucial to achieve a good performance and get the most from them. Focusing on the Robocup SPL, Nao robot has the CPU as the main shared and limited resource and, to a lesser degree, wireless network and memory should also be considered. In this work, the design of the vision module and the ability of the Hidalgos Team architecture to cope with limited resources are presented. The goal is to maximise CPU utilisation by boosting the capacities of the vision system, while maintaining control properties such as reactivity and stability. A first strategy emphasises on reducing resources consumed by the vision system through adaptability to control requirements. A second strategy focuses on adapting the execution rates of the modules, and especially of the vision system, to the available resources.
This paper deals with the problem of humanoid robot localization and proposes a new method for po... more This paper deals with the problem of humanoid robot localization and proposes a new method for position estimation that has been developed for the RoboCup Standard Platform League environment. Firstly, a complete vision system has been implemented in the Nao robot platform that enables the detection of relevant field markers. The detection of field markers provides some estimation of distances for the current robot position. To reduce errors in these distance measurements, extrinsic and intrinsic camera calibration procedures have been developed and described. To validate the localization algorithm, experiments covering many of the typical situations that arise during RoboCup games have been developed: ranging from degradation in position estimation to total loss of position (due to falls, 'kidnapped robot', or penalization). The self-localization method developed is based on the classical particle filter algorithm. The main contribution of this work is a new particle selection strategy. Our approach reduces the CPU computing time required for each iteration and so eases the limited resource availability problem that is common in robot platforms such as Nao. The experimental results show the quality of the new algorithm in terms of localization and CPU time consumption.
Embedded control systems usually are characterized by its limitations in terms of computational p... more Embedded control systems usually are characterized by its limitations in terms of computational power and memory. Although this systems must deal with per-pection and actuation signal adaptation and calculate control actions ensuring its reliability and providing a certain degree of fault tolerance. The allocation of these tasks between some different embedded nodes conforming a distributed control system allows to solve many of these issues. For that reason is proposed the application of smart devices aims to perform the data processing tasks related with the perception and actuation and offer a simple interface to be configured by other nodes in order to share processed information and raise QoS based alarms. In this work is introduced the procedure of implementing a smart device as a sensor as an embedded node in a distributed control system. In order to analyze its benefits an application based on a RGBD sensor implemented as a smart device is proposed.
Embedded control systems usually are characterized by its limitations in terms of computational p... more Embedded control systems usually are characterized by its limitations in terms of computational power and memory. Although this systems must deal with perpection and actuation signal adaptation and calculate control actions ensuring its reliability and providing a certain degree of fault tolerance. The allocation of these tasks between some different embedded nodes conforming a distributed control system allows to solve many of these issues. For that reason is proposed the application of smart devices aims to perform the data processing tasks related with the perception and actuation and offer a simple interface to be configured by other nodes in order to share processed information and raise QoS based alarms. In this work is introduced the procedure of implementing a smart device as a sensor as an embedded node in a distributed control system. In order to analyze its benefits an application based on a RGBD sensor implemented as an smart device is proposed. the adaptation of the provided high level information to a low level actuator signal. Nevertheless, this article will be focussed on the implementation of smart devices as sensors and its characterization as vision sensor due to the range of its possible applications [FER-NANDES, J. 2013] , focusing in this concrete case to support robot navigation [CHIEN-HUI, L. 2014] [GRZEJSZCZAK, T. 2012]. It will be also remarked the importance of being adapted to the system requirements [LEE, C.S. 2013]. In order to provide this adaptation capability some Jimenez-Garcia, J.L. et al
The inclusion of embedded sensors into a networked system provides useful information for many ap... more The inclusion of embedded sensors into a networked system provides useful information for many applications. A Distributed Control System (DCS) is one of the clearest examples where processing and communications are constrained by the client's requirements and the capacity of the system. An embedded sensor with advanced processing and communications capabilities supplies high level information, abstracting from the data acquisition process and objects recognition mechanisms. The implementation of an embedded sensor/actuator as a Smart Resource permits clients to access sensor information through distributed network services. Smart resources can offer sensor services as well as computing, communications and peripheral access by implementing a self-aware based adaptation mechanism which adapts the execution profile to the context. On the other hand, information integrity must be ensured when computing processes are dynamically adapted. Therefore, the processing must be adapted to perform tasks in a certain lapse of time but always ensuring a minimum process quality. In the same way, communications must try to reduce the data traffic without excluding relevant information. The main objective of the paper is to present a dynamic configuration mechanism to adapt the sensor processing and communication to the client's requirements in the DCS. This paper describes an implementation of a smart resource based on a Red, Green, Blue, and Depth (RGBD) sensor in order to test the dynamic configuration mechanism presented.
The vision system provides to a humanoid robot the most complete information about the environmen... more The vision system provides to a humanoid robot the most complete information about the environment, having thus visual information extraction a great influence in the decision process of interaction with the environment. It represents one of the most resources consumer in the system, so it has to be efficiently designed without compromising the reliability of the provided information. Software implementation of an accurate vision system is one of the more distinctive elements in RoboCup competitions, especially in the RoboCup, where normative is becoming more and more restrictive and no hardware modifications can be made. In embedded control systems, management of the available resources is crucial to achieve a good performance and get the most from them. Focusing on the Robocup SPL, Nao robot has the CPU as the main shared and limited resource and, to a lesser degree, wireless network and memory should also be considered. In this work, the design of the vision module and the abilit...
ABSTRACT This paper presents a control kernel based middleware description. Capabilities and deve... more ABSTRACT This paper presents a control kernel based middleware description. Capabilities and developed functionality are enhanced. The establishment of a event-based middleware control system offers a more reliable and efficient way to perform control tasks by ensuring a proper distribution of the requirements, actions and services between the system devices according to their availability of resources. Middleware is able to perform its capabilities over a distributed or partitioned system allowing to the programmer the control application design from a topology-independent point of view of the whole system. Quality of service (QoS) concept are introduced in data exchange providing a real-time communications between nodes. Data distribution system (DDS) is used as base to achieve this reliable communications. A user interface has been designed to help the programmer in the middleware configuration task.
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 2014
ABSTRACT This paper introduces how a mobile robot can perform nav-igation tasks by taking the adv... more ABSTRACT This paper introduces how a mobile robot can perform nav-igation tasks by taking the advantages of implementing a control kernel middleware (CKM) based system. Smart resources are also included into the topology of the system for improving the distribution of computa-tional load of the needed tasks. The CKM and the smart resources are both highly reconfigurable, even on execution time, and they also im-plement fault detection mechanisms and QoS policies. By combining of these capabilities, the system can be dinamically adapted to the require-ments of its tasks. Furthermore, this solution is suitable for most type of robots, including those which are provided of a low computational power because of the distribution of load, the benefits of exploiting the smart resources capabilities, and the dynamic performance of the system.
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 2014
ABSTRACT In this work is presented a general architecture for a multi physical agent network syst... more ABSTRACT In this work is presented a general architecture for a multi physical agent network system based on the coordination and the behaviour management. The system is organised in a hierarchical structure where are distinguished the individual agent actions and the collective ones linked to the whole agent network. Individual actions are also organised in a hybrid layered system that take advantages from reactive and deliberative control. Sensing system is involved as well in the behaviour architecture improving the information acquisition performance.
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 2014
ABSTRACT The vision system provides to a humanoid robot the most complete information about the e... more ABSTRACT The vision system provides to a humanoid robot the most complete information about the environment, having thus visual information extraction a great influence in the decision process of interaction with the environment. It represents one of the most resources consumer in the system, so it has to be efficiently designed without compromising the reliability of the provided information. Software implementation of an accurate vision system is one of the more distinctive elements in RoboCup competitions, especially in the RoboCup, where normative is becoming more and more restrictive and no hardware modifications can be made. In embedded control systems, management of the available resources is crucial to achieve a good performance and get the most from them. Focusing on the Robocup SPL, Nao robot has the CPU as the main shared and limited resource and, to a lesser degree, wireless network and memory should also be considered. In this work, the design of the vision module and the ability of the Hidalgos Team architecture to cope with limited resources are presented. The goal is to maximise CPU utilisation by boosting the capacities of the vision system, while maintaining control properties such as reactivity and stability. A first strategy emphasises on reducing resources consumed by the vision system through adaptability to control requirements. A second strategy focuses on adapting the execution rates of the modules, and especially of the vision system, to the available resources.
This paper deals with the problem of humanoid robot localization and proposes a new method for po... more This paper deals with the problem of humanoid robot localization and proposes a new method for position estimation that has been developed for the RoboCup Standard Platform League environment. Firstly, a complete vision system has been implemented in the Nao robot platform that enables the detection of relevant field markers. The detection of field markers provides some estimation of distances for the current robot position. To reduce errors in these distance measurements, extrinsic and intrinsic camera calibration procedures have been developed and described. To validate the localization algorithm, experiments covering many of the typical situations that arise during RoboCup games have been developed: ranging from degradation in position estimation to total loss of position (due to falls, 'kidnapped robot', or penalization). The self-localization method developed is based on the classical particle filter algorithm. The main contribution of this work is a new particle selection strategy. Our approach reduces the CPU computing time required for each iteration and so eases the limited resource availability problem that is common in robot platforms such as Nao. The experimental results show the quality of the new algorithm in terms of localization and CPU time consumption.
Embedded control systems usually are characterized by its limitations in terms of computational p... more Embedded control systems usually are characterized by its limitations in terms of computational power and memory. Although this systems must deal with per-pection and actuation signal adaptation and calculate control actions ensuring its reliability and providing a certain degree of fault tolerance. The allocation of these tasks between some different embedded nodes conforming a distributed control system allows to solve many of these issues. For that reason is proposed the application of smart devices aims to perform the data processing tasks related with the perception and actuation and offer a simple interface to be configured by other nodes in order to share processed information and raise QoS based alarms. In this work is introduced the procedure of implementing a smart device as a sensor as an embedded node in a distributed control system. In order to analyze its benefits an application based on a RGBD sensor implemented as a smart device is proposed.
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Papers by Eduardo Munera