12480757
Robotic sensing for the partially sighted
Partial sightedness is a sensory disability which can to some extent be alleviated by artificial aids. Many of the sensory methods used in robotics can be applied in attempts to recapture some of the sensory information a partially sighted person has lost. This paper describes a device which uses sonar and stereo vision sensors for this task. The device is portable, and is worn by the user, giving them freedom of movement over kerbs, stairs and rough ground. Sensor motion during walking is measured using visual egomotion recovery and odometry, and has been modelled to allow compensation in the sensor readings. A ground position estimate is continually updated by scene ground-plane fitting, or from the walk-motion model, and is used to classify scene features as obstacles or parts of the ground. Methods for the robust reconstruction of image points and lines into scene features are developed. The recognition of world objects of exceptional significance to a mobile person - kerbs and stairs - is given particular attention. A user interface, which has undergone limited real world testing, is also described. Experimental results are presented for the various parts of the system.
16301640
A stereo vision-based aid for the visually impaired
This paper describes a portable vision-based obstacle detection system, intended for use by blind people. The system combines an obstacle detection system designed for AGVs with recalibration of ground position and a Kalman Filter based model of the person's walking movement. The system uses stereo vision. Obstacle detection is achieved through comparison of the disparity seen with that expected from the position of the ground. Recalibration of ground position is made by plane fitting in the ground region. Motion estimation using two visual methods and the use of an inclinometer is described. The results show satisfactory success in all parts of the system.
9141097
Passive tool dynamics rendering for nonlinear bilateral teleoperated manipulators
In a previous paper (see ibid., p. 3278-83), a control law renders a 2n-degree of freedom (DOF) nonlinear teleoperator (consisting of n-DOF master and slave robots) as a n-DOF common passive mechanical tool which has the usual robotic dynamics. In this paper, we develop a control methodology to endow the resulting n-DOF common passive mechanical tool with useful passive tool dynamics which incorporates inertia scaling, guidance/avoidance system while preserving energetic passivity of the closed-loop system. A fictitious energy storage is used to scale the apparent inertia of the teleoperator. The passive velocity field control for a velocity field tracking and artificial potential function are utilized for guidance/avoidance system. Thus, with the control law proposed previously, the control law renders the 2n-DOF teleoperator as a n-DOF common passive mechanical tool which has programmable apparent inertia and moves under the effects of velocity/potential field tailored to task objectives and obstacles in the workspace.
27807377
Protocol Feature Interactions
Feature interaction is one of the most intriguing problems in research and development of telecommunications systems. Features may interact and result in undesirable system behavior. Today the analysis of interactions is conducted in an ad hoc manner by subject matter experts. This leads to time-consuming feature design and testing without any interaction-free guarantee.
2898745
The hausdorff voronoi diagram of polygonal objects: a divide and conquer approach
We study the Hausdorff Voronoi diagram of a set S of polygonal objects in the plane, a generalization of Voronoi diagrams based on the maximum distance of a point from a polygon, and show that it is equivalent to the Voronoi diagram of S under the Hausdorff distance function. We investigate the structural and combinatorial properties of the Hausdorff Voronoi diagram and give a divide and conquer algorithm for the construction of this diagram that improves upon previous results. As a byproduct we introduce the Hausdorff hull, a structure that relates to the Hausdorff Voronoi diagram in the same way as a convex hull relates to the ordinary Voronoi diagram. The Hausdorff Voronoi diagram finds direct application in the problem of computing the critical area of a VLSI Layout, a measure reflecting the sensitivity of a VLSI design to random manufacturing defects, described in a companion paper.13
7800252
Imprecise data computation for high performance asynchronous processors
Instruction level parallelism(ILP) is strictly limited by various dependencies. In particular , data dependency is the major performance bottleneck of data intensive applications. To accelerate the execution of sequential code serialized due to data dependencies, this paper proposes an imprecise computation as a fast data computing technique for a high-performance asynchronous processor. To show the performance benefits of the suggested computing model, simulation results are presented. The imprecise computation can be used effectively in data intensive processing with a microprocessor, a Digital Signal Processor or a multimedia processor.
32204617
A Study on Scalable Bluetooth Piconet for Secure Ubiquitous
Due to the changes in the wireless information environment, there has been an increased demand for various types of information. Accordingly, many wireless communication technologies have been studied and developed. In particular, studies on ubiquitous close distance communications are well underway. Lately, the focus has been on the Bluetooth technology due to its applicability in various environments. Applying Bluetooth connectivity to new environments such as ubiquitous or sensor networks requires finding new ways of using it. Thus, this research analyzed the vulnerability on the limited number of slaves in a piconet configuration through the current Bluetooth communication and proposed an expanded Bluetooth piconet formation method, regardless of the number of slaves inside the piconet even if it is not configured in a scatternet. In the proposed method, a security service was applied and the vulnerabilities of the current piconet configured as an expanded form of the current tree-shaped structure.