Department Publications

This paper describes a demand management system based on narrow band Power line communication and GSM technologies which can be used by the electricity provider to reduce electrical load by turning off nonessential equipment in establishments during high demand periods where enough electricity cannot be supplied. This solution is thought to have less impact on the lives of the public. The system uses Blum-Goldwasser cryptosystem for secure power line communication and to mitigate rogue devices. The system does not require internet connectivity. Therefore, ideal for countries with less internet coverage.

Pose tracking for outdoor rovers is generally a complex task which is further complicated in conditions where a Global Positioning System (GPS) signal is denied such as in planetary exploration, underground mines and covered areas. In these conditions the rover's pose needs to be calculated purely based on the rover's current environment observations. However, conventional wheel odometry is not reliable on rough terrain where wheels are prone to slip and the wheels do not have a common plane of motion due to suspension systems. This paper proposes a Fast State Variable Extension (Fast-SVE) method in which 2D state variables (x, y, yaw) are extended to the full 3D state (x, y, z, roll, pitch, yaw) to achieve effective real time 3D pose tracking of the rover. A particle filter implementation incorporating the Fast-SVE method is used to track the 3D pose of the rover with roll and pitch values used for weighting. An …

Voice commands have been used as the basic method of interaction between humans and robots over the years. Voice interaction is natural and require no additional technical knowledge. But while using voice commands humans frequently use uncertain information. In the case of object manipulation on a table, frequently used uncertain terms “Left,“Right”,“Middle”,“Front”... etc. These terms fail to depict an exact location on the table and the interpretation is governed by the robots point of view. Depending solely on vocal cues is not ideal as it requires the users to explain the exact location with more words and phrases making the interaction process cumbersome and less human like. However, using hand gestures to pinpoint the location is as natural as using the voice commands and frequently used when manipulating items on a surface. When compared to voice commands use of hand gestures is a more direct and less cumbersome approach. But when used alone hand gestures can result in errors while extracting the pointed location making the user dissatisfied. This paper proposes a multi-modal interaction method which uses hand gestures combined with voice commands to interpret uncertain information when placing an object on a table. Two fuzzy inference systems have been used to interpret the uncertain terms related to the two axes of the table. The proposed system has been implemented on an assistive robot platform. Experiments have been conducted to analyze the behaviour of the system.

A smart city is a vision for urban development which integrates multiple information and communication technology (ICT) and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions to manage a city's assets and services. Urban population is constantly growing, and this implies an inevitable increase in the resource consumption within the city. The realization of intelligent solutions is therefore essential to optimize the usage of resources, minimize the environmental impact and improve the quality of life of the city's inhabitants.