Alberto Rovetta

Municipal solid waste management in Pudong New Area, China

The increase in population, the rapid economic growth and the rise in community living standards accelerate municipal solid waste (MSW) generation in developing cities. This problem is especially serious in Pudong New Area, Shanghai, China. The daily amount of MSW generated in Pudong was about 1.11 kg per person in 2006. According to the current population growth trend, the solid waste quantity generated will continue to increase with the citys development. In this paper, we describe a waste generation and composition analysis and provide a comprehensive review of municipal solid waste management (MSWM) in Pudong. Some of the important aspects of waste management, such as the current status of waste collection, transport and disposal in Pudong, will be illustrated. Also, the current situation will be evaluated, and its problems will be identified.

A new telerobotic application: remote laparoscopic surgery using satellites and optical fiber networks for data exchange

This article describes the significance in human, scientific, and technical terms of the first experiment in telerobotic surgery carried out between the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and the Telerobotics Laboratory of the Politecnico di Milano on 7 July 1993. An Italian robot in the Telerobotics Laboratory was remotely controlled by an Italian surgeon in the United States. The robots task was to perform a surgical operation on a model containing a pigs organs, involving execution of a biopsy, aspi ration of organic material, and two incisions in preparation of laparoscopy. Transmission was effected by means of a double satellite link, with three transceiver stations: one in Italy, one close to New York, and one in Pasadena, and two geostation ary satellites, the first over the Atlantic and the second over the United States. The route length of the signals was 150,000 km in each direction, and the two centers are 10,000 km apart.

Remote control in telerobotic surgery

This paper deals with the description of a telerobotic surgery experiment, conducted on July 7, 1993, between the Politecnico di Milano, Telerobotics Laboratory, Italy, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. It describes the results obtained, the new objectives proposed and the technical equipment. It also provides a comparison between the different solutions adopted. Telerobotic surgery requires particular skill; the integration of human capabilities with robotics in surgery offers useful results for robotic applications in new fields, especially health care.

Early detection and evaluation of waste through sensorized containers for a collection monitoring application

The present study describes a novel application for use in the monitoring of municipal solid waste, based on distributed sensor technology and geographical information systems. Original field testing and evaluation of the application were carried out in Pudong, Shanghai (PR China). The local waste management system in Pudong features particular requirements related to the rapidly increasing rate of waste production. In view of the fact that collected waste is currently deployed to landfills or to incineration plants within the context investigated, the key aspects to be taken into account in waste collection procedures include monitoring of the overall amount of waste produced, quantitative measurement of the waste present at each collection point and identification of classes of material present in the collected waste. The case study described herein focuses particularly on the above mentioned aspects, proposing the implementation of a network of sensorized waste containers linked to a data management system. Containers used were equipped with a set of sensors mounted onto standard waste bins. The design, implementation and validation procedures applied are subsequently described. The main aim to be achieved by data collection and evaluation was to provide for feasibility analysis of the final device. Data pertaining to the content of waste containers, sampled and processed by means of devices validated on two purpose-designed prototypes, were therefore uploaded to a central monitoring server using GPRS connection. The data monitoring and management modules are integrated into an existing application used by local municipal authorities. A field test campaign was performed in the Pudong area. The system was evaluated in terms of real data flow from the network nodes (containers) as well as in terms of optimization functions, such as collection vehicle routing and scheduling. The most important outcomes obtained were related to calculations of waste weight and volume. The latter data were subsequently used as parameters for the routing optimization of collection trucks and material density evaluation.

Sensorized waste collection container for content estimation and collection optimization

The concurrent effects of a fast national growth rate, of a large and dense residential area and a pressing demand for urban environmental protection create a challenging framework for waste management in Pudong New Area, Shanghai. The complexity of context and procedures is indeed a primary concern of local municipal authorities due to problems related to the collection, transportation and processing of residential solid waste. In order to design and implement a suitable urban solid waste system, the first task is to forecast the quantity and variance of solid waste as it relates to residential population, consumer index, season, etc. The system here discussed addresses exactly these issues, by means of an intelligent, sensorized container. The container has been prepared and tested in the Pudong New Area, Shanghai.

Analysis of typical locomotion of a symmetric hexapod robot

In recent years hexagonal hexapod robots gained the interest of international research community. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, after summarizing all known gaits of such robots, we introduce some improvements both for normal conditions and for fault tolerance. Then we show the advantages of hexagonal hexapod robots over rectangular ones by comparing different gaits from theoretical and experimental points of view. Stability, fault tolerance, turning ability, and terrain adaptability are analyzed. For reaching these aims we also introduce a robot kinematics that considers at the same time supporting and transferring legs. The trajectories of feet are described as well. Finally, single leg stride selection is studied for side wave and for kick-off gaits to optimize walking ability and energy management. The theoretical results presented herein have been validated with experiments conducted on a prototype of the Novel Robotics System for Planetary Exploration (Rovetta et al., “New Robot Concepts for Mars Soil Exploration: Mechanics and Functionality,” ASTRA 2004, Eighth ESA Workshop on Advanced Space Technologies for Robotics and Automatian, Nordwijk, The Netherlands Nov. 2–4, 2004) (NOROS), developed by Politecnico di Milano and Beijing University of Astronautics and Aeronautics, and the results are summarized in this paper.

Locomotion Analysis of Hexapod Robot

Multi-legged robots display significant advantages with respect to wheeled ones for walking over rough terrain because they do not need continuous contact with the ground. In Multi-legged robots, hexapod robots, mechanical vehicles that walk on six legs, have attracted considerable attention in recent decades. There are several benefits for hexapods rover. (a) Hexapod robot is easy to maintain static stability on three or more legs, (b) It has a great deal of flexibility in how it can move. (c) Hexapod robot is the most efficient one for statically stable walking. Preumount et al. 1991, observed that a larger number of legs more than six do not increase walking speed. (d) Hexapod robots show robustness in case of leg faults (e) Hexapods makes it possible for the robot to use one, two or three legs to work as hand and perform complex operations. The most studied problem for multi-legged robots concerns how to determine the best sequence for lifting off and placing the feet (gait/locomotion planning). From the stability point of view, robot locomotion can be classified into dynamic locomotion, such as running and hopping, and statically stable locomotion as walking. Statically stable locomotion has the constraint that the moving body is stable at all times. The vertical projection of the centre of gravity of the robot must be within the convex of the supporting polygon linked positions of all supporting feet. Statically stable gait is solely dependent on the design of bodies and legs. Hexapod gaits have been widely investigated as a function of shape and characteristics of the robot structure. In 1985, Kaneko et al. addressed the gait of a rectangular hexapod with decoupled freedoms where the propelling motion was generated by one degree of freedom (DOF). In 1988, Lee et al. realized an omnidirectional walking control system for a rectangular hexapod robot with adaptive suspension. A circular gait was studied for a layered hexapod robot (called Ambler) at the Carnegie Mellon University [Bares et al., 1989; Krotkov & Bares, 1991; Wettergreen, 1990] with rotating legs connected to the same vertical axis at six different heights. Hirose et al. in 1992 and 1998 and Gurocak in 1998 developed other two hexapods whose bodies were consisting of two different layers, each connected to three legs. The relative motion of the layers realized the omnidirectional robot gait in a simple way, but limiting the walking capability under leg faults. Two Lees in 2001 studied the gait of a special robot whose body was composed of three parts connected by revolute joints. Its 18

Telerobotic surgery control and safety

Deals with the developed researches and applications of telerobotic surgery. The paper outlines the following steps: (1) the execution of telesurgery robotic operation, using a satellite and a ISDN line as communication system; (2) the development of a telecontrol system used to remotely control a robotized system during the execution of a prostate biopsy on a human patient with a telerobotic system with optical fibers telecommunication; (3) the respect of normative for surgical robotics and surgical telerobotics in the hospitals and medical centers according to the European Normative (4) outline of some methods used in the telesurgical experiments developed at Politecnico di Milano to comply with the EU directives.

A Noninvasive System for Evaluating Driver Vigilance Level Examining Both Physiological and Mechanical Data

This paper describes a method for designing an intelligent system to improve driver safety. A prototype of the system, which was designed by following this method, is presented. Driver physiological data acquired from sensors on the steering wheel are correlated, using statistical multivariate analysis, to the drivers vigilance level, which was evaluated using polysomnography. A driving simulation was conducted with a mechanical platform, whose data were also acquired and studied the same way. The parameters chosen for the evaluation of driver vigilance are used for the first time in such a system. Data are analyzed offline to set up a real-time driver vigilance controller. The data analysis results in one vigilance-level index for the current driver and situation.

Solid waste collection optimization considering energy utilization for large city area

Waste management is a significant issue in the world, which is of vital importance to global environmental. Three strategies for truck scheduling and path optimization of waste collection are provided. For an improvement waste processing strategy which not only cares about the weight and volume, this paper presented a model for optimizing municipal solid waste management considering energy utilization. A genetic algorithm and simulate algorithm integrated method was adopted to optimize the collection route. To better help administration department manage its solid waste, a GIS based decision support system was developed. The proposed approach is verified through a case study of Pudong. The results show the method is effective for solid waste collection and transport from the energy utilization improvement point of view.