António Coelho

Correcting routing information through GPS data processing

Devices that offer positioning and route guidance depend on updated digital maps for correct functioning. Updating digital maps is a highly expensive and complex process so it became necessary to develop new ways to detect changes to the road network. Using GPS points gathered by users during their journeys, it is possible to compare the real road network with the digital map. This paper describes a methodology to detect incongruences of different road geometry, alteration of junction position, prohibited manoeuvres and traffic direction as well as a sample of the results obtained.

The ICARUS project - Command, Control and Intelligence (C2I)

This paper describes the features and concepts behind the Command, Control and Intelligence (C2I) system under development in the ICARUS project, which aims at improving crisis management with the use of unmanned search and rescue robotic appliances embedded and integrated into existing infrastructures. A beneficial C2I system should assist the search and rescue process by enhancing first responder situational awareness, decision making and crisis handling by designing intuitive user interfaces that convey detailed and extensive information about the crisis and its evolution. The different components of C2I, their architectural and functional aspects are described along with the robot platform used for development and field testing.

Procedural content graphs for urban modeling

Massive procedural content creation, for example, for virtual urban environments, is a difficult, yet important challenge. While shape grammars are a popular example of effectiveness in architectural modeling, they have clear limitations regarding readability, manageability, and expressive power when addressing a variety of complex structural designs. Moreover, shape grammars aim at geometry specification and do not facilitate integration with other types of content, such as textures or light sources, which could rather accompany the generation process. We present procedural content graphs, a graph-based solution for procedural generation that addresses all these issues in a visual, flexible, and more expressive manner. Besides integrating handling of diverse types of content, this approach introduces collective entity manipulation as lists, seamlessly providing features such as advanced filtering, grouping, merging, ordering, and aggregation, essentially unavailable in shape grammars. Hereby, separated entities can be easily merged or just analyzed together in order to perform a variety of context-based decisions and operations. The advantages of this approach are illustrated via examples of tasks that are either very cumbersome or simply impossible to express with previous grammar approaches.

NARI: Natural Augmented Reality Interface

Following the proliferation of Augmented Reality technologies and applications in mobile devices it is becoming clear that AR techniques have matured and are ready to be used for large audiences. This poses several new multimedia interaction and usability problems that need to be identified and studied. AR problems are no longer exclusively about rendering superimposed virtual geometry or finding ways of performing GPS or computer vision registration. It is important to understand how to keep users engaged with AR and in what occasions it is suitable to use it. Additionally how should graphical user interfaces be designed so that the user can interact with AR elements while pointing a mobile device to a specific real world area? Finally what is limiting AR applications from reaching an even broader acceptance and usage level? This position paper identifies several interaction problems in today???s multimedia AR applications, raising several pressing issues and proposes several research directions.

A game for robot operation training in search and rescue missions

Search and rescue (SAR) teams often face several complex and dangerous tasks, which could be aided by unmanned robotic vehicles (UV). UV agents can potentially be used to decrease the risk in the loss of lives both of the rescuers and victims and aid in the search and transportation of survivors and in the removal of debris in a catastrophe scenario. Depending on the nature of a catastrophe and its geographical location, there are potentially three types of UVs that can be deployed: aerial, surface and ground. Due to the control and manipulation particularities each type of UV contemplates, their operators need prior training and certification. To train and certify the operators a tool (serious game) is under development. In this paper we will make an overview about our approach in its development. This game uses a typical client-server architecture where all client agents (virtual UVs and operator client interfaces) share the same immersive virtual environment which is generated through the merging of GIS data and a semantic model extracted from 3D laser data. There will be several types of scenarios suitable to several types of catastrophe situations. Each of these scenarios has its own mission plan for the trainees to follow. The game will also provide an interface for mission planning so that each mission plan will be carefully designed to accurately correspond to a matrix of skills. This matrix lists a set of common skills in various different UV operational case studies which will allow the certification of operators.

Serious Game in Security: A Solution for Security Trainees

Abstract Serious games have been used with success for training field operatives in tasks where there is a danger of injury or life threatening situations. This paper presents the development of a serious game aimed at the areas of security and safety, supporting the training of specialists through supervised situational scenarios. DDThe training plans involve security against third parties, focusing on social level security at a corporate level, and also safety actions on events such as floods and fires in buildings/facilities. The game provides a 3D virtual environment of the real location/facility to be secured and a multiplayer platform to allow collaborative training and supervising.DD.

Layered shape grammars for procedural modelling of buildings

The effort of creating virtual city environments is reduced using procedural modelling techniques. However, these typically use split-based approaches which can impose limitations on the final geometry, usually enforcing a grid-like structure and require complex geometry to be imported. Layered shape grammars can increase the variability of procedural buildings, while the vectorial definition of shapes introduces the possibility of creating complex shapes that seamlessly blend into the model. We evaluate the contributions with a modelling example and a comparison with split-based procedural modelling techniques. Results show that layers allow more flexibility than split-based techniques in creating variations. Vectorially defined shapes are a step forward in shape grammar expressiveness.

Cities in citizens’ hands

We propose a new paradigm for public participation in urban planning, a field which presents significant challenges for public understanding and participation. Our approach is based on leveraging t ...

Training and Support system in the Cloud for improving the situational awareness in Search and Rescue (SAR) operations

In this paper, a Training and Support system for Search and Rescue operations is described. The system is a component of the ICARUS project (http://www.fp7-icarus.eu) which has a goal to develop sensor, robotic and communication technologies for Human Search And Rescue teams. The support system for planning and managing complex SAR operations is implemented as a command and control component that integrates different sources of spatial information, such as maps of the affected area, satellite images and sensor data coming from the unmanned robots, in order to provide a situation snapshot to the rescue team who will make the necessary decisions. Support issues will include planning of frequency resources needed for given areas, prediction of coverage conditions, location of fixed communication relays, etc. The training system is developed for the ICARUS operators controlling UGVs (Unmanned Ground Vehicles), UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) and USVs (Unmanned Surface Vehicles) from a unified Remote Control Station (RC2). The Training and Support system is implemented in SaaS model (Software as a Service). Therefore, its functionality is available over the Ethernet. SAR ICARUS teams from different countries can be trained simultaneously on a shared virtual stage. In this paper we will show the multi-robot 3D mapping component (aerial vehicle and ground vehicles). We will demonstrate that these 3D maps can be used for Training purpose. Finally we demonstrate current approach for ICARUS Urban SAR (USAR) and Marine SAR (MSAR) operation training.

Augmented reality versus conventional interface: Is there any difference in effectiveness?

The moment immediately before the “add to cart” decision is very critical in online shopping. Drawing on theories of transfer, spreading activation and human-computer interaction, the superiority of markerless Augmented Reality (AR) and Marker-based augmented reality (M) over Conventional Interactive (CI) is hypothesized. Although those multimedia tools are not part of the product/brand motivating the consumer interest they interfere in the interactive performance of the ecommerce. 150 consumers in a lab experiment showed higher emotional response, interactive response and brand evaluation in M and AR than CI. Contrary to what was expected the usability results were the inverse. That is, usability of CI outperforms M and AR. Considering only AR and M interfaces their effect on psychological variables was not statistically significant. A sophisticated or a simple interface had no impact on intention to buy the target brand, but the brand recommendation improved from M to AR. The differing effect of those three interface systems was mediated by brand familiarity, perceived risk, opinion leadership and positive emotional traits.