Enric Peig

Guidelines for the final year project assessment in engineering

This paper presents an efficient and objective procedure for the outcome-based assessment of engineering final year projects (FYP). The procedure, consisting of 6 steps, can easily be customized for different engineering curricula. A User Guide has been developed to help institutions create their own FYP assessment system. The guide includes the assessment procedure and aids for its implementation. Particularly, a set of FYP-oriented observable descriptors for Tuning outcomes was defined. The end-products of the proposed assessment procedure are a set of assessment reports that the evaluator agent/s must fulfil per milestone, marking the level reached by the student at every descriptor (0: unacceptable, 1: minimum acceptable, 2: good, 3: excellent). These marks are then gathered together in an overall assessment sheet showing, for every learning outcome, the evolution along the assessment milestones of the level reached by the student at any descriptor. This sheet is a very powerful tool for setting the final mark. All assessment agents use the same list of descriptors and the same levels of acquisition, thus improving the consistency, traceability and global quality of the assessment process.

Using Augmented Reality and Internet of Things to improve accessibility of people with motor disabilities in the context of Smart Cities

Abstract Smart Cities need to be designed to allow the inclusion of all kinds of citizens. For instance, motor disabled people like wheelchair users may have problems to interact with the city. Internet of Things (IoT) technologies provide the tools to include all citizens in the Smart City context. For example, wheelchair users may not be able to reach items placed beyond their arm’s length, limiting their independence in everyday activities like shopping, or visiting libraries. We have developed a system that enables wheelchair users to interact with items placed beyond their arm’s length, with the help of Augmented Reality (AR) and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technologies. Our proposed system is an interactive AR application that runs on different interfaces, allowing the user to digitally interact with the physical items on the shelf, thanks to an updated inventory provided by an RFID system. The resulting experience is close to being able to browse a shelf, clicking on it and obtaining information about the items it contains, allowing wheelchair users to shop independently, and providing autonomy in their everyday activities. Fourteen wheelchair users with different degrees of impairment have participated in the study and development of the system. The evaluation results show promising results towards more independence of wheelchair users, providing an opportunity for equality improvement.

Cricking: browsing physical space with smart glass

We are so used to surfing the web, clicking on links and getting instant feedback, that we often wonder why we cannot do the same on physical surfaces. We have coined crick as a portmanteau term blending click and brick (and mortar) to describe the action of selecting a point on a physical surface and receiving digital information about its content. In this paper we are presenting a browsable physical space with clicking solution. Our target space is a shelf equipped with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) containing changing number of DVDs and books. The mouse is replaced by a smartphone acting as a touch pad, the cursor is replaced by a controllable moving head beam light that projects a spot on the shelf and the information about the products near the cursors position is then shown on a heads-up display (HUD) such as Google Glass. The items can be localized and visualized at HUD with an accuracy of 99%. The system is developed in context to independent living i.e. wheelchair users.

Bringing online shopping experience to offline retail through augmented reality and RFID

Retail is undergoing through major technological changes. Online shopping is rapidly increasing because of the features it offers. Bringing online shopping features to offline retail will enrich customer experience. In this paper we present Augmented Reality (AR) interfaces developed for handheld devices, linked to a physical Smart Space to bridge the gap between offline and online retail. Preliminary evaluation shows that the user is able to interact with the products in the physical spaces while having access to online shopping features. System is tested and validated with number of products at Radio Frequency(RFID) based smart shelf.

An architecture for TV content distributed search and retrieval using the MPEG query format (MPQF)

Traditional broadcasting of TV contents begins to coexist with new models of user aware content delivery. The definition of interoperable interfaces for precise content search and retrieval between the different involved parties is a requirement for the deployment of the new audiovisual distribution services. This paper presents the design of an architecture based on the MPEG Query Format (MPQF) for providing the necessary interoperability to deploy distributed audiovisual content search and retrieval networks between content producers, distributors, aggregators and consumer devices. A service-oriented architecture based on Web Services technology is defined. This paper also presents how the architecture can be applied to a real scenario, the XAC (Xarxa IP Audiovisual de Catalunya, Audiovisual IP Network of Catalonia). As far as we know, this is the first paper to apply MPQF to TV Content Distributed Search and Retrieval.