Gabriel Villarrubia González

Design and Fabrication of Interdigital Nanocapacitors Coated with HfO2

In this article nickel interdigital capacitors were fabricated on top of silicon substrates. The capacitance of the interdigital capacitor was optimized by coating the electrodes with a 60 nm layer of HfO2. An analytical solution of the capacitance was compared to electromagnetic simulations using COMSOL and with experimental measurements. Results show that modeling interdigital capacitors using Finite Element Method software such as COMSOL is effective in the design and electrical characterization of these transducers.

Monitoring and analysis of vital signs of a patient through a multi-agent application system

In the medical environment, the clinical study of the most basic vital signs of a patient represents the simplest and most effective way to detect and monitor health problems. There are many diseases that can be diagnosed and controlled through regular monitoring of these medical data. The purpose of this study is to develop a monitoring and tracking system for the various vital signs of a patient. In particular, this work focuses on the design of a multi-agent architecture composed of virtual organizations with capabilities to integrate different medical sensors on an open, low-cost hardware platform. This system integrates hardware and software elements needed for the routine measurement of vital signs, performed by the patient or caregiver without having to go to a medical center.

Combination of Multi-Agent Systems and Wireless Sensor Networks for the Monitoring of Cattle

Precision breeding techniques have been widely used to optimize expenses and increase livestock yields. Notwithstanding, the joint use of heterogeneous sensors and artificial intelligence techniques for the simultaneous analysis or detection of different problems that cattle may present has not been addressed. This study arises from the necessity to obtain a technological tool that faces this state of the art limitation. As novelty, this work presents a multi-agent architecture based on virtual organizations which allows to deploy a new embedded agent model in computationally limited autonomous sensors, making use of the Platform for Automatic coNstruction of orGanizations of intElligent Agents (PANGEA). To validate the proposed platform, different studies have been performed, where parameters specific to each animal are studied, such as physical activity, temperature, estrus cycle state and the moment in which the animal goes into labor. In addition, a set of applications that allow farmers to remotely monitor the livestock have been developed.

Increasing the Intensity over Time of an Electric-Assist Bike Based on the User and Route: The Bike Becomes the Gym

Nowadays, many citizens have busy days that make finding time for physical activity difficult. Thus, it is important to provide citizens with tools that allow them to introduce physical activity into their lives as part of the day’s routine. This article proposes an app for an electric pedal-assist-system (PAS) bicycle that increases the pedaling intensity so the bicyclist can achieve higher and higher levels of physical activity. The app includes personalized assist levels that have been adapted to the user’s strength/ability and a profile of the route, segmented according to its slopes. Additionally, a social component motivates interaction and competition between users based on a scoring system that shows the level of their performances. To test the training module, a case study in three different European countries lasted four months and included nine people who traveled 551 routes. The electric PAS bicycle with the app that increases intensity of physical activity shows promise for increasing levels of physical activity as a regular part of the day.

Smart Waste Collection System with Low Consumption LoRaWAN Nodes and Route Optimization

New solutions for managing waste have emerged due to the rise of Smart Cities and the Internet of Things. These solutions can also be applied in rural environments, but they require the deployment of a low cost and low consumption sensor network which can be used by different applications. Wireless technologies such as LoRa and low consumption microcontrollers, such as the SAM L21 family make the implementation and deployment of this kind of sensor network possible. This paper introduces a waste monitoring and management platform used in rural environments. A prototype of a low consumption wireless node is developed to obtain measurements of the weight, filling volume and temperature of a waste container. This monitoring allows the progressive filling data of every town container to be gathered and analysed as well as creating alerts in case of incidence. The platform features a module for optimising waste collection routes. This module dynamically generates routes from data obtained through the deployed nodes to save energy, time and consequently, costs. It also features a mobile application for the collection fleet which guides every driver through the best route—previously calculated for each journey. This paper presents a case study performed in the region of Salamanca to evaluate the efficiency and the viability of the system’s implementation. Data used for this case study come from open data sources, the report of the Castilla y León waste management plan and data from public tender procedures in the region of Salamanca. The results of the case study show a developed node with a great lifetime of operation, a large coverage with small deployment of antennas in the region, and a route optimization system which uses weight and volume measured by the node, and provides savings in cost, time and workforce compared to a static collection route approach.

Non Intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM): A State of the Art

The recent increase in smart meters installations in households and small bussiness by electric companies has led to interest in monitoring load techniques in order to provide better quality service and get useful information about appliance usage and user consumption behavior. This works summarizes the current state of the art in Non Intrusive Load Monitoring from its beginning, describes the main process followed in the literature to perform this technique and shows current methods and techniques followed nowadays. The possible application of this techniques in the context of ambient intelligence, energy efficiency, occupancy detection are described. This work also points the current challenges in the field and the future lines of research in this broad topic.

Agent-Based Intelligent Interface for Wheelchair Movement Control

People who suffer from any kind of motor difficulty face serious complications to autonomously move in their daily lives. However, a growing number research projects which propose different powered wheelchairs control systems are arising. Despite of the interest of the research community in the area, there is no platform that allows an easy integration of various control methods that make use of heterogeneous sensors and computationally demanding algorithms. In this work, an architecture based on virtual organizations of agents is proposed that makes use of a flexible and scalable communication protocol that allows the deployment of embedded agents in computationally limited devices. In order to validate the proper functioning of the proposed system, it has been integrated into a conventional wheelchair and a set of alternative control interfaces have been developed and deployed, including a portable electroencephalography system, a voice interface or as specifically designed smartphone application. A set of tests were conducted to test both the platform adequacy and the accuracy and ease of use of the proposed control systems yielding positive results that can be useful in further wheelchair interfaces design and implementation.

A Context-Aware Indoor Air Quality System for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Prevention

Context-aware monitoring systems designed for e-Health solutions and ambient assisted living (AAL) play an important role in today’s personalized health-care services. The majority of these systems are intended for the monitoring of patients’ vital signs by means of bio-sensors. At present, there are very few systems that monitor environmental conditions and air quality in the homes of users. A home’s environmental conditions can have a significant influence on the state of the health of its residents. Monitoring the environment is the key to preventing possible diseases caused by conditions that do not favor health. This paper presents a context-aware system that monitors air quality to prevent a specific health problem at home. The aim of this system is to reduce the incidence of the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, which is triggered mainly by environmental factors. In the conducted case study, the system monitored the state of the neonate and the quality of air while it was asleep. The designed proposal is characterized by its low cost and non-intrusive nature. The results are promising.

Electric Vehicle Urban Exploration by Anti-pheromone Swarm Based Algorithms

In this work we show how a simple anti-pheromone ant foraging based algorithm can be effective in urban navigation by reducing exploration times. We use a distributed multi agent architecture to test this algorithm. Swarm collaboration is analysed for different scenarios with varying number of units and map complexity. We show how an increase in the number of robots results in smaller exploration times. Also, we measure how the complexity of the map topology affects the navigability. We validate our approach through numerical tests with both synthetic random generated maps and real bicycle routes in four cities. Also, by monitoring the dynamics of three real prototypes built at the laboratory, we check both the feasibility of our approach and the robustness of the algorithm.

Fabrication and thermal analysis of micro thermocouples for energy harvesting

We present the thermal study of micro thermocouples fabricated by electron beam lithography process, the micro thermocouples (MTCs) are based on a recently discovered thermoelectric effect in single-metal nanostructures with cross-sectional discontinuity, single-metal MTCs would simplify the fabrication process and allow the large-scale production of these devices using fabrication technologies such as nanoimprint lithography. In this work, we have investigated the temperature difference between the asymmetric unions of the micro thermocouples using Optotherm EL InfraSight 320 thermal imaging camera. Results show that single-metal MTCs are promising structures that could be used to harvest thermal radiation and generate electric energy through the Seebeck effect.