Mikko Sallinen

Survey of Wireless Sensor Networks Simulation Tools for Demanding Applications

Requirements for Wireless Sensor networks will increase in the future. Requirements are demanding, especially in industrial real time networks which require high reliability and performance. Network simulation tools are often needed in the network design phase before actual implementation. In this paper, we selected 5 common wireless sensor networks simulation tools and estimated their suitability for high-performance network planning and verification. According to the study, some tools managed the requirements for demanding simulation but needed some extension.

Wireless Sensor Networks for infrastructure and industrial monitoring applications

In this paper we present a Wireless Sensor Network for professional applications and two examples for measurements in infrastructure applications, including ground vibration monitoring and pile driving, and one M2M application for measuring deformations in train wheels. There are two different types of sensor nodes designed to fill the requirements of the applications: one with a microcontroller and radio, and another with a microcontroller combined with an FPGA chip to provide efficient parallel computation. Two of the sensor network applications have been tested in an actual working environment to prove the applicability to a real system. The results are very promising and the developed technology can be applied to other applications where heavy computation and high-frequency measurement is required.

Flexible workobject localization for CAD-based robotics

In this paper a method to locate work objects with splined surfaces and estimate the spatial uncertainties of the estimated parameters is presented. The reference B-spline surface patch is selected from a work object CAD-model and is defined in the form of control vertices. The process includes the hang-eye calibration of the sensor, determination of the work object localization and surface treating, e.g. inspection. The hand-eye calibration and work object localization are carried out using the Bayesian form estimation with sensor fusion. Use of the recursive sensor fusion method makes calibration more flexible and accurate in handling large data sets. The spatial uncertainties in the form of eigenvalues in the direction of the eigenvectors are analyzed from the error covariance matrices of the estimated parameters.

Flexible hand-eye calibration for multi-camera systems

Calibration of coordinate systems between cameras and robots, i.e. hand-eye-calibration, is of key importance in sensor based robotics. We present a method which is based on using a very simple, conic calibration object, and results in fast and simple calculations. It originates from the pose estimation algorithms and contributes to earlier methods robustness for the location of the calibration object and simplicity from the point of view of image processing. Our method is also based on the Bayesian model, thus it also provides estimates for the spatial uncertainties, in the form of covariances of the pose parameters. The algorithm has been tested by simulations and practical experiments.

A Survey of RF-Propagation Simulation Tools for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks are applied in new applications all the time. However, in many cases their performance in a particular application is not be evaluated until the deployment phase. This is often too late and causes extra work and iterations in the design of the network hardware or communication parameters. This can be reduced with careful study before the actual deployment using modeling and simulation tools for testing and optimizing the sensor network beforehand. In this paper we introduce three simulation tools for radio frequency (RF) propagation and estimate their suitability for modeling and simulation of sensor networks. According to the results, we see them as very efficient tools, but also suggest improvements for even more versatile results.

Application Scenario for NFC: Mobile Tool for Industrial Worker

RFID-based near field communication (NFC) technology enables several applications for short range communication. It is suitable for professional applications due to principle of operation, flexibility of use and it is standardized. Compared to other short range communication technologies such as Bluetooth, Bluetooth ULP (ultra low power) or Zigbee, it provides advantages in industrial environment and requirements that we will introduce and discuss in this paper. We present a novel scenario for use of NFC in industrial application where operator can collect information simply by touching and organizing data afterwards.

2D CAD based robot programming for processing metal profiles in short series manufacturing

Fast robot programming is a requirement for efficient, flexible and reconfigurable short series manufacturing processes. This paper presents a model based robot programming concept for applications where metal profiles are processed by robots and only a 2D geometrical representation of the workobject - or product billet - is available. The robot is programmed mainly through the 2D CAD drawing of the product billet by adding the process-related information such as bending- and cutting lines, angles and plate thickness. This enables the automatic extension of the model into 3D-space and calculating the sparse set of tool path tag points for the robot. The concept also considers the joint limits of the robot while interpolating the robot motions to full paths. This is achieved by dividing the complete path into segments and adjusting the product billet location and tag point configurations within the path. The segmentation of the path is done in an offline programming environment that also enables collision checking and path correctness verification. The concept is evaluated and tested in a simulation environment and in a real robot testing environment.

Planning of sensory feedback in industrial robot workcells

In this paper, we present a method for planning the sensing features when the geometrical representation of the target object is known. The presented method is a synthesis form and can be used in several measurement applications in robotics. Sensing planning is an important issue when the measurement data is sparse, includes a lot of noise or there are tight time-requirements. The criteria for selecting the measurement locations and orientations is a posteriori error covariance matrix of the parameters to be estimated. The presented approach is verified by simulation tests in the case of work object location. The proposed method has been implemented into a commercial ConiferRob-robot software

A Holonic Shot-blasting System

Holonic features such as cooperative and autonomous behaviour can ensure the flexibility and robustness of a manufacturing system. When a holonic system is to be implemented, several important issues have to be resolved: How to describe the task to be completed? How to decompose a task for different production devices? How to optimise the workflow and co-ordinate the production?

Progressive monitoring and treatment planning of diabetes mellitus in smart home environment

This paper describes a method and a platform for generating a treatment plan for a patient with a chronic disease such as diabetes. The planning process considers the users living environment so the doctors prescription can be easily implemented as a monitored activity. The process utilizes OWL representation for the knowledge modeling and Answer Set Programming for managing the patients goals.