IEEE Galveston Bay Section

Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is one of the most popular Swarm Intelligence paradigms and is a population-based stochastic algorithm that can be used to solve many types of optimization problems in engineering. This presentation will show how to solve the inverse kinematics problem for serial robotic manipulators using PSO. Inverse kinematics is a fundamental problem in robotics: a set of joint angles must be calculated so that the robot arm can be manipulated to the corresponding desired end effector position and orientation. Traditional solution techniques include analytical methods which may or may not exist for a particular robot, numerical methods such as Newton-Raphson, Jacobian inverse, and other techniques using swarm intelligence have been developed. Many of the current robotic manipulator inverse kinematics solutions using swarm intelligence only deal with the end effector position and not its orientation. We have developed a PSO technique that provides the convergence of a complete end effector pose. This solution technique will be demonstrated using the Baxter Research Robot which has two seven-joint arms although the method can be applied to any general serial robotic manipulator. Speaker(s): HASAN, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/320721

In recent years, there has been growing interest in healthcare systems research worldwide to improve care quality, patient safety, and operation efficiency. In this talk, we will first discuss the evolution of Industry 4.0, then introduce the idea of Healthcare 4.0, i.e., the smart and interconnected healthcare systems. We will present lessons we learned and results we obtained during the journey of manufacturing systems research to healthcare delivery system study. We will introduce the problems and issues, and then address the difficulties and opportunities in healthcare delivery systems. In addition, we will provide a brief description of recent studies in healthcare delivery systems carried out at the Production and Service Systems Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Finally, we will discuss the challenges and future directions in smart and interconnected healthcare systems research. Speaker(s): JINGSHAN, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/320798

Engineers and scientists engaged in making artificially intelligent systems have successfully resolved many challenging technical problems and have demonstrated the practical viability of autonomous driving on test tracks and carefully selected roads. These are major milestones in engineering and a clear harbinger of a transformative new era of moving goods, supplies, and people from point A to point B. Yet, along with these accomplishments come many new challenges that are not only of a technical nature, but also of a broader social, legal, and even “ethical” nature. Such issues become more urgent and important as collisions and accidents involving self-driving or semi-autonomous vehicles occur more often – injuring and even killing humans in the real world. A key challenge that needs to be addressed is making sure that artificially engineered automobiles and humans cohabit in a harmonious, safe, and secure manner. For researchers, this provides the exciting opportunity to pursue important problems from a broad range of topics in distributed perception, cognition, planning, and control. We will present a “Human-Centered” approach to the development of highly automated vehicle technologies. We will also present a brief sampling of contributions in the development of systems and algorithms to perceive situational criticalities, predict intentions of intelligent agents, and plan/execute actions for safe & smooth maneuvers and control transitions. We will highlight major research milestones in the area of the autonomous vehicle and discuss issues that require deeper, critical examination and careful resolution to assure the safe, reliable, and robust operation of these highly complex systems in the real world. Speaker(s): MOHAN, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/320885

Major breakthroughs in the field of biophotonics, genomics, and stem cell biology are enabling the control of biological processes through light. By incorporating light-actuated and light-emitting proteins into cells, key biological processes at the single-cell level can be controlled in real-time. In parallel to such developments, nanotechnology is providing the engineering community with a new set of tools to create novel nanoscale devices with unprecedented functionalities. These include, among others, plasmonic nano-lasers with sub- micrometric footprint, plasmonic nano-antennas able to confine light in nanometric structures, or single- photon detectors with unrivaled sensitivity, which can be combined to create novel optical nano-sensors and nano-actuators. Together, networks of nano-actuators and nano-sensors can control and monitor biological processes at the sub-cellular level with unprecedented temporal and spatial accuracy. The resulting light- mediated nano-bio-interfaces enable new unique applications, ranging from new tools to study, understand and enhance the recovery from developmental and neurodegenerative diseases to novel brain-machine interfaces and other technologies targeted at enriching human-machine interaction. In this talk, the fundamentals and the experimental state of the art and future research directions for wireless nano-bio communication networks enabled by optogenomics will be presented. Optogenomic interfaces are light- mediated nano-bio-interfaces that allow the control and monitoring of the genome and, thus, of all the cell functionalities, with (sub) cellular resolution and high temporal accuracy. The biological principles of cell development and function and, in particular, the role of the FGFR1 gene will be described. Then, the state- of-the-art in optical nano-devices will be summarized. Experimental results demonstrating the feasibility to optically actuating the expression of FGFR1 and, thus, the genome, will be presented. Future steps towards moving the fundamental in-vitro lab to in-vivo testing and, ultimately, deployment in humans, will be discussed while highlighting the role of wireless communication engineers in this truly transformative research paradigm. Speaker(s): JOSEP, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/323531

Layers of smartness—using technology and data—are being built into cities to make them safer, more efficient, and sustainable. Developed cities around the world are actively launching smart solutions, while new and emerging cities are integrating intelligent, connected systems from the start. The big cities of today may not be those of tomorrow. The opportunities are immense—across infrastructure, mobility, energy, healthcare, and beyond. Innovative technology applications and their adoption in society offer a turning point. At its core, the smart city is about people and improving the quality of our everyday lives. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed some of the shortcomings of major cities in times of crisis. The talk will cover the following areas: Intro: Current state and challenges of Smart Cities **Disruptive technologies enable building a solid foundation for smart cities - highlights of current and future of IoT, 5G/6G, Analytics (AI/ML/DP) across key markets **Key examples – technology convergence & adoption in new use cases in key verticals such as smart homes, public safety, autonomous driving, healthcare, smart energy, and others. ** Covid-19 accelerates the return to the new norm with greater innovation and end-to-end services Conclusion: Adoption of disruptive technologies and acceleration to a new norm will help transition to smart societies. Key Takeaways - Understanding the mission of smart cities and the current situation of 50 worldwide top smart cities and impact from Coronavirus Covid-19 - Technology Features overview and roadmap of 4G/5G/6G, IoT, and AI - Sample use cases and power of virtualization and network slicing Speaker(s): Fawzi, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/323532

The laser multi-coordinate measuring system has the advantages of high precision and wide measuring range and has wide application prospects in the fields of large-scale high-precision coordinate measurement. In order to improve the coordinate measurement accuracy of the laser multi-coordinate measuring system, the influence of station layout on measurement accuracy is quantitatively analyzed, meanwhile, and the influence of the positional relationship between the measuring equipment and the measured point on the uncertainty of coordinate measurement is introduced too. Speaker(s): DONGJING, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/320887

The tutorial will focus on sensor and measurement systems for new generations of vehicles with driver-assisted/autonomous capability. This is the main trend that is revolutionizing vehicles and mobility of people and goods and is also making smart our cities. The economic and social impacts of this application field are huge. Worldwide every year 90 million vehicles are sold, but 1.25 million people are killed due to a lack of safety. In the US 3.1 billion gallons of fuel are wasted due to traffic congestion. Assisted driving and autonomous driving aim at increasing safety, improving fuel efficiency and our lifestyle by avoiding traffic congestion, at ensuring mobility for elderly and disabled people (inclusivity). The interest in this research subject is demonstrated by the huge investments of companies like Google, Intel, Tesla, Uber, Ford, and GM, to name just a few, and by technology alliances, e.g. between BMW and Intel, planning autonomous cars for 2021. A convergence between automotive and ICT/Electronics industries is foreseen in the near future. An example of this convergence is the 5G Automotive Association http://www.5gaa.org/, which includes all main car manufacturers, telecom service providers, electronic industries, and measurement system providers (Keysight, Rohde&Schwarz). The key enabling technologies for this scenario are the sensing and measurement systems, needed for accurate vehicle positioning and navigation, vehicle context-awareness, obstacle detection, and collision avoidance, for driver assistance (enhanced vision, driver’s attention, and fatigue detection). The lecture will be divided into multiple sections. First, in the Introduction, innovation and market trends in the field of sensor and measurement technologies applied to vehicles and smart mobility systems will be discussed, focusing on the next generation of driver-assisted/autonomous vehicles. Then, new Radar and Lidar systems, appearing on-board vehicles beside an array of imaging cameras, will be discussed for measurement of obstacle positions, distance, and relative speed. A trade-off has to be found between the power and size of active sensing systems like Radar and Lidar and their maximum measurement range. Moreover, in continuous wave Radars, the limited frequency sweep range and the limited number of TX/RX channels lead to limits for the resolution in distance, direction of arrival, and speed measurements. Examples of X-band mobility surveillance Radar and mm-wave automotive Radar will be provided. On the other hand, MOEMS (micro opto-electro mechanical systems)-based scanned systems, used to reduce the size and cost of Lidars are causing distortions that are worsening the accuracy of light-based measurements. Distortions due to fish-eye lenses, used to enlarge the field of view, are decreasing the measurement performance of imaging sensors. Techniques to mitigate such artifacts will be discussed. Practical examples of traffic sign recognition systems, road sign recognition, and image mosaicking for an all-around view will be discussed. In addition, Lidar and imaging cameras suffer from decreased measurement performance in case of harsh operating conditions (e.g. bad weather or light conditions). New biometric sensing and measurement systems will be also reviewed, such as Radar-based contactless heart/breath-rate measurement, smart steering wheel for skin temperature/galvanic-response measurements, or heart-rate detection, with the final aim of detecting the driver’s attention or health status. Concerning onboard sensors for positioning and navigation, recent advances in MEMS accelerometers and gyroscopes will be discussed. A careful analysis will be carried out about the measurement errors they cause on position and navigation, due to their bias and random walk output noise. Finally, the lecture will analyze the trend in computing platforms, where parallel architectures and machine learning/AI (artificial intelligence) techniques, will be exploited to manage in real-time many and heterogeneous sources of measurements and to take autonomous decisions. Suggestions for future directions of interest for the I&M society, and references to recent publications on IMS journals and conferences, in the field of automated and connected vehicles, will be provided as a conclusion. Speaker(s): SERGIO, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/321258

Industry 4.0 is considered the great revolution of the past few years. New technologies, the Internet of things, and the possibility to monitor everything from everywhere changed both plants and the approaches to industrial production. Medicine is considered a slowly changing discipline. The human body model is a difficult concept to develop. But we can identify some passages in which medicine can be compared to the industry. Four major changes revolutionized medicine: Medicine 1.0: James Watson and Francis Crick described the structure of DNA. This was the beginning of research in the field of molecular and cellular biology Medicine 2.0: Sequencing the Human genome. This discovery made it possible to find the origin of the diseases. Medicine 3.0: The convergence of biology and engineering. Now the biologist’s experience can be combined with the technology of the engineers. New approaches to new forms of analysis can be used. Medicine 4.0: Digitalization of Medicine: IoT devices and techniques, AI to perform analyses, Machine Learning for diagnoses, Brain Computer Interface, Smart wearable sensors. Medicine 4.0 is definitely a great revolution in patient care. New horizons are possible today. Covid 19 has highlighted problems that have existed for a long time. Relocation of services, which means remote monitoring, and remote diagnoses without direct contact between the doctor and the patient. Hospitals are freed from routine tests that could be performed by patients at home and reported by doctors on the internet. Potential dangerous conditions can be prevented. During the Covid emergency, everybody can check his condition and ask for a medical visit (swab) only when really necessary. This is true telemedicine. This is not a WhatsApp where an elder tries to chat with a doctor. This is a smart device able to measure objective vital parameters and send to a health care center. Of course, Medicine 4.0 requires new technologies for smart sensors. These devices need to be very easy to use, fast, reliable, and low cost. They must be accepted by both people and doctors. In this talk, we’ll see together the meaning of telemedicine and E-Health. E-health is the key to allowing people to self-monitor their vital signals. Some devices already exist but a new approach will allow everybody (especially older people with cognitive difficulties) to use these systems with a friendly approach. Telemedicine will be the new approach to the concept of a hospital. A virtual hospital, without any physical contact but with an objective measurement of every parameter. A final remote discussion between the doctor and the patient is still required to feel comfortable. But the doctor will have all the vital signals recorded to allow him to make a diagnosis based on reliable data. Another important aspect of medicine 4.0 is the possibility of using AI both to perform parameter measurements and to manage the monitoring of multiple patients. The new image processing based on Artificial Neural Networks allows doctors to have a better and faster analysis. But AI algorithms are also able to manage intensive care rooms with several patients reducing the number of doctors involved in the global monitoring of the situation. Speaker(s): EROS, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/321334