Abstract
This article focuses on the localization and navigation of a mobile differential robot in an indoor office-like environment. These are fundamental issues to service robotics, which is a branch with a strong market growth. The work implements a vision tracking system, environment mapping, route planning and navigation for an autonomous robot application inside services buildings. One goal of the methodology is its application with low cost equipment. The test bed chosen was a Pioneer P3-DX robot [16] in a service building, with an attached USB webcam, pointed at the ceiling to take advantage of the position of the light fixtures as natural landmarks. The robot location is estimated through two distinct probabilistic methods: a particle filter, when there is no information about the starting location of the robot, and the Kalman filter, given the convergence of the particle filter. Both methods use the detection of light fixtures together with the robot kinematics as information to estimate the pose. The mapping of the environment and its obstacles is obtained from the localization estimates and the information gathered by ultrasound sensors, representing the entire navigation space discretized in the form of an occupation grid. Planning the navigation path is determined by a simple search algorithm, namely the Wavefront algorithm, based on the information contained in the occupancy grid. For a given path, navigation is performed with obstacle avoidance using the virtual forces method. Replanning is used to recover from local minima situations.

Abstract
Although most current pointing devices rely on relative rotation increments, absolute orientation allows for a more intuitive interaction. However, this is difficult to implement in low-energy consumption devices since accurate fusion filters are computationally intensive. This work presents a comparative study of low-complexity filters and state-of-the-art orientation tracking systems, enabling to access complexity versus portability. A relevant set of different MARG units currently available on the market were studied under systematic tests and human subjective user analysis. Experimental results show that it is possible to obtain similar accuracy using low-complexity filters to the ones observed with state-of-the-art orientation tracking systems.

Abstract
Educational robotics has had an increasing growth in the past years, mainly in teaching Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM). These robotics-based learning methods have since gone from home to be used every day in school learning activities. There still is, however, a big moat from the available resources and the effective use of these tools by teachers in K-12 schools. This study aims to gather in a single location a dataset of most available educational robotic platforms and related learning materials. The goal is to have this knowledge open, freely accessible and editable by manufactures and learning resources providers, helping to increase the adoption of educational robotics in STEAM education. © 2018 IEEE.

Abstract
This paper addresses one of the key components in today's industrialization approach: virtualization. The work describes the virtualization of a typical production process, the digital twin in the scope of Industry 4.0, involving different devices, such as robotic arms, conveyors, automatic warehouses and vision systems. It includes both legacy and recent equipment, with different characteristics and communication capabilities, ranging from RS232 serial communication to TCP/IP-based communication, or even I/O-based interaction for devices with no communication capabilities. The developed approach aims at industrial implementations, while allowing for educational purposes. For a standardized approach, the OPC UA protocol is used for high-level communication between the various systems. Several results are described showing the success of the methodology and application.

Abstract
Current trends in the development of remote control devices for user interaction with multimedia equipment and applications are increasingly advancing the traditional keypad-based technologies, in order to improve the functionality of remote control devices and also to enhance the user experience. Haptic feedback allows the user to have a similar sensation to that provided by conventional buttons, with the advantage of a much greater flexibility, including dynamic choice of mechanical effects capable of discriminating between different functions. However, selection of haptic feedback effects that are capable of enhancing the user experience remains a great challenge for engineers and product designers. This work is a contribution towards this goal by presenting a usability study of two technologies (eccentric rotating mass and linear resonant actuator) capable of providing different haptic feedback effects in remote control devices. A subjective evaluation study was carried out to obtain subjective scores for a significant number of haptic feedback effects. The number of preferred actuators of each type and whether haptic feedback is suitable in remote control devices for interactive multimedia, were also evaluated. The results of this study show that most users prefer an interface with haptic feedback and different scores were obtained for different haptic feedback effects, according to the characteristics and number of the actuators.

Abstract
This paper addresses the accuracy of space pointing devices when using absolute orientation for interaction with multimedia content. Classical accurate fusion algorithms are computationally intensive, therefore their implementation in low-energy consumption devices is a challenging task. To tackle this problem, a performance study of a relevant set of COTS MARG sensor units with low-complexity algorithms, is presented in this study. Performance evaluation tests are carried out under harsh conditions to observe the algorithms response in a non-trivial environment. The results demonstrate that the implementation of low-complexity algorithms using low-cost sensors, can provide acceptable accuracy in comparison with the more complex state-of-the-art sensors/algorithms. These results pave the way for faster adoption of absolute orientation-based pointing devices in interactive multimedia applications. © 2015 IEEE.