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Publications

Publications by Paulo Moura Oliveira

2022

Teaching Control during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Authors
Guzman, JL; Zakova, K; Craig, IK; Hagglund, T; Rivera, DE; Normey-Rico, JE; Moura-Oliveira, P; Wang, L; Serbezov, A; Sato, T; Beschi, M;

Publication
IFAC PAPERSONLINE

Abstract
This paper aims to analyze some different solutions that were adopted in control education activities during the pandemic. The authors of this paper are educators in the control education field from different countries on all the continents, who have developed a questionnaire with the idea of collecting data about the COVID-19 pandemic impact on the control education activities. The main objective is to study the diverse alternatives that were used worldwide to perform the online educational activities during that period, such as methodologies, tools, learning management systems (LMS), theoretical exercises, laboratory experiments, types of exams, simulators, software for online lecturing, etc. As a result, comparisons between preand during-pandemic educational resources and methods are performed, where useful ideas and discussions are given for the control education community. Copyright (C) 2022 The Authors.

2022

Edge AI-Based Tree Trunk Detection for Forestry Monitoring Robotics

Authors
da Silva, DQ; dos Santos, FN; Filipe, V; Sousa, AJ; Oliveira, PM;

Publication
ROBOTICS

Abstract
Object identification, such as tree trunk detection, is fundamental for forest robotics. Intelligent vision systems are of paramount importance in order to improve robotic perception, thus enhancing the autonomy of forest robots. To that purpose, this paper presents three contributions: an open dataset of 5325 annotated forest images; a tree trunk detection Edge AI benchmark between 13 deep learning models evaluated on four edge-devices (CPU, TPU, GPU and VPU); and a tree trunk mapping experiment using an OAK-D as a sensing device. The results showed that YOLOR was the most reliable trunk detector, achieving a maximum F1 score around 90% while maintaining high scores for different confidence levels; in terms of inference time, YOLOv4 Tiny was the fastest model, attaining 1.93 ms on the GPU. YOLOv7 Tiny presented the best trade-off between detection accuracy and speed, with average inference times under 4 ms on the GPU considering different input resolutions and at the same time achieving an F1 score similar to YOLOR. This work will enable the development of advanced artificial vision systems for robotics in forestry monitoring operations.

2022

Control Engineering and Industrial Automation Education using Out of the Box Approaches

Authors
Oliveira, PM; Vrancic, D; Huba, M;

Publication
20th Anniversary of IEEE International Conference on Emerging eLearning Technologies and Applications, ICETA 2022 - Proceedings

Abstract
Scientific advances in recent decades have provided universal access to a variety of new digital technologies. These technologies are used by the vast majority of today's university students. Therefore, the incorporation of innovative methods and technologies is a must in order to actively engage students in the learning process. In this paper, a selection of techniques that can be considered 'outside of the box' are examined in the context of the application of teaching/learning methods in control engineering and industrial automation education. © 2022 IEEE.

2021

Routing and schedule simulation of a biomass energy supply chain through SimPy simulation package

Authors
Pinho T.M.; Coelho J.P.; Oliveira P.M.; Oliveira B.; Marques A.; Rasinmäki J.; Moreira A.P.; Veiga G.; Boaventura-Cunha J.;

Publication
Applied Computing and Informatics

Abstract
The optimisation of forest fuels supply chain involves several entities actors, and particularities. To successfully manage these supply chains, efficient tools must be devised with the ability to deal with stakeholders dynamic interactions and to optimize the supply chain performance as a whole while being stable and robust, even in the presence of uncertainties. This work proposes a framework to coordinate different planning levels and event-based models to manage the forest-based supply chain. In particular, with the new methodology, the resilience and flexibility of the biomass supply chain is increased through a closed-loop system based on the system forecasts provided by a discrete-event model. The developed event-based predictive model will be described in detail, explaining its link with the remaining elements. The implemented models and their links within the proposed framework are presented in a case study in Finland and results are shown to illustrate the advantage of the proposed architecture.

2022

A Hybrid Approach GABC-LS to Solve mTSP

Authors
Pereira, SD; Pires, EJS; Oliveira, PBD;

Publication
OPTIMIZATION, LEARNING ALGORITHMS AND APPLICATIONS, OL2A 2022

Abstract
The Multiple Traveling Salesman Problem (mTSP) is an interesting combinatorial optimization problem due to its numerous real-life applications. It is a problem where m salesmen visit a set of n cities so that each city is visited once. The primary purpose is to minimize the total distance traveled by all salesmen. This paper presents a hybrid approach called GABC-LS that combines an evolutionary algorithm with the swarm intelligence optimization ideas and a local search method. The proposed approach was tested on three instances and produced some better results than the best-known solutions reported in the literature.

2023

Model-Free VRFT-Based Tuning Method for PID Controllers

Authors
Vrancic, D; Oliveira, PM; Bistak, P; Huba, M;

Publication
MATHEMATICS

Abstract
The main objective of this work was to develop a tuning method for PID controllers suitable for use in an industrial environment. Therefore, a computationally simple tuning method is presented based on a simple experiment on the process without requiring any input from the user. Essentially, the method matches the closed-loop response to the response obtained in the steady-state change experiment. The proposed method requires no prior knowledge of the process and, in its basic form, only the measurement of the change in the steady state of the process in the manually or automatically performed experiment is needed, which is not limited to step-like process input signals. The user does not need to provide any prior information about the process or any information about the closed-loop behavior. Although the control loop dynamics is not defined by the user, it is still known in advance because it is implicitly defined by the process open-loop response. Therefore, no exaggerated control signal swings are expected when the reference signal changes, which is an advantage in many industrial plants. The presented method was designed to be computationally undemanding and can be easily implemented on less powerful hardware, such as lower-end PLC controllers. The work has shown that the proposed model-free method is relatively insensitive to process output noise. Another advantage of the proposed tuning method is that it automatically handles the tuning of highly delayed processes, since the method discards the initial process response. The simplicity and efficiency of the tuning method is demonstrated on several process models and on a laboratory thermal system. The method was also compared to a tuning method based on a similar closed-loop criterion. In addition, all necessary Matlab/Octave files for the calculation of the controller parameters are provided online.

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