Abstract
The work described in this paper address the problems of productivity of Grohe's Portugal grinding/polishing department, related to the frequent stops of robotic cells for on-line programming and program adjustments. The solution to the stated problem was achieved through the adoption of off-line programming as an alternative to the conventional on-line method. Efforts were developed to overcome some limitations and restrictions found in terms of the software applications used, in order to adapt and improve their use to the needs of this type of contact applications. The solution developed is currently used for off-line programming the grinding robots at Grohe Portugal, with a significant reduction in the cells stop time to program the robots and also in the cycle time. The application of the off-line programming method and of the new programming techniques allowed to obtain a reduction of the cell stop time (up to 85% reduction), to optimize the production cycle time (up to 10% reduction) and, simultaneously, good results in terms of product finishing. The main limitations faced are the lack of realism of the wheel flexibility and the lack of sensitivity of the contact force with it.

Abstract
This paper describes the design and development of a biologically inspired flying robot prototype (a machine able to fly by beating its wings, as birds do). For its implementation, the flight of biological beings was analysed, as well as the techniques involved in ornithopter's construction. Some parameters adopted by biological beings to maintain a stable flight were studied, and the prototype was designed based on these values. To conclude the project, an ornithopter was built, aiming to perform a stabilized flight and some preliminary experiments were performed to check if its behaviour meets the design expectations.

Abstract
The European Project Semester (EPS) is a one-semester capstone project/internship programme offered to engineering, product design and business undergraduates by 18 European engineering schools. EPS aims to prepare future engineers to think and act globally by adopting project-based learning and teamwork methodologies. The EPS@ISEP programme – the EPS programme provided by ISEP – the School of Engineering of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto – started in 2011 and has since welcomed 3rd and 4th year mobility students during the spring semester. In particular, sustainable development is a pervasive concern within EPS projects. It was in this context that, in 2012, a team of EPS@ISEP students decided to develop a water disinfection system. While the technical goal of the project was to design and develop a fluid disinfection system for removing bacteria, viruses and seaweeds, the overall objective was far more ambitious: to help students learn, develop and adopt sustainable practices for their future professional life. The system was intended to be a simple and effective solution for water treatment and recycling. At a larger scale, the project contributes to the preservation of the planet's fresh water resources and to the improvement of the population’s health by eliminating harmful microorganisms from the water. This challenge was, by itself, motivational and exposed the team to new learning experiences. The team found several approaches for water treatment and, after a detailed analysis, decided to adopt Ultraviolet (UV) irradiation for the removal of microorganisms. This multidisciplinary real world problem drove the team during the semester. The team surveyed and compared different methods for water cleansing and recycling, chose one approach and, then, designed, built and tested the prototype. In addition, the students also addressed marketing, sustainability as well as the ethic and deontological issues regarding the proposed solution while developing cross-cultural understanding, teamwork and communication skills. The project provided an excellent opportunity to foster the concept of sustainable development amongst students.

Abstract

Abstract
While bottom-up approaches to object recognition are simple to design and implement, they do not yield the same performance as top-down approaches. On the other hand, it is not trivial to obtain a moderate number of plausible hypotheses to be efficiently verified by top-down approaches. To address these shortcomings, we propose a hybrid top-down bottom-up approach to object recognition where a bottom-up procedure that generates a set of hypothesis based on data is combined with a top-down process for evaluating those hypotheses. We use the recognition of rectangular cuboid shaped objects from 3D point cloud data as a benchmark problem for our research. Results obtained using this approach demonstrate promising recognition performances.

Abstract
Cognitive robots, able to adapt their actions based on sensory information and the management of uncertainty, have begun to find their way into manufacturing settings. However, the full potential of these robots has not been fully exploited, largely due to the lack of vertical integration with existing IT infrastructures, such as the manufacturing execution system (MES), as part of a large-scale cyber-physical entity. This paper reports on considerations and findings from the research project STAMINA that is developing such a cognitive cyber-physical system and applying it to a concrete and well-known use case from the automotive industry. Our approach allows manufacturing tasks to be performed without human intervention, even if the available description of the environment-the world model-suffers from large uncertainties. Thus, the robot becomes an integral part of the MES, resulting in a highly flexible overall system.