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Publications

Publications by Manuel Santos Silva

2019

Multipurpose Urban Sensing Equipment-An EPS@ISEP 2018 Project

Authors
Farrag, M; Marques, D; Bagiami, M; van der Most, M; Smit, W; Malheiro, B; Ribeiro, C; Justo, J; Silva, MF; Ferreira, P; Guedes, P;

Publication
CHALLENGES OF THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IN EDUCATION, ICL2018, VOL 2

Abstract
This paper describes the development of a Multi-purpose Urban Sensing Equipment, named Billy, designed by a multinational and multidisciplinary team enrolled in the European Project Semester (EPS) at Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP). The project is set to design, develop and test an interactive billboard in compliance with the relevant EU regulation and the allocated budget. The Team benefited from the different background, multidisciplinary skills and the newly acquired skills of the members, like marketing, sustainability and design ethics, in activities both inside and outside of the University. The challenge was to design a multi-purpose urban sensing and displaying equipment to inform citizens of nearby environmental conditions. The Team decided to design a system to monitor and display the temperature, humidity, air pressure and air quality of leisure areas, featured with a proximity detection sensor for energy saving. Billy will not only monitor and display this local information, but also the air quality determined by other billboards placed in other locations, creating a distributed urban sensing network. The system has been successfully prototyped and tested using the ESPduino Wi-Fi enabled micro-controller, different sensors and displays (screen and map-based). The results show not only that the prototype functions according to derived specifications and design, but that the team members were able to learn, together and from each other, how to solve this multidisciplinary problem. © 2019, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

2019

Fostering Professional Competencies in Engineering Undergraduates with EPS@ISEP

Authors
Malheiro, B; Guedes, P; Silva, ME; Ferreira, P;

Publication
EDUCATION SCIENCES

Abstract
Engineering education addresses the development of professional competencies in undergraduates. In this context, the core set of professional competencies includes critical thinking and problem solving, effective communication, collaboration and team building, and creativity and innovation-also known as the four Cs-as well as socio-professional ethics and sustainable development-referred in this paper as the two Ss. While the four Cs were identified by the associates of the American Management Association based on the needs of the society, professional associations, and businesses; this paper proposes the two S extension to ensure that future engineers contribute to the well-being of individuals and the preservation of life on Earth. It proposes a tangible framework-the 4C2S-and an application method to analyse the contributions made by engineering capstone programmes to the development of these core competencies in future engineering professionals. The method is applied to an engineering capstone programme-the European Project Semester (EPS) offered by the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP)-and a specific project case-EPS@ISEP Pet Tracker project developed in 2013, constituting, in addition, a road map for the application of the 4C2S framework to engineering capstone programmes. The results show that EPS@ISEP complies with the 4C2S framework.

2019

AdaptPack Studio: Automatic Offline Robot Programming Framework for Factory Environments

Authors
Castro, A; Souza, JP; Rocha, L; Silva, MF;

Publication
2019 19TH IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AUTONOMOUS ROBOT SYSTEMS AND COMPETITIONS (ICARSC 2019)

Abstract
The brisk and dynamic environment that factories are facing, both as an internal and an external level, requires a collection of handy tools to solve emerging issues in the industry 4.0 context. Part of the common challenges that appear are related to the increasing demand for high adaptability in the organizations' production lines. Mechanical processes are becoming faster and more adjustable to the production diversity in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG). Concerning the previous characteristics, future factories can only remain competitive and profitable if they have the ability to quickly adapt all their production resources in response to inconstant market demands. Having previous concerns in focus, this paper presents a fast and adaptative framework for automated cells modeling, simulation and offline robot programming, focused on palletizing operations. Established as an add-on for the Visual Components (VC) 3D manufacturing simulation software, the proposed application allows performing fast layout modeling and automatic offline generation of robot programs. Furthermore, A* based algorithms are used for generating collision-free trajectories, discretized both in the robot joints space and in the Cartesian space. The software evaluation was tested inside the VC simulation world and in the real-world scenario. Results have shown to be concise and accurate, with minor displacement inaccuracies due to differences between the virtual model and the real world.

2019

A Survey on Path Planning Algorithms for Mobile Robots

Authors
Costa, MM; Silva, MF;

Publication
2019 19TH IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AUTONOMOUS ROBOT SYSTEMS AND COMPETITIONS (ICARSC 2019)

Abstract
The use of mobile robots is growing every day. Path planning algorithms are needed to allow the coordination of several robots, and make them travel with the least cost and without collisions. With this emerged the interest in studying some path planning algorithms, in order to better understand the operation of each one when applied in this type of robots. The objective of this paper is to present a state of the art survey of some algorithms of path planning for mobile robots. A brief introduction on mobile robots and trajectory planning algorithms is made. After, the basis of each algorithm is explained, their relative advantages and disadvantages are presented and are mentioned areas of application for each of them. This study was developed in order to implement some of these algorithms in the near future, with the objective to find out their relative advantages and disadvantages, and in which situations their implementation is more adequate.

2019

Rigid wing sailboats: A state of the art survey

Authors
Silva, MF; Friebe, A; Malheiro, B; Guedes, P; Ferreira, P; Waller, M;

Publication
OCEAN ENGINEERING

Abstract
The design, development and deployment of autonomous sustainable ocean platforms for exploration and monitoring can provide researchers and decision makers with valuable data, trends and insights into the largest ecosystem on Earth. Although these outcomes can be used to prevent, identify and minimise problems, as well as to drive multiple market sectors, the design and development of such platforms remains an open challenge. In particular, energy efficiency, control and robustness are major concerns with implications for autonomy and sustainability. Rigid wingsails allow autonomous boats to navigate with increased autonomy due to lower power consumption and increased robustness as a result of mechanically simpler control compared to traditional sails. These platforms are currently the subject of deep interest, but several important research problems remain open. In order to foster dissemination and identify future trends, this paper presents a survey of the latest developments in the field of rigid wing sailboats, describing the main academic and commercial solutions both in terms of hardware and software.

2019

Converting Robot Offline Programs to Native Code Using the AdaptPack Studio Translators

Authors
Souza, JP; Castro, A; Rocha, L; Relvas, P; Silva, MF;

Publication
2019 19TH IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AUTONOMOUS ROBOT SYSTEMS AND COMPETITIONS (ICARSC 2019)

Abstract
The increase in productivity is a demand for modern industries that need to be competitive in the actual business scenario. To face these challenges, companies are increasingly using robotic systems for end-of-line production tasks, such as wrapping and palletizing, as a mean to enhance the production line efficiency and products traceability, allowing human operators to be moved to more added value operations. Despite this increasing use of robotic systems, these equipments still present some inconveniences regarding the programming procedure, as the time required for its execution does not meet the current industrial needs. To face this drawback, offline robot programming methods are gaining great visibility, as their flexibility and programming speed allows companies to face the need of successive changes in the production line set-up. However, even with a great number of robots and simulators that are available in market, the efforts to support several robot brands in one software did not reach the needs of engineers. Therefore, this paper proposes a translation library named AdaptPack Studio Translator, which is capable to export proprietary codes for the ABB, Fanuc, Kuka, and Yaskawa robot brands, after their offline programming has been performed in the Visual Components software. The results presented in this paper are evaluated in simulated and real scenarios.

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