Abstract
Industrial Manipulators were becoming used more and more at industries since the third industrial revolution. Actually, with the fourth one, the paradigm is changing and the collaborative robots are being accepted for the community. It means that smaller manipulators with more functionalities have been used and installed. New approaches have appeared to teach students according to the new robot’s capabilities. The DOBOT robot is an example of that since it captivates the student’s attention with an uncomplicated programming front-end, tools, grippers and extremely useful for teaching STEM. This paper proposes a dynamic based simulation environment that can be used to teach, test and validate solutions to the DOBOT robot. By this way, the student can try and validate, at their homework without the real robot, the developed solutions and further test them at the laboratory with the real robot. Currently, remote testing and validation without the use of a real robot is an advantage. The comparison of the provided simulation environment and the real robot is presented in the approach. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021.

Abstract
The 4th industrial revolution promotes the automatic inspection of all products towards a zero-defect and high-quality manufacturing. In this context, collaborative robotics, where humans and machines share the same space, comprises a suitable approach that allows combining the accuracy of a robot and the ability and flexibility of a human. This paper describes an innovative approach that uses a collaborative robot to support the smart inspection and corrective actions for quality control systems in the manufacturing process, complemented by an intelligent system that learns and adapts its behavior according to the inspected parts. This intelligent system that implements the reinforcement learning algorithm makes the approach more robust once it can learn and be adapted to the trajectory. In the preliminary experiments, it was used a UR3 robot equipped with a Force-Torque sensor that was trained to perform a path regarding a product quality inspection task.

Abstract
Rehabilitation robotics aims to facilitate the rehabilitation procedure for patients and physical therapists. This field has a relatively long history dating back to the 1990s; however, their implementation and the standardisation of their application in the medical field does not follow the same pace, mainly due to their complexity of reproduction and the need for their approval by the authorities. This paper aims to describe architecture that can be applied to industrial robots and promote their application in healthcare ecosystems. The control of the robotic arm is performed using the software called SmartHealth, offering a 2 Degree of Autonomy (DOA). Data are gathered through electromyography (EMG) and force sensors at a frequency of 45 Hz. It also proves the capabilities of such small robots in performing such medical procedures. Four exercises focused on shoulder rehabilitation (passive, restricted active-assisted, free active-assisted and Activities of Daily Living (ADL)) were carried out and confirmed the viability of the proposed architecture and the potential of small robots (i.e., the UR3) in rehabilitation procedure accomplishment. This robot can perform the majority of the default exercises in addition to ADLs but, nevertheless, their limits were also uncovered, mainly due to their limited Range of Motion (ROM) and cost.

Abstract
Forests are remote areas with uneven terrain, so it is costly to map the range of signals that enable the implementation of systems based on wireless and long-distance communication. Even so, the interest in Internet of Things (IoT) functionalities for forest monitoring systems has increasingly attracted the attention of several researchers. This work demonstrates the development of a platform that uses the GPS technology of mobile devices to map the signals of a LoRaWAN Gateway. Therefore, the proposed system is based on concatenating two messages to optimize the LoRaWAN transmission using the Global Position System (GPS) data from a mobile device. With the proposed approach, it is possible to guarantee the data transmission when finding the ideal places to fix nodes regarding the coverage of LoRaWAN because the Gateway bandwidth will not be fulfilled. The tests indicate that different changes in the relief and large bodies drastically affect the signal provided by the Gateway. This work demonstrates that mapping the Gateway's signal is essential to attach modules in the forest, agriculture zones, or even smart cities.

Abstract
Municipal Solid Waste Management Systems (MSWMS) worldwide are currently facing pressure due to the rapid growth of the population in cities. One of the biggest challenges in this system is the inefficient expenditure of time and fuel in waste collection. In this regard, cities/municipalities in charge of MSWMS could take advantage of information and communication technologies to improve the overall quality of their infrastructure. One particular strategy that has been explored and is showing interesting results is using a Wireless Sensors Network (WSN) to monitor waste levels in real-time and help decision-making regarding the need for collection. The WSN is equipped with sensing devices that should be carefully chosen considering the real scenario in which they will work. Therefore, in this work, three sets of sensors were studied to evaluate which is the best to be used in the future WSN assembled in Braganca, Portugal. Sets tested were HC-SR04 (S1), HC-SR04 + DHT11 (S2), and US-100 (S3). Tests considered for this work were air temperature and several distances. In the first, the performance of each set to measure a fixed target (metal and plastic box) was evaluated under different temperatures (1.7-37 degrees C). From these results, two best sets were further used to assess distance measurement at a fixed temperature. This test revealed low absolute errors measuring the distances of interest in this work, ranging from 0.18% to 1.27%.

Abstract
Life in society has initiated a search for comfort and security in social centers. This search generated revolutions within the knowledge about the technologies involved, making the environments automated and integrated. Along with this increase, ecological concerns have also arisen, which have been involved since the design of intelligent buildings, remaining through the years of their use. Based on these two pillars, the present study aims to monitor three central systems inside the apartments of the Apolo Building (Braganca city, Portugal). The electrical energy consumption, water flow, and waste disposal systems are integrated through a single database. The data is sent remotely via WiFi through the microcontroller. For better visualization and analytics of the data, a web application is also developed, which allows for real-time monitoring. The obtained results demonstrate to the consumer his behavior regarding household expenses. The idea of showing the consumer their expenditure is to create an ecological awareness. Through the data collected and the environmental alternatives found, it is possible to observe whether there was a behavior change when receiving this data, either in the short or long term.