Abstract
This paper presents a tracking system developed to study the behavior of an oil tanker moored at the Berth ‘‘A’’ of the Leixões Oil Terminal, Porto, Portugal. A brief description of the local environmental conditions and the existing operational conditions at that oil terminal are presented. Due to extreme outdoor working conditions a Kalman filter was implemented to ensure the robustness and reliability of the obtained measurements. Tests were performed in laboratory on a physical model of a moored oil tanker at a scale 1/100. The results were compared with a commercial motion capture system installed in laboratory. The presented measurement system was developed as part of the DOLPHIN project that aims to study the behavior of moored ships in harbors. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2013.

Abstract
The aim of this article has been to classify swimmers based on kinematics, hydrodynamics, and anthropometrics. Sixty-seven young swimmers made a maximal 25 m front-crawl to measure with a speedometer the swimming velocity (v), speed-fluctuation (dv) and dv normalized to v (dv/v). Another two 25 m bouts with and without carrying a perturbation device were made to estimate active drag coefficient (C-Da). Trunk transverse surface area (S) was measured with photogrammetric technique on land and in the hydrodynamic position. Cluster 1 was related to swimmers with a high speed fluctuation (ie, dv and dv/v), cluster 2 with anthropometrics (ie, S) and cluster 3 with a high hydrodynamic profile (ie, C-Da). The variable that seems to discriminate better the clusters was the dv/v (F = 53.680; P < .001), followed by the dv (F = 28.506; P < .001), C-Da (F = 21.025; P < .001), S (F = 6.297; P < .01) and v (F = 5.375; P = .01). Stepwise discriminant analysis extracted 2 functions: Function 1 was mainly defined by dv/v and S (74.3% of variance), whereas function 2 was mainly defined by C-Da (25.7% of variance). It can be concluded that kinematics, hydrodynamics and anthropometrics are determinant domains in which to classify and characterize young swimmers' profiles.

Abstract
This paper presents the proposal of a Low cost Mobile Robot prototype with On Board Laser Scanner, prototyped to compete at the Robot (R) Factory Mobile Robot competition. The robot is equipped with a hacked Neato XV-11 Laser Scanner, being a very low cost, alternative, when compared with the current available laser scanners. It is presented the description of its sensors and actuators, providing valuable information that can be used to develop better designs of controllers and localization systems. The robot is equipped with the 37Dx52L, which is a low cost 12v motor equipped with encoders and a 29:1 reduction gearbox, being a very popular actuator in the mobile robotics domain. The robot is also equipped with an USB camera applied to acquire image, that will be processed, in order to provide information concerning the part material status.

Abstract
Particle filters (PFs) are computationally intensive sequential Monte Carlo estimation methods with applications in the field of mobile robotics for performing tasks such as tracking, simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) and navigation, by dealing with the uncertainties and/or noise generated by the sensors as well as with the intrinsic uncertainties of the environment. However, the application of PFs with an important number of particles has traditionally been difficult to implement in real-time applications due to the huge number of operations they require. This work presents a hardware implementation on FPGA (field programmable gate arrays) of a PF applied to SLAM which aims to accelerate the execution time of the PF algorithm with moderate resource. The presented system is evaluated for different sensors including a low cost Neato XV-11 laser scanner sensor. First the system is validated by post processing data provided by a realistic simulation of a differential robot, equipped with a hacked Neato XV-11 laser scanner, that navigates in the Robot@Factory competition maze. The robot was simulated using SimTwo, which is a realistic simulation software that can support several types of robots. The simulator provides the robot ground truth, odometry and the laser scanner data. Then the proposed solution is further validated on standard laser scanner sensors in complex environments. The results achieved from this study confirmed the possible use of low cost laser scanner for different robotics applications which benefits in several aspects due to its cost and the increased speed provided by the SLAM algorithm running on FPGA.

Abstract
In this paper an analysis of MicroFactory is carried out and its potential for generating a diversified set of didactic experiences is evaluated. MicroFactory is a robotic competition based on a previously existing competition called Robot@Factory. Robot@Factory is a Portuguese robotic competition whose first edition was held in 2011 in Lisbon. The scenario of the competition simulates a factory which has two warehouses, and eight processing machines. The flow of the materials inside the factory starts at the Incoming Warehouse and ends at the Outgoing Warehouse, eventually passing through one or more processing machines. The robots must collect, transport and position the materials along the process, having to self-localize and navigate while avoiding collisions with walls, obstacles and other robots. There is the option of following predefined tracks present on the floor to ease the navigation problem. Robot@Factory poses challenges like dynamic task scheduling, robot cooperation, trajectory planning, robot navigation with obstacle avoidance, robot self-localization and materials identification and manipulation. Related research contributes to improve AGVs (Automated Guided Vehicle systems) technology. Presently this competition is integrated in Festival Nacional de Robotica, a yearly event which attracts lots of public, contributing also to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) popularization. MicroFactory was conceived to be low-cost and easily implementable in a small space, be it a classroom or the school robotics club. The ground area of the factory scenario was reduced to approximately one ninth of its original value. The scenario materials were simplified -the floor is now an A0 printed sheet and the warehouses and machines dimensions are so that they can be 3D printed or made out of LEGO (TM) bricks; both machines and parts had active elements with LEDs and now they are passive. Besides the competition scenario it was also conceived a prototype robot for the competition. It's a 3D printed robot, based on an Arduino board and accessible electronic parts. The creation of this competition is part of a wider Open Source project, aiming to develop project-based collaborative didactic experiences involving robotics and low-cost 3D printed educational robots based on generic electronics to support those experiences. Currently efforts are being dedicated to the inclusion of more sensors in the competition robot, namely low-cost distance sensors and a weight sensor at the claws, the inclusion of different kinds of motors, the development of a new version of the robot incorporating a Raspberry Pi board, the development of a very precise robot localization system, and the conception of a diversified set of didactic experiences based on the MicroFactory competition. This article presents an analysis of MicroFactory and of its inherent challenges. Through this analysis it will be possible to identify topics that can be taught and learned while developing robots to participate in the competition, and to collect elements that will be very useful in the planning and implementation of didactic experiences that work those topics.

Abstract
Vehicle suspension systems are usually based on passive actuators and control modes in which the damping and stiffness parameters are predefined and kept constant for all road profiles and vehicle response. A different approach is to use active systems to monitor and control the suspension motion in order to improve the vehicle handling and comfort. However, these systems have a complex design requiring a relatively high power source to operate. Semi-active systems are also capable to modify the properties of the vehicle suspension but with low power requirements making them a promising technology for demanding vibration control systems. This paper presents the findings of a numerical simulation involving a simplified model of a vehicle suspension system equipped with a MR actuator. The system is designed to improve the behavior (comfort and handling) of the vehicle compared with a traditional passive suspension system. A simple fuzzy logic controller is used to decide the control action in accordance with the measured system response. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017.