Real-time path planning for autonomous vehicle off-road driving.

Background: Autonomous driving is a growing research area that brings benefits in science, economy, and society. Although there are several studies in this area, currently there is no a fully autonomous vehicle, particularly, for off-road navigation. Autonomous vehicle (AV) navigation is a complex process based on application of multiple technologies and algorithms for data acquisition, management and understanding. Particularly, a self-driving assistance system supports key functionalities such as sensing and terrain perception, real time vehicle mapping and localization, path prediction and actuation, communication and safety measures, among others. Methods: In this work, an original approach for vehicle autonomous driving in off-road environments that combines semantic segmentation of video frames and subsequent real-time route planning is proposed. To check the relevance of the proposal, a modular framework for assistive driving in off-road scenarios oriented to resource-constrained devices has been designed. In the scene perception module, a deep neural network is used to segment Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images obtained from camera. The second traversability module fuses Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) point clouds with the results of segmentation to create a binary occupancy grid map to provide scene understanding during autonomous navigation. Finally, the last module, based on the Rapidly-exploring Random Tree (RRT) algorithm, predicts a path. The Freiburg Forest Dataset (FFD) and RELLIS-3D dataset were used to assess the performance of the proposed approach. The theoretical contributions of this article consist of the original approach for image semantic segmentation fitted to off-road driving scenarios, as well as adapting the shortest route searching A* and RRT algorithms to AV path planning. Results: The reported results are very promising and show several advantages compared to previously reported solutions. The segmentation precision achieves 85.9% for FFD and 79.5% for RELLIS-3D including the most frequent semantic classes. While compared to other approaches, the proposed approach is faster regarding computational time for path planning.

Gyroscope-driven mouse pointer with an EMOTIV® EEG headset and data analysis based on Empirical Mode Decomposition.

This paper presents a project on the development of a cursor control emulating the typical operations of a computer-mouse, using gyroscope and eye-blinking electromyographic signals which are obtained through a commercial 16-electrode wireless headset, recently released by Emotiv. The cursor position is controlled using information from a gyroscope included in the headset. The clicks are generated through the user's blinking with an adequate detection procedure based on the spectral-like technique called Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD). EMD is proposed as a simple and quick computational tool, yet effective, aimed to artifact reduction from head movements as well as a method to detect blinking signals for mouse control. Kalman filter is used as state estimator for mouse position control and jitter removal. The detection rate obtained in average was 94.9%. Experimental setup and some obtained results are presented.

Multiresolution dendritic cell algorithm for network anomaly detection.

Anomaly detection in computer networks is a complex task that requires the distinction of normality and anomaly. Network attack detection in information systems is a constant challenge in computer security research, as information systems provide essential services for enterprises and individuals. The consequences of these attacks could be the access, disclosure, or modification of information, as well as denial of computer services and resources. Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) are developed as solutions to detect anomalous behavior, such as denial of service, and backdoors. The proposed model was inspired by the behavior of dendritic cells and their interactions with the human immune system, known as Dendritic Cell Algorithm (DCA), and combines the use of Multiresolution Analysis (MRA) Maximal Overlap Discrete Wavelet Transform (MODWT), as well as the segmented deterministic DCA approach (S-dDCA). The proposed approach is a binary classifier that aims to analyze a time-frequency representation of time-series data obtained from high-level network features, in order to classify data as normal or anomalous. The MODWT was used to extract the approximations of two input signal categories at different levels of decomposition, and are used as processing elements for the multi resolution DCA. The model was evaluated using the NSL-KDD, UNSW-NB15, CIC-IDS2017 and CSE-CIC-IDS2018 datasets, containing contemporary network traffic and attacks. The proposed MRA S-dDCA model achieved an accuracy of 97.37%, 99.97%, 99.56%, and 99.75% for the tested datasets, respectively. Comparisons with the DCA and state-of-the-art approaches for network anomaly detection are presented. The proposed approach was able to surpass state-of-the-art approaches with UNSW-NB15 and CSECIC-IDS2018 datasets, whereas the results obtained with the NSL-KDD and CIC-IDS2017 datasets are competitive with machine learning approaches.

Algorithmic error correction of impedance measuring sensors.

This paper describes novel design concepts and some advanced techniques proposed for increasing the accuracy of low cost impedance measuring devices without reduction of operational speed. The proposed structural method for algorithmic error correction and iterating correction method provide linearization of transfer functions of the measuring sensor and signal conditioning converter, which contribute the principal additive and relative measurement errors. Some measuring systems have been implemented in order to estimate in practice the performance of the proposed methods. Particularly, a measuring system for analysis of C-V, G-V characteristics has been designed and constructed. It has been tested during technological process control of charge-coupled device CCD manufacturing. The obtained results are discussed in order to define a reasonable range of applied methods, their utility, and performance.