Wednesday 14 November 2012

Making robots cleverer


Making robots cleverer

Do you wish you had a car that drove you to work, or a robot that vacuumed your home without bumping into the kids or the dog? In his doctoral thesis, Karl Granström has solved some of the problems a robot might come up against.
Cars that drive themselves while keeping track of other cars, and robots that can work among us humans are two applications that are getting closer to being realised. In his doctoral thesis, Granström has developed a number of different algorithms that help a robot or a computer in a car to follow moving targets and also understand more or less what they see - the dimensions of the object - and how close it can get.
Karl Granström“Research around extended targets is fairly new, and has come on strongly over the last five to ten years,” says Granström, who will soon receive his PhD in Automatic Control Engineering at the Department of Electrical Engineering.
Previous research into how robots can automatically follow a target dealt with punctiform targets. That works in certain circumstances, but not when robots begin to interact a little more in an everyday environment. For example, we humans have no trouble differentiating between a large, perhaps overweight adult and two much thinner people walking close together. This is much trickier for a robot.
Using a laser scanner, however, the robot can gather so many measurements that it gets a good understanding of how big the person or group of people is and approximately how close it can go.
It is often not so important for the robot to know how many people the tight group consists of. The problem arises when one person in a group suddenly splits off - a child breaks off and dashes out into the street right in front of an oncoming car.
If those systems allowing cars and robots to be autonomous are to work – in the sense that they are able to move without human supervision – they must also be able to quickly deal with this sort of problem.
In his doctoral thesis, Granström has developed methods and algorithms that make it possible, using technology called Probability Hypothesis Density (PHD) filters, to follow several separate targets, and that also interpret signals correctly if a child splits from a group of people or another car suddenly leaves the long stream of cars.
Karl worked principally together with fellow researcher Umut Orguner, who began as a postgraduate in the Division of Automatic Control Engineering, roughly at the same time as Karl began his doctoral studies.  The result was a series of articles that were also gathered together in the extensive thesis, entitled “Extended target tracking using PHD filters”.
Where he’ll be heading after his doctorate remains to be seen.
“I'll be staying at automatic control engineering for a couple of months, thinking about whether I want to do a postdoc, or start working in industry, a job a bit closer to development would be nice, but I haven’t really made up my mind,” he says.

Risks in the nuclear power industry


Risks in the nuclear power industry

Risk management in the nuclear power industry is marked by a mechanistic view of people and organisations, impairing its opportunities to learn from experiences and to predict and prevent future risks. Safety researcher Johan M. Sanne argues this in a newly published research article.
Forsmark, 25 July 2006. A faulty connection in the distribution plant outside the nuclear power facility causes an electric flash-over that knocks out the external power supply and two of the facility’s four internal backup power systems. In the control room, large parts of the instrument panel go dark. Without functioning electricity, the cooling system stops working and a meltdown threatens.
The control room operators, however, quickly understood what had happened and acted properly: They connected the facility to the regional electricity network.
Johan-M--Sanne
In the prevailing thinking on safety, people – the human factor – are seen as a risk, while machines are reliable. In the Forsmark case it was the exact opposite: the human factor saved the situation from developing into a catastrophe, and the design of the electrical system was faulty. Despite this, the operators’ efforts were never analysed in Forsmark’s own investigation after the incident.
“Here we had a golden opportunity to learn from good experiences that wasn’t utilized,” says Johan M. Sanne, researcher at the Department of Thematic Studies - Technology and Social Change, who has specialised in studying safety work in complicated technical systems. He has analysed the Forsmark investigation and interviewed key people within the nuclear power industry. And he finds that a too-narrow definition of risk and risk management makes it difficult to predict what could happen.
Two concepts are fundamental to safety work: Risk objects and an improvement script. The most important risk objects in the nuclear power industry are the human factor and the culture of safety. The improvement script is measures connected to these risk objects, such as checklists built on best practices. These lists tend to become more and more comprehensive for every incident, Sanne says.
The culture of safety is treated like a question of attitudes and morals. When it’s bad, it’s owing to bad attitudes that prioritise production over thinking about safety.
“It becomes a moralistic, condemnatory approach that does not help to understand and improve anything. Regardless of how good an attitude you have, you can end up in an acute situation where you don’t have the resources needed; instead you’re forced to make impossible compromises.”
What happened in Forsmark in July 2006 was due to several design flaws, even breaches of the rules. For example, there were a total of four emergency electric systems that were mutually dependent on each other, which they shouldn’t have been according to the rules. The triggering factor, however, was a person: an electrician who, owing to inaccurate instructions, made a faulty connection outside the nuclear power facility itself. The consequences hadn’t been foreseen by the experts.
Sanne presents his argument in terms of “single-loop” and “double-loop” learning. Single-loop is looking at the same things based on the same understanding, and learning in the same way as before. This characterises most organisational learning. Double-loop is reconsidering basic conceptions, for example about what is a risk.
Today, risk analysis consists of identifying problems we already recognize, applying the same solutions as before. The questions determine the answers. Imagining the unknown is difficult; it requires going outside known frameworks. Sanne talks about a mechanistic viewpoint with a linear view of the connection between cause and effect, where all mistakes can be avoided through good engineering design and control.
But instead of building the human factor out of the equation, it should be taken advantage of, he continues.
“The Forsmark operators did the right thing. But their efforts weren’t investigated. We could have a lot to learn there about how people act in complex situations.”
Because, he argues, regardless of how clear the rules are, they are interpreted differently by different people in different situations. Checklists are not enough; experience is required for handling the unknown.
His conclusion is that organisational learning in our nuclear power stations is too important to leave to the engineers. The experts in both the nuclear power industry and the supervisory authorities, are close to each other and think in far too similar a manner. New perspectives are needed. He proposes bringing in social scientists, anthropologists, and organisational researchers.
A year after the Forsmark incident the problem was fixed, and confidence in nuclear power restored. Case closed, Sanne argues, and points out how reports and investigations tend to normalise the abnormal. “It went OK, we made it.” At the same time, his informants in the interviews showed honest surprise and concern over what happened and the vulnerability it revealed. The risks in nuclear power can never be built out of it. But with a broader perspective, expanded reference frameworks and more imagination, perhaps they can still be reduced – that is Sanne’s message.
The article, titled “Learning from adverse events in the nuclear power industry: Organizational learning, policy making and normalization”, has been published in Technology in Society.

How bacteria talk to each other and our cells


How bacteria talk to each other and our cells

Bacteria can talk to each other via molecules they themselves produce. The phenomenon is called quorum sensing, and is important when an infection propagates. Now, researchers at Linköping University in Sweden are showing how bacteria control processes in human cells the same way.
The results are being published in PLOS Pathogens with Elena Vikström, researcher in medical microbiology, as the main author.
When the announcement goes out, more and more bacteria gather at the site of the attack – a wound, for example. When there are enough of them, they start acting like multicellular organisms. They can form biofilms, dense structures with powers of resistance against both antibiotics and the body’s immune defence system. At the same time, they become more aggressive and increase their mobility. All these changes are triggered when the communication molecules – short fatty acids with the designation AHL – fasten to receptors inside the bacterial cells; as a consequence various genes are turned on and off.
AHL can wander freely through the cell membrane, not just in bacterial cells but also our own cells, which can be influenced to change their functions. In low concentrations white blood cells, for example, can be more flexible and effective, but in high concentrations the opposite occurs, which weakens our immune defences and opens the door for progressive infections and inflammations.
Forskarna bakom studien
A team at Linköping University is the first research group in the world to show how AHL can influence their host cells. Using biochemical methods, the researchers have identified a protein designated IQGAP, which they single out as the recipient of the bacteria’s message, and something of a double agent.
“The protein can both listen in on the bacteria’s communication and change the functions in its host cells,” Vikström says.
Their laboratory studies were carried out on human epithelial cells from the intestines, which were mixed with AHL of the same type produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a tough bacterium that causes illnesses in places like the lungs, intestines, and eyes. With the help of mass spectrometry, they have been able to see which proteins bind AHL.
“We have proof that physical contact between bacteria and epithelial cells is not always required; the influence can happen at a distance,” Vikström says.
The team’s discovery can open the door to new strategies for treatment where antibiotics cannot help. One possibility is designing molecules that bind to the receptor and block the signal path for the bacteria – something like putting a stick in a lock so the key won’t go in. It’s a strategy that could work with cystic fibrosis, for example, an illness where sticky mucus made of bacterial biofilm and large amounts of white blood cells is formed in the airways.

Developing the human cable



Developing the human cable

Hans Vestberg
The picture of Ericsson’s CEO transferring a picture from his telephone to his computer via his own body has been cabled around the world. The technology comes from Linköping University (LiU) and is now being further developed by J. Jacob Wikner of the Division for Electronics Systems at LiU.
Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg attracted a lot of attention in mid-January at the large consumer exhibition CES in Las Vegas when he became a human cable. A picture was transferred from the phone he held in his left hand to a computer he was touching with his right hand.
The audience did not fail to react, and you can’t get much more attention than that for thesis work. The technology is, in fact, the result of three thesis jobs at Linköping University, supervised by J. Jacob Wikner, university lecturer in Electronics Systems.
The assignment itself, to develop a sensitive receiver that manages to receive the weak signals that come from us as human cables, originally came from Jan Hederén, strategist at Ericsson Radio.
With the increased use of social media, we are expected to want new social functions and people like to touch things with their hands. The basic idea here is to create this type of natural interaction by using the capacitive phenomenon already in our bodies, and in all organic material.
Hederén has, however, been clear that this is not about developing a new product for Ericsson, but rather to show the market what is possible as regards creating an extremely simple interaction with the environment. This is something that, it is hoped, will increase the benefits of mobile networks, while at the same time providing new kinds of smart phones.
Wikner is continuing along the trail being blazed, with the goal in a few years of being able to send a small video via the body at 10 Mbit/sec.
“Nothing more than this may ever be needed,” he asserts.
Other technologies are both more efficient and quicker when larger amounts of data than this are to be transferred. But with this transfer technology, it could be possible to unlock a car when the handle is gripped, transfer a business card from my telephone to the person I’m shaking hands with, or transfer the code when I’m making a payment via the Internet.
“Smart phones have opened up this possibility for local communication,” Wikner states.
That capacitive signals from the human body can be read has been long known; they are used in medical applications such as EEG, where electric activity in the cerebral cortex is measured. These kinds of circuits were developed in places like the Division of Electronic Devices at LiU.
In Great Britain, a bandage is being marketed that can, among other things take the patient’s pulse and send it and other data about their condition, to the health care centre. There are more examples, but the difference is that now people are looking at two-way communication, while previously it was simply an issue of measurement technology and data collection.
However there are many weak signals sent through the human body; it’s an issue of a solitary volt from the transmitter, and the signal lowers significantly on its way from the palm of one hand to another.
“If a couple of volts are sent, only a microvolt is involved at the other end. A current isn’t sent through the body, either; it only affects the electrical field and redistributes the charge,” Wikner says.
There is also a very, very sensitive receiver at the terminal.
“Strategically, it’s a low-risk project. The sensitive receiver we’ll be developing will still be of use, even if this technology doesn’t make an impact. We’ll also develop a device that can be integrated into the telephone; that work will also be of use,” he says.
JJacob_Wikner
Wikner’s research project is called Transceivers for Body-Area Network Communication, and is funded by the LiU research organisation CENIIT. CENIIT employs Wikner part-time, Muhammad Irfan Kazim as a doctoral student and, to start with, six students who will complete their degree work in the field.
“It’s about developing a whole system, with hardware, a mobile app, and even components at the silicon level,” he says.
Additionally, the project includes studying whether it can be in any way harmful to transfer data via the human body.
“We’re relatively sure it’s not; this deals with very low fields, well under the limits set up for Radio-frequency identification tags (RFID), for example, which are becoming more and more common and studying this more closely is also part of the project."
Where have the students gone who did their degree work on behalf of Ericsson?
“The work was carried out by three Indian students: Dilip Kumar Vajravelu, Bibin Babu and Kiran Kariyannavar. They had exactly the right combination of interests. The degree work was ready last autumn, but was kept secret until the patent applications were ready,” Wikner says.
“And Ericsson employed them immediately.”


The social media, the usage of smart mobile phones and wider coverage of mobile networks is shrinking down our world in terms of connecting people. The six-handshakes-away "theory" becomes more and more viable.
Since recently, so called near-field communication (NFC) is finding its way into the smart phones and a new infrastructure with respect to communication between humans and devices is being built up. The NFC typically relies on the widely used RFID technique. The RFID technique does indeed come with different operation principles, but the most dominating ones are inductive and microwave-based coupling techniques. The inductive principles uses a coil to generate/absorb a magnetic field. In this way, data can be transmitted/received between two or more devices. The technique is "old" in the sense that is is found in securtiy systems (entrance systems, shop lifting, etc.) and logistics (package tracking, etc.). Recently, however, the NFC is extending this concept in other applications, such as flight check-in, and more.
The suggested techniques, however, are typically limited in two ways: the transmission speed is relatively low (well...) and operation relies on the need to take your smart phone out of your pocket and keep close to a transceiver. The applications are still oriented towards the transfer of your ID, a short key of some kind, or similar.
Our project has a slightly different scope with focus on the transceivers of such communication scenarios; first of all, we are aiming for higher data rates and secondly we are looking to use the human body as a communication channel. This combination of NFC with body area network (BAN) is going to increase the number of applications, but on the other hand, it is also going to put tougher requirements on the transceiver specifications.
A twist in this scenario is that the body channel does not offer an inductive interface, instead it is capacitive.

Vision and industrial motive

The strongest motivation which would be given in favour of capacitive/inductive coupling transceivers is; cell-based communication systems, which forms the core of today's mobile/wireless communications, are no longer able to meet the requirements of increased level of information/multimedia sharing among the users of smart devices because of the limited number of frequency carriers and almost the completion of the frequency allocation table. That is why big companies, like Apple and Google, are also looking forward towards these transceiver architectures as viable means of next-generation touch-and-go communication.
In a world, where it is imagined that our ambiance would also be soon intelligent along with a scenario where each person in the world would be wearing five to ten cheap sensor nodes able to intelligently communicate with each other or with the personal CPU, it will not be possible to assign or allocate different carrier frequencies for every device or individual. So the only viable solution to make this a realizable dream is; we develop transceivers based on capacitive/inductive coupling. The applications which could be built up around the basic theme of capacitive/inductive transceivers could have many forms, a few of them just listed below;
  • Low power Escalators which turn on inductively/capacitively when the user comes in its close vicinity
  • New door (un)locking systems which use inductive/capacitive coupling-based transceivers
  • Inductive/capacitively coupled photocopier, fax, printers
  • Electronic money transfer (a mass phenomenon)
  • Human body channel using inductive/capacitive coupling-based transceivers for communication between wearable sensors
  • Capacitively-coupled touch panels with intelligent lighting layouts for easily switching on the lights,
  • IP-based smart dust motes using capacitive/inductive coupling mechanism for information transfer
  • Mobile-to-Mobile or Machine-to-Machine transfer of information
  • Intelligent gaming consoles using capacitive/inductive coupling based transceivers
  • Multimedia transfer (high fidelity sound and high definition video)
Any of these suggested topics (and some being already established using other means of communication), we believe, will be strong drivers for the project and attractive to industry and the research community.