Cristina Urdiales | Universidad de Málaga (original) (raw)

Papers by Cristina Urdiales

Lecture notes in networks and systems, Nov 21, 2022

IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems

2017 IEEE 26th International Symposium on Industrial Electronics (ISIE), 2017

The advanced use and the evolution of technologies regarding autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (... more The advanced use and the evolution of technologies regarding autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) have increased the availability of information and resources to perceive the environment, allowing its application in various activities, such as inspection and military. However, the intelligence level of these kind of systems needs to be improved in order to fit them in modern tasks. In this sense, this work proposes a high-level processing approach to be embedded in UAV system for understanding human activities in real environment. Additionally, the Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) methodology is also applied to allow the adaptation of the flight plan and the fully autonomous surveillance in limited areas. In order to enhance the solution, the proposed architecture is inspired in the biologic model of the human cognitive system and comprises low, middle and high levels to enable the perception of the environment as well as comprehension of the scene. The experiments have shown technical feasibility and effectiveness of the architecture. Moreover, the use of UAV has reduced the number of cameras and operators, being also capable to reach difficult areas.

Advances in Computational Intelligence, 2017

Biologically inspired design consists in the creation of technological systems using as starting ... more Biologically inspired design consists in the creation of technological systems using as starting or inspirational point biological systems. Indeed, it has been used widely in robotics in different areas, such as mechanics, coordination or navigation. For example, in robot navigation, biomimetic algorithms can be specially useful in certain circumstances, such as when a robot needs to interacts closely with users. Using biomimetic navigation robot movements would be more similar to human ones but maintaining some basic navigation factors such as the safety. It is important in systems such as assistive systems in which human and robot control can be switch or combined –depending on the kind of system– to obtain the final command. Thus, in these systems interaction is very close to the user and it is advisable to make robot commands as similar as possible to the user ones. Otherwise, the user could even reject robot assistance depending on the disagreement between user and robot commands to reach a destiny. This disagreement provokes user’s frustration and stress and, in extreme, assistive system rejection. In this paper we propose a biomimetic navigation algorithm based on Case-Based Reasoning that learns from real traces –performed by volunteers– in order to achieve robot navigation as close as possible to the human one.

2019 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2019

Telepresence robots have been recently used for Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA). Since t... more Telepresence robots have been recently used for Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA). Since the robot can not track a person continuously, there are several strategies to decide when to check them, from cyclic checks to simple requests from users and/or caregivers. In order to adapt to the user needs and condition, it is preferable to perform CGA as soon as regularities appear. However, this requires detection of potential issues in users to offer immediate service. In this work we propose a new low cost force sensor system to detect user's condition and attract attention of CGA robots, so they can perform a full examination on a need basis. The main advantages of this system are: i) it can be attached to any standard commercial cane; ii) its power consumption is very reduced; and iii) it provides continuous information as long as the user walks. It has been tested with several elderly volunteers in care facilities. Results have proven that the sensor readings are indeed correlated with the users' condition.

Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Technology & Systems (ICITS 2018), 2018

Road traffic is responsible for a significant share of pollution. Intelligent Transportation Syst... more Road traffic is responsible for a significant share of pollution. Intelligent Transportation Systems are expected to contribute to reduce these emissions. Solutions thus far include design of greener vehicles, urban traffic management and control and behavior changes. Behavior changes may include vehicle sharing programs and driving habits changes. In order to change their habits, drivers need personalized feedback about the emissions of their own vehicles in the different routes they complete. Measuring emissions require special equipment, so emissions are often estimated depending on a number of parameters. In this work, we have developed a Android application for a smartphone that extracts all required parameters and return a geopositioned emission estimation on the fly. Our estimator is based on the ARTEMIS project results. In order to validate estimations, the smartphone taps into the vehicle OBD to obtain a number of parameters related to high emissions. The system has been successfully tested in different routes in Malaga (Spain), including different environments (highway, rural and urban areas).

Moving nodes in a Mobile Wireless Sensor Network (MWSN) typically have two maintenance objectives... more Moving nodes in a Mobile Wireless Sensor Network (MWSN) typically have two maintenance objectives: (i) extend the coverage of the network as long as possible to a target area, and (ii) extend the l ...

Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine, 2021

Background: Supervised machine learning models in artificial intelligence (AI) have been increasi... more Background: Supervised machine learning models in artificial intelligence (AI) have been increasingly used to predict different types of events. However, their use in orthopaedic surgery has been limited. Hypothesis: It was hypothesized that supervised learning techniques could be used to build a mathematical model to predict primary anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries using a set of morphological features of the knee. Study Design: Cross-sectional study; Level of evidence, 3. Methods: Included were 50 adults who had undergone primary ACL reconstruction between 2008 and 2015. All patients were between 18 and 40 years of age at the time of surgery. Patients with a previous ACL injury, multiligament knee injury, previous ACL reconstruction, history of ACL revision surgery, complete meniscectomy, infection, missing data, and associated fracture were excluded. We also identified 50 sex-matched controls who had not sustained an ACL injury. For all participants, we used the preopera...

2018 13th APCA International Conference on Control and Soft Computing (CONTROLO), 2018

The applications with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles have increased in the last decades due to their ec... more The applications with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles have increased in the last decades due to their economic and technical feasibility. Moreover, several tasks require online objects tracking as well as the object position knowledge in the real-world with algorithms execution onboard. An example of such task is the video surveillance with human activity recognition. In this paper, we propose a new approach using Extended Kalman Filter to estimate and to predict the object real-world coordinates. This research shows that the results were up to 30% better compared to the results without data processing.

Robotica, 2020

SUMMARYEfficient algorithm integration is a key issue in aerial robotics. However, only a few int... more SUMMARYEfficient algorithm integration is a key issue in aerial robotics. However, only a few integration solutions rely on a cognitive approach. Cognitive approaches break down complex problems into independent units that may deal with progressively lower-level data interfaces, all the way down to sensors and actuators. A cognitive architecture defines information flow among units to produce emergent intelligent behavior. Despite the improvements in autonomous decision-making, several key issues remain open. One of these issues is the selection, coordination, and decision-making related to the several specialized tasks required for fulfilling mission objectives. This work addresses decision-making for the cognitive unmanned-aerial-vehicle architecture coined as ARCog. The proposed architecture lays the groundwork for the development of a software platform aligned with the requirements of the state-of-the-art technology in the field. The system is designed to provide high-level deci...

Advances in Computational Intelligence, 2019

Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing, 2019

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are a relatively new technology. Their application can often invo... more Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are a relatively new technology. Their application can often involve complex and unseen problems. For instance, they can work in a cooperative-based environment under the supervision of a ground station to speed up critical decision-making processes. However, the amount of information exchanged among the aircraft and ground station is limited by high distances, low bandwidth size, restricted processing capability, and energy constraints. These drawbacks restrain large-scale operations such as large area inspections. New distributed state-of-the-art processing architectures, such as fog computing, can improve latency, scalability, and efficiency to meet time constraints via data acquisition, processing, and storage at different levels. Under these amendments, this research work proposes a mathematical model to analyze distribution-based UAVs topologies and a fog-cloud computing framework for large-scale mission and search operations. The tests have suc...

Proceedings XXII Congresso Brasileiro de Autom�tica, 2018

Nos ultimos anos, houve um crescimento na utilizacao de veiculos aereos nao tripulados (VANTs) em... more Nos ultimos anos, houve um crescimento na utilizacao de veiculos aereos nao tripulados (VANTs) em tarefas de video vigilância devido a reducao de riscos a vida humana. Em sistemas autonomos complexos, algoritmos sao utilizados para extracao de informacoes importantes das imagens e outros sensores de maneira a atingir seus objetivos. O desempenho da execucao destes algoritmos esta relacionado a quantidade de dados contidas nas imagens a serem processadas. Nesse sentido, a tecnica de remocao de fundo e usada para reduzir a quantidade de dados em cada imagem, aumentando a capacidade do sistema para atender aos requisitos de tempo real. Grande parte dos trabalhos relacionados com remocao de fundo pressupoem cenarios estaticos. Como resultado, estes algoritmos possuem dificuldade de operacao em cenarios dinâmicos. Portanto, este trabalho propoe uma metodologia para determinar o movimento da imagem e corrigir a posicao dos dados de primeiro plano para permitir a remocao de fundo em imagens dinâmicas. A tecnica proposta obteve uma remocao de plano fundo superior a 60% nos cenarios de teste e manteve um baixo custo computacional utilizando pouco recurso de memoria.

IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems, 2017

Shared control is a strategy used in assistive platforms to combine human and robot orders to ach... more Shared control is a strategy used in assistive platforms to combine human and robot orders to achieve a goal. Collaborative control is a specific shared control approach, in which user's and robot's commands are merged into an emergent one in a continuous way. Robot commands tend to improve efficiency and safety. However, sometimes, assistance can be rejected by users when their commands are too altered. This provokes frustration and stress and, usually, decreases emergent efficiency. To improve acceptance, robot navigation algorithms can be adapted to mimic human behavior when possible. We propose a novel variation of the well-known dynamic window approach (DWA) that we call biomimetical DWA (BDWA). The BDWA relies on a reward function extracted from real traces from volunteers presenting different motor disabilities navigating in a hospital environment using a rollator for support. We have compared the BDWA with other reactive algorithms in terms of similarity to paths completed by people with disabilities using a robotic rollator in a rehabilitation hospital unit. The BDWA outperforms all tested algorithms in terms of likeness to human paths and success rate.

Neurocomputing, 2017

Some approaches to intelligence state that the brain works as a memory system which stores experi... more Some approaches to intelligence state that the brain works as a memory system which stores experiences to reflect the structure of the world in a hierarchical, organized way. Case Based Reasoning (CBR) is well suited to test this view. In this work we propose a CBR based learning methodology to build a set of nested behaviors in a bottom up architecture. To cope with complexity-related CBR scalability problems, we propose a new 2-stage retrieval process. We have tested our framework by training a set of cooperative/competitive reactive behaviors for Aibo robots in a RoboCup environment.

2016 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2016

Assistance to people during rehabilitation has to be adapted to their needs. Too little help can ... more Assistance to people during rehabilitation has to be adapted to their needs. Too little help can lead to frustration and stress in the user; an excess of help may lead to low participation and loss of residual skills. Robotic rollators may adapt assistance. The main challenge to cope with this issue is to estimate how much help is needed on the fly, because it depends not only on the person condition, but also on the specific situation that they are negotiating. Clinical scales provide a global condition based estimation, but no local estimator based on punctual needs. Condition also changes in time, so clinical scales need to be recalculated again and again. In this paper we propose a novel approach to estimate users' condition in a continuous way via a robotic rollator. Our work focuses on predicting the value of the well known Tinetti Mobility test from spatiotemporal gait parameters obtained from our platform while users walk. This prediction provides continuous insight on the condition of the user and could be used to modify the amount of help provided. The proposed method has been validated with 19 volunteers at a local hospital that use a rollator for rehabilitation. All volunteers presented some physical or mental disabilities. Our results sucessfully show a high correlation of spatiotemporal gait parameters with Tinetti Mobility test gait (R2 = 0.7) and Tinetti Mobility test balance (R2 = 0.6).

2015 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2015

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2015

Deployment is important in large wireless sensor networks (WSN), specially because nodes may fall... more Deployment is important in large wireless sensor networks (WSN), specially because nodes may fall due to failure or battery issues. Mobile WSN cope with deployment and reconfiguration at the same time: nodes may move autonomously: i) to achieve a good area coverage; and ii) to distribute as homogeneously as possible. Optimal distribution is computationally expensive and implies high traffic load, so local, distributed approaches may be preferable. This paper presents an experimental evaluation of role-based and behavior based ones. Results show that the later are better, specially for a large number of nodes in areas with obstacles.

Research on Computing Science, 2003