Publications related to Tracking an Odor Plume in a Laminar Wind Field with the Crosswind-Surge Algorithm

Exact Obstacle Avoidance for Robots in Complex and Dynamic Environments Using Local Modulation

Robots outside of the fenced factories have to deal with continuously changing environment, this requires fast and flexible modes of control. Planning methods or complex learning models can find optimal paths in complex surroundings, but they are computati ...

EPFL2024

Gas Sensing with Rotary-Wing Nano Aerial Vehicles

Chiara Ercolani

Harmful chemical compounds are released daily in warehouses, chemical plants and during environmental emergencies. Their uncontrolled dispersion contributes to the pollution of the atmosphere and threatens human and animal lives. When gas leaks occur, the ...

EPFL2024

Hitting with Different Joints of a Robotic Manipulator

Aude Billard, Harshit Khurana

This paper builds up the skill of impact aware non prehensile manipulation through a hitting motion by allowing the robot arm to come in contact with the environment with parts other than its end effector. Hitting with other joints allows us to manipulate ...

2024

Reversible photo-electrochemical device for solar hydrogen and power generation

Sophia Haussener, Alexandre Dominique M. Cattry, Saurabh Yuvraj Tembhurne, Matthieu Jonin, Mahendra Patel

A reversible photo-electrochemical device operating under concentrated irradiation could offer a stand-alone solution for producing solar fuel (in photo-driven electrolysis mode) and power (in fuel cell mode). This strategy would present the advantage of h ...

2024

Online Multicontact Receding Horizon Planning via Value Function Approximation

Sylvain Calinon, Teguh Santoso Lembono

Planning multicontact motions in a receding horizon fashion requires a value function to guide the planning with respect to the future, e.g., building momentum to traverse large obstacles. Traditionally, the value function is approximated by computing traj ...

Ieee-Inst Electrical Electronics Engineers Inc2024

Biases in Information Selection and Processing: Survey Evidence from the Pandemic

Andreas Fuster

We conduct two survey experiments to study which information people choose to consume and how it affects their beliefs. In the first experiment, respondents choose between optimistic and pessimistic article headlines related to the COVID-19 pandemic and ar ...

2024

Memento Mori: Reliable robustness in self-reconfigurable modular robots

Kevin Andrew Holdcroft

Modular robotics link the reliability of a centralised system with the adaptivity of a decentralised system. It is difficult for a robot with a fixed shape to be able to perform many different types of tasks. As the task space grows, the number of functi ...

EPFL2024

Towards an improved understanding of wind turbine wakes in complex terrain

Arslan Salim Dar

In this thesis, we explored the effect of certain terrain-induced flow phenomena on the development of wind turbines sited in complex terrain. A combined experimental and analytical approach is used to study wind turbine wakes in different types of complex ...

EPFL2024

Turbulence and Heat exchange in the Near-Surface Boundary Layer over Patchy Snow

Michael Haugeneder

The atmospheric layer adjacent to the earth's surface is of crucial importance for weather models due to the exchange of energy between the surface and the atmosphere. This exchange is dependent on the various surface properties and influences the state of ...

EPFL2024

The effect of nacelle-to-rotor size on the wake of a miniature wind turbine

Fernando Porté Agel, Arslan Salim Dar, Rim Majzoub

Wind tunnel experiments are performed to investigate the effect of nacelle-to-rotor size on the wake of a wind turbine under different Reynolds numbers. Four different turbine configurations are tested, which vary in the rotor diameter and nacelle length a ...

IOP Science2024

Improvements to the dynamic wake meandering model by incorporating the turbulent Schmidt number

Fernando Porté Agel, Corey Dean Markfort, Peter Andreas Brugger

Predictions of the dynamic wake meandering model (DWMM) were compared to flow measurements of a scanning Doppler lidar mounted on the nacelle of a utility-scale wind turbine. We observed that the wake meandering strength of the DWMM agrees better with the ...

2024

Robotically-induced auditory-verbal hallucinations: combining self-monitoring and strong perceptual priors

Olaf Blanke, Nathan Quentin Faivre, Fosco Bernasconi, Pavo Orepic, Melissa Faggella

Background. Inducing hallucinations under controlled experimental conditions in nonhallucinating individuals represents a novel research avenue oriented toward understanding complex hallucinatory phenomena, avoiding confounds observed in patients. Audito ...

2024

Enhancing Wind Farm Performance through Axial Induction and Tilt Control: Insights from Wind Tunnel Experiments

Fernando Porté Agel, Guillem Armengol Barcos

Static axial induction control and tilt control are two strategies that have the potential to increase power production in wind farms, mitigating wake effects and increasing the available power for downstream turbines. In this study, wind tunnel experiment ...

MDPI2024

Method for wind harvesting and wind rejection in flying drones

Dario Floreano, Victor Casas Rochel, Nathan Samuel Müller, Charalampos Vourtsis, William John Stewart

The present invention concerns a method of manoeuvring a vertical take-off and landing, unmanned aerial drone (100) comprising at least an aerodynamic surface (101), wherein, during a flight of the drone, the aerodynamic surface generates lift and/or drag ...

2024

Human-Robot Swarm Interaction: An Explorative Path to Foster Complex Systems Understanding

Hala Khodr

Order, regularities, and patterns are ubiquitous around us. A flock of birds maneuvering in the sky, the self-organization of social insects, a global pandemic or a traffic jam are examples of complex systems where the macroscopic patterns arise from the m ...

EPFL2023

Non-intrusive physiological parameters sensing for personalized human thermal comfort prediction

Alexandre Massoud Alahi, Dolaana Khovalyg, Mohamad Rida, Mohamed Ossama Ahmed Abdelfattah

Sensing and projecting an individual’s human thermal comfort in buildings is a complex but crucial task for transitioning toward human-centered indoor climate control. Non-intrusive collection of physiological and personal information from the human body, ...

2023

Prompting Large Language Models to Power Educational Chatbots

Denis Gillet, Sandy Ingram, Juan Carlos Farah, Fanny Kim-Lan Lasne

The recent rise in both popularity and performance of large language models has garnered considerable interest regarding their applicability to education. Technologies like ChatGPT, which can engage in human-like dialog, have already disrupted educational ...

Springer2023

Participatory design of a social robot and robot-mediated storytelling activity to raise awareness of gender inequality among children

Romain Maure, Barbara Bruno

Gender inequality is a widespread problem in our society. It can manifest itself in many ways and contexts, and starting as early as primary school. While an increasing number of initiatives aim at tackling gender biases and inequalities, few of them are a ...

IEEE2023

Smart acoustic lining for UHBR technologies engine: from the design of an electroacoustic metasurface to experimental characterization under flow

Hervé Lissek, Maxime Volery

The SALUTE project aims at evaluating performance of electroacoustic metasurface, employing a surface array of controlled electroacoustic actuators, for smart acoustic lining under grazing turbulent flow to be used in UHBR Technologies Engines. Theoretical ...

Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)2023

Harnessing Rule-Based Chatbots to Support Teaching Python Programming Best Practices

Denis Gillet, Sandy Ingram, Adrian Christian Holzer, Juan Carlos Farah

In recent years, the use of chatbots in education has been driven by advances in natural language processing and the increasing availability of digital education platforms. Although the added value of educational chatbots appears promising, researchers hav ...

Springer2023