Environment

Modeling and controlling the structure of heterogeneous mobile robotic systems: A bigactor approach

Pereira, Eloi
Potiron, Camille
Kirsch, Chirstoph M.
Raja Sengupta
2013

In this paper we address the problem of modelling and controlling heterogeneous mobile robotic systems at a structure-level abstraction. We consider a system of mobile robotic entities that are able to observe, control, compute, and communicate. They operate upon an abstraction of the structure of the world that entails location and connectivity as first-class concepts. Our approach is to model mobile robotic entities as bigActors [18], a model of computation that combines bigraphs with the actor model for modeling structure-aware computation. As case study, we model a mission of...

The C3UV testbed for collaborative control and information acquisition using UAVs

Pereira, Eloi
Hedrick, Karl
Raja Sengupta
2013

In this paper we introduce the Center for Collaborative Control of Unmanned Vehicles (C3UV) testbed for collaborative information acquisition. The C3UV testbed has been used for demonstrating a wide range of information-oriented applications executed by collaborative teams of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). This paper presents the C3UV testbed from an architectural stand-point. The testbed includes a estimation and control architecture and a software architecture. The estimation and control architecture is a set of components that can be composed to perform specific missions. The software...

A Runtime System for Logical-Space Programming

Pereira, Eloi
Krainer, Clemens
Da Silva, Pedro Marques
Kirsch, Christoph M.
Raja Sengupta
2015

In this paper we introduce logical-space programming, a spatial computing paradigm where programs have access to a logical space model, i.e., names and explicit relations over such names, while the runtime system is in charge of manipulating the physical space. Mobile devices such as autonomous vehicles are equipped with sensors and actuators that provide means for computation to react upon spatial information and produce effects over the environment. The spatial behavior of these systems is commonly specified at the physical level, e.g., GPS coordinates. This puts the responsibility for...

Quantified Traveler: Travel Feedback Meets the Cloud to Change Behavior

Raja Sengupta
Joan Walker
2015

Halting climate change will require a concerted effort to reduce emissions from on-road vehicles. While significant progress has been made to improve vehicle efficiency and reduce CO 2 emissions, surface transportation accounted for half the increase in US green-house gas (GHG) emissions over the past two decades. Today, surface transportation accounts for 24 percent of all US emissions. Automobile improvements alone will not be sufficient to meet federal and state emissions targets; policy makers also need to identify solutions that reduce the demand for car travel. Information technology...

Collaborative High-Accuracy Localization in Mobile Multipath Environments

Ekambaram, Venkatesan N.
Ramchandran, Kannan
Raja Sengupta
2016

We study the problem of high-accuracy localization of mobile nodes in a multipath-rich environment where submeter accuracy values are required. We employ a peer-to-peer framework where nodes can get pairwise multipath-degraded ranging estimates in local neighborhoods, with the multipath noise correlated across time. The challenge is to enable high-accuracy positioning under severe multipath conditions when the fraction of received signals corrupted by multiple paths is significant. Our contributions are twofold. We provide a practical distributed localization algorithm by invoking an...

A New Method for the Direct Measurement of Parking Incentive Response Curve

Tang, Dounan
Raja Sengupta
2018

Knowing parking price response curve allows one to set the price right. This response curve is often estimated by observing changes in occupancy concomitant with small changes of price. In the authors' Value Pricing Pilot (VPP) Program study, called FlexPassPlus, the authors have used a new method to measure this quantity. By setting up repeated 2nd price auctions via an app the authors were able to get a lot more information about elasticity than through a traditional change-the-price-and-see-what-happens experiment. This leads to a better understanding of the parking incentive response...

A Virtual Reality Environment for Developing and Testing Autonomous UAV-Based Structural Inspection

Peng, Xin
Su, Gaofeng
Chen, ZhiQiang
Raja Sengupta
2023

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with imaging and laser sensors have shown their benefits in structural health inspection due to their aerial mobility, low cost, and efficiency. However, UAV applications in practice are limited by their level of automation, and man-piloted operation dominates to date. With vehicle automation on the horizon, autonomous structural inspection systems via robotic vehicles have become a possibility. Nonetheless, significant challenges exist for testing and validating in a physical environment. This paper proposes a virtual reality framework for...

Autonomous UAV-Based Structural Damage Exploration Platform for Post-Disaster Reconnaissance

Peng, Xin
Su, Gaofeng
Folk, Benjamin
Chen, ZhiQiang
Raja Sengupta
2024

Rapid structural health inspection process is essential for post-disaster reconnaissance.
Nowadays, visual inspection still dominates the practice, which is time-consuming, expensive,
and unsafe. To reduce labor costs and guarantee personnel safety, we develop a fully
autonomous UAV-based structural damage exploration platform that explores and rebuilds post disaster environment maps with limited prior information. As a result, environment maps can be
used for further damage detection and risk evaluation. The proposed platform implements a
closed-loop control strategy...

A Simulation-Optimization Framework for Developing Wind-Resilient AAM Networks

Onat, Emin Burak
Cao, Shangqing
Rizwan, Raiyan
Jiang, Xuan
Mark Hansen
Raja Sengupta
Chakrabarty, Anjan
2024

Environmental factors pose a significant challenge to the operational efficiency and safety of advanced air mobility (AAM) networks. This paper presents a simulation-optimization framework that dynamically integrates wind variability into AAM operations. We employ a nonlinear charging model within a multi-vertiport environment to optimize fleet size and scheduling. Our framework assesses the impact of wind on operational parameters, providing strategies to enhance the resilience of AAM ecosystems. The results demonstrate that wind conditions exert significant influence on fleet size even...

Economic Impact of a Lightning Strike–Induced Outage of Air Traffic Control Tower: Case Study of Baltimore–Washington International Airport

Ding, Wenzhe
Jasenka Rakas
2015

This research investigates how lightning strike–induced outages of airport infrastructure and facilities affect airport performance from an economic perspective, using Baltimore (Maryland)–Washington (D.C.) Thurgood Marshall International (BWI) Airport as a case study. On September 12, 2013, lightning struck within 300 m of the air traffic control (ATC) tower at BWI, causing injury and ATC tower and airport closures. The study findings reveal that the economic losses of the outage-related delays from that single event were almost five times higher than the ATC tower refurbishment that was...