Summer Term 2018

Autonomous Navigation for Middle-size Robots Project

Tutor: Prof. Dr. Pedro José Marrón, Contact: Eduardo Ferrera

Nowadays, mobile robots are used in many applications, such as rescue missions, surveillance or people assistance. In these applications, robots usually need to operate in unknown environments, so they need to obtain information with their sensors and take intelligent decisions. In general, they proceed in a loop with several steps:

(i) Information is obtained with the sensors on board the robot;

(ii) Given the current information the best decision is made;

(iii) The decision is carried out by the robot autonomously.

Mainly, mobile robots need to know where they are located and how to navigate safely to other places. For that, they have to use external sensors (e.g., GPS, compass, laser, etc.), plan trajectories, avoid obstacles, etc.

In this project, the motivating application will be a rescue mission in an indoor building after a catastrophe. For that, a robotic simulator will be used in order to develop algorithms to localize a robot, to navigate avoiding obstacles, to build a map of the environment and find the victims and to report back the results. The Robotic Operating System (ROS) will be used in order to program
the robot and communicate to the simulator.

This course will be taught in English and will require programming in C++. The project is suitable for students at the bachelor and the master level. However, the course contents and the requirements for passing are different depending on the level. As a consequence, it is not possible to create mixed teams. If you want to participate in this project or further information, please contact Eduardo Ferrera.

LSF entry: Bachelor and Master

The kickoff meeting for this project will take place in Room S-A 126, from 10:30h to 12:30h, on Tuesday April 24th, 2018. It is mandatory to attend this meeting in order to participate in the project.

Note: This project will be held as a block on the first half of the semester (same tasks but in half of the time) between April the 24th and Juni the 15th

Case Study: Location-based Services

Lecturer: Dr. Marcus Handte
This case study covers fundamental concepts related to the development of location-based services from a theoretical and practical perspective. During the first half of the semester, basic models, algorithms, data structures and applications are introduced in a series of lectures with associated programming exercises. During the second half of the semester, participants will be designing and prototyping a location-based service for mobile (Android) devices.

The theoretical part of the case study covers the following contents:

    • Geometric, symbolic and hybrid location models
    • Localization systems and algorithms for outdoor and indoor environments
    • (Energy-)efficient location acquisition and communication
    • Server-based and server-less location data management
    • Security and privacy aspects related to location information
    • Example location-based services and applications

The case study (4SWS) is suitable for participants at the Master level. Grading is based on the practical programming work during the semester and an oral exam at the end of the semester.  Depending on the participants, the course can be held either in English or in German. The lecture part of the course will take place Tuesdays from 16.00h to 18.00h in SA-126. The kickoff takes place on Tuesday, April 10th 2018 in SA-126. Participation during the kickoff meeting is mandatory. To access the materials (slides, papers, etc.) of the course and to get important notifications, please subscribe to the Moodle page of the course.

Entry in LSF: Case-Study

Operating Systems Design and Implementation for IoT Devices

Lecturer and exercises: Prof. Rasit Eskicioglu (University Manitoba, Canada)

This is an advanced on operating systems design and implementation. It will provide an in-depth discussion of today’s operating systems for resource constrained hardware as they are used in the context of the Internet of Things (IoT). The first part of the lecture will cover the basics of operating systems and show the differences in the requirements and challenges between general purpose and resource-constrained systems. Further, it will introduce embedded systems and their characteristics. The second part will give an overview of existing operating systems for embedded systems and will cover the current state-of-the-art. Two operating systems for embedded systems will be introduced and examined in detail: Zephyr Project, an open-source operating system for IoT devices, and Tock, a system focusing on security for safe concurrent executions of applications.

The labs will provide hands-on experience of the lecture topics and will be used to design and develop customised components for both example operating systems. The functionality of the implementations and the communication between different systems will also be experimented with a few IoT devices.

This course is suitable for master students (AI-SE and WiInf) and it will be taught in English. For further information, please contact Sascha Jungen (sascha.jungen@uni-due.de).

The kickoff meeting for this lecture with exercises will take place on Tuesday, May 15th between 10.00h and 11.30h in room S-A 126. It is mandatory to attend this kick-off meeting in order to participate.

This course will be held as a block course over 6 weeks (with 4 hours/week lecture and 4 hours/week exercises), with an oral examination at the end (between 13th and 17th June).

Lecture weekly: Monday 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and Wednesday 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Room S-A 126.
Excercises weekly: Monday 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. and Wednesday 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. in Room S-A 126

Note: The first week’s lectures and exercises will be on Tuesday.

More information can be found on our Moodle2 page. The password will be announced in the Kickoff Meeting.

Entry in LSF: Lecture and exercise

Programmierung A / B

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Pedro José Marrón, Exercises: Dr. Marcus Handte, Sascha Jungen
In dieser Vorlesung werden grundlegende Programmiertechniken in einer objektorientierten, modernen Programmiersprache (Java) besprochen.
Inhalte im Einzelnen:

  • Einführung und grundlegende Struktur von Programmen
  • Lexikalische Elemente, Datentypen und Variablen, Ausdrücke und Anweisungen
  • Objektorientierte Programmierung: Klassen, Methoden, Vererbung, Interfaces, Abstrakte Klassen, Polymorphismus
  • Standard und Utilityklassen
  • Ein- und Ausgabe mittels Streams
  • Ausnahmebehandlung
  • Rekursion
  • Datenstrukturen: Zeichenketten, Listen und Stapel, Suchbäume, Assoziative Datenfelder
  • Generische Datentypen – Anwendung von Standardtypen
  • Graphische Oberflächen – Einführung und Ereignisbehandlung

Die Übungen sollen die Studierenden anregen die in der Vorlesung gelernten theoretischen Konzepte praktisch anzuwenden. Dabei werden grundlegende Programmierkenntnisse erworben und die Studierenden in die Lage versetzt einfache Programmieraufgaben selbstständig zu bearbeiten. Zusätzlich zu den Übungen werden Tutorien angeboten, welche Studirende mit besonderem Lernbedarf weiter unterstützen und die Inhalte der Vorlesung frühzeitig wiederholen.

Zeit und Ort:

  • Ort:  SH 601 (Vorlesung), SH 601 (Übung), A-009 (Testate)
  • Vorlesung: wöchentlich Freitags 8:00-12:15 s.t.
  • Übung: wöchentlich Dienstags  8:00- 10:00 s.t.
  • Testate: wöchentlich Montags 14:00- 16:00 s.t. und wöchentlich Dienstags 10:00- 12:00 s.t.

Die erste Vorlesung findet am 13.04.2018 statt, die erste Übung  17.04.2018, das erste Testat am 23.04.2018. 

Eintrag in LSF: Programmierung A, Programmierung B, und Übung A, Übung B, and Testate

Weitere Informationen finden Sie auf der Moodle2 page. Das Passwort wird in der ersten Vorlesung und in den Übungen bekannt gegeben.

Project Group: Smart Environments

Tutor: Dr. Matteo Ceriotti

The Internet of Things and Cyber-Physical System technologies are enabling the embedding of processing, communication and sensing capabilities in everyday environment. This project group targets the use of such technology to prototype an environment able to understand the events happening in it

After a series of lectures and tutorials in which the basic protocols, algorithms and application scenarios are introduced, the participants will give a talk on specific techniques of relevance for the project. In particular, the attendees will learn about MAC, routing, application layer protocols specific to low-power networks. In addition, different approaches will be presented to detect events happening in an environment. Among others, radio tomographic imaging will be presented as a mean to track persons in an environment without the need to carry any device.

Afterwards, the participants will design, implement and experiment with a practical system in which the acquired knowledge will be exploited to prototype a smart environment able to identify persons and their activities in an indoor environment.

This project group is only suitable for AI-SE master students and it will be taught in English. The number of participants in this course ranges between 6 and 10. The admission to this course is managed centrally.

If you have questions or if you want to participate in the project, please send an email to matteo.ceriotti@uni-due.de.
More information is available on the moodle page of the course which is available here.

Entry in LSF: Project Group

The first meeting for this project will take place on Monday, 09.04.2018 at 10.00h  in Room S-A 126.

Sensor Networks / Kommunikationsnetze 2

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Pedro José Marrón, Exercises: Songwei Fu
This lecture describes the fundamental concepts of sensor networks and how they differ from traditional networked systems that do not take energy and resource constraints into account. During the experiments, the students will deal with real-world deployments of sensor networks and use real sensor nodes to understand better the effects of real-world phenomena in aspects like link quality, localization, etc.

Place and Time (Updated):

  • Place (Updated):  SA-215 (Lecture and Exercises)
  • Lecture: weekly Wednesday 10:00-12:15 s.t.
  • Exercises (Updated): biweekly Thursday  16:00 – 18:00 s.t.

The first lecture is held on April 11th 2018; the first exercises on April 12th.

Entry in LSF: Lecture und Exercise

More information can be found on our Moodle2 page. The password will be announced in the first lecture and in the exercises.

Wireless Sensor Network Seminar

Tutor: Dr. Matteo Ceriotti

Computing and communicating devices become smaller and smaller; they moved from desks to everybody’s pocket; ultimately, they become embedded in the environment that surrounds our everyday life. This vision has been addressed under different names, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) being one of them. As this happens, we become capable of monitoring in real-time the evolution of complex physical phenomena, as well as observing and controlling composite industrial processes. We can also instrument objects and scenarios to understand the current situation and smartly react to it. Unfortunately, the complexity of these systems, the limited visibility in system behaviour and the constrained available resources make the design and realisation of reliable systems challenging.

This seminar aims at familiarizing students with important research topics in this field. The covered topics include, among others, routing, localization, sensing, communication, simulation, modelling, programming abstractions, applications and systems of low-power wireless embedded networks. Participants will have to do a literature research and they will have to create a high quality written report. Furthermore, they will have to give an oral presentation of their topics.

This seminar is suitable for students at the bachelor and master level. However, it cannot be chosen by master AI-SE students. This seminar is given in English. Please also note that the maximum number of participants is limited. If you have questions regarding this seminar, please send an email to matteo.ceriotti@uni-due.de.

Entry in LSF: Seminar

Entry in Moodle: Seminar

The kickoff meeting for this seminar will take place on Thursday, 12.04.2018 between 13.00h and 14.00h in Room S-A 126.  This date is still tentative, please check this information for updates or send an email to matteo.ceriotti@uni-due.de to be notified about changes. Participation in this meeting is mandatory.