Winter Term 2013/14

Aktivitätserkennung mit mobilen Geräten (Bachelor-Projekt)

Tutor: Marcus Handte 
More and more mobile devices are equipped with a broad variety of sensors such as gyroscopes, accelerometers, video cameras, and microphones. To provide better task support, future applications will have to use these sensors to determine the state of their environment unobtrusively. As a simple example consider smart phones that are deactivating the touch screen when they detect that the user is holding them close to his ear.

In more complicated scenarios, this requires applications to “make sense” of the multitude of inputs received at any point in time. To simplify this task, the participants will develop a software system that is able to automatically categorize different situations. This system will be developed for and tested on Android-based mobile phones which will be given out to the participants. Due to the use of Android as operating system, participants should be able to program in Java.

This course may be held in German and English depending on the number and type of participants. The project is suitable for students at the bachelor level. If you are not sure whether you fulfill the requirements or if you want to participate in the project, please send an email to marcus.handte@uni-due.de.

The kickoff meeting for this project will take place on Thursday, 17.10.2013 between 9.00h and 10.30h  in S-A 126. Participation in this meeting is mandatory.

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.

The kickoff meeting for this project will take place in Room S-A 126, from 16:00h to 18:00h, on Thursday, October 17th, 2013. It is mandatory to attend this meeting in order to participate in the project.

Autonomous Robot Navigation Seminar

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.

The objectives of this seminar are to learn about different robotic issues and learn how to present this scientific knowledge. In particular, the following issues will be covered by this seminar:

  • Obstacle avoidance.
  • Path planning.
  • Indoor localization.
  • Outdoor localization.
  • Map building.
  • Collision avoidance for UAVs.
  • Visual-based navigation.
  • Formation control for UAVs.

This seminar is suitable only for master students and it will be taught in English. It cannot be chosen by master AI-SE students. The students need to select one of topics proposed and perform an in-depth research study. By the end of the semester, the students are required to write a scientific report and prepare an oral presentation to demonstrate the result of the study. If you want to participate in this seminar or for further information, please contact Eduardo Ferrera.

The kickoff meeting for this seminar will take place in Room S-A 126, from 14:00h to 16:00h, on Thursday, October 17th, 2013. It is mandatory to attend this meeting in order to participate in the seminar.

Computer Architecture Lab

Tutor: Marcus Handte
The lab extends the lecture Computer Architecture with practical experiments. During the experiments, participants of the lab will implement programs for an ATMEL micro-controller using assembler and C. The lab provides participants with hands-on experience on software development for simple embedded systems. At the end of the lab, participants will be able to interpret the product documentation of a micro-controller to an extent that enables them to develop applications.

This course wil be managed using the moodle system of the university. Please register now at the moodle page of the course. Make sure to use an email address that you are checking regularly. The subscription password is “calwt1314”. If you have problems subscribing to the course, send an email to marcus.handte@uni-due.de.

The kickoff meeting for this lab takes place on Tuesday, October 15th,  between 18.00h and 20.00h in room BC 523. Participation in this meeting is mandatory.

Embedded Systems

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Pedro José Marrón, Lab Tutor: Wiss. Mitarbeiter
Contact: Hugues Smeets

This lecture and the associated practical lab convey the fundamentals of system-level embedded systems application development. The lecture provides a brief review of embedded systems applications and hardware. The covered topics include: microcontroller architecture, memory, I/O, Interrupts and Timers, ADC/DAC, and several examples of Operation Systems for Embedded Systems.

The lab exercises will provide hand-on experience in microcontroller (ATmega 169) programming and the Android application development. Students are required to have basic knowledge about C and Java. For more information about the lab exercises, please contact Hugues Smeets.

The first lecture will take place in Room SM 205 at 12:00h on Wednesday, October 16, 2013. The access key to the moodle page of the lecture/lab will be announced in the first lecture.

The first lab in Essen will take place in Room SE 108 at 16:00h on Wednesday, October 23, 2013. The access key to the moodle page of the lab will be announced in the first lecture.

The first lab in Duisburg will take place in Room LE 105 at 10:00h on Thursday, October 24, 2013. The access key to the moodle page of the lab will be announced in the first lecture.

Kontexterkennung Seminar

Tutor: Marcus Handte 

Nowadays, most devices are equipped with differnt types of networking technology and a broad spectrum of sensors. Examples include gyroscopes, accelerometers, cameras, and microphones. To provide better task support, future applications will have to use the sensors of multiple devices to determine the state of their environment in an automated fashion. This requires novel software systems and signal processing algorithms to derive high-level context information from low-level sensor readings.

The seminar topics will cover a selection of systems and algorithms to recognize different types of context. Furthermore, they cover supportive architectures and protocols to recognize context in a distributed manner. Thereby, the seminar focuses on light-weight approaches that can be implemented on resource-poor devices. Participants will be able to select their topic of choice from the set of available topics.

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 master/diploma level. It cannot be chosen by master AI-SE students. Furthermore, depending on the number and type of participants, this seminar might be given in English and German. Please also note that the maximum number of participants is limited. If you want to participate in the seminar, please send an email to marcus.handte@uni-due.de.

The kickoff meeting for this seminar will take place on Thursday, 17.10.2013 between 10.30h and 12.00h in S-A 126. Participation in this meeting is mandatory.

Programmieren in C/C++

Dozent: Prof. Dr. Pedro José Marrón, Übungen: Wiss. Mitarbeiter
Kontakt:
Daniel Minder

Die Veranstaltung (2V+2Ü) setzt die in den vorherigen Semestern gelernten grundlegenden Konzepte und Methoden der objektorientierten Programmierung (OOP) in C++ um.

Inhalte im Einzelnen:

  • OO-Analyse, -Design und -Modellierung mit UML
  • C++ als Erweiterung von C
  • Zeigerkonzepte
  • Klassen, Klassen-Hierarchien, einfache und mehrfache Vererbung, Zugriffsschutzmechanismen, virtuelle Basisklassen, virtuelle Funktionen, statisches und dynamisches Binden, Typisierung und Typkonvertierungen
  • Funktions- und Operator-Überladen
  • Exception Handling
  • Templates
  • Modularität, Namespaces
  • Libraries
  • Streams
  • Standard Template Library (z.B. Algorithmen, Iteratoren, Container)
  • kleine Projektbeispiele aus den Anwendungsbereichen der Ingenieurwissenschaften.

Die Veranstaltung findet auf deutsch statt.

Ort und Zeit:

  • Vorlesung: Wöchentlich donnerstags 12:00-14:00 Uhr in S-M 311.
  • Übung: Wöchentlich mittwochs 12:00-14:00 Uhr in S-E 108 oder donnerstags 14:00-16:00 in S-H 406.

Prüfung:

Die Prüfung findet i.d.R. mündlich statt. Um zur Prüfung zugelassen zu werden, sind 60% der möglichen Punkte in den Übungsaufgaben erforderlich. Bei 80-89% der Punkte erhält der Prüfling einen Notenbonus von 0,3/0,4, bei 90% der Punkte oder mehr einen Notenbonus von 0,6/0,7.

Einträge im LSF: Vorlesung und Übung
Der Zugangscode zur Moodle-Seite für Materialien und Übungsabgabe wird in der ersten Vorlesung bekanntgegeben.

Rechnerstrukturen und Betriebssysteme

Dozent: Prof. Dr. Pedro José Marrón, Übungen: Wiss. Mitarbeiter
Kontakt: Richard Figura

Die Vorlesung ist zweigeteilt. Die Vorlesungsinhalte mit dem Schwerpunkt Rechnerstrukturen werden vom Lehrstuhl Prof. Dr. Klaus Echtle vermittelt, die Inhalte mit dem Schwerpunkt Betriebssysteme vom Lehrstuhl Prof. Dr. Pedro Marrón.

Folgende Qualifikationen werden in der Vorlesung vermittelt

Die Studierenden

  • können den Aufbau und die Funktion von Rechen- und Betriebssystemen sowie die grundlegenden Konzepte erläutern
  • sind in der Lage, ein einfaches Hardwaresystem aus digitalen Basiskomponenten zu entwerfen und Grundfunktionen eines sehr einfachen Betriebssystems selbst zu entwickeln
  • können sich in vorgegebene Systeme einarbeiten, diese einordnen und ihre wesentlichen Eigenschaften erkennen
  • können die grundlegenden Aufgaben und Arbeitsweisen von Rechensystemen ebenso wie den prinzipiellen Aufbau aus digitalen Basiskomponenten erläutern
  • kennen kombinatorische Schaltungen, Bool’sche Funktionen, Schalter und einfache Gatter
  • sind vertraut mit der binären Arithmetik und Zahlendarstellung und können sie anwenden
  • verstehen, was Prozesse sind und können erläutern, wie sie verwaltet, ausgeführt und synchronisiert werden und wie eine Kommunikation zwischen Prozessen erfolgen kann
  • sind in der Lage zu erklären, wie Prozessor, Speicher und Ein-/Ausgabefunktionen verwaltet werden
  • sind befähigt, ein einfaches Hardwaresystem und Grundfunktionen eines sehr einfachen Betriebssystems selbst zu entwerfen
  • verfügen über die Fähigkeit, effizienzsteigernde Techniken in Hardware und Betriebssystem zu konzipieren
  • besitzen eine vertiefte Kenntnis von Rechnerstrukturen und sind in der Lage, diese praktisch anzuwenden
  • können maschinennahe Programme entwerfen, implementieren , diese auf geeignete Hardware portieren und ausführen o besitzen ein vertieftes Verständnis von Funktion und Aufbau von Hardware und zugehöriger Betriebssoftware, und können diese erläutern und zielgerichtet einsetzen

Ort und Zeit:

  • Vorlesung: Wöchentlich mittwochs und donnerstags 18:00-20:00 Uhr in SH 601
  • Übung:Wöchentlich freitags 12:15-14:00 Uhr in SH 601

Prüfung:

Zum Modul erfolgt eine modulbezogene Prüfung in der Gestalt einer Klausur über die gemeinsamen Ziele von Vorlesung und Übung (in der Regel: 90 bis 120 Minuten). Die erfolgreiche Teilnahme an der Übung ist als Prüfungsvorleistung Zulassungsvoraussetzung zur Modulprüfung.

Einträge im LSF: Vorlesung und Übung
Link zur Moodle-Seite

Wireless Sensor Network Application Development Project

Tutor: Dr. Chia-Yen Shih
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have been widely deployed in many application domains including environmental monitoring, surveillance, healthcare, automation control and more. A typical WSN consists of a set of low-powered and inexpensive embedded sensor devices with specific sensing modalities and with computation as well as communication capabilities. These devices collaborate with each other by exchanging data through energy-efficient, short-range radio. The application provides its services by manipulating the sensory data collected by the deployed WSN.

In this project, you will learn how to develop an integrated application providing services by making use of a WSN. The topics that will be covered include:

  • Wireless sensor system programming
  • Sensory data collection
  • Data delivery and communication through IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee networks
  • Interfacing between the user and the deployed WSN

For further information about the project, please contact Dr. Chia-Yen Shih at chia-yen.shih@uni-due.de.

The kickoff meeting for this project will take place in Room S-A 126 at 13.30h (to 15.00h) on Tuesday, 22.10.2013. Participation in this meeting is mandatory.

Wireless Sensor Network Seminar

Tutor: Chia-Yen Shih
This seminar aims to familiarize student with important research topics in Wireless Sensor Networks. The covered topics include: routing, localization, sensing coverage and communication connectivity, multi-channel communication, sensor networks simulation, modeling techniques on radio models, mobility models and sensing modalities, camera sensor networks.

This seminar is offered as a master seminar. It cannot be chosen by master AI-SE students. The student needs to select one of above topics and to perform in-depth research study on the chosen topic. By the end of the semester, the student is required to turn in a well-written report and to prepare an oral presentation to demonstrate the result of the study.

The first meeting for the seminar will take place in Room S-A 126 at 15.00h (to 16.30h) on Tuesday, 22.10.2013. It is mandatory to attend the first meeting in order to participate the seminar.