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3D ranging sensor LiDAR, is an extensively used sensor in the autonomous vehicle industry, but LiDAR placement problem is not studied extensively. This thesis work proposes a framework in an open- source autonomous driving simulator (CARLA) that aims to solve LiDAR placement problem, based on the tasks that LiDAR is intended for in most of the autonomous vehicles. LiDAR placement problem is solved by improving point cloud density around the vehicle, and this is calculated by using LiDAR Occupancy Boards (LOB). Introducing LiDAR Occupancy as an objective function, the genetic algorithm is used to optimize this problem. This method can be extended for multiple LiDAR placement problem. Additionally, for multiple LiDAR placement problem, LiDAR scan registration algorithm (NDT) can also be used to find a better match for first or reference LiDAR. Multiple experiments are carried out in simulation with a different vehicle truck and car, different LiDAR sensors Velodyne 16 and 32 channel LiDAR, and, by varying Region Of Interest (ROI), for testing the scalability and technical robustness of the framework. Finally, this framework is validated by comparing the current and proposed LiDAR positions on the truck. / 3D- sensor LiDAR, är en sensor som används i stor utsträckning inom den autonoma fordonsindustrin, men LiDAR- placeringsproblemet studeras inte i stor utsträckning. Detta uppsatsarbete föreslår en ram i en öppen källkod för autonom körningssimulator (CARLA) som syftar till att lösa LiDAR- placeringsproblem, baserat på de uppgifter som LiDAR är avsedda för i de flesta av de autonoma fordonen. LiDAR- placeringsproblem löses genom att förbättra punktmolntätheten runt fordonet, och detta beräknas med LiDAR Occupancy Boards (LOB). Genom att introducera LiDAR Occupancy som en objektiv funktion används den genetiska algoritmen för att optimera detta problem. Denna metod kan utökas för flera LiDAR- placeringsproblem. Dessutom kan LiDAR- scanningsalgoritm (NDT) för flera LiDAR- placeringsproblem också användas för att hitta en bättre matchning för LiDAR för första eller referens. Flera experiment utförs i simulering med ett annat fordon lastbil och bil, olika LiDAR-sensorer Velodyne 16 och 32kanals LiDAR, och, genom att variera intresseområde (ROI), för att testa skalbarhet och teknisk robusthet i ramverket. Slutligen valideras detta ramverk genom att jämföra de nuvarande och föreslagna LiDAR- positionerna på lastbilen.

A fundamental aspect to consider in factories is the transportation of the items at differentsteps in the production process. Conveyor belts do a great to bring items from point A topoint B but to load the item onto a working station it can demands a more precise and,in some cases, delicate approach. Nowadays this part is mostly handled by robotic arms.The issue encountered is that a robot arm extremity, its gripper, cannot directly instinctivelyknow how to grip an object. It is usually up to a technician to configure how andwhere the gripper goes to grip an item.The goal of this thesis is to analyse a problem given by a company which is to find a wayto automate the grasp pose synthesis of a new object with the adapted gripper.This automatized process can be separated into two sub-problems.First, how to choose the adapted gripper for a new object.Second, how to find a grasp pose on the object, with the previously chosen gripper.In the problem given by the company, the computer-aided design (CAD) 3D model of theconcerned object is given. Also, the grasp shall always be done vertically, i.e., the grippercomes vertically to the object and the gripper does not rotate on the x and y axis. Thegripper for a new object is selected between two kinds of grippers: two-finger paralleljawgripper and three-finger parallel-jaw gripper. No dataset of objects is provided.Object grasping is a well researched subject, especially for 2 finger grippers. However,few research is done for the 3 finger grippers grasp pose synthesis, or for gripper comparison,which are key part of the studied problem.To answer the sub-problems mentioned above, machine learning will be used for the gripperselection and a grasp synthesis method will be used for the grasp pose finding. However,due to the lack of gripper comparison in the related work, a new approach needsto be created, which will be inspired by the findings in the literature about grasp posesynthesis in general.This approach will consist of two parts.First, for each gripper and each object combination are generated some grasp poses, eachassociated with a corresponding score. The scores are used to have an idea of the bestgripper for an object, the best score for each gripper indicating how good a grasp couldbe on the object with said gripper.Secondly, the objects with their associated best score for each gripper will be used astraining data for a machine learning algorithm that will assist in the choice of the gripper.This approach leads to two research questions:“How to generate grasps of satisfying quality for an object with a certain gripper?”“Is it possible to determine the best gripper for a new object via machine learning ?”The first question is answered by using mathematical operations on the point cloud representationof the objects, and a cost function (that will be used to attribute a score), whileithe second question is answered using machine learning classification and regression togain insight on how machine learning can learn to associate object proprieties to gripperefficiency.The found results show that the grasp generation with the chosen cost function givesgrasp poses that are similar to the grasp poses a human operator would choose, but themachine learning models seem unable to assess grasp quality, either with regression orclassification.

Point cloud registration is a technique to align two sets of points with manifold applications across a range of industries. However, due to a lack of adequate sensing technology, this technique has seldom found applications in the automotive sector up to now. With the advent of solid-state Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) sensors that are easily integrable in series production vehicles as means to sense the surrounding environment, this technique can be functional to automate their operations. Maneuvering a vehicle in the proximity of a reference object is one such operation, which can only be performed by accurately estimating its position and orientation relative to the vehicle itself. This project deals with the design and the implementation of an algorithm to accurately locate an aircraft parked on an airfield apron in real time. This is achieved by registering the point cloud model of the plane to the measurement point cloud of the scene produced by the LiDAR sensors on board the vehicle. To this end, the Iterative Closest Point (ICP) algorithm is a well-established approach to register two sets of points without prior knowledge of the correspondences between pairs of points, which, however, is notoriously sensitive towards outliers and computationally expensive with large point clouds. In this work, different variants are presented that improve on the standard ICP algorithm, in terms of accuracy and runtime performance, by leveraging different data structures to index the reference model and outlier rejection strategies. The results show that the implemented algorithms can produce estimates of centimeter precision in milliseconds based only on partial observations of the aircraft, outperforming another established solution tested. / Punktmolnregistrering är en teknik för att anpassa två uppsättningar punkter med mångfaldiga applikationer inom en rad branscher. På grund av bristen på adekvat sensorsteknik har denna teknik hittills sällan används inom automotivesektorn. Med tillkomsten av solid-state LiDAR -sensorer som enkelt kan integreras i serieproduktionsfordon för att kunna känna av den omgivningen, kan denna teknik automatisera verksamheten. Att manövrera ett fordon i närheten av ett referensobjekt är en sådan operation, som bara kan utföras genom att exakt uppskatta dess position och orientering i förhållande till själva fordonet. Detta projekt handlar om design och implementering av en algoritm för att exakt lokalisera ett flygplan parkerat på ett flygfält i realtid. Detta uppnås genom att registrera planetens molnmodell till mätpunktsmolnet på scenen som produceras av LiDAR -sensorerna ombord på fordonet. För detta ändamålet är Iterative Closest Point (ICP) -algoritmen ett väletablerat tillvägagångssätt för att registrera två uppsättningar punkter utan föregående kännedom om överensstämmelserna mellan parpar, vilket dock är notoriskt känsligt för avvikelser och beräknat dyrt med stora punktmoln. I detta arbete presenteras olika varianter som förbättrar standard ICP - algoritmen, när det gäller noggrannhet och runtime performance, genom att utnyttja olika datastrukturer för att indexera referensmodellen och outlier -avvisningsstrategier. Resultaten visar att de implementerade algoritmerna kan producera uppskattningar av centimeters precision i millisekunder baserat endast på partiella observationer av flygplanet, vilket överträffar en annan etablerad lösning som testats.

Indoor environment modeling has become a relevant topic in several applications fields including Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality. Furthermore, with the Digital Transformation, many industries have moved toward this technology trying to generate detailed models of an environment allowing the viewers to navigate through it or mapping surfaces to insert virtual elements in a real scene. Therefore, this Thesis project has been conducted with the purpose to review well- established deterministic methods for 3D scene reconstruction and researching the state- of- the- art, such as machine learning- based approaches, and a possible implementation on mobile devices. Initially, we focused on the well- established methods such as Structure from Motion (SfM) that use photogrammetry to estimate camera poses and depth using only RGB images. Lastly, the research has been centered on the most innovative methods that make use of machine learning to predict depth maps and camera poses from a video stream. Most of the methods reviewed are completely unsupervised and are based on a combination of two subnetwork, the disparity network (DispNet) for the depth estimation and pose network (PoseNet) for camera pose estimation. Despite the fact that the results in outdoor application show high quality depth map and and reliable odometry, there are still some limitations for the deployment of this technology in indoor environment. Overall, the results are promising. / Modellering av inomhusmiljö har blivit ett relevant ämne inom flera applikationsområden, inklusive Augmented, Virtual och Mixed Reality. Dessutom, med den digitala transformationen, har många branscher gått mot denna teknik som försöker generera detaljerade modeller av en miljö som gör det möjligt för tittarna att navigera genom den eller kartlägga ytor för att infoga virtuella element i en riktig scen. Därför har detta avhandlingsprojekt genomförts med syftet att granska väletablerade deterministiska metoder för 3Dscenrekonstruktion och undersöka det senaste inom teknik, såsom maskininlärningsbaserade metoder och en möjlig implementering på mobil. Inledningsvis fokuserade vi på de väletablerade metoderna som Structure From Motion (SfM) som använder fotogrammetri för att uppskatta kameraställningar och djup med endast RGBbilder. Slutligen har forskningen varit inriktad på de mest innovativa metoderna som använder maskininlärning för att förutsäga djupkartor och kameraposer från en videoström. De flesta av de granskade metoderna är helt utan tillsyn och baseras på en kombination av två undernätverk, skillnadsnätverket (DispNet) för djupuppskattning och posenätverk (PoseNet) för kameraposestimering. Trots att resultaten i utomhusanvändning visar djupkarta av hög kvalitet och tillförlitlig vägmätning, finns det fortfarande vissa begränsningar för användningen av denna teknik i inomhusmiljön, men ändå är resultaten lovande.

Existing residential and small commercial buildings now represent the greatest opportunity to improve building energy efficiency. Building energy simulation analysis is becoming increasingly important because the analysis results can assist the decision makers to make decisions on improving building energy efficiency and reducing environmental impacts. However, manually measuring as-is conditions of building envelops including geometry and thermal value is still a labor-intensive, costly, and slow process. Thus, the primary objective of this research was to automatically collect and extract the as-is geometry and thermal data of the building envelope components and create a gbXML-based building geometry model. In the proposed methodology, a rapid and low-cost data collection hardware system was designed by integrating 3D laser scanners and an infrared (IR) camera. Secondly, several algorithms were created to automatically recognize various components of building envelope as objects from collected raw data. The extracted 3D semantic geometric model was then automatically saved as an industry standard file format for data interoperability. The feasibility of the proposed method was validated through three case studies. The contributions of this research include 1) a customized low-cost hybrid data collection system development to fuse various data into a thermal point cloud; 2) an automatic method of extracting building envelope components and its geometry data to generate gbXML-based building geometry model. The broader impacts of this research are that it could offer a new way to collect as is building data without impeding occupants’ daily life, and provide an easier way for laypeople to understand the energy performance of their buildings via 3D thermal point cloud visualization.

Master of Science / Department of Computing and Information Sciences / David A. Gustafson / Octant analysis, when combined with properties of the multivariate central limit theorem and multivariate normal distribution, allows finding a reasonable grasping point on an unknown novel object possible. This thesis’s original contribution is the ability to find progressively improving grasp points in a poor and/or sparse point cloud. It is shown how octant analysis was implemented using common consumer grade electronics to demonstrate the applicability to home and office robotics. Tests were carried out on three novel objects in multiple poses to determine the algorithm’s consistency and effectiveness at finding a grasp point on those objects. Results from the experiments bolster the idea that the application of octant analysis to the grasping point problem seems promising and deserving of further investigation. Other applications of the technique are also briefly considered.

Novas tecnologias estão sendo desenvolvidas constantemente para coletar informações de superfícies ou de sólidos para diversas finalidades. Alguns métodos clássicos, como a Topografia e a Fotogrametria terrestre, com o passar dos anos, tiveram uma grande evolução. Na Fotogrametria terrestre todo o processo está sendo feito em meio digital. Na topografia, as estações totais automatizaram a medição de ângulos e distâncias. Essa evolução tecnológica fez com que os levantamentos se tornassem cada vez mais rápidos e precisos, aumentando a produtividade. O mais recente nessa evolução é o levantamento através do sistema de varredura a laser (Laser Scanner) 3D. São muitas as aplicações dessa tecnologia, dentre as quais pode-se citar: túneis, levantamento do como construído (as-built), mineração (principalmente subterrânea), arqueologia, levantamento de monumentos para restauração, refinarias e instalações industriais e outras, caracterizadas pela grande complexidade dos elementos envolvidos. A presente dissertação apresenta os conceitos envolvidos em todos os processos, desde a coleta de dados até o produto final. Desenvolve uma metodologia de uso que possa ser útil em diversas áreas, mostra uma aplicação completa na área de túneis, complementada por uma visão geral da área de plantas industriais e procura apresentar testes para quantificar a precisão que se obtém por essa tecnologia. / New technologies are constantly being developed in order to collect information of surfaces or solids for diverse purposes. Some classic methods such as topography and terrestrial photogrammetry have had a great evolution in the past. For example, all the processes of the terrestrial photogrammetry are made in digital way and the Total Stations have automated the measurements of angles and distances. This technical evolution made the surveying faster and accurate, increasing the productivity. However this evolution does not stop for there; in other words, the last technology in the area of topography is the surveying with the system known as Laser Scanner 3D. The Laser Scanner technology 3D has a lot of applications such as: tunnel, as-built, mining (mainly in the underground); archaeology (for restore monuments), refineries, industrial installations, etc., characterized by the great complexity of the involved elements. This work presents concepts involved in all the processes, since from data collection to the final product. It develops a methodology of use that can be applied in several areas, with emphasis in tunnels surveying area and presents some tests to quantization the accuracy.

The long white cane offers many benefits for the blind and visually impaired. Still, many report being injured both indoors and outdoors while using the long white cane. One frequent cause of injury is due to the fact that the long white cane cannot detect obstacles above the waist of the user. This thesis presents a system that attempts to augment the capabilities of the long white cane by sensing the environment around the user, creating a map of obstacles within the environment, and providing simple haptic feedback to the user. The proposed augmented cane system uses the Asus Xtion Pro Live infrared depth sensor to capture the user's environment as a point cloud. The open-source Point Cloud Library (PCL) and Robotic Operating System (ROS) are used to process the point cloud. The points representing the ground plane are extracted to more clearly define potential obstacles. The system determines the nearest point for each 1degree across the horizontal view. These nearest points are recorded as a ROS Laser Scan message and used in a simple haptic feedback system where the rumble feedback is based on two different cost functions. Twenty-two volunteers participated in a user demonstration that showed the augmented cane system can successfully communicate the presence of obstacles to blindfolded users. The users reported experiencing a sense of safety and confidence in the system's abilities. Obstacles above waist height are detected and communicated to the user. The system requires additional development before it could be considered a viable product for the visually impaired.

Earthwork operations are often one of the major cost items on infrastructure construction projects. Because earthwork is largely influenced by unstable construction conditions and organization plans, it becomes the emphasis and difficulties of the cost control in the construction process. Therefore, precise estimates of actual earthwork volumes are important for both owners and contractors alike to ensure appropriate payments are made. However, measuring work on site requires lots of time and labors because of various and irregular site conditions. Conventional measurement methods, such as planned quantities from the drawings or estimates from equipment activity, are rough estimates with significant opportunities for errors and safety concerns. Recently, unmanned aerial systems (UAS) have become popular for numerous surveying applications in civil engineering. They require less cost and time consumptions compared with traditionally manual methods. Also, they are able to perform photogrammetric data acquisition with equipped digital cameras in hazardous, complex or other conditions that may present high safety risks. However, UAS photogrammetry for research applications is still in its infancy, especially in construction management, and research conducted on UAS photogrammetry for earthwork volume estimation are very limited. Therefore, this research intends to investigate and validate the feasibility and efficiency of utilizing the UAS photogrammetry surveying technique to estimate earthwork volume. The research is conducted into three steps based on distinct case studies: firstly, adapting a basic analysis through a case study to preliminarily prove the effectiveness of the UAS photogrammetry method in earthwork volume measurement; also providing an analytical foundation for further utilizations; secondly, Quantitatively assessing the impact of flight parameters and environmental factors on the accuracy of UAS photogrammetry in earthwork volume measurement and identifying the most influential individual or combinations through observations and a statistical multiple regression analysis; at last, comparing volumes calculated by using the UAS platform and other two conventional methods which are Average-End-Area method and grid method in AutoCAD to further validate the feasibility of using the UAS technology in the process of earthwork volumes estimation. The results indicate that the UAS is an effective method for earthwork volume measurement. According to published standards, practice experience, and literature, the measurement errors are in an acceptable range when parameters are under control. In addition, the UAS demonstrates its advantages in balancing between the accuracy and efficiency compared with conventional earthwork volume measurement methods.