This is a thesis project done on behalf of BillerudKornäs in collaboration with Örebro University in a research project investigating grip stiffness of carton board packages. This is of interest because a better understanding of it would allow optimizing of the packaging design and result in a better product. In this thesis the mission has been to develop a setup for a sensor enabling a method of testing on packages. This has been carried out as a product development project. After a preparation study a specification of requirements was written. With the use of this a number of concepts were generated. Through evaluation one concept was chosen for further development and built as a prototype model. The prototype did not work satisfactory at the end of the project but could with some improvements be useful in testing packages with the intended sensor. / Detta är ett examensarbete utfört åt BillerudKorsnäs i samarbete med Örebro universitet inom ett forskningsprojekt där greppstyvhet hos kartongförpackningar undersöks. Det här är intressant eftersom att en djupare förståelse inom området skulle möjliggöra optimering av förpackningsdesignen och resultera i en bättre produkt. Uppgiften i detta examensarbete har varit att utveckla en testrigg för en sensor med syfte att möjliggöra en laborativ metod för att testa förpackningar. Detta har bedrivits som ett produktutvecklingsprojekt. Efter att en förstudie gjorts togs en kravspecifikation fram. Med hjälp utav vad som definierats i denna generades ett antal koncept. Genom utvärdering valdes ett koncept för vidareutveckling och byggdes sedan som prototypmodell. Prototypen fungerade inte tillfredställande vid projektets slut men skulle efter vissa förbättringar kunna vara användbar vid tester av förpackningar med den avsedda sensorn.

Cette thèse étudie le design et la conception d’un Goniomètre Radio Fréquence (GRF) visant à assister les services de secours à la personne (e.g. équipes de sauvetage déblaiement), exploitant les téléphones des victimes à retrouver comme des balises de détresse radio. La conception est focalisée sur une interface audio, utilisant le son pour guider progressivement les sauveteurs vers la victime. L’ambition de la thèse est d’exploiter les mécanismes naturels propres à l’audition humaine pour améliorer les performances générales du processus de recherche plutôt que de développer de nouvelles techniques d’Estimation de Direction de Source (EDS).Les techniques d’EDS classiques sont tout d’abord exposées, ainsi qu’une série d’outils permettant d’en évaluer les performances. Basée sur ces outils, une étude de cas est proposée visant à évaluer les performances attendues d’un GRF portable, adapté aux conditions d’emploi nominales envisagées. Il est montré que les performances des techniques dites « à haute résolution » généralement utilisées pour l’EDS sont sérieusement amoindries lorsqu’une contrainte de taille/poids maximum est imposée sur le réseau d’antennes associé au GRF, particulièrement en présence de multi-trajets de propagation entre le téléphone ciblé et le tableau d’antenne.Par la suite, une étude bibliographique concernant la sonification par encodage de paramètres (Parameter Mapping Sonification) est proposée. Plusieurs paradigmes de sonification sont considérés et évalués en rapport à leur capacité à transmettre une information issue de différents designs de GRF envisagés. Des tests d’écoute sont menés, suggérant qu’après une courte phase d’entrainement les sujets sont capables d’analyser plusieurs flux audio en parallèle ainsi que d’interpréter des informations de haut niveau encodées dans des flux sonores complexes. Lesdits tests ont permis de souligner le besoin d’une sonification du GRF basée sur une hiérarchie perceptive de l’information présentée, permettant aux débutants de focaliser leur attention sans efforts et uniquement sur les données les plus importantes. Une attention particulière est portée à l’ergonomie de l’interface sonore et à son impact sur l’acceptation et la confiance de l’opérateur vis-à-vis du GRF (e.g. en ce qui concerne la perception du bruit de mesure pendant l’utilisation du GRF pendant la navigation).Finalement, un prototype virtuel est proposé, simulant une navigation basée sur le GRF dans un environnement virtuel pour en évaluer les performances (e.g. paradigmes de sonification proposés plus haut). En parallèle, un prototype physique est assemblé afin d’évaluer la validité écologique du prototype virtuel. Le prototype physique est basé sur une architecture radio logicielle, permettant d’accélérer les phases de développement entre les différentes versions du design de GRF étudiées. L’ensemble des études engageant les prototypes virtuels et physiques sont menées en collaboration avec des professionnels des opérations de recherche à la personne. Les performances des designs de GRF proposés sont par la suite comparées à celles des solutions de recherche existantes (géo-stéréophone, équipes cynotechniques, etc.).Il est montré que, dans le contexte envisagé, un simple GRF basé sur la sonification en parallèle des signaux provenant de plusieurs antennes directionnelles peut offrir des performances de navigations comparables à celles résultantes de designs plus complexes basés sur des méthodes à haute résolution. Puisque l’objectif de la tâche est de progressivement localiser une cible, la pierre angulaire du système semble être la robustesse et la consistance de ses estimations plutôt que sa précision ponctuelle. Impliquer l’utilisateur dans le processus d’estimation permet d’éviter des situations critiques où ledit utilisateur se sentirait impuissant face à un système autonome (boîte noire) produisant des informations qui lui semblent incohérentes. / This research investigates the design of a radio Direction Finder (DF) for rescue operation using victims' cellphone as localization beacons. The conception is focused on an audio interface, using sound to progressively guide rescuers towards their target. The thesis' ambition is to exploit the natural mechanisms of human hearing to improve the global performance of the search process rather than to develop new Direction-Of-Arrival (DOA) estimation techniques.Classical DOA estimation techniques are introduced along with a range of tools to assess their efficiency. Based on these tools, a case study is proposed regarding the performance that might be expected from a lightweight DF design tailored to portable operation. It is shown that the performance of high-resolution techniques usually implemented for DOA estimation are seriously impacted by any size-constraint applied on the DF, particularly in multi-path propagation conditions.Subsequently, a review of interactive parameter mapping sonification is proposed. Various sonification paradigms are designed and assessed regarding their capacity to convey information related to different levels of DF outputs. Listening tests are conducted suggesting that trained subjects are capable of monitoring multiple audio streams and gather information from complex sounds. Said tests also indicate the need for a DF sonification that perceptively orders the presented information, for beginners to be able to effortlessly focus on the most important data only. Careful attention is given to sound aesthetic and how it impacts operators' acceptance and trust in the DF, particularly regarding the perception of measurement noise during the navigation.Finally, a virtual prototype is implemented that recreates DF-based navigation in a virtual environment to evaluate the proposed sonification mappings. In the meantime, a physical prototype is developed to assess the ecological validity of the virtual evaluations. Said prototype exploits a software defined radio architecture for rapid iteration through design implementations. The overall performance evaluation study is conducted in consultation with rescue services representatives and compared with their current search solutions.It is shown that, in this context, simple DF designs based on the parallel sonification of the output signal of several antennas may produce navigation performance comparable to these of more complex designs based on high-resolution methods. As the task objective is to progressively localize a target, the system's cornerstone appears to be the robustness and consistency of its estimations rather than its punctual accuracy. Involving operators in the estimation allows avoiding critical situations where one feels helpless when faced with an autonomous system producing non-sensical estimations. Virtual prototyping proved to be a sensible and efficient method to support this study, allowing for fast iterations through sonifications and DF designs implementations.

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The diploma thesis focuses on the analysis of a document management system (DMS) pilot implementation in the environment of a Czech bank. The thesis is divided into three parts; the first part is theoretical and remaining two parts are practical (analytical). The theoretical part is devoted to summarization of basic theoretical knowledge in the field of DMS and in a pilot deployment of information systems. The second part describes the EMC xCP 2.1 platform and evaluates its advantages and disadvantages compared to competing products. The third part describes the technological implementation and deployment of a new DMS pilot solution in a bank. Further it analyzes and describes the follow-up activities and related projects that increase the DMS usability in a real business applications. The diploma thesis concurrently focuses on the business requirements analysis including constrains of a new solution deployment, as well as the DMS technological aspects description and the solution design. The author of this thesis has been working as an analyst in the IT company and has been in a long-term cooperation with the DMS team in the bank. The motivation for choosing this topic is to make a summary and clarification of knowledge gained on projects in the the bank and to take an advantage of it in the future cooperation.

Diploma thesis "Prototyping in software development" deals with the use of prototyping in software development with focus on the user interface (UI). Main goal of thesis is extension of MMSP methodology with sphere of the user interface prototyping which has been achieved by the definition of new object in the methodology. The text defines two new roles (objects): UI Designer and Graphic Designer. The roles already defined in MMSP were extended with responsibilities and tasks related to UI prototyping. Other newly added objects are Work Products (e.g. sketch or rules for creation of UI) and Tasks (e.g. sketching). The inclusion of prototyping into life-cycle phases of software development (defined by the methodology) includes all newly added objects. In the beginning the thesis generally concentrates on the definition of the term prototype and the categorization of prototypes. In the next part the thesis describes the possibilities of the use of prototyping in the process of software development and defines criteria for the selection of the best tool for creation of prototypes (wireframes). The sixth chapter focuses on the process of selection of the methodology suitable for the extension with the area of UI. The last chapter contains the MMSP methodology extension itself.

The emerging interests in spatial pattern mining leads to the demand for a flexible spatial pattern mining language, on which easy to use and understand visual pattern language could be built. It is worthwhile to define a pattern mining language called LCSPM to allow users to specify complex spatial patterns. I describe a proposed pattern mining language in this paper. A visual interface which allows users to specify the patterns visually is developed. Visual pattern queries are translated into the LCSPM language by a parser and data mining process can be triggered afterwards. The visual language is based on and goes beyond the visual language proposed in literature. I implemented a prototype system based on the open source JUMP framework.

The rapid growth of the Internet has resulted in the desperate need for alternative ways to keep electronic transactions secure while at the same time allowing entities that do not know each other to interact. This has, in turn, led to a wide area of interest in the issues of trust and trust modeling to be used by machines. A large amount of work has already been undertaken in this area in an attempt to transfer the trust and interaction decision making processes onto the machine. However this work has taken a number of different approaches with little to no correlation between various models and no standard set of criteria was even proposed that can be used to evaluate the value of such models. The proposed research chooses to use a detailed literature survey to investigate the current models in existence. This investigation focuses on identifying criteria that are required by trust models. These criteria are grouped into four categories that represent four important concepts to be implemented in some manner by trust models: trust representation, initial trust, trust update and trust evaluation. The process of identifying these criteria has led to a second problem. The trust evaluation process is a detailed undertaking requiring a high processing overhead. This process can either result in a value that allows an agent to trust another to a certain extent or in a distrust value that results in termination of the interaction. The evaluation process required to obtain the distrust value is just as process intensive as the one resulting in determining a level of trust and the constraints that will be placed on an interaction. This raises the question: How do we simplify the trust evaluation process for agents that have a high probability of resulting in a distrust value? This research solves this problem by adding a fifth category to the criteria already identified; namely: prejudice filters. These filters have been identified by the literature study and are tested by means of a prototype implementation that uses a specific scenario in order to test two simulation case studies. / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Computer Science / unrestricted

Airborne Wind Energy Systems (AWES) harness the power of high-altitude winds using tethered planes or kites. Continuous and reliable operation requires that AWES become autonomous devices, but the wind intermittency forces the system to repeatedly take-off to start, and land to shut-off. Therefore, a common approach to facilitate the operation is implementing Vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) functionality. This thesis models and simulates AWES flights working towards the implementation of flight controller hardware and autonomous operation of an AWES demonstrator platform. The Ardupilot open-source autopilot platform provides a convenient tool for modeling, simulation, and hardware implementation of small-scale airplanes. An AWES lab-scale demonstrator was developed to obtain operational insight, get preliminary flight data, and real-world experience in this technology. A quadplane was developed by combining a structurally reinforced glider with VTOL and autopilot components. Its performance is obtained from static and aerodynamic studies and converted into the Ardupilot parameter format to define it in the simulation. An AWES flight model was developed from the ground up to evaluate the performance of a simple flight controller in trajectory tracking. The Ardupilot Software-in-Loop (SIL) tool expands the simulation capabilities by running the flight controller code without requiring any hardware. This allowed controller tuning and flight plan evaluation with a more advanced fight model. AWES crosswind flight simulation was only possible due to the incorporation of an elastic tether and an ideal winch into the physics model. As a result, different trajectories and configurations were tested to find the optimal parameters that were uploaded to the flight controller board. The operational capabilities of the AWES demonstrator were expanded with a flight testing campaign. By targeting individual objectives, each test gradually increased its complexity and ensured that the flight envelope was safely expanded. The results were validated with the simulation before moving on to the next flight test. The testing campaign is still underway due to challenges and limitations presented by the legal and logistical aspects of operating the quadplane. However, preliminary flight tests in VTOL mode have been completed and were consistent with the simulated results in terms of autonomous waypoint navigation and attitude control. / Graduate

This diploma thesis deals with design of machinware of mobile robot. The purpose of this work is to design complete technical product documentation for manufacturing of a prototype. In first theoretical part of this thesis there is an analysis of contemporary situation of mobile robots. In second practical section, there is a design of all needed mechanical parts for tracked vehicle, all needed calculations are included. Diploma thesis contains hazard analysis, complete technical product documentation with 3D model included and final price statement.

This thesis deals with mechanical design of FDM 3D printer with a built-in material feeder with monitoring of remaining material. The aim of this thesis is designing the FDM 3D printer with minimum print volume of 200x200x200 mm and with usage of measured data for optimising the 3D printing process. This 3D printer is targeted to the non-experienced users, so the emphasis was on ease of use and reliability of the printer. Despite the fact that it is an innovative design solution, the suitability of the design was verified experimentally as part of this thesis. The choice of the material feeder design, which is essential for the presented thesis, was justified by the realization of prototypes of two suitable designs, from which the optimal solution was chosen. The knowledge obtained from testing the prototypes was then used for the final design of 3D printer. The usage of data for optimization of the printing process is realized by a C++ compatible source code that is a part of this thesis.