El desarrollo económico y la estabilidad general del país en los últimos años, trajo consigo el auge de diversos sectores como el industrial, el minero, el agropecuario, etc. Esto, significó mayor cantidad de puestos de trabajo para la población y mejores ingresos para las familias. Bajo este contexto era natural que se incrementara la demanda de productos de diversa índole y de servicios, principalmente los de entretenimiento. Esta demanda fue atendida con la construcción de nuevos centros comerciales y la modernización de los pocos ya existentes. Las grandes superficies de consumo han pasado a formar parte del día a día de la sociedad, tanto es así que se puede decir que la gente va al centro comercial a pasear y no a comprar. Para los comerciantes esto es un problema que se resuelve incrementando el número de visitantes que realiza compras en el centro comercial. Dentro de las diversas tecnologías de posicionamiento y geolocalizaciones que en la actualidad se aplican en distintos ámbitos del quehacer diario como pedir comida a domicilio, pedir servicios de taxi, encontrar la mejor ruta para un destino sin toparse con el tráfico, etc., se encuentran aquellos que permiten navegar dentro de los lugares cerrados, las conocidas como Indoor Positioning Systems (IPS). / In the past few years the economic growth and overall stability of the country, brought with it an increase for many industrial sectors, like mining, agriculture and others. This also had an impact on the people in the form of more jobs and better incomes. Under this context it was only natural that the demand for any product or services increased, mainly the ones relative to the entertainment sector. The respond to this demand was the construction of new malls and the update of the ones already in place. Large spaces for retail purposes are now part of the everyday in a modern society, in such a way the people go to the mall just to spend the day and not for buying goods. For the retailers this is a problem to be solved by increasing the number of visitors to the mall. Among the many technologies in global positioning and geolocation that has a place in current applications for everyday tasks like food ordering, taxi services, or even finding the best route home avoiding rush hour, there are the ones that allows to navigate inside buildings, these are called Indoor Positioning Systems (IPS). / Trabajo de investigaciòn

Alors que la population mondiale vieillit et vit de plus en plus en zone urbaine, maintenir les capacités de mobilité piétonne des personnes âgées en ville est un enjeu majeur pour leur santé et leur autonomie. La marche est, en effet, un des modes principaux de déplacement des personnes âgées en ville. Cependant, les déclins perceptifs, cognitifs et moteurs liés à l'avancée en âge peuvent affecter considérablement cette activité quotidienne.La navigation piétonne, qui consiste à aller d'un point A à un point B, peut être particulièrement affectée par l’avancée en âge. Il s’agit d’un processus complexe, sollicitant de nombreuses fonctions perceptives et cognitives, afin de percevoir, analyser et intégrer un grand nombre d’informations pour se déplacer. Si les personnes âgées recourent le plus souvent aux cartes papier pour s’aider dans cette activité de navigation, ces supports sont peu adaptés, car ils mobilisent des informations allocentrées (en vue du dessus) difficiles à interpréter par les personnes âgées, et font fortement appel à l’attention visuelle, qui est nécessaire par ailleurs pour naviguer en toute sécurité.Des aides à la navigation technologiques (type GPS) pourraient permettre de lever certaines difficultés de mobilité avec l’âge, en fournissant des informations de guidage à travers plusieurs canaux sensoriels, et ce afin de limiter le partage attentionnel. Ces aides devraient également proposer une expérience utilisateur positive, afin de faciliter leur acceptation par une population âgée pas toujours à l’aise avec les technologies.Cette thèse en psychologie ergonomique s’intéresse à l’efficacité et à l’expérience utilisateur de plusieurs aides à la navigation technologiques mobilisant des instructions pas-à-pas égocentrées (en vue à la première personne) à travers les sens visuel, auditif et haptique pour la navigation piétonne des personnes âgées. Après avoir questionné les pratiques de mobilité piétonne et les différences existant entre personnes actives et retraitées (étude 1), nous avons comparé, lors d’une étude en environnement virtuel (étude 2), différentes instructions de guidage pas-à-pas faisant appel aux sens visuel (flèches incrustées sur simulateur), auditif (sons spatialisés par casque à conduction osseuse) et haptique (montre vibrante au poignet droit), ainsi que l’utilisation d’une carte papier. Nous avons pu mettre en valeur que des difficultés de navigation observées chez les participants âgés avec la carte pouvaient être compensées par le recours à un guidage par flèches visuelles ou sons spatialisés. Nous avons poursuivi ce travail par une étude en environnement naturel urbain (étude 3) au cours de laquelle des participants âgés ont été invités à parcourir des itinéraires avec leur aide habituelle (carte), un guidage visuel par flèches projetées sur des lunettes de réalité augmentée, un guidage auditif par sons spatialisés grâce à un casque à conduction osseuse, et un guidage vibro-visuel proposant flèches et vibrations par le biais d’une montre connectée. Les résultats obtenus par des observables et des entretiens indiquent que les lunettes de réalité augmentée paraissent cette fois-ci, en contexte naturel, et au contraire de l’étude 2 sur simulateur, moins adaptées que le casque à conduction osseuse et que la montre connectée, ces deux derniers dispositifs montrant des résultats très positifs. La perceptibilité des instructions, leur interprétation en contexte de navigation, et le confort des participants sont grandement dépendants du dispositif technique utilisé.Dans une dernière étude, nous avons investigué les facteurs susceptibles de favoriser l’acceptabilité d’aides à la navigation qui ne sont pas disponibles sur le marché mais pourraient exister demain (ex. lentilles de réalité augmentée, vêtements vibrants, etc.). Nous proposons, en conclusion, plusieurs recommandations utiles à la conception d’aides à la navigation adaptées aux besoins et aux attentes des piétons âgés. / As worldwide population is ageing and concentrating in cities, maintaining older people's pedestrian mobility in urban areas has become a key issue for their health and autonomy. Walking is, indeed, one of the most frequent transportation mode used by older people in cities. But age-related perceptual, cognitive and physical declines could negatively impact this daily activity.Pedestrian navigation, which consists in moving from a point A to a point B, could be particularly affected when advancing in age. It involves complex cognitive and perceptual processes to perceive and understand a multiplicity of information required to reach destination. Older people tend to use paper maps to help them finding their way while navigating. But maps are not suitable for older pedestrians because they provide allocentric information (viewed from the top) which is difficult to understand when advancing in age and requires a lot of visual attention which is also needed to navigate safely. Technological pedestrian navigation aids (such as GPS systems) may help older people to navigate by providing them guidance messages via various sensory modalities in order to limit attention sharing. Those aids should also be related to a positive user experience to facilitate their acceptation among older people who feel not necessarily comfortable with technologies. This thesis in ergonomic psychology focuses on how older people perceive and experience various technological pedestrian navigation aids, providing them with visual, auditory and haptic egocentric turn-by-turn guidance messages. We firstly investigated the reasons why people use pedestrian mobility in their daily activities and the differences existing between retired and non-retired people (study 1). We then compared some step-by-step guidance messages to a paper map in a virtual environment (study 2). We used visual messages (arrows inlayed on the screen of the simulator), auditory messages (spatialized sounds provided by a bone-conduction headset) and haptic messages (vibrating watch around the right wrist) and highlighted that the increased difficulties faced by older people to find their way with a map could be compensated using visual arrows or spatialized sound. We then continued this work in a real urban environment (study 3). People were asked to navigate some routes with their own navigation aid (usually a map), or arrows inlayed in their field of view thanks to augmented-reality glasses, or spatialized sounds provided by a bone-conduction headset, or arrows displayed on a smartwatch that vibrated to announce that a visual message was incoming. Augmented-reality glasses were less suitable for older pedestrians than bone-conduction headset and smartwatch in the natural environment, which was different from the results observed in virtual environment. Results from the interviews showed that the perceptibility of the messages, the way people interpreted them in the environment, and the comfort people felt was highly conditioned by the device used. We finally investigated which UX dimensions cloud foster or limit the acceptability of some sensory navigation aids that do not exist yet but could exist in a near future (augmented-reality lens, vibrating clothes etc.).As a conclusion, we provide the reader with recommendations for designing navigation aids that are adapted to older pedestrians’ needs and expectations.

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A 6-Degree Of Freedom (DOF) numeric model and computer simulation along with the 1/10th scale physical model of the Rapidly Deployable Stable Platform (RDSP) are being developed at Florida Atlantic University in response to military needs for ocean platforms with improved sea keeping characteristics. The RDSP is a self deployable spar platform with two distinct modes of operation enabling long distance transit and superior seakeeping. The focus of this research is the development of a Dynamic Position (DP) and motion mitigation system for the RDSP. This will be accomplished though the validation of the mathematical simulation, development of a novel propulsion system, and implementation of a PID controller. The result of this research is an assessment of the response characteristics of the RDSP that quantifies the performance of the propulsion system coupled with active control providing a solid basis for further controller development and operational testing. / by Sean P. Marikle. / Thesis (M.S.C.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Veículos autônomos são objeto de crescente estudo em todo o mundo. Face à Engenharia de Transportes, é tema que deve provocar uma revolução nas próximas décadas, pois é concreta a tendência ao uso destes veículos na sociedade. Podem se citar como grandes beneficiados a segurança, a logística, o fluxo de trânsito, o meio ambiente e também os portadores de deficiências. Com o objetivo de fazer um veículo atingir um ponto com coordenadas conhecidas de forma autônoma, uma plataforma veicular terrestre em escala foi utilizada, a qual recebeu um sistema computacional micro controlado e tecnologias para proporcionar mobilidade através de motores elétricos para tração e servo-motores para direcionamento; posicionamento por satélite através de receptor GNSS e bússola eletrônica para orientação; sensoriamento por ultra-som para evitar colisões; e comunicação sem fio, a fim de se realizar remotamente monitoramento e instrução em tempo real através de um aplicativo para computador pessoal (PC). Foi desenvolvido um algoritmo de navegação que, fazendo uso dos recursos disponíveis, proporcionou autonomia ao veículo, de forma a navegar para pontos com coordenadas conhecidas sem controle humano. Os testes realizados visaram avaliar a capacidade de autonomia do veículo, a trajetória de navegação realizada e a acurácia de chegada aos pontos de destino. O veículo foi capaz de atingir os pontos em todos os testes realizados, sendo considerado funcional seu algoritmo de navegação e também os sistemas de mobilidade, posicionamento, sensoriamento e comunicação. / Autonomous vehicles are an on growing research target around the world. Face to Transports Engineering, it is a subject which is expected to make a revolution on the next decades. The great benefits are on security, logistic, traffic flow, environment and handicap. With the goal to make a vehicle navigate autonomously to known geodesics coordinates, a reduced scale terrestrial vehicular platform was used. This platform received a microcontrolled computational system and technologies to give it mobility, through electrical motors for traction and servo-motors for direction; satellite positioning, through a GNSS receiver and magnetic compass for orientation; ultrasound sensing in order to avoid collision; and wireless communication, in order to do remote monitoring and instruction at real time through a PC application. It was developed a navigation algorithm which, from the available resources, gave autonomy to the vehicle, in order to navigate to known geodesics coordinates without human control. The test set was intended to evaluate the autonomy capacity of the vehicle, the navigation trajectory that was done and the arrival accuracy to the destination points. The vehicle reached the destination points on all tests done, being evaluated as functional its navigation algorithm and also the mobility, positioning, sensing and communication systems.

This thesis deals with the possibilities of using satellite navigation systems in the insurance industry. In particular, the thesis focuses on the Czech Republic. The aim of this thesis is to analyze and evaluate the possibilities of using satellite systems, especially satellite navigation systems in the insurance industry. At first the thesis describes satellite navigation systems in general. Then it expresses using of the satellite navigation systems to manage costs of the insurance companies. In the last part it maps usage of satellite navigation systems in connection with insurance products, specifically: maps used by insurance companies, system of insurance Pay As You Drive (PAYD) and mobile applications.

Despite significant progress in GPS/INS integration-based direct geo-referencing (DGR) technology over the past decade, its performance still needs to be improved in terms of accuracy and tolerance to GPS outages. This is mainly due to the limited geometric strength of the GPS satellite constellation, the quality of INS and the system integration technology. This research is focused on pseudolite (PL) augmentation to enhance the geometric strength of the GPS satellite constellation, and the Neural Network (NN) aided Kalman filter (KF) system integration algorithm to improve the geo-referencing system's performance during GPS outages. The main research contributions are summarized as below: a) Systematic errors introduced by pseudolites have been investigated. Theoretical and numerical analyses reveal that errors of troposphere delay modelling, differential nonlinearity and pseudolite location are sensitive to pseudolite receiver geometry. Their effect on final positioning solutions can be minimised by selecting optimal pseudolite and receiver locations, which is referred to as geometry design. Optimal geometry design for pseudolite augmented systems has been proposed based on simulation results in airborne surveying scenarios. b) Nonlinear geometry bias, or nonlinearity, exists in single difference processes when the unit vectors from the reference and user receivers to a satellite or pseudolite are non-parallel. Similar to long baseline differential GPS (DGPS), nonlinearity is a serious issue in pseudolite augmentation. A Projected Single Difference (PSD) method has been introduced to eliminate nonlinear geometry bias. An optimized expression has been derived to calculate the direction of project vectors, and the advantages of applying PSD in pseudolite augmented airborne DGPS have been demonstrated. c) A new method for pseudolite tropospheric delay modelling has been proposed, which is based on single-differenced GPS tropospheric delay models. The performance of different models has been investigated through simulations and field testing. The advantages and limitations of each method have been analysed. It is determined that the Bouska model performs relatively well in all ranges and elevations if the meteorological parameters in the models can be accurately collected. d) An adaptive pseudolite tropospheric delay modelling method has been developed to reduce modelling error by estimating meteorological parameters in real-time, using GPS and pseudolite measurements. Test results show that pseudolite tropospheric delay modelling errors can be effectively mitigated by the proposed method. e) A novel geo-referencing system based on GPS/PL/INS integration has been developed as an alternative to existing GPS/INS systems. With the inclusion of pseudolite signals to enhance availability and geometry strength of GPS signals, the continuity and precision of the GPS/INS system can be significantly improved. Flight trials have been conducted to evaluate the system performance for airborne mapping. The results show that the accuracy and reliability of the geo-referenced solution can be improved with the deployment of one or more pseudolites. f) Two KF and NN hybrid methods have been proposed to improve geo-referenced results during GPS outages. As the KF prediction diverges without measurement update, the performance of a GPS/INS integrated system degrades rapidly during GPS outages. Neural networks can overcome this limitation of KF. The first method uses NN to map vehicle manoeuvres with KF measurement in a loosely coupled GPS/INS system. In the second method, an NN is trained to map INS measurements with selected KF error states in a tightly coupled GPS/INS system when GPS signals are available. These training results can be used to modify KF time updates. Optimal input/output and NN structure have been investigated. Field tests show that the proposed hybrid methods can dramatically improve geo-referenced solutions during GPS outages.