Kommunala avloppsreningsverk renar avloppsvatten och avlägsnar näringsämnen innan vattnet släpps ut i den omgivande miljön. Under reningen avskiljs partiklar som bildar råslam. Genom att bryta ner råslammet anaerobt (syrefritt) via rötning kan användbara produkter, såsom biogas till bussar, erhållas. Rötning innebär att organiskt material bryts ner under kontrollerade former. Sveriges tredje största kommunala avloppsreningsverk är Käppalaverket i Stockholm. Framtidsprognosen för verket visar att belastningen kommer öka, samtidigt förväntas kraven på slamhantering bli strängare.  Syftet med denna studie var att utreda en metod för att öka Käppalaverkets slambehandlingskapacitet. Idag rötas slammet konventionellt med mesofil rötning. Ett förslag för att öka kapaciteten är att förtjocka och därefter recirkulera slammet in i samma rötningskammare. Möjliga fördelar med detta kan vara ökad biogasproduktion samt möjlighet till högre belastning i rötkamrarna.  Till experimentet nyttjades en pilotanläggning bestående av två rötkammrar på 7 dm3. Rötkamrarna användes för att studera konventionell mesofil rötning (i studien benämnd BR01), jämfört med mesofil rötning med recirkulering (i studien benämnd BR02). Råslammet och rötslammet analyserades löpande (på dag- och veckobasis) med avseende på parametrarna: biogasproduktion och gassammansättning, torrsubstanshalt, halt av flyktiga syror, pH, alkalinitet, organisk belastning, andel mineraliserat kväve, utrötningsgrad samt reduktion av makromolekyler. Uppehållstiden (HRT) för slammet i rötkamrarna var inledningsvis 14 dagar. HRT sänktes stegvis  under studien (från 14 till 11 dagar och därefter till 9 dagar) genom att inflödet av råslam ökades. Därmed pressades BR01 och BR02 i syfte att utröna vid vilken belastning rötningsprocessen förändrades från stabil till instabil. Resultaten visade att under 11-dagars perioden var processen i BR01 stabilare än i BR02. Förhöjda halter av flyktiga syror uppmättes i BR02 under denna period. Under 9-dagars perioden med högre belastning observerades att processen i BR01 var instabil. Processen i BR02 var stabilare under samma period och ansågs därför prestera bättre under högre belastning. Statistiska t-tester visade att flertalet reaktorparametrar (i en och samma reaktor) genomgick säkerställda förändringar från experimentets start till slut. / Municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) purifies wastewater from nutrients before releasing it to the recipient. Particles that are separated from the water creates a sewage sludge. Anaerobic (without oxygen) digestion is mainly used as a stabilization method for the sludge. Digestion of the sludge produces energy-rich biogas and a nutrient-rich digestate which can be used as a fertilizer. The third largest municipal WWTP in Sweden is Käppala WWTP, situated in Stockholm. In the future, the amount of incoming wastewater is expected to increase. Simultaneously, regulations regarding sludge management are expected to be stricter. The main purpose of this study was to investigate a method to increase the sludge load to the digesters at Käppala WWTP. Today the sludge is digested conventionally with mesophilic anaerobic digestion. One suggestion is to recirculate thickened sludge into the same digestion reactor. This method has been shown to give an increased biogas production as well as improved digester performance.   During the experiment a pilot-digester consisting of two anaerobic reactors (each with a volume of 7 dm3) were used. These reactors were used to study conventional mesophilic digestion (BR01 in this study) and mesophilic digestion with sludge-recirculation (BR02 in this study). Several parameters of the sludge (raw and digested) were analysed on daily and weekly basis: biogas production and gas composition, dry matter content, volatile fatty acids, pH, alkalinity, organic loading, mineralised nitrogen, degree of digestion and reduction of macromolecules. The hydraulic retention time (HRT) of the sludge was initially 14 days. HRT was lowered stepwise (from 14 to 11 and finally down to 9 days) by increasing the inflow of raw sludge. This way the two reactors were pushed to see at what point the digestion process became unstable. The results showed that during the 11-days HRT period BR01 was more stable compared to BR02. Heightened VFA-content was measured in BR02 during this period. During the 9-days HRT period the process in BR01 was deemed unstable. The process in BR02 was more stable during the same period and was considered to have a better performance during high sludge inflow. Statistical t-tests showed that several digestion-parameters (compared for the same reactor) underwent statistically significant changes from the start to the end of the experiment.

Mellansedimenteringsbassänger är inte sällan flaskhalsen för flödeskapaciteten vid reningsverk. För höga flöden kan leda till slamflykt, vilket påverkar efterkommande reningssteg negativt. Om en stor mängd slam från systemet försvinner kan detta även påverka det biologiska reningssteget negativt. Att förstå dynamiken av slamkvalitet och flödeskapaciteten är därmed viktigt både för att veta hur nya bassänger ska dimensioneras och för att bestämma belastningen för befintliga bassänger. Syftet med denna studie var att utvärdera flödeskapaciteten för mellansedimenteringen för det biologiska reningssteg C vid Kungsängsverket, Uppsala Vatten och Avfall AB:s största reningsverk. Syftet var också att studera hur temperaturen påverkade flödeskapaciteten. Genom att utföra sedimenteringstester med slam från Biosteg C vid olika koncentrationer och temperaturer kunde slammets kvalitet kvantifieras och användas för beräkningar och simuleringar för utvärdering av flödeskapaciteten. Sedimenteringstesterna visade på en tydlig skillnad i sedimenteringshastiget vid de olika temperaturerna. I Stokes lag användes olika värden på densiteten och viskositeten, vilka är parametrarna som förändras med temperaturen, för att undersöka en förväntad förändring i sedimenteringshastiget. Kvoten mellan 20 och 5° C var cirka 2 och kvoten mellan 10 och 5° C var cirka 1,2. Kvoterna mellan sedimenteringstesten varierade, men resultatet visade på en liknande trend som för Stokes lag. Bürger-Diehls och Takács sedimenteringsmodeller användes i den här rapporten med Takács sedimenteringsfunktion. Bürger-Diehlmodellen användes för att kalibrera parametrarna i Takács sedimenteringsfunktion, vilket gjordes genom att simulera sedimenteringstest och minimera felet mot den verkliga slamnivån vid sedimenteringstesten. Parametern 𝑣0 minskade med ökande temperatur vilket är en omvänd trend jämfört med litteratur. Parametern 𝑟h minskade med temperaturen vilket stämmer överens med litteratur. Flödeskapaciteten utvärderades vid konstant och dynamiskt flöde. För det konstanta flödet användes olika modeller, State Point-analys, Takács sedimenteringsmodell samt Bürger-Diehls sedimenteringsmodell med 10 och 30 lager. Alla modeller visade på ökande flödeskapacitet med ökande temperatur. Takács och Bürger-Diehl med 10 lager gav mindre noggranna resultat på grund av den låga mängden lager så för det dynamiska flödessimuleringarna användes bara Bürger-Diehlmodellen med 30 lager. Dessa simuleringar visade liknade resultat som för det konstanta flöden vid 6° C och 12° C. Vid 22° C visade däremot det dynamiska resultatet på en lägre kapacitet än för det konstanta flödet. Trots att sedimenteringstesten och de skattade modellparamterarna visade på en icke försumbar temperaturpåverkan ingår inte temperaturen i de använda sedimenteringsmodellerna. Detta kan leda till överskattning av flödeskapaciteten vintertid, exempelvis vid snösmältning. I framtiden bör därför detta tas hänsyn till vid dimensionering/modellering av mellansedimenteringsbassänger. / Secondary sedimentation tanks are usually the bottleneck of the flow capacity for wastewater treatment plants. High flows risk sludge escaping the system, which can negatively affect the following treatment steps. If a greater amount of the activated sludge escapes, the treatment efficiency could greatly decrease. Understanding the dynamic of sludge quality and flow capacity is detrimental to designing new secondary settling tanks and determining capacity of existing ones. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the flow capacity of the secondary settling tank for the biological treatment step C at Kungsängsverket, Uppsala Vatten och Avfall AB’s biggest wastewater treatment plant. The purpose was to study how different temperatures affected the flow capacity as well. By performing batch settling tests with sludge from the biological treatment step C, with different concentrations and temperatures, the sludge quality was quantified and could be used for calculations and simulations to evaluate the flow capacity. A clear distinction in the zone settling velocity could be observed between the different temperatures. Different values for the density and viscosity, correlated to the different temperatures used for the batch tests, were used in Stoke’s law to get an expected change of velocity. Between 20° and 5° C the quota was roughly 2 and between 10° and 5° C it was around 1,2. The quota for the batch tests differed randomly for the different concentrations, but the result indicated a similar trend as for Stokes law. The Bürger-Diehl and Takács sedimentation models were used for this study with the sedimentation function of Takács. The Bürger-Diehl model was used to calibrate the parameters in Takács function. This was done by simulating a batch test and minimizimg the sum of squared error compared to the actual sludge level from the batch test. The parameter 𝑣0 decreased in value with increasing temperature, which is a reversed trend seen from the literature. The parameter rh decreased with increasing temperature, which follows literature trends. The flow capacity was evaluated for a constant and dynamic flow. Constant flow was used with different models for comparison, which were, State point analysis, the Takács sedimentation model and the Bürger-Diehl sedimentation model with 10 and 30 layers. The result from all models indicated a higher flow capacity the higher the temperature. The flow capacity with Takács and Bürger-Diehl models with 10 layers gave a lower flow capacity than expected, which was because of the low resolution, therefore, the Bürger-Diehl model with 30 layers was used for the dynamic flow. The dynamic flow gave a similar result for 6° and 12° C, however, for 22° C the flow capacity was lower for the dynamic flow. Even though the batch tests and the estimated parameters showed a difference with temperature, it’s not included in any sedimentation model. This could lead to an overestimation of the flow capacity during wintertime, for example during snowmelt. Further research should be conducted to confirm these results and possibly be interpreted for future modelling of secondary sedimentation tanks.

In this paper, a technical overview will be provided for a developed mobile exergame, with a particular focus on its movement tracking. By utilizing spatial movement readout from the AR algorithm, we've managed to create an easy to use exergame that allows the user to track their horizontal movement. In contrast to a more conventional approach, our solution can work indoors, and can be applied to vertical motion tracking as well. The applied method led to an exergame tailor-made for its target group, but it didn't include a thorough examination of other alternatives to our AR usage. This means that our solution should be researched further to better understand its relevance in the field, while we've shown with a practical example how it can be utilized. / Heart-eXg

<p dir="ltr">Several industrial and commercial bulk material management applications rely on accurate, current stockpile volume estimation. Proximal imaging and LiDAR sensing modalities can be used to derive stockpile volume estimates in outdoor and indoor storage facilities. Among available imaging and LiDAR sensing modalities, the latter is more advantageous for indoor storage facilities due to its ability to capture scans under poor lighting conditions. Evaluating volumes from such sensing modalities requires the pose (i.e., position and orientation) parameters of the used sensors relative to a common reference frame. For outdoor facilities, a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) combined with an Inertial Navigation System (INS) can be used to derive the sensors’ pose relative to a global reference frame. For indoor facilities, GNSS signal outages will not allow for such capability. Prior research has developed strategies for establishing the sensor position and orientation for stockpile volume estimation while relying on multi-beam spinning LiDAR units. These approaches are feasible due to the large range and Field of View (FOV) of such systems that can capture the internal surfaces of barn and dome storage facilities.</p><p dir="ltr">The mechanical movement of multi-beam spinning LiDAR units together with the harsh conditions within indoor facilities (e.g., excessive humidity, dust, and corrosive environment in deicing salt storage facilities) limit the use of such systems. With the increasing availability of solid-state LiDAR units, there is an interest in exploring their potential for stockpile volume estimation. In spite of their higher robustness to harsh conditions, solid-state LiDAR units have shorter distance measurement range and limited FOV when compared with multi-beam spinning LiDAR. This research presents a strategy for the extrinsic calibration (i.e., estimating the relative pose parameters) of installed solid-state LiDAR units inside stockpile storage facilities. The extrinsic calibration is made possible using deployed spherical targets and a complete, reference scan of the facility from another LiDAR sensing modality. The proposed research introduces strategies for: 1) automated extraction of the spherical targets; 2) automated matching of these targets in the solid-state LiDAR and reference scans using invariant relationships among them; and 3) coarse-to-fine estimation of the calibration parameters. Experimental results in several facilities have shown the feasibility of using the proposed methodology to conduct the extrinsic calibration and volume evaluation with an error percentage less than 3.5% even with occlusion percentages reaching up to 50%.</p>

La localisation d'un véhicule via les techniques de SLAM (Simultaneous Localization And Mapping pour cartographie et localisation simultanées) a connu un essor important durant les 20 dernières années. Pourtant, peu d'approches ont tenté d'étendre ces algorithmes à une flotte de véhicules malgré les nombreuses applications potentielles. C'est ici l'objectif de cette thèse. Pour ce faire, une approche de SLAM monoculaire pour un seul véhicule a d'abord été développée. Celle-ci propose de coupler un filtre de Kalman étendu avec une représentation cartésienne des amers afin de produire des cartes de faible densité mais de qualité. En effet, l'extension à plusieurs véhicules nécessite des échanges permanents par l'intermédiaire de communications sans fil. Avec peu d'amers dans les cartes, notre approche s'accommode bien du nombre de véhicules de la flotte. Des capteurs peu onéreux ont aussi été privilégiés (une unique caméra et un odomètre) afin de réduire le coût d'une extension multivéhicule. Des correctifs ont été proposés afin d'éviter les problèmes de divergence induits par les choix précédents. Des expérimentations ont montré que la solution de SLAM produite était légère et rapide tout en fournissant une localisation de qualité. La dérive, inhérente à tout algorithme de SLAM, a également fait l'objet d'une analyse. Celle-ci a été intégrée au SLAM par l'intermédiaire d'une architecture dédiée et d'un modèle dynamique. Le but est de pouvoir rendre consistante la localisation fournie par le SLAM, même en l'absence d'estimation de la dérive. Cela permet d'effectuer des fermetures de boucle ou encore d'intégrer des informations géo-référencées de manière naturelle tout en conservant l'intégrité de la solution. En multivéhicule, cet aspect est un point clef puisque chaque véhicule dérive différemment des autres. Il est donc important de le prendre en compte. Enfin, le SLAM a été étendu à plusieurs véhicules. Une structure générique a été prévue afin que notre approche monoculaire puisse être remplacée par n'importe quel algorithme de SLAM. Notre architecture décentralisée évite la consanguinité des données (le fait de compter deux fois une même information) et gère les défaillances réseau, que cela soit des ruptures de communication ou encore des latences dans la réception des données. La partie statique du modèle de dérive permet également de prendre en compte le fait que les positions initiales des véhicules d'une flotte puissent être inconnues. L'intégrité est ainsi maintenue en permanence. Enfin, notre approche étant entièrement décentralisée, elle a pu être testée et validée en simulation et avec des expérimentations réelles dans diverses configurations (convoi en colonne ou en ligne, avec 2 ou 3 véhicules).

This thesis investigates the problem of robot navigation using only landmark bearings. The proposed system allows a robot to move to a ground target location specified by the sensor values observed at this ground target posi- tion. The control actions are computed based on the difference between the current landmark bearings and the target landmark bearings. No Cartesian coordinates with respect to the ground are computed by the control system. The robot navigates using solely information from the bearing sensor space. Most existing robot navigation systems require a ground frame (2D Cartesian coordinate system) in order to navigate from a ground point A to a ground point B. The commonly used sensors such as laser range scanner, sonar, infrared, and vision do not directly provide the 2D ground coordi- nates of the robot. The existing systems use the sensor measurements to localise the robot with respect to a map, a set of 2D coordinates of the objects of interest. It is more natural to navigate between the points in the sensor space corresponding to A and B without requiring the Cartesian map and the localisation process. Research on animals has revealed how insects are able to exploit very limited computational and memory resources to successfully navigate to a desired destination without computing Cartesian positions. For example, a honeybee balances the left and right optical flows to navigate in a nar- row corridor. Unlike many other ants, Cataglyphis bicolor does not secrete pheromone trails in order to find its way home but instead uses the sun as a compass to keep track of its home direction vector. The home vector can be inaccurate, so the ant also uses landmark recognition. More precisely, it takes snapshots and compass headings of some landmarks. To return home, the ant tries to line up the landmarks exactly as they were before it started wandering. This thesis introduces a navigation method based on reflex actions in sensor space. The sensor vector is made of the bearings of some landmarks, and the reflex action is a gradient descent with respect to the distance in sensor space between the current sensor vector and the target sensor vec- tor. Our theoretical analysis shows that except for some fully characterized pathological cases, any point is reachable from any other point by reflex action in the bearing sensor space provided the environment contains three landmarks and is free of obstacles. The trajectories of a robot using reflex navigation, like other image- based visual control strategies, do not correspond necessarily to the shortest paths on the ground, because the sensor error is minimized, not the moving distance on the ground. However, we show that the use of a sequence of waypoints in sensor space can address this problem. In order to identify relevant waypoints, we train a Self Organising Map (SOM) from a set of observations uniformly distributed with respect to the ground. This SOM provides a sense of location to the robot, and allows a form of path planning in sensor space. The navigation proposed system is analysed theoretically, and evaluated both in simulation and with experiments on a real robot.

This master´s thesis provides an overview of all designs of check valves, their usage and typical features. Main purpose of this work is to clear up the phenomenon of check valve slam and the other problems that occur during transients. The check valve slam was measured at the test rig in the hydraulic laboratory. For unsteady flow evaluation after pump shut down was used Gibson method. The dynamic characteristic was possible to create by results from this method. It was achieved without impact of the speed of sound in the fluid. This work also contains 2D transient CFD calculations, which was used for evaluation of the hydrodynamic torque acting on the hinge pin. This approach provides an option to calculate wide range of cases at the expense of not entirely exact geometry. The main contribution of the theoretical study at the beginning of this thesis is its entireness. It might give an important clue when right valve is selecting. For good choice of valve might be helpful to use dynamic characteristics in this thesis presented. Mentioned characteristics were created by new way and its background is in measurements and simplified CFD calculations.

Micro aerial vehicles and other autonomous systems have the potential to truly transform life as we know it, however much of the potential of autonomous systems remains unrealized because reliable navigation is still an unsolved problem with significant challenges. This dissertation presents solutions to many aspects of autonomous navigation. First, it presents ROSflight, a software and hardware architure that allows for rapid prototyping and experimentation of autonomy algorithms on MAVs with lightweight, efficient flight control. Next, this dissertation presents improvments to the state-of-the-art in optimal control of quadrotors by utilizing the error-state formulation frequently utilized in state estimation. It is shown that performing optimal control directly over the error-state results in a vastly more computationally efficient system than competing methods while also dealing with the non-vector rotation components of the state in a principled way. In addition, real-time robust flight planning is considered with a method to navigate cluttered, potentially unknown scenarios with real-time obstacle avoidance. Robust state estimation is a critical component to reliable operation, and this dissertation focuses on improving the robustness of visual-inertial state estimation in a filtering framework by extending the state-of-the-art to include better modeling and sensor fusion. Further, this dissertation takes concepts from the visual-inertial estimation community and applies it to tightly-coupled GNSS, visual-inertial state estimation. This method is shown to demonstrate significantly more reliable state estimation than visual-inertial or GNSS-inertial state estimation alone in a hardware experiment through a GNSS-GNSS denied transition flying under a building and back out into open sky. Finally, this dissertation explores a novel method to combine measurements from multiple agents into a coherent map. Traditional approaches to this problem attempt to solve for the position of multiple agents at specific times in their trajectories. This dissertation instead attempts to solve this problem in a relative context, resulting in a much more robust approach that is able to handle much greater intial error than traditional approaches.

This project is an examination of the possibility of using existing software to develop Virtual Reality (VR) software that includes key aspects of objects in a user’s surroundings into a virtual environment, producing Augmented Virtuality (AV). A defining limitation is the requirement that the software be consumer-accessible, meaning it needs run on a common smartphone with no additional equipment. Two related AV concepts were considered: shape reconstruction and positional tracking. Two categories of techniques were considered for taking the measurements of reality necessary to achieve those AV concepts using only a monocular RGB camera as sensor: monocular visual SLAM (mvSLAM) and Structure from Motion (SfM). Two lists of requirements were constructed, formalising the notions of AV and consumer-accessibility. A search process was then conducted, where existing software packages were evaluated for their suitability to be included in a piece of software fulfilling all requirements. The evaluations of SfM systems were made in combination with Multi-View Stereo (MVS) systems – a necessary complement for achieving visible shape reconstruction using a system that outputs point clouds. After thoroughly evaluating a variety of software, it was concluded that consumer-accessible AV can not currently be achieved by combining existing packages, due to several issues. While future hardware performance increases and new software implementations would solve complexity and availability issues, some inaccuracy and usability issues are inherent to the limitation of using a monocular camera. / Detta projekt är en undersökning av möjligheten att använda befintlig programvara till att utveckla Virtual Reality (VR)-programvara som infogar framstående aspekter av objekt från en användares omgivning in i en virtuell miljö och därmed skapar Augmented Virtuality (AV). En definierande begränsning är kravet på att programvaran skall vara konsumenttillgänglig, vilket innebär att den behöver kunna köras på en vanlig smartphone utan extra utrustning. Två besläktade AV-koncept beaktades: formrekonstruktion och positionsspårning. Två kategorier av tekniker togs i beaktande, vilka kunde användas för att göra de uppmätningar av verkligheten som var nödvändiga för att uppnå de tänkta AV-koncepten med hjälp av endast en monokulär RGB-kamera som sensor: monocular visual SLAM (mvSLAM) och Structure from Motion (SfM). Två listor med kriterier konstruerades, vilka formaliserade begreppen AV och konsumenttillgänglighet. En sökprocess utfördes sedan, där befintliga programvarupaket utvärderades för sin lämplighet att inkluderas i en programvara som uppfyllde alla kriterier. Utvärderingarna av SfM-system gjordes i kombination med Multi-View Stereo (MVS)-system – ett nödvändigt komplement för att uppnå synlig formrekonstruktion med ett system vars utdata är punktmoln. Efter att noggrant ha utvärderat en mängd programvara var slutsatsen att konsumenttillgänglig AV inte för närvarande kan uppnås genom att kombinera befintliga programvarupaket, på grund av ett antal olika problem. Medan framtida prestandaökningar hos maskinvara och nya programvarutillämpningar skulle lösa problem med komplexitet och tillgänglighet, är vissa problem med tillförlitlighet och användbarhet inneboende hos begränsningen till att använda en monokulär kamera.

As the demand for 3D maps from LIDAR scanners increases, delivering high-quality maps becomes critical. One way to ensure the quality of such maps is through point cloud alignment classification, which aims to classify the alignment error between two registered point clouds. Specifically, we present the classifier FACT (Feature-Aware Classification Transformer), consisting of two main modules: feature extraction and classification. Descriptive features are extracted from the joint point cloud, which are then processed by a point transformer-based neural network to predict the alignment error class. In a ten-class point cloud alignment classification test, FACT achieved 92.4% accuracy, where the alignment error ranged from zero meters and radians to 0.9 meters and 0.09 radians. Remarkably, the classifier only made one misprediction beyond neighboring classes, exhibiting its ability to detect alignment errors as the classes have an inherent order. Furthermore, when benchmarked on two binary classification tasks, FACT showed significantly superior performance over the baseline and even obtained 100.0% accuracy for the easier of the two tasks. FACT not only detects potential errors in 3D maps but also estimates their magnitude, leading to more reliable 3D maps with quality estimations for each transformation.