Higher Institute on Territorial Systems for Innovation
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Band pattern of commensurate modulated periodic structures
No full textAnalogies with physical phenomena indicate that modulation of a material or geometrical parameter of a periodic structure enriches its original band structure. The present work aims to provide an insight into the band-splitting phenomenon in the case of commensurate modulation for a parallel-plate waveguide technology-based geometry. A modulated one-dimensional parallel-plate waveguide signal integrity structure is numerically analysed to exhibit the appearance of band splitting and new bandgaps. The modulation mechanism has a potential in dispersion engineering, as it allows controlling the number and position of the electromagnetic bandgaps and the in-band characteristics of the field propagation. Generation of modes with negative group velocities for a given frequency band is also achievable by this technique
Design and development of methodologies, technologies, and tools to support people with disabilities
No full textAssistive Technologies (ATs) is an umbrella term that includes, from the one hand, assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities and, from the other hand, the process needed to select, locate, and use them. ATs promote greater independence by enabling people to perform tasks that they were formerly unable to accomplish (or had great difficulty accomplishing) by providing enhancements to, or changing methods of interacting with, the technology needed to accomplish such tasks. Researching on ATs means to focus both on the individuals, the users, the design, and the consecutive development of any kind of technology that could ease, or even improve, everyday life of disabled, elderly people, and people who are following rehabilitative programs. This dissertation spans on ATs that, starting from a common root and deriving from the realm of Information Technology, have been applied and deployed to several groups of individuals with disabilities. Starting from the issue of detecting hand poses, gestures, and signs for enabling novel paradigms for human-machine interaction, three approaches for hand tracking and gesture recognition from single markerless observation have been developed. The first approach comprises machine learning techniques and optimized features to boost performances. The second one comprises a 3D model of a human hand and optimization techniques. The third approach applies machine learning and statistical techniques on top of technology specifically designed for tracking human hands. Starting from these results, hand gesture recognition has then been proposed to enable new interaction paradigms, suitable for individuals with disabilities, in the eld of Human-Robot collaboration. A reliable real time protocol to remotely control anthropomorphic robotic actuators has been implemented. This protocol allows the user to send commands to one (or many) robotic actuator by simply moving his/her hand; it has been designed, modeled, and formally validated resorting to a knowledge-driven agile approach. This dissertation proposes two use cases enabled from the outcomes of the research activities. The former one is a remote communication system for deafblind individuals based on Sign Languages (SLs) with tactile feedback. With the support of SL experts, I have identified a list of fundamental hand movements and gestures to be recognized accurately. The developed algorithms were successfully tested involving 80+ volunteers (both proficient and not in SLs). This communication system is ready to be used concurrently by many people, allowing 1-to-many communication. In addition, it supports different input (cameras and sensors for non-invasive markerless hand tracking) and output (upper-limb anthropomorphic robotic interfaces) systems. The latter one is a telerehabilitation setup for upper-limb post-stroke rehabilitation, comprising vision-based input and a hand exoskeleton. Knowledge derived from the research activities has been applied to two projects, whom outcomes are discussed in this dissertation, as well. The former one lies in the realm of character recognition and aims at improving accessibility of mathematical and scientific documents for blind and deafblind individuals. The latter one aims at developing inclusive interfaces to a web platform under development for preserving and disseminating the cultural heritage of deaf and deafblind communities. All the research activities presented in this dissertation have involved a strict and direct contact with end-user associations and persons who benefit from the results of the research itself, and have been widely discussed and tested with them
Educational video services in universities: a systematic effectiveness analysis
No full textOur university has offered a massive educational video service since 2010, as part of a blended learning model that allows students to balance active participation in the classroom with remote access to video-recorded lectures. In these years, we have collected a huge amount of very detailed data about the students' access to the service. Together with additional information that characterize a university system (e.g. students' performance or course population), these data represent a precious ground set to assess the educational model. The paper describes an experimental set to profile the use of the educational video service, whose results will contribute to improve the model. Specifically the paper analyzes the students' service use relatively to different transversal course characteristics, such as level, main topic, population, success rate. As a result, it outlines the profile of the "ideal" courses for which students highly appreciate the service. This information will help educational designers to select the future courses to be included in the service, but it will also give directions on the sectors where improvements are necessary. Finally, the paper experimentally demonstrates a positive impact of the educational video service on students' performance, and specifically on the exam success rate
Shybo. An open-source low-anthropomorphic robot for children
No full textThis article presents Shybo: a novel low-anthropomorphic robot for children. The robot, resulted from the combination of open-source hardware and software, is able to perceive sounds and to react through two non-verbal behaviors: hat's movement and lighting. By taking advantage of an open- source machine-learning software, the robot can be easily trained by children. This robot can be employed in research to support human-robot interaction studies with children, for investigating perceptual aspects of robot's features or for investigating children' cognitive abilities. It can also be used for applications in educational context to support playful learning experiences
ROBERTO GABETTI 1925-2000
No full textIl volume costituisce una riflessione approfondita, di architetti e di storici, sulla figura e l'opera di questo maestro dell'architettura italiana, al quale il Dipartimento di Architettura e Design del Politecnico di Torino ha voluto dedicare nel mese di novembre 2015, anche in occasione dei novant'anni dalla nascita, Un convegno nazionale di studi e una mostra delle opere e dei progetti, a riconoscimento del suo fondamentale contributo alla costruzione del progetto culturale della Facoltà di architettura torinese. In un confronto di studiosi di differenti generazioni, nelle pagine del volume i saggi di alcuni dei principali protagonisti dell'attuale architettura italiana si affiancano alle riflessioni di colleghi del Politecnico di Torino e agli studi di giovani docenti e ricercatori chiamati dalle principali scuole di architettura italiane per una testimonianza allargata sul suo insegnamento e sulle opere realizzate in sodalizio con Aimaro Isola. Un ricco apparato iconografico delle opere e dei progetti (suddiviso in architetture realizzate, modelli di studio, arredi e allestimenti) accompagna i testi scritti, facendo di questo volume uno strumento prezioso per approfondire criticamente la figura e l'opera di Roberto Gabetti e tramandare anche alle generazioni più giovani la sua lezione e la sua originale visione dell'architettura. Il volume prosegue la serie promossa nel 2012 dalla presidenza della Scuola di Architettura Civile del Politecnico di Milano, inaugurata con quello dedicato a Ernesto Nathan Rogers in occasione del centenario della nascita, cui sono seguiti i volumi dedicati a Guido Canella (2014) e Carlo De Carli (2016)
Biochar and Carbon Nanotubes as fillers in polymers: a comparison
No full textIn recent years, low-cost carbons derived from recycled materials have been gaining attention for their potentials as filler in composites and in other applications. The electrical and mechanical properties of polymer composites can be tuned using different percentages and different kind of fillers: either cheap (e.g. carbon black), eco-friendly (e.g. biochar) or sophisticated (e.g. carbon nanotubes). In this work, the mechanical and electrical behavior of composites with biochar and multi-walled carbon nanotubes dispersed in Epoxy resin are compared
Task Modeling for Task-Oriented Robot Programming
No full textA joint research between Politecnico di Torino and COMAU is going on, aimed at defining a task oriented programming approach to allow soft skilled programmers to develop optimized programs for complex robotic cells. Within this paradigm, the user is simply asked to specify the features of the robotic cell and a structured set of tasks defining the required process. The paper is focused on the first step necessary to achieve the overall goal, i.e., the definition of a generic task model. The model is built starting from the analysis of the most important industrial applications, and can include physical and synchronization constraints, as well as various possible requirements and situations relative to the characteristics of the robots in the cell and of the involved work-pieces. A welding process is considered as typical industrial case study, to show how to build the corresponding task model according to the proposed approach
SmartBike: an IoT Crowd Sensing Platform for Monitoring City Air Pollution
No full textIn recent years, the Smart City concept is emerging as a way to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and improve the overall quality of citizen life. The rise of Smart City solutions is encouraged by the increasing availability of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and crowd sensing technologies. This paper presents an IoT Crowd Sensing platform that offers a set of services to citizens by exploiting a network of bicycles as IoT probes. Based on a survey conducted to identify the most interesting bike-enabled services, the SmartBike platform provides: real time remote geo-location of users' bikes, anti-theft service, information about traveled route, and air pollution monitoring. The proposed SmartBike platform is composed of three main components: the SmartBike mobile sensors for data collection installed on the bicycle; the end-user devices implementing the user interface for geo-location and anti-theft; and the SmartBike central servers for storing and processing detected data and providing a web interface for data visualization. The suitability of the platform was evaluated through the implementation of an initial prototype. Results demonstrate that the proposed SmartBike platform is able to provide the stated services, and, in addition, that the accuracy of the acquired air quality measurements is compatible with the one provided by the official environmental monitoring system of the city of Turin. The described platform will be adopted within a project promoted by the city of Turin, that aims at helping people making their mobility behavior more sustainable