Control & Measurement

Systems

Smart Grids

Embedded Systems & Signal

Processing

201Mobile

Systems

Pervasive Computing

OpenLab3

Every year our research groups present their ongoing students‘ research work during an OpenLab-Event. We cordially invite you to join the OpenLab2013 and enjoy the presentations.

This event is also a good opportunity to get in contact with your peer students as well as researchers and professors of the in-stitutes. Discuss with them your teaching questions and open topics for research projects and theses. This brochure provides

a brief summary of all open topics, of work in progress as well as a short description of the projects presented at OpenLab2013!

If you are interested, please contact the advisors during the OpenLab2013-event or by e-Mail: fi rstname.lastname@aau.at.

Christian Bettstetter, Wilfried Elmenreich, Martin Horn, Mario Huemer & Bernhard Rinner

Hands-on experience off ered! Topics marked with the magnifi er will be presented in the OpenLab2013-event-area.

Students, who work on the marked topic will also be present at the OpenLab2013-event-area. Feel free to ask!

Bachelor ProjectsJennifer Simonjan: Smart camera network and middle-ware integrationWithin the EPiCS (Engineering Proprioception in Computing Systems) project she is responsible for developing a Demonstrator, which uses the already developed middle-ware. Since the middle-ware provides a Publish/Subscribe service, the Demonstrator consists of several publishers and subscribers with different functionalities. Examples for these functionalities are Object Tracking, Image Acquisition and a User Interface.

Cascaded Control loops for the Air-Ball-SystemThe Air-Ball-System consists of a fan to adjust the air flow through a tube. The goal of the pro-ject is to regulate this air flow such that the position of a table tennis ball located in the tube corresponds to a specified reference value. The height of the ball is measured with the help of an ultrasonic measurement device, a position sensor is used to determine the angular velocity of the fan. Two control loops have to be implemented on the control hardware: An inner loop to regulate the speed of the fan and an outer loop in order to control the height of the ball.Advisor: Markus Reichhartinger

Gernot Wickert: ABS – Testbench: Drive Torque and Hydraulic Breake Pressure Control

The anti-lock braking system (ABS) testbench at the Control and Mechatronic Sys-tems Group is equipped with an asynchronous induction motor. The programming of a state machine to conveniently operate the motor was done. Furthermore, con-trollers for selected components of the testbench were implemented. These cont-rollers include the control of the driving torque of the asynchronous motor and the control of the hydraulic braking pressure. Real world experiments were performed to test the developed concepts.

Exploiting energy consumption informationThe power profile of households is a useful information that can be used to model users' be-haviour. The goal of this project is to report about existing companies and projects that exploit energy consumption data to offer value-added services to users. The student will analyse these systems and will propose a list of design guidelines. The student can focus either on platform-related aspects (e.g. communication) or on applications and interfaces. Advisor: Andrea Monacchi

Smart MicroGrid Build upIn the Lakeside Labs GmbH a Smart MicroGrid laboratory is going to be built up. In this lab a photovoltaic power plant with grid-connected and island connected operating mode is crea-ted. The aim of this project is to establish a measurement or controlling unit with the help of a National Instrument controlling/measuring unit. Therefore, we are looking for a student with extensive knowledge in the usage of LabView and with fun to hardware. Advisor: Dominik Egarter

Mario Lassenberger: Sonar systemParameter estimation is an important problem in digital signal processing. We demonstrate parameter estimation on the example of distance estimation via sonar. We show a simple example sonar system using only state-of-the-art PC components demonstrating its capabilities and we discuss its functionality.

Velocity Control of a Hydraulic MotorThe hydraulic test bench depicted in the fi gure can be with a hydraulic motor. In this Bachelor Thesis the current test bench should be reassembled and extended with the hydraulic mo-tor. A mathematical model describing the dynamics of the new setup should be developed and the model parameters have to be identifi ed. Conventional control concepts, known e.g. from Bachelor courses, should be designed and implemented.Advisor: Markus Reichhartinger

Electronic Power Steering: Setup of a Test BenchThe Control and Mechatronic Systems Group has a new research test bench for experiments in the fi eld of Electronic Power Steering (EPS). EPS supports drivers of modern cars during stee-ring manoeuvres. In contrast to a conventional hydraulic servo steering system the EPS-setup uses an electric motor and therefore the energy effi ciency and the control accuracy can be im-proved. In order to ensure reliable experiments with the test bench several hardware compo-nents have to be installed controller for the electric drive should be implemented and tested. Advisor: Markus Reichhartinger, Fred Arneitz

Mathias Weyrer: Active Noise Reduction in the Lab - Theory and Experiments Known from headphones e.g. used in air planes or acoustic irradiations at music stages active noise reduction suppresses undesired frequencies in order to improve the “acoustic environment” of users and artists. After a brief problem formulation diff erent approaches to achieve a reduction of the amplitude of undesired noise are discussed in the theory part of the thesis. An example typically used in sound engineering of stages for musicians is given. The practical part demonstrates an established method to reduce a certain audible frequency in a laboratory setup.

Process Identifi cation and Implementation of PID-Controllers for Industrial ProcessesThe industrial partner of this project is a supplier of wafer fabrication equipment, where the wafer cleaning process is a major fi eld of interest. In the so-called spinning wet cleaning technique many process steps are involved in order to maintain desired surface properties of the wafer. Typically many controllers are necessary to operate the machines. In a fi rst step of the project a process model of a well defi ned process step has to be determined. Afterwards a standard controller should be implemented and tuned with the help of real world experiments. Advisor: Markus Reichhartinger

Fitness landscape analysisFor a set of problems, the fi tness landscape should be analyzed using a simulation approach. You should have a fair knowledge of Java and be interested in simulation.Advisor: Wilfried Elmenreich

Hannes Müller: MindStorm robotsAim of this project is the implementation of 2 remote controls for navigating Lego MindStorm robots. As a fi rst step, a wired controller has been designed using the popular Nintendo Wii Nunchuk controller, and in a second step, the remote was implemented wirelessly utilizing smartphones running Android.

Gottfried Schrittwieser: Position Regulation of a Hydraulic Actuated Piston using Standard ControllersThe Control and Mechatronic Systems Group has an industrial hydraulic test bench equipped with a PLC in order to implement diff erent control tasks. In this thesis a position regulation of a piston is focused where mainly so-called stan-dard controllers like Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) – controllers are im-plemented. In order to ensure a comfortable operation of the hydraulic system (e.g. to choose position reference signals, plot the actual piston position) a de-tailed visualization is implemented.

Christoph Klemenjak: Building a Smart MeterA smart meter is an electrical meter that can measure and communicate data. The aim of this project is to build up a smart meter with the help of the Arduino board. The board should have the possiblity to measure voltage, current and active power, to control connected appliances by switching them on or off and moreover, to send this data in predefi ned times to a storage solution.

Evaluation of Identifi cation ToolsIn order to identify a nonlinear dynamic system based on local linear models, the so called LoLi-MoT algorithm can be used. During the project, a literature survey on available toolboxes should be carried out. Selected algorithms/tools should be compared and verifi ed on a real world system.Advisors: Jakob Rehrl, Daniel Schwingshackl

Implementation of Standard Controllers for Electric Drive ControlThe Control and Mechatronic Systems Group built up an electronic unit consisting of a micro-controller, several measurement devices and a power stage for low power drive control appli-cations. The aim of this Bachelor Thesis is to implement well established control strategies (like PID-controllers) for motion control of the attached dc-motor.Advisor: Markus Reichhartinger

Patrick Valet: Battery managementFor battery-powered electronic devices, the improvement of the runtime as well as the lifetime of the energy storing device constitutes an important research focus. This project deals with the analysis of batteries of diff erent chemistry - using an integrated solution for the tracking of cell parameters like the state-of-charge, the capacity or the aging.using an integrated solution for the tracking of cell parameters like the state-of-charge, the capacity or the aging.

Sandeep Katragadda: Simulation of Multi-Camera SurveillanceBy simulating a multi-camera surveillance system it is possible to save signifi-cant amount of time and money when getting test data. As a result of this work installation of multiple cameras in real world can be avoided. The simulation tool has the ability to simulate different environmental conditions (in-/outdoor) and lighting conditions, allows manual or programmatic control over cameras (omni cam, standard camera, UAV), and as ground truth details of persons (mo-dels) are available, the accuracy of different image-/video processing algorithms can be evaluated. Virtual worlds are created by using Valve Hammer editor and ObjectVideo Virtual Video tool allows its clients to place virtual cameras in the developed virtual environment.

OpenCV on Windows Phone 8 OpenCV is a framework for computer vision tasks. This very powerfull toolbox has not been ported to Windows Phone 8 yet. The students task in this research project is to port the core functionality of OpenCV to Windows Phone 8. For developement purposes the NES institute can provide a Windows Phone 8 developement device.Advisor: Bernhard Dieber

Setting up a robot simulatorLook into existing simulators and compare them based on their features.Advisor: Wilfried Elmenreich

Kristofer Schweiger: Smart Grid SimulatorMany experiments in a power grid cannot be executed in a real system because of safety and availabilty reasons. Therefore, there is a need for a simulator with a comprehensive interface. During the work we designed and implemented a software architecture that fits the requirements for power system simulations. It is mainly based on the ideas of the Model-View-Controller concept and builds on a project for graphical visualization developed by Thomas Dittrich.

Andrija Sucevic, Alankar Aryal: Combined Object Detection and Tracking ApproachesStudents have to evaluate different object detection and tracking approaches within this project. Therefore they implemented different tracking and detection approaches (SURF, CamSHIFT, Connected Components and Template Matching) in C# and compare their results to the ground truth.

Research Projects

Vidya Sagar Kantamneni: Smart Meter ZigBee ImplementationA smart meter is electrical meter that records consumption of electric energy and communicates that information back to the utility for monitoring and billing pur-poses. Smart meters enable two-way communication between the meter and the central system. Therefore, a communication network is needed. The aim of this project was it to implement a ZigBee network on a Texas Instruments hardware.

Non Intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM)Appliances like a refrigerator or a stove have a characteristic power profile, which makes it pos-sible to distinguish between different appliance types. NILM uses this fact to detect appliances out of the total consumed power consumption of a household. The aim of this project will it be to evaluate different optimization techniques which are and could be used for NILM. We are loo-king for a student which is fit with Matlab and has basic knowledge in optimization techniques. Advisor: Dominik Egarter

Smart Grid SimulationSimulation is a substantial method for research on the futures smart energy systems. Problems including power systems, energy markets and user behaviors need new simulation approa-ches. The „Smart Grid Simulator“ is a Java software which the research group started to deve-lop. There are plenty of possibilities for its further development in several areas:- Design and implementation of an interfaces with other simulation software, e.g. GridLAB-D.- Make the results of the simulation easy access- and drawable, e.g. by use of MatLab.- Improve the GUI and adapt the controller to support extended functions and requirements of the simulation.- Implement a new idea how energy usage could be controlled and evaluate its success.- You should know well Java and software design.Advisor: Manfred Pöchacker

Implementation of a Velocity Controller for dc-DrivesThe Control and Mechatronic Systems Group has a laboratory hardware setup for dc-drive control tasks. In this project different approaches for velocity control applications of a dc-motor should be designed and implemented. In order to achieve a well designed control loop the design procedure should be based on modelling, numerical simulation and model based controller design. Advisor: Markus Reichhartinger

Roland Kersche: Evaluation of high-level programming languages for em-bedded systemsThe focus on Roland Kersche‘s project was on the implementation of an embed-ded software system that controls a road barrier system installed at Loiblpass. The system consists of the barrier, a camera, two induction loops, a GPRS modem for wireless communication and an embedded ARM-based processing system which runs a customized version of Linux. Power supply is provided by batteries and solar panels. The control software was entirely implemented in Python. In the theoretical part of the project Kersche investigated the applicability of seve-ral high-level languages for embedded systems. Java, C# and Python were com-pared with respect to their performance and memory consumption.

Online Optimization in Predictive ControlIn order to apply model predictive control (MPC), it is necessary to solve an optimization pro-blem online. In real world applications, computing-time and memory limitations have to be considered. Within the project, a survey on existing solvers should be done. The solvers will be implemented and tested both in Matlab (for simulation studies) as well as in C (performing real world experiments).Advisors: Jakob Rehrl, Daniel Schwingshackl

Advanced Data Processing for Vehicle Dynamics AssessmentModel-based assessment of vehicle dynamics relies on accurate identification of vehicle model parameters during a driving cycle. In turn, these models are used for simulation of standar-dized driving manoeuvers. Finally, characteristic values can be extracted from the simulation results allowing for an (automated) assessment of the vehicle dynamics. The current research project focuses on the design and implementation of algorithms for an automated extraction and visualization of pre-defined characteristic values.Advisors: Robert Tafner

Modeling of extrapolation techniques for co-simulation purposesTypical co-simulation problems are handled with the help of co-simulation platforms which are able to perform a correct coupling and data exchange between the involved subsystems. If two subsystems, which are connected via their in- and outputs, are interdependent at least one input has to be extrapolated to solve the coupled overall system. Task of the project: Modeling of different extrapolation techniques in the frequency domain and comparison of the different specific properties (e.g. Richardson Extrapolation).Advisor: Georg Stettinger

Members of NES Institute during Institute Retreat 2012!

Online Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) TestBed A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is an ad-hoc, typically multi-hop, networked system that primarily gathers information on phenomena of interest in a particu-lar deployment environment. They are utilized for a wide range of applications and therefore has gained a lot of interest in academic research and industry. But the practical aspects of these applications are always limited since they are either simulation based studies or tested over a limited number of real sensor node devices. In this Bachelorarbeit/Diplomarbiet/praktikum, we will design and deploy a Testbed of 100 Zolertia sensor nodes in our institute building (Institu-te of Network and Embedded Systems-NES) with full facility to program them online. A front end online application will be designed so that the distant users can program and test-run their solutions on our Testbed easily. In addition to that, we will design an analytical tool to help understand the logged data so that the network dynamics will be well understood for the time of each experiment.

Biometric Authentication using the Kinect Sensor A rudimentary 3D model of face/head should be created. Having a 3D model allows to incre-ase better authenitaction compared to single camera views. Furthermore, tricking the system by using photos can be ruled out. Based on this model, key features should be identified and extracted for reliable authentication of person. An evaluation comparing standard techniques with this 3D model technique should be made.Advisor: Lukas Esterle

Johannes Brecher: Image Processing in VHDLEspecially in image processing, VHDL is a Hardware-description language that offers the possibility of optimizing existing algorithms concerning performance on a very low level. Typical algorithms for image enhancement are going to be implemented in VHDL. Furthermore, they are operated on the FPGA and evalu-ated with the tPad (Multimedia Development Altera board). The final goal of the master thesis is to implement feature extraction algorithms (Hough, SIFT/SURF) in VHDL and to do a tracking of objects (NIOS 2 Processor).

Pakeer Sudhakar Reddy: Modelling, Simulation and Control of a Semi-Active Damper SystemNowadays dampers with adjustable damping coefficients are available for mo-dern suspension systems. A special realization of these dampers are so called Semi-Active Dampers, where energy solely can be dissipated. In this thesis mo-del-based controllers in order to increase the comfort during a ride over rough surfaces of a street are proposed. Therefore a simple model of a car, namely the quarter car vehicle model, is extended in order to include the active damper element. Based on this model several control strategies are developed and im-plemented on a real world laboratory setup.

Master Theses

Sriniwas Chowdhary Maddukuri: Modelling and Control of a Tank Mixing SystemIn this thesis, a mathematical model for a fl uid mixing system used in wafer produc-tion was developed. In this application, two fl uids have to be mixed at a specifi ed, precise mixing ratio. The time it takes from system-switch-on until the desired mi-xing ration is set should be as short as possible. The goal of the thesis was to improve the performance of existing control techniques via a systematic controller design. Based on the mathematical model of the multi-input multi-output plant derived in the thesis, simulation studies were performed and controllers were designed. The developed controllers were tested on a laboratory-scale real world system.

Performance of interference limited wireless networksMultiple wireless devices communicate at the same time in a wireless network, causing mutual interference. The object of this work is to assess how much this interference infl uences the performance of the network, using both analytic models and exeprimental setup where the interference power is recorded using programmable boards in real-life scenarios. Such know-ledge on the interference behaviour and its impact may allow enhancing the performance of existing wireless technologies.Advisor: Alessandro Crismani

Resource Monitoring module for the ‚Ella‘ Middleware Ella is a novel Publish/Subscribe middleware developed at the NES Institute. The target plat-form for this middleware is currently a smart camera network. These smart cameras run on linux and have rather low resources available. Therefore we need a module which can provide the current memory allocation of single modules and the entire middleware as well as ap-plications. Furthermore, the CPU usage of the entire application is of high interest. Memory allocation and CPU usage of certain applications facilitating the middleware (e.g. the tracking application) should be main goal.Advisors: Lukas Esterle, Bernhard Dieber

Members of the Control & Measurement Systems Group during Institute Retreat 2012!

Search and Rescue with Air-Ground Robot TeamThe student will be responsible for the implementation of a hybrid network of ground and air robots working together on a search mission. The goals are to implement the detection methodology using on-board sensor and establishing the communication link between robots. Specifically, the ground robot will explore indoors for an object of interest, map the area using existing software, and deliver the location and map to the air robot and/or the “rescue” per-sonnel. Air robot serves as a communication relay.Advisors: Evsen Yanmaz and Torsten Andre

Hide and SeekThe student will be responsible for implementing methodologies for an air robot to chase a ground robot using sensor data (e.g., images, audio or radio signal). The tasks will include mo-ving object detection in aerial images.Advisors: Evsen Yanmaz and Torsten Andre

Capture the Flag The project is a combination of object detection and shortest-path generation to pick up an ob-ject of interest. A team of air and ground robots will work together. The air robot will find the ob-ject of interest in a known area and provide the location to the ground robot. The shortest-path to the object will be generated and the ground robot will follow the path and capture the "flag".Advisors: Evsen Yanmaz and Torsten Andre

Eye-in-the SkyThe project’s goal is to establish a communication link between an AscTec Pelican drone and a smart phone. The sensor data collected by the air robot (e.g., images, video) will be visualized on the smart phone, when the user triggers it. User interface for communication initiation and visualization will be developed.Advisors: Evsen Yanmaz and Torsten Andre

FREVO FREVO is an open-source framework developed in Java to help engineers and scientists in evolutionary design or optimization tasks. The major feature of FREVO is the componentwise decomposition and separation of the key building blocks for each optimization tasks. We iden-tify these as the problem definition, solution representation and the optimization method. This structure enables the components to be designed separately allowing the user to easily swap and evaluate different configurations and methods or to connect an external simulation tool. The intended work for the thesis can be done in one of the following two ways: (i) implemen-tation of a new problem domain within the framework and evaluate how well the neural cont-rollers can be evolved to solve the task. (ii) implementation a new representation for the cont-roller (e.g. Spiking Neural Networks) and apply it to existing problem domain implementations.Advisor: Wilfried Elmenreich

Exploring novel metaheuristic search algorithms for self-organizing systemsThe increasing complexity in today's technical systems requires new engineering paradigms. Such an idea would be to build systems that are self-organized, thus being autonomous, robust and adaptive. A promising way to do design self-organizing systems is to metaheuristic algo-rithms (e.g. evolution). In this project, the student will explore, implement and compare novel metaheuristic algorithms in Java within the software framework called FREVO (www.frevotool.tk). Evaluation of the individual algorithms will be based upon the results of simulated scena-rios in different domains (e.g. robotics). Advisor: Istvan Fehervari

Talluri Indu Kiran: Model Based Controller Design for an ABS Test BenchThis work is related to the master thesis of Jithendra Dharmavaram. The goal is the design of anti-lock braking algorithms which are based upon a mathematical model of our braking testbench. The control algorithms are implemented on a prototype control unit and tested in simulation and in the laboratory.

Towards an advanced metering infrastructureCurrent networks of sensors and actuators use different protocols and data formats. Semantics can be used to enhance data with meaning, to increase flexibility and enable intelligent func-tionalities. In this project, the student will set up a case study concerning Smart metering. The student will exploit existing implementations of the CoAP application protocol (e.g., for the Con-tiki or Tiny OS) to run web services on sensor nodes. To design a semantic sensor network, the student will assess possible ways to represent and transmit semantic information. Main requi-rements for the student are the knowledge of the C programming language and shell scripting. Advisor: Andrea Monacchi

A semantic gateway for the homeIn this project we aim at implementing a home gateway working with the CoAP protocol. The stu-dent will use the CoRE protocol to implement a resource directory listing sensors and actuators available in the household. In addition, the student will use a semantic web framework (e.g. Jena) to enhance the gateway with a SPARQL endpoint. In this way, the gateway can offer a uniform in-terface to access resources and data in the domestic network. To carry out this project, the student should have extensive knowledge of object-oriented programming languages, in particular Java. Advisor: Andrea Monacchi

Dharmavaram Jithendra: Concept of an ABS-testbedGoal of the thesis is the development of a concept of an anti-lock braking system (ABS) testbench. This testbench is available at the Control and Mechatronic Sys-tems Group. In the thesis, the mechanical as well as the hydraulic components were modelled mathematically, controllers for specific parts of the testbench were implemented. Real world experiments were performed to test the develo-ped control techniques.

Analysis of energy consumption data in householdsThe goal of this project is to combine energy consumption data collected in households with other datasets (e.g. social networks) to extract models of the users and provide them with tailored services. An example may be a recommender system proposing advices to reduce the energy consumption in the household. We are looking for a student with extensive knowledge of object-oriented programming languages (e.g. Java) and basic experience with data mining.Advisor: Andrea Monacchi

NIALM WebServiceNon-intrusive load monitoring (NILM) identifies used appliances in a total power load according to their individual load characteristics. The aim of this thesis is to build up a website which is able to import the measured power consumptions of users, disaggregate the used power profi-les of appliances, share power profiles and calculate the power costs for each appliance. We are looking for a student which is fit with HTLM5 and object-oriented programming to implement on the one hand the homepage and on the other hand the load disaggregation algorithm.Advisor: Dominik Egarter

Analysis of Scanning electron microscope images The quality of chemical coatings at the micrometer level is judged by assessing the number of enclosed dust particles in a certain area. The goal of this thesis is to analyze images of a Scan-ning electron microscope using image processing procedures to detect and count enclosures in the coating. This thesis is done in collaboration with the Technical University of Vienna.Advisor: Bernhard Dieber

Arnold Hafner-Kragl: A pandaboard-based smartcam platformArnold Hafner-Kragl is currently working on a master thesis that explores diffe-rent hardware interfaces of embedded computing systems which can be used to attach image sensors. Part of this work is the integration of an image sensor into the Pandaboard system via the CSI (Camera Serial Interface). The second part of this work addresses the integration of peripherals via the GPMC (General Purpo-se Memory Controller). The GPMC allows to attach a wide variety of hardware components by giving them direct access to the Pandaboard's system memory. The thesis explores the integration of an FPGA as well as an image sensor via the GPMC bus.

Extension from co-simulation to real-time co-simulationThe extension of a classical co-simulation to real-time co-simulation is part of the ongoing research project ACoRTA (http://acorta.info). The focus lies on solving the additional problems occurring in a real-time co-simulation compared to a classical one. Especially measurement driven systems which stem from the communication are of interest.Advisor: Georg Stettinger

Naveen Kumar: Optimization via Sliding Mode TechniqueSliding Mode Control is a well established controller design technique mainly ap-plied in the development of robust feedback loops. In this thesis ideas of sliding mode are exploited to design control strategies in order to drive a given plant such that its unknown output function shows an extremum value, i.e. a minimum or a maximum value. The discussed technique is applied to several examples like the swing up scenario of a reaction wheel pendulum or online estimation of an optimal slip value during the braking maneuver of a vehicle.

Reinhard Grandl: Wireless Sensor System for Temperature Measurements In his work Reinhard Grandl implemented a wireless sensing system for tempera-ture measurements in cast concrete parts. The temperature allows to determine the curing state of the cast concrete part. Compared to traditional systems which rely on wired sensors, a wireless solution has a number of advantages. There are no cables coming out of the cast concrete part and overall handling of the system is simplified. Furthermore, no external data loggers are required since tempera-ture values are stored temporarily directly on the sensor nodes. Challenges of project are the wireless communication through cast concrete and the the low-cost requirements for the sensor nodes.

Region of Interest Detection and Anonymization in Video-Streams There is recently a growing need to discover various kinds of activities that occur in videos. Detection of human activities in restricted settings such as airports, parking lots and banks is of significant interest in security and automated surveillance systems. Reliable activity detec-tion would have major practical value for other applications as well, such as video indexing, video searching, video-based human-computer interaction, remote elderly care, etc. Success-ful processing of recorded videos is also a non-negligible result, but a really smashing solution would be an on-line/real-time technique. The main objectives of this project are evaluation of existing solutions, and development of a new system that can automatically find activities and movements in a video scene and distort image within particular RoIs, such as licence plates or faces. A further extension of the project could be the detection and identification of particular abnormal and unusual activities, like a street fight or a bank robbery.Advisor: Thomas Winkler

Social Game Development - Crowdsourcing of Privacy EvaluationEvaluation methods of privacy preserving techniques are mostly based on boring question-naires and surveys. It is hard to find a sufficiently large number of volunteers and these volun-teers are highly motivated. Therefore the results of the conducted evaluation are most probab-ly false or distorted. A reliable privacy evaluation method is essential for the TrustEYE project in order to determine the efficiency of newly developed technologies. For the sake of successful crowdsourcing and high levels of motivation, it is advised to hide traditionally boring surveys in an exciting computer game. The two main objectives of this project are the theoretical de-sign and/or the practical software development of such a game (depending on the skills of the student). The genre of the game is freely selectable (e.g. Facebook app, strategy, adventure, action) as well as its theme (e.g. detective, hacker). The target platform and the programming language are also subject of agreement.Advisor: Thomas Winkler

Virtualization of Real-World Scenarios based on Half-Life 2 ModNew privacy preserving methods developed as part of the TrustEYE project have to be tested in as many different scenarios as possible. For this purpose, several video recordings of those scenarios are needed from different angles and with various settings. These real-life experi-ments are quite costly, not repeatable and many times dependent on licenses and permits from the recorded persons and location. An accurate virtualization of reality is an ideal solution to avoid these issues. The ObjectVideo Virtual Video (OVVV) tool is a freely distributed mod for Valve Software’s popular game Half-Life 2. This tool generates realistic video from simulated cameras in an interactive virtual world. The main objectives of this project are to construct several different scenarios with the OVVV tool according to the needs of the TrustEYE project and to develop a utility framework that can handle these virtual worlds, the recorded video material and the experiments together.Advisor: Thomas Winkler

Research Projects or Bachelor- or Master Theses

Control Strategy for vehicles equipped with semi-active dampersIn conventional road vehicles the setup of spring stiff ness, damping coef-fi cient and mass is always a tradeoff between comfort and safety issues. The demand for better ride comfort and road handling at the same time has motivated the development of mechatronic suspension systems. For au-tomotive applications, the costs (e.g. physical sensors) as well as the relia-bility (e.g. parameterization) are always primary concerns. In this context, some well-known control laws e.g. Sky-Hook and Ground-Hook or control-lers using modern concepts (e.g.: Sliding-Mode) where derived. The aim of this work is to design controllers for semi-active suspensions and verify the performance by numerical simulations and real world experiments.Advisor: Markus Reichhartinger

Motion control allocation for over-actuated road vehiclesIn the automotive industry mainly luxury class cars are equipped with mechatronic-chassis-actuators, which minimize the confl ict of driving safety and driving comfort. In this context the development of a combined-vehicle-dynamics-controller (CVDC), that drives the actuators in a combined way, is introduced.The main idea of combined control is to separate the control law from the selection of actuation signals. The selection of actuation signals is called control allocation (CA) and leads to a modular control approach. In a more technical sense, CA solves an underdetermined, usually constrained system of equations. The inputs to a CA are virtual plant inputs, generated by the control law. The outputs of the CA are the true actuation signals that can be produced. Typically such problems are solved by optimization. The aim of this work is to implement control allocation algorithms for mechatronic-vehicle components, verify and compare the performance by simulations.Advisor: Daniel Lindvai-Soos

Phenomena of Quasicontinuous Implementation of continuously designed control lawsThe design of nonlinear control laws often is based on a continuous-time description of the plant in terms of ordinary diff erential equations, the so-called mathematical model of the plant. Consequently a continuous-time control law results. Typically without considering time-discretization the control law is implemented in a specifi c control hardware (e.g. in a micro-controller), so-called quasicontinuous implementation. The aim of this thesis is to implement continuous-time control laws and to study their properties in the dicrete-time environment. This should be realized in numerical simulation and on a real world plant.Advisor: Markus Reichhartinger

Control of Air Conditioning SystemsThe thesis deals with the model based control of temperature and humidity in heating, ven-tilating and air conditioning systems. Model predictive control (MPC) is a well suited control technique for this class of systems. Diff erent MPC strategies will be analyzed, compared and evaluated on a real world system, depicted in the fi gure. Advisors: Jakob Rehrl, Daniel Schwingshackl

Experiments with 3D Imaging ToolsIn order to avoid privacy violations of video surveillance systems it is essential to hide the identity of people captured on the recordings. On the other hand the utility level of the system has to be maintained, so that abnormal activities can still be detected. For this purpose it is required to collect as many extra privacy-independent information as possible. One way of doing this is to extend traditional video cameras with additional sensors (e.g. laser, ultrasonic, infrared) or to use 3D cameras, and extract depth data. Activity detection can be more accurate with this extra information even if identities are hidden (e.g. blurred, pixellated) in the video stream. The main objectives of this project are to discover different sensors and 3D cameras already available on the market, and to carry out some experiments with them to determine their performance, power consumption, accuracy of depth data, usefulness in privacy preser-ving surveillance, etc.Advisor: Thomas Winkler

Embedded Computer Vision on ARM uC SystemsComputer vision (CV) on resource limited microcontroller (uC) systems is a challenging task. In this project or thesis an extended research on existing CV techniques designed for low-perfor-mance systems should be conducted. Of special interest are foreground/background segmen-tation, object detection and classification as well as tracking techniques. Existing approaches should be classified based on the required computing and memory resources. A selected set of algorithms will be implemented and evaluated on an ARM Cortex M4 microcontroller. An important aspect of the implementation will be the optimization for the DSP and SIMD parallel function units of the M4 microcontroller.Advisor: Thomas Winkler

Integration of Wifi and Ethernet on an ARM-based Microcontroller SystemsIn many microcontroller (uC) applications a wired or wireless communication channel is re-quired to send or receive data. Due to its omnipresence, WiFi (802.11) is gaining importance in the microcontroller domain. Recently, a number of WiFi chips have been released which are specifically designed for use with uCs. These chips are typically connected via the SPI bus. A central part of this project / thesis will be a review of existing solutions and an evaluation of their performance. Power consumption and real-world data rates are primary evaluation criteria. Practical aspects include the implementation of drivers and a communication frame-work for the uC, proof-of concept applications (e.g., video streaming) and power consumption measurements. A complementary or alternative topic is the implementation of an Ethernet interface for the uC. The chosen platform features and onboard Ethernet MAC. Adding an external PHY to a Cortex M4-based system and porting a lightweight IP stack would be central topics of this work.Advisor: Thomas Winkler

Evaluation of Realtime Operating Systems for ARM-based MicrocontrollersApplications for embedded system and microcontrollers often reach a high level of complexity. To handle this complexity a large number of realtime operating system (RTOS) exists. Many of these systems are available as open source and can be freely used and evaluated. A core part of this work will be a review of RTOS systems for the ARM Cortex M4 ecosystem. The RTOS implementations should be compared and classified regarding their features, their memory footprint and their CPU requirements. Selected candidates should be evaluated on a Cortex M4 prototyping system to validate the advertised features. As part of the evaluation small demo applications should be developed on top of the individual RTOS implementations.Advisor: Thomas Winkler

System Identifi cation based on Local Linear ModelsNonlinear dynamic systems can be modeled by a set of multiple local linear models. These models can be identifi ed from measured data. One algorithm that divides a complex model into the smaller linear models is the so called LoLiMoT algorithm. In the present project, a C-implementation of the algorithm should be developed. Furthermore, an extension of the algorithm to handle system dead times should be developed and implemented as well. The C-implementation of the algorithm should be tested in Matlab/Simulink and on a control unit.Advisors: Jakob Rehrl, Daniel Schwingshackl

Flow and Mixing-Ratio Control for Chemical Process ApplicationIn this thesis the mixing of liquids in a well defi ned mi-xing ratio and a given desired fl ow level has to be con-sidered. Therefore a test bench was developed in close cooperation with the industrial partner Lam Research. After deriving a mathematical model of the considered process a model based control strategy in order to per-form the mixing process in a well defi ned manner has to be designed and implemented on a real world pro-totype plant as it is depicted exemplarily in the fi gure. Advisor: Markus Reichhartinger

Damping of drive line oscillations for electric vehiclesThis project deals with electrically actuated vehicles. It is assumed that the electric motor is placed centralized in a car, i.e. the motor torque has to be transmitted via shafts. Since the ap-plied motors are able to provide high torques the shafts are twisted. This leads to undesired os-cillations in the drive train. Additionally the load torques acting on the tyres are unknown, the backlash of the gear box infl uences the driving comfort. In order to demonstrate diff erent drive line control strategies an industrial test-bench is available at the laboratory of the Control and Mechatronic Systems Group. A goal of the thesis is to develop observers estimating the twist angle of the shaft and the unknown load torque. Additionally the transmitted shaft torque has to be controlled. An important part of the thesis is the implementation and demonstration of proposed algorithms on the test bench.Advisor: Markus Reichhartinger

IEEE opens the door to opportunities that will help you develop your professional identity in IEEE´s designated fi elds of interests: sci-ences, technology, engineering, and mathe-matics. In addition to accessing a range of membership benefi ts, you will make global connections with people who can help you along your targeted career path through IEEE´s international community of member-ship and volunteers. The local Student Branch in Klagenfurt is or-ganized by students motivated to organize events that train professional skills or enrich career and everyday life. This may include competitions, excursion, talks and discus-

sions as well as activities on sports, playing, gaming, cooking or anything else which is fun. Many student branch activities will be open for everyone who is willing to contri-bute.

Come to the Open Lab desk of the IEEE Stu-dent Branch Klagenfurt to get to know to in-volved persons, to enroll to the info-mailing or membership list and to learn how you can profi t from the Branch and/or participate. Or come just to tell us what you think about the Branch! You can also fi nd us online. Go to http://ieee.aau.at for more details or follow us on Twitter: @IEEE_Klagenfurt

For any additional information, details or help please do not hesitate to contact the following persons in charge:

Control & Measurement Systems: Prof. Martin Horn, Markus Reichhartinger, Jakob Rehrl

Embedded Systems & Signal Processing: Prof. Mario Huemer, Christian Hofbauer, Christian Lederer

Mobile Systems:Prof. Christian Bettstetter, Udo Schilcher, Günther Brandner

Pervasive Computing: Prof. Bernhard Rinner, Thomas TrustEYE Winkler, Bernhard Dieber

Smart Grids: Prof. Wilfried Elmenreich, Dominik Egarter, Andrea Monacchi, Manfred Pöchacker

Networked & Embedded Systems (NES)Lakeside Park B02, 9020 Klagenfurt+43 (463) 2700 3640firstname.lastname@aau.at

Control & Measurement Systems Group (SST)Lakeside Park B04, 9020 Klagenfurt+43 (463) 2700 3570firstname.lastname@aau.at