Moses - Mobile Sensing for Safety voor veliger een efficientere opereren brandweerlieden
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Amsterdam faces the challenge of accommodating 50,000 to 90,000 new homes in the next five to ten years. That is equivalent to 10% of the city’s current total housing stock. The new homes have to be built within the existing urban fabric. This will entail high densities and the construction of new ‘un-Dutch’ typologies with high-rise residential buildings. Densification is currently accelerating in many Western cities and high-rise living environments are gaining ground as today’s typology. Yet these new typologies come with potentially serious risks to the liveability of cities in general and those new environments in particular (Asgarzadeh et al. 2012; Lindal and Hartig 2013; Gifford 2007). Urban designers and (landscape) architects are challenged to prevent and soften the negative impact that is often associated with extremely densified environments. This entails mitigating contradictive demands: to create high-density capacity andshape streetscapes that relate to a human scale. Designers might resort to the large body of applied design solutions and theories, yet these tend to be derived from more traditional urban fabrics of low-density developments (for example: e.g. Sennett 2018; Haas 2008; Jacobs 1993; Banerjee and Southworth 1990; Alexander et.al. 1977; Jacobs 1961).Therefore, the question of the research project Sensing Streetscape is if the classical design solutions are without any alterations, applicable in these new high density settings and able to create streetscapes with a human scale. A combination of emerging technologies and principles from both worlds; neuroscience and architecture offer the opportunity to investigate this question in-depth as a relation between the designed and the visually perceived streetscape.
We report on the calibration and testing of a fiber Bragg grating (FBG)-based 2D-shape sensing strip for real-time monitoring of the position and orientation of the human spine during gait. The strip is evaluated for its use as an input for control of an exoskeleton for patients with spinal cord injury. By measuring the torsion and bending of the back, walking movements can be reconstructed. The 3D-printed strip has nine embedded fiber Bragg gratings that are located at specific places with respect to the vertebral column. Three FBGs are placed opposite to the thoracic vertebrae T6–T9, these FBGs are sensitive for measuring the bending of the spine during the gait cycle. Torsion is measured at two locations: at thoracic vertebra, T3 and at lumbar vertebra, L3. At these locations, the width of the strip is reduced to have a larger sensitivity for torsion. The strain at each FBG is measured using an interrogator. This leads to the radius of curvature and torsion as a function of time. The Frenet-Serret formulae are used to calculate the shape of the strip during the gait cycle. We have calibrated this FBG strip for curvature by bending it at known radius of different curvatures. We found a linear dependence between the strain and curvature. For torsion calibration we have rotated the strip with a stepper motor at different angles and monitored the strain. We, again, found a linear dependence with a small hysteresis. We mounted the strip on a healthy test subject and monitored their gait cycle. The FBG strip shows similar results when compared to a motion capture system based on multiple cameras. Although the fixation of the strip to a garment or on the back directly strongly influences the measured response, it does show a periodic and reproducible signal during the gait cycle.
Size measurement plays an essential role for micro-/nanoparticle characterization and property evaluation. Due to high costs, complex operation or resolution limit, conventional characterization techniques cannot satisfy the growing demand of routine size measurements in various industry sectors and research departments, e.g., pharmaceuticals, nanomaterials and food industry etc. Together with start-up SeeNano and other partners, we will develop a portable compact device to measure particle size based on particle-impact electrochemical sensing technology. The main task in this project is to extend the measurement range for particles with diameters ranging from 20 nm to 20 um and to validate this technology with realistic samples from various application areas. In this project a new electrode chip will be designed and fabricated. It will result in a workable prototype including new UMEs (ultra-micro electrode), showing that particle sizing can be achieved on a compact portable device with full measuring range. Following experimental testing with calibrated particles, a reliable calibration model will be built up for full range measurement. In a further step, samples from partners or potential customers will be tested on the device to evaluate the application feasibility. The results will be validated by high-resolution and mainstream sizing techniques such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), dynamic light scattering (DLS) and Coulter counter.
Various companies in diagnostic testing struggle with the same “valley of death” challenge. In order to further develop their sensing application, they rely on the technological readiness of easy and reproducible read-out systems. Photonic chips can be very sensitive sensors and can be made application-specific when coated with a properly chosen bio-functionalized layer. Here the challenge lies in the optical coupling of the active components (light source and detector) to the (disposable) photonic sensor chip. For the technology to be commercially viable, the price of the disposable photonic sensor chip should be as low as possible. The coupling of light from the source to the photonic sensor chip and back to the detectors requires a positioning accuracy of less than 1 micrometer, which is a tremendous challenge. In this research proposal, we want to investigate which of the six degrees of freedom (three translational and three rotational) are the most crucial when aligning photonic sensor chips with the external active components. Knowing these degrees of freedom and their respective range we can develop and test an automated alignment tool which can realize photonic sensor chip alignment reproducibly and fully autonomously. The consortium with expertise and contributions in the value chain of photonics interfacing, system and mechanical engineering will investigate a two-step solution. This solution comprises a passive pre-alignment step (a mechanical stop determines the position), followed by an active alignment step (an algorithm moves the source to the optimal position with respect to the chip). The results will be integrated into a demonstrator that performs an automated procedure that aligns a passive photonic chip with a terminal that contains the active components. The demonstrator is successful if adequate optical coupling of the passive photonic chip with the external active components is realized fully automatically, without the need of operator intervention.
Het lectoraat Applied Quantum Computing is een samenwerking tussen de Hogeschool van Amsterdam en het Centrum Wiskunde en Informatica. Dit lectoraat gaat zich bezig houden met het leggen van een verbinding tussen enerzijds fundamenteel onderzoek en anderzijds praktische problemen. In een samenwerking met IBM, Capgemini en Qusoft zullen cases en experimenten worden uitgevoerd hoe Quantum Computing bedrijven gaat beïnvloeden. Op het gebied van Quantum Communication zal onderzocht worden hoe m.b.v. Quantum Technologie gekomen kan worden tot een veilige communicatie. Ook zal aangesloten worden bij onderzoek naar en onderwijs worden ontwikkeld rondom hoe quantum mechanische effecten praktisch ingezet kunnen worden om metingen te verrichten. Onderzoek zal verricht worden naar het implementeren van theoretische oplossingen als bedacht in de laboratoria van universiteiten voor problemen bij bedrijven en instellingen. Binnen de Hogeschool van Amsterdam zal aansluiting worden gezocht met het onderzoek dat wordt gedaan binnen diverse lectoraten van de Faculteit DMCI, zoals responsible IT (i.o) en Urban Analytics en met de onderzoekers van de groep Urban Technology van de faculteit Techniek. In het onderwijs wordt een relatie bestendigd met opleidingen als HBO-ICT, waarvoor een minor wordt ontwikkeld, en Technische Natuurkunde. Daarbuiten zal verder gewerkt worden aan een netwerk om te komen tot een ecosysteem van instellingen en bedrijven. De Hogeschool van Amsterdam draagt Marten Teitsma als lector voor. Marten Teitsma heeft heeft veel ervaring in het onderwijs, ontwikkeling daarvan, als leidinggevende en is gepromoveerd in de Artificiële Intelligentie. Binnen de hogeschool heeft hij het initiatief genomen tot diverse activiteiten op het gebied van Quantum Computing.
