From the Publisher: 
The accessible presentation of this book gives both a general view of the entire computer vision enterprise and also offers sufficient detail to be able to build useful applications. Users learn techniques that have proven to be useful by first-hand experience and a wide range of mathematical methods. A CD-ROM with every copy of the text contains source code for programming practice, color images, and illustrative movies. Comprehensive and up-to-date, this book includes essential topics that either reflect practical significance or are of theoretical importance. Topics are discussed in substantial and increasing depth. Application surveys describe numerous important application areas such as image based rendering and digital libraries. Many important algorithms broken down and illustrated in pseudo code. Appropriate for use by engineers as a comprehensive reference to the computer vision enterprise.

Computer vision : a modern approach = 计算机视觉 : 一种现代的方法

An overview of the self-organizing map algorithm, on which the papers in this issue are based, is presented in this article.

The Self-Organizing Map

Fast Fourier Transform

Computer algebra systems are now ubiquitous in all areas of science and engineering. This highly successful textbook, widely regarded as the “bible of computer algebra”, gives a thorough introduction to the algorithmic basis of the mathematical engine in computer algebra systems. Designed to accompany oneor two-semester courses for advanced undergraduate or graduate students in computer science or mathematics, its comprehensiveness and reliability has also made it an essential reference for professionals in the area. Special features include: detailed study of algorithms including time analysis; implementation reports on several topics; complete proofs of the mathematical underpinnings; and a wide variety of applications (among others, in chemistry, coding theory, cryptography, computational logic, and the design of calendars and musical scales). A great deal of historical information and illustration enlivens the text. In this third edition, errors have been corrected and much of the Fast Euclidean Algorithm chapter has been renovated.

Modern computer algebra

The Artificial Intelligence field continues to be plagued by what can only be described as ‘bold promises for the future syndrome’, often perpetrated by researchers who should know better. While impartial assessment can point to concrete contributions over the past 50 years (such as automated theorem proving, games strategies, the LISP and Prolog high-level computer languages, Automatic Speech Recognition, Natural Language Processing, mobile robot path planning, unmanned vehicles, humanoid robots, data mining, and more), the more cynical argue that AI has witnessed more than its fair share of ‘unmitigated disasters’ during this time – see, for example [3,58,107,125,186]. The general public becomes rapidly jaded with such ‘bold predictions’ that fail to live up to their original hype, and which ultimately render the zealots’ promises as counter-productive.

Computational Intelligence: An Introduction

A multiplier-free phase estimation algorithm based on the barycentre approach for coherent QPSK detection is presented. A selectivity mechanism was developed that significantly improved its performance. In addition to recently published measurement results, theoretical background and new simulation results are presented.

Multiplier-free realtime phase tracking in digital synchronous QPSK receiver for coherent optical detection

SSB (Simplified Switched Beam) was originally motivated by a simple beamforming technique. It is expected to increase the performance of Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) by associating with the dedicated MAC protocol [12]. However, we further find that it is a variation of the antenna diversity scheme, which is called GSC in [6] and H-S/MRC in [11]. SSB only requires one RF front-end and a simple additional processing unit, hence it has apparent advantage in terms of size, power, expense and complexity. Its 2.4 GHz test-bed for reception has been implemented recently. Intensive measurements show that SSB can help to suppress the effect of fading, enhance the SNR and finally result in the reduced BER.

SSB: A new diversity selection combining scheme and its test-bed implementation

This paper describes a Demo showing the role of the Teleworkbench in the validation process of a multi-agent system, e.g., a traffic management system. In the Demo, we show the capability of the Teleworkbench in seamlessly bridging the simulation and experimentation with real robots. During experiments, important information is logged for analysis purpose. Additionally, a graphical user interface enables geographically distributed users to perform some levels of interactivity, e.g., watch the video or command the robots.

Teleworkbench: validating robot programs from simulation to prototyping with minirobots

This paper describes a resource-efficient vision system for the mini-robot “Khepera”. It is implemented to perform a fundamental approach of robotic navigation, which is obstacle detection by using an optical flow algorithm. This is inspired by visual perception of insects. The optical flow field is evaluated by implementing the sum of absolute differences (SAD) operation of block matching while the mobile mini-robot moves on texture plane. The SAD is realized in an additional processing module based on a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) solution which can perform various tasks in parallel; for example, image processing, camera control and symbolic protocol transmission to the mini-robot. As a result, the Khepera equipped with 2D camera and the additional module is able to autonomously move avoiding collisions with obstacles, called ego-motion. The 30 × 16 SAD operation is processed by computing 16 pairs of pixels in each operation, which accomplishes the real-time approach. The proposed implementation reduces processing time and power consumption.

A biologically-inspired and resource-efficient vision system using mobile mini-robots for obstacle avoidance

The electrification of the mobility sector poses new challenges for grid operators. The simultaneous charging of a large number of electric vehicles could overload the grid. To solve this problem, sensors must be used to create observability of the low-voltage grid and to introduce control of the charging processes. The new sensors will generate large amounts of data containing personal information. For better and local handling of these data streams, edge computing approaches have been discussed. In this work, an edge computing system for the problem is presented. The structure of the software and the LoRa-based communication system is discussed in particular. Different sub-tasks are packaged in docker containers to get flexible and reusable software, that can be used for multiple use cases and hardware systems. The LoRa communication should lead to higher data security with it being decentralized and independent of the internet. With the system presented here, it is possible to determine the grid state using the sensors installed in the grid and to use this information to control the charging process of electric vehicles. The system was tested in a field test. The results show the general applicability of the approach and needed improvements for LoRa communication.

Ulrich Rückert

Papers

Multiplier-free realtime phase tracking in digital synchronous QPSK receiver for coherent optical detection

SSB: A new diversity selection combining scheme and its test-bed implementation

Teleworkbench: validating robot programs from simulation to prototyping with minirobots

A biologically-inspired and resource-efficient vision system using mobile mini-robots for obstacle avoidance

Evaluation of the Usage of Edge Computing and LoRa for the Control of Electric Vehicle Charging in the Low Voltage Grid