To a large extent, when driving on the road, our safety depends on the state of the pavement. Real-time information provided by embedded sensors can help us to take action before deterioration (risk) occurs. What can we do to power these autonomous sensors? Piezoelectric devices vs. wireless power transmission?
The fundamental objective of road pavement is to provide users with a quality service that meets their mobility needs during the lifetime for which it is designed. A situation of deterioration generates a greater risk of an accident, more driving discomfort, fuel consumption, vehicle deterioration, harmful emissions to the atmosphere…
In May 2016, the Spanish Road Association (AEC) published the report “Study on Conservation Investment Needs” to review the state of the Spanish road network. The report notes that the state of maintenance of roads continues to worsen. If this trend continues, before 2020 it will be necessary to rebuild a good part of the network.
I agree with the experts that the conservation of our roads cannot be left to chance: nor to depend on crisis situations that force the budget to be reduced or to wait for irreversible situations.
In these circumstances, it is necessary to continue developing new technologies and methodologies that support the management of infrastructures and that allow conserving and rehabilitating our road network at the lowest economic and environmental cost.
Instrumentation with sensors embedded in the pavement
Traffic and environment/weather conditions, aggravated by climate change problems, significantly affect the pave roads deterioration.
The number of axles, the load per axis, the vehicles speed…, affect the structural behavior of the pavement. Solar radiation, rainfall, thermal gradients, ice-melt cycles, melting salts used against ice or the spillage of oils and fuels, among other factors, have a significant impact on pavement life and fatigue.
Preventive maintenance is necessary based on information on the state of the pavement and aimed to prevent the occurrence of this deterioration or to correct it quickly through repair and maintenance.
Visual inspection and periodic auscultation are commonly used to assess the condition of a pavement. A dynamic alternative is the instrumentation with sensors embedded in the pavement. With continuous monitoring it is intended that those who make decisions can know, in real time, the status of the pavement.
Experiences such as those of the CENIT OASIS project, in which we collaborate with OHL Concesiones and GEOCISA, endorse this alternative, not without difficulties such as that the sensors overcome the aggressive conditions during the spread and the compaction, or feed the sensors along the lifetime of an asphalt pavement that is normally between 20 and 30 years.
In this second aspect, since wired power is not always available or to overcome the problems of wiring flexibility, a significant technological challenge is to embed autonomous sensors in the pavement with non-wired power supply and wireless communication. How to provide energy to the sensors without cables and during the lifetime of the pavement?
Piezoelectric devices vs. wireless power transmission?
Opposite to batteries power supply, which have a limited energy, requires a periodic replacement or recharge, the sensors can be powered with energy captured from the road itself, for example by means of piezoelectric devices.
At the end of the 19th century, Pierre and his brother Jacques Curie discover the piezoelectric effect, a phenomenon that occurs in certain crystals that when subjected to pressure or mechanical movement, electrical energy is generated. On the road, part of the vehicle’s energy is converted into vertical deformation of the pavement that can be transformed into electrical energy by piezoelectric devices. The amount of energy generated depends on the number of vehicles passing.
In the CIEN REPARA 2.0 project we have choosed another method, investigating, in collaboration with Sacyr Construcción, Acciona Infraestructuras, Repsol, Fractalia, CHM, Censo, Solid Forest and Inzamac, the recharge of the autonomous sensors batteries by mean of wireless power transmission.
Also at the end of the 19th century, Nikola Tesla proposed what is known as “Tesla effect”, variations in magnetic flux have the ability to transmit electricity at a distance without needing solid support or some kind of wire. On the road, the batteries of the sensors will be recharged periodically, according to their power needs (mainly defined by the data transmission). Energy transfer has a limited range.
Actually, the efficiency of both technologies is a critical point.
Curie vs. Tesla? Indeed, confronting these technologies (using “versus” with the meaning of “against”) is not a lucky expression. Both technologies open up a world of opportunities for new applications. Are they also complementary? Which is your opinion?
It is likely that many of us have taken advantage of weekends to take a walk in the forest or the mountain. When we return home, impressed by the beauty of the landscape, we may have reflected with sadness on the enormous damage that forest fires cause in these spaces.
We all have to be a bit more responsible and see that the forests are still an important source of resources. This is why we must try to preserve and keep them in good conditions. It should not be forgotten that fire is one of the main problems that destroys forests every Summer. This situation causes social alarm and destroys forests, which take many years to be recovered.
In Southern Europe, forest fires seriously threaten its sustainability. According to EFE VERDE, only in Spain the forest area affected by fires, between January and November 2016, has been 61,359.9 hectares. This is equivalent to more than 61,000 football pitches.
In case of involuntary fire, this situation is due not only to high temperatures reached in Summer, but also to forest biomass abandoned in the forest after logging activities. It is very important to carry out maintenance and cleaning of forests through pruning, forests’ clearing, etc.
These measures make necessary the development of new forms of exploitation for these biomass residues generated by the forestry industry (sawmills, primary transformation industries, manufacturers of processed wood products and cork and pulp manufacturers).
This is the reason why CARTIFis working on finding new technologies using biomass as a renewable energy source for the production of electrical and thermal energy as well as for the production of new bioproducts. In this way, wood yield is increased and besides, soil erosion and tree diseases are prevented. Moreover, outbreaks of forest fires are avoided.
This is the line followed by the European project LIFE EUCALYPTUS ENERGY. Its main objective is the design and construction of a demonstration plant that energetically valorises the forest biomass from the forest cuttings of Eucalyptus globulus. This wood is used mainly by the paper industry. The used biomass is mainly composed of low density biomass (leaves and branches) and it comes from timber exploitations of eucalyptus and that it is now abandoned in the forest.
The LIFE EUCALYPTUS project develops pyrolysis technology, a process by which biomass is transformed in the absence of oxygen into a combustible gas that can be exploited in an engine to obtain electric and thermal energy. In addition, in this process a solid by-product, the biochar, is obtained, which will be used in the same forest improving soil properties.
The reason for selecting eucalyptus biomass and the site where the demonstration plant is being built (Asturias, Spain) is because the selected species has a large presence in the area, around 53,000 ha. However, this experience is easily replicable to other areas and other types of biomass.
Just look at the existing wooded forest area, which in Spain is approximately 18 million hectares, 33% more than 25 years ago. Also in Spain alone, there is about 6 million tons of forest biomass in its forests. There are numbers that increase expectations of this biomass use and the benefits that will produce. We must take into account not only the added value of the generated products, but also the associated job creation. The human factor is important, due to the progressive abandonment of agricultural, herding and forestry activities that have occurred in recent years because of the rural exodus.
Therefore, keep a positive thought: biomass can generate a lot of benefits. Now, do you still think that biomass is a waste?
Last November I attend third Big Data Value Association (BDVA) Summit in Valencia. The BDVA is a fully self-financed non-profit organization under Belgium law that represents the ‘private’ side in Big Data Value Public Private Partnership (Big Data Value PPP), while the European Commission represents the ‘public’ side. The Big Data Value PPP is operational since January 2015, and its main objective is to boost European Big Data Value research, development and innovation. In particular BDVA aims at:
strengthening competitiveness and ensuring industrial leadership of providers and end users of Big Data Value technology-based systems and services;
promoting the widest and best uptake of Big Data Value technologies and services for professional and private use;
establishing the excellence of the science base of creation of value from Big Data.
BDVA has around 150 members from 27 different countriesworking in 9 Task Forces: Programme, Impact, Community, Communication, Policy & Society, Technical, Application, Business, Skills and Education.
In 2016 the first PPP calls have been launched inside H2020 programme and in January 2017 the approved project will celebrate the kick-off meetings. CARTIF is a partner in one of this project titled Transforming Transport. As part of CARTIF’s tasks, we will in charge of Big Data approach inside one of the pilots, including Data Analytics.
Data Analytics and Computational Intelligence is not new to CARTIF. During last years, projects like OPTIRAIL, Development of a Smart Framework based on Knowledge to support Infrastructure Maintenance decisions in Railway networks, PREFEX Advanced techniques for the prediction of the excavation front or GEOMAF, New Maintenance Operations Management Tool for Railway superstructure and infrastructure, have tried to make valuable for the companies of the transport sector the information, knowledge, and experience the have gathered along the way, which are not systematically put into good use for multiple reasons.
At a more technical level the process is developed starting from the data (monitoring, historic information, etc.) and knowledge (experience) from an expert on the field. A proper use, based on Computational Intelligence methods and similar techniques, make possible to extract, model, and transfer knowledge that will make the involved companies able to give a higher added value to their activity and services.
Even so the use of data analytics techniques in real industrial environment is lower than expected. It is necessary to continue disseminating the benefits that techniques of this type can bring both in the social field, and in the industrial and services environment. Thanks to the BDVA and to events such as the one held in Valencia, this much-needed dissemination is increasingly being heard by a greater number of companies.
In a first approach to the world of Augmented Reality, we established the differences between technologies of mixed, augmented and virtual reality. In this second installment, we are going to review the applications that are already being made of these realities in the health sector.
Medical data visualization
Applications aiming at the agile viewing of patient data such as ultrasound, tomography images … obtaining a more accurate view of data improving diagnoses and facilitating the decision making for possible surgical interventions.
RV does not need the human patient to be present, since it deals more with off-line simulation. This makes it very suitable for training.
The simulator called LapSim emulates a real surgery with the laparoscopic technique using a haptic device that allows reproducing the sensations of the realized movements.
Surgery
Both AR and VR are able to improve the surgery by allowing the preparation of them with patient data and testing various techniques to choose the most convenient. At the same time, it is able to guide and mark relevant information during the development of the surgery obtaining more efficient and less invasive surgeries.
MEVIS system allows to prepare the surgery using 3D images of x-rays and tomographies to reconstruct the locations of blood vessels. In addition, during the development of them, is able to register the planning data and display blood vessels in different colours.
Diagnosis, therapy and rehabilitation
The AR and VR have a clear application in tests for diagnosis of diseases, treatment of phobias and support and incentive in the rehabilitation generating virtual and safe situations
Rehabilitation system for the health platform Tratamiento 2.0 by CARTIF. The system allows managing rehabilitation exercises for the patients by the health personnel and the patients perform the exercises as a game at home with the use of a webcam. The system records the evolution of the treatment and the performance of the exercise.
Rehabilitation service (SER) by CARTIF for Tratamiento 2.0 platform
Emotional evaluation system developed by CARTIF. The system generates situations and emotions through an avatar of a person to identify them by people with schizophrenia. It can be used in diagnosis, treatment and evaluation of progress.
Emotional evaluation system developed by CARTIF
Education
In this aspect, the AR provides a new channel that allows improving the learning providing other points of views on the knowledge. An example is the books that through mobile applications allow seeing parts of the anatomy in 3D.
Anatomy book with augmented reality
The use of these technologies is based on a series of techniques that make possible its use. Any advance in these techniques greatly improves the technologies. The main techniques used are:
Registration of information and monitoring: It is very important to position the user to be able to correctly locate the contents in their environment even if the user or objects move or even partially cover. This is done through visual marks such as bidis that are identified by the system and allows accurate placement of the contents.
Display screens. It allows integration between the real and the virtual. The most striking technique is the use of head screens (smart glasses) that allows the user to see the physical world through the lens and superimpose graphic information in the user’s field of vision by reflecting it in their eyes. Other techniques are screen in hand (mobile or tablets) that capture the physical world with a camera and overlay graphic information on the video. Space projection uses digital projectors to display graphic information about physical objects.
El uso de estas tecnologías se sustenta en una serie de técnicas que hacen posible su utilización. Cualquier avance en estas técnicas mejora enormemente las tecnologías. Las principales técnicas usadas son:
Registration of information and monitoring. It is very important to position the user to be able to correctly locate the contents in their environment even if the user or objects move or even partially cover. This is done through visual marks such as bidis that are identified by the system and allows accurate placement of the contents.
Display screens. It allows integration between the real and the virtual. The most striking technique is the use of head screens (smart glasses) that allows the user to see the physical world through the lens and superimpose graphic information in the user’s field of vision by reflecting it in their eyes. Other techniques are screen in hand (mobile or tablets) that capture the physical world with a camera and overlay graphic information on the video. Space projection uses digital projectors to display graphic information about physical objects.Head screens
Screen in hand (mobile or tablets). Guidance System (STAR)
Space projection
In order to interact with these systems, typical interfaces such as touch screen, mouse, keyboard or more advanced and specific interfaces such as gloves, brain interfaces or simulation tools are used as surgical material …
As we have seen, AR and VR have promising potential for use in medical applications because it provides seamless integration of data visualization with the patient’s body. This allows for improved methods of medical diagnosis and treatment.
There are technological limitations especially on the screens and registration of data that make this technology have not yet a realistic clinical application in a regular medical environment, but the progress in several R&D projects and the interest shown by the researched ones is encouraging.
Finally, it is necessary to solve a great challenge that is often overlooked and is to improve the real usability of these systems, avoiding the sensory overload and making the viewing experience more controllable, simple, agile and transparent so that the only concern of the medical staff is the patient.
We start the new year fulfilling the promise of writing a second part of the post “Without sugar, please” of possible alternatives to elaborate food without sucrose or “table sugar”, the most commonly used sweetener in the industrialized world.
So this year, my letter to Three Wise Men was:
Dear Three Wise Men:
As you know, the search for alternatives to sucrose is a topic of general interest for the food industry, consumers, researchers, health professionals, etc.
So this year, in which I’ve endeavored to find the way to develop healthier foods, I would like to ask you a very special sweetener. First of all, I would like that this sweetener could be at least as sweet as sucrose, colorless, odorless, noncariogenic and, of course, low-calorie. I would like the taste could clean and could not provide foreign flavors. I would like it could be water soluble and stable in both acidic and basic conditions and over a wide range of temperatures. Thinking in industry, it would be ideal that it could be processed in a similar way to the sucrose so that they could continue to use the same equipment. I would love that I could include it in any food and does not harm the shelf life of the final product.
As you are wise and very nice, I also want to be price competitive in relation to sucrose and easy to produce, store and transport. And to conclude, please the most important thing, is that it is SAFE for the entire population, I mean that it is not toxic and is metabolized without causing any unwanted alteration.
Thank you very much and if you fulfill what I ask you I promise that next year we will have the healthiest sweet coal in the world!
Love,
María
So, I sent my letter really excited and January 6 th, my children who always get up 8 o´clock in the morning, came to wake me up screaming: “Mummyyy!, the Three Wise Men have left a letter for you!” They were right, Wise Men had bothered to reply to my letter and this is what they said:
Dear María:
We have received your letter and we are very proud that from Cartif, you continue betting on a healthier diet but we have to tell you that, although we are magicians, we do not perform miracles. We are sorry to inform you that sweetener you describe in your letter does not exist. We can only advise you to use sweeteners you have intelligently, combine them between themselves to achieve a synergistic effect and thus use less amounts. If you are looking for low-calorie sweetener than sucrose, you can use intensive sweeteners and polyols although we know than there are controversies about their effects on health, which can give strange flavors and are labeled as additives.
We have received news of the “Stevia-boom” that is living in the food industry. If you have time, we’d like you to tell that although stevia (E-960) is plant-derived this does not mean that it is natural. Remember that all or nothing is poison and that the difference is in the dose.
Keep in mind that you can also use soluble fibers such as inulin and polydextrose although they provide less sweetness, ferment the intestinal microbiota acting as prebiotics, provide few calories and are not labeled as additives.
And before saying goodbye, as we all know that it has not won the lottery, still encouraging enterprises to develop products with a more balanced nutritional profile.
Technology is very present in our lives. Proof of this is the increasing use of computers, smartphones, tablets and video games. Technology helps us with daily tasks, provides entertainment and fun, but can also improve fields such as medicine and health by helping to understand concepts, forming and encouraging both patients and healthcare personnel.
Technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality have been introduced in our lives mainly through video games and have a lot of potential for implementation in the world of health. Everybody knows about these concepts but we are going to comment these terms to avoid confusion.
The mixed reality (MR) consists of combining the virtual world and the real world, creating spaces where virtual objects interact with real people and vice versa. The degree of mixing between these two worlds gives rise to the concepts we know as augmented reality and virtual reality.
The augmented reality (AR) is a simplification of the mixed reality where the user is stimulated with virtual contents in real time.
Virtual reality (VR), however, consists of virtual iteration with virtual objects in a virtual environment.
The AR and MR technologies have a wide field of work in the medical field, such as the fusion of the 3D data of the medical examination with the patient’s view that allows improving the precision in the diagnoses. AR has a clear application in supporting surgery, while VR is more suitable for simulation without the actual patient. Any of these technologies can be used for the training of doctors and medical students, as they improve the situation and the spatial awareness of the practitioner. In addition, the patient can also be supported by a variety of applications through this technology focused on training, treatment, rehabilitation…
These technologies have been used for many years in different aspects of medicine. After the explication of these three reality types, my next post will be based on the application of them in the health field.
