Proyectos de Investigación


Publicaciones Científicas


Fuzzy Controller Implemented for Movement of a Tendon-Driven 3D Robotic Lumbar Spine Mechanism

Notable efforts have been devoted to the development of biomechanical models of the spine, so the development of a motion system to control the spine becomes expressively relevant. This paper presents a fuzzy controller to manipulate the movement of a 3D robotic mechanism of the lumbar spine, which is driven by tendons. The controller was implemented in Matlab/Simulink R2023a software, MathWorks (Brazil), considering mathematical modeling based on the Lagrangian methodology for simulating the behavior of the lumbar spine dynamic movement. The fuzzy controller was implemented to perform movements of two joints of the 3D robotic mechanism, which consists of five vertebrae grouped into two sets, G1 and G2. The mechanism’s movements are carried out by four servomotors which are driven by readings from two sensors. For control, the linguistic variables of position, velocity and acceleration were used as controller inputs and the torque variables were used for the controller output. The experimental tests were carried out by running the fuzzy controller directly on the 3D physical model (external to the simulation environment) to represent flexion and extension movements analogous to human movements.


A CNN-Based Approach for Driver Drowsiness Detection by Real-Time Eye State Identification

Drowsiness detection is an important task in road safety and other areas that require sustained attention. In this article, an approach to detect drowsiness in drivers is presented, focusing on the eye region, since eye fatigue is one of the first symptoms of drowsiness. The method used for the extraction of the eye region is Mediapipe, chosen for its high accuracy and robustness. Three neural networks were analyzed based on InceptionV3, VGG16 and ResNet50V2, which implement deep learning. The database used is NITYMED, which contains videos of drivers with different levels of drowsiness. The three networks were evaluated in terms of accuracy, precision and recall in detecting drowsiness in the eye region. The results of the study show that all three convolutional neural networks have high accuracy in detecting drowsiness in the eye region. In particular, the Resnet50V2 network achieved the highest accuracy, with a rate of 99.71% on average. For better visualization of the data, the Grad-CAM technique is used, with which we obtain a better understanding of the performance of the algorithms in the classification process.


Doppler Factor in the Omega-k Algorithm for Pulsed and Continuous Wave Synthetic Aperture Radar Raw Data Processing

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) raw data do not have a direct application; therefore, SAR raw signal processing algorithms are used to generate images that are used for various required applications. Currently, there are several algorithms focusing SAR raw data such as the range-Doppler algorithm, Chirp Scaling algorithm, and Omega-k algorithm, with these algorithms being the most used and traditional in SAR raw signal processing. The most prominent algorithm that operates in the frequency domain for focusing SAR raw data obtained by a synthetic aperture radar with large synthetic apertures is the Omega-k algorithm, which operates in the two-dimensional frequency domain; therefore, in this paper, we used the Omega-k algorithm to produce SAR images and modify the Omega-k algorithm by adding the Doppler factor to improve the accuracy of SAR raw data processing obtained by the continuous wave and pulsed frequency modulated linear frequency modulated radar system from the surfaces of interest. On the other hand, for the case of unmanned aerial vehicle-borne linear frequency modulated continuous wave (LFM-CW) SAR systems, we added motion compensation to the modified Omega-k algorithm. Finally, the testing and validation of the developed Omega-k algorithm used simulated and real SAR raw data for both pulsed synthetic aperture and continuous wave radars. The real SAR raw data used for the validation of the modified Omega-k algorithm were the raw data obtained by the micro advanced synthetic aperture radar (MicroASAR) system, which is an LFM-CW synthetic aperture radar installed on board an unmanned aerial system and the raw data obtained by European remote sensing (ERS-2) satellite with a synthetic aperture radar installed.


A Cloud Coverage Image Reconstruction Approach for Remote Sensing of Temperature and Vegetation in Amazon Rainforest

Remote sensing involves actions to obtain information about an area located on Earth. In the Amazon region, the presence of clouds is a common occurrence, and the visualization of important terrestrial information in the image, like vegetation and temperature, can be difficult. In order to estimate land surface temperature (LST) and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) from satellite images with cloud coverage, the inpainting approach will be applied to remove clouds and restore the image of the removed region. This paper proposes the use of the neural network LaMa (large mask inpainting) and the scalable model named Big LaMa for the automatic reconstruction process in satellite images. Experiments are conducted on Landsat-8 satellite images of the Amazon rainforest in the state of Acre, Brazil. To evaluate the architecture’s accuracy, the RMSE (root mean squared error), SSIM (structural similarity index) and PSNR (peak signal-to-noise ratio) metrics were used. The LST and NDVI of the reconstructed image were calculated and compared qualitatively and quantitatively, using scatter plots and the chosen metrics, respectively. The experimental results show that the Big LaMa architecture performs more effectively and robustly in restoring images in terms of visual quality. And the LaMa network shows minimal superiority for the measured metrics when addressing medium marked areas. When comparing the results achieved in NDVI and LST of the reconstructed images with real cloud coverage, great visual results were obtained with Big LaMa.


Fuzzy Control for Simplified Lumbar Spine Robotic Mechanism Motion

The fuzzy controller refers to a powerful intelligent control tool, which can provide control systems with a higher efficiency than other controllers, because it has in its characteristics, components that correspond to the requirements present in control problems involving complex and nonlinear systems, with the presence of computational inaccuracies related to the input parameters in the systems. This paper describes the development of a fuzzy controller for motion control of a simplified robotic lumbar spine model. The behavior of the controller was simulated using a simplified robotic model that reproduces the movement of two vertebrae. The results of the simulations of the experimental tests, show relevant characteristics of the controller about the response speed of the system, reduction of the tracking error of the system and minimal vibration in the tracking process, ensuring robustness in the motion path of the system.


Exploratory Analysis Using Deep Learning for Water-Body Segmentation of Peru’s High-Mountain Remote Sensing Images

High-mountain water bodies represent critical components of their ecosystems, serving as vital freshwater reservoirs, environmental regulators, and sentinels of climate change. To understand the environmental dynamics of these regions, comprehensive analyses of lakes across spatial and temporal scales are necessary. While remote sensing offers a powerful tool for lake monitoring, applications in high-mountain terrain present unique challenges. The Ancash and Cuzco regions of the Peruvian Andes exemplify these challenges. These regions harbor numerous high-mountain lakes, which are crucial for fresh water supply and environmental regulation. This paper presents an exploratory examination of remote sensing techniques for lake monitoring in the Ancash and Cuzco regions of the Peruvian Andes. The study compares three deep learning models for lake segmentation: the well-established DeepWaterMapV2 and WatNet models and the adapted WaterSegDiff model, which is based on a combination of diffusion and transformation mechanisms specifically conditioned for lake segmentation. In addition, the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) with Otsu thresholding is used for comparison purposes. To capture lakes across these regions, a new dataset was created with Landsat-8 multispectral imagery (bands 2–7) from 2013 to 2023. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were performed using metrics such as Mean Intersection over Union (MIoU), Pixel Accuracy (PA), and F1 Score. The results achieved indicate equivalent performance of DeepWaterMapV2 and WatNet encoder–decoder architectures, achieving adequate lake segmentation despite the challenging geographical and atmospheric conditions inherent in high-mountain environments. In the qualitative analysis, the behavior of the WaterSegDiff model was considered promising for the proposed application. Considering that WatNet is less computationally complex, with 3.4 million parameters, this architecture becomes the most pertinent to implement. Additionally, a detailed temporal analysis of Lake Singrenacocha in the Vilcanota Mountains was conducted, pointing out the more significant behavior of the WatNet model.


A Real-Time Embedded System for Driver Drowsiness Detection Based
on Visual Analysis of the Eyes and Mouth Using Convolutional Neural
Network and Mouth Aspect Ratio

Currently, the number of vehicles in circulation continues to increase steadily, leading to a parallel increase in vehicular accidents. Among the many causes of these accidents, human factors such as driver drowsiness play a fundamental role. In this context, one solution to address the challenge of drowsiness detection is to anticipate drowsiness by alerting drivers in a timely and effective manner. Thus, this paper presents a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN)-based approach for drowsiness detection by analyzing the eye region and Mouth Aspect Ratio (MAR) for yawning detection. As part of this approach, endpoint delineation is optimized for extraction of the region of interest (ROI) around the eyes. An NVIDIA Jetson Nano-based device and near-infrared (NIR) camera are used for real-time applications. A Driver Drowsiness Artificial Intelligence (DD-AI) architecture is proposed for the eye state detection procedure. In a performance analysis, the results of the proposed approach were compared with architectures based on InceptionV3, VGG16, and ResNet50V2. Night-Time Yawning–Microsleep–Eyeblink–Driver Distraction (NITYMED) was used for training, validation, and testing of the architectures. The proposed DD-AI network achieved an accuracy of 99.88% with the NITYMED test data, proving superior to the other networks. In the hardware implementation, tests were conducted in a real environment, resulting in 96.55% and 14 fps on average for the DD-AI network, thereby confirming its superior performance.