TY  - CHAP
A1  - Chavez Bermudez, Victor Francisco
A1  - Wollert, Jörg
T1  - 10BASE-T1L industry 4.0 smart switch for field devices based on IO-Link
T2  - 2022 IEEE 18th International Conference on Factory Communication Systems (WFCS)
N2  - The recent amendment to the Ethernet physical layer known as the IEEE 802.3cg specification, allows to connect devices up to a distance of one kilometer and delivers a maximum of 60 watts of power over a twisted pair of wires. This new standard, also known as 10BASE-TIL, promises to overcome the limits of current physical layers used for field devices and bring them a step closer to Ethernet-based applications. The main advantage of 10BASE- TIL is that it can deliver power and data over the same line over a long distance, where traditional solutions (e.g., CAN, IO-Link, HART) fall short and cannot match its 10 Mbps bandwidth. Due to its recentness, IOBASE- TIL is still not integrated into field devices and it has been less than two years since silicon manufacturers released the first Ethernet-PHY chips. In this paper, we present a design proposal on how field devices could be integrated into a IOBASE-TIL smart switch that allows plug-and-play connectivity for sensors and actuators and is compliant with the Industry 4.0 vision. Instead of presenting a new field-level protocol for this work, we have decided to adopt the IO-Link specification which already includes a plug-and-play approach with features such as diagnosis and device configuration. The main objective of this work is to explore how field devices could be integrated into 10BASE-TIL Ethernet, its adaption with a well-known protocol, and its integration with Industry 4.0 technologies.
KW  - 10BASE-T1L
KW  - Ethernet
KW  - Field device
KW  - Sensors
KW  - IO-Link
Y1  - 2022
SN  - 978-1-6654-1086-1
SN  - 978-1-6654-1087-8
U6  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/WFCS53837.2022.9779176
N1  - 2022 IEEE 18th International Conference on Factory Communication Systems (WFCS),  27-29 April 2022, Pavia, Italy-
PB  - IEEE
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Steinbauer, Gerald
A1  - Ferrein, Alexander
T1  - 20 Years of RoboCup
JF  - KI - Künstliche Intelligenz
Y1  - 2016
U6  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13218-016-0442-z
SN  - 1610-1987
VL  - 30
IS  - 3-4
SP  - 221
EP  - 224
PB  - Springer
CY  - Berlin
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Ferrein, Alexander
A1  - Steinbauer, Gerald
T1  - 20 Years of RoboCup -  A Subjective Retrospection
JF  - KI - Künstliche Intelligenz
N2  - This summer, RoboCup competitions were held for the 20th time in Leipzig, Germany. It was the second time that RoboCup took place in Germany, 10 years after the 2006 RoboCup in Bremen. In this article, we give an overview on the latest developments of RoboCup and what happened in the different leagues over the last decade. With its 20th edition, RoboCup clearly is a success story and a role model for robotics competitions. From our personal view point, we acknowledge this by giving a retrospection about what makes RoboCup such a success.
Y1  - 2016
U6  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13218-016-0449-5
SN  - 1610-1987
VL  - 30
IS  - 3
SP  - 225
EP  - 232
PB  - Springer
CY  - Berlin
ER  - 
TY  - CHAP
A1  - Ferrein, Alexander
T1  - 3D-Mapping von Straßentunneln
T2  - 16. Geokinematischer Tag, 07. und 08. Mai 2015 : Tagungsband / Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg
Y1  - 2015
N1  - Schriftenreihe des Instituts für Markscheidewesen und Geodsäsie an der Technischen Universität Bergakademie Freiberg
SP  - 31
EP  - 40
ER  - 
TY  - CHAP
A1  - Walenta, Robert
A1  - Schellekens, Twan
A1  - Ferrein, Alexander
A1  - Schiffer, Stefan
T1  - A decentralised system approach for controlling AGVs with ROS
T2  - AFRICON, Proceedings
Y1  - 2017
SN  - 978-1-5386-2775-4
U6  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/AFRCON.2017.8095693
SN  - 2153-0033
N1  - AFRICON <2017, 18-20 Sept., Cape Town, South Africa>
SP  - 1436
EP  - 1441
PB  - IEEE
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Ulmer, Jessica
A1  - Braun, Carsten
A1  - Cheng, Chi-Tsun
A1  - Dowey, Steve
A1  - Wollert, Jörg
T1  - A human factors-aware assistance system in manufacturing based on gamification and hardware modularisation
JF  - International Journal of Production Research
N2  - Assistance systems have been widely adopted in the manufacturing sector to facilitate various processes and tasks in production environments. However, existing systems are mostly equipped with rigid functional logic and do not provide individual user experiences or adapt to their capabilities. This work integrates human factors in assistance systems by adjusting the hardware and instruction presented to the workers’ cognitive and physical demands. A modular system architecture is designed accordingly, which allows a flexible component exchange according to the user and the work task. Gamification, the use of game elements in non-gaming contexts, has been further adopted in this work to provide level-based instructions and personalised feedback. The developed framework is validated by applying it to a manual workstation for industrial assembly routines.
KW  - Human factors
KW  - assistance system
KW  - gamification
KW  - adaptive systems
KW  - manufacturing
Y1  - 2023
U6  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2023.2166140
SN  - 0020-7543 (Print)
SN  - 1366-588X (Online)
PB  - Taylor & Francis
ER  - 
TY  - CHAP
A1  - Limpert, Nicolas
A1  - Schiffer, Stefan
A1  - Ferrein, Alexander
T1  - A Local Planner for Ackermann-Driven Vehicles in ROS SBPL
T2  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Pattern Recognition Association of South Africa and Robotics and Mechatronics (PRASA-RobMech), 2015
Y1  - 2015
U6  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/RoboMech.2015.7359518
SP  - 172
EP  - 177
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Engemann, Heiko
A1  - Cönen, Patrick
A1  - Dawar, Harshal
A1  - Du, Shengzhi
A1  - Kallweit, Stephan
T1  - A robot-assisted large-scale inspection of wind turbine blades in manufacturing using an autonomous mobile manipulator
JF  - Applied Sciences
N2  - Wind energy represents the dominant share of renewable energies. The rotor blades of a wind turbine are typically made from composite material, which withstands high forces during rotation. The huge dimensions of the rotor blades complicate the inspection processes in manufacturing. The automation of inspection processes has a great potential to increase the overall productivity and to create a consistent reliable database for each individual rotor blade. The focus of this paper is set on the process of rotor blade inspection automation by utilizing an autonomous mobile manipulator. The main innovations include a novel path planning strategy for zone-based navigation, which enables an intuitive right-hand or left-hand driving behavior in a shared human–robot workspace. In addition, we introduce a new method for surface orthogonal motion planning in connection with large-scale structures. An overall execution strategy controls the navigation and manipulation processes of the long-running inspection task. The implemented concepts are evaluated in simulation and applied in a real-use case including the tip of a rotor blade form.
KW  - mobile manipulation
KW  - large-scale inspection
KW  - wind turbine production
KW  - autonomous navigation
KW  - surface-orthogonal path planning
Y1  - 2021
U6  - http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/app11199271
SN  - 2076-3417
N1  - Belongs to the Special Issue "Advances in Industrial Robotics and Intelligent Systems"
VL  - 11
IS  - 19
SP  - 1
EP  - 22
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  - 
TY  - CHAP
A1  - Reke, Michael
A1  - Peter, Daniel
A1  - Schulte-Tigges, Joschua
A1  - Schiffer, Stefan
A1  - Ferrein, Alexander
A1  - Walter, Thomas
A1  - Matheis, Dominik
T1  - A Self-Driving Car Architecture in ROS2
T2  - 2020 International SAUPEC/RobMech/PRASA Conference, Cape Town, South Africa
Y1  - 2020
SN  - 978-1-7281-4162-6
U6  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/SAUPEC/RobMech/PRASA48453.2020.9041020
SP  - 1
EP  - 6
ER  - 
TY  - CHAP
A1  - Ferrein, Alexander
A1  - Scholl, Ingrid
A1  - Neumann, Tobias
A1  - Krückel, Kai
A1  - Schiffer, Stefan
T1  - A system for continuous underground site mapping and exploration
Y1  - 2019
U6  - http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.85859
ER  - 
TY  - CHAP
A1  - Schiffer, Stefan
A1  - Ferrein, Alexander
T1  - A System Layout for Cognitive Service Robots
T2  - Cognitive Robot Architectures. Proceedings of EUCognition 2016
Y1  - 2017
SN  - 1613-0073
N1  - CEUR-WS Vol-1855
SP  - 44
EP  - 45
ER  - 
TY  - CHAP
A1  - Evans, Benjamin
A1  - Braun, Sebastian
A1  - Ulmer, Jessica
A1  - Wollert, Jörg
T1  - AAS implementations - current problems and solutions
T2  - 20th International Conference on Mechatronics - Mechatronika (ME)
N2  - The fourth industrial revolution presents a multitude of challenges for industries, one of which being the increased flexibility required of manufacturing lines as a result of increased consumer demand for individualised products. One solution to tackle this challenge is the digital twin, more specifically the standardised model of a digital twin also known as the asset administration shell. The standardisation of an industry wide communications tool is a critical step in enabling inter-company operations. This paper discusses the current state of asset administration shells, the frameworks used to host them and their problems that need to be addressed. To tackle these issues, we propose an event-based server capable of drastically reducing response times between assets and asset administration shells and a multi-agent system used for the orchestration and deployment of the shells in the field.
KW  - Industry 4.0
KW  - Multi-agent Systems
KW  - Digital Twin
KW  - Asset Administration Shell
Y1  - 2022
SN  - 978-1-6654-1040-3
U6  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ME54704.2022.9982933
PB  - IEEE
ER  - 
TY  - CHAP
A1  - Ulmer, Jessica
A1  - Braun, Sebastian
A1  - Cheng, Chi-Tsun
A1  - Dowey, Steve
A1  - Wollert, Jörg
T1  - Adapting Augmented Reality Systems to the users’ needs using Gamification and error solving methods
T2  - Procedia CIRP
N2  - Animations of virtual items in AR support systems are typically predefined and lack interactions with dynamic physical environments. AR applications rarely consider users’ preferences and do not provide customized spontaneous support under unknown situations. This research focuses on developing adaptive, error-tolerant AR systems based on directed acyclic graphs and error resolving strategies. Using this approach, users will have more freedom of choice during AR supported work, which leads to more efficient workflows. Error correction methods based on CAD models and predefined process data create individual support possibilities. The framework is implemented in the Industry 4.0 model factory at FH Aachen.
KW  - Augmented Reality
KW  - Adaptive Systems
KW  - Gamification
KW  - Error Recovery
Y1  - 2021
U6  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2021.11.024
SN  - 2212-8271
N1  - Part of special issue: 54th CIRP CMS 2021 - Towards Digitalized Manufacturing 4.0
VL  - 104
SP  - 140
EP  - 145
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  - 
TY  - CHAP
A1  - Marco, Heather G.
A1  - Ferrein, Alexander
T1  - AGNES: The African-German Network of Excellence in Science
T2  - Proceedings of the 2nd Developing World Robotics Forum, Workshop at IEEE AFRICON 2017
Y1  - 2017
SP  - 1
EP  - 2
ER  - 
TY  - CHAP
A1  - Alhwarin, Faraj
A1  - Ferrein, Alexander
A1  - Scholl, Ingrid
T1  - An Efficient Hashing Algorithm for NN Problem in HD Spaces
T2  - Lecture Notes in Computer Science
Y1  - 2019
SN  - 978-303005498-4
U6  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05499-1_6
N1  - 7th International Conference on Pattern Recognition Applications and Methods, ICPRAM 2018; Funchal; Portugal; 16 January 2018 through 18 January 2018; Code 222779
SP  - 101
EP  - 115
ER  - 
TY  - CHAP
A1  - Zug, Sebastian
A1  - Niemueller, Tim
A1  - Hochgeschwender, Nico
A1  - Seidensticker, Kai
A1  - Seidel, Martin
A1  - Friedrich, Tim
A1  - Neumann, Tobias
A1  - Karras, Ulrich
A1  - Kraetzschmar, Gerhard K.
A1  - Ferrein, Alexander
T1  - An Integration Challenge to Bridge the Gap Among Industry-Inspired RoboCup Leagues
T2  - RoboCup 2016: Robot World Cup XX. RoboCup 2016.
Y1  - 2017
SN  - 978-3-319-68792-6
U6  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68792-6_13
N1  - Lecture Notes in Computer Science, LNCS, Vol 9776
SP  - 157
EP  - 168
PB  - Springer
CY  - Cham
ER  - 
TY  - CHAP
A1  - Engemann, Heiko
A1  - Wiesen, Patrick
A1  - Kallweit, Stephan
A1  - Deshpande, Harshavardhan
A1  - Schleupen, Josef
T1  - Autonomous mobile manipulation using ROS
T2  - Advances in Service and Industrial Robotics
Y1  - 2018
SN  - 978-3-319-61276-8
U6  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61276-8_43
N1  - International Conference on Robotics in Alpe-Adria Danube Region RAAD 2017;
Mechanisms and Machince Science book series, Vol 49.
SP  - 389
EP  - 401
PB  - Springer
CY  - Cham
ER  - 
TY  - CHAP
A1  - Engemann, Heiko
A1  - Du, Shengzhi
A1  - Kallweit, Stephan
A1  - Ning, Chuanfang
A1  - Anwar, Saqib
T1  - AutoSynPose: Automatic Generation of Synthetic Datasets for 6D Object Pose Estimation
T2  - Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. Proceedings of MLIS 2020
N2  - We present an automated pipeline for the generation of synthetic datasets for six-dimension (6D) object pose estimation. Therefore, a completely automated generation process based on predefined settings is developed, which enables the user to create large datasets with a minimum of interaction and which is feasible for applications with a high object variance. The pipeline is based on the Unreal 4 (UE4) game engine and provides a high variation for domain randomization, such as object appearance, ambient lighting, camera-object transformation and distractor density. In addition to the object pose and bounding box, the metadata includes all randomization parameters, which enables further studies on randomization parameter tuning. The developed workflow is adaptable to other 3D objects and UE4 environments. An exemplary dataset is provided including five objects of the Yale-CMU-Berkeley (YCB) object set. The datasets consist of 6 million subsegments using 97 rendering locations in 12 different UE4 environments. Each dataset subsegment includes one RGB image, one depth image and one class segmentation image at pixel-level.
Y1  - 2020
SN  - 978-1-64368-137-5
U6  - http://dx.doi.org/10.3233/FAIA200770
N1  - Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications. Vol 332
SP  - 89
EP  - 97
PB  - IOS Press
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  - 
TY  - CHAP
A1  - Niemueller, T.
A1  - Lakemeyer, G.
A1  - Reuter, S.
A1  - Jeschke, S.
A1  - Ferrein, Alexander
T1  - Benchmarking of Cyber-Physical Systems in Industrial Robotics: The RoboCup Logistics League as a CPS Benchmark Blueprint
T2  - Cyber-Physical Systems: Foundations, Principles and Applications
N2  - In the future, we expect manufacturing companies to follow a new paradigm that mandates more automation and autonomy in production processes. Such smart factories will offer a variety of production technologies as services that can be combined ad hoc to produce a large number of different product types and variants cost-effectively even in small lot sizes. This is enabled by cyber-physical systems that feature flexible automated planning methods for production scheduling, execution control, and in-factory logistics.

During development, testbeds are required to determine the applicability of integrated systems in such scenarios. Furthermore, benchmarks are needed to quantify and compare system performance in these industry-inspired scenarios at a comprehensible and manageable size which is, at the same time, complex enough to yield meaningful results.

In this chapter, based on our experience in the RoboCup Logistics League (RCLL) as a specific example, we derive a generic blueprint for how a holistic benchmark can be developed, which combines a specific scenario with a set of key performance indicators as metrics to evaluate the overall integrated system and its components.
KW  - Smart factory
KW  - Industry 4.0
KW  - Cyber-physical systems
KW  - Multi-robot systems
KW  - Autonomous mobile robots
Y1  - 2017
U6  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-803801-7.00013-4
SP  - 193
EP  - 207
PB  - Academic Press
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Schulte-Tigges, Joschua
A1  - Förster, Marco
A1  - Nikolovski, Gjorgji
A1  - Reke, Michael
A1  - Ferrein, Alexander
A1  - Kaszner, Daniel
A1  - Matheis, Dominik
A1  - Walter, Thomas
T1  - Benchmarking of various LiDAR sensors for use in self-driving vehicles in real-world environments
JF  - Sensors
N2  - Abstract
In this paper, we report on our benchmark results of the LiDAR sensors Livox Horizon, Robosense M1, Blickfeld Cube, Blickfeld Cube Range, Velodyne Velarray H800, and Innoviz Pro. The idea was to test the sensors in different typical scenarios that were defined with real-world use cases in mind, in order to find a sensor that meet the requirements of self-driving vehicles. For this, we defined static and dynamic benchmark scenarios. In the static scenarios, both LiDAR and the detection target do not move during the measurement. In dynamic scenarios, the LiDAR sensor was mounted on the vehicle which was driving toward the detection target. We tested all mentioned LiDAR sensors in both scenarios, show the results regarding the detection accuracy of the targets, and discuss their usefulness for deployment in self-driving cars.
KW  - Lidar
KW  - Benchmark
KW  - Self-driving
Y1  - 2022
U6  - http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s22197146
SN  - 1424-8220
N1  - This article belongs to the Special Issue "Sensor Fusion for Vehicles Navigation and Robotic Systems"
VL  - 22
IS  - 19
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  -