Aurelio Vega

A cost-effective machine is presented to automatically carry out PCBs' optical, electrical, and thermal inspection. It can generate high-resolution composite images and perform automated voltage and temperature measurements at any point in the work area. Its use is designed for teaching and research environments, although it is also helpful in a repair workshop for troubleshooting.

A library is presented that makes it easier for students to create TCP/IP communications applications. Even though the library offers elementary and high-level usage functions, additionally, resolves all asynchronous call sequences with low-level sockets.

This work presents LabPcb, a graphical environment to facilitate the verification of PCB designs sent to the factory and their subsequent assembly and testing. LabPcb is the global name of the work environment made up of three applications. LPEditor to handle the creation and visualisation of PCBs by importing Gerber files, drill files, pick & place coordinates, test point coordinates or images of the PCB. LPMachine to simplify the control of machines working with printed circuits. LPController to handle multi-protocols communications between LabPcb and the compatible machines. The proposed solution allows the user to work with different workflows: a) manufacture of printed circuits, b) automatic assembly of SMD components, c) optical inspection, d) performance of electronic fault location tests, e) generation of assembly information and f) help to obtain diagrams through reverse engineering. It also allows the user to perform these workflows on physical or simulated machines, fulfilling assembly and teaching functions. This system has been tested on different drilling/milling and pick&place machines and with a large set of PCBs, demonstrating its educational capability.

A teaching tool, M3CVME, is presented that makes it easier for students to design and implement a data communication system. This tool was developed with the aim of assisting lab works of the Industrial Informatics subject. Using it, the student can select what entity of the communication system they want to simulate: the supervisory application, the system controller, or a remote TCP client. As M3CVME allows to simulate each communication system entity, the student can use each to check his own developed entity. The main advantage achieved is that the student can develop a moderately complex and almost real communication entity during the lab-session time, due to the support of the entities simulated by the tool, that are used to test their works. Later, a collaboration experience provided the opportunity to use M3CVME to integrate session labs with another subject of the same course level. The tool was then applied to control and supervise an electric vehicle (EV) prototype in the Power Electronics subject. With M3CVME, from the point of view of Industrial Informatics, the student can integrate systems using communication media and protocols. During several academic years (since 2018) it has been possible to verify that the availability of the M3CVME tool has been totally determinant for the students to be able to finish practices with this level of deepness and complexity.

Integration of technological solutions aims to improve accuracy, precision and repeatability in farming operations, and biosensor devices are increasingly used for understanding basic biology during livestock production. The aim of this study was to design and validate a miniaturized tri-axial accelerometer for non-invasive monitoring of farmed fish with re-programmable schedule protocols. The current device (AE-FishBIT v.1s) is a small (14 mm × 7 mm × 7 mm), stand-alone system with a total mass of 600 mg, which allows monitoring animals from 30 to 35 g onwards. The device was attached to the operculum of gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata) and European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) juveniles for monitoring their physical activity by measurements of movement accelerations in x- and y-axes, while records of operculum beats (z-axis) served as a measurement of respiratory frequency. Data post-processing of exercised fish in swimming test chambers revealed an exponential increase of fish accelerations with the increase of fish speed from 1 body-length to 4 body-lengths per second, while a close relationship between oxygen consumption (MO₂) and opercular frequency was consistently found. Preliminary tests in free-swimming fish kept in rearing tanks also showed that device data recording was able to detect changes in daily fish activity. The usefulness of low computational load for data pre-processing with on-board algorithms was verified from low to submaximal exercise, increasing this procedure the autonomy of the system up to 6 h of data recording with different programmable schedules. Visual observations regarding tissue damage, feeding behavior and circulating levels of stress markers (cortisol, glucose, and lactate) did not reveal at short term a negative impact of device tagging. Reduced plasma levels of triglycerides revealed a transient inhibition of feed intake in small fish (sea bream 50–90 g, sea bass 100–200 g), but this disturbance was not detected in larger fish. All this considered together is the proof of concept that miniaturized devices are suitable for non-invasive and reliable metabolic phenotyping of farmed fish to improve their overall performance and welfare. Further work is underway for improving the attachment procedure and the full device packaging.

Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) allows for the acquisition of large numbers of spectral bands throughout the electromagnetic spectrum (within and beyond the visual range) with respect to the surface of scenes captured by sensors. Using this information and a set of complex classification algorithms, it is possible to determine which material or substance is located in each pixel. The work presented in this paper aims to exploit the characteristics of HSI to develop a demonstrator capable of delineating tumor tissue from brain tissue during neurosurgical operations. Improved delineation of tumor boundaries is expected to improve the results of surgery. The developed demonstrator is composed of two hyperspectral cameras covering a spectral range of 400–1700 nm. Furthermore, a hardware accelerator connected to a control unit is used to speed up the hyperspectral brain cancer detection algorithm to achieve processing during the time of surgery. A labeled dataset comprised of more than 300,000 spectral signatures is used as the training dataset for the supervised stage of the classification algorithm. In this preliminary study, thematic maps obtained from a validation database of seven hyperspectral images of in vivo brain tissue captured and processed during neurosurgical operations demonstrate that the system is able to discriminate between normal and tumor tissue in the brain. The results can be provided during the surgical procedure (~1 min), making it a practical system for neurosurgeons to use in the near future to improve excision and potentially improve patient outcomes.

DC characteristics of AlGaN/GaN on Si MOS-HEMTs are measured and numerically simulated, with substrate temperature up to 140°C, varying the gate width and gate length. Different gate recess depths are simulated in ATLAS in order to further investigate and optimize the device performance. Thermal boundary conditions and device thermal resistance are included in the structure for accurate simulation of the heating response. In addition, the relationship of the threshold voltage and saturation velocity with the substrate temperature and gate width has been studied and set in order to ease the modelling of these devices.

An In-Circuit Test machine (ICT) is a tool to carry out electrical tests on already assembled printed circuits through a set of probes making contact on some selected circuit nodes to monitorize their electrical signals or to induce electrical states at those nodes. This paper introduces the hardware, software and mechanical development of a low cost modular test system to make In-Circuit Test (ICT) intended for electronic prototypes of small and medium manufacturing series.

The state of the art of current technology requires the manufacturing of electronic prototypes using SMD parts. In this paper a new software tool to aid the production of these prototypes is presented. The tool is specifically designed to organize the production of prototypes with manual pick&place machines, but is also suitable for the preparation of the necessary files for subsequent production of small and medium series by automated production.

In this paper it is described the experience gained in the development and use of CQMIH PLC simulator which uses OMRON Host-Link protocol through RS-232 serial port and can works with analogic and digital I/O. The purpose of this simulator is to simplify the task of debugging code when developing communication applications in an Industrial Computing course.