Jose Manuel Lopez-Guede

Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea | UPV/EHU · Systems and Automatic Engineering

The automatic classification of marine species based on images is a challenging task for which multiple solutions have been increasingly provided in the past two decades. Oceans are complex ecosystems, difficult to access, and often the images obtained are of low quality. In such cases, animal classification becomes tedious. Therefore, it is often...

Deep Learning (DL) has provided a significant breakthrough in many areas of research and industry. The development of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) has enabled the improvement of computer vision-based techniques, making the information gathered from cameras more useful. For this reason, recently, studies have been carried out on the use of i...

The presence of suspended particles in liquid fluids is one of the main reasons for hydraulic system failure. Metallic impurities in particular increase the presence of toxic substances in wastewater; therefore, it is vital to study and address the behaviour of such particles in water flows. The current literature lacks studiees approaching the com...

The authors wish to correct the following error in the original paper [...]

This paper introduces the use of a new low-computation cost algorithm combining neural networks with the Nelder–Mead simplex method to monitor the variations of the parameters of a previously selected equivalent circuit calculated from Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) corresponding to a series of battery aging experiments. These variati...

COVID-19 has been spread to many countries all over the world in a relatively short period, largely overwhelmed hospitals have been a direct consequence of the explosive increase of coronavirus cases. In this dire situation, the demand for the development of clinical decision support systems based on predictive algorithms has increased, since these...

Nowadays everyone should be aware of the importance of reducing CO2 emissions which produce the greenhouse effect. In the field of construction, several options are proposed to reach nearly-Zero Energy Building (nZEB) standards. Obviously, before undertaking a modification in any part of a building focused on improving the energy performance, it is...

This paper deals with the control of a team of unmanned air vehicles (UAVs), specifically quadrotors, for which their mission is the transportation of a deformable linear object (DLO), i.e., a cable, hose or similar object in quasi-stationary state, while cruising towards destination. Such missions have strong industrial applications in the transpo...

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the pressure on developing clinical decision-making systems based on predictive algorithms, potentially helping to reduce the unmanageable strain on healthcare systems. In an attempt to address this challenging health situation, we attempted to provide a contribution to this endeavour with an in-depth study of a...

In the present work, an artificial neural network (ANN) will be developed to estimate the relative rotation and translation of the autonomous mobile robot (AMR). The ANN will work as an iterative closed point, which is commonly used with the singular value decomposition algorithm. This development will provide better resolution for a relative posit...

This work evaluates the evolution of electrochemical parameters, such as voltage and impedance spectra, to determine the state of charge (SOC), state of health (SOH), and electrolyte level of vented NiCd batteries. Similar to previous studies on lead acid batteries, valuable results are presented for SOC estimation based on open-circuit voltage. So...

Random forest (RF) models were developed to estimate the biomass for the Pinus radiata species in a region of the Basque Autonomous Community where this species has high cover, using the National Forest Inventory, allometric equations and low-density discrete LiDAR data. This article explores the tuning for RF hyperparameters, obtaining two models...

There are few studies concerning the propagation of COVID-19 pandemic, besides theoretical models that have produced alarming predictions. These models assume wave-like propagation dynamics on an uniform medium. However, it appears that COVID-19 follows unexpected propagation dynamics. In this paper we consider the state-wise data on COVID-19 morta...

Abstract: Flow control device modeling is an engaging research field for wind turbine optimization, since in recent years wind turbines have grown in proportions and weight. The purpose of the present work was to study the performance and effects generated by a rotating microtab (MT) implemented on the trailing edge of a DU91W250 airfoil through th...

In this work, a maximum power point tracking (MPPT) system for its application to a new piezoelectric wind energy harvester (PWEH). The motivation for such MPPT unit comes from the power scales of the piezoelectric layers being in the order of μW. In addition, the output generates highly disturbed voltage waveforms with high total harmonic distorti...

The protection provided by wearing masks has been a guideline worldwide to prevent the risk of COVID-19 infection. The current work presents an investigation that analyzes the effectiveness of face shields as personal protective equipment. To that end, a multiphase computational fluid dynamic study based on Eulerian–Lagrangian techniques was define...

In this article, a control strategy approach is proposed for a system consisting of a quadrotortransporting a double pendulum. In our case, we attempt to achieve a swing free transportationof the pendulum, while the quadrotor closely follows a specific trajectory. This dynamic system ishighly nonlinear, therefore, the fulfillment of this complex ta...

Obtaining tools to analyze and predict the performance of batteries is a non-trivial challenge because it involves non-destructive evaluation procedures. At the research level, the development of sensors to allow cell-level monitoring is an innovative path, and electrochemical impedance spectrometry (EIS) has been identified as one of the most prom...

This work presents a battery management system for lead-acid batteries that integrates a battery-block (12 V) sensor that allows the online monitoring of a cell's temperature, voltage, and impedance spectra. The monitoring and diagnostic capabilities enable the implementation of improved battery management algorithms in order to increase the life e...

Nowadays, most areas of human activity should be reviewed with the aim of reducing CO2 emissions, since these activities are producing the majority of these emissions. Specifically, the building sector is one of the main responsible activities. In order to minimize the ecological footprint and ensure energy sufficiency, European Union created the n...

This work presents the results of experimental analysis of the correlation between open-circuit voltage at 0% and the state of charge of a set (3 × 6) of high-temperature valve-regulated lead acid batteries, which provides a valuable health diagnosis tool when performing predictive maintenance actions. The proposed test could be executed after any...

The design procedure of a Machine Learning (ML) based yaw control strategy for a Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine (HAWT) is presented in the following chapter. The proposed yaw control strategy is based on the interaction of three different Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to design a ML system: Reinforcement Learning (RL), Artificial Neural Net...

One of the materials that is used widely for wind turbine blade manufacturing are fiber-reinforced composites. Although glass fiber reinforcement is the most used in wind turbine blades, the use of carbon fiber allows larger blades to be manufactured due to their better mechanical characteristics. Some turbine manufacturers are using carbon fiber i...

Road landmark inventory is becoming an important data product for the maintenance of transport infrastructures. Several commercial sensors are available which include synchronized optical cameras that allowto build 360° panoramic images of the surroundings of the the vehicle used for road inspection. This paper is devoted to the analysis of such pa...

Academic programs are trying to implement edge technologies on their Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees offerings. In this paper authors present the experience of a dedicated electromobility research project and its alternative use for academic purposes. A case study is selected in a university in Chile, where the design of a new laboratory that serve...

One of the implementations of novel initiatives in the field of education that requires more efforts is the entire implementation of a new Bachelor’s degree based on dual training. These efforts involve on one hand the design of an extremely experimental degree and on the other hand, the engagement of local companies that must collaborate in a rigo...

This paper presents an expansion of an Artificial Intelligence workshop developed with Scratch for high school students, which already proved its evidence for the demystification and mathematic basis understanding of this discipline. Students will be able to understand and practice with two simple algorithms, following closely the short instruction...

Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) need a positioning function to move into unknown areas. These kinds of vehicles do not use a magnetic tape to guide into warehouses. Therefore, AMR use two different alternative techniques to solve the localization problem. First one is based on absolute positioning, and second one is established on relative localizat...

With the development of artificial intelligence, alternative advanced machine learning approaches have allowed the training of increasingly sophisticated models via the available data. The light detection and ranging (LiDAR) remote sensing technique is being increasingly applied to obtain informative terrain maps, due to its ability to collect larg...

Road landmark inventory is becoming an important industry for the maintenance of transport infrastructures among others. Several commercial sensors are available witch include LiDAR sensors allowing to capture up to 1.5 million data point per second. We obtain an intensity based image from the LiDAR point cloud intensity. The landmark detection is...

Large-scale energy storage systems (ESS) are nowadays growing in popularity due to the increase in the energy production by renewable energy sources, which in general have a random intermittent nature. Currently, several redox flow batteries have been presented as an alternative of the classical ESS; the scalability, design flexibility and long lif...

Within the different modeling possibilities to describe the behavior of complex dynamic systems, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) are one of the most outstanding approaches. In this paper authors have used that approach to model the electrical performance of a specific commercial single proton exchange (PEM) fuel cell (FC). More specifically, a 2 K...

At a very high energy consumption level at national level the Human Development Index actually begins to decrease. The basis is a large data set with all nations energy and HDI stats. The article discusses the statistical findings in detail.

The former consensus on a link between energy consumption and improved well-being of a country has been scrutinized by scholars for decades and is, succinctly, for the time being a contested thesis. Until the 1970s the relation of energy to well-being was defined as linearly proportional, and in a later period still as an increasing logarithmic fun...

In this article authors propose a temperature based Maximum Power Point Tracking algorithm (MPPT). Authors show that there is an optimal current vs maximum power curve that depends on photovoltaic (PV) module temperature. Therefore, the maximum power point (MPP) can be achieved in very few commutation steps if the control forces the PV module to wo...

Over the last few years, the advances in size and weight for wind turbines have led to the development of flow control devices. The current work presents an innovative method to model flow control devices based on a cell-set model, such as Gurney flaps (GFs). This model reuses the cells which are around the required geometry and a wall boundary con...

In the current context of an aging population in many developed countries, the issue of healthy aging is at the forefront of the political, scientific, and technological concerns. The frailty accompanying the late years of elderly people (>70 years old) deserves special consideration due to its great economical and personal costs and the workload i...

Vortex generators (VGs) are used increasingly more by the wind turbine manufacture industry as flow control devices to improve rotor blade aerodynamic performance. The VG height is usually designed with equal thickness of the local boundary layer at the VG position. Nevertheless, these conventional VGs may produce excess residual drag in some appli...

An understanding of marine ecosystems and their biodiversity is relevant to sustainable use of the goods and services they offer. Since marine areas host complex ecosystems, it is important to develop spatially widespread monitoring networks capable of providing large amounts of multiparametric information, encompassing both biotic and abiotic vari...

This paper presents several educational applications in Scratch that are proposed for the active participation of undergraduate students in contexts of Artificial Intelligence. The students are asked to understand the mathematics involved in an automatic clustering algorithm and two simple neural networks for data learning. They must practice with...

Hydrogen based technologies are a growing field among the renewable energies options, being the single proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells (FC) one of the most promising. There are a number of possibilities to model the electrical behavior of this kind of devices. Among them, in this paper authors have tackled the problem using an Artificial...

The considerable increase of wind turbine rotor size and weight in the last years has made impossible to control as they were controlled 20 years ago. The cost of energy is an essential role to maintain this type of energy as a viable alternative in economic terms with traditional or other renewable energies. Through the last decades many different...

Estimation of forestry aboveground biomass (AGB) by means of aerial Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data uses high-density point sampling data obtained in dedicated flights, which are often too costly for available research budgets. In this paper we exploit already existing public low-density LiDAR data obtained for other purposes, such as cart...

In this paper we present a state-of-the-art review about road lane landmark extraction. Automatic lane landmark extraction has been studied during the last decade for different practical applications. The purpose of this paper is to gather and discuss methodologies of road lane landmark extraction based on signals from different sensors in order to...

The use of data driven predictive systems is becoming widespread as innovations in machine learning techniques have allowed the training of increasingly sophisticated models via the available data. The light detection and ranging (LiDAR) remote sensing technique is being increasingly applied to obtain informative terrain maps, due to its ability to...

This paper describes an educational experiment carried out by an Educational Innovation Project (EIP), developed in the field of Industrial Informatics during the biennium 2011/2013 at the Faculty of Engineering of Vitoria-Gasteiz (University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU, Spain). In this paper the general situation regarding the European Higher E...

Since 2017–2018 academic year, the Bachelor’s Degree in Auto-motive Engineering has been implemented at the Faculty of Engineering of Vitoria-Gasteiz (Basque Country University, UPV/EHU) in dual format, based on the complementarity of the University and company learning environments. With this type of education the aim is to achieve greater motivat...

The first step for an optimum energy consumption reducing planning supposes the accurate estimation of the primary sources. For this purpose, Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) remote sensing technique is being widely applied because its ability to collect huge amounts of data with good accuracy. This study focuses on the application of this techn...

In this paper authors introduce an ongoing Educational Innovation Project (EIP) that is being carried out at the Faculty of Engineering of Vitoria-Gasteiz (Basque Country University, UPV/EHU, Spain). Since it is interesting from the point of view of universities, research institutes and even traditional companies, the aim of the project is to intro...

The jump from Secondary Education to University is noticed by students once they have seen the bad obtained results after the first ordinary exam session they deal with. Many factors such as group integration problems, lack of motivation and/or required study methodology turn the jump a difficult wall to overcome. The aim of this work is start a di...

Vortex generators are passive devices employed to improve the aerodynamic performance of aircraft and wind turbine blades. More concretely, these devices have high potential in improving the power output of wind turbines that are producing less power than expected. Besides, it can improve the aerodynamic performance of the nearest parts to the roto...

In this article, a q-learning control strategy is proposed for a system consisting of a UAV lifting a damped pendulum from the ground. This dynamic system is highly nonlinear and thereafter, it represents a challenging task to get a smooth and precise behaviour. Aerial transportation of a pendulum in a stable way is a step forward in the state of a...

Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) is a relatively new surveying technology with the ability to capture and represent a physical environment as never before. This technique has revolutionized the way the data are gathered in the topographical mapping, going from discrete data collection to a massive one. The main advantage of the technique is that...

The prediction of readmissions in the healthcare system, i.e. patients that are discharged and come back in a short interval of time, has taken great importance as readmissions have been taken as a measure of the system quality of service. Most studies in the literature follow a classification approach predicting the occurrence of the readmission e...

This paper presents a educational workshop in Scratch that is proposed for the active participation of undergraduate students in contexts of Artificial Intelligence. The main objective of the activity is to demystify the complexity of Artificial Intelligence and its algorithms. For this purpose, students must realize simple exercises of clustering...

Human motion capture by optical sensors produces snapshots of the motion of a cloud of points that need to be labeled in order to carry out ensuing motion analysis for medical or other purposes. We generate the labeling of instantaneous captures of the cloud of points, discarding temporal correlations, in the presence of occlusions. Our approach pr...

The relevance of renewable energies is undeniable, and among them, the importance of wind energy is capital. A lot of literature has been devoted to the control techniques that deal with the optimization of the energy produced, but the maintainability of the individual wind turbines and of the farms in general is also a fundamental factor to take i...

This paper introduces a novel data driven yaw control algorithm synthesis method based on Reinforcement Learning (RL) for a variable pitch variable speed wind turbine. Yaw control has not been extendedly studied in the literature; in fact, most of the currently considered developments in the scope of the wind energy are oriented to the pitch and sp...

Under intensive industry, industrial furnaces must cope with new challenges to improve the efficiency, reliability and flexibility of their processes. As they need a great amount of energy to achieve the temperature required for heating and melting processes, many researchers have been focused on the minimization of the energy consumption. This ene...

Although there are a wide variety of applications that require wind speed time series (WSTS), this paper emphases on WSTS to be used into wind turbine controllers tuning. These simulations involve several WSTS to perform a proper assessment. These WSTS must assure realistic wind speed variations such as wind gusts and include some rare events such...

The need to reduce CO2 emissions makes it necessary to review most areas of human activity because we are the main source of these emissions. In particular, the building sector is one of its main responsible. Through a State of the Art, several papers published in various scientific journals about nearly Zero Energy Building (nZEB) studies are revi...

The increasing capability of Wind Turbine (WT) based power generation systems has derived in an increment of the WT rotor diameter, i.e., longer rotor blades. This results in an increase of the electrical power generated but also in instabilities in the operation of the WT, especially due to the mechanical fatigue loads generated in its elements. I...

Several flow control devices have been studied in recent years. Majority of them were designed firstly for aeronautical purposes. At present many research is aimed to introduce these devices in wind turbines (WTs) in order to optimize their aerodynamic performance. The main goal of the present work is to analyze the influence of passive flow contro...

A new Energy Management Strategy to reduce the hydrogen consumption is proposed for Hybrid Power Systems based on Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell system used as backup source. The Energy Management Strategy uses a Load Following control loop of requested load demand on DC bus and an optimization control loop to improve the fuel economy based on...