Diego Borro

CEIT Centro de Estudios e Investigaciones Técnicas de Gipuzkoa | CEIT · Department of Applied Mechanics

The future of autonomous driving is slowly approaching, but there are still many steps to take before it can become a reality. It is crucial to pay attention to road infrastructure, because without it, intelligent vehicles will not be able to operate reliably, and it will never be possible to dispense of driver’s control. This paper presents the wo...

With the ongoing Industry 4.0 (I4.0) revolution, plant management and supervision play a key role in the development and (re-)design of industrial plants. In the arising scenarios, the need to coordinate human workers and autonomous systems, sharing the same environment, teaming together, becomes a fundamental requirement. Indeed, even though autom...

Aeronautics, in the context of industry 4.0, is continuously evolving to respond to the market dynamics and has incorporated automation to many stages of aircraft manufacturing. However, most of the final assembly line processes are still done manually and remain a challenge. Virtual Reality (VR) technologies can be leveraged to study the incorpora...

Wearable exoskeletons can be valuable assistive robots to physically support humans in a wide variety of daily living activities. However, there is a lack of standards for the devices benchmark and evaluation. The STEPbySTEP project is developing a modular and sensorized reconfigurable staircase testbed for lower-limb exoskeletons benchmarking to b...

Due to changes and movements during a measurement process, the need to have an alignment system becomes imperative, in order to avoid all possible errors that may arise from a lack of alignment. In the effort to obtain the best possible conditions for alignment, it is necessary to check whether the object to be measured is well-positioned. Good ali...

Background: Technological developments to treat hearing loss with different types of hearing aids and auditory implants have improved the auditory perception of patients, particularly in highly complex listening conditions. These devices can be fitted and adapted to enhance speech perception. Audiological tests that assess hearing with and without...

European road safety has improved greatly in recent decades. However, the current numbers are still far away to reach the European Commission’s road safety targets. In this context, Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) are expected to significantly improve road safety, traffic efficiency and comfort of driving, by helping the driver to...

This paper shows two developed digital systems as an example of intelligent garage and maintenance that targets the applicability of augmented reality and wearable devices technologies to the maintenance of bus fleets. Both solutions are designed to improve the maintenance process based on verification of tasks checklist. The main contribution of t...

Industrial vision highlights a growing trend in industrial systems. As camera sensors become smarter, the quality of data produced increases and it improves the accuracy results. One of the most decisive steps for getting accurate measurements is the calibration process. This paper aims to analyze the effect of four calibration parameters: camera f...

Robotic rehabilitation for poststroke therapies is an emerging new domain of application for robotics with proven success stories and clinical studies. New robotic devices and software applications are hitting the market, with the aim of assisting specialists carrying out physical therapies and even patients exercising at home. Rehabilitation robot...

https://sites.google.com/site/dborro/research/haptics https://sites.google.com/site/dborro/research/collision-detection https://sites.google.com/site/dborro/research/collision-response

Quality control has become a priority in the inspection processes of industrial manufacturing of gears. Due to the advancement of technology and the realizations of Industry 4.0, smart factories demand high precision and accuracy in the measurements and inspection of industrial gears. Machine vision technology provides image-based inspection and an...

Virtual reality (VR)- and augmented reality (AR)-based simulations are key technologies in Industry 4.0 which allow for testing and studying of new processes before their deployment. A simulator of industrial processes needs a flexible way in which to model the activities performed by the worker and other elements involved, such as robots and machi...

A recent review of the current literature on the clinical effectiveness of powered exoskeleton-assisted walking shows that most training programs and clinical studies are based on walking on flat indoor surfaces while there is a lack of data regarding the use of exoskeleton in more complex tasks such as walking outdoors, navigating obstacles, climb...

The EU ACCLAIM project as part of the European Clean Sky 2 activities is oriented to improve the aircraft assembly process. The SIMFAL H2020 Clean Sky 2 project is part of the ACCLAIM project, whose objective is to analyse, plan and optimize automated assembly tasks of cabin and cargo interior parts, with a coexistence between human workforce and m...

This paper presents a visual tracking system for deformable objects used with a robot-assisted surgical system. The system is capable of capturing in real time the deformation exerted by the robot using Computer Vision, and despite the occlusions produced by the robotic system itself. The information captured by this system enables new assistance a...

The analysis of the progression of cardiovascular diseases is an active area of ongoing research. This paper develops an image registration-based methodology to quantify the patient-specific local blood vessel shape variations that occur in the radial direction (i.e. expansion or shrinkage) over an imaging follow-up period, and an example is presen...

Medical images are being studied to analyse the brain in neurological disorders. Measurements extracted from Diffusion tensor image (DTI) such as Fractional Anisotropy (FA) describe the brain changes caused by diseases. However, there is no single best method for the quantitative brain analysis. This paper presents a review of the existing methods...

This paper proposes a novel approach to registering deformations of 3D non-rigid objects for Augmented Reality applications. Our prototype is able to handle different types of objects in real-time regardless of their geometry and appearance (with and without texture) with the support of an RGB-D camera. During an automatic offline stage, the model...

A proposed real-time neurosurgery simulator handles skull drilling and surgical interaction with the brain. This involves the development and combination of areas such as collision handling, haptic rendering, physical simulation, and volumetric visualization. The simulator's input data comes from computed-tomography and magnetic-resonance-imaging i...

Background This study aimed to describe the state of the art in surgical robotics for spinal interventions, a challenging problem for which robots can provide valuable assistance. Methods Multiple electronic databases were searched for articles published during the last 10years (2002-2012). Results were refined by defined inclusion criteria. Result...

This article presents a comprehensive framework for the recognition of untextured 3D models in a single image. The method proposed here is capable of recovering a 3D pose in a few hundred of milliseconds, which is a difficult challenge using this type of model.This proposal deals with 3D models that lack texture, so geometry features of the model a...

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is the most prevalent psychiatric illness in the elderly. DTI (Diffusion tensor imaging) has been applied widely in order to study the aetiology and physiopathology of major depressive disorder. DTI provides in vivo measures of the brain and numerous studies have discovered white matter abnormalities in MDD in the el...

Este trabajo presenta la estrategia de control implementada en un nuevo sistema robótico de asistencia para cirugía de fijación transpedicular, la cual es un tipo de cirugía en la espina dorsal y consiste en la inmovilización de dos o más vértebras por medio de tornillos y barras metálicas. El prototipo presentado emplea un brazo robótico industria...

In the medical simulation world the use of isosurfaces is a common action, as the information from some sources, e.g. CTs, is very well defined, and the isosurface can be easily set. Additionally, in any simulator shadows are a necessary addition to increase the users immersion as well as its depth perception. Unfortunately, the Visualization Toolk...

Marker systems are a widely used optical tracking method that does not support occlusions. Thus, this paper proposes a new marker design to overcome the problem of marker occlusions. It is highly adaptable, because it can be used by any marker tracking system that uses its central area to codify the digital identification. Our proposal takes advant...

Real-time Virtual Reality applications require accuracy but are also time dependent; therefore, in these environments, the time consumption is particularly important. For that reason, when facing the problem of Collision Detection for a Virtual Reality application, we firstly focus our attention on optimizing time performance for collisions among o...

This chapter describes a surface reconstruction method that mixes interpolating and approximating features and its implementation in graphics hardware. Hybrid methods are useful in areas such sculpting, medicine, and cultural heritage, where details must be preserved. Such cases may also contain noise (due to sampling inaccuracies) or duplicated po...

This paper proposes a new real-time Augmented Reality based tool to help in disassembly for maintenance operations. This tool provides workers with augmented instructions to perform maintenance tasks more efficiently. Our prototype is a complete framework characterized by its capability to automatically generate all the necessary data from input ba...

Maintenance operations have a great impact on the safety and life expectancy of any product. This is especially true for certain applications within the aerospace industry, which must pass rigorous security checking procedures. Wearable helping systems can help to reduce costs and working time by guiding workers in some specific and difficult tasks...

This document describes an extension of the Insight Toolkit (ITK, www.itk.org) for 2D-3D registration with multiple fixed images, that is, registration of a three-dimensional dataset to a group of fixed planar projections. 2D-3D registration is possible with ITK’s standard classes but with several limitations: the number of fixed images is restrict...

This paper addresses the problem of camera tracking and 3D reconstruction from image sequences, i.e., the monocular SLAM problem. Traditionally, this problem is solved using non-linear minimization techniques that are very accurate but hardly used in real time. This work presents a highly parallelizable random sampling approach based on Monte Carlo...

Traditionally triangulating 3D points from image features is a complex task that involves non-linear optimization techniques that are computationally very expensive. This work proposes an algorithm based on Monte Carlo simulations that fits well on the graphics hardware and can perform the triangulation in real time. Results are compared against th...

Volume rendering has been widely used in different fields where several rendering algorithms have been developed, such as shear-warp, ray casting or splatting. But independently of the rendering method, transfer functions are usually used for mapping values and other properties of the volume into colors. As an improvement of transfer functions, sty...

Development of a maxillofacial surgery simulation software capable of predicting a patient's appearance after surgery. We have derived a new mass-spring model (MSM) equivalent to a linear finite element (FE) model for cubic elements. In addition, we propose the scaled displacement method as a new method to perform the simulation more realistically....

Currently, many visualization methods are used in computer assisted medicine. It is commonly considered that a unique visualization scheme makes difficult the interaction and limits the quality and quantity of the information shown. In this paper we study the specific requirements of a maxillofacial surgery simulation tool for facial appearance pre...

A new three degree-of-freedom (3DOF) torque feedback wrist is being developed to be added to an existing 3DOF force feedback haptic device. It is difficult to find a satisfactory solution to the mechanical design problem, mainly because of the required large rotational workspace and severe weight constraints. This work proposes an alternative desig...

This paper introduces a novel estimation technique to compute camera translation and rotation (only in the axis that is perpendicular to the image plane) when a marker is partially occluded. The approach has two main advantages: I) only one marker is necessary; and 2) it has a low computational cost. As a result of the second feature, this proposal...

One of the main tasks facing the manager of a historical centre is to avoid degradation while retaining the historical value. For this reason, any intervention which takes place on the environment, should be carefully managed. Only when performing a proper diagnosis of the environment and its reality is possible to follow a high quality interventio...

The design of a new 3 degrees-of-freedom (DOF) haptic wrist for our 3-DOF force feedback haptic device is presenting a great design challenge. Demanding target specifications make it difficult to find a satisfactory mechanical design solution. This paper studies whether sensory substitution can lead to the possibility of simplifying the mechanics w...

A GPU capable method for surface reconstruction from unorganized point clouds without additional information, called GLT (GPU Local Triangulation), is presented. The main objective of this research is the generation of a GPU interpolating reconstruction based on local Delaunay triangulations, inspired by a pre-existing reconstruction algorithm. Cur...

The planning of disassembly sequences requires the identification of the extraction trajectories of the different parts or assemblies. The failure to find these trajectories can make a planner fail to generate correct sequences or not evaluate potential solutions. In this paper, we analyze the disassembly path-planning problem, its relation to the...

In this paper we present a real-time 3D object tracking algorithm based on edges and using a single pre-calibrated camera. During the tracking process, the algorithm is continuously projecting the 3D model to the current frame by using the pose estimated in the previous frame. Once projected, some control points are generated along the visible edge...

Purpose This paper aims to develop path‐planning techniques that support a general selective disassembly planner in a virtual reality environment. Design/methodology/approach The paper presents an automatic selective disassembly planning and two path‐planning techniques that support it. The first one is based on single translations, while the seco...

We present a GPU method for surface reconstruction from unorganized point clouds without additional information, based on the work of [Gopi et al. 2000]. The main objective of this work is the generation of a GPU interpolating reconstruction method by using local Delaunay triangulations. Existing algorithms accelerated by graphic hardware are appro...

The correct planning of the assembly or disassembly of a product is of great importance for many aspects of a product such as its final cost, its impact on the environment or the number of hours that it can be used. We present a method for the automatic and fast generation of part precedence information for the planning of assembly and disassembly...

Maintenance operations have a great impact in the security and life expectancy of any product. Virtual Reality can help reducing costs and design time by moving testing from physical mock-ups to virtual ones. VR allows the application of additional tools not possible in a physical mock-up. The increase in power of current computers allows their use...

Haptic technology is quite recent and therefore in many cases it is difficult to simulate real contacts or interactions with a high sensation of realism. Collision response methods that calculate the force-feedback tend to cause haptic instabilities when the normal direction changes abruptly. In consequence, collision or contact events are often di...

Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology which is progressively being introduced in new areas of application including the construction sector, reconstruction of historic legacy, training of workers in industrial processes, marketing tasks, interior design, multimedia museum guides, and others. The academic world has not remained unaffected by these...

Environments of a certain nature, such as those related to maintenance tasks can benefited from haptic stimuli by performing accessibility simulation in a realistic manner. Accessibility is defined as the physical feasibility of accessing an element of a D model avoiding undesirable collisions. This paper studies the benefits that multisensory syst...

Haptic technology is quite recent and therefore in many cases it is difficult to simulate real contacts or interactions with a high sensation of realism. Collision response methods that calculate the force-feedback tend to cause haptic instabilities when the normal direction changes abruptly. In consequence, collision events in sharp corners are of...

VR requires the integration of different elements that deal with: data description and management, display or rendering techniques and user integration in the simulation loop. Data comprehends not only objects description and behaviour, but also display control, user interface and networking. So VR systems can grow to become very large and complex...

The collision problem appears within many fields. The specific characteristics that can be identified in different problems lead to the broad set of specialized algorithms that appear in the literature. This paper deals with the first step needed to address the collision problem taxonomy challenge: a survey that compiles and suggests a set of chara...

The virtual reality for maintainability (Revima) VR system supports maintainability simulation in aeronautics. Within this project we have developed and integrated a haptic device, the large haptic interface for aeronautic maintainability (LHIfAM). We use this device to track hand movements and provide force feedback within the large geometric mode...

This paper describes a Collision Method for massive virtual environments composed of millions of triangles. It has been applied in the aeronautics industry for maintainability simulations using virtual aircraft engine mock-ups. The method performs well and has a good interactive frame rate even when it is used for computing force feedback with hapt...

REVIMA is a virtual reality system for maintainability simulation in Aeronautics. It comprises both hardware and software developments, plus system integration. REVIMA required the design of a new haptic system. It is used both to track hand movements and to return force feedback that provides the sensation of working with a physical mock-up. The m...

We describe a specific problem within the foundry production area and its need for a cooperative visualization and geometry verification tool. We discuss the opportunity of building a specific application and its features: communication architecture and user interface. The conclusion is that it is possible to develop very specific and powerful prod...

Exponemos un sistema de realidad virtual para la simulación de procesos de mantenimiento en aeronáutica que se ha desarrollado en el marco del Proyecto REVIMA. Hemos desarrollado un hardware nuevo (háptico) y resuelto diversos problemas al elaborar el software que integra el sistema. El nuevo háptico se emplea para realizar el seguimiento del movim...

This paper describes a haptic system for maintainability simulation in aeronautics, called REVIMA (Virtual Reality for Maintainability). In this project a software-hardware tool is designed and built to realistically simulate assembly-disassembly operations. It also helps to perform accessibility, interference and maintainability analysis by using...

One of the main tasks facing the manager of a historical centre is to avoid degradation while retaining the historical value. For this reason, any intervention which takes place on the environment, should be carefully managed. Only when performing a proper diagnosis of the environment and its reality is possible to follow a high quality interventio...

Augmented reality is nowadays a novel technology that is acquiring great relevancy as a research area. This technology complements the perception and interaction with the real world and allows placing the user in a real environment augmented with additional information generated by computer. Throughout last years it is increasing the interest and t...

This paper analyses the Collision Detection prob-lem in Dense Geometry sets, such as those that are found in mechanical applications, especially in Virtual Reality applications for the evaluation of machine designs using large haptic systems. Stud-ies have been carried out with VFM and a well-known public collision method: V-Collide. VFM collision...

El tracking 3D basado en imágenes se resuelve habitualmente usando restricciones geométricas o mediante algo-ritmos estocásticos basados en filtros de estados. La primera opción es rápida pero poco robusta. La segunda es robusta pero menos eficiente. En este trabajo se mejora un método de tracking 3D estocástico basado en el filtro de partículas y...