Alberto Brunete

The project Hephestos, with its focus on developing sophisticated methods in robotic manufacturing, shall give rise to a cost-efficient solution in hard materials machining for this small-batch production of highly customized products through the application of industrial robots.

Hephestos will develop a paradigm that shall provide standard industrial robots with break-through techniques in production planning, programming and real-time control system. Based on established computer-aided-manufacturing frameworks, Hephestos will optimize production planning through the automatic generation of robotic program, taking into account specific robot signature i.e. robot system kinematic and dynamic characteristics, as well as models of processes (milling, grinding, polishing etc.), that are essential for the robotic application in hard material machining.

Our main role in the project is in developing new GUI and programming environments. We are developing a new Android interface and we are testing the use of augmented reality glasses.

Robot cell

EasyRob integration

Hammer: GUI - IDE

Hammer: augmented reality

The SGPS Project tries to come up with a global positioning system based on the characteristics of the Earth’s rotation. Mainly, we focus on Sun’s properties, such as sunlight intensity which is the easiest (and cheapest) magnitude to measure. This site contains all the information needed in order to understand, implement, test and contribute to the system.

The main objective of the THOFU project is to advance the state-of-the-art of several emerging technologies related to construction, sensing, information and communications and interaction, which have a great potential impact in the tourist sector, and, in particular, in the advance of new accommodation concepts for the tourist. Its final goal is to lay the technological foundations for the development of a new concept of hotel, which allows dealing with tourist seasonality and loyalty programs by making attractive and different offers. The technologies considered by THOFU present important research and engineering challenges and, in many cases, require an active collaboration between researchers of different fields.

The central element of THOFU is the hotel infrastructure; the technology assets that will result from the project, after the necessary industrialization phases (which are not the object of this project), will enable to build a new concept of hotel. The hotel of the future will be augmented, sensible and sustainable. It will put at the disposal of its guests a space able to adapt to the singularities and specific needs of each client (for example, physical status, cultural characteristics or needs related to the health status or mood). And it will combine new ideas and technologies to design spaces which are able to continuously increase the knowledge about the visitor in order to create advanced services offers and improve interaction.

My work was in the field of energy efficiency, in energy consumption control and water management, and in WSN, in new intelligent and accesible connected devices.

Its goal is to develop a modular building system for research laboratories. The system design focuses on the optimization of resources and the environment, integrating flexibility (relocation and reuse of spaces), industrialization (modular system), environmental technologies (energy efficiency, use of renewable energy and low environmental impact) and safety.

I have been working on the wireless network of sensors (electricity and water consumption, presence, noise, temperature, relative humidity, lighting, doors and windows opening, smoke and flood) and actuators (lighting control, underfloor heating, air conditioning and blinds) controlled by a management platform.

This project seeks new strategies for the optimization and reduction of energy consumption in buildings, and aims to gather data from the energy flows in them. For this purpose, a monitoring network will be developed for measuring consumptions and analyzes the behaviour and efficiency of these systems. A fundamental part of this project consists of the real implementantion of the proposed technologies in three pilot demonstrators: the new Andalucian Energy Agency headquarters, the ETSIA-UPM workshop and a portable SIGLAS prototype.

My work was focused in the development of the monitoring network, design and implementation of a sensors network and a monitoring software.

This is the project where I developed my PhD thesis. Its goal is the design and construction of a multi-configurable heterogeneous modular micro-robotic system able to move in narrow environments (pipes or small cavities). We have developed three different drive modules: inchworm, snake and helicoidal. And camera and battery modules as well. All modules have been developed from scratch and include actuators (servomotors) and electronics (microcontroller plus sensors). We have proposed a behavior-based control architcture for these types of robots. There is a simulation environment developed for this project available here.

The main objective is to design a new, low cost, automatic water borne pollution detector of a general-purpose nature. Whilst it is primarily aimed at oil-on-water detection, it will be applicable to a wide range of water pollution problems.

The primary technical objective of the project is to apply image-processing technology to the detection, recognition and quantification of separated pollution-on-water (or just below surface).

Our main role was to develops the vessel, the onboard control system and communicatios.

The aim of the I-SWARM project is the realisation of a "real" micro-robot swarm. More than one hundred micro-manufactured autonomous robots will be able for the collective execution of different tasks in the small world. The outcome is the realisation of an observable self-organisation effect in the robot swarm similar to that seen within other ecological systems such as ant and bee colonies as well as other social insects

I was working on this project at the EPFL unviverity in Lausanne only 4 months as part of a PhD stage. I worked mainly with the Alice robot, developing and testing localization algorithms based on the projection of coded images (composed of black and white images) over two photodiodes placed in the robots.

The primary research objective is to develop a Semi-Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for Intervention Missions (SAUVIM). Unlike the fly-by autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV), SAUVIM will have a manipulator work package. It will require an advanced control system and a precise sensory system to maintain high accuracy in station keeping and navigation.

My main role in the project was to work in the development of a GUI for telecontrol and monitorization of the underwater vehicle.Link

"Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy."

by Max Ehrmann

Ebanista. Sudores fríos de un sueño aún no hecho realidad, miedos pasados escondido en el rellano de la escalera, sentimientos culpables de un niño inmaduro, madurez conseguida en la infelicidad de un trabajo superfluo, o superfluamente agotador, cansinas caras cerradas en torno a un fuego. ¿Ira? Destino. Ese dinero le mutaría la suerte, ese prestigio le abriría la claraboya de la fama, esa satisfacción le haría dejar de abofetearse cada amanecer al levantarse. Cual sorpresa la suya cuando al terminar el relato y ya una vez acabado el plazo de entrega, se dio cuenta de que la había pifiado: "¡Coño! Ebanista no, ¡zapatero!".