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In the swiftly advancing field of swarm robotics and unmanned aerial vehicles, precise and effective testing methods are essential. This article explores the crucial role of software-in-the-loop (SITL) simulations in developing, testing, and validating drone swarm control algorithms. Such simulations play a crucial role in reproducing real-world operational scenarios. Additionally, they can (regardless of the type of application) accelerate the development process, reduce operational risks, and ensure the consistent performance of drone swarms. Our study demonstrates that different geometrical arrangements of drone swarms require flexible control strategies. The leader-based control model facilitates coherent movement and enhanced coordination. Addressing various issues such as communication delays and inaccuracies in positioning is essential here. These shortcomings underscore the value of improved approaches to collision avoidance. The research described in this article focused on the dynamics of drone swarms in a simulated context and emphasized their operational efficiency and adaptability in various scenarios. Advanced simulation tools were utilized to analyze the interaction, communication, and adaptability of autonomous units. The presented results indicate that the arrangement of drones significantly affects their coordination and collision avoidance capabilities. They also underscore the importance of control systems that can adapt to various situations. The impact of communication delays and errors in positioning systems on the required distance between drones in a grid structure is also presented. This article assesses the impact of different levels of GPS accuracy and communication delays on the coordination of group movement and collision avoidance capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents a comprehensive analysis of power consumption in the context of AR applications on the HoloLens 2. As an ablation study, the research systematically dissects various aspects, shedding light on both hardware and software components. The power consumption was examined in diverse scenarios, ranging from the device at idle to running AR applications of increasing complexity. Overall, the study provides insights into the power management aspects associated with Hololens 2 AR devices and applications, offering cues for optimizing energy efficiency and enhancing the user experience. The findings confirm that display-related factors, such as the screen brightness and content complexity, significantly impact power consumption. However, the results reveal that power usage does not scale linearly with the number of objects in an AR scene due to overhead factors and object occlusion. Furthermore, usage scenarios such as lighting conditions and large/minor user motions are analyzed. Moreover, the influence of different development platforms, Unity and Unreal, on power consumption is discussed, highlighting their respective contributions to energy usage. These findings might be useful for researchers, developers, and users of AR technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work is focused on the preliminary stage of the 3D drone tracking challenge, namely the precise detection of drones on images obtained from a synchronized multi-camera system. The YOLOv5 deep network with different input resolutions is trained and tested on the basis of real, multimodal data containing synchronized video sequences and precise motion capture data as a ground truth reference. The bounding boxes are determined based on the 3D position and orientation of an asymmetric cross attached to the top of the tracked object with known translation to the object's center. The arms of the cross are identified by the markers registered by motion capture acquisition. Besides the classical mean average precision (mAP), a measure more adequate in the evaluation of detection performance in 3D tracking is proposed, namely the average distance between the centroids of matched references and detected drones, including false positive and false negative ratios. Moreover, the videos generated in the AirSim simulation platform were taken into account in both the training and testing stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a theoretical study into the use of optical systems for quantum computation. The study results pertain to quantum sampling and quantum communication and provide a basis for further research and the development of a physical implementation. We propose an optical superstructure that can implement specific computation processes and algorithms. The superstructure is composed of nonlinear optical units, such as beta barium borate crystals. The units are positioned in series, powered by a pulse laser pump, and culminate in a beam splitter that generates the output state of a number of entangled photon pairs. Computation is achieved by entanglement propagation via beam splitters and adjustable phase shifters, which set related parameters. Demonstrating a two-component case, we show how a series of cosine-based components can be implemented. The obtained results open a broad front for future research. Future work should investigate the construction of a quantum optimizer using quantum sampling methods and also investigate high-precision temporal voltage measurement, which is a key procedure for the construction of high-fidelity devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper describes the problem and effects of water scarcity and the possibility of rational use of this resource in the idea of a Circular Economy (CE) and sustainable development. Rational water management requires innovation, due to the growing demand for this raw material. It seems that water is widely available, e.g., in Poland, there is no problem with drought. Unfortunately, Polish water resources are shrinking and modern solutions, as well as the construction of new and modernisation of old infrastructure, are some of the few solutions that can protect against a shortage of potable water. Water is also an essential resource for economic development. It is used in every sector of the economy. Limited water resources lead to an inevitable energy transformation because, in its present state, the Polish energy industry consumes huge amounts of water. Due to the above statements, the authors propose a solution in the form of an interactive shower panel that contributes to more rational water management (e.g., in households or hotels) based on the latest technological achievements. This device enables the creation of water consumption statistics based on accurate liquid flow measurements and the transfer of data to the user's mobile device. This innovation aims to make the user aware of the amount of water used, which in turn can contribute to lower water consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes a scalable, wearable multi-sensor system for motion capture based on inertial measurement units (IMUs). Such a unit is composed of accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer. The final quality of an obtained motion arises from all the individual parts of the described system. The proposed system is a sequence of the following stages: sensor data acquisition, sensor orientation estimation, system calibration, pose estimation and data visualisation. The construction of the system’s architecture with the dataflow programming paradigm makes it easy to add, remove and replace the data processing steps. The modular architecture of the system allows an effortless introduction of a new sensor orientation estimation algorithms. The original contribution of the paper is the design study of the individual components used in the motion capture system. The two key steps of the system design are explored in this paper: the evaluation of sensors and algorithms for the orientation estimation. The three chosen algorithms have been implemented and investigated as part of the experiment. Due to the fact that the selection of the sensor has a significant impact on the final result, the sensor evaluation process is also explained and tested. The experimental results confirmed that the choice of sensor and orientation estimation algorithm affect the quality of the final results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The search for clouds in satellite images is a challenging subject which still attracts a lot of attention due to the amount and quality of data, which is growing at a tremendous pace, the development of satellite techniques and methods, inexpensive equipment, and automation of satellite imaging processes. This paper presents a new approach to the assessment of cloudiness based on the use of the theory of moments with invariants. The values of moments with invariants, determined on the basis of the available cloudiness maps, create a new, valuable set of data, which are the geometrical parameters of the scene representing the cloud cover. In further research, the obtained data sets will be used in machine learning methods, deep machine learning methods, etc. The method is used for different conditions, including different angular positions of the Sun and time periods. The effectiveness of the method is checked on the basis of comparing the entropy results of the input maps after subtracting clouds masked by various methods. The obtained results additionally indicate the potential of the moments method as a support for the existing methods of estimating cloudiness over the sea surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]