A versatile architecture is presented to implement autonomous vehicles. The focus idea consists of a set of standalone modules, called wireless robotic components wireless robotic components (WRCs). Each component performs a particular function by means of a radio modem interface, a processing unit, and a sensor/actuator. The components interact through a coordinator that redirects asynchronous requests to the appropriate WRCs, configuring a built-in network. The WRC architecture has been tested in marine and terrestrial platforms to perform tasks of waypoint and wall following. Results show that the tested system complies with adaptability and portability that allow conforming a variety of autonomous vehicles.

With the rise of the “Maker Movement” and the entrepreneurial university, academic makerspaces became widespread. These facilities provide tools and machines that enable making and tinkering; and while the offerings, organizational and operational models, and outreach of the academic makerspaces can vary widely across institutions, their common value proposition is enabling innovation, entrepreneurship, and hands-on project-based learning and these studies are largely qualitative and exploratory by nature. Through a case study, this paper presents an in-depth analysis and insights on the users and usage of an academic makerspace. Using the data generated by and collected from the users of an academic makerspace, we evaluate the effects of having access to the makerspace on users' teaching and learning experiences, and their satisfaction with the offerings. Our results show that attracting courses and educators to the facilities played a strong role in growing the user base, courses and teaching activities introduced new teaching and learning activities to adopt the offerings, group and project work is positively impacted, and the users are very satisfied with the facilities and having the access to its offerings. The analysis also showed that the demand for the offerings can be challenging to manage during certain periods, most of the users come from three departments (mechanical, electrical, civil engineering), and the diversity of the users could improve with the introduction of new offerings, such as a wet lab for bio/chemistry experiments and a food lab to tinker with food processing and preparation.

Drift analysis is one of the state-of-the-art techniques for the runtime analysis of randomized search heuristics (RSHs) such as evolutionary algorithms (EAs), simulated annealing, etc. The vast majority of existing drift theorems yield bounds on the expected value of the hitting time for a target state, for example the set of optimal solutions, without making additional statements on the distribution of this time. We address this lack by providing a general drift theorem that includes bounds on the upper and lower tail of the hitting time distribution. The new tail bounds are applied to prove very precise sharp-concentration results on the running time of a simple EA on standard benchmark problems, including the class of general linear functions. On all these problems, the probability of deviating by an r-factor in lower-order terms of the expected time decreases exponentially with r. The usefulness of the theorem outside the theory of RSHs is demonstrated by deriving tail bounds on the number of cycles in random permutations. All these results handle a position-dependent (variable) drift that was not covered by previous drift theorems with tail bounds. Finally, user-friendly specializations of the general drift theorem are given.

Digitalization and the momentous role being assumed by data are commonly viewed as pervasive phenomena whose impact is felt in all aspects of society and the economy. Design activity is by no means immune from this trend, and the relationship between digitalization and design is decades old. However, what is the current impact of this ‘data revolution’ on design? How will the design activity change? What are the resulting research questions of interest to academics? What are the main challenges for firms and for educational institutions having to cope with this change? The paper provides a comprehensive conceptual framework, based on recent literature and anecdotal evidence from the industry. It identifies three main streams: namely the consequences on designers, the consequences on design processes and the role of methods for data analytics. In turn, these three streams lead to implications at individual, organizational and managerial level, and several questions arise worthy of defining future research agendas. Moreover, the paper introduces relational diagrams depicting the interactions between the objects and the actors involved in the design process and suggests that what is occurring is by no means a simple evolution but a paradigmatic shift in the way artefacts are designed.