Informed sampling-based trajectory planner for automated driving in dynamic urban environments

The urban environment is amongst the most difficult domains for autonomous vehicles. The vehicle must be able to plan a safe route on challenging road layouts, in the presence of various dynamic traffic participants such as vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians and in various environmental conditions. The challenge remains to have motion planners...

A systematic cost-effective approach for underwater photogrammetry

This paper presents a systematic cost-effective approach for underwater 3D photogrammetric reconstruction. Underwater 3D reconstruction is a complicated task due to limiting and varying environmental conditions such as: low light conditions, sea snow, water currents and temperature. Quay wall inspection suffers from other possible complications...

Vertical atmospheric variability measured above water during the FESTER experiment: First results

The First European South African Experiment (FESTER) was conducted over about a 10 month period at the Institute of Maritime Technology (IMT) in False Bay, South Africa. One of the important goals was to validate atmospheric refraction and turbulence models. To achieve this goal it was required to measure the vertical profile of meteorological...

Optimal support vessel and access system selection for offshore wind farms

Operation and maintenance (O&M) costs contribute to a significant part of Cost of Energy produced by offshore wind. In order to reduce the O&M costs and to guarantee safety and wellbeing of the maintenance technicians, for each individual wind farm an optimal set of support vessels and access systems should be selected. This selection should...

Evaluation and Adaptation of Mine-Hunting Operations with AUVs

The effectiveness and efficiency of mine-hunting operations with autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are greatly influenced by environmental conditions, such as seabed, turbidity, currents, and tides. Therefore accurate environmental information is needed for the planning and evaluation of mine-hunting operations. Because environmental...

Ship ballast tanks a review from microbial corrosion and electrochemical point of view

Microbiologically Influenced Corrosion (MIC) is the term used for the phenomenon in which corrosion is initiated and/or accelerated by the activities of microorganisms. MIC is a very serious problem for the ship industry as it reduces structural lifetime in combination with safety risks for crewmembers or inspection personal and increases...

Music venues and hearing loss: Opportunities for and barriers to improving environmental conditions

This study explores the opportunities for and barriers to improving environmental conditions in order to reduce the risk for music-induced hearing loss in people who attend music venues. Individual semi-structured interviews were held with 20 representatives of music venues and of governmental organizations, according to a semi-structured...

Species-specific responses of two benthic invertebrates explain their distribution along environmental gradients in freshwater habitats

The absence of species in polluted sediments does not necessarily imply exclusion due to toxicity. Other factors, like for instance food availability and oxygen content, could also partly cause their absence. Hence, knowledge of the (combinations of) factors acting on individual organisms is essential in order to understand how populations can...

Use of models to support the monitoring requirements in the water framework directive

Implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) poses many new challenges to European water managers. Monitoring programmes play a key role to assess the status and identify possible trends in the environmental conditions of river basins; to gain new knowledge on water processes and to assess to which extent implemented measures...