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Fernando Torres

Publications and source records attributed to Fernando Torres.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Sapling-NeRF: Geo-Localised Sapling Reconstruction in Forests for Ecological Monitoring

Saplings are key indicators of forest regeneration and overall forest health. However, their fine-scale architectural traits are difficult to capture with existing 3D sensing methods, which make quantitative evaluation difficult. Terrestrial Laser Scanners (TLS), Mobile Laser Scanners (MLS), or traditional photogrammetry approaches poorly reconstruct thin branches, dense foliage, and lack the scale consistency needed for long-term monitoring. Implicit 3D reconstruction methods such as Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) and 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) are promising alternatives, but cannot recover the true scale of a scene and lack any means to be accurately geo-localised. In this paper, we present a pipeline which fuses NeRF, LiDAR SLAM, and GNSS to enable repeatable, geo-localised ecological monitoring of saplings. Our system proposes a three-level representation: (i) coarse Earth-frame localisation using GNSS, (ii) LiDAR-based SLAM for centimetre-accurate localisation and reconstruction, and (iii) NeRF-derived object-centric dense reconstruction of individual saplings. This approach enables repeatable quantitative evaluation and long-term monitoring of sapling traits. Our experiments in forest plots in Wytham Woods (Oxford, UK) and Evo (Finland) show that stem height, branching patterns, and leaf-to-wood ratios can be captured with increased accuracy as compared to TLS. We demonstrate that accurate stem skeletons and leaf distributions can be measured for saplings with heights between 0.5m and 2m in situ, giving ecologists access to richer structural and quantitative data for analysing forest dynamics.

cs.RO

LiLO: Lightweight and low-bias LiDAR Odometry method based on spherical range image filtering

In unstructured outdoor environments, robotics requires accurate and efficient odometry with low computational time. Existing low-bias LiDAR odometry methods are often computationally expensive. To address this problem, we present a lightweight LiDAR odometry method that converts unorganized point cloud data into a spherical range image (SRI) and filters out surface, edge, and ground features in the image plane. This substantially reduces computation time and the required features for odometry estimation in LOAM-based algorithms. Our odometry estimation method does not rely on global maps or loop closure algorithms, which further reduces computational costs. Experimental results generate a translation and rotation error of 0.86\% and 0.0036{\deg}/m on the KITTI dataset with an average runtime of 78ms. In addition, we tested the method with our data, obtaining an average closed-loop error of 0.8m and a runtime of 27ms over eight loops covering 3.5Km.

cs.RO

ViKi-HyCo: A Hybrid-Control approach for complex car-like maneuvers

While Visual Servoing is deeply studied to perform simple maneuvers, the literature does not commonly address complex cases where the target is far out of the camera's field of view (FOV) during the maneuver. For this reason, in this paper, we present ViKi-HyCo (Visual Servoing and Kinematic Hybrid-Controller). This approach generates the necessary maneuvers for the complex positioning of a non-holonomic mobile robot in outdoor environments. In this method, we use \hbox{LiDAR-camera} fusion to estimate objects bounding boxes using image and metrics modalities. With the multi-modality nature of our representation, we can automatically obtain a target for a visual servoing controller. At the same time, we also have a metric target, which allows us to hybridize with a kinematic controller. Given this hybridization, we can perform complex maneuvers even when the target is far away from the camera's FOV. The proposed approach does not require an object-tracking algorithm and can be applied to any robotic positioning task where its kinematic model is known. ViKi-HyCo has an error of 0.0428 \pm 0.0467 m in the X-axis and 0.0515 \pm 0.0323 m in the Y-axis at the end of a complete positioning task.

cs.RO

Geo-Localization Based on Dynamically Weighted Factor-Graph

Feature-based geo-localization relies on associating features extracted from aerial imagery with those detected by the vehicle's sensors. This requires that the type of landmarks must be observable from both sources. This lack of variety of feature types generates poor representations that lead to outliers and deviations produced by ambiguities and lack of detections, respectively. To mitigate these drawbacks, in this paper, we present a dynamically weighted factor graph model for the vehicle's trajectory estimation. The weight adjustment in this implementation depends on information quantification in the detections performed using a LiDAR sensor. Also, a prior (GNSS-based) error estimation is included in the model. Then, when the representation becomes ambiguous or sparse, the weights are dynamically adjusted to rely on the corrected prior trajectory, mitigating outliers and deviations in this way. We compare our method against state-of-the-art geo-localization ones in a challenging and ambiguous environment, where we also cause detection losses. We demonstrate mitigation of the mentioned drawbacks where the other methods fail.

cs.CV

Robust Self-Tuning Data Association for Geo-Referencing Using Lane Markings

Localization in aerial imagery-based maps offers many advantages, such as global consistency, geo-referenced maps, and the availability of publicly accessible data. However, the landmarks that can be observed from both aerial imagery and on-board sensors is limited. This leads to ambiguities or aliasing during the data association. Building upon a highly informative representation (that allows efficient data association), this paper presents a complete pipeline for resolving these ambiguities. Its core is a robust self-tuning data association that adapts the search area depending on the entropy of the measurements. Additionally, to smooth the final result, we adjust the information matrix for the associated data as a function of the relative transform produced by the data association process. We evaluate our method on real data from urban and rural scenarios around the city of Karlsruhe in Germany. We compare state-of-the-art outlier mitigation methods with our self-tuning approach, demonstrating a considerable improvement, especially for outer-urban scenarios.

cs.RO

Automatic analysis of Categorical Verbal Fluency for Mild Cognitive Impartment detection: a non-linear language independent approach

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is one the main causes of dementia in the world and the patients develop severe disability and sometime full dependence. In previous stages Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) produces cognitive loss but not severe enough to interfere with daily life. This work, on selection of biomarkers from speech for the detection of AD, is part of a wide-ranging cross study for the diagnosis of Alzheimer. Specifically in this work a task for detection of MCI has been used. The task analyzes Categorical Verbal Fluency. The automatic classification is carried out by SVM over classical linear features, Castiglioni fractal dimension and Permutation Entropy. Finally the most relevant features are selected by ANOVA test. The promising results are over 50% for MCI

cs.SD

OpenStreetMap-based Autonomous Navigation With LiDAR Naive-Valley-Path Obstacle Avoidance

OpenStreetMaps (OSM) is currently studied as the environment representation for autonomous navigation. It provides advantages such as global consistency, a heavy-less map construction process, and a wide variety of road information publicly available. However, the location of this information is usually not very accurate locally. In this paper, we present a complete autonomous navigation pipeline using OSM information as environment representation for global planning. To avoid the flaw of local low-accuracy, we offer the novel LiDAR-based Naive-Valley-Path (NVP) method that exploits the concept of "valley" areas to infer the local path always furthest from obstacles. This behavior allows navigation always through the center of trafficable areas following the road's shape independently of OSM error. Furthermore, NVP is a naive method that is highly sample-time-efficient. This time efficiency also enables obstacle avoidance, even for dynamic objects. We demonstrate the system's robustness in our research platform BLUE, driving autonomously across the University of Alicante Scientific Park for more than 20 km with 0.24 meters of average error against the road's center with a 19.8 ms of average sample time. Our vehicle avoids static obstacles in the road and even dynamic ones, such as vehicles and pedestrians.

cs.RO

Non-Matrix Tactile Sensors: How Can Be Exploited Their Local Connectivity For Predicting Grasp Stability?

Tactile sensors supply useful information during the interaction with an object that can be used for assessing the stability of a grasp. Most of the previous works on this topic processed tactile readings as signals by calculating hand-picked features. Some of them have processed these readings as images calculating characteristics on matrix-like sensors. In this work, we explore how non-matrix sensors (sensors with taxels not arranged exactly in a matrix) can be processed as tactile images as well. In addition, we prove that they can be used for predicting grasp stability by training a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) with them. We captured over 2500 real three-fingered grasps on 41 everyday objects to train a CNN that exploited the local connectivity inherent on the non-matrix tactile sensors, achieving 94.2% F1-score on predicting stability.

cs.RO

Locally Recoverable codes from algebraic curves with separated variables

A Locally Recoverable code is an error-correcting code such that any erasure in a single coordinate of a codeword can be recovered from a small subset of other coordinates. We study Locally Recoverable Algebraic Geometry codes arising from certain curves defined by equations with separated variables. The recovery of erasures is obtained by means of Lagrangian interpolation in general, and simply by one addition in some particular cases.

cs.IT

$\mathbb{F}_{p^2}$-maximal curves with many automorphisms are Galois-covered by the Hermitian curve

Let $\mathbb{F}$ be the finite field of order $q^2$, $q=p^h$ with $p$ prime. It is commonly atribute to J.P. Serre the fact that any curve $\mathbb{F}$-covered by the Hermitian curve $\mathcal{H}_{q+1}:\, y^{q+1}=x^q+x$ is also $\mathbb{F}$-maximal. Nevertheless, the converse is not true as the Giulietti-Korchm\'aros example shows provided that $q>8$ and $h\equiv 0\pmod{3}$. In this paper, we show that if an $\mathbb{F}$-maximal curve $\mathcal{X}$ of genus $g\geq 2$ where $q=p$ is such that $|Aut(\mathcal{X})|>84(g-1)$ then $\mathcal{X}$ is Galois-covered by $\mathcal{H}_{p+1}$. Also, we show that the hypothesis on the order of $Aut(\mathcal{X})$ is sharp, since there exists an $\mathbb{F}$-maximal curve $\mathcal{X}$ for $q=71$ of genus $g=7$ with $|Aut(\mathcal{X})|=84(7-1)$ which is not Galois-covered by the Hermitian curve $\mathcal{H}_{72}$.

math.AG

Generalized Weierstrass semigroups and their Poincar\'e series

We investigate the structure of the generalized Weierstrass semigroups at several points on a curve defined over a finite field. We present a description of these semigroups that enables us to deduce properties concerned with the arithmetical structure of divisors supported on the specified points and their corresponding Riemann-Roch spaces. This characterization allows us to show that the Poincar\'e series associated with generalized Weierstrass semigroups carry essential information to describe entirely their respective semigroups.

math.AG

Counting numerical semigroups by genus and even gaps

Let $n_g$ be the number of numerical semigroups of genus $g$. We present an approach to compute $n_g$ by using even gaps, and the question: Is it true that $n_{g+1}>n_g$? is investigated. Let $N_\gamma(g)$ be the number of numerical semigroups of genus $g$ whose number of even gaps equals $\gamma$. We show that $N_\gamma(g)=N_\gamma(3\gamma)$ for $\gamma \leq \lfloor g/3\rfloor$ and $N_\gamma(g)=0$ for $\gamma > \lfloor 2g/3\rfloor$; thus the question above is true provided that $N_\gamma(g+1) > N_\gamma(g)$ for $\gamma = \lfloor g/3 \rfloor +1, \ldots, \lfloor 2g/3\rfloor$. We also show that $N_\gamma(3\gamma)$ coincides with $f_\gamma$, the number introduced by Bras-Amor\'os in conection with semigroup-closed sets. Finally, the stronger possibility $f_\gamma \sim \varphi^{2\gamma}$ arises being $\varphi = (1+\sqrt{5})/2$ the golden number.

math.CO

On the spectrum for the genera of maximal curves over small fields

Motivated by previous computations in Garcia, Stichtenoth and Xing (2000) paper ,we discuss the spectrum $\mathbf{M}(q^2)$ for the genera of maximal curves over finite fields of order $q^2$ with $7\leq q\leq 16$. In particular, by using a result in Kudo and Harashita(2016) paper, the set $\mathbf{M}(7^2)$ is completely determined.

math.AG

Quantum error-correcting codes from Algebraic Geometry codes of Castle type

We study Algebraic Geometry codes producing quantum error-correcting codes by the CSS construction. We pay particular attention to the family of Castle codes. We show that many of the examples known in the literature in fact belong to this family of codes. We systematize these constructions by showing the common theory that underlies all of them.

cs.IT

Complete arcs arising from a generalization of the Hermitian curve

We investigate complete arcs of degree greater than two, in projective planes over finite fields, arising from the set of rational points of a generalization of the Hermitian curve. The degree of the arcs is closely related to the number of rational points of a class of Artin-Schreier curves which is calculated by using exponential sums via Coulter's approach. We also single out some examples of maximal curves.

math.AG

On the order bounds for one-point AG codes

The order bound for the minimum distance of algebraic geometry codes was originally defined for the duals of one-point codes and later generalized for arbitrary algebraic geometry codes. Another bound of order type for the minimum distance of general linear codes, and for codes from order domains in particular, was given in [H. Andersen and O. Geil, Evaluation codes from order domain theory, Finite Fields and their Applications 14 (2008), pp. 92-123]. Here we investigate in detail the application of that bound to one-point algebraic geometry codes, obtaining a bound $d^*$ for the minimum distance of these codes. We establish a connection between $d^*$ and the order bound and its generalizations. We also study the improved code constructions based on $d^*$. Finally we extend $d^*$ to all generalized Hamming weights.

cs.IT

The structure of algebras admitting well agreeing near weights

We characterize algebras admitting two well agreeing near weights $ρ$ and $σ$. We show that such an algebra $R$ is an integral domain whose quotient field $\mathbf K$ is an algebraic function field of one variable. It contains two places $p, Q\in {\mathbb P}(\mathbf K)$ such that $ρ$ and $σ$ are derived from the valuations associated to $P$ and $Q$. Furthermore $\bar R= \cap_{S\in\{\mathbb P}(\mathbf F)\setminus\{P,Q\}}{\mathcal O}_S$.

math.AG

Bounding the trellis state complexity of algebraic geometric codes

Let C be an algebraic geometric code of dimension k and length n constructed on a curve X over $F_q$. Let s(C) be the state complexity of C and set w(C):=min{k,n-k}, the Wolf upper bound on s(C). We introduce a numerical function R that depends on the gonality sequence of X and show that s(C)\geq w(C)-R(2g-2), where g is the genus of X. As a matter of fact, R(2g-2)\leq g-(γ_2-2) with γ_2 being the gonality over F_q of X, and thus in particular we have that s(C)\geq w(C)-g+γ_2-2.

math.AG