Graphical User Interface Control Research Articles

Development of a Graphic Interface Application for the Vision System of the Fruit Sorting Line

Introduction. At present, an intuitive graphical interface is an indispensable component of modern agricultural-oriented software products. Aim of the Article. The research is aimed at improving the efficiency of sorting apples by developing a graphical control interface for a vision system to recognize various defects and sort apples. Materials and Methods. The authors used methods of analysis, enumeration, comparison and synthesis of modern software solutions. Results. As a result of the research, there was created a graphical application of the software for the control unit of the machine vision system containing all the necessary tools for managing and optimizing costs when sorting apples into three commercial quality classes. Discussion and Conclusion. The graphical interface of the machine vision system was used in the line LSP-4 for sorting and packing apples. It was developed by Scientific and Practical Center NAS of Belarus for Agricultural Mechanization in 2020 and successfully passed state acceptance tests.

Research and Implementation of Three-Dimensional Spatial Information Characterization and Visualization of Fractures in Deteriorated Sandstone

Primary fractures significantly impacted the stability of surrounding rock in underground projects. Therefore, it is vital to find a solution for the problem of performing a non-destructive detection of rocks and extracting the internal three-dimensional (3D) data field of rocks for visualization analysis. To address this problem, this paper proposed a method of 3D reconstruction for complex cracks in deteriorated sandstone and developed a program based on MATLAB. This work carried out image recognition on the CT scan images of deteriorated sandstone, then implemented a surface reconstruction technique based on object cross-section information, a contour reconstruction technique based on object contour information, a point cloud reconstruction technique for extracting point cloud data of internal cracks in deteriorated sandstone, and a Graphical User Interface (GUI) control system that combines these three reconstruction techniques. The results showed that the 3D reconstruction techniques and the GUI control system proposed in this paper were capable of precisely marking the location of the cracks on a 3D coordinate system and accurately describing their shape with a vector. With only 10 CT scan images, the point cloud reconstruction technique constructed the digital core, and the digital core can quantitatively characterize the influence of primary fractures on the stability of surrounding rock. Additionally, the calculated results of the proposed method were very close to that of Avizo. This method realized the visualization and quantitative characterization of the internal structure of rocks and offered a model for analyzing the stress-fracture-seepage field change during excavation.

Implementation C++/QT framework for CAN communication

The goal of this paper is to explain and offer a solution to a problem that is often overlooked in the field of robotics and mechatronics used in transportation concepts. It is about the implementation of an existing motor drive based on control by a Controlled Area Network (CAN). This concept is proven, mainly in transport applications; however, it is not commonly applied in research articles. The term CAN is often slanted in the automotive embedded system, but the replacement of the embedded system by a computer as the master system is bringing many questions about its realization. Many research papers, due to that reason, prefer to use non-advanced actuators in the form of stepper motors for kits. A solution for the implementation of advanced servos communicated by CAN is offered in this paper. In addition to proposing the first solution for interface creation in robotic and mechatronic applications, the article offers a solution for developing a Graphical User Interface (GUI) using the C++/Qt framework, which allows for the development of an interface between a computer and a CAN converter. This solution is particularly important in the transportation sector, as it enables the development of specialized interfaces for communication with control units. For these tasks, LabView or MATLAB environments are widely used. However, the contribution of this article is to offer C++ with the Qt extension as a good replacement for a graphical programming environment. As is obvious, software engineering, electroengineering, and mechanical engineering are the three fundamental pillars that make up the methodology known as mechatronics. The answers, which are dealt with in the paper, discuss the connection between the programming and electrotechnology parts of mechatronics. A detailed description of the source code written in the C++ language and extended with the Qt framework is provided. This deals with Application Programming Interface (API) and motor control GUI example of the interface between a non-embedded master system and servo by USB2CAN converter. The freely downloadable source code provides a solution for the following challenges of implementation in the field of the research article.

An MRI-Guided Ring High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound System for Noninvasive Breast Ablation.

High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) has been used for noninvasive treatment of breast tumors, but the present magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-guided HIFU (MRI-HIFU) systems encounter skin burn. In this study, a novel MRI-HIFU breast ablation system was developed to improve the above problem. The system consisted of the ring HIFU phased-array transducer, a commercial power amplifier, the mechanical positioner, and the graphical user interface control software. MRI thermometry was also established to monitor the temperature in the HIFU-treated tissue. Ablation of pork and the in vivo rabbit leg were carried out to validate the developed system. Results of fat-surrounding pork ablation showed that the ring HIFU system reached a safe margin of 3 mm without fat burn. Moreover, precision of the positioner moving the HIFU focal zone was within 6% error under MRI circumstances. The representative MRI temperature images show that the peak temperatures among the five ablations ranged between 66 °C and 91 °C, and their thermal doses were over 10000. The system could also ablate the biceps femoris of a rabbit without skin burn to form a lesion of 2.5 mm beneath the skin. With the HIFU dose of 315 W/10 s, the MRI temperature map revealed that the maximum temperature and the thermal dose were 60 °C and 3380, respectively. The MRI-guided ring HIFU system can ablate the target tissue near subcutaneous fat without fat burn. The system prototype is a promising tool for clinical implementation.

Development of IoT based Heat Exchanger Control Trainer for Undergraduate Process Control Programme

Heat exchanger control trainer is a device that helps to demonstrate process control of process variables and simulates real world industrial plant system whereas the implementation of Internet of things (IoT) technology allows wireless communication. This paper describes a work to develop an IoT based heat exchanger control trainer for undergraduate process control programme with the implement Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller and fuzzy logic controller into the control trainer system together. The work started up with the development of graphical user interface (GUI) for the control trainer followed by the construction and coding of the control trainer prototype. The work has developed a heat exchanger control trainer GUI with PID and fuzzy logic controller. Information was able to be transmitted wirelessly between the GUI and control trainer prototype using Wi-Fi modules. The tested maximum signal strength was -90 dBm in 50 m when connected to indoor Wi-Fi router. The control trainer was able to achieve simple temperature feedback control of the cold side of the heat exchanger. The user manual included the basic user guide of the developed control trainer user interface. Kp, Ki, Kd of Ziegler-Nichols tuning method obtained in Offline case studies are 90,18, 112.5 whereas 7.2009, 1.1473, and 7.3163 for Cohen-Coon tuning method. The Offline test result shows a better accuracy of control using the fuzzy logic controller with -0.07% of steady-state error. Further improvement could be made to by adding cooling system into the control trainer prototype and apply modern techniques in the GUI control systems.

DROIDS 1.20: A GUI-Based Pipeline for GPU-Accelerated Comparative Protein Dynamics

Traditional informatics in comparative genomics work only with static representations of biomolecules (i.e., sequence and structure), thereby ignoring the molecular dynamics (MD) of proteins that define function in the cell. A comparative approach applied to MD would connect this very short timescale process, defined in femtoseconds, to one of the longest in the universe: molecular evolution measured in millions of years. Here, we leverage advances in graphics-processing-unit-accelerated MD simulation software to develop a comparative method of MD analysis and visualization that can be applied to any two homologous Protein Data Bank structures. Our open-source pipeline, DROIDS (Detecting Relative Outlier Impacts in Dynamic Simulations), works in conjunction with existing molecular modeling software to convert any Linux gaming personal computer into a “comparative computational microscope” for observing the biophysical effects of mutations and other chemical changes in proteins. DROIDS implements structural alignment and Benjamini-Hochberg-corrected Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistics to compare nanosecond-scale atom bond fluctuations on the protein backbone, color mapping the significant differences identified in protein MD with single-amino-acid resolution. DROIDS is simple to use, incorporating graphical user interface control for Amber16 MD simulations, cpptraj analysis, and the final statistical and visual representations in R graphics and UCSF Chimera. We demonstrate that DROIDS can be utilized to visually investigate molecular evolution and disease-related functional changes in MD due to genetic mutation and epigenetic modification. DROIDS can also be used to potentially investigate binding interactions of pharmaceuticals, toxins, or other biomolecules in a functional evolutionary context as well.

Design and implementation of an industrial vector-controlled induction motor drive

Vector-controlled induction motor drives are quite popular in the industry in applications that demand high dynamic performance. This paper describes the implementation of a complete industrial vector-controlled drive for a 30 kW induction motor. The control algorithms for the drive are implemented using a TMS320F28335 Digital Signal Controller (DSC). Various monitoring and protection functions for the drive are implemented using a Cyclone IV FPGA that communicates with the DSC, and acts as the master controller for the drive. The FPGA also communicates with a Human–Machine Interface to provide a simple graphical control interface to the operator.

CANEapp: a user-friendly application for automated next generation transcriptomic data analysis.

BackgroundNext generation sequencing (NGS) technologies are indispensable for molecular biology research, but data analysis represents the bottleneck in their application. Users need to be familiar with computer terminal commands, the Linux environment, and various software tools and scripts. Analysis workflows have to be optimized and experimentally validated to extract biologically meaningful data. Moreover, as larger datasets are being generated, their analysis requires use of high-performance servers.ResultsTo address these needs, we developed CANEapp (application for Comprehensive automated Analysis of Next-generation sequencing Experiments), a unique suite that combines a Graphical User Interface (GUI) and an automated server-side analysis pipeline that is platform-independent, making it suitable for any server architecture. The GUI runs on a PC or Mac and seamlessly connects to the server to provide full GUI control of RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) project analysis. The server-side analysis pipeline contains a framework that is implemented on a Linux server through completely automated installation of software components and reference files. Analysis with CANEapp is also fully automated and performs differential gene expression analysis and novel noncoding RNA discovery through alternative workflows (Cuffdiff and R packages edgeR and DESeq2). We compared CANEapp to other similar tools, and it significantly improves on previous developments. We experimentally validated CANEapp’s performance by applying it to data derived from different experimental paradigms and confirming the results with quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR). CANEapp adapts to any server architecture by effectively using available resources and thus handles large amounts of data efficiently. CANEapp performance has been experimentally validated on various biological datasets. CANEapp is available free of charge at http://psychiatry.med.miami.edu/research/laboratory-of-translational-rna-genomics/CANE-app.ConclusionsWe believe that CANEapp will serve both biologists with no computational experience and bioinformaticians as a simple, timesaving but accurate and powerful tool to analyze large RNA-seq datasets and will provide foundations for future development of integrated and automated high-throughput genomics data analysis tools. Due to its inherently standardized pipeline and combination of automated analysis and platform-independence, CANEapp is an ideal for large-scale collaborative RNA-seq projects between different institutions and research groups.

A sensor-based feet motion recognition of graphical user interface controls

Motion sensing has now become one of the crucial parts of modern life. The tech products for entertainment create huge competition in the modern market, with the front runners such as game and handset manufacturers. Users can use their own bodies to control the systems without Conversational User Interfaces (CUIs) and Graph User Interfaces (GUIs). With many benefits, the technologies of NUI is getting more and more important, which also are usually accompanied by the sensor developments. Hence, system designers uses the sensors on the embedded platforms used to develop the system devices for different body movement control interfaces, such as using the gravitational sensor to control the systems or using touchscreen detection. However most of the body movement is restricted to the hand portion for the system platform, making it not as dynamic as the traditional monitor consoles. Thus, this restriction decreases the multitude and availability of controlling modes in system devices. In this study, a sensor-based gait recognition was proposed, in order to provide a novel natural user interface for control systems except the operating modes of gesture.

Development of Valve Controlled Microfluidics Based on STM32 Dual-Core ARM

This article describes a precisely microfluidic control system based on a dual-core STM32F10x microcontroller. The system consists of 32 independent microfluidic valve controlled output, human-computer interaction display, ethernet module, WIFI module, CAN module, USB module and graphical control interface. Using this microfluidic control system, the biological and medical workers precisely and conveniently control liquid in microfluidic chips. The microfluidic control system would be widely used for microfluidic chips.

Master-Slave Control of Dynamixel Actuators

This paper presents the control of actuators Dynamixel from BIOLOID kits and creating graphical user interface. Beginning of this paper is devoted to description of the BIOLOID kits, focused especially for Dynamixel actuator AX-12A. The next parts of the paper describe the comunication of actuators with the control unit and ways how to control the actuators. One of the way for the controls of dynamixel actuators is control in program Matlab. At the end of this paper is a description of the created graphical user interface for control drives with identification of position robotic arm based on Denavit-Hartenberg notation.

Design and Implementation of Robot Arm Control Using LabVIEW and ARM Controller

The design, analysis and implementation of a robot arm system, which is expressed towards its performance with an analytical model by using LabVIEW and embedded system tools was presented in this article. Mathematical modeling of kinematics plays an essential role in design and implementation of a robot arm control. The projected work was focused to control the end effector of the robot arm to achieve any accessible point in an amorphous region using LabVIEW, ARM (Advanced RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) Machine) microcontroller and Dexter ER2 robotic arm. LabVIEW uses analytical method to design the inverse kinematic model of the robot arm. The inverse kinematic model and robot arm control was implemented using LabVIEW and ARM microcontroller. LabVIEW uses the parallel communication to send the joint angles of the robot arm to the ARM. ARM microcontroller uses five PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) signals in order to control the robot arm, which was geared up with servo motors. Robot arm was controlled manually through the LabVIEW GUI (Graphical User Interface) controls. The present paper discussed about the mechanical configuration, analytical modeling, software and hardware of the above said work.

A three-lead, programmable, and microcontroller-based electrocardiogram generator with frequency domain characteristics of heart rate variability

The objective of this study is to design and develop a programmable electrocardiogram (ECG) generator with frequency domain characteristics of heart rate variability (HRV) which can be used to test the efficiency of ECG algorithms and to calibrate and maintain ECG equipment. We simplified and modified the three coupled ordinary differential equations in McSharry's model to a single differential equation to obtain the ECG signal. This system not only allows the signal amplitude, heart rate, QRS-complex slopes, and P- and T-wave position parameters to be adjusted, but can also be used to adjust the very low frequency, low frequency, and high frequency components of HRV frequency domain characteristics. The system can be tuned to function with HRV or not. When the HRV function is on, the average heart rate can be set to a value ranging from 20 to 122 beats per minute (BPM) with an adjustable variation of 1 BPM. When the HRV function is off, the heart rate can be set to a value ranging from 20 to 139 BPM with an adjustable variation of 1 BPM. The amplitude of the ECG signal can be set from 0.0 to 330 mV at a resolution of 0.005 mV. These parameters can be adjusted either via input through a keyboard or through a graphical user interface (GUI) control panel that was developed using LABVIEW. The GUI control panel depicts a preview of the ECG signal such that the user can adjust the parameters to establish a desired ECG morphology. A complete set of parameters can be stored in the flash memory of the system via a USB 2.0 interface. Our system can generate three different types of synthetic ECG signals for testing the efficiency of an ECG algorithm or calibrating and maintaining ECG equipment.

Unified Framework for Development, Deployment and Robust Testing of Neuroimaging Algorithms

Developing both graphical and command-line user interfaces for neuroimaging algorithms requires considerable effort. Neuroimaging algorithms can meet their potential only if they can be easily and frequently used by their intended users. Deployment of a large suite of such algorithms on multiple platforms requires consistency of user interface controls, consistent results across various platforms and thorough testing. We present the design and implementation of a novel object-oriented framework that allows for rapid development of complex image analysis algorithms with many reusable components and the ability to easily add graphical user interface controls. Our framework also allows for simplified yet robust nightly testing of the algorithms to ensure stability and cross platform interoperability. All of the functionality is encapsulated into a software object requiring no separate source code for user interfaces, testing or deployment. This formulation makes our framework ideal for developing novel, stable and easy-to-use algorithms for medical image analysis and computer assisted interventions. The framework has been both deployed at Yale and released for public use in the open source multi-platform image analysis software--BioImage Suite (bioimagesuite.org).

Design of Ethernet-Based Constant Pressure Water Supply and Remote Monitoring System

To realize the constant pressure water supply, a frequency converter is used to control the periodic duty of three pumps in this paper. Then, the communication between host computer and field control equipment is studied and realized by using industry Ethernet Graphical control interface, and remote monitoring is realized.

Unified framework for development, deployment and testing of image analysis algorithms

Developing both graphical and command-line user interfaces for image analysis algorithms requires considerable effort. Generally developers provide limited to very rudimentary user interface controls to their users. These image analysis algorithms can only meet their potential if they can be used easily and frequently by their intended users. Deployment of a large suite of such algorithms on multiple platforms requires that the software be stable and appropriately tested.We present a novel framework that allows for rapid development of image analysis algorithms along with graphical user interface controls. Additionally, our framework allows for simplified nightly testing of the algorithms to ensure stability and cross platform interoperability. It allows for development of complex algorithms by creating a custom pipeline where the output of an algorithm can serve as an input for another algorithm. All of the functionality is encapsulation into the object requiring no separate source code for user interfaces, testing or deployment. This makes our framework ideal for developing novel, stable and easy-to-use algorithms for computer assisted interventions (CAI). The framework has been deployed at the Magnetic Resonance Research Center at Yale University and has been released for public use.

Development of a web-based remote load supervision and control system

The ability to remotely acquire information and even to control appliances/devices at fingertips over the Internet is becoming desirable to the general public as well as professionals. In this paper, a web-based remote electric load supervision and control (WBRELSAC) system with automatic meter reading and demand control via programmable logic controllers (PLCs) is presented. For both utilities and industrial/commercial customers, the electric load supervision and control (ELSAC) system is a critical function to their load management. However, most high voltage customers do not have enough capital to build a regular-scale supervisory control and data acquisition system as the one for utilities. Therefore, we adopt the industrial-widely-used PLCs in WBRELSAC. In order to make a non-web-based PLC become web-controllable, we develop a graphical-control interface and utilize Internet techniques to implement our system. Based on the performance test conducted under the Laboratory environment, the proposed WBRELSAC architecture is cost-effective and suitable for industrial applications.

HyReSpect: A broadband fast-averaging spectrometer for nuclear magnetic resonance of magnetic materials

We announce the successful development of a homemade frequency-swept nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer entirely designed and built at the University of Parma, optimized for the study of magnetic materials but also offering good performance as a general-purpose instrument for solid-state NMR. The spectrometer features heterodyne-based pulser and receiver with four-quadrant phase shifting and quadrature detection; a 150 MHz digital signal processor as a digital pulser for timing and control functions, capable of triggering events with a resolution of 6.6 ns; a two-channel 12 bit 25MS∕s digitizer hosted by a personal computer; and a graphical user interface control program running under Linux, which also integrates external field and temperature controls. The receiver exhibits a flat response from 8 up to 670 MHz, a frequency span suitable for the investigation of magnetic transition metal compounds (V, Co, Mn, Cu), and intrinsic dead time of less than 2μs, as required with the fast-relaxing NMR signals often encountered in magnetic materials. The rf design employing only one external signal generator, and the fast-averaging performance of the system (more than 10 000 repetitions per second), are probably the most remarkable features of our apparatus.

ECH system and its application to long pulse discharge in large helical device

We have developed and constructed an ECH system for the large helical device (LHD). The ECH system consists of 0.5 MW, 84 GHz range and 168 GHz gyrotrons, high voltage power supplies, long distance transmission lines, and in-vessel quasi-optical antennas. It has been improved step by step. At the third campaign of LHD experiments, three 84 GHz range (two 82.6 GHz and one 84 GHz) and three 168 GHz gyrotrons are operated and ECH power can be injected from four antennas vertically and two horizontally. This complicated system is remotely controlled and monitored by fully GUI (Graphical User Interface) control panels realized on PC via TCP (transmission control protocol) communication. Over 10 000 shots of gyrotron power have been injected steadily into the LHD during the experimental campaigns on this system. One line of the system (84 GHz line) is specially prepared for the experiments of steady state plasma production. Using this line, plasma sustainment for 2 min was successfully achieved by only ECH power. Injected ECH power was 50 kW with 95% duty factor. The electron density and temperature of the sustained plasma are measured to be 0.3–0.5×10 18 m −3 and ∼650 eV. Ion temperature measured by Doppler broadening of the impurity radiation line was kept constant at ∼300 eV during RF injection.

Graphical Control Interface for Construction and Maintenance Equipment

This paper discusses graphical interfaces to improve equipment control in construction and facility/infrastructure maintenance environments. Most large construction and maintenance machines are difficult to control because of insufficient visual feedback to equipment operators. In many emerging applications such as hazardous waste cleaning, it is also necessary to control such equipment from a distance using teleoperation techniques. Initial evidence indicates that real-time updated graphical representation of equipment and work environments can enhance equipment control by providing better spatial perception to the equipment operator. Real-time simulation and task planning with graphical models can also ensure safe and reliable operation of equipment. However, graphical control interfaces require careful design for successful results as it is very difficult to generate exact graphical models of unstructured and dynamic environments such as construction and maintenance. Design of graphical control interfa...