Purpose The resourcing of policing activity is characterised by a level of complexity, particularly where evaluating alternative policy options is concerned. In this paper, a case study using multimethodological modelling to compare alterative policy choice in a group context is outlined with respect to response-patrol officer deployment within a UK police force. Design/methodology/approach The...

Most airports have two types of gates: gates with an air bridge to the terminal and remote stands. For flights at a remote stand, passengers are transported to and from the aircraft by platform buses. In this paper we investigate the problem of planning platform buses as it appears at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. We focus on robust planning, i.e., we want to avoid that the bus planning is affect...

Vision feedback control loop techniques are efficient for a large class of applications but they come up against difficulties when the initial and desired robot positions are distant. Classical approaches are based on the regulation to zero of an error function computed from the current measurement and a constant desired one. By using such approach, it is not obvious to introduce any constraint...

In this thesis we consider the problem of generating motion plans for a nonlinear dynamical system that are guaranteed to succeed despite uncertainty in the environment, parametric model uncertainty, disturbances, and/or errors in state estimation. Furthermore, we consider the case where these plans must be generated online, because constraints such as obstacles in the environment may not be kn...

This paper deals with motion planning for a mobile robot on rough terrain. We proposed in 9] a geometrical planner for articulated robots which can take into account uncertainty on the terrain and on the position of the robot. This paper aims at improving the robustness of the trajectory using landmark based approach. We consider regions of the terrain where natural landmarks are visible. We pr...

Our work is focused on defining a generic approach for planning landmark based motion. In previous works we have introduced the formal basis for this and showed simulation results. In this paper we first demonstrate the relevance of our work with experiments on a real robot. Then, on the base of these results we introduce new strategy for planning selecting landmarks in order to improve the rob...

Supply vessel planning problem arises in the upstream offshore oil and gas logistics, where supply vessels are the most expensive logistics resource. A fleet of supply vessels provides delivery of necessary materials and equipment to a set of offshore installations on a periodic basis from an onshore supply base. The problem itself involves scheduling, routing and packing decisions. The objecti...

Robust autonomy, in the sense of performing tasks in the face of dynamic changes to the environment, requires that an autonomous system be capable of responding appropriately to such changes. One such response is to effectively adapt the allocation of resources from planning to execution. By adapting the resource allocation between deliberation and execution, an autonomous system can produce sh...

Long-term planning for energy systems is often based on deterministic economic optimization and forecasts of fuel prices. When fuel price evolution is underestimated, the consequence is a low penetration of renewables and more e cient technologies in favour of fossil alternatives. This work aims at overcoming this issue by assessing the impact of uncertainty on energy planning decisions. A clas...

As we work to move robots out of factories and into human environments, we must empower robots to interact freely in unstructured, cluttered spaces. Humans do this easily, using diverse, whole-arm, nonprehensile actions such as pushing or pulling in everyday tasks. These interaction strategies make difficult tasks easier and impossible tasks possible. In this thesis, we aim to enable robots wit...