BrainMap

Robert-Alexandru Dobre

PhD

- UNIVERSITATEA NAȚIONALĂ DE ȘTIINȚĂ ȘI TEHNOLOGIE POLITEHNICA BUCUREȘTI

Researcher | Teaching staff | Scientific reviewer | Entrepreneur

Robert-Alexandru Dobre is Lecturer at Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Information Technologies, University Politehnica of Bucharest. He received a Ph.D. degree in electronics and telecommunications with the MAGNA CUM LAUDE distinction in 2019 from the University Politehnica of Bucharest, Romania. His main research interests are centered on signal and image processing and visible light communications. He is a Topic Editor for MDPI Electronics, Guest Editor of the MDPI Electronics Special Issue “Advances in Radio, Visible Light Communications, and Fiber Optics”, reviewer board member for Sensors, Entropy, Journal of Imaging, and technical committee member of International Symposium on Electronics and Telecommunications (ISETC) and Conference of Information and communication Technologies of Ecuador - TICEC.

Web of Science ResearcherID: J-1165-2019

Expertise & keywords

A multimodal content targeted advertisement system dedicated to online video platforms Call name: P 1 - SP 1.1 - Proiecte de cercetare pentru stimularea tinerelor echipe independente - TE-2021
PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2021-0393 2022 - 2024

Role in this project:

Coordinating institution: UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI

Project partners: UNIVERSITATEA NAŢIONALĂ DE ŞTIINŢĂ ŞI TEHNOLOGIE POLITEHNICA BUCUREŞTI (RO)

Affiliation:

Project website: http://semanticad.go.ro/

Abstract:

The main objective of the SemanticAd project is to enhance the users’ viewing experience by increasing their satisfaction when watching online multimedia documents, while making them receptive to advertisement content. The specific objectives imposed to the project are: (1). A novel end-to-end approach for video temporal segmentation into scenes/stories, applicable to a large variety of video genders; (2). A keyframe selection module that associate to each video scene a relevant thumbnail, respecting both visual and semantic criteria; (3). An efficient advertisement insertion system that ensures the optimal commercial insertion locations by carefully taken into consideration: the temporal distribution, relevance and intrusiveness: (4). A novel multimodal audio-visual emotion recognition framework that estimates the user degree of satisfaction. The project will have a significant impact over the scientific community through the new set of concepts and algorithms proposed in the area of computer vision technologies and deep convolutional neural networks. At the social level, the project will have a direct and immediate impact over users and will enhance their perception of the multimedia content. In addition, the user can understand why a given ad is proposed at a given moment and thus increase the degrees of acceptability and receptiveness. At the economic level the SemanticAd system could be included into any national or international online video streaming platform.

System for localization and navigation inside buildings based on visible light communications (VLC) Call name: P 2 - SP 2.1 - Proiect experimental - demonstrativ
PN-III-P2-2.1-PED-2019-4395 2020 - 2022

Role in this project:

Coordinating institution: UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI

Project partners: UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI (RO)

Affiliation: UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI (RO)

Project website: http://comm.pub.ro/preda/guidinglight/index.html

Abstract:

In the era of Smart Cities, the number of complex building is increasing. Malls, exhibition sites, office buildings, libraries, supermarkets etc. are places in which people have difficulties finding the areas they are interested in. While satellite-based positioning systems (GPS, Galileo, GLONASS) almost completely solved the outdoors localization and navigation problem, there is still no available solution for indoor localization and navigation. Such solution will be beneficial for general public, but also for businesses. It will help individuals to quickly find, for example, certain stores in a mall, certain stands in an exhibition hall, or the areas where the products they want to buy are displayed in supermarkets, reducing the time spent searching for those areas, improving their life. Businesses could use such a system to target nearby users with different offers or other marketing messages. Statistics about user behavior can also be done. A very important role of an indoor localization and navigation system is to help the evacuation of large buildings in case of emergency. The struggle in implementing such a system is the technological inertia: adding additional systems to buildings involves modifications that could be costly, and users are very reluctant in carrying other portable devices than their smartphones. This project proposes an indoor localization and navigation system based on Visible Light Communications (VLC), that can use the already installed LED ambient illumination systems as transmitters (being minimally invasive), and mobile devices as receivers. The concept already proven by the research team overcomes many difficulties: it can be interfaced with off the shelf LED ambient lighting solutions, does not provoke light flickering, does not need auxiliary synchronization between the transmitter and receiver, and is compatible with video cameras capturing at low frame rates, with both CMOS and CCD image sensor types.

Mobilitate cercetător Robert-Alexandru Dobre Call name: P 1 - SP 1.1 - Proiecte de mobilitate pentru cercetatori
PN-III-P1-1.1-MC-2020-0042 2020 - 2020

Role in this project: Project coordinator

Coordinating institution: UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI

Project partners: UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI (RO)

Affiliation:

Project website:

Abstract:

Hybrid VLC/IR-RF Communication for Smart Space Based on Multi-Functional Thermal Image Sensor Module Call name: P 3 - SP 3.5 - Proiecte EUREKA Tradiţional (Network), EUREKA-Cluster, Eurostars
PN-III-P3-3.5-EUK-2017-02-0020 2017 - 2020

Role in this project: Key expert

Coordinating institution: BEIA CONSULT INTERNATIONAL S.R.L.

Project partners: BEIA CONSULT INTERNATIONAL S.R.L. (RO)

Affiliation: BEIA CONSULT INTERNATIONAL S.R.L. (RO)

Project website: http://www.beiaro.eu/hybrid-vlcir-rf/

Abstract:

The project will target the building block actors by developing a hybrid VLC/IR-RF (Visual Light Communication/InfraRed-RadioFrequency) system based on an innovative integrated multi-functional thermal image sensor module with highly sensitive, low cost, and low power consumption.

This module will be capable of multi-purpose sensing for the monitoring of the energy consumption and controlling the environment on houses, buildings, and offices, which could avoid the privacy issues with ultra-low resolution (80x80) micro-bolometer, including presence detection, motion detection, and non-contact temperature detection. Also, the module will be able to run an image processing algorithm based on artificial intelligence with low computation and energy requirements, enabling counting of persons or objects, tracking, and distinction of objects such animals. The goal is to develop an integrated multi-functional module with the smallest and smartest infrared design from a single compact sensor.

Furthermore, the proposed VLC/IR-RF system will be able to integrate existing sensors to detect the physical and chemical information at home, building and office.

Virtualized Video Services (VIRTUOSE) Call name: P 3 - SP 3.5 - Proiecte EUREKA Tradiţional (Network), EUREKA-Cluster, Eurostars
PN-III-P3-3.5-EUK-2017-02-0023 2017 - 2020

Role in this project: Key expert

Coordinating institution: BEIA CONSULT INTERNATIONAL S.R.L.

Project partners: BEIA CONSULT INTERNATIONAL S.R.L. (RO)

Affiliation: BEIA CONSULT INTERNATIONAL S.R.L. (RO)

Project website: http://www.beiaro.eu/virtuose/

Abstract:

The main goal of VIRTUOSE project is to develop video services utilizing virtualization techniques. With the use virtualization techniques, we can develop service, which are scalable and secure, and can easily be deployed to different computing platforms. This enables the partners to leverage their services to new markets, and offer cost-efficient solutions.

The VIRTUOSE project focuses on initially on selected use cases, which are: cloud gaming, video analytics and surveillance, video conferencing, cable TV and video streaming (live and video-on-demand) services.

Virtualization is expected to benefit all those use cases significantly. Project’s results will be visible through demonstrators targeting tests which conclusions will be made public in order to disseminate the best practices in the domain. It is also the intention of the project to push its results to standardization bodies. Business models and opportunities will be explored during the project.

The business impact of the project will be the further delivery of new products and services utilizing virtualization techniques as an enabler.

Wearable IoT Network Solution for Work Safety in Hazardous Industrial Environments Call name: P 3 - SP 3.5 - Proiecte EUREKA Tradiţional (Network), EUREKA-Cluster, Eurostars
PN-III-P3-3.5-EUK-2017-02-0038 2017 - 2020

Role in this project: Key expert

Coordinating institution: ALTFACTOR S.R.L.

Project partners: ALTFACTOR S.R.L. (RO); BEIA CONSULT INTERNATIONAL S.R.L. (RO)

Affiliation: BEIA CONSULT INTERNATIONAL S.R.L. (RO)

Project website: http://www.beiaro.eu/winshi/

Abstract:

Despite prevalence of on-going scientific and technical efforts in connecting anything everywhere in the mobile communication research landscape, there are still needs of agile, cost effective and yet reliable solutions in local area where no mobile communication like GSM/UMTS is available or where local radio network such as Wi-Fi is not suitable. In this project, we offer an ad-hoc, agile and reliable communication solution for both condition monitoring of the operations and safety of the workers in hazardous „Industry 4.0‟ work environments in order to prevent unpredictable operation failures and work accidents. To reduce time to market and the barriers imposed by deployment cost, we explore how to blend technologies together into an open platform and repurpose some of the existent infrastructure. For this purpose, different kinds of IoT sensors, such as wearable devices, that capture data from work environment and vital parameters of work safety will be exploited which could extract maximum amount of information from the hazardous production sites. The proposed solution will focus on underground coal mines, tunnel/underground transportation / construction sites, waste management industries and manufacturing environments as the main application fields since these work environments are very good examples of hostile „Industry 4.0‟ production sites where radio communication is very challenging. The aim is to improve safety, operation management and manufacturing environments and evaluate industrial accident risks more accurately owing to wearable sensors that collect information such as vibration and heat from worker equipment as well as ergonomic position of workers and gases like methane, firedamp and carbon monoxide. These sensors will also enable failure prediction for continuous operation, tracking of health status and physical location of workers which will guide search and rescue units in case of emergency.

ALADIN Airports Landside and Air-land Side Attacks’ Detection and Prevention Call name: P 3 - SP 3.5 - Proiecte EUREKA Tradiţional (Network), EUREKA-Cluster, Eurostars
PN-III-P3-3.5-EUK-2016-0038 2017 - 2019

Role in this project: Key expert

Coordinating institution: CERTSIGN SA

Project partners: CERTSIGN SA (RO); BEIA CONSULT INTERNATIONAL S.R.L. (RO)

Affiliation: BEIA CONSULT INTERNATIONAL S.R.L. (RO)

Project website: http://www.beiaro.eu/aladin-airports-landside-air-land-side-attacks-detection-prevention/

Abstract:

The cyber-security is now the key issue for the aerospace industry and services who manage the airspace and organize inspections of the equipment driving by. Thereby, we propose ALADIN that aims to prevent failures caused unexpectedly by the hacker at Landside area such as parking and baggage check services, and Air-landside areas that includes for instance the communication between aircraft on the ground and air traffic control. The focus of the project are primarily as follow: ● Analyze the risks and vulnerabilities of airport information & control systems and the ecosystem of airport assets/objects. This investigation will provide dedicated methodologies and tools to assess the resiliency level of the Airports, ● Define the cyber, physical or combined threats scenario that could target these airport information & control systems or any other airport assets, ● Design and implement the Attack Monitoring, Prevention and Detection building blocks in air-landside and landside areas to react smartly and quickly to the cyber-attacks with adapted intrusion prediction, detection and recovery countermeasures, ●Developing lightweight cryptographic techniques to assure a data confidentiality, ●Develop a simulation environment platform to evaluate the methods and techniques defined and implemented in ALADIN to assess their effectiveness with respect to dependability, security and performance, ●Define different cyber-security services that ALADIN could provide to an airport, ● Demonstration by embedding some attacks scenarios with their related security countermeasures. The result of ALADIN will be a Cyber protection and detection framework, incorporating the above described objectives. They will be marketable as standalone components or fully integrated system as soon as the project is over in order to address either existing or new airports sites. The estimated time for marketing techniques, tools or methodologies is of max 1 year from finalizing WP 5, 6, in 2019.

Smart City 3D simulation and monitoring platform Call name: P 3 - SP 3.5 - Proiecte EUREKA Tradiţional (Network), EUREKA-Cluster, Eurostars
PN-III-P3-3.5-EUK-2016-0043 2017 - 2019

Role in this project: Key expert

Coordinating institution: ALTFACTOR S.R.L.

Project partners: ALTFACTOR S.R.L. (RO); BEIA CONSULT INTERNATIONAL S.R.L. (RO)

Affiliation: BEIA CONSULT INTERNATIONAL S.R.L. (RO)

Project website: http://www.beiaro.eu/citisim/

Abstract:

Lately, the introduction of ICT technologies in our daily tasks has opened up new pathways of cooperation and organization. Our society is evolving towards a new digital era in which citizens will become more and more connected to their surrounding environment. Cities are the core of our society and so they will need to embrace and support this evolution of their citizens. As a consequence of this process and thanks to new technological improvements, a considerable number of research projects and laboratory pilots have been deployed to study how to deal with problems such as traffic, pollution, mobility, energy consumption, etc. A complete digital ecosystem is growing within the smart city concept which has an estimated market worth of $1,134.84 billion by 2019. However, along with the variety of services, technologies and protocols being utilized in smart cities, service development and service deployment in the context of smart city monitoring and control is likely to be problematic for companies, city councils and citizens. The absence of a common platform with advanced services and tools for the smart city is hindering the effective development of the associated ecosystem. This type of ICT platform, also called the e-infrastructure, will be as important a regulator for the future development of cities as energy infrastructure and transport infrastructure have been in past decades. Under this context, CitiSim´s project main goal is devoted to the design and implementation of a new generation platform for the smart city ecosystem. This platform will provide a powerful monitoring and control infrastructure to enable planners to make critical management decisions on tactical and strategic levels based on the knowledge provided by the specific platform developed. For a natural interaction and better understanding of the events that happen in the city, 3D visualization techniques as augmented virtuality and augmented reality will be explored.

Cunoașterea situației globale în operațiuni de salvare, calamitate și inspecție Call name: P 3 - SP 3.5 - Proiecte EUREKA Tradiţional (Network), EUREKA-Cluster, Eurostars
PN-III-P3-3.5-EUK-2016-0033 2017 - 2019

Role in this project: Key expert

Coordinating institution: BEIA CONSULT INTERNATIONAL S.R.L.

Project partners: BEIA CONSULT INTERNATIONAL S.R.L. (RO); ETA2U SRL (RO)

Affiliation: BEIA CONSULT INTERNATIONAL S.R.L. (RO)

Project website: http://www.beiaro.eu/3dsafeguard/

Abstract:

At present, calamities such as fires in buildings and bomb threats in stations/airports occur frequently. During such large incidents, organisations like fire departments, police, hospitals etc. work together, but the information about the actual actions is limited and information sharing between organisations is restricted. 3DSafeguard proposes a solution offering global situational awareness for both individual actors carrying out the operation and for the coordinating commanders. This situational awareness is enabled by integrated data, control and communication workflow between the abovementioned parties.

ODSI-On Demand Secure Isolation Call name: P 3 - SP 3.5 - Proiecte EUREKA Tradiţional (Network), EUREKA-Cluster, Eurostars
PN-III-P3-3.5-EUK-2016-0039 2017 - 2019

Role in this project: Key expert

Coordinating institution: B & S RESO NET SRL

Project partners: B & S RESO NET SRL (RO); BEIA CONSULT INTERNATIONAL S.R.L. (RO)

Affiliation: BEIA CONSULT INTERNATIONAL S.R.L. (RO)

Project website: http://www.beiaro.eu/odsi/

Abstract:

ODSI (project TRL: 3 to 5) will deliver new security models with the properties and the benefits of both hardware and software approaches. These models deliver only certified and proved (CC) minimal properties for isolation, with the goal of being used in mass production (low-cost and constrained CPU) in all approaches that require context isolation: M2M, IoT, network infrastructure sharing etc. Management systems of these isolated contexts offer the opportunity to qualify and authenticate the security level of remote devices using standardized protocols. ODSI solutions will guarantee / certify the lowest common subset of software and hardware with the goal to prove the isolation property. ODSI project ambition provides to the industry:

•New Models and Security Standards: a model of hardware / software security, leaving to the industry the choice of their strategies to distribute security objectives between both parts of their platforms; a minimal software standardized interface (API) allowing the industry to implement their services in the isolated environments and a communication protocol allowing to propagate the isolation properties from a first isolated context towards a second isolated context.

•The definition of the evaluation framework and the necessary elements for Common Criteria certifications (e.g. protection Profiles) allowing to reach a global security assurance level of the delivered isolation models and derived solutions (hardware / software). This framework will include two aspects, the certification of the elementary bricks at the highest logical/physical assurance level and the “lego methodology” to reach a global assurance level for the system when combining the certified bricks.

•USEs CASEs as technical evidence of ODSI concepts.

•Dissemination of ODSI high-level models, Protection Profiles and open source use cases implementation, as well as the standardization of the interfaces proposed for the IoT and M2M sectors.

Automated active image authentication system for PC and mobile devices Call name: P 2 - SP 2.1 - Proiect experimental - demonstrativ
PN-III-P2-2.1-PED-2016-1465 2017 - 2018

Role in this project: Key expert

Coordinating institution: UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI

Project partners: UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI (RO)

Affiliation: UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI (RO)

Project website: http://www.comm.pub.ro/preda/ped2017

Abstract:

With the rapid development of digital technology, image capturing is available to everyone. People all around the world are taking pictures with a variety of devices, ranging from mobile phones to professional cameras, and upload these pictures over the Internet to different networks to be shared among users. The content of such images can be easily manipulated or modified with the use of commonly available image processing applications and could cause economical, moral or, in the medical field, even physical damage. This is why image content authentication has become an important issue in the digital world. Its objective is to verify the integrity of the digital content and detect any possible tampering. Digital watermarking is one of the most promising approaches to image content authentication. The watermark is used as an authentication code, embedded into the original image in an imperceptible way. The code can be extracted at the decoder side and compared to a locally generated version of the original one to verify the integrity of the test image.

The main scope of the project is the development of a software application for PC / mobile devices to authenticate the content of digital images using active, digital watermarking approaches. The image authentication algorithms already developed by the project team in other research projects will be implemented as a fully functional and user-friendly software product for PC and mobile devices and will be extensively tested and validated in the research laboratory regarding image quality, image tampering detection rates, robustness to various common image processing operations, recovery capabilities, computational complexity, Graphical User Interface (GUI) functionality, user friendliness and feasibility in real-life scenarios. The applications will be designed to be scalable, to work on different devices, and modular, to facilitate debugging and to be able to accommodate other newly designed algorithms.

Automated interactive system for optimizing inputs of water, nutrients and pesticides to increase technical and economic competitiveness of small and medium sized vegetable farms Call name: Joint Applied Research Projects - PCCA-2011 call, Type 2
PN-II-PT-PCCA-2011-3.2-0899 2012 - 2016

Role in this project: Key expert

Coordinating institution: UNIVERSITATEA DE STIINTE AGRONOMICE SI MEDICINA VETERINARA

Project partners: UNIVERSITATEA DE STIINTE AGRONOMICE SI MEDICINA VETERINARA (RO); MIBATRON S.R.L. (RO); UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI (RO); ICTCM INSTITUTUL DE CERCETARE SI PROIECTARE TEHNOLOGICA PENTRU CONSTRUCTII MASINI SA (RO)

Affiliation: UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI (RO)

Project website: http://www.ictcm.ro/sioptef

Abstract:

The main objective of the project is to offer to the owner of a small or medium farm a competitive equipment from the quality and price points of view in order to satisfy his aim of obtaining an economical, ecological and qualitative vegetables. Another aim and novelty of this project is to present an automated interactive system for vegetables, a versatile and useful tool that enables every grower to master irrigation, fertigation and chemigation at a professional level. The electronic equipment for the control of the automated interactive system for the optimization of water, nutrients and pesticides inputs for growing the economic competitiveness of small and medium farms will contain a central processing unit, a data acquisition unit and a driving unit.

The software will be conceive as a practical and efficient tool to calculate irrigation, fertilization and phytosanitary treatments need for vegetables using drip/sprinkle irrigation, under set conditions described by the user. It will be interactive, which means that they can be seen, modified, printed. It will be used to get: a.) information on crop, soil texture and number of drips; b.) information on the electrical conductivity of water, percentage of water availability, and nutrient content so that any nutrients found here can be deducted from the fertilizer; c.) select and calculate the optimal fertilizer, to avoid undesirable chemical combinations, over-fertilizing or under-fertilizing, damage to soil or water sources, salinity build-up; d.) select and record phytosanitary treatments; e.) better control of the crop budget and long-term planning.

The entire system will be manufactured using lead-free technology and will follow EU regulations on registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals, restriction of hazardous substances in electrical and electronical equipments, on waste electrical and electronic equipment.

Family of tactical riflescopes with high zoom factor Call name: Dezvoltare Produse - Sisteme - Tehnologii - 2012
PN-II-IN-DPST-2012-1-0063 2013 - 2015

Role in this project: Key expert

Coordinating institution: IOR S.A.

Project partners: IOR S.A. (RO); OPTOELECTRONICA - 2001 S.A. (RO); UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI (RO); Ministerul Apararii Nationale prin Agentia de Cercetare pentru Tehnica si Tehnologii Militare (ACTTM) (RO)

Affiliation: UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI (RO)

Project website: http://www.ior.ro/lutaz

Abstract:

The project proposes the development of tactical riflescope with variable magnification, also known as „zoom” riflescopes. The family of telescopic sights will include three basic models in the following magnification and lens diameter ranges: 2-16x42; 3-25x50; 5-40x56. Each model will have several variants, depending on the reticle positioning plane and the click value of the elevation and windage adjustment mechanisms. According to current trends, an attachment for night vision and a riflescope with embedded rangefinder are also included in the working plan. The project is realized by a consortium coordinated by S.C. IOR S.A., in partnership with OPTOELECTRONICA-2001, UPB-CETTI and ACTTM. The project has a duration of 28 month, with an amount of 7.906 million Lei.

FILE DESCRIPTION	DOCUMENT
List of research grants as project coordinator or partner team leader
Significant R&D projects for enterprises, as project manager
R&D activities in enterprises
Peer-review activity for international programs/projects