@phdthesis{Klein2010,
  author    = {Klein, Alexander},
  title     = {Performance Issues of MAC and Routing Protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-4465},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-52870},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2010},
  abstract  = {The focus of this work lies on the communication issues of Medium Access Control (MAC) and routing protocols in the context of WSNs. The communication challenges in these networks mainly result from high node density, low bandwidth, low energy constraints and the hardware limitations in terms of memory, computational power and sensing capabilities of low-power transceivers. For this reason, the structure of WSNs is always kept as simple as possible to minimize the impact of communication issues. Thus, the majority of WSNs apply a simple one hop star topology since multi-hop communication has high demands on the routing protocol since it increases the bandwidth requirements of the network. Moreover, medium access becomes a challenging problem due to the fact that low-power transceivers are very limited in their sensing capabilities. The first contribution is represented by the Backoff Preamble-based MAC Protocol with Sequential Contention Resolution (BPS-MAC) which is designed to overcome the limitations of low-power transceivers. Two communication issues, namely the Clear Channel Assessment (CCA) delay and the turnaround time, are directly addressed by the protocol. The CCA delay represents the period of time which is required by the transceiver to detect a busy radio channel while the turnaround time specifies the period of time which is required to switch between receive and transmit mode. Standard Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) protocols do not achieve high performance in terms of packet loss if the traffic is highly correlated due to the fact that the transceiver is not able to sense the medium during the switching phase. Therefore, a node may start to transmit data while another node is already transmitting since it has sensed an idle medium right before it started to switch its transceiver from receive to transmit mode. The BPS-MAC protocol uses a new sequential preamble-based medium access strategy which can be adapted to the hardware capabilities of the transceivers. The protocol achieves a very low packet loss rate even in wireless networks with high node density and event-driven traffic without the need of synchronization. This makes the protocol attractive to applications such as structural health monitoring, where event suppression is not an option. Moreover, acknowledgments or complex retransmission strategies become almost unnecessary since the sequential preamble-based contention resolution mechanism minimizes the collision probability. However, packets can still be lost as a consequence of interference or other issues which affect signal propagation. The second contribution consists of a new routing protocol which is able to quickly detect topology changes without generating a large amount of overhead. The key characteristics of the Statistic-Based Routing (SBR) protocol are high end-to-end reliability (in fixed and mobile networks), load balancing capabilities, a smooth continuous routing metric, quick adaptation to changing network conditions, low processing and memory requirements, low overhead, support of unidirectional links and simplicity. The protocol can establish routes in a hybrid or a proactive mode and uses an adaptive continuous routing metric which makes it very flexible in terms of scalability while maintaining stable routes. The hybrid mode is optimized for low-power WSNs since routes are only established on demand. The difference of the hybrid mode to reactive routing strategies is that routing messages are periodically transmitted to maintain already established routes. However, the protocol stops the transmission of routing messages if no data packets are transmitted for a certain time period in order to minimize the routing overhead and the energy consumption. The proactive mode is designed for high data rate networks which have less energy constraints. In this mode, the protocol periodically transmits routing messages to establish routes in a proactive way even in the absence of data traffic. Thus, nodes in the network can immediately transmit data since the route to the destination is already established in advance. In addition, a new delay-based routing message forwarding strategy is introduced. The forwarding strategy is part of SBR but can also be applied to many routing protocols in order to modify the established topology. The strategy can be used, e.g. in mobile networks, to decrease the packet loss by deferring routing messages with respect to the neighbor change rate. Thus, nodes with a stable neighborhood forward messages faster than nodes within a fast changing neighborhood. As a result, routes are established through nodes with correlated movement which results in fewer topology changes due to higher link durations.},
  subject      = {Routing},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Kindermann2016,
  author    = {Kindermann, Philipp},
  title     = {Angular Schematization in Graph Drawing},
  publisher = {W{\"u}rzburg University Press},
  address   = {W{\"u}rzburg},
  isbn      = {978-3-95826-020-7 (print)},
  doi       = {10.25972/WUP-978-3-95826-021-4},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-112549},
  school      = {W{\"u}rzburg University Press},
  pages     = {184},
  year      = {2016},
  abstract  = {Graphs are a frequently used tool to model relationships among entities. A graph is a binary relation between objects, that is, it consists of a set of objects (vertices) and a set of pairs of objects (edges). Networks are common examples of modeling data as a graph. For example, relationships between persons in a social network, or network links between computers in a telecommunication network can be represented by a graph. The clearest way to illustrate the modeled data is to visualize the graphs. The field of Graph Drawing deals with the problem of finding algorithms to automatically generate graph visualizations. The task is to find a "good" drawing, which can be measured by different criteria such as number of crossings between edges or the used area. In this thesis, we study Angular Schematization in Graph Drawing. By this, we mean drawings with large angles (for example, between the edges at common vertices or at crossing points). The thesis consists of three parts. First, we deal with the placement of boxes. Boxes are axis-parallel rectangles that can, for example, contain text. They can be placed on a map to label important sites, or can be used to describe semantic relationships between words in a word network. In the second part of the thesis, we consider graph drawings visually guide the viewer. These drawings generally induce large angles between edges that meet at a vertex. Furthermore, the edges are drawn crossing-free and in a way that makes them easy to follow for the human eye. The third and final part is devoted to crossings with large angles. In drawings with crossings, it is important to have large angles between edges at their crossing point, preferably right angles.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Karch2002,
  author    = {Karch, Oliver},
  title     = {Where am I? - Indoor localization based on range measurements},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-8442},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2002},
  abstract  = {Nowadays, robotics plays an important role in increasing fields of application. There exist many environments or situations where mobile robots instead of human beings are used, since the tasks are too hazardous, uncomfortable, repetitive, or costly for humans to perform. The autonomy and the mobility of the robot are often essential for a good solution of these problems. Thus, such a robot should at least be able to answer the question "Where am I?". This thesis investigates the problem of self-localizing a robot in an indoor environment using range measurements. That is, a robot equipped with a range sensor wakes up inside a building and has to determine its position using only its sensor data and a map of its environment. We examine this problem from an idealizing point of view (reducing it into a pure geometric one) and further investigate a method of Guibas, Motwani, and Raghavan from the field of computational geometry to solving it. Here, so-called visibility skeletons, which can be seen as coarsened representations of visibility polygons, play a decisive role. In the major part of this thesis we analyze the structures and the occurring complexities in the framework of this scheme. It turns out that the main source of complication are so-called overlapping embeddings of skeletons into the map polygon, for which we derive some restrictive visibility constraints. Based on these results we are able to improve one of the occurring complexity bounds in the sense that we can formulate it with respect to the number of reflex vertices instead of the total number of map vertices. This also affects the worst-case bound on the preprocessing complexity of the method. The second part of this thesis compares the previous idealizing assumptions with the properties of real-world environments and discusses the occurring problems. In order to circumvent these problems, we use the concept of distance functions, which model the resemblance between the sensor data and the map, and appropriately adapt the above method to the needs of realistic scenarios. In particular, we introduce a distance function, namely the polar coordinate metric, which seems to be well suited to the localization problem. Finally, we present the RoLoPro software where most of the discussed algorithms are implemented (including the polar coordinate metric).},
  subject      = {Autonomer Roboter},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Jarschel2014,
  author    = {Jarschel, Michael},
  title     = {An Assessment of Applications and Performance Analysis of Software Defined Networking},
  issn      = {1432-8801},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-10079},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-100795},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2014},
  abstract  = {With the introduction of OpenFlow by the Stanford University in 2008, a process began in the area of network research, which questions the predominant approach of fully distributed network control. OpenFlow is a communication protocol that allows the externalization of the network control plane from the network devices, such as a router, and to realize it as a logically-centralized entity in software. For this concept, the term "Software Defined Networking" (SDN) was coined during scientific discourse. For the network operators, this concept has several advantages. The two most important can be summarized under the points cost savings and flexibility. Firstly, it is possible through the uniform interface for network hardware ("Southbound API"), as implemented by OpenFlow, to combine devices and software from different manufacturers, which increases the innovation and price pressure on them. Secondly, the realization of the network control plane as a freely programmable software with open interfaces ("Northbound API") provides the opportunity to adapt it to the individual circumstances of the operator's network and to exchange information with the applications it serves. This allows the network to be more flexible and to react more quickly to changing circumstances as well as transport the traffic more effectively and tailored to the user's "Quality of Experience" (QoE). The approach of a separate network control layer for packet-based networks is not new and has already been proposed several times in the past. Therefore, the SDN approach has raised many questions about its feasibility in terms of efficiency and applicability. These questions are caused to some extent by the fact that there is no generally accepted definition of the SDN concept to date. It is therefore a part of this thesis to derive such a definition. In addition, several of the open issues are investigated. This Investigations follow the three aspects: Performance Evaluation of Software Defined Networking, applications on the SDN control layer, and the usability of SDN Northbound-API for creation application-awareness in network operation. Performance Evaluation of Software Defined Networking: The question of the efficiency of an SDN-based system was from the beginning one of the most important. In this thesis, experimental measurements of the performance of OpenFlow-enabled switch hardware and control software were conducted for the purpose of answering this question. The results of these measurements were used as input parameters for establishing an analytical model of the reactive SDN approach. Through the model it could be determined that the performance of the software control layer, often called "Controller", is crucial for the overall performance of the system, but that the approach is generally viable. Based on this finding a software for analyzing the performance of SDN controllers was developed. This software allows the emulation of the forwarding layer of an SDN network towards the control software and can thus determine its performance in different situations and configurations. The measurements with this software showed that there are quite significant differences in the behavior of different control software implementations. Among other things it has been shown that some show different characteristics for various switches, in particular in terms of message processing speed. Under certain circumstances this can lead to network failures. Applications on the SDN control layer: The core piece of software defined networking are the intelligent network applications that operate on the control layer. However, their development is still in its infancy and little is known about the technical possibilities and their limitations. Therefore, the relationship between an SDN-based and classical implementation of a network function is investigated in this thesis. This function is the monitoring of network links and the traffic they carry. A typical approach for this task has been built based on Wiretapping and specialized measurement hardware and compared with an implementation based on OpenFlow switches and a special SDN control application. The results of the comparison show that the SDN version can compete in terms of measurement accuracy for bandwidth and delay estimation with the traditional measurement set-up. However, a compromise has to be found for measurements below the millisecond range. Another question regarding the SDN control applications is whether and how well they can solve existing problems in networks. Two programs have been developed based on SDN in this thesis to solve two typical network issues. Firstly, the tool "IPOM", which enables considerably more flexibility in the study of effects of network structures for a researcher, who is confined to a fixed physical test network topology. The second software provides an interface between the Cloud Orchestration Software "OpenNebula" and an OpenFlow controller. The purpose of this software was to investigate experimentally whether a pre-notification of the network of an impending relocation of a virtual service in a data center is sufficient to ensure the continuous operation of that service. This was demonstrated on the example of a video service. Usability of the SDN Northbound API for creating application-awareness in network operation: Currently, the fact that the network and the applications that run on it are developed and operated separately leads to problems in network operation. SDN offers with the Northbound-API an open interface that enables the exchange between information of both worlds during operation. One aim of this thesis was to investigate whether this interface can be exploited so that the QoE experienced by the user can be maintained on high level. For this purpose, the QoE influence factors were determined on a challenging application by means of a subjective survey study. The application is cloud gaming, in which the calculation of video game environments takes place in the cloud and is transported via video over the network to the user. It was shown that apart from the most important factor influencing QoS, i.e., packet loss on the downlink, also the type of game type and its speed play a role. This demonstrates that in addition to QoS the application state is important and should be communicated to the network. Since an implementation of such a state conscious SDN for the example of Cloud Gaming was not possible due to its proprietary implementation, in this thesis the application "YouTube video streaming" was chosen as an alternative. For this application, status information is retrievable via the "Yomo" tool and can be used for network control. It was shown that an SDN-based implementation of an application-aware network has distinct advantages over traditional network management methods and the user quality can be obtained in spite of disturbances.},
  subject      = {Leistungsbewertung},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Hossfeld2009,
  author    = {Hoßfeld, Tobias},
  title     = {Performance Evaluation of Future Internet Applications and Emerging User Behavior},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-3067},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-37570},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2009},
  abstract  = {In future telecommunication systems, we observe an increasing diversity of access networks. The separation of transport services and applications or services leads to multi-network services, i.e., a future service has to work transparently to the underlying network infrastructure. Multi-network services with edge-based intelligence, like P2P file sharing or the Skype VoIP service, impose new traffic control paradigms on the future Internet. Such services adapt the amount of consumed bandwidth to reach different goals. A selfish behavior tries to keep the QoE of a single user above a certain level. Skype, for instance, repeats voice samples depending on the perceived end-to-end loss. From the viewpoint of a single user, the replication of voice data overcomes the degradation caused by packet loss and enables to maintain a certain QoE. The cost for this achievement is a higher amount of consumed bandwidth. However, if the packet loss is caused by congestion in the network, this additionally required bandwidth even worsens the network situation. Altruistic behavior, on the other side, would reduce the bandwidth consumption in such a way that the pressure on the network is released and thus the overall network performance is improved. In this monograph, we analyzed the impact of the overlay, P2P, and QoE paradigms in future Internet applications and the interactions from the observing user behavior. The shift of intelligence toward the edge is accompanied by a change in the emerging user behavior and traffic profile, as well as a change from multi-service networks to multi-networks services. In addition, edge-based intelligence may lead to a higher dynamics in the network topology, since the applications are often controlled by an overlay network, which can rapidly change in size and structure as new nodes can leave or join the overlay network in an entirely distributed manner. As a result, we found that the performance evaluation of such services provides new challenges, since novel key performance factors have to be first identified, like pollution of P2P systems, and appropriate models of the emerging user behavior are required, e.g. taking into account user impatience. As common denominator of the presented studies in this work, we focus on a user-centric view when evaluating the performance of future Internet applications. For a subscriber of a certain application or service, the perceived quality expressed as QoE will be the major criterion of the user's satisfaction with the network and service providers. We selected three different case studies and characterized the application's performance from the end user's point of view. Those are (1) cooperation in mobile P2P file sharing networks, (2) modeling of online TV recording services, and (3) QoE of edge-based VoIP applications. The user-centric approach facilitates the development of new mechanisms to overcome problems arising from the changing user behavior. An example is the proposed CycPriM cooperation strategy, which copes with selfish user behavior in mobile P2P file sharing system. An adequate mechanism has also been shown to be efficient in a heterogeneous B3G network with mobile users conducting vertical handovers between different wireless access technologies. The consideration of the user behavior and the user perceived quality guides to an appropriate modeling of future Internet applications. In the case of the online TV recording service, this enables the comparison between different technical realizations of the system, e.g. using server clusters or P2P technology, to properly dimension the installed network elements and to assess the costs for service providers. Technologies like P2P help to overcome phenomena like flash crowds and improve scalability compared to server clusters, which may get overloaded in such situations. Nevertheless, P2P technology invokes additional challenges and different user behavior to that seen in traditional client/server systems. Beside the willingness to share files and the churn of users, peers may be malicious and offer fake contents to disturb the data dissemination. Finally, the understanding and the quantification of QoE with respect to QoS degradations permits designing sophisticated edge-based applications. To this end, we identified and formulated the IQX hypothesis as an exponential interdependency between QoE and QoS parameters, which we validated for different examples. The appropriate modeling of the emerging user behavior taking into account the user's perceived quality and its interactions with the overlay and P2P paradigm will finally help to design future Internet applications.},
  subject      = {Leistungsbewertung},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Houshiar2017,
  author    = {Houshiar, Hamidreza},
  title     = {Documentation and mapping with 3D point cloud processing},
  isbn      = {978-3-945459-14-0},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-14449},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-144493},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2017},
  abstract  = {3D point clouds are a de facto standard for 3D documentation and modelling. The advances in laser scanning technology broadens the usability and access to 3D measurement systems. 3D point clouds are used in many disciplines such as robotics, 3D modelling, archeology and surveying. Scanners are able to acquire up to a million of points per second to represent the environment with a dense point cloud. This represents the captured environment with a very high degree of detail. The combination of laser scanning technology with photography adds color information to the point clouds. Thus the environment is represented more realistically. Full 3D models of environments, without any occlusion, require multiple scans. Merging point clouds is a challenging process. This thesis presents methods for point cloud registration based on the panorama images generated from the scans. Image representation of point clouds introduces 2D image processing methods to 3D point clouds. Several projection methods for the generation of panorama maps of point clouds are presented in this thesis. Additionally, methods for point cloud reduction and compression based on the panorama maps are proposed. Due to the large amounts of data generated from the 3D measurement systems these methods are necessary to improve the point cloud processing, transmission and archiving. This thesis introduces point cloud processing methods as a novel framework for the digitisation of archeological excavations. The framework replaces the conventional documentation methods for excavation sites. It employs point clouds for the generation of the digital documentation of an excavation with the help of an archeologist on-site. The 3D point cloud is used not only for data representation but also for analysis and knowledge generation. Finally, this thesis presents an autonomous indoor mobile mapping system. The mapping system focuses on the sensor placement planning method. Capturing a complete environment requires several scans. The sensor placement planning method solves for the minimum required scans to digitise large environments. Combining this method with a navigation system on a mobile robot platform enables it to acquire data fully autonomously. This thesis introduces a novel hole detection method for point clouds to detect obscured parts of a captured environment. The sensor placement planning method selects the next scan position with the most coverage of the obscured environment. This reduces the required number of scans. The navigation system on the robot platform consist of path planning, path following and obstacle avoidance. This guarantees the safe navigation of the mobile robot platform between the scan positions. The sensor placement planning method is designed as a stand alone process that could be used with a mobile robot platform for autonomous mapping of an environment or as an assistant tool for the surveyor on scanning projects.},
  subject      = {3D Punktwolke},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Hopfner2008,
  author    = {Hopfner, Marbod},
  title     = {Source Code Analysis, Management, and Visualization for PROLOG},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-36300},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2008},
  abstract  = {This thesis deals with the management and analysis of source code, which is represented in XML. Using the elementary methods of the XML repository, the XML source code representation is accessed, changed, updated, and saved. We reason about the source code, refactor source code and we visualize dependency graphs for call analysis. The visualized dependencies between files, modules, or packages are used to structure the source code in order to get a system, which is easily to comprehend, to modify and to complete. Sophisticated methods have been developed to slice the source code in order to obtain a working package of a large system, containing only a specific functionality. The basic methods, on which the visualizations and analyses are built on can be changed like changing a plug-in. The visualization methods can be reused in order to handle arbitrary source code representations, e.g., JAML, PHPML, PROLOGML. Dependencies of other context can be visualized, too, e.g., ER diagrams, or website references. The tool SCAV supports source code visualization and analyzing methods.},
  subject      = {Refactoring},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Hock2014,
  author    = {Hock, David Rog{\´e}r},
  title     = {Analysis and Optimization of Resilient Routing in Core Communication Networks},
  issn      = {1432-8801},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-10168},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-101681},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  pages     = {175},
  year      = {2014},
  abstract  = {Routing is one of the most important issues in any communication network. It defines on which path packets are transmitted from the source of a connection to the destination. It allows to control the distribution of flows between different locations in the network and thereby is a means to influence the load distribution or to reach certain constraints imposed by particular applications. As failures in communication networks appear regularly and cannot be completely avoided, routing is required to be resilient against such outages, i.e., routing still has to be able to forward packets on backup paths even if primary paths are not working any more. Throughout the years, various routing technologies have been introduced that are very different in their control structure, in their way of working, and in their ability to handle certain failure cases. Each of the different routing approaches opens up their own specific questions regarding configuration, optimization, and inclusion of resilience issues. This monograph investigates, with the example of three particular routing technologies, some concrete issues regarding the analysis and optimization of resilience. It thereby contributes to a better general, technology-independent understanding of these approaches and of their diverse potential for the use in future network architectures. The first considered routing type, is decentralized intra-domain routing based on administrative IP link costs and the shortest path principle. Typical examples are common today's intra-domain routing protocols OSPF and IS-IS. This type of routing includes automatic restoration abilities in case of failures what makes it in general very robust even in the case of severe network outages including several failed components. Furthermore, special IP-Fast Reroute mechanisms allow for a faster reaction on outages. For routing based on link costs, traffic engineering, e.g. the optimization of the maximum relative link load in the network, can be done indirectly by changing the administrative link costs to adequate values. The second considered routing type, MPLS-based routing, is based on the a priori configuration of primary and backup paths, so-called Label Switched Paths. The routing layout of MPLS paths offers more freedom compared to IP-based routing as it is not restricted by any shortest path constraints but any paths can be setup. However, this in general involves a higher configuration effort. Finally, in the third considered routing type, typically centralized routing using a Software Defined Networking (SDN) architecture, simple switches only forward packets according to routing decisions made by centralized controller units. SDN-based routing layouts offer the same freedom as for explicit paths configured using MPLS. In case of a failure, new rules can be setup by the controllers to continue the routing in the reduced topology. However, new resilience issues arise caused by the centralized architecture. If controllers are not reachable anymore, the forwarding rules in the single nodes cannot be adapted anymore. This might render a rerouting in case of connection problems in severe failure scenarios infeasible.},
  subject      = {Leistungsbewertung},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Hess2009,
  author    = {Hess, Martin},
  title     = {Motion coordination and control in systems of nonholonomic autonomous vehicles},
  isbn      = {978-3-923959-55-6},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-3794},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-46442},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2009},
  abstract  = {This work focuses on coordination methods and the control of motion in groups of nonholonomic wheeled mobile robots, in particular of the car-like type. These kind of vehicles are particularly restricted in their mobility. In the main part of this work the two problems of formation motion coordination and of rendezvous in distributed multi-vehicle systems are considered. We introduce several enhancements to an existing motion planning approach for formations of nonholonomic mobile robots. Compared to the original method, the extended approach is able to handle time-varying reference speeds as well as adjustments of the formation's shape during reference trajectory segments with continuously differentiable curvature. Additionally, undesired discontinuities in the speed and steering profiles of the vehicles are avoided. Further, the scenario of snow shoveling on an airfield by utilizing multiple formations of autonomous snowplows is discussed. We propose solutions to the subproblems of motion planning for the formations and tracking control for the individual vehicles. While all situations that might occur have been tested in a simulation environment, we also verified the developed tracking controller in real robot hardware experiments. The task of the rendezvous problem in groups of car-like robots is to drive all vehicles to a common position by means of decentralized control laws. Typically there exists no direct interaction link between all of the vehicles. In this work we present decentralized rendezvous control laws for vehicles with free and with bounded steering. The convergence properties of the approaches are analyzed by utilizing Lyapunov based techniques. Furthermore, they are evaluated within various simulation experiments, while the bounded steering case is also verified within laboratory hardware experiments. Finally we introduce a modification to the bounded steering system that increases the convergence speed at the expense of a higher traveled distance of the vehicles.},
  subject      = {Robotik},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Herrmann2013,
  author    = {Herrmann, Christian},
  title     = {Robotic Motion Compensation for Applications in Radiation Oncology},
  isbn      = {978-3-923959-88-4},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-6727},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-79045},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2013},
  abstract  = {Aufgrund vieler Verbesserungen der Behandlungsmethoden im Laufe der letzten 60 Jahre, erlaubt die Strahlentherapie heutzutage pr{\"a}zise Behandlungen von statischen Tumoren. Jedoch birgt die Bestrahlung von sich bewegenden Tumoren noch große Herausforderungen in sich, da bewegliche Tumore oft den Behandlungsstrahl verlassen. Dabei reduziert sich die Strahlendosis im Tumor w{\"a}hrend sich diese im umliegenden gesunden Gewebe erh{\"o}ht. Diese Forschungsarbeit zielt darauf ab, die Grenzen der Strahlentherapie zu erweitern, um pr{\"a}zise Behandlungen von beweglichen Tumoren zu erm{\"o}glichen. Der Fokus der Arbeit liegt auf der Erstellung eines Echtzeitsystems zur aktiven Kompensation von Tumorbewegungen durch robotergest{\"u}tzte Methoden. W{\"a}hrend Behandlungen befinden sich Patienten auf einer Patientenliege, mit der statische Lagerungsfehler vor Beginn einer Behandlung korrigiert werden. Die in dieser Arbeit verwendete Patientenliege "HexaPOD" ist ein paralleler Manipulator mit sechs Freiheitsgraden, der große Lasten innerhalb eines eingeschr{\"a}nkten Arbeitsbereichs pr{\"a}zise positionieren kann. Obwohl der HexaPOD urspr{\"u}nglich nicht f{\"u}r dynamische Anwendungen konzipiert wurde, wird dieser f{\"u}r eine dauerhafte Bewegungskompensation eingesetzt, in dem Patienten so bewegt werden, dass Tumore pr{\"a}zise im Zentralstrahl w{\"a}hrend der Dauer einer gesamten Behandlung verbleiben. Um ein echtzeitf{\"a}higes Kompensationssystem auf Basis des HexaPODs zu realisieren, muss eine Reihe an Herausforderungen bew{\"a}ltigt werden. Echtzeitaspekte werden einerseits durch die Verwendung eines harten Echtzeitbetriebssystems abgedeckt, andererseits durch die Messung und Sch{\"a}tzung von Latenzzeiten aller physikalischen Gr{\"o}ßen im System, z.B. Messungen der Tumor- und Atemposition. Neben der konsistenten und durchg{\"a}ngigen Ber{\"u}cksichtigung von akkuraten Zeitinformation, werden alle software-induzierten Latenzen adaptiv ausgeglichen. Dies erfordert Vorhersagen der Tumorposition in die nahe Zukunft. Zahlreiche Pr{\"a}diktoren zur Atem- und Tumorpositionsvorhersage werden vorgeschlagen und anhand verschiedenster Metriken evaluiert. Erweiterungen der Pr{\"a}diktionsalgorithmen werden eingef{\"u}hrt, die sowohl Atem- als auch Tumorpositionsinformationen fusionieren, um Vorhersagen ohne explizites Korrelationsmodell zu erm{\"o}glichen. Die Vorhersagen bestimmen den zuk{\"u}nftigen Bewegungspfad des HexaPODs, um Tumorbewegungen zu kompensieren. Dazu werden verschiedene Regler entwickelt, die eine Trajektorienverfolgung mit dem HexaPOD erm{\"o}glichen. Auf der Basis von linearer und nicht-linearer dynamischer Modellierung des HexaPODs mit Methoden der Systemidentifikation, wird zun{\"a}chst ein modellpr{\"a}diktiver Regler entwickelt. Ein zweiter Regler wird auf Basis einer Annahme {\"u}ber das Arbeitsprinzip des internen Reglers im HexaPOD entworfen. Schließlich wird ein dritter Regler vorgeschlagen, der beide vorhergehenden Regler miteinander kombiniert. F{\"u}r jeden dieser Regler werden vergleichende Ergebnisse aus Experimenten mit realer Hardware und menschlichen Versuchspersonen pr{\"a}sentiert und diskutiert. Dar{\"u}ber hinaus wird die geeignete Wahl von freien Parametern in den Reglern vorgestellt. Neben einer pr{\"a}zisen Verfolgung der Referenztrajektorie spielt der Patientenkomfort eine entscheidende Rolle f{\"u}r die Akzeptanz des Systems. Es wird gezeigt, dass die Regler glatte Trajektorien realisieren k{\"o}nnen, um zu garantieren, dass sich Patienten wohl f{\"u}hlen w{\"a}hrend ihre Tumorbewegung mit Genauigkeiten im Submillimeterbereich ausgeglichen wird. Gesamtfehler werden im Kompensationssystem analysiert, in dem diese zu Trajektorienverfolgungsfehlern und Pr{\"a}diktionsfehlern in Beziehung gesetzt werden. Durch Ausnutzung von Eigenschaften verschiedener Pr{\"a}diktoren wird gezeigt, dass die Startzeit des Systems bis die Verfolgung der Referenztrajektorie erreicht ist, wenige Sekunden betr{\"a}gt. Dies gilt insbesondere f{\"u}r den Fall eines initial ruhenden HexaPODs und ohne Vorwissen {\"u}ber Tumorbewegungen. Dies zeigt die Eignung des Systems f{\"u}r die sehr kurz fraktionierten Behandlungen von Lungentumoren. Das Tumorkompensationssystem wurde ausschließlich auf Basis von klinischer Standard-Hardware entwickelt, die in vielen Behandlungsr{\"a}umen zu finden ist. Durch ein einfaches und flexibles Design k{\"o}nnen Behandlungsr{\"a}ume in kosteneffizienter Weise um M{\"o}glichkeiten der Bewegungskompensation erg{\"a}nzt werden. Dar{\"u}ber hinaus werden aktuelle Behandlungsmethoden wie intensit{\"a}tsmodulierte Strahlentherapie oder Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy in keiner Weise eingeschr{\"a}nkt. Aufgrund der Unterst{\"u}tzung verschiedener Kompensationsmodi kann das System auf alle beweglichen Tumore angewendet werden, unabh{\"a}ngig davon ob die Bewegungen vorhersagbar (Lungentumore) oder nicht vorhersagbar (Prostatatumore) sind. Durch Integration von geeigneten Methoden zur Tumorpositionsbestimmung kann das System auf einfache Weise zur Kompensation von anderen Tumoren erweitert werden.},
  subject      = {Robotik},
  language  = {en}
}