Pedro La Hera

Here at SLU I do not have teaching duties. But I supervise projects, and I also provide teaching for updating engineers in individual companies. I provide this teaching in the form of seminars, workshops, or specialized lectures, where the topics vary from using special model-based design software (such as Matlab/Simulink), to special subjects needed for projects involving initial proof-of-concepts and prototyping (mathematics/physics, control theory, embedded control hardware, sensor data analysis).

I work with two different topics. On one hand, I research on nonlinear control and trajectory planning for underactuated mechanical systems, a field with challenging problems such as legged locomotion. On the other end, I work developing new smart systems and control technologies to facilitate the work with forestry machines. The goal of my research is to develop intelligent machines with the ability to move smartly, make partial decisions, and co-work with human operators.

I currently work as the R&D lead engineer for the Swedish Northern Cluster of Forest Technology, a consortium including 11 of the world leading manufacturers of forestry machine technology - Komatsu Forest, Cranab, Indexator, Vimek, Oryx Simulations, ELForest, Brake, etc. I particularly promote the framework of model-based development and rapid-prototyping for the tasks of model analysis, control design, simulation, and hardware-in-the-loop testing. My main goal is to develop a new generation of smart machines functioning with automation technology. I am also appointed as a part time researcher at the Department of Forest Technology of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), a position financed by a Sponsored Research Agreement in between the forest company Holmen Skog and SLU.

2010 - Ph.D  in Automatic Control with a major in Robotics, Umeå University, Sweden

Subject: Motion planning and control for robots presenting various limitations: restricted number of actuators, limited velocity, limited range of motion, restrictions on actuator forces, acceleration, etc.

Supervisor: Anton Shiriaev, Professor, NTNU, Norway

Disputation date: 1st of March, 2011

Opponent: Ambarish Goswami, Principal Scientist, Honda Research Institute, California, USA.

 
2005 - MSc. in Applied Physics and Electronics with a major in Control Systems, Umeå University, Sweden

Subject: Development of mathematical models to simulate, analyze, and design control algorithms for complex nonlinear systems. Case 1: heavy-duty hydraulic manipulator. Case 2: human cerebrospinal flow system

Supervisor: Anton Shiriaev, Professor, NTNU, Norway

Opponent: Anders Eklund, Professor at the Department of Radiation Sciences, Radiation Physics, Umeå University, Sweden. 
2003 - BSc. In Electronic Engineering with a major in Embedded Systems, UMSA University, Bolivia

Subject: Design and implementation of embedded control for teleoperation of planetariums dedicated to research on astrophysics.

Supervised academic theses on the subjects of Automatic Control and Robotics

- PhD degree: 2 students (as assisting supervisor)

- Lic. Degree: 2 students (as assisting supervisor).

- MSc degree: 7 students (three as assisting supervisor)

I also supervise R&D projects at an industrial level with my employer Skogsteksniska klustret.

REFEREED INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL PAPERS

1. Lindroos, O., La Hera, P., Häggström, C. (2016). Future of Mechanized Timber Harvesting. Croatian Journal of Forest Engineering: Journal for Theory and Application of Forestry Engineering. Submitted for review.

2. Pedro M. La Hera and Daniel O. Morales (2016). What information can we see when we equip forestry cranes with motion sensors? Elsevier International Journal of computers and electronics in agriculture. Submitted for review.

3. Lindroos, O., Ringdahl, O., La Hera, P., Hohnloser, P., Hellström, T. (2015). Estimating the Position of the Harvester Head – a Key Step towards the Precision Forestry of the Future? Croatian Journal of Forest Engineering: Journal for Theory and Application of Forestry Engineering, 36(2), 147-164.

4. Pedro La Hera and Daniel Ortíz Morales. 2015. Model-Based development of control systems for forestry cranes. J. Control Sci. Eng. 2015, Article 27 (January 2015), 10 pages. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/256951

5. Daniel O. Morales, Pedro M. La Hera, Simon Westerberg, Leonid B. Freidovich, and Anton S. Shiriaev, Path-constrained motion analysis. An algorithm to understand human performance on hydraulic manipulators. IEEE Transactions on Human Machine Systems, 2015, doi: 10.1109/THMS.2014.2366873.

6. Daniel O. Morales, Simon Westerberg, Pedro M. La Hera, Uwe Mettin, Leonid B. Freidovich, and Anton S. Shiriaev, Increasing the level of automation in the forestry logging process with crane trajectory planning and control. Journal of Field Robotics, 31(3), 343-363, doi: 10.1002/rob.21496

7. Pedro M. La Hera and Daniel O. Morales. Nonlinear dynamics modelling description for simulating the behavior of forestry cranes. International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control, 2014, doi: 10.1504/IJMIC.2014.060006

8. Pedro M. La Hera, Anton S. Shiriaev, Leonid B. Freidovich, Uwe Mettin. Stable walking gaits for a three-link planar biped robot with one actuator. IEEE Transactions Robotics, 2013, doi: 10.1109/TRO.2013.2239551

9. Uwe Mettin, Pedro La Hera, Anton Shiriaev, Leonid Freidovich. Parallel elastic actuators as a control tool for preplanned trajectories of underactuated mechanical systems. The international journal of robotics research, 2010, doi:10.1177/0278364909344002

10. Pedro M. La Hera, Leonid B. Freidovich, Anton S. Shiriaev, Uwe Mettin. New approach to swing up the Furuta pendulum: Theory and experiments. Mechatronics journal, 2009, doi:10.1016/j.mechatronics.2009.07.005

11. Leonid Freidovich, Pedro La Hera, Uwe Mettin, Anders Robertsson, Anton Shiriaev, Rolf Johansson. Shaping stable periodic motions of inertia wheel pendulum: theory and experiments. Asian journal of control, 2009, doi:10.1002/asjc.135

12. Uwe Mettin, Pedro La Hera, Leonid Freidovich, Anton Shiriaev, Jan Helbo. Motion planning for humanoid robots based on virtual constraints extracted from recorded human movements. Journal of Intelligent Service Robotics, 2008, doi:10.1007/s11370-008-0027-2

REFEREED INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE PAPERS

1. M. S. L. Khan, S. ur Réhman, P. L. Hera, F. Liu and H. Li, "A pilot user's prospective in mobile robotic telepresence system," Signal and Information Processing Association Annual Summit and Conference (APSIPA), 2014 Asia-Pacific, Siem Reap, 2014, pp. 1-4. doi: 10.1109/APSIPA.2014.7041635

2. Daniel O. Morales, Pedro M. La Hera, and Shafiq Ur- Rehman, Generating periodic motions for the butterfly robot. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Tokyo, Japan, November 2013.

3. Pedro M. La Hera, Daniel O. Morales, Bilal Ur-Rehman. Electro-hydraulically actuated forestry manipulator: Modeling and Identification. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Vilamoura, Algarve, Portugal October 8 - 12, 2012.

4. Pedro M. La Hera, Daniel O. Morales. Modelling dynamics of an electro-hydraulic servo actuated manipulator: A case study of a forestry forwarder crane. Proceedings of the Word Automation Congress, Mexico, June 24 - 28, 2012.

5. Pedro M. La Hera, Bilal Ur-Rehman, Anders Sandberg. Modelling an industrial flotation process: A case study at the mining company Boliden AB. Proceedings of the Word Automation Congress, Mexico, June 24 - 28, 2012.

6. Daniel O. Morales, Pedro M. La Hera. Design of stable walking gaits for biped robots with several Underactuated degrees of freedom. Proceedings of the Dynamics Walking Conference, USA, may 15 – 21, 2012.

7. Pedro M. La Hera, Daniel O. Morales. Design of energy efficient walking gaits for a three link planar biped walker with two unactuated degrees of freedom. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, USA, may 14 - 18, 2012.

8. Pedro La Hera, Uwe Mettin, Ian R. Manchester, Anton Shiriaev. Identification and Control of a Hydraulic Forestry Crane. Proceedings of the 17th IFAC World Congress, Korea, July 2008.

9. Pedro La Hera, Andrej Zanhar, Uwe Mettin, Simon Westerberg, Anton Shiriaev. Identification-based Modeling and Control of Hydraulically actuated Forestry Cranes. Swedish conference on control systems, Sweden, 2008

10. Pedro La Hera, Uwe Mettin, Simon Westerberg, Anton S. Shiriaev. Modeling and control of hydraulic rotary actuators used in forestry cranes. Proceedings of the IEEE International conference on robotics and Automation, Japan, May 2009.

11. Uwe Mettin, Pedro La Hera, Ortiz Morales, Anton Shiriaev, Leonid Freidovich, Simon Westerberg. Trajectory planning and time-independent motion control for a kinematically redundant hydraulic manipulator. Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Advance Robotics, Germany, June 22 – 26, 2009.

12. Uwe Mettin, Pedro La Hera, Anton Shiriaev, Simon Westerberg. Analysis of human-operated motions and trajectory replanning for kinematically redundant manipulators. Proceedings of the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and systems, USA, 2009.

13. D. Ortíz Morales, P. La Hera, U. Mettin, L. Freidovich, A. Shiriaev, and S. Westerberg. Steps in trajectory planning and controller design for a hydraulically driven crane with limited sensing. In Proc. 2010 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Oct. 2010.

14. D. Ortíz Morales, S. Westerberg, P. La Hera, U. Mettin, L. Freidovich, and A. Shiriaev. Openloop control experiments on driver assistance for crane forestry machines. In Proc. 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, China, May 2011.

15. Simon Westerberg, Ian R. Manchester, Uwe Mettin, Pedro La Hera, Anton Shiriaev. Virtual Environment Teleoperation of a Hydraulic Forestry Crane. Proceedings of the 2008 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, USA, May 2008

16. Pedro M. La Hera, Leonid B. Freidovich, Anton S. Shiriaev, Uwe Mettin. Orbital stabilization of a pre-planned periodic motion to swing up the Furuta Pendulum. Theory and Experiments. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Japan, may 12 - 17, 2009.

17. Pedro M. La Hera, Leonid B. Freidovich, Anton S. Shiriaev, Uwe Mettin. Traversing from point-to-point along a straight line with a Ballbot. Proceedings of the 8th Symposium on Nonlinear Control System, Bologna, Italy, September 1 - 3, 2010.

18. Leonid Freidovich, Anton Shiriaev, Uwe Mettin, Pedro La Hera, Anders Sandberg. Planning Orbitally Stabilizable Periodic Motions for an Underactuated Three-Link Pendulum. Proceedings of the European Control Conference, Greece, July 2 – 5, 2007

19. Pedro M. La Hera, Anton S. Shiriaev, Leonid B. Freidovich, Uwe Mettin. Gait synthesis for a three-link planar biped walker with one actuator. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, USA, may 3 - 7, 2010.

20. Uwe Mettin, Pedro La Hera, Leonid Freidovich, Anton Shiriaev. Planning human-like motions for an underactuated humanoid robot based on the virtual constraints approach. Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Advance Robotics, Korea, August 21 – 24, 2007.

21. Uwe Mettin, Pedro La Hera, Leonid Freidovich, Anton Shiriaev. Generating Human-like Motions for an Underactuated Three-Link Robot Based on the Virtual Constraints Approach. Proceedings of the 46th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, New Orleans, USA, December 12 – 14, 2007.

THESES AND IMPORTANT REPORTS

1. Pedro La Hera. Underactuated mechanical systems: Contributions to trajectory planning, analysis, and control. Doctoral thesis, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden, March 2011, ISBN 978-91-7459-149-1

2. Pedro La Hera. Contributions to Motion Planning and Orbital Stabilization. Case studies: Furuta Pendulum swing up, Inertia Wheel oscillations and Biped Robot walking (2008). Pre-doctoral thesis (Licentiate), Umeå University, Sweden, Oct. 2008, ISBN 978-91-7264-665-0

3. Pedro La Hera. Modelling and simulation of Non-linear Dynamical Systems. Master Thesis, Umeå University, Sweden, Aug. 2005.

4. Pedro La Hera. Design of an Embedded System and motion control algorithm for remote and automatic control of the Telescope-Dome System of the Max Schreier Planetarium. Bachelor thesis, La Paz, Bolivia, 2003, Faculty of Engineering – University Mayor de San Andres.

5. Shiriaev, A., Freidovich, L., Manchester, I., Mettin, U., La Hera, P., & Westerberg, S. (2008). Status of Smart Crane Lab Project: Modeling and Control for a Forwarder Crane. Technical Report.