bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Second Generation Curvelet Transform for Building Extraction from High Resolution Satellite Imagery
Authors: Shawky Elsharkawy Ahmed , Elhabiby Mohamed , El-Sheimy Naser
Published: March 2012

The process of automatic extraction of buildings from digital imagery has had major practical importance for many years in the area of data acquisition and updating of geographic information system (GIS) databases. This process also presents a huge scientific challenge for researchers as a result of the heterogeneous nature of the buildings, especially in the developing countries[Aytekin et al. 2009].

Several techniques were used in building extraction for satellite images in this research paper, second generation curvelet transform will be introduced as an edge detection tool helping in the detection of buildings boundaries. Second generation curvelet transform provides optimally sparse representations of objects, which display smoothness except for discontinuity along the curve with bounded curvature [Candes et al. 2006]. Some papers have investigated this technique for edge detection in high resolution satellite imagery such as IKONOS or QuickBird, and microscopic imagery [Geback and Koumoutsakos 2009; Guha and Wu 2010; Zhenghai and Jianxiong 2009; Xiao et al. 2008], which show great potential of using curvelet transform in solving edge detection problems. However, until now, there is no research tackling the building detection problem using the curvelet transform in high resolution satellite imagery.

The algorithm consists of four main parts; first, data fusion between the panchromatic band (0.50 m resolution) and the multispectral ones (2.00 m resolution), to generate 8-spectral bands with a resolution of 0.50 m. Second, a Gaussian high pass filter is applied to enhance the edges. Third, using the curvelet transform, edges will be detected based on the fact that the values of curvelet coefficients are determined by how they are aligned in the real image. The more accurately a curvelet is aligned with a given curve in an image, the higher its coefficient value. Fourth, a filling process is performed for every closed boundary followed by calculation of statistics for these enclosed boundaries; such as area, major and minor axis, and compactness to extract the buildings.
Alternative Gaits for Multiped Robots with Leg Failures to Retain Maneuverability
Authors: Mostafa Kazi , Tsai Chong-Shuen , Her Innchyn
Published: March 2012

In modern day, from planetary exploration, disaster response to antiterrorism mission multiped robot has become the major tool. Smart robot with effective gait plan may play a significant role in such missions. But if a leg is injured, it is not possible to repair in this kind of mission. Then robot needs some alternative strategies to complete its mission. This paper proposes a removable sliding leg approach to solve this problem. A fault leg can be detaches and other legs can be slide to better position by the command of operator to get optimum alternative gait configuration. Based on leg sequence, stride length, longitudinal stability and efficiency, alternative gaits are evaluated. This paper recommends tables for different gait sequence with progressive efficiency. These tables can provide options for alternative gait and information about certain damaged leg. Moreover, a procedure for a multi-legged robot to complete its mission after serious leg failure is included. By taking the recommended tables and procedure, the multiped Robot can overcome any fault event and maintain stability and efficiency.
Enumeration of the Non-Isomorphic Configurations for a Reconfigurable Modular Robot with Square-Cubic-Cell Modules
Authors: Liu Jinguo , Wang Yuechao , Ma Shugen , Li Yangmin
Published: March 2012

Configuration of a reconfigurable modular system is a tough issue because the possible configurations or structures grow exponentially with the number of modules. A library of the non-isomorphic configurations should be set up as a database for configuration design and control. In this paper, we propose a matrix-based enumerating approach for the non-isomorphic configurations of a reconfigurable modular robot system with square-cubic-cell(SCC) modules. Each SCC module considered in this study includes a cubic module body and four connectors on its lateral surfaces. Since it has a square lattice like 2D projection, configuration matrices are proposed to represent the topological information of the modular robot. Thus reconfiguration and enumeration can be programmed by matrix computation in simulation. According to combinational principle, recursive algorithms are used to find out all non-isomorphic configurations. Enumerating result for a multi-module SCC system is provided as an example. Potential applications of this approach to other reconfigurable systems with lattice-form or cubic-form modules are discussed as well. As an application, enumeration of the multi-module CONRO robot also proves the validity of this method.
Design and Implementation Solenoid Based Kicking Mechanism for Soccer Robot Applied in Robocup-MSL
Authors: Kasaei S. Hamidreza Mohades , Kasaei S. Mohammadreza Mohades , Kasaei S. Alireza Mohades
Published: March 2012

RoboCup is an international competition to prompted robotics and related subject like: Artificial intelligence, Image processing, control, devise design and etc. One of the subjects in RoboCup competitions is Soccer. Naturally robotic soccer is an interactive and complex procedure. it might be so idealistic, but some consider a challenge with a real human football team in 2050, as the final goal of robotic soccer. There are several classes in robotic football matches such as: Middle size, Small size, simulation and so on. One of the most essential parts of a soccer robot in Middle size and Small size classes in the kicking system, this system is in charge of kicking the ball upon the command issued by the processor of robot. Almost every team develops their own unique shooting device. There are three main approaches to design and implement the robot kicking system. In this paper we designed and developed multi power kicking system that enables loop and vary shooting power. To design a good solenoid and to obtain maximum velocity of ball some parameters like: inductance, response time, resistance, force, dimensions and core-material should be balanced carefully. We used a DC-DC converter (Boost regulator) for getting different currents to have different power of shooting. We are going to review the advantages of all of those approaches. Next we are purposes a novel Solenoid-based kicking system which has already been successfully implemented in Adro RoboCup team.
Systematic Analysis of an IEED Unit Based in a New Methodology for M&S
Authors: Aviles Luis Adrian Zuñiga , Szkodny Tadeusz , Ortega Jesus Carlos Pedraza , Hurtado Efren Gorrostieta
Published: March 2012

In the field of modeling and simulation of mechatronics designs of high complexity, is presented a systematic analysis of an IEDD unit [1] (improvised explosive device disposal) based in a new methodology for modeling and simulation divided into 6 stages in order to increase the accuracy of validation of whole system, this mechatronic unit is a Non-holonomic Unmanned wheeled mobile manipulator, MU-NH-WMM, formed by a Differential Traction and a manipulator arm with 4 degrees of freedom mounted on wheeled mobile base, hence the contribution of this work is a novel methodology based on a practice proposal of philosophy of mechatronics design, which establishes the suitable kinematics to coupled wheeled mobile manipulator, where the motion equations and kinematics transformations are the base of the specific stages in order to obtain the dynamic of coupled system, validating the behavior and the trajectories tracking, in order to achieve the complex tasks of approaching to work area and the appropiatehandling of explosive device, this work is focused in the first of them; such that the errors in the model can be detected and later confined by proposed control.
Performance Prediction Network for Serial Manipulators Inverse Kinematics Solution Passing Through Singular Configurations
Authors: Hasan Ali T. , Al-Assadi H.M.A.A.
Published: March 2012

This paper is devoted to the application of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) to the solution of the Inverse Kinematics (IK) problem for serial robot manipulators, in this study two networks were trained and compared to examine the effect of considering the Jacobian Matrix to the efficiency of the IK solution.

Given the desired trajectory of the end effector of the manipulator in a free-of-obstacles workspace, Offline smooth geometric paths in the joint space of the manipulator are obtained. Even though it is very difficult in practice, data used in this study were recorded experimentally from sensors fixed on robot's joints to overcome the effect of kinematics uncertainties presence in the real world such as ill-defined linkage parameters, links flexibility and backlashes in gear train

The generality and efficiency of the proposed algorithm are demonstrated through simulations of a general six DOF serial robot manipulator, finally the obtained results have been verified experimentally.
Research on Centroid Position for Stairs Climbing Stability of Search and Rescue Robot
Authors: Guo Yan , Song Aiguo , Bao Jiatong , Zhang Huatao , Tang Hongru
Published: March 2012

This paper represents the relationship between the stability of stairs climbing and the centroid position of the search and rescue robot. The robot system is considered as a mass point- plane model and the kinematics features are analyzed to find the relationship between centroid position and the maximal pitch angle of stairs the robot could climb up. A computable function about this relationship is given in this paper. During the stairs climbing, there is a maximal stability-keeping angle depends on the centroid position and the pitch angle of stairs, and the numerical formula is developed about the relationship between the maximal stability-keeping angle and the centroid position and pitch angle of stairs. The experiment demonstrates the trustworthy and correction of the method in the paper.
Indirect Manipulation of a Sphere on a Flat Disk Using Force Information
Authors: Hara Masayuki , Tanaka Yoshinori , Huang Jian , Yabuta Tetsuro
Published: March 2012

The objective of this study is to verify if only the use of robotic force feedback enables indirect and dynamic manipulations which are difficult for human beings to perform. Human beings usually control the trajectory of an object using visual feedback; force/tactile information are secondarily employed because they are further qualitative in comparison with visual information. However, it is supposed that robots have the potential to perform such the tasks without visual information because force/tactile information can be also used quantitatively in the control system. This paper especially focuses on an indirect manipulation of a sphere on a flat plate realized by employing only force information. In this paper, we propose a very simple method to estimate the position of the sphere on the plate which is put on a multi-fingered robot and try to control the trajectory by changing the fingertip heights based on the error between the desired and estimated positions. We also analyze the stability of the proposed control system with an approximate Lyapunov's stability criterion. Finally, this paper shows very attractive robotic demonstrations based on the proposed method.
Inverse Kinematics and Control of a 7-DOF Redundant Manipulator Based on the Closed-Loop Algorithm
Authors: Wang Jingguo , Li Yangmin , Zhao Xinhua
Published: March 2012

Closed-loop inverse kinematics (CLIK) algorithm mostly resolves the redundancy at the velocity level. In this paper we extend the CLIK algorithm to the acceleration level to meet some applications that require the joint accelerations. The redundancy resolutions at the velocities and acceleration levels via pseudoinverse method are analyzed respectively. The objective function of joint limits avoidance(JLA) is combined into the redundancy resolution as an optimization approach of the null space motion. A seven-DOF redundant manipulator is designed to do the computer simulations and the real experiments are carried out on a Powercube modular manipulator. Their results demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
Optimal Trajectory Planning for Design of a Crawling Gait in a Robot Using Genetic Algorithm
Authors: Ghanbari Ahmad , Noorani SMRS.
Published: March 2012

This paper describes a new locomotion mode to use in a crawling robot, inspired of real inchworm. The crawling device is modelled as a mobile manipulator, and for each step of its motion, the associated dynamics relations are derived using Euler-Lagrange equations. Next, the Genetic Algorithm (GA) is utilized to optimize the trajectory of the free joints (active actuators) in order to minimize the consumed effort (e.g. integral of square of torques over the step time). In this way, the results show a reduction of 5 to 37 percent in torque consumption in comparison with the gradient based method. Finally, numerical simulation for each step motion is presented to validate the proposed algorithm.
A Robust Obstacle Avoidance for Service Robot Using Bayesian Approach
Authors: Budiharto Widodo , Purwanto Djoko , Jazidie Achmad
Published: March 2012

The objective of this paper is to propose a robust obstacle avoidance method for service robot in indoor environment. The method for obstacles avoidance uses information about static obstacles on the landmark using edge detection. Speed and direction of people that walks as moving obstacle obtained by single camera using tracking and recognition system and distance measurement using 3 ultrasonic sensors. A new geometrical model and maneuvering method for moving obstacle avoidance introduced and combined with Bayesian approach for state estimation. The obstacle avoidance problem is formulated using decision theory, prior and posterior distribution and loss function to determine an optimal response based on inaccurate sensor data. Algorithms for moving obstacles avoidance method proposed and experiment results implemented to service robot also presented. Various experiments show that our proposed method very fast, robust and successfully implemented to service robot called Srikandi II that equipped with 4 DOF arm robot developed in our laboratory.
Predictive Navigation by Understanding Human Motion Patterns
Authors: Chung Shu-Yun , Huang Han-Pang
Published: March 2012

To make robots coexist and share the environments with humans, robots should understand the behaviors or the intentions of humans and further predict their motions. In this paper, an A*-based predictive motion planner is represented for navigation tasks. A generalized pedestrian motion model is proposed and trained by the statistical learning method. To deal with the uncertainty, a localization, tracking and prediction framework is also introduced. The corresponding recursive Bayesian formula represented as DBNs (Dynamic Bayesian Networks) is derived for real time operation. Finally, the simulations and experiments are shown to validate the idea of this paper.
A Stable Formation Control Using Approximation of Translational and Angular Accelerations
Authors: Tran Viet-Hong , Lee Suk-Gyu
Published: March 2012

In this paper, a stable leader-following formation control for multiple non-holonomic mobile robot systems using only limited on-board sensor information is proposed. The control can be used for the conventional single leader – single follower (SLSF) or for novel two leaders – single follower (TLSF) schemes. The control algorithm utilizes estimations of the leaders' translational and angular accelerations in a simple form to reduce the measurement of indirect information. Simulation results show that the TLSF scheme can suppress the oscillation and damping in formation of large robot teams.
Joint Conditional Random Field Filter for Multi-Object Tracking
Authors: Ronghua Luo , Huaqing Min
Published: March 2012

Object tracking can improve the performance of mobile robot especially in populated dynamic environments. A novel joint conditional random field Filter (JCRFF) based on conditional random field with hierarchical structure is proposed for multi-object tracking by abstracting the data associations between objects and measurements to be a sequence of labels. Since the conditional random field makes no assumptions about the dependency structure between the observations and it allows non-local dependencies between the state and the observations, the proposed method can not only fuse multiple cues including shape information and motion information to improve the stability of tracking, but also integrate moving object detection and object tracking quite well. At the same time, implementation of multi-object tracking based on JCRFF with measurements from the laser range finder on a mobile robot is studied. Experimental results with the mobile robot developed in our lab show that the proposed method has higher precision and better stability than joint probabilities data association filter (JPDAF).
Multiple-Robot Systems for USAR: Key Design Attributes and Deployment Issues
Authors: Wong Choon Yue , Seet Gerald , Sim Siang Kok
Published: March 2012

The interaction between humans and robots is undergoing an evolution. Progress in this evolution means that humans are close to robustly deploying multiple robots. Urban search and rescue (USAR) can benefit greatly from such capability. The review shows that with state of the art artificial intelligence, robots can work autonomously but still require human supervision. It also shows that multiple robot deployment (MRD) is more economical, shortens mission durations, adds reliability as well as addresses missions impossible with one robot and payload constraints. By combining robot autonomy and human supervision, the benefits of MRD can be applied to USAR while at the same time minimizing human exposure to danger. This is achieved with a single-human multiple-robot system (SHMRS). However, designers of the SHMRS must consider key attributes such as the size, composition and organizational structure of the robot collective. Variations in these attributes also induce fluctuations in issues within SHMRS deployment such as robot communication and computational load as well as human cognitive workload and situation awareness (SA). Research is essential to determine how the attributes can be manipulated to mitigate these issues while meeting the requirements of the USAR mission.
Multi-Agent System for Off-Line Coordinated Motion Planning of Multiple Industrial Robots
Authors: Chiddarwar Shital S. , Babu N. Ramesh
Published: March 2012

This article presents an agent based framework for coordinated motion planning of multiple robots. The emerging paradigm of agent based systems is implemented to address various issues related to safe and fast task execution when multiple robots share a common workspace. In the proposed agent based framework, each issue vital for coordinated motion planning of multiple robots and every robot participating in coordinated task is considered as an agent. The identified agents are interfaced with each other in order to incorporate the desired flexibility in the developed framework. This framework gives a complete strategy for determination of optimal trajectories of robots working in coordination with due consideration to their kinematic, dynamic and payload constraint. The complete architecture of the proposed framework and the detailed discussion on various modules are covered in this paper.
Field Robotics in Sports: Automatic Generation of Guidance Lines for Automatic Grass Cutting, Striping and Pitch Marking of Football Playing Fields
Authors: Hameed Ibrahim A. , Sorrenson Claus G. , Bochtis Dionysis , Green Ole
Published: March 2012

Progress is constantly being made and new applications are constantly coming out in the area of field robotics. In this paper, a promising application of field robotics in football playing fields is introduced. An algorithmic approach for generating the way points required for the guidance of a GPS-based field robotic through a football playing field to automatically carry out periodical tasks such as cutting the grass field, pitch and line marking illustrations and lawn striping is represented. The manual operation of these tasks requires very skilful personnel able to work for long hours with very high concentration for the football yard to be compatible with standards of Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). In the other side, a GPS-based guided vehicle or robot with three implements; grass mower, lawn stripping roller and track marking illustrator is capable of working 24 h a day, in most weather and in harsh soil conditions without loss of quality. The proposed approach for the automatic operation of football playing fields requires no or very limited human intervention and therefore it saves numerous working hours and free a worker to focus on other tasks. An economic feasibility study showed that the proposed method is economically superimposing the current manual practices.
Adaptive Human-Aware Robot Navigation in Close Proximity to Humans
Authors: Svenstrup Mikael , Hansen Søren Tranberg , Andersen Hans Jørgen , Bak Thomas
Published: March 2012

For robots to be able coexist with people in future everyday human environments, they must be able to act in a safe, natural and comfortable way. This work addresses the motion of a mobile robot in an environment, where humans potentially want to interact with it. The designed system consists of three main components: a Kalman filter-based algorithm that derives a person's state information (position, velocity and orientation) relative to the robot; another algorithm that uses a Case-Based Reasoning approach to estimate if a person wants to interact with the robot; and, finally, a navigation system that uses a potential field to derive motion that respects the person's social zones and perceived interest in interaction.

The operation of the system is evaluated in a controlled scenario in an open hall environment. It is demonstrated that the robot is able to learn to estimate if a person wishes to interact, and that the system is capable of adapting to changing behaviours of the humans in the environment.
Application and Research of Humanoid Robot Based on Second-Order Cone Programming
Authors: Song-Hao Piao , Ya-Qi Liu , Wen Zhao , Qiu-Bo Zhong
Published: March 2012

It is an extremely complex process of controlling walking motion for humanoid robot, and its dynamics model has many rich features. The article puts forward a kind of optimization design method on any time humanoid robot walking movement. Firstly, this article makes a stability analysis of walking humanoid robot based on the ZMP criterion, at the same time with the design of using a humanoid robot walking movement by the criterion of the error between the expectations and kinetic energy of the weighted kinetic minimum norm make the problem into a second-order cone programming (SOCP) optimization problem, then use the interior point method to solve the kinetic energy of optimization coefficient of the humanoid robot walking movement, and by compares with the LMS design method and genetic algorithms, finally the algorithm is validated in the simulation and experiment, the numerical results are present for illustration.
A CORBA-Based Control Architecture for Real-Time Teleoperation Tasks in a Developmental Humanoid Robot
Authors: Yussof Hanafiah , Capi Genci , Nasu Yasuo , Yamano Mitsuhiro , Ohka Masahiro
Published: March 2012

This paper presents the development of new Humanoid Robot Control Architecture (HRCA) platform based on Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) in a developmental biped humanoid robot for real-time teleoperation tasks. The objective is to make the control platform open for collaborative teleoperation research in humanoid robotics via the internet. Meanwhile, to generate optimal trajectory generation in bipedal walk, we proposed a real time generation of optimal gait by using Genetic Algorithms (GA) to minimize the energy for humanoid robot gait. In addition, we proposed simplification of kinematical solutions to generate controlled trajectories of humanoid robot legs in teleoperation tasks. The proposed control systems and strategies was evaluated in teleoperation experiments between Australia and Japan using humanoid robot Bonten-Maru. Additionally, we have developed a user-friendly Virtual Reality (VR) user interface that is composed of ultrasonic 3D mouse system and a Head Mounted Display (HMD) for working coexistence of human and humanoid robot in teleoperation tasks. The teleoperation experiments show good performance of the proposed system and control, and also verified the good performance for working coexistence of human and humanoid robot.
Smooth Control the Coaxial Self-Balance Robot under Impact Disturbances
Authors: Chaoquan Li , Xueshan Gao , Kejie Li
Published: March 2012

The purpose of this paper is to propose a systematic smooth control method for improving the stability of the two-wheeled self-balance robot under impact disturbances. For enhancing the robtot stability, a blend controller based on states feedback control embedded with the PID speed synchronization is estabilished, as well as a hybrid filter composes of RC network and Kalman algorithm. With the hybrid filter, disturbance signals are maximally attenuated or directly eliminated, and the system sensitivity to the impact disturbances significantly declines; under the blend motion controller, the robot can not only keep balance under impacts but also achieve synchronization of the two driving wheels. The dynamic model, the blend controller, hybrid filter, and experimental results including application to transport are described, both of the simulation and experimental results are provided to verify the analysis.
Task Refinement for Autonomous Robots Using Complementary Corrective Human Feedback
Authors: Meriçli Çetin , Veloso Manuela , Akın H. Levent
Published: March 2012

A robot can perform a given task through a policy that maps its sensed state to appropriate actions. We assume that a hand-coded controller can achieve such a mapping only for the basic cases of the task. Refining the controller becomes harder and gets more tedious and error prone as the complexity of the task increases. In this paper, we present a new learning from demonstration approach to improve the robot's performance through the use of corrective human feedback as a complement to an existing hand-coded algorithm. The human teacher observes the robot as it performs the task using the hand-coded algorithm and takes over the control to correct the behavior when the robot selects a wrong action to be executed. Corrections are captured as new state-action pairs and the default controller output is replaced by the demonstrated corrections during autonomous execution when the current state of the robot is decided to be similar to a previously corrected state in the correction database. The proposed approach is applied to a complex ball dribbling task performed against stationary defender robots in a robot soccer scenario, where physical Aldebaran Nao humanoid robots are used. The results of our experiments show an improvement in the robot's performance when the default hand-coded controller is augmented with corrective human demonstration.
Mobile Robot Integrated with Gyroscope by Using IKF
Authors: Panich Surachai , Afzulpurkar Nitin
Published: March 2012

This paper mainly proposes absolute positioning instruments using camera positioning system and compass. The absolute positioning systems are used to estimate absolute position and orientation errors combined with estimated position and orientation from differential odometry integrated with gyroscope to calculate absolute position and orientation of mobile robot. In the method, the indirect Kalman filter is used to estimate absolute position and orientation errors and the estimated errors are fed back to odometry system, and also estimates some parameter errors to correct odometry system and gyroscope error. The simulation and experimental results show the estimated position and orientation of odometry system integrated with gyroscope, systematic errors of odometry system and gyroscope, absolute position from the camera positioning system and absolute orientation from compass compared with odometry system integrated with gyroscope.
Reversing Control of a Car with a Trailer Using the Driver Assistance System
Authors: Roh Jae , Chung Woojin
Published: March 2012

Passive trailer systems provide a variety of advantages in delivery and transportation applications. The transportation capacity of the truck with multiple trailers can be increased in proportion to the number of trailers. The cost of the car with trailers is much lower than the cost of multiple cars. However, the major drawback of the trailer system is that the control problem is difficult. We concentrate on the motion control problem of “pushing” trailers because pushing is much more difficult than “pulling”. In this paper, it is shown how the car with passive trailers can be easily controlled by the use of the proposed driver assist system and the motion control scheme. Since the keypad is the only additional device for the driver assist system, the proposed scheme can be implemented with the conventional trucks without many hardware modifications. The manual control strategy of pushing is established. The kinematic design of the passive trailer is adopted from the prior work (Park and Chung, 2004). The kinematic configuration design of the car with trailers is proposed for pushing control. The usefulness of the proposed scheme is experimentally verified with the small scale car with trailer system for the car parking problem. The parking control requires forward and reverse motion in narrow environment. It is shown that even beginners can easily control the pushing motion with the proposed scheme.
“Little Helper” — An Autonomous Industrial Mobile Manipulator Concept
Authors: Hvilshøj Mads , Bøgh Simon
Published: March 2012

This paper presents the concept “autonomous industrial mobile manipulation” (AIMM) based on the mobile manipulator “Little Helper” – an ongoing research project at Aalborg University, Denmark, concerning the development of an autonomous and flexible manufacturing assistant. The paper focuses on the contextual aspects and the working principles of AIMM. Furthermore, the paper deals with the design principles and overall hardware and software architectures of “Little Helper” from a functional and modular mechatronics point of view, in order to create a generic AIMM platform. The design challenges faced in the project is to integrate commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) and dedicated highly integrated systems into an autonomous mobile manipulator system with the ability to perform diverse tasks in industrial environments. We propose an action based domain specific communication language for AIMM for routine and task definition, in order to lower the entry barriers for the users of the technology. To demonstrate the “Little Helper” concept a full-scale prototype has been built and different application examples carried out. Experiences and knowledge gained from this show promising results regarding industrial integration, exploitation and maturation of the AIMM technology.
Model Predictive Control for a Small Scale Unmanned Helicopter
Authors: Du Jianfu , Kondak Konstantin , Bernard Markus , Zhang Yaou , Lü Tiansheng , Hommel Günter
Published: March 2012

Kinematical and dynamical equations of a small scale unmanned helicoper are presented in the paper. Based on these equations a model predictive control (MPC) method is proposed for controlling the helicopter. This novel method allows the direct accounting for the existing time delays which are used to model the dynamics of actuators and aerodynamics of the main rotor. Also the limits of the actuators are taken into the considerations during the controller design. The proposed control algorithm was verified in real flight experiments where good perfomance was shown in postion control mode.
Controlling Devices Using Biological Signals
Authors: Brandão Alexandre Santos , Felix Leonardo Bonato , Cavalieri Daniel Cruz , de Sá Antonio Mauricio Ferreira Leite Miranda , Bastos-Filho Teodiano Freire , Sarcinelli-Filho Mário
Published: March 2012

Knowing that the driving task of a conventional wheelchair could be difficult or even impossible for impairment people, this work presents an overview of some strategies developed to aid these people. Within this context, a myoelectrical eye-blink and an iris tracking system to guide a robotic wheelchair are briefly described. Futhermore, some comments about EEG-based systems are also presented. Finally, it is presented a robotic wheelchair navigation system capable to reach a desired pose in a planar environment while avoiding static and dynamic obstacles.
Empowering and Assisting Natural Human Mobility: The Simbiosis Walker
Authors: Frizera-Neto Anselmo , Ceres Ramón , Rocon Eduardo , Pons José Luis
Published: March 2012

This paper presents the complete development of the Simbiosis Smart Walker. The device is equipped with a set of sensor subsystems to acquire user-machine interaction forces and the temporal evolution of user's feet during gait. The authors present an adaptive filtering technique used for the identification and separation of different components found on the human-machine interaction forces. This technique allowed isolating the components related with the navigational commands and developing a Fuzzy logic controller to guide the device. The Smart Walker was clinically validated at the Spinal Cord Injury Hospital of Toledo - Spain, presenting great acceptability by spinal chord injury patients and clinical staff.
Maneuverability Strategy for Assistive Vehicles Navigating within Confined Spaces
Authors: Cheein Fernando Auat , De la Cruz Celso , Bastos-Filho Teodiano Freire
Published: March 2012

In this work, a path planning strategy for both a car-like and a unicycle type assistive vehicles is presented. The assistive vehicles are confined to restricted environments. The path planning strategy uses the environment information to generate a kinematically plausible path to be followed by the vehicle. The environment information is provided by a SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) algorithm implemented on the vehicles. The map generated by the SLAM algorithm compensates the lack of sensor at the back of the vehicles' chassis. A Monte Carlo-based technique is used to find the optimum path given the SLAM information. A visual and user-friendly interface enhances the user-vehicle communication allowing him/her to select a desired position and orientation (pose) that the vehicle should reach within the mapped environment. A trajectory controller drives the vehicle until it reaches a neighborhood of the desired pose. Several real-time experimental results within real environments are also shown herein.
Design History and Advantages of a New Lever-Propelled Wheelchair Prototype
Authors: Sarraj Ahmad Rifai , Massarelli Raphael
Published: March 2012

Wheelchair propulsion has been reported to be responsible for musculoskeletal pain in the upper extremities. Epidemiological studies have shown a high prevalence of shoulder complaints in paraplegic and quadriplegic spinal cord injured (SCI) people. It has been argued that the high incidence of shoulder complaints in SCI was the result of the weight-bearing or propulsion function of the upper extremity in those subjects.

This work aimed at proposing an alternative wheelchair propulsion technique based on the levers' system. The interface prototype-users, the wheelchair skills evaluation, the oxygen uptake and the cardiac frequency are investigated by an objective and subjective studies.

Our prototype is designed to be an attempt in the field of disabled athletes having some advantages of a non-conventional manual wheelchair propulsion technique, avoiding complications induced by the conventional one.
Sensorless Control of Electric Motors with Kalman Filters: Applications to Robotic and Industrial Systems
Authors: Rigatos Gerasimos G. , Siano Pierluigi
Published: March 2012

The paper studies sensorless control for DC and induction motors, using Kalman Filtering techniques. First the case of a DC motor is considered and Kalman Filter-based control is implemented. Next the nonlinear model of a field-oriented induction motor is examined and the motor's angular velocity is estimated by an Extended Kalman Filter which processes measurements of the rotor's angle. Sensorless control of the induction motor is again implemented through feedback of the estimated state vector. Additionally, a state estimation-based control loop is implemented using the Unscented Kalman Filter. Moreover, state estimation-based control is developed for the induction motor model using a nonlinear flatness-based controller and the state estimation that is provided by the Extended Kalman Filter. Unlike field oriented control, in the latter approach there is no assumption about decoupling between the rotor speed dynamics and the magnetic flux dynamics. The efficiency of the Kalman Filter-based control schemes, for both the DC and induction motor models, is evaluated through simulation experiments.
Robust Navigation using Markov Models
Authors: Burlet Julien , Fraichard Thierry , Aycard Olivier
Published: March 2012

To reach a given goal, a mobile robot first computes a motion plan (ie a sequence of actions that will take it to its goal), and then executes it. Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) have been successfully used to solve these two problems. Their main advantage is that they provide a theoretical framework to deal with the uncertainties related to the robot's motor and perceptive actions during both planning and execution stages. This paper describes a navigation approach using an MDP-based planning method and Markov Localisation. The planning method uses a hierarchic representation of the robot's state space. Besides, the actions used better integrate the kinematic constraints of a wheeled mobile robot. These two features yield a motion planner more efficient and better suited to plan robust motion strategies. Also, this paper focuses on the experimental aspects related to the use of Markov Techniques with a particular emphasis on how two key elements were obtained by learning, namely the transition function (that encodes the uncertainties related to the robot actions) and the sensor model. Experiments carried out with a real robot demonstrate the robustness of the whole navigation approach.
Task-Based Method for Designing Underactuated Mechanisms
Authors: Kamada Shoichiro , Kim Youngwoo , Obinata Goro , Stefanov Dimitar
Published: March 2012

In this paper we introduce a task-based method for designing underactuated multi-joint prosthetic hands for specific grasping tasks. The designed robotic hands or prosthetic hands contain fewer independent actuators than joints. We chose a few specific grasping tasks that are frequently repeated in everyday life and analysed joint motions of the hand during the completion of each task and the level of participation of each joint. The information was used for the synthesis of dedicated underactuated mechanisms that can operate in a low dimensional task coordinate space. We propose two methods for reducing the actuators' number. The kinematic parameters of the synthesized mechanism are determined by using a numerical approach. In this study the joint angles of the synthesized hand are considered as linearly dependent on the displacements of the actuators. We introduced a special error index that allowed us to compare the original trajectory and the trajectory performed by the synthesized mechanism, and to select the kinematic parameters of the new kinematic structure as a way to reduce the error. The approach allows the design of simple gripper mechanisms with good accuracy for the preliminary defined tasks.
Intelligent Online Path Planning for UAVs in Adversarial Environments
Authors: Peng Xingguang , Xu Demin
Published: March 2012

Online path planning (OPP) for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is a basic issue of intelligent flight and is indeed a dynamic multi-objective optimization problem (DMOP). In this paper, an OPP framework is proposed in the sense of model predictive control (MPC) to continuously update the environmental information for the planner. For solving the DMOP involved in the MPC we propose a dynamic multi-objective evolutionary algorithm based on linkage and prediction (LP-DMOEA). Within this algorithm, the historical Pareto sets are collected and analysed to enhance the performance. For intelligently selecting the best path from the output of the OPP, the Bayesian network and fuzzy logic are used to quantify the bias to each optimization objective. The DMOEA is validated on three benchmark problems characterized by different changing types in decision and objective spaces. Moreover, the simulation results show that the LP-DMOEA overcomes the restart method for OPP. The decision-making method for solution selection can assess the situation in an adversarial environment and accordingly adapt the path planner.
Multi-Robot Motion Planning Using Swarm Intelligence
Authors: Rigatos Gerasimos G.
Published: March 2012

Swarm intelligence theory is proposed for motion planning of multi-robot systems. Multiple particles start from different points in the solutions space and interact to each other while moving towards the goal position. Swarm intelligence theory is a derivative-free approach to the problem of multi-robotcooperation which works by searching iteratively in regions defined by each robot's best previous move and the best previous move of its neighbors. The method's performance is evaluated through simulation tests.
Smoothing of Piecewise Linear Paths
Authors: Waringo Michel , Henrich Dominik
Published: March 2012

We present an anytime-capable fast deterministic greedy algorithm for smoothing piecewise linear paths consisting of connected linear segments. With this method, path points with only a small influence on path geometry (i.e. aligned or nearly aligned points) are successively removed. Due to the removal of less important path points, the computational and memory requirements of the paths are reduced and traversing the path is accelerated. Our algorithm can be used in many different applications, e.g. sweeping, path finding, programming-by-demonstration in a virtual environment, or 6D CNC milling. The algorithm handles points with positional and orientational coordinates of arbitrary dimension.
The Cartesian Path Planning of Free-Floating Space Robot using Particle Swarm Optimization
Authors: Xu Wenfu , Li Cheng , Liang Bin , Liu Yu , Xu Yangsheng
Published: March 2012

The Cartesian path planning of free-floating space robot is much more complex than that of fixed-based manipulators, since the end-effector pose (position and orientation) is path dependent, and the position-level kinematic equations can not be used to determine the joint angles. In this paper, a method based on particle swarm optimization (PSO) is proposed to solve this problem. Firstly, we parameterize the joint trajectory using polynomial functions, and then normalize the parameterized trajectory. Secondly, the Cartesian path planning is transformed to an optimization problem by integrating the differential kinematic equations. The object function is defined according to the accuracy requirement, and it is the function of the parameters to be defined. Finally, we use the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm to search the unknown parameters. The approach has the following traits: 1) The limits on joint angles, rates and accelerations are included in the planning algorithm; 2) There exist not any kinematic and dynamic singularities, since only the direct kinematic equations are used; 3) The attitude singularities do not exist, for the orientation is represented by quaternion; 4) The optimization algorithm is not affected by the initial parameters. Simulation results verify the proposed method.
Deadlock Avoidance Policy in Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks with Free Choice Resource Routing
Authors: Ballal Prasanna , Trivedi Abhishek , Lewis Frank
Published: March 2012

Efficient control schemes are required for effective cooperation of robot teams in a mobile wireless sensor network. If the robots (resources) are also in charge of executing multiple simultaneous missions, then risks of deadlocks due to the presence of shared resources among different missions increase and have to be tackled. Discrete event control with deadlock avoidance has been used in the past for robot team coordination for the case of multi reentrant flowline models with shared resources. In this paper we present an analysis of deadlock avoidance for a generalized case of multi reentrant flow line systems (MRF) called the Free Choice Multi Reentrant Flow Line systems (FMRF). In FMRF, some tasks have multiple resource choices; hence routing decisions have to be made and current results in deadlock avoidance for MRF do not hold. This analysis is based on the so-called Circular Waits (CW) of the resources in the system. For FMRF, the well known notions of Critical Siphons and Critical Subsystems must be generalized and we redefine these objects for such systems. Our second contribution provides a matrix formulation that efficiently computes the objects required for deadlock avoidance in FMRF systems. A MAXWIP dispatching policy is formulated for deadlock avoidance in FMRF systems. According to this policy, deadlock in FMRF is avoided by limiting the work in progress (WIP) in the critical subsystems of each CW. Implemented results of the proposed scheme in a WSN test-bed is presented in the paper.
Multi-agent Architecture Model for Driving Mobile Manipulator Robots
Authors: Hentout A. , Bouzouia B. , Toukal Z.
Published: March 2012

In this article, we present generic hierarchical behavior-based architecture model for driving mobile manipulator robots. Two behaviors are of high-level. They constitute the Supervisory agent, which manages the global system. Two others are of intermediate-level and finally one behavior is of low-level. These last ones constitute the Mobile Robot agent and the Manipulator Robot agent controlling, respectively, the mobile base and the manipulator arm. The choice of the suggested model is justified by the generic character of the proposed agent model and by the possibility of integrating the whole in a distributed robotic system. The model is formalized in Agent UML from the conceptual level to the implementation level. The interaction between the various agents is modeled by the use of the interaction diagrams of Agent UML (states and protocol diagrams).
Dynamic Simulation Tool Development for Planetary Rovers
Authors: Bauer Robert , Barfoot Tim , Leung Winnie , Ravindran Gita
Published: March 2012

A dynamic computer simulator was developed to study planetary rover mobility. The simulator was validated for step-obstacle negotiation by comparing simulation results with a quasi-static analysis of a rocker-bogie suspension. In addition, sample rover wheels were constructed and experiments were carried out on a single-wheel testbed to help validate the simulator. It is concluded that to fully validate such a complex simulation tool requires experimental data from a full-size rover chassis.