The Infona portal uses cookies, i.e. strings of text saved by a browser on the user's device. The portal can access those files and use them to remember the user's data, such as their chosen settings (screen view, interface language, etc.), or their login data. By using the Infona portal the user accepts automatic saving and using this information for portal operation purposes. More information on the subject can be found in the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. By closing this window the user confirms that they have read the information on cookie usage, and they accept the privacy policy and the way cookies are used by the portal. You can change the cookie settings in your browser.
The Emschergenossenschaft based in Germany is currently planning the Emscher sewer system, arguably the largest residential water management project in Europe in years to come. The Emschergenossenschaft engaged the Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation (IFF) in Magdeburg, Germany, as the general contractor to develop automatic inspection and cleaning systems to meet the requirements...
This paper introduces a genetic algorithm (GA) planner that is able to rapidly determine optimal or near-optimal solutions for mobile robot path planning problems in environments containing moving obstacles. The method restricts the search space to the vertices of the obstacles, obviating the need to search the entire environment as in earlier GA-based approaches. The new approach is able to produce...
An increasingly common new modality in human-computer interaction is haptic interfacing, especially in the field of medical simulation. The order-of-magnitude difference in update rates between graphical deformable object simulations and haptic interfaces can be bridged using local low-order approximations. However, providing force feedback using local models complicates collision detection and response...
In this paper, two problems related to the simulation of virtual environments for haptic systems are considered. The first problem is how to simulate, in discrete time and with low computational effort, dynamic systems in order to preserve their passivity properties. As a matter of fact, simulation of complex systems in real time may lead to undesired effects, like unstable behaviours of the haptic...
In the robotic-assisted off-pump coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, surgeon performs the operation with intelligent robotic instruments controlled through teleoperation that replace conventional surgical tools. The robotic tools actively cancel the relative motion between the surgical instruments and the point of interest on the beating heart. Measuring the motion of the heart during this...
Under a whole hand grasp, it may not be possible to generate grasping forces in all directions. Thus, the traditional techniques developed based on fingertip contacts is inadequate. In this paper, we decompose the contact force space into four orthogonal subspaces, each with a clear physical interpretation. Based on linear matrix inequalities (LMI's) representations of grasping constraints, we address...
This paper relates recent advances in the design of feedback laws for the 3D movement of an Eel-like robot. Such a robot is under construction in the context of a national French robotic project. The proposed feedback enables the tracking of a desired 3D position of the Eel head as well as the stabilization of the rolling angle. A velocity controller is also proposed. The controller is tested on a...
In this paper, two experimental case studies performed with a multi-robot system made of 6 Khepera II mobile robots are presented. The experiments, performed at the laboratory LAI (Laboratorio di Automazione Industriale) of the Universita degli Studi di Cassino, are aimed at testing the performances and the robustness of a behavior-based technique, namely the null-space-based behavioral control (NSB),...
In this paper, we present an efficient method for finding collision-free trajectory for multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with kinematic constraints and for their rendezvous to form a formation. First, we construct a visibility graph that supports a minimum turning radius constraint when constructing the graph, so that additional smoothing process is not necessary. Second, we modify the standard...
We present a novel approach to mobile robot navigation that enables navigation in outdoor environments without GPS. The approach uses a path planner that calculates optimal paths while considering uncertainty in position and that uses landmarks to localize the vehicle as part of the planning process. The landmarks are simple, possibly aliased, features that have been previously identified in a high-resolution...
A central problem in robotics is planning a collision-free path for a moving object in an environment with obstacles. Contemporary applications require a path planner that is fast (to ensure real-time interaction with the environment) and flexible (to avoid local hazards). In addition, paths need to be smooth and short. We propose a new framework, the corridor map method, which meets these requirements.
Given a robot model and a class of admissible environments, this paper provides a framework for automatically and verifiably composing controllers that satisfy high level task specifications expressed in suitable temporal logics. The desired task specifications can express complex robot behaviors such as search and rescue, coverage, and collision avoidance. In addition, our framework explicitly captures...
Blimp-type unmanned aerial vehicles (BUAVs) does not consume any energy in keeping their longitudinal position in the air, so their use as a platform for mine searching missions is anticipated. For mine searching missions, a BUAV must fly near the ground. Because there is severe limitation on the weight of equipment, such as sensors and actuators, most BUAVs are so-called under-actuated robots. For...
Path planning for formations of wheeled mobile robots (WMRs) has been an active research topic of robotics in the recent years. The methods of route generation for WMRs usually utilize complex algorithms, which require global information of the workspace or mapping of the nearby environment. Hence they are not very efficient for formation based motion of large collections of small entry-level agents...
For the Oxford Aerial Tracking System (OATS) we are developing a robot helicopter that can track moving ground objects. Here we describe algorithms for the device to perform path planning and trajectory prediction. The path planner uses superquadratic potential fields and incorporates a height change mechanism that is triggered where necessary and in order to avoid local minima traps. The goal of...
We proposed an RL framework for control of flapping-wing MAVs (2006). The algorithm has been discussed and simulation results using a quasi-steady model showed initial promise. In this paper, the results from an experiment on a Drosophila-based dynamically scaled model are presented and are used to verify the control framework. Moreover, a comparison between a biological Drosophila melanogaster and...
In this paper an approach for control of autonomously flying robots with vertical take off and landing capabilities (VTOL) is presented. After reviewing that the motion description for different VTOL-robots is very similar, the general control scheme for VTOL-robots is presented. This scheme is based on linearisation and decoupling using inversion of the system model blocks. To compensate the model...
We consider motion planning problems for a vehicle with kinodynamic constraints, where there is partial knowledge about the environment and replanning is required. We present a new tree-based planner that explicitly deals with kinodynamic constraints and addresses the safety issues when planning under finite computation times, meaning that the vehicle avoids collisions in its evolving configuration...
The aim of this article is to achieve accurate visual servoing tasks when the shape of the object being observed as well as the final image are unknown. More precisely, we want to control the orientation of the tangent plane at a certain point on the object corresponding to the center of a region of interest and to move this point to the principal point to fulfill a fixation task. To do that, we perform...
Imitation learning, or programming by demonstration (PbD), holds the promise of allowing robots to acquire skills from humans with domain-specific knowledge, who nonetheless are inexperienced at programming robots. We have prototyped a real-time, closed-loop system for teaching a humanoid robot to interact with objects in its environment. The system uses nonparametric Bayesian inference to determine...
Set the date range to filter the displayed results. You can set a starting date, ending date or both. You can enter the dates manually or choose them from the calendar.