Position and attitude control of multi-rotor aerial vehicles: A survey

Motion control theory applied to multi-rotor aerial vehicles (MAVs) has gained attention with the recent increase in the processing power of computers, which are now able to perform the calculations needed for this technique, and with lower cost of sensors and actuators. Control algorithms of this kind are applied to the position and the attitude of MAVs. In this paper, we present a review of recent developments in position control and attitude control of multi-rotor aerial robots systems. We also point out the growth of related research, starting with the boom in multi-rotor unmanned aerial robotics that began after 2010, and we discuss reported field applications and future challenges of the control problem described here. The objective of this survey is to provide a unified and accessible presentation, placing the classical model of a multi-rotor aerial vehicle and the proposed control approaches into a proper context, and to form a starting point for researchers who are initiating their endeavors in linear/nonlinear position, altitude or attitude control applied to MAVs. Finally, the contribution of this work is an attempt to present a comprehensive review of recent breakthroughs in the field, providing links to the most interesting and most successful works from the state-of-the-art.     

Development and Control of Underwater Gliding Robots: A Review

As one of the most effective vehicles for ocean development and exploration, underwater gliding robots (UGRs) have the unique characteristics of low energy consumption and strong endurance. Moreover, by borrowing the motion principles of current underwater robots, a variety of novel UGRs have emerged with improving their maneuverability, concealment, and environmental friendliness, which significantly broadens the ocean applications. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive review of underwater gliding robots, including prototype design and their key technologies. From the perspective of motion characteristics, we categorize the underwater gliding robots in terms of traditional underwater gliders (UGs), hybrid-driven UGs, bio-inspired UGs, thermal UGs, and others. Correspondingly, their buoyancy driven system, dynamic and energy model, and motion control are concluded with detailed analysis. Finally, we have discussed the current critical issues and future development. This review offers valuable insight into the development of next-generation underwater robots well-suited for various oceanic applications, and aims to gain more attention of researchers and engineers to this growing field.      

Robotic grasping: from wrench space heuristics to deep learning policies

The robotic grasping task persists as a modern industry problem that seeks autonomous, fast implementation, and efficient techniques. Domestic robots are also a reality demanding a delicate and accurate human–machine interaction, with precise robotic grasping and handling. From decades ago, with analytical heuristics, to recent days, with the new deep learning policies, grasping in complex scenarios is still the aim of several works’ that propose distinctive approaches. In this context, this paper aims to cover recent methodologies’ development and discuss them, showing state-of-the-art challenges and the gap to industrial applications deployment. Given the complexity of the related issue associated with the elaborated proposed methods, this paper formulates some fair and transparent definitions for results’ assessment to provide researchers with a clear and standardised idea of the comparison between the new proposals.     

Which is the Best PID Variant for Pneumatic Soft Robots?An Experimental Study

This paper presents an experimental study to compare the performance of model-free control strategies for pneumatic soft robots.Fabricated using soft materials,soft robots have gained much attention in academia and industry during recent years because of their inherent safety in human interaction.However,due to structural flexibility and compliance,mathematical models for these soft robots are nonlinear with an infinite degree of freedom(DOF).Therefore,accurate position(or orientation)control and optimization of their dynamic response remains a challenging task.Most existing soft robots currently employed in industrial and rehabilitation applications use model-free control algorithms such as PID.However,to the best of our knowledge,there has been no systematic study on the comparative performance of model-free control algorithms and their ability to optimize dynamic response,i.e.,reduce overshoot and settling time.In this paper,we present comparative performance of several variants of model-free PID-controllers based on extensive experimental results.Additionally,most of the existing work on modelfree control in pneumatic soft-robotic literature use manually tuned parameters,which is a time-consuming,labor-intensive task.We present a heuristic-based coordinate descent algorithm to tune the controller parameter automatically.We presented results for both manual tuning and automatic tuning using the Ziegler-Nichols method and proposed algorithm,respectively.We then used experimental results to statistically demonstrate that the presented automatic tuning algorithm results in high accuracy.The experiment results show that for soft robots,the PID-controller essentially reduces to the PI controller.This behavior was observed in both manual and automatic tuning experiments;we also discussed a rationale for removing the derivative term.     

MPC-based Motion Planning and Control Enables Smarter and Safer Autonomous Marine Vehicles: Perspectives and a Tutorial Survey

Autonomous marine vehicles (AMVs) have received considerable attention in the past few decades, mainly because they play essential roles in broad marine applications such as environmental monitoring and resource exploration. Recent advances in the field of communication technologies, perception capability, computational power and advanced optimization algorithms have stimulated new interest in the development of AMVs. In order to deploy the constrained AMVs in the complex dynamic maritime environment, it is crucial to enhance the guidance and control capabilities through effective and practical planning, and control algorithms. Model predictive control (MPC) has been exceptionally successful in different fields due to its ability to systematically handle constraints while optimizing control performance. This paper aims to provide a review of recent progress in the context of motion planning and control for AMVs from the perceptive of MPC. Finally, future research trends and directions in this substantial research area of AMVs are highlighted.      

Multimodal research in vision and language: A review of current and emerging trends

Deep Learning and its applications have cascaded impactful research and development with a diverse range of modalities present in the real-world data. More recently, this has enhanced research interests in the intersection of the Vision and Language arena with its numerous applications and fast-paced growth. In this paper, we present a detailed overview of the latest trends in research pertaining to visual and language modalities. We look at its applications in their task formulations and how to solve various problems related to semantic perception and content generation. We also address task-specific trends, along with their evaluation strategies and upcoming challenges. Moreover, we shed some light on multi-disciplinary patterns and insights that have emerged in the recent past, directing this field toward more modular and transparent intelligent systems. This survey identifies key trends gravitating recent literature in VisLang research and attempts to unearth directions that the field is heading toward.     

表征空间中的机器人分层运动规划

由于对机器人的任务要求日趋复杂和多变,如何使机器人具备灵活的配置和运动规划能力,以适应复杂任务的需求,成为了目前运动规划领域所研究的核心问题.传统的基于任务空间和配置空间的建模方法虽然在机器人运动规划领域得到了非常广泛的应用,但在用于解决复杂规划任务时无法对不可行任务进行进一步地处理.本文在表征空间模型的基础上,提出了一种分层的运动规划算法,一方面借助于表征空间维度的扩展,使对运动规划任务的描述更为灵活;另一方面通过任务层与运动层的循环交互,使生成的路径满足更高层次和更丰富的任务要求.在仿人机器人和多机器人系统上的应用结果表明了本文所提算法的有效性.     

Algorithms for the minimum sum coloring problem: a review

The minimum sum coloring problem (MSCP) is a variant of the well-known vertex coloring problem which has a number of AI related applications. Due to its theoretical and practical relevance, MSCP attracts increasing attention. The only existing review on the problem dates back to 2004 and mainly covers the history of MSCP and theoretical developments on specific graphs. In recent years, the field has witnessed significant progresses on approximation algorithms and practical solution algorithms. The purpose of this review is to provide a comprehensive inspection of the most recent and representative MSCP algorithms. To be informative, we identify the general framework followed by practical solution algorithms and the key ingredients that make them successful. By classifying the main search strategies and putting forward the critical elements of the reviewed methods, we wish to encourage future development of more powerful methods and motivate new applications.     

Time-extended multi-robot coordination for domains with intra-path constraints

Many applications require teams of robots to cooperatively execute tasks. Among these domains are those in which successful coordination must respect intra-path constraints, which are constraints that occur on the paths of agents and affect route planning. This work focuses on multi-agent coordination for disaster response with intra-path precedence constraints, a compelling application that is not well addressed by current coordination methods. In this domain a group of fire truck agents attempt to address fires spread throughout a city in the wake of a large-scale disaster. The disaster has also caused many city roads to be blocked by impassable debris, which can be cleared by bulldozer robots. A high-quality coordination solution must determine not only a task allocation but also what routes the fire trucks should take given the intra-path precedence constraints and which bulldozers should be assigned to clear debris along those routes.     

Fast Motion Planning by Parallel Processing – a Review

One of the many features needed to support the activities of autonomoussystems is the ability to plan motion. This enables robots to move in theirenvironment securely and to accomplish given tasks. Unfortunately, thecontrol loop comprising sensing, planning, and acting has not yet beenclosed for robots in dynamic environments. One reason involves the longexecution times of the motion planning component. A solution for thisproblem is offered by the use of highly parallel computation. Thus, animportant task is the parallelization of existing motion planning algorithmsfor robots so that they are suitable for highly parallel computation. Inseveral cases, completely new algorithms have to be designed, so that aparallelization is feasible. In this survey, we review recent approaches tomotion planning using parallel computation. As a classification scheme, weuse the structure given by the different approaches to the robotsmotion planning. For each approach, the available parallel processingmethods are discussed. Each approach is assigned a unique class. Finally,for each research work referenced, a list of keywords is given.