Vision-based remote control of cellular robots

This paper describes the development and design of a vision-based remote controlled cellular robot. Cellular robots have numerous applications in industrial problems where simple inexpensive robots can be used to perform different tasks that involve covering a large working space. As a methodology, the robots are controlled based on the visual input from one or more cameras that monitor the working area. As a result, a robust control of the robot trajectory is achieved without depending on the camera calibration. The remote user simply specifies a target point in the image to indicate the robot final position.

We describe the complete system at various levels: the visual information processing, the robot characteristics and the closed loop control system design, including the stability analysis when the camera location is unknown. Results are presented and discussed.

In our opinion, such a system may have a wide spectrum of applications in industrial robotics and may also serve as an educational testbed for advanced students in the fields of vision, robotics and control.     

基于Fuzzy-PID的移动机器人运动控制

移动机器人涉及到许多研究方向,运动控制是其中的基础。通过对移动机器人运动学模型进行分析,以足球机器人系统为实验平台,论证了Fuzzy-PID技术应用于移动机器人运动控制的可行性。将传统的PID控制与模糊控制相结合,通过PID控制实现控制的准确性,利用模糊控制提高控制的快速性。针对移动机器人运动控制中的实际问题,着重提出了基于误差分区的PID控制器和模糊控制器的设计方法。实验证明该方法不仅增强了控制器的调节能力,还在一定程度上简化了控制器的设计。     

User evaluation of a novel eye-based control modality for robot-assisted object retrieval

In recent years, great efforts have been put into the investigation of assistive robotics. However, rapid growth in robot functionality has caused control of these robots to become more complex. Natural interaction interfaces between the user and robot systems are highly desired to promote the usability of these robots in practical applications. This paper presents a novel intuitive gaze-based system, which enables a user to effectively command an assistive robot with his/her gaze. This system has the potential to help those, who have limited mobility and/or are confined in bed, with their daily living. Using this system, the object that needs to be manipulated can be directly identified and localized by simply looking at it by the user. Then the assistive robot is activated to perform appropriate manipulation of the object. In the experiments, participants were able to successfully accomplish the object retrieval tasks using the presented system. Moreover, results from subjective evaluation showed high usability of the presented system.     

利用事件和期限驱动对机器人延时的优化

随着科技的进步,机器人领域得到了飞速发展,为了更好地让机器人适应复杂工作环境,需要进一步提高机器人的感知性能。大多数机器人采用视觉作为感知手段。但由于图像中包含大量数据以及处理这些数据需要花费大量时间,导致了机器人有显著的延时,从而导致机器人性能的下降。因此,为了解决这一问题,提出了一种基于期限驱动和事件驱动控制方法,该方法的核心是把基于模型的控制设计方法的思想应用到基于视觉的自定位算法的机器人运动控制中。同时考虑了一种简单的基于随机样本一致性的定位算法的延时情况。实验结果证明,提出的期限驱动和事件驱动控制设计明显优于传统的周期控制。     

Climbing Robots’ Mobility for Inspection and Maintenance of 3D Complex Environments

For complex climbing robots, which work in difficult 3D outdoor environments, the gravity force has an important influence with respect the robots changes during its motion. This type of climbing robots is self-supported in the complex 3D structures (bridges, skeleton of the buildings, etc.) which require periodic, manually performed inspections and maintenance. The use of non-conventional climbing robots for this type of operation is highly appropriate. Their locomotion system commonly comprises arms/legs that permit the robots 3D mobility (gait). These mechanisms also enable the robot to support itself and guarantee its stability. This paper presents the main features of non-conventional climbing robots mobility on complex 3D environments: power supply, number of DOFs, lightweight structure, gait, speed, secure grasp, etc. It also covers the general theory underlying the design of climbing robots, their kinematics, with its specific, unconventional mobility. The paper not only describes the climbing robot mobility theory but also provides several examples taken from the ROMA and MATS robots families. The developed robots have high degree of autonomy with totally on-board control system. These autonomous robots demonstrate in the course of real experimentation that the criteria for design, control strategy and path planning are accurate. Finally, the paper examines trends in climbing robot technology.Carlos Balaguer received his Ph.D. in Automation from the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM), Spain in 1983. From 1983–1994 he was with the Department of Systems Engineering and Automation of the UPM as Associated Professor. Since 1994, he has been a Full Professor of the Robotics Lab at the University Carlos III of Madrid. Prof. Balaguers research has included robot design and development, robot control, path & task planning, force-torque control, assistive and service robots, climbing robots, legged and humanoid robots, and human-robot interaction. He has published more than 120 papers in journals and conference proceedings, and several books in the field of robotics. He is a member of IEEE and IFAC, and former President of IAARC.Antonio Gimenez studied Electrical Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Madrid and received his PhD from the University Carlos III of Madrid in 2000. Currently he is Associated Professor at the Robotics Lab atthe University Carlos III of Madrid. He participated in numerous national and international R&D projects in robotics and automation. His research interest includes design and robot development, rehabilitation robots, climbing robots, and automation in construction. Recently he is very active in the field of computer-aided mechatronics design. He has published numerous refereed publications in international journals, and conference proceedings.Alberto Jardón Huete is currently finishing his Ph.D. degree in Automation Engineering. He received his B.Sc. in electronics engineering (1998) and is graduated in Electrical Engineering (2002) at University Carlos III of Madrid. He is an active member of the Robotics Lab since 1997, and has collaborated in the development of the climbing robots ROMA I, ROMA II, and other research projects of relevance. Currently he is focused in the design and development of light weight service robots. His interests include assistive robotic design, mechatronics, robotic research, the development of tools to perform this research and the transfer of robotics technology to industry.     

Software toolkit for modeling,simulation, and control of soft robots

The technological differences between traditional robotics and soft robotics have an impact on all of the modeling tools generally in use, including direct kinematics and inverse models, Jacobians, and dynamics. Due to the lack of precise modeling and control methods for soft robots, the promising concepts of using such design for complex applications (medicine, assistance, domestic robotics, etc.) cannot be practically implemented. This paper presents a first unified software framework dedicated to modeling, simulation, and control of soft robots. The framework relies on continuum mechanics for modeling the robotic parts and boundary conditions like actuators and contacts using a unified representation based on Lagrange multipliers. It enables the digital robot to be simulated in its environment using a direct model. The model can also be inverted online using an optimization-based method which allows to control the physical robots in the task space. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach, we present various soft robots scenarios including ones where the robot is interacting with its environment. The software has been built on top of SOFA, an open-source framework for deformable online simulation and is available at https://project.inria.fr/softrobot/.     

基于虚拟现实技术的移动机器人视觉伺服控制系统设计

为了有效确保移动机器人视觉伺服控制效果,提高移动机器人视觉伺服控制精度,设计了基于虚拟现实技术的移动机器人视觉伺服控制系统。通过三维视觉传感器和立体显示器等虚拟环境的I/O设备、位姿传感器、视觉图像处理器以及伺服控制器元件,完成系统硬件设计。从运动学和动力学两个方面,搭建移动机器人数学模型,利用标定的视觉相机,生成移动机器人实时视觉图像,通过图像滤波、畸变校正等步骤,完成图像的预处理。利用视觉图像,构建移动机器人虚拟移动环境。在虚拟现实技术下,通过目标定位、路线生成、碰撞检测、路线调整等步骤,规划移动机器人行动路线,通过控制量的计算,实现视觉伺服控制功能。系统测试结果表明,所设计控制系统的位置控制误差较小,姿态角和移动速度控制误差仅为0.05°和0.12m/s,移动机器人碰撞次数较少,具有较好的移动机器人视觉伺服控制效果,能够有效提高移动机器人视觉伺服控制精度。     

A generic controller architecture for intelligent robotic systems

This paper describes a research program to develop a novel reference architecture and design philosophy for an advanced robot controller for a new generation of robots. It is suggested that a new approach to robot controller design is required in order to bring the present generation of industrial robots in line with current and foreseeable technological developments. The paper also describes a prototype controller that has been developed using this design philosophy, and its deployment on an experimental robot. Practical results are presented from a series of investigations undertaken to illustrate the performance of the controller.     

Task-oriented programming of large redundant robot motion

Large robots are a new domain of advanced robotics. Examples of their application fields are tasks like operations on large free-form surfaces, especially aircraft cleaning and removing paint from hulls. They are equipped with a programmable robot control comparable to a control system used for industrial robots. However, conventional teach-in methods are not able to manage the complexity of programming large redundant robot operation on free-form geometries. The Fraunhofer IPA has developed an innovative off-line programming system that allows the creation of robot motion programs which satisfy time and energy optimization criteria. This system helps to avoid collisions within the workspace and to fulfill conditions that arise from the robot kinematics and dynamics. This advanced programming system has been successfully used to generate motion programs for the world's largest mobile robot, the aircraft cleaning manipulator SKYWASH. In this context offline programs for eleven different types of aircraft have been developed.     

Mobile robot localization using a self-organized visual environment representation

Owing to the upcoming applications in the field of service robotics mobile robots are currently receiving increasing attention in industry and the scientific community. Applications in the area of service robotics demand a high degree of system autonomy, which robots without learning capabilities will not be able to meet. Learning is required in the context of action models and appropriate perception procedures. In both areas flexible adaptivity is difficult to achieve especially when high bandwidth sensors (e.g. video cameras) - which are needed in the envisioned unstructured worlds - are used. This paper proposes a new methodology for image-based navigation using a self-organized visual representation of the environment. Self-organization leads to internal representations, which can be used by the robot, but are not transparent to the user. It is shown how this conceptual gap can be bridged.     

机器人碰撞检测方法形式化

为应对更为复杂的任务需求,现代机器人产业发展愈发迅猛.出于协调工作的灵活性、柔顺性以及智能性等多项考虑因素,多臂/多机器人充分发挥了机器人的强大作用,成为现代机器人产业的重要研究热点.在机器人双臂协调运行当中,机械臂之间以及机械臂与外部障碍物之间容易发生碰撞,可能会造成财产损失甚至人员伤亡.对机器人碰撞检测方法进行形式化验证,以球体和胶囊体形式化模型为基础,构建基本几何体单元之间最短距离和机器人碰撞的高阶逻辑模型,证明其相关属性及碰撞条件,建立机器人碰撞检测方法基础定理库,为多机系统碰撞检测算法可靠性与稳定性的验证提供技术支撑和验证框架.     

基于D-H参数的爬壁机器人吸附控制系统设计

传统爬壁机器人吸附参量存在同步不对称的问题,导致爬壁机器人吸附控制系统输出控制量精度降低,影响机器人整体控制效果;为了解决爬壁机器人吸附参量不对称问题,提出基于D-H参数的爬壁机器人吸附控制系统设计;基于D-H参数特点,设计系统总体框架,框架共分为硬件与软件两部分;硬件主要利用动态陀螺仪控制器控制处理指令数据,完成处理模块设计;通过无线控制遥感器KJ-F6000X-T6实现控制模块设计;软件部分采用与D-H参数相关的算法对控制程序进行设计;通过实验对比数据表明:提出设计系统具有同步爬壁机器人吸附参量对称性,单次控制量、双次控制量、多次控制量系数分别为0.7、0.6、0.5,符合控制系数标准范围,能够提升系统控制量输出精度。     

Control of truck-trailer mobile robots: a survey

Mobile robots with trailers and its control is one of the most challenging problems in service robotics. Since, these kinds of robots can accomplish the given task in a faster and cheaper way than an individual robot, they find applications in many areas. However, the backward movement of a truck-trailer mobile robot is more complex as the complete system is highly non-linear and unstable. The practical advantages of this system in the transportation industry have led to significant research in this area. Various studies have been conducted in this area for exploring more on the subject of non-linear control. This paper presents a survey on the various control strategies developed in the backward motion of mobile robot with trailers. The existing studies in this field are analyzed to identify unsolved problems.     

Self-Organizing Sync in a Robotic Swarm: A Dynamical System View

Self-organized synchronization is a common phenomenon observed in many natural and artificial systems: simple coupling rules at the level of the individual components of the system result in an overall coherent behavior. Owing to these properties, synchronization appears particularly interesting for swarm robotics systems, as it allows robust temporal coordination of the group while minimizing the complexity of the individual controllers. The goal of the experiments presented in this paper is the study of self-organizing synchronization for robots that present an individual periodic behavior. In order to design the robot controllers, we make use of artificial evolution, which proves to be capable of synthesizing minimal synchronization strategies based on the dynamical coupling between robots and environment. The obtained results are analyzed under a dynamical system perspective, which allows us to uncover the evolved mechanisms and to predict the scalability properties of the self-organizing synchronization with respect to varying group size.      

Perpetual Robot Swarm: Long-Term Autonomy of Mobile Robots Using On-the-fly Inductive Charging

Swarm robotics studies the intelligent collective behaviour emerging from long-term interactions of large number of simple robots. However, maintaining a large number of robots operational for long time periods requires significant battery capacity, which is an issue for small robots. Therefore, re-charging systems such as automated battery-swapping stations have been implemented. These systems require that the robots interrupt, albeit shortly, their activity, which influences the swarm behaviour. In this paper, a low-cost on-the-fly wireless charging system, composed of several charging cells, is proposed for use in swarm robotic research studies. To determine the system’s ability to support perpetual swarm operation, a probabilistic model that takes into account the swarm size, robot behaviour and charging area configuration, is outlined. Based on the model, a prototype system with 12 charging cells and a small mobile robot, Mona, was developed. A series of long-term experiments with different arenas and behavioural configurations indicated the model’s accuracy and demonstrated the system’s ability to support perpetual operation of multi-robotic system.     

Robot language from the standpoint of FA system development—An outline of FA-BASIC

A new unified FA (Factory Automation) language has been developed. The language is suited for robot control, vision system control and programmable controller (PC) control and enables a unified means for programming. The language is called FA-BASIC and has common functions such as expression, control structure and input/output statement based on BASIC language.

FA-BASIC is composed of three subsystems: FA-BASIC/R for robot control, FA-BASIC/V for vision system control and FA-BASIC/C for PCs.

Many languages have been developed up to now, but most of them were aimed at single purposes. These single purpose languages were too limited when developing an integrated FA system, because several languages and different program-making methods must be mastered.

Using FA-BASIC, programming with mutual interconnections between robots, PCs and vision devices is done by the one common method.

In this paper, the basic design concept and functions of FA-BASIC will be presented, along with the features of FA-BASIC/R and on outline of a robot control system using a standard mechanism-independent intermediate language and standard fundamental modules. Also, for easy programming, an off-line programming system with graphical aids and a menu-selection method which require no special effort to master will be introduced as the only present-day universal robot programming method.     

Kilobot: A low cost robot with scalable operations designed for collective behaviors

In current robotics research there is a vast body of work on algorithms and control methods for groups of decentralized cooperating robots, called a swarm or collective. These algorithms are generally meant to control collectives of hundreds or even thousands of robots; however, for reasons of cost, time, or complexity, they are generally validated in simulation only, or on a group of a few tens of robots. To address this issue, this paper presents Kilobot, an open-source, low cost robot designed to make testing collective algorithms on hundreds or thousands of robots accessible to robotics researchers. To enable the possibility of large Kilobot collectives where the number of robots is an order of magnitude larger than the largest that exist today, each robot is made with only $14 worth of parts and takes 5 min to assemble. Furthermore, the robot design allows a single user to easily operate a large Kilobot collective, such as programming, powering on, and charging all robots, which would be difficult or impossible to do with many existing robotic systems. We demonstrate the capabilities of the Kilobot as a collective robot, by using a small robot test collective to implement four popular swarm behaviors: foraging, formation control, phototaxis, and synchronization.     

新型仿生球形两栖子母机器人系统设计

为解决传统两栖机器人的一些突出缺点,探寻机器人领域更多的可能性。本文设计了一种新型仿生球形两栖子母机器人系统,该系统中球形两栖母机器人在陆地采用仿生四足爬行方式运动,在水下采用矢量喷水电机进行喷水推进,无噪声,增加隐蔽性,并为微型子机器人提供控制信号和能源。微型子机器人陆地采用轮式驱动,设计了可以实现水陆两栖的桨叶轮。该子母机器人系统通过XBee通信模块实现无线通信。通过进行的子母机器人的陆地和水下运动试验,验证了设计的子母机器人系统的有效性。     

A programming environment for real-time control of distributed multiple robotic systems

In recent years there has been great interest in robot software control architectures. However, although many interesting solutions have been presented, most of the research problems tackled related to a single robot perception, navigation and action in everyday environments. Instead, most of the practical applications of mobile robotics for service tasks in civilian environments consist of systems composed of multiple robots communicating with each other, with external sensing and actuating devices, and with external supervising workstations. RoboCup offers a great opportunity to deal with this problem. In fact the software architecture of a robot soccer player must allow successful intra-robot integration of the different activities (visual perception, path planning, strategy planning, motion control, etc.) spanning many different types of representation (raw sensor data, images, symbolic plans, etc.) and it must also guarantee successful inter-robot integration by supporting communication and cooperation. This paper focuses on this problem, presenting ETHNOS-IV - a programming environment for the design of a real-time control system composed of different robots, devices and external supervising or control stations - which has been successfully used within the Italian ART robot team in the RoboCup-99 competition. ETHNOS provides support from three main point of views which will be addressed in detail: inter-robot and intra-robot communication, realtime task scheduling, and software engineering and code reuse. Experimental results illustrating the advantages of this approach will also be presented.