Planetary exploration by a mobile robot: Mission teleprogramming and autonomous navigation

Sending mobile robots to accomplish planet exploration missions is scientifically promising and technologically challenging. We present in this paper a complete approach that encompasses the major aspects involved in the design of a robotic system for planetary exploration. It includes mission teleprogramming and supervision at a ground station, and autonomous mission execution by the remote mobile robot. We have partially implemented and validated these concepts. Experimental results illustrate the approach and the results.     

室外自主移动机器人AMOR的导航技术

在非结构化环境,移动机器人行驶运动规划和自主导航是非常挑战性的问题。基于实时的动态栅格地图,提出了一个快速的而又实效的轨迹规划算法,实现机器人在室外环境的无碰撞运动导航。AMOR是自主研发的室外运动移动机器人,它在2007年欧洲C-ELROB大赛中赢得了野外自主侦察比赛的冠军。它装备了SICK的激光雷达,用来获取机器人运动前方的障碍物体信息,建立实时动态的环境地图。以A*框架为基础的改造算法,能够在众多的路径中快速地找到最佳的安全行驶路径,实现可靠的自主导航。所有的测试和比赛结果表明所提方案是可行的、有效的。     

Four-legged intelligent mobile autonomous robot

This paper presents the design and development of a four-legged mobile robot with intelligent sensing and decision-making capabilities. Multiple sensors with embedded knowledge bases and learning capabilities are used in a novel approach towards environmental perception and reaction. These sensors continuously monitor the environment as well as their own operating parameters. Priority is given to any one or a group of sensors based on prevailing environmental conditions. Intelligent sensing is shown to be the key towards a high degree of autonomy for a mobile robot. Nicknamed Flimar, this robot has the ability to function at varying degrees of intelligence made possible by an object-oriented architecture with embedded intelligence at various levels. This architecture is shown to be conducive towards incremental learning. Each of the four legs has three degrees of freedom, i.e. Flimar has a total of 12 motors on its four legs. Flimar can walk and turn without dragging or skidding, and also turns about its center of gravity with a zero radius. Flimar responds to light, sound and touch in different ways, based on prevailing environmental conditions. The overall goal of the paper is to present a novel walking principle and control architecture for a walking robot.     

A study of an autonomous mobile robot for a sewer inspection system

This article describes a prototype autonomous mobile robot, KANTARO, designed for inspecting sewer pipes. It is able to move autonomously in 200–300-mm-diameter sewer pipes, to turn smoothly through 90° at a junction, and to go down a 5-cm step. KANTARO carries all the resources required, such as a control unit, a camera, a 2D laser, and an IR sensor. Damage or abnormalities in sewer pipes are detected based on recorded sensory data. KANTARO has demonstrated its effectiveness in inspection and in autonomous navigation in a dry sewer test field at the FAIS–Robotics Development Support Office (FAIS–RDSO). This work was presented in part at the 11th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, January 23–25, 2006     

Distributed control of simulated autonomous mobile robot collectives in payload transportation

A behavior-based control paradigm that allows a distributed collection of autonomous mobile robots to control the lifting and lowering processes of payload transportation is proposed and then tested with computer simulations. This control paradigm, which represents an approach to solving the cooperative load-bearing problem inherent in multi-agent payload transportation, is based upon a control structure we term thebehavior pathway controller. The behavior pathway controller emphasizes simple, feasible methodologies over complex, optimal methodologies, although we show that with some global self-organization of the collective, the feasible solutions approach and become optimal solutions. Using this controller in simulated environments, our robots demonstrate an ability to function with inaccurate sensor data, which is an important consideration for real world implementations of an autonomous mobile robot control paradigm. The simulated robots also demonstrate an ability to learn their place, or role, within the collective. They must learn their relative roles because they possess no predetermined knowledge about pallet mass, pallet inertia, collective size, or their positions relative to the pallet's center of gravity.     

An autonomous educational mobile robot mediator

So far, most of the applications of robotic technology to education have mainly focused on supporting the teaching of subjects that are closely related to the Robotics field, such as robot programming, robot construction, or mechatronics. Moreover, most of the applications have used the robot as an end or a passive tool of the learning activity, where the robot has been constructed or programmed. In this paper, we present a novel application of robotic technologies to education, where we use the real world situatedness of a robot to teach non-robotic related subjects, such as math and physics. Furthermore, we also provide the robot with a suitable degree of autonomy to actively guide and mediate in the development of the educational activity. We present our approach as an educational framework based on a collaborative and constructivist learning environment, where the robot is able to act as an interaction mediator capable of managing the interactions occurring among the working students. We illustrate the use of this framework by a 4-step methodology that is used to implement two educational activities. These activities were tested at local schools with encouraging results. Accordingly, the main contributions of this work are: i) A novel use of a mobile robot to illustrate and teach relevant concepts and properties of the real world; ii) A novel use of robots as mediators that autonomously guide an educational activity using a collaborative and constructivist learning approach; iii) The implementation and testing of these ideas in a real scenario, working with students at local schools.

自主移动机器人自适应室外道路检测

目的 为降低室外自主移动机器人视觉导航中遇到的阴影、裂纹及道路边界不规则造成的道路检测算法不鲁棒性,提出一种每帧灰度阈值可调的快速自适应道路检测方法。方法 先采用2维离散小波进行道路图像分解与重构,比较各级小波重构后的近似道路图像,确定出不影响“路-非路”灰度二分类的最佳分辨率等级;在低分辨率尺度空间中,用灰度类间最大方差和类内最小方差共同构造适应度函数,采用改进的遗传算法对各帧道路图像进行阈值自适应分割,找到准确的道路边界,最近两边界中心位置即机器人行驶方向。采用小型陆地自主车作为研究平台,并在卡耐基梅隆大学（CMU）提供的室外移动机器人道路视频中进行算法测试。结果 本文方法能够在具有阴影、裂纹、光照度变化的道路条件下鲁棒分割出道路边界,机器人可以平均30 km/h的速度在有较严重阴影干扰的校园道路上行驶,视觉系统的处理速度平均可达到20 ms/帧。结论 本文方法比传统的灰度直方图分割法表现出更强的环境自适应性,可实现较为鲁棒的室外道路检测,并可作为室外自主移动机器人非结构化道路检测的一种鲁棒性较强的方法加以推广。     

一种移动机器人的禁忌搜索自主导航算法

纯粹的反应式导航算法在复杂未知环境下易陷入局部极小,为此提出一种基于局部子目标和禁忌搜索的自主导航算法．以当前可视区域内障碍物的关键角点为搜索邻域,利用禁忌搜索算法执行优化操作生成当前子目标,进而采用反应式导航算法对其进行跟踪,最终通过子目标的动态切换引导机器人驶达目标位置．算法可有效克服局部极小,显著提高机器人在复杂环境下的自主性．理论分析和仿真实验验证了算法的可行性和有效性．     

强化学习在移动机器人自主导航中的应用

概述了移动机器人常用的自主导航算法及其优缺点,在此基础上提出了强化学习方法。描述了强化学习算法的原理,并实现了用神经网络解决泛化问题。设计了基于障碍物探测传感器信息的机器人自主导航强化学习方法,给出了学习算法中各要素的数学模型。经仿真验证,算法正确有效,具有良好的收敛性和泛化能力。     

自主移动机器人足球比赛视觉定位方法综述

综述了RoboCup足球赛中全自主移动机器人基于视觉的定位技术,包括机器人自定位和多机器人协作物体定位.介绍了定位技术的发展情况与分类.从机器人环境构建形式的不同以及先验位姿和概率方法的应用与否等方面,系统地分析和比较了各种自定位方法.对于多机器人协作物体定位,阐述了静态方法和动态跟踪方法.总结了定位过程中需要重点研究的传感器模型构建、图像处理、特征匹配以及协作过程涉及的相关问题.最后就视觉定位存在的问题和技术发展趋势进行了讨论.     

Dyna-Q-based vector direction for path planning problem of autonomous mobile robots in unknown environments

Reinforcement learning (RL) is a popular method for solving the path planning problem of autonomous mobile robots in unknown environments. However, the primary difficulty faced by learning robots using the RL method is that they learn too slowly in obstacle-dense environments. To more efficiently solve the path planning problem of autonomous mobile robots in such environments, this paper presents a novel approach in which the robot’s learning process is divided into two phases. The first one is to accelerate the learning process for obtaining an optimal policy by developing the well-known Dyna-Q algorithm that trains the robot in learning actions for avoiding obstacles when following the vector direction. In this phase, the robot’s position is represented as a uniform grid. At each time step, the robot performs an action to move to one of its eight adjacent cells, so the path obtained from the optimal policy may be longer than the true shortest path. The second one is to train the robot in learning a collision-free smooth path for decreasing the number of the heading changes of the robot. The simulation results show that the proposed approach is efficient for the path planning problem of autonomous mobile robots in unknown environments with dense obstacles.     

Nondestructive evaluation sensor fusion with autonomous robotic system for civil infrastructure inspection

Civil infrastructure inspection is crucial to maintaining the quality of that infrastructure, which has a great impact on the economy. Performing this inspection is costly work that requires workers to be trained on how to use varying technologies, which can be error prone when performed manually and can result in damage to the infrastructure in some cases. For this reason, nondestructive evaluation (NDE) sensors are preferred for civil infrastructure inspection as they can perform the necessary inspection without damaging the infrastructure. In this paper, we develop a fully autonomous robotic system capable of real‐time data collection and quasi‐real‐time data processing. The robotic system is equipped with several NDE sensors that allow for a sensor fusion method to be developed that successfully minimizes inspection time while performing adequate inspection of areas that require more in‐depth data to be collected. A detailed discussion of the inspection framework developed for this robotic system, and the dual navigation modes for both indoor and outdoor autonomous navigation is presented. The developed robotic system is deployed to inspect several infrastructures (e.g., parking garages, bridges) at and near by the University of Nevada, Reno campus.     

Distributed algorithms for partitioning a swarm of autonomous mobile robots

A number of recent studies address systems of mobile autonomous robots from a distributed computing point of view. Although such systems employ robots that are relatively weak and simple (i.e., dimensionless, oblivious and anonymous), they are nevertheless expected to have strong fault tolerance capabilities as a group. This paper studies the partitioning problem, where n$n$ robots must divide themselves into k$k$ size-balanced groups, and examines the impact of common orientation on the solvability of this problem. First, deterministic crash-fault-tolerant algorithms are given for the problem in the asynchronous full-compass and semi-synchronous half-compass models, and a randomized algorithm is given for the semi-synchronous no-compass model. Next, the role of common orientation shared by the robots is examined. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the partitioning problem to be solvable are given in the different timing models. Finally, the problem is proved to be unsolvable in the no-compass synchronous model.     

Automated wall-climbing robot for concrete construction inspection

Human-made concrete structures require cutting-edge inspection tools to ensure the quality of the construction to meet the applicable building codes and to maintain the sustainability of the aging infrastructure. This paper introduces a wall-climbing robot for metric concrete inspection that can reach difficult-to-access locations with a close-up view for visual data collection and real-time flaws detection and localization. The wall-climbing robot is able to detect concrete surface flaws (i.e., cracks and spalls) and produce a defect-highlighted 3D model with extracted location clues and metric measurements. The system encompasses four modules, including a data collection module to capture RGB-D frames and inertial measurement unit data, a visual–inertial navigation system module to generate pose-coupled keyframes, a deep neural network module (namely InspectionNet) to classify each pixel into three classes (background, crack, and spall), and a semantic reconstruction module to integrate per-frame measurement into a global volumetric model with defects highlighted. We found that commercial RGB-D camera output depth is noisy with holes, and a Gussian-Bilateral filter for depth completion is introduced to inpaint the depth image. The method achieves the state-of-the-art depth completion accuracy even with large holes. Based on the semantic mesh, we introduce a coherent defect metric evaluation approach to compute the metric measurement of crack and spall area (e.g., length, width, area, and depth). Field experiments on a concrete bridge demonstrate that our wall-climbing robot is able to operate on a rough surface and can cross over shallow gaps. The robot is capable to detect and measure surface flaws under low illuminated environments and texture-less environments. Besides the robot system, we create the first publicly accessible concrete structure spalls and cracks data set that includes 820 labeled images and over 10,000 field-collected images and release it to the research community.     

移动机器人编队自修复的切换拓扑控制

针对机器人缺失后的移动机器人编队自修复问题, 构建了结合切换拓扑和交互动力模型的移动机器人编队模型, 通过分析机器人缺失后的拓扑变化情况, 提出了网络切换拓扑控制, 该算法利用递归实现自修复, 并且是收敛的. 通过设计相应的分布式算法, 本文将拓扑控制转化为基于局部交互的递归自修复个体控制, 证明了编队自修复个体控制的稳定性. 最后针对编队任务, 通过仿真验证了切换拓扑控制的有效性, 和其他方法比较具有低恢复时间和低功率消耗的优点.     

Towards principled experimental study of autonomous mobile robots

We review the current state of research in autonomous mobile robots and conclude that there is an inadequate basis for predicting the reliability and behavior of robots operating in unengineered environments. We present a new approach to the study of autonomous mobile robot performance based on formal statistical analysis of independently reproducible experiments conducted on real robots. Simulators serve as models rather than experimental surrogates. We demonstrate three new results: 1) Two commonly used performance metrics (time and distance) are not as well correlated as is often tacitly assumed. 2) The probability distributions of these performance metrics are exponential rather than normal, and 3) a modular, object-oriented simulation accurately predicts the behavior of the real robot in a statistically significant manner.     

激光测距在移动机器人自主导航中的应用

移动机器人在运动范围内需要有足够的传感器信息可供利用来进行自主导航,在完全未知的环境中,由机器人依靠其自身携带的传感器所提供的信息建立环境模型是机器人进行自主定位和导航的前提之一。介绍了激光测距在移动机器人自主导航中的应用研究;通过二维测距传感器对其周围环境进行扫描,提出了自主导航中地图创建、定位如何用二维扫描获得三维数据流的算法描述,并实验验证该算法的运用使机器人获得一个很好的三维视觉结构图。     

Instance invariant visual servoing framework for part‐aware autonomous vehicle inspection using MAVs

Visual servoing approaches navigate a robot to the desired pose with respect to a given object using image measurements. As a result, these approaches have several applications in manipulation, navigation and inspection. However, existing visual servoing approaches are instance specific, that is, they control camera motion between two views of the same object. In this paper, we present a framework for visual servoing to a novel object instance. We further employ our framework for the autonomous inspection of vehicles using Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs), which is vital for day‐to‐day maintenance, damage assessment, and merchandising a vehicle. This visual inspection task comprises the MAV visiting the essential parts of the vehicle, for example, wheels, lights, and so forth, to get a closer look at the damages incurred. Existing methods for autonomous inspection could not be extended for vehicles due to the following reasons: First, several existing methods require a 3D model of the structure, which is not available for every vehicle. Second, existing methods require expensive depth sensor for localization and path planning. Third, current approaches do not account for the semantic understanding of the vehicle, which is essential for identifying parts. Our instance invariant visual servoing framework is capable of autonomously navigating to every essential part of a vehicle for inspection and can be initialized from any random pose. To the best our knowledge, this is the first approach demonstrating fully autonomous visual inspection of vehicles using MAVs. We have validated the efficacy of our approach through a series of experiments in simulation and outdoor scenarios.     

Models of computation for reactive control of autonomous mobile robots

The paper studies computation models for tasks performed by autonomous mobile robots. Such tasks can be accomplished by reactive control algorithms. Reactive control systems can be described using different models of computation which have as distinguishing feature the abstraction level of time. Thus, three computation models are defined: the untimed model, the synchronous model and the timed model. It is shown that the clocked-synchronous model of computation is more appropriate for describing the controller for a parallel parking task.     

移动互联网在水利工程移动巡检中的应用

移动互联网因为其普遍性、高可携带性、安全性和应用多样性等特点,在政务、交通物流、警务等行业得到广泛应用。研究了将移动互联网技术应用到了水利工程移动巡检中,建立了移动终端、管理端和安全接入子系统。移动终端子系统主要用以完成数据下载、采集、上报功能。管理端子系统主要提供数据接口,并对采集的数据进行分析。安全接入子系统是在业务内网与互联网之间建立起一个安全的接入平台。本系统经测试,完全可以满足企业需求。