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This paper provides a detailed analytic evaluation of the force-current relationship for a real underactuated gripper, whose geometry presents some differences with respect to the cases usually considered in the literature. Differently from other approaches, the model proposed can work in two ways: calculating the current needed to exert a given force, and calculating the force applied by the gripper...
We introduce a novel online replanning method for robotic information gathering by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) called Reactive Dubins Traveling Salesman Problem (RDTSP). The considered task is the following: a set of target locations are to be visited by the robot. From an initial information gathering plan, obtained as an offline solution of either the Dubins Traveling Salesman Problem (DTSP)...
This paper presents an hybrid metric-topological mapping for multi-robot observation of a human scene. The scene is defined as a set of body joints. Mobile robots have to cooperate to find a position around the scene that maximizes the number of observed joints. It is assumed that the robots can communicate but have no map of the environment. The map is updated cooperatively by exchanging only high-level...
In this paper, we address the data collection planning problem for fixed-wing unmanned aircraft vehicle (UAV) with a limited travel budget. We formulate the problem as a variant of the Orienteering Problem (OP) in which the Dubins airplane model is utilized to extend the problem into the three-dimensional space and curvature-constrained vehicles. The proposed Dubins Airplane Orienteering Problem (DA-OP)...
The Dubins traveling salesman problem (DTSP) combines the combinatorial optimization of the optimal sequence of waypoints to visit the required target locations with the continuous optimization to determine the optimal headings at the waypoints. Existing decoupled approaches to the DTSP are based on an independent solution of the sequencing part as the Euclidean TSP and finding the optimal headings...
A Smart Wheelchair (SW) is an electric powered wheelchair, equipped with sensors and computational capabilities, with the general aim of both enhancing independence and improving perceived quality of life of the impaired people using it. SWs belong to the class of semi-autonomous mobile robots, designed to carry the user from one location to another of his/her choice. For such systems, the localization...
This paper describes a novel system for automating data collection and surveying in a retail store using mobile robots. The manpower cost for surveying and monitoring the shelves in retail stores are high, because of which these activities are not repeated frequently causing reduced customer satisfaction and loss of revenue. Further, the accuracy of data collected may be improved by avoiding human...
Modern approaches to mobile robot navigation typically employ a two-tiered system where first a geometric path is computed in a potentially obstacle-laden environment, and then a reactive motion controller with obstacle-avoidance capabilities is used to follow this path to the goal. However, when multiple path candidates are present, the shortest path is not always the best choice as it may lead through...
Felix is the first robot measuring switch dimension parameters and geometrical railway ones together with potentially dangerous situations. It increases the quality and the consistency of the measures and offers the chance to increase the safety of operators and ultimately of final users. This paper presents a novel approach mixing visual and point cloud information for effective change detection...
Localizing a mobile robot in a given map is a crucial task for autonomy. We present an approach to localize a robot equipped with a camera in a known 2D or 3D geometrical map that is augmented with semantic information (e.g., a floor plan with semantic labels). The approach uses semantic information to mediate between the visual information from the camera and the geometrical information in the map...
This paper presents the simulation results of the controllers design for differential-drive mobile robot (DDMR) using a novel modeling method, which is based on the inclusion of the sideway velocity into the kinematic modeling, in order to obtain a holonomic-like model. Next, non-holonomic constraint is introduced assuming that the sideway slipping is measurable. The controller design considers a...
The ability to identify, follow, approach, and intercept a non-stationary target is a desirable capability of autonomous micro aerial vehicles (MAV) and puts high demands on reliable target perception, fast trajectory planning, and stable control. We present a fully autonomous MAV that lands on a planar platform mounted on a ground vehicle, relying only on onboard sensing and computing. We evaluate...
The availability of affordable Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs) opens up a whole new field of civil applications. We present an Infrastructure for Compact Aerial Robots Under Supervision (ICARUS) that realizes a scalable low-cost testbed for research in the area of MAVs starting at about $100. It combines hardware and software for tracking and computer- based control of multiple quadrotors. In combination...
With the advent of low-cost RGBD sensors, many solutions have been proposed for extraction and fusion of colour and depth information. In this paper, we propose new different fusion approaches of these multimodal sources for people detection. We are especially concerned by a scenario where a robot evolves in a changing environment. We extend the use of the Faster RCNN framework proposed by Girshick...
As autonomous service robots become more affordable and thus available also for the general public, there is a growing need for user friendly interfaces to control the robotic system. Currently available control modalities typically expect users to be able to express their desire through either touch, speech or gesture commands. While this requirement is fulfilled for the majority of users, paralyzed...
In this paper we present an end to end object modeling pipeline for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). We contribute a UAV system which is able to autonomously plan a path, navigate, acquire views of an object in the environment from which a model is built. The UAV does collision checking of the path and navigates only to those areas deemed safe. The data acquired is sent to a registration system which...
An algorithm designed for stabilization and control of large groups of micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) — multirotor helicopters — without any explicit communication is proposed in this paper. The presented algorithm enables a swarm of MAVs to maintain its coherence and perform a compact motion in complex environments while avoiding obstacles with only very limited computational and sensory requirements...
Matching sonar images with high accuracy has been a problem for a long time, as sonar images are inherently hard to model due to reflections, noise and viewpoint dependence. Autonomous Underwater Vehicles require good sonar image matching capabilities for tasks such as tracking, simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) and some cases of object detection/recognition. We propose the use of Convolutional...
In this paper, we present a robust system of self- directed autonomous robots evolving in a complex and public spaces and interacting with people. This system integrates highlevel skills of environment modeling using knowledge-based modeling and reasoning and scene understanding with robust image and video analysis, distributed autonomous decision- making using Markov decision process and Petri-Net...
Trajectory planning using Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) is a powerful approach because vehicle dynamics and other constraints can be taken into account. However, it is currently severely limited by poor scalability. This paper presents a new approach which improves the scalability regarding the amount of obstacles and the distance between the start and goal positions. While previous approaches...
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