Learning for autonomous navigation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Angelova, Anelia; Howard, Andrew; Matthies, Larry; Tang, Benyang; Turmon, Michael; Mjolsness, Eric

2005-01-01

Autonomous off-road navigation of robotic ground vehicles has important applications on Earth and in space exploration. Progress in this domain has been retarded by the limited lookahead range of 3-D sensors and by the difficulty of preprogramming systems to understand the traversability of the wide variety of terrain they can encounter.

SLAM algorithm applied to robotics assistance for navigation in unknown environments.

PubMed

Cheein, Fernando A Auat; Lopez, Natalia; Soria, Carlos M; di Sciascio, Fernando A; Pereira, Fernando Lobo; Carelli, Ricardo

2010-02-17

The combination of robotic tools with assistance technology determines a slightly explored area of applications and advantages for disability or elder people in their daily tasks. Autonomous motorized wheelchair navigation inside an environment, behaviour based control of orthopaedic arms or user's preference learning from a friendly interface are some examples of this new field. In this paper, a Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) algorithm is implemented to allow the environmental learning by a mobile robot while its navigation is governed by electromyographic signals. The entire system is part autonomous and part user-decision dependent (semi-autonomous). The environmental learning executed by the SLAM algorithm and the low level behaviour-based reactions of the mobile robot are robotic autonomous tasks, whereas the mobile robot navigation inside an environment is commanded by a Muscle-Computer Interface (MCI). In this paper, a sequential Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) feature-based SLAM algorithm is implemented. The features correspond to lines and corners -concave and convex- of the environment. From the SLAM architecture, a global metric map of the environment is derived. The electromyographic signals that command the robot's movements can be adapted to the patient's disabilities. For mobile robot navigation purposes, five commands were obtained from the MCI: turn to the left, turn to the right, stop, start and exit. A kinematic controller to control the mobile robot was implemented. A low level behavior strategy was also implemented to avoid robot's collisions with the environment and moving agents. The entire system was tested in a population of seven volunteers: three elder, two below-elbow amputees and two young normally limbed patients. The experiments were performed within a closed low dynamic environment. Subjects took an average time of 35 minutes to navigate the environment and to learn how to use the MCI. The SLAM results have shown a

SLAM algorithm applied to robotics assistance for navigation in unknown environments

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Background The combination of robotic tools with assistance technology determines a slightly explored area of applications and advantages for disability or elder people in their daily tasks. Autonomous motorized wheelchair navigation inside an environment, behaviour based control of orthopaedic arms or user's preference learning from a friendly interface are some examples of this new field. In this paper, a Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) algorithm is implemented to allow the environmental learning by a mobile robot while its navigation is governed by electromyographic signals. The entire system is part autonomous and part user-decision dependent (semi-autonomous). The environmental learning executed by the SLAM algorithm and the low level behaviour-based reactions of the mobile robot are robotic autonomous tasks, whereas the mobile robot navigation inside an environment is commanded by a Muscle-Computer Interface (MCI). Methods In this paper, a sequential Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) feature-based SLAM algorithm is implemented. The features correspond to lines and corners -concave and convex- of the environment. From the SLAM architecture, a global metric map of the environment is derived. The electromyographic signals that command the robot's movements can be adapted to the patient's disabilities. For mobile robot navigation purposes, five commands were obtained from the MCI: turn to the left, turn to the right, stop, start and exit. A kinematic controller to control the mobile robot was implemented. A low level behavior strategy was also implemented to avoid robot's collisions with the environment and moving agents. Results The entire system was tested in a population of seven volunteers: three elder, two below-elbow amputees and two young normally limbed patients. The experiments were performed within a closed low dynamic environment. Subjects took an average time of 35 minutes to navigate the environment and to learn how to use the MCI. The SLAM

Control of autonomous robot using neural networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barton, Adam; Volna, Eva

2017-07-01

The aim of the article is to design a method of control of an autonomous robot using artificial neural networks. The introductory part describes control issues from the perspective of autonomous robot navigation and the current mobile robots controlled by neural networks. The core of the article is the design of the controlling neural network, and generation and filtration of the training set using ART1 (Adaptive Resonance Theory). The outcome of the practical part is an assembled Lego Mindstorms EV3 robot solving the problem of avoiding obstacles in space. To verify models of an autonomous robot behavior, a set of experiments was created as well as evaluation criteria. The speed of each motor was adjusted by the controlling neural network with respect to the situation in which the robot was found.

Navigation system for autonomous mapper robots

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Halbach, Marc; Baudoin, Yvan

1993-05-01

This paper describes the conception and realization of a fast, robust, and general navigation system for a mobile (wheeled or legged) robot. A database, representing a high level map of the environment is generated and continuously updated. The first part describes the legged target vehicle and the hexapod robot being developed. The second section deals with spatial and temporal sensor fusion for dynamic environment modeling within an obstacle/free space probabilistic classification grid. Ultrasonic sensors are used, others are suspected to be integrated, and a-priori knowledge is treated. US sensors are controlled by the path planning module. The third part concerns path planning and a simulation of a wheeled robot is also presented.

Fuzzy Logic Based Control for Autonomous Mobile Robot Navigation

PubMed Central

Masmoudi, Mohamed Slim; Masmoudi, Mohamed

2016-01-01

This paper describes the design and the implementation of a trajectory tracking controller using fuzzy logic for mobile robot to navigate in indoor environments. Most of the previous works used two independent controllers for navigation and avoiding obstacles. The main contribution of the paper can be summarized in the fact that we use only one fuzzy controller for navigation and obstacle avoidance. The used mobile robot is equipped with DC motor, nine infrared range (IR) sensors to measure the distance to obstacles, and two optical encoders to provide the actual position and speeds. To evaluate the performances of the intelligent navigation algorithms, different trajectories are used and simulated using MATLAB software and SIMIAM navigation platform. Simulation results show the performances of the intelligent navigation algorithms in terms of simulation times and travelled path. PMID:27688748

Navigation of robotic system using cricket motes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Patil, Yogendra J.; Baine, Nicholas A.; Rattan, Kuldip S.

2011-06-01

This paper presents a novel algorithm for self-mapping of the cricket motes that can be used for indoor navigation of autonomous robotic systems. The cricket system is a wireless sensor network that can provide indoor localization service to its user via acoustic ranging techniques. The behavior of the ultrasonic transducer on the cricket mote is studied and the regions where satisfactorily distance measurements can be obtained are recorded. Placing the motes in these regions results fine-grain mapping of the cricket motes. Trilateration is used to obtain a rigid coordinate system, but is insufficient if the network is to be used for navigation. A modified SLAM algorithm is applied to overcome the shortcomings of trilateration. Finally, the self-mapped cricket motes can be used for navigation of autonomous robotic systems in an indoor location.

ARK: Autonomous mobile robot in an industrial environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Nickerson, S. B.; Jasiobedzki, P.; Jenkin, M.; Jepson, A.; Milios, E.; Down, B.; Service, J. R. R.; Terzopoulos, D.; Tsotsos, J.; Wilkes, D.

1994-01-01

This paper describes research on the ARK (Autonomous Mobile Robot in a Known Environment) project. The technical objective of the project is to build a robot that can navigate in a complex industrial environment using maps with permanent structures. The environment is not altered in any way by adding easily identifiable beacons and the robot relies on naturally occurring objects to use as visual landmarks for navigation. The robot is equipped with various sensors that can detect unmapped obstacles, landmarks and objects. In this paper we describe the robot's industrial environment, it's architecture, a novel combined range and vision sensor and our recent results in controlling the robot in the real-time detection of objects using their color and in the processing of the robot's range and vision sensor data for navigation.

Tracked robot controllers for climbing obstacles autonomously

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vincent, Isabelle

2009-05-01

Research in mobile robot navigation has demonstrated some success in navigating flat indoor environments while avoiding obstacles. However, the challenge of analyzing complex environments to climb obstacles autonomously has had very little success due to the complexity of the task. Unmanned ground vehicles currently exhibit simple autonomous behaviours compared to the human ability to move in the world. This paper presents the control algorithms designed for a tracked mobile robot to autonomously climb obstacles by varying its tracks configuration. Two control algorithms are proposed to solve the autonomous locomotion problem for climbing obstacles. First, a reactive controller evaluates the appropriate geometric configuration based on terrain and vehicle geometric considerations. Then, a reinforcement learning algorithm finds alternative solutions when the reactive controller gets stuck while climbing an obstacle. The methodology combines reactivity to learning. The controllers have been demonstrated in box and stair climbing simulations. The experiments illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach for crossing obstacles.

Autonomous mobile robot teams

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Agah, Arvin; Bekey, George A.

1994-01-01

This paper describes autonomous mobile robot teams performing tasks in unstructured environments. The behavior and the intelligence of the group is distributed, and the system does not include a central command base or leader. The novel concept of the Tropism-Based Cognitive Architecture is introduced, which is used by the robots in order to produce behavior transforming their sensory information to proper action. The results of a number of simulation experiments are presented. These experiments include worlds where the robot teams must locate, decompose, and gather objects, and defend themselves against hostile predators, while navigating around stationary and mobile obstacles.

LABRADOR: a learning autonomous behavior-based robot for adaptive detection and object retrieval

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yamauchi, Brian; Moseley, Mark; Brookshire, Jonathan

2013-01-01

As part of the TARDEC-funded CANINE (Cooperative Autonomous Navigation in a Networked Environment) Program, iRobot developed LABRADOR (Learning Autonomous Behavior-based Robot for Adaptive Detection and Object Retrieval). LABRADOR was based on the rugged, man-portable, iRobot PackBot unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) equipped with an explosives ordnance disposal (EOD) manipulator arm and a custom gripper. For LABRADOR, we developed a vision-based object learning and recognition system that combined a TLD (track-learn-detect) filter based on object shape features with a color-histogram-based object detector. Our vision system was able to learn in real-time to recognize objects presented to the robot. We also implemented a waypoint navigation system based on fused GPS, IMU (inertial measurement unit), and odometry data. We used this navigation capability to implement autonomous behaviors capable of searching a specified area using a variety of robust coverage strategies - including outward spiral, random bounce, random waypoint, and perimeter following behaviors. While the full system was not integrated in time to compete in the CANINE competition event, we developed useful perception, navigation, and behavior capabilities that may be applied to future autonomous robot systems.

Developing Autonomous Vehicles That Learn to Navigate by Mimicking Human Behavior

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-09-28

navigate in an unstructured environment to a specific target or location. 15. SUBJECT TERMS autonomous vehicles , fuzzy logic, learning behavior...ANSI-Std Z39-18 Developing Autonomous Vehicles That Learn to Navigate by Mimicking Human Behavior FINAL REPORT 9/28/2006 Dean B. Edwards Department...the future, as greater numbers of autonomous vehicles are employed, it is hoped that lower LONG-TERM GOALS Use LAGR (Learning Applied to Ground Robots

Study of the Navigation Method for a Snake Robot Based on the Kinematics Model with MEMS IMU.

PubMed

Zhao, Xu; Dou, Lihua; Su, Zhong; Liu, Ning

2018-03-16

A snake robot is a type of highly redundant mobile robot that significantly differs from a tracked robot, wheeled robot and legged robot. To address the issue of a snake robot performing self-localization in the application environment without assistant orientation, an autonomous navigation method is proposed based on the snake robot's motion characteristic constraints. The method realized the autonomous navigation of the snake robot with non-nodes and an external assistant using its own Micro-Electromechanical-Systems (MEMS) Inertial-Measurement-Unit (IMU). First, it studies the snake robot's motion characteristics, builds the kinematics model, and then analyses the motion constraint characteristics and motion error propagation properties. Second, it explores the snake robot's navigation layout, proposes a constraint criterion and the fixed relationship, and makes zero-state constraints based on the motion features and control modes of a snake robot. Finally, it realizes autonomous navigation positioning based on the Extended-Kalman-Filter (EKF) position estimation method under the constraints of its motion characteristics. With the self-developed snake robot, the test verifies the proposed method, and the position error is less than 5% of Total-Traveled-Distance (TDD). In a short-distance environment, this method is able to meet the requirements of a snake robot in order to perform autonomous navigation and positioning in traditional applications and can be extended to other familiar multi-link robots.

Study of the Navigation Method for a Snake Robot Based on the Kinematics Model with MEMS IMU

PubMed Central

Dou, Lihua; Su, Zhong; Liu, Ning

2018-01-01

A snake robot is a type of highly redundant mobile robot that significantly differs from a tracked robot, wheeled robot and legged robot. To address the issue of a snake robot performing self-localization in the application environment without assistant orientation, an autonomous navigation method is proposed based on the snake robot’s motion characteristic constraints. The method realized the autonomous navigation of the snake robot with non-nodes and an external assistant using its own Micro-Electromechanical-Systems (MEMS) Inertial-Measurement-Unit (IMU). First, it studies the snake robot’s motion characteristics, builds the kinematics model, and then analyses the motion constraint characteristics and motion error propagation properties. Second, it explores the snake robot’s navigation layout, proposes a constraint criterion and the fixed relationship, and makes zero-state constraints based on the motion features and control modes of a snake robot. Finally, it realizes autonomous navigation positioning based on the Extended-Kalman-Filter (EKF) position estimation method under the constraints of its motion characteristics. With the self-developed snake robot, the test verifies the proposed method, and the position error is less than 5% of Total-Traveled-Distance (TDD). In a short-distance environment, this method is able to meet the requirements of a snake robot in order to perform autonomous navigation and positioning in traditional applications and can be extended to other familiar multi-link robots. PMID:29547515

Learning for Autonomous Navigation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Angelova, Anelia; Howard, Andrew; Matthies, Larry; Tang, Benyang; Turmon, Michael; Mjolsness, Eric

2005-01-01

Robotic ground vehicles for outdoor applications have achieved some remarkable successes, notably in autonomous highway following (Dickmanns, 1987), planetary exploration (1), and off-road navigation on Earth (1). Nevertheless, major challenges remain to enable reliable, high-speed, autonomous navigation in a wide variety of complex, off-road terrain. 3-D perception of terrain geometry with imaging range sensors is the mainstay of off-road driving systems. However, the stopping distance at high speed exceeds the effective lookahead distance of existing range sensors. Prospects for extending the range of 3-D sensors is strongly limited by sensor physics, eye safety of lasers, and related issues. Range sensor limitations also allow vehicles to enter large cul-de-sacs even at low speed, leading to long detours. Moreover, sensing only terrain geometry fails to reveal mechanical properties of terrain that are critical to assessing its traversability, such as potential for slippage, sinkage, and the degree of compliance of potential obstacles. Rovers in the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission have got stuck in sand dunes and experienced significant downhill slippage in the vicinity of large rock hazards. Earth-based off-road robots today have very limited ability to discriminate traversable vegetation from non-traversable vegetation or rough ground. It is impossible today to preprogram a system with knowledge of these properties for all types of terrain and weather conditions that might be encountered.

Experiments in teleoperator and autonomous control of space robotic vehicles

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Alexander, Harold L.

1990-01-01

A research program and strategy are described which include fundamental teleoperation issues and autonomous-control issues of sensing and navigation for satellite robots. The program consists of developing interfaces for visual operation and studying the consequences of interface designs as well as developing navigation and control technologies based on visual interaction. A space-robot-vehicle simulator is under development for use in virtual-environment teleoperation experiments and neutral-buoyancy investigations. These technologies can be utilized in a study of visual interfaces to address tradeoffs between head-tracking and manual remote cameras, panel-mounted and helmet-mounted displays, and stereoscopic and monoscopic display systems. The present program can provide significant data for the development of control experiments for autonomously controlled satellite robots.

Autonomous navigation system and method

DOEpatents

Bruemmer, David J [Idaho Falls, ID; Few, Douglas A [Idaho Falls, ID

2009-09-08

A robot platform includes perceptors, locomotors, and a system controller, which executes instructions for autonomously navigating a robot. The instructions repeat, on each iteration through an event timing loop, the acts of defining an event horizon based on the robot's current velocity, detecting a range to obstacles around the robot, testing for an event horizon intrusion by determining if any range to the obstacles is within the event horizon, and adjusting rotational and translational velocity of the robot accordingly. If the event horizon intrusion occurs, rotational velocity is modified by a proportion of the current rotational velocity reduced by a proportion of the range to the nearest obstacle and translational velocity is modified by a proportion of the range to the nearest obstacle. If no event horizon intrusion occurs, translational velocity is set as a ratio of a speed factor relative to a maximum speed.

Autonomous Collision-Free Navigation of Microvehicles in Complex and Dynamically Changing Environments.

PubMed

Li, Tianlong; Chang, Xiaocong; Wu, Zhiguang; Li, Jinxing; Shao, Guangbin; Deng, Xinghong; Qiu, Jianbin; Guo, Bin; Zhang, Guangyu; He, Qiang; Li, Longqiu; Wang, Joseph

2017-09-26

Self-propelled micro- and nanoscale robots represent a rapidly emerging and fascinating robotics research area. However, designing autonomous and adaptive control systems for operating micro/nanorobotics in complex and dynamically changing environments, which is a highly demanding feature, is still an unmet challenge. Here we describe a smart microvehicle for precise autonomous navigation in complicated environments and traffic scenarios. The fully autonomous navigation system of the smart microvehicle is composed of a microscope-coupled CCD camera, an artificial intelligence planner, and a magnetic field generator. The microscope-coupled CCD camera provides real-time localization of the chemically powered Janus microsphere vehicle and environmental detection for path planning to generate optimal collision-free routes, while the moving direction of the microrobot toward a reference position is determined by the external electromagnetic torque. Real-time object detection offers adaptive path planning in response to dynamically changing environments. We demonstrate that the autonomous navigation system can guide the vehicle movement in complex patterns, in the presence of dynamically changing obstacles, and in complex biological environments. Such a navigation system for micro/nanoscale vehicles, relying on vision-based close-loop control and path planning, is highly promising for their autonomous operation in complex dynamic settings and unpredictable scenarios expected in a variety of realistic nanoscale scenarios.

Fuzzy Behavior Modulation with Threshold Activation for Autonomous Vehicle Navigation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tunstel, Edward

2000-01-01

This paper describes fuzzy logic techniques used in a hierarchical behavior-based architecture for robot navigation. An architectural feature for threshold activation of fuzzy-behaviors is emphasized, which is potentially useful for tuning navigation performance in real world applications. The target application is autonomous local navigation of a small planetary rover. Threshold activation of low-level navigation behaviors is the primary focus. A preliminary assessment of its impact on local navigation performance is provided based on computer simulations.

Interaction dynamics of multiple mobile robots with simple navigation strategies

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wang, P. K. C.

1989-01-01

The global dynamic behavior of multiple interacting autonomous mobile robots with simple navigation strategies is studied. Here, the effective spatial domain of each robot is taken to be a closed ball about its mass center. It is assumed that each robot has a specified cone of visibility such that interaction with other robots takes place only when they enter its visibility cone. Based on a particle model for the robots, various simple homing and collision-avoidance navigation strategies are derived. Then, an analysis of the dynamical behavior of the interacting robots in unbounded spatial domains is made. The article concludes with the results of computer simulations studies of two or more interacting robots.

Dynamic multisensor fusion for mobile robot navigation in an indoor environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jin, Taeseok; Lee, Jang-Myung; Luk, Bing L.; Tso, Shiu K.

2001-10-01

In this study, as the preliminary step for developing a multi-purpose Autonomous robust carrier mobile robot to transport trolleys or heavy goods and serve as robotic nursing assistant in hospital wards. The aim of this paper is to present the use of multi-sensor data fusion such as sonar, CCD camera dn IR sensor for map-building mobile robot to navigate, and presents an experimental mobile robot designed to operate autonomously within both indoor and outdoor environments. Smart sensory systems are crucial for successful autonomous systems. We will give an explanation for the robot system architecture designed and implemented in this study and a short review of existing techniques, since there exist several recent thorough books and review paper on this paper. Instead we will focus on the main results with relevance to the intelligent service robot project at the Centre of Intelligent Design, Automation & Manufacturing (CIDAM). We will conclude by discussing some possible future extensions of the project. It is first dealt with the general principle of the navigation and guidance architecture, then the detailed functions recognizing environments updated, obstacle detection and motion assessment, with the first results form the simulations run.

Recursive Gradient Estimation Using Splines for Navigation of Autonomous Vehicles.

DTIC Science & Technology

1985-07-01

AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES C. N. SHEN DTIC " JULY 1985 SEP 1 219 85 V US ARMY ARMAMENT RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT CENTER LARGE CALIBER WEAPON SYSTEMS LABORATORY I...GRADIENT ESTIMATION USING SPLINES FOR NAVIGATION OF AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES Final S. PERFORMING ORG. REPORT NUMBER 7. AUTHOR(q) 8. CONTRACT OR GRANT NUMBER...which require autonomous vehicles . Essential to these robotic vehicles is an adequate and efficient computer vision system. A potentially more

Autonomous Robotic Inspection in Tunnels

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Protopapadakis, E.; Stentoumis, C.; Doulamis, N.; Doulamis, A.; Loupos, K.; Makantasis, K.; Kopsiaftis, G.; Amditis, A.

2016-06-01

In this paper, an automatic robotic inspector for tunnel assessment is presented. The proposed platform is able to autonomously navigate within the civil infrastructures, grab stereo images and process/analyse them, in order to identify defect types. At first, there is the crack detection via deep learning approaches. Then, a detailed 3D model of the cracked area is created, utilizing photogrammetric methods. Finally, a laser profiling of the tunnel's lining, for a narrow region close to detected crack is performed; allowing for the deduction of potential deformations. The robotic platform consists of an autonomous mobile vehicle; a crane arm, guided by the computer vision-based crack detector, carrying ultrasound sensors, the stereo cameras and the laser scanner. Visual inspection is based on convolutional neural networks, which support the creation of high-level discriminative features for complex non-linear pattern classification. Then, real-time 3D information is accurately calculated and the crack position and orientation is passed to the robotic platform. The entire system has been evaluated in railway and road tunnels, i.e. in Egnatia Highway and London underground infrastructure.

Design, Development and Testing of the Miniature Autonomous Extravehicular Robotic Camera (Mini AERCam) Guidance, Navigation and Control System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wagenknecht, J.; Fredrickson, S.; Manning, T.; Jones, B.

2003-01-01

Engineers at NASA Johnson Space Center have designed, developed, and tested a nanosatellite-class free-flyer intended for future external inspection and remote viewing of human spaceflight activities. The technology demonstration system, known as the Miniature Autonomous Extravehicular Robotic Camera (Mini AERCam), has been integrated into the approximate form and function of a flight system. The primary focus has been to develop a system capable of providing external views of the International Space Station. The Mini AERCam system is spherical-shaped and less than eight inches in diameter. It has a full suite of guidance, navigation, and control hardware and software, and is equipped with two digital video cameras and a high resolution still image camera. The vehicle is designed for either remotely piloted operations or supervised autonomous operations. Tests have been performed in both a six degree-of-freedom closed-loop orbital simulation and on an air-bearing table. The Mini AERCam system can also be used as a test platform for evaluating algorithms and relative navigation for autonomous proximity operations and docking around the Space Shuttle Orbiter or the ISS.

Situationally driven local navigation for mobile robots. Ph.D. Thesis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Slack, Marc Glenn

1990-01-01

For mobile robots to autonomously accommodate dynamically changing navigation tasks in a goal-directed fashion, they must employ navigation plans. Any such plan must provide for the robot's immediate and continuous need for guidance while remaining highly flexible in order to avoid costly computation each time the robot's perception of the world changes. Due to the world's uncertainties, creation and maintenance of navigation plans cannot involve arbitrarily complex processes, as the robot's perception of the world will be in constant flux, requiring modifications to be made quickly if they are to be of any use. This work introduces navigation templates (NaT's) which are building blocks for the construction and maintenance of rough navigation plans which capture the relationship that objects in the world have to the current navigation task. By encoding only the critical relationship between the objects in the world and the navigation task, a NaT-based navigation plan is highly flexible; allowing new constraints to be quickly incorporated into the plan and existing constraints to be updated or deleted from the plan. To satisfy the robot's need for immediate local guidance, the NaT's forming the current navigation plan are passed to a transformation function. The transformation function analyzes the plan with respect to the robot's current location to quickly determine (a few times a second) the locally preferred direction of travel. This dissertation presents NaT's and the transformation function as well as the needed support systems to demonstrate the usefulness of the technique for controlling the actions of a mobile robot operating in an uncertain world.

Autonomous Wheeled Robot Platform Testbed for Navigation and Mapping Using Low-Cost Sensors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Calero, D.; Fernandez, E.; Parés, M. E.

2017-11-01

This paper presents the concept of an architecture for a wheeled robot system that helps researchers in the field of geomatics to speed up their daily research on kinematic geodesy, indoor navigation and indoor positioning fields. The presented ideas corresponds to an extensible and modular hardware and software system aimed at the development of new low-cost mapping algorithms as well as at the evaluation of the performance of sensors. The concept, already implemented in the CTTC's system ARAS (Autonomous Rover for Automatic Surveying) is generic and extensible. This means that it is possible to incorporate new navigation algorithms or sensors at no maintenance cost. Only the effort related to the development tasks required to either create such algorithms needs to be taken into account. As a consequence, change poses a much small problem for research activities in this specific area. This system includes several standalone sensors that may be combined in different ways to accomplish several goals; that is, this system may be used to perform a variety of tasks, as, for instance evaluates positioning algorithms performance or mapping algorithms performance.

ODYSSEUS autonomous walking robot: The leg/arm design

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bourbakis, N. G.; Maas, M.; Tascillo, A.; Vandewinckel, C.

1994-01-01

ODYSSEUS is an autonomous walking robot, which makes use of three wheels and three legs for its movement in the free navigation space. More specifically, it makes use of its autonomous wheels to move around in an environment where the surface is smooth and not uneven. However, in the case that there are small height obstacles, stairs, or small height unevenness in the navigation environment, the robot makes use of both wheels and legs to travel efficiently. In this paper we present the detailed hardware design and the simulated behavior of the extended leg/arm part of the robot, since it plays a very significant role in the robot actions (movements, selection of objects, etc.). In particular, the leg/arm consists of three major parts: The first part is a pipe attached to the robot base with a flexible 3-D joint. This pipe has a rotated bar as an extended part, which terminates in a 3-D flexible joint. The second part of the leg/arm is also a pipe similar to the first. The extended bar of the second part ends at a 2-D joint. The last part of the leg/arm is a clip-hand. It is used for selecting several small weight and size objects, and when it is in a 'closed' mode, it is used as a supporting part of the robot leg. The entire leg/arm part is controlled and synchronized by a microcontroller (68CH11) attached to the robot base.

Design of an autonomous exterior security robot

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Myers, Scott D.

1994-01-01

This paper discusses the requirements and preliminary design of robotic vehicle designed for performing autonomous exterior perimeter security patrols around warehouse areas, ammunition supply depots, and industrial parks for the U.S. Department of Defense. The preliminary design allows for the operation of up to eight vehicles in a six kilometer by six kilometer zone with autonomous navigation and obstacle avoidance. In addition to detection of crawling intruders at 100 meters, the system must perform real-time inventory checking and database comparisons using a microwave tags system.

Development of a Commercially Viable, Modular Autonomous Robotic Systems for Converting any Vehicle to Autonomous Control

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Parish, David W.; Grabbe, Robert D.; Marzwell, Neville I.

1994-01-01

A Modular Autonomous Robotic System (MARS), consisting of a modular autonomous vehicle control system that can be retrofit on to any vehicle to convert it to autonomous control and support a modular payload for multiple applications is being developed. The MARS design is scalable, reconfigurable, and cost effective due to the use of modern open system architecture design methodologies, including serial control bus technology to simplify system wiring and enhance scalability. The design is augmented with modular, object oriented (C++) software implementing a hierarchy of five levels of control including teleoperated, continuous guidepath following, periodic guidepath following, absolute position autonomous navigation, and relative position autonomous navigation. The present effort is focused on producing a system that is commercially viable for routine autonomous patrolling of known, semistructured environments, like environmental monitoring of chemical and petroleum refineries, exterior physical security and surveillance, perimeter patrolling, and intrafacility transport applications.

A Behavior-Based Strategy for Single and Multi-Robot Autonomous Exploration

PubMed Central

Cepeda, Jesus S.; Chaimowicz, Luiz; Soto, Rogelio; Gordillo, José L.; Alanís-Reyes, Edén A.; Carrillo-Arce, Luis C.

2012-01-01

In this paper, we consider the problem of autonomous exploration of unknown environments with single and multiple robots. This is a challenging task, with several potential applications. We propose a simple yet effective approach that combines a behavior-based navigation with an efficient data structure to store previously visited regions. This allows robots to safely navigate, disperse and efficiently explore the environment. A series of experiments performed using a realistic robotic simulator and a real testbed scenario demonstrate that our technique effectively distributes the robots over the environment and allows them to quickly accomplish their mission in large open spaces, narrow cluttered environments, dead-end corridors, as well as rooms with minimum exits.

Navigation of a care and welfare robot

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yukawa, Toshihiro; Hosoya, Osamu; Saito, Naoki; Okano, Hideharu

2005-12-01

In this paper, we propose the development of a robot that can perform nursing tasks in a hospital. In a narrow environment such as a sickroom or a hallway, the robot must be able to move freely in arbitrary directions. Therefore, the robot needs to have high controllability and the capability to make precise movements. Our robot can recognize a line by using cameras, and can be controlled in the reference directions by means of comparison with original cell map information; furthermore, it moves safely on the basis of an original center-line established permanently in the building. Correspondence between the robot and a centralized control center enables the robot's autonomous movement in the hospital. Through a navigation system using cell map information, the robot is able to perform nursing tasks smoothly by changing the camera angle.

Autonomous Navigation Using Celestial Objects

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Folta, David; Gramling, Cheryl; Leung, Dominic; Belur, Sheela; Long, Anne

1999-01-01

In the twenty-first century, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Enterprises envision frequent low-cost missions to explore the solar system, observe the universe, and study our planet. Satellite autonomy is a key technology required to reduce satellite operating costs. The Guidance, Navigation, and Control Center (GNCC) at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) currently sponsors several initiatives associated with the development of advanced spacecraft systems to provide autonomous navigation and control. Autonomous navigation has the potential both to increase spacecraft navigation system performance and to reduce total mission cost. By eliminating the need for routine ground-based orbit determination and special tracking services, autonomous navigation can streamline spacecraft ground systems. Autonomous navigation products can be included in the science telemetry and forwarded directly to the scientific investigators. In addition, autonomous navigation products are available onboard to enable other autonomous capabilities, such as attitude control, maneuver planning and orbit control, and communications signal acquisition. Autonomous navigation is required to support advanced mission concepts such as satellite formation flying. GNCC has successfully developed high-accuracy autonomous navigation systems for near-Earth spacecraft using NASA's space and ground communications systems and the Global Positioning System (GPS). Recently, GNCC has expanded its autonomous navigation initiative to include satellite orbits that are beyond the regime in which use of GPS is possible. Currently, GNCC is assessing the feasibility of using standard spacecraft attitude sensors and communication components to provide autonomous navigation for missions including: libration point, gravity assist, high-Earth, and interplanetary orbits. The concept being evaluated uses a combination of star, Sun, and Earth sensor measurements along with forward-link Doppler

A Feedforward Control Approach to the Local Navigation Problem for Autonomous Vehicles

DTIC Science & Technology

1994-05-02

AD-A282 787 " A Feedforward Control Approach to the Local Navigation Problem for Autonomous Vehicles Alonzo Kelly CMU-RI-TR-94-17 The Robotics...follow, or a direction to prefer, it cannot generate its own strategic goals. Therefore, it solves the local planning problem for autonomous vehicles . The... autonomous vehicles . It is intelligent because it uses range images that are generated from either a laser rangefinder or a stereo triangulation

Embodied cognition for autonomous interactive robots.

PubMed

Hoffman, Guy

2012-10-01

In the past, notions of embodiment have been applied to robotics mainly in the realm of very simple robots, and supporting low-level mechanisms such as dynamics and navigation. In contrast, most human-like, interactive, and socially adept robotic systems turn away from embodiment and use amodal, symbolic, and modular approaches to cognition and interaction. At the same time, recent research in Embodied Cognition (EC) is spanning an increasing number of complex cognitive processes, including language, nonverbal communication, learning, and social behavior. This article suggests adopting a modern EC approach for autonomous robots interacting with humans. In particular, we present three core principles from EC that may be applicable to such robots: (a) modal perceptual representation, (b) action/perception and action/cognition integration, and (c) a simulation-based model of top-down perceptual biasing. We describe a computational framework based on these principles, and its implementation on two physical robots. This could provide a new paradigm for embodied human-robot interaction based on recent psychological and neurological findings. Copyright © 2012 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Interaction dynamics of multiple autonomous mobile robots in bounded spatial domains

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wang, P. K. C.

1989-01-01

A general navigation strategy for multiple autonomous robots in a bounded domain is developed analytically. Each robot is modeled as a spherical particle (i.e., an effective spatial domain about the center of mass); its interactions with other robots or with obstacles and domain boundaries are described in terms of the classical many-body problem; and a collision-avoidance strategy is derived and combined with homing, robot-robot, and robot-obstacle collision-avoidance strategies. Results from homing simulations involving (1) a single robot in a circular domain, (2) two robots in a circular domain, and (3) one robot in a domain with an obstacle are presented in graphs and briefly characterized.

Perception system and functions for autonomous navigation in a natural environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Chatila, Raja; Devy, Michel; Lacroix, Simon; Herrb, Matthieu

1994-01-01

This paper presents the approach, algorithms, and processes we developed for the perception system of a cross-country autonomous robot. After a presentation of the tele-programming context we favor for intervention robots, we introduce an adaptive navigation approach, well suited for the characteristics of complex natural environments. This approach lead us to develop a heterogeneous perception system that manages several different terrain representatives. The perception functionalities required during navigation are listed, along with the corresponding representations we consider. The main perception processes we developed are presented. They are integrated within an on-board control architecture we developed. First results of an ambitious experiment currently underway at LAAS are then presented.

Navigating a Mobile Robot Across Terrain Using Fuzzy Logic

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Seraji, Homayoun; Howard, Ayanna; Bon, Bruce

2003-01-01

A strategy for autonomous navigation of a robotic vehicle across hazardous terrain involves the use of a measure of traversability of terrain within a fuzzy-logic conceptual framework. This navigation strategy requires no a priori information about the environment. Fuzzy logic was selected as a basic element of this strategy because it provides a formal methodology for representing and implementing a human driver s heuristic knowledge and operational experience. Within a fuzzy-logic framework, the attributes of human reasoning and decision- making can be formulated by simple IF (antecedent), THEN (consequent) rules coupled with easily understandable and natural linguistic representations. The linguistic values in the rule antecedents convey the imprecision associated with measurements taken by sensors onboard a mobile robot, while the linguistic values in the rule consequents represent the vagueness inherent in the reasoning processes to generate the control actions. The operational strategies of the human expert driver can be transferred, via fuzzy logic, to a robot-navigation strategy in the form of a set of simple conditional statements composed of linguistic variables. These linguistic variables are defined by fuzzy sets in accordance with user-defined membership functions. The main advantages of a fuzzy navigation strategy lie in the ability to extract heuristic rules from human experience and to obviate the need for an analytical model of the robot navigation process.

Sign detection for autonomous navigation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goodsell, Thomas G.; Snorrason, Magnus S.; Cartwright, Dustin; Stube, Brian; Stevens, Mark R.; Ablavsky, Vitaly X.

2003-09-01

Mobile robots currently cannot detect and read arbitrary signs. This is a major hindrance to mobile robot usability, since they cannot be tasked using directions that are intuitive to humans. It also limits their ability to report their position relative to intuitive landmarks. Other researchers have demonstrated some success on traffic sign recognition, but using template based methods limits the set of recognizable signs. There is a clear need for a sign detection and recognition system that can process a much wider variety of signs: traffic signs, street signs, store-name signs, building directories, room signs, etc. We are developing a system for Sign Understanding in Support of Autonomous Navigation (SUSAN), that detects signs from various cues common to most signs: vivid colors, compact shape, and text. We have demonstrated the feasibility of our approach on a variety of signs in both indoor and outdoor locations.

Vision-based semi-autonomous outdoor robot system to reduce soldier workload

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Richardson, Al; Rodgers, Michael H.

2001-09-01

Sensors and computational capability have not reached the point to enable small robots to navigate autonomously in unconstrained outdoor environments at tactically useful speeds. This problem is greatly reduced, however, if a soldier can lead the robot through terrain that he knows it can traverse. An application of this concept is a small pack-mule robot that follows a foot soldier over outdoor terrain. The solder would be responsible to avoid situations beyond the robot's limitations when encountered. Having learned the route, the robot could autonomously retrace the path carrying supplies and munitions. This would greatly reduce the soldier's workload under normal conditions. This paper presents a description of a developmental robot sensor system using low-cost commercial 3D vision and inertial sensors to address this application. The robot moves at fast walking speed and requires only short-range perception to accomplish its task. 3D-feature information is recorded on a composite route map that the robot uses to negotiate its local environment and retrace the path taught by the soldier leader.

Terrain discovery and navigation of a multi-articulated linear robot using map-seeking circuits

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Snider, Ross K.; Arathorn, David W.

2006-05-01

A significant challenge in robotics is providing a robot with the ability to sense its environment and then autonomously move while accommodating obstacles. The DARPA Grand Challenge, one of the most visible examples, set the goal of driving a vehicle autonomously for over a hundred miles avoiding obstacles along a predetermined path. Map-Seeking Circuits have shown their biomimetic capability in both vision and inverse kinematics and here we demonstrate their potential usefulness for intelligent exploration of unknown terrain using a multi-articulated linear robot. A robot that could handle any degree of terrain complexity would be useful for exploring inaccessible crowded spaces such as rubble piles in emergency situations, patrolling/intelligence gathering in tough terrain, tunnel exploration, and possibly even planetary exploration. Here we simulate autonomous exploratory navigation by an interaction of terrain discovery using the multi-articulated linear robot to build a local terrain map and exploitation of that growing terrain map to solve the propulsion problem of the robot.

Compact autonomous navigation system (CANS)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hao, Y. C.; Ying, L.; Xiong, K.; Cheng, H. Y.; Qiao, G. D.

2017-11-01

Autonomous navigation of Satellite and constellation has series of benefits, such as to reduce operation cost and ground station workload, to avoid the event of crises of war and natural disaster, to increase spacecraft autonomy, and so on. Autonomous navigation satellite is independent of ground station support. Many systems are developed for autonomous navigation of satellite in the past 20 years. Along them American MANS (Microcosm Autonomous Navigation System) [1] of Microcosm Inc. and ERADS [2] [3] (Earth Reference Attitude Determination System) of Honeywell Inc. are well known. The systems anticipate a series of good features of autonomous navigation and aim low cost, integrated structure, low power consumption and compact layout. The ERADS is an integrated small 3-axis attitude sensor system with low cost and small volume. It has the Earth center measurement accuracy higher than the common IR sensor because the detected ultraviolet radiation zone of the atmosphere has a brightness gradient larger than that of the IR zone. But the ERADS is still a complex system because it has to eliminate many problems such as making of the sapphire sphere lens, birefringence effect of sapphire, high precision image transfer optical fiber flattener, ultraviolet intensifier noise, and so on. The marginal sphere FOV of the sphere lens of the ERADS is used to star imaging that may be bring some disadvantages., i.e. , the image energy and attitude measurements accuracy may be reduced due to the tilt image acceptance end of the fiber flattener in the FOV. Besides Japan, Germany and Russia developed visible earth sensor for GEO [4] [5]. Do we have a way to develop a cheaper/easier and more accurate autonomous navigation system that can be used to all LEO spacecraft, especially, to LEO small and micro satellites? To return this problem we provide a new type of the system—CANS (Compact Autonomous Navigation System) [6].

Cooperative Autonomous Robots for Reconnaissance

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-03-06

REPORT Cooperative Autonomous Robots for Reconnaissance 14. ABSTRACT 16. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF: Collaborating mobile robots equipped with WiFi ...Cooperative Autonomous Robots for Reconnaissance Report Title ABSTRACT Collaborating mobile robots equipped with WiFi transceivers are configured as a mobile...equipped with WiFi transceivers are configured as a mobile ad-hoc network. Algorithms are developed to take advantage of the distributed processing

Experiments in teleoperator and autonomous control of space robotic vehicles

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Alexander, Harold L.

1991-01-01

A program of research embracing teleoperator and automatic navigational control of freely flying satellite robots is presented. Current research goals include: (1) developing visual operator interfaces for improved vehicle teleoperation; (2) determining the effects of different visual interface system designs on operator performance; and (3) achieving autonomous vision-based vehicle navigation and control. This research program combines virtual-environment teleoperation studies and neutral-buoyancy experiments using a space-robot simulator vehicle currently under development. Visual-interface design options under investigation include monoscopic versus stereoscopic displays and cameras, helmet-mounted versus panel-mounted display monitors, head-tracking versus fixed or manually steerable remote cameras, and the provision of vehicle-fixed visual cues, or markers, in the remote scene for improved sensing of vehicle position, orientation, and motion.

Markovian robots: Minimal navigation strategies for active particles

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nava, Luis Gómez; Großmann, Robert; Peruani, Fernando

2018-04-01

We explore minimal navigation strategies for active particles in complex, dynamical, external fields, introducing a class of autonomous, self-propelled particles which we call Markovian robots (MR). These machines are equipped with a navigation control system (NCS) that triggers random changes in the direction of self-propulsion of the robots. The internal state of the NCS is described by a Boolean variable that adopts two values. The temporal dynamics of this Boolean variable is dictated by a closed Markov chain—ensuring the absence of fixed points in the dynamics—with transition rates that may depend exclusively on the instantaneous, local value of the external field. Importantly, the NCS does not store past measurements of this value in continuous, internal variables. We show that despite the strong constraints, it is possible to conceive closed Markov chain motifs that lead to nontrivial motility behaviors of the MR in one, two, and three dimensions. By analytically reducing the complexity of the NCS dynamics, we obtain an effective description of the long-time motility behavior of the MR that allows us to identify the minimum requirements in the design of NCS motifs and transition rates to perform complex navigation tasks such as adaptive gradient following, detection of minima or maxima, or selection of a desired value in a dynamical, external field. We put these ideas in practice by assembling a robot that operates by the proposed minimalistic NCS to evaluate the robustness of MR, providing a proof of concept that is possible to navigate through complex information landscapes with such a simple NCS whose internal state can be stored in one bit. These ideas may prove useful for the engineering of miniaturized robots.

Terrain Navigation Concepts for Autonomous Vehicles,

DTIC Science & Technology

1984-06-01

AD-fi144 994 TERRAIN NAVIGATION CONCEPTS FOR AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES (U) i/i I ARMY ENGINEER OPOGRAPHIC LABS FORT BELVOIR VA R D LEIGHTY JUN 84 ETL-R@65...FUNCTIONS The pacing problem for developing autonomous vehicles that can efficiently move to designated locations in the real world in the perfor- mance...autonomous functions can serve as general terrain navigation requirements for our discussion of autonomous vehicles . LEIGHTY Can we build a vehicular system

A learning-based semi-autonomous controller for robotic exploration of unknown disaster scenes while searching for victims.

PubMed

Doroodgar, Barzin; Liu, Yugang; Nejat, Goldie

2014-12-01

Semi-autonomous control schemes can address the limitations of both teleoperation and fully autonomous robotic control of rescue robots in disaster environments by allowing a human operator to cooperate and share such tasks with a rescue robot as navigation, exploration, and victim identification. In this paper, we present a unique hierarchical reinforcement learning-based semi-autonomous control architecture for rescue robots operating in cluttered and unknown urban search and rescue (USAR) environments. The aim of the controller is to enable a rescue robot to continuously learn from its own experiences in an environment in order to improve its overall performance in exploration of unknown disaster scenes. A direction-based exploration technique is integrated in the controller to expand the search area of the robot via the classification of regions and the rubble piles within these regions. Both simulations and physical experiments in USAR-like environments verify the robustness of the proposed HRL-based semi-autonomous controller to unknown cluttered scenes with different sizes and varying types of configurations.

Terrain classification in navigation of an autonomous mobile robot

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dodds, David R.

1991-03-01

In this paper we describe a method of path planning that integrates terrain classification (by means of fractals) the certainty grid method of spatial representation Kehtarnavaz Griswold collision-zones Dubois Prade fuzzy temporal and spatial knowledge and non-point sized qualitative navigational planning. An initially planned (" end-to-end" ) path is piece-wise modified to accommodate known and inferred moving obstacles and includes attention to time-varying multiple subgoals which may influence a section of path at a time after the robot has begun traversing that planned path.

A simple, inexpensive, and effective implementation of a vision-guided autonomous robot

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tippetts, Beau; Lillywhite, Kirt; Fowers, Spencer; Dennis, Aaron; Lee, Dah-Jye; Archibald, James

2006-10-01

This paper discusses a simple, inexpensive, and effective implementation of a vision-guided autonomous robot. This implementation is a second year entrance for Brigham Young University students to the Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition. The objective of the robot was to navigate a course constructed of white boundary lines and orange obstacles for the autonomous competition. A used electric wheelchair was used as the robot base. The wheelchair was purchased from a local thrift store for $28. The base was modified to include Kegresse tracks using a friction drum system. This modification allowed the robot to perform better on a variety of terrains, resolving issues with last year's design. In order to control the wheelchair and retain the robust motor controls already on the wheelchair the wheelchair joystick was simply removed and replaced with a printed circuit board that emulated joystick operation and was capable of receiving commands through a serial port connection. Three different algorithms were implemented and compared: a purely reactive approach, a potential fields approach, and a machine learning approach. Each of the algorithms used color segmentation methods to interpret data from a digital camera in order to identify the features of the course. This paper will be useful to those interested in implementing an inexpensive vision-based autonomous robot.

Autonomous mobile robot for radiologic surveys

DOEpatents

Dudar, A.M.; Wagner, D.G.; Teese, G.D.

1994-06-28

An apparatus is described for conducting radiologic surveys. The apparatus comprises in the main a robot capable of following a preprogrammed path through an area, a radiation monitor adapted to receive input from a radiation detector assembly, ultrasonic transducers for navigation and collision avoidance, and an on-board computer system including an integrator for interfacing the radiation monitor and the robot. Front and rear bumpers are attached to the robot by bumper mounts. The robot may be equipped with memory boards for the collection and storage of radiation survey information. The on-board computer system is connected to a remote host computer via a UHF radio link. The apparatus is powered by a rechargeable 24-volt DC battery, and is stored at a docking station when not in use and/or for recharging. A remote host computer contains a stored database defining paths between points in the area where the robot is to operate, including but not limited to the locations of walls, doors, stationary furniture and equipment, and sonic markers if used. When a program consisting of a series of paths is downloaded to the on-board computer system, the robot conducts a floor survey autonomously at any preselected rate. When the radiation monitor detects contamination, the robot resurveys the area at reduced speed and resumes its preprogrammed path if the contamination is not confirmed. If the contamination is confirmed, the robot stops and sounds an alarm. 5 figures.

Autonomous mobile robot for radiologic surveys

DOEpatents

Dudar, Aed M.; Wagner, David G.; Teese, Gregory D.

1994-01-01

An apparatus for conducting radiologic surveys. The apparatus comprises in the main a robot capable of following a preprogrammed path through an area, a radiation monitor adapted to receive input from a radiation detector assembly, ultrasonic transducers for navigation and collision avoidance, and an on-board computer system including an integrator for interfacing the radiation monitor and the robot. Front and rear bumpers are attached to the robot by bumper mounts. The robot may be equipped with memory boards for the collection and storage of radiation survey information. The on-board computer system is connected to a remote host computer via a UHF radio link. The apparatus is powered by a rechargeable 24-volt DC battery, and is stored at a docking station when not in use and/or for recharging. A remote host computer contains a stored database defining paths between points in the area where the robot is to operate, including but not limited to the locations of walls, doors, stationary furniture and equipment, and sonic markers if used. When a program consisting of a series of paths is downloaded to the on-board computer system, the robot conducts a floor survey autonomously at any preselected rate. When the radiation monitor detects contamination, the robot resurveys the area at reduced speed and resumes its preprogrammed path if the contamination is not confirmed. If the contamination is confirmed, the robot stops and sounds an alarm.

Navigation system for a mobile robot with a visual sensor using a fish-eye lens

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kurata, Junichi; Grattan, Kenneth T. V.; Uchiyama, Hironobu

1998-02-01

Various position sensing and navigation systems have been proposed for the autonomous control of mobile robots. Some of these systems have been installed with an omnidirectional visual sensor system that proved very useful in obtaining information on the environment around the mobile robot for position reckoning. In this article, this type of navigation system is discussed. The sensor is composed of one TV camera with a fish-eye lens, using a reference target on a ceiling and hybrid image processing circuits. The position of the robot, with respect to the floor, is calculated by integrating the information obtained from a visual sensor and a gyroscope mounted in the mobile robot, and the use of a simple algorithm based on PTP control for guidance is discussed. An experimental trial showed that the proposed system was both valid and useful for the navigation of an indoor vehicle.

Mobile robot navigation modulated by artificial emotions.

PubMed

Lee-Johnson, C P; Carnegie, D A

2010-04-01

For artificial intelligence research to progress beyond the highly specialized task-dependent implementations achievable today, researchers may need to incorporate aspects of biological behavior that have not traditionally been associated with intelligence. Affective processes such as emotions may be crucial to the generalized intelligence possessed by humans and animals. A number of robots and autonomous agents have been created that can emulate human emotions, but the majority of this research focuses on the social domain. In contrast, we have developed a hybrid reactive/deliberative architecture that incorporates artificial emotions to improve the general adaptive performance of a mobile robot for a navigation task. Emotions are active on multiple architectural levels, modulating the robot's decisions and actions to suit the context of its situation. Reactive emotions interact with the robot's control system, altering its parameters in response to appraisals from short-term sensor data. Deliberative emotions are learned associations that bias path planning in response to eliciting objects or events. Quantitative results are presented that demonstrate situations in which each artificial emotion can be beneficial to performance.

A biologically inspired meta-control navigation system for the Psikharpax rat robot.

PubMed

Caluwaerts, K; Staffa, M; N'Guyen, S; Grand, C; Dollé, L; Favre-Félix, A; Girard, B; Khamassi, M

2012-06-01

A biologically inspired navigation system for the mobile rat-like robot named Psikharpax is presented, allowing for self-localization and autonomous navigation in an initially unknown environment. The ability of parts of the model (e.g. the strategy selection mechanism) to reproduce rat behavioral data in various maze tasks has been validated before in simulations. But the capacity of the model to work on a real robot platform had not been tested. This paper presents our work on the implementation on the Psikharpax robot of two independent navigation strategies (a place-based planning strategy and a cue-guided taxon strategy) and a strategy selection meta-controller. We show how our robot can memorize which was the optimal strategy in each situation, by means of a reinforcement learning algorithm. Moreover, a context detector enables the controller to quickly adapt to changes in the environment-recognized as new contexts-and to restore previously acquired strategy preferences when a previously experienced context is recognized. This produces adaptivity closer to rat behavioral performance and constitutes a computational proposition of the role of the rat prefrontal cortex in strategy shifting. Moreover, such a brain-inspired meta-controller may provide an advancement for learning architectures in robotics.

Autonomous Deep-Space Optical Navigation Project

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

D'Souza, Christopher

2014-01-01

This project will advance the Autonomous Deep-space navigation capability applied to Autonomous Rendezvous and Docking (AR&D) Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) system by testing it on hardware, particularly in a flight processor, with a goal of limited testing in the Integrated Power, Avionics and Software (IPAS) with the ARCM (Asteroid Retrieval Crewed Mission) DRO (Distant Retrograde Orbit) Autonomous Rendezvous and Docking (AR&D) scenario. The technology, which will be harnessed, is called 'optical flow', also known as 'visual odometry'. It is being matured in the automotive and SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) applications but has yet to be applied to spacecraft navigation. In light of the tremendous potential of this technique, we believe that NASA needs to design a optical navigation architecture that will use this technique. It is flexible enough to be applicable to navigating around planetary bodies, such as asteroids.

Volunteers Oriented Interface Design for the Remote Navigation of Rescue Robots at Large-Scale Disaster Sites

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, Zhixiao; Ito, Kazuyuki; Saijo, Kazuhiko; Hirotsune, Kazuyuki; Gofuku, Akio; Matsuno, Fumitoshi

This paper aims at constructing an efficient interface being similar to those widely used in human daily life, to fulfill the need of many volunteer rescuers operating rescue robots at large-scale disaster sites. The developed system includes a force feedback steering wheel interface and an artificial neural network (ANN) based mouse-screen interface. The former consists of a force feedback steering control and a six monitors’ wall. It provides a manual operation like driving cars to navigate a rescue robot. The latter consists of a mouse and a camera’s view displayed in a monitor. It provides a semi-autonomous operation by mouse clicking to navigate a rescue robot. Results of experiments show that a novice volunteer can skillfully navigate a tank rescue robot through both interfaces after 20 to 30 minutes of learning their operation respectively. The steering wheel interface has high navigating speed in open areas, without restriction of terrains and surface conditions of a disaster site. The mouse-screen interface is good at exact navigation in complex structures, while bringing little tension to operators. The two interfaces are designed to switch into each other at any time to provide a combined efficient navigation method.

[Mobile autonomous robots-Possibilities and limits].

PubMed

Maehle, E; Brockmann, W; Walthelm, A

2002-02-01

Besides industrial robots, which today are firmly established in production processes, service robots are becoming more and more important. They shall provide services for humans in different areas of their professional and everyday environment including medicine. Most of these service robots are mobile which requires an intelligent autonomous behaviour. After characterising the different kinds of robots the relevant paradigms of intelligent autonomous behaviour for mobile robots are critically discussed in this paper and illustrated by three concrete examples of robots realized in Lübeck. In addition a short survey of actual kinds of surgical robots as well as an outlook to future developments is given.

AltiVec performance increases for autonomous robotics for the MARSSCAPE architecture program

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gothard, Benny M.

2002-02-01

One of the main tall poles that must be overcome to develop a fully autonomous vehicle is the inability of the computer to understand its surrounding environment to a level that is required for the intended task. The military mission scenario requires a robot to interact in a complex, unstructured, dynamic environment. Reference A High Fidelity Multi-Sensor Scene Understanding System for Autonomous Navigation The Mobile Autonomous Robot Software Self Composing Adaptive Programming Environment (MarsScape) perception research addresses three aspects of the problem; sensor system design, processing architectures, and algorithm enhancements. A prototype perception system has been demonstrated on robotic High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle and All Terrain Vehicle testbeds. This paper addresses the tall pole of processing requirements and the performance improvements based on the selected MarsScape Processing Architecture. The processor chosen is the Motorola Altivec-G4 Power PC(PPC) (1998 Motorola, Inc.), a highly parallized commercial Single Instruction Multiple Data processor. Both derived perception benchmarks and actual perception subsystems code will be benchmarked and compared against previous Demo II-Semi-autonomous Surrogate Vehicle processing architectures along with desktop Personal Computers(PC). Performance gains are highlighted with progress to date, and lessons learned and future directions are described.

Autonomous Navigation, Dynamic Path and Work Flow Planning in Multi-Agent Robotic Swarms Project

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Falker, John; Zeitlin, Nancy; Leucht, Kurt; Stolleis, Karl

2015-01-01

Kennedy Space Center has teamed up with the Biological Computation Lab at the University of New Mexico to create a swarm of small, low-cost, autonomous robots, called Swarmies, to be used as a ground-based research platform for in-situ resource utilization missions. The behavior of the robot swarm mimics the central-place foraging strategy of ants to find and collect resources in an unknown environment and return those resources to a central site.

PRIMUS: autonomous navigation in open terrain with a tracked vehicle

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schaub, Guenter W.; Pfaendner, Alfred H.; Schaefer, Christoph

2004-09-01

The German experimental robotics program PRIMUS (PRogram for Intelligent Mobile Unmanned Systems) is focused on solutions for autonomous driving in unknown open terrain, over several project phases under specific realization aspects for more than 12 years. The main task of the program is to develop algorithms for a high degree of autonomous navigation skills with off-the-shelf available hardware/sensor technology and to integrate this into military vehicles. For obstacle detection a Dornier-3D-LADAR is integrated on a tracked vehicle "Digitized WIESEL 2". For road-following a digital video camera and a visual perception module from the Universitaet der Bundeswehr Munchen (UBM) has been integrated. This paper gives an overview of the PRIMUS program with a focus on the last program phase D (2001 - 2003). This includes the system architecture, the description of the modes of operation and the technology development with the focus on obstacle avoidance and obstacle classification using a 3-D LADAR. A collection of experimental results and a short look at the next steps in the German robotics program will conclude the paper.

Development of autonomous eating mechanism for biomimetic robots

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jeong, Kil-Woong; Cho, Ik-Jin; Lee, Yun-Jung

2005-12-01

Most of the recently developed robots are human friendly robots which imitate animals or humans such as entertainment robot, bio-mimetic robot and humanoid robot. Interest for these robots are being increased because the social trend is focused on health, welfare, and graying. Autonomous eating functionality is most unique and inherent behavior of pets and animals. Most of entertainment robots and pet robots make use of internal-type battery. Entertainment robots and pet robots with internal-type battery are not able to operate during charging the battery. Therefore, if a robot has an autonomous function for eating battery as its feeds, the robot is not only able to operate during recharging energy but also become more human friendly like pets. Here, a new autonomous eating mechanism was introduced for a biomimetic robot, called ELIRO-II(Eating LIzard RObot version 2). The ELIRO-II is able to find a food (a small battery), eat and evacuate by itself. This work describe sub-parts of the developed mechanism such as head-part, mouth-part, and stomach-part. In addition, control system of autonomous eating mechanism is described.

Embedded Relative Navigation Sensor Fusion Algorithms for Autonomous Rendezvous and Docking Missions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

DeKock, Brandon K.; Betts, Kevin M.; McDuffie, James H.; Dreas, Christine B.

2008-01-01

bd Systems (a subsidiary of SAIC) has developed a suite of embedded relative navigation sensor fusion algorithms to enable NASA autonomous rendezvous and docking (AR&D) missions. Translational and rotational Extended Kalman Filters (EKFs) were developed for integrating measurements based on the vehicles' orbital mechanics and high-fidelity sensor error models and provide a solution with increased accuracy and robustness relative to any single relative navigation sensor. The filters were tested tinough stand-alone covariance analysis, closed-loop testing with a high-fidelity multi-body orbital simulation, and hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) testing in the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Flight Robotics Laboratory (FRL).

Immune systems are not just for making you feel better: they are for controlling autonomous robots

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rosenblum, Mark

2005-05-01

The typical algorithm for robot autonomous navigation in off-road complex environments involves building a 3D map of the robot's surrounding environment using a 3D sensing modality such as stereo vision or active laser scanning, and generating an instantaneous plan to navigate around hazards. Although there has been steady progress using these methods, these systems suffer from several limitations that cannot be overcome with 3D sensing and planning alone. Geometric sensing alone has no ability to distinguish between compressible and non-compressible materials. As a result, these systems have difficulty in heavily vegetated environments and require sensitivity adjustments across different terrain types. On the planning side, these systems have no ability to learn from their mistakes and avoid problematic environmental situations on subsequent encounters. We have implemented an adaptive terrain classification system based on the Artificial Immune System (AIS) computational model, which is loosely based on the biological immune system, that combines various forms of imaging sensor inputs to produce a "feature labeled" image of the scene categorizing areas as benign or detrimental for autonomous robot navigation. Because of the qualities of the AIS computation model, the resulting system will be able to learn and adapt on its own through interaction with the environment by modifying its interpretation of the sensor data. The feature labeled results from the AIS analysis are inserted into a map and can then be used by a planner to generate a safe route to a goal point. The coupling of diverse visual cues with the malleable AIS computational model will lead to autonomous robotic ground vehicles that require less human intervention for deployment in novel environments and more robust operation as a result of the system's ability to improve its performance through interaction with the environment.

Autonomous robot software development using simple software components

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Burke, Thomas M.; Chung, Chan-Jin

2004-10-01

Developing software to control a sophisticated lane-following, obstacle-avoiding, autonomous robot can be demanding and beyond the capabilities of novice programmers - but it doesn"t have to be. A creative software design utilizing only basic image processing and a little algebra, has been employed to control the LTU-AISSIG autonomous robot - a contestant in the 2004 Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC). This paper presents a software design equivalent to that used during the IGVC, but with much of the complexity removed. The result is an autonomous robot software design, that is robust, reliable, and can be implemented by programmers with a limited understanding of image processing. This design provides a solid basis for further work in autonomous robot software, as well as an interesting and achievable robotics project for students.

On autonomous terrain model acquistion by a mobile robot

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rao, N. S. V.; Iyengar, S. S.; Weisbin, C. R.

1987-01-01

The following problem is considered: A point robot is placed in a terrain populated by an unknown number of polyhedral obstacles of varied sizes and locations in two/three dimensions. The robot is equipped with a sensor capable of detecting all the obstacle vertices and edges that are visible from the present location of the robot. The robot is required to autonomously navigate and build the complete terrain model using the sensor information. It is established that the necessary number of scanning operations needed for complete terrain model acquisition by any algorithm that is based on scan from vertices strategy is given by the summation of i = 1 (sup n) N(O sub i)-n and summation of i = 1 (sup n) N(O sub i)-2n in two- and three-dimensional terrains respectively, where O = (O sub 1, O sub 2,....O sub n) set of the obstacles in the terrain, and N(O sub i) is the number of vertices of the obstacle O sub i.

Learning for autonomous navigation : extrapolating from underfoot to the far field

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Matthies, Larry; Turmon, Michael; Howard, Andrew; Angelova, Anelia; Tang, Benyang; Mjolsness, Eric

2005-01-01

Autonomous off-road navigation of robotic ground vehicles has important applications on Earth and in space exploration. Progress in this domain has been retarded by the limited lookahead range of 3-D sensors and by the difficulty of preprogramming systems to understand the traversability of the wide variety of terrain they can encounter. Enabling robots to learn from experience may alleviate both of these problems. We define two paradigms for this, learning from 3-D geometry and learning from proprioception, and describe initial instantiations of them we have developed under DARPA and NASA programs. Field test results show promise for learning traversability of vegetated terrain, learning to extend the lookahead range of the vision system, and learning how slip varies with slope.

Tele-assistance for semi-autonomous robots

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rogers, Erika; Murphy, Robin R.

1994-01-01

This paper describes a new approach in semi-autonomous mobile robots. In this approach the robot has sufficient computerized intelligence to function autonomously under a certain set of conditions, while the local system is a cooperative decision making unit that combines human and machine intelligence. Communication is then allowed to take place in a common mode and in a common language. A number of exception-handling scenarios that were constructed as a result of experiments with actual sensor data collected from two mobile robots were presented.

JOMAR: Joint Operations with Mobile Autonomous Robots

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-12-21

AFRL-AFOSR-JP-TR-2015-0009 JOMAR: Joint Operations with Mobile Autonomous Robots Edwin Olson UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Final Report 12/21/2015...SUBTITLE JOMAR: Joint Operations with Mobile Autonomous Robots 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER FA23861114024 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6...14. ABSTRACT Under this grant, we formulated and implemented a variety of novel algorithms that address core problems in multi- robot systems. These

Neurosurgical robotic arm drilling navigation system.

PubMed

Lin, Chung-Chih; Lin, Hsin-Cheng; Lee, Wen-Yo; Lee, Shih-Tseng; Wu, Chieh-Tsai

2017-09-01

The aim of this work was to develop a neurosurgical robotic arm drilling navigation system that provides assistance throughout the complete bone drilling process. The system comprised neurosurgical robotic arm navigation combining robotic and surgical navigation, 3D medical imaging based surgical planning that could identify lesion location and plan the surgical path on 3D images, and automatic bone drilling control that would stop drilling when the bone was to be drilled-through. Three kinds of experiment were designed. The average positioning error deduced from 3D images of the robotic arm was 0.502 ± 0.069 mm. The correlation between automatically and manually planned paths was 0.975. The average distance error between automatically planned paths and risky zones was 0.279 ± 0.401 mm. The drilling auto-stopping algorithm had 0.00% unstopped cases (26.32% in control group 1) and 70.53% non-drilled-through cases (8.42% and 4.21% in control groups 1 and 2). The system may be useful for neurosurgical robotic arm drilling navigation. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Learning Probabilistic Features for Robotic Navigation Using Laser Sensors

PubMed Central

Aznar, Fidel; Pujol, Francisco A.; Pujol, Mar; Rizo, Ramón; Pujol, María-José

2014-01-01

SLAM is a popular task used by robots and autonomous vehicles to build a map of an unknown environment and, at the same time, to determine their location within the map. This paper describes a SLAM-based, probabilistic robotic system able to learn the essential features of different parts of its environment. Some previous SLAM implementations had computational complexities ranging from O(Nlog(N)) to O(N 2), where N is the number of map features. Unlike these methods, our approach reduces the computational complexity to O(N) by using a model to fuse the information from the sensors after applying the Bayesian paradigm. Once the training process is completed, the robot identifies and locates those areas that potentially match the sections that have been previously learned. After the training, the robot navigates and extracts a three-dimensional map of the environment using a single laser sensor. Thus, it perceives different sections of its world. In addition, in order to make our system able to be used in a low-cost robot, low-complexity algorithms that can be easily implemented on embedded processors or microcontrollers are used. PMID:25415377

Learning probabilistic features for robotic navigation using laser sensors.

PubMed

Aznar, Fidel; Pujol, Francisco A; Pujol, Mar; Rizo, Ramón; Pujol, María-José

2014-01-01

SLAM is a popular task used by robots and autonomous vehicles to build a map of an unknown environment and, at the same time, to determine their location within the map. This paper describes a SLAM-based, probabilistic robotic system able to learn the essential features of different parts of its environment. Some previous SLAM implementations had computational complexities ranging from O(Nlog(N)) to O(N(2)), where N is the number of map features. Unlike these methods, our approach reduces the computational complexity to O(N) by using a model to fuse the information from the sensors after applying the Bayesian paradigm. Once the training process is completed, the robot identifies and locates those areas that potentially match the sections that have been previously learned. After the training, the robot navigates and extracts a three-dimensional map of the environment using a single laser sensor. Thus, it perceives different sections of its world. In addition, in order to make our system able to be used in a low-cost robot, low-complexity algorithms that can be easily implemented on embedded processors or microcontrollers are used.

Autonomous mobile robot research using the HERMIES-III robot

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Pin, F.G.; Beckerman, M.; Spelt, P.F.

1989-01-01

This paper reports on the status and future directions in the research, development and experimental validation of intelligent control techniques for autonomous mobile robots using the HERMIES-III robot at the Center for Engineering Systems Advanced research (CESAR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). HERMIES-III is the fourth robot in a series of increasingly more sophisticated and capable experimental test beds developed at CESAR. HERMIES-III is comprised of a battery powered, onmi-directional wheeled platform with a seven degree-of-freedom manipulator arm, video cameras, sonar range sensors, laser imaging scanner and a dual computer system containing up to 128 NCUBE nodes in hypercubemore » configuration. All electronics, sensors, computers, and communication equipment required for autonomous operation of HERMIES-III are located on board along with sufficient battery power for three to four hours of operation. The paper first provides a more detailed description of the HERMIES-III characteristics, focussing on the new areas of research and demonstration now possible at CESAR with this new test-bed. The initial experimental program is then described with emphasis placed on autonomous performance of human-scale tasks (e.g., valve manipulation, use of tools), integration of a dexterous manipulator and platform motion in geometrically complex environments, and effective use of multiple cooperating robots (HERMIES-IIB and HERMIES- III). The paper concludes with a discussion of the integration problems and safety considerations necessarily arising from the set-up of an experimental program involving human-scale, multi-autonomous mobile robots performance. 10 refs., 3 figs.« less

Bio-robots automatic navigation with electrical reward stimulation.

PubMed

Sun, Chao; Zhang, Xinlu; Zheng, Nenggan; Chen, Weidong; Zheng, Xiaoxiang

2012-01-01

Bio-robots that controlled by outer stimulation through brain computer interface (BCI) suffer from the dependence on realtime guidance of human operators. Current automatic navigation methods for bio-robots focus on the controlling rules to force animals to obey man-made commands, with animals' intelligence ignored. This paper proposes a new method to realize the automatic navigation for bio-robots with electrical micro-stimulation as real-time rewards. Due to the reward-seeking instinct and trial-and-error capability, bio-robot can be steered to keep walking along the right route with rewards and correct its direction spontaneously when rewards are deprived. In navigation experiments, rat-robots learn the controlling methods in short time. The results show that our method simplifies the controlling logic and realizes the automatic navigation for rat-robots successfully. Our work might have significant implication for the further development of bio-robots with hybrid intelligence.

Visual identification and similarity measures used for on-line motion planning of autonomous robots in unknown environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Martínez, Fredy; Martínez, Fernando; Jacinto, Edwar

2017-02-01

In this paper we propose an on-line motion planning strategy for autonomous robots in dynamic and locally observable environments. In this approach, we first visually identify geometric shapes in the environment by filtering images. Then, an ART-2 network is used to establish the similarity between patterns. The proposed algorithm allows that a robot establish its relative location in the environment, and define its navigation path based on images of the environment and its similarity to reference images. This is an efficient and minimalist method that uses the similarity of landmark view patterns to navigate to the desired destination. Laboratory tests on real prototypes demonstrate the performance of the algorithm.

Autonomous Relative Navigation for Formation-Flying Satellites Using GPS

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gramling, Cheryl; Carpenter, J. Russell; Long, Anne; Kelbel, David; Lee, Taesul

2000-01-01

The Goddard Space Flight Center is currently developing advanced spacecraft systems to provide autonomous navigation and control of formation flyers. This paper discusses autonomous relative navigation performance for a formation of four eccentric, medium-altitude Earth-orbiting satellites using Global Positioning System (GPS) Standard Positioning Service (SPS) and "GPS-like " intersatellite measurements. The performance of several candidate relative navigation approaches is evaluated. These analyses indicate that an autonomous relative navigation position accuracy of 1meter root-mean-square can be achieved by differencing high-accuracy filtered solutions if only measurements from common GPS space vehicles are used in the independently estimated solutions.

Localization of Non-Linearly Modeled Autonomous Mobile Robots Using Out-of-Sequence Measurements

PubMed Central

Besada-Portas, Eva; Lopez-Orozco, Jose A.; Lanillos, Pablo; de la Cruz, Jesus M.

2012-01-01

This paper presents a state of the art of the estimation algorithms dealing with Out-of-Sequence (OOS) measurements for non-linearly modeled systems. The state of the art includes a critical analysis of the algorithm properties that takes into account the applicability of these techniques to autonomous mobile robot navigation based on the fusion of the measurements provided, delayed and OOS, by multiple sensors. Besides, it shows a representative example of the use of one of the most computationally efficient approaches in the localization module of the control software of a real robot (which has non-linear dynamics, and linear and non-linear sensors) and compares its performance against other approaches. The simulated results obtained with the selected OOS algorithm shows the computational requirements that each sensor of the robot imposes to it. The real experiments show how the inclusion of the selected OOS algorithm in the control software lets the robot successfully navigate in spite of receiving many OOS measurements. Finally, the comparison highlights that not only is the selected OOS algorithm among the best performing ones of the comparison, but it also has the lowest computational and memory cost. PMID:22736962

Localization of non-linearly modeled autonomous mobile robots using out-of-sequence measurements.

PubMed

Besada-Portas, Eva; Lopez-Orozco, Jose A; Lanillos, Pablo; de la Cruz, Jesus M

2012-01-01

This paper presents a state of the art of the estimation algorithms dealing with Out-of-Sequence (OOS) measurements for non-linearly modeled systems. The state of the art includes a critical analysis of the algorithm properties that takes into account the applicability of these techniques to autonomous mobile robot navigation based on the fusion of the measurements provided, delayed and OOS, by multiple sensors. Besides, it shows a representative example of the use of one of the most computationally efficient approaches in the localization module of the control software of a real robot (which has non-linear dynamics, and linear and non-linear sensors) and compares its performance against other approaches. The simulated results obtained with the selected OOS algorithm shows the computational requirements that each sensor of the robot imposes to it. The real experiments show how the inclusion of the selected OOS algorithm in the control software lets the robot successfully navigate in spite of receiving many OOS measurements. Finally, the comparison highlights that not only is the selected OOS algorithm among the best performing ones of the comparison, but it also has the lowest computational and memory cost.

ATON (Autonomous Terrain-based Optical Navigation) for exploration missions: recent flight test results

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Theil, S.; Ammann, N.; Andert, F.; Franz, T.; Krüger, H.; Lehner, H.; Lingenauber, M.; Lüdtke, D.; Maass, B.; Paproth, C.; Wohlfeil, J.

2018-03-01

Since 2010 the German Aerospace Center is working on the project Autonomous Terrain-based Optical Navigation (ATON). Its objective is the development of technologies which allow autonomous navigation of spacecraft in orbit around and during landing on celestial bodies like the Moon, planets, asteroids and comets. The project developed different image processing techniques and optical navigation methods as well as sensor data fusion. The setup—which is applicable to many exploration missions—consists of an inertial measurement unit, a laser altimeter, a star tracker and one or multiple navigation cameras. In the past years, several milestones have been achieved. It started with the setup of a simulation environment including the detailed simulation of camera images. This was continued by hardware-in-the-loop tests in the Testbed for Robotic Optical Navigation (TRON) where images were generated by real cameras in a simulated downscaled lunar landing scene. Data were recorded in helicopter flight tests and post-processed in real-time to increase maturity of the algorithms and to optimize the software. Recently, two more milestones have been achieved. In late 2016, the whole navigation system setup was flying on an unmanned helicopter while processing all sensor information onboard in real time. For the latest milestone the navigation system was tested in closed-loop on the unmanned helicopter. For that purpose the ATON navigation system provided the navigation state for the guidance and control of the unmanned helicopter replacing the GPS-based standard navigation system. The paper will give an introduction to the ATON project and its concept. The methods and algorithms of ATON are briefly described. The flight test results of the latest two milestones are presented and discussed.

HERMIES-I: a mobile robot for navigation and manipulation experiments

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Weisbin, C.R.; Barhen, J.; de Saussure, G.

1985-01-01

The purpose of this paper is to report the current status of investigations ongoing at the Center for Engineering Systems Advanced Research (CESAR) in the areas of navigation and manipulation in unstructured environments. The HERMIES-I mobile robot, a prototype of a series which contains many of the major features needed for remote work in hazardous environments is discussed. Initial experimental work at CESAR has begun in the area of navigation. It briefly reviews some of the ongoing research in autonomous navigation and describes initial research with HERMIES-I and associated graphic simulation. Since the HERMIES robots will generally be composed ofmore » a variety of asynchronously controlled hardware components (such as manipulator arms, digital image sensors, sonars, etc.) it seems appropriate to consider future development of the HERMIES brain as a hypercube ensemble machine with concurrent computation and associated message passing. The basic properties of such a hypercube architecture are presented. Decision-making under uncertainty eventually permeates all of our work. Following a survey of existing analytical approaches, it was decided that a stronger theoretical basis is required. As such, this paper presents the framework for a recently developed hybrid uncertainty theory. 21 refs., 2 figs.« less

Intelligence algorithms for autonomous navigation in a ground vehicle

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Petkovsek, Steve; Shakya, Rahul; Shin, Young Ho; Gautam, Prasanna; Norton, Adam; Ahlgren, David J.

2012-01-01

This paper will discuss the approach to autonomous navigation used by "Q," an unmanned ground vehicle designed by the Trinity College Robot Study Team to participate in the Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC). For the 2011 competition, Q's intelligence was upgraded in several different areas, resulting in a more robust decision-making process and a more reliable system. In 2010-2011, the software of Q was modified to operate in a modular parallel manner, with all subtasks (including motor control, data acquisition from sensors, image processing, and intelligence) running simultaneously in separate software processes using the National Instruments (NI) LabVIEW programming language. This eliminated processor bottlenecks and increased flexibility in the software architecture. Though overall throughput was increased, the long runtime of the image processing process (150 ms) reduced the precision of Q's realtime decisions. Q had slow reaction times to obstacles detected only by its cameras, such as white lines, and was limited to slow speeds on the course. To address this issue, the image processing software was simplified and also pipelined to increase the image processing throughput and minimize the robot's reaction times. The vision software was also modified to detect differences in the texture of the ground, so that specific surfaces (such as ramps and sand pits) could be identified. While previous iterations of Q failed to detect white lines that were not on a grassy surface, this new software allowed Q to dynamically alter its image processing state so that appropriate thresholds could be applied to detect white lines in changing conditions. In order to maintain an acceptable target heading, a path history algorithm was used to deal with local obstacle fields and GPS waypoints were added to provide a global target heading. These modifications resulted in Q placing 5th in the autonomous challenge and 4th in the navigation challenge at IGVC.

A cognitive robotic system based on the Soar cognitive architecture for mobile robot navigation, search, and mapping missions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hanford, Scott D.

Most unmanned vehicles used for civilian and military applications are remotely operated or are designed for specific applications. As these vehicles are used to perform more difficult missions or a larger number of missions in remote environments, there will be a great need for these vehicles to behave intelligently and autonomously. Cognitive architectures, computer programs that define mechanisms that are important for modeling and generating domain-independent intelligent behavior, have the potential for generating intelligent and autonomous behavior in unmanned vehicles. The research described in this presentation explored the use of the Soar cognitive architecture for cognitive robotics. The Cognitive Robotic System (CRS) has been developed to integrate software systems for motor control and sensor processing with Soar for unmanned vehicle control. The CRS has been tested using two mobile robot missions: outdoor navigation and search in an indoor environment. The use of the CRS for the outdoor navigation mission demonstrated that a Soar agent could autonomously navigate to a specified location while avoiding obstacles, including cul-de-sacs, with only a minimal amount of knowledge about the environment. While most systems use information from maps or long-range perceptual capabilities to avoid cul-de-sacs, a Soar agent in the CRS was able to recognize when a simple approach to avoiding obstacles was unsuccessful and switch to a different strategy for avoiding complex obstacles. During the indoor search mission, the CRS autonomously and intelligently searches a building for an object of interest and common intersection types. While searching the building, the Soar agent builds a topological map of the environment using information about the intersections the CRS detects. The agent uses this topological model (along with Soar's reasoning, planning, and learning mechanisms) to make intelligent decisions about how to effectively search the building. Once the

Robot soccer anywhere: achieving persistent autonomous navigation, mapping, and object vision tracking in dynamic environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dragone, Mauro; O'Donoghue, Ruadhan; Leonard, John J.; O'Hare, Gregory; Duffy, Brian; Patrikalakis, Andrew; Leederkerken, Jacques

2005-06-01

The paper describes an ongoing effort to enable autonomous mobile robots to play soccer in unstructured, everyday environments. Unlike conventional robot soccer competitions that are usually held on purpose-built robot soccer "fields", in our work we seek to develop the capability for robots to demonstrate aspects of soccer-playing in more diverse environments, such as schools, hospitals, or shopping malls, with static obstacles (furniture) and dynamic natural obstacles (people). This problem of "Soccer Anywhere" presents numerous research challenges including: (1) Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) in dynamic, unstructured environments, (2) software control architectures for decentralized, distributed control of mobile agents, (3) integration of vision-based object tracking with dynamic control, and (4) social interaction with human participants. In addition to the intrinsic research merit of these topics, we believe that this capability would prove useful for outreach activities, in demonstrating robotics technology to primary and secondary school students, to motivate them to pursue careers in science and engineering.

Sample Return Robot Centennial Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2012-06-16

NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, left, listens as Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) Robotics Resource Center Director and NASA-WPI Sample Return Robot Centennial Challenge Judge Ken Stafford points out how the robots navigate the playing field during the challenge on Saturday, June 16, 2012 in Worcester, Mass. Teams were challenged to build autonomous robots that can identify, collect and return samples. NASA needs autonomous robotic capability for future planetary exploration. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Sample Return Robot Centennial Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2012-06-16

NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, right, listens as Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) Robotics Resource Center Director and NASA-WPI Sample Return Robot Centennial Challenge Judge Ken Stafford points out how the robots navigate the playing field during the challenge on Saturday, June 16, 2012 in Worcester, Mass. Teams were challenged to build autonomous robots that can identify, collect and return samples. NASA needs autonomous robotic capability for future planetary exploration. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Integrated polarization-dependent sensor for autonomous navigation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Ze; Zhang, Ran; Wang, Zhiwen; Guan, Le; Li, Bin; Chu, Jinkui

2015-01-01

Based on the navigation strategy of insects utilizing the polarized skylight, an integrated polarization-dependent sensor for autonomous navigation is presented. The navigation sensor has the features of compact structure, high precision, strong robustness, and a simple manufacture technique. The sensor is composed by integrating a complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor sensor with a multiorientation nanowire grid polarizer. By nanoimprint lithography, the multiorientation nanowire polarizer is fabricated in one step and the alignment error is eliminated. The statistical theory is added to the interval-division algorithm to calculate the polarization angle of the incident light. The laboratory and outdoor tests for the navigation sensor are implemented and the errors of the measured angle are ±0.02 deg and ±1.3 deg, respectively. The results show that the proposed sensor has potential for application in autonomous navigation.

Autonomous Systems, Robotics, and Computing Systems Capability Roadmap: NRC Dialogue

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Zornetzer, Steve; Gage, Douglas

2005-01-01

Contents include the following: Introduction. Process, Mission Drivers, Deliverables, and Interfaces. Autonomy. Crew-Centered and Remote Operations. Integrated Systems Health Management. Autonomous Vehicle Control. Autonomous Process Control. Robotics. Robotics for Solar System Exploration. Robotics for Lunar and Planetary Habitation. Robotics for In-Space Operations. Computing Systems. Conclusion.

A System for Fast Navigation of Autonomous Vehicles

DTIC Science & Technology

1991-09-01

AD-A243 523 4, jj A System for Fast Navigation of Autonomous Vehicles Sanjiv Singh, Dai Feng, Paul Keller, Gary Shaffer, Wen Fan Shi, Dong Hun Shin...FUNDING NUMBERS A System for Fast Navigation of Autonomous Vehicles 6. AUTHOR(S) S. Singh, D. Feng, P. Keller, G. Shaffer, W.F. Shi, D.H. Shin, J. West...common in the control of autonomous vehicles to establish the necessary kinematic models but to ignore an explicit representation of the vehicle dynamics

Miniaturized Autonomous Extravehicular Robotic Camera (Mini AERCam)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fredrickson, Steven E.

2001-01-01

The NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) Engineering Directorate is developing the Autonomous Extravehicular Robotic Camera (AERCam), a low-volume, low-mass free-flying camera system . AERCam project team personnel recently initiated development of a miniaturized version of AERCam known as Mini AERCam. The Mini AERCam target design is a spherical "nanosatellite" free-flyer 7.5 inches in diameter and weighing 1 0 pounds. Mini AERCam is building on the success of the AERCam Sprint STS-87 flight experiment by adding new on-board sensing and processing capabilities while simultaneously reducing volume by 80%. Achieving enhanced capability in a smaller package depends on applying miniaturization technology across virtually all subsystems. Technology innovations being incorporated include micro electromechanical system (MEMS) gyros, "camera-on-a-chip" CMOS imagers, rechargeable xenon gas propulsion system , rechargeable lithium ion battery, custom avionics based on the PowerPC 740 microprocessor, GPS relative navigation, digital radio frequency communications and tracking, micropatch antennas, digital instrumentation, and dense mechanical packaging. The Mini AERCam free-flyer will initially be integrated into an approximate flight-like configuration for demonstration on an airbearing table. A pilot-in-the-loop and hardware-in-the-loop simulation to simulate on-orbit navigation and dynamics will complement the airbearing table demonstration. The Mini AERCam lab demonstration is intended to form the basis for future development of an AERCam flight system that provides beneficial on-orbit views unobtainable from fixed cameras, cameras on robotic manipulators, or cameras carried by EVA crewmembers.

Solar-based navigation for robotic explorers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shillcutt, Kimberly Jo

2000-12-01

This thesis introduces the application of solar position and shadowing information to robotic exploration. Power is a critical resource for robots with remote, long-term missions, so this research focuses on the power generation capabilities of robotic explorers during navigational tasks, in addition to power consumption. Solar power is primarily considered, with the possibility of wind power also contemplated. Information about the environment, including the solar ephemeris, terrain features, time of day, and surface location, is incorporated into a planning structure, allowing robots to accurately predict shadowing and thus potential costs and gains during navigational tasks. By evaluating its potential to generate and expend power, a robot can extend its lifetime and accomplishments. The primary tasks studied are coverage patterns, with a variety of plans developed for this research. The use of sun, terrain and temporal information also enables new capabilities of identifying and following sun-synchronous and sun-seeking paths. Digital elevation maps are combined with an ephemeris algorithm to calculate the altitude and azimuth of the sun from surface locations, and to identify and map shadows. Solar navigation path simulators use this information to perform searches through two-dimensional space, while considering temporal changes. Step by step simulations of coverage patterns also incorporate time in addition to location. Evaluations of solar and wind power generation, power consumption, area coverage, area overlap, and time are generated for sets of coverage patterns, with on-board environmental information linked to the simulations. This research is implemented on the Nomad robot for the Robotic Antarctic Meteorite Search. Simulators have been developed for coverage pattern tests, as well as for sun-synchronous and sun-seeking path searches. Results of field work and simulations are reported and analyzed, with demonstrated improvements in efficiency

Supervised autonomous robotic soft tissue surgery.

PubMed

Shademan, Azad; Decker, Ryan S; Opfermann, Justin D; Leonard, Simon; Krieger, Axel; Kim, Peter C W

2016-05-04

The current paradigm of robot-assisted surgeries (RASs) depends entirely on an individual surgeon's manual capability. Autonomous robotic surgery-removing the surgeon's hands-promises enhanced efficacy, safety, and improved access to optimized surgical techniques. Surgeries involving soft tissue have not been performed autonomously because of technological limitations, including lack of vision systems that can distinguish and track the target tissues in dynamic surgical environments and lack of intelligent algorithms that can execute complex surgical tasks. We demonstrate in vivo supervised autonomous soft tissue surgery in an open surgical setting, enabled by a plenoptic three-dimensional and near-infrared fluorescent (NIRF) imaging system and an autonomous suturing algorithm. Inspired by the best human surgical practices, a computer program generates a plan to complete complex surgical tasks on deformable soft tissue, such as suturing and intestinal anastomosis. We compared metrics of anastomosis-including the consistency of suturing informed by the average suture spacing, the pressure at which the anastomosis leaked, the number of mistakes that required removing the needle from the tissue, completion time, and lumen reduction in intestinal anastomoses-between our supervised autonomous system, manual laparoscopic surgery, and clinically used RAS approaches. Despite dynamic scene changes and tissue movement during surgery, we demonstrate that the outcome of supervised autonomous procedures is superior to surgery performed by expert surgeons and RAS techniques in ex vivo porcine tissues and in living pigs. These results demonstrate the potential for autonomous robots to improve the efficacy, consistency, functional outcome, and accessibility of surgical techniques. Copyright © 2016, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Sensor Fusion Based Model for Collision Free Mobile Robot Navigation.

PubMed

Almasri, Marwah; Elleithy, Khaled; Alajlan, Abrar

2015-12-26

Autonomous mobile robots have become a very popular and interesting topic in the last decade. Each of them are equipped with various types of sensors such as GPS, camera, infrared and ultrasonic sensors. These sensors are used to observe the surrounding environment. However, these sensors sometimes fail and have inaccurate readings. Therefore, the integration of sensor fusion will help to solve this dilemma and enhance the overall performance. This paper presents a collision free mobile robot navigation based on the fuzzy logic fusion model. Eight distance sensors and a range finder camera are used for the collision avoidance approach where three ground sensors are used for the line or path following approach. The fuzzy system is composed of nine inputs which are the eight distance sensors and the camera, two outputs which are the left and right velocities of the mobile robot's wheels, and 24 fuzzy rules for the robot's movement. Webots Pro simulator is used for modeling the environment and the robot. The proposed methodology, which includes the collision avoidance based on fuzzy logic fusion model and line following robot, has been implemented and tested through simulation and real time experiments. Various scenarios have been presented with static and dynamic obstacles using one robot and two robots while avoiding obstacles in different shapes and sizes.

Autonomous Navigation Improvements for High-Earth Orbiters Using GPS

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Long, Anne; Kelbel, David; Lee, Taesul; Garrison, James; Carpenter, J. Russell; Bauer, F. (Technical Monitor)

2000-01-01

The Goddard Space Flight Center is currently developing autonomous navigation systems for satellites in high-Earth orbits where acquisition of the GPS signals is severely limited This paper discusses autonomous navigation improvements for high-Earth orbiters and assesses projected navigation performance for these satellites using Global Positioning System (GPS) Standard Positioning Service (SPS) measurements. Navigation performance is evaluated as a function of signal acquisition threshold, measurement errors, and dynamic modeling errors using realistic GPS signal strength and user antenna models. These analyses indicate that an autonomous navigation position accuracy of better than 30 meters root-mean-square (RMS) can be achieved for high-Earth orbiting satellites using a GPS receiver with a very stable oscillator. This accuracy improves to better than 15 meters RMS if the GPS receiver's signal acquisition threshold can be reduced by 5 dB-Hertz to track weaker signals.

Hitchhiking Robots: A Collaborative Approach for Efficient Multi-Robot Navigation in Indoor Environments.

PubMed

Ravankar, Abhijeet; Ravankar, Ankit A; Kobayashi, Yukinori; Emaru, Takanori

2017-08-15

Hitchhiking is a means of transportation gained by asking other people for a (free) ride. We developed a multi-robot system which is the first of its kind to incorporate hitchhiking in robotics, and discuss its advantages. Our method allows the hitchhiker robot to skip redundant computations in navigation like path planning, localization, obstacle avoidance, and map update by completely relying on the driver robot. This allows the hitchhiker robot, which performs only visual servoing, to save computation while navigating on the common path with the driver robot. The driver robot, in the proposed system performs all the heavy computations in navigation and updates the hitchhiker about the current localized positions and new obstacle positions in the map. The proposed system is robust to recover from `driver-lost' scenario which occurs due to visual servoing failure. We demonstrate robot hitchhiking in real environments considering factors like service-time and task priority with different start and goal configurations of the driver and hitchhiker robots. We also discuss the admissible characteristics of the hitchhiker, when hitchhiking should be allowed and when not, through experimental results.

Autonomous navigation - The ARMMS concept. [Autonomous Redundancy and Maintenance Management Subsystem

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wood, L. J.; Jones, J. B.; Mease, K. D.; Kwok, J. H.; Goltz, G. L.; Kechichian, J. A.

1984-01-01

A conceptual design is outlined for the navigation subsystem of the Autonomous Redundancy and Maintenance Management Subsystem (ARMMS). The principal function of this navigation subsystem is to maintain the spacecraft over a specified equatorial longitude to within + or - 3 deg. In addition, the navigation subsystem must detect and correct internal faults. It comprises elements for a navigation executive and for orbit determination, trajectory, maneuver planning, and maneuver command. Each of these elements is described. The navigation subsystem is to be used in the DSCS III spacecraft.

Autonomous caregiver following robotic wheelchair

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ratnam, E. Venkata; Sivaramalingam, Sethurajan; Vignesh, A. Sri; Vasanth, Elanthendral; Joans, S. Mary

2011-12-01

In the last decade, a variety of robotic/intelligent wheelchairs have been proposed to meet the need in aging society. Their main research topics are autonomous functions such as moving toward some goals while avoiding obstacles, or user-friendly interfaces. Although it is desirable for wheelchair users to go out alone, caregivers often accompany them. Therefore we have to consider not only autonomous functions and user interfaces but also how to reduce caregivers' load and support their activities in a communication aspect. From this point of view, we have proposed a robotic wheelchair moving with a caregiver side by side based on the MATLAB process. In this project we discussing about robotic wheel chair to follow a caregiver by using a microcontroller, Ultrasonic sensor, keypad, Motor drivers to operate robot. Using camera interfaced with the DM6437 (Davinci Code Processor) image is captured. The captured image are then processed by using image processing technique, the processed image are then converted into voltage levels through MAX 232 level converter and given it to the microcontroller unit serially and ultrasonic sensor to detect the obstacle in front of robot. In this robot we have mode selection switch Automatic and Manual control of robot, we use ultrasonic sensor in automatic mode to find obstacle, in Manual mode to use the keypad to operate wheel chair. In the microcontroller unit, c language coding is predefined, according to this coding the robot which connected to it was controlled. Robot which has several motors is activated by using the motor drivers. Motor drivers are nothing but a switch which ON/OFF the motor according to the control given by the microcontroller unit.

Autonomous Navigation for Deep Space Missions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bhaskaran, Shyam

2012-01-01

Navigation (determining where the spacecraft is at any given time, controlling its path to achieve desired targets), performed using ground-in- the-loop techniques: (1) Data includes 2-way radiometric (Doppler, range), interferometric (Delta- Differential One-way Range), and optical (images of natural bodies taken by onboard camera) (2) Data received on the ground, processed to determine orbit, commands sent to execute maneuvers to control orbit. A self-contained, onboard, autonomous navigation system can: (1) Eliminate delays due to round-trip light time (2) Eliminate the human factors in ground-based processing (3) Reduce turnaround time from navigation update to minutes, down to seconds (4) React to late-breaking data. At JPL, we have developed the framework and computational elements of an autonomous navigation system, called AutoNav. It was originally developed as one of the technologies for the Deep Space 1 mission, launched in 1998; subsequently used on three other spacecraft, for four different missions. The primary use has been on comet missions to track comets during flybys, and impact one comet.

Angles-only navigation for autonomous orbital rendezvous

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Woffinden, David C.

The proposed thesis of this dissertation has both a practical element and theoretical component which aim to answer key questions related to the use of angles-only navigation for autonomous orbital rendezvous. The first and fundamental principle to this work argues that an angles-only navigation filter can determine the relative position and orientation (pose) between two spacecraft to perform the necessary maneuvers and close proximity operations for autonomous orbital rendezvous. Second, the implementation of angles-only navigation for on-orbit applications is looked upon with skeptical eyes because of its perceived limitation of determining the relative range between two vehicles. This assumed, yet little understood subtlety can be formally characterized with a closed-form analytical observability criteria which specifies the necessary and sufficient conditions for determining the relative position and velocity with only angular measurements. With a mathematical expression of the observability criteria, it can be used to (1) identify the orbital rendezvous trajectories and maneuvers that ensure the relative position and velocity are observable for angles-only navigation, (2) quantify the degree or level of observability and (3) compute optimal maneuvers that maximize observability. In summary, the objective of this dissertation is to provide both a practical and theoretical foundation for the advancement of autonomous orbital rendezvous through the use of angles-only navigation.

Flocking algorithm for autonomous flying robots.

PubMed

Virágh, Csaba; Vásárhelyi, Gábor; Tarcai, Norbert; Szörényi, Tamás; Somorjai, Gergő; Nepusz, Tamás; Vicsek, Tamás

2014-06-01

Animal swarms displaying a variety of typical flocking patterns would not exist without the underlying safe, optimal and stable dynamics of the individuals. The emergence of these universal patterns can be efficiently reconstructed with agent-based models. If we want to reproduce these patterns with artificial systems, such as autonomous aerial robots, agent-based models can also be used in their control algorithms. However, finding the proper algorithms and thus understanding the essential characteristics of the emergent collective behaviour requires thorough and realistic modeling of the robot and also the environment. In this paper, we first present an abstract mathematical model of an autonomous flying robot. The model takes into account several realistic features, such as time delay and locality of communication, inaccuracy of the on-board sensors and inertial effects. We present two decentralized control algorithms. One is based on a simple self-propelled flocking model of animal collective motion, the other is a collective target tracking algorithm. Both algorithms contain a viscous friction-like term, which aligns the velocities of neighbouring agents parallel to each other. We show that this term can be essential for reducing the inherent instabilities of such a noisy and delayed realistic system. We discuss simulation results on the stability of the control algorithms, and perform real experiments to show the applicability of the algorithms on a group of autonomous quadcopters. In our case, bio-inspiration works in two ways. On the one hand, the whole idea of trying to build and control a swarm of robots comes from the observation that birds tend to flock to optimize their behaviour as a group. On the other hand, by using a realistic simulation framework and studying the group behaviour of autonomous robots we can learn about the major factors influencing the flight of bird flocks.

Robotic navigation and ablation.

PubMed

Malcolme-Lawes, L; Kanagaratnam, P

2010-12-01

Robotic technologies have been developed to allow optimal catheter stability and reproducible catheter movements with the aim of achieving contiguous and transmural lesion delivery. Two systems for remote navigation of catheters within the heart have been developed; the first is based on a magnetic navigation system (MNS) Niobe, Stereotaxis, Saint-Louis, Missouri, USA, the second is based on a steerable sheath system (Sensei, Hansen Medical, Mountain View, CA, USA). Both robotic and magnetic navigation systems have proven to be feasible for performing ablation of both simple and complex arrhythmias, particularly atrial fibrillation. Studies to date have shown similar success rates for AF ablation compared to that of manual ablation, with many groups finding a reduction in fluoroscopy times. However, the early learning curve of cases demonstrated longer procedure times, mainly due to additional setup times. With centres performing increasing numbers of robotic ablations and the introduction of a pressure monitoring system, lower power settings and instinctive driving software, complication rates are reducing, and fluoroscopy times have been lower than manual ablation in many studies. As the demand for catheter ablation for arrhythmias such as atrial fibrillation increases and the number of centres performing these ablations increases, the demand for systems which reduce the hand skill requirement and improve the comfort of the operator will also increase.

Hitchhiking Robots: A Collaborative Approach for Efficient Multi-Robot Navigation in Indoor Environments

PubMed Central

Ravankar, Abhijeet; Ravankar, Ankit A.; Kobayashi, Yukinori; Emaru, Takanori

2017-01-01

Hitchhiking is a means of transportation gained by asking other people for a (free) ride. We developed a multi-robot system which is the first of its kind to incorporate hitchhiking in robotics, and discuss its advantages. Our method allows the hitchhiker robot to skip redundant computations in navigation like path planning, localization, obstacle avoidance, and map update by completely relying on the driver robot. This allows the hitchhiker robot, which performs only visual servoing, to save computation while navigating on the common path with the driver robot. The driver robot, in the proposed system performs all the heavy computations in navigation and updates the hitchhiker about the current localized positions and new obstacle positions in the map. The proposed system is robust to recover from ‘driver-lost’ scenario which occurs due to visual servoing failure. We demonstrate robot hitchhiking in real environments considering factors like service-time and task priority with different start and goal configurations of the driver and hitchhiker robots. We also discuss the admissible characteristics of the hitchhiker, when hitchhiking should be allowed and when not, through experimental results. PMID:28809803

A tesselated probabilistic representation for spatial robot perception and navigation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Elfes, Alberto

1989-01-01

The ability to recover robust spatial descriptions from sensory information and to efficiently utilize these descriptions in appropriate planning and problem-solving activities are crucial requirements for the development of more powerful robotic systems. Traditional approaches to sensor interpretation, with their emphasis on geometric models, are of limited use for autonomous mobile robots operating in and exploring unknown and unstructured environments. Here, researchers present a new approach to robot perception that addresses such scenarios using a probabilistic tesselated representation of spatial information called the Occupancy Grid. The Occupancy Grid is a multi-dimensional random field that maintains stochastic estimates of the occupancy state of each cell in the grid. The cell estimates are obtained by interpreting incoming range readings using probabilistic models that capture the uncertainty in the spatial information provided by the sensor. A Bayesian estimation procedure allows the incremental updating of the map using readings taken from several sensors over multiple points of view. An overview of the Occupancy Grid framework is given, and its application to a number of problems in mobile robot mapping and navigation are illustrated. It is argued that a number of robotic problem-solving activities can be performed directly on the Occupancy Grid representation. Some parallels are drawn between operations on Occupancy Grids and related image processing operations.

Full autonomous microline trace robot

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yi, Deer; Lu, Si; Yan, Yingbai; Jin, Guofan

2000-10-01

Optoelectric inspection may find applications in robotic system. In micro robotic system, smaller optoelectric inspection system is preferred. However, as miniaturizing the size of the robot, the number of the optoelectric detector becomes lack. And lack of the information makes the micro robot difficult to acquire its status. In our lab, a micro line trace robot has been designed, which autonomous acts based on its optoelectric detection. It has been programmed to follow a black line printed on the white colored ground. Besides the optoelectric inspection, logical algorithm in the microprocessor is also important. In this paper, we propose a simply logical algorithm to realize robot's intelligence. The robot's intelligence is based on a AT89C2051 microcontroller which controls its movement. The technical details of the micro robot are as follow: dimension: 30mm*25mm*35*mm; velocity: 60mm/s.

Towards Principled Experimental Study of Autonomous Mobile Robots

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gat, Erann

1995-01-01

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.

Sensor Fusion Based Model for Collision Free Mobile Robot Navigation

PubMed Central

Almasri, Marwah; Elleithy, Khaled; Alajlan, Abrar

2015-01-01

Autonomous mobile robots have become a very popular and interesting topic in the last decade. Each of them are equipped with various types of sensors such as GPS, camera, infrared and ultrasonic sensors. These sensors are used to observe the surrounding environment. However, these sensors sometimes fail and have inaccurate readings. Therefore, the integration of sensor fusion will help to solve this dilemma and enhance the overall performance. This paper presents a collision free mobile robot navigation based on the fuzzy logic fusion model. Eight distance sensors and a range finder camera are used for the collision avoidance approach where three ground sensors are used for the line or path following approach. The fuzzy system is composed of nine inputs which are the eight distance sensors and the camera, two outputs which are the left and right velocities of the mobile robot’s wheels, and 24 fuzzy rules for the robot’s movement. Webots Pro simulator is used for modeling the environment and the robot. The proposed methodology, which includes the collision avoidance based on fuzzy logic fusion model and line following robot, has been implemented and tested through simulation and real time experiments. Various scenarios have been presented with static and dynamic obstacles using one robot and two robots while avoiding obstacles in different shapes and sizes. PMID:26712766

Navigation for the new millennium: Autonomous navigation for Deep Space 1

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reidel, J. E.; Bhaskaran, S.; Synnott, S. P.; Desai, S. D.; Bollman, W. E.; Dumont, P. J.; Halsell, C. A.; Han, D.; Kennedy, B. M.; Null, G. W.;

Sandia National Laboratories proof-of-concept robotic security vehicle

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Harrington, J.J.; Jones, D.P.; Klarer, P.R.

1989-01-01

Several years ago Sandia National Laboratories developed a prototype interior robot that could navigate autonomously inside a large complex building to air and test interior intrusion detection systems. Recently the Department of Energy Office of Safeguards and Security has supported the development of a vehicle that will perform limited security functions autonomously in a structured exterior environment. The goal of the first phase of this project was to demonstrate the feasibility of an exterior robotic vehicle for security applications by using converted interior robot technology, if applicable. An existing teleoperational test bed vehicle with remote driving controls was modified andmore » integrated with a newly developed command driving station and navigation system hardware and software to form the Robotic Security Vehicle (RSV) system. The RSV, also called the Sandia Mobile Autonomous Navigator (SANDMAN), has been successfully used to demonstrate that teleoperated security vehicles which can perform limited autonomous functions are viable and have the potential to decrease security manpower requirements and improve system capabilities. 2 refs., 3 figs.« less

A SINS/SRS/GNS Autonomous Integrated Navigation System Based on Spectral Redshift Velocity Measurements.

PubMed

Wei, Wenhui; Gao, Zhaohui; Gao, Shesheng; Jia, Ke

2018-04-09

In order to meet the requirements of autonomy and reliability for the navigation system, combined with the method of measuring speed by using the spectral redshift information of the natural celestial bodies, a new scheme, consisting of Strapdown Inertial Navigation System (SINS)/Spectral Redshift (SRS)/Geomagnetic Navigation System (GNS), is designed for autonomous integrated navigation systems. The principle of this SINS/SRS/GNS autonomous integrated navigation system is explored, and the corresponding mathematical model is established. Furthermore, a robust adaptive central difference particle filtering algorithm is proposed for this autonomous integrated navigation system. The simulation experiments are conducted and the results show that the designed SINS/SRS/GNS autonomous integrated navigation system possesses good autonomy, strong robustness and high reliability, thus providing a new solution for autonomous navigation technology.

A SINS/SRS/GNS Autonomous Integrated Navigation System Based on Spectral Redshift Velocity Measurements

PubMed Central

Wei, Wenhui; Gao, Zhaohui; Gao, Shesheng; Jia, Ke

2018-01-01

In order to meet the requirements of autonomy and reliability for the navigation system, combined with the method of measuring speed by using the spectral redshift information of the natural celestial bodies, a new scheme, consisting of Strapdown Inertial Navigation System (SINS)/Spectral Redshift (SRS)/Geomagnetic Navigation System (GNS), is designed for autonomous integrated navigation systems. The principle of this SINS/SRS/GNS autonomous integrated navigation system is explored, and the corresponding mathematical model is established. Furthermore, a robust adaptive central difference particle filtering algorithm is proposed for this autonomous integrated navigation system. The simulation experiments are conducted and the results show that the designed SINS/SRS/GNS autonomous integrated navigation system possesses good autonomy, strong robustness and high reliability, thus providing a new solution for autonomous navigation technology. PMID:29642549

Proceedings of the 1989 CESAR/CEA (Center for Engineering Systems Advanced Research/Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique) workshop on autonomous mobile robots (May 30--June 1, 1989)

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Harber, K.S.; Pin, F.G.

1990-03-01

The US DOE Center for Engineering Systems Advanced Research (CESAR) at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and the Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique's (CEA) Office de Robotique et Productique within the Directorat a la Valorization are working toward a long-term cooperative agreement and relationship in the area of Intelligent Systems Research (ISR). This report presents the proceedings of the first CESAR/CEA Workshop on Autonomous Mobile Robots which took place at ORNL on May 30, 31 and June 1, 1989. The purpose of the workshop was to present and discuss methodologies and algorithms under development at the two facilities in themore » area of perception and navigation for autonomous mobile robots in unstructured environments. Experimental demonstration of the algorithms and comparison of some of their features were proposed to take place within the framework of a previously mutually agreed-upon demonstration scenario or base-case.'' The base-case scenario described in detail in Appendix A, involved autonomous navigation by the robot in an a priori unknown environment with dynamic obstacles, in order to reach a predetermined goal. From the intermediate goal location, the robot had to search for and locate a control panel, move toward it, and dock in front of the panel face. The CESAR demonstration was successfully accomplished using the HERMIES-IIB robot while subsets of the CEA demonstration performed using the ARES robot simulation and animation system were presented. The first session of the workshop focused on these experimental demonstrations and on the needs and considerations for establishing benchmarks'' for testing autonomous robot control algorithms.« less

Autonomous satellite navigation using starlight refraction angle measurements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ning, Xiaolin; Wang, Longhua; Bai, Xinbei; Fang, Jiancheng

2013-05-01

An on-board autonomous navigation capability is required to reduce the operation costs and enhance the navigation performance of future satellites. Autonomous navigation by stellar refraction is a type of autonomous celestial navigation method that uses high-accuracy star sensors instead of Earth sensors to provide information regarding Earth's horizon. In previous studies, the refraction apparent height has typically been used for such navigation. However, the apparent height cannot be measured directly by a star sensor and can only be calculated by the refraction angle and an atmospheric refraction model. Therefore, additional errors are introduced by the uncertainty and nonlinearity of atmospheric refraction models, which result in reduced navigation accuracy and reliability. A new navigation method based on the direct measurement of the refraction angle is proposed to solve this problem. Techniques for the determination of the refraction angle are introduced, and a measurement model for the refraction angle is established. The method is tested and validated by simulations. When the starlight refraction height ranges from 20 to 50 km, a positioning accuracy of better than 100 m can be achieved for a low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite using the refraction angle, while the positioning accuracy of the traditional method using the apparent height is worse than 500 m under the same conditions. Furthermore, an analysis of the factors that affect navigation accuracy, including the measurement accuracy of the refraction angle, the number of visible refracted stars per orbit and the installation azimuth of star sensor, is presented. This method is highly recommended for small satellites in particular, as no additional hardware besides two star sensors is required.

Robot navigation research at CESAR (Center for Engineering Systems Advanced Research)

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Barnett, D.L.; de Saussure, G.; Pin, F.G.

1989-01-01

A considerable amount of work has been reported on the problem of robot navigation in known static terrains. Algorithms have been proposed and implemented to search for an optimum path to the goal, taking into account the finite size and shape of the robot. Not as much work has been reported on robot navigation in unknown, unstructured, or dynamic environments. A robot navigating in an unknown environment must explore with its sensors, construct an abstract representation of its global environment to plan a path to the goal, and update or revise its plan based on accumulated data obtained and processedmore » in real-time. The core of the navigation program for the CESAR robots is a production system developed on the expert-system-shell CLIPS which runs on an NCUBE hypercube on board the robot. The production system can call on C-compiled navigation procedures. The production rules can read the sensor data and address the robot's effectors. This architecture was found efficient and flexible for the development and testing of the navigation algorithms; however, in order to process intelligently unexpected emergencies, it was found necessary to be able to control the production system through externally generated asynchronous data. This led to the design of a new asynchronous production system, APS, which is now being developed on the robot. This paper will review some of the navigation algorithms developed and tested at CESAR and will discuss the need for the new APS and how it is being integrated into the robot architecture. 18 refs., 3 figs., 1 tab.« less

Enabling Autonomous Navigation for Affordable Scooters.

PubMed

Liu, Kaikai; Mulky, Rajathswaroop

2018-06-05

Despite the technical success of existing assistive technologies, for example, electric wheelchairs and scooters, they are still far from effective enough in helping those in need navigate to their destinations in a hassle-free manner. In this paper, we propose to improve the safety and autonomy of navigation by designing a cutting-edge autonomous scooter, thus allowing people with mobility challenges to ambulate independently and safely in possibly unfamiliar surroundings. We focus on indoor navigation scenarios for the autonomous scooter where the current location, maps, and nearby obstacles are unknown. To achieve semi-LiDAR functionality, we leverage the gyros-based pose data to compensate the laser motion in real time and create synthetic mapping of simple environments with regular shapes and deep hallways. Laser range finders are suitable for long ranges with limited resolution. Stereo vision, on the other hand, provides 3D structural data of nearby complex objects. To achieve simultaneous fine-grained resolution and long range coverage in the mapping of cluttered and complex environments, we dynamically fuse the measurements from the stereo vision camera system, the synthetic laser scanner, and the LiDAR. We propose solutions to self-correct errors in data fusion and create a hybrid map to assist the scooter in achieving collision-free navigation in an indoor environment.

Autonomous navigation system based on GPS and magnetometer data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Julie, Thienel K. (Inventor); Richard, Harman R. (Inventor); Bar-Itzhack, Itzhack Y. (Inventor)

2004-01-01

This invention is drawn to an autonomous navigation system using Global Positioning System (GPS) and magnetometers for low Earth orbit satellites. As a magnetometer is reliable and always provides information on spacecraft attitude, rate, and orbit, the magnetometer-GPS configuration solves GPS initialization problem, decreasing the convergence time for navigation estimate and improving the overall accuracy. Eventually the magnetometer-GPS configuration enables the system to avoid costly and inherently less reliable gyro for rate estimation. Being autonomous, this invention would provide for black-box spacecraft navigation, producing attitude, orbit, and rate estimates without any ground input with high accuracy and reliability.

Autonomous satellite navigation by stellar refraction

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gounley, R.; White, R.; Gai, E.

1983-01-01

This paper describes an error analysis of an autonomous navigator using refraction measurements of starlight passing through the upper atmosphere. The analysis is based on a discrete linear Kalman filter. The filter generated steady-state values of navigator performance for a variety of test cases. Results of these simulations show that in low-earth orbit position-error standard deviations of less than 0.100 km may be obtained using only 40 star sightings per orbit.

From Autonomous Robots to Artificial Ecosystems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mastrogiovanni, Fulvio; Sgorbissa, Antonio; Zaccaria, Renato

During the past few years, starting from the two mainstream fields of Ambient Intelligence [2] and Robotics [17], several authors recognized the benefits of the socalled Ubiquitous Robotics paradigm. According to this perspective, mobile robots are no longer autonomous, physically situated and embodied entities adapting themselves to a world taliored for humans: on the contrary, they are able to interact with devices distributed throughout the environment and get across heterogeneous information by means of communication technologies. Information exchange, coupled with simple actuation capabilities, is meant to replace physical interaction between robots and their environment. Two benefits are evident: (i) smart environments overcome inherent limitations of mobile platforms, whereas (ii) mobile robots offer a mobility dimension unknown to smart environments.

Autonomous surgical robotics using 3-D ultrasound guidance: feasibility study.

PubMed

Whitman, John; Fronheiser, Matthew P; Ivancevich, Nikolas M; Smith, Stephen W

2007-10-01

The goal of this study was to test the feasibility of using a real-time 3D (RT3D) ultrasound scanner with a transthoracic matrix array transducer probe to guide an autonomous surgical robot. Employing a fiducial alignment mark on the transducer to orient the robot's frame of reference and using simple thresholding algorithms to segment the 3D images, we tested the accuracy of using the scanner to automatically direct a robot arm that touched two needle tips together within a water tank. RMS measurement error was 3.8% or 1.58 mm for an average path length of 41 mm. Using these same techniques, the autonomous robot also performed simulated needle biopsies of a cyst-like lesion in a tissue phantom. This feasibility study shows the potential for 3D ultrasound guidance of an autonomous surgical robot for simple interventional tasks, including lesion biopsy and foreign body removal.

Autonomous navigation using lunar beacons

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Khatib, A. R.; Ellis, J.; French, J.; Null, G.; Yunck, T.; Wu, S.

1983-01-01

The concept of using lunar beacon signal transmission for on-board navigation for earth satellites and near-earth spacecraft is described. The system would require powerful transmitters on the earth-side of the moon's surface and black box receivers with antennae and microprocessors placed on board spacecraft for autonomous navigation. Spacecraft navigation requires three position and three velocity elements to establish location coordinates. Two beacons could be soft-landed on the lunar surface at the limits of allowable separation and each would transmit a wide-beam signal with cones reaching GEO heights and be strong enough to be received by small antennae in near-earth orbit. The black box processor would perform on-board computation with one-way Doppler/range data and dynamical models. Alternatively, GEO satellites such as the GPS or TDRSS spacecraft can be used with interferometric techniques to provide decimeter-level accuracy for aircraft navigation.

Mobile robots IV; Proceedings of the Meeting, Philadelphia, PA, Nov. 6, 7, 1989

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wolfe, W.J.; Chun, W.H.

1990-01-01

The present conference on mobile robot systems discusses high-speed machine perception based on passive sensing, wide-angle optical ranging, three-dimensional path planning for flying/crawling robots, navigation of autonomous mobile intelligence in an unstructured natural environment, mechanical models for the locomotion of a four-articulated-track robot, a rule-based command language for a semiautonomous Mars rover, and a computer model of the structured light vision system for a Mars rover. Also discussed are optical flow and three-dimensional information for navigation, feature-based reasoning trail detection, a symbolic neural-net production system for obstacle avoidance and navigation, intelligent path planning for robot navigation in an unknown environment,more » behaviors from a hierarchical control system, stereoscopic TV systems, the REACT language for autonomous robots, and a man-amplifying exoskeleton.« less

Computer-Assisted Hip and Knee Arthroplasty. Navigation and Active Robotic Systems

PubMed Central

2004-01-01

Executive Summary Objective The Medical Advisory Secretariat undertook a review of the evidence on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of computer assisted hip and knee arthroplasty. The two computer assisted arthroplasty systems that are the topics of this review are (1) navigation and (2) robotic-assisted hip and knee arthroplasty. The Technology Computer-assisted arthroplasty consists of navigation and robotic systems. Surgical navigation is a visualization system that provides positional information about surgical tools or implants relative to a target bone on a computer display. Most of the navigation-assisted arthroplasty devices that are the subject of this review are licensed by Health Canada. Robotic systems are active robots that mill bone according to information from a computer-assisted navigation system. The robotic-assisted arthroplasty devices that are the subject of this review are not currently licensed by Health Canada. Review Strategy The Cochrane and International Network of Agencies for Health Technology Assessment databases did not identify any health technology assessments on navigation or robotic-assisted hip or knee arthroplasty. The MEDLINE and EMBASE databases were searched for articles published between January 1, 1996 and November 30, 2003. This search produced 367 studies, of which 9 met the inclusion criteria. Summary of Findings Navigation-Assisted Arthroplasty Five studies were identified that examined navigation-assisted arthroplasty. A Level 1 evidence study from Germany found a statistically significant difference in alignment and angular deviation between navigation-assisted and free-hand total knee arthroplasty in favour of navigation-assisted surgery. However, the endpoints in this study were short-term. To date, the long-term effects (need for revision, implant longevity, pain, functional performance) are unknown.(1) A Level 2 evidence short-term study found that navigation-assisted total knee arthroplasty was

Autonomous RPRV Navigation, Guidance and Control

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnston, Donald E.; Myers, Thomas T.; Zellner, John W.

1983-01-01

Dryden Flight Research Center has the responsibility for flight testing of advanced remotely piloted research vehicles (RPRV) to explore highly maneuverable aircraft technology, and to test advanced structural concepts, and related aeronautical technologies which can yield important research results with significant cost benefits. The primary purpose is to provide the preliminary design of an upgraded automatic approach and landing control system and flight director display to improve landing performance and reduce pilot workload. A secondary purpose is to determine the feasibility of an onboard autonomous navigation, orbit, and landing capability for safe vehicle recovery in the event of loss of telemetry uplink communication with the vehicles. The current RPRV approach and landing method, the proposed automatic and manual approach and autoland system, and an autonomous navigation, orbit, and landing system concept which is based on existing operational technology are described.

Perception-action map learning in controlled multiscroll systems applied to robot navigation.

PubMed

Arena, Paolo; De Fiore, Sebastiano; Fortuna, Luigi; Patané, Luca

2008-12-01

In this paper a new technique for action-oriented perception in robots is presented. The paper starts from exploiting the successful implementation of the basic idea that perceptual states can be embedded into chaotic attractors whose dynamical evolution can be associated with sensorial stimuli. In this way, it can be possible to encode, into the chaotic dynamics, environment-dependent patterns. These have to be suitably linked to an action, executed by the robot, to fulfill an assigned mission. This task is addressed here: the action-oriented perception loop is closed by introducing a simple unsupervised learning stage, implemented via a bio-inspired structure based on the motor map paradigm. In this way, perceptual meanings, useful for solving a given task, can be autonomously learned, based on the environment-dependent patterns embedded into the controlled chaotic dynamics. The presented framework has been tested on a simulated robot and the performance have been successfully compared with other traditional navigation control paradigms. Moreover an implementation of the proposed architecture on a Field Programmable Gate Array is briefly outlined and preliminary experimental results on a roving robot are also reported.

Vision-based mapping with cooperative robots

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Little, James J.; Jennings, Cullen; Murray, Don

1998-10-01

Two stereo-vision-based mobile robots navigate and autonomously explore their environment safely while building occupancy grid maps of the environment. The robots maintain position estimates within a global coordinate frame using landmark recognition. This allows them to build a common map by sharing position information and stereo data. Stereo vision processing and map updates are done at 3 Hz and the robots move at speeds of 200 cm/s. Cooperative mapping is achieved through autonomous exploration of unstructured and dynamic environments. The map is constructed conservatively, so as to be useful for collision-free path planning. Each robot maintains a separate copy of a shared map, and then posts updates to the common map when it returns to observe a landmark at home base. Issues include synchronization, mutual localization, navigation, exploration, registration of maps, merging repeated views (fusion), centralized vs decentralized maps.

An Analysis of Navigation Algorithms for Smartphones Using J2ME

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Santos, André C.; Tarrataca, Luís; Cardoso, João M. P.

Embedded systems are considered one of the most potential areas for future innovations. Two embedded fields that will most certainly take a primary role in future innovations are mobile robotics and mobile computing. Mobile robots and smartphones are growing in number and functionalities, becoming a presence in our daily life. In this paper, we study the current feasibility of a smartphone to execute navigation algorithms. As a test case, we use a smartphone to control an autonomous mobile robot. We tested three navigation problems: Mapping, Localization and Path Planning. For each of these problems, an algorithm has been chosen, developed in J2ME, and tested on the field. Results show the current mobile Java capacity for executing computationally demanding algorithms and reveal the real possibility of using smartphones for autonomous navigation.

Memristive device based learning for navigation in robots.

PubMed

Sarim, Mohammad; Kumar, Manish; Jha, Rashmi; Minai, Ali A

2017-11-08

Biomimetic robots have gained attention recently for various applications ranging from resource hunting to search and rescue operations during disasters. Biological species are known to intuitively learn from the environment, gather and process data, and make appropriate decisions. Such sophisticated computing capabilities in robots are difficult to achieve, especially if done in real-time with ultra-low energy consumption. Here, we present a novel memristive device based learning architecture for robots. Two terminal memristive devices with resistive switching of oxide layer are modeled in a crossbar array to develop a neuromorphic platform that can impart active real-time learning capabilities in a robot. This approach is validated by navigating a robot vehicle in an unknown environment with randomly placed obstacles. Further, the proposed scheme is compared with reinforcement learning based algorithms using local and global knowledge of the environment. The simulation as well as experimental results corroborate the validity and potential of the proposed learning scheme for robots. The results also show that our learning scheme approaches an optimal solution for some environment layouts in robot navigation.

Autonomous navigation and obstacle avoidance for unmanned surface vehicles

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Larson, Jacoby; Bruch, Michael; Ebken, John

2006-05-01

The US Navy and other Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) organizations are increasingly interested in the use of unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) for a variety of missions and applications. In order for USVs to fill these roles, they must be capable of a relatively high degree of autonomous navigation. Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, San Diego is developing core technologies required for robust USV operation in a real-world environment, primarily focusing on autonomous navigation, obstacle avoidance, and path planning.

Non-destructive inspection in industrial equipment using robotic mobile manipulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maurtua, Iñaki; Susperregi, Loreto; Ansuategui, Ander; Fernández, Ane; Ibarguren, Aitor; Molina, Jorge; Tubio, Carlos; Villasante, Cristobal; Felsch, Torsten; Pérez, Carmen; Rodriguez, Jorge R.; Ghrissi, Meftah

2016-05-01

MAINBOT project has developed service robots based applications to autonomously execute inspection tasks in extensive industrial plants in equipment that is arranged horizontally (using ground robots) or vertically (climbing robots). The industrial objective has been to provide a means to help measuring several physical parameters in multiple points by autonomous robots, able to navigate and climb structures, handling non-destructive testing sensors. MAINBOT has validated the solutions in two solar thermal plants (cylindrical-parabolic collectors and central tower), that are very demanding from mobile manipulation point of view mainly due to the extension (e.g. a thermal solar plant of 50Mw, with 400 hectares, 400.000 mirrors, 180 km of absorber tubes, 140m height tower), the variability of conditions (outdoor, day-night), safety requirements, etc. Once the technology was validated in simulation, the system was deployed in real setups and different validation tests carried out. In this paper two of the achievements related with the ground mobile inspection system are presented: (1) Autonomous navigation localization and planning algorithms to manage navigation in huge extensions and (2) Non-Destructive Inspection operations: thermography based detection algorithms to provide automatic inspection abilities to the robots.

Autonomous Navigation of Small Uavs Based on Vehicle Dynamic Model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Khaghani, M.; Skaloud, J.

2016-03-01

This paper presents a novel approach to autonomous navigation for small UAVs, in which the vehicle dynamic model (VDM) serves as the main process model within the navigation filter. The proposed method significantly increases the accuracy and reliability of autonomous navigation, especially for small UAVs with low-cost IMUs on-board. This is achieved with no extra sensor added to the conventional INS/GNSS setup. This improvement is of special interest in case of GNSS outages, where inertial coasting drifts very quickly. In the proposed architecture, the solution to VDM equations provides the estimate of position, velocity, and attitude, which is updated within the navigation filter based on available observations, such as IMU data or GNSS measurements. The VDM is also fed with the control input to the UAV, which is available within the control/autopilot system. The filter is capable of estimating wind velocity and dynamic model parameters, in addition to navigation states and IMU sensor errors. Monte Carlo simulations reveal major improvements in navigation accuracy compared to conventional INS/GNSS navigation system during the autonomous phase, when satellite signals are not available due to physical obstruction or electromagnetic interference for example. In case of GNSS outages of a few minutes, position and attitude accuracy experiences improvements of orders of magnitude compared to inertial coasting. It means that during such scenario, the position-velocity-attitude (PVA) determination is sufficiently accurate to navigate the UAV to a home position without any signal that depends on vehicle environment.

Intelligent navigation and accurate positioning of an assist robot in indoor environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hua, Bin; Rama, Endri; Capi, Genci; Jindai, Mitsuru; Tsuri, Yosuke

2017-12-01

Intact robot's navigation and accurate positioning in indoor environments are still challenging tasks. Especially in robot applications, assisting disabled and/or elderly people in museums/art gallery environments. In this paper, we present a human-like navigation method, where the neural networks control the wheelchair robot to reach the goal location safely, by imitating the supervisor's motions, and positioning in the intended location. In a museum similar environment, the mobile robot starts navigation from various positions, and uses a low-cost camera to track the target picture, and a laser range finder to make a safe navigation. Results show that the neural controller with the Conjugate Gradient Backpropagation training algorithm gives a robust response to guide the mobile robot accurately to the goal position.

Autonomous satellite navigation with the Global Positioning System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fuchs, A. J.; Wooden, W. H., II; Long, A. C.

1977-01-01

This paper discusses the potential of using the Global Positioning System (GPS) to provide autonomous navigation capability to NASA satellites in the 1980 era. Some of the driving forces motivating autonomous navigation are presented. These include such factors as advances in attitude control systems, onboard science annotation, and onboard gridding of imaging data. Simulation results which demonstrate baseline orbit determination accuracies using GPS data on Seasat, Landsat-D, and the Solar Maximum Mission are presented. Emphasis is placed on identifying error sources such as GPS time, GPS ephemeris, user timing biases, and user orbit dynamics, and in a parametric sense on evaluating their contribution to the orbit determination accuracies.

Neuromodulation as a Robot Controller: A Brain Inspired Strategy for Controlling Autonomous Robots

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-09-01

To Appear in IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine PREPRINT 1 Neuromodulation as a Robot Controller: A Brain Inspired Strategy for Controlling...Introduction We present a strategy for controlling autonomous robots that is based on principles of neuromodulation in the mammalian brain...object, ignore irrelevant distractions, and respond quickly and appropriately to the event [1]. There are separate neuromodulators that alter responses to

Neural Network-Based Landmark Recognition and Navigation with IAMRs. Understanding the Principles of Thought and Behavior.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Doty, Keith L.

1999-01-01

Research on neural networks and hippocampal function demonstrating how mammals construct mental maps and develop navigation strategies is being used to create Intelligent Autonomous Mobile Robots (IAMRs). Such robots are able to recognize landmarks and navigate without "vision." (SK)

Visual Odometry for Autonomous Deep-Space Navigation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Robinson, Shane; Pedrotty, Sam

2016-01-01

Visual Odometry fills two critical needs shared by all future exploration architectures considered by NASA: Autonomous Rendezvous and Docking (AR&D), and autonomous navigation during loss of comm. To do this, a camera is combined with cutting-edge algorithms (called Visual Odometry) into a unit that provides accurate relative pose between the camera and the object in the imagery. Recent simulation analyses have demonstrated the ability of this new technology to reliably, accurately, and quickly compute a relative pose. This project advances this technology by both preparing the system to process flight imagery and creating an activity to capture said imagery. This technology can provide a pioneering optical navigation platform capable of supporting a wide variety of future missions scenarios: deep space rendezvous, asteroid exploration, loss-of-comm.

Navigation and Robotics in Spinal Surgery: Where Are We Now?

PubMed

Overley, Samuel C; Cho, Samuel K; Mehta, Ankit I; Arnold, Paul M

2017-03-01

Spine surgery has experienced much technological innovation over the past several decades. The field has seen advancements in operative techniques, implants and biologics, and equipment such as computer-assisted navigation and surgical robotics. With the arrival of real-time image guidance and navigation capabilities along with the computing ability to process and reconstruct these data into an interactive three-dimensional spinal "map", so too have the applications of surgical robotic technology. While spinal robotics and navigation represent promising potential for improving modern spinal surgery, it remains paramount to demonstrate its superiority as compared to traditional techniques prior to assimilation of its use amongst surgeons.The applications for intraoperative navigation and image-guided robotics have expanded to surgical resection of spinal column and intradural tumors, revision procedures on arthrodesed spines, and deformity cases with distorted anatomy. Additionally, these platforms may mitigate much of the harmful radiation exposure in minimally invasive surgery to which the patient, surgeon, and ancillary operating room staff are subjected.Spine surgery relies upon meticulous fine motor skills to manipulate neural elements and a steady hand while doing so, often exploiting small working corridors utilizing exposures that minimize collateral damage. Additionally, the procedures may be long and arduous, predisposing the surgeon to both mental and physical fatigue. In light of these characteristics, spine surgery may actually be an ideal candidate for the integration of navigation and robotic-assisted procedures.With this paper, we aim to critically evaluate the current literature and explore the options available for intraoperative navigation and robotic-assisted spine surgery. Copyright © 2016 by the Congress of Neurological Surgeons.

Development of a semi-autonomous service robot with telerobotic capabilities

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jones, J. E.; White, D. R.

1987-01-01

The importance to the United States of semi-autonomous systems for application to a large number of manufacturing and service processes is very clear. Two principal reasons emerge as the primary driving forces for development of such systems: enhanced national productivity and operation in environments whch are hazardous to humans. Completely autonomous systems may not currently be economically feasible. However, autonomous systems that operate in a limited operation domain or that are supervised by humans are within the technology capability of this decade and will likely provide reasonable return on investment. The two research and development efforts of autonomy and telerobotics are distinctly different, yet interconnected. The first addresses the communication of an intelligent electronic system with a robot while the second requires human communication and ergonomic consideration. Discussed here are work in robotic control, human/robot team implementation, expert system robot operation, and sensor development by the American Welding Institute, MTS Systems Corporation, and the Colorado School of Mines--Center for Welding Research.

Autonomous learning in humanoid robotics through mental imagery.

PubMed

Di Nuovo, Alessandro G; Marocco, Davide; Di Nuovo, Santo; Cangelosi, Angelo

2013-05-01

In this paper we focus on modeling autonomous learning to improve performance of a humanoid robot through a modular artificial neural networks architecture. A model of a neural controller is presented, which allows a humanoid robot iCub to autonomously improve its sensorimotor skills. This is achieved by endowing the neural controller with a secondary neural system that, by exploiting the sensorimotor skills already acquired by the robot, is able to generate additional imaginary examples that can be used by the controller itself to improve the performance through a simulated mental training. Results and analysis presented in the paper provide evidence of the viability of the approach proposed and help to clarify the rational behind the chosen model and its implementation. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

An Efficient Model-Based Image Understanding Method for an Autonomous Vehicle.

DTIC Science & Technology

1997-09-01

The problem discussed in this dissertation is the development of an efficient method for visual navigation of autonomous vehicles . The approach is to... autonomous vehicles . Thus the new method is implemented as a component of the image-understanding system in the autonomous mobile robot Yamabico-11 at

Adding navigation, artificial audition and vital sign monitoring capabilities to a telepresence mobile robot for remote home care applications.

PubMed

Laniel, Sebastien; Letourneau, Dominic; Labbe, Mathieu; Grondin, Francois; Polgar, Janice; Michaud, Francois

2017-07-01

A telepresence mobile robot is a remote-controlled, wheeled device with wireless internet connectivity for bidirectional audio, video and data transmission. In health care, a telepresence robot could be used to have a clinician or a caregiver assist seniors in their homes without having to travel to these locations. Many mobile telepresence robotic platforms have recently been introduced on the market, bringing mobility to telecommunication and vital sign monitoring at reasonable costs. What is missing for making them effective remote telepresence systems for home care assistance are capabilities specifically needed to assist the remote operator in controlling the robot and perceiving the environment through the robot's sensors or, in other words, minimizing cognitive load and maximizing situation awareness. This paper describes our approach adding navigation, artificial audition and vital sign monitoring capabilities to a commercially available telepresence mobile robot. This requires the use of a robot control architecture to integrate the autonomous and teleoperation capabilities of the platform.

Vision Based Autonomous Robotic Control for Advanced Inspection and Repair

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wehner, Walter S.

2014-01-01

The advanced inspection system is an autonomous control and analysis system that improves the inspection and remediation operations for ground and surface systems. It uses optical imaging technology with intelligent computer vision algorithms to analyze physical features of the real-world environment to make decisions and learn from experience. The advanced inspection system plans to control a robotic manipulator arm, an unmanned ground vehicle and cameras remotely, automatically and autonomously. There are many computer vision, image processing and machine learning techniques available as open source for using vision as a sensory feedback in decision-making and autonomous robotic movement. My responsibilities for the advanced inspection system are to create a software architecture that integrates and provides a framework for all the different subsystem components; identify open-source algorithms and techniques; and integrate robot hardware.

Electromagnetic navigational bronchoscopy and robotic-assisted thoracic surgery.

PubMed

Christie, Sara

2014-06-01

With the use of electromagnetic navigational bronchoscopy and robotics, lung lesions can be diagnosed and resected during one surgical procedure. Global positioning system technology allows surgeons to identify and mark a thoracic tumor, and then robotics technology allows them to perform minimally invasive resection and cancer staging procedures. Nurses on the perioperative robotics team must consider the logistics of providing safe and competent care when performing combined procedures during one surgical encounter. Instrumentation, OR organization and room setup, and patient positioning are important factors to consider to complete the procedure systematically and efficiently. This revolutionary concept of combining navigational bronchoscopy with robotics requires a team of dedicated nurses to facilitate the sequence of events essential for providing optimal patient outcomes in highly advanced surgical procedures. Copyright © 2014 AORN, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-11

Team KuuKulgur waits to begin the level one challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Autonomous vision-based navigation for proximity operations around binary asteroids

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gil-Fernandez, Jesus; Ortega-Hernando, Guillermo

2018-02-01

Future missions to small bodies demand higher level of autonomy in the Guidance, Navigation and Control system for higher scientific return and lower operational costs. Different navigation strategies have been assessed for ESA's asteroid impact mission (AIM). The main objective of AIM is the detailed characterization of binary asteroid Didymos. The trajectories for the proximity operations shall be intrinsically safe, i.e., no collision in presence of failures (e.g., spacecraft entering safe mode), perturbations (e.g., non-spherical gravity field), and errors (e.g., maneuver execution error). Hyperbolic arcs with sufficient hyperbolic excess velocity are designed to fulfil the safety, scientific, and operational requirements. The trajectory relative to the asteroid is determined using visual camera images. The ground-based trajectory prediction error at some points is comparable to the camera Field Of View (FOV). Therefore, some images do not contain the entire asteroid. Autonomous navigation can update the state of the spacecraft relative to the asteroid at higher frequency. The objective of the autonomous navigation is to improve the on-board knowledge compared to the ground prediction. The algorithms shall fit in off-the-shelf, space-qualified avionics. This note presents suitable image processing and relative-state filter algorithms for autonomous navigation in proximity operations around binary asteroids.

Autonomous vision-based navigation for proximity operations around binary asteroids

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gil-Fernandez, Jesus; Ortega-Hernando, Guillermo

2018-06-01

Future missions to small bodies demand higher level of autonomy in the Guidance, Navigation and Control system for higher scientific return and lower operational costs. Different navigation strategies have been assessed for ESA's asteroid impact mission (AIM). The main objective of AIM is the detailed characterization of binary asteroid Didymos. The trajectories for the proximity operations shall be intrinsically safe, i.e., no collision in presence of failures (e.g., spacecraft entering safe mode), perturbations (e.g., non-spherical gravity field), and errors (e.g., maneuver execution error). Hyperbolic arcs with sufficient hyperbolic excess velocity are designed to fulfil the safety, scientific, and operational requirements. The trajectory relative to the asteroid is determined using visual camera images. The ground-based trajectory prediction error at some points is comparable to the camera Field Of View (FOV). Therefore, some images do not contain the entire asteroid. Autonomous navigation can update the state of the spacecraft relative to the asteroid at higher frequency. The objective of the autonomous navigation is to improve the on-board knowledge compared to the ground prediction. The algorithms shall fit in off-the-shelf, space-qualified avionics. This note presents suitable image processing and relative-state filter algorithms for autonomous navigation in proximity operations around binary asteroids.

Object recognition for autonomous robot utilizing distributed knowledge database

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Takatori, Jiro; Suzuki, Kenji; Hartono, Pitoyo; Hashimoto, Shuji

2003-10-01

In this paper we present a novel method of object recognition utilizing a remote knowledge database for an autonomous robot. The developed robot has three robot arms with different sensors; two CCD cameras and haptic sensors. It can see, touch and move the target object from different directions. Referring to remote knowledge database of geometry and material, the robot observes and handles the objects to understand them including their physical characteristics.

Autonomous Navigation for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles Based on Information Filters and Active Sensing

PubMed Central

He, Bo; Zhang, Hongjin; Li, Chao; Zhang, Shujing; Liang, Yan; Yan, Tianhong

2011-01-01

This paper addresses an autonomous navigation method for the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) C-Ranger applying information-filter-based simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), and its sea trial experiments in Tuandao Bay (Shangdong Province, P.R. China). Weak links in the information matrix in an extended information filter (EIF) can be pruned to achieve an efficient approach-sparse EIF algorithm (SEIF-SLAM). All the basic update formulae can be implemented in constant time irrespective of the size of the map; hence the computational complexity is significantly reduced. The mechanical scanning imaging sonar is chosen as the active sensing device for the underwater vehicle, and a compensation method based on feedback of the AUV pose is presented to overcome distortion of the acoustic images due to the vehicle motion. In order to verify the feasibility of the navigation methods proposed for the C-Ranger, a sea trial was conducted in Tuandao Bay. Experimental results and analysis show that the proposed navigation approach based on SEIF-SLAM improves the accuracy of the navigation compared with conventional method; moreover the algorithm has a low computational cost when compared with EKF-SLAM. PMID:22346682

Autonomous navigation for autonomous underwater vehicles based on information filters and active sensing.

PubMed

He, Bo; Zhang, Hongjin; Li, Chao; Zhang, Shujing; Liang, Yan; Yan, Tianhong

2011-01-01

This paper addresses an autonomous navigation method for the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) C-Ranger applying information-filter-based simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), and its sea trial experiments in Tuandao Bay (Shangdong Province, P.R. China). Weak links in the information matrix in an extended information filter (EIF) can be pruned to achieve an efficient approach-sparse EIF algorithm (SEIF-SLAM). All the basic update formulae can be implemented in constant time irrespective of the size of the map; hence the computational complexity is significantly reduced. The mechanical scanning imaging sonar is chosen as the active sensing device for the underwater vehicle, and a compensation method based on feedback of the AUV pose is presented to overcome distortion of the acoustic images due to the vehicle motion. In order to verify the feasibility of the navigation methods proposed for the C-Ranger, a sea trial was conducted in Tuandao Bay. Experimental results and analysis show that the proposed navigation approach based on SEIF-SLAM improves the accuracy of the navigation compared with conventional method; moreover the algorithm has a low computational cost when compared with EKF-SLAM.

Precise laser gyroscope for autonomous inertial navigation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kuznetsov, A G; Molchanov, A V; Izmailov, E A

2015-01-31

Requirements to gyroscopes of strapdown inertial navigation systems for aircraft application are formulated. The construction of a ring helium – neon laser designed for autonomous navigation is described. The processes that determine the laser service life and the relation between the random error of the angular velocity measurement and the surface relief features of the cavity mirrors are analysed. The results of modelling one of the promising approaches to processing the laser gyroscope signals are presented. (laser gyroscopes)

Merge Fuzzy Visual Servoing and GPS-Based Planning to Obtain a Proper Navigation Behavior for a Small Crop-Inspection Robot.

PubMed

Bengochea-Guevara, José M; Conesa-Muñoz, Jesus; Andújar, Dionisio; Ribeiro, Angela

2016-02-24

The concept of precision agriculture, which proposes farming management adapted to crop variability, has emerged in recent years. To effectively implement precision agriculture, data must be gathered from the field in an automated manner at minimal cost. In this study, a small autonomous field inspection vehicle was developed to minimise the impact of the scouting on the crop and soil compaction. The proposed approach integrates a camera with a GPS receiver to obtain a set of basic behaviours required of an autonomous mobile robot to inspect a crop field with full coverage. A path planner considered the field contour and the crop type to determine the best inspection route. An image-processing method capable of extracting the central crop row under uncontrolled lighting conditions in real time from images acquired with a reflex camera positioned on the front of the robot was developed. Two fuzzy controllers were also designed and developed to achieve vision-guided navigation. A method for detecting the end of a crop row using camera-acquired images was developed. In addition, manoeuvres necessary for the robot to change rows were established. These manoeuvres enabled the robot to autonomously cover the entire crop by following a previously established plan and without stepping on the crop row, which is an essential behaviour for covering crops such as maize without damaging them.

Merge Fuzzy Visual Servoing and GPS-Based Planning to Obtain a Proper Navigation Behavior for a Small Crop-Inspection Robot

PubMed Central

Bengochea-Guevara, José M.; Conesa-Muñoz, Jesus; Andújar, Dionisio; Ribeiro, Angela

2016-01-01

The concept of precision agriculture, which proposes farming management adapted to crop variability, has emerged in recent years. To effectively implement precision agriculture, data must be gathered from the field in an automated manner at minimal cost. In this study, a small autonomous field inspection vehicle was developed to minimise the impact of the scouting on the crop and soil compaction. The proposed approach integrates a camera with a GPS receiver to obtain a set of basic behaviours required of an autonomous mobile robot to inspect a crop field with full coverage. A path planner considered the field contour and the crop type to determine the best inspection route. An image-processing method capable of extracting the central crop row under uncontrolled lighting conditions in real time from images acquired with a reflex camera positioned on the front of the robot was developed. Two fuzzy controllers were also designed and developed to achieve vision-guided navigation. A method for detecting the end of a crop row using camera-acquired images was developed. In addition, manoeuvres necessary for the robot to change rows were established. These manoeuvres enabled the robot to autonomously cover the entire crop by following a previously established plan and without stepping on the crop row, which is an essential behaviour for covering crops such as maize without damaging them. PMID:26927102

Perception for mobile robot navigation: A survey of the state of the art

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kortenkamp, David

1994-01-01

In order for mobile robots to navigate safely in unmapped and dynamic environments they must perceive their environment and decide on actions based on those perceptions. There are many different sensing modalities that can be used for mobile robot perception; the two most popular are ultrasonic sonar sensors and vision sensors. This paper examines the state-of-the-art in sensory-based mobile robot navigation. The first issue in mobile robot navigation is safety. This paper summarizes several competing sonar-based obstacle avoidance techniques and compares them. Another issue in mobile robot navigation is determining the robot's position and orientation (sometimes called the robot's pose) in the environment. This paper examines several different classes of vision-based approaches to pose determination. One class of approaches uses detailed, a prior models of the robot's environment. Another class of approaches triangulates using fixed, artificial landmarks. A third class of approaches builds maps using natural landmarks. Example implementations from each of these three classes are described and compared. Finally, the paper presents a completely implemented mobile robot system that integrates sonar-based obstacle avoidance with vision-based pose determination to perform a simple task.

An Autonomous Navigation Algorithm for High Orbit Satellite Using Star Sensor and Ultraviolet Earth Sensor

PubMed Central

Baohua, Li; Wenjie, Lai; Yun, Chen; Zongming, Liu

2013-01-01

An autonomous navigation algorithm using the sensor that integrated the star sensor (FOV1) and ultraviolet earth sensor (FOV2) is presented. The star images are sampled by FOV1, and the ultraviolet earth images are sampled by the FOV2. The star identification algorithm and star tracking algorithm are executed at FOV1. Then, the optical axis direction of FOV1 at J2000.0 coordinate system is calculated. The ultraviolet image of earth is sampled by FOV2. The center vector of earth at FOV2 coordinate system is calculated with the coordinates of ultraviolet earth. The autonomous navigation data of satellite are calculated by integrated sensor with the optical axis direction of FOV1 and the center vector of earth from FOV2. The position accuracy of the autonomous navigation for satellite is improved from 1000 meters to 300 meters. And the velocity accuracy of the autonomous navigation for satellite is improved from 100 m/s to 20 m/s. At the same time, the period sine errors of the autonomous navigation for satellite are eliminated. The autonomous navigation for satellite with a sensor that integrated ultraviolet earth sensor and star sensor is well robust. PMID:24250261

An autonomous navigation algorithm for high orbit satellite using star sensor and ultraviolet earth sensor.

PubMed

Baohua, Li; Wenjie, Lai; Yun, Chen; Zongming, Liu

2013-01-01

An autonomous navigation algorithm using the sensor that integrated the star sensor (FOV1) and ultraviolet earth sensor (FOV2) is presented. The star images are sampled by FOV1, and the ultraviolet earth images are sampled by the FOV2. The star identification algorithm and star tracking algorithm are executed at FOV1. Then, the optical axis direction of FOV1 at J2000.0 coordinate system is calculated. The ultraviolet image of earth is sampled by FOV2. The center vector of earth at FOV2 coordinate system is calculated with the coordinates of ultraviolet earth. The autonomous navigation data of satellite are calculated by integrated sensor with the optical axis direction of FOV1 and the center vector of earth from FOV2. The position accuracy of the autonomous navigation for satellite is improved from 1000 meters to 300 meters. And the velocity accuracy of the autonomous navigation for satellite is improved from 100 m/s to 20 m/s. At the same time, the period sine errors of the autonomous navigation for satellite are eliminated. The autonomous navigation for satellite with a sensor that integrated ultraviolet earth sensor and star sensor is well robust.

New vision system and navigation algorithm for an autonomous ground vehicle

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tann, Hokchhay; Shakya, Bicky; Merchen, Alex C.; Williams, Benjamin C.; Khanal, Abhishek; Zhao, Jiajia; Ahlgren, David J.

2013-12-01

Improvements were made to the intelligence algorithms of an autonomously operating ground vehicle, Q, which competed in the 2013 Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC). The IGVC required the vehicle to first navigate between two white lines on a grassy obstacle course, then pass through eight GPS waypoints, and pass through a final obstacle field. Modifications to Q included a new vision system with a more effective image processing algorithm for white line extraction. The path-planning algorithm adopted the vision system, creating smoother, more reliable navigation. With these improvements, Q successfully completed the basic autonomous navigation challenge, finishing tenth out of over 50 teams.

Semi autonomous mine detection system

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Douglas Few; Roelof Versteeg; Herman Herman

2010-04-01

CMMAD is a risk reduction effort for the AMDS program. As part of CMMAD, multiple instances of semi autonomous robotic mine detection systems were created. Each instance consists of a robotic vehicle equipped with sensors required for navigation and marking, a countermine sensors and a number of integrated software packages which provide for real time processing of the countermine sensor data as well as integrated control of the robotic vehicle, the sensor actuator and the sensor. These systems were used to investigate critical interest functions (CIF) related to countermine robotic systems. To address the autonomy CIF, the INL developed RIKmore » was extended to allow for interaction with a mine sensor processing code (MSPC). In limited field testing this system performed well in detecting, marking and avoiding both AT and AP mines. Based on the results of the CMMAD investigation we conclude that autonomous robotic mine detection is feasible. In addition, CMMAD contributed critical technical advances with regard to sensing, data processing and sensor manipulation, which will advance the performance of future fieldable systems. As a result, no substantial technical barriers exist which preclude – from an autonomous robotic perspective – the rapid development and deployment of fieldable systems.« less

From self-assessment to frustration, a small step toward autonomy in robotic navigation

PubMed Central

Jauffret, Adrien; Cuperlier, Nicolas; Tarroux, Philippe; Gaussier, Philippe

2013-01-01

Autonomy and self-improvement capabilities are still challenging in the fields of robotics and machine learning. Allowing a robot to autonomously navigate in wide and unknown environments not only requires a repertoire of robust strategies to cope with miscellaneous situations, but also needs mechanisms of self-assessment for guiding learning and for monitoring strategies. Monitoring strategies requires feedbacks on the behavior's quality, from a given fitness system in order to take correct decisions. In this work, we focus on how a second-order controller can be used to (1) manage behaviors according to the situation and (2) seek for human interactions to improve skills. Following an incremental and constructivist approach, we present a generic neural architecture, based on an on-line novelty detection algorithm that may be able to self-evaluate any sensory-motor strategies. This architecture learns contingencies between sensations and actions, giving the expected sensation from the previous perception. Prediction error, coming from surprising events, provides a measure of the quality of the underlying sensory-motor contingencies. We show how a simple second-order controller (emotional system) based on the prediction progress allows the system to regulate its behavior to solve complex navigation tasks and also succeeds in asking for help if it detects dead-lock situations. We propose that this model could be a key structure toward self-assessment and autonomy. We made several experiments that can account for such properties for two different strategies (road following and place cells based navigation) in different situations. PMID:24115931

Autonomous stair-climbing with miniature jumping robots.

PubMed

Stoeter, Sascha A; Papanikolopoulos, Nikolaos

2005-04-01

The problem of vision-guided control of miniature mobile robots is investigated. Untethered mobile robots with small physical dimensions of around 10 cm or less do not permit powerful onboard computers because of size and power constraints. These challenges have, in the past, reduced the functionality of such devices to that of a complex remote control vehicle with fancy sensors. With the help of a computationally more powerful entity such as a larger companion robot, the control loop can be closed. Using the miniature robot's video transmission or that of an observer to localize it in the world, control commands can be computed and relayed to the inept robot. The result is a system that exhibits autonomous capabilities. The framework presented here solves the problem of climbing stairs with the miniature Scout robot. The robot's unique locomotion mode, the jump, is employed to hop one step at a time. Methods for externally tracking the Scout are developed. A large number of real-world experiments are conducted and the results discussed.

Autonomous Rovers for Polar Science Campaigns

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lever, J. H.; Ray, L. E.; Williams, R. M.; Morlock, A. M.; Burzynski, A. M.

2012-12-01

We have developed and deployed two over-snow autonomous rovers able to conduct remote science campaigns on Polar ice sheets. Yeti is an 80-kg, four-wheel-drive (4WD) battery-powered robot with 3 - 4 hr endurance, and Cool Robot is a 60-kg 4WD solar-powered robot with unlimited endurance during Polar summers. Both robots navigate using GPS waypoint-following to execute pre-planned courses autonomously, and they can each carry or tow 20 - 160 kg instrument payloads over typically firm Polar snowfields. In 2008 - 12, we deployed Yeti to conduct autonomous ground-penetrating radar (GPR) surveys to detect hidden crevasses to help establish safe routes for overland resupply of research stations at South Pole, Antarctica, and Summit, Greenland. We also deployed Yeti with GPR at South Pole in 2011 to identify the locations of potentially hazardous buried buildings from the original 1950's-era station. Autonomous surveys remove personnel from safety risks posed during manual GPR surveys by undetected crevasses or buried buildings. Furthermore, autonomous surveys can yield higher quality and more comprehensive data than manual ones: Yeti's low ground pressure (20 kPa) allows it to cross thinly bridged crevasses or other voids without interrupting a survey, and well-defined survey grids allow repeated detection of buried voids to improve detection reliability and map their extent. To improve survey efficiency, we have automated the mapping of detected hazards, currently identified via post-survey manual review of the GPR data. Additionally, we are developing machine-learning algorithms to detect crevasses autonomously in real time, with reliability potentially higher than manual real-time detection. These algorithms will enable the rover to relay crevasse locations to a base station for near real-time mapping and decision-making. We deployed Cool Robot at Summit Station in 2005 to verify its mobility and power budget over Polar snowfields. Using solar power, this zero

Bio-robots automatic navigation with graded electric reward stimulation based on Reinforcement Learning.

PubMed

Zhang, Chen; Sun, Chao; Gao, Liqiang; Zheng, Nenggan; Chen, Weidong; Zheng, Xiaoxiang

2013-01-01

Bio-robots based on brain computer interface (BCI) suffer from the lack of considering the characteristic of the animals in navigation. This paper proposed a new method for bio-robots' automatic navigation combining the reward generating algorithm base on Reinforcement Learning (RL) with the learning intelligence of animals together. Given the graded electrical reward, the animal e.g. the rat, intends to seek the maximum reward while exploring an unknown environment. Since the rat has excellent spatial recognition, the rat-robot and the RL algorithm can convergent to an optimal route by co-learning. This work has significant inspiration for the practical development of bio-robots' navigation with hybrid intelligence.

Guidance and Navigation Software Architecture Design for the Autonomous Multi-Agent Physically Interacting Spacecraft (AMPHIS) Test Bed

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-12-01

NAVIGATION SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE DESIGN FOR THE AUTONOMOUS MULTI-AGENT PHYSICALLY INTERACTING SPACECRAFT (AMPHIS) TEST BED by Blake D. Eikenberry...Engineer Degree 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE Guidance and Navigation Software Architecture Design for the Autonomous Multi- Agent Physically Interacting...iii Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited GUIDANCE AND NAVIGATION SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE DESIGN FOR THE AUTONOMOUS MULTI

Mapping planetary caves with an autonomous, heterogeneous robot team

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Husain, Ammar; Jones, Heather; Kannan, Balajee; Wong, Uland; Pimentel, Tiago; Tang, Sarah; Daftry, Shreyansh; Huber, Steven; Whittaker, William L.

Caves on other planetary bodies offer sheltered habitat for future human explorers and numerous clues to a planet's past for scientists. While recent orbital imagery provides exciting new details about cave entrances on the Moon and Mars, the interiors of these caves are still unknown and not observable from orbit. Multi-robot teams offer unique solutions for exploration and modeling subsurface voids during precursor missions. Robot teams that are diverse in terms of size, mobility, sensing, and capability can provide great advantages, but this diversity, coupled with inherently distinct low-level behavior architectures, makes coordination a challenge. This paper presents a framework that consists of an autonomous frontier and capability-based task generator, a distributed market-based strategy for coordinating and allocating tasks to the different team members, and a communication paradigm for seamless interaction between the different robots in the system. Robots have different sensors, (in the representative robot team used for testing: 2D mapping sensors, 3D modeling sensors, or no exteroceptive sensors), and varying levels of mobility. Tasks are generated to explore, model, and take science samples. Based on an individual robot's capability and associated cost for executing a generated task, a robot is autonomously selected for task execution. The robots create coarse online maps and store collected data for high resolution offline modeling. The coordination approach has been field tested at a mock cave site with highly-unstructured natural terrain, as well as an outdoor patio area. Initial results are promising for applicability of the proposed multi-robot framework to exploration and modeling of planetary caves.

Calibration Of An Omnidirectional Vision Navigation System Using An Industrial Robot

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Oh, Sung J.; Hall, Ernest L.

1989-09-01

The characteristics of an omnidirectional vision navigation system were studied to determine position accuracy for the navigation and path control of a mobile robot. Experiments for calibration and other parameters were performed using an industrial robot to conduct repetitive motions. The accuracy and repeatability of the experimental setup and the alignment between the robot and the sensor provided errors of less than 1 pixel on each axis. Linearity between zenith angle and image location was tested at four different locations. Angular error of less than 1° and radial error of less than 1 pixel were observed at moderate speed variations. The experimental information and the test of coordinated operation of the equipment provide understanding of characteristics as well as insight into the evaluation and improvement of the prototype dynamic omnivision system. The calibration of the sensor is important since the accuracy of navigation influences the accuracy of robot motion. This sensor system is currently being developed for a robot lawn mower; however, wider applications are obvious. The significance of this work is that it adds to the knowledge of the omnivision sensor.

HERMIES-3: A step toward autonomous mobility, manipulation, and perception

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Weisbin, C. R.; Burks, B. L.; Einstein, J. R.; Feezell, R. R.; Manges, W. W.; Thompson, D. H.

1989-01-01

HERMIES-III is an autonomous robot comprised of a seven degree-of-freedom (DOF) manipulator designed for human scale tasks, a laser range finder, a sonar array, an omni-directional wheel-driven chassis, multiple cameras, and a dual computer system containing a 16-node hypercube expandable to 128 nodes. The current experimental program involves performance of human-scale tasks (e.g., valve manipulation, use of tools), integration of a dexterous manipulator and platform motion in geometrically complex environments, and effective use of multiple cooperating robots (HERMIES-IIB and HERMIES-III). The environment in which the robots operate has been designed to include multiple valves, pipes, meters, obstacles on the floor, valves occluded from view, and multiple paths of differing navigation complexity. The ongoing research program supports the development of autonomous capability for HERMIES-IIB and III to perform complex navigation and manipulation under time constraints, while dealing with imprecise sensory information.

Development Of Autonomous Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kanade, Takeo

1989-03-01

In the last several years at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University, we have been working on two projects for developing autonomous systems: Nablab for Autonomous Land Vehicle and Ambler for Mars Rover. These two systems are for different purposes: the Navlab is a four-wheeled vehicle (van) for road and open terrain navigation, and the Ambler is a six-legged locomotor for Mars exploration. The two projects, however, share many common aspects. Both are large-scale integrated systems for navigation. In addition to the development of individual components (eg., construction and control of the vehicle, vision and perception, and planning), integration of those component technologies into a system by means of an appropriate architecture is a major issue.

Behavior-based multi-robot collaboration for autonomous construction tasks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Stroupe, Ashley; Huntsberger, Terry; Okon, Avi; Aghazarian, Hrand; Robinson, Matthew

2005-01-01

The Robot Construction Crew (RCC) is a heterogeneous multi-robot system for autonomous construction of a structure through assembly of Long components. The two robot team demonstrates component placement into an existing structure in a realistic environment. The task requires component acquisition, cooperative transport, and cooperative precision manipulation. A behavior-based architecture provides adaptability. The RCC approach minimizes computation, power, communication, and sensing for applicability to space-related construction efforts, but the techniques are applicable to terrestrial construction tasks.

GNC architecture for autonomous robotic capture of a non-cooperative target: Preliminary concept design

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jankovic, Marko; Paul, Jan; Kirchner, Frank

2016-04-01

Recent studies of the space debris population in low Earth orbit (LEO) have concluded that certain regions have already reached a critical density of objects. This will eventually lead to a cascading process called the Kessler syndrome. The time may have come to seriously consider active debris removal (ADR) missions as the only viable way of preserving the space environment for future generations. Among all objects in the current environment, the SL-8 (Kosmos 3M second stages) rocket bodies (R/Bs) are some of the most suitable targets for future robotic ADR missions. However, to date, an autonomous relative navigation to and capture of an non-cooperative target has never been performed. Therefore, there is a need for more advanced, autonomous and modular systems that can cope with uncontrolled, tumbling objects. The guidance, navigation and control (GNC) system is one of the most critical ones. The main objective of this paper is to present a preliminary concept of a modular GNC architecture that should enable a safe and fuel-efficient capture of a known but uncooperative target, such as Kosmos 3M R/B. In particular, the concept was developed having in mind the most critical part of an ADR mission, i.e. close range proximity operations, and state of the art algorithms in the field of autonomous rendezvous and docking. In the end, a brief description of the hardware in the loop (HIL) testing facility is made, foreseen for the practical evaluation of the developed architecture.

Solving Navigational Uncertainty Using Grid Cells on Robots

PubMed Central

Milford, Michael J.; Wiles, Janet; Wyeth, Gordon F.

2010-01-01

To successfully navigate their habitats, many mammals use a combination of two mechanisms, path integration and calibration using landmarks, which together enable them to estimate their location and orientation, or pose. In large natural environments, both these mechanisms are characterized by uncertainty: the path integration process is subject to the accumulation of error, while landmark calibration is limited by perceptual ambiguity. It remains unclear how animals form coherent spatial representations in the presence of such uncertainty. Navigation research using robots has determined that uncertainty can be effectively addressed by maintaining multiple probabilistic estimates of a robot's pose. Here we show how conjunctive grid cells in dorsocaudal medial entorhinal cortex (dMEC) may maintain multiple estimates of pose using a brain-based robot navigation system known as RatSLAM. Based both on rodent spatially-responsive cells and functional engineering principles, the cells at the core of the RatSLAM computational model have similar characteristics to rodent grid cells, which we demonstrate by replicating the seminal Moser experiments. We apply the RatSLAM model to a new experimental paradigm designed to examine the responses of a robot or animal in the presence of perceptual ambiguity. Our computational approach enables us to observe short-term population coding of multiple location hypotheses, a phenomenon which would not be easily observable in rodent recordings. We present behavioral and neural evidence demonstrating that the conjunctive grid cells maintain and propagate multiple estimates of pose, enabling the correct pose estimate to be resolved over time even without uniquely identifying cues. While recent research has focused on the grid-like firing characteristics, accuracy and representational capacity of grid cells, our results identify a possible critical and unique role for conjunctive grid cells in filtering sensory uncertainty. We anticipate our

A design strategy for autonomous systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Forster, Pete

1989-01-01

Some solutions to crucial issues regarding the competent performance of an autonomously operating robot are identified; namely, that of handling multiple and variable data sources containing overlapping information and maintaining coherent operation while responding adequately to changes in the environment. Support for the ideas developed for the construction of such behavior are extracted from speculations in the study of cognitive psychology, an understanding of the behavior of controlled mechanisms, and the development of behavior-based robots in a few robot research laboratories. The validity of these ideas is supported by some simple simulation experiments in the field of mobile robot navigation and guidance.

Autonomous GPS/INS navigation experiment for Space Transfer Vehicle

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Upadhyay, Triveni N.; Cotterill, Stephen; Deaton, A. W.

1993-01-01

An experiment to validate the concept of developing an autonomous integrated spacecraft navigation system using on board Global Positioning System (GPS) and Inertial Navigation System (INS) measurements is described. The feasibility of integrating GPS measurements with INS measurements to provide a total improvement in spacecraft navigation performance, i.e. improvement in position, velocity and attitude information, was previously demonstrated. An important aspect of this research is the automatic real time reconfiguration capability of the system designed to respond to changes in a spacecraft mission under the control of an expert system.

Autonomous GPS/INS navigation experiment for Space Transfer Vehicle

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Upadhyay, Triveni N.; Cotterill, Stephen; Deaton, A. W.

1993-07-01

An experiment to validate the concept of developing an autonomous integrated spacecraft navigation system using on board Global Positioning System (GPS) and Inertial Navigation System (INS) measurements is described. The feasibility of integrating GPS measurements with INS measurements to provide a total improvement in spacecraft navigation performance, i.e. improvement in position, velocity and attitude information, was previously demonstrated. An important aspect of this research is the automatic real time reconfiguration capability of the system designed to respond to changes in a spacecraft mission under the control of an expert system.

Rice-obot 1: An intelligent autonomous mobile robot

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Defigueiredo, R.; Ciscon, L.; Berberian, D.

1989-01-01

The Rice-obot I is the first in a series of Intelligent Autonomous Mobile Robots (IAMRs) being developed at Rice University's Cooperative Intelligent Mobile Robots (CIMR) lab. The Rice-obot I is mainly designed to be a testbed for various robotic and AI techniques, and a platform for developing intelligent control systems for exploratory robots. Researchers present the need for a generalized environment capable of combining all of the control, sensory and knowledge systems of an IAMR. They introduce Lisp-Nodes as such a system, and develop the basic concepts of nodes, messages and classes. Furthermore, they show how the control system of the Rice-obot I is implemented as sub-systems in Lisp-Nodes.

Draper Laboratory small autonomous aerial vehicle

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

DeBitetto, Paul A.; Johnson, Eric N.; Bosse, Michael C.; Trott, Christian A.

1997-06-01

The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc. and students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston University have cooperated to develop an autonomous aerial vehicle that won the 1996 International Aerial Robotics Competition. This paper describes the approach, system architecture and subsystem designs for the entry. This entry represents a combination of many technology areas: navigation, guidance, control, vision processing, human factors, packaging, power, real-time software, and others. The aerial vehicle, an autonomous helicopter, performs navigation and control functions using multiple sensors: differential GPS, inertial measurement unit, sonar altimeter, and a flux compass. The aerial transmits video imagery to the ground. A ground based vision processor converts the image data into target position and classification estimates. The system was designed, built, and flown in less than one year and has provided many lessons about autonomous vehicle systems, several of which are discussed. In an appendix, our current research in augmenting the navigation system with vision- based estimates is presented.

Artificial consciousness, artificial emotions, and autonomous robots.

PubMed

Cardon, Alain

2006-12-01

Nowadays for robots, the notion of behavior is reduced to a simple factual concept at the level of the movements. On another hand, consciousness is a very cultural concept, founding the main property of human beings, according to themselves. We propose to develop a computable transposition of the consciousness concepts into artificial brains, able to express emotions and consciousness facts. The production of such artificial brains allows the intentional and really adaptive behavior for the autonomous robots. Such a system managing the robot's behavior will be made of two parts: the first one computes and generates, in a constructivist manner, a representation for the robot moving in its environment, and using symbols and concepts. The other part achieves the representation of the previous one using morphologies in a dynamic geometrical way. The robot's body will be seen for itself as the morphologic apprehension of its material substrata. The model goes strictly by the notion of massive multi-agent's organizations with a morphologic control.

Evolutionary programming-based univector field navigation method for past mobile robots.

PubMed

Kim, Y J; Kim, J H; Kwon, D S

2001-01-01

Most of navigation techniques with obstacle avoidance do not consider the robot orientation at the target position. These techniques deal with the robot position only and are independent of its orientation and velocity. To solve these problems this paper proposes a novel univector field method for fast mobile robot navigation which introduces a normalized two dimensional vector field. The method provides fast moving robots with the desired posture at the target position and obstacle avoidance. To obtain the sub-optimal vector field, a function approximator is used and trained by evolutionary programming. Two kinds of vector fields are trained, one for the final posture acquisition and the other for obstacle avoidance. Computer simulations and real experiments are carried out for a fast moving mobile robot to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

An integrated design and fabrication strategy for entirely soft, autonomous robots.

PubMed

Wehner, Michael; Truby, Ryan L; Fitzgerald, Daniel J; Mosadegh, Bobak; Whitesides, George M; Lewis, Jennifer A; Wood, Robert J

2016-08-25

Soft robots possess many attributes that are difficult, if not impossible, to achieve with conventional robots composed of rigid materials. Yet, despite recent advances, soft robots must still be tethered to hard robotic control systems and power sources. New strategies for creating completely soft robots, including soft analogues of these crucial components, are needed to realize their full potential. Here we report the untethered operation of a robot composed solely of soft materials. The robot is controlled with microfluidic logic that autonomously regulates fluid flow and, hence, catalytic decomposition of an on-board monopropellant fuel supply. Gas generated from the fuel decomposition inflates fluidic networks downstream of the reaction sites, resulting in actuation. The body and microfluidic logic of the robot are fabricated using moulding and soft lithography, respectively, and the pneumatic actuator networks, on-board fuel reservoirs and catalytic reaction chambers needed for movement are patterned within the body via a multi-material, embedded 3D printing technique. The fluidic and elastomeric architectures required for function span several orders of magnitude from the microscale to the macroscale. Our integrated design and rapid fabrication approach enables the programmable assembly of multiple materials within this architecture, laying the foundation for completely soft, autonomous robots.

Computer-assisted hip and knee arthroplasty. Navigation and active robotic systems: an evidence-based analysis.

PubMed

2004-01-01

The Medical Advisory Secretariat undertook a review of the evidence on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of computer assisted hip and knee arthroplasty. The two computer assisted arthroplasty systems that are the topics of this review are (1) navigation and (2) robotic-assisted hip and knee arthroplasty. Computer-assisted arthroplasty consists of navigation and robotic systems. Surgical navigation is a visualization system that provides positional information about surgical tools or implants relative to a target bone on a computer display. Most of the navigation-assisted arthroplasty devices that are the subject of this review are licensed by Health Canada. Robotic systems are active robots that mill bone according to information from a computer-assisted navigation system. The robotic-assisted arthroplasty devices that are the subject of this review are not currently licensed by Health Canada. The Cochrane and International Network of Agencies for Health Technology Assessment databases did not identify any health technology assessments on navigation or robotic-assisted hip or knee arthroplasty. The MEDLINE and EMBASE databases were searched for articles published between January 1, 1996 and November 30, 2003. This search produced 367 studies, of which 9 met the inclusion criteria. NAVIGATION-ASSISTED ARTHROPLASTY: Five studies were identified that examined navigation-assisted arthroplasty.A Level 1 evidence study from Germany found a statistically significant difference in alignment and angular deviation between navigation-assisted and free-hand total knee arthroplasty in favour of navigation-assisted surgery. However, the endpoints in this study were short-term. To date, the long-term effects (need for revision, implant longevity, pain, functional performance) are unknown.(1)A Level 2 evidence short-term study found that navigation-assisted total knee arthroplasty was significantly better than a non-navigated procedure for one of five postoperative measured

Semi-autonomous exploration of multi-floor buildings with a legged robot

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wenger, Garrett J.; Johnson, Aaron M.; Taylor, Camillo J.; Koditschek, Daniel E.

2015-05-01

This paper presents preliminary results of a semi-autonomous building exploration behavior using the hexapedal robot RHex. Stairwells are used in virtually all multi-floor buildings, and so in order for a mobile robot to effectively explore, map, clear, monitor, or patrol such buildings it must be able to ascend and descend stairwells. However most conventional mobile robots based on a wheeled platform are unable to traverse stairwells, motivating use of the more mobile legged machine. This semi-autonomous behavior uses a human driver to provide steering input to the robot, as would be the case in, e.g., a tele-operated building exploration mission. The gait selection and transitions between the walking and stair climbing gaits are entirely autonomous. This implementation uses an RGBD camera for stair acquisition, which offers several advantages over a previously documented detector based on a laser range finder, including significantly reduced acquisition time. The sensor package used here also allows for considerable expansion of this behavior. For example, complete automation of the building exploration task driven by a mapping algorithm and higher level planner is presently under development.

Target Trailing With Safe Navigation With Colregs for Maritime Autonomous Surface Vehicles

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kuwata, Yoshiaki (Inventor); Aghazarian, Hrand (Inventor); Huntsberger, Terrance L. (Inventor); Howard, Andrew B. (Inventor); Wolf, Michael T. (Inventor); Zarzhitsky, Dimitri V. (Inventor)

2014-01-01

Systems and methods for operating autonomous waterborne vessels in a safe manner. The systems include hardware for identifying the locations and motions of other vessels, as well as the locations of stationary objects that represent navigation hazards. By applying a computational method that uses a maritime navigation algorithm for avoiding hazards and obeying COLREGS using Velocity Obstacles to the data obtained, the autonomous vessel computes a safe and effective path to be followed in order to accomplish a desired navigational end result, while operating in a manner so as to avoid hazards and to maintain compliance with standard navigational procedures defined by international agreement. The systems and methods have been successfully demonstrated on water with radar and stereo cameras as the perception sensors, and integrated with a higher level planner for trailing a maneuvering target.

Two modular neuro-fuzzy system for mobile robot navigation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bobyr, M. V.; Titov, V. S.; Kulabukhov, S. A.; Syryamkin, V. I.

2018-05-01

The article considers the fuzzy model for navigation of a mobile robot operating in two modes. In the first mode the mobile robot moves along a line. In the second mode, the mobile robot looks for an target in unknown space. Structural and schematic circuit of four-wheels mobile robot are presented in the article. The article describes the movement of a mobile robot based on two modular neuro-fuzzy system. The algorithm of neuro-fuzzy inference used in two modular control system for movement of a mobile robot is given in the article. The experimental model of the mobile robot and the simulation of the neuro-fuzzy algorithm used for its control are presented in the article.

Fully autonomous navigation for the NASA cargo transfer vehicle

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wertz, James R.; Skulsky, E. David

1991-01-01

A great deal of attention has been paid to navigation during the close approach (less than or equal to 1 km) phase of spacecraft rendezvous. However, most spacecraft also require a navigation system which provides the necessary accuracy for placing both satellites within the range of the docking sensors. The Microcosm Autonomous Navigation System (MANS) is an on-board system which uses Earth-referenced attitude sensing hardware to provide precision orbit and attitude determination. The system is capable of functioning from LEO to GEO and beyond. Performance depends on the number of available sensors as well as mission geometry; however, extensive simulations have shown that MANS will provide 100 m to 400 m (3(sigma)) position accuracy and 0.03 to 0.07 deg (3(sigma)) attitude accuracy in low Earth orbit. The system is independent of any external source, including GPS. MANS is expected to have a significant impact on ground operations costs, mission definition and design, survivability, and the potential development of very low-cost, fully autonomous spacecraft.

A field robot for autonomous laser-based N2O flux measurements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Molstad, Lars; Reent Köster, Jan; Bakken, Lars; Dörsch, Peter; Lien, Torgrim; Overskeid, Øyvind; Utstumo, Trygve; Løvås, Daniel; Brevik, Anders

2014-05-01

N2O measurements in multi-plot field trials are usually carried out by chamber-based manual gas sampling and subsequent laboratory-based gas chromatographic N2O determination. Spatial and temporal resolution of these measurements are commonly limited by available manpower. However, high spatial and temporal variability of N2O fluxes within individual field plots can add large uncertainties to time- and area-integrated flux estimates. Detailed mapping of this variability would improve these estimates, as well as help our understanding of the factors causing N2O emissions. An autonomous field robot was developed to increase the sampling frequency and to operate outside normal working hours. The base of this system was designed as an open platform able to carry versatile instrumentation. It consists of an electrically motorized platform powered by a lithium-ion battery pack, which is capable of autonomous navigation by means of a combined high precision real-time kinematic (RTK) GPS and an inertial measurement unit (IMU) system. On this platform an elevator is mounted, carrying a lateral boom with a static chamber on each side of the robot. Each chamber is equipped with a frame of plastic foam to seal the chamber when lowered onto the ground by the elevator. N2O flux from the soil covered by the two chambers is sequentially determined by circulating air between each chamber and a laser spectrometer (DLT-100, Los Gatos Research, Mountain View, CA, USA), which monitors the increase in N2O concentration. The target enclosure time is 1 - 2 minutes, but may be longer when emissions are low. CO2 concentrations are determined by a CO2/H2O gas analyzer (LI-840A, LI-COR Inc., Lincoln, NE, USA). Air temperature and air pressure inside both chambers are continuously monitored and logged. Wind speed and direction are monitored by a 3D sonic anemometer on top of the elevator boom. This autonomous field robot can operate during day and night time, and its working hours are only

A development of intelligent entertainment robot for home life

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, Cheoltaek; Lee, Ju-Jang

2005-12-01

The purpose of this paper was to present the study and design idea for entertainment robot with educational purpose (IRFEE). The robot has been designed for home life considering dependability and interaction. The developed robot has three objectives - 1. Develop autonomous robot, 2. Design robot considering mobility and robustness, 3. Develop robot interface and software considering entertainment and education functionalities. The autonomous navigation was implemented by active vision based SLAM and modified EPF algorithm. The two differential wheels, the pan-tilt were designed mobility and robustness and the exterior was designed considering esthetic element and minimizing interference. The speech and tracking algorithm provided the good interface with human. The image transfer and Internet site connection is needed for service of remote connection and educational purpose.

Mobile Autonomous Humanoid Assistant

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Diftler, M. A.; Ambrose, R. O.; Tyree, K. S.; Goza, S. M.; Huber, E. L.

2004-01-01

A mobile autonomous humanoid robot is assisting human co-workers at the Johnson Space Center with tool handling tasks. This robot combines the upper body of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)/Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Robonaut system with a Segway(TradeMark) Robotic Mobility Platform yielding a dexterous, maneuverable humanoid perfect for aiding human co-workers in a range of environments. This system uses stereo vision to locate human team mates and tools and a navigation system that uses laser range and vision data to follow humans while avoiding obstacles. Tactile sensors provide information to grasping algorithms for efficient tool exchanges. The autonomous architecture utilizes these pre-programmed skills to form human assistant behaviors. The initial behavior demonstrates a robust capability to assist a human by acquiring a tool from a remotely located individual and then following the human in a cluttered environment with the tool for future use.

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-11

Team KuuKulgur watches as their robots attempt the level one competition during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-11

The Retrievers team robot is seen as it attempts the level one challenge the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Towards Autonomous Operations of the Robonaut 2 Humanoid Robotic Testbed

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Badger, Julia; Nguyen, Vienny; Mehling, Joshua; Hambuchen, Kimberly; Diftler, Myron; Luna, Ryan; Baker, William; Joyce, Charles

2016-01-01

The Robonaut project has been conducting research in robotics technology on board the International Space Station (ISS) since 2012. Recently, the original upper body humanoid robot was upgraded by the addition of two climbing manipulators ("legs"), more capable processors, and new sensors, as shown in Figure 1. While Robonaut 2 (R2) has been working through checkout exercises on orbit following the upgrade, technology development on the ground has continued to advance. Through the Active Reduced Gravity Offload System (ARGOS), the Robonaut team has been able to develop technologies that will enable full operation of the robotic testbed on orbit using similar robots located at the Johnson Space Center. Once these technologies have been vetted in this way, they will be implemented and tested on the R2 unit on board the ISS. The goal of this work is to create a fully-featured robotics research platform on board the ISS to increase the technology readiness level of technologies that will aid in future exploration missions. Technology development has thus far followed two main paths, autonomous climbing and efficient tool manipulation. Central to both technologies has been the incorporation of a human robotic interaction paradigm that involves the visualization of sensory and pre-planned command data with models of the robot and its environment. Figure 2 shows screenshots of these interactive tools, built in rviz, that are used to develop and implement these technologies on R2. Robonaut 2 is designed to move along the handrails and seat track around the US lab inside the ISS. This is difficult for many reasons, namely the environment is cluttered and constrained, the robot has many degrees of freedom (DOF) it can utilize for climbing, and remote commanding for precision tasks such as grasping handrails is time-consuming and difficult. Because of this, it is important to develop the technologies needed to allow the robot to reach operator-specified positions as

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-12

Sample Return Robot Challenge staff members confer before the team Survey robots makes it's attempt at the level two challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Thursday, June 12, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-14

A robot from the University of Waterloo Robotics Team is seen during the rerun of the level one challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Saturday, June 14, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-11

during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-12

during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Thursday, June 12, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

INS integrated motion analysis for autonomous vehicle navigation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Roberts, Barry; Bazakos, Mike

1991-01-01

The use of inertial navigation system (INS) measurements to enhance the quality and robustness of motion analysis techniques used for obstacle detection is discussed with particular reference to autonomous vehicle navigation. The approach to obstacle detection used here employs motion analysis of imagery generated by a passive sensor. Motion analysis of imagery obtained during vehicle travel is used to generate range measurements to points within the field of view of the sensor, which can then be used to provide obstacle detection. Results obtained with an INS integrated motion analysis approach are reviewed.

Vision Based Navigation for Autonomous Cooperative Docking of CubeSats

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pirat, Camille; Ankersen, Finn; Walker, Roger; Gass, Volker

2018-05-01

A realistic rendezvous and docking navigation solution applicable to CubeSats is investigated. The scalability analysis of the ESA Autonomous Transfer Vehicle Guidance, Navigation & Control (GNC) performances and the Russian docking system, shows that the docking of two CubeSats would require a lateral control performance of the order of 1 cm. Line of sight constraints and multipath effects affecting Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) measurements in close proximity prevent the use of this sensor for the final approach. This consideration and the high control accuracy requirement led to the use of vision sensors for the final 10 m of the rendezvous and docking sequence. A single monocular camera on the chaser satellite and various sets of Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs) on the target vehicle ensure the observability of the system throughout the approach trajectory. The simple and novel formulation of the measurement equations allows differentiating unambiguously rotations from translations between the target and chaser docking port and allows a navigation performance better than 1 mm at docking. Furthermore, the non-linear measurement equations can be solved in order to provide an analytic navigation solution. This solution can be used to monitor the navigation filter solution and ensure its stability, adding an extra layer of robustness for autonomous rendezvous and docking. The navigation filter initialization is addressed in detail. The proposed method is able to differentiate LEDs signals from Sun reflections as demonstrated by experimental data. The navigation filter uses a comprehensive linearised coupled rotation/translation dynamics, describing the chaser to target docking port motion. The handover, between GNSS and vision sensor measurements, is assessed. The performances of the navigation function along the approach trajectory is discussed.

The effect of collision avoidance for autonomous robot team formation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Seidman, Mark H.; Yang, Shanchieh J.

2007-04-01

As technology and research advance to the era of cooperative robots, many autonomous robot team algorithms have emerged. Shape formation is a common and critical task in many cooperative robot applications. While theoretical studies of robot team formation have shown success, it is unclear whether such algorithms will perform well in a real-world environment. This work examines the effect of collision avoidance schemes on an ideal circle formation algorithm, but behaves similarly if robot-to-robot communications are in place. Our findings reveal that robots with basic collision avoidance capabilities are still able to form into a circle, under most conditions. Moreover, the robot sizes, sensing ranges, and other critical physical parameters are examined to determine their effects on algorithm's performance.

A Low-Cost EEG System-Based Hybrid Brain-Computer Interface for Humanoid Robot Navigation and Recognition

PubMed Central

Choi, Bongjae; Jo, Sungho

2013-01-01

This paper describes a hybrid brain-computer interface (BCI) technique that combines the P300 potential, the steady state visually evoked potential (SSVEP), and event related de-synchronization (ERD) to solve a complicated multi-task problem consisting of humanoid robot navigation and control along with object recognition using a low-cost BCI system. Our approach enables subjects to control the navigation and exploration of a humanoid robot and recognize a desired object among candidates. This study aims to demonstrate the possibility of a hybrid BCI based on a low-cost system for a realistic and complex task. It also shows that the use of a simple image processing technique, combined with BCI, can further aid in making these complex tasks simpler. An experimental scenario is proposed in which a subject remotely controls a humanoid robot in a properly sized maze. The subject sees what the surrogate robot sees through visual feedback and can navigate the surrogate robot. While navigating, the robot encounters objects located in the maze. It then recognizes if the encountered object is of interest to the subject. The subject communicates with the robot through SSVEP and ERD-based BCIs to navigate and explore with the robot, and P300-based BCI to allow the surrogate robot recognize their favorites. Using several evaluation metrics, the performances of five subjects navigating the robot were quite comparable to manual keyboard control. During object recognition mode, favorite objects were successfully selected from two to four choices. Subjects conducted humanoid navigation and recognition tasks as if they embodied the robot. Analysis of the data supports the potential usefulness of the proposed hybrid BCI system for extended applications. This work presents an important implication for the future work that a hybridization of simple BCI protocols provide extended controllability to carry out complicated tasks even with a low-cost system. PMID:24023953

A low-cost EEG system-based hybrid brain-computer interface for humanoid robot navigation and recognition.

PubMed

Choi, Bongjae; Jo, Sungho

2013-01-01

This paper describes a hybrid brain-computer interface (BCI) technique that combines the P300 potential, the steady state visually evoked potential (SSVEP), and event related de-synchronization (ERD) to solve a complicated multi-task problem consisting of humanoid robot navigation and control along with object recognition using a low-cost BCI system. Our approach enables subjects to control the navigation and exploration of a humanoid robot and recognize a desired object among candidates. This study aims to demonstrate the possibility of a hybrid BCI based on a low-cost system for a realistic and complex task. It also shows that the use of a simple image processing technique, combined with BCI, can further aid in making these complex tasks simpler. An experimental scenario is proposed in which a subject remotely controls a humanoid robot in a properly sized maze. The subject sees what the surrogate robot sees through visual feedback and can navigate the surrogate robot. While navigating, the robot encounters objects located in the maze. It then recognizes if the encountered object is of interest to the subject. The subject communicates with the robot through SSVEP and ERD-based BCIs to navigate and explore with the robot, and P300-based BCI to allow the surrogate robot recognize their favorites. Using several evaluation metrics, the performances of five subjects navigating the robot were quite comparable to manual keyboard control. During object recognition mode, favorite objects were successfully selected from two to four choices. Subjects conducted humanoid navigation and recognition tasks as if they embodied the robot. Analysis of the data supports the potential usefulness of the proposed hybrid BCI system for extended applications. This work presents an important implication for the future work that a hybridization of simple BCI protocols provide extended controllability to carry out complicated tasks even with a low-cost system.

Autonomous Navigation Results from the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Mission

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Maimone, Mark; Johnson, Andrew; Cheng, Yang; Willson, Reg; Matthies, Larry H.

2004-01-01

In January, 2004, the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission landed two rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, on the surface of Mars. Several autonomous navigation capabilities were employed in space for the first time in this mission. ]n the Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) phase, both landers used a vision system called the, Descent Image Motion Estimation System (DIMES) to estimate horizontal velocity during the last 2000 meters (m) of descent, by tracking features on the ground with a downlooking camera, in order to control retro-rocket firing to reduce horizontal velocity before impact. During surface operations, the rovers navigate autonomously using stereo vision for local terrain mapping and a local, reactive planning algorithm called Grid-based Estimation of Surface Traversability Applied to Local Terrain (GESTALT) for obstacle avoidance. ]n areas of high slip, stereo vision-based visual odometry has been used to estimate rover motion, As of mid-June, Spirit had traversed 3405 m, of which 1253 m were done autonomously; Opportunity had traversed 1264 m, of which 224 m were autonomous. These results have contributed substantially to the success of the mission and paved the way for increased levels of autonomy in future missions.

Autonomous mobile robotic system for supporting counterterrorist and surveillance operations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Adamczyk, Marek; Bulandra, Kazimierz; Moczulski, Wojciech

2017-10-01

Contemporary research on mobile robots concerns applications to counterterrorist and surveillance operations. The goal is to develop systems that are capable of supporting the police and special forces by carrying out such operations. The paper deals with a dedicated robotic system for surveillance of large objects such as airports, factories, military bases, and many others. The goal is to trace unauthorised persons who try to enter to the guarded area, document the intrusion and report it to the surveillance centre, and then warn the intruder by sound messages and eventually subdue him/her by stunning through acoustic effect of great power. The system consists of several parts. An armoured four-wheeled robot assures required mobility of the system. The robot is equipped with a set of sensors including 3D mapping system, IR and video cameras, and microphones. It communicates with the central control station (CCS) by means of a wideband wireless encrypted system. A control system of the robot can operate autonomously, and under remote control. In the autonomous mode the robot follows the path planned by the CCS. Once an intruder has been detected, the robot can adopt its plan to allow tracking him/her. Furthermore, special procedures of treatment of the intruder are applied including warning about the breach of the border of the protected area, and incapacitation of an appropriately selected very loud sound until a patrol of guards arrives. Once getting stuck the robot can contact the operator who can remotely solve the problem the robot is faced with.

Methods and Apparatus for Autonomous Robotic Control

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gorshechnikov, Anatoly (Inventor); Livitz, Gennady (Inventor); Versace, Massimiliano (Inventor); Palma, Jesse (Inventor)

2017-01-01

Sensory processing of visual, auditory, and other sensor information (e.g., visual imagery, LIDAR, RADAR) is conventionally based on "stovepiped," or isolated processing, with little interactions between modules. Biological systems, on the other hand, fuse multi-sensory information to identify nearby objects of interest more quickly, more efficiently, and with higher signal-to-noise ratios. Similarly, examples of the OpenSense technology disclosed herein use neurally inspired processing to identify and locate objects in a robot's environment. This enables the robot to navigate its environment more quickly and with lower computational and power requirements.

A power autonomous monopedal robot

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Krupp, Benjamin T.; Pratt, Jerry E.

2006-05-01

We present the design and initial results of a power-autonomous planar monopedal robot. The robot is a gasoline powered, two degree of freedom robot that runs in a circle, constrained by a boom. The robot uses hydraulic Series Elastic Actuators, force-controllable actuators which provide high force fidelity, moderate bandwidth, and low impedance. The actuators are mounted in the body of the robot, with cable drives transmitting power to the hip and knee joints of the leg. A two-stroke, gasoline engine drives a constant displacement pump which pressurizes an accumulator. Absolute position and spring deflection of each of the Series Elastic Actuators are measured using linear encoders. The spring deflection is translated into force output and compared to desired force in a closed loop force-control algorithm implemented in software. The output signal of each force controller drives high performance servo valves which control flow to each of the pistons of the actuators. In designing the robot, we used a simulation-based iterative design approach. Preliminary estimates of the robot's physical parameters were based on past experience and used to create a physically realistic simulation model of the robot. Next, a control algorithm was implemented in simulation to produce planar hopping. Using the joint power requirements and range of motions from simulation, we worked backward specifying pulley diameter, piston diameter and stroke, hydraulic pressure and flow, servo valve flow and bandwidth, gear pump flow, and engine power requirements. Components that meet or exceed these specifications were chosen and integrated into the robot design. Using CAD software, we calculated the physical parameters of the robot design, replaced the original estimates with the CAD estimates, and produced new joint power requirements. We iterated on this process, resulting in a design which was prototyped and tested. The Monopod currently runs at approximately 1.2 m/s with the weight of all

Convolutional Neural Network-Based Robot Navigation Using Uncalibrated Spherical Images.

PubMed

Ran, Lingyan; Zhang, Yanning; Zhang, Qilin; Yang, Tao

2017-06-12

Vision-based mobile robot navigation is a vibrant area of research with numerous algorithms having been developed, the vast majority of which either belong to the scene-oriented simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) or fall into the category of robot-oriented lane-detection/trajectory tracking. These methods suffer from high computational cost and require stringent labelling and calibration efforts. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a lightweight robot navigation framework based purely on uncalibrated spherical images. To simplify the orientation estimation, path prediction and improve computational efficiency, the navigation problem is decomposed into a series of classification tasks. To mitigate the adverse effects of insufficient negative samples in the "navigation via classification" task, we introduce the spherical camera for scene capturing, which enables 360° fisheye panorama as training samples and generation of sufficient positive and negative heading directions. The classification is implemented as an end-to-end Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), trained on our proposed Spherical-Navi image dataset, whose category labels can be efficiently collected. This CNN is capable of predicting potential path directions with high confidence levels based on a single, uncalibrated spherical image. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed framework outperforms competing ones in realistic applications.

Reactive Sequencing for Autonomous Navigation Evolving from Phoenix Entry, Descent, and Landing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Grasso, Christopher A.; Riedel, Joseph E.; Vaughan, Andrew T.

2010-01-01

Virtual Machine Language (VML) is an award-winning advanced procedural sequencing language in use on NASA deep-space missions since 1997, and was used for the successful entry, descent, and landing (EDL) of the Phoenix spacecraft onto the surface of Mars. Phoenix EDL utilized a state-oriented operations architecture which executed within the constraints of the existing VML 2.0 flight capability, compatible with the linear "land or die" nature of the mission. The intricacies of Phoenix EDL included the planned discarding of portions of the vehicle, the complex communications management for relay through on-orbit assets, the presence of temporally indeterminate physical events, and the need to rapidly catch up four days of sequencing should a reboot of the spacecraft flight computer occur shortly before atmospheric entry. These formidable operational challenges led to new techniques for packaging and coordinating reusable sequences called blocks using one-way synchronization via VML sequencing global variable events. The coordinated blocks acted as an ensemble to land the spacecraft, while individually managing various elements in as simple a fashion as possible. This paper outlines prototype VML 2.1 flight capabilities that have evolved from the one-way synchronization techniques in order to implement even more ambitious autonomous mission capabilities. Target missions for these new capabilities include autonomous touch-and-go sampling of cometary and asteroidal bodies, lunar landing of robotic missions, and ultimately landing of crewed lunar vehicles. Close proximity guidance, navigation, and control operations, on-orbit rendezvous, and descent and landing events featured in these missions require elaborate abort capability, manifesting highly non-linear scenarios that are so complex as to overtax traditional sequencing, or even the sort of one-way coordinated sequencing used during EDL. Foreseeing advanced command and control needs for small body and lunar landing

Autonomous Evolution of Dynamic Gaits with Two Quadruped Robots

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hornby, Gregory S.; Takamura, Seichi; Yamamoto, Takashi; Fujita, Masahiro

2004-01-01

A challenging task that must be accomplished for every legged robot is creating the walking and running behaviors needed for it to move. In this paper we describe our system for autonomously evolving dynamic gaits on two of Sony's quadruped robots. Our evolutionary algorithm runs on board the robot and uses the robot's sensors to compute the quality of a gait without assistance from the experimenter. First we show the evolution of a pace and trot gait on the OPEN-R prototype robot. With the fastest gait, the robot moves at over 10/min/min., which is more than forty body-lengths/min. While these first gaits are somewhat sensitive to the robot and environment in which they are evolved, we then show the evolution of robust dynamic gaits, one of which is used on the ERS-110, the first consumer version of AIBO.

Autonomous celestial navigation based on Earth ultraviolet radiance and fast gradient statistic feature extraction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lu, Shan; Zhang, Hanmo

2016-01-01

To meet the requirement of autonomous orbit determination, this paper proposes a fast curve fitting method based on earth ultraviolet features to obtain accurate earth vector direction, in order to achieve the high precision autonomous navigation. Firstly, combining the stable characters of earth ultraviolet radiance and the use of transmission model software of atmospheric radiation, the paper simulates earth ultraviolet radiation model on different time and chooses the proper observation band. Then the fast improved edge extracting method combined Sobel operator and local binary pattern (LBP) is utilized, which can both eliminate noises efficiently and extract earth ultraviolet limb features accurately. And earth's centroid locations on simulated images are estimated via the least square fitting method using part of the limb edges. Taken advantage of the estimated earth vector direction and earth distance, Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) is applied to realize the autonomous navigation finally. Experiment results indicate the proposed method can achieve a sub-pixel earth centroid location estimation and extremely enhance autonomous celestial navigation precision.

Navigable points estimation for mobile robots using binary image skeletonization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Martinez S., Fernando; Jacinto G., Edwar; Montiel A., Holman

2017-02-01

This paper describes the use of image skeletonization for the estimation of all the navigable points, inside a scene of mobile robots navigation. Those points are used for computing a valid navigation path, using standard methods. The main idea is to find the middle and the extreme points of the obstacles in the scene, taking into account the robot size, and create a map of navigable points, in order to reduce the amount of information for the planning algorithm. Those points are located by means of the skeletonization of a binary image of the obstacles and the scene background, along with some other digital image processing algorithms. The proposed algorithm automatically gives a variable number of navigable points per obstacle, depending on the complexity of its shape. As well as, the way how the algorithm can change some of their parameters in order to change the final number of the resultant key points is shown. The results shown here were obtained applying different kinds of digital image processing algorithms on static scenes.

Three-dimensional motor schema based navigation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Arkin, Ronald C.

1989-01-01

Reactive schema-based navigation is possible in space domains by extending the methods developed for ground-based navigation found within the Autonomous Robot Architecture (AuRA). Reformulation of two dimensional motor schemas for three dimensional applications is a straightforward process. The manifold advantages of schema-based control persist, including modular development, amenability to distributed processing, and responsiveness to environmental sensing. Simulation results show the feasibility of this methodology for space docking operations in a cluttered work area.

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-10

A team KuuKulgur Robot from Estonia is seen on the practice field during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Tuesday, June 10, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Team KuuKulgur is one of eighteen teams competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-14

Sam Ortega, NASA program manager of Centennial Challenges, watches as robots attempt the rerun of the level one challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Saturday, June 14, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-12

The team Survey robot retrieves a sample during a demonstration of the level two challenge at the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Thursday, June 12, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-11

The team AERO robot drives off the starting platform during the level one competition at the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-14

Team Cephal's robot is seen on the starting platform during a rerun of the level one challenge at the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Saturday, June 14, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-11

The Oregon State University Mars Rover Team's robot is seen during level one competition at the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-10

Jerry Waechter of team Middleman from Dunedin, Florida, works on their robot named Ro-Bear during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Tuesday, June 10, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Team Middleman is one of eighteen teams competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-14

A robot from the Intrepid Systems team is seen during the rerun of the level one challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Saturday, June 14, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-11

A team KuuKulgur robot is seen as it begins the level one challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-11

The team Mountaineers robot is seen as it attempts the level one challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-11

Members of the Oregon State University Mars Rover Team prepare their robot to attempt the level one competition at the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-11

The Stellar Automation Systems team poses for a picture with their robot after attempting the level one challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-12

The team Survey robot is seen as it conducts a demonstration of the level two challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Thursday, June 12, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-11

All four of team KuuKulgur's robots are seen as they attempt the level one challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-12

Spectators watch as the team Survey robot conducts a demonstration of the level two challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Thursday, June 12, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-11

Team Middleman's robot, Ro-Bear, is seen as it starts the level one challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-14

The team Mountaineers robot is seen after picking up the sample during a rerun of the level one challenge at the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Saturday, June 14, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-14

Two of team KuuKulgur's robots are seen as they attempt a rerun of the level one challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Saturday, June 14, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-12

Members of team Survey follow their robot as it conducts a demonstration of the level two challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Thursday, June 12, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-11

A team KuuKulgur robot approaches the sample as it attempts the level one challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-12

The team survey robot is seen on the starting platform before begging it's attempt at the level two challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Thursday, June 12, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-11

The Mountaineers team from West Virginia University, watches as their robot attempts the level one challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-12

The team Survey robot is seen as it conducts a demonstration of the level two challenge at the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Thursday, June 12, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-12

Team Survey's robot is seen as it conducts a demonstration of the level two challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Thursday, June 12, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Autonomous GPS/INS navigation experiment for Space Transfer Vehicle (STV)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Upadhyay, Triveni N.; Cotterill, Stephen; Deaton, A. Wayne

1991-01-01

An experiment to validate the concept of developing an autonomous integrated spacecraft navigation system using on board Global Positioning System (GPS) and Inertial Navigation System (INS) measurements is described. The feasibility of integrating GPS measurements with INS measurements to provide a total improvement in spacecraft navigation performance, i.e. improvement in position, velocity and attitude information, was previously demonstrated. An important aspect of this research is the automatic real time reconfiguration capability of the system designed to respond to changes in a spacecraft mission under the control of an expert system.

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-11

The University of Waterloo Robotics Team, from Canada, prepares to place their robot on the start platform during the level one challenge at the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-10

The University of Waterloo Robotics Team, from Ontario, Canada, prepares their robot for the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Tuesday, June 10, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. The team from the University of Waterloo is one of eighteen teams competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Soldier-Based Assessment of a Dual-Row Tactor Display during Simultaneous Navigational and Robot-Monitoring Tasks

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-08-01

Navigational and Robot -Monitoring Tasks by Gina Pomranky-Hartnett, Linda R Elliott, Bruce JP Mortimer, Greg R Mort, Rodger A Pettitt, and Gary A...Tactor Display during Simultaneous Navigational and Robot -Monitoring Tasks by Gina Pomranky-Hartnett, Linda R Elliott, and Rodger A Pettitt...2014–31 March 2015 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE Soldier-Based Assessment of a Dual-Row Tactor Display during Simultaneous Navigational and Robot -Monitoring

Advances in Robotic, Human, and Autonomous Systems for Missions of Space Exploration

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gross, Anthony R.; Briggs, Geoffrey A.; Glass, Brian J.; Pedersen, Liam; Kortenkamp, David M.; Wettergreen, David S.; Nourbakhsh, I.; Clancy, Daniel J.; Zornetzer, Steven (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

Space exploration missions are evolving toward more complex architectures involving more capable robotic systems, new levels of human and robotic interaction, and increasingly autonomous systems. How this evolving mix of advanced capabilities will be utilized in the design of new missions is a subject of much current interest. Cost and risk constraints also play a key role in the development of new missions, resulting in a complex interplay of a broad range of factors in the mission development and planning of new missions. This paper will discuss how human, robotic, and autonomous systems could be used in advanced space exploration missions. In particular, a recently completed survey of the state of the art and the potential future of robotic systems, as well as new experiments utilizing human and robotic approaches will be described. Finally, there will be a discussion of how best to utilize these various approaches for meeting space exploration goals.

Linked Autonomous Interplanetary Satellite Orbit Navigation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Parker, Jeffrey S.; Anderson, Rodney L.; Born, George H.; Leonard, Jason M.; McGranaghan, Ryan M.; Fujimoto, Kohei

2013-01-01

A navigation technology known as LiAISON (Linked Autonomous Interplanetary Satellite Orbit Navigation) has been known to produce very impressive navigation results for scenarios involving two or more cooperative satellites near the Moon, such that at least one satellite must be in an orbit significantly perturbed by the Earth, such as a lunar halo orbit. The two (or more) satellites track each other using satellite-to-satellite range and/or range-rate measurements. These relative measurements yield absolute orbit navigation when one of the satellites is in a lunar halo orbit, or the like. The geometry between a lunar halo orbiter and a GEO satellite continuously changes, which dramatically improves the information content of a satellite-to-satellite tracking signal. The geometrical variations include significant out-of-plane shifts, as well as inplane shifts. Further, the GEO satellite is almost continuously in view of a lunar halo orbiter. High-fidelity simulations demonstrate that LiAISON technology improves the navigation of GEO orbiters by an order of magnitude, relative to standard ground tracking. If a GEO satellite is navigated using LiAISON- only tracking measurements, its position is typically known to better than 10 meters. If LiAISON measurements are combined with simple radiometric ground observations, then the satellite s position is typically known to better than 3 meters, which is substantially better than the current state of GEO navigation. There are two features of LiAISON that are novel and advantageous compared with conventional satellite navigation. First, ordinary satellite-to-satellite tracking data only provides relative navigation of each satellite. The novelty is the placement of one navigation satellite in an orbit that is significantly perturbed by both the Earth and the Moon. A navigation satellite can track other satellites elsewhere in the Earth-Moon system and acquire knowledge about both satellites absolute positions and velocities

Theseus: tethered distributed robotics (TDR)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Digney, Bruce L.; Penzes, Steven G.

2003-09-01

The Defence Research and Development Canada's (DRDC) Autonomous Intelligent System's program conducts research to increase the independence and effectiveness of military vehicles and systems. DRDC-Suffield's Autonomous Land Systems (ALS) is creating new concept vehicles and autonomous control systems for use in outdoor areas, urban streets, urban interiors and urban subspaces. This paper will first give an overview of the ALS program and then give a specific description of the work being done for mobility in urban subspaces. Discussed will be the Theseus: Thethered Distributed Robotics (TDR) system, which will not only manage an unavoidable tether but exploit it for mobility and navigation. Also discussed will be the prototype robot called the Hedgehog, which uses conformal 3D mobility in ducts, sewer pipes, collapsed rubble voids and chimneys.

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-12

Sam Ortega, NASA program manager for Centennial Challenges, is seen during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Thursday, June 12, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Autonomous bone reposition around anatomical landmark for robot-assisted orthognathic surgery.

PubMed

Woo, Sang-Yoon; Lee, Sang-Jeong; Yoo, Ji-Yong; Han, Jung-Joon; Hwang, Soon-Jung; Huh, Kyung-Hoe; Lee, Sam-Sun; Heo, Min-Suk; Choi, Soon-Chul; Yi, Won-Jin

2017-12-01

The purpose of this study was to develop a new method for enabling a robot to assist a surgeon in repositioning a bone segment to accurately transfer a preoperative virtual plan into the intraoperative phase in orthognathic surgery. We developed a robot system consisting of an arm with six degrees of freedom, a robot motion-controller, and a PC. An end-effector at the end of the robot arm transferred the movements of the robot arm to the patient's jawbone. The registration between the robot and CT image spaces was performed completely preoperatively, and the intraoperative registration could be finished using only position changes of the tracking tools at the robot end-effector and the patient's splint. The phantom's maxillomandibular complex (MMC) connected to the robot's end-effector was repositioned autonomously by the robot movements around an anatomical landmark of interest based on the tool center point (TCP) principle. The robot repositioned the MMC around the TCP of the incisor of the maxilla and the pogonion of the mandible following plans for real orthognathic patients. The accuracy of the robot's repositioning increased when an anatomical landmark for the TCP was close to the registration fiducials. In spite of this influence, we could increase the repositioning accuracy at the landmark by using the landmark itself as the TCP. With its ability to incorporate virtual planning using a CT image and autonomously execute the plan around an anatomical landmark of interest, the robot could help surgeons reposition bones more accurately and dexterously. Copyright © 2017 European Association for Cranio-Maxillo-Facial Surgery. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Development of a two wheeled self balancing robot with speech recognition and navigation algorithm

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rahman, Md. Muhaimin; Ashik-E-Rasul, Haq, Nowab. Md. Aminul; Hassan, Mehedi; Hasib, Irfan Mohammad Al; Hassan, K. M. Rafidh

2016-07-01

This paper is aimed to discuss modeling, construction and development of navigation algorithm of a two wheeled self balancing mobile robot in an enclosure. In this paper, we have discussed the design of two of the main controller algorithms, namely PID algorithms, on the robot model. Simulation is performed in the SIMULINK environment. The controller is developed primarily for self-balancing of the robot and also it's positioning. As for the navigation in an enclosure, template matching algorithm is proposed for precise measurement of the robot position. The navigation system needs to be calibrated before navigation process starts. Almost all of the earlier template matching algorithms that can be found in the open literature can only trace the robot. But the proposed algorithm here can also locate the position of other objects in an enclosure, like furniture, tables etc. This will enable the robot to know the exact location of every stationary object in the enclosure. Moreover, some additional features, such as Speech Recognition and Object Detection, are added. For Object Detection, the single board Computer Raspberry Pi is used. The system is programmed to analyze images captured via the camera, which are then processed through background subtraction, followed by active noise reduction.

Knowledge/geometry-based Mobile Autonomous Robot Simulator (KMARS)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cheng, Linfu; Mckendrick, John D.; Liu, Jeffrey

1990-01-01

Ongoing applied research is focused on developing guidance system for robot vehicles. Problems facing the basic research needed to support this development (e.g., scene understanding, real-time vision processing, etc.) are major impediments to progress. Due to the complexity and the unpredictable nature of a vehicle's area of operation, more advanced vehicle control systems must be able to learn about obstacles within the range of its sensor(s). A better understanding of the basic exploration process is needed to provide critical support to developers of both sensor systems and intelligent control systems which can be used in a wide spectrum of autonomous vehicles. Elcee Computek, Inc. has been working under contract to the Flight Dynamics Laboratory, Wright Research and Development Center, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio to develop a Knowledge/Geometry-based Mobile Autonomous Robot Simulator (KMARS). KMARS has two parts: a geometry base and a knowledge base. The knowledge base part of the system employs the expert-system shell CLIPS ('C' Language Integrated Production System) and necessary rules that control both the vehicle's use of an obstacle detecting sensor and the overall exploration process. The initial phase project has focused on the simulation of a point robot vehicle operating in a 2D environment.

External force/velocity control for an autonomous rehabilitation robot

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Saekow, Peerayuth; Neranon, Paramin; Smithmaitrie, Pruittikorn

2018-01-01

Stroke is a primary cause of death and the leading cause of permanent disability in adults. There are many stroke survivors, who live with a variety of levels of disability and always need rehabilitation activities on daily basis. Several studies have reported that usage of rehabilitation robotic devices shows the better improvement outcomes in upper-limb stroke patients than the conventional therapy-nurses or therapists actively help patients with exercise-based rehabilitation. This research focuses on the development of an autonomous robotic trainer designed to guide a stroke patient through an upper-limb rehabilitation task. The robotic device was designed and developed to automate the reaching exercise as mentioned. The designed robotic system is made up of a four-wheel omni-directional mobile robot, an ATI Gamma multi-axis force/torque sensor used to measure contact force and a microcontroller real-time operating system. Proportional plus Integral control was adapted to control the overall performance and stability of the autonomous assistive robot. External force control was successfully implemented to establish the behavioral control strategy for the robot force and velocity control scheme. In summary, the experimental results indicated satisfactorily stable performance of the robot force and velocity control can be considered acceptable. The gain tuning for proportional integral (PI) velocity control algorithms was suitably estimated using the Ziegler-Nichols method in which the optimized proportional and integral gains are 0.45 and 0.11, respectively. Additionally, the PI external force control gains were experimentally tuned using the trial and error method based on a set of experiments which allow a human participant moves the robot along the constrained circular path whilst attempting to minimize the radial force. The performance was analyzed based on the root mean square error (E_RMS) of the radial forces, in which the lower the variation in radial

Improved obstacle avoidance and navigation for an autonomous ground vehicle

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Giri, Binod; Cho, Hyunsu; Williams, Benjamin C.; Tann, Hokchhay; Shakya, Bicky; Bharam, Vishal; Ahlgren, David J.

2015-01-01

This paper presents improvements made to the intelligence algorithms employed on Q, an autonomous ground vehicle, for the 2014 Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC). In 2012, the IGVC committee combined the formerly separate autonomous and navigation challenges into a single AUT-NAV challenge. In this new challenge, the vehicle is required to navigate through a grassy obstacle course and stay within the course boundaries (a lane of two white painted lines) that guide it toward a given GPS waypoint. Once the vehicle reaches this waypoint, it enters an open course where it is required to navigate to another GPS waypoint while avoiding obstacles. After reaching the final waypoint, the vehicle is required to traverse another obstacle course before completing the run. Q uses modular parallel software architecture in which image processing, navigation, and sensor control algorithms run concurrently. A tuned navigation algorithm allows Q to smoothly maneuver through obstacle fields. For the 2014 competition, most revisions occurred in the vision system, which detects white lines and informs the navigation component. Barrel obstacles of various colors presented a new challenge for image processing: the previous color plane extraction algorithm would not suffice. To overcome this difficulty, laser range sensor data were overlaid on visual data. Q also participates in the Joint Architecture for Unmanned Systems (JAUS) challenge at IGVC. For 2014, significant updates were implemented: the JAUS component accepted a greater variety of messages and showed better compliance to the JAUS technical standard. With these improvements, Q secured second place in the JAUS competition.

Real-time visual mosaicking and navigation on the seafloor

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Richmond, Kristof

Remote robotic exploration holds vast potential for gaining knowledge about extreme environments accessible to humans only with great difficulty. Robotic explorers have been sent to other solar system bodies, and on this planet into inaccessible areas such as caves and volcanoes. In fact, the largest unexplored land area on earth lies hidden in the airless cold and intense pressure of the ocean depths. Exploration in the oceans is further hindered by water's high absorption of electromagnetic radiation, which both inhibits remote sensing from the surface, and limits communications with the bottom. The Earth's oceans thus provide an attractive target for developing remote exploration capabilities. As a result, numerous robotic vehicles now routinely survey this environment, from remotely operated vehicles piloted over tethers from the surface to torpedo-shaped autonomous underwater vehicles surveying the mid-waters. However, these vehicles are limited in their ability to navigate relative to their environment. This limits their ability to return to sites with precision without the use of external navigation aids, and to maneuver near and interact with objects autonomously in the water and on the sea floor. The enabling of environment-relative positioning on fully autonomous underwater vehicles will greatly extend their power and utility for remote exploration in the furthest reaches of the Earth's waters---even under ice and under ground---and eventually in extraterrestrial liquid environments such as Europa's oceans. This thesis presents an operational, fielded system for visual navigation of underwater robotic vehicles in unexplored areas of the seafloor. The system does not depend on external sensing systems, using only instruments on board the vehicle. As an area is explored, a camera is used to capture images and a composite view, or visual mosaic, of the ocean bottom is created in real time. Side-to-side visual registration of images is combined with dead

Task-level control for autonomous robots

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Simmons, Reid

1994-01-01

Task-level control refers to the integration and coordination of planning, perception, and real-time control to achieve given high-level goals. Autonomous mobile robots need task-level control to effectively achieve complex tasks in uncertain, dynamic environments. This paper describes the Task Control Architecture (TCA), an implemented system that provides commonly needed constructs for task-level control. Facilities provided by TCA include distributed communication, task decomposition and sequencing, resource management, monitoring and exception handling. TCA supports a design methodology in which robot systems are developed incrementally, starting first with deliberative plans that work in nominal situations, and then layering them with reactive behaviors that monitor plan execution and handle exceptions. To further support this approach, design and analysis tools are under development to provide ways of graphically viewing the system and validating its behavior.

Evolutionary Fuzzy Control and Navigation for Two Wheeled Robots Cooperatively Carrying an Object in Unknown Environments.

PubMed

Juang, Chia-Feng; Lai, Min-Ge; Zeng, Wan-Ting

2015-09-01

This paper presents a method that allows two wheeled, mobile robots to navigate unknown environments while cooperatively carrying an object. In the navigation method, a leader robot and a follower robot cooperatively perform either obstacle boundary following (OBF) or target seeking (TS) to reach a destination. The two robots are controlled by fuzzy controllers (FC) whose rules are learned through an adaptive fusion of continuous ant colony optimization and particle swarm optimization (AF-CACPSO), which avoids the time-consuming task of manually designing the controllers. The AF-CACPSO-based evolutionary fuzzy control approach is first applied to the control of a single robot to perform OBF. The learning approach is then applied to achieve cooperative OBF with two robots, where an auxiliary FC designed with the AF-CACPSO is used to control the follower robot. For cooperative TS, a rule for coordination of the two robots is developed. To navigate cooperatively, a cooperative behavior supervisor is introduced to select between cooperative OBF and cooperative TS. The performance of the AF-CACPSO is verified through comparisons with various population-based optimization algorithms for the OBF learning problem. Simulations and experiments verify the effectiveness of the approach for cooperative navigation of two robots.

Olfaction and Hearing Based Mobile Robot Navigation for Odor/Sound Source Search

PubMed Central

Song, Kai; Liu, Qi; Wang, Qi

2011-01-01

Bionic technology provides a new elicitation for mobile robot navigation since it explores the way to imitate biological senses. In the present study, the challenging problem was how to fuse different biological senses and guide distributed robots to cooperate with each other for target searching. This paper integrates smell, hearing and touch to design an odor/sound tracking multi-robot system. The olfactory robot tracks the chemical odor plume step by step through information fusion from gas sensors and airflow sensors, while two hearing robots localize the sound source by time delay estimation (TDE) and the geometrical position of microphone array. Furthermore, this paper presents a heading direction based mobile robot navigation algorithm, by which the robot can automatically and stably adjust its velocity and direction according to the deviation between the current heading direction measured by magnetoresistive sensor and the expected heading direction acquired through the odor/sound localization strategies. Simultaneously, one robot can communicate with the other robots via a wireless sensor network (WSN). Experimental results show that the olfactory robot can pinpoint the odor source within the distance of 2 m, while two hearing robots can quickly localize and track the olfactory robot in 2 min. The devised multi-robot system can achieve target search with a considerable success ratio and high stability. PMID:22319401

Laser-Camera Vision Sensing for Spacecraft Mobile Robot Navigation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Maluf, David A.; Khalil, Ahmad S.; Dorais, Gregory A.; Gawdiak, Yuri

2002-01-01

The advent of spacecraft mobile robots-free-flyng sensor platforms and communications devices intended to accompany astronauts or remotely operate on space missions both inside and outside of a spacecraft-has demanded the development of a simple and effective navigation schema. One such system under exploration involves the use of a laser-camera arrangement to predict relative positioning of the mobile robot. By projecting laser beams from the robot, a 3D reference frame can be introduced. Thus, as the robot shifts in position, the position reference frame produced by the laser images is correspondingly altered. Using normalization and camera registration techniques presented in this paper, the relative translation and rotation of the robot in 3D are determined from these reference frame transformations.

Evolving self-assembly in autonomous homogeneous robots: experiments with two physical robots.

PubMed

Ampatzis, Christos; Tuci, Elio; Trianni, Vito; Christensen, Anders Lyhne; Dorigo, Marco

2009-01-01

This research work illustrates an approach to the design of controllers for self-assembling robots in which the self-assembly is initiated and regulated by perceptual cues that are brought forth by the physical robots through their dynamical interactions. More specifically, we present a homogeneous control system that can achieve assembly between two modules (two fully autonomous robots) of a mobile self-reconfigurable system without a priori introduced behavioral or morphological heterogeneities. The controllers are dynamic neural networks evolved in simulation that directly control all the actuators of the two robots. The neurocontrollers cause the dynamic specialization of the robots by allocating roles between them based solely on their interaction. We show that the best evolved controller proves to be successful when tested on a real hardware platform, the swarm-bot. The performance achieved is similar to the one achieved by existing modular or behavior-based approaches, also due to the effect of an emergent recovery mechanism that was neither explicitly rewarded by the fitness function, nor observed during the evolutionary simulation. Our results suggest that direct access to the orientations or intentions of the other agents is not a necessary condition for robot coordination: Our robots coordinate without direct or explicit communication, contrary to what is assumed by most research works in collective robotics. This work also contributes to strengthening the evidence that evolutionary robotics is a design methodology that can tackle real-world tasks demanding fine sensory-motor coordination.

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-11

Team AERO, from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) transports their robot to the competition field for the level one of the competition during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-11

Robots that will be competing in the Level one competition are seen as they sit in impound prior to the start of competition at the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-14

Ahti Heinla, left, and Sulo Kallas, right, from Estonia, prepare team KuuKulgur's robot for the rerun of the level one challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Saturday, June 14, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-12

A sample can be seen on the competition field as the team Survey robot conducts a demonstration of the level two challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Thursday, June 12, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-12

Jascha Little of team Survey is seen as he follows the teams robot as it conducts a demonstration of the level two challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Thursday, June 12, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-11

The University of California Santa Cruz Rover Team poses for a picture with their robot after attempting the level one challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. is one of eighteen teams competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-14

The University of California Santa Cruz Rover Team's robot is seen prior to starting it's second attempt at the level one challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Saturday, June 14, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-11

The Oregon State University Mars Rover Team poses for a picture with their robot following their attempt at the level one challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. is one of eighteen teams competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-11

Jim Rothrock, left, and Carrie Johnson, right, of the Wunderkammer Laboratory team pose for a picture with their robot after attempting the level one competition during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-10

The Oregon State University Mars Rover Team follows their robot on the practice field during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Tuesday, June 10, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. The Oregon State University Mars Rover Team is one of eighteen teams competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-11

Jerry Waechter of team Middleman from Dunedin, Florida, speaks about his team's robot, Ro-Bear, as it makes it attempt at the level one challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-10

The Oregon State University Mars Rover Team, from Corvallis, Oregon, follows their robot on the practice field during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Tuesday, June 10, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. The Oregon State University Mars Rover Team is one of eighteen teams competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-12

Russel Howe of team Survey speaks with Sample Return Robot Challenge staff members after the team's robot failed to leave the starting platform during it's attempt at the level two challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Thursday, June 12, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-11

Kenneth Stafford, Assistant Director of Robotics Engineering and Director of the Robotics Resource Center at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), verifies the location of the target sample during the level one challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Automatic tracking of laparoscopic instruments for autonomous control of a cameraman robot.

PubMed

Khoiy, Keyvan Amini; Mirbagheri, Alireza; Farahmand, Farzam

2016-01-01

An automated instrument tracking procedure was designed and developed for autonomous control of a cameraman robot during laparoscopic surgery. The procedure was based on an innovative marker-free segmentation algorithm for detecting the tip of the surgical instruments in laparoscopic images. A compound measure of Saturation and Value components of HSV color space was incorporated that was enhanced further using the Hue component and some essential characteristics of the instrument segment, e.g., crossing the image boundaries. The procedure was then integrated into the controlling system of the RoboLens cameraman robot, within a triple-thread parallel processing scheme, such that the tip is always kept at the center of the image. Assessment of the performance of the system on prerecorded real surgery movies revealed an accuracy rate of 97% for high quality images and about 80% for those suffering from poor lighting and/or blood, water and smoke noises. A reasonably satisfying performance was also observed when employing the system for autonomous control of the robot in a laparoscopic surgery phantom, with a mean time delay of 200ms. It was concluded that with further developments, the proposed procedure can provide a practical solution for autonomous control of cameraman robots during laparoscopic surgery operations.

Context recognition and situation assessment in autonomous mobile robots

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yavnai, Arie

1993-05-01

The capability to recognize the operating context and to assess the situation in real-time is needed, if a high functionality autonomous mobile robot has to react properly and effectively to continuously changing situations and events, either external or internal, while the robot is performing its assigned tasks. A new approach and architecture for context recognition and situation assessment module (CORSA) is presented in this paper. CORSA is a multi-level information processing module which consists of adaptive decision and classification algorithms. It performs dynamic mapping from the data space to the context space, and dynamically decides on the context class. Learning mechanism is employed to update the decision variables so as to minimize the probability of misclassification. CORSA is embedded within the Mission Manager module of the intelligent autonomous hyper-controller (IAHC) of the mobile robot. The information regarding operating context, events and situation is then communicated to other modules of the IAHC where it is used to: (a) select the appropriate action strategy; (b) support the processes to arbitration and conflict resolution between reflexive behaviors and reasoning-driven behaviors; (c) predict future events and situations; and (d) determine criteria and priorities for planning, replanning, and decision making.

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-14

The University of California Santa Cruz Rover Team prepares their rover for the rerun of the level one challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Saturday, June 14, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-14

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) President Laurie Leshin, speaks at a breakfast opening the TouchTomorrow Festival, held in conjunction with the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Saturday, June 14, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-14

David Miller, NASA Chief Technologist, speaks at a breakfast opening the TouchTomorrow Festival, held in conjunction with the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Saturday, June 14, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-11

The entrance to Institute Park is seen during the level one challenge as during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-14

Sam Ortega, NASA Centennial Challenges Program Manager, speaks at a breakfast opening the TouchTomorrow Festival, held in conjunction with the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Saturday, June 14, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-10

James Leopore, of team Fetch, from Alexandria, Virginia, speaks with judges as he prepares for the NASA 2014 Sample Return Robot Challenge, Tuesday, June 10, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Team Fetch is one of eighteen teams competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

An architecture for an autonomous learning robot

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tillotson, Brian

1988-01-01

An autonomous learning device must solve the example bounding problem, i.e., it must divide the continuous universe into discrete examples from which to learn. We describe an architecture which incorporates an example bounder for learning. The architecture is implemented in the GPAL program. An example run with a real mobile robot shows that the program learns and uses new causal, qualitative, and quantitative relationships.

Convolutional Neural Network-Based Robot Navigation Using Uncalibrated Spherical Images †

PubMed Central

Ran, Lingyan; Zhang, Yanning; Zhang, Qilin; Yang, Tao

2017-01-01

Vision-based mobile robot navigation is a vibrant area of research with numerous algorithms having been developed, the vast majority of which either belong to the scene-oriented simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) or fall into the category of robot-oriented lane-detection/trajectory tracking. These methods suffer from high computational cost and require stringent labelling and calibration efforts. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a lightweight robot navigation framework based purely on uncalibrated spherical images. To simplify the orientation estimation, path prediction and improve computational efficiency, the navigation problem is decomposed into a series of classification tasks. To mitigate the adverse effects of insufficient negative samples in the “navigation via classification” task, we introduce the spherical camera for scene capturing, which enables 360° fisheye panorama as training samples and generation of sufficient positive and negative heading directions. The classification is implemented as an end-to-end Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), trained on our proposed Spherical-Navi image dataset, whose category labels can be efficiently collected. This CNN is capable of predicting potential path directions with high confidence levels based on a single, uncalibrated spherical image. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed framework outperforms competing ones in realistic applications. PMID:28604624

Lunar far side surface navigation using Linked Autonomous Interplanetary Satellite Orbit Navigation (LiAISON)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hesar, Siamak G.; Parker, Jeffrey S.; Leonard, Jason M.; McGranaghan, Ryan M.; Born, George H.

2015-12-01

We study the application of Linked Autonomous Interplanetary Satellite Orbit Navigation (LiAISON) to track vehicles on the far side of the lunar surface. The LiAISON architecture is demonstrated to achieve accurate orbit determination solutions for various mission scenarios in the Earth-Moon system. Given the proper description of the force field, LiAISON is capable of producing absolute orbit determination solutions using relative satellite-to-satellite tracking observations alone. The lack of direct communication between Earth-based tracking stations and the far side of the Moon provides an ideal opportunity for implementing LiAISON. This paper presents a novel approach to use the LiAISON architecture to perform autonomous navigation of assets on the lunar far side surface. Relative measurements between a spacecraft placed in an EML-2 halo orbit and lunar surface asset(s) are simulated and processed. Comprehensive simulation results show that absolute states of the surface assets are observable with an achieved accuracy of the position estimate on the order of tens of meters.

Object Detection Techniques Applied on Mobile Robot Semantic Navigation

PubMed Central

Astua, Carlos; Barber, Ramon; Crespo, Jonathan; Jardon, Alberto

2014-01-01

The future of robotics predicts that robots will integrate themselves more every day with human beings and their environments. To achieve this integration, robots need to acquire information about the environment and its objects. There is a big need for algorithms to provide robots with these sort of skills, from the location where objects are needed to accomplish a task up to where these objects are considered as information about the environment. This paper presents a way to provide mobile robots with the ability-skill to detect objets for semantic navigation. This paper aims to use current trends in robotics and at the same time, that can be exported to other platforms. Two methods to detect objects are proposed, contour detection and a descriptor based technique, and both of them are combined to overcome their respective limitations. Finally, the code is tested on a real robot, to prove its accuracy and efficiency. PMID:24732101

Recent CESAR (Center for Engineering Systems Advanced Research) research activities in sensor based reasoning for autonomous machines

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Pin, F.G.; de Saussure, G.; Spelt, P.F.

1988-01-01

This paper describes recent research activities at the Center for Engineering Systems Advanced Research (CESAR) in the area of sensor based reasoning, with emphasis being given to their application and implementation on our HERMIES-IIB autonomous mobile vehicle. These activities, including navigation and exploration in a-priori unknown and dynamic environments, goal recognition, vision-guided manipulation and sensor-driven machine learning, are discussed within the framework of a scenario in which an autonomous robot is asked to navigate through an unknown dynamic environment, explore, find and dock at the panel, read and understand the status of the panel's meters and dials, learn the functioningmore » of a process control panel, and successfully manipulate the control devices of the panel to solve a maintenance emergency problems. A demonstration of the successful implementation of the algorithms on our HERMIES-IIB autonomous robot for resolution of this scenario is presented. Conclusions are drawn concerning the applicability of the methodologies to more general classes of problems and implications for future work on sensor-driven reasoning for autonomous robots are discussed. 8 refs., 3 figs.« less

Design of a laser navigation system for the inspection robot used in substation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhu, Jing; Sun, Yanhe; Sun, Deli

2017-01-01

Aimed at the deficiency of the magnetic guide and RFID parking system used by substation inspection robot now, a laser navigation system is designed, and the system structure, the method of map building and positioning are all introduced. The system performance is tested in a 500kV substation, and the result show that the repetitive precision of navigation system is precise enough to help the robot fulfill inspection tasks.

Human-like robots for space and hazardous environments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1994-01-01

The three year goal for the Kansas State USRA/NASA Senior Design team is to design and build a walking autonomous robotic rover. The rover should be capable of crossing rough terrain, traversing human made obstacles (such as stairs and doors), and moving through human and robot occupied spaces without collision. The rover is also to evidence considerable decision making ability, navigation, and path planning skills.

Human-like robots for space and hazardous environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

The three year goal for the Kansas State USRA/NASA Senior Design team is to design and build a walking autonomous robotic rover. The rover should be capable of crossing rough terrain, traversing human made obstacles (such as stairs and doors), and moving through human and robot occupied spaces without collision. The rover is also to evidence considerable decision making ability, navigation, and path planning skills.

Autonomous vehicle navigation utilizing fuzzy controls concepts for a next generation wheelchair.

PubMed

Hansen, J D; Barrett, S F; Wright, C H G; Wilcox, M

2008-01-01

Three different positioning techniques were investigated to create an autonomous vehicle that could accurately navigate towards a goal: Global Positioning System (GPS), compass dead reckoning, and Ackerman steering. Each technique utilized a fuzzy logic controller that maneuvered a four-wheel car towards a target. The reliability and the accuracy of the navigation methods were investigated by modeling the algorithms in software and implementing them in hardware. To implement the techniques in hardware, positioning sensors were interfaced to a remote control car and a microprocessor. The microprocessor utilized the sensor measurements to orient the car with respect to the target. Next, a fuzzy logic control algorithm adjusted the front wheel steering angle to minimize the difference between the heading and bearing. After minimizing the heading error, the car maintained a straight steering angle along its path to the final destination. The results of this research can be used to develop applications that require precise navigation. The design techniques can also be implemented on alternate platforms such as a wheelchair to assist with autonomous navigation.

Experiments on robot-assisted navigated drilling and milling of bones for pedicle screw placement.

PubMed

Ortmaier, T; Weiss, H; Döbele, S; Schreiber, U

2006-12-01

This article presents experimental results for robot-assisted navigated drilling and milling for pedicle screw placement. The preliminary study was carried out in order to gain first insights into positioning accuracies and machining forces during hands-on robotic spine surgery. Additionally, the results formed the basis for the development of a new robot for surgery. A simplified anatomical model is used to derive the accuracy requirements. The experimental set-up consists of a navigation system and an impedance-controlled light-weight robot holding the surgical instrument. The navigation system is used to position the surgical instrument and to compensate for pose errors during machining. Holes are drilled in artificial bone and bovine spine. A quantitative comparison of the drill-hole diameters was achieved using a computer. The interaction forces and pose errors are discussed with respect to the chosen machining technology and control parameters. Within the technological boundaries of the experimental set-up, it is shown that the accuracy requirements can be met and that milling is superior to drilling. It is expected that robot assisted navigated surgery helps to improve the reliability of surgical procedures. Further experiments are necessary to take the whole workflow into account. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Reactive, Safe Navigation for Lunar and Planetary Robots

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Utz, Hans; Ruland, Thomas

2008-01-01

When humans return to the moon, Astronauts will be accompanied by robotic helpers. Enabling robots to safely operate near astronauts on the lunar surface has the potential to significantly improve the efficiency of crew surface operations. Safely operating robots in close proximity to astronauts on the lunar surface requires reactive obstacle avoidance capabilities not available on existing planetary robots. In this paper we present work on safe, reactive navigation using a stereo based high-speed terrain analysis and obstacle avoidance system. Advances in the design of the algorithms allow it to run terrain analysis and obstacle avoidance algorithms at full frame rate (30Hz) on off the shelf hardware. The results of this analysis are fed into a fast, reactive path selection module, enforcing the safety of the chosen actions. The key components of the system are discussed and test results are presented.

A Robot to Help Make the Rounds

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2003-01-01

This paper presents a discussion on the Pyxis HelpMate SecurePak (SP) trackless robotic courier designed by Transitions Research Corporation, to navigate autonomously throughout medical facilities, transporting pharmaceuticals, laboratory specimens, equipment, supplies, meals, medical records, and radiology films between support departments and nursing floors.

Behavior-Based Multi-Robot Collaboration for Autonomous Construction Tasks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Stroupe, Ashley; Huntsberger, Terry; Okon, Avi; Aghazarian, Hrand; Robinson, Matthew

2005-01-01

We present a heterogeneous multi-robot system for autonomous construction of a structure through assembly of long components. Placement of a component within an existing structure in a realistic environment is demonstrated on a two-robot team. The task requires component acquisition, cooperative transport, and cooperative precision manipulation. Far adaptability, the system is designed as a behavior-based architecture. Far applicability to space-related construction efforts, computation, power, communication, and sensing are minimized, though the techniques developed are also applicable to terrestrial construction tasks.

High-frequency imaging radar for robotic navigation and situational awareness

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thomas, David J.; Luo, Changan; Knox, Robert

2011-05-01

With increasingly available high frequency radar components, the practicality of imaging radar for mobile robotic applications is now practical. Navigation, ODOA, situational awareness and safety applications can be supported in small light weight packaging. Radar has the additional advantage of being able sense through aerosols, smoke and dust that can be difficult for many optical systems. The ability to directly measure the range rate of an object is also an advantage in radar applications. This paper will explore the applicability of high frequency imaging radar for mobile robotics and examine a W-band 360 degree imaging radar prototype. Indoor and outdoor performance data will be analyzed and evaluated for applicability to navigation and situational awareness.

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-12

Russel Howe of team Survey, center, works on a laptop to prepare the team's robot for a demonstration run after the team's robot failed to leave the starting platform during it's attempt at the level two challenge at the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Thursday, June 12, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Socially assistive robotics for post-stroke rehabilitation

PubMed Central

Matarić, Maja J; Eriksson, Jon; Feil-Seifer, David J; Winstein, Carolee J

2007-01-01

Background Although there is a great deal of success in rehabilitative robotics applied to patient recovery post stroke, most of the research to date has dealt with providing physical assistance. However, new rehabilitation studies support the theory that not all therapy need be hands-on. We describe a new area, called socially assistive robotics, that focuses on non-contact patient/user assistance. We demonstrate the approach with an implemented and tested post-stroke recovery robot and discuss its potential for effectiveness. Results We describe a pilot study involving an autonomous assistive mobile robot that aids stroke patient rehabilitation by providing monitoring, encouragement, and reminders. The robot navigates autonomously, monitors the patient's arm activity, and helps the patient remember to follow a rehabilitation program. We also show preliminary results from a follow-up study that focused on the role of robot physical embodiment in a rehabilitation context. Conclusion We outline and discuss future experimental designs and factors toward the development of effective socially assistive post-stroke rehabilitation robots. PMID:17309795

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-14

Members of the Mountaineers team from West Virginia University celebrate after their robot returned to the starting platform after picking up the sample during a rerun of the level one challenge during the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Saturday, June 14, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-10

A pair of Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) students walk past a pair of team KuuKulgur's robots on the campus quad, during a final tuneup before the start of competition at the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Tuesday, June 10, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Team KuuKulgur is one of eighteen teams competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

An Outdoor Navigation Platform with a 3D Scanner and Gyro-assisted Odometry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yoshida, Tomoaki; Irie, Kiyoshi; Koyanagi, Eiji; Tomono, Masahiro

This paper proposes a light-weight navigation platform that consists of gyro-assisted odometry, a 3D laser scanner and map-based localization for human-scale robots. The gyro-assisted odometry provides highly accurate positioning only by dead-reckoning. The 3D laser scanner has a wide field of view and uniform measuring-point distribution. The map-based localization is robust and computationally inexpensive by utilizing a particle filter on a 2D grid map generated by projecting 3D points on to the ground. The system uses small and low-cost sensors, and can be applied to a variety of mobile robots in human-scale environments. Outdoor navigation experiments were conducted at the Tsukuba Challenge held in 2009 and 2010, which is an open proving ground for human-scale robots. Our robot successfully navigated the assigned 1-km courses in a fully autonomous mode multiple times.

Autonomous intelligent military robots: Army ants, killer bees, and cybernetic soldiers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Finkelstein, Robert

The rationale for developing autonomous intelligent robots in the military is to render conventional warfare systems ineffective and indefensible. The Desert Storm operation demonstrated the effectiveness of such systems as unmanned air and ground vehicles and indicated the future possibilities of robotic technology. Robotic military vehicles would have the advantages of expendability, low cost, lower complexity compared to manned systems, survivability, maneuverability, and a capability to share in instantaneous communication and distributed processing of combat information. Basic characteristics of intelligent systems and hierarchical control systems with sensor inputs are described. Genetic algorithms are seen as a means of achieving appropriate levels of intelligence in a robotic system. Potential impacts of robotic technology in the military are outlined.

A new technique for robot vision in autonomous underwater vehicles using the color shift in underwater imaging

DTIC Science & Technology

2017-06-01

FOR ROBOT VISION IN AUTONOMOUS UNDERWATER VEHICLES USING THE COLOR SHIFT IN UNDERWATER IMAGING by Jake A. Jones June 2017 Thesis Advisor...June 2017 3. REPORT TYPE AND DATES COVERED Master’s thesis 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE A NEW TECHNIQUE FOR ROBOT VISION IN AUTONOMOUS UNDERWATER...Developing a technique for underwater robot vision is a key factor in establishing autonomy in underwater vehicles. A new technique is developed and

Stereo Image Ranging For An Autonomous Robot Vision System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Holten, James R.; Rogers, Steven K.; Kabrisky, Matthew; Cross, Steven

1985-12-01

The principles of stereo vision for three-dimensional data acquisition are well-known and can be applied to the problem of an autonomous robot vehicle. Coincidental points in the two images are located and then the location of that point in a three-dimensional space can be calculated using the offset of the points and knowledge of the camera positions and geometry. This research investigates the application of artificial intelligence knowledge representation techniques as a means to apply heuristics to relieve the computational intensity of the low level image processing tasks. Specifically a new technique for image feature extraction is presented. This technique, the Queen Victoria Algorithm, uses formal language productions to process the image and characterize its features. These characterized features are then used for stereo image feature registration to obtain the required ranging information. The results can be used by an autonomous robot vision system for environmental modeling and path finding.

Ground Simulation of an Autonomous Satellite Rendezvous and Tracking System Using Dual Robotic Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Trube, Matthew J.; Hyslop, Andrew M.; Carignan, Craig R.; Easley, Joseph W.

2012-01-01

A hardware-in-the-loop ground system was developed for simulating a robotic servicer spacecraft tracking a target satellite at short range. A relative navigation sensor package "Argon" is mounted on the end-effector of a Fanuc 430 manipulator, which functions as the base platform of the robotic spacecraft servicer. Machine vision algorithms estimate the pose of the target spacecraft, mounted on a Rotopod R-2000 platform, relay the solution to a simulation of the servicer spacecraft running in "Freespace", which performs guidance, navigation and control functions, integrates dynamics, and issues motion commands to a Fanuc platform controller so that it tracks the simulated servicer spacecraft. Results will be reviewed for several satellite motion scenarios at different ranges. Key words: robotics, satellite, servicing, guidance, navigation, tracking, control, docking.

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-14

Dorothy Rasco, NASA Deputy Associate Administrator for the Space Technology Mission Directorate, speaks at the TouchTomorrow Festival, held in conjunction with the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Saturday, June 14, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-06-12

Sam Ortega, NASA program manager for Centennial Challenges, is interviewed by a member of the media before the start of level two competition at the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge, Thursday, June 12, 2014, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass. Eighteen teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Development of a force-reflecting robotic platform for cardiac catheter navigation.

PubMed

Park, Jun Woo; Choi, Jaesoon; Pak, Hui-Nam; Song, Seung Joon; Lee, Jung Chan; Park, Yongdoo; Shin, Seung Min; Sun, Kyung

2010-11-01

Electrophysiological catheters are used for both diagnostics and clinical intervention. To facilitate more accurate and precise catheter navigation, robotic cardiac catheter navigation systems have been developed and commercialized. The authors have developed a novel force-reflecting robotic catheter navigation system. The system is a network-based master-slave configuration having a 3-degree of freedom robotic manipulator for operation with a conventional cardiac ablation catheter. The master manipulator implements a haptic user interface device with force feedback using a force or torque signal either measured with a sensor or estimated from the motor current signal in the slave manipulator. The slave manipulator is a robotic motion control platform on which the cardiac ablation catheter is mounted. The catheter motions-forward and backward movements, rolling, and catheter tip bending-are controlled by electromechanical actuators located in the slave manipulator. The control software runs on a real-time operating system-based workstation and implements the master/slave motion synchronization control of the robot system. The master/slave motion synchronization response was assessed with step, sinusoidal, and arbitrarily varying motion commands, and showed satisfactory performance with insignificant steady-state motion error. The current system successfully implemented the motion control function and will undergo safety and performance evaluation by means of animal experiments. Further studies on the force feedback control algorithm and on an active motion catheter with an embedded actuation mechanism are underway. © 2010, Copyright the Authors. Artificial Organs © 2010, International Center for Artificial Organs and Transplantation and Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

An Effective Terrain Aided Navigation for Low-Cost Autonomous Underwater Vehicles.

PubMed

Zhou, Ling; Cheng, Xianghong; Zhu, Yixian; Dai, Chenxi; Fu, Jinbo

2017-03-25

Terrain-aided navigation is a potentially powerful solution for obtaining submerged position fixes for autonomous underwater vehicles. The application of terrain-aided navigation with high-accuracy inertial navigation systems has demonstrated meter-level navigation accuracy in sea trials. However, available sensors may be limited depending on the type of the mission. Such limitations, especially for low-grade navigation sensors, not only degrade the accuracy of traditional navigation systems, but further impact the ability to successfully employ terrain-aided navigation. To address this problem, a tightly-coupled navigation is presented to successfully estimate the critical sensor errors by incorporating raw sensor data directly into an augmented navigation system. Furthermore, three-dimensional distance errors are calculated, providing measurement updates through the particle filter for absolute and bounded position error. The development of the terrain aided navigation system is elaborated for a vehicle equipped with a non-inertial-grade strapdown inertial navigation system, a 4-beam Doppler Velocity Log range sensor and a sonar altimeter. Using experimental data for navigation performance evaluation in areas with different terrain characteristics, the experiment results further show that the proposed method can be successfully applied to the low-cost AUVs and significantly improves navigation performance.

Autonomous Navigation Above the GNSS Constellations and Beyond: GPS Navigation for the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission and SEXTANT Pulsar Navigation Demonstration

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Winternitz, Luke

2017-01-01

This talk will describe two first-of-their-kind technology demonstrations attached to ongoing NASA science missions, both of which aim to extend the range of autonomous spacecraft navigation far from the Earth. First, we will describe the onboard GPS navigation system for the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission which is currently operating in elliptic orbits reaching nearly halfway to the Moon. The MMS navigation system is a key outgrowth of a larger effort at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to advance high-altitude Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) navigation on multiple fronts, including developing Global Positioning System receivers and onboard navigation software, running simulation studies, and leading efforts to characterize and protect signals at high-altitude in the so-called GNSS Space-Service Volume (SSV). In the second part of the talk, we will describe the Station Explorer for X-ray Timing and Navigation Technology (SEXTANT) mission that aims to make the first in-space demonstration of X-ray pulsar navigation (XNAV). SEXTANT is attached to the NASA astrophysics mission Neutron-star Interior Composition ExploreR (NICER) whose International Space Station mounted X-ray telescope is investigating the fundamental physics of extremes in gravity, material density, and electromagnetic fields found in neutron stars, and whose instrument provides a nearly ideal navigation sensor for XNAV.

Autonomous Navigation Error Propagation Assessment for Lunar Surface Mobility Applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Welch, Bryan W.; Connolly, Joseph W.

2006-01-01

The NASA Vision for Space Exploration is focused on the return of astronauts to the Moon. While navigation systems have already been proven in the Apollo missions to the moon, the current exploration campaign will involve more extensive and extended missions requiring new concepts for lunar navigation. In this document, the results of an autonomous navigation error propagation assessment are provided. The analysis is intended to be the baseline error propagation analysis for which Earth-based and Lunar-based radiometric data are added to compare these different architecture schemes, and quantify the benefits of an integrated approach, in how they can handle lunar surface mobility applications when near the Lunar South pole or on the Lunar Farside.

Real-time adaptive off-road vehicle navigation and terrain classification

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Muller, Urs A.; Jackel, Lawrence D.; LeCun, Yann; Flepp, Beat

2013-05-01

We are developing a complete, self-contained autonomous navigation system for mobile robots that learns quickly, uses commodity components, and has the added benefit of emitting no radiation signature. It builds on the au­tonomous navigation technology developed by Net-Scale and New York University during the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Learning Applied to Ground Robots (LAGR) program and takes advantage of recent scientific advancements achieved during the DARPA Deep Learning program. In this paper we will present our approach and algorithms, show results from our vision system, discuss lessons learned from the past, and present our plans for further advancing vehicle autonomy.

Virtual local target method for avoiding local minimum in potential field based robot navigation.

PubMed

Zou, Xi-Yong; Zhu, Jing

2003-01-01

A novel robot navigation algorithm with global path generation capability is presented. Local minimum is a most intractable but is an encountered frequently problem in potential field based robot navigation. Through appointing appropriately some virtual local targets on the journey, it can be solved effectively. The key concept employed in this algorithm are the rules that govern when and how to appoint these virtual local targets. When the robot finds itself in danger of local minimum, a virtual local target is appointed to replace the global goal temporarily according to the rules. After the virtual target is reached, the robot continues on its journey by heading towards the global goal. The algorithm prevents the robot from running into local minima anymore. Simulation results showed that it is very effective in complex obstacle environments.

A 3D terrain reconstruction method of stereo vision based quadruped robot navigation system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ge, Zhuo; Zhu, Ying; Liang, Guanhao

2017-01-01

To provide 3D environment information for the quadruped robot autonomous navigation system during walking through rough terrain, based on the stereo vision, a novel 3D terrain reconstruction method is presented. In order to solve the problem that images collected by stereo sensors have large regions with similar grayscale and the problem that image matching is poor at real-time performance, watershed algorithm and fuzzy c-means clustering algorithm are combined for contour extraction. Aiming at the problem of error matching, duel constraint with region matching and pixel matching is established for matching optimization. Using the stereo matching edge pixel pairs, the 3D coordinate algorithm is estimated according to the binocular stereo vision imaging model. Experimental results show that the proposed method can yield high stereo matching ratio and reconstruct 3D scene quickly and efficiently.

Under-vehicle autonomous inspection through undercarriage signatures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schoenherr, Edward; Smuda, Bill

2005-05-01

Increased threats to gate security have caused recent need for improved vehicle inspection methods at security checkpoints in various fields of defense and security. A fast, reliable system of under-vehicle inspection that detects possibly harmful or unwanted materials hidden on vehicle undercarriages and notifies the user of the presence of these materials while allowing the user a safe standoff distance from the inspection site is desirable. An autonomous under-vehicle inspection system would provide for this. The proposed system would function as follows: A low-clearance tele-operated robotic platform would be equipped with sonar/laser range finding sensors as well as a video camera. As a vehicle to be inspected enters a checkpoint, the robot would autonomously navigate under the vehicle, using algorithms to detect tire locations for weigh points. During this navigation, data would be collected from the sonar/laser range finding hardware. This range data would be used to compile an impression of the vehicle undercarriage. Once this impression is complete, the system would compare it to a database of pre-scanned undercarriage impressions. Based on vehicle makes and models, any variance between the undercarriage being inspected and the impression compared against in the database would be marked as potentially threatening. If such variances exist, the robot would navigate to these locations and place the video camera in such a manner that the location in question can be viewed from a standoff position through a TV monitor. At this time, manual control of the robot navigation and camera control can be taken to imply further, more detailed inspection of the area/materials in question. After-market vehicle modifications would provide some difficulty, yet with enough pre-screening of such modifications, the system should still prove accurate. Also, impression scans that are taken in the field can be stored and tagged with a vehicles's license plate number, and future

Human-like robots for space and hazardous environments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cogley, Allen; Gustafson, David; White, Warren; Dyer, Ruth; Hampton, Tom (Editor); Freise, Jon (Editor)

1990-01-01

The three year goal for this NASA Senior Design team is to design and build a walking autonomous robotic rover. The rover should be capable of rough terrain crossing, traversing human made obstacles (such as stairs and doors), and moving through human and robot occupied spaces without collision. The rover is also to evidence considerable decision making ability, navigation and path planning skills. These goals came from the concept that the robot should have the abilities of both a planetary rover and a hazardous waste site scout.

Human-like robots for space and hazardous environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cogley, Allen; Gustafson, David; White, Warren; Dyer, Ruth; Hampton, Tom; Freise, Jon

The three year goal for this NASA Senior Design team is to design and build a walking autonomous robotic rover. The rover should be capable of rough terrain crossing, traversing human made obstacles (such as stairs and doors), and moving through human and robot occupied spaces without collision. The rover is also to evidence considerable decision making ability, navigation and path planning skills. These goals came from the concept that the robot should have the abilities of both a planetary rover and a hazardous waste site scout.

Electromagnetic tracking of flexible robotic catheters enables "assisted navigation" and brings automation to endovascular navigation in an in vitro study.

PubMed

Schwein, Adeline; Kramer, Benjamin; Chinnadurai, Ponraj; Virmani, Neha; Walker, Sean; O'Malley, Marcia; Lumsden, Alan B; Bismuth, Jean

2018-04-01

Combining three-dimensional (3D) catheter control with electromagnetic (EM) tracking-based navigation significantly reduced fluoroscopy time and improved robotic catheter movement quality in a previous in vitro pilot study. The aim of this study was to expound on previous results and to expand the value of EM tracking with a novel feature, assistednavigation, allowing automatic catheter orientation and semiautomatic vessel cannulation. Eighteen users navigated a robotic catheter in an aortic aneurysm phantom using an EM guidewire and a modified 9F robotic catheter with EM sensors at the tip of both leader and sheath. All users cannulated two targets, the left renal artery and posterior gate, using four visualization modes: (1) Standard fluoroscopy (control). (2) 2D biplane fluoroscopy showing real-time virtual catheter localization and orientation from EM tracking. (3) 2D biplane fluoroscopy with novel EM assisted navigation allowing the user to define the target vessel. The robotic catheter orients itself automatically toward the target; the user then only needs to advance the guidewire following this predefined optimized path to catheterize the vessel. Then, while advancing the catheter over the wire, the assisted navigation automatically modifies catheter bending and rotation in order to ensure smooth progression, avoiding loss of wire access. (4) Virtual 3D representation of the phantom showing real-time virtual catheter localization and orientation. Standard fluoroscopy was always available; cannulation and fluoroscopy times were noted for every mode and target cannulation. Quality of catheter movement was assessed by measuring the number of submovements of the catheter using the 3D coordinates of the EM sensors. A t-test was used to compare the standard fluoroscopy mode against EM tracking modes. EM tracking significantly reduced the mean fluoroscopy time (P < .001) and the number of submovements (P < .02) for both cannulation tasks. For the posterior gate

How to make an autonomous robot as a partner with humans: design approach versus emergent approach.

PubMed

Fujita, M

2007-01-15

In this paper, we discuss what factors are important to realize an autonomous robot as a partner with humans. We believe that it is important to interact with people without boring them, using verbal and non-verbal communication channels. We have already developed autonomous robots such as AIBO and QRIO, whose behaviours are manually programmed and designed. We realized, however, that this design approach has limitations; therefore we propose a new approach, intelligence dynamics, where interacting in a real-world environment using embodiment is considered very important. There are pioneering works related to this approach from brain science, cognitive science, robotics and artificial intelligence. We assert that it is important to study the emergence of entire sets of autonomous behaviours and present our approach towards this goal.

An architectural approach to create self organizing control systems for practical autonomous robots

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Greiner, Helen

1991-01-01

For practical industrial applications, the development of trainable robots is an important and immediate objective. Therefore, the developing of flexible intelligence directly applicable to training is emphasized. It is generally agreed upon by the AI community that the fusion of expert systems, neural networks, and conventionally programmed modules (e.g., a trajectory generator) is promising in the quest for autonomous robotic intelligence. Autonomous robot development is hindered by integration and architectural problems. Some obstacles towards the construction of more general robot control systems are as follows: (1) Growth problem; (2) Software generation; (3) Interaction with environment; (4) Reliability; and (5) Resource limitation. Neural networks can be successfully applied to some of these problems. However, current implementations of neural networks are hampered by the resource limitation problem and must be trained extensively to produce computationally accurate output. A generalization of conventional neural nets is proposed, and an architecture is offered in an attempt to address the above problems.

On learning navigation behaviors for small mobile robots with reservoir computing architectures.

PubMed

Antonelo, Eric Aislan; Schrauwen, Benjamin

2015-04-01

This paper proposes a general reservoir computing (RC) learning framework that can be used to learn navigation behaviors for mobile robots in simple and complex unknown partially observable environments. RC provides an efficient way to train recurrent neural networks by letting the recurrent part of the network (called reservoir) be fixed while only a linear readout output layer is trained. The proposed RC framework builds upon the notion of navigation attractor or behavior that can be embedded in the high-dimensional space of the reservoir after learning. The learning of multiple behaviors is possible because the dynamic robot behavior, consisting of a sensory-motor sequence, can be linearly discriminated in the high-dimensional nonlinear space of the dynamic reservoir. Three learning approaches for navigation behaviors are shown in this paper. The first approach learns multiple behaviors based on the examples of navigation behaviors generated by a supervisor, while the second approach learns goal-directed navigation behaviors based only on rewards. The third approach learns complex goal-directed behaviors, in a supervised way, using a hierarchical architecture whose internal predictions of contextual switches guide the sequence of basic navigation behaviors toward the goal.

Motor-response learning at a process control panel by an autonomous robot

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Spelt, P.F.; de Saussure, G.; Lyness, E.

1988-01-01

The Center for Engineering Systems Advanced Research (CESAR) was founded at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) by the Department of Energy's Office of Energy Research/Division of Engineering and Geoscience (DOE-OER/DEG) to conduct basic research in the area of intelligent machines. Therefore, researchers at the CESAR Laboratory are engaged in a variety of research activities in the field of machine learning. In this paper, we describe our approach to a class of machine learning which involves motor response acquisition using feedback from trial-and-error learning. Our formulation is being experimentally validated using an autonomous robot, learning tasks of control panel monitoring andmore » manipulation for effect process control. The CLIPS Expert System and the associated knowledge base used by the robot in the learning process, which reside in a hypercube computer aboard the robot, are described in detail. Benchmark testing of the learning process on a robot/control panel simulation system consisting of two intercommunicating computers is presented, along with results of sample problems used to train and test the expert system. These data illustrate machine learning and the resulting performance improvement in the robot for problems similar to, but not identical with, those on which the robot was trained. Conclusions are drawn concerning the learning problems, and implications for future work on machine learning for autonomous robots are discussed. 16 refs., 4 figs., 1 tab.« less

Target Trailing With Safe Navigation for Maritime Autonomous Surface Vehicles

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wolf, Michael; Kuwata, Yoshiaki; Zarzhitsky, Dimitri V.

2013-01-01

This software implements a motion-planning module for a maritime autonomous surface vehicle (ASV). The module trails a given target while also avoiding static and dynamic surface hazards. When surface hazards are other moving boats, the motion planner must apply International Regulations for Avoiding Collisions at Sea (COLREGS). A key subset of these rules has been implemented in the software. In case contact with the target is lost, the software can receive and follow a "reacquisition route," provided by a complementary system, until the target is reacquired. The programmatic intention is that the trailed target is a submarine, although any mobile naval platform could serve as the target. The algorithmic approach to combining motion with a (possibly moving) goal location, while avoiding local hazards, may be applicable to robotic rovers, automated landing systems, and autonomous airships. The software operates in JPL s CARACaS (Control Architecture for Robotic Agent Command and Sensing) software architecture and relies on other modules for environmental perception data and information on the predicted detectability of the target, as well as the low-level interface to the boat controls.

An Effective Terrain Aided Navigation for Low-Cost Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

PubMed Central

Zhou, Ling; Cheng, Xianghong; Zhu, Yixian; Dai, Chenxi; Fu, Jinbo

2017-01-01

Terrain-aided navigation is a potentially powerful solution for obtaining submerged position fixes for autonomous underwater vehicles. The application of terrain-aided navigation with high-accuracy inertial navigation systems has demonstrated meter-level navigation accuracy in sea trials. However, available sensors may be limited depending on the type of the mission. Such limitations, especially for low-grade navigation sensors, not only degrade the accuracy of traditional navigation systems, but further impact the ability to successfully employ terrain-aided navigation. To address this problem, a tightly-coupled navigation is presented to successfully estimate the critical sensor errors by incorporating raw sensor data directly into an augmented navigation system. Furthermore, three-dimensional distance errors are calculated, providing measurement updates through the particle filter for absolute and bounded position error. The development of the terrain aided navigation system is elaborated for a vehicle equipped with a non-inertial-grade strapdown inertial navigation system, a 4-beam Doppler Velocity Log range sensor and a sonar altimeter. Using experimental data for navigation performance evaluation in areas with different terrain characteristics, the experiment results further show that the proposed method can be successfully applied to the low-cost AUVs and significantly improves navigation performance. PMID:28346346

Towards Robot Scientists for autonomous scientific discovery

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

We review the main components of autonomous scientific discovery, and how they lead to the concept of a Robot Scientist. This is a system which uses techniques from artificial intelligence to automate all aspects of the scientific discovery process: it generates hypotheses from a computer model of the domain, designs experiments to test these hypotheses, runs the physical experiments using robotic systems, analyses and interprets the resulting data, and repeats the cycle. We describe our two prototype Robot Scientists: Adam and Eve. Adam has recently proven the potential of such systems by identifying twelve genes responsible for catalysing specific reactions in the metabolic pathways of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This work has been formally recorded in great detail using logic. We argue that the reporting of science needs to become fully formalised and that Robot Scientists can help achieve this. This will make scientific information more reproducible and reusable, and promote the integration of computers in scientific reasoning. We believe the greater automation of both the physical and intellectual aspects of scientific investigations to be essential to the future of science. Greater automation improves the accuracy and reliability of experiments, increases the pace of discovery and, in common with conventional laboratory automation, removes tedious and repetitive tasks from the human scientist. PMID:20119518

Towards Robot Scientists for autonomous scientific discovery.

PubMed

Sparkes, Andrew; Aubrey, Wayne; Byrne, Emma; Clare, Amanda; Khan, Muhammed N; Liakata, Maria; Markham, Magdalena; Rowland, Jem; Soldatova, Larisa N; Whelan, Kenneth E; Young, Michael; King, Ross D

2010-01-04

We review the main components of autonomous scientific discovery, and how they lead to the concept of a Robot Scientist. This is a system which uses techniques from artificial intelligence to automate all aspects of the scientific discovery process: it generates hypotheses from a computer model of the domain, designs experiments to test these hypotheses, runs the physical experiments using robotic systems, analyses and interprets the resulting data, and repeats the cycle. We describe our two prototype Robot Scientists: Adam and Eve. Adam has recently proven the potential of such systems by identifying twelve genes responsible for catalysing specific reactions in the metabolic pathways of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This work has been formally recorded in great detail using logic. We argue that the reporting of science needs to become fully formalised and that Robot Scientists can help achieve this. This will make scientific information more reproducible and reusable, and promote the integration of computers in scientific reasoning. We believe the greater automation of both the physical and intellectual aspects of scientific investigations to be essential to the future of science. Greater automation improves the accuracy and reliability of experiments, increases the pace of discovery and, in common with conventional laboratory automation, removes tedious and repetitive tasks from the human scientist.

Crew/Robot Coordinated Planetary EVA Operations at a Lunar Base Analog Site

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Diftler, M. A.; Ambrose, R. O.; Bluethmann, W. J.; Delgado, F. J.; Herrera, E.; Kosmo, J. J.; Janoiko, B. A.; Wilcox, B. H.; Townsend, J. A.; Matthews, J. B.;

Autonomous learning based on cost assumptions: theoretical studies and experiments in robot control.

PubMed

Ribeiro, C H; Hemerly, E M

2000-02-01

Autonomous learning techniques are based on experience acquisition. In most realistic applications, experience is time-consuming: it implies sensor reading, actuator control and algorithmic update, constrained by the learning system dynamics. The information crudeness upon which classical learning algorithms operate make such problems too difficult and unrealistic. Nonetheless, additional information for facilitating the learning process ideally should be embedded in such a way that the structural, well-studied characteristics of these fundamental algorithms are maintained. We investigate in this article a more general formulation of the Q-learning method that allows for a spreading of information derived from single updates towards a neighbourhood of the instantly visited state and converges to optimality. We show how this new formulation can be used as a mechanism to safely embed prior knowledge about the structure of the state space, and demonstrate it in a modified implementation of a reinforcement learning algorithm in a real robot navigation task.

A swarm of autonomous miniature underwater robot drifters for exploring submesoscale ocean dynamics.

PubMed

Jaffe, Jules S; Franks, Peter J S; Roberts, Paul L D; Mirza, Diba; Schurgers, Curt; Kastner, Ryan; Boch, Adrien

2017-01-24

Measuring the ever-changing 3-dimensional (3D) motions of the ocean requires simultaneous sampling at multiple locations. In particular, sampling the complex, nonlinear dynamics associated with submesoscales (<1-10 km) requires new technologies and approaches. Here we introduce the Mini-Autonomous Underwater Explorer (M-AUE), deployed as a swarm of 16 independent vehicles whose 3D trajectories are measured near-continuously, underwater. As the vehicles drift with the ambient flow or execute preprogrammed vertical behaviours, the simultaneous measurements at multiple, known locations resolve the details of the flow within the swarm. We describe the design, construction, control and underwater navigation of the M-AUE. A field programme in the coastal ocean using a swarm of these robots programmed with a depth-holding behaviour provides a unique test of a physical-biological interaction leading to plankton patch formation in internal waves. The performance of the M-AUE vehicles illustrates their novel capability for measuring submesoscale dynamics.

A swarm of autonomous miniature underwater robot drifters for exploring submesoscale ocean dynamics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jaffe, Jules S.; Franks, Peter J. S.; Roberts, Paul L. D.; Mirza, Diba; Schurgers, Curt; Kastner, Ryan; Boch, Adrien

2017-01-01

Measuring the ever-changing 3-dimensional (3D) motions of the ocean requires simultaneous sampling at multiple locations. In particular, sampling the complex, nonlinear dynamics associated with submesoscales (<1-10 km) requires new technologies and approaches. Here we introduce the Mini-Autonomous Underwater Explorer (M-AUE), deployed as a swarm of 16 independent vehicles whose 3D trajectories are measured near-continuously, underwater. As the vehicles drift with the ambient flow or execute preprogrammed vertical behaviours, the simultaneous measurements at multiple, known locations resolve the details of the flow within the swarm. We describe the design, construction, control and underwater navigation of the M-AUE. A field programme in the coastal ocean using a swarm of these robots programmed with a depth-holding behaviour provides a unique test of a physical-biological interaction leading to plankton patch formation in internal waves. The performance of the M-AUE vehicles illustrates their novel capability for measuring submesoscale dynamics.

ALHAT COBALT: CoOperative Blending of Autonomous Landing Technology

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Carson, John M.

2015-01-01

The COBALT project is a flight demonstration of two NASA ALHAT (Autonomous precision Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology) capabilities that are key for future robotic or human landing GN&C (Guidance, Navigation and Control) systems. The COBALT payload integrates the Navigation Doppler Lidar (NDL) for ultraprecise velocity and range measurements with the Lander Vision System (LVS) for Terrain Relative Navigation (TRN) position estimates. Terrestrial flight tests of the COBALT payload in an open-loop and closed-loop GN&C configuration will be conducted onboard a commercial, rocket-propulsive Vertical Test Bed (VTB) at a test range in Mojave, CA.

A Self-Tuning Kalman Filter for Autonomous Spacecraft Navigation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Truong, Son H.

1998-01-01

Most navigation systems currently operated by NASA are ground-based, and require extensive support to produce accurate results. Recently developed systems that use Kalman Filter and Global Positioning System (GPS) data for orbit determination greatly reduce dependency on ground support, and have potential to provide significant economies for NASA spacecraft navigation. Current techniques of Kalman filtering, however, still rely on manual tuning from analysts, and cannot help in optimizing autonomy without compromising accuracy and performance. This paper presents an approach to produce a high accuracy autonomous navigation system fully integrated with the flight system. The resulting system performs real-time state estimation by using an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) implemented with high-fidelity state dynamics model, as does the GPS Enhanced Orbit Determination Experiment (GEODE) system developed by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Augmented to the EKF is a sophisticated neural-fuzzy system, which combines the explicit knowledge representation of fuzzy logic with the learning power of neural networks. The fuzzy-neural system performs most of the self-tuning capability and helps the navigation system recover from estimation errors. The core requirement is a method of state estimation that handles uncertainties robustly, capable of identifying estimation problems, flexible enough to make decisions and adjustments to recover from these problems, and compact enough to run on flight hardware. The resulting system can be extended to support geosynchronous spacecraft and high-eccentricity orbits. Mathematical methodology, systems and operations concepts, and implementation of a system prototype are presented in this paper. Results from the use of the prototype to evaluate optimal control algorithms implemented are discussed. Test data and major control issues (e.g., how to define specific roles for fuzzy logic to support the self-learning capability) are also

Application of autonomous robotized systems for the collection of nearshore topographic changing and hydrodynamic measurements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Belyakov, Vladimir; Makarov, Vladimir; Zezyulin, Denis; Kurkin, Andrey; Pelinovsky, Efim

2015-04-01

Hazardous phenomena in the coastal zone lead to the topographic changing which are difficulty inspected by traditional methods. It is why those autonomous robots are used for collection of nearshore topographic and hydrodynamic measurements. The robot RTS-Hanna is well-known (Wubbold, F., Hentschel, M., Vousdoukas, M., and Wagner, B. Application of an autonomous robot for the collection of nearshore topographic and hydrodynamic measurements. Coastal Engineering Proceedings, 2012, vol. 33, Paper 53). We describe here several constructions of mobile systems developed in Laboratory "Transported Machines and Transported Complexes", Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University. They can be used in the field surveys and monitoring of wave regimes nearshore.

Autonomous Vision Navigation for Spacecraft in Lunar Orbit

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bader, Nolan A.

NASA aims to achieve unprecedented navigational reliability for the first manned lunar mission of the Orion spacecraft in 2023. A technique for accomplishing this is to integrate autonomous feature tracking as an added means of improving position and velocity estimation. In this thesis, a template matching algorithm and optical sensor are tested onboard three simulated lunar trajectories using linear covariance techniques under various conditions. A preliminary characterization of the camera gives insight into its ability to determine azimuth and elevation angles to points on the surface of the Moon. A navigation performance analysis shows that an optical camera sensor can aid in decreasing position and velocity errors, particularly in a loss of communication scenario. Furthermore, it is found that camera quality and computational capability are driving factors affecting the performance of such a system.

AEKF-SLAM: A New Algorithm for Robotic Underwater Navigation

PubMed Central

Yuan, Xin; Martínez-Ortega, José-Fernán; Fernández, José Antonio Sánchez; Eckert, Martina

2017-01-01

In this work, we focus on key topics related to underwater Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) applications. Moreover, a detailed review of major studies in the literature and our proposed solutions for addressing the problem are presented. The main goal of this paper is the enhancement of the accuracy and robustness of the SLAM-based navigation problem for underwater robotics with low computational costs. Therefore, we present a new method called AEKF-SLAM that employs an Augmented Extended Kalman Filter (AEKF)-based SLAM algorithm. The AEKF-based SLAM approach stores the robot poses and map landmarks in a single state vector, while estimating the state parameters via a recursive and iterative estimation-update process. Hereby, the prediction and update state (which exist as well in the conventional EKF) are complemented by a newly proposed augmentation stage. Applied to underwater robot navigation, the AEKF-SLAM has been compared with the classic and popular FastSLAM 2.0 algorithm. Concerning the dense loop mapping and line mapping experiments, it shows much better performances in map management with respect to landmark addition and removal, which avoid the long-term accumulation of errors and clutters in the created map. Additionally, the underwater robot achieves more precise and efficient self-localization and a mapping of the surrounding landmarks with much lower processing times. Altogether, the presented AEKF-SLAM method achieves reliably map revisiting, and consistent map upgrading on loop closure. PMID:28531135

Towards high-speed autonomous navigation of unknown environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Richter, Charles; Roy, Nicholas

2015-05-01

In this paper, we summarize recent research enabling high-speed navigation in unknown environments for dynamic robots that perceive the world through onboard sensors. Many existing solutions to this problem guarantee safety by making the conservative assumption that any unknown portion of the map may contain an obstacle, and therefore constrain planned motions to lie entirely within known free space. In this work, we observe that safety constraints may significantly limit performance and that faster navigation is possible if the planner reasons about collision with unobserved obstacles probabilistically. Our overall approach is to use machine learning to approximate the expected costs of collision using the current state of the map and the planned trajectory. Our contribution is to demonstrate fast but safe planning using a learned function to predict future collision probabilities.

GPS navigation algorithms for Autonomous Airborne Refueling of Unmanned Air Vehicles

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Khanafseh, Samer Mahmoud

Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) have recently generated great interest because of their potential to perform hazardous missions without risking loss of life. If autonomous airborne refueling is possible for UAVs, mission range and endurance will be greatly enhanced. However, concerns about UAV-tanker proximity, dynamic mobility and safety demand that the relative navigation system meets stringent requirements on accuracy, integrity, and continuity. In response, this research focuses on developing high-performance GPS-based navigation architectures for Autonomous Airborne Refueling (AAR) of UAVs. The AAR mission is unique because of the potentially severe sky blockage introduced by the tanker. To address this issue, a high-fidelity dynamic sky blockage model was developed and experimentally validated. In addition, robust carrier phase differential GPS navigation algorithms were derived, including a new method for high-integrity reacquisition of carrier cycle ambiguities for recently-blocked satellites. In order to evaluate navigation performance, world-wide global availability and sensitivity covariance analyses were conducted. The new navigation algorithms were shown to be sufficient for turn-free scenarios, but improvement in performance was necessary to meet the difficult requirements for a general refueling mission with banked turns. Therefore, several innovative methods were pursued to enhance navigation performance. First, a new theoretical approach was developed to quantify the position-domain integrity risk in cycle ambiguity resolution problems. A mechanism to implement this method with partially-fixed cycle ambiguity vectors was derived, and it was used to define tight upper bounds on AAR navigation integrity risk. A second method, where a new algorithm for optimal fusion of measurements from multiple antennas was developed, was used to improve satellite coverage in poor visibility environments such as in AAR. Finally, methods for using data-link extracted

Method of mobile robot indoor navigation by artificial landmarks with use of computer vision

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Glibin, E. S.; Shevtsov, A. A.; Enik, O. A.

2018-05-01

The article describes an algorithm of the mobile robot indoor navigation based on the use of visual odometry. The results of the experiment identifying calculation errors in the distance traveled on a slip are presented. It is shown that the use of computer vision allows one to correct erroneous coordinates of the robot with the help of artificial landmarks. The control system utilizing the proposed method has been realized on the basis of Arduino Mego 2560 controller and a single-board computer Raspberry Pi 3. The results of the experiment on the mobile robot navigation with the use of this control system are presented.

Improving mobile robot localization: grid-based approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yan, Junchi

2012-02-01

Autonomous mobile robots have been widely studied not only as advanced facilities for industrial and daily life automation, but also as a testbed in robotics competitions for extending the frontier of current artificial intelligence. In many of such contests, the robot is supposed to navigate on the ground with a grid layout. Based on this observation, we present a localization error correction method by exploring the geometric feature of the tile patterns. On top of the classical inertia-based positioning, our approach employs three fiber-optic sensors that are assembled under the bottom of the robot, presenting an equilateral triangle layout. The sensor apparatus, together with the proposed supporting algorithm, are designed to detect a line's direction (vertical or horizontal) by monitoring the grid crossing events. As a result, the line coordinate information can be fused to rectify the cumulative localization deviation from inertia positioning. The proposed method is analyzed theoretically in terms of its error bound and also has been implemented and tested on a customary developed two-wheel autonomous mobile robot.

Trajectory and navigation system design for robotic and piloted missions to Mars

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Thurman, S. W.; Matousek, S. E.

1991-01-01

Future Mars exploration missions, both robotic and piloted, may utilize Earth to Mars transfer trajectories that are significantly different from one another, depending upon the type of mission being flown and the time period during which the flight takes place. The use of new or emerging technologies for future missions to Mars, such as aerobraking and nuclear rocket propulsion, may yield navigation requirements that are much more stringent than those of past robotic missions, and are very difficult to meet for some trajectories. This article explores the interdependencies between the properties of direct Earth to Mars trajectories and the Mars approach navigation accuracy that can be achieved using different radio metric data types, such as ranging measurements between an approaching spacecraft and Mars orbiting relay satellites, or Earth based measurements such as coherent Doppler and very long baseline interferometry. The trajectory characteristics affecting navigation performance are identified, and the variations in accuracy that might be experienced over the range of different Mars approach trajectories are discussed. The results predict that three sigma periapsis altitude navigation uncertainties of 2 to 10 km can be achieved when a Mars orbiting satellite is used as a navigation aid.

Autonomous Robotic Weapons: US Army Innovation for Ground Combat in the Twenty-First Century

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-05-21

2013, accessed March 29, 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21576376?print=true. 113 Steven Kotler, “Say Hello to Comrade Terminator: Russia’s... hello -to-comrade-terminator-russias-army-of- killer-robots/. 114 David Hambling, “Russia Wants Autonomous Fighting Robots, and Lots of Them: Putin’s...how-humans-respond-to- robots-knight/HumanRobot-PartnershipsR2.pdf?la=en. Kotler, Steven. “Say Hello to Comrade Terminator: Russia’s Army of

Current state of computer navigation and robotics in unicompartmental and total knee arthroplasty: a systematic review with meta-analysis.

PubMed

van der List, Jelle P; Chawla, Harshvardhan; Joskowicz, Leo; Pearle, Andrew D

2016-11-01

Recently, there is a growing interest in surgical variables that are intraoperatively controlled by orthopaedic surgeons, including lower leg alignment, component positioning and soft tissues balancing. Since more tight control over these factors is associated with improved outcomes of unicompartmental knee arthroplasty and total knee arthroplasty (TKA), several computer navigation and robotic-assisted systems have been developed. Although mechanical axis accuracy and component positioning have been shown to improve with computer navigation, no superiority in functional outcomes has yet been shown. This could be explained by the fact that many differences exist between the number and type of surgical variables these systems control. Most systems control lower leg alignment and component positioning, while some in addition control soft tissue balancing. Finally, robotic-assisted systems have the additional advantage of improving surgical precision. A systematic search in PubMed, Embase and Cochrane Library resulted in 40 comparative studies and three registries on computer navigation reporting outcomes of 474,197 patients, and 21 basic science and clinical studies on robotic-assisted knee arthroplasty. Twenty-eight of these comparative computer navigation studies reported Knee Society Total scores in 3504 patients. Stratifying by type of surgical variables, no significant differences were noted in outcomes between surgery with computer-navigated TKA controlling for alignment and component positioning versus conventional TKA (p = 0.63). However, significantly better outcomes were noted following computer-navigated TKA that also controlled for soft tissue balancing versus conventional TKA (mean difference 4.84, 95 % Confidence Interval 1.61, 8.07, p = 0.003). A literature review of robotic systems showed that these systems can, similarly to computer navigation, reliably improve lower leg alignment, component positioning and soft tissues balancing. Furthermore

Constrained navigation for unmanned systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vasseur, Laurent; Gosset, Philippe; Carpentier, Luc; Marion, Vincent; Morillon, Joel G.; Ropars, Patrice

2005-05-01

The French Military Robotic Study Program (introduced in Aerosense 2003), sponsored by the French Defense Procurement Agency and managed by Thales as the prime contractor, focuses on about 15 robotic themes which can provide an immediate "operational add-on value". The paper details the "constrained navigation" study (named TEL2), which main goal is to identify and test a well-balanced task sharing between man and machine to accomplish a robotic task that cannot be performed autonomously at the moment because of technological limitations. The chosen function is "obstacle avoidance" on rough ground and quite high speed (40 km/h). State of the art algorithms have been implemented to perform autonomous obstacle avoidance and following of forest borders, using scanner laser sensor and standard localization functions. Such an "obstacle avoidance" function works well most of the time, BUT fails sometimes. The study analyzed how the remote operator can manage such failures so that the system remains fully operationally reliable; he can act according to two ways: a) finely adjust the vehicle current heading; b) take the control of the vehicle "on the fly" (without stopping) and bring it back to autonomous behavior when motion is secured again. The paper also presents the results got from the military acceptance tests performed on French 4x4 DARDS ATD.

Autonomous biomorphic robots as platforms for sensors

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Tilden, M.; Hasslacher, B.; Mainieri, R.

1996-10-01

The idea of building autonomous robots that can carry out complex and nonrepetitive tasks is an old one, so far unrealized in any meaningful hardware. Tilden has shown recently that there are simple, processor-free solutions to building autonomous mobile machines that continuously adapt to unknown and hostile environments, are designed primarily to survive, and are extremely resistant to damage. These devices use smart mechanics and simple (low component count) electronic neuron control structures having the functionality of biological organisms from simple invertebrates to sophisticated members of the insect and crab family. These devices are paradigms for the development of autonomousmore » machines that can carry out directed goals. The machine then becomes a robust survivalist platform that can carry sensors or instruments. These autonomous roving machines, now in an early stage of development (several proof-of-concept prototype walkers have been built), can be developed so that they are inexpensive, robust, and versatile carriers for a variety of instrument packages. Applications are immediate and many, in areas as diverse as prosthetics, medicine, space, construction, nanoscience, defense, remote sensing, environmental cleanup, and biotechnology.« less

The navigation system of the JPL robot

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Thompson, A. M.

1977-01-01

The control structure of the JPL research robot and the operations of the navigation subsystem are discussed. The robot functions as a network of interacting concurrent processes distributed among several computers and coordinated by a central executive. The results of scene analysis are used to create a segmented terrain model in which surface regions are classified by traversibility. The model is used by a path planning algorithm, PATH, which uses tree search methods to find the optimal path to a goal. In PATH, the search space is defined dynamically as a consequence of node testing. Maze-solving and the use of an associative data base for context dependent node generation are also discussed. Execution of a planned path is accomplished by a feedback guidance process with automatic error recovery.

Numerical evaluation of mobile robot navigation in static indoor environment via EGAOR Iteration

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dahalan, A. A.; Saudi, A.; Sulaiman, J.; Din, W. R. W.

2017-09-01

One of the key issues in mobile robot navigation is the ability for the robot to move from an arbitrary start location to a specified goal location without colliding with any obstacles while traveling, also known as mobile robot path planning problem. In this paper, however, we examined the performance of a robust searching algorithm that relies on the use of harmonic potentials of the environment to generate smooth and safe path for mobile robot navigation in a static known indoor environment. The harmonic potentials will be discretized by using Laplacian’s operator to form a system of algebraic approximation equations. This algebraic linear system will be computed via 4-Point Explicit Group Accelerated Over-Relaxation (4-EGAOR) iterative method for rapid computation. The performance of the proposed algorithm will then be compared and analyzed against the existing algorithms in terms of number of iterations and execution time. The result shows that the proposed algorithm performed better than the existing methods.

Manifold traversing as a model for learning control of autonomous robots

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Szakaly, Zoltan F.; Schenker, Paul S.

1992-01-01

This paper describes a recipe for the construction of control systems that support complex machines such as multi-limbed/multi-fingered robots. The robot has to execute a task under varying environmental conditions and it has to react reasonably when previously unknown conditions are encountered. Its behavior should be learned and/or trained as opposed to being programmed. The paper describes one possible method for organizing the data that the robot has learned by various means. This framework can accept useful operator input even if it does not fully specify what to do, and can combine knowledge from autonomous, operator assisted and programmed experiences.

High accuracy autonomous navigation using the global positioning system (GPS)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Truong, Son H.; Hart, Roger C.; Shoan, Wendy C.; Wood, Terri; Long, Anne C.; Oza, Dipak H.; Lee, Taesul

1997-01-01

The application of global positioning system (GPS) technology to the improvement of the accuracy and economy of spacecraft navigation, is reported. High-accuracy autonomous navigation algorithms are currently being qualified in conjunction with the GPS attitude determination flyer (GADFLY) experiment for the small satellite technology initiative Lewis spacecraft. Preflight performance assessments indicated that these algorithms are able to provide a real time total position accuracy of better than 10 m and a velocity accuracy of better than 0.01 m/s, with selective availability at typical levels. It is expected that the position accuracy will be increased to 2 m if corrections are provided by the GPS wide area augmentation system.

Autonomous Dome for a Robotic Telescope

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kumar, A.; Sengupta, A.; Ganesh, S.

2016-12-01

The Physical Research Laboratory operates a 50 cm robotic observatory at Mount Abu (Rajsthan, India). This Automated Telescope for Variability Studies (ATVS) makes use of the Remote Telescope System 2 (RTS2) for autonomous operations. The observatory uses a 3.5 m dome from Sirius Observatories. We have developed electronics using Arduino electronic circuit boards with home grown logic and software to control the dome operations. We are in the process of completing the drivers to link our Arduino based dome controller with RTS2. This document is a short description of the various phases of the development and their integration to achieve the required objective.

Enabling Interoperable Space Robots With the Joint Technical Architecture for Robotic Systems (JTARS)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bradley, Arthur; Dubowsky, Steven; Quinn, Roger; Marzwell, Neville

2005-01-01

Robots that operate independently of one another will not be adequate to accomplish the future exploration tasks of long-distance autonomous navigation, habitat construction, resource discovery, and material handling. Such activities will require that systems widely share information, plan and divide complex tasks, share common resources, and physically cooperate to manipulate objects. Recognizing the need for interoperable robots to accomplish the new exploration initiative, NASA s Office of Exploration Systems Research & Technology recently funded the development of the Joint Technical Architecture for Robotic Systems (JTARS). JTARS charter is to identify the interface standards necessary to achieve interoperability among space robots. A JTARS working group (JTARS-WG) has been established comprising recognized leaders in the field of space robotics including representatives from seven NASA centers along with academia and private industry. The working group s early accomplishments include addressing key issues required for interoperability, defining which systems are within the project s scope, and framing the JTARS manuals around classes of robotic systems.

Insect-Based Vision for Autonomous Vehicles: A Feasibility Study

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Srinivasan, Mandyam V.

1999-01-01

The aims of the project were to use a high-speed digital video camera to pursue two questions: i) To explore the influence of temporal imaging constraints on the performance of vision systems for autonomous mobile robots; To study the fine structure of insect flight trajectories with in order to better understand the characteristics of flight control, orientation and navigation.

Insect-Based Vision for Autonomous Vehicles: A Feasibility Study

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Srinivasan, Mandyam V.

1999-01-01

The aims of the project were to use a high-speed digital video camera to pursue two questions: (1) To explore the influence of temporal imaging constraints on the performance of vision systems for autonomous mobile robots; (2) To study the fine structure of insect flight trajectories in order to better understand the characteristics of flight control, orientation and navigation.

Automation and robotics technology for intelligent mining systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Welsh, Jeffrey H.

1989-01-01

The U.S. Bureau of Mines is approaching the problems of accidents and efficiency in the mining industry through the application of automation and robotics to mining systems. This technology can increase safety by removing workers from hazardous areas of the mines or from performing hazardous tasks. The short-term goal of the Automation and Robotics program is to develop technology that can be implemented in the form of an autonomous mining machine using current continuous mining machine equipment. In the longer term, the goal is to conduct research that will lead to new intelligent mining systems that capitalize on the capabilities of robotics. The Bureau of Mines Automation and Robotics program has been structured to produce the technology required for the short- and long-term goals. The short-term goal of application of automation and robotics to an existing mining machine, resulting in autonomous operation, is expected to be accomplished within five years. Key technology elements required for an autonomous continuous mining machine are well underway and include machine navigation systems, coal-rock interface detectors, machine condition monitoring, and intelligent computer systems. The Bureau of Mines program is described, including status of key technology elements for an autonomous continuous mining machine, the program schedule, and future work. Although the program is directed toward underground mining, much of the technology being developed may have applications for space systems or mining on the Moon or other planets.

Navigation d'un vehicule autonome autour d'un asteroide

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dionne, Karine

Les missions d'exploration planetaire utilisent des vehicules spatiaux pour acquerir les donnees scientifiques qui font avancer notre connaissance du systeme solaire. Depuis les annees 90, ces missions ciblent non seulement les planetes, mais aussi les corps celestes de plus petite taille comme les asteroides. Ces astres representent un defi particulier du point de vue des systemes de navigation, car leur environnement dynamique est complexe. Une sonde spatiale doit reagir rapidement face aux perturbations gravitationnelles en presence, sans quoi sa securite pourrait etre compromise. Les delais de communication avec la Terre pouvant souvent atteindre plusieurs dizaines de minutes, il est necessaire de developper des logiciels permettant une plus grande autonomie d'operation pour ce type de mission. Ce memoire presente un systeme de navigation autonome qui determine la position et la vitesse d'un satellite en orbite autour d'un asteroide. Il s'agit d'un filtre de Kalman etendu adaptatif a trois degres de liberte. Le systeme propose se base sur l'imagerie optique pour detecter des " points de reperes " qui ont ete prealablement cartographies. Il peut s'agir de crateres, de rochers ou de n'importe quel trait physique discernable a la camera. Les travaux de recherche realises se concentrent sur les techniques d'estimation d'etat propres a la navigation autonome. Ainsi, on suppose l'existence d'un logiciel approprie qui realise les fonctions de traitement d'image. La principale contribution de recherche consiste en l'inclusion, a chaque cycle d'estimation, d'une mesure de distance afin d'ameliorer les performances de navigation. Un estimateur d'etat de type adaptatif est necessaire pour le traitement de ces mesures, car leur precision varie dans le temps en raison de l'erreur de pointage. Les contributions secondaires de recherche sont liees a l'analyse de l'observabilite du systeme ainsi qu'a une analyse de sensibilite pour six parametres principaux de conception. Les

SAURON: The Wallace Observatory Small AUtonomous Robotic Optical Nightwatcher

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kosiarek, M.; Mansfield, M.; Brothers, T.; Bates, H.; Aviles, R.; Brode-Roger, O.; Person, M.; Russel, M.

2017-07-01

The Small AUtonomous Robotic Optical Nightwatcher (SAURON) is an autonomous telescope consisting of an 11-inch Celestron Nexstar telescope on a SoftwareBisque Paramount ME II in a Technical Innovations ProDome located at the MIT George R. Wallace, Jr. Astrophysical Observatory. This paper describes the construction of the telescope system and its first light data on T-And0-15785, an eclipsing binary star. The out-of-eclipse R magnitude of T-And0-15785 was found to be 13.3258 ± 0.0015 R magnitude, and the magnitude changes for the primary and secondary eclipses were found to be 0.7145 ± 0.0515 and 0.6085 ± 0.0165 R magnitudes, respectively.

[Principles of MR-guided interventions, surgery, navigation, and robotics].

PubMed

Melzer, A

2010-08-01

The application of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as an imaging technique in interventional and surgical techniques provides a new dimension of soft tissue-oriented precise procedures without exposure to ionizing radiation and nephrotoxic allergenic, iodine-containing contrast agents. The technical capabilities of MRI in combination with interventional devices and systems, navigation, and robotics are discussed.

Control of free-flying space robot manipulator systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cannon, Robert H., Jr.

1990-01-01

New control techniques for self contained, autonomous free flying space robots were developed and tested experimentally. Free flying robots are envisioned as a key element of any successful long term presence in space. These robots must be capable of performing the assembly, maintenance, and inspection, and repair tasks that currently require human extravehicular activity (EVA). A set of research projects were developed and carried out using lab models of satellite robots and a flexible manipulator. The second generation space robot models use air cushion vehicle (ACV) technology to simulate in 2-D the drag free, zero g conditions of space. The current work is divided into 5 major projects: Global Navigation and Control of a Free Floating Robot, Cooperative Manipulation from a Free Flying Robot, Multiple Robot Cooperation, Thrusterless Robotic Locomotion, and Dynamic Payload Manipulation. These projects are examined in detail.

A positional estimation technique for an autonomous land vehicle in an unstructured environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Talluri, Raj; Aggarwal, J. K.

1990-01-01

This paper presents a solution to the positional estimation problem of an autonomous land vehicle navigating in an unstructured mountainous terrain. A Digital Elevation Map (DEM) of the area in which the robot is to navigate is assumed to be given. It is also assumed that the robot is equipped with a camera that can be panned and tilted, and a device to measure the elevation of the robot above the ground surface. No recognizable landmarks are assumed to be present in the environment in which the robot is to navigate. The solution presented makes use of the DEM information, and structures the problem as a heuristic search in the DEM for the possible robot location. The shape and position of the horizon line in the image plane and the known camera geometry of the perspective projection are used as parameters to search the DEM. Various heuristics drawn from the geometric constraints are used to prune the search space significantly. The algorithm is made robust to errors in the imaging process by accounting for the worst care errors. The approach is tested using DEM data of areas in Colorado and Texas. The method is suitable for use in outdoor mobile robots and planetary rovers.

Autonomous path-planning navigation system for site characterization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rankin, Arturo L.; Crane, Carl D., III; Armstrong, David G., II; Nease, Allen D.; Brown, H. Edward

1996-05-01

The location and removal of buried munitions is an important yet hazardous task. Current development is aimed at performing both the ordnance location and removal tasks autonomously. An autonomous survey vehicle (ASV) named the Gator has been developed at the Center for Intelligent Machines and Robotics, under the direction of Wright Laboratory, Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida, and the Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technology Division, Indian Head, Maryland. The primary task of the survey vehicle is to autonomously traverse an off-road site, towing behind it a trailer containing a sensor package capable of characterizing the sub-surface contents. Achieving 00 percent coverage of the site is critical to fully characterizing the site. This paper presents a strategy for planning efficient paths for the survey vehicle that guarantees near-complete coverage of a site. A small library of three in-house developed path planners are reviewed. A strategy is also presented to keep the trailer on-path and to calculate the percent of coverage of a site with a resolution of 0.01 m2. All of the algorithms discussed in this paper were initially developed in simulation on a Silicon Graphics computer and subsequently implemented on the survey vehicle.

A Method on Dynamic Path Planning for Robotic Manipulator Autonomous Obstacle Avoidance Based on an Improved RRT Algorithm.

PubMed

Wei, Kun; Ren, Bingyin

2018-02-13

In a future intelligent factory, a robotic manipulator must work efficiently and safely in a Human-Robot collaborative and dynamic unstructured environment. Autonomous path planning is the most important issue which must be resolved first in the process of improving robotic manipulator intelligence. Among the path-planning methods, the Rapidly Exploring Random Tree (RRT) algorithm based on random sampling has been widely applied in dynamic path planning for a high-dimensional robotic manipulator, especially in a complex environment because of its probability completeness, perfect expansion, and fast exploring speed over other planning methods. However, the existing RRT algorithm has a limitation in path planning for a robotic manipulator in a dynamic unstructured environment. Therefore, an autonomous obstacle avoidance dynamic path-planning method for a robotic manipulator based on an improved RRT algorithm, called Smoothly RRT (S-RRT), is proposed. This method that targets a directional node extends and can increase the sampling speed and efficiency of RRT dramatically. A path optimization strategy based on the maximum curvature constraint is presented to generate a smooth and curved continuous executable path for a robotic manipulator. Finally, the correctness, effectiveness, and practicability of the proposed method are demonstrated and validated via a MATLAB static simulation and a Robot Operating System (ROS) dynamic simulation environment as well as a real autonomous obstacle avoidance experiment in a dynamic unstructured environment for a robotic manipulator. The proposed method not only provides great practical engineering significance for a robotic manipulator's obstacle avoidance in an intelligent factory, but also theoretical reference value for other type of robots' path planning.

Autonomous exploration and mapping of unknown environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Owens, Jason; Osteen, Phil; Fields, MaryAnne

2012-06-01

Autonomous exploration and mapping is a vital capability for future robotic systems expected to function in arbitrary complex environments. In this paper, we describe an end-to-end robotic solution for remotely mapping buildings. For a typical mapping system, an unmanned system is directed to enter an unknown building at a distance, sense the internal structure, and, barring additional tasks, while in situ, create a 2-D map of the building. This map provides a useful and intuitive representation of the environment for the remote operator. We have integrated a robust mapping and exploration system utilizing laser range scanners and RGB-D cameras, and we demonstrate an exploration and metacognition algorithm on a robotic platform. The algorithm allows the robot to safely navigate the building, explore the interior, report significant features to the operator, and generate a consistent map - all while maintaining localization.

Development of an Interactive Augmented Environment and Its Application to Autonomous Learning for Quadruped Robots

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kobayashi, Hayato; Osaki, Tsugutoyo; Okuyama, Tetsuro; Gramm, Joshua; Ishino, Akira; Shinohara, Ayumi

This paper describes an interactive experimental environment for autonomous soccer robots, which is a soccer field augmented by utilizing camera input and projector output. This environment, in a sense, plays an intermediate role between simulated environments and real environments. We can simulate some parts of real environments, e.g., real objects such as robots or a ball, and reflect simulated data into the real environments, e.g., to visualize the positions on the field, so as to create a situation that allows easy debugging of robot programs. The significant point compared with analogous work is that virtual objects are touchable in this system owing to projectors. We also show the portable version of our system that does not require ceiling cameras. As an application in the augmented environment, we address the learning of goalie strategies on real quadruped robots in penalty kicks. We make our robots utilize virtual balls in order to perform only quadruped locomotion in real environments, which is quite difficult to simulate accurately. Our robots autonomously learn and acquire more beneficial strategies without human intervention in our augmented environment than those in a fully simulated environment.

An Intention-Driven Semi-autonomous Intelligent Robotic System for Drinking.

PubMed

Zhang, Zhijun; Huang, Yongqian; Chen, Siyuan; Qu, Jun; Pan, Xin; Yu, Tianyou; Li, Yuanqing

2017-01-01

In this study, an intention-driven semi-autonomous intelligent robotic (ID-SIR) system is designed and developed to assist the severely disabled patients to live independently. The system mainly consists of a non-invasive brain-machine interface (BMI) subsystem, a robot manipulator and a visual detection and localization subsystem. Different from most of the existing systems remotely controlled by joystick, head- or eye tracking, the proposed ID-SIR system directly acquires the intention from users' brain. Compared with the state-of-art system only working for a specific object in a fixed place, the designed ID-SIR system can grasp any desired object in a random place chosen by a user and deliver it to his/her mouth automatically. As one of the main advantages of the ID-SIR system, the patient is only required to send one intention command for one drinking task and the autonomous robot would finish the rest of specific controlling tasks, which greatly eases the burden on patients. Eight healthy subjects attended our experiment, which contained 10 tasks for each subject. In each task, the proposed ID-SIR system delivered the desired beverage container to the mouth of the subject and then put it back to the original position. The mean accuracy of the eight subjects was 97.5%, which demonstrated the effectiveness of the ID-SIR system.

Technological evaluation of gesture and speech interfaces for enabling dismounted soldier-robot dialogue

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kattoju, Ravi Kiran; Barber, Daniel J.; Abich, Julian; Harris, Jonathan

2016-05-01

With increasing necessity for intuitive Soldier-robot communication in military operations and advancements in interactive technologies, autonomous robots have transitioned from assistance tools to functional and operational teammates able to service an array of military operations. Despite improvements in gesture and speech recognition technologies, their effectiveness in supporting Soldier-robot communication is still uncertain. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the performance of gesture and speech interface technologies to facilitate Soldier-robot communication during a spatial-navigation task with an autonomous robot. Gesture and speech semantically based spatial-navigation commands leveraged existing lexicons for visual and verbal communication from the U.S Army field manual for visual signaling and a previously established Squad Level Vocabulary (SLV). Speech commands were recorded by a Lapel microphone and Microsoft Kinect, and classified by commercial off-the-shelf automatic speech recognition (ASR) software. Visual signals were captured and classified using a custom wireless gesture glove and software. Participants in the experiment commanded a robot to complete a simulated ISR mission in a scaled down urban scenario by delivering a sequence of gesture and speech commands, both individually and simultaneously, to the robot. Performance and reliability of gesture and speech hardware interfaces and recognition tools were analyzed and reported. Analysis of experimental results demonstrated the employed gesture technology has significant potential for enabling bidirectional Soldier-robot team dialogue based on the high classification accuracy and minimal training required to perform gesture commands.

Fusing Laser Reflectance and Image Data for Terrain Classification for Small Autonomous Robots

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-12-01

limit us to low power, lightweight sensors , and a maximum range of approximately 5 meters. Contrast these robot characteristics to typical terrain...classifi- cation work which uses large autonomous ground vehicles with sensors mounted high above the ground. Terrain classification for small autonomous...into predefined classes [10], [11]. However, wheeled vehicles offer the ability to use non-traditional sensors such as vibration sensors [12] and

Local navigation and fuzzy control realization for autonomous guided vehicle

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

El-Konyaly, El-Sayed H.; Saraya, Sabry F.; Shehata, Raef S.

1996-10-01

This paper addresses the problem of local navigation for an autonomous guided vehicle (AGV) in a structured environment that contains static and dynamic obstacles. Information about the environment is obtained via a CCD camera. The problem is formulated as a dynamic feedback control problem in which speed and steering decisions are made on the fly while the AGV is moving. A decision element (DE) that uses local information is proposed. The DE guides the vehicle in the environment by producing appropriate navigation decisions. Dynamic models of a three-wheeled vehicle for driving and steering mechanisms are derived. The interaction between them is performed via the local feedback DE. A controller, based on fuzzy logic, is designed to drive the vehicle safely in an intelligent and human-like manner. The effectiveness of the navigation and control strategies in driving the AGV is illustrated and evaluated.

Developing operation algorithms for vision subsystems in autonomous mobile robots

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shikhman, M. V.; Shidlovskiy, S. V.

2018-05-01

The paper analyzes algorithms for selecting keypoints on the image for the subsequent automatic detection of people and obstacles. The algorithm is based on the histogram of oriented gradients and the support vector method. The combination of these methods allows successful selection of dynamic and static objects. The algorithm can be applied in various autonomous mobile robots.

Diver Relative UUV Navigation for Joint Human-Robot Operations

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-09-01

loop response: (10) where Kej is the gain that scales the position error to force . Substituting the measured values for ζ and ων as well as the...Underwater Vehicle; Tethered ; Hovering; Autonomous Underwater Vehicle; Joint human-robot operations; dynamic, uncertain environments 15. NUMBER OF PAGES...4   Figure 3.   The SeaBotix vLBV300 tethered AUV platform (left), and the planar vectored thruster

Autonomous navigation of structured city roads

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aubert, Didier; Kluge, Karl C.; Thorpe, Chuck E.

1991-03-01

Autonomous road following is a domain which spans a range of complexity from poorly defined unmarked dirt roads to well defined well marked highly struc-. tured highways. The YARF system (for Yet Another Road Follower) is designed to operate in the middle of this range of complexity driving on urban streets. Our research program has focused on the use of feature- and situation-specific segmentation techniques driven by an explicit model of the appearance and geometry of the road features in the environment. We report results in robust detection of white and yellow painted stripes fitting a road model to detected feature locations to determine vehicle position and local road geometry and automatic location of road features in an initial image. We also describe our planned extensions to include intersection navigation.

Quantifying Traversability of Terrain for a Mobile Robot

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Howard, Ayanna; Seraji, Homayoun; Werger, Barry

2005-01-01

A document presents an updated discussion on a method of autonomous navigation for a robotic vehicle navigating across rough terrain. The method involves, among other things, the use of a measure of traversability, denoted the fuzzy traversability index, which embodies the information about the slope and roughness of terrain obtained from analysis of images acquired by cameras mounted on the robot. The improvements presented in the report focus on the use of the fuzzy traversability index to generate a traversability map and a grid map for planning the safest path for the robot. Once grid traversability values have been computed, they are utilized for rejecting unsafe path segments and for computing a traversalcost function for ranking candidate paths, selected by a search algorithm, from a specified initial position to a specified final position. The output of the algorithm is a set of waypoints designating a path having a minimal-traversal cost.

Navigation of a robot-integrated fluorescence laparoscope in preoperative SPECT/CT and intraoperative freehand SPECT imaging data: a phantom study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

van Oosterom, Matthias Nathanaël; Engelen, Myrthe Adriana; van den Berg, Nynke Sjoerdtje; KleinJan, Gijs Hendrik; van der Poel, Henk Gerrit; Wendler, Thomas; van de Velde, Cornelis Jan Hadde; Navab, Nassir; van Leeuwen, Fijs Willem Bernhard

2016-08-01

Robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery is becoming an established technique for prostatectomy and is increasingly being explored for other types of cancer. Linking intraoperative imaging techniques, such as fluorescence guidance, with the three-dimensional insights provided by preoperative imaging remains a challenge. Navigation technologies may provide a solution, especially when directly linked to both the robotic setup and the fluorescence laparoscope. We evaluated the feasibility of such a setup. Preoperative single-photon emission computed tomography/X-ray computed tomography (SPECT/CT) or intraoperative freehand SPECT (fhSPECT) scans were used to navigate an optically tracked robot-integrated fluorescence laparoscope via an augmented reality overlay in the laparoscopic video feed. The navigation accuracy was evaluated in soft tissue phantoms, followed by studies in a human-like torso phantom. Navigation accuracies found for SPECT/CT-based navigation were 2.25 mm (coronal) and 2.08 mm (sagittal). For fhSPECT-based navigation, these were 1.92 mm (coronal) and 2.83 mm (sagittal). All errors remained below the <1-cm detection limit for fluorescence imaging, allowing refinement of the navigation process using fluorescence findings. The phantom experiments performed suggest that SPECT-based navigation of the robot-integrated fluorescence laparoscope is feasible and may aid fluorescence-guided surgery procedures.

Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot (RASSOR) Phase 2 and Smart Autonomous Sand-Swimming Excavator

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sandy, Michael

2015-01-01

The Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot (RASSOR) Phase 2 is an excavation robot for mining regolith on a planet like Mars. The robot is programmed using the Robotic Operating System (ROS) and it also uses a physical simulation program called Gazebo. This internship focused on various functions of the program in order to make it a more professional and efficient robot. During the internship another project called the Smart Autonomous Sand-Swimming Excavator was worked on. This is a robot that is designed to dig through sand and extract sample material. The intern worked on programming the Sand-Swimming robot, and designing the electrical system to power and control the robot.

Flexible robotics with electromagnetic tracking improves safety and efficiency during in vitro endovascular navigation.

PubMed

Schwein, Adeline; Kramer, Ben; Chinnadurai, Ponraj; Walker, Sean; O'Malley, Marcia; Lumsden, Alan; Bismuth, Jean

2017-02-01

One limitation of the use of robotic catheters is the lack of real-time three-dimensional (3D) localization and position updating: they are still navigated based on two-dimensional (2D) X-ray fluoroscopic projection images. Our goal was to evaluate whether incorporating an electromagnetic (EM) sensor on a robotic catheter tip could improve endovascular navigation. Six users were tasked to navigate using a robotic catheter with incorporated EM sensors in an aortic aneurysm phantom. All users cannulated two anatomic targets (left renal artery and posterior "gate") using four visualization modes: (1) standard fluoroscopy mode (control), (2) 2D fluoroscopy mode showing real-time virtual catheter orientation from EM tracking, (3) 3D model of the phantom with anteroposterior and endoluminal view, and (4) 3D model with anteroposterior and lateral view. Standard X-ray fluoroscopy was always available. Cannulation and fluoroscopy times were noted for every mode. 3D positions of the EM tip sensor were recorded at 4 Hz to establish kinematic metrics. The EM sensor-incorporated catheter navigated as expected according to all users. The success rate for cannulation was 100%. For the posterior gate target, mean cannulation times in minutes:seconds were 8:12, 4:19, 4:29, and 3:09, respectively, for modes 1, 2, 3 and 4 (P = .013), and mean fluoroscopy times were 274, 20, 29, and 2 seconds, respectively (P = .001). 3D path lengths, spectral arc length, root mean dimensionless jerk, and number of submovements were significantly improved when EM tracking was used (P < .05), showing higher quality of catheter movement with EM navigation. The EM tracked robotic catheter allowed better real-time 3D orientation, facilitating navigation, with a reduction in cannulation and fluoroscopy times and improvement of motion consistency and efficiency. Copyright © 2016 Society for Vascular Surgery. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Robotic reactions: delay-induced patterns in autonomous vehicle systems.

PubMed

Orosz, Gábor; Moehlis, Jeff; Bullo, Francesco

2010-02-01

Fundamental design principles are presented for vehicle systems governed by autonomous cruise control devices. By analyzing the corresponding delay differential equations, it is shown that for any car-following model short-wavelength oscillations can appear due to robotic reaction times, and that there are tradeoffs between the time delay and the control gains. The analytical findings are demonstrated on an optimal velocity model using numerical continuation and numerical simulation.

Robotic reactions: Delay-induced patterns in autonomous vehicle systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Orosz, Gábor; Moehlis, Jeff; Bullo, Francesco

2010-02-01

Fundamental design principles are presented for vehicle systems governed by autonomous cruise control devices. By analyzing the corresponding delay differential equations, it is shown that for any car-following model short-wavelength oscillations can appear due to robotic reaction times, and that there are tradeoffs between the time delay and the control gains. The analytical findings are demonstrated on an optimal velocity model using numerical continuation and numerical simulation.

Vision-Based Real-Time Traversable Region Detection for Mobile Robot in the Outdoors.

PubMed

Deng, Fucheng; Zhu, Xiaorui; He, Chao

2017-09-13

Environment perception is essential for autonomous mobile robots in human-robot coexisting outdoor environments. One of the important tasks for such intelligent robots is to autonomously detect the traversable region in an unstructured 3D real world. The main drawback of most existing methods is that of high computational complexity. Hence, this paper proposes a binocular vision-based, real-time solution for detecting traversable region in the outdoors. In the proposed method, an appearance model based on multivariate Gaussian is quickly constructed from a sample region in the left image adaptively determined by the vanishing point and dominant borders. Then, a fast, self-supervised segmentation scheme is proposed to classify the traversable and non-traversable regions. The proposed method is evaluated on public datasets as well as a real mobile robot. Implementation on the mobile robot has shown its ability in the real-time navigation applications.

Autonomous undulatory serpentine locomotion utilizing body dynamics of a fluidic soft robot.

PubMed

Onal, Cagdas D; Rus, Daniela

2013-06-01

Soft robotics offers the unique promise of creating inherently safe and adaptive systems. These systems bring man-made machines closer to the natural capabilities of biological systems. An important requirement to enable self-contained soft mobile robots is an on-board power source. In this paper, we present an approach to create a bio-inspired soft robotic snake that can undulate in a similar way to its biological counterpart using pressure for actuation power, without human intervention. With this approach, we develop an autonomous soft snake robot with on-board actuation, power, computation and control capabilities. The robot consists of four bidirectional fluidic elastomer actuators in series to create a traveling curvature wave from head to tail along its body. Passive wheels between segments generate the necessary frictional anisotropy for forward locomotion. It takes 14 h to build the soft robotic snake, which can attain an average locomotion speed of 19 mm s(-1).

Guidance Of A Mobile Robot Using An Omnidirectional Vision Navigation System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Oh, Sung J.; Hall, Ernest L.

1987-01-01

Navigation and visual guidance are key topics in the design of a mobile robot. Omnidirectional vision using a very wide angle or fisheye lens provides a hemispherical view at a single instant that permits target location without mechanical scanning. The inherent image distortion with this view and the numerical errors accumulated from vision components can be corrected to provide accurate position determination for navigation and path control. The purpose of this paper is to present the experimental results and analyses of the imaging characteristics of the omnivision system including the design of robot-oriented experiments and the calibration of raw results. Errors less than one picture element on each axis were observed by testing the accuracy and repeatability of the experimental setup and the alignment between the robot and the sensor. Similar results were obtained for four different locations using corrected results of the linearity test between zenith angle and image location. Angular error of less than one degree and radial error of less than one Y picture element were observed at moderate relative speed. The significance of this work is that the experimental information and the test of coordinated operation of the equipment provide a greater understanding of the dynamic omnivision system characteristics, as well as insight into the evaluation and improvement of the prototype sensor for a mobile robot. Also, the calibration of the sensor is important, since the results provide a cornerstone for future developments. This sensor system is currently being developed for a robot lawn mower.

Mobile robot exploration and navigation of indoor spaces using sonar and vision

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kortenkamp, David; Huber, Marcus; Koss, Frank; Belding, William; Lee, Jaeho; Wu, Annie; Bidlack, Clint; Rodgers, Seth

1994-01-01

Integration of skills into an autonomous robot that performs a complex task is described. Time constraints prevented complete integration of all the described skills. The biggest problem was tuning the sensor-based region-finding algorithm to the environment involved. Since localization depended on matching regions found with the a priori map, the robot became lost very quickly. If the low level sensing of the world is not working, then high level reasoning or map making will be unsuccessful.

A fuzzy logic controller for an autonomous mobile robot

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Yen, John; Pfluger, Nathan

1993-01-01

The ability of a mobile robot system to plan and move intelligently in a dynamic system is needed if robots are to be useful in areas other than controlled environments. An example of a use for this system is to control an autonomous mobile robot in a space station, or other isolated area where it is hard or impossible for human life to exist for long periods of time (e.g., Mars). The system would allow the robot to be programmed to carry out the duties normally accomplished by a human being. Some of the duties that could be accomplished include operating instruments, transporting objects, and maintenance of the environment. The main focus of our early work has been on developing a fuzzy controller that takes a path and adapts it to a given environment. The robot only uses information gathered from the sensors, but retains the ability to avoid dynamically placed obstacles near and along the path. Our fuzzy logic controller is based on the following algorithm: (1) determine the desired direction of travel; (2) determine the allowed direction of travel; and (3) combine the desired and allowed directions in order to determine a direciton that is both desired and allowed. The desired direction of travel is determined by projecting ahead to a point along the path that is closer to the goal. This gives a local direction of travel for the robot and helps to avoid obstacles.

Autonomous navigation and control of a Mars rover

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Miller, D. P.; Atkinson, D. J.; Wilcox, B. H.; Mishkin, A. H.

1990-01-01

A Mars rover will need to be able to navigate autonomously kilometers at a time. This paper outlines the sensing, perception, planning, and execution monitoring systems that are currently being designed for the rover. The sensing is based around stereo vision. The interpretation of the images use a registration of the depth map with a global height map provided by an orbiting spacecraft. Safe, low energy paths are then planned through the map, and expectations of what the rover's articulation sensors should sense are generated. These expectations are then used to ensure that the planned path is correctly being executed.

Autonomous detection of indoor and outdoor signs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Holden, Steven; Snorrason, Magnus; Goodsell, Thomas; Stevens, Mark R.

2005-05-01

Most goal-oriented mobile robot tasks involve navigation to one or more known locations. This is generally done using GPS coordinates and landmarks outdoors, or wall-following and fiducial marks indoors. Such approaches ignore the rich source of navigation information that is already in place for human navigation in all man-made environments: signs. A mobile robot capable of detecting and reading arbitrary signs could be tasked using directions that are intuitive to hu-mans, and it could report its location relative to intuitive landmarks (a street corner, a person's office, etc.). Such ability would not require active marking of the environment and would be functional in the absence of GPS. In this paper we present an updated version of a system we call Sign Understanding in Support of Autonomous Navigation (SUSAN). This system relies on cues common to most signs, the presence of text, vivid color, and compact shape. By not relying on templates, SUSAN can detect a wide variety of signs: traffic signs, street signs, store-name signs, building directories, room signs, etc. In this paper we focus on the text detection capability. We present results summarizing probability of detection and false alarm rate across many scenes containing signs of very different designs and in a variety of lighting conditions.

Autonomous optical navigation using nanosatellite-class instruments: a Mars approach case study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Enright, John; Jovanovic, Ilija; Kazemi, Laila; Zhang, Harry; Dzamba, Tom

2018-02-01

This paper examines the effectiveness of small star trackers for orbital estimation. Autonomous optical navigation has been used for some time to provide local estimates of orbital parameters during close approach to celestial bodies. These techniques have been used extensively on spacecraft dating back to the Voyager missions, but often rely on long exposures and large instrument apertures. Using a hyperbolic Mars approach as a reference mission, we present an EKF-based navigation filter suitable for nanosatellite missions. Observations of Mars and its moons allow the estimator to correct initial errors in both position and velocity. Our results show that nanosatellite-class star trackers can produce good quality navigation solutions with low position (<300 {m}) and velocity (<0.15 {m/s}) errors as the spacecraft approaches periapse.

Positional estimation techniques for an autonomous mobile robot

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Nandhakumar, N.; Aggarwal, J. K.

1990-01-01

Techniques for positional estimation of a mobile robot navigation in an indoor environment are described. A comprehensive review of the various positional estimation techniques studied in the literature is first presented. The techniques are divided into four different types and each of them is discussed briefly. Two different kinds of environments are considered for positional estimation; mountainous natural terrain and an urban, man-made environment with polyhedral buildings. In both cases, the robot is assumed to be equipped with single visual camera that can be panned and tilted and also a 3-D description (world model) of the environment is given. Such a description could be obtained from a stereo pair of aerial images or from the architectural plans of the buildings. Techniques for positional estimation using the camera input and the world model are presented.

Welding torch trajectory generation for hull joining using autonomous welding mobile robot

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hascoet, J. Y.; Hamilton, K.; Carabin, G.; Rauch, M.; Alonso, M.; Ares, E.

2012-04-01

Shipbuilding processes involve highly dangerous manual welding operations. Welding of ship hulls presents a hazardous environment for workers. This paper describes a new robotic system, developed by the SHIPWELD consortium, that moves autonomously on the hull and automatically executes the required welding processes. Specific focus is placed on the trajectory control of such a system and forms the basis for the discussion in this paper. It includes a description of the robotic hardware design as well as some methodology used to establish the torch trajectory control.

Visual Odometry for Autonomous Deep-Space Navigation Project

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Robinson, Shane; Pedrotty, Sam

2016-01-01

Autonomous rendezvous and docking (AR&D) is a critical need for manned spaceflight, especially in deep space where communication delays essentially leave crews on their own for critical operations like docking. Previously developed AR&D sensors have been large, heavy, power-hungry, and may still require further development (e.g. Flash LiDAR). Other approaches to vision-based navigation are not computationally efficient enough to operate quickly on slower, flight-like computers. The key technical challenge for visual odometry is to adapt it from the current terrestrial applications it was designed for to function in the harsh lighting conditions of space. This effort leveraged Draper Laboratory’s considerable prior development and expertise, benefitting both parties. The algorithm Draper has created is unique from other pose estimation efforts as it has a comparatively small computational footprint (suitable for use onboard a spacecraft, unlike alternatives) and potentially offers accuracy and precision needed for docking. This presents a solution to the AR&D problem that only requires a camera, which is much smaller, lighter, and requires far less power than competing AR&D sensors. We have demonstrated the algorithm’s performance and ability to process ‘flight-like’ imagery formats with a ‘flight-like’ trajectory, positioning ourselves to easily process flight data from the upcoming ‘ISS Selfie’ activity and then compare the algorithm’s quantified performance to the simulated imagery. This will bring visual odometry beyond TRL 5, proving its readiness to be demonstrated as part of an integrated system.Once beyond TRL 5, visual odometry will be poised to be demonstrated as part of a system in an in-space demo where relative pose is critical, like Orion AR&D, ISS robotic operations, asteroid proximity operations, and more.

Visual Odometry for Autonomous Deep-Space Navigation Project

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Robinson, Shane; Pedrotty, Sam

2016-01-01

Autonomous rendezvous and docking (AR&D) is a critical need for manned spaceflight, especially in deep space where communication delays essentially leave crews on their own for critical operations like docking. Previously developed AR&D sensors have been large, heavy, power-hungry, and may still require further development (e.g. Flash LiDAR). Other approaches to vision-based navigation are not computationally efficient enough to operate quickly on slower, flight-like computers. The key technical challenge for visual odometry is to adapt it from the current terrestrial applications it was designed for to function in the harsh lighting conditions of space. This effort leveraged Draper Laboratory's considerable prior development and expertise, benefitting both parties. The algorithm Draper has created is unique from other pose estimation efforts as it has a comparatively small computational footprint (suitable for use onboard a spacecraft, unlike alternatives) and potentially offers accuracy and precision needed for docking. This presents a solution to the AR&D problem that only requires a camera, which is much smaller, lighter, and requires far less power than competing AR&D sensors. We have demonstrated the algorithm's performance and ability to process 'flight-like' imagery formats with a 'flight-like' trajectory, positioning ourselves to easily process flight data from the upcoming 'ISS Selfie' activity and then compare the algorithm's quantified performance to the simulated imagery. This will bring visual odometry beyond TRL 5, proving its readiness to be demonstrated as part of an integrated system. Once beyond TRL 5, visual odometry will be poised to be demonstrated as part of a system in an in-space demo where relative pose is critical, like Orion AR&D, ISS robotic operations, asteroid proximity operations, and more.