Distributed robotic architecture based on smart services

This paper presents an approach for designing robots and robotic systems based on the application of models, architectures, techniques and tools that have contributed valid solutions in other areas, such as e-business. Before applying these solutions, the physical elements that make up a robotic system are subjected to a normalization process in order to characterize their functional contributions. In this way, the conceptual model and the technical architecture of the service-oriented architecture robotic system is established. The paper also includes a simple implementation enabling the proposal to be validated, together with the main conclusions reached and future lines of study

Market-based Coordination in Dynamic Environments Based on Hoplites Framework

This work focuses on multi-robot coordination based on the Hoplites framework for solving the multi-robot task allocation (MRTA) problem. Three variations of increasing complexity for the MRTA problem, spatial task allocation based on distance, spatial task allocation based on time and distance and persistent coverage have been studied in this work. The Fast Marching Method (FMM) has been used for robot path planning and providing estimates of the plans that robots bid on, in the context of the market. The use of this framework for solving the persistent coverage problem provides interesting insights by taking a high-level approach that is different from the commonly used solutions to this problem such as computing robot trajectories to keep the desired coverage level. A high fidelity simulation tool, Webots, along with the Robotic Operating System (ROS) have been utilized to provide our simulations with similar complexity to the real world tests. Results confirm that this pipeline is a very effective tool for our evaluations given that our simulations closely follow the results in reality. By modifying the replanning to prevent having costly or invalid plans by means of priority planning and turn taking, and basing the coordination on maximum plan length as opposed to time, we have been able to make improvements and adapt the Hoplites framework to our applications. The proposed approach is able to solve the spatial task allocation and persistent coverage problems in general. However, there exist some limitations. Particularly, in the case of persistent coverage, this method is suitable for applications where moderate spatial resolutions are sufficient such as patrolling

Social-Aware Coordination of Multi-robot Systems Based on Institutions

Institutional robotics (IR) is an approach to the coordination of multi-robot systems that draws inspiration from social sciences, namely from institutional economics. Using the concept of institution, it aims to provide a comprehensive strategy for specifying social interactions (e.g., norms, roles, hierarchies) among robots. In previous work, we have introduced a control methodology for multi-robot systems that takes into account institutions in order to create an Institutional Agent Controller (IAC) that captures such social interactions. In this chapter, the IAC design methodology is validated in a case study concerned with a swarm of 40 real, resource-constrained robots which has to maintain wireless connectivity. We then investigate a second case study dealing with more complex social interactions, showing that institutional roles can effectively help a multi-robot system to coordinate and improve performance in a given task of social nature. Given the fact that institutions are one of the tools in use within human societies to shape social interactions, our intuition is that IR can also facilitate coordination with humans in scenarios involving many-to-many human–robot interactions. We discuss how the IR concepts and the IAC design methodology can be implemented in real-world scenarios where multiple robots must interact with multiple humans in a socially aware manner

GUARDIANS final report

Emergencies in industrial warehouses are a major concern for firefghters. The large dimensions together with the development of dense smoke that drastically reduces visibility, represent major challenges. The Guardians robot swarm is designed to assist fire fighters in searching a large warehouse. In this report we discuss the technology developed for a swarm of robots searching and assisting fire fighters. We explain the swarming algorithms which provide the functionality by which the robots react to and follow humans while no communication is required. Next we discuss the wireless communication system, which is a so-called mobile ad-hoc network. The communication network provides also one of the means to locate the robots and humans. Thus the robot swarm is able to locate itself and provide guidance information to the humans. Together with the re ghters we explored how the robot swarm should feed information back to the human fire fighter. We have designed and experimented with interfaces for presenting swarm based information to human beings

Lidar-Based Relative Position Estimation and Tracking for Multi-Robot Systems

Relative positioning systems play a vital role in current multi-robot systems. We present a self-contained detection and tracking approach, where a robot estimates a distance (range) and an angle (bearing) to another robot using measurements extracted from the raw data provided by two laser range finders. We propose a method based on the detection of circular features with least-squares fitting and filtering out outliers using a map-based selection. We improve the estimate of the relative robot position and reduce its uncertainty by feeding measurements into a Kalman filter, resulting in an accurate tracking system. We evaluate the performance of the algorithm in a realistic indoor environment to demonstrate its robustness and reliability

Robots cooperativos, quemes para la educación

This document describes the integrating a gripper on Quemes robots to increase their cooperation strategies, and thus broaden their educational potential. The integration of the clip begins with the design process and after mechanical built, the model is developed to link it to the control logic of each robot embedded software. The validation process can be said that the diversity of activities in Quemes favors the learning process of children and improving their attitudes toward teamwork.Este trabajo nace de los resultados obtenidos en la implementación del proyecto Quemes en el año 2010 por el grupo SIDRe de la Pontificia Universidad Javeriana en convenio con Maloka (Gonzaléz, 2010). Quemes es una propuesta pedagógica fundamentada en la teoría de motivación para la creación, que utiliza como  herramienta de mediación cognitiva robots para desarrollar competencias relacionadas con el trabajo cooperativo.Los resultados obtenidos de la investigación del 2010 evidencian la necesidad de ampliar el potencial pedagógico, aumentando las actividades de cooperación entre los robots. Para lograrlo se plantea como objetivo general extender las actividades educativas de la plataforma Quemes con el diseño de nuevas tareas de cooperación entre los robots, a través de la incorporación de una pinza para sujetar objetos geométricos simples

Graph-Based Distributed Control for Adaptive Multi-Robot Patrolling through Local Formation Transformation

Multi-robot cooperative navigation in real-world environments is essential in many applications, including surveillance and search-and-rescue missions. State-of-the-art methods for cooperative navigation are often tested in ideal laboratory conditions and not ready to be deployed in real- world environments, which are often cluttered with static and dynamic obstacles. In this work, we explore a graph-based framework to achieve control of real robot formations moving in a world cluttered with a variety of obstacles by introducing a new distributed algorithm for reconfiguring the formation shape. We systematically validate the reconfiguration algorithm using three real robots in scenarios of increasing complexity