Overcoming barriers and increasing independence: service robots for elderly and disabled people

This paper discusses the potential for service robots to overcome barriers and increase independence of elderly and disabled people. It includes a brief overview of the existing uses of service robots by disabled and elderly people and advances in technology which will make new uses possible and provides suggestions for some of these new applications. The paper also considers the design and other conditions to be met for user acceptance. It also discusses the complementarity of assistive service robots and personal assistance and considers the types of applications and users for which service robots are and are not suitable

2D-barcode for mobile devices

2D-barcodes were designed to carry significantly more data than its 1D counterpart. These codes are often used in industrial information tagging applications where high data capacity, mobility, and data robustness are required. Wireless mobile devices such as camera phones and Portable Digital Assistants (PDAs) have evolved from just a mobile voice communication device to what is now a mobile multimedia computing platform. Recent integration of these two mobile technologies has sparked some interesting applications where 2D-barcodes work as visual tags and/or information source and camera phones performs image processing tasks on the device itself. One of such applications is hyperlink establishment. The 2D symbol captured by a camera phone is decoded by the software installed in the phone. Then the web site indicated by the data encoded in a symbol is automatically accessed and shown in the display of the camera phone. Nonetheless, this new mobile applications area is still at its infancy. Each proposed mobile 2D-barcode application has its own choice of code, but no standard exists nor is there any study done on what are the criteria for setting a standard 2D-barcode for mobile phones. This study intends to address this void. The first phase of the study is qualitative examination. In order to select a best standard 2D-barcode, firstly, features desirable for a standard 2D-barcode that is optimized for the mobile phone platform are identified. The second step is to establish the criteria based on the features identified. These features are based on the operating limitations and attributes of camera phones in general use today. All published and accessible 2D-barcodes are thoroughly examined in terms of criteria set for the selection of a best 2D-barcode for camera phone applications. In the second phase, the 2D-barcodes that have higher potential to be chosen as a standard code are experimentally examined against the three criteria: light condition, distance, whether or not a 2D-barcode supports VGA resolution. Each sample 2D-barcode is captured by a camera phone with VGA resolution and the outcome is tested using an image analysis tool written in the scientific language called MATLAB. The outcome of this study is the selection of the most suitable 2D-barcode for applications where mobile devices such as camera phones are utilized

Fast 3D cluster tracking for a mobile robot using 2D techniques on depth images

User simultaneous detection and tracking is an issue at the core of human-robot interaction (HRI). Several methods exist and give good results; many use image processing techniques on images provided by the camera. The increasing presence in mobile robots of range-imaging cameras (such as structured light devices as Microsoft Kinects) allows us to develop image processing on depth maps. In this article, a fast and lightweight algorithm is presented for the detection and tracking of 3D clusters thanks to classic 2D techniques such as edge detection and connected components applied to the depth maps. The recognition of clusters is made using their 2D shape. An algorithm for the compression of depth maps has been specifically developed, allowing the distribution of the whole processing among several computers. The algorithm is then applied to a mobile robot for chasing an object selected by the user. The algorithm is coupled with laser-based tracking to make up for the narrow field of view of the range-imaging camera. The workload created by the method is light enough to enable its use even with processors with limited capabilities. Extensive experimental results are given for verifying the usefulness of the proposed method.Spanish MICINN (Ministry of Science and Innovation) through the project ‘‘Applications of Social Robots=Aplicaciones de los Robots Sociales.’’Publicad

Co-creating an accessible, multisensory exhibition with the National Centre for Craft & Design and blind and partially sighted participants

5,000 word double peer-reviewed conference paper. Abstract: Visually impairment people often visit exhibitions and museums in the UK. Older people are increasingly likely to experience sight loss and they are the fastest growing visitor group to UK museums and galleries. They favour regional and local venues. Museums are beginning to incorporate open-accessible facilities, but multi-sensory approaches tend to be small additions rather than a central feature. More could be achieved if curators built inclusive intellectual access for this visitor group into their exhibitions. This participatory design research project explores how the National Centre for Craft & Design (Sleaford, UK) can cost effectively design and curate non-permanent exhibitions that bring outstanding intellectual access to visitors with sight loss. This involved exploring the following research question: How can co-creation processes that involves blind and partially participants effectively facilitate the cross transfer of experience and skills to generate valid information

An investigation into the use of CD-Rom technology by pupils in mainstream primary schools

The 1994 CD-ROM in Primary schools government initiative increased by over two thousand, the number of primary schools who were using CD-ROM technology with their pupils. The investigation focuses of the way that this technology was being introduced, and later used, in four schools in two English shire counties. The findings are compared and contrasted with the results from a postal survey of primary schools, with postal addresses in the same two counties, who received a complete CD-ROM system under that 1994 government initiative as well as the findings of other researchers of the same initiative. The investigation focuses on the organisation and management of the CD-ROM system within the school. The advantages and disadvantages of siting decisions are examined along with the resulting effects upon pupils' use of the system. As the government initiative provided schools with both a system and a package of CD-ROM software, the investigation looks at the titles that proved most (and least) popular with schools. Since very few CD-ROMs were developed for education, teachers' criteria for choosing commercial CD-ROMs to use within the National Curriculum are examined as are the purchasing policies and the decision making processes of the four schools. Having observed the way in which the technology was introduced to pupils in the four schools, the investigation was continued to observe the pattern of use that developed and the way in which that use changed through the primary age range. Although the use by young pupils continued to include multimedia reading books, once pupils had learnt simple ordering skills, they were introduced to the use of CD-ROMs for information collection; eventually using CD-ROMs almost exclusively to supplement, rather than supplant, traditional information sources. Teachers recognised that CDROMs contained vast sources of information but that pupils required search skills in order to access that information. The ways in which teachers attempted to teach these skills using the CD-ROMs that were available to them were investigated. Although standard referencing methods enabled pupils to find information in books using, the task was different, and often more difficult with CD-ROMs, due to the nonstandard organisations of the titles that were designed for the home market and leisured browsing. The investigation looked at the ways in which pupils in the four schools were guided to find information and the ways in which that information was recorded and used within the curriculum. This was compared with the use of traditional source. When CD-ROM technology was introduced into education, it had been expected to make changes both to the delivery of the curriculum and the ways in which pupils both collected and recorded information. The investigation looked for these anticipated changes within the four schools. As two of the schools had units for hearing impaired pupils, the investigation included observation of the ways in which the technology was used by those pupils both within the units and the mainstream classes seeking to discover possible advantages and disadvantages that the use of the technology made for pupils who could not access all of the available media. However, unlike secondary pupils, it would appear from this research that the use of CD-ROM technology brought an additional option of information source for primary pupils, but made little change to the structure of the curriculum.

Obstacle alert and collision avoidance system development for UAVs with Pixhawk flight controller

In recent years, the unmanned aerial vehicles sector has been characterized by its sharp growth, spreading its line of applications and becoming one of the cutting edge technologies in the world. However, this exponential advancement would have been even more extreme but for the restrictive existing legislation that limits its operations. That constraints imposed to drone operations are not legislated in vain. Specially in populated areas, flying drones is a dangerous service that entails risks for the safety of the population. Useless have been the attempts of many major online selling companies to make use of unmanned aerial vehicles serving as dealers of parcels. Further technology needs still to be implemented, for guarantying standards levels of safety in urban zones. This thesis aims to contribute to this required development of drone technology by proposing a preliminary collision avoidance system for unmanned aerial vehi- cles. The project involves assembling a flight-capable quadcopter from scratch and implementing the collision avoidance as an additional subsystem. To that end, a set of ultrasonic range finders are located around the quadcopter. Their acquired raw data is processed in an auxiliary arduino microcontroller board that send tra- jectory corrections to the flight controller of the quadcopter based on the distance information. As a result, a concept proof of an autonomous collision avoidance system is integrated into an unmanned aerial vehicle system. Results are obtained and consecutively analyzed based on ground and flight tests. For that purpose, the flight capabilities of the built quadcopter are proved, and aftewards, the collision avoidance is tested. Overall, the collision avoidance system e ectiveness was achieved. The collision avoidance work principle consisted on warding off from obstacles when detected. Major faced problems are related to stability recover after the collision is avoided. That problem was solved by proving different flight modes, but that issue needs future work to make the collision avoidance more reliable.Ingeniería Aeroespacia

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

Robustness of Cosmological Simulations I: Large Scale Structure

The gravitationally-driven evolution of cold dark matter dominates the formation of structure in the Universe over a wide range of length scales. While the longest scales can be treated by perturbation theory, a fully quantitative understanding of nonlinear effects requires the application of large-scale particle simulation methods. Additionally, precision predictions for next-generation observations, such as weak gravitational lensing, can only be obtained from numerical simulations. In this paper, we compare results from several N-body codes using test problems and a diverse set of diagnostics, focusing on a medium resolution regime appropriate for studying many observationally relevant aspects of structure formation. Our conclusions are that -- despite the use of different algorithms and error-control methodologies -- overall, the codes yield consistent results. The agreement over a wide range of scales for the cosmological tests is test-dependent. In the best cases, it is at the 5% level or better, however, for other cases it can be significantly larger than 10%. These include the halo mass function at low masses and the mass power spectrum at small scales. While there exist explanations for most of the discrepancies, our results point to the need for significant improvement in N-body errors and their understanding to match the precision of near-future observations. The simulation results, including halo catalogs, and initial conditions used, are publicly available.Comment: 32 pages, 53 figures, data from the simulations is available at http://t8web.lanl.gov/people/heitmann/arxiv, accepted for publication in ApJS, several minor revisions, reference added, main conclusions unchange