A Software Suite for the Control and the Monitoring of Adaptive Robotic Ecologies

Adaptive robotic ecologies are networks of heterogeneous robotic devices (sensors, actuators, automated appliances) pervasively embedded in everyday environments, where they learn to cooperate towards the achievement of complex tasks. While their flexibility makes them an increasingly popular way to improve a system’s reliability, scalability, robustness and autonomy, their effective realisation demands integrated control and software solutions for the specification, integration and management of their highly heterogeneous and computational constrained components. In this extended abstract we briefly illustrate the characteristic requirements dictated by robotic ecologies, discuss our experience in developing adaptive robotic ecologies, and provide an overview of the specific solutions developed as part of the EU FP7 RUBICON Project

Robotic ubiquitous cognitive ecology for smart homes

Robotic ecologies are networks of heterogeneous robotic devices pervasively embedded in everyday environments, where they cooperate to perform complex tasks. While their potential makes them increasingly popular, one fundamental problem is how to make them both autonomous and adaptive, so as to reduce the amount of preparation, pre-programming and human supervision that they require in real world applications. The project RUBICON develops learning solutions which yield cheaper, adaptive and efficient coordination of robotic ecologies. The approach we pursue builds upon a unique combination of methods from cognitive robotics, machine learning, planning and agent- based control, and wireless sensor networks. This paper illustrates the innovations advanced by RUBICON in each of these fronts before describing how the resulting techniques have been integrated and applied to a smart home scenario. The resulting system is able to provide useful services and pro-actively assist the users in their activities. RUBICON learns through an incremental and progressive approach driven by the feed- back received from its own activities and from the user, while also self-organizing the manner in which it uses available sensors, actuators and other functional components in the process. This paper summarises some of the lessons learned by adopting such an approach and outlines promising directions for future work

Internet of robotic things : converging sensing/actuating, hypoconnectivity, artificial intelligence and IoT Platforms

The Internet of Things (IoT) concept is evolving rapidly and influencing newdevelopments in various application domains, such as the Internet of MobileThings (IoMT), Autonomous Internet of Things (A-IoT), Autonomous Systemof Things (ASoT), Internet of Autonomous Things (IoAT), Internetof Things Clouds (IoT-C) and the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) etc.that are progressing/advancing by using IoT technology. The IoT influencerepresents new development and deployment challenges in different areassuch as seamless platform integration, context based cognitive network integration,new mobile sensor/actuator network paradigms, things identification(addressing, naming in IoT) and dynamic things discoverability and manyothers. The IoRT represents new convergence challenges and their need to be addressed, in one side the programmability and the communication ofmultiple heterogeneous mobile/autonomous/robotic things for cooperating,their coordination, configuration, exchange of information, security, safetyand protection. Developments in IoT heterogeneous parallel processing/communication and dynamic systems based on parallelism and concurrencyrequire new ideas for integrating the intelligent “devices”, collaborativerobots (COBOTS), into IoT applications. Dynamic maintainability, selfhealing,self-repair of resources, changing resource state, (re-) configurationand context based IoT systems for service implementation and integrationwith IoT network service composition are of paramount importance whennew “cognitive devices” are becoming active participants in IoT applications.This chapter aims to be an overview of the IoRT concept, technologies,architectures and applications and to provide a comprehensive coverage offuture challenges, developments and applications

A cognitive robotic ecology approach to self-configuring and evolving AAL systems

Robotic ecologies are systems made out of several robotic devices, including mobile robots, wireless sensors and effectors embedded in everyday environments, where they cooperate to achieve complex tasks. This paper demonstrates how endowing robotic ecologies with information processing algorithms such as perception, learning, planning, and novelty detection can make these systems able to deliver modular, flexible, manageable and dependable Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) solutions. Specifically, we show how the integrated and self-organising cognitive solutions implemented within the EU project RUBICON (Robotic UBIquitous Cognitive Network) can reduce the need of costly pre-programming and maintenance of robotic ecologies. We illustrate how these solutions can be harnessed to (i) deliver a range of assistive services by coordinating the sensing & acting capabilities of heterogeneous devices, (ii) adapt and tune the overall behaviour of the ecology to the preferences and behaviour of its inhabitants, and also (iii) deal with novel events, due to the occurrence of new user's activities and changing user's habits

CPS Platform Approach to Industrial Robots: State of the Practice, Potentials, Future Research Directions

Approaches, such as Cloud Robotics, Robot-as-a-Service, merged Internet of Things and robotics, and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) in production, show that the industrial robotics domain experiences a paradigm shift that increasingly links robots in real-life factories with virtual reality. However, despite the growing body of research to date, though insightful, the paradigm shift to CPS in industrial robotics remains an under-researched area. Findings from the present paper make several contributions to the current state of research: We provide a potentially reusable framework of analysis and apply this framework in order to reveal whether and to what extent the industrial robotics branch implements abilities and characteristics of CPS. We examine the top five industrial robot manufacturers ABB, Fanuc, Kawasaki, Kuka, and Yaskawa and identify considerable, current implementations. However, concerning one of three perspectives—the perspective on CPS as industry platform constructs, takes the industrial robotics branch only certain small steps towards CPS platforms. We discuss them and outline a set of business model patterns that can transform product innovations, enabled by abilities and characteristics of CPS, into business model innovations in the industrial robot domain. In order to enable the industry to exploit the full potential of industrial robots understood as CPS, we question the right degree of openness in the context of industry platform constructs. Our methodological approach combines conceptual with empirical research

The Internet of Robotic Things:A review of concept, added value and applications

The Internet of Robotic Things is an emerging vision that brings together pervasive sensors and objects with robotic and autonomous systems. This survey examines how the merger of robotic and Internet of Things technologies will advance the abilities of both the current Internet of Things and the current robotic systems, thus enabling the creation of new, potentially disruptive services. We discuss some of the new technological challenges created by this merger and conclude that a truly holistic view is needed but currently lacking.Funding Agency:imec ACTHINGS High Impact initiative</p

Robotics software frameworks for multi-agent robotic systems development

Robotics is an area of research in which the paradigm of Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) can prove to be highly useful. Multi-Agent Systems come in the form of cooperative robots in a team, sensor networks based on mobile robots, and robots in Intelligent Environments, to name but a few. However, the development of Multi-Agent Robotic Systems (MARS) still presents major challenges. Over the past decade, a high number of Robotics Software Frameworks (RSFs) have appeared which propose some solutions to the most recurrent problems in robotics. Some of these frameworks, such as ROS, YARP, OROCOS, ORCA, Open-RTM, and Open-RDK, possess certain characteristics and provide the basic infrastructure necessary for the development of MARS. The contribution of this work is the identification of such characteristics as well as the analysis of these frameworks in comparison with the general-purpose Multi-Agent System Frameworks (MASFs), such as JADE and Mobile-C.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TEC2009-10639-C04-02Junta de Andalucía P06-TIC-2298Junta de Andalucía P08-TIC-0386

Design behaviors : programming the material world for responsive architecture

The advances of material science, coupled with computation and digital technologies, and applied to the architectural discipline have brought to life unprecedented possibilities for the design and making of responsive, collectively created and intelligent environments. Over the last two decades, research and applications of novel active materials, together with digital technologies such as Ubiquitous Computing, Human-Computer Interaction, and Artificial Intelligence, have introduced a model of Materially Responsive Architecture that presents unique possibilities for designing novel performances and behaviors of the architectural Beyond the use of mechanical systems, sensors, actuators or wires, often plugged into traditional materials to animate space, this dissertation proves that matter itself, can be the agent to achieve monitoring, reaction or adaptation with no need of any additional mechanics, electrical or motorized systems. Materials, therefore, become bits and information uniting with the digital world, while computational processes, such as algorithmic control, circular feedback, input or output, both drive and are driven by the morphogenetic capacities of matter, uniting, therefore, with the material world. Through the applications and implications of Materially Responsive Architecture we are crossing a threshold in design where physicality follows and reveals information through time and through dynamic configurations. Design is not limited to a finalised form but rather associated to a performance, where the final formal outcome consists in a series of animated and organic topologies rather than static geometries and structures. This new paradigm, is referred to, in this thesis, as the Design Behaviors paradigm (in the double sense of "behaviors of design" and "designing behaviors"), and is characterized by unique exchanges and dialogues between users and the environment, facilitated by the conjunction of human, material and computational intelligence. Buildings, objects and spaces are able to reconfigure themselves, in both atomic and macro scale, to support environmental changes and users' needs, behavioral and occupational patterns. At the same time the Design Behaviors paradigm places not only matter and the environment at the center of design and morphogenesis, but also the users, that become active participants of their built environment and play the final creative role. This paradigm shift, boosts new relations among the human's perception and body and the inhabited space. The new design paradigm is also a new cultural one, in which statics, repetition and Cartesian grids, traditionally related with safety, orientation and comfort, give way to motion, unpredictability and organic principles of evolution. Materially Responsive Architecture and the Design Behaviors paradigm define uniquely enhanced "environments" and "ecologies" where human, nature, artifice and technology collectively and evolutionally co-exist within a framework of increased consciousness and awareness. This thesis argues that, while there is no doubt that our future cities will consist in an extensive layer of distributed sensors, actuators and digital interfaces, they will also consist in an additional layer of novel materials, that are dynamic and soft, rather than rigid and hard, able to sense as sensors, actuate as motors, and be programmed as a software. The new materiality of our cities relies on the advances of material science, coupled with the cybernetic and computational power, and can be actuated by the environment to change states (Re-Active Matter), can be controlled by the users to respond (Co-Active Matter), and eventually can be designed and programmed to learn and evolve as living organisms do (Self-Active Matter). The physical space of the city is, thus, the seamless intertwining of digital and material content, becoming an active agent in the dynamic relationship between the environment and humans.Los avances en la ciencia de los materiales, junto con la computación y las tecnologías digitales, y aplicados a la disciplina arquitectónica, han dado vida a posibilidades sin precedentes para el diseño y la realización de entornos responsivos, inteligentes y creados de forma colectiva. En las últimas dos décadas, la investigación y aplicación de nuevos materiales activos junto con tecnologías digitales como la Computación Ubicua, la Interacción Hombre-Ordenador y la Inteligencia Artificial, han introducido el modelo de Materially Responsive Architecture (Arquitectura Materialmente Responsiva), que presenta posibilidades únicas para el diseño de nuevas actuaciones y comportamientos del espacio arquitectónico. Más allá del uso de sistemas mecánicos, sensores, o motores, a menudo conectados a materiales tradicionales para activar el espacio, esta disertación demuestra que la materia en sí misma puede ser el agente que consiga monitoreo o reactividad sin necesidad de añadir ningún sistema mecánico o eléctrico. Los materiales, en este caso, se convierten en bits e información fundiéndose con el mundo digital, mientras que los procesos computacionales, como el feedback circular y el input o output, a la vez impulsan y son impulsados por la capacidad morfogenética de la materia, uniéndose, por lo tanto, con el mundo material. A través de las aplicaciones y las implicaciones de la Materially Responsive Architecture, estamos cruzando un umbral en el diseño donde el mundo físico sigue y revela información a través de configuraciones dinámicas en el tiempo. El diseño no se limita a una forma finalizada, sino se relaciona a una performance, donde el resultado formal final consiste en una serie de topologías orgánicas y animadas en lugar de estructuras y geometrías estáticas. En esta tesis doctoral, este nuevo paradigma se denomina paradigma de Design Behaviours (en el doble sentido de "comportamientos de diseño" y de "diseño de comportamientos") y se caracteriza por intercambios únicos entre el usuario y el entorno, facilitados por la conjunción de inteligencia humana, material y computacional. Los edificios, objetos y espacios pueden reconfigurarse a sí mismos, tanto a nivél atómico como a macro escala, para responder a los cambios ambientales y a las necesidades de los usuarios. Al mismo tiempo, el paradigma Design Behaviors coloca en el centro del diseño y la morfogénesis no solo la materia y el medio ambiente, sino también a los usuarios, que se convierten en participantes de su entorno construido y desempeñan el papel creativo final. El nuevo paradigma define "entornos" y "ecologías" aumentados de manera singular, donde el ser humano, la naturaleza, el artificio y la tecnología coexisten de manera colectiva y evolutiva dentro de un marco de mayor conciencia consciente. El nuevo paradigma de diseño es también un nuevo paradigma cultural, en el que las redes estáticas, repetitivas y cartesianas, tradicionalmente relacionadas con la seguridad, la orientación y el confort, dan paso al movimiento, la imprevisibilidad y la evolución orgánica. Esta tesis sostiene que, si bien no hay duda de que nuestras ciudades futuras consistirán en una capa extensa de sensores distribuidos e interfaces digitales, también contarán con una capa adicional de materiales dinámicos y suaves, en lugar de rígidos y duros, capaces de sentir como sensores, actuar como motores y ser programados como un software. La nueva materialidad de nuestras ciudades puede ser activada por el medio ambiente para cambiar su estado (Re-Active Matter), puede ser controlada por los usuarios para responderles (Co-Active Matter), y eventualmente puede diseñarse y programarse para aprender y evolucionar por sí misma así como lo hacen los organismos vivos (Self-Active Matter). El espacio físico de la ciudad es, por lo tanto, el entrelazado holístico entre contenido digital y material, convirtiéndose en un agente activo en la relación dinámica entre el medio ambiente y los humanos