A Networking Framework for Multi-Robot Coordination

Autonomous robots operating in real environments need to be able to interact with a dynamic world populated with objects, people, and, in general, other agents. The current generation of autonomous robots, such as the ASIMO robot by Honda or the QRIO by Sony, has showed impressive performances in mechanics and control of movements; moreover, recent literature reports encouraging results about the capability of such robots of representing themselves with respect to a dynamic external world, of planning future actions and of evaluating resulting situations in order to make new plans. However, when multiple robots are supposed to operate together, coordination and communication issues arise; while noteworthy results have been achieved with respect to the control of a single robot, novel issues arise when the actions of a robot influence another''s behavior. The increase in computational power available to systems nowadays makes it feasible, and even convenient, to organize them into a single distributed computing environment in order to exploit the synergy among different entities. This is especially true for robot teams, where cooperation is supposed to be the most natural scheme of operation, especially when robots are required to operate in highly constrained scenarios, such as inhospitable sites, remote sites, or indoor environments where strict constraints on intrusiveness must be respected. In this case, computations will be inherently network-centric, and to solve the need for communication inside robot collectives, an efficient network infrastructure must be put into place; once a proper communication channel is established, multiple robots may benefit from the interaction with each other in order to achieve a common goal. The framework presented in this paper adopts a composite networking architecture, in which a hybrid wireless network, composed by commonly available WiFi devices, and the more recently developed wireless sensor networks, operates as a whole in order both to provide a communication backbone for the robots and to extract useful information from the environment. The ad-hoc WiFi backbone allows robots to exchange coordination information among themselves, while also carrying data measurements collected from surrounding environment, and useful for localization or mere data gathering purposes. The proposed framework is called RoboNet, and extends a previously developed robotic tour guide application (Chella et al., 2007) in the context of a multi-robot application; our system allows a team of robots to enhance their perceptive capabilities through coordination obtained via a hybrid communication network; moreover, the same infrastructure allows robots to exchange information so as to coordinate their actions in order to achieve a global common goal. The working scenario considered in this paper consists of a museum setting, where guided tours are to be automatically managed. The museum is arranged both chronologically and topographically, but the sequence of findings to be visited can be rearranged depending on user queries, making a sort of dynamic virtual labyrinth with various itineraries. Therefore, the robots are able to guide visitors both in prearranged tours and in interactive tours, built in itinere depending on the interaction with the visitor: robots are able to rebuild the virtual connection between findings and, consequently, the path to be followed. This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 contains some background on multi-robot coordination, and Section 3 describes the underlying ideas and the motivation behind the proposed architecture, whose details are presented in Sections 4, 5, and 6. A realistic application scenario is described in Section 7, and finally our conclusions are drawn in Section 8

Xurography actuated valving for arbitrary timing of centrifugal flow control in parallelized multi-step bioassays

Here we introduce a new, instrument controlled valving scheme for the centrifugal platform which is based upon dissolvable film (DF) technology. Liquid, restrained at any point upon the disc, is prevented from wetting a DF via a trapped gas pocket. From this pocket a pneumatic channel runs to a sealed vent located on the top surface of the disc. Controlled scouring of this seal by a robotic knifecutter permits venting of the trapped gas, and thus actuation of the valve. To demonstrate the potential of these valves, we present a disc developed towards a biplex liver assay panel

Advances on biological rhythmic pattern generation: experiments, algorithms and applications

Editoria

Advances on biological rhythmic pattern generation: experiments, algorithms and applications

Editoria

Robotic pick-and-place operations in multifunctional liquid crystal elastomers

Pick-and-place operations for transporting objects precisely to a target position are a prominent function of (soft-) robotic systems. Therefore, there is great interest in industry to improve the characteristic gripping, holding, and releasing methods involved in pick-and-place operations. Within living organisms such as octopi, nature demonstrates that multiple types of conjointly working actuators are required for flexible pick-and-place operations. Herein, a multifunctional soft robotic arm is developed, capable of transporting an object within 3D space. The soft robotic arm consists of two structural actuators (rotating base and lifting unit) and a suction cup-based gripper. The structural actuator acts as both the load bearing and actuating components of the robotic system. Yet, the gripper is the crucial innovation within the robotic arm. A cephalopod-limb-inspired gripper functioning through the reversible flat-to-conical deformation of azimuthally aligned liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) films is proposed. The pressure-generating actuation mechanism of the gripper means that no external device is needed to operate the gripping function. Akin to natural systems, the in-tandem operation of the actuators in the soft robotic arm allows for multifactored tasks. Yet, the design achieves this through the use of a single material, which is not innate in natural archetypes

Robots, Law and the Retribution Gap

We are living through an era of increased robotisation. Some authors have already begun to explore the impact of this robotisation on legal rules and practice. In doing so, many highlight potential liability gaps that might arise through robot misbehaviour. Although these gaps are interesting and socially significant, they do not exhaust the possible gaps that might be created by increased robotisation. In this article, I make the case for one of those alternative gaps: the retribution gap. This gap arises from a mismatch between the human desire for retribution and the absence of appropriate subjects of retributive blame. I argue for the potential existence of this gap in an era of increased robotisation; suggest that it is much harder to plug this gap than it is to plug those thus far explored in the literature; and then highlight three important social implications of this gap