26,865 research outputs found
Real-Time Motion Planning of Legged Robots: A Model Predictive Control Approach
We introduce a real-time, constrained, nonlinear Model Predictive Control for
the motion planning of legged robots. The proposed approach uses a constrained
optimal control algorithm known as SLQ. We improve the efficiency of this
algorithm by introducing a multi-processing scheme for estimating value
function in its backward pass. This pass has been often calculated as a single
process. This parallel SLQ algorithm can optimize longer time horizons without
proportional increase in its computation time. Thus, our MPC algorithm can
generate optimized trajectories for the next few phases of the motion within
only a few milliseconds. This outperforms the state of the art by at least one
order of magnitude. The performance of the approach is validated on a quadruped
robot for generating dynamic gaits such as trotting.Comment: 8 page
Trajectory Optimization Through Contacts and Automatic Gait Discovery for Quadrupeds
In this work we present a trajectory Optimization framework for whole-body
motion planning through contacts. We demonstrate how the proposed approach can
be applied to automatically discover different gaits and dynamic motions on a
quadruped robot. In contrast to most previous methods, we do not pre-specify
contact switches, timings, points or gait patterns, but they are a direct
outcome of the optimization. Furthermore, we optimize over the entire dynamics
of the robot, which enables the optimizer to fully leverage the capabilities of
the robot. To illustrate the spectrum of achievable motions, here we show eight
different tasks, which would require very different control structures when
solved with state-of-the-art methods. Using our trajectory Optimization
approach, we are solving each task with a simple, high level cost function and
without any changes in the control structure. Furthermore, we fully integrated
our approach with the robot's control and estimation framework such that
optimization can be run online. By demonstrating a rough manipulation task with
multiple dynamic contact switches, we exemplarily show how optimized
trajectories and control inputs can be directly applied to hardware.Comment: Video: https://youtu.be/sILuqJBsyK
Towards automated visual flexible endoscope navigation
Background:\ud
The design of flexible endoscopes has not changed significantly in the past 50 years. A trend is observed towards a wider application of flexible endoscopes with an increasing role in complex intraluminal therapeutic procedures. The nonintuitive and nonergonomical steering mechanism now forms a barrier in the extension of flexible endoscope applications. Automating the navigation of endoscopes could be a solution for this problem. This paper summarizes the current state of the art in image-based navigation algorithms. The objectives are to find the most promising navigation system(s) to date and to indicate fields for further research.\ud
Methods:\ud
A systematic literature search was performed using three general search terms in two medical–technological literature databases. Papers were included according to the inclusion criteria. A total of 135 papers were analyzed. Ultimately, 26 were included.\ud
Results:\ud
Navigation often is based on visual information, which means steering the endoscope using the images that the endoscope produces. Two main techniques are described: lumen centralization and visual odometry. Although the research results are promising, no successful, commercially available automated flexible endoscopy system exists to date.\ud
Conclusions:\ud
Automated systems that employ conventional flexible endoscopes show the most promising prospects in terms of cost and applicability. To produce such a system, the research focus should lie on finding low-cost mechatronics and technologically robust steering algorithms. Additional functionality and increased efficiency can be obtained through software development. The first priority is to find real-time, robust steering algorithms. These algorithms need to handle bubbles, motion blur, and other image artifacts without disrupting the steering process
Attention and Anticipation in Fast Visual-Inertial Navigation
We study a Visual-Inertial Navigation (VIN) problem in which a robot needs to
estimate its state using an on-board camera and an inertial sensor, without any
prior knowledge of the external environment. We consider the case in which the
robot can allocate limited resources to VIN, due to tight computational
constraints. Therefore, we answer the following question: under limited
resources, what are the most relevant visual cues to maximize the performance
of visual-inertial navigation? Our approach has four key ingredients. First, it
is task-driven, in that the selection of the visual cues is guided by a metric
quantifying the VIN performance. Second, it exploits the notion of
anticipation, since it uses a simplified model for forward-simulation of robot
dynamics, predicting the utility of a set of visual cues over a future time
horizon. Third, it is efficient and easy to implement, since it leads to a
greedy algorithm for the selection of the most relevant visual cues. Fourth, it
provides formal performance guarantees: we leverage submodularity to prove that
the greedy selection cannot be far from the optimal (combinatorial) selection.
Simulations and real experiments on agile drones show that our approach ensures
state-of-the-art VIN performance while maintaining a lean processing time. In
the easy scenarios, our approach outperforms appearance-based feature selection
in terms of localization errors. In the most challenging scenarios, it enables
accurate visual-inertial navigation while appearance-based feature selection
fails to track robot's motion during aggressive maneuvers.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures, 2 table
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