Three omni-directional wheels control on a mobile robot

Traditional two wheels differential drive normally used on mobile robots have manoeuvrability limitations and take time to sort out. Most teams use two driving wheels (with one or two cast wheels), four driving wheels and even three driving wheels. A three wheel drive with omni-directional wheel has been tried with success, and was implemented on fast moving autonomous mobile robots. This paper deals with the mathematical kinematics description of such mobile platform, it describes the advantages and also the type of control used

Controlling omni-directional Wheels of a MSL RoboCup autonomous mobile robot

Autonomous Mobile Locomotion is of extreme importance in RoboCup robots. Even though in 2050 the robotic team will very likely use legs rather than wheels, at the moment all teams on middle size league use wheels to overcome other problems first. Most teams are using two driving wheels (with one or two cast wheels), four driving wheels and even three driving wheels. The Minho team has been using two driving wheels for the last 5 years (with two caster wheels), but for reaction speed optimization purposes a new approach of three wheels is being developed. This paper deals with the description of such platform, it describes the advantages and also the type of control used

Vision, kinematics and game strategy in multi-robot systems like MSL RoboCup

In Multi-Robot systems like the RoboCup football challenge, there are a small number of key issues which are of extreme relevance for the successfulness of the final application. In MSL RoboCup these main issues are three: a) The vision system, which has to be as reliable and fast as possible in order to perceive the necessary entities to carry out the game actions; b) Correct kinematics of the robot, that makes the robots move towards the desired goal in the fastest, shortest and optimized away; c) Game strategy, which needs collaboration and communication between all the agents in the field. Other issues are also important but these three consist of the fundamental ones towards the next step in this challenge which is ball pass between the robots in a controlled way. A team of robots will only be able to pass the ball to another robot only when these three issues are sorted out. This paper describes how these three issues were tackled by the MINHO team and shows their next directions

Understanding figurative language: Studies on the comprehension of metaphors and similes

At least since Aristotle, scholars have contrasted the more “literal” simile (e.g., lawyers are like sharks) with the more "figurative" metaphor (e.g., lawyers are sharks) to better understand how people deduce non-literal interpretations when comprehending figurative language such as metaphor. This thesis presents four manuscripts that investigated the comprehension of metaphors and similes to better understand this literal-figurative divide. The study reported in the first manuscript, employing off-line ratings and property-listing tasks, examined how metaphors and similes are interpreted, and how such statements are used on the Internet. Property lists generated for metaphors and similes were equivalent, although connotative properties seemed more salient for metaphors. The same study also found that similes on the Internet were used more often before an explanation. The study reported in the second manuscript examined the comprehension of metaphors and similes using self-paced reading, while the study reported in the third manuscript used eye-tracking. Results of the two studies were inconsistent: the self-paced reading study suggested similes were more difficult to process (longer reading times), while the reverse was suggested by the eye-tracking study (shorter saccade lengths for metaphors). Because first-pass reading measures such as saccade length are most immune to extra-linguistic variables, taken together results from both studies favor viewing metaphors as more difficult to comprehend than similes. Finally, the fourth manuscript presents a study that examined how people living with Alzheimer's disease interpret metaphors and similes using paraphrase and interpretation tasks. Interpretations for metaphors and similes were equivalent, but more apt statements (music is (like) medicine) were easier to interpret than less apt ones (e.g., life is (like) a bottle) highlighting the role of aptness in metaphor and simile interpretation. The final chapter presents a theoretical discussion in light of the results obtained in the four studies. In summary, the results suggest metaphors and similes activate a similar set of properties, but that connotative properties might receive increased activation when a metaphor is presented. This additional activation for connotative properties could make metaphors require more processing than similes

Bowdoin Orient v.131, no.1-24 (1999-2000)

https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/bowdoinorient-2000s/1000/thumbnail.jp

CMU Hammerheads 2001 Team Description

This paper describes the hardware and software architecture of the Minnow platform used in the CMU Hammerhead robot soccer team. Section 2 describes the hardware components of the robot platform. The software and control architectures are presented in Section 3. Finally, our strategies for teamwork and coordination are presented in Section