2,211 research outputs found
Safe, Remote-Access Swarm Robotics Research on the Robotarium
This paper describes the development of the Robotarium -- a remotely
accessible, multi-robot research facility. The impetus behind the Robotarium is
that multi-robot testbeds constitute an integral and essential part of the
multi-agent research cycle, yet they are expensive, complex, and time-consuming
to develop, operate, and maintain. These resource constraints, in turn, limit
access for large groups of researchers and students, which is what the
Robotarium is remedying by providing users with remote access to a
state-of-the-art multi-robot test facility. This paper details the design and
operation of the Robotarium as well as connects these to the particular
considerations one must take when making complex hardware remotely accessible.
In particular, safety must be built in already at the design phase without
overly constraining which coordinated control programs the users can upload and
execute, which calls for minimally invasive safety routines with provable
performance guarantees.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, 3 code samples, 72 reference
Robotic Wireless Sensor Networks
In this chapter, we present a literature survey of an emerging, cutting-edge,
and multi-disciplinary field of research at the intersection of Robotics and
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) which we refer to as Robotic Wireless Sensor
Networks (RWSN). We define a RWSN as an autonomous networked multi-robot system
that aims to achieve certain sensing goals while meeting and maintaining
certain communication performance requirements, through cooperative control,
learning and adaptation. While both of the component areas, i.e., Robotics and
WSN, are very well-known and well-explored, there exist a whole set of new
opportunities and research directions at the intersection of these two fields
which are relatively or even completely unexplored. One such example would be
the use of a set of robotic routers to set up a temporary communication path
between a sender and a receiver that uses the controlled mobility to the
advantage of packet routing. We find that there exist only a limited number of
articles to be directly categorized as RWSN related works whereas there exist a
range of articles in the robotics and the WSN literature that are also relevant
to this new field of research. To connect the dots, we first identify the core
problems and research trends related to RWSN such as connectivity,
localization, routing, and robust flow of information. Next, we classify the
existing research on RWSN as well as the relevant state-of-the-arts from
robotics and WSN community according to the problems and trends identified in
the first step. Lastly, we analyze what is missing in the existing literature,
and identify topics that require more research attention in the future
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
Adoption of vehicular ad hoc networking protocols by networked robots
This paper focuses on the utilization of wireless networking in the robotics domain. Many researchers have already equipped their robots with wireless communication capabilities, stimulated by the observation that multi-robot systems tend to have several advantages over their single-robot counterparts. Typically, this integration of wireless communication is tackled in a quite pragmatic manner, only a few authors presented novel Robotic Ad Hoc Network (RANET) protocols that were designed specifically with robotic use cases in mind. This is in sharp contrast with the domain of vehicular ad hoc networks (VANET). This observation is the starting point of this paper. If the results of previous efforts focusing on VANET protocols could be reused in the RANET domain, this could lead to rapid progress in the field of networked robots. To investigate this possibility, this paper provides a thorough overview of the related work in the domain of robotic and vehicular ad hoc networks. Based on this information, an exhaustive list of requirements is defined for both types. It is concluded that the most significant difference lies in the fact that VANET protocols are oriented towards low throughput messaging, while RANET protocols have to support high throughput media streaming as well. Although not always with equal importance, all other defined requirements are valid for both protocols. This leads to the conclusion that cross-fertilization between them is an appealing approach for future RANET research. To support such developments, this paper concludes with the definition of an appropriate working plan
Classification and Management of Computational Resources of Robotic Swarms and the Overcoming of their Constraints
Swarm robotics is a relatively new and multidisciplinary research field with many potential applications (e.g., collective exploration or precision agriculture). Nevertheless, it has not been able to transition from the academic environment to the real world. While there are many potential reasons, one reason is that many robots are designed to be relatively simple, which often results in reduced communication and computation capabilities. However, the investigation of such limitations has largely been overlooked.
This thesis looks into one such constraint, the computational constraint of swarm robots (i.e., swarm robotics platform). To achieve this, this work first proposes a computational index that quantifies computational resources. Based on the computational index, a quantitative study of 5273 devices shows that swarm robots provide fewer resources than many other robots or devices. In the next step, an operating system with a novel dual-execution model is proposed, and it has been shown that it outperforms the two other robotic system software. Moreover, results show that the choice of system software determines the computational overhead and, therefore, how many resources are available to robotic software. As communication can be a key aspect of a robot's behaviour, this work demonstrates the modelling, implementing, and studying of an optical communication system with a novel dynamic detector. Its detector improves the quality of service by orders of magnitude (i.e., makes the communication more reliable). In addition, this work investigates general communication properties, such as scalability or the effects of mobility, and provides recommendations for the use of such optical communication systems for swarm robotics. Finally, an approach is shown by which computational constraints of individual robots can be overcome by distributing data and processing across multiple robots
Intelligent Energy Management with IoT Framework in Smart Cities Using Intelligent Analysis: An Application of Machine Learning Methods for Complex Networks and Systems
Smart buildings are increasingly using Internet of Things (IoT)-based
wireless sensing systems to reduce their energy consumption and environmental
impact. As a result of their compact size and ability to sense, measure, and
compute all electrical properties, Internet of Things devices have become
increasingly important in our society. A major contribution of this study is
the development of a comprehensive IoT-based framework for smart city energy
management, incorporating multiple components of IoT architecture and
framework. An IoT framework for intelligent energy management applications that
employ intelligent analysis is an essential system component that collects and
stores information. Additionally, it serves as a platform for the development
of applications by other companies. Furthermore, we have studied intelligent
energy management solutions based on intelligent mechanisms. The depletion of
energy resources and the increase in energy demand have led to an increase in
energy consumption and building maintenance. The data collected is used to
monitor, control, and enhance the efficiency of the system
- …