Human-robot collaborative multi-agent path planning using Monte Carlo tree search and social reward sources

© 2021 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting /republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other worksThe collaboration between humans and robots in an object search task requires the achievement of shared plans obtained from communicating and negotiating. In this work, we assume that the robot computes, as a first step, a multiagent plan for both itself and the human. Then, both plans are submitted to human scrutiny, who either agrees or modifies it forcing the robot to adapt its own restrictions or preferences. This process is repeated along the search task as many times as required by the human. Our planner is based on a decentralized variant of Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS), with one robot and one human as agents. Moreover, our algorithm allows the robot and the human to optimize their own actions by maintaining a probability distribution over the plans in a joint action space. The method allows an objective function definition over action sequences, it assumes intermittent communication, it is anytime and suitable for on-line replanning. To test it, we have developed a human-robot communication mobile phone interface. Validation is provided by real-life search experiments of a Parcheesi token in an urban space, including also an acceptability study.Work supported under the Spanish State Research Agency through the Maria de Maeztu Seal of Excellence to IRI (MDM-2016- 0656), ROCOTRANSP project (PID2019-106702RB-C21 / AEI / 10.13039/501100011033), TERRINet (H2020-INFRAIA-2017-1-two-stage730994) and AI4EU (H2020-ICT-2018-2-825619)Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Asynchronous Visualization of Spatiotemporal Information for Multiple Moving Targets

In the modern information age, the quantity and complexity of spatiotemporal data is increasing both rapidly and continuously. Sensor systems with multiple feeds that gather multidimensional spatiotemporal data will result in information clusters and overload, as well as a high cognitive load for users of these systems. To meet future safety-critical situations and enhance time-critical decision-making missions in dynamic environments, and to support the easy and effective managing, browsing, and searching of spatiotemporal data in a dynamic environment, we propose an asynchronous, scalable, and comprehensive spatiotemporal data organization, display, and interaction method that allows operators to navigate through spatiotemporal information rather than through the environments being examined, and to maintain all necessary global and local situation awareness. To empirically prove the viability of our approach, we developed the Event-Lens system, which generates asynchronous prioritized images to provide the operator with a manageable, comprehensive view of the information that is collected by multiple sensors. The user study and interaction mode experiments were designed and conducted. The Event-Lens system was discovered to have a consistent advantage in multiple moving-target marking-task performance measures. It was also found that participants’ attentional control, spatial ability, and action video gaming experience affected their overall performance

Projeto de um manipulador antropomórfico para o robô CAMBADA@Home

Mestrado em Engenharia Eletrónica e TelecomunicaçõesNowadays, service robots are an attractive that moves numerous researchers and hence research units, publics or privates ones, being Universities a good example of this fact. RoboCup competition, namely its RoboCup@Home league, brings to the fore various and excellent projects, being a storefront of the service robots state of the art. Service robots have numerous applications, for instance serving someone for leisure, helping someone with reduced mobility or even perform boring tasks. In this sense, the Transverse Activity on Intelligent Robotics (ATRI) group, part of the Institute of Electronics and Telematics Engineering of Aveiro (IEETA), intends at endowing the CAMBADA@Home robot with an anthropomorphic arm. This arm allow a more e ective human robot interaction. Thus, the robot will be able to carry some small objects as well as put them in a predetermined place. Furthermore, this anthropomorphic manipulator will enable the robot to carry heavier loads with human cooperation as well as open doors. Herewith, this document depicts the conception of an anthropomorphic arm mechanical structure as well as the low level electronics developed on behalf of the arm right performance.Os robôs de serviço são actualmente um atrativo que tem movido vários investigadores e consequentemente unidades de investigação, tanto privadas como públicas, sendo um bom exemplo deste facto inúmeras Universidades. A competição RoboCup, nomeadamente a sua liga RoboCup@Home, catapulta para a ribalta variados e excelentes projectos, sendo deveras uma montra no estado da arte actual neste tipo de robôs. Os robôs de serviço têm inúmeras aplicações, desde servir alguém por lazer até apoiar indivíduos não totalmente independentes nas suas tarefas diárias, sem esquecer tarefas morosas e repetitivas que normalmente os seres humanos não gostam de executar. Neste ^âmbito, o Grupo de Actividade Transversal em Robótica Inteligente (ATRI) do Instituto de Engenharia Electrónica e Telemática de Aveiro (IEETA), pretende munir o seu robô CAMBADA@Home de um braço antropomórfico, este que permitirá uma interação humano robô mais efectiva. Neste sentido, o robô será capaz de transportar objectos de pequeno porte bem como colocá-los num lugar pré-determinado sem ser esquecida a cooperação com humanos no transporte de cargas mais pesadas bem como a aberturas de portas. Sendo assim, este documento descreve a concepção de uma estrutura mecânica para o Braço antropomórfico bem como o desenvolvimento da electrónica de baixo nível inerente ao funcionamento do mesmo

The concept of collaborative engineering: a systematic literature review

Collaborative engineering is not a new subject but it assumes a new importance in the Industry 4.0 (I4.0). There are other concepts frequently mismatched with collaboration. Thus, the main objective of this paper is to put forward a collaborative engineering concept, along its sub concepts, supported by an extensive systematic literature review. A critical analysis and discussion about the fundamental importance of learning, and the central human role in collaboration, in the I4.0, is presented, based on the main insights brought through the literature review. This study also enables to realize about the importance of collaboration in the current digitalization era, along with the importance of recent approaches and technology for enabling or promoting collaboration. Main current practices of human centered and autonomous machine-machine approaches and applications of collaboration in engineering, namely in manufacturing and management, are presented, along with main difficulties and further open research opportunities on collaboration.This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia [UIDB/00319/2020, UIDB/50014/2020, and EXPL/EME-SIS/1224/2021]