39,357 research outputs found
Mapping Simple Polygons: How Robots Benefit from Looking Back
We consider the problem of mapping an initially unknown polygon of size n with a simple robot that moves inside the polygon along straight lines between the vertices. The robot sees distant vertices in counter-clockwise order and is able to recognize the vertex among them which it came from in its last move, i.e.the robot can look back. Other than that the robot has no means of distinguishing distant vertices. We assume that an upper bound on n is known to the robot beforehand and show that it can always uniquely reconstruct the visibility graph of the polygon. Additionally, we show that multiple identical and deterministic robots can always solve the weak rendezvous problem in which the robots need to position themselves such that all of them are mutually visible to each other. Our results are tight in the sense that the strong rendezvous problem, where robots need to gather at a vertex, cannot be solved in general, and, without knowing a bound beforehand, not even n can be determined. In terms of mobile agents exploring a graph, our result implies that they can reconstruct any graph that is the visibility graph of a simple polygon. This is in contrast to the known result that the reconstruction of arbitrary graphs is impossible in general, even if n is know
Sensor System for Rescue Robots
A majority of rescue worker fatalities are a result of on-scene responses. Existing technologies help assist the first responders in scenarios of no light, and there even exist robots that can navigate radioactive areas. However, none are able to be both quickly deployable and enter hard to reach or unsafe areas in an emergency event such as an earthquake or storm that damages a structure. In this project we created a sensor platform system to augment existing robotic solutions so that rescue workers can search for people in danger while avoiding preventable injury or death and saving time and resources. Our results showed that we were able to map out a 2D map of the room with updates for robot motion on a display while also showing a live thermal image in front of the system. The system is also capable of taking a digital picture from a triggering event and then displaying it on the computer screen. We discovered that data transfer plays a huge role in making different programs like Arduino and Processing interact with each other. Consequently, this needs to be accounted for when improving our project. In particular our project is wired right now but should deliver data wirelessly to be of any practical use. Furthermore, we dipped our feet into SLAM technologies and if our project were to become autonomous, more research into the algorithms would make this autonomy feasible
HR Shared Services (HRSS): Model and Trends
[Excerpt] The findings of this research project are based on interviews with 44 Human Resources (HR) leaders across 39 national and international companies within 15 industries ranging from manufacturing to consulting services. The interviews ranged from 45 minutes to one hour, and sought to understand models, best practices, and trends. The interview included questions about employee experience, technology, and the integration between HR Shared Services (HRSS) and the overall HR Organization. To provide background information and data, the HR leaders answered a short survey, giving details about the structure of their HRSS, locations, areas of HR that had work performed in the shared services organization, systems, and technology capabilities
Robotic Rabbit Companions: amusing or a nuisance?
Most of the studies in human-robot interaction involve controlled experiments in a laboratory and only a limited number of studies have put robotic companions into peopleâs home. Introducing robots into a real-life environment does not only pose many technical challenges but also raises several methodological issues. And even though there might be a gain in ecological validity of the findings, there are other drawbacks that limit the validity of the results. In this paper we reflect on some of these issues based on the experience we gained in the SERA project where a robotic companion was put in the homes of a few people for ten days. We try to draw some general lessons from this experience
Humans, robots and values
The issue of machines replacing humans dates back to
the dawn of industrialisation. In this paper we examine what is
fundamental in the distinction between human and
robotic work by reflecting on the work of the classical political economists and engineers. We examine the
relationship between the ideas of machine work and
human work on the part of Marx and Watt as well as their role
in the creation of economic value. We examine the
extent to which artificial power sources could feasibly
substitute for human effort in their arguments.
We go on to examine the differing views of Smith and
Marx with respect to the economic effort contributed
by animals and consider whether the philosophical
distinction made between human and non-human work
can be sustained in the light of modern biological
research. We emphasise the non-universal
character of animal work before going on to discuss
the ideas of universal machines in Capek and Turing giving as a counter example a cloth-folding
robot being developed in our School.
We then return to Watt and discuss the development
of thermodynamics and information theory. We show
how recent research has led to a unification not
only of these fields but also a unitary understanding
of the labour process and the value-creation process.
We look at the implications of general robotisation for profitability and the future
of capitalism. For this we draw on the work of
von Neumann not only on computers but also in
economics to point to the {\em real} threat posed
by robots
A Pilot Study with a Novel Setup for Collaborative Play of the Humanoid Robot KASPAR with children with autism
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited.This article describes a pilot study in which a novel experimental setup, involving an autonomous humanoid robot, KASPAR, participating in a collaborative, dyadic video game, was implemented and tested with children with autism, all of whom had impairments in playing socially and communicating with others. The children alternated between playing the collaborative video game with a neurotypical adult and playing the same game with the humanoid robot, being exposed to each condition twice. The equipment and experimental setup were designed to observe whether the children would engage in more collaborative behaviours while playing the video game and interacting with the adult than performing the same activities with the humanoid robot. The article describes the development of the experimental setup and its first evaluation in a small-scale exploratory pilot study. The purpose of the study was to gain experience with the operational limits of the robot as well as the dyadic video game, to determine what changes should be made to the systems, and to gain experience with analyzing the data from this study in order to conduct a more extensive evaluation in the future. Based on our observations of the childrensâ experiences in playing the cooperative game, we determined that while the children enjoyed both playing the game and interacting with the robot, the game should be made simpler to play as well as more explicitly collaborative in its mechanics. Also, the robot should be more explicit in its speech as well as more structured in its interactions. Results show that the children found the activity to be more entertaining, appeared more engaged in playing, and displayed better collaborative behaviours with their partners (For the purposes of this article, âpartnerâ refers to the human/robotic agent which interacts with the children with autism. We are not using the termâs other meanings that refer to specific relationships or emotional involvement between two individuals.) in the second sessions of playing with human adults than during their first sessions. One way of explaining these findings is that the childrenâs intermediary play session with the humanoid robot impacted their subsequent play session with the human adult. However, another longer and more thorough study would have to be conducted in order to better re-interpret these findings. Furthermore, although the children with autism were more interested in and entertained by the robotic partner, the children showed more examples of collaborative play and cooperation while playing with the human adult.Peer reviewe
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