6,849 research outputs found
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
Home alone: autonomous extension and correction of spatial representations
In this paper we present an account
of the problems faced by a mobile robot given
an incomplete tour of an unknown environment,
and introduce a collection of techniques which can
generate successful behaviour even in the presence
of such problems. Underlying our approach is the
principle that an autonomous system must be motivated
to act to gather new knowledge, and to validate
and correct existing knowledge. This principle is
embodied in Dora, a mobile robot which features
the aforementioned techniques: shared representations,
non-monotonic reasoning, and goal generation
and management. To demonstrate how well this
collection of techniques work in real-world situations
we present a comprehensive analysis of the Dora
system’s performance over multiple tours in an indoor
environment. In this analysis Dora successfully
completed 18 of 21 attempted runs, with all but
3 of these successes requiring one or more of the
integrated techniques to recover from problems
A robot swarm assisting a human fire-fighter
Emergencies in industrial warehouses are a major concern for fire-fighters. 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 paper we discuss the technology developed for a swarm of robots assisting fire-fighters. We explain the swarming algorithms that 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 the means to locate the robots and humans. Thus, the robot swarm is able to provide guidance information to the humans. Together with the fire-fighters 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
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