State of the art review on walking support system for visually impaired people

The technology for terrain detection and walking support system for blind people has rapidly been improved the last couple of decades but to assist visually impaired people may have started long ago. Currently, a variety of portable or wearable navigation system is available in the market to help the blind for navigating their way in his local or remote area. The focused category in this work can be subgroups as electronic travel aids (ETAs), electronic orientation aids (EOAs) and position locator devices (PLDs). However, we will focus mainly on electronic travel aids (ETAs). This paper presents a comparative survey among the various portable or wearable walking support systems as well as informative description (a subcategory of ETAs or early stages of ETAs) with its working principal advantages and disadvantages so that the researchers can easily get the current stage of assisting blind technology along with the requirement for optimising the design of walking support system for its users

Near earth objects space observatory

In this Master Thesis we begin with an introduction about Near Earth Objects (NEOs). We start with the different kind of existing NEOs, and then we will focus more on which ones can represent the biggest hazard for Earth. Thus many studies suggest irrelevant number of meteorites hit the earth each year, but actually is very hard to know number of exact hit to Earth, but for introducing some meteors are caused by pea-sized of rock, for good estimated number of meteorites per year is necessary to carefully monitoring the meteorites per day in one area and finally extrapolate this data for all area of Earth, or find meteorites fall in to the dry regions and estimate for all area of Earth some valor. However, is so hard to find exact value because of different size ranges and all procedures have errors, but the estimate value of the mass of material that falls on Earth each year rang from 37000-78000 tons [23]. Most of this mass would come from dust particles. A study done in 1996 calculated that for objects in the 10 grams to 1 kilograms size range 2900-7300 kilograms per year hit Earth, furthermore, between 36 and 166 meteorites larger than 10 grams fall to Earth per million square kilometers per year. Thus that translates to 18000 to 84000 meteorites bigger than 10 grams falls to Earth. Nowadays different space agencies of several countries have their programs to detect hazardous NEOs, but in case of many of this agencies they need extra help from amateurs astronomers. Furthermore, all of this programs represent different disadvantages such as high cost of operation, no centralized data base and work with people that are amateurs and no depending to any agencies. New systems will be proposed to detect on time, the hazardous NEOs. These new systems are an answer for the actual issues to detect NEOs on time, and issues of the main official agencies to resolve their problems with this kind of the space objects. The system where is proposed here is a system based on the constellation of the satellites in the Low Earth Orbit (LEO), equipped with a Newtonian Telescope on board. Furthermore, this system had a ground stations and centralized database, thus that all information about NEOs compiled by satellites can be used for the space agencies to detect on time hazardous NEOs. The Satellites use low cost components and they are respectable to the environment, the function of the satellites will be determined during this thesis, although the LEO present some conditions, like drag, and depending the mass of the satellites, the orbit can be free after several orbits, when the satellites burn because of contact with drag. For design and simulation of the system we use required some specific tools like Solidworks for the 3D design and Moon2.0 for the orbital simulation, and finally we propose an alternative system to put our satellites in the orbit, with a system called QuickFast

Ibex: Robotic Mining Platform

The use of resources in foreign environments is essential to the success of manned missions to Mars. This project explores the different ways a rover can mine and deliver resources in a simulated Martian environment. This robot is capable of autonomously excavating the simulated ice chunks 30 cm (11 in) below the surface and driving to a collection station to unload the material it has collected. This project was inspired by the NASA Robotic Mining Competition which established a set of rules for how the robot was to be constructed

Conference on Intelligent Robotics in Field, Factory, Service, and Space (CIRFFSS 1994), volume 1

The AIAA/NASA Conference on Intelligent Robotics in Field, Factory, Service, and Space (CIRFFSS '94) was originally proposed because of the strong belief that America's problems of global economic competitiveness and job creation and preservation can partly be solved by the use of intelligent robotics, which are also required for human space exploration missions. Individual sessions addressed nuclear industry, agile manufacturing, security/building monitoring, on-orbit applications, vision and sensing technologies, situated control and low-level control, robotic systems architecture, environmental restoration and waste management, robotic remanufacturing, and healthcare applications

UNMANNED GROUND VEHICLE (UGV) DOCKING, CONNECTION, AND CABLING FOR ELECTRICAL POWER TRANSMISSION IN AUTONOMOUS MOBILE MICROGRIDS

Autonomous Mobile Microgrids provide electrical power to loads in environments where humans either can not, or would prefer not to, perform the task of positioning and connecting the power grid equipment. The contributions of this work compose an architecture for electrical power transmission by Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV). Purpose-specific UGV docking and cable deployment software algorithms, and hardware for electrical connection and cable management, has been deployed on Clearpath Husky robots. Software development leverages Robot Operating System (ROS) tools for navigation and rendezvous of the autonomous UGV robots, with task-specific visual feedback controllers for docking validated in Monte-Carlo outdoor trials with a 73% docking rate, and application to wireless power transmission demonstrated in an outdoor environment. An “Adjustable Cable Management Mechanism” (ACMM) was designed to meet low cost, compact-platform constraints for powered deployment and retraction by a UGV of electrical cable subject to disturbance, with feed rates up to 1 m/s. A probe-and-funnel AC/DC electrical connector system was de- veloped for deployment on UGVs, which does not substantially increase the cost or complexity of the UGV, while providing a repeatable and secure method of coupling electrical contacts subject to a docking miss-alignment of up to +/-2 cm laterally and +/-15 degrees axially. Cabled power transmission is accomplished by a feed-forward/feedback control method, which utilizes visual estimation of the cable state to deploy electrical cable without tension, in the obstacle-free track of the UGV as it transverses to connect power grid nodes. Cabling control response to step-input UGV chassis velocities in the forward, reverse, and zero-point-turn maneuvers are presented, as well as outdoor cable deployment. This power transmission capability is relevant to diverse domains including military Forward-Operating-Bases, disaster response, robotic persistent operation, underwater mining, or planetary exploration

Application of Machine Vision in UAVs for Autonomous Target Tracking

This research presents experimental results for the application of Machine Vision (MV) techniques to address the problem of target detection and tracking. The main objective is the design of a prototype UAV surveillance environment to emulate real-life conditions. The model environment for this experiment consists of a target simulated by a small electric train system, located at ground level, and a MV camera mounted on a motion-based apparatus located directly above the model setup. This system is meant to be a non-flying mockup of an aerial robot retrofitted with a MV sensor. Therefore, the final design is a two degree-of-freedom gantry simulating aircraft motions above the ground level at a constant altitude. On the ground level, the design of the landscape is an attempt to achieve a realistic natural landscape within a laboratory setting. Therefore, the scenery consists of small scale trees, bushes, a mountain, and a tunnel system within a 914 mm by 1066 mm boundary. To detect and track the moving train, MV algorithms are implemented in a Matlab/SimulinkRTM based simulation environment. Specifically, image pre-processing techniques and circle detection algorithms are implemented to detect and identify the chimney stack on the train engine. The circle detection algorithms analyzed in this research effort consists of a least squares based method and the Hough transform (HT) method for circle detection. The experimental results will show that the solution to the target detection problem could produce a positive detection rate of 90% during each simulation while utilizing only 56% of the input image. Tracking and timing data also shows that the least squares based target detection method performs substantially better then the HT method. This is evident from the result of using a 1--2 Hz frequency update rate for the SimulinkRTM scheme which is acceptable, in some cases, for use in navigation for a UAV performing scouting and reconnaissance missions. The development of vision-based control strategies, similar to the approach presented in this research, allows UAVs to participate in complex missions involving autonomous target tracking

RSL ROVER: Robotic Systems Laboratory Rugged Offroad Vehicle for Experimental Research

The goal of this project was to build an autonomous vehicle testbed for the Robotics Systems Laboratory. This testbed will be used by undergraduate, graduate, and faculty researchers to test different control methods, sensor combinations, vehicle control laws, and eventually autonomous navigation. This paper documents our accomplishments to achieve this goal; we built a hierarchical control system, robust actuator mounts, and an effective safety system. The result is a capable 6-wheeled offroad vehicle that can be electronically controlled by remote or directly by wire. A feed-forward control law was incorporated for speed control, yielding predictable performance given a desired speed. Actuators were tuned for fast, reliable response and wiring was kept organized. The team believes the vehicle will be a useful asset to the Robotic Systems Lab for future research. To improve upon our testbed, global positioning and a compass should be integrated along with other sensors that came with the vehicle such as a Lidar unit. With these additional components, the vehicle should be able to run autonomously

Conceptual design of a Manned-Unmanned Lunar Explorer /MULE/

Manned-unmanned lunar explorer systems desig