Integrating Multiple Sources of Knowledge for the Intelligent Detection of Anomalous Sensory Data in a Mobile Robot

For service robots to expand in everyday scenarios they must be able to identify and manage abnormal situations intelligently. In this paper we work at a basic sensor level, by dealing with raw data produced by diverse devices subjected to some negative circumstances such as adverse environmental conditions or difficult to perceive objects. We have implemented a probabilistic Bayesian inference process for deducing whether the sensors are working nominally or not, which abnormal situation occurs, and even to correct their data. Our inference system works by integrating in a rigorous and homogeneous mathematical framework multiple sources and modalities of knowledge: human expert, external information systems, application-specific and temporal. The results on a real service robot navigating in a structured mixed indoor-outdoor environment demonstrate good detection capabilities and set a promising basis for improving robustness and safety in many common service tasks.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Internet of robotic things : converging sensing/actuating, hypoconnectivity, artificial intelligence and IoT Platforms

The Internet of Things (IoT) concept is evolving rapidly and influencing newdevelopments in various application domains, such as the Internet of MobileThings (IoMT), Autonomous Internet of Things (A-IoT), Autonomous Systemof Things (ASoT), Internet of Autonomous Things (IoAT), Internetof Things Clouds (IoT-C) and the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) etc.that are progressing/advancing by using IoT technology. The IoT influencerepresents new development and deployment challenges in different areassuch as seamless platform integration, context based cognitive network integration,new mobile sensor/actuator network paradigms, things identification(addressing, naming in IoT) and dynamic things discoverability and manyothers. The IoRT represents new convergence challenges and their need to be addressed, in one side the programmability and the communication ofmultiple heterogeneous mobile/autonomous/robotic things for cooperating,their coordination, configuration, exchange of information, security, safetyand protection. Developments in IoT heterogeneous parallel processing/communication and dynamic systems based on parallelism and concurrencyrequire new ideas for integrating the intelligent “devices”, collaborativerobots (COBOTS), into IoT applications. Dynamic maintainability, selfhealing,self-repair of resources, changing resource state, (re-) configurationand context based IoT systems for service implementation and integrationwith IoT network service composition are of paramount importance whennew “cognitive devices” are becoming active participants in IoT applications.This chapter aims to be an overview of the IoRT concept, technologies,architectures and applications and to provide a comprehensive coverage offuture challenges, developments and applications

Multimodal Bayesian Network for Artificial Perception

In order to make machines perceive their external environment coherently, multiple sources of sensory information derived from several different modalities can be used (e.g. cameras, LIDAR, stereo, RGB-D, and radars). All these different sources of information can be efficiently merged to form a robust perception of the environment. Some of the mechanisms that underlie this merging of the sensor information are highlighted in this chapter, showing that depending on the type of information, different combination and integration strategies can be used and that prior knowledge are often required for interpreting the sensory signals efficiently. The notion that perception involves Bayesian inference is an increasingly popular position taken by a considerable number of researchers. Bayesian models have provided insights into many perceptual phenomena, showing that they are a valid approach to deal with real-world uncertainties and for robust classification, including classification in time-dependent problems. This chapter addresses the use of Bayesian networks applied to sensory perception in the following areas: mobile robotics, autonomous driving systems, advanced driver assistance systems, sensor fusion for object detection, and EEG-based mental states classification

A Human-Centric Metaverse Enabled by Brain-Computer Interface: A Survey

The growing interest in the Metaverse has generated momentum for members of academia and industry to innovate toward realizing the Metaverse world. The Metaverse is a unique, continuous, and shared virtual world where humans embody a digital form within an online platform. Through a digital avatar, Metaverse users should have a perceptual presence within the environment and can interact and control the virtual world around them. Thus, a human-centric design is a crucial element of the Metaverse. The human users are not only the central entity but also the source of multi-sensory data that can be used to enrich the Metaverse ecosystem. In this survey, we study the potential applications of Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) technologies that can enhance the experience of Metaverse users. By directly communicating with the human brain, the most complex organ in the human body, BCI technologies hold the potential for the most intuitive human-machine system operating at the speed of thought. BCI technologies can enable various innovative applications for the Metaverse through this neural pathway, such as user cognitive state monitoring, digital avatar control, virtual interactions, and imagined speech communications. This survey first outlines the fundamental background of the Metaverse and BCI technologies. We then discuss the current challenges of the Metaverse that can potentially be addressed by BCI, such as motion sickness when users experience virtual environments or the negative emotional states of users in immersive virtual applications. After that, we propose and discuss a new research direction called Human Digital Twin, in which digital twins can create an intelligent and interactable avatar from the user's brain signals. We also present the challenges and potential solutions in synchronizing and communicating between virtual and physical entities in the Metaverse

Uncertainty Minimization in Robotic 3D Mapping Systems Operating in Dynamic Large-Scale Environments

This dissertation research is motivated by the potential and promise of 3D sensing technologies in safety and security applications. With specific focus on unmanned robotic mapping to aid clean-up of hazardous environments, under-vehicle inspection, automatic runway/pavement inspection and modeling of urban environments, we develop modular, multi-sensor, multi-modality robotic 3D imaging prototypes using localization/navigation hardware, laser range scanners and video cameras. While deploying our multi-modality complementary approach to pose and structure recovery in dynamic real-world operating conditions, we observe several data fusion issues that state-of-the-art methodologies are not able to handle. Different bounds on the noise model of heterogeneous sensors, the dynamism of the operating conditions and the interaction of the sensing mechanisms with the environment introduce situations where sensors can intermittently degenerate to accuracy levels lower than their design specification. This observation necessitates the derivation of methods to integrate multi-sensor data considering sensor conflict, performance degradation and potential failure during operation. Our work in this dissertation contributes the derivation of a fault-diagnosis framework inspired by information complexity theory to the data fusion literature. We implement the framework as opportunistic sensing intelligence that is able to evolve a belief policy on the sensors within the multi-agent 3D mapping systems to survive and counter concerns of failure in challenging operating conditions. The implementation of the information-theoretic framework, in addition to eliminating failed/non-functional sensors and avoiding catastrophic fusion, is able to minimize uncertainty during autonomous operation by adaptively deciding to fuse or choose believable sensors. We demonstrate our framework through experiments in multi-sensor robot state localization in large scale dynamic environments and vision-based 3D inference. Our modular hardware and software design of robotic imaging prototypes along with the opportunistic sensing intelligence provides significant improvements towards autonomous accurate photo-realistic 3D mapping and remote visualization of scenes for the motivating applications

Anomaly detection methods in autonomous robotic missions

Since 2015, there has been an increase in articles on anomaly detection in robotic systems, reflecting its growing importance in improving the robustness and reliability of the increasingly utilized autonomous robots. This review paper investigates the literature on the detection of anomalies in Autonomous Robotic Missions (ARMs). It reveals different perspectives on anomaly and juxtaposition to fault detection. To reach a consensus, we infer a unified understanding of anomalies that encapsulate their various characteristics observed in ARMs and propose a classification of anomalies in terms of spatial, temporal, and spatiotemporal elements based on their fundamental features. Further, the paper discusses the implications of the proposed unified understanding and classification in ARMs and provides future directions. We envisage a study surrounding the specific use of the term anomaly, and methods for their detection could contribute to and accelerate the research and development of a universal anomaly detection system for ARMs