Using social robots to study abnormal social development

Social robots recognize and respond to human social cues with appropriate behaviors. Social robots, and the technology used in their construction, can be unique tools in the study of abnormal social development. Autism is a pervasive developmental disorder that is characterized by social and communicative impairments. Based on three years of integration and immersion with a clinical research group which performs more than 130 diagnostic evaluations of children for autism per year, this paper discusses how social robots will make an impact on the ways in which we diagnose, treat, and understand autism

Homography-Based Tracking Control for Mobile Robots

This work presents a control strategy that allows a follower robot to track a target vehicle moving along an unknown trajectory with unknown velocity. It uses only artificial vision to establish both the robot’s position and orientation relative to the target. The control system is proved to be asymptotically stable at the equilibrium point, which corresponds to the navigation objective. Experimental results with two robots, a leader and a follower, are included to show the performance of the proposed vision-based tracking control system

Ball catching by a puma arm : a nonlinear dynamical systems approach

We present an attractor based dynamics that autonomously generates temporally discrete movements and movement sequences stably adapted to changing online sensory information. Autonomous differential equations are used to formulate a dynamical layer with either stable fixed points or a stable limit cycle. A neural competitive dynamics switches between these two regimes according to sensorial context and logical conditions. The corresponding movement states are then converted by simple coordinate transformations into spatial positions of a robot arm. Movement initiation and termination is entirely sensor driven. In this article, the dynamic architecture was changed in order to cope with unreliable sensor information by including this information in the vector field. We apply this architecture to generate timed trajectories for a Puma arm which must catch a moving ball before it falls over a table, and return to a reference position thereafter. Sensory information is provided by a camera mounted on the ceiling over the robot. We demonstrate that the implemented decisionmechanism is robust to noisy sensorial information. Further, a flexible behavior is achieved. Flexibility means that if the sensorial context changes such that the previously generated sequence is no longer adequate, a new sequence of behaviors, depending on the point at which the changed occurred and adequate to the current situation emerges

Dynamic Path Planning for a 7-DOF Robot Arm

Klanke S, Lebedev DV, Haschke R, Steil JJ, Ritter H. Dynamic Path Planning for a 7-DOF Robot Arm. In: Int. Conf. Intelligent Robots and Systems. IEEE; 2006: 3879-3884

Timed trajectory generation for a toy-like wheeled robot

In this work, we address temporal stabilization of generated movements in autonomous robotics. We focus on generating movement for a mobile robot, that must reach a target location within a constant time. Target location is online calculated by using the robot visual system, such that action is steered by the sensory information. This is a very critical issue in several robotic tasks including: catching, hitting, and humanrobot scenarios. Robot velocity is controlled through an Hopf oscillator, adapted according to temporal feedback. Timing of the velocity profile is modulated according to an adaptive mechanism that enables setting different times for acceleration and deceleration. Results on a DRK8000 mobile robot confirm the system’s reliability with low-level sensors

Generating timed trajectories for an autonomous vehicle: a non-linear dynamical systems approach

The timing of movements and of action sequences is important when particular events must be achieved in timevarying environments, avoiding moving obstacles or coordinating multiple robots. However, timing is dificult when it must be compatible with continuous on-line coupling to lowlevel and often noisy sensory information which is used to initiate and steer action. We extended the Dynamic Approach to Behavior Generation to account for timing constraints. We proposed a solution that uses a dynamical system architecture to autonomously generate timed trajectories and sequences of movements as attractor solutions of dynamic systems. The model consists on a two layer architecture, in which a competitive "neural" dynamics layer controls the qualitative dynamics of a second, "timing" layer. The second layer generates both stable oscillations and stationary states, such that periodic attractors generate timed movement. The frst layer controls the switching between the limit cycle and the fxed points, allowing for discrete movements and movement sequences. This model was integrated with another dynamical system without timing constraints. The complete dynamical architecture was demonstrated on a visionguided mobile robot in real time, whose goal is to reach a target in approximately constant time within a non-structured environment. The obtained results illustrated the stability and flexibility properties of the timing architecture as well as the robustness of the proposed decision-making mechanism.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Generating trajectories with temporal constraints for an autonomous robot

Trajectory modulation and generation are two fundamental issues in the path planning problem in autonomous robotics, specially considering temporal stabilization of the generated movements. This is a very critical issue in several robotic tasks including: catching, hitting, and human-robot scenarios. In this work, we address these problems and focus on generating movement for a mobile robot, whose goal is to reach a target within a constant time. We use an Hopf oscillator whose solution controls velocity, adapted according to temporal feedback. We have also proposed an adaptive mechanism for frequency modulation of the velocity profile that enables setting different times for acceleration and deceleration. This approach is demonstrated on a DRK8000 mobile robot in order to confirm the system’s reliability with low-level sensors.(undefined

Omni-directional catadioptric vision for soccer robots

This paper describes the design of a multi-part mirror catadioptric vision system and its use for self-localization and detection of relevant objects in soccer robots. The mirror and associated algorithms have been used in robots participating in the middle-size league of RoboCup — The World Cup of Soccer Robots.This work was supported by grant PRAXIS XXI BM/21091/99 of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technolog

Human-Robot Handshaking: A Review

For some years now, the use of social, anthropomorphic robots in various situations has been on the rise. These are robots developed to interact with humans and are equipped with corresponding extremities. They already support human users in various industries, such as retail, gastronomy, hotels, education and healthcare. During such Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) scenarios, physical touch plays a central role in the various applications of social robots as interactive non-verbal behaviour is a key factor in making the interaction more natural. Shaking hands is a simple, natural interaction used commonly in many social contexts and is seen as a symbol of greeting, farewell and congratulations. In this paper, we take a look at the existing state of Human-Robot Handshaking research, categorise the works based on their focus areas, draw out the major findings of these areas while analysing their pitfalls. We mainly see that some form of synchronisation exists during the different phases of the interaction. In addition to this, we also find that additional factors like gaze, voice facial expressions etc. can affect the perception of a robotic handshake and that internal factors like personality and mood can affect the way in which handshaking behaviours are executed by humans. Based on the findings and insights, we finally discuss possible ways forward for research on such physically interactive behaviours.Comment: Pre-print version. Accepted for publication in the International Journal of Social Robotic