Comparing Computing Platforms for Deep Learning on a Humanoid Robot

The goal of this study is to test two different computing platforms with respect to their suitability for running deep networks as part of a humanoid robot software system. One of the platforms is the CPU-centered Intel NUC7i7BNH and the other is a NVIDIA Jetson TX2 system that puts more emphasis on GPU processing. The experiments addressed a number of benchmarking tasks including pedestrian detection using deep neural networks. Some of the results were unexpected but demonstrate that platforms exhibit both advantages and disadvantages when taking computational performance and electrical power requirements of such a system into account.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

Controller Synthesis of Multi-Axial Robotic System Used for Wearable Devices

Wearable devices are commonly used in different fields to help improving performance of movements for different groups of users. The long-term goal of this study is to develop a low-cost assistive robotic device that allows patients to perform rehabilitation activities independently and reproduces natural movement to help stroke patients and elderly adults in their daily activities while moving their arms. In the past few decades, various types of wearable robotic devices have been developed to assist different physical movements. Among different types of actuators, the twisted-string actuation system is one of those that has advantages of light-weight, low cost, and great portability. In this study, a dual twisted-string actuator is used to drive the joints of the prototype assistive robotic device. To compensate the asynchronous movement caused by nonlinear factors, a hybrid controller that combines fuzzy logic rules and linear PID control algorithm was adopted to compensate for both tracking and synchronization of the two actuators.;In order to validate the performance of proposed controllers, the robotic device was driven by an xPC Target machine with additional embedded controllers for different data acquisition tasks. The controllers were fine tuned to eliminate the inaccuracy of tracking and synchronization caused by disturbance and asynchronous movements of both actuators. As a result, the synthesized controller can provide a high precision when tracking simple actual human movements

Facial Emotion Expressions in Human-Robot Interaction: A Survey

Facial expressions are an ideal means of communicating one's emotions or intentions to others. This overview will focus on human facial expression recognition as well as robotic facial expression generation. In the case of human facial expression recognition, both facial expression recognition on predefined datasets as well as in real-time will be covered. For robotic facial expression generation, hand-coded and automated methods i.e., facial expressions of a robot are generated by moving the features (eyes, mouth) of the robot by hand-coding or automatically using machine learning techniques, will also be covered. There are already plenty of studies that achieve high accuracy for emotion expression recognition on predefined datasets, but the accuracy for facial expression recognition in real-time is comparatively lower. In the case of expression generation in robots, while most of the robots are capable of making basic facial expressions, there are not many studies that enable robots to do so automatically. In this overview, state-of-the-art research in facial emotion expressions during human-robot interaction has been discussed leading to several possible directions for future research

ICS Materials

This present book covers a series of outstanding reputation researchers’ contributions on the topic of ICS Materials: a new class of emerging materials with properties and qualities concerning interactivity, connectivity and intelligence. In the general framework of ICS Materials’ domain, each chapter deals with a specific aspect following the characteristic perspective of each researcher. As result, methods, tools, guidelines emerged that are relevant and applicable to several contexts such as product, interaction design, materials science and many more

Revisión del estado del arte sobre tendencias tecnológicas para el análisis del comportamiento y actividades humanas

The study of human behavior allows the knowledge about people's behaviors, behavior determined by multiple factors: cultural, social, psychological, genetic, religious, among others, which affect the relationships and interaction with the environment. The infinity of data in our lives and the search for behavioral patterns from that data has been an amazing work whose benefit is focused on the determined patterns and intelligent analysis that lead to new knowledge. A significant amount of resources from pattern recognition in human activities and daily life has had greater dominance in the management of mobility, health and wellness.The current paper presents a review of technologies for human behavior analysis and use as tools for diagnosis, assistance, for interaction in intelligent environments and assisted robotics applications. The main scope is to give an overview of the technological advances in the analysis of human behavior, activities of daily living and mobility, and the benefits obtained.El estudio del comportamiento humano permite el conocimiento sobre las conductas de las personas, conducta determinada por múltiples factores: culturales, sociales, psicológicos, genéticos, religiosos, entre otros; que inciden en las relaciones y la interacción con el entorno. La infinidad de datos en nuestras vidas y la búsqueda de patrones de comportamiento a partir de esos datos ha sido un trabajo asombroso cuyo provecho se centra en los patrones determinados y el análisis inteligente que conducen a nuevos conocimientos. Una cantidad significativa de recursos a partir del reconocimiento de patrones en las actividades humanas y de vida diaria ha tenido mayor dominio en la gestión de la movilidad, la salud y bienestar.El actual documento presenta una revisión de las tecnologías para el análisis del comportamiento humano y del uso como herramientas para el diagnóstico, asistencia, para la interacción en ambientes inteligentes y aplicaciones de robótica asistida. El alcance principal es dar una visión general de los avances tecnológicos en el análisis del comportamiento humano, actividades de la vida diaria y movilidad, y de los beneficios obtenidos