12,002 research outputs found
New Intelligent Transmission Concept for Hybrid Mobile Robot Speed Control
This paper presents a new concept of a mobile robot speed control by using
two degree of freedom gear transmission. The developed intelligent speed
controller utilizes a gear box which comprises of epicyclic gear train with two
inputs, one coupled with the engine shaft and another with the shaft of a
variable speed dc motor. The net output speed is a combination of the two input
speeds and is governed by the transmission ratio of the planetary gear train.
This new approach eliminates the use of a torque converter which is otherwise
an indispensable part of all available automatic transmissions, thereby
reducing the power loss that occurs in the box during the fluid coupling. By
gradually varying the speed of the dc motor a stepless transmission has been
achieved. The other advantages of the developed controller are pulling over and
reversing the vehicle, implemented by intelligent mixing of the dc motor and
engine speeds. This approach eliminates traditional braking system in entire
vehicle design. The use of two power sources, IC engine and battery driven DC
motor, utilizes the modern idea of hybrid vehicles. The new mobile robot speed
controller is capable of driving the vehicle even in extreme case of IC engine
failure, for example, due to gas depletion.Comment: www.ars-journal.co
Supervised Autonomous Locomotion and Manipulation for Disaster Response with a Centaur-like Robot
Mobile manipulation tasks are one of the key challenges in the field of
search and rescue (SAR) robotics requiring robots with flexible locomotion and
manipulation abilities. Since the tasks are mostly unknown in advance, the
robot has to adapt to a wide variety of terrains and workspaces during a
mission. The centaur-like robot Centauro has a hybrid legged-wheeled base and
an anthropomorphic upper body to carry out complex tasks in environments too
dangerous for humans. Due to its high number of degrees of freedom, controlling
the robot with direct teleoperation approaches is challenging and exhausting.
Supervised autonomy approaches are promising to increase quality and speed of
control while keeping the flexibility to solve unknown tasks. We developed a
set of operator assistance functionalities with different levels of autonomy to
control the robot for challenging locomotion and manipulation tasks. The
integrated system was evaluated in disaster response scenarios and showed
promising performance.Comment: In Proceedings of IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent
Robots and Systems (IROS), Madrid, Spain, October 201
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
A Modular Approach for a Family of Ground Mobile Robots
This paper deals with Epi.q, a family of mobile robots whose main characteristic is a wheel-legged hybrid locomotion. These multi-purpose robots can be successfully exploited for security and surveillance tasks. The document presents state of the art security robotics, the Epi.q mechanical architecture, the concept behind the robot driving unit, three prototypes and the design of a new on
Beyond swarm intelligence: The Ultraswarm
This paper explores the idea that it may be possible to
combine two ideas â UAV flocking, and wireless cluster
computing â in a single system, the UltraSwarm. The
possible advantages of such a system are considered, and
solutions to some of the technical problems are identified.
Initial work on constructing such a system based around
miniature electric helicopters is described
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