299 research outputs found

    Robotic Planetary Drill Tests

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    Several proposed or planned planetary science missions to Mars and other Solar System bodies over the next decade require subsurface access by drilling. This paper discusses the problems of remote robotic drilling, an automation and control architecture based loosely on observed human behaviors in drilling on Earth, and an overview of robotic drilling field test results using this architecture since 2005. Both rotary-drag and rotary-percussive drills are targeted. A hybrid diagnostic approach incorporates heuristics, model-based reasoning and vibration monitoring with neural nets. Ongoing work leads to flight-ready drilling software

    Icebreaker-3 Drill Integration and Testing at Two Mars-Analog Sites

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    A decade of evolutionary development of integrated automated drilling and sample handling at analog sites and in test chambers has made it possible to go 1 meter through hard rocks and ice layers on Mars. The latest Icebreaker-3 drill has been field tested in 2014 at the Haughton Crater Marsanalog site in the Arctic and in 2015 with a Mars lander mockup in Rio Tinto, Spain, (with sample transfer arm and with a prototype life-detection instrument). Tests in Rio Tinto in 2015 successfully demonstrated that the drill sample (cuttings) was handed-off from the drill to the sample transfer arm and thence to the on-deck instrument inlet where it was taken in and analyzed ("dirt-to-data")

    Intelligent Drilling and Coring Technologies for Unmanned Interplanetary Exploration

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    The robotic technology, especially the intelligent robotics that can autonomously conduct numerous dangerous and uncertain tasks, has been widely applied to planetary explorations. Similar to terrestrial mining, before landing on planets or building planetary constructions, a drilling and coring activity should be first conducted to investigate the in-situ geological information. Given the technical advantages of unmanned robotics, utilizing an autonomous drill tool to acquire the planetary soil sample may be the most reliable and cost-effective solution. However, due to several unique challenges existed in unmanned drilling and coring activities, such as long-distance time delay, uncertain drilling formations, limited sensor resources, etc., it is indeed necessary to conduct researches to improve system’s adaptability to the complicated geological formations. Taking drill tool’s power consumption and soil’s coring morphology into account, this chapter proposed a drilling and coring characteristics online monitoring method to investigate suitable drilling parameters for different formations. Meanwhile, by applying pattern recognition techniques to classify different types of potential soil or rocks, a drillability classification model is built accurately to identify the current drilling formation. By combining suitable drilling parameters with the recognized drillability levels, a closed-loop drilling strategy is established finally, which can be applied to future interplanetary exploration

    STEM Pathways for the Future of Work

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    How do we educate our students to take their place in the Future Workforce if we cannot anticipate what it will look like

    Living and Interacting with Robots: Engaging Users in the Development of a Mobile Robot

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    Mobile robots such as Aldebaran’s humanoid Pepper currently find their way into society. Many research projects already try to match humanoid robots with humans by letting them assist, e.g., in geriatric care or simply for purposes of keeping company or entertainment. However, many of these projects deal with acceptance issues that come with a new type of interaction between humans and robots. These issues partly originate from different types of robot locomotion, limited human-like behaviour as well as limited functionalities in general. At the same time, animal-type robots—quadrupeds such as Boston Dynamic’s WildCat—and underactuated robots are on the rise and present social scientists with new challenges such as the concept of uncanny valley. The possible positive aspects of the unusual cooperations and interactions, however, are mostly pushed into the background. This paper describes an approach of a project at a research institution in Germany that aims at developing a setting of human–robot-interaction and collaboration that engages the designated users in the whole process

    屋外調査用自律移動型ロボットの不整地移動性能

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    早大学位記番号:新7829早稲田大

    Exposing Students to STEM Careers through Hands-on Activities with Drones and Robots

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    Autonomous robots have been used in a variety of ways from collecting specimen in hazardous environments to space exploration. These robots can be found in various manufacturing systems as Autonomous Guided Vehicles (AGVs) to transport parts and assemblies throughout the manufacturing system. They have also been used as a vehicle to convey design thinking and other STEM-related concepts in mechanical engineering/mechanical engineering technology, electrical engineering/electrical engineering technology, computer science, and computer engineering. Various outreach events have included robotics based activities that engage students in building and programming autonomous robots for the purpose of achieving a specific task. These events are often found in schools in a form of STEM outreach, career days, robotic competitions, or during residential on-campus programs. This paper focuses on three robotics related sessions conducted during a three-day summer residential program for high school students offered at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia during the summer educational program named ODU BLAST. ODU BLAST is part of a Virginia Space Grant Consortium initiative called Building Leaders for Advancing Science and Technology (BLAST), offered at three different universities in the Commonwealth of Virginia

    Choreographic and Somatic Approaches for the Development of Expressive Robotic Systems

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    As robotic systems are moved out of factory work cells into human-facing environments questions of choreography become central to their design, placement, and application. With a human viewer or counterpart present, a system will automatically be interpreted within context, style of movement, and form factor by human beings as animate elements of their environment. The interpretation by this human counterpart is critical to the success of the system's integration: knobs on the system need to make sense to a human counterpart; an artificial agent should have a way of notifying a human counterpart of a change in system state, possibly through motion profiles; and the motion of a human counterpart may have important contextual clues for task completion. Thus, professional choreographers, dance practitioners, and movement analysts are critical to research in robotics. They have design methods for movement that align with human audience perception, can identify simplified features of movement for human-robot interaction goals, and have detailed knowledge of the capacity of human movement. This article provides approaches employed by one research lab, specific impacts on technical and artistic projects within, and principles that may guide future such work. The background section reports on choreography, somatic perspectives, improvisation, the Laban/Bartenieff Movement System, and robotics. From this context methods including embodied exercises, writing prompts, and community building activities have been developed to facilitate interdisciplinary research. The results of this work is presented as an overview of a smattering of projects in areas like high-level motion planning, software development for rapid prototyping of movement, artistic output, and user studies that help understand how people interpret movement. Finally, guiding principles for other groups to adopt are posited.Comment: Under review at MDPI Arts Special Issue "The Machine as Artist (for the 21st Century)" http://www.mdpi.com/journal/arts/special_issues/Machine_Artis

    Optimized Path Planning for USVs under Ocean Currents

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    The proposed work focuses on the path planning for Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) in the ocean enviroment, taking into account various spatiotemporal factors such as ocean currents and other energy consumption factors. The paper proposes the use of Gaussian Process Motion Planning (GPMP2), a Bayesian optimization method that has shown promising results in continuous and nonlinear path planning algorithms. The proposed work improves GPMP2 by incorporating a new spatiotemporal factor for tracking and predicting ocean currents using a spatiotemporal Bayesian inference. The algorithm is applied to the USV path planning and is shown to optimize for smoothness, obstacle avoidance, and ocean currents in a challenging environment. The work is relevant for practical applications in ocean scenarios where an optimal path planning for USVs is essential for minimizing costs and optimizing performance.Comment: 9 pages and 7 figures, submitted for IEEE Transactions on Man, systems ,and Cybernetic
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