18,166 research outputs found
Identification of Risks in the Course of Managing the Deep Sea Archeological Projects Using Marine Robotics
An analysis is conducted of the basic risks that occur when managing the projects of deep-sea archeological research. It is proposed to consider possible risks of such projects in the form of a general set of risks that contains subsets of the identified and unidentified risks. Based on the generalization of existing experience of conducting underwater archaeological research and with regard to the peculiarities of their execution by using TV-controlled unmanned underwater vehicles, the main risks of such operations are identified. A classification of risk factors is proposed, which takes into account weather and hydrological conditions in the area of operations, peculiarities of the underwater situation, technological and technical provision of underwater archaeological research, possible obstacles from the navigation in the explored area and errors in geographical coordinates of fulfilled work, as well as the human factor. Additionally, environmental, organizational and financial risks, which the project team is aware of, are defined as directly related to planning the projects of deep-sea archeological research. A generalized risk register is developed of the projects\u27 deep-sea archaeological studies as theoretical foundation for designing the models of risk management and their quantitative evaluation when planning financial and temporal resources for such projects
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
Challenges in Collaborative HRI for Remote Robot Teams
Collaboration between human supervisors and remote teams of robots is highly
challenging, particularly in high-stakes, distant, hazardous locations, such as
off-shore energy platforms. In order for these teams of robots to truly be
beneficial, they need to be trusted to operate autonomously, performing tasks
such as inspection and emergency response, thus reducing the number of
personnel placed in harm's way. As remote robots are generally trusted less
than robots in close-proximity, we present a solution to instil trust in the
operator through a `mediator robot' that can exhibit social skills, alongside
sophisticated visualisation techniques. In this position paper, we present
general challenges and then take a closer look at one challenge in particular,
discussing an initial study, which investigates the relationship between the
level of control the supervisor hands over to the mediator robot and how this
affects their trust. We show that the supervisor is more likely to have higher
trust overall if their initial experience involves handing over control of the
emergency situation to the robotic assistant. We discuss this result, here, as
well as other challenges and interaction techniques for human-robot
collaboration.Comment: 9 pages. Peer reviewed position paper accepted in the CHI 2019
Workshop: The Challenges of Working on Social Robots that Collaborate with
People (SIRCHI2019), ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems, May 2019, Glasgow, U
Sea otter, Enhydra lutris, containment management: field studies and feasibility assessment
Limiting sea otter geographic distribution in California (containment management) has long been recognized as being necessary to preserve human recreational and commercial
uses of shellfish resources. However, passage of federal legislation that focused preferentially on marine mammal protection and the 1977 listing of the California sea otter population as "threatened" effectively precluded any range-limiting management program.
Research, however, that evaluated various non-lethal means of influencing sea otter movements and distribution was encouraged. Our research suggests that herding and acoustical devices may not have any real potential use in this context. Based on research-related capture success rates, capture and relocation techniques may be useful in influencing sea otter geographical distribution.
The translocation of sea otters to San Nicolas Island provided the first opportunity to test the technical feasibility of maintaining a large area free of sea otters. Capture success rates were appreciably poorer than those achieved during research-related efforts. We identify
several logistical and behavioral influences that contributed to the relatively poor success rate. Based on this evaluation, we discuss the factors likely to limit application of these techniques in the future.
We feel that capture techniques can be useful in a long-term management program, if used in conjunction with efforts to limit the sea otter population growth rate. Consequently, we
feel future research should focus on assessing individual health effects from using chemical contraceptives and assessing the feasibility of their use to safely control population growth. (12pp.
Formal Analysis of Linear Control Systems using Theorem Proving
Control systems are an integral part of almost every engineering and physical
system and thus their accurate analysis is of utmost importance. Traditionally,
control systems are analyzed using paper-and-pencil proof and computer
simulation methods, however, both of these methods cannot provide accurate
analysis due to their inherent limitations. Model checking has been widely used
to analyze control systems but the continuous nature of their environment and
physical components cannot be truly captured by a state-transition system in
this technique. To overcome these limitations, we propose to use
higher-order-logic theorem proving for analyzing linear control systems based
on a formalized theory of the Laplace transform method. For this purpose, we
have formalized the foundations of linear control system analysis in
higher-order logic so that a linear control system can be readily modeled and
analyzed. The paper presents a new formalization of the Laplace transform and
the formal verification of its properties that are frequently used in the
transfer function based analysis to judge the frequency response, gain margin
and phase margin, and stability of a linear control system. We also formalize
the active realizations of various controllers, like
Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID), Proportional-Integral (PI),
Proportional-Derivative (PD), and various active and passive compensators, like
lead, lag and lag-lead. For illustration, we present a formal analysis of an
unmanned free-swimming submersible vehicle using the HOL Light theorem prover.Comment: International Conference on Formal Engineering Method
Automated control of hierarchical systems using value-driven methods
An introduction is given to the Value-driven methodology, which has been successfully applied to solve a variety of difficult decision, control, and optimization problems. Many real-world decision processes (e.g., those encountered in scheduling, allocation, and command and control) involve a hierarchy of complex planning considerations. For such problems it is virtually impossible to define a fixed set of rules that will operate satisfactorily over the full range of probable contingencies. Decision Science Applications' value-driven methodology offers a systematic way of automating the intuitive, common-sense approach used by human planners. The inherent responsiveness of value-driven systems to user-controlled priorities makes them particularly suitable for semi-automated applications in which the user must remain in command of the systems operation. Three examples of the practical application of the approach in the automation of hierarchical decision processes are discussed: the TAC Brawler air-to-air combat simulation is a four-level computerized hierarchy; the autonomous underwater vehicle mission planning system is a three-level control system; and the Space Station Freedom electrical power control and scheduling system is designed as a two-level hierarchy. The methodology is compared with rule-based systems and with other more widely-known optimization techniques
Mobile forensic triage for damaged phones using M_Triage
Mobile forensics triage is a useful technique in a digital forensics investigation for recovering lost or purposely deleted and hidden files from digital storage. It is particularly useful, especially when solving a very sensitive crime, for example, kidnapping, in a timely manner. However, the existing mobile forensics triage tools do not consider performing a triage examination on damaged mobile phones. This research addressed the issues of performing triage examination on damaged Android mobile phones and reduction of false positive result generated by the current mobile forensics triage tools. Furthermore, the research addressed the issues of ignoring possible evidence residing in a bad block memory location. In this research a new forensics triage tool called M_Triage was introduced by extending Decode’s framework to handle data retrieval challenges on damaged Android mobile phones. The tool was designed to obtain evidence quickly and accurately (i.e. valid address book, call logs, SMS, images, and, videos, etc.) on Android damaged mobile phones. The tool was developed using C#, while back end engines was done using C programming and tested using five data sets. Based on the computational time processing comparison with Dec0de, Lifter, XRY and Xaver, the result showed that there was 75% improvement over Dec0de, 36% over Lifter, 28% over XRY and finally 71% over Xaver. Again, based on the experiment done on five data sets, M_Triage was capable of carving valid address book, call logs, SMS, images and videos as compared to Dec0de, Lifter, XRY and Xaver. With the average improvement of 90% over DEC0DE, 30% over Lifter, 40% over XRY and lastly 61% over Xaver. This shows that M_Triage is a better tool to be used because it saves time, carve more relevant files and less false positive result are achieved with the tool
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