14 research outputs found

    Using a 3DOF Parallel Robot and a Spherical Bat to hit a Ping-Pong Ball

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    Playing the game of Ping-Pong is a challenge to human abilities since it requires developing skills, such as fast reaction capabilities, precision of movement and high speed mental responses. These processes include the utilization of seven DOF of the human arm, and translational movements through the legs, torso, and other extremities of the body, which are used for developing different game strategies or simply imposing movements that affect the ball such as spinning movements. Computationally, Ping-Pong requires a huge quantity of joints and visual information to be processed and analysed, something which really represents a challenge for a robot. In addition, in order for a robot to develop the task mechanically, it requires a large and dexterous workspace, and good dynamic capacities. Although there are commercial robots that are able to play Ping-Pong, the game is still an open task, where there are problems to be solved and simplified. All robotic Ping-Pong players cited in the bibliography used at least four DOF to hit the ball. In this paper, a spherical bat mounted on a 3-DOF parallel robot is proposed. The spherical bat is used to drive the trajectory of a Ping-Pong ball.Fil: Trasloheros, Alberto. Universidad Aeronáutica de Querétaro; MéxicoFil: Sebastián, José María. Universidad Politécnica de Madrid; España. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; EspañaFil: Torrijos, Jesús. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; España. Universidad Politécnica de Madrid; EspañaFil: Carelli Albarracin, Ricardo Oscar. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan. Instituto de Automática. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Automática; ArgentinaFil: Roberti, Flavio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan. Instituto de Automática. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Automática; Argentin

    Conference on Intelligent Robotics in Field, Factory, Service, and Space (CIRFFSS 1994), volume 1

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    The AIAA/NASA Conference on Intelligent Robotics in Field, Factory, Service, and Space (CIRFFSS '94) was originally proposed because of the strong belief that America's problems of global economic competitiveness and job creation and preservation can partly be solved by the use of intelligent robotics, which are also required for human space exploration missions. Individual sessions addressed nuclear industry, agile manufacturing, security/building monitoring, on-orbit applications, vision and sensing technologies, situated control and low-level control, robotic systems architecture, environmental restoration and waste management, robotic remanufacturing, and healthcare applications

    Table tennis event detection and classification

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    It is well understood that multiple video cameras and computer vision (CV) technology can be used in sport for match officiating, statistics and player performance analysis. A review of the literature reveals a number of existing solutions, both commercial and theoretical, within this domain. However, these solutions are expensive and often complex in their installation. The hypothesis for this research states that by considering only changes in ball motion, automatic event classification is achievable with low-cost monocular video recording devices, without the need for 3-dimensional (3D) positional ball data and representation. The focus of this research is a rigorous empirical study of low cost single consumer-grade video camera solutions applied to table tennis, confirming that monocular CV based detected ball location data contains sufficient information to enable key match-play events to be recognised and measured. In total a library of 276 event-based video sequences, using a range of recording hardware, were produced for this research. The research has four key considerations: i) an investigation into an effective recording environment with minimum configuration and calibration, ii) the selection and optimisation of a CV algorithm to detect the ball from the resulting single source video data, iii) validation of the accuracy of the 2-dimensional (2D) CV data for motion change detection, and iv) the data requirements and processing techniques necessary to automatically detect changes in ball motion and match those to match-play events. Throughout the thesis, table tennis has been chosen as the example sport for observational and experimental analysis since it offers a number of specific CV challenges due to the relatively high ball speed (in excess of 100kph) and small ball size (40mm in diameter). Furthermore, the inherent rules of table tennis show potential for a monocular based event classification vision system. As the initial stage, a proposed optimum location and configuration of the single camera is defined. Next, the selection of a CV algorithm is critical in obtaining usable ball motion data. It is shown in this research that segmentation processes vary in their ball detection capabilities and location out-puts, which ultimately affects the ability of automated event detection and decision making solutions. Therefore, a comparison of CV algorithms is necessary to establish confidence in the accuracy of the derived location of the ball. As part of the research, a CV software environment has been developed to allow robust, repeatable and direct comparisons between different CV algorithms. An event based method of evaluating the success of a CV algorithm is proposed. Comparison of CV algorithms is made against the novel Efficacy Metric Set (EMS), producing a measurable Relative Efficacy Index (REI). Within the context of this low cost, single camera ball trajectory and event investigation, experimental results provided show that the Horn-Schunck Optical Flow algorithm, with a REI of 163.5 is the most successful method when compared to a discrete selection of CV detection and extraction techniques gathered from the literature review. Furthermore, evidence based data from the REI also suggests switching to the Canny edge detector (a REI of 186.4) for segmentation of the ball when in close proximity to the net. In addition to and in support of the data generated from the CV software environment, a novel method is presented for producing simultaneous data from 3D marker based recordings, reduced to 2D and compared directly to the CV output to establish comparative time-resolved data for the ball location. It is proposed here that a continuous scale factor, based on the known dimensions of the ball, is incorporated at every frame. Using this method, comparison results show a mean accuracy of 3.01mm when applied to a selection of nineteen video sequences and events. This tolerance is within 10% of the diameter of the ball and accountable by the limits of image resolution. Further experimental results demonstrate the ability to identify a number of match-play events from a monocular image sequence using a combination of the suggested optimum algorithm and ball motion analysis methods. The results show a promising application of 2D based CV processing to match-play event classification with an overall success rate of 95.9%. The majority of failures occur when the ball, during returns and services, is partially occluded by either the player or racket, due to the inherent problem of using a monocular recording device. Finally, the thesis proposes further research and extensions for developing and implementing monocular based CV processing of motion based event analysis and classification in a wider range of applications

    Irish Machine Vision and Image Processing Conference Proceedings 2017

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    Neural foundations of cooperative social interactions

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    The embodied-embedded-enactive-extended (4E) approach to study cognition suggests that interaction with the world is a crucial component of our cognitive processes. Most of our time, we interact with other people. Therefore, studying cognition without interaction is incomplete. Until recently, social neuroscience has only focused on studying isolated human and animal brains, leaving interaction unexplored. To fill this gap, we studied interacting participants, focusing on both intra- and inter-brain (hyperscanning) neural activity. In the first study, we invited dyads to perform a visual task in both a cooperative and a competitive context while we measured EEG. We found that mid-frontal activity around 200-300 ms after receiving monetary rewards was sensitive to social context and differed between cooperative and competitive situations. In the second study, we asked participants to coordinate their movements with each other and with a robotic partner. We found significantly stronger EEG amplitudes at frontocentral electrodes when people interacted with a robotic partner. Lastly, we performed a comprehensive literature review and the first meta-analysis in the emerging field of hyperscanning that validated it as a method to study social interaction. Taken together, our results showed that adding a second participant (human or AI/robotic) fostered our understanding of human cognition. We learned that the activity at frontocentral electrodes is sensitive to social context and type of partner (human or robotic). In both studies, the participants’ interaction was required to show these novel neural processes involved in action monitoring. Similarly, studying inter-brain neural activity allows for the exploration of new aspects of cognition. Many cognitive functions involved in successful social interactions are accompanied by neural synchrony between brains, suggesting the extended form of our cognition

    Using MapReduce Streaming for Distributed Life Simulation on the Cloud

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    Distributed software simulations are indispensable in the study of large-scale life models but often require the use of technically complex lower-level distributed computing frameworks, such as MPI. We propose to overcome the complexity challenge by applying the emerging MapReduce (MR) model to distributed life simulations and by running such simulations on the cloud. Technically, we design optimized MR streaming algorithms for discrete and continuous versions of Conway’s life according to a general MR streaming pattern. We chose life because it is simple enough as a testbed for MR’s applicability to a-life simulations and general enough to make our results applicable to various lattice-based a-life models. We implement and empirically evaluate our algorithms’ performance on Amazon’s Elastic MR cloud. Our experiments demonstrate that a single MR optimization technique called strip partitioning can reduce the execution time of continuous life simulations by 64%. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to propose and evaluate MR streaming algorithms for lattice-based simulations. Our algorithms can serve as prototypes in the development of novel MR simulation algorithms for large-scale lattice-based a-life models.https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/scs_books/1014/thumbnail.jp

    A right hemisphere advantage for processing blurred faces

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