Modular Self-Reconfigurable Robot Systems

The field of modular self-reconfigurable robotic systems addresses the design, fabrication, motion planning, and control of autonomous kinematic machines with variable morphology. Modular self-reconfigurable systems have the promise of making significant technological advances to the field of robotics in general. Their promise of high versatility, high value, and high robustness may lead to a radical change in automation. Currently, a number of researchers have been addressing many of the challenges. While some progress has been made, it is clear that many challenges still exist. By illustrating several of the outstanding issues as grand challenges that have been collaboratively written by a large number of researchers in this field, this article has shown several of the key directions for the future of this growing fiel

Special issue on smart interactions in cyber-physical systems: Humans, agents, robots, machines, and sensors

In recent years, there has been increasing interaction between humans and non‐human systems as we move further beyond the industrial age, the information age, and as we move into the fourth‐generation society. The ability to distinguish between human and non‐human capabilities has become more difficult to discern. Given this, it is common that cyber‐physical systems (CPSs) are rapidly integrated with human functionality, and humans have become increasingly dependent on CPSs to perform their daily routines.The constant indicators of a future where human and non‐human CPSs relationships consistently interact and where they allow each other to navigate through a set of non‐trivial goals is an interesting and rich area of research, discovery, and practical work area. The evidence of con- vergence has rapidly gained clarity, demonstrating that we can use complex combinations of sensors, artificial intelli- gence, and data to augment human life and knowledge. To expand the knowledge in this area, we should explain how to model, design, validate, implement, and experiment with these complex systems of interaction, communication, and networking, which will be developed and explored in this special issue. This special issue will include ideas of the future that are relevant for understanding, discerning, and developing the relationship between humans and non‐ human CPSs as well as the practical nature of systems that facilitate the integration between humans, agents, robots, machines, and sensors (HARMS).Fil: Kim, Donghan. Kyung Hee University;Fil: Rodriguez, Sebastian Alberto. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tucumán; ArgentinaFil: Matson, Eric T.. Purdue University; Estados UnidosFil: Kim, Gerard Jounghyun. Korea University

Beyond Gazing, Pointing, and Reaching: A Survey of Developmental Robotics

Developmental robotics is an emerging field located at the intersection of developmental psychology and robotics, that has lately attracted quite some attention. This paper gives a survey of a variety of research projects dealing with or inspired by developmental issues, and outlines possible future directions

Computer- and robot-assisted Medical Intervention

Medical robotics includes assistive devices used by the physician in order to make his/her diagnostic or therapeutic practices easier and more efficient. This chapter focuses on such systems. It introduces the general field of Computer-Assisted Medical Interventions, its aims, its different components and describes the place of robots in that context. The evolutions in terms of general design and control paradigms in the development of medical robots are presented and issues specific to that application domain are discussed. A view of existing systems, on-going developments and future trends is given. A case-study is detailed. Other types of robotic help in the medical environment (such as for assisting a handicapped person, for rehabilitation of a patient or for replacement of some damaged/suppressed limbs or organs) are out of the scope of this chapter.Comment: Handbook of Automation, Shimon Nof (Ed.) (2009) 000-00

An Extensible Benchmarking Infrastructure for Motion Planning Algorithms

Sampling-based planning algorithms are the most common probabilistically complete algorithms and are widely used on many robot platforms. Within this class of algorithms, many variants have been proposed over the last 20 years, yet there is still no characterization of which algorithms are well-suited for which classes of problems. This has motivated us to develop a benchmarking infrastructure for motion planning algorithms. It consists of three main components. First, we have created an extensive benchmarking software framework that is included with the Open Motion Planning Library (OMPL), a C++ library that contains implementations of many sampling-based algorithms. Second, we have defined extensible formats for storing benchmark results. The formats are fairly straightforward so that other planning libraries could easily produce compatible output. Finally, we have created an interactive, versatile visualization tool for compact presentation of collected benchmark data. The tool and underlying database facilitate the analysis of performance across benchmark problems and planners.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine (Special Issue on Replicable and Measurable Robotics Research), 201

Changing Assembly Modes without Passing Parallel Singularities in Non-Cuspidal 3-R\underline{P}R Planar Parallel Robots

This paper demonstrates that any general 3-DOF three-legged planar parallel robot with extensible legs can change assembly modes without passing through parallel singularities (configurations where the mobile platform loses its stiffness). While the results are purely theoretical, this paper questions the very definition of parallel singularities.Comment: 2nd International Workshop on Fundamental Issues and Future Research Directions for Parallel Mechanisms and Manipulators, Montpellier : France (2008

Path planning for active tensegrity structures

This paper presents a path planning method for actuated tensegrity structures with quasi-static motion. The valid configurations for such structures lay on an equilibrium manifold, which is implicitly defined by a set of kinematic and static constraints. The exploration of this manifold is difficult with standard methods due to the lack of a global parameterization. Thus, this paper proposes the use of techniques with roots in differential geometry to define an atlas, i.e., a set of coordinated local parameterizations of the equilibrium manifold. This atlas is exploited to define a rapidly-exploring random tree, which efficiently finds valid paths between configurations. However, these paths are typically long and jerky and, therefore, this paper also introduces a procedure to reduce their control effort. A variety of test cases are presented to empirically evaluate the proposed method. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft