GUARDIANS final report

Emergencies in industrial warehouses are a major concern for firefghters. The large dimensions together with the development of dense smoke that drastically reduces visibility, represent major challenges. The Guardians robot swarm is designed to assist fire fighters in searching a large warehouse. In this report we discuss the technology developed for a swarm of robots searching and assisting fire fighters. We explain the swarming algorithms which provide the functionality by which the robots react to and follow humans while no communication is required. Next we discuss the wireless communication system, which is a so-called mobile ad-hoc network. The communication network provides also one of the means to locate the robots and humans. Thus the robot swarm is able to locate itself and provide guidance information to the humans. Together with the re ghters we explored how the robot swarm should feed information back to the human fire fighter. We have designed and experimented with interfaces for presenting swarm based information to human beings

Proceedings: Aeronautics and Space Science

VARIABILITY IN AGN ABSORPTION LINES BASED ON HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE/COS DATA BALQSO KINETIC LUMINOSITY DETERMINATION WITH C III* MEASUREMENTS BREWSTER ANGLE MICROSCOPY AND CHARACTERIZATIONS OF LANGMUIR FILMS SORTING LIGHT’S TOTAL ANGULAR MOMENTUM FOR COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS THE PHOSPHORYLATION PATTERN OF RPA2, IN RESPONSE TO DOUBLE-STRAND BREAKS, DIFFERS DEPENDING ON THE LOCATION IN THE CELL AND THE PHASE OF THE CELL CYCLE THE DIOPHANTINE EQUATION Ax^4+By^4=Cz^4 IN QUADRATIC FIELDS THE SBML STANDARD TO SHARE COMPUTATIONAL MODELS OF BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS HIGH SPEED ELECTRO-DISCHARGE DRILLING AND WIRE ELECTRODE-DISCHARGE MACHINING OF TITANIUM ALLOYS FOR AEROSPACE APPLICATIONS ROUTING OVER THE INTERPLANETARY INTERNET WIRELESS INTEGRATED RELAY SYSTEM (WIRS) HUMAN REACTIONS TO FLUCTUATING NOISE CONDITIONS AS PRODUCED BY LOW-BOOM SUPERSONIC AIRCRAFT NONINVASIVE, AMBULATORY, LONG-TERM, DEEP GASTROINTESTINAL BIOSENSOR AND IMPLANTER RECONFIGURATION PLANNING OF MODULAR ROBOT UNDER UNCERTAINTY DYNAMIC GAIT ADAPTION IN FIXED CONFIGURATION FOR MODULAR SELF-RECONFIGURABLE ROBOTS USING FUZZY LOGIC CONTROL EARLY STAGE DEVELOPMENT OF A MEDICAL DEVICE FOR NON-INVASIVE MEASUREMENT OF INTRACRANIAL PRESSURE COMPLIANT LAPAROSCOPIC SURGICAL GRASPER MODULAR JOYSTICK FOR VIRTUAL REALITY SURGICAL SIMULATION NOVEL ASSISTIVE LOCOMOTOR TOOL FOR GAIT REHABILITATION IN THE ELDERLY GAIT VARIABILITY HAS NO RELATION TO COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE ON THE PHONETIC FLUENCY TEST EFFECT OF TACTILE STIMULI ON LOCOMOTOR RHYTHM UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH PIPELINE IN MATHEMATICS COLLEGE OF SAINT MARY ELEMENTARY SCIENCE OUTREACH PROGRAM FOSTERING STUDENT AWARENESS ON GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP THROUGH CURRICULAR AND CO-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES AUTONOMOUS RC CAR HIGH-ALTITUDE BALLOON SOLAR PANEL VOLTAGE VARIATION MICROBENTHIC ALGAE DENSITIES IN THE DUPLIN WATERSHED ESTIMATING UNCERTAINTY OF REFLECTANCE AND ERROR PROPAGATION IN VEGETATION INDICES ESTIMATING SURFACE VISIBILITY ON THE U.S. EAST COAST: INCORPORATING THE AEROSOL VERTICAL PROFILE FROM GEOS-5 EFFECTS OF VOLCANIC EMISSIONS ON THE EARTH-ATMOSPHERE SYSTEM OBSERVING THE TRANSPORTATION OF DUST ON EARTH USING MISR ARGOS AND MICROGRAVITY FREE FLYER EVALUATION UNL LUNABOTICS TEAM: DESIGNING A ROBOT FOR THE NASA LUNABOTICS ROBOT COMPETITION DESIGN, BUILD, FLY UNIVERSITY STUDENT LAUNCH INITIATIVE EHD THIN FILM BOILING IN MICROGRAVITY ENVIRONMENTS COMBINING SATELLITE OBSERVATIONS OF FIRE ACTIVITY AND NUMERICAL WEATHER PREDICTION TO IMPROVE THE PREDICTION OF SMOKE EMISSIONS SEARCH FOR ASYMMETRIC INTERACTIONS BETWEEN CHIRAL MOLECULES AND SPIN-POLARIZED ELECTRONS AUTOIGNITION IN AN UNSTRAINED METHANOL/AIR MIXING LAYER ANALYSIS OF THE HST/COS SPECTRUM OF THE MASS OUTFLOW IN SEYFERT 1 GALAXY MRK 279 CHARACTERIZATION OF A 5.8KV SIC PIN DIODE FOR ELECTRIC SPACE PROPULSION APPLICATIONS WIRELESS POWER TRANSFER: DESIGN AND APPLICATION FORCE SENSING OF GRASPING EVENTS FOR MINIATURE SURGICAL ROBOTS UNDERSTANDING WALKING AND BREATHING COUPLING WHEN ABNORMAL BREATHING PATTERNS ARE PRESENT EXAMINING THE QUALITY OF MODIS REFLECTANCE PRODUCTS USING A FOUR-BAND SPECTRORADIOMETER INVESTIGATING LAND AND ATMOSPHERE CHARACTERISTICS DURING THE 2012 CENTRAL PLAINS DROUGHT USING MODIS AND TRMM PRODUCTS A MARXIST APPROACH TO US HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY: A REVIEW AND SUMMARY OF THE HISTORY AND APPLICATION OF MARXISM ON THE FIELD OF HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE US JOHN COLLIER, ANTHROPOLOGY, AND THE INDIAN NEW DEA

Proceedings: Aeronautics and Space Science

VARIABILITY IN AGN ABSORPTION LINES BASED ON HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE/COS DATA BALQSO KINETIC LUMINOSITY DETERMINATION WITH C III* MEASUREMENTS BREWSTER ANGLE MICROSCOPY AND CHARACTERIZATIONS OF LANGMUIR FILMS SORTING LIGHT’S TOTAL ANGULAR MOMENTUM FOR COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS THE PHOSPHORYLATION PATTERN OF RPA2, IN RESPONSE TO DOUBLE-STRAND BREAKS, DIFFERS DEPENDING ON THE LOCATION IN THE CELL AND THE PHASE OF THE CELL CYCLE THE DIOPHANTINE EQUATION Ax^4+By^4=Cz^4 IN QUADRATIC FIELDS THE SBML STANDARD TO SHARE COMPUTATIONAL MODELS OF BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS HIGH SPEED ELECTRO-DISCHARGE DRILLING AND WIRE ELECTRODE-DISCHARGE MACHINING OF TITANIUM ALLOYS FOR AEROSPACE APPLICATIONS ROUTING OVER THE INTERPLANETARY INTERNET WIRELESS INTEGRATED RELAY SYSTEM (WIRS) HUMAN REACTIONS TO FLUCTUATING NOISE CONDITIONS AS PRODUCED BY LOW-BOOM SUPERSONIC AIRCRAFT NONINVASIVE, AMBULATORY, LONG-TERM, DEEP GASTROINTESTINAL BIOSENSOR AND IMPLANTER RECONFIGURATION PLANNING OF MODULAR ROBOT UNDER UNCERTAINTY DYNAMIC GAIT ADAPTION IN FIXED CONFIGURATION FOR MODULAR SELF-RECONFIGURABLE ROBOTS USING FUZZY LOGIC CONTROL EARLY STAGE DEVELOPMENT OF A MEDICAL DEVICE FOR NON-INVASIVE MEASUREMENT OF INTRACRANIAL PRESSURE COMPLIANT LAPAROSCOPIC SURGICAL GRASPER MODULAR JOYSTICK FOR VIRTUAL REALITY SURGICAL SIMULATION NOVEL ASSISTIVE LOCOMOTOR TOOL FOR GAIT REHABILITATION IN THE ELDERLY GAIT VARIABILITY HAS NO RELATION TO COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE ON THE PHONETIC FLUENCY TEST EFFECT OF TACTILE STIMULI ON LOCOMOTOR RHYTHM UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH PIPELINE IN MATHEMATICS COLLEGE OF SAINT MARY ELEMENTARY SCIENCE OUTREACH PROGRAM FOSTERING STUDENT AWARENESS ON GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP THROUGH CURRICULAR AND CO-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES AUTONOMOUS RC CAR HIGH-ALTITUDE BALLOON SOLAR PANEL VOLTAGE VARIATION MICROBENTHIC ALGAE DENSITIES IN THE DUPLIN WATERSHED ESTIMATING UNCERTAINTY OF REFLECTANCE AND ERROR PROPAGATION IN VEGETATION INDICES ESTIMATING SURFACE VISIBILITY ON THE U.S. EAST COAST: INCORPORATING THE AEROSOL VERTICAL PROFILE FROM GEOS-5 EFFECTS OF VOLCANIC EMISSIONS ON THE EARTH-ATMOSPHERE SYSTEM OBSERVING THE TRANSPORTATION OF DUST ON EARTH USING MISR ARGOS AND MICROGRAVITY FREE FLYER EVALUATION UNL LUNABOTICS TEAM: DESIGNING A ROBOT FOR THE NASA LUNABOTICS ROBOT COMPETITION DESIGN, BUILD, FLY UNIVERSITY STUDENT LAUNCH INITIATIVE EHD THIN FILM BOILING IN MICROGRAVITY ENVIRONMENTS COMBINING SATELLITE OBSERVATIONS OF FIRE ACTIVITY AND NUMERICAL WEATHER PREDICTION TO IMPROVE THE PREDICTION OF SMOKE EMISSIONS SEARCH FOR ASYMMETRIC INTERACTIONS BETWEEN CHIRAL MOLECULES AND SPIN-POLARIZED ELECTRONS AUTOIGNITION IN AN UNSTRAINED METHANOL/AIR MIXING LAYER ANALYSIS OF THE HST/COS SPECTRUM OF THE MASS OUTFLOW IN SEYFERT 1 GALAXY MRK 279 CHARACTERIZATION OF A 5.8KV SIC PIN DIODE FOR ELECTRIC SPACE PROPULSION APPLICATIONS WIRELESS POWER TRANSFER: DESIGN AND APPLICATION FORCE SENSING OF GRASPING EVENTS FOR MINIATURE SURGICAL ROBOTS UNDERSTANDING WALKING AND BREATHING COUPLING WHEN ABNORMAL BREATHING PATTERNS ARE PRESENT EXAMINING THE QUALITY OF MODIS REFLECTANCE PRODUCTS USING A FOUR-BAND SPECTRORADIOMETER INVESTIGATING LAND AND ATMOSPHERE CHARACTERISTICS DURING THE 2012 CENTRAL PLAINS DROUGHT USING MODIS AND TRMM PRODUCTS A MARXIST APPROACH TO US HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY: A REVIEW AND SUMMARY OF THE HISTORY AND APPLICATION OF MARXISM ON THE FIELD OF HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE US JOHN COLLIER, ANTHROPOLOGY, AND THE INDIAN NEW DEA

Coordination schemes for distributed boundary coverage with a swarm of miniature robots:synthesis, analysis and experimental validation

We provide a comparison of a series of original coordination mechanisms for the distributed boundary coverage problem with a swarm of miniature robots. Our analysis is based on real robot experimentation and models at different levels of abstraction. Distributed boundary coverage is an instance of the distributed coverage problem and has applications such as inspection of structures, de-mining, cleaning, and painting. Coverage is a particularly good example for the benefits of a multi-robot approach due to the potential for parallel task execution and additional robustness out of redundancy. The constraints imposed by a potential application, the autonomous inspection of a jet turbine engine, were our motivation for the algorithms considered in this thesis. Thus, there is particular emphasis on how algorithms perform under the influence of sensor and actuator noise, limited computational and communication capabilities, as well as on the policies about how to cope with such problems. The algorithms developed in this dissertation can be classified into reactive and deliberative algorithms, as well as non-collaborative and collaborative algorithms. The performance of these algorithms ranges from very low to very high, corresponding to highly redundant coverage to near-optimal partitioning of the environments, respectively. At the same time, requirements and assumptions on the robotic platform and the environment (from no communication to global communication, and from no localization to global localization) are incrementally raised. All the algorithms are robust to sensor and actuator noise and gracefully decay to the performance of a randomized algorithm as a function of an increased noise level and/or additional hardware constraints. Although the deliberative algorithms are fully deterministic, the actual performance is probabilistic due to inevitable sensor and actuator noise. For this reason, probabilistic models are used for predicting time to complete coverage and take into account sensor and actuator noise calibrated by using real hardware. For reactive systems with limited memory, the performance is captured using a compact representation based on rate equations that track the expected number of robots in a certain state. As the number of states explode for the deliberative algorithms that require a substantial use of memory, this approach becomes less tractable with the amount of deliberation performed, and we use Discrete Event System (DES) simulation in these cases. Our contribution to the domain of multi-robot systems is three-fold. First, we provide a methodology for system identification and optimal control of a robot swarm using probabilistic models. Second, we develop a series of algorithms for distributed coverage by a team of miniature robots that gracefully decay from a near-optimal performance to the performance of a randomized approach under the influence of sensor and actuator noise. Third, we design an implement a miniature inspection platform based on the miniature robot Alice with ZigBee ready communication capabilities and color vision on a foot-print smaller than 2 × 2 × 3 cm3

What do Collaborations with the Arts Have to Say About Human-Robot Interaction?

This is a collection of papers presented at the workshop What Do Collaborations with the Arts Have to Say About HRI , held at the 2010 Human-Robot Interaction Conference, in Osaka, Japan

Autonomous Systems, Robotics, and Computing Systems Capability Roadmap: NRC Dialogue

Contents include the following: Introduction. Process, Mission Drivers, Deliverables, and Interfaces. Autonomy. Crew-Centered and Remote Operations. Integrated Systems Health Management. Autonomous Vehicle Control. Autonomous Process Control. Robotics. Robotics for Solar System Exploration. Robotics for Lunar and Planetary Habitation. Robotics for In-Space Operations. Computing Systems. Conclusion

The $10 Million ANA Avatar XPRIZE Competition Advanced Immersive Telepresence Systems

The $10M ANA Avatar XPRIZE aimed to create avatar systems that can transport human presence to remote locations in real time. The participants of this multi-year competition developed robotic systems that allow operators to see, hear, and interact with a remote environment in a way that feels as if they are truly there. On the other hand, people in the remote environment were given the impression that the operator was present inside the avatar robot. At the competition finals, held in November 2022 in Long Beach, CA, USA, the avatar systems were evaluated on their support for remotely interacting with humans, exploring new environments, and employing specialized skills. This article describes the competition stages with tasks and evaluation procedures, reports the results, presents the winning teams' approaches, and discusses lessons learned.Comment: Extended version of article accepted for competitions colum

Underpinning UK High-Value Manufacturing: Development of a Robotic Re-manufacturing System

Impact and its measure of outcome is a given performance indicator within academia. Impact metrics and the associated understanding play a large part of how academic research is judged and ultimately funded. Natural progression of successful scientific research into industry is now an essential tool for academia. This paper describes what began over ten years ago as a concept to automate a bespoke welding system, highlighting its evolution from the research laboratories of The University of Sheffield to become a platform technology for aerospace remanufacturing developed though industry-academia collaboration. The design process, funding mechanisms, research and development trials and interaction between robotic technology and experienced welding engineers has made possible the construction of a robotic aerospace turbofan jet engine blade re-manufacturing system. This is a joint collaborative research and development project carried out by VBC Instrument Engineering Limited (UK) and The University of Sheffield (UK) who are funded by the UK governments’ innovation agency, Innovate-UK with the Aerospace Technology Institute, the Science and Facilities Technology Council (STFC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)

Nonlinear Model Predictive Control Considering Stochastic and Systematic Uncertainties with Sets of Densities

In Model Predictive Control, the quality of control is highly dependent upon the model of the system under control. Therefore, a precise deterministic model is desirable. However, in real-world applications, modeling accuracy is typically limited and systems are generally affected by disturbances. Hence, it is important to systematically consider these uncertainties and to model them correctly. In this paper, we present a novel Nonlinear Model Predictive Control method for systems affected by two different types of perturbations that are modeled as being either stochastic or unknown but bounded quantities. We derive a formal generalization of the Nonlinear Model Predictive Control principle for considering both types of uncertainties simultaneously, which is achieved by using sets of probability densities. In doing so, a more robust and reliable control is obtained. The capabilities and benefits of our approach are demonstrated in real-world experiments with miniature walking robots

International Conference on Mechatronics, System Engineering And Robotics & Informations System And Engineering

UBT Annual International Conference is the 9th international interdisciplinary peer reviewed conference which publishes works of the scientists as well as practitioners in the area where UBT is active in Education, Research and Development. The UBT aims to implement an integrated strategy to establish itself as an internationally competitive, research-intensive university, committed to the transfer of knowledge and the provision of a world-class education to the most talented students from all background. The main perspective of the conference is to connect the scientists and practitioners from different disciplines in the same place and make them be aware of the recent advancements in different research fields, and provide them with a unique forum to share their experiences. It is also the place to support the new academic staff for doing research and publish their work in international standard level. This conference consists of sub conferences in different fields like: Art and Digital Media Agriculture, Food Science and Technology Architecture and Spatial Planning Civil Engineering, Infrastructure and Environment Computer Science and Communication Engineering Dental Sciences Education and Development Energy Efficiency Engineering Integrated Design Information Systems and Security Journalism, Media and Communication Law Language and Culture Management, Business and Economics Modern Music, Digital Production and Management Medicine and Nursing Mechatronics, System Engineering and Robotics Pharmaceutical and Natural Sciences Political Science Psychology Sport, Health and Society Security Studies This conference is the major scientific event of the UBT. It is organizing annually and always in cooperation with the partner universities from the region and Europe. We have to thank all Authors, partners, sponsors and also the conference organizing team making this event a real international scientific event. Edmond Hajrizi, President of UBT UBT – Higher Education Institutio