APPLICATION OF SIMULATION MODELS FOR PROGRAMMING OF ROBOTS

In recent years, there has been an increasing robotization of many areas of life. This requires knowledge of issues related to robots and their programming. Devices of this type, especially large industrial or medical robots, are very expensive, or they may be hardly affordable for educational purposes. Simulation models are helpful in such situation. The aim of the article is to present the possibilities of using simulation models of robots and robotic stations in the educational and research process. Specialized software packages make it easier not only to understand how robots work, but they also allow to test different operating conditions of the designed computer model of the real robotized process

Overcoming barriers and increasing independence: service robots for elderly and disabled people

This paper discusses the potential for service robots to overcome barriers and increase independence of elderly and disabled people. It includes a brief overview of the existing uses of service robots by disabled and elderly people and advances in technology which will make new uses possible and provides suggestions for some of these new applications. The paper also considers the design and other conditions to be met for user acceptance. It also discusses the complementarity of assistive service robots and personal assistance and considers the types of applications and users for which service robots are and are not suitable

Designing a new class of computational toys

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2000.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 81-83).I introduce an educational toy, called curlybot, as the basis for a new class of toys aimed at children in their early stages of development - ages four and up. curlybot is an autonomous two-wheeled vehicle with embedded electronics that can records how it has been moved on any flat surface and then plays back that motion accurately and repeatedly. Children can use curlybot to gain a strong intuition for advanced mathematical and computational concepts, like differential geometry, through play outside a traditional computer. Preliminary studies show that children can create gestures quickly, allowing them to iterate on the patterns that emerge, and successfully understanding and solving problems with curlybot. Programming by demonstration in this context makes the educational ideas implicit in the design of curlybot accessible to young children. curlybot can also act as an expressive tool because of its ability to remember the intricacies of the original gestures: every pause, acceleration, and even the shaking in the hand is recorded and played.by Philipp A. Frei.S.M

An end-user platform for FPGA-based design and rapid prototyping of feedforward artificial neural networks with on-chip backpropagation learning

The hardware implementation of an artificial neural network (ANN) using field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) is a research field that has attracted much interest and attention. With the developments made, the programmer is now forced to face various challenges, such as the need to master various complex hardware-software development platforms, hardware description languages, and advanced ANN knowledge. Moreover, such an implementation is very time consuming. To address these challenges, this paper presents a novel neural design methodology using a holistic modeling approach. Based on the end-user programming concept, the presented solution empowers end users by means of abstracting the low-level hardware functionalities, streamlining the FPGA design process and supporting rapid ANN prototyping. A case study of an ANN as a pattern recognition module of an artificial olfaction system trained to identify four coffee brands is presented. The recognition rate versus training data features and data representation was analyzed extensively

The 1990 progress report and future plans

This document describes the progress and plans of the Artificial Intelligence Research Branch (RIA) at ARC in 1990. Activities span a range from basic scientific research to engineering development and to fielded NASA applications, particularly those applications that are enabled by basic research carried out at RIA. Work is conducted in-house and through collaborative partners in academia and industry. Our major focus is on a limited number of research themes with a dual commitment to technical excellence and proven applicability to NASA short, medium, and long-term problems. RIA acts as the Agency's lead organization for research aspects of artificial intelligence, working closely with a second research laboratory at JPL and AI applications groups at all NASA centers

Parallelized Distributed Embedded Control System for 2D Walking Robot for Studying Rough Terrain Locomotion

Biped robots present many advantages for exploration over mobile robots. They do not require a continuous path, which allows them to navigate over a much larger range of terrain. Currently, bipeds have been successful at walking on flat surfaces and non-periodic rough terrain such as stairs, but few have shown success on unknown periodic terrain. The Jaywalker is a 2D walker designed to study locomotion on uneven terrain. It is a fully active robot providing actuation at every joint. A distributed, parallelized, embedded control system was developed to provide the control structure for the Jaywalker. This system was chosen for its ability to execute simultaneous tasks efficiently. The two level control system provides a first level to implement a higher level control strategy, and a second lower level to drive the Jaywalker's systems. The concept was implemented using the Parallax Propeller chip for its relative fast clock frequencies and parallel computing functionality. The chips communicate over a new variation of the I2C bus, which allows multiple slaves to listen to information simultaneously reducing the number of transmissions for redundant data transfers. The system has shown success in taking steps with open loop control. The success of the step is highly dependent on the initial step length using open loop control, but this dependency can be eliminated using closed loop control. The robust structure will provide an excellent platform for uneven terrain locomotion research

Tangible user interfaces : past, present and future directions

In the last two decades, Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) have emerged as a new interface type that interlinks the digital and physical worlds. Drawing upon users' knowledge and skills of interaction with the real non-digital world, TUIs show a potential to enhance the way in which people interact with and leverage digital information. However, TUI research is still in its infancy and extensive research is required in or- der to fully understand the implications of tangible user interfaces, to develop technologies that further bridge the digital and the physical, and to guide TUI design with empirical knowledge. This paper examines the existing body of work on Tangible User In- terfaces. We start by sketching the history of tangible user interfaces, examining the intellectual origins of this field. We then present TUIs in a broader context, survey application domains, and review frame- works and taxonomies. We also discuss conceptual foundations of TUIs including perspectives from cognitive sciences, phycology, and philoso- phy. Methods and technologies for designing, building, and evaluating TUIs are also addressed. Finally, we discuss the strengths and limita- tions of TUIs and chart directions for future research

Virtual Reality Games for Motor Rehabilitation

This paper presents a fuzzy logic based method to track user satisfaction without the need for devices to monitor users physiological conditions. User satisfaction is the key to any product’s acceptance; computer applications and video games provide a unique opportunity to provide a tailored environment for each user to better suit their needs. We have implemented a non-adaptive fuzzy logic model of emotion, based on the emotional component of the Fuzzy Logic Adaptive Model of Emotion (FLAME) proposed by El-Nasr, to estimate player emotion in UnrealTournament 2004. In this paper we describe the implementation of this system and present the results of one of several play tests. Our research contradicts the current literature that suggests physiological measurements are needed. We show that it is possible to use a software only method to estimate user emotion

Navigation of Automatic Vehicle using AI Techniques

In the field of mobile robot navigation have been studied as important task for the new generation of mobile robot i.e. Corobot. For this mobile robot navigation has been viewed for unknown environment. We consider the 4-wheeled vehicle (Corobot) for Path Planning, an autonomous robot and an obstacle and collision avoidance to be used in sensor based robot. We propose that the predefined distance from the robot to target and make the robot follow the target at this distance and improve the trajectory tracking characteristics. The robot will then navigate among these obstacles without hitting them and reach the specified goal point. For these goal achieving we use different techniques radial basis function and back-propagation algorithm under the study of neural network. In this Corobot a robotic arm are assembled and the kinematic analyses of Corobot arm and help of Phidget Control Panel a wheeled to be moved in both forward and reverse direction by 2-motor controller have to be done. Under kinematic analysis propose the relationships between the positions and orientation of the links of a manipulator. In these studies an artificial techniques and their control strategy are shown with potential applications in the fields of industry, security, defense, investigation, and others. Here finally, the simulation result using the webot neural network has been done and this result is compared with experimental data for different training pattern