Bio-Inspired Robotics

Modern robotic technologies have enabled robots to operate in a variety of unstructured and dynamically-changing environments, in addition to traditional structured environments. Robots have, thus, become an important element in our everyday lives. One key approach to develop such intelligent and autonomous robots is to draw inspiration from biological systems. Biological structure, mechanisms, and underlying principles have the potential to provide new ideas to support the improvement of conventional robotic designs and control. Such biological principles usually originate from animal or even plant models, for robots, which can sense, think, walk, swim, crawl, jump or even fly. Thus, it is believed that these bio-inspired methods are becoming increasingly important in the face of complex applications. Bio-inspired robotics is leading to the study of innovative structures and computing with sensory–motor coordination and learning to achieve intelligence, flexibility, stability, and adaptation for emergent robotic applications, such as manipulation, learning, and control. This Special Issue invites original papers of innovative ideas and concepts, new discoveries and improvements, and novel applications and business models relevant to the selected topics of ``Bio-Inspired Robotics''. Bio-Inspired Robotics is a broad topic and an ongoing expanding field. This Special Issue collates 30 papers that address some of the important challenges and opportunities in this broad and expanding field

Reactive task planning for multi-robot systems in partial known environment

openThe thesis investigates the planning and control problem for a group of mobile agents moving in a partially known workspace. A task will be assigned to each robot in the form of a linear temporal logic (LTL) formula. First an automaton-based method is introduced for the motion planning of a single agent, which guarantees the satisfaction of the assigned LTL task. Then a model-predictive controller considers state and input constraints leading the agent to a safe navigation. Based on a real scenario of a partial-known environment and agents can have only local sensing, two decentralized control strategies are proposed for online re-planning, which rely on a sampling-based algorithm. The first approach assumes local communication between agents, while the second one exploits a more general communication-free case. Finally, the human-in-the-loop scenario is considered, where a human may additionally take control of the agents, a mixed initiative controller is then implemented to prevent dangerous human behaviors while guarantee the satisfaction of the LTL specification. Using the developed ROS software package, several experiments were carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness and the potential applicability of the proposed strategies.The thesis investigates the planning and control problem for a group of mobile agents moving in a partially known workspace. A task will be assigned to each robot in the form of a linear temporal logic (LTL) formula. First an automaton-based method is introduced for the motion planning of a single agent, which guarantees the satisfaction of the assigned LTL task. Then a model-predictive controller considers state and input constraints leading the agent to a safe navigation. Based on a real scenario of a partial-known environment and agents can have only local sensing, two decentralized control strategies are proposed for online re-planning, which rely on a sampling-based algorithm. The first approach assumes local communication between agents, while the second one exploits a more general communication-free case. Finally, the human-in-the-loop scenario is considered, where a human may additionally take control of the agents, a mixed initiative controller is then implemented to prevent dangerous human behaviors while guarantee the satisfaction of the LTL specification. Using the developed ROS software package, several experiments were carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness and the potential applicability of the proposed strategies

2007 standard specifications for highway construction

This is the South Carolina Department of Transportation Terms and Conditions that contain the standard terms and conditions governing the administration of a Project supported with Federal assistance awarded by the Federal Transit Administration

Self-repair during continuous motion with modular robots

Through the use of multiple modules with the ability to reconfigure to form different morphologies, modular robots provide a potential method to develop more adaptable and resilient robots. Robots operating in challenging and hard-to-reach environments such as infrastructure inspection, post-disaster search-and-rescue under rubble and planetary surface exploration, could benefit from the capabilities modularity offers, especially the inherent fault tolerance which reconfigurability can provide. With self-reconfigurable modular robots self-repair, removing failed modules from a larger structure to replace them with operating modules, allows the functionality of the multi-robot organism as a whole to be recovered when modules are damaged. Previous self-repair work has, for the duration of self-repair procedures, paused group tasks in which the multi-robot organism was engaged, this thesis investigates Self-repair during continuous motion, ``Dynamic Self-repair", as a way to allow repair and group tasks to proceed concurrently. In this thesis a new modular robotic platform, Omni-Pi-tent, with capabilities for Dynamic Self-repair is developed. This platform provides a unique combination of genderless docking, omnidirectional locomotion, 3D reconfiguration possibilities and onboard sensing and autonomy. The platform is used in a series of simulated experiments to compare the performance of newly developed dynamic strategies for self-repair and self-assembly to adaptations of previous work, and in hardware demonstrations to explore their practical feasibility. Novel data structures for defining modular robotic structures, and the algorithms to process them for self-repair, are explained. It is concluded that self-repair during continuous motion can allow modular robots to complete tasks faster, and more effectively, than self-repair strategies which require collective tasks to be halted. The hardware and strategies developed in this thesis should provide valuable lessons for bringing modular robots closer to real-world applications

WTEC panel report on research submersibles and undersea technologies

This report covers research submersibles and related subsea technologies in Finland, France, Russia, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. Manned, teleoperated, and autonomous submersibles were of interest. The panel found that, in contrast to the United States, Europe is making substantial progress in cooperative and coordinated research in subsea technology, including the development of standards. France is a leader in autonomous vehicle technology. Because much less was known a priori about the technologies in Russia and Ukraine, there were more new findings in those countries than in those Western European nations visited. However, Russia and Ukraine have a sizeable (and currently underutilized) infrastructure in this field, including a highly educated and experienced manpower pool, impressive (in some cases unique) facilities for physical testing, extensive fleets of seagoing research vessels capable of long voyages, and state-of-the-art facilities for conducting oceanographic investigations. The panel visited newly-formed commercial companies associated with long-standing submersible R&D and production centers in Russia and Ukraine. So far, these new efforts are undercapitalized, and as such represent opportunities at very low cost for Western nations, as detailed in the site reports

Request for proposals final with addendum 6 : Carolina Crossroads phase 2 - Broad River Rd. at I-20 Interchange design-build project Project ID P039719 Richland County December 3, 2020

The purpose of this Request for Proposals (RFP) is to select a Proposer to perform the Project services and to design and construct the Project, as further described in this RFP

Carolina Crossroads phase 1 - Colonial Life Blvd. Richland and Lexington Counties, South Carolina a design-build project

SCDOT proposes to construct a new exit ramp to US 378 from I-26 eastbound and associated interstate widening in Lexington County and a full access interchange at Colonial Life Boulevard at I-126 in Richland County. This will include construction of new bridges and related roadway approaches. The purpose of the project is to provide traffic access to and from I-26 and I-126 to Colonial Life Blvd., allowing for closure of the existing on and off ramps that access I-26 from Bush River Road. The purpose of this Request for Proposals (RFP) is to select a Proposer to perform the Project services described in this RFP