56,926 research outputs found

    Foldibot the Autonomous Clothes Folder

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    As society becomes more technologically advanced, so does the demand for innovative products that save time; products like the Roomba have revolutionized household chores. Our teams’ vision was to develop a solution for another time-consuming household chore: folding laundry. The goal of this project was to conceptually design a marketable “robot” capable of autonomously folding clothes and explore a potential design by prototyping and testing it. Our team utilized our culmination of knowledge acquired over five years of engineering studies to turn a “pen and paper” sketch into a functioning prototype; this project used engineering tools such as a Weighted Decision Matrix, Functional Decomposition Diagram, 3D CAD models, and Python coding. The results of this project were: a robot that was under budget, a complete mechanical folding system design and construction, and coding to control the robots x and y axis

    The astronaut and the banana peel: An EVA retriever scenario

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    To prepare for the problem of accidents in Space Station activities, the Extravehicular Activity Retriever (EVAR) robot is being constructed, whose purpose is to retrieve astronauts and tools that float free of the Space Station. Advanced Decision Systems is at the beginning of a project to develop research software capable of guiding EVAR through the retrieval process. This involves addressing problems in machine vision, dexterous manipulation, real time construction of programs via speech input, and reactive execution of plans despite the mishaps and unexpected conditions that arise in uncontrolled domains. The problem analysis phase of this work is presented. An EVAR scenario is used to elucidate major domain and technical problems. An overview of the technical approach to prototyping an EVAR system is also presented

    Artificial Intelligence and Systems Theory: Applied to Cooperative Robots

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    This paper describes an approach to the design of a population of cooperative robots based on concepts borrowed from Systems Theory and Artificial Intelligence. The research has been developed under the SocRob project, carried out by the Intelligent Systems Laboratory at the Institute for Systems and Robotics - Instituto Superior Tecnico (ISR/IST) in Lisbon. The acronym of the project stands both for "Society of Robots" and "Soccer Robots", the case study where we are testing our population of robots. Designing soccer robots is a very challenging problem, where the robots must act not only to shoot a ball towards the goal, but also to detect and avoid static (walls, stopped robots) and dynamic (moving robots) obstacles. Furthermore, they must cooperate to defeat an opposing team. Our past and current research in soccer robotics includes cooperative sensor fusion for world modeling, object recognition and tracking, robot navigation, multi-robot distributed task planning and coordination, including cooperative reinforcement learning in cooperative and adversarial environments, and behavior-based architectures for real time task execution of cooperating robot teams

    Integrating mobile robotics and vision with undergraduate computer science

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    This paper describes the integration of robotics education into an undergraduate Computer Science curriculum. The proposed approach delivers mobile robotics as well as covering the closely related field of Computer Vision, and is directly linked to the research conducted at the authors’ institution. The paper describes the most relevant details of the module content and assessment strategy, paying particular attention to the practical sessions using Rovio mobile robots. The specific choices are discussed that were made with regard to the mobile platform, software libraries and lab environment. The paper also presents a detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis of student results, including the correlation between student engagement and performance, and discusses the outcomes of this experience

    Embedding Robotic Agents in the Social Environment

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    This paper discusses the interactive vision approach, which advocates using knowledge from the human sciences on the structure and dynamics of human-human interaction in the development of machine vision systems and interactive robots. While this approach is discussed generally, the particular case of the system being developed for the Aurora project (which aims to produce a robot to be used as a tool in the therapy of children with autism) is especially considered, with description of the design of the machine vision system being employed and discussion of ideas from the human sciences with particular reference to the Aurora system. An example architecture for a simple interactive agent, which will likely form the basis for the first implementation of this system, is briefly described and a description of hardware used for the Aurora system is given.Peer reviewe

    A short curriculum of the robotics and technology of computer lab

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    Our research Lab is directed by Prof. Anton Civit. It is an interdisciplinary group of 23 researchers that carry out their teaching and researching labor at the Escuela Politécnica Superior (Higher Polytechnic School) and the Escuela de Ingeniería Informática (Computer Engineering School). The main research fields are: a) Industrial and mobile Robotics, b) Neuro-inspired processing using electronic spikes, c) Embedded and real-time systems, d) Parallel and massive processing computer architecture, d) Information Technologies for rehabilitation, handicapped and elder people, e) Web accessibility and usability In this paper, the Lab history is presented and its main publications and research projects over the last few years are summarized.Nuestro grupo de investigación está liderado por el profesor Civit. Somos un grupo multidisciplinar de 23 investigadores que realizan su labor docente e investigadora en la Escuela Politécnica Superior y en Escuela de Ingeniería Informática. Las principales líneas de investigaciones son: a) Robótica industrial y móvil. b) Procesamiento neuro-inspirado basado en pulsos electrónicos. c) Sistemas empotrados y de tiempo real. d) Arquitecturas paralelas y de procesamiento masivo. e) Tecnología de la información aplicada a la discapacidad, rehabilitación y a las personas mayores. f) Usabilidad y accesibilidad Web. En este artículo se reseña la historia del grupo y se resumen las principales publicaciones y proyectos que ha conseguido en los últimos años
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