Entropy Based Multi-robot Active SLAM

In this article, we present an efficient multi-robot active SLAM framework that involves a frontier-sharing method for maximum exploration of an unknown environment. It encourages the robots to spread into the environment while weighting the goal frontiers with the pose graph SLAM uncertainly and path entropy. Our approach works on a limited number of frontier points and weights the goal frontiers with a utility function that encapsulates both the SLAM and map uncertainties, thus providing an efficient and not computationally expensive solution. Our approach has been tested on publicly available simulation environments and on real robots. An accumulative 31% more coverage than similar state-of-the-art approaches has been obtained, proving the capability of our approach for efficient environment exploration.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figure

Knowledge representation for culturally competent personal robots: requirements, design principles, implementation, and assessment

Culture, intended as the set of beliefs, values, ideas, language, norms and customs which compose a person’s life, is an essential element to know by any robot for personal assistance. Culture, intended as that person’s background, can be an invaluable source of information to drive and speed up the process of discovering and adapting to the person’s habits, preferences and needs. This article discusses the requirements posed by cultural competence on the knowledge management system of a robot. We propose a framework for cultural knowledge representation that relies on (i) a three layer ontology for storing concepts of relevance, culture specific information and statistics, person-specific information and preferences; (ii) an algorithm for the acquisition of person-specific knowledge, which uses culture specific knowledge to drive the search; (iii) a Bayesian Network for speeding up the adaptation to the person by propagating the effects of acquiring one specific information onto interconnected concepts. We have conducted a preliminary evaluation of the framework involving 159 Italian and German volunteers and considering 122 among habits, attitudes and social norms

Studio numerico per funzionalizzazione chimica e drogaggio di transistori in grafene

Per quanto la tecnologia CMOS costituirà ancora per alcuni anni la linea guida per tutte le industrie del settore, nuovi materiali hanno catalizzato negli ultimi anni l'interesse della ricerca al fine di superare i limiti fisici caratteristici del silicio. Tra questi il grafene è senza dubbio uno dei più interessanti, unendo allo spessore atomico e alle dimensioni nanometriche, un'elevatissima conducibilità. Purtroppo l'assenza di gap tra la banda di valenza e quella di conduzione rende il materiale difficilmente utilizzabile per applicazioni digitali. Scopo del presente lavoro è stato proprio quello di valutare possibili soluzioni al problema, mediante funzionalizzazione chimica e drogaggio di nanoribbon in grafene. Nel primo capitolo è stata descritta la metodologia di calcolo utilizzata, consistente nel metodo tight-binding con l'ausilio del pacchetto software Gaussian 03, e l'applicazione di tale tecnica al caso di un piano infinito di grafene. Nel secondo si analizza il materiale più nel dettaglio, con particolare attenzione alle caratteristiche che rendono il grafene unico come semiconduttore. Il terzo capitolo è dedicato alle simulazioni effettuate per verificare l'effettiva incidenza sulle bande della funzionalizzazione con triossido di cromo e boro. Nel quarto capitolo sono analizzati gli effetti del confinamento sul gap, tramite la modellizzazione del grafene in nanoribbon. Infine viene mostrato il funzionamento di transistori a effetto di campo in grafene, valutando la possibilità concreta di utilizzare il materiale per scopi elettronici

A robotic social reciprocity in children with autism spectrum disorder

The authors aim at deeply investigating the underlying mechanisms of social reciprocity in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) by designing and developing a new generation of humanoid robots able to interact in an unstructured environment with children with ASD, stimulating their reaction, giving and receiving objects and finally anticipating their actions. During the interaction, an external sensors network (eye tracking, movement's analysis, inertial measurement units) will measure all the fundamental parameters for the models analysis. The research aims at the development of new psychological and neuro-scientific models related to the communication and the social reciprocity in children with ASD are expected to be developed. © Springer International Publishing 2013

Towards a novel embodied robot bio-inspired by non-human primates

The authors propose an international cooperative project aimed at studying and reproducing the control principles that underlie the climbing abilities of monkeys. The final embodied robot that will be developed by the consortium will be bio-inspired by the anatomy and physiology of the cercopithecoid monkeys. Non-invasive experiments on living primates will drive the development of novel biological models, and dynamic balance-climbing control theories. Embodied climbing robots will be developed to implement arm swinging brachiation, vertical climbing, tail suspension, and horizontal locomotion. This interdisciplinary project brings together scientists, veterinarians and biologists, engineers and mathematicians from universities and industry

Locomozione Bipede: aumentare la stabilità riducendo gli errori

Si discute sulla locomozione bipede e su come aumentare la stabilità riducendo gli error

Thermal and Visual Tracking of Photovoltaic Plants for Autonomous UAV Inspection

Because photovoltaic (PV) plants require periodic maintenance, using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for inspections can help reduce costs. Usually, the thermal and visual inspection of PV installations works as follows. A UAV equipped with a global positioning system (GPS) receiver is assigned a flight zone, which the UAV will cover back and forth to collect images to be subsequently composed in an orthomosaic. When doing this, the UAV typically flies at a height above the ground that is appropriate to ensure that images overlap even in the presence of GPS positioning errors. However, this approach has two limitations. First, it requires covering the whole flight zone, including “empty” areas between PV module rows. Second, flying high above the ground limits the resolution of the images to be subsequently inspected. The article proposes a novel approach using an autonomous UAV with an RGB and a thermal camera for PV module tracking through segmentation and visual servoing, which does not require a GPS except for measuring the “small” relative displacement between a PV module row and the next one. With this solution, the UAV moves along PV module rows at a lower height than usual and inspects them back and forth in a boustrophedon way by ignoring “empty” areas with no PV modules. Experimental tests performed in simulation and at an actual PV plant are reported, showing a tracking error lower than 0.2 m in most situations when moving at 1.2 m/s

A robotic suit controlled by the human brain for people suffering from quadriplegia

The authors present an introductory work for the implementation of an international cooperative project aimed at designing, developing and validating a new generation of ergonomic robotic suits, wearable by the users and controlled by the human brain. The aim of the proposers is to allow the motion of people affected by paralysis or with reduced motor abilities. Therefore, the project will focus on the fusion between neuroergonomics and robotics, also by means of brain-machine interfaces. Breakthrough solutions will compose the advanced robotic suit, endowed with soft structures to increment safety and human comfort, and with an advanced real-time control that takes into account the interaction with the human body. © 2014 Springer-Verlag

An embodied-simplexity approach to design humanoid robots bioinspired by taekwondo athletes

We are investigating new approaches to design and develop embodied humanoid robots with predictive behaviour in the real world. Our approaches are strongly based on the symbiotic interaction between the concepts of the embodied intelligence and simplexity that enables us to reproduce the artificial body in symbiosis with its intelligence. The research is based on the study of martial arts athletes and their planned movements. In particular, the taekwondo martial art competition where anticipation and adaptive behaviours are key points is used as a vehicle to address conceptual and design issues. The expected outcome will be the development of a robot that will have the capability to anticipate an opponent's actions by coordinating eyes, head and legs, with a stable body constituted by an embodied platform bioinspired by the taekwondo athletes. © 2014 Springer-Verlag