Slide-Down Prevention for Wheeled Mobile Robots on Slopes

Wheeled mobile robots on inclined terrain can slide down due to loss of traction and gravity. This type of instability, which is different from tip-over, can provoke uncontrolled motion or get the vehicle stuck. This paper proposes slide-down prevention by real-time computation of a straightforward stability margin for a given ground-wheel friction coefficient. This margin is applied to the case study of Lazaro, a hybrid skid-steer mobile robot with caster-leg mechanism that allows tests with four or five wheel contact points. Experimental results for both ADAMS simulations and the actual vehicle demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Construction and Calibration of a Low-Cost 3D Laser Scanner with 360◦ Field of View for Mobile Robots

Navigation of many mobile robots relies on environmental information obtained from three-dimensional (3D) laser scanners. This paper presents a new 360◦ field-of-view 3D laser scanner for mobile robots that avoids the high cost of commercial devices. The 3D scanner is based on spinning a Hokuyo UTM- 30LX-EX two-dimensional (2D) rangefinder around its optical center. The proposed design profits from lessons learned with the development of a previous 3D scanner with pitching motion. Intrinsic calibration of the new device has been performed to obtain both temporal and geometric parameters. The paper also shows the integration of the 3D device in the outdoor mobile robot Andabata.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Sistemas de documentación y elaboración de textos científicos: Una asignatura para aprender a publicar en ingeniería

Hoy en día, la elaboración y presentación de informes de investigación resulta indispensable para muchos profesionales de la ingeniería. En este artículo se describe una asignatura de máster universitario cuyo principal objetivo es proporcionar los conocimientos necesarios para poder escribir y exponer resultados de investigación en ingeniería mecatrónica. De esta manera, se complementa la formación de los ingenieros para que puedan desenvolverse con éxito en el complejo mundo de la investigación.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Second Generation Voices: The Pleasures and Afflictions of Inherited Exilic Legacy

The Exile Studies Program In Collaboration with The Betsy-South Beach Hotel The Department of English & The College of Arts, Sciences & Education Presents Panel Discussion Second Generation Voices: The Pleasures and Afflictions of Inherited Exilic Legacyhttps://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cri_events/1379/thumbnail.jp

Conversión de un Robot Móvil de Cadenas en Vehículo Híbrido Eléctrico

Este trabajo ha sido publicado en: Actas de las XXXV Jornadas de Automática. Valencia,Comité Español de Automática CEA-IFAC , 2014. ISBN-13:78-84-697-0589-6En la remodelación del robot móvil Auriga-a, desarrollado en el año 2000, solo se ha conservado su sistema de locomoción. Además de la actualización de los sistemas informáticos y equipos de control, el principal objetivo ha sido la conversión del robot en un vehículo híbrido eléctrico. Para ello, se han incorporado baterías LiFePO4 con su correspondiente cargador y un generador monofásico. En el diseño, se han tenido en cuenta el posicionado del centro de gravedad y la ventilación de los equipos. En conjunto, la remodelación consigue reducir la masa del vehículo y mejorar su eficiencia y autonomía energética. En la actualidad, el diseño está siendo implantado en el robot real.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. CICYT DPI 2011-22443

Collapsible Cubes: Removing Overhangs from 3D Point Clouds to Build Local Navigable Elevation Maps

Elevation maps offer a compact 2 1/2 dimensional model of terrain surface for navigation in field mobile robotics. However, building these maps from 3D raw point clouds con- taining overhangs, such as tree canopy or tunnels, can produce useless results. This paper proposes a simple processing of a ground-based point cloud that identifies and removes overhang points that do not constitute an obstacle for navigation while keeping vertical structures such as walls or tree trunks. The procedure uses efficient data structures to collapse unsupported 3D cubes down to the ground. This method has been successfully applied to 3D laser scans taken from a mobile robot in outdoor environments in order to build local elevation maps for navigation. Computation times show an improvement with respect to a previous point-based solution to this problem.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Extension and application of an observation-based local climate index aimed to anticipate the impact of El Niño–Southern Oscillation events on Colombia

The Tumaco multivariate index (TMI) is a multidecadal monthly index constructed with unique time series of sea surface temperature, surface air temperature and rain measured at Tumaco bay, in the southern Pacific coast of Colombia, and available since 1961. In this work, this index is re-evaluated after the addition of in situ sea level data, and its properties for different standardization periods are compared against oceanic El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and other derived indices. In particular, we propose a modified TMI, hereinafter referred as TMI4, whose potential to identify the expected sign and the amount of future variations of rain induced by ENSO events in Colombia is analysed for selected extreme episodes. Results indicate that after the inclusion of sea level data, TMI4 can anticipate the development of El Niño events before the ENSO 3 and some other sea surface temperature-based regional indices, although its predictability depends on the ENSO type (canonical or Modoki). The explanation is that sea level includes new information into TMI4 on the onset of El Niño events. In particular, the signal of intraseasonal sea level anomalies carried by downwelling Kelvin waves is detected at Tumaco tide-gauge. Moreover, the analysis of the differences, both in magnitude and spatial distribution, of rainfall anomalies induced by positive (El Niño) and negative (La Niña) ENSO events characterized by TMI4 are regionally presented. As a result, we find that TMI4 is especially suited for extensive northern and western areas of mainland Colombia. For completeness, in the appendix we briefly introduce the semi-automated implementation of TMI4, including a visual interface, which is currently being tested by personnel within the operational oceanography area at Centro de Investigaciones Oceanográficas e Hidrográficas del Pacífico (Dimar-CCCP).J. M. Sayol, L. M. V asquez and J. L. Valencia thank funding from Centro de Investigaciones Oceanográficas e Hidrográficas del Pacífico – Dirección General Marítima de Colombia (Dimar), Ministry of National Defense of Colombia. J. M. Sayol also thanks the joint funding received from the Generalitat Valenciana and the European Social Fund under Grant APOSTD/2020/254. The work of DGG and IV was partially supported by Spanish Project RTI2018-093874-B-100 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by the Generalitat Valenciana Grant PROMETEO/2021/030. A. Orfila acknowledges financial support from FEDER/Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades – Agencia Estatal de Investigación through MOCCA project (grant # RTI2018-093941-B-C31)

Improving 3D Scan Matching Time of the Coarse Binary Cubes Method with Fast Spatial Subsampling

Morales, J.; Martinez, J.L.; Mandow, A.; Reina, A.J.; Seron, J.; Garcia-Cerezo, A., "Improving 3D scan matching time of the coarse binary cubes method with fast spatial subsampling," 39th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, pp. 4168-4173, 2013 doi:10.1109/IECON.2013.6699804Exploiting the huge amount of real time range data provided by new multi-beam three-dimensional (3D) laser scanners is challenging for vehicle and mobile robot applications. The Coarse Binary Cube (CBC) method was proposed to achieve fast and accurate scene registration by maximizing the number of coincident cubes between a pair of scans. The aim of this paper is speeding up CBC with a fast spatial subsampling strategy for raw point clouds that employs the same type of efficient data structures as CBC. Experimental results have been obtained with the Velodyne HDL-32E sensor mounted on the Quadriga mobile robot on irregular terrain. The influence of the subsampling rate has been analyzed. Preliminary results show a relevant gain in computation time without losing matching accuracy.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech