Interactive Robot for Playing Russian Checkers

Human\u2013robot interaction in board games is a rapidly developing field of robotics. This paper presents a robot capable of playing Russian checkers designed for entertaining, training, and research purposes. Its control program is based on a novel unsupervised self-learning algorithm inspired by AlphaZero and represents the first successful attempt of using this approach in the checkers game. The main engineering challenge in mechanics is to develop a board state acquisition system non-sensitive to lighting conditions, which is achieved by rejecting computer vision and utilizing magnetic sensors instead. An original robot face is designed to endow the robot an ability to express its attributed emotional state. Testing the robot at open-air multiday exhibitions shows the robustness of the design to difficult exploitation conditions and the high interest of visitors to the robot

Interactive Robot for Playing Russian Checkers

Human–robot interaction in board games is a rapidly developing field of robotics. This paper presents a robot capable of playing Russian checkers designed for entertaining, training, and research purposes. Its control program is based on a novel unsupervised self-learning algorithm inspired by AlphaZero and represents the first successful attempt of using this approach in the checkers game. The main engineering challenge in mechanics is to develop a board state acquisition system non-sensitive to lighting conditions, which is achieved by rejecting computer vision and utilizing magnetic sensors instead. An original robot face is designed to endow the robot an ability to express its attributed emotional state. Testing the robot at open-air multiday exhibitions shows the robustness of the design to difficult exploitation conditions and the high interest of visitors to the robot

Comparing the Finite-Difference Schemes in the Simulation of Shunted Josephson Junctions

The paper provides investigation of the numerical effects in finite-difference models of RLC-shunted circuit simulating Josephson junction. We study digital models of the circuit obtained by explicit, implicit and semi-explicit Euler methods. The Dormand-Prince 8 ODE solver is used for verification as a reference method. Two aspects of the RLC- shunted Josephson junction model are considered: the dynamical maps (two-dimensional bifurcation diagrams) and chaotic transients existing in the system within a certain parameter range. We show that both explicit and implicit Euler methods distort the dynamical properties, including stretching or compressing the dynamical maps and changing chaotic transient lifetime decay curve. Experiments demonstrate high reliability of the first-order Euler-Cromer method in simulation of the shunted Josephson junction model which yields data close to the reference data. Obtained results bring new accurate chaotic transient lifetime decay equation for the RLC-shunted Josephson junction model