Watching grass grow: long-term visual navigation and mission planning for autonomous biodiversity monitoring

We describe a challenging robotics deployment in a complex ecosystem to monitor a rich plant community. The study site is dominated by dynamic grassland vegetation and is thus visually ambiguous and liable to drastic appearance change over the course of a day and especially through the growing season. This dynamism and complexity in appearance seriously impact the stability of the robotics platform, as localisation is a foundational part of that control loop, and so routes must be carefully taught and retaught until autonomy is robust and repeatable. Our system is demonstrated over a 6-week period monitoring the response of grass species to experimental climate-change manipulations. We also discuss the applicability of our pipeline to monitor biodiversity in other complex natural settings

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

The AgriRover : a mechatronic platform from space robotics for precision farming

This paper reports an investigation of a novel development by spinning off space robotic technologies into agriculture and dissemination of the findings of AgriRover project, which is the first of its kind in exploiting and applying space robotic technologies in precision farming. To measure energy performance of mobile platform, a new dynamic total cost of transport is proposed and validated. An autonomous navigation system based on a rover control architecture has been developed to enable the AgriRover to traverse safely in unstructured farming environments. A novel and agriculture- specific object recognition algorithm has been investigated and implemented to enable higher degree of intelligence based on more smart data processing capability. A novel soil sample collecting mechanism has been designed and prototyped for onboard and in-situ soil quality measurement. The design of the whole system has benefited from the use of a mechatronic design process known as the Tiv model through which a planetary rover is reinvented into the AgriRover for agricultural applications. The AgriRover system has gone through three field trials in the UK and China and some of these results are reported

Design concepts and implementation of the Lightweight Advanced Robotic Arm Demonstrator (LARAD)

Beyond the current ExoMars programme, the European Space Agency (ESA) is investigating a range of technology developments and exploration mission opportunities leading to a future Mars Sample Return Mission (MSR), a critical next in the exploration of Mars. To fulfil their scientific objectives, all of these missions require an arm with a long reach capable of performing a variety of tasks in stringent environmental conditions, such as low gravity sampling and precise sample handling and insertion. As part of a CREST-2 project supported by the UK Space Agency (UKSA), a consortium of UK companies have co-founded and developed LARAD, a new Lightweight Advanced Robotic Arm Demonstrator to address some of the underlying challenges related both to the design as well as operation of long arms to perform the payload deployment and sample return operations of future missions. The 15kg terrestrial demonstrator is built as a 2m long arm with 6 degrees of freedom. This arm is capable of deploying a payload with a mass up to 6kgs or operating a 4kg end-effector at 2m. It is using cutting edge technologies on both the hardware and software levels. The mechanical structure of the arm has been manufactured using an array of new processes such as optimised 3D printed titanium Additive Layer Manufactured (ALM) joints, Titanium/Silicon carbide metallic composites, and 3D printed harness routing drums. A modular joint design has been produced, featuring three mechanical sizes of joints each with integrated low level communication and motor drive. The electronics, software and sensors used in the joints are common across all sizes, increasing modularity. To achieve precise positioning, very high resolution absolute position sensing is used on-board. The arm uses novel collision avoidance and path-planning strategies combined with classical control loops. The On-board Control System?s state machine combines different control strategies/modes (i.e. joint trajectory tracking, direct motor control, autonomous placement) depending on the high level user operation requirements. The high level On Board Computer (OBC) is Robot Operating System (ROS) based, enabling a flexible software approach. This project will provide a unique and representative platform to plan and rehearse science operations with full mass payload and instruments, unlike typical planetary arm developments that require scaled-mass end-effector. This paper describes the current state-of-the-art in planetary robotics and provides an overview of the top-level architecture, implementation and laboratory testing phases for the LARAD robotic arm.Peer reviewe

Team CERBERUS Wins the DARPA Subterranean Challenge: Technical Overview and Lessons Learned

This article presents the CERBERUS robotic system-of-systems, which won the DARPA Subterranean Challenge Final Event in 2021. The Subterranean Challenge was organized by DARPA with the vision to facilitate the novel technologies necessary to reliably explore diverse underground environments despite the grueling challenges they present for robotic autonomy. Due to their geometric complexity, degraded perceptual conditions combined with lack of GPS support, austere navigation conditions, and denied communications, subterranean settings render autonomous operations particularly demanding. In response to this challenge, we developed the CERBERUS system which exploits the synergy of legged and flying robots, coupled with robust control especially for overcoming perilous terrain, multi-modal and multi-robot perception for localization and mapping in conditions of sensor degradation, and resilient autonomy through unified exploration path planning and local motion planning that reflects robot-specific limitations. Based on its ability to explore diverse underground environments and its high-level command and control by a single human supervisor, CERBERUS demonstrated efficient exploration, reliable detection of objects of interest, and accurate mapping. In this article, we report results from both the preliminary runs and the final Prize Round of the DARPA Subterranean Challenge, and discuss highlights and challenges faced, alongside lessons learned for the benefit of the community.ISSN:2771-398