19,319 research outputs found
Archaeology via underwater robots : mapping and localization within Maltese cistern systems
This paper documents the application of several
underwater robot mapping and localization techniques used
during an archaeological expedition. The goal of this project was
to explore and map ancient cisterns located on the islands of
Malta and Gozo. The cisterns of interest acted as water storage
systems for fortresses, private homes, and churches. They often
consisted of several connected chambers, still containing water. A
sonar-equipped Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) was deployed
into these cisterns to obtain both video footage and sonar range
measurements. Four different mapping and localization
techniques were employed including 1) Sonar image mosaics
using stationary sonar scans, and 2) Simultaneous Localization
and Mapping (SLAM) while the vehicle was in motion, 3) SLAM
using stationary sonar scans, and 4) Localization using previously
created maps. Two dimensional maps of 6 different cisterns were
successfully constructed. It is estimated that the cisterns were
built as far back as 300 B.C.peer-reviewe
An Integrated Software-based Solution for Modular and Self-independent Networked Robot
An integrated software-based solution for a modular and self-independent
networked robot is introduced. The wirelessly operatable robot has been
developed mainly for autonomous monitoring works with full control over web.
The integrated software solution covers three components : a) the digital
signal processing unit for data retrieval and monitoring system; b) the
externally executable codes for control system; and c) the web programming for
interfacing the end-users with the robot. It is argued that this integrated
software-based approach is crucial to realize a flexible, modular and low
development cost mobile monitoring apparatus.Comment: 9 pages, Proceeding of the 10th International Conference on Control,
Automation, Robotics and Visio
Air vehicle simulator: an application for a cable array robot
The development of autonomous air vehicles can be an expensive research pursuit. To alleviate some of the financial burden of this process, we have constructed a system consisting of four winches each attached to a central pod (the simulated air vehicle) via cables - a cable-array robot. The system is capable of precisely controlling the three dimensional position of the pod allowing effective testing of sensing and control strategies before experimentation on a free-flying vehicle. In this paper, we present a brief overview of the system and provide a practical control strategy for such a system. ©2005 IEEE
Managing a Fleet of Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) using Cloud Robotics Platform
In this paper, we provide details of implementing a system for managing a
fleet of autonomous mobile robots (AMR) operating in a factory or a warehouse
premise. While the robots are themselves autonomous in its motion and obstacle
avoidance capability, the target destination for each robot is provided by a
global planner. The global planner and the ground vehicles (robots) constitute
a multi agent system (MAS) which communicate with each other over a wireless
network. Three different approaches are explored for implementation. The first
two approaches make use of the distributed computing based Networked Robotics
architecture and communication framework of Robot Operating System (ROS) itself
while the third approach uses Rapyuta Cloud Robotics framework for this
implementation. The comparative performance of these approaches are analyzed
through simulation as well as real world experiment with actual robots. These
analyses provide an in-depth understanding of the inner working of the Cloud
Robotics Platform in contrast to the usual ROS framework. The insight gained
through this exercise will be valuable for students as well as practicing
engineers interested in implementing similar systems else where. In the
process, we also identify few critical limitations of the current Rapyuta
platform and provide suggestions to overcome them.Comment: 14 pages, 15 figures, journal pape
Robust Environmental Mapping by Mobile Sensor Networks
Constructing a spatial map of environmental parameters is a crucial step to
preventing hazardous chemical leakages, forest fires, or while estimating a
spatially distributed physical quantities such as terrain elevation. Although
prior methods can do such mapping tasks efficiently via dispatching a group of
autonomous agents, they are unable to ensure satisfactory convergence to the
underlying ground truth distribution in a decentralized manner when any of the
agents fail. Since the types of agents utilized to perform such mapping are
typically inexpensive and prone to failure, this results in poor overall
mapping performance in real-world applications, which can in certain cases
endanger human safety. This paper presents a Bayesian approach for robust
spatial mapping of environmental parameters by deploying a group of mobile
robots capable of ad-hoc communication equipped with short-range sensors in the
presence of hardware failures. Our approach first utilizes a variant of the
Voronoi diagram to partition the region to be mapped into disjoint regions that
are each associated with at least one robot. These robots are then deployed in
a decentralized manner to maximize the likelihood that at least one robot
detects every target in their associated region despite a non-zero probability
of failure. A suite of simulation results is presented to demonstrate the
effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method when compared to existing
techniques.Comment: accepted to icra 201
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