Implementation Of Distributed Mosaic Formation And Object Detection In Modular Robotic Systems.

In reconfigurable modular robotics, when robot modules joins to form a robotic organism, they create a dis- tributed processing environment in a unified system. This research builds on the efficient use of these dis- tributed processing resources and presents the manner these resources can be utilised to implement distributed mosaic formation and object detection within the organism. The generation of mosaics provides surrounding awareness to the organism and helps it to localise itself with reference to the objects in the mosaics. Whereas, the detection of objects in the mosaic helps in identifying parts of the mosaic which needed processing

An Efficient Approach To Object Recognition For Mobile Robots.

In robotics, the object recognition approaches developed so far have proved very valuable, but their high memory and processing requirements make them suitable only for robots with high processing capability or for offline processing. When it comes to small size robots, these approaches are not effective and light- weight vision processing is adopted which causes a big drop in recognition performance. In this research, a computationally expensive, but efficient appearance-based object recognition approach is considered and tested on a small robotic platform which has limited memory and processing resources. Rather than processing the high resolution images, all the times, to perform recognition, a novel idea of switching between high and low resolutions, based on the “distance to object” is adopted. It is also shown that much of the computation time can be saved by identifying the irrelevant information in the images and avoid processing them with computationally expensive approaches. This helps to bridge the gap between the computationally expensive approaches and embedded platform with limited processing resources

Vision Based Environment Mapping By Network Connected Multi-Robotic System.

The conventional environment mapping solutions are computationally very expensive and cannot effectively be used in multi-robotic environment, where small size robots with limited memory and processing resources are used. This study provides an environment mapping solution in which a group of small size robots extract simple distance vector features from the on-board camera images. The robots share these features between them using a wireless communication network setup in infrastructure mode. For mapping the distance vector features on a global map and to show a collective map building operation, the robots needed their accurate location and heading information. The robots location and heading information is computed using two ceiling mounted cameras, which collective localises the robots. Experimental results show that the proposed method provides the required environmental map which can facilitate the robot navigation operation in the environ- ment. It was observed that, using the proposed approach, the near by object boundaries can be mapped with higher accuracy comparatively the far lying objects

Vision Based Object Recognition and Localisation by a Wireless Connected Distributed Robotic Systems

Object recognition and localisation are important processes in computer vision and robotics. Advances in computer vision have resulted in many object recognition techniques, but most of them are computationally very intensive and require robots with powerful processing systems. For small robots, these techniques are not applicable because of the constraints of execution time. In this study, an optimised implementation of SURF based recognition technique is presented. Suitable image pre-processing techniques were developed which reduced the recognition time on small robots with limited processing resources. The recognition time was reduced from 39 seconds to 780 milliseconds. This recognition technique was adopted by a team of small robots which were given prior training to search for objects of interest in the environment. For the localisation of the robots and objects a new template, designed for passive markers based tracking, was introduced. These markers were placed on the top of each robot and they were tracked by the two ceiling mounted cameras. The information from both sources, that is ceiling mounted cameras and team of robots, was used collectively to localise the objects in the environment. The objects were localised with an error ranging from 2.8cm to 5.2cm from their actual positions in the test arena which has the dimensions of 150x163cm

Prototyping tangibles : exploring form and interaction

In order to better explore the opportunities for tangible interaction in new areas such as the home or cultural heritage sites, we used multiple rapidly-developed prototypes that take advantage of existing technology. Physical prototypes allow us to give form to ideas and to evaluate the integration of form and function, two core components of tangible interaction. We discuss potentials and pitfalls when using off-the-shelf digital devices (by embedding a device, cracking it open and building on it, or collating board and parts) through six prototypes developed in two studies. Hacking devices to materialize our ideas proved excellent for fast prototyping. Technology imposed constraints and prompted different design solutions than initially intended offering unexpected ways to engage. On the basis of this experience we outline a process and offer guidelines for the fast prototyping of tangible interactions

Exploring historical, social and natural heritage: challenges for tangible interaction design at Sheffied General Cemetery

This paper presents current research on the design, deployment and evaluation of tangible interaction concepts for an outdoor heritage space, the Sheffield General Cemetery. The Cemetery is an area of historical and natural importance managed and maintained by a community group. Following a co-design approach, we have conducted a series of activities at the Cemetery with the goal of developing novel physical/digital installations to support visitor experiences at the site. In this paper, we describe our work so far, particularly focusing on the “Companion Novel” – a fully operational prototype installation we have evaluated on and off site. We reflect on the challenges posed by such a complex site when developing novel tangible interactions for heritage interpretation

Exploring historical, social and natural heritage: challenges for tangible interaction design at Sheffield General Cemetery

This paper presents current research on the design, deployment and evaluation of tangible interaction concepts for an outdoor heritage space, the Sheffield General Cemetery. The Cemetery is an area of historical and natural importance managed and maintained by a community group. Following a co-design approach, we have conducted a series of activities at the Cemetery with the goal of developing novel physical/digital installations to support visitor experiences at the site. In this paper, we describe our work so far, particularly focusing on the “Companion Novel” – a fully operational prototype installation we have evaluated on and off site. We reflect on the challenges posed by such a complex site when developing novel tangible interactions for heritage interpretation

Multi-Robot Organisms: State of the Art

This paper represents the state of the art development on the field of artificial multi-robot organisms. It briefly considers mechatronic development, sensor and computational equipment, software framework and introduces one of the Grand Challenges for swarm and reconfigurable robotics