Biologically Inspired Intelligence with Applications on Robot Navigation

Biologically inspired intelligence technique, an important embranchment of series on computational intelligence, plays a crucial role for robotics. The autonomous robot and vehicle industry has had an immense impact on our economy and society and this trend will continue with biologically inspired neural network techniques. In this chapter, multiple robots cooperate to achieve a common coverage goal efficiently, which can improve the work capacity, share the coverage tasks, and reduce the completion time by a biologically inspired intelligence technique, is addressed. In many real-world applications, the coverage task has to be completed without any prior knowledge of the environment. In this chapter, a neural dynamics approach is proposed for complete area coverage by multiple robots. A bio-inspired neural network is designed to model the dynamic environment and to guide a team of robots for the coverage task. The dynamics of each neuron in the topologically organized neural network is characterized by a shunting neural equation. Each mobile robot treats the other robots as moving obstacles. Each robot path is autonomously generated from the dynamic activity landscape of the neural network and the previous robot position. The proposed model algorithm is computationally simple. The feasibility is validated by four simulation studies

Path Planning on Quadric Surfaces and Its Application

In this chapter, recent near-shortest path-planning algorithms with O(nlog n) in the quadric plane based on the Delaunay triangulation, Ahuja-Dijkstra algorithm, and ridge points are reviewed. The shortest path planning in the general three-dimensional situation is an NP-hard problem. The optimal solution can be approached under the assumption that the number of Steiner points is infinite. The state-the-art method has at most 2.81% difference on the shortest path length, but the computation time is 4216 times faster. Compared to the other O(nlog n) time near-shortest path approach (Kanai and Suzuki, KS’s algorithm), the path length of the Delaunay triangulation method is 0.28% longer than the KS’s algorithm with three Steiner points, but the computation is about 31.71 times faster. This, however, has only a few path length differences, which promises a good result, but the best computing time. Notably, these methods based on Delaunay triangulation concept are ideal for being extended to solve the path-planning problem on the Quadric surface or even the cruise missile mission planning and Mars rover

A node selection algorithm to graph-based multi-waypoint optimization navigation and mapping

Autonomous robot multi-waypoint navigation and mapping have been demanded in many real-world applications found in search and rescue (SAR), environmental exploration, and disaster response. Many solutions to this issue have been discovered via graph-based methods in need of switching the robotos trajectory between the nodes and edges within the graph to create a trajectory for waypoint-to-waypoint navigation. However, studies of how waypoints are locally bridged to nodes or edges on the graphs have not been adequately undertaken. In this paper, an adjacent node selection (ANS) algorithm is developed to implement such a protocol to build up regional path from waypoints to nearest nodes or edges on the graph. We propose this node selection algorithm along with the generalized Voronoi diagram (GVD) and Improved Particle Swarm Optimization (IPSO) algorithm as well as a local navigator to solve the safety-aware concurrent graph-based multi-waypoint navigation and mapping problem. Firstly, GVD is used to form a Voronoi diagram in an obstacle populated environment to construct safety-aware routes. Secondly, the sequence of multiple waypoints is created by the IPSO algorithm to minimize the total travelling cost. Thirdly, while the robot attempts to visit multiple waypoints, it traverses along the edges of the GVD to plan a collision-free trajectory. The regional path from waypoints to the nearest nodes or edges needs to be created to join the trajectory by the proposed ANS algorithm. Finally, a sensor-based histogram local reactive navigator is adopted for moving obstacle avoidance while local maps are constructed as the robot moves. An improved B-spline curve-based smooth scheme is adopted that further refines the trajectory and enables the robot to be navigated smoothly. Simulation and comparison studies validate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed model

Heterogeneous Fusion of Camera and mmWave Radar Sensor of Optimizing Convolutional Neural Networks for Parking Meter System

In this article, a novel heterogeneous fusion of convolutional neural networks that combined an RGB camera and an active mmWave radar sensor for the smart parking meter is proposed. In general, the parking fee collector on the street outdoor surroundings by traffic flows, shadows, and reflections makes it an exceedingly tough task to identify street parking regions. The proposed heterogeneous fusion convolutional neural networks combine an active radar sensor and image input with specific geometric area, allowing them to detect the parking region against different tough conditions such as rain, fog, dust, snow, glare, and traffic flow. They use convolutional neural networks to acquire output results along with the individual training and fusion of RGB camera and mmWave radar data. To achieve real-time performance, the proposed algorithm has been implemented on a GPU-accelerated embedded platform Jetson Nano with a heterogeneous hardware acceleration methodology. The experimental results exhibit that the accuracy of the heterogeneous fusion method can reach up to 99.33% on average

IMU Consensus Exception Detection with Dynamic Time Warping—A Comparative Approach

A dynamic time warping (DTW) algorithm has been suggested for the purpose of devising a motion-sensitive microelectronic system for the realization of remote motion abnormality detection. In combination with an inertial measurement unit (IMU), the algorithm is potentially applicable for remotely monitoring patients who are at risk of certain exceptional motions. The fixed interval signal sampling mechanism has normally been adopted when devising motion detection systems; however, dynamically capturing the particular motion patterns from the IMU motion sensor can be difficult. To this end, the DTW algorithm, as a kind of nonlinear pattern-matching approach, is able to optimally align motion signal sequences tending towards time-varying or speed-varying expressions, which is especially suitable to capturing exceptional motions. Thus, this paper evaluated this kind of abnormality detection using the proposed DTW algorithm on the basis of its theoretical fundamentals to significantly enhance the viability of the methodology. To validate the methodological viability, an artificial neural network (ANN) framework was intentionally introduced for performance comparison. By incorporating two types of designated preprocessors, i.e., a DFT interpolation preprocessor and a convolutional preprocessor, to equalize the unequal lengths of the matching sequences, two kinds of ANN frameworks were enumerated to compare the potential applicability. The comparison eventually confirmed that the direct template-matching DTW is excellent in practical application for the detection of time-varying or speed-varying abnormality, and reliably captures the consensus exceptions