Modell eines agilen Leiterplattenentwurfsprozesses basierend auf der interdisziplinären Entwicklung eines modularen autonomen Miniroboters

Herbrechtsmeier S. Modell eines agilen Leiterplattenentwurfsprozesses basierend auf der interdisziplinären Entwicklung eines modularen autonomen Miniroboters. Bielefeld: Universität Bielefeld; 2017.Die fortschreitende Digitalisierung und Vernetzung der Welt führen zu neuen Herausforderungen in der Qualifizierung von zukünftigen Fachkräften. Daher bedarf es anpassungsfähiger Systeme zur inspirierenden sowie anschaulichen Lehre mathematischer, naturwissenschaftlicher und technischer Kenntnisse. Ein mobiler Miniroboter bildet dabei eine innovative Lösung zur interdisziplinären Wissensvermittlung. Folglich besteht ein Ergebnis dieser Arbeit aus einer interdisziplinären Entwicklung eines leistungsstarken, modularen und autonomen Miniroboters. Dieser sogenannte AMiRo besitzt eine heterogene sowie verteilte Systemarchitektur, bestehend aus drei leistungsstarken Mikrocontrollern, einem Einplatinencomputer, einer programmierbaren logischen Schaltung und einem echtzeitfähigen Kommunikationsnetz. Er unterstützt sowohl hochfrequente reaktive als auch speicherintensive reflektorische und kognitive Informationsverarbeitung sowie massiv parallele Bildverarbeitung. Im Unterschied zu existieren Plattformen erlaubt seine modulare Systemarchitektur einerseits eine kostengünstige sowie anwendungsspezifische Erweiterung und andererseits eine kontinuierliche sowie bedarfsgerechte Modernisierung. Gleichzeitig offenbart dessen Entwicklung einen Handlungsbedarf im Leiterplattenentwurf. Entsprechend besteht ein weiteres Ergebnis dieser Arbeit aus einem Modell eines agilen Leiterplattenentwurfsprozesses. Dieser bildet einen Teil eines gemeinsamen interdisziplinären Entwicklungsprozesses und nutzt eine standardisierte Modellierungssprache. Er besteht aus einem Entwurfsmodell sowie -prozess, nutzt einen inkrementellen Ansatz und kombiniert etablierte Techniken sowie Methoden verschiedener Fachdisziplinen. Der Prozess besitzt im Unterschied zum klassischen Leiterplattenentwurf aufgrund seiner inkrementellen Verfeinerung einzelne überschaubare Aufgaben, einen kontinuierlichen Auswahlprozess und eine gesteigerte Wiederverwendung sowohl von Teillösungen als auch von Lösungsansätzen. Damit erhöht der agile Leiterplattenentwurfsprozess einerseits die Qualität sowie Zuverlässigkeit der Produkte und reduziert andererseits die Entwurfs- sowie Produkteinführungszeit. Zusätzlich bildet er eine Grundlage für zukünftige rechnergestützte Entwicklungsmethoden. Insgesamt bestehen die Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit einerseits aus einem anpassungsfähigen, leistungsstarken sowie kostengünstigen Miniroboter zur anschaulichen Lehre und Forschung aktueller sowie zukünftiger Aspekte intelligenter technischer Systeme und andererseits aus einem agilen Leiterplattenentwurfsprozess als erste detaillierte sowie methodische Beschreibung des Bauteilauswahl- und Schaltungsentwicklungsprozesses. Grundlegende Resultate bilden dabei eine Entwicklungsprozessmodellierung und eine auf dem Wünschbarkeitsindex basierende Entwurfsraumexploration

A robot swarm assisting a human fire-fighter

Emergencies in industrial warehouses are a major concern for fire-fighters. The large dimensions, together with the development of dense smoke that drastically reduces visibility, represent major challenges. The GUARDIANS robot swarm is designed to assist fire-fighters in searching a large warehouse. In this paper we discuss the technology developed for a swarm of robots assisting fire-fighters. We explain the swarming algorithms that provide the functionality by which the robots react to and follow humans while no communication is required. Next we discuss the wireless communication system, which is a so-called mobile ad-hoc network. The communication network provides also the means to locate the robots and humans. Thus, the robot swarm is able to provide guidance information to the humans. Together with the fire-fighters we explored how the robot swarm should feed information back to the human fire-fighter. We have designed and experimented with interfaces for presenting swarm-based information to human beings

Datenflussmodellierung als Methode zur Optimierung von Entwicklungsprozessen am Beispiel der Leiterplattenentwicklung

Herbrechtsmeier S, Jungeblut T, Porrmann M. Datenflussmodellierung als Methode zur Optimierung von Entwicklungsprozessen am Beispiel der Leiterplattenentwicklung. In: Entwurf mechatronischer Systeme. Vol 343. Paderborn: HNI Verlagsschriftenreihe; 2015

A Low-Power Vision Processing Platform for Mobile Robots

Griessl R, Herbrechtsmeier S, Porrmann M, Rückert U. A Low-Power Vision Processing Platform for Mobile Robots. In: Proceedings of the FPL2011 Workshop on Computer Vision on Low-Power Reconfigurable Architectures. 2011.The paper proposes an implementation for a highly customizable FPGA-based vision processing module for mobile applications. The module can be ditrectly integrated into the AMiRo mini robot to anhance the robot’s vision processing capabilities while significantly reducing the CPU load. Dynamic reconfiguration can be utilized to further improve the resource utilization of the platform

AMiRo: A Modular & Customizable Open-Source Mini Robot Platform

Herbrechtsmeier S, Korthals T, Schöpping T, Rückert U. AMiRo: A Modular & Customizable Open-Source Mini Robot Platform. Presented at the 20th International Conference on System Theory, Control and Computing, Sinaia.AMiRo is a novel modular robot platform that can be easily extended and customized in hardware and software. Built up of electronic modules that fully exploit recent technology and open-source software for sensor processing, actuator control, and cognitive processing, the robot facilitates rich autonomous behaviors. Further contribution lies in the completely open- source software habitat: from low-level microcontroller imple- mentations, over high-level applications running on an embedded processor, up to hardware accelerated algorithms using pro- grammable logic. This paper describes in detail the motivation, system architecture, and software design of the AMiRo, which surpasses state-of-the-art competitors

Demonstrating self-optimization using a heterogeneous robot group

Adelt P, Kleinjohann B, Herbrechtsmeier S, Rückert U. Demonstrating self-optimization using a heterogeneous robot group. In: Proceedings of the 8th IEEE International Conference on Industrial Informatics. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE; 2010: 727-732.Self-optimization is a concept for mechatronic systems to leave open the choice among system objectives as a degree of freedom until runtime to allow better adaptation to changing system and environment conditions. Demonstration and knowledge transfer of the concept is not easy as the effects of it in mechatronic systems are hard to see in a complex system. To further spread the idea of self-optimization, an intuitive anchor is needed to make it easier to talk about the concept. Also the abstraction from technical details facilitates focusing on the concept. We have developed a multi-agent heterogeneous robotic demonstrator that allows showing the process of self-optimization on a timescale of minutes. The demonstrator decomposes the roles in a mechatronic system to robotic agents. An association between a function and the behavior of the robot is achieved. After having demonstrated the setup for expert and non-expert audiences we have seen the encouraging effect that discussions spin off easily and allow to spread the idea effectively. We present the concept of self-optimization, the behavior-based demonstrator scenario implemented using BeBot miniature and Paderkicker robots in an office environment

AMiRESot – A New Robot Soccer League with Autonomous Miniature Robots

Witkowski U, Sitte J, Herbrechtsmeier S, Rückert U. AMiRESot – A New Robot Soccer League with Autonomous Miniature Robots. In: Progress in Robotics. FIRA RoboWorld Congress 2009, Incheon, Korea, August 16-20, 2009. Proceedings. Communications in Computer and Information Science. Vol 44. Springer; 2009.AMiRESot is a new robot soccer league that is played with small autonomous miniature robots. Team sizes are defined with one, two, and three robots per team. Special to the AMiRESot league are the fully autonomous behavior of the robots and their small size. For the matches, the rules mainly follow the FIFA laws with some modifications being useful for robot soccer. The new AMiRESot soccer robot is small in size (maximum 110 mm diameter) but a powerful vehicle, equipped with a differential drive system. For sensing, the robots in their basic configuration are equipped with active infrared sensors and a color image sensor. For information processing a powerful mobile processor and reconfigurable hardware resources (FPGA) are available. Due to the robot’s modular structure it can be easily extended by additional sensing and processing resources. This paper gives an overview of the AMiRESot rules and presents details of the new robot platform used for AMiRESot

Miniature Robot BeBot: Mechatronic Test Platform for Self-X Properties

Gausemeier J, Schierbaum T, Dumitrescu R, Herbrechtsmeier S, Jungmann A. Miniature Robot BeBot: Mechatronic Test Platform for Self-X Properties. In: Proceedings of the 9th IEEE International Conference on Industrial Informatics (INDIN). Berlin, Heidelberg: IEEE; 2011: 101-112

Occupancy Grid Mapping with Highly Uncertain Range Sensors based on Inverse Particle Filters

Korthals T, Barther M, Schöpping T, Herbrechtsmeier S, Rückert U. Occupancy Grid Mapping with Highly Uncertain Range Sensors based on Inverse Particle Filters. In: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics. 2016: 192-200.A huge number of techniques for detecting and mapping obstacles based on LIDAR and SONAR exist, though not taking approximative sensors with high levels of uncertainty into consideration. The proposed mapping method in this article is undertaken by detecting surfaces and approximating objects by distance using sensors with high localization ambiguity. Detection is based on an Inverse Particle Filter, which uses readings from single or multiple sensors as well as a robot’s motion. This contribution describes the extension of the Sequential Importance Resampling filter to detect objects based on an analytical sensor model and embedding into Occupancy Grid Maps. The approach has been applied to the autonomous mini robot AMiRo in a distributed way. There were promising results for its low-power, low-cost proximity sensors in various real life mapping scenarios, which outperform the standard Inverse Sensor Model approach

Robust Multihop Communication for Mobile Applications

Herbrechtsmeier S, El Habbal MAM, Rückert U, Witkowski U. Robust Multihop Communication for Mobile Applications. In: Proceedings of IARP Workshop on Robotics for Risky Interventions and Environmental Surveillance (RISE) 2010. 2010.This paper focuses on node placement strategy, communication protocols and hardware implementation of a robust mobile multi-hop network. As part of the GUARDIANS project a main disaster scenario of a large industrial warehouse on fire is assumed. In this scenario, black smoke may fill large space of the warehouse which makes it very difficult for the firefighters to locate themselves and orientate in the building. In our approach a multi-hop ad-hoc network communication system is able to provide a robust communication system. Focus of this paper is the distribution of robots to guaranteeing robust communication between the base station outside the scenario area and the fire fighter inside the building. Concerning the first point, the presence of smoke and the indoor nature of our scenario prevent localization using camera and GPS respectively. Therefore the performance and accuracy of other sensors were tested in order to examine their usability and reliability in such a scenario, like ultra-sound, laser and radio signaling. The second point is the evaluation of routing protocols and the development of a mobile communication gateway which is optimized for the mobile usage and therefore supports different techniques for energy saving. Its characteristic was tested in different scenarios like a complex building and a parking garage