Remote Programming of Multirobot Systems within the UPC-UJI Telelaboratories: System Architecture and Agent-Based Multirobot Control

One of the areas that needs further improvement within E-Learning environments via Internet (A big effort is required in this area if progress is to be made) is allowing students to access and practice real experiments in a real laboratory, instead of using simulations [1]. Real laboratories allow students to acquire methods, skills and experience related to real equipment, in a manner that is very close to the way they are being used in industry. The purpose of the project is the study, development and implementation of an E-Learning environment to allow undergraduate students to practice subjects related to Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. The system, which is now at a preliminary stage, will allow the remote experimentation with real robotic devices (i.e. robots, cameras, etc.). It will enable the student to learn in a collaborative manner (remote participation with other students) where it will be possible to combine the onsite activities (performed “in-situ” within the real lab during the normal practical sessions), with the “on-line” one (performed remotely from home via the Internet). Moreover, the remote experiments within the E-Laboratory to control the real robots can be performed by both, students and even scientist. This project is under development and it is carried out jointly by two Universities (UPC and UJI). In this article we present the system architecture and the way students and researchers have been able to perform a Remote Programming of Multirobot Systems via web

Efficient Transport Protocol for Networked

The performance of haptic application is highly sensitive to communication delays and losses of data. It implies several constraints in developing networked haptic applications. This paper describes a new internet protocol called Efficient Transport Protocol (ETP), which aims at developing distributed interactive applications. TCP and UDP are transport protocols commonly used in any kind of networked communication, but they are not focused on real time application. This new protocol is focused on reducing roundtrip time (RTT) and interpacket gap (IPG). ETP is, therefore, optimized for interactive applications which are based on processes that are continuously exchanging data. ETP protocol is based on a state machine that decides the best strategies for optimizing RTT and IPG. Experiments have been carried out in order to compare this new protocol and UD

Bidirectional transport protocol for teleoperated robots

This paper describes a new Internet transport protocol applied to teleoperated tasks. This protocol, called bidirectional transport protocol (BTP), has demonstrated reliable performance regarding time spent for packet transmission. This protocol provides a novel congestion control technique which enhances application and transport layer performance. Internet still has some limitations, such as variable jitter, bandwidth, or congestion. New techniques have to be looked into so as to enable proper bilateral teleoperation. Most research to date focuses on the application layer such as control techniques (e.g., passivity) or predictive displays. Only a few studies are devoted to the transport layer or communication protocols. A testbed based on master-slave architecture has been used for testing BTP versus user datagram protocol (UDP). Transmission control protocol flows also coexist with the transmitted teleoperation data. Results show that the proposed protocol significantly enhances the UDP approach by achieving a minimum round trip time and interarrival time in relation to the available bandwidth of the network

The interaction and growth of two surface cracks under fatigue loading

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