Robotics Commons^™

Models For Pedestrian Trajectory Prediction And Navigation In Dynamic Environments, Jeremy N. Kerfs

Master's Theses

Robots are no longer constrained to cages in factories and are increasingly taking on roles alongside humans. Before robots can accomplish their tasks in these dynamic environments, they must be able to navigate while avoiding collisions with pedestrians or other robots. Humans are able to move through crowds by anticipating the movements of other pedestrians and how their actions will influence others; developing a method for predicting pedestrian trajectories is a critical component of a robust robot navigation system. A current state-of-the-art approach for predicting pedestrian trajectories is Social-LSTM, which is a recurrent neural network that incorporates information about neighboring …

Software Updates To A Multiple Autonomous Quadcopter Search System (Maqss), Jared Speck, Toby Chan

Computer Engineering

A series of performance-based and feature implementation software updates to an existing multiple vehicle autonomous target search system is outlined in this paper. The search system, MAQSS, is designed to address a computational power constraint found on modern autonomous aerial platforms by separating real-time and computationally expensive tasks through delegation to multiple multirotor vehicles. A Ground Control Station (GCS) is also described as part of the MAQSS system to perform the delegation and provide a low workload user interface. Ultimately, the changes to MAQSS noted in this paper helped to improve the performance of the autonomous search mission, the accuracy …

Automation In Entertainment: Concept, Design, And Application, Ryan Thally

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The focus of this thesis is to explore the automation technology used in the modern entertainment industry. Upon completion of my thesis, I will deliver a working prototype of the chosen technology and present its capabilities in a choreographed show.

Detection Of Pheromone Laying Event In Foraging Data Of Harvester Ants Using Change Point Analysis Method, Safeeul Bashir Safee

Computer Science ETDs

Communication is an important factor in the foraging performance of social insects, such as ants. During foraging, ants keep track of food sources by using memory (site fidelity) or by communicating through pheromones. Previous field experiments showed that the rate of seed collection depends on the distribution of food in the environment. If food is spatially clustered, then it is beneficial for ants recruit nest mates to collect seeds from large clusters. However, we do not know when the recruitment occurs in natural ant population. To explore this question, we used a power law distribution to arrange seeds in piles …

An Approach To Robust Homing With Stereovision, Fuqiang Fu, Damian Lyons

Faculty Publications

Visual Homing is a bioinspired approach to robot navigation which can be fast and uses few assumptions. However, visual homing in a cluttered and unstructured outdoor environment offers several challenges to homing methods that have been developed for primarily indoor environments. One issue is that any current image during homing may be tilted with respect to the home image. The second is that moving through a cluttered scene during homing may cause obstacles to interfere between the home scene and location and the current scene and location. In this paper, we introduce a robust method to improve a previous developed …

Pythagorean Approximations For Lego: Merging Educational Robot Construction With Programming And Data Analysis, Ronald I. Greenberg

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Abstract. This paper can be used in two ways. It can provide reference information for incorporating diagonal elements (for bracing or gear meshing) in educational robots built from standard LEGO kits. Alternatively, it can be used as the basis for an assignment for high school or college students to recreate this information; in the process, students will exercise skills in both computer programming and data analysis. Using the paper in the second way can be an excellent integrative experience to add to an existing course; for example, the Exploring Computer Science high school curriculum concludes with the units “Introduction to …

Orthoplanar Spring Based Compliant Force/Torque Sensor For Robot Force Control, Jerry West

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A compliant force/torque sensor for robot force control has been developed. This thesis presents methods of designing, testing, and implementing the sensor on a robotic system. The sensor uses an orthoplanar spring equipped with Hall-effect sensors to measure one component of force and two moment components. Its unique design allows for simple and cost effective manufacturing, high reliability, and compactness. The device may be used in applications where a robot must control contact forces with its environment, such as in surface cleaning tasks, manipulating doors, and removing threaded fasteners. The compliant design of the sensor improves force control performance and …

Autonomous Uav Navigation In An Indoor Environment For Warehouse Inventory Recording, Venkat Ramana Reddy Garlapati

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

UAV’s are currently used extensively in outdoor environments for various applications, including wildfire monitoring, and agricultural surveying, their use in indoor applications have been fairly restricted, owing mainly to the difficulty to maneuver them in smaller indoor spaces and the inability to use GPS-based navigation system. Nevertheless, there are many indoor applications where UAVs could provide a safe, reliable and resilient means to perform operations that are dangerous for humans such as surveillance inside chemical plants, inventory scanning in cold storages etc., Autonomous UAV navigation in an indoor environment can be achieved by finding a collision-free flight path to pass …

Session D-3: Robotics Programming Using Java, Pat Patankar

Professional Learning Day

I will discuss how to program NXT kit with various sensors using Java programming language.

Impact Force Reduction Using Variable Stiffness With An Optimal Approach For Jumping Robots, Juan Manuel Calderon Chavez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Running, jumping and walking are physical activities that are performed by humans in a simple and efficient way. However, these types of movements are difficult to perform by humanoid robots. Humans perform these activities without difficulty thanks to their ability to absorb the ground impact force. The absorption of the impact force is based on the human ability to vary muscles stiffness.

The principal objective of this dissertation is to study vertical jumps in order to reduce the impact force in the landing phase of the jump motion of humanoid robots. Additionally, the impact force reduction is applied to an …

Performance Verification For Robot Missions In Uncertain Environments, Damian Lyons, Ron Arkin, Shu Jiang, Matt O'Brien, Feng Tang, Peng Tang

Faculty Publications

Abstract—Certain robot missions need to perform predictably in a physical environment that may have significant uncertainty. One approach is to leverage automatic software verification techniques to establish a performance guarantee. The addition of an environment model and uncertainty in both program and environment, however, means the state-space of a model-checking solution to the problem can be prohibitively large. An approach based on behavior-based controllers in a process-algebra framework that avoids state-space combinatorics is presented here. In this approach, verification of the robot program in the uncertain environment is reduced to a filtering problem for a Bayesian Network. Validation results …

Establishing A-Priori Performance Guarantees For Robot Missions That Include Localization Software, Damian Lyons, Ron Arkin, Shu Jiang, Matt O'Brien, Feng Tang, Peng Tang

Faculty Publications

One approach to determining whether an automated system is performing correctly is to monitor its performance, signaling when the performance is not acceptable; another approach is to automatically analyze the possible behaviors of the system a-priori and determine performance guarantees. Thea authors have applied this second approach to automatically derive performance guarantees for behaviorbased, multi-robot critical mission software using an innovative approach to formal verification for robotic software. Localization and mapping algorithms can allow a robot to navigate well in an unknown environment. However, whether such algorithms enhance any specific robot mission is currently a matter for empirical validation. Several …

Optimized Trajectory Generation For Car-Like Robots On A Closed Loop Track, Tyler Friedl

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a method for generating an optimized path through a given track. The path is generated by choosing waypoints throughout the track then iteratively optimizing the position of these waypoints. The waypoints are then connected by optimized paths represented by curvature polynomials. The end result is a path through the track represented as a spline of curvature polynomials. This method is applied to multiple simulated tracks and the results are presented. By generating and representing the paths in the continuous domain, the method has improved computational efficiency from many of the discrete methods used to generate an optimal …

Animatronic Kinect Bear, Christopher J. Barth, Luis Manjarrez, Emily Lopez

Computer Engineering

The objective of the project was to build an interactive robotic bear through the application of Computer Engineering related software and hardware concepts. Utilizing the body recognition features of XBos One Kinect, the bera will be able to mimic a user's motions in real time.

Hands-On Learning Environment And Educational Curriculum On Collaborative Robotics, Ana Djuric, Jeremy L. Rickli, Vukica M. Jovanovic, Daniel Foster

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

The objective of this paper is to describe teaching modules developed at Wayne State University integrate collaborative robots into existing industrial automation curricula. This is in alignment with Oakland Community College and WSU’s desire to create the first industry-relevant learning program for the use of emerging collaborative robotics technology in advanced manufacturing systems. The various learning program components will prepare a career-ready workforce, train industry professionals, and educate academicians on new technologies. Preparing future engineers to work in highly automated production, requires proper education and training in CoBot theory and applications. Engineering and Engineering Technology at Wayne State University offer …

Autonomous Quadrotor Collision Avoidance And Destination Seeking In A Gps-Denied Environment, Thomas C. Kirven

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

This thesis presents a real-time autonomous guidance and control method for a quadrotor in a GPS-denied environment. The quadrotor autonomously seeks a destination while it avoids obstacles whose shape and position are initially unknown. We implement the obstacle avoidance and destination seeking methods using off-the-shelf sensors, including a vision-sensing camera. The vision-sensing camera detects the positions of points on the surface of obstacles. We use this obstacle position data and a potential-field method to generate velocity commands. We present a backstepping controller that uses the velocity commands to generate the quadrotor's control inputs. In indoor experiments, we demonstrate that the …

Using Lower Extremity Muscle Activations To Estimate Human Ankle Impedance In The External-Internal Direction, Lauren N. Knop

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

For millions of people, mobility has been afflicted by lower limb amputation. Lower extremity prostheses have been used to improve the mobility of an amputee; however, they often require additional compensation from other joints and do not allow for natural maneuverability. To improve upon the functionality of ankle-foot prostheses, it is necessary to understand the role of different muscle activations in the modulation of mechanical impedance of a healthy human ankle. This report presents the results of using artificial neural networks (ANN) to determine the functional relationship between lower extremity electromyography (EMG) signals and ankle impedance in the transverse plane. …

Heterogeneous Multi-Sensor Fusion For 2d And 3d Pose Estimation, Hanieh Deilamsalehy

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Sensor fusion is a process in which data from different sensors is combined to acquire an output that cannot be obtained from individual sensors. This dissertation first considers a 2D image level real world problem from rail industry and proposes a novel solution using sensor fusion, then proceeds further to the more complicated 3D problem of multi sensor fusion for UAV pose estimation.

One of the most important safety-related tasks in the rail industry is an early detection of defective rolling stock components. Railway wheels and wheel bearings are two components prone to damage due to their interactions with the …

Control Of A Powered Ankle-Foot Prosthesis: From Perception To Impedance Modulation, Guilherme Aramizo Ribeiro

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Active ankle prostheses controllers are demonstrating gaining smart features to improve the safety and comfort offor users. The perception of user intention to modulate the ankle dynamics is a well-known example of such feature. But not much work focused on the perception of the environment, nor how the environment should be included in the mechanical design and control of the prosthesisprostheses. The proposed work aims to improve the feasibility of integrate the environment perception integration intoto the prostheses controllersler, and to define the desired ankle dynamics, as mechanical impedance, duringof the human walk on different environmental settings. As a preliminary …

Underwater Robot, Joseph E. Beck, Matthew Crislip, Cody Bobek, Peyton Lucas

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) are remote controlled drones operated by a non-local user. The ROV we plan to build is connected by a tethering wire to a floating buoy that contains an antenna which will send signals between the base station and the ROV. The ROV is equipped with a video camera, ballast system, propulsion system, lights, and a depth sensor. The ROV will transmit a live video feed to the user, while receiving input signals to control its movement from the base station.