Robotics Commons^™

Fuzzy Robot Controller Tuning With Biogeography-Based Optimization, George Thomas, Paul Lozovyy, Daniel J. Simon

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Biogeography-based optimization (BBO) is an evolutionary algorithm (EA) based upon the models of biogeography, which describe the relationship between habitat suitability and the migration of species across habitats. In this work, we apply BBO to the problem of tuning the fuzzy tracking controller of mobile robots. This is an extension of previous work, in which we used BBO to tune a proportional-derivative (PD) controller for these robots. We show that BBO can successfully tune the shape of membership functions for a fuzzy controller with both simulation and real world experimental results.

Pose Estimation For Robotic Disassembly Using Ransac With Line Features, Shyam Sundar Aswadha Narayanan

All Theses

In this thesis, a new technique to recognize and estimate the pose of a given 3-D object from a single real image provided known prior knowledge of its approximate structure is proposed. Metrics to evaluate the correctness of a calculated pose are presented and analyzed. The traditional and the more recent approaches used in solving this problem are explored and the various methodologies adopted are discussed.
The first step in disassembling a given assembly from its image is to recognize the attitude and translation of each of its constituent components - a fundamental problem which is being addressed in this …

Development Of High Resolution Sea Floor Mapping Tools And Techniques, Gabrielle Inglis, J. Ian Vaughn, Clara Smart, Christopher N. Roman

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

There is a persistent need for high resolution photographic and bathymetric maps of the sea floor for many research areas in marine geology, biology and archaeology. This poster will present recent work using high frequency multibeam sonars, stereo vision and structured light laser imaging techniques to create maps with centimeter resolution for these applications. This research involves the development of new image and sonar processing techniques that combat the typical difficulties of imperfect navigation information, limited sensor ranges and adverse environmental conditions associated with using marine robotic vehicles in the ocean. Data for this work has been collected with the …

A Relaxed Fusion Of Information From Real And Synthetic Images To Predict Complex Behavior, Damian M. Lyons, D. Paul Benjamin

Faculty Publications

An important component of cognitive robotics is the ability to mentally simulate physical processes and to compare the expected results with the information reported by a robot's sensors. In previous work, we have proposed an approach that integrates a 3D game-engine simulation into the robot control architecture. A key part of that architecture is the Match-Mediated Difference (MMD) operation, an approach to fusing sensory data and synthetic predictions at the image level. The MMD operation insists that simulated and predicted scenes are similar in terms of the appearance of the objects in the scene. This is an overly restrictive constraint …

Integrating Robotics Into First-Year Experience Courses, Tyson S. Hall, P. Willard Munger

Faculty Works

Robotics are a popular component of many introductory engineering and computer science courses. At Southern Adventist University, the School of Computing faculty decided to integrate robotics into a discipline-specific section of the University’s first-year experience course. The integration of robotics into a first-year experience course has created a hands-on introduction to college life within the Computing discipline while introducing students to the problem-solving process. This paper will introduce a very low-cost robotic platform kit ($50-75) that has been developed for the first-year experience course. Student assessment data from the first offering of this course with the SouthernBot 2.0 kit shows …

Design And Demonstration Of A Miniature Lidar System For Rover Applications, Benjamin Robinson

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Public awareness of harmful human environmental effects such as global warming has increased greatly in recent years and researchers have increased their efforts in gaining more knowledge about the Earth's atmosphere. Natural and man-made processes pose threats lo the environment and human life, so knowledge of all atmospheric processes is necessary. Ozone and aerosols are important factors in many atmospheric processes and active remote sensing techniques provide a way lo analyze their quantity and distribution.

A compact ground-based lidar system for a robotic platform meant for atmospheric aerosol measurements was designed, tested, and evaluated. The system will eventually be deployed …

Kernelized Locality-Sensitive Hashing For Fast Image Landmark Association, Mark A. Weems

Theses and Dissertations

As the concept of war has evolved, navigation in urban environments where GPS may be degraded is increasingly becoming more important. Two existing solutions are vision-aided navigation and vision-based Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM). The problem, however, is that vision-based navigation techniques can require excessive amounts of memory and increased computational complexity resulting in a decrease in speed. This research focuses on techniques to improve such issues by speeding up and optimizing the data association process in vision-based SLAM. Specifically, this work studies the current methods that algorithms use to associate a current robot pose to that of one previously …

Exploring Trade-Offs In Auv Controller Design For Shark Tracking, Louis James Bertsch Iv

Master's Theses

This thesis explores the use of an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) to track and pursue a tagged shark through the water. A controller was designed to take bearing and range to the shark tag and then control the AUV to pursue it.

First, the ability of a particle filter to provide an accurate estimation of the location of the shark relative to the AUV is explored. Second, the ability of the AUV to follow the shark's path through the water is shown. This ability allows for localized environmental sampling of the shark's preferred path. Third, various path weightings are used …

Robust Region Tracking In Multi-Agent Systems Utilizing Sliding Mode Control: Theory And Applications, Mark Bacon

Master's Theses

This thesis presents a methodology to bring controlled agents within a moving region despite agent interaction dynamics, uncertain forces and parameter variation. The logic is derived from traditional Sliding Mode Control theory with an expanded boundary layer which allows position deviation from the region center to specified bounds. As an example of the utility of this control, multiple methods of herding (controlling passive agents by appropriate positioning of controlled agents) are presented.

A Midsummer Night’S Dream (With Flying Robots), Robin Murphy, Dylan Shell, Amy Guerin, Brittany Duncan, Benjamin Fine, Kevin Pratt, Takis Zourntos

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

Seven flying robot “fairies” joined human actors in the Texas A&M production of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The production was a collaboration between the departments of Computer Science and Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Theater Arts. The collaboration was motivated by two assertions. First, that the performing arts have principles for creating believable agents that will transfer to robots. Second, the theater is a natural testbed for evaluating the response of untrained human groups (both actors and the audience) to robots interacting with humans in shared spaces, i.e., were believable agents created? The production used two types …

Autonomous Mobility And Manipulation Of A 9-Dof Wmra, William Garrett Pence

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The wheelchair-mounted robotic arm (WMRA) is a 9-degree of freedom (DoF) assistive system that consists of a 2-DoF modified commercial power wheelchair and a custom 7-DoF robotic arm. Kinematics and control methodology for the 9-DoF system that combine mobility and manipulation have been previously developed and implemented. This combined control allows the wheelchair and robotic arm to follow a single trajectory based on weighted optimizations. However, for the execution of activities of daily living (ADL) in the real-world environment, modified control techniques have been implemented.

In order to execute macro ADL tasks, such as a "go to and pick up" …

Robotic Testing Of Proximal Tibio-Fibular Joint Kinematics For Measuring Instability Following Total Knee Arthroplasty, Wael K. Barsoum, Ho H. Lee, Trevor G. Murray, Robb Colbrunn, Alison K. Klika, S. Butler, Antonie J. Van Den Bogert

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Pain secondary to instability in total knee arthroplasty (TKA) has been shown to be major cause of early failure. In this study, we focused on the effect of instability in TKA on the proximal tibio-fibular joint (PTFJ). We used a robotics model to compare the biomechanics of the PTFJ in the native knee, an appropriately balanced TKA, and an unbalanced TKA. The tibia (n = 5) was mounted to a six-degree-of-freedom force/torque sensor and the femur was moved by a robotic manipulator. Motion at the PTFJ was recorded with a high-resolution digital camera system. After establishing a neutral position, …

Reactivation Of A Six-Degree-Of-Freedom Repeated Impact Machine Using Programmable Logical Controller (Plc), Cheng Lin

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Reactivation of a six-degree-of-freedom impact machine using Programmable Logical Control (PLC) is presented. The output from the machine is the history of accelerations collected from accelerometers attached at the testing article and a load cell mounted at the rubber pad where the impact occurs. Readings of the acceleration and impact force are sent to a PC for analysis through a data acquisition device (USB 6251) and Labview software provided by National Instrument (NI). Result shows that the machine can repeatedly generate an impact force up to eleven Gs. Demonstration of the project can be used as one of labs in …

Development And Human Performance Evaluation Of A Ground Vehicle Robotic Force-Feedback Tele-Operation System, Ankur Saraf

Wayne State University Theses

ABSTRACT

DEVELOPMENT AND HUMAN PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF A GROUND VEHICLE ROBOTIC FORCE-FEEDBACK TELE-OPERATION SYSTEM

by

ANKUR SARAF

May 2011

Advisor: Dr. Abhilash K. Pandya.

Major: Electrical Engineering.

Degree: Master of Science.

Modern tele-operation systems are trying to take into account haptic and audio information in addition to visual data to provide as feedback to the tele-operator.This research emphasizes on the development of hardware and software architecture to enhance the tele-operation capabilities of omni-directional inspection robot (ODIS). The system enhances the tele-operation capabilities by introducing force-feedback to the tele-operators. The conventional joystick is replaced with Novint Falcon haptic joystick which gets …

Control Of A Single Ground Vehicle Using Aerial And Onboard Camera Views, Vishal Lowalekar

Wayne State University Theses

Controlling a ground vehicle using only onboard and aerial camera views, can be a tedious task, as it is challenging for the operator to estimate information about the robots location and orientation using only these view. However the visual data can be sufficient for computerized calculation of this information even in the absence of other sensors. This approach is of interest to the military because the use of passive sensors instead of active sensors (e.g. LIDAR) would be easier and more reliable and would not give off detectable signatures.

The goal of this research was to control a ground vehicle …

Utilizing A Computational Model For The Design Of A Passive Dynamic Walker, Craig Alan Honeycutt

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recent interest in using passive dynamic walkers (PDWs) for gait rehabilitation studies has presented a need for a robust, easily built mechanism. Unfortunately, these passive robots are hypersensitive to many variables outside of the usual design considerations that are studied when constructing them. By accentuating previous failures instead of suppressing them, this thesis presents a number of problematic situations commonly experienced when testing and tuning a PDW.

Further, through a complete design of a 4-legged PDW with knees, simple design axioms brought about by myself and others are put into a practical context and applied directly to design. This thesis …

Asymmetric Passive Dynamic Walker Used To Examine Gait Rehabilitation Methods, John Sushko

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Testing gait rehabilitation devices on humans can be a difficult task, due to the effects of the neurological controls of the human body. This thesis advances the use of a passive dynamic walker (PDW) tuned to have asymmetric gait patterns similar to those with physical impairments to test rehabilitation devices. A passive dynamic walker is a multipendulum system that has a stable gait pattern when walking down a slope without any energy inputs except the forces due to gravity. A PDW model is better suited for testing rehabilitation devices because it has been shown to resemble human gait and separates …

Optimal Port Placement And Automated Robotic Positioning For Instrumented Laparoscopic Biosensors, Brady King

Wayne State University Dissertations

OPTIMAL SURGICAL PORT PLACEMENT AND AUTOMATED ROBOTIC POSITIONING FOR RAMAN AND OTHER BIOSENSORS

by

BRADY KING

January 2011

Advisors: Dr. Abhilash Pandya, Dr. Darin Ellis, Dr. Le Yi Wang, and Dr. Greg Auner

Major: Computer Engineering

Degree: Doctor of Philosophy

Medical biosensors can provide new information during minimally invasive and robotic surgical procedures. However, these biosensors have significant physical limitations that make it difficult to find optimal port locations and place them in vivo. This dissertation explores the application of robotics and virtual/augmented reality to biosensors to enable their optimal use in vivo.

In the first study, human …

Robotic Hand Evaluation Based On Task Specific Kinematic Requirements, Carlos Rafael Neninger

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With the rise autonomous and robotic systems in field applications, the need for dexterous, highly adaptable end effectors has become a major research topic. Control mechanisms of robotics hands with a high number independent actuators is recognized as a complex, high dimensional problem, with exponentially complex algorithms. However, recent studies have shown that human hand motion possesses very high joint correlation which translates into a set of predefined postures, or synergies. The hand produces a motion using a complementing contribution of multiple joints, called synergies. The similarities place variables onto a common dimensional space, effectively reducing the number of independent …

Evidence Supporting Measure Of Similarity For Reducing The Complexity In Information Fusion, Florentin Smarandache, Jean Dezert, Xinde Li, Xinhan Huang

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

This paper presents a new method for reducing the number of sources of evidence to combine in order to reduce the complexity of the fusion processing. Such a complexity reduction is often required in many applications where the real-time constraint and limited computing resources are of prime importance. The basic idea consists in selecting, among all sources available, only a subset of sources of evidence to combine. The selection is based on an evidence supporting measure of similarity (ESMS) criterion which is an efficient generic tool for outlier sources identification and rejection. The ESMS between two sources of evidence can …