Robotics Commons^™

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 …

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 …

2d Vector Map And Database Design For Indoor Assisted Navigation, Luciano Caraciolo Albuquerque

Dissertations and Theses

In this paper we implemented a 2D Vector Map, map editor and Database design intended to provide an efficient way to convert cad files from indoor environments to a set of vectors representing hallways, doors, exits, elevators, and other entities embedded in a floor plan, and save them in a database for use by other applications, such as assisted navigation for blind people.

A graphical application as developed in C++ to allow the user to input a CAD DXF file, process the file to automatically obtain nodes and edges, and save the nodes and edges to a database for posterior …

Evaluating Intention To Use Remote Robotics Experimentation In Programming Courses, Pericles Leng Cheng

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The Digital Agenda for Europe (2015) states that there will be 825,000 unfilled vacancies for Information and Communications Technology by 2020. This lack of IT professionals stems from the small number of students graduating in computer science. To retain more students in the field, teachers can use remote robotic experiments to explain difficult concepts. This correlational study used the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to examine if performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions can predict the intention of high school computer science teachers in Cyprus, to use remote robotic experiments in their classes. …

Android Drone: Remote Quadcopter Control With A Phone, Aubrey John Russell

Computer Engineering

The purpose of the “Android Drone” project was to create a quadcopter that can be controlled by user input sent over the phone’s Wi-Fi connection or 4G internet connection. Furthermore, the purpose was also to be able to receive live video feedback over the internet connection, thus making the drone an inexpensive option compared to other, equivalent drones that might cost thousands of dollars. Not only that, but the Android phone also has a host of other useful features that could be utilized by the drone: this includes GPS, pathing, picture taking, data storage, networking and TCP/IP, a Java software …

Formal Performance Guarantees For Behavior-Based Localization Missions, Damian Lyons, Ron Arkin, Shu Jiang, Matt O'Brien, Feng Tang, Peng Tang

Faculty Publications

Abstract— 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. In this paper we apply our MissionLab/VIPARS mission design and verification approach to an autonomous robot mission that uses probabilistic localization software.

Two approaches to modeling probabilistic localization for verification are presented: a high-level approach, and a sample-based approach which allows run-time code to be embedded in verification. Verification and experimental validation results are presented for two different missions, each using each method, demonstrating the accuracy …

Landmark Detection With Surprise Saliency Using Convolutional Neural Networks, Feng Tang, Damian Lyons, Daniel Leeds

Faculty Publications

Abstract—Landmarks can be used as reference to enable people or robots to localize themselves or to navigate in their environment. Automatic definition and extraction of appropriate landmarks from the environment has proven to be a challenging task when pre-defined landmarks are not present. We propose a novel computational model of automatic landmark detection from a single image without any pre-defined landmark database. The hypothesis is that if an object looks abnormal due to its atypical scene context (what we call surprise saliency), it then may be considered as a good landmark because it is unique and easy to spot by …

Vision-Based Motion For A Humanoid Robot, Khalid Abdullah Alkhulayfi

Dissertations and Theses

The overall objective of this thesis is to build an integrated, inexpensive, human-sized humanoid robot from scratch that looks and behaves like a human. More specifically, my goal is to build an android robot called Marie Curie robot that can act like a human actor in the Portland Cyber Theater in the play Quantum Debate with a known script of every robot behavior. In order to achieve this goal, the humanoid robot need to has degrees of freedom (DOF) similar to human DOFs. Each part of the Curie robot was built to achieve the goal of building a complete humanoid …

Pythagorean Combinations For Lego Robot Building., Ronald I. Greenberg

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This paper provides tips for LEGO robot construction involving bracing or gear meshing along a diagonal using standard Botball kits.

A Simulation-Based Layered Framework Framework For The Development Of Collaborative Autonomous Systems, Ioannis Sakiotis

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to introduce a simulation-based software framework that facilitates the development of collaborative autonomous systems. Significant commonalities exist in the design approaches of both collaborative and autonomous systems, mirroring the sense, plan, act paradigm, and mostly adopting layered architectures. Unfortunately, the development of such systems is intricate and requires low-level interfacing which significantly detracts from development time. Frameworks for the development of collaborative and autonomous systems have been developed but are not flexible and center on narrow ranges of applications and platforms. The proposed framework utilizes an expandable layered structure that allows developers to define …

Inferring Intrinsic Beliefs Of Digital Images Using A Deep Autoencoder, Seok H. Lee

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Training a system of artificial neural networks on digital images is a big challenge. Often times digital images contain a large amount of information and values for artificial neural networks to understand. In this work, the inference model is proposed in order to absolve this problem. The inference model is composed of a parameterized autoencoder that endures the loss of information caused by the rescaling of images and transition model that predicts the effect of an action on the observation. To test the inference model, the images of a moving robotic arm were given as the data set. The inference …

Efficient Algorithms For Clustering Polygonal Obstacles, Sabbir Kumar Manandhar

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Clustering a set of points in Euclidean space is a well-known problem having applications in pattern recognition, document image analysis, big-data analytics, and robotics. While there are a lot of research publications for clustering point objects, only a few articles have been reported for clustering a given distribution of obstacles. In this thesis we examine the development of efficient algorithms for clustering a given set of convex obstacles in the 2D plane. One of the methods presented in this work uses a Voronoi diagram to extract obstacle clusters. We also consider the implementation issues of point/obstacle clustering algorithms.

Flying By Fire: Making Controlled Burns Safer For Humans And Uavs, Rebecca Horzewski, Carrick Detweiler

UCARE: Research Products

A temperature sensing circuit board was developed that will allow Nimbus Lab's controlled burn starting UAV to react to the temperatures around it.

Learning In Vision And Robotics, Daniel P. Barrett

Open Access Dissertations

I present my work on learning from video and robotic input. This is an important problem, with numerous potential applications. The use of machine learning makes it possible to obtain models which can handle noise and variation without explicitly programming them. It also raises the possibility of robots which can interact more seamlessly with humans rather than only exhibiting hard-coded behaviors. I will present my work in two areas: video action recognition, and robot navigation. First, I present a video action recognition method which represents actions in video by sequences of retinotopic appearance and motion detectors, learns such models automatically …

An Evaluation Of Robotics In Nursing Homes To Reduce Adverse Drug Events, Ozell Ueal Jr.

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Adverse drug events (ADE) cause many deaths annually in addition to affecting the quality of life of many others. The descriptive mixed methods approach, specifically exploratory case study and experimental design that guided this research utilized the survey and focus group methods to evaluate perceptions about robotic technology (RT) to reduce the rate of ADEs in U.S. nursing homes (NH). There is a lack of scholarly research into whether a conceptual approach rooted in RT can be implemented to assist with drug administrations in NHs. The purpose of this study was twofold. The first purpose was to evaluate the causes …

Using Eye And Head Movements As A Control Mechanism For Tele-Operating A Ground-Based Robot And Its Payload, Kathryn C. Hicks

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

To date, eye and head tracking has been used to indicate users' attention patterns while performing a task or as an aid for disabled persons, to allow hands-free interaction with a computer. The increasing accuracy and the reduced cost of eye- and head-tracking equipment make utilizing this technology feasible for explicit control tasks, especially in cases where there is confluence between the visual task and control.

The goal of this research was to investigate the use of eye-tracking as a more natural interface for the control of a camera-equipped, remotely operated robot in tasks that require the operator to simultaneously …

Dual 7-Degree-Of-Freedom Robotic Arm Remote Teleoperation Using Haptic Devices, Yu-Cheng Wang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A teleoperated system of dual redundant manipulator will be controlled in this thesis. The robot used with the dual redundant manipulator in this thesis is Baxter. Baxter’s redundant robot arms are 7-degree-of-freedom arms. The problem that will be solved in this thesis is optimization of the 7-degree-of-freedom robot arms. The control algorithm of the 7-degree-of-freedom robot arms will be discussed and built. A simulation program will be built to test the control algorithm. Based on the control algorithm, a teleoperation system will be created for Baxter. The controller used is Omni, which is a six-joint haptic device. Omni will also …

Formal Specification And Refinement Of The Navigation Tasks Of Autonomous Robots, Eman Rabiah

Theses

Autonomous robots are hybrid systems whose role in our daily life is becoming increasingly critical. They are tasked with various activities requiring reliability, safety, and correctness of their software-controlled behavior. Formal methods have been proved effective in addressing development issues associated with these software qualities. However, even though autonomous robot navigation is a primordial function, there is no research dealing with enhancing reliability of the navigation algorithms. Thus, our focus is to investigate this type of algorithms, and specifically path planning, a fundamental and critical functionality supporting autonomy. We formally address the issue of enhancing reliability of the widely-used A* …

Reducing The Control Burden Of Legged Robotic Locomotion Through Biomimetic Consonance In Mechanical Design And Control, Caitrin Elizabeth Eaton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Terrestrial robots must be capable of negotiating rough terrain if they are to become autonomous outside of the lab. Although the control mechanism offered by wheels is attractive in its simplicity, any wheeled system is confined to relatively flat terrain. Wheels will also only ever be useful for rolling, while limbs observed in nature are highly multimodal. The robust locomotive utility of legs is evidenced by the many animals that walk, run, jump, swim, and climb in a world full of challenging terrain.

On the other hand, legs with multiple degrees of freedom (DoF) require much more complex control and …

Designing A Biomimetic Testing Platform For Actuators In A Series-Elastic Co-Contraction System, Ryan Tyler Schroeder

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Actuators determine the performance of robotic systems at the most intimate of levels. As a result, much work has been done to assess the performance of different actuator systems. However, biomimetics has not previously been utilized as a pretext for tuning a series elastic actuator system with the purpose of designing an empirical testing platform. Thus, an artificial muscle tendon system has been developed in order to assess the performance of two distinct actuator types: (1) direct current electromagnetic motors and (2) ultrasonic rotary piezoelectric motors. Because the design of the system takes advantage of biomimetic operating principles such as …

Improved Microrobotic Control Through Image Processing And Automated Hardware Interfacing, Archit R. Aggarwal, Wuming Jing, David J. Cappelleri

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Untethered submilliliter-sized robots (microrobots) are showing potential use in different industrial, manufacturing and medical applications. A particular type of these microrobots, magnetic robots, have shown improved performance in power and control capabilities compared to the other thermal and electrostatic based robots. However, the magnetic robot designs have not been assessed in a robust manner to understand the degree of control in different environments and their application feasibility. This research project seeks to develop a custom control software interface to provide a holistic tool for researchers to evaluate the microrobotic performance through advance control features. The software deliverable involved two main …

A Comparative Study Of Underwater Robot Path Planning Algorithms For Adaptive Sampling In A Network Of Sensors, Sreeja Banerjee

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Monitoring lakes, rivers, and oceans is critical to improving our understanding of complex large-scale ecosystems. We introduce a method of underwater monitoring using semi-mobile underwater sensor networks and mobile underwater robots in this thesis. The underwater robots can move freely in all dimension while the sensor nodes are anchored to the bottom of the water column and can move only up and down along the depth of the water column. We develop three different algorithms to optimize the path of the underwater robot and the positions of the sensors to improve the overall quality of sensing of an area of …

Software Architecture And Development For Controlling A Hubo Humanoid Robot, Manas Ajit Paldhe

Open Access Theses

Due to their human-like structure, humanoid robots are capable of doing some complex tasks. Since a humanoid robot has a large number of actuators and sensors, controlling it is a difficult task. For various tasks like balancing, driving a car, and interacting with humans, real-time response of the robot is essential. Efficiently controlling a humanoid robot requires a software that guarantees real-time interface and control mechanism so that real-time response of the robot is possible. Addition- ally, to reduce the development effort and time, the software should be open-source, multi-lingual and should have high-level constructs inbuilt in it.

Currently Robot …

Towards A Sustainable Modular Robot System For Planetary Exploration, S. G. M. Hossain

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis investigates multiple perspectives of developing an unmanned robotic system suited for planetary terrains. In this case, the unmanned system consists of unit-modular robots. This type of robot has potential to be developed and maintained as a sustainable multi-robot system while located far from direct human intervention. Some characteristics that make this possible are: the cooperation, communication and connectivity among the robot modules, flexibility of individual robot modules, capability of self-healing in the case of a failed module and the ability to generate multiple gaits by means of reconfiguration. To demonstrate the effects of high flexibility of an individual …

Conception, Design And Construction Of A Remote Wifi Vehicle Using Arduino, Clayton Broman

Physics

The scope of this senior project was to make a wireless vehicle controlled via Internet Protocol. This vehicle operates remotely and without direct line of sight. Commands are sent from a program running on a laptop and transmitted using a wireless router. Visual data is retrieved from a network camera, mounted on the vehicle, in real-time, to see where you are going.

Scene-Dependent Human Intention Recognition For An Assistive Robotic System, Kester Duncan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In order for assistive robots to collaborate effectively with humans for completing everyday tasks, they must be endowed with the ability to effectively perceive scenes and more importantly, recognize human intentions. As a result, we present in this dissertation a novel scene-dependent human-robot collaborative system capable of recognizing and learning human intentions based on scene objects, the actions that can be performed on them, and human interaction history. The aim of this system is to reduce the amount of human interactions necessary for communicating tasks to a robot. Accordingly, the system is partitioned into scene understanding and intention recognition modules. …

Neutrosophic Logic Approaches Applied To ”Rabot” Real Time Control, Alexandru Gal, Luige Vladareanu, Florentin Smarandache, Hongnian Yu, Mincong Deng

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

In this paper we present a way of deciding which control law should operate at a time for a mobile walking robot. The proposed deciding method is based on the new research field, called Neutrosophic Logic. The results are presented as a simulated system for which the output is related to the inputs according to the Neutrosophic Logic.

Comparison Of Computer-Based And Optical Face Recognition Paradigms, Abdulaziz A. Alorf

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

The main objectives of this thesis are to validate an improved principal components analysis (IPCA) algorithm on images; designing and simulating a digital model for image compression, face recognition and image detection by using a principal components analysis (PCA) algorithm and the IPCA algorithm; designing and simulating an optical model for face recognition and object detection by using the joint transform correlator (JTC); establishing detection and recognition thresholds for each model; comparing between the performance of the PCA algorithm and the performance of the IPCA algorithm in compression, recognition and, detection; and comparing between the performance of the digital model …

Getting It Right The First Time: Robot Mission Guarantees In The Presence Of Uncertainty, Damian Lyons, Ron Arkin, Paramesh Nirmal, Shu Jiang, Tsung-Ming Liu, Julia Deeb

Faculty Publications

Abstract—Certain robot missions need to perform predictably in a physical environment that may only be poorly characterized in advance. We have previously developed an approach to establishing performance guarantees for behavior-based controllers in a process-algebra framework. We extend that work here to include random variables, and we show how our prior results can be used to generate a Dynamic Bayesian Network for the coupled system of program and environment model. Verification is reduced to a filtering problem for this network. Finally, we present validation results that demonstrate the effectiveness of the verification of a multiple waypoint robot mission using this …