Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Integrating Mathematics And Educational Robotics: Simple Motion Planning, Ronald I. Greenberg, George K. Thiruvathukal, Sara T. Greenberg

George K. Thiruvathukal

This paper shows how students can be guided to integrate elementary mathematical analyses with motion planning for typical educational robots. Rather than using calculus as in comprehensive works on motion planning, we show students can achieve interesting results using just simple linear regression tools and trigonometric analyses. Experiments with one robotics platform show that use of these tools can lead to passable navigation through dead reckoning even if students have limited experience with use of sensors, programming, and mathematics.

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

Ronald Greenberg

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

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

Ronald Greenberg

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 …

Motion Planning For Simple Two-Wheeled Robots, Ronald I. Greenberg, Jeffery M. Karp

Ronald Greenberg

This paper considers various simple ways of navigating in a 2-dimensianal territory with a two-wheeled robot of a type typical in educational robotics. We determine shortest paths under various modes of operation and compare.

Effects Of Anthropomorphism On Trust In Human-Robot Interaction, Keith R. Macarthur, William T. Shugars, Tracy L. Sanders, Peter A. Hancock

Keith Reid MacArthur

Perceptions Of Planned Versus Unplanned Malfunctions: A Human-Robot Interaction Scenario, Theresa T. Kessler, Keith R. Macarthur, Manuel Trujillo-Silva, Thomas Macgillivray, Chris Ripa, Peter A. Hancock

Keith Reid MacArthur

Human-Robot Versus Human-Human Relationship Impact On Comfort Levels Regarding In Home Privacy, Keith R. Macarthur, Thomas G. Macgillivray, Eva L. Parkhurst, Peter A. Hancock

Keith Reid MacArthur

The Use Of The Blackboard Architecture For A Decision Making System For The Control Of Craft With Various Actuator And Movement Capabilities, Jeremy Straub, Hassan Reza

Jeremy Straub

This paper provides an overview of an approach to the control of multiple craft with heterogeneous movement and actuation characteristics that is based on the Blackboard software architecture. An overview of the Blackboard architecture is provided. Then, the operational and mission requirements that dictate the need for autonomous control are characterized and the utility of the Blackboard architecture is for meeting these requirements is discussed. The performance of a best-path solver and naïve solver are compared. The results demonstrate that the best-path solver outperforms the naïve solver in the amount of time taken to generate a solution; however, the number …

Spatial Computing In An Orbital Environment: An Exploration Of The Unique Constraints Of This Special Case To Other Spatial Computing Environments, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

The creation of an orbital services model (where spacecraft expose their capabilities for use by other spacecraft as part of a service-for-hire or barter system) requires effective determination of how to best transmit information between the two collaborating spacecraft. Existing approaches developed for ad hoc networking (e.g., wireless networks with users entering and departing in a pseudo-random fashion) exist; however, these fail to generate optimal solutions as they ignore a critical piece of available information. This additional piece of information is the orbital characteristics of the spacecraft. A spacecraft’s orbit is nearly deterministic if the magnitude and direction of its …

Robust Course-Boundary Extraction Algorithms For Autonomous Vehicles, Chris Roman, Charles Reinholtz

Christopher N. Roman

Practical autonomous robotic vehicles require dependable methods for accurately identifying course or roadway boundaries. The authors have developed a method to reliably extract the boundary line using simple dynamic thresholding, noise filtering, and blob removal. This article describes their efforts to apply this procedure in developing an autonomous vehicle.

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles As Tools For Deep-Submergence Archaeology, Christopher N. Roman, Ian Roderick Mather

Christopher N. Roman

Marine archaeology beyond the capabilities of scuba divers is a technologically enabled field. The tool suite includes ship-based systems such as towed side-scan sonars and remotely operated vehicles, and more recently free-swimming autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). Each of these platforms has various imaging and mapping capabilities appropriate for specific scales and tasks. Broadly speaking, AUVs are becoming effective tools for locating, identifying, and surveying archaeological sites. This paper discusses the role of AUVs in this suite of tools, outlines some specific design criteria necessary to maximize their utility in the field, and presents directions for future developments. Results are presented …

Development Of A New Lagrangian Float For Studying Coastal Marine Ecosystems, Alex Schwithal, Chris Roman

Christopher N. Roman

This paper presents an overview and initial testing results for a shallow water Lagrangian float designed to operate in coastal settings. The presented effort addresses the two main characteristics of the shallow coastal environment that preclude the direct of use of many successfully deep water floats, namely the higher variation of water densities near the coast compared with the open ocean and the highly varied bathymetry. Our idea is to develop a high capacity dynamic auto-ballasting system that is able to compensate for the expected seawater density variation over a broad range of water temperatures and salinities while using measurements …

Deep Sea Underwater Robotic Exploration In The Ice-Covered Arctic Ocean With Auvs, Clayton Kunz, Chris Murphy, Richard Camilli, Hanumant Singh, John Bailey, Ryan M. Eustice, Chris Roman, Michael Jakuba, Claire Willis, Taichi Sato, Ko-Ichi Nakamura, Robert A. Sohn

Christopher N. Roman

The Arctic seafloor remains one of the last unexplored areas on Earth. Exploration of this unique environment using standard remotely operated oceanographic tools has been obstructed by the dense Arctic ice cover. In the summer of 2007 the Arctic Gakkel Vents Expedition (AGAVE) was conducted with the express intention of understanding aspects of the marine biology, chemistry and geology associated with hydrothermal venting on the section of the mid-ocean ridge known as the Gakkel Ridge. Unlike previous research expeditions to the Arctic the focus was on high resolution imaging and sampling of the deep seafloor. To accomplish our goals we …

Application Of Structured Light Imaging For High Resolution Mapping Of Underwater Archaeological Sites, Chris Roman, Gabrielle Inglis, James Rutter

Christopher N. Roman

This paper presents results from recent work using structured light laser profile imaging to create high resolution bathymetric maps of underwater archaeological sites. Documenting the texture and structure of submerged sites is a difficult task and many applicable acoustic and photographic mapping techniques have recently emerged. This effort was completed to evaluate laser profile imaging in comparison to stereo imaging and high frequency multibeam mapping. A ROV mounted camera and inclined 532 nm sheet laser were used to create profiles of the bottom that were then merged into maps using platform navigation data. These initial results show very promising resolution …

Adaptive Algorithms For Coverage Control And Space Partitioning In Mobile Robotic Networks, Jerome Le Ny, George J. Pappas

George J. Pappas

We consider deployment problems where a mobile robotic network must optimize its configuration in a distributed way in order to minimize a steady-state cost function that depends on the spatial distribution of certain probabilistic events of interest. Three classes of problems are discussed in detail: coverage control problems, spatial partitioning problems, and dynamic vehicle routing problems. Moreover, we assume that the event distribution is a priori unknown, and can only be progressively inferred from the observation of the location of the actual event occurrences. For each problem we present distributed stochastic gradient algorithms that optimize the performance objective. The stochastic …

Adaptive Algorithms For Coverage Control And Space Partitioning In Mobile Robotic Networks, Jerome Le Ny, George J. Pappas

George J. Pappas

We consider deployment problems where a mobile robotic network must optimize its configuration in a distributed way in order to minimize a steady-state cost function that depends on the spatial distribution of certain probabilistic events of interest. Three classes of problems are discussed in detail: coverage control problems, spatial partitioning problems, and dynamic vehicle routing problems. Moreover, we assume that the event distribution is a priori unknown, and can only be progressively inferred from the observation of the location of the actual event occurrences. For each problem we present distributed stochastic gradient algorithms that optimize the performance objective. The stochastic …

Adaptive Algorithms For Coverage Control And Space Partitioning In Mobile Robotic Networks, Jerome Le Ny, George J. Pappas

George J. Pappas

We consider deployment problems where a mobile robotic network must optimize its configuration in a distributed way in order to minimize a steady-state cost function that depends on the spatial distribution of certain probabilistic events of interest. Three classes of problems are discussed in detail: coverage control problems, spatial partitioning problems, and dynamic vehicle routing problems. Moreover, we assume that the event distribution is a priori unknown, and can only be progressively inferred from the observation of the location of the actual event occurrences. For each problem we present distributed stochastic gradient algorithms that optimize the performance objective. The stochastic …

Remote Analysis Of Grain Size Characteristic In Submarine Pyroclastic Deposits From Kolumbo Volcano, Greece, C. Smart, D. P. Whitesell, C. Roman, S. Carey

Christopher N. Roman

Grain size characteristics of pyroclastic deposits provide valuable information about source eruption energetics and depositional processes. Maximum size and sorting are often used to discriminate between fallout and sediment gravity flow processes during explosive eruptions. In the submarine environment the collection of such data in thick pyroclastic sequences is extremely challenging and potentially time consuming. A method has been developed to extract grain size information from stereo images collected by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV). In the summer of 2010 the ROV Hercules collected a suite of stereo images from a thick pumice sequence in the caldera walls of Kolumbo …

Detection Of Diffuse Sea Floor Venting Using Structured Light Imaging, G. Inglis, C. Smart, C. Roman, S. Carey

Christopher N. Roman

Efficiently identifying and localizing diffuse sea floor venting at hydrothermal and cold seep sites is often difficult. Actively venting fluids are usually identified by a temperature induced optical shimmering seen during direct visual inspections or in video data collected by vehicles working close to the sea floor. Relying on such direct methods complicates establishing spatial relations between areas within a survey covering a broad area. Our recent work with a structured light laser system has shown that venting can also be detected in the image data in an automated fashion. A structured light laser system consists of a camera and …

Development Of High Resolution Sea Floor Mapping Tools And Techniques, Gabrielle Inglis, Ian Vaughn, Clara Smart, Chris Roman

Christopher N. Roman

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 …

Byzantium Beneath The Black Sea, Bridget Buxton, Robert Ballard, Michael Brennan, Dwight Coleman, Katy Croff, Christopher Roman, Dan Davis, Dennis Piechota, Sergiy Voronov

Christopher N. Roman

This poster reports on the August 2007 Black Sea Expedition of the Institute for Archaeological Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island (IAO) and the Institute for Exploration (IFE), in collaboration with the Department of the Underwater Heritage of Ukraine. This year’s work marks a new phase in a multi-year (2000–2012) archaeological and oceanographic survey of the Black Sea. 2007 fieldwork focuses on two Byzantine shipwrecks. The 10th century C.E. shipwreck Chersonesos A (discovered in 2006) lies at 140 m depth in the suboxic zone off the Crimean peninsula. The ship carried a cargo of one-handled jars of a widely …

Advances In High Resolution Imaging From Underwater Vehicles, Hanumant Singh, Christopher Roman, Oscar Pizarro, Ryan Eustice

Christopher N. Roman

Large area mapping at high resolution underwater continues to be constrained by the mismatch between available navigation as compared to sensor accuracy. In this paper we present advances that exploit consistency and redundancy within local sensor measurements to build high resolution optical and acoustic maps that are a consistent representation of the environment.

We present our work in the context of real world data acquired using Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) and Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) working in diverse applications including shallow water coral reef surveys with the Seabed AUV, a forensic survey of the RMS Titanic in the North Atlantic …

Extracting User Intent In Mixed Initiative Teleoperator Control, Andrew H. Fagg, Michael Rosenstein, Robert Platt Jr., Roderic Grupen

Roderic Grupen

User fatigue is common with robot teleoperation interfaces. Mixed initiative control approaches attempt to reduce this fatigue by allowing control responsibility to be shared between the user and an intelligent control system. A critical challenge is how the user can communicate her intentions to the control system in an intuitive manner as possible. In the context of control of a humanoid robot, we propose an interface that uses the movement currently commanded by the user to assess the intended outcome. Specifically, given the observation of the motion of the teleoperated robot for a given period of time, we would like …