{"title":"Fast and scalable multi-robot deployment planning under connectivity constraints","authors":"Yaroslav Marchukov, L. Montano","doi":"10.1109/ICARSC.2019.8733637","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICARSC.2019.8733637","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper we develop a method to coordinate the deployment of a multi-robot team to reach some locations of interest, so-called primary goals, and to transmit the information from these positions to a static Base Station (BS), under connectivity constraints. The relay positions have to be established for some robots to maintain the connectivity at the moment in which the other robots visit the primary goals. Once every robot reaches its assigned goal, they are again available to cover new goals, dynamically re-distributing the robots to the new tasks. The contribution of this work is a two stage method to deploy the team. Firstly, clusters of relay and primary positions are computed, obtaining a tree formed by chains of positions that have to be visited. Secondly, the order for optimally assigning and visiting the goals in the clusters is computed. We analyze different heuristics for sequential and parallel deployment in the clusters, obtaining sub-optimal solutions in short time for different number of robots and for a large amount of goals.","PeriodicalId":198320,"journal":{"name":"2019 IEEE International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions (ICARSC)","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125838254","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Johann Dichtl, X. S. Le, G. Lozenguez, L. Fabresse, N. Bouraqadi
{"title":"PolySLAM: A 2D Polygon-based SLAM Algorithm","authors":"Johann Dichtl, X. S. Le, G. Lozenguez, L. Fabresse, N. Bouraqadi","doi":"10.1109/ICARSC.2019.8733647","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICARSC.2019.8733647","url":null,"abstract":"Indoor SLAM and exploration is an important topic in robotics. Most solutions today work with a 2D grid representation as map model, both for the internal data format and for the output of the algorithm. While this is convenient in several ways, it also brings its own limitations, in particular because of the memory requirements of this map format. In this paper we introduce PolySLAM, a SLAM algorithm that produces PolyMaps. Our PolyMap utilizes polygons built from vectors to model the environment, and as such this is a special case of vector-based SLAM algorithms. The results of our experiments both in simulation and on real world datasets show that this SLAM is promising. First, maps are more compact which reduces memory consumption compared to standard grid-maps making it attractive for map sharing over wireless connection such as in multi-robots systems. Second, the quality of maps produced by PolySLAM is already good for localization despite the lack of global optimization or loop closure.","PeriodicalId":198320,"journal":{"name":"2019 IEEE International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions (ICARSC)","volume":"129 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122900627","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Review on Commercially Available Anthropomorphic Myoelectric Prosthetic Hands, Pattern-Recognition-Based Microcontrollers and sEMG Sensors used for Prosthetic Control","authors":"Alexandre Calado, F. Soares, Demétrio Matos","doi":"10.1109/ICARSC.2019.8733629","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICARSC.2019.8733629","url":null,"abstract":"It has been reported that over 3 million individuals live with upper limb amputation worldwide. Losing a hand drastically reduces the individual's quality of life. Fortunately, there are several prosthetic solutions available in the market that try to restore some of the missing hand's functions and characteristics. This paper presents a review on three of the main components of a typical transradial myoelectric prosthesis that can be found in the market. The goal was to provide the reader with an overview of commercially available anthropomorphic myoelectric prosthetic hands with high degrees of freedom, pattern-recognition-based microcontrollers and sEMG sensors used for prosthetic control.","PeriodicalId":198320,"journal":{"name":"2019 IEEE International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions (ICARSC)","volume":"82 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133919198","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Luis Piardi, Lucas Eckert, José Lima, P. Costa, A. Valente, A. Nakano
{"title":"3D Simulator with Hardware-in-the-Loop capability for the Micromouse Competition","authors":"Luis Piardi, Lucas Eckert, José Lima, P. Costa, A. Valente, A. Nakano","doi":"10.1109/ICARSC.2019.8733640","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICARSC.2019.8733640","url":null,"abstract":"Robotics competitions are a way to challenge researchers, roboticists and enthusiastic to address robot applications. One of the well-known international competition is the Micromouse where the fastest mobile robot to solve a maze is the winner. There are several topics addressed in this competition such as robot prototyping, control, electronics, path planning, optimization, among others while keeping the size of the robot as small as possible. A simulation can be used to speed-up the development and testing algorithms but faces the gap between a simulation and reality, specially in the dynamics behaviour. There are some simulation environments that allow to simulate the Micromouse competition, but in this paper, an Hardware-in-the-loop simulator tool is presented where the simulated robot is controlled by the same microcontroller used by the robot. By this way, the developed algorithms are tested and validated with the limitations and constraints presented in the real hardware, such as memory and processing capabilities. The robot dynamics, the slippage of the wheels, the friction and the 3D visualization are present in the simulator. The presented results show that the same code and hardware controlling the simulated and the real robot identically.","PeriodicalId":198320,"journal":{"name":"2019 IEEE International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions (ICARSC)","volume":"63 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114203708","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Environment-Aware Locomotion Mode Transition Prediction System","authors":"Simão P. Carvalho, Joana Figueiredo, C. Santos","doi":"10.1109/ICARSC.2019.8733658","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICARSC.2019.8733658","url":null,"abstract":"Current research suggests the emergent need to predict locomotion mode (LM) transitions to allow a natural and smooth response of lower limb active assistive devices such as prostheses and orthosis for daily life locomotion assistance. The purpose of this work is to develop an automatic, user-independent system using an environment-aware strategy to predict LM transitions. We applied an infrared laser system to measure the distance between the user and the terrain ahead. A three-layer decision tree with heuristic decision rules only dependent on infrared laser features was implemented to predict LM transitions. The prediction system was validated with 10 healthy subjects that performed 8 LM transitions in different terrains (level-terrain, stairs, and ramps). The results showed a prediction accuracy above 80% for all LM transitions, achieving 100% prediction success for transitions ramp/stair descend to level-terrain. All the LM transitions were predicted with high prediction time (> 0.73 seconds) which empowers its integration on assistive devices control strategies. The prediction system accurately and time-effectively predicts 8 different LM transitions only using the infrared laser sensor. It approached indoor and outdoor terrains, relevant for daily-life locomotion applications, and was more polyvalent and effective than previous environment-aware systems.","PeriodicalId":198320,"journal":{"name":"2019 IEEE International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions (ICARSC)","volume":"51 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115117889","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Shop Floor Virtualization and Industry 4.0","authors":"A. Martins, Hugo Costelha, Carlos Neves","doi":"10.1109/ICARSC.2019.8733657","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICARSC.2019.8733657","url":null,"abstract":"This paper addresses one of the key components in today's industrialization approach: virtualization. The work describes the virtualization of a typical production process, the digital twin in the scope of Industry 4.0, involving different devices, such as robotic arms, conveyors, automatic warehouses and vision systems. It includes both legacy and recent equipment, with different characteristics and communication capabilities, ranging from RS232 serial communication to TCPIIP-based communication, or even I/O-based interaction for devices with no communication capabilities. The developed approach aims at industrial implementations, while allowing for educational purposes. For a standardized approach, the OPC UA protocol is used for high-level communication between the various systems. Several results are described showing the success of the methodology and application.","PeriodicalId":198320,"journal":{"name":"2019 IEEE International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions (ICARSC)","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125063405","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An Hierarchical Architecture for Docking Autonomous Surface Vehicles","authors":"P. Leite, R. Silva, A. Matos, A. Pinto","doi":"10.1109/ICARSC.2019.8733620","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICARSC.2019.8733620","url":null,"abstract":"Autonomous Surface Vehicles (ASVs) provide the ideal platform to further explore the many opportunities in the cargo shipping industry, by making it more profitable and safer. This paper presents an architecture for the autonomous docking operation, formed by two stages: a maneuver module and, a situational awareness system to detect a mooring facility where an ASV can safely dock. Information retrieved from a 3D LIDAR, IMU and GPS are combined to extract the geometric features of the floating platform and to estimate the relative positioning and orientation of the moor to the ASV. Then, the maneuver module plans a trajectory to a specific position and guarantees that the ASV will not collide with the mooring facility. The approach presented in this paper was validated in distinct environmental and weather conditions such as tidal waves and wind. The results demonstrate the ability of the proposed architecture for detecting the docking platform and safely conduct the navigation towards it, achieving errors up to 0.107 m in position and 6.S8°in orientation.","PeriodicalId":198320,"journal":{"name":"2019 IEEE International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions (ICARSC)","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127480017","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Fábio Azevedo, A. Dias, J. Almeida, Ana Oliveira, André Ferreira, T. Santos, A. Martins, E. Silva
{"title":"Real- Time LiDAR-based Power Lines Detection for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles","authors":"Fábio Azevedo, A. Dias, J. Almeida, Ana Oliveira, André Ferreira, T. Santos, A. Martins, E. Silva","doi":"10.1109/ICARSC.2019.8733646","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICARSC.2019.8733646","url":null,"abstract":"The growing dependence of modern-day societies on electricity increases the importance of effective monitoring and maintenance of power lines. Endowing UAVs with the appropriate sensors for inspecting power lines, the costs and risks associated with the traditional foot patrol and helicopter-based inspections can be reduced. However, this implies the development of algorithms to make the inspection process reliable and autonomous. Visual methods are usually applied to locate the power lines and their components, but poor light conditions or a background rich in edges may compromise their results. To overcome those limitations, we propose to address the problem of power line detection and modeling based on LiDAR. A novel approach to the power line detection was developed, the PL2DM - Power Line LiDAR-based Detection and Modeling. It is based in a scan-by-scan adaptive neighbor minimalist comparison for all the points in a point cloud. The power line final model is obtained by matching and grouping several line segments, using their collinearity properties. Horizontally, the power lines are modeled as a straight line, and vertically as a catenary curve. The algorithm was validated with a real dataset, showing promising results both in terms of outputs and processing time, adding real-time object-based perception capabilities for other layers of processing.","PeriodicalId":198320,"journal":{"name":"2019 IEEE International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions (ICARSC)","volume":"267 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124285075","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
P. Fernandes, Joana Figueiredo, Luís Moreira, Paulo Félix, Ana Correia, J. Moreno, C. Santos
{"title":"EMG-based Motion Intention Recognition for Controlling a Powered Knee Orthosis","authors":"P. Fernandes, Joana Figueiredo, Luís Moreira, Paulo Félix, Ana Correia, J. Moreno, C. Santos","doi":"10.1109/ICARSC.2019.8733628","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICARSC.2019.8733628","url":null,"abstract":"Powered assistive devices have been playing a major role in gait rehabilitation. This work aims to develop a user-oriented assistive strategy with an EMG-based control using a powered knee orthosis (PKO) to provide assistive commands according to the user's motion intention tracked by electromyography (EMG) signals. To achieve this goal, the work first comprised the development of a wired EMG acquisition system, the study and implementation of a knee joint torque estimation method, and the development of a real-time controller, which uses the estimated torque as the reference actuator's torque to provide user-oriented assistance in walking. We used a proportional gain method to estimate the knee torque, which required a calibration procedure, allowing to determine the relation between the EMG signal and the actuator's torque. The EMG-based control was validated with two subjects walking in a treadmill. The EMG-based control performed as expected since it proved to be functional and time-effective when assisting the user's movements in walking at different walking speeds. Findings show that the developed assistive strategy can effectively follow the user's motion intention and has the potential for gait rehabilitation of patients with residual muscular strength.","PeriodicalId":198320,"journal":{"name":"2019 IEEE International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions (ICARSC)","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123380141","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Learning high-level robotic soccer strategies from scratch through reinforcement learning","authors":"Miguel Abreu, L. Reis, Henrique Lopes Cardoso","doi":"10.1109/ICARSC.2019.8733606","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICARSC.2019.8733606","url":null,"abstract":"The field of automated learning has been steadily growing in robotic tasks. This phenomenon is supported by the evolution of computational resources and new reinforcement learning algorithms. Researchers have drawn their attentions to methods that are easy to implement and tune, while achieving state-of-the-art performance. This trend also affects the world of robotic soccer, where new papers delve systematically into the optimization of basic skills. However, when learning higher-level strategies, there is space for improvement on two fronts. First, the simulation environment should allow the agent to abstract from low-level details. Second, the existing methods to train this kind of behaviors are still scarce. This paper contributes with innovative problem-solving methods, specifically in the rewards field. To test alternative approaches, an extended version of the RoboCup's official Soccer Server simulator was used. The results have confirmed the importance of the proposed reward components and their relationship with the episodes' initial conditions.","PeriodicalId":198320,"journal":{"name":"2019 IEEE International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions (ICARSC)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120964176","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}