J. Langelaan, J. Spletzer, Corey Montella, J. Grenestedt
{"title":"Wind field estimation for autonomous dynamic soaring","authors":"J. Langelaan, J. Spletzer, Corey Montella, J. Grenestedt","doi":"10.1109/ICRA.2012.6224954","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA.2012.6224954","url":null,"abstract":"A method for distributed parameter estimation of a previously unknown wind field is described. The application is dynamic soaring for small unmanned air vehicles, which severely constrains available computing while simultaneously requiring updates that are fast compared with a typical dynamic soaring cycle. A polynomial parameterization of the wind field is used, allowing implementation of a linear Kalman filter for parameter estimation. Results of Monte Carlo simulations show the effectiveness of the approach. In addition, in-flight measurements of wind speeds are compared with data obtained from video tracking of balloon launches to assess the accuracy of wind field estimates obtained using commercial autopilot modules.","PeriodicalId":246173,"journal":{"name":"2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation","volume":"241 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115587354","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}
A. Campeau-Lecours, Boris Mayer St-Onge, C. Gosselin
{"title":"Variable admittance control of a four-degree-of-freedom intelligent assist device","authors":"A. Campeau-Lecours, Boris Mayer St-Onge, C. Gosselin","doi":"10.1109/ICRA.2012.6224586","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA.2012.6224586","url":null,"abstract":"Robots are currently used in some applications to enhance human performance and it is expected that human/robot interactions will become more frequent in the future. In order to achieve effective human augmentation, the cooperation must be very intuitive to the human operator. This paper presents a variable admittance control approach to improve system intuitivity. The proposed variable admittance law is based on the inference of human intentions using desired velocity and acceleration. Stability issues are discussed and a controller design example is given. Finally, experimental results obtained with a full-scale prototype of an intelligent assist device are presented in order to demonstrate the performance of the algorithm.","PeriodicalId":246173,"journal":{"name":"2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation","volume":"59 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116145741","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":"Evaluation of influence of surface shape of locomotion mechanism on traveling performance of planetary rovers","authors":"M. Sutoh, K. Nagaoka, K. Nagatani, Kazuya Yoshida","doi":"10.1109/ICRA.2012.6225024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA.2012.6225024","url":null,"abstract":"The surfaces of both the Moon and Mars are covered with loose soil, with numerous steep slopes along their crater rims. Therefore, one of the most important requirements imposed on planetary rovers is their ability to minimize slippage while climbing steep slopes, i.e., the ability to generate a drawbar pull with only a small amount of slippage. To this end, the wheels/tracks of planetary rovers typically have parallel fins called lugs (i.e., grousers) on their surface. Recent studies have reported that these lugs can substantially improve the traveling performances of planetary rovers. Therefore, in this study, we conducted experiments using lightweight two-wheeled and mono-tracked rovers to provide a quantitative confirmation regarding the influence of lugs on the traveling performances of planetary rovers. Based on our experimental results, we confirmed that, although an increase in the number of lugs contributes to the high traveling performance of wheeled rovers, it does not contribute much to that of tracked rovers. Furthermore, an increase in lug height improves the traveling performances of both types of rovers.","PeriodicalId":246173,"journal":{"name":"2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation","volume":"279 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116166801","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}
Daniel Mellinger, Aleksandr Kushleyev, Vijay R. Kumar
{"title":"Mixed-integer quadratic program trajectory generation for heterogeneous quadrotor teams","authors":"Daniel Mellinger, Aleksandr Kushleyev, Vijay R. Kumar","doi":"10.1109/ICRA.2012.6225009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA.2012.6225009","url":null,"abstract":"We present an algorithm for the generation of optimal trajectories for teams of heterogeneous quadrotors in three-dimensional environments with obstacles. We formulate the problem using mixed-integer quadratic programs (MIQPs) where the integer constraints are used to enforce collision avoidance. The method allows for different sizes, capabilities, and varying dynamic effects between different quadrotors. Experimental results illustrate the method applied to teams of up to four quadrotors ranging from 65 to 962 grams and 21 to 67 cm in width following trajectories in three-dimensional environments with obstacles with accelerations approaching 1g.","PeriodicalId":246173,"journal":{"name":"2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation","volume":"142 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116556466","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 real-time micro-PIV system using frame-straddling high-speed vision","authors":"Motofumi Kobatake, T. Takaki, I. Ishii","doi":"10.1109/ICRA.2012.6224821","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA.2012.6224821","url":null,"abstract":"In this study, we introduce a novel concept of real-time microscopic particle image velocimetry (micro-PIV) for high-speed microchannel flows in a lab-on-a-chip using a frame-straddling high-speed vision system with two camera inputs; it can synchronize two camera inputs with the same view field with a time delay on a submicrosecond time scale. To improve the measurable range of velocity in microchannel flow observation, we propose a variable-frame-straddling optical flow (VFS-OF) algorithm that can simultaneously estimate the microchannel flow distribution as gradient-based optical flows using frame-straddled images from the two camera inputs; their frame-straddling time is determined by the amplitude of the estimated optical flow to avoid large image displacements between frames that often generate serious errors in optical flow estimation. We built a real-time micro-PIV system by software-implementing the VFS-OF algorithm in a high-speed vision system with two frame-straddled cameras; it can execute real-time video processing and recording of 512×512-pixel images at 2000 frames per second for the two cameras and control their frame-straddling time from 0 to 0.5 ms with 9.9-ns steps. Our micro-PIV system can estimate the velocity distribution of high-speed microchannel flows at 1 m/s or more in real time by controlling the frame-straddling time. Experimental results were performed for microfluidic flows on microchannels with widths of hundreds of micrometers to verify the performance of our micro-PIV system based on the VFS-OF algorithm.","PeriodicalId":246173,"journal":{"name":"2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122344698","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}
I. Godage, D. Branson, E. Guglielmino, D. Caldwell
{"title":"Pneumatic muscle actuated continuum arms: Modelling and experimental assessment","authors":"I. Godage, D. Branson, E. Guglielmino, D. Caldwell","doi":"10.1109/ICRA.2012.6224949","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA.2012.6224949","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents an improved mode shape function-based 3D dynamic model for pneumatic muscle actuated continuum arms, and validates the model and simulation results through experimental testing. The model also facilitates the direct control of pneumatic muscle actuated continuum arms through the use of input pressure. This is achieved without additional intermediary transformations and does not have singularity problems present in previous models. The proposed arm model uses a new pneumatic muscle actuator (PMA) dynamic model with hysteresis that is capable of modelling both extending and contracting PMAs. The proposed hysteric model is simple, easily adaptable, and validated experimentally. The PMA model can be applied to dynamically model any PMA based system as well as PMA actuated continuum arms utilizing different actuator configurations.","PeriodicalId":246173,"journal":{"name":"2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122799690","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}
Lawson L. S. Wong, L. Kaelbling, Tomas Lozano-Perez
{"title":"Collision-free state estimation","authors":"Lawson L. S. Wong, L. Kaelbling, Tomas Lozano-Perez","doi":"10.1109/ICRA.2012.6225309","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA.2012.6225309","url":null,"abstract":"In state estimation, we often want the maximum likelihood estimate of the current state. For the commonly used joint multivariate Gaussian distribution over the state space, this can be efficiently found using a Kalman filter. However, in complex environments the state space is often highly constrained. For example, for objects within a refrigerator, they cannot interpenetrate each other or the refrigerator walls. The multivariate Gaussian is unconstrained over the state space and cannot incorporate these constraints. In particular, the state estimate returned by the unconstrained distribution may itself be infeasible. Instead, we solve a related constrained optimization problem to find a good feasible state estimate. We illustrate this for estimating collision-free configurations for objects resting stably on a 2-D surface, and demonstrate its utility in a real robot perception domain.","PeriodicalId":246173,"journal":{"name":"2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation","volume":"174 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121925002","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":"Online semantic exploration of indoor maps","authors":"Ziyuan Liu, Dong Chen, Georg von Wichert","doi":"10.1109/ICRA.2012.6224871","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA.2012.6224871","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper we propose a method to extract an abstracted floor plan from typical grid maps using Bayesian reasoning. The result of this procedure is a probabilistic generative model of the environment defined over abstract concepts. It is well suited for higher-level reasoning and communication purposes. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach through real-world experiments.","PeriodicalId":246173,"journal":{"name":"2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122081175","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":"SR-RRT: Selective retraction-based RRT planner","authors":"Junghwan Lee, OSung Kwon, Liangjun Zhang, Sung-eui Yoon","doi":"10.1109/ICRA.2012.6224928","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA.2012.6224928","url":null,"abstract":"We present a novel retraction-based planner, selective retraction-based RRT, for efficiently handling a wide variety of environments that have different characteristics. We first present a bridge line-test that can identify regions around narrow passages, and then perform an optimization-based retraction operation selectively only at those regions. We also propose a non-colliding line-test, a dual operator to the bridge line-test, as a culling method to avoid generating samples near wide-open free spaces and thus to generate more samples around narrow passages. These two tests are performed with a small computational overhead and are integrated with a retraction-based RRT. In order to demonstrate benefits of our method, we have tested our method with different benchmarks that have varying amounts of narrow passages. Our method achieves up to 21 times and 3.5 times performance improvements over a basic RRT and an optimization-based retraction RRT, respectively. Furthermore, our method consistently improves the performances of other tested methods across all the tested benchmarks that have or do not have narrow passages.","PeriodicalId":246173,"journal":{"name":"2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation","volume":"59 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122141427","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":"High-resolution depth maps based on TOF-stereo fusion","authors":"Vineet Gandhi, Jan Cech, R. Horaud","doi":"10.1109/ICRA.2012.6224771","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA.2012.6224771","url":null,"abstract":"The combination of range sensors with color cameras can be very useful for robot navigation, semantic perception, manipulation, and telepresence. Several methods of combining range- and color-data have been investigated and successfully used in various robotic applications. Most of these systems suffer from the problems of noise in the range-data and resolution mismatch between the range sensor and the color cameras, since the resolution of current range sensors is much less than the resolution of color cameras. High-resolution depth maps can be obtained using stereo matching, but this often fails to construct accurate depth maps of weakly/repetitively textured scenes, or if the scene exhibits complex self-occlusions. Range sensors provide coarse depth information regardless of presence/absence of texture. The use of a calibrated system, composed of a time-of-flight (TOF) camera and of a stereoscopic camera pair, allows data fusion thus overcoming the weaknesses of both individual sensors. We propose a novel TOF-stereo fusion method based on an efficient seed-growing algorithm which uses the TOF data projected onto the stereo image pair as an initial set of correspondences. These initial “seeds” are then propagated based on a Bayesian model which combines an image similarity score with rough depth priors computed from the low-resolution range data. The overall result is a dense and accurate depth map at the resolution of the color cameras at hand. We show that the proposed algorithm outperforms 2D image-based stereo algorithms and that the results are of higher resolution than off-the-shelf color-range sensors, e.g., Kinect. Moreover, the algorithm potentially exhibits real-time performance on a single CPU.","PeriodicalId":246173,"journal":{"name":"2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129516288","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}