{"title":"Blockly in a Box: How Children Explore Block-Based Robot Programming","authors":"Craig J. Sutherland","doi":"10.1109/ur55393.2022.9826278","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ur55393.2022.9826278","url":null,"abstract":"Block-based programming languages are often used as a starting point in teaching children to program. These languages provide a simplified entry point into programming; they are popular for teaching children how to program robots. However, most studies have focused on children’s engagement, enjoyment and learning rather than how children explore a block-based programming environment. This paper provides some preliminary results from how children use a programming environment for a Nao robot. These results show children initially focus on short, external manifestations, such as getting the robot to speak and move, rather than exploring the available functionality. Very few children explore the full functionality available.","PeriodicalId":398742,"journal":{"name":"2022 19th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR)","volume":"55 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130971941","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":"Model Predictive Control Using Dynamic Model Decomposition Applied to Two-Wheeled Inverted Pendulum Mobile Robot","authors":"Junjie Shen, D. Hong","doi":"10.1109/ur55393.2022.9826244","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ur55393.2022.9826244","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we discuss the locomotion control for the two-wheeled inverted pendulum (TWIP) mobile robot. The robot in consideration involves two independent driving wheels sharing the same axle as well as one inverted pendulum in the middle acting as the main body. Instead of considering the entire TWIP mobile robot as a whole, following the idea of Dynamic Model Decomposition, we decompose the robot into the body and the two wheels, with interaction forces and moments connecting them. The effect is that we can thus enjoy lower-dimensional dynamics for each subsystem while their composition maintaining the equivalence to the full-order robot model. Based on that, we further propose a corresponding model predictive control framework via quadratic programming, which considers linearly approximated body dynamics with constrained wheel reaction forces as inputs. The overall methodology was successfully implemented on a TWIP mobile robot in the simulation environment. The simulation results show that the robot is capable of station keeping, disturbance rejection, velocity tracking, and path following.","PeriodicalId":398742,"journal":{"name":"2022 19th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR)","volume":"55 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115231079","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":"Play scenarios and interaction designs of a social robot for the development of children’s social-emotional intelligence by using the service design methodology","authors":"H. Son, Nahyun Kim, Inae Chung, Jaehee Chung","doi":"10.1109/ur55393.2022.9826245","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ur55393.2022.9826245","url":null,"abstract":"Social robots are used as a means to fill the shortage of care workers through active interactions with humans. This study proposes play scenarios and interaction designs of a social robot for the development of children’s social-emotional intelligence by using the service design methodology. After conducting in-depth interviews with caregivers and childcare experts, personas and design themes were derived, and play scenarios and interaction design were conducted. They were implemented in PIBO, a social robot for children, and then verification was conducted by pediatric psychiatrists and children. This study is meaningful in that play scenarios of a social robot for children were developed and verified through interviews with various stakeholders.","PeriodicalId":398742,"journal":{"name":"2022 19th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR)","volume":"53 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125776863","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}
T. Luong, Chanyong Park, Myeongyun Doh, Y. Ha, H. Moon
{"title":"Impedance control of antagonistically driven SMA springs","authors":"T. Luong, Chanyong Park, Myeongyun Doh, Y. Ha, H. Moon","doi":"10.1109/ur55393.2022.9826248","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ur55393.2022.9826248","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents impedance control of an antagonistic joint driven by SMA spring actuators. Based on the constitutive model of the SMA spring, the controller is designed to control the antagonistic joint angle as well as to achieve the desired joint damping and stiffness. The impedance control frame is a double loop, in which from the desired torque of the outer impedance control loop, an inversion force control law is proposed in the inner loop to control each actuator’s force. The stability analysis is carried out using the ultimate bounded stability theory. Experiments are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the system. It is shown that the desired antagonistic joint angle can be obtained with small errors for both sinusoidal waveform tracking and set-point regulation, where the maximum position error is 0.8 deg and root-mean-squared error is 0.3 deg (with the frequency of 0.15Hz) during tracking control, and the maximum position error during set-point regulation is 0.04 deg at the steady-state.","PeriodicalId":398742,"journal":{"name":"2022 19th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR)","volume":"54 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127449778","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}
Dongkyu Lee, E. Lee, Duckyu Choi, Junho Choi, Christian Tirtawardhana, H. Myung
{"title":"M-BRIC: Design of Mass-driven Bi-Rotor with RL-based Intelligent Controller","authors":"Dongkyu Lee, E. Lee, Duckyu Choi, Junho Choi, Christian Tirtawardhana, H. Myung","doi":"10.1109/ur55393.2022.9826246","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ur55393.2022.9826246","url":null,"abstract":"Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been widely used in complex applications, such as military, exploration, and rescue. Although there are many quadcopter applications, the bi-copter like a coaxial helicopter has apparent energy efficiency and scalability advantages. What makes the bi-copter challenging to use is difficulty in control because additional mechanical structures are essential for stable movement. This paper tackles this problem by proposing a novel bi-rotor design called M-BRIC with rotatable weight rods and reinforcement learning-based controller. Two weight rods that affect the model’s center of mass (CoM) allow higher maneuverability in horizontal directions. The controller of the model is trained to reach the random target point reliably using Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO). To train and test M-BRIC, NVIDIA Isaac Gym is adopted, which is a state-of-the-art physics simulation and supports superfast parallel training. Finally, four reward functions with different characteristics are designed, and the tracking performances of the controller trained with each reward function are compared in the simulation.","PeriodicalId":398742,"journal":{"name":"2022 19th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR)","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122136277","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":"Simulation Study on the Locomotion Algorithm of Variable Topology Truss Robot based on Motion Primitives","authors":"Y. Moon, Jangho Bae, Mark H. Yim, Taewon Seo","doi":"10.1109/ur55393.2022.9826275","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ur55393.2022.9826275","url":null,"abstract":"Variable Topology Truss (VTT) is a modular robotic system, which is an extended robot concept based on the Variable Geometry Truss (VGT). It is composed of modular members and nodes and can operate in a rough and cluttered environment. By changing the length of each member, the VTT robot can change size and shape. The VTT can also perform locomotion by rolling. Travel over a long distance can be accomplished by repeating the rolling motion, so a motion primitive is used. This reduces the computational work because the repetitive motion only needs to be calculated once. In this paper, an algorithm is presented to derive a motion primitive for an octahedral VTT. The algorithm consists of three phases: placing one node on the ground, moving the center of mass, and returning to the initial shape. On each time step, a set of possible robot motions is evaluated based on a cost function. The lowest cost motion is selected on each time step to form the optimized motion primitive. The resulting motion primitive is analyzed and validated.","PeriodicalId":398742,"journal":{"name":"2022 19th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR)","volume":"153 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122254129","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":"Implementation of a Large-Scale Biped Robot Using Serial-Parallel Hybrid Leg Mechanism","authors":"Kevin G. Gim, Joohyung Kim","doi":"10.1109/ur55393.2022.9826239","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ur55393.2022.9826239","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents our implementation of a large-scale biped robot utilizing Hybrid Leg, a 6 DoF serial-parallel mechanism, having lightweight structure, high payload and large workspace. We set our design goal to make a biped robot taller than an average human height. By applying the Hybrid mechanism and design optimization, the robot was built with a height of 1.84m and a weight of 29.05kg. The implemented robot is able to be actuated by the servo motors used in the smaller humanoid robot. The mechanical design of the robot is explained in detail and kinematics analysis is conducted for analytical solutions. Through multi-body dynamics simulations, the proposed robot design and its performance are verified. In addition, the preliminary performance evaluations for the robot hardware are conducted for a squat experiment and in-place walking experiment.","PeriodicalId":398742,"journal":{"name":"2022 19th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR)","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129362182","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}
Jaeyeon Lee, Ethan Quist, Stan German, Michael Kim, Nathaniel Fisher
{"title":"Neural Network Model of eFAST Target Prediction for Robotic Ultrasound Diagnostics in Austere Environments","authors":"Jaeyeon Lee, Ethan Quist, Stan German, Michael Kim, Nathaniel Fisher","doi":"10.1109/ur55393.2022.9826265","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ur55393.2022.9826265","url":null,"abstract":"Modern robotic technology has the potential to solve complex problems in healthcare, such as providing technology to support medical care in austere environments characterized by the restricted availability of local medical professionals or with high patient-to-caregiver ratios. Medical robots can be deployed as a force multiplier in situations when skilled healthcare providers are limited and can reduce the risk of medical failures during diagnostic and intervention procedures. One example is detecting free-flowing blood in the abdomen and pneumothorax by performing the extended Focused Assessment with Sonography for Trauma (eFAST) ultrasound diagnostics examination. We developed a semi-autonomous robotic ultrasound system that intelligently perceives the patient’s pose and determines the corresponding eFAST configuration for the robotic-assisted procedure. The dynamic pose of the patient is identified in real-time using an optimization-based algorithm, while the eFAST configurations are predicted by a neural network model. A robot manipulator holding an ultrasound device is autonomously driven to the body-normal vector of each eFAST target. This approach accomplishes robust prediction for non-linear problems, even with dynamic posture of the detected body in highly unstructured sites with variable patient shape and pose.","PeriodicalId":398742,"journal":{"name":"2022 19th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR)","volume":"48 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133050808","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}
Ye-Chan An, Sunghyeon Joo, Arpan Ghosh, HyunJi Park, Tae-Yong Kuc
{"title":"An UV Sensor Coverage Algorithm with Place Segmentation for Disinfection Robots","authors":"Ye-Chan An, Sunghyeon Joo, Arpan Ghosh, HyunJi Park, Tae-Yong Kuc","doi":"10.1109/ur55393.2022.9826291","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/ur55393.2022.9826291","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we propose an UV(ultraviolet) sensor coverage algorithm based on occupancy grid maps for complete disinfection. The algorithm is developed to disinfect the environment in which the robots are applied. The nodes for full coverage disinfection are generated using the coordinate average of each node group. The group is clustered with k-means of the random nodes extracted from the grid map. Additionally, we combine place segmentation that allows selective and intensive disinfection by separating the working area. The places are divided by the mean and variance of the disinfection nodes. We demonstrate the algorithm in the various experimental environments.","PeriodicalId":398742,"journal":{"name":"2022 19th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR)","volume":"94 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127437023","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. Farooq, Antreas Anastasiou, N. Souli, C. Laoudias, P. Kolios, T. Theocharides
{"title":"UAV Autonomous Indoor Exploration and Mapping for SAR Missions: Reflections from the ICUAS 2022 Competition","authors":"A. Farooq, Antreas Anastasiou, N. Souli, C. Laoudias, P. Kolios, T. Theocharides","doi":"10.1109/UR55393.2022.9866527","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/UR55393.2022.9866527","url":null,"abstract":"The technological advancement in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones and their deployment in real-life Search and Rescue (SAR) missions is imminent. We, therefore, present a perception-aware autonomous exploration framework aimed at performing vision-based target detection and collision avoidance with an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). The UAV utilizes a depth camera for maneuvering and finding the target. The underlying indoor exploration approach considers autonomous collision-free navigation, as well as target detection with a ballistic ball payload delivery without a prior map. Moreover, the proposed method allows safe navigation in enclosed unknown areas congested with randomly positioned obstacles and target locations. Our underlined end-to-end system architecture integrates the proposed exploration strategy. Extensive simulation experiments, using several Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), showcase the effectiveness of the proposed Robot Operating System (ROS) framework in a simulated Gazebo environment under various parameter settings.","PeriodicalId":398742,"journal":{"name":"2022 19th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR)","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126979819","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}