In this paper, the prototype of surface EMG (ElectroMyoGram) sensor is developed for the robotic rehabilitation applications, and the developed sensor is composed of the electrodes, analog signal amplifiers, analog filters, ADC (analog to digital converter), and DSP (digital signal processor) for coding the application example. Since the raw EMG signal is very low voltage, it is amplified by about one thousand times. The artifacts of amplified EMG signal are removed by using the band-pass filter. Also, the processed analog EMG signal is converted into the digital form by using ADC embedded in DSP. The developed sensor shows approximately the linear characteristics between the amplitude values of the sensor signals measured from the biceps brachii of human upper arm and the joint angles of human elbow. Finally, to show the performance of the developed EMG sensor, we suggest the application example about the real-time human elbow motion acquisition by using the developed sensor.
This paper proposes a method of avoiding obstacles and tracking a moving object continuously and simultaneously by using new concepts of virtual tow point and fuzzy danger factor for differential wheeled mobile robots. Since differential wheeled mobile robot has smaller degree of freedom to control and are non-holonomic systems, there exist multiple solutions (trajectories) to control and reach a target position. The paper proposes 'fuzzy danger factor' for obstacles avoidance, 'virtual tow point' to solve non-holonomic object tracking control problem for unique solution and three kinds of fuzzy logic controller. The fuzzy logic controller is policy decision controller with fuzzy danger factor to decide which controller's result is more valuable when the mobile robot is tracking a moving object with obstacles to be avoided.
A robust position-sensing system is proposed in this paper for ubiquitous mobile robots which move indoor as well as outdoor. The Differential GPS (DGPS) which has position estimation error of less than 5 m is a general solution when the mobile robots are moving outdoor, while an active beacon system (ABS) with embedded ultrasonic sensors is selected as an indoor positioning system. The switching from the outdoor to indoor or vice versa causes unstable measurements on account of the reference and algorithm changes. To minimize the switching time in the position estimation and to stabilize the measurement, a robust position-sensing system is proposed. In the system, to minimize the switching delay, the door positions are stored and updated in a database. The reliability and accuracy of the robust positioning system based on DGPS and ABS are verified through the real experiments using a mobile robot prepared for this research and demonstrated.
Representing an environment as the probabilistic grids is effective to sense outlines of the environment in the mobile robot area. Outlines of an environment can be expressed factually by using the probabilistic grids especially if sonar sensors would be supposed to build an environment map. However, the difficult problem of a sonar such as a specular reflection phenomenon should be overcome to build a grid map through sonar observations. In this paper, the NRF(Neighborhood Recognition Factor) was developed for building a grid map in which the specular reflection effect is minimized. Also the reproduction rate of the gird map built by using NRF was analyzed with respect to a true map. The experiment was conducted in a home environment to verify the proposed technique.
Effective tools which can alleviate the complexity and computational load problem in collision-free motion planning for multi-agent system have steadily been demanded in robotics field. To reduce the complexity, the extended collision map (ECM) which adopts decoupled approach and prioritization is already proposed. In ECM, the collision regions which represent the potential collision of robots are calculated using the computational power; the complexity problem is not resolved completely. In this paper, we propose a mathematical analysis of the extended collision map; as a result, we formulate the collision region as an equation with 5–8 variables. For mathematical analysis, we introduce realistic assumptions as follows; the paths of robots can be approximated to a straight line or an arc and the robots move with uniform velocity or constant acceleration near the intersection between paths. Our result reduces the computational complexity in comparison with the previous result without losing optimality, because we use simple but exact equations of the collision regions. This result can be widely applicable to coordinated multi-agent motion planning.
Robot system development consists of several sub-tasks such as layout design, motion planing, and sensor programming etc. In general, on-line programming and debugging for such tasks demands burdensome time and labor costs, which motivates an off-line graphic simulation system. MSRS(Microsoft Robotics Studio) released in recent years is an appropriate tool for the graphic simulation system since it supports CCR(Concurrency and Coordination Runtime), DSS(Decentralized System Services), and dynamics simulation based on PhysX and graphic animation as well. In this paper, we developed an MSRS based network simulation system for quadruped walking robots, which controls virtual 3D graphic robots existing in remote side through internet.
본 논문에서는 웨이퍼 레벨 밀봉 실장된 수직 운동 가속도 신호를 감지할 수 있는 초소형 Z축 가속도 센싱 엘리먼트를 제작하였다. 초소형 Z축 가속도 센싱 엘리먼트는 수직 방향의 정전용량 변화를 필요로 하기 때문에 단일 기판상에 수직 단차의 형성을 가능케 하는 확장된 희생 몸체 미세 가공 기술 (Extended Sacrificial Bulk Micromachining, ESBM) 을 이용하여 제작되었다. 확장된 희생 몸체 미세 가공 기술을 이용하면 정렬오
We propose a optimal fusion method for localization of multiple robots utilizing correlation between GPS on each robot in common workspace. Each mobile robot in group collects position data from each odometer and GPS receiver and shares the position data with other robots. Then each robot utilizes position data of other robot for obtaining more precise estimation of own position. Because GPS data errors in common workspace have a close correlation, they contribute to improve localization accuracy of all robots in group. In this paper, we simulate proposed optimal fusion method of odometer and GPS through virtual robots and position data.
Hierarchical Planning based on Abstraction of World Elements and Operators(HiPAWO) is proposed for mobile robots task planning, where abstraction of world elements is used for hierarchical planning and abstraction of operators is used for hierarchical decomposition of abstracted actions. Especially, a hierarchical domain theory based on JAH(Joint of Action Hierarchy)-graph is proposed to improve efficiency of planning, where a number of same actions are included in both adjacent hierarchical levels of domain theories to provide relationships between adjacent hierarchical levels. To show the validities of our proposed HiPAWO, experimental results are illustrated and will be compared with two other classical planning methods.
In this paper, we present a Sound Source Localization (SSL) based GCC (Generalized Cross Correlation)–PHAT (Phase Transform) and new measurement method of angle with robot auditory system for a network-based intelligent service robot. The main goal of this paper is to analysis performance of TDOA and GCC-PHAT sound source localization method and new angle measurement method is compared. We use GCC-PHAT for measuring time delays between several microphones. And sound source location is calculated by using time delays and new measurement method of angle. The robot platform used in this work is wever-R2, which is a network-based intelligent service robot developed at Intelligent Robot Research Division in ETRI.
This paper presents a motion planning strategy for legged robots using locomotion primitives in the complex 3D environments. First, we define configuration, motion primitives and locomotion primitives for legged robots. A hierarchical motion planning method based on a combination of 2.5 dimensional maps such as an obstacle height map, a passage map, and a gradient map of obstacles to distinguish obstacles. A high-level path planner finds a global path from a 2D navigation map. A mid-level planner creates sub-goals that help the legged robot efficiently cope with various obstacles using only a small set of locomotion primitives that are useful for stable navigation of the robot. A local obstacle map that describes the edge or border of the obstacles is used to find the sub-goals along the global path. A low-level planner searches for a feasible sequence of locomotion primitives between sub-goals. We use heuristic algorithm in local motion planner. The proposed planning method is verified by both locomotion and soccer experiments on a small biped robot in a cluttered environment. Experiment results show an improvement in motion stability.
Humanoid and android robots are emerging as a trend shifts from industrial robot to personal robot. So human-robot interaction will increase. Ultimate objective of humanoid and android would be a robot like a human. In this aspect, implementation of robot’s facial expression is necessary in making a human-like robot. This paper proposes a dynamic emotion model for a mascot-type robot to display similar facial and more recognizable expressions.