<div><div><div><p>Towing capacity affects a vehicle’s towing ability and it is usually costly to buy or even rent a vehicle that can tow certain amount of weight. A widely swaying towing trailer is one of the main causes for accidents that involves towing trailers. This study propose an affordable automated disconnected towing system (ADTS) that does not require physical connection between leading vehicle and the trailer vehicle by only using a computer vision system. The ADTS contains two main parts: a leading vehicle which can perform lane detection and a trailer vehicle which can automatically follow the leading vehicle by detecting the license plate of the leading vehicle. The trailer vehicle can adjust its speed according to the distance from the leading vehicle.</p></div></div></div>

The advent of robotics and automation leaves few industries untouched. Today, robots assist in everything between production lines at automotive manufacturing plants to home cleaning. One area that remains relatively untouched by robotics however, is the restaurant industry. The purpose of this bachelor’s thesis was to develop a prototype designed to assist with one of the tasks a restaurant waiter faces - food delivery. In order to accomplish this the robot must be able to drive and navigate in a restaurant environment and deliver food, all the while communicating with both restaurant staff and guests. The project resulted in a differentially steered robot that navigates using infrared, radio-frequency identification and ultrasonic modules. An elevator mechanism was devised to present the food to the guests. The user interface consists of a screen and a keypad. The prototype was tested successfully on an oval track measuring 3 by 1 meters. The tests showed that such a robot could likely be implemented in most restaurant settings. / Tillkomsten av robotik och automatisering lämnar få industrier orörda. Idag assisterar robotar i allt från produktionslinjer på bilfabriker till hemstädning. Ett område som fortfarande är relativt orört av robotik är dock restaurangbranschen. Således var syftet med detta kandidatexamenarbete att utveckla en prototyp avsedd för att hjälpa till med en av de uppgifter som en restaurangservitör har - leverans av mat. För att uppnå detta måste roboten kunna köra och navigera i en restaurangmiljö och leverera mat, samtidigt som den kommunicerar med både restaurangpersonal och gäster. Projektet resulterade i en differentialstyrd robot som navigerar med hjälp av infraröd-, radiofrekvensidentifierings och ultraljudsmoduler. En hissmekanism konstruerades för att presentera maten för gästerna. Användargränssnittet bestod av en skärm och en knappsats. Prototypen testades framgångsrikt på en oval bana som mäter 3 gånger 1 meter. Testerna visade att en sådan robot troligtvis skulle kunna implementeras i de flesta restaurangmiljöerna.

Line following robots are a practical mechatronics solution in a world that is becoming more and more automated. With added gripping and lifting abilities, a very versatile robot can be created. The goal of this thesis was to create a prototype that could navigate a black line using infrared sensors whilst gripping and lifting a package. A working prototype was built and five different sensor placements were evaluated to assess which was optimal for linefollowing. The results showed that too close placement of the sensors led to a less stable system while more distance between the sensors made a faster and more accurate system. / Linjeföljarrobotar är en praktisk mekatroniklösning i en värld som blir allt mer automatiserad. Med grepp- och lyftförmågor kan en väldigt anpassningsbar robot skapas. Målet med detta arbete var att skapa en prototyp som kunde navigera en svart linje med hjälp av infraröda sensorer medan den greppade och lyfte ett paket. En fungerande prototyp byggdes och fem olika sensorplaceringar utvärderades för att bedöma vilken som var optimal för att följa en linje. Resultatet visade att för nära placering av sensorerna skapade instabilitet. Ett större avstånd mellan sensorerna var att föredra då detta gav ett snabbare och stabilare system.

This thesis aims to create a system using colour markings for Volvo’s autonomous wheel loaders which determines their restricted area and operation using sensors available on the machine. The wheel loader shall be able to interpret and distinguish different colours of spray paint, and depending on the colour, act accordingly. Six different colours are evaluated across two different colour types to find the most suitable ones for the system. Multiple tests are presented throughout the thesis to find the approach with the most optimal performance that meets the system's requirements. The system is evaluated in various weather conditions to determine how the weather affects the performance of the system. The thesis also compares two different line-following approaches, where one is based on edge detection using Canny Edge and Hough transform, and the other uses histogram analysis and sliding window search, to distinguish and track the colour markings. While the wheel loader is in operation, it collects GPS coordinates to create a map of the path taken by the wheel loader and the location of various tasks. The evaluation shows that red, green and blue in fluorescent colour type are the most suitable colours for such a system. The line-following algorithm that utilises perspective warp, histogram and a sliding window search was the most prominent for accurate line detection and tracking. Furthermore, the evaluation showed that the performance of the system was affected depending on the weather condition.

Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP) is a formal language whose primary purpose is to model and verify concurrent systems. The CSP++ toolset was created to embody the concept of selective formalism by making machine-readable CSPm specifications both executable (through the automatic synthesis of C++ source) and extensible (by allowing the integration of C++ user-coded functions). However, these user-coded functions were limited by their inability to share data with each other, which meant that their application was constrained to solving simple problems in isolation. We extend CSP++ by providing user-coded functions in the same CSP process with safe access to a shared storage area, similar in concept and API to Pthreads' thread-local storage, enabling cooperation between them and granting them the ability to undertake more complex tasks without breaking the formalism of the underlying specification. This feature's utility is demonstrated in our line-following robot case study.

The aim of this master thesis is to make research of Open Source software, which are used for simulation autonomous robots. At the begining is performed research of selected robotic simulators. In the first part of this work is to get familiar with robotic simulator Gazebo and robotic framework ROS. The second part of this work deals with simulating and subsequent implementation of choosen robotic tasks through the simulator Gazebo and the ROS framework.