Robots are required in many jobs. The jobs related to tele-operation may be very challenging and often require reaching a destination quickly and with minimum collisions. In order to succeed in these jobs, human operators are asked to tele-operate a robot manually through a user interface. The design of a user interface and of the information provided in it, become therefore critical elements for the successful completion of robot tele-operation tasks. Effective and timely robot tele-navigation mainly relies on the intuitiveness provided by the interface and on the richness and presentation of the feedback given. This project investigated the use of both haptic and visual feedbacks in a user interface for robot tele-navigation. The aim was to overcome some of the limitations observed in a state of the art works, turning what is sometimes described as contrasting into an added value to improve tele-navigation performance. The key issue is to combine different human sensory modalities in a coherent way and to benefit from 3-D vision too. The proposed new approach was inspired by how visually impaired people use walking sticks to navigate. Haptic feedback may provide helpful input to a user to comprehend distances to surrounding obstacles and information about the obstacle distribution. This was proposed to be achieved entirely relying on on-board range sensors, and by processing this input through a simple scheme that regulates magnitude and direction of the environmental force-feedback provided to the haptic device. A specific algorithm was also used to render the distribution of very close objects to provide appropriate touch sensations. Scene visualization was provided by the system and it was shown to a user coherently to haptic sensation. Different visualization configurations, from multi-viewpoint observation to 3-D visualization, were proposed and rigorously assessed through experimentations, to understand the advantages of the proposed approach and performance variations among different 3-D display technologies. Over twenty users were invited to participate in a usability study composed by two major experiments. The first experiment focused on a comparison between the proposed haptic-feedback strategy and a typical state of the art approach. It included testing with a multi-viewpoint visual observation. The second experiment investigated the performance of the proposed haptic-feedback strategy when combined with three different stereoscopic-3D visualization technologies. The results from the experiments were encouraging and showed good performance with the proposed approach and an improvement over literature approaches to haptic feedback in robot tele-operation. It was also demonstrated that 3-D visualization can be beneficial for robot tele-navigation and it will not contrast with haptic feedback if it is properly aligned to it. Performance may vary with different 3-D visualization technologies, which is also discussed in the presented work.

Este trabalho aborda o problema de planejamento de caminhos em robótica móvel autônoma utilizando campos potenciais. Dentre as várias técnicas de campos potenciais para controlar robôs, encontram-se as técnica de Campos Potenciais de Khatib1 (CP), Campo Potencial Harmônico (CPH), Campo Potencial Orientado (CPO) e Campo Potencial Localmente Orientado (CPLO). As técnicas CPH, CPO e CPLO são chamadas de técnicas baseadas em Problema de Valor de Contorno (PVC), pois são obtidas a partir de soluções de Equações Diferenciais Parciais (EDP) Elípticas em uma determinada condição de contorno, é obtido um sistema planejador de caminhos. Tais técnicas necessitam de uma etapa de solução de sistemas lineares, na qual se utiliza métodos iterativos, decorrentes da aplicação do método de diferenças finitas como solucionador das EDP. No presente trabalho, as técnicas de Campos Potenciais baseados em PVC foram estudadas e implementadas (usando processamento sequencial e paralelo), de modo a obter resultados de forma mais rápida e confiável. Foram utilizadas arquiteturas paralelas do tipo manycore. Finalmente, são feitas análises comparativas entre os vários métodos implementados. Todos os métodos estão prontos para serem incorporados tanto no simulador quanto nos times de robôs em desenvolvimento pelo grupo Warthog Robotics / This works details the task o path planning in autonomous mobile robots using potential fields techniques. Among potential fields techniques to control robots, there are Khatibs Potential Field2 (KPF), Harmonic Potential Field (HPF), Oriented Potential Field (OPF) and Locally Oriented Potential Field (LOPF). The HPF, OPF and LOPF techniques are called Boundary Value Problem (BVP) based, bacause they are obtained from numerical solutions of Elliptic Partial Differential Equations (PDE) in a well-defined boundary condition. These techniques go through a step of solving linear systems, in which is used iterative methods, that came from numerical solution of PDE. In this work, potential fields BVP based was studied and coded (using sequential and parallel architectures), to obtain results more quickly and reliably. And, finally, a comparative analyses of the various methods implemented are made. All methods are ready to be incorporated in the intelligent systens that are being developed by Warthog Robotics

<p>Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) and IoT (Internet of Things) devices have substantial potential to increase productivity in Small and Medium Enterprises (SME). However, factors such as high costs involved in setting up and maintaining AMR automation and deficit of programming expertise among factory workers render AMR automation uneconomical for SMEs. </p><p><br></p><p></p><p>Visual Programming can be used in the spatial context of the operating environment to enable closer mental models at the right level of abstraction for novice programmers. In this thesis, we develop a system for deploying a Spatially Situated Visual Language (SSVL) for programming robot-IoT workflows. To address the challenges of interoperability, scalability, and versatility of industrial machinery, we develop a novel communication protocol based on the Resource Description Framework (RDF). Our communication protocol forms the basis of a system architecture that integrates SSVL, IoT devices, and mobile robots that enables factory workers to program AMR workflows. We design, implement and validate the system and the architecture following the systems engineering approach. To evaluate the system developed in an industrial context, we deploy the system to author AMR workflows for material handling application for an SME painting factory.</p><p></p>

Control of wheeled chassis does not constitute a problem in the area of mobile robotic solely. Rather, it can be encountered in transportation, both at close range and long range. In this thesis, mobile chassis are characterized as kinematic models. These models prove to be erroneous at high speed, whereas they sufficiently accurately represent the real robotic system in situations when slow, autonomous motion of the robot is desired. In comparison with dynamic models, both their project and implementation are simpler, too. The first part of this thesis is focused on a basic description of the motion of a robot in-plane. In the next part, five, most frequently used wheels in robotics are described and characterized - standard fixed wheels, standard steering wheels, castor wheels, multidirectional wheels and omnidirectional wheels. The motion conditions are deduced from each type of wheel. There are two methods of projecting the mobile robot model – full modelling and generic modelling. Based on these two methods, six models of mobile robots with different motion properties are proposed and described. The last and most extensive part of this thesis deals with simulator of robot motion created in Matlab/Simulink. It includes users guide which allows the configuration of random chassis and various trajectories of motion. In this way, it is possible to visually evaluace and classify the the different types of robots. The core of this thesis is largely connected with the field of odometry – i.e. transformation output from speed sensor and turning of wheels sensor into the robot position in the system of coordinates that defines its working space. Simulator as complex only model motion of mobile robots in plain. Its inside structure included algoritms, that have been used in praxis for control real mobile robots. In this way created Simulator models the motion of mobile robots in-plain only. However, its inside structure is based on algorithms, that could be used for control of real mobile robots in real-life working.

The master's thesis deals with the functional model design of the omnidirectional chassis and its implementation. It is focused on construction of the omnidirectional chassis and choosing the suitable hardware equipment.It also deals with a project of control software for a mini-computer and a design of graphic application in the PC.

The essence of this master thesis is design and implementation of sensor system based on robotic framework which is called ROS (Robot Operating System). The main task is to perform detailed analysis and test of capabilities of the framework with final implementation on specific robot application (sensor system) with following evaluation of applicability of the system in mobile robotics. As parallel aim is to create detailed general and practical guide for beginners with ROS which they are also beginners in Linux based operating systems.

Autonomous localization of a radio source is addressed, in the context of autonomous charging for drones in indoor environments. A radio beacon will be the only input used by the robot to navigate to an unknown charging station, at an unknown area. Previous proposed algorithms used frontier-based exploration and the measured RSS to compute the direction to the source. The use of Gaussian processes is studied to model the Radio Signal Strength (RSS) distribution and generate an estimation of the gradient. This gradient was also incorporated into a frontier exploration algorithm and was compared with the proposed algorithm. It was found that the usefulness of the Gaussian process model depended on the distribution of the RSS samples. If the robot had no prior samples of the RSS, then the gradient-assisted solution performed better. Instead, if the robot had some prior knowledge of the RSS distribution, then the Gaussian process model yields a better performance. / Autonom utforskning av en radiokälla behandlas, i samband med autonom laddning för drönare i inomhusmiljöer. En radiofyr kommer att vara den enda information som roboten använder för att navigera till en laddningsstation i ett okänt område. Tidigare föreslagna algoritmer använde gränsbaserad undersökning och den uppmätta RSS:en för att beräkna källans riktning. Användning av Gaussiska processer studeras för att modellera RSS-distributionen och generera en uppskattning av gradienten. Denna gradient införlivades också i en gränsutforskningsalgoritm och jämfördes med den föreslagna algoritmen. Det visade sig att användningen av den gaussiska processmodellen berodde på distributionen av RSS-proverna. Om roboten inte hade några tidigare prover av RSS, presterade den gradientassisterade lösningen bättre. Istället, om roboten hade några prover av RSS (till exempel om den utfört en annan uppgift på någon region i kartan), ger Gaussiska processmodellen bättre prestanda.

Over the last decade, the integration of robots into various applications has seen significant advancements fueled by Machine Learning (ML) algorithms, particularly in autonomous and independent operations. While robots have become increasingly proficient in various tasks, object instance recognition, a fundamental component of real-world robotic interactions, has witnessed remarkable improvements in accuracy and robustness. Nevertheless, most existing approaches heavily rely on prior information, limiting their adaptability in unfamiliar environments. To address this constraint, this thesis introduces the Segment and Learn Semantics (SaLS) framework, which combines video object segmentation with Continual Learning (CL) methods to enable semantic understanding in robotic applications. The research focuses on the potential application of SaLS in mobile robotics, with specific emphasis on the TORO robot developed at the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR). Evaluation of the proposed method is conducted using a diverse dataset comprising various terrains and objects encountered by the TORO robot during its walking sessions. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of SaLS in classifying both known and previously unseen objects, achieving an average accuracy of 78.86% and 70.78% in the CL experiments. When running the whole method in the image sequences collected with TORO, the accuracy scores were of 75.54% and 84.75%, for known and unknown objects respectively. Notably, SaLS exhibited resilience against catastrophic forgetting, with only minor accuracy decreases observed in specific cases. Computational resource usage was also explored, indicating that the method is feasible for practical mobile robotic systems, with GPU memory usage being a potential limiting factor. In conclusion, the SaLS framework represents a significant step forward in enabling robots to autonomously understand and interact with their surroundings. This research contributes to the ongoing development of robotic systems that can operate effectively in unstructured environments, paving the way for more versatile and capable autonomous robots.

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This dissertation presents the kinematics study on two cases of parallel locomotion mechanisms. A parallel locomotion mechanism can be defined as "a mechanism with parallel configuration and discrete contact with respect to the ground which renders a platform the ability to move". The first case is a tripedal robot and the second case is an actuated spoke wheel robot. The kinematics study on these two mobile robots mainly includes mobility, inverse and forward kinematics, instantaneous kinematics, singularity and so on. The tripedal robot STriDER (Self-excited Tripedal Dynamic Experimental Robot) is expected to walk utilizing its built-in passive dynamics, but in its triple stance phase, the kinematic configuration of the robot behaves like an in-parallel manipulator. The locomotion of this novel walking robot and its unique tripedal gait are discussed, followed by the definitions of its coordinate frames. Geometric methods are adopted for the forward and inverse displacement analysis in its triple stance phase. Simulations are presented to validate both the inverse and the forward displacement solutions. The instantaneous kinematics and singularity analysis are developed respectively. Based on the screw theory, the Jacobian matrices are assembled. Using Grassmann Line Geometry, each row of the Jacobian matrices is interpreted as a line in 3D space and the analytical conditions of the linear dependency cases are identified, which corresponds to the forward singular configurations of the robot. The actuated spoke wheel robot IMPASS (Intelligent Mobility Platform with Active Spoke System) is investigated as the second case. It is revealed that this robot has multiple modes of locomotion on the ground and it is able to change its topology by changing the contact scheme of its spokes with the ground. This robot is treated as a mechanism with variable topologies and Modified Grübler-Kutzbach criterion and Grassmann Line Geometry are adopted to identify the degrees of freedom (DOF) for each case of its topological structures. The characteristic DOF are then verified through the testing on the robot prototype. The forward and inverse kinematics is investigated for two cases of its topologies. In order to improve the computation efficiency of the inverse kinematics formulation, virtual serial manipulator models are constructed. The effectiveness of the virtual serial manipulator models has been validated with numerical simulations. In conclusion, kinematics analyses have been successfully performed on the two parallel locomotion mechanisms. The results are utilized to control the robots' motions in specific configurations. The foundation has been laid for the future development of the robot prototypes and the future research on dynamics, control, intelligence and so on. / Ph. D.