Veículos autônomos são importantes para a execução de missões dos mais variados tipos, reduzindo riscos aos seres humanos e executando as missões de uma maneira mais eficiente. Neste contexto existem os veículos aéreos não tripulados que são cada vez mais utilizados em missões de vigilância, reconhecimento, resgate, entre outras. Uma das características destes veículos é realizar as missões de maneira autônoma, sem a intervenção de operadores humanos. Desta forma, é necessário que existam formas de detectar aproximações perigosas com outras aeronaves e objetos que possam causar risco de colisão e, consequentemente a perda de ativos de alto valor ou até mesmo vidas humanas e, posteriormente realizar o desvio necessário. Neste cenário foi proposto o MOSAIC, um sistema de detecção e desvio de obstáculos utilizando visão monocular para veículos aéreos de pequeno porte. Para isto, foi desenvolvido um método de estimativa da posição tridimensional dos obstáculos a partir de imagens monoculares e propostas melhorias em algoritmos de detecção. A validação do sistema foi obtida por meio de experimentos simulados e reais sobre cada módulo e os resultados obtidos foram promissores, apresentando um erro de apenas 9,75% em ambientes sem restrições e distâncias de até 20 metros. Com isto, os resultados se mostram melhores que os demais algoritmos encontrados no estado da arte em que o erro é menor que 10% apenas em ambientes controlados e distâncias de até 5 metros. / Autonomous vehicles can be used for different kinds of missions reducing risks to human life and being more efficient. In this context, unmanned aerial vehicles play an important role on surveillance, recognition and rescue missions, among others. Due to the mission nature, these vehicles need to perform actions without human intervention, which requires that dangerous approximations to others aerial vehicles or objects to be detected and properly avoided. This leads to the creation of MOSAIC, an obstacle avoidance system based on monocular vision designed to meet the requirements of miniature air vehicles. A novel approach to estimate obstacle three-dimensional position based on monocular vision was developed and some improvements in the detection algorithm were proposed. The system validation was obtained through simulated and real experiments in which each module could be validated. Promising results were obtained showing an error under 9.75% in unconstrained environments and distance up to 20 meters. This results were better than the algorithms and approaches described in the state of the art where errors are under 10% only on constrained environments and distance up to 5 meters.

A operação de veículos autônomos necessita de meios para evitar colisões quando obstáculos não conhecidos previamente são interpostos em sua trajetória. Algoritmos para executar o desvio e sensores apropriados para a detecção destes obstáculos são essenciais para a operação destes veículos. Esta dissertação apresenta estudos sobre quatro algoritmos de desvio de obstáculos e tecnologia de três tipos de sensores aplicáveis à operação de veículos autônomos. Após os estudos teóricos, um dos algoritmos foi testado para a comprovação da aplicabilidade ao veículo de teste. A etapa experimental foi a realização de um programa, escrito em linguagem de programação Java, que aplicou o algoritmo Inseto 2 para o desvio de obstáculos em uma plataforma robótica (Robodeck) com o uso de sensores ultrassônicos embarcados na referida plataforma. Os experimentos foram conduzidos em ambiente fechado (indoor), bidimensional e horizontal (plano), fazendo o Robodeck executar uma trajetória. Para os testes, obstáculos foram colocados para simular situações variadas e avaliar a eficácia do algoritmo nestas configurações de caminho. O algoritmo executou o desvio dos obstáculos com sucesso e, quando havia solução para a trajetória, ela foi encontrada. Quando não havia solução, o algoritmo detectou esta situação e parou o veículo. / The operation of autonomous vehicles need means to avoid collisions when unforeseen obstacles are posed in its trajectory. Algorithms to perform the deviation and suitable sensors for detecting these obstacles are essential for the operation of such vehicles. This dissertation presents studies on four obstacle avoidance algorithms and technology of three types of sensors applicable to the operation of autonomous vehicles. After the theoretical studies, one of the algorithms has been tested for evidence of applicability to the test vehicle. The experimental phase was the implementation of a program written in Java programming language, which applied the Insect 2 algorithm for obstacle avoidance in a robotic platform (Robodeck) using ultrasonic sensors embedded in the platform. The experiments were conducted in a closed environment (indoor), two-dimensional and flat, making Robodeck perform a trajectory. For testing, obstacles were placed to simulate various situations and evaluating the algorithm efficacy for these path configurations. The algorithm successfully performed the deviation of obstacles and, when there was a solution to the trajectory, it was found. When there was no solution, the algorithm has detected this situation and stopped the vehicle.

Veículos autônomos são importantes para a execução de missões dos mais variados tipos, reduzindo riscos aos seres humanos e executando as missões de uma maneira mais eficiente. Neste contexto existem os veículos aéreos não tripulados que são cada vez mais utilizados em missões de vigilância, reconhecimento, resgate, entre outras. Uma das características destes veículos é realizar as missões de maneira autônoma, sem a intervenção de operadores humanos. Desta forma, é necessário que existam formas de detectar aproximações perigosas com outras aeronaves e objetos que possam causar risco de colisão e, consequentemente a perda de ativos de alto valor ou até mesmo vidas humanas e, posteriormente realizar o desvio necessário. Neste cenário foi proposto o MOSAIC, um sistema de detecção e desvio de obstáculos utilizando visão monocular para veículos aéreos de pequeno porte. Para isto, foi desenvolvido um método de estimativa da posição tridimensional dos obstáculos a partir de imagens monoculares e propostas melhorias em algoritmos de detecção. A validação do sistema foi obtida por meio de experimentos simulados e reais sobre cada módulo e os resultados obtidos foram promissores, apresentando um erro de apenas 9,75% em ambientes sem restrições e distâncias de até 20 metros. Com isto, os resultados se mostram melhores que os demais algoritmos encontrados no estado da arte em que o erro é menor que 10% apenas em ambientes controlados e distâncias de até 5 metros. / Autonomous vehicles can be used for different kinds of missions reducing risks to human life and being more efficient. In this context, unmanned aerial vehicles play an important role on surveillance, recognition and rescue missions, among others. Due to the mission nature, these vehicles need to perform actions without human intervention, which requires that dangerous approximations to others aerial vehicles or objects to be detected and properly avoided. This leads to the creation of MOSAIC, an obstacle avoidance system based on monocular vision designed to meet the requirements of miniature air vehicles. A novel approach to estimate obstacle three-dimensional position based on monocular vision was developed and some improvements in the detection algorithm were proposed. The system validation was obtained through simulated and real experiments in which each module could be validated. Promising results were obtained showing an error under 9.75% in unconstrained environments and distance up to 20 meters. This results were better than the algorithms and approaches described in the state of the art where errors are under 10% only on constrained environments and distance up to 5 meters.

A operação de veículos autônomos necessita de meios para evitar colisões quando obstáculos não conhecidos previamente são interpostos em sua trajetória. Algoritmos para executar o desvio e sensores apropriados para a detecção destes obstáculos são essenciais para a operação destes veículos. Esta dissertação apresenta estudos sobre quatro algoritmos de desvio de obstáculos e tecnologia de três tipos de sensores aplicáveis à operação de veículos autônomos. Após os estudos teóricos, um dos algoritmos foi testado para a comprovação da aplicabilidade ao veículo de teste. A etapa experimental foi a realização de um programa, escrito em linguagem de programação Java, que aplicou o algoritmo Inseto 2 para o desvio de obstáculos em uma plataforma robótica (Robodeck) com o uso de sensores ultrassônicos embarcados na referida plataforma. Os experimentos foram conduzidos em ambiente fechado (indoor), bidimensional e horizontal (plano), fazendo o Robodeck executar uma trajetória. Para os testes, obstáculos foram colocados para simular situações variadas e avaliar a eficácia do algoritmo nestas configurações de caminho. O algoritmo executou o desvio dos obstáculos com sucesso e, quando havia solução para a trajetória, ela foi encontrada. Quando não havia solução, o algoritmo detectou esta situação e parou o veículo. / The operation of autonomous vehicles need means to avoid collisions when unforeseen obstacles are posed in its trajectory. Algorithms to perform the deviation and suitable sensors for detecting these obstacles are essential for the operation of such vehicles. This dissertation presents studies on four obstacle avoidance algorithms and technology of three types of sensors applicable to the operation of autonomous vehicles. After the theoretical studies, one of the algorithms has been tested for evidence of applicability to the test vehicle. The experimental phase was the implementation of a program written in Java programming language, which applied the Insect 2 algorithm for obstacle avoidance in a robotic platform (Robodeck) using ultrasonic sensors embedded in the platform. The experiments were conducted in a closed environment (indoor), two-dimensional and flat, making Robodeck perform a trajectory. For testing, obstacles were placed to simulate various situations and evaluating the algorithm efficacy for these path configurations. The algorithm successfully performed the deviation of obstacles and, when there was a solution to the trajectory, it was found. When there was no solution, the algorithm has detected this situation and stopped the vehicle.

Teleoperation of an unmanned vehicle is a challenging task for human operators especially when the vehicle is out of line of sight. Improperly designed and applied display interfaces directly affect the operation performance negatively and even can result in catastrophic failures. If these teleoperation missions are human-critical then it becomes more important to improve the operator performance by decreasing workload, managing stress and improving situational awareness. This research aims to develop electrical and control system of an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) using an All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV) and validate the development with investigation of the effects of force feedback devices on the teleoperation performance. After development, teleoperation tests are performed to verify that force feedback generated from the dynamic obstacle information of the environment improves teleoperation performance. Results confirm this statement and the developed UGV is verified for future research studies. Development of UGV, algorithms and real system tests are included in this thesis.

In this thesis, various control problems originating from the field of mobile robotics are considered. In particular, the thesis deals with problems that are related to the interaction and coordination of multiple mobile units. The scientific contributions are presented in five papers that together constitute the main part of the thesis. The papers are preceded by a longer introductory part, in which some important results from control theory, data processing and robotics are reviewed. In the first of the appended papers, two stabilizing tracking controls are proposed for a non-holonomic robot platform of unicycle type. Tolerance to errors and other properties of the controllers are discussed and a reactive obstacle avoidance control, that can easily be incorporated with the proposed tracking controls, is suggested. In Paper B, the results from Paper~A are extended to multi-agent systems. It is demonstrated how the tracking controls from Paper A can be used as building blocks when putting together formations of robots, in which each robot maintains a fixed position relative its neighbors during translation. In addition, switching between the different control functions is shown to be robust, implying that it is possible to change the shape of a formation on-line. In the first two papers, the tracking problem is facilitated by the assumption that the approximate velocity of the target/leader is known to the tracking robot. Paper C treats the the case where the target velocity is neither directly measurable with the available sensor setup, nor possible to obtain through communication with neighboring agents. Straight-forward computation of the target velocity from available sensor data unfortunately tend to enhance measurement errors and give unreliable estimates. To overcome the difficulties, an alternative approach to velocity estimation is proposed, motivated by the local observability of the given control system. Paper D deals with another problematic aspect of data acquisition. When using range sensors, one often obtains a mixed data set with measurements originating from many different sources. This problem would, for instance, be encountered by a robot moving in a formation, where it was surrounded by other agents. There exist established techniques for sorting mixed data sets off-line, but for time-depending systems where data need to be sorted on-line and only small time delays can be tolerated, established methods fail. The solution presented in the paper is a prediction-correction type algorithm, referred to as CCIA (Classification Correction and Identification algorithm). Finally, in Paper E, we consider the problem of maintaining connectivity in a multi-agent system. Often inter-agent communication abilities are associated with some proximity constraints, so when the robots move in relation to each other, communication links both break and form. In the paper we present a framework for analysis that makes it possible to compute a set of general constraints which, if satisfied, are sufficient to guarantee maintained communication for a given multi-agent system. Constraints are computed for two sorts of consensus-based systems and the results are verified in simulations. / QC 20100715

This report presents optimal control methods integrated with hierarchical control framework to realize real-time collision-free optimal trajectories for motion control in kinematic chain manipulator (KCM) robot systems under dynamic environments. Recently, they have been increasingly used in applications where manipulators are required to interact with random objects and humans. As a result, more complex trajectory planning schemes are required. The main objective of this research is to develop new motion control strategies that can enable such robots to operate efficiently and optimally in such unknown and dynamic environments. Two direct optimal control methods: The direct collocation method and discrete mechanics for optimal control methods are investigated for solving the related constrained optimal control problem and the results are compared. Using the receding horizon control structure, open-loop sub-optimal trajectories are generated as real-time input to the controller as opposed to the predefined trajectory over the entire time duration. This, in essence, captures the dynamic nature of the obstacles. The closed-loop position controller is then engaged to span the robot end-effector along this desired optimal path by computing appropriate torque commands for the joint actuators. Employing a two-degree of freedom technique, collision-free trajectories and robot environment information are transmitted in real-time by the aid of a bidirectional connectionless datagram transfer. A hierarchical network control platform is designed to condition triggering of precedent activities between a dedicated machine computing the optimal trajectory and the real-time computer running a low-level controller. Experimental results on a 2-link planar robot are presented to validate the main ideas. Real-time implementation of collision-free workspace trajectory control is achieved for cases where obstacles are arbitrarily changing in the robot workspace.

Robotic science can be defined as a modern multi-disciplinary branch of science, which hosts many technological elements with a huge theoretic base. From electrical and electronics engineering point of view, construction of intelligent agents that produce and/or collects information by interacting the surrounding environment and that can achieve some goal via learning, is investigated in robotic science. In this scope, behavior-based robotic control has emerged in recent years, which can be defined as a hierarchically higher control mechanism over classical control theory and applications. In this thesis, software which is capable of producing behavior-based control over mobile robots is constructed. Research encapsulates an investigation on behavior-based robotic concept by comparison of different approaches. Although there are numerous commercial and freeware software products for robotics, the number of open source, detail documented software on behavior-based control concept together with easy usage is limited. Aimed to fulfill a necessity in this field, an open source software environment is implemented in which different algorithms and applications can be developed. In order to evaluate the effectiveness and the capabilities of the implemented software, a fully detailed simulation is conducted. This simulation covers multi-behavior coordination concept for a differential drive mobile robot navigating in a collision free path through a target point which is detected by sensors, in an unstructured environment, that robot has no priori information about, in which static and moving obstacles exists. Coordination is accomplished by artificial neural network with back-propagation training algorithm. Behaviors are constructed using fuzzy control concept. Mobile robot has no information about sizes, number of static and/or dynamic obstacles. All the information is gathered by its simulated sensors (proximity, range, vision sensors). Yielded results are given in detail.

This thesis focuses on the development of guidance algorithms in order to avoid a prescribed obstacle primarily using the Collision Cone Method (CCM). The Collision Cone Method is a geometric approach to obstacle avoidance, which forms an avoidance zone around the obstacles for the vehicle to pass the obstacle around this zone. The method is reactive as it helps to avoid the pop-up obstacles as well as the known obstacles and local as it passes the obstacles and continue to the prescribed trajectory. The algorithm is first developed for a 2D (planar) avoidance in 3D environment and then extended for 3D scenarios. The algorithm is formed for the optimized CCM as well. The avoidance zone radius and velocity are optimized using constraint optimization, Lagrange multipliers with Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions and direct experimentation.

This thesis presents an integrated framework for online obstacle avoidance of rotary-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which can provide UAVs an obstacle field navigation capability in a partially or completely unknown obstacle-rich environment. The framework is composed of a LIDAR interface, a local obstacle grid generation, a receding horizon (RH) trajectory optimizer, a global shortest path search algorithm, and a climb rate limit detection logic. The key feature of the framework is the use of an optimization-based trajectory generation in which the obstacle avoidance problem is formulated as a nonlinear trajectory optimization problem with state and input constraints over the finite range of the sensor. This local trajectory optimization is combined with a global path search algorithm which provides a useful initial guess to the nonlinear optimization solver. Optimization is the natural process of finding the best trajectory that is dynamically feasible, safe within the vehicle's flight envelope, and collision-free at the same time. The optimal trajectory is continuously updated in real time by the numerical optimization solver, Nonlinear Trajectory Generation (NTG), which is a direct solver based on the spline approximation of trajectory for dynamically flat systems. In fact, the overall approach of this thesis to finding the optimal trajectory is similar to the model predictive control (MPC) or the receding horizon control (RHC), except that this thesis followed a two-layer design; thus, the optimal solution works as a guidance command to be followed by the controller of the vehicle. The framework is implemented in a real-time simulation environment, the Georgia Tech UAV Simulation Tool (GUST), and integrated in the onboard software of the rotary-wing UAV test-bed at Georgia Tech. Initially, the 2D vertical avoidance capability of real obstacles was tested in flight. Then the flight test evaluations were extended to the benchmark tests for 3D avoidance capability over the virtual obstacles, and finally it was demonstrated on real obstacles located at the McKenna MOUT site in Fort Benning, Georgia. Simulations and flight test evaluations demonstrate the feasibility of the developed framework for UAV applications involving low-altitude flight in an urban area.