To facilitate necessary task-based interactions and to avoid annoying or upsetting people a domestic robot will have to exhibit appropriate non-verbal social behaviour. Most current robots have the ability to sense and control for the distance of people and objects in their vicinity. An understanding of human robot proxemic and associated non-verbal social behaviour is crucial for humans to accept robots as domestic or servants. Therefore, this thesis addressed the following hypothesis: Attributes of robot appearance, behaviour, task context and situation will affect the distances that people will find comfortable between themselves and a robot. Initial exploratory Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) experiments replicated human-human studies into comfortable approach distances with a mechanoid robot in place of one of the human interactors. It was found that most human participants respected the robot's interpersonal space and there were systematic differences for participants' comfortable approach distances to robots with different voice styles. It was proposed that greater initial comfortable approach distances to the robot were due to perceived inconsistencies between the robots overall appearance and voice style. To investigate these issues further it was necessary to develop HRI experimental set-ups, a novel Video-based HRI (VHRI) trial methodology, trial data collection methods and analytical methodologies. An exploratory VHRI trial then investigated human perceptions and preferences for robot appearance and non-verbal social behaviour. The methodological approach highlighted the holistic and embodied nature of robot appearance and behaviour. Findings indicated that people tend to rate a particular behaviour less favourably when the behaviour is not consistent with the robot’s appearance. A live HRI experiment finally confirmed and extended from these previous findings that there were multiple factors which significantly affected participants preferences for robot to human approach distances. There was a significant general tendency for participants to prefer either a tall humanoid robot or a short mechanoid robot and it was suggested that this may be due to participants internal or demographic factors. Participants' preferences for robot height and appearance were both found to have significant effects on their preferences for live robot to Human comfortable approach distances, irrespective of the robot type they actually encountered. The thesis confirms for mechanoid or humanoid robots, results that have previously been found in the domain of human-computer interaction (cf. Reeves & Nass (1996)), that people seem to automatically treat interactive artefacts socially. An original empirical human-robot proxemic framework is proposed in which the experimental findings from the study can be unified in the wider context of human-robot proxemics. This is seen as a necessary first step towards the desired end goal of creating and implementing a working robot proxemic system which can allow the robot to: a) exhibit socially acceptable social spatial behaviour when interacting with humans, b) interpret and gain additional valuable insight into a range of HRI situations from the relative proxemic behaviour of humans in the immediate area. Future work concludes the thesis.

This thesis proposes the use of a probabilistic state-space model with mixed-linear dynamics for learning to predict a robot's experiences. It is motivated by a desire to bridge the gap between traditional models with predefined objective semantics on the one hand, and the biologically-inspired "black box" behavioural paradigm on the other. A novel EM-type algorithm for the model is presented, which is less compuationally demanding than the Monte Carlo techniques developed for use in (for example) visual applications. The algorithm's E-step is slightly approximative, but an extension is described which would in principle make it asymptotically correct. Investigation using synthetically sampled data shows that the uncorrected E-step can any case make correct inferences about quite complicated systems. Results collected from two simulated mobile robot environments support the claim that mixed-linear models can capture both discontinuous and continuous structure in world in an intuitively natural manner; while they proved to perform only slightly better than simpler autoregressive hidden Markov models on these simple tasks, it is possible to claim tentatively that they might scale more effectively to environments in which trends over time played a larger role. Bayesian confidence regions—easily by mixed-linear model— proved be an effective guard for preventing it from making over-confident predictions outside its area of competence. A section on future extensions discusses how the model's easy invertibility could be harnessed to the ultimate aim of choosing actions, from a continuous space of possibilities, which maximise the robot's expected payoff over several steps into the future

Much effort has been spent over the last decade in producing so called "Machine Vision" systems for use in robotics, automated inspection, assembly and numerous other fields. Because of the large amount of data involved in an image (typically ¼ MByte) and the complexity of many algorithms used, the processing times required have been far in excess of real time on a VAX-class serial processor. We review a number of image understanding algorithms that compute a globally defined "state", and show that they may be computed using simple local operations that are suited to parallel implementation. In recent years, many massively parallel machines have been designed to apply local operations rapidly across an image. We review several vision machines. We develop an algebraic analysis of the performance of a vision machine and show that, contrary to the commonly-held belief, the time taken to relay images between serial streams can exceed by far the time spent processing. We proceed to investigate the roles that a variety of pipelining techniques might play. We then present three pipelined designs for vision, one of which has been built. This is a parallel pipelined bit slice convolution processor, capable of operating at video rates. This design is examined in detail, and its performance analysed in relation to the theoretical framework of the preceeding chapters. The construction and debugging of the device, which is now operational in its hardware is detailed.

No description available.

Les travaux de recherche de la thèse portent sur l'étude et la formalisation des interactions émotionnelles Humain-Machine. Au delà d’une détection d'informations paralinguistiques (émotions, disfluences,...) ponctuelles, il s'agit de fournir au système un profil interactionnel et émotionnel de l'utilisateur dynamique, enrichi pendant l’interaction. Ce profil permet d’adapter les stratégies de réponses de la machine au locuteur, et il peut également servir pour mieux gérer des relations à long terme. Le profil est fondé sur une représentation multi-niveau du traitement des indices émotionnels et interactionnels extraits à partir de l'audio via les outils de détection des émotions du LIMSI. Ainsi, des indices bas niveau (variations de la F0, d'énergie, etc.), fournissent des informations sur le type d'émotion exprimée, la force de l'émotion, le degré de loquacité, etc. Ces éléments à moyen niveau sont exploités dans le système afin de déterminer, au fil des interactions, le profil émotionnel et interactionnel de l'utilisateur. Ce profil est composé de six dimensions : optimisme, extraversion, stabilité émotionnelle, confiance en soi, affinité et domination (basé sur le modèle de personnalité OCEAN et les théories de l’interpersonal circumplex). Le comportement social du système est adapté en fonction de ce profil, de l'état de la tâche en cours, et du comportement courant du robot. Les règles de création et de mise à jour du profil émotionnel et interactionnel, ainsi que de sélection automatique du comportement du robot, ont été implémentées en logique floue à l'aide du moteur de décision développé par un partenaire du projet ROMEO. L’implémentation du système a été réalisée sur le robot NAO. Afin d’étudier les différents éléments de la boucle d’interaction émotionnelle entre l’utilisateur et le système, nous avons participé à la conception de plusieurs systèmes : système en Magicien d’Oz pré-scripté, système semi-automatisé, et système d’interaction émotionnelle autonome. Ces systèmes ont permis de recueillir des données en contrôlant plusieurs paramètres d’élicitation des émotions au sein d’une interaction ; nous présentons les résultats de ces expérimentations, et des protocoles d’évaluation de l’Interaction Humain-Robot via l’utilisation de systèmes à différents degrés d’autonomie. / Analysing and formalising the emotional aspect of the Human-Machine Interaction is the key to a successful relation. Beyond and isolated paralinguistic detection (emotion, disfluences…), our aim consists in providing the system with a dynamic emotional and interactional profile of the user, which can evolve throughout the interaction. This profile allows for an adaptation of the machine’s response strategy, and can deal with long term relationships. A multi-level processing of the emotional and interactional cues extracted from speech (LIMSI emotion detection tools) leads to the constitution of the profile. Low level cues ( F0, energy, etc.), are then interpreted in terms of expressed emotion, strength, or talkativeness of the speaker. These mid-level cues are processed in the system so as to determine, over the interaction sessions, the emotional and interactional profile of the user. The profile is made up of six dimensions: optimism, extroversion, emotional stability, self-confidence, affinity and dominance (based on the OCEAN personality model and the interpersonal circumplex theories). The information derived from this profile could allow for a measurement of the engagement of the speaker. The social behaviour of the system is adapted according to the profile, and the current task state and robot behaviour. Fuzzy logic rules drive the constitution of the profile and the automatic selection of the robotic behaviour. These determinist rules are implemented on a decision engine designed by a partner in the project ROMEO. We implemented the system on the humanoid robot NAO. The overriding issue dealt with in this thesis is the viable interpretation of the paralinguistic cues extracted from speech into a relevant emotional representation of the user. We deem it noteworthy to point out that multimodal cues could reinforce the profile’s robustness. So as to analyse the different parts of the emotional interaction loop between the user and the system, we collaborated in the design of several systems with different autonomy degrees: a pre-scripted Wizard-of-Oz system, a semi-automated system, and a fully autonomous system. Using these systems allowed us to collect emotional data in robotic interaction contexts, by controlling several emotion elicitation parameters. This thesis presents the results of these data collections, and offers an evaluation protocol for Human-Robot Interaction through systems with various degrees of autonomy.

Les robots sont tout près d'arriver chez nous. Mais avant cela, ils doivent acquérir la capacité d'interagir physiquement avec les humains, de manière sûre et efficace. De telles capacités sont indispensables pour qu'il puissent vivre parmi nous, et nous assister dans diverses tâches quotidiennes, comme porter une meuble. Dans cette thèse, nous avons pour but de doter le robot humanoïde bipède HRP-2 de la capacité à effectuer des actions haptiques en commun avec l'homme. Dans un premier temps, nous étudions comment des dyades humains collaborent pour transporter un objet encombrant. De cette étude, nous extrayons un modèle global de primitives de mouvement que nous utilisons pour implémenter un comportement proactif sur le robot HRP-2, afin qu'il puisse effectuer la même tâche avec un humain. Puis nous évaluons les performances de ce schéma de contrôle proactif au cours de tests utilisateurs. Finalement, nous exposons diverses pistes d'évolution de notre travail: la stabilisation d'un humanoïde à travers l'interaction physique, la généralisation du modèle de primitives de mouvements à d'autres tâches collaboratives et l'inclusion de la vision dans des tâches collaboratives haptiques. / Robots are very close to arrive in our homes. But before doing so, they must master physical interaction with humans, in a safe and efficient way. Such capacities are essential for them to live among us, and assit us in various everyday tasks, such as carrying a piece of furniture. In this thesis, we focus on endowing the biped humanoid robot HRP-2 with the capacity to perform haptic joint actions with humans. First, we study how human dyads collaborate to transport a cumbersome object. From this study, we define a global motion primitives' model that we use to implement a proactive behavior on the HRP-2 robot, so that it can perform the same task with a human. Then, we assess the performances of our proactive control scheme by perfoming user studies. Finally, we expose several potential extensions to our work: self-stabilization of a humanoid through physical interaction, generalization of the motion primitives' model to other collaboratives tasks and the addition of visionto haptic joint actions.

Les robots industriels, bien connus pour être des systèmes de fabrication flexibles et agiles, atteignent leurs limites lorsqu'il s'agit d'effectuer des tâches sur des pièces de grande taille (par exemple: les pièces longues et minces de l'industrie aéronautique). Pour ce type des tâches, les solutions existantes sont à leurs limites: les bras manipulateurs à base fixe souffrent d'un espace de travail trop limité; les bras manipulateurs montés sur véhicule ne sont pas assez précis; les machines-outils conventionnelles doivent être conçus à méga-échelle (plusieurs dizaines de mètres). Dans la cadre de cette thèse de doctorat, nous avons proposé des solutions robotiques innovantes qui combinent la capacité de marcher (ou de grimper) sur la pièce (ou sur le montage d'usinage) avec la capacité d'usiner. De l'analyse de la topologie et de la mobilité à la modélisation géométrique et cinématique, ainsi que la proposition d'algorithmes de contrôle innovants, des robots ont été proposés et étudiés pour la réalisation des tâches d'usinage ainsi que des tâches de locomotion. Un prototype a été construit qui témoigne de la pertinence de ce concept innovant. Il repose sur une architecture parallèle à actionnement redondant (8 moteurs pour 6 degrés de liberté) et combine moteurs, freins, dispositifs de bridage et de nombreux capteurs de position. Le prototype peut se fixer sur le montage d'usinage, réaliser ses tâches de fabrication, puis modifier sa configuration pour devenir un robot marcheur capable d'atteindre la zone de travail suivante. / Industrial robots, well known as flexible and agile manufacturing systems, reach their limits when dealing with very large workpieces (e.g.: very long and slender parts found in aeronautics industry). For such tasks, existing solutions are at their limits: stationary manipulator arms suffer from a too limited workspace; manipulators mounted on a vehicle are not accurate enough; classical machine-tools must be designed at mega-scale (several tens of meters). This thesis work aims at offering an innovative robotic solution that combines the ability to walk (or climb) on the workpiece (or on the tooling that supports the workpieces) together with manufacturing ability. From the topology and mobility analysis to the geometrics and kinematics modeling, as well as innovative control algorithms proposition, the proposed mobile manufacturing robots have been studied for achieving both machining and locomotion tasks. A prototype has been built to show the concept effectiveness . It is based on a parallel mechanism with actuation redundancy (8 motors for 6 degrees-of-freedom), combining motors, brakes, clamping devices and numerous position sensors. The robot can clamp itself on the manufacturing tooling, and then change its configuration to become a walking robot able to reach the next working area.

by Li Chi Keung. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-100). / Acknowledgements --- p.ii / Abstract --- p.iii / Notations --- p.vii / List of Figures --- p.viii / List of Tables --- p.x / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction / Chapter 1.1 --- Serial Manipulator and Parallel Manipulator --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Literature Overview --- p.4 / Chapter 1.3 --- Objective --- p.10 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Classification and General Approach / Chapter 2.1 --- Overview --- p.11 / Chapter 2.2 --- Classification of Stewart Platform Type Parallel Manipulators --- p.12 / Chapter 2.3 --- Sub-structures of Stewart Platform Type Mechanism --- p.14 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Point-Line (PL) Structure --- p.14 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Point-Body (PB) Structure --- p.16 / Chapter 2.3.3 --- Line-Line (LL) Structure --- p.17 / Chapter 2.3.4 --- Line-Body (LB) Structure --- p.21 / Chapter 2.4 --- Approach for Closed-Form Direct Position Analysis --- p.25 / Chapter 2.4.1 --- DOF of Stewart Platform Type Parallel Mechanism --- p.26 / Chapter 2.4.2 --- DOF of Stewart Platform Type Parallel Mechanism with Disconnected Legs --- p.27 / Chapter 2.4.3 --- Formation of Rotation and Translation Matrices --- p.28 / Chapter 2.4.4 --- Formation of Closure Equations --- p.32 / Chapter 2.4.5 --- Elimination of Variables --- p.33 / Chapter 2.4.6 --- Final Solution --- p.35 / Chapter 2.5 --- Summary --- p.35 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Case Studies / Chapter 3.1 --- Overview --- p.37 / Chapter 3.2 --- Type 5-5 Case II --- p.38 / Chapter 3.3 --- Type 6-5 --- p.47 / Chapter 3.4 --- Type 6-6 with 4 Collinear Joint Centers on Both Link (type 6-6 (L4L)) --- p.51 / Chapter 3.5 --- Type 6-6 with 4 Collinear Joint Centers on Movable Link (type 6-6 (L4B)) --- p.59 / Chapter 3.6 --- Summary --- p.63 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Singularity Analysis / Chapter 4.2 --- General Theory --- p.64 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Multiple Root Configuration --- p.64 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Special Configuration --- p.66 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Multiple Root Configuration and Special Configuration --- p.66 / Chapter 4.3 --- Examples --- p.66 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Special Planar Parallel Manipulator --- p.66 / Chapter 4.3.4 --- Special Stewart Platform Type Parallel Manipulator --- p.71 / Chapter 4.4 --- Summary --- p.74 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- Conclusions and Recommendations for Future Research / Chapter 5.1 --- Conclusions --- p.75 / Chapter 5.2 --- Recommendations for Future Research --- p.77 / Appendices / Chapter A.l --- Direct Position Analysis of P5B Structure --- p.79 / Chapter A.2 --- Analytic Expressions for Symbols of Type 5-5 Case II --- p.82 / Chapter A.3 --- Analytic Expressions for Sybmols of Type 6-6 (L4L) --- p.84 / Chapter A.4 --- Mathematica Scripts for Case Studies in Chapter 3 --- p.85 / Chapter A.4.1 --- Type 5-5 Case II --- p.85 / Chapter A.4.2 --- Type 6-6 with 4 Collinear Joint Centers on Both Link Connected Together --- p.91 / Reference --- p.95

by Ho Siu Yan. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 105-110). / ACKNOWLEDGEMENT --- p.i / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / NOMENCLATURE --- p.iii / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.v / LIST OF FIGURES --- p.vii / Chapter 1 --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- FORM-CLOSURE GRASP --- p.9 / Chapter 2.1 --- Condition for Form-closure Grasp --- p.9 / Chapter 2.2 --- Construction of Form-closure Grasp --- p.12 / Chapter 2.3 --- Configuration Stability of Form-closure Grasp --- p.28 / Chapter 2.4 --- Determination of Object Frame from a Form-closure Grasp --- p.33 / Chapter 3 --- DYNAMIC MODEL OF MULTI-ARM SYSTEMS HANDLING ONE OBJECT --- p.36 / Chapter 3.1 --- System Description --- p.36 / Chapter 3.2 --- Manipulator Dynamics --- p.37 / Chapter 3.3 --- Object Dynamics --- p.37 / Chapter 3.4 --- Contact Forces --- p.38 / Chapter 3.5 --- Kinematic Relations --- p.40 / Chapter 3.6 --- Overall System --- p.41 / Chapter 3.7 --- Constraint Space Matrices --- p.42 / Chapter 3.8 --- Motion Space Matrices --- p.48 / Chapter 3.9 --- General Joint Model --- p.54 / Chapter 4 --- FORWARD DYNAMICS OF MULTI-ARM SYSTEMS HANDLING ONE OBJECT --- p.65 / Chapter 4.1 --- Previous Works --- p.65 / Chapter 4.2 --- Modified Approach --- p.69 / Chapter 4.3 --- Constraint Violation Stabilization Method --- p.73 / Chapter 4.4 --- Computation Requirement of the Algorithm --- p.75 / Chapter 5 --- CONCLUSION --- p.78 / Chapter 5.1 --- Future Researches --- p.79 / APPENDICES / Chapter A --- PROOFS AND DISCUSSIONS RELATED TO CHAPTER TWO --- p.81 / Chapter B --- IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ALGORITHM FOR DETERMINING THE OBJECT FRAME FROM A FORM-CLOSURE GRASP --- p.95 / Chapter C --- EXPRESSING WRENCHES WITH ZERO-PITCH WRENCHES --- p.96 / Chapter D --- IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PROPOSED SIMULATION ALGORITHM --- p.98 / REFERENCES --- p.105

Lau Ah Wai, Calvin. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 108-111). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- An Overview --- p.4 / Chapter 1.1.1 --- Robot Self Location --- p.4 / Chapter 1.1.2 --- Robot Navigation --- p.10 / Chapter 1.2 --- Scope of Thesis --- p.12 / Chapter 2 --- Theory --- p.13 / Chapter 2.1 --- Coordinate Systems Transformations --- p.13 / Chapter 2.2 --- Problem Specification --- p.21 / Chapter 2.3 --- The Process of Stereo Vision --- p.22 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Disparity and Depth --- p.22 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Vertical Edge Detection and Extraction --- p.25 / Chapter 2.3.3 --- Line Matching Using Dynamic Programming --- p.27 / Chapter 3 --- Mobile Robot Self Location --- p.29 / Chapter 3.1 --- Physical Points by Stereo Reconstruction --- p.29 / Chapter 3.1.1 --- Physical Points Refinement --- p.32 / Chapter 3.2 --- Motion Uncertainties Modeling --- p.33 / Chapter 3.3 --- Improved Physical Point Estimations by EKF --- p.36 / Chapter 3.4 --- Matching Physical Points to Model by Geometric Hashing --- p.40 / Chapter 3.4.1 --- Similarity Invariant --- p.44 / Chapter 3.5 --- Initial Pose Estimation --- p.47 / Chapter 3.5.1 --- Initial Pose Refinement --- p.50 / Chapter 3.6 --- Self Location Using Other Camera Combinations --- p.50 / Chapter 4 --- Improvements to Self Location Using Bayesian Inference --- p.55 / Chapter 4.1 --- Statistical Characteristics of Edges --- p.57 / Chapter 4.2 --- Evidence at One Pixel --- p.60 / Chapter 4.3 --- Evidence Over All Pixels --- p.62 / Chapter 4.4 --- A Simplification Of Geometric Hashing --- p.62 / Chapter 4.4.1 --- Simplification of The Similarity Invariant --- p.63 / Chapter 4.4.2 --- Translation Invariant --- p.63 / Chapter 4.4.3 --- Simplification to The Hashing Table --- p.65 / Chapter 5 --- Robot Navigation --- p.67 / Chapter 5.1 --- Propagation of Motion Uncertainties to Estimated Pose --- p.68 / Chapter 5.2 --- Expectation Map Derived from the CAD Model --- p.70 / Chapter 6 --- Experimental Results --- p.74 / Chapter 6.1 --- Results Using Simulated Environment --- p.74 / Chapter 6.1.1 --- Results and Error Analysis --- p.75 / Chapter 6.2 --- Results Using Real Environment --- p.85 / Chapter 6.2.1 --- Camera Calibration Using Tsai's Algorithm --- p.85 / Chapter 6.2.2 --- Pose Estimation By Geometric Hashing --- p.88 / Chapter 6.2.3 --- Pose Estimation by Bayesian Inference and Geometric Hash- ing --- p.90 / Chapter 6.2.4 --- Comparison of Self Location Approaches --- p.92 / Chapter 6.2.5 --- Motion Tracking --- p.93 / Chapter 7 --- Conclusion and Discussion --- p.95 / Chapter 7.1 --- Conclusion and Discussion --- p.95 / Chapter 7.2 --- Contributions --- p.97 / Chapter 7.3 --- Subjects for Future Research --- p.98 / Chapter A --- Appendix --- p.100 / Chapter A.1 --- Extended Kalman Filter --- p.100 / Chapter A.2 --- Visualizing Uncertainty for 2D Points --- p.105