The goal of this thesis is to design and fabricate a four degrees freedom underwater manipulator for small to midsize remotely operated vehicles. DC servo motors were used to actuate the manipulator joints such that the size and the necessary auxiliary components can be reduced. In terms of hardware design process, the selection of servo motors and their arrangement is the key to the overall performance of the manipulator. The design of any joint, including its location and fixture to the frame, is coupled with that of the neighboring joints such that the design itself is an iterative process. Proper choice of the torque and power of an actuator not only reduces its size but also ease the loading the joints proximal to the base. In this project, the water resistance between stationary and rotary interfaces are achieved by O-ring and mechanical seals respectively. A gripper, synthesized and analyzed with kinematic chain theory, was implemented with a single degree freedom six-bar linkage as the end-effector of the manipulator. Because the robot is designated to operate in underwater environment, the dynamics of the system is relative slow and insignificant. Therefore, the only the linearized kinematics of the manipulator is concerned, and the motion controller is implemented with Jacobian in Visual Basic. Under 50 Hz servo rate, gravity compensation is added for operation in the air, and in the water as well. For the operating speed limited to 20 mm/sec, the overall positioning error is confined to be less than 1 mm for all time.

Personal robotics applications require autonomous mobile robot navigation methods that are safe, robust, and inexpensive. Two requirements for autonomous use of robots for such applications are an automatic motion planner to select paths and a robust way of ensuring that the robot can follow the selected path given the unavoidable odometer and control errors that must be dealt with for any inexpensive robot. Additional difficulties are faced when there is more than one robot involved. In this dissertation, we describe a new roadmapbased method for mobile robot navigation. It is suitable for partially known indoor environments and requires only inexpensive range sensors. The navigator selects paths from the roadmap and designates localization points on those paths. In particular, the navigator selects feasible paths that are sensitive to the needs of the application (e.g., no sharp turns) and of the localization algorithm (e.g., within sensing range of two features). We present a new sectorbased localizer that is robust in the presence of sensor limitations and unknown obstacles while still maintaining computational efficiency. We extend our approach to teams of robots focusing on quickly sensing ranges from all robots while avoiding sensor crosstalk, and reducing the pose uncertainties of all robots while using a minimal number of sensing rounds. We present experimental results for mobile robots and describe a webbased route planner for the Texas A&M campus that utilizes our navigator.

<p>Denna reflekterande text behandlar utvecklingen av ett spel som har skapats för att spelas med en delaktig industrirobot. Verket är en digital prototyp som har skapats efter ett antal krav och förutsättningar som ett fysiskt spel till en robot har och fungerar som en hjälp, för att visa hur ett spel till en robot kan utvecklas. Målet har varit att skapa ett underhållande spel till casual gamers och har under spelets utveckling testats i viss omfattning för att se hur det har tagits emot av målgruppen.</p><p>Innehållet i denna text beskriver verkets syfte och mål samt problemställning. Sedan följer information om vad casual games är och en reflekterande text om de olika delarna i både det fysiska spelet och den digitala prototypen. Den går även igen utvecklingsprocessen och testningen som utfördes till spelet.</p><p>Resultatet är ett digitalt spel som har tagit emot relativt väl av målgruppen och de flesta ansåg det vara underhållande. Dock så testades det aldrig med roboten vilket var tänkt från början och fungerar mer som en fingervisning om hur det fysiska spelet, som har byggts vid sidan om, kan utvecklas för att bli underhållande.</p>

This report describes the security and safety rover capable of monitoring the the indoor areas of a home and alerting the homeowner of events, such as burglary, fire, or flood. Physical security has always been a concern for homeowners. Digital video security systems are becoming commonplace in modern homes. The majority of the cameras available in this consumer market are fixed-mount cameras with limited capability. The pan-tilt-zoom feature is much less common due to cost. However, with the recent availability of low-cost, powerful, micro-controller boards along with high definition cameras and a myriad of electronic sensors this nascent product comes to mind. This report describes an experimental effort to build a robot using ``off-the-shelf'' hardware and custom software. Specifically, it will answer the question: ``Is it possible to build such a rover with the requisite capability and, if so, at what cost?'' / text

Shared control is a technique to provide interactive autonomy in a telerobotic task, replacing the requirement for pure teleoperation where the operator's intervention is unnecessary or even undesirable. In this thesis, a geometrically correct theory of shared control for teleoperation is developed using differential geometry. The autonomous function proposed is force control. In shared control, the workspace is commonly partitioned into a "position domain" and a "force domain". This computational process requires the use of a metric. In the context of manifolds, these are known as Riemannian metrics. The switching matrix is shown to be equivalent to a filter which embodies a Riemannian metric form. However, since the metric form is non-invariant, it is shown that the metric form must undergo a transformation if the measurement reference frame is moved. If the transformation is not made, then the switching matrix fails to produce correct results in the new measurement frame. Alternatively, the switching matrix can be viewed as a misinterpretation of a projection operator. Again, the projection operator needs to be transformed correctly if the measurement reference frame is moved. Many robot control architectures preclude the implementation of robust force control. However, a compliant device mounted between the robot wrist and the workpiece can be a good alternative in lieu of explicit force control. In this form of shared control, force and displacement are regulated by control of displacement only. The geometry of compliant devices is examined in the context of shared control and a geometrically correct scheme for shared control is derived. This scheme follows naturally from a theoretical analysis of stiffness and potential energy. This thesis unifies some recent results formulated for robotic hybrid position / force control under the modern framework of differential geometry and Lie groups.

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In designing and evaluating human-robot interactions and interfaces, researchers often use simulated robots because of the high cost of physical robots and time required to program them. However, it is important to consider how interaction with a simulated robot differs from a real robot; that is, do simulated robots provide authentic interaction? We contribute to a growing body of work that explores this question and maps out simulated-versus-real differences, by explicitly investigating empathy: how people empathize with a physical or simulated robot when something bad happens to it. Empathy is particularly relevant to social human-robot interaction (HRI) and is integral to, e.g., companion and care robots. To explore our question, we develop a convincing HRI scenario that induces people’s empathy toward a robot, and explore psychology work for an empathy-measuring instrument. To formally evaluate our scenario and the empathy-measuring instrument in HRI scenario, we conduct a comparative user study: in one condition, participants have the scenario which induces empathy, and for the other condition, we remove any empathy inducing activities of the robot. With the validated scenario and empathy measuring instrument, we conduct another user study to explore the difference between a real and a simulated robot in terms of people’s empathic response. Our results suggest that people empathize more with a physical robot than a simulated one, a finding that has important implications on the generalizability and applicability of simulated HRI work. As part of our exploration, we additionally present an original and reproducible HRI experimental design to induce empathy toward robots, and experimentally validated an empathy-measuring instrument from psychology for use with HRI.

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