Over the past few decades the use of industrial robots has increased the efficiency as well as competitiveness of many companies. Despite this fact, in many cases, robot automation investments are considered to be technically challenging. In addition, for most small and medium sized enterprises (SME) this process is associated with high costs. Due to their continuously changing product lines, reprogramming costs are likely to exceed installation costs by a large margin. Furthermore, traditional programming methods for industrial robots are too complex for an inexperienced robot programmer, thus assistance from a robot programming expert is often needed.  We hypothesize that in order to make industrial robots more common within the SME sector, the robots should be reprogrammable by technicians or manufacturing engineers rather than robot programming experts. In this thesis we propose a high-level natural language framework for interacting with industrial robots through an instructional programming environment for the user.  The ultimate goal of this thesis is to bring robot programming to a stage where it is as easy as working together with a colleague.In this thesis we mainly address two issues. The first issue is to make interaction with a robot easier and more natural through a multimodal framework. The proposed language architecture makes it possible to manipulate, pick or place objects in a scene through high level commands. Interaction with simple voice commands and gestures enables the manufacturing engineer to focus on the task itself, rather than programming issues of the robot. This approach shifts the focus of industrial robot programming from the coordinate based programming paradigm, which currently dominates the field, to an object based programming scheme.The second issue addressed is a general framework for implementing multimodal interfaces. There have been numerous efforts to implement multimodal interfaces for computers and robots, but there is no general standard framework for developing them. The general framework proposed in this thesis is designed to perform natural language understanding, multimodal integration and semantic analysis with an incremental pipeline and includes a novel multimodal grammar language, which is used for multimodal presentation and semantic meaning generation. / robot colleague project

Inspired by the Rapidly-exploring Random Tree (RRT) data-structure and algorithm for path planning, we introduce an approach for spanning physical space with a group of simple mobile robots. Emphasizing minimalism and using only InfraRed and contact sensors for communication, our position unaware robots physically embody elements of the tree. Although robots are fundamentally constrained in the spatial operations they may perform, we show that the approach -implemented on physical robots- remains consistent with the original data-structure idea. In particular, we show that a generalized form of Voronoi bias is present in the construction of the tree, and that such trees have an approximate space-filling property. We present an analysis of the physical system via sets of coupled stochastic equations: the first being the rate-equation for the transitions made by the robot controllers, and the second to capture the spatial process describing tree formation. We also introduce a class of fixed edge length RRTs called lRRT and show that lRRT s have similar space-filling properties to that of RRTs. We are able to provide an understanding of the control parameters in terms of a process mixing-time and show the dependence of the Voronoi bias on an interference parameter which grows as O*sqrt(N).

Den nya standarden Eurokod kräver omställningar på byggprojekteringskontoren i det hänseende att personalen måste lära sig att använda och följa denna standard. För knutpunkter i stål har det hittills funnits stöd i form av beräkningsmetoder och handböcker, men ännu har inte någon utförlig hjälp om hur man hanterar dem med Eurokod utkommit. Trots att dimensioneringsprocessen av knutpunkterna är mycket viktig vid projektering av stålkonstruktioner är processen långsammare än den kan vara. Därför vore det bra om man fann ett enklare och snabbare sätt att dimensionera knutpunkter i enlighet med Eurokod. Intervjuer har visat att dimensioneringsprocessen hittills fungerat så att beräkningarna sker för hand av en konstruktör enligt BKR:s regler, för att sedan modelleras i 3D av en projektör som slutligen får sina ritningar granskade av en tredje person. Genom fallstudier av standardknutpunkten BP1 söktes en förbättrad dimensioneringsprocess jämfört med den som intervjuerna beskrev. I fallstudierna dimensionerades BP1 för hand och med programmen Autodesk Robot Structure Professional Analysis 2011 och modellerades med Tekla Structure 16.0, hela tiden i enlighet med Eurokod. Tack vare det hittades nya och effektivare dimensioneringsprocesser. Tekla och Robot är vanliga program på marknaden och användbara verktyg för konstruktörer och projektörer. Programmen kan vara till stor hjälp vid dimensionering av knutpunkter i stål.  Robot är till för avancerade beräkningar och klarar det mycket bra, men skulle kunna bli bättre genom ett större utbud av knutpunkter. Med Tekla kan man göra exakta ritningar på knutpunkten, men inställningarna av måtten är komplicerade att förstå. Om konstruktören skulle börja använda programmet Robot vid dimensioneringen, görs en stor tidsbesparing, mindre informationsförluster, en minskad pappershantering samt prydligare underlag att lämna till projektören. Projektören gör sedan snabbt ritningar med hög kvalitet i Tekla och slutligen finns allt material till hands hos granskaren som får en bättre överblick. Det är inte möjligt att överföra knutpunkter från Robot till Tekla, men om det ändå vore möjligt skulle mer tid sparas genom den effektivare processen. / The new Eurocode standard requires adjustments in construction planning offices in the respect that staff must learn to use and comply with this standard. When designing connections in steel there is support available in terms of calculation methods and manuals, but there is still no extensive help on how to handle them with the Eurocode standard. Although the design process of connections is very important during the design of steel structures, there is currently a too slow process compared to what it could be. Therefore it would be good if an easier and faster way to design connections in accordance with the Eurocode standard were found. Interviews have shown that the design process had worked so that calculations were done by hand, by a designer according to BKR's rules, and then plotted in 3D by another designer who finally get their plans reviewed by a third person. Through case studies, of the standard connection BP1, an improved design process were sought after, compared to the one the interviews described. In the case studies BP1 was designed by hand and with the programs Autodesk Robot Structure Professional Analysis 2011 and was modeled with Tekla Structures 16.0, at all times in accordance with the Eurocode standard. Thanks to that a new and more effective design processes was found. Tekla and Robot are popular applications on the market and strong tools for engineers. The programs can be very helpful in the design of connections in steel. Robot is for advanced calculations and does it very well, but could be improved through a greater variety of connections. With Tekla the user can make exact drawings of the connection, but the settings of the measurements are complicated to understand. If the designer would start using the program Robot in the process, he would gain time, less information loss, a reduction in paper handling and a tidier information base to provide to the next step in the process. After that the designer quickly does drawings with high quality in Tekla and finally all the material would be available to the examiner who gets a better overview. It is not possible to transfer the connections from Robot to Tekla, but if it was possible, more time could be saved through a more efficient process

This article presents the results from a video-based evaluation study of a social robotic telepresence solution for elderly. The evaluated system is a mobile teleoperated robot called Giraff that allows caregivers to virtually enter a home and conduct a natural visit just as if they were physically there. The evaluation focuses on the perspectives from primary healthcare organizations and collects the feedback from different categories of health professionals. The evaluation included 150 participants and yielded unexpected results with respect to the acceptance of the Giraff system. In particular, greater exposure to technology did not necessarily increase acceptance and large variances occurred between the categories of health professionals. In addition to outlining the results, this study provides a number of indications with respect to increasing acceptance for technology for elderly. / <p>The final version of this article can be read at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/15228835.2011.639509</p>

Humanoid robots have proven to be very useful and could revolutionize the way humans live. Knowing human anatomy and behaviour helps improve a robotic mechanisms ability to perform human tasks. The following thesis introduces the concept of a threefingered robot hand and its driving mechanism. The hand includes two fingers and a thumb. Using the concept of “an under actuated system”, each finger consists of three revolute joints which are driven by two actuators and tooth belt transmission system. The thumb has two joints but only one joint is active and actuated by one motor. The passive joint is designed to set the initial position of the thumb on the piano key if necessary. Required angle of rotation for each joint has been calculated through Inverse Kinematics. Once the fingertip presses the piano key, it should apply 1N force to play a note. Force Sensing Resistors at each finger tip, as a control method, are introduced to the system to accurately measure the amount of applied force from the finger tip on the key and increase the angle of rotation of the motor if needed. Stress and deformation of the joints have been studied through Finite Element Analysis. A prototype model, consisting of a single finger was built to better understanding the functionality of the concept. Analysis of this model, led to necessary modification of the transmission system and some design revisions to each link. Genetic Algorithm using MATLAB was used to optimize the performance Index of a finger. Finally the hand assembly including all the components and driving mechanism was constructed and experimented in the playing mode. / UOIT

A navigation system developed for an omni-directional wheeled mobile robot, called the Omnibot, is presented. This system is developed to enable the Omnibot to autonomously navigate, in a collision-free manner, along predefined paths in indoor structured office or factory-like environments. The navigation system is composed of four integrated subsystems: localization, path- following, velocity control, and obstacle detection. The path-following subsystem is responsible for driving the Omnibot along a given path based on feedback about its location relative to its environment. A localization system that uses a combination of odometry and a novel indoor GPS-like system provides the necessary estimates of the Omnibot's position and orientation (i.e., pose). Using the pose updates from the localization subsystem, the path-following subsystem is able to compute motion commands to drive the Omnibot along the path. Execution of these motion commands is performed by the velocity control subsystem, which uses feedback control to regulate the angular velocities of the motors driving the Omnibot's wheels to produce the required motion of the robot. To ensure collision-free navigation, the Omnibot is equipped with an array of infrared distance sensors for detecting obstacles around its perimeter. Interaction between a human operator and the Omnibot is facilitated with a user-control interface running on a remote workstation. The interface allows the operator to visualize the Omnibot's location within a 3D model of its indoor workspace and provides a means to input commands. Testing of the developed system is performed, and the results confirm its e effectiveness at enabling the Omnibot to perform collision-free autonomous navigation in an indoor structured environment. / UOIT

This thesis investigates cooperative and intelligent control of autonomous multi-robot systems in a dynamic, unstructured and unknown environment and makes significant original contributions with regard to self-deterministic learning for robot cooperation, evolutionary optimization of robotic actions, improvement of system robustness, vision-based object tracking, and real-time performance. A distributed multi-robot architecture is developed which will facilitate operation of a cooperative multi-robot system in a dynamic and unknown environment in a self-improving, robust, and real-time manner. It is a fully distributed and hierarchical architecture with three levels. By combining several popular AI, soft computing, and control techniques such as learning, planning, reactive paradigm, optimization, and hybrid control, the developed architecture is expected to facilitate effective autonomous operation of cooperative multi-robot systems in a dynamically changing, unknown, and unstructured environment. A machine learning technique is incorporated into the developed multi-robot system for self-deterministic and self-improving cooperation and coping with uncertainties in the environment. A modified Q-learning algorithm termed Sequential Q-learning with Kalman Filtering (SQKF) is developed in the thesis, which can provide fast multi-robot learning. By arranging the robots to learn according to a predefined sequence, modeling the effect of the actions of other robots in the work environment as Gaussian white noise and estimating this noise online with a Kalman filter, the SQKF algorithm seeks to solve several key problems in multi-robot learning. As a part of low-level sensing and control in the proposed multi-robot architecture, a fast computer vision algorithm for color-blob tracking is developed to track multiple moving objects in the environment. By removing the brightness and saturation information in an image and filtering unrelated information based on statistical features and domain knowledge, the algorithm solves the problems of uneven illumination in the environment and improves real-time performance. In order to validate the developed approaches, a Java-based simulation system and a physical multi-robot experimental system are developed to successfully transport an object of interest to a goal location in a dynamic and unknown environment with complex obstacle distribution. The developed approaches in this thesis are implemented in the prototype system and rigorously tested and validated through computer simulation and experimentation.

Impact at each leg transition is one of the main causes of energy dissipation in most of the current bipedal walking robots. Minimizing impact can reduce the energy loss. Instead of controlling the joint angle profiles to reduce the impact which requires significant amount of energy, installing elastic mechanisms on the robots structure is proposed in this research, enabling the robot to reduce the impact, and to store part of the energy in the elastic form which returns the energy to the robot. Practically, this motivates the development of the bipedal walking robots with adjustable stiffness elasticity which itself creates new challenging problems. This thesis addresses some of the challenges through five consecutive stages. Firstly, an adjustable compliant series elastic actuator (named ACSEA in this thesis) is developed. The velocity control mode of the electric motor is used to accurately control the output force of the ACSEA. Secondly, three different conceptual designs of the adjustable stiffness artificial tendons (ASAT) are proposed each of which is added at the ankle joint of a bipedal walking robot model. Simulation results of the collision phase (part of the gait between the heel-strike and the foot-touch-down in bipedal walking) demonstrate significant improvements in the energetics of the bipedal walking robot by proper stiffness adjustment of ASAT. In the third stage, in order to study the effects of ASATs on reducing the energy loss during the stance phase, a simplified model of bipedal walking is introduced consisting of a foot, a leg and an ASAT which is installed parallel to the ankle joint. A linear spring, with adjustable stiffness, is included in the model to simulate the generated force by the trailing leg during the double support phase. The concept of impulsive constraints is used to establish the mathematical model of impacts in the collision phase which includes the heel-strike and the foot-touch-down. For the fourth stage, an energy-feedback-based controller is designed to automatically adjust the stiffness of the ASAT which reduces the energy loss during the foot-touch-down. In the final stage, a speed tracking (ST) controller is developed to regulate the velocity of the biped at the midstance. The ST controller is an event-based time-independent controller, based on geometric progression with exponential decay in the kinetic energy error, which adjusts the stiffness of the trailing-leg spring to control the injected energy to the biped in tracking a desired speed at the midstance. Another controller is also integrated with the ST controller to tune the stiffness of the ASAT when reduction in the speed is desired. Then, the local stability of the system (biped and the combination of the above three controllers) is analyzed by calculating the eigenvalues of the linear approximation of the return map. Simulation results show that the combination of the three controllers is successful in tracking a desired speed of the bipedal walking even in the presence of the uncertainties in the leg’s initial angles. The outcomes of this research show the significant effects of adjustable stiffness artificial tendons on reducing the energy loss during bipedal walking. It also demonstrates the advantages of adding elastic elements in the bipedal walking model which benefits the efficiency and simplicity in regulating the speed. This research paves the way toward developing the dynamic walking robots with adjustable stiffness ability which minimize the shortcomings of the two major types of bipedal walking robots, i.e., passive dynamic walking robots (which are energy efficient but need extensive parameters tuning for gait stability) and actively controlled walking robots (which are significantly energy inefficient). / May 2008

The thesis is part of IBCleaning and Robotdalen project "Automated Ice-blasting" are based on blasting walls on the inside of cargo containers with dry ice using an industrial robot and therefore clean the surface. To insert the industrial robot in the dirty container a specially designed rail system has been developed.This thesis aims to analyze and calculate the strength parameters of the assembly consisting of the robot and the specially designed rail system. One more task is to examine whether there is an opportunity to contribute to an improvement proposal. The report describes briefly Ice Blasting and how the automation of this can be designed. Literature Studies in solid mechanics and tutoring in ANSYS has been performed in parallel with the work and used to compare, evaluate and resolve the various situations that occur in the construction. FEM analysis using “ANSYS program” has been implemented to support the calculations and analysis realized. ANSYS was also used when it was not possible to perform a manual calculation due to the complicated procedures or multiple operations simultaneously.I spent some of the time to realize 3D-drawings using ”Pro-Engineer program”, drawings that have been sent on to ANSYS to perform various tests on the design and obtain concrete results.The calculations are performed based partly on information from the company and partly on reasonable assumptions in order to supplement missing data in the spreadsheet calculations.

Le projet porte sur la communication homme-machine. Homme et machine sont pris comme deux espaces cognitifs distincts, naturel et artificiel. Quelle perception ont-ils l'un de l'aulre? Comment interagissent-ils? L'expression sonore constitue un point commun aux deux espèces. Cnidaria est une installation robotique interactive et immersive. Une communauté de robots occupent un territoire public. Le public peut interagir avec l'installation et entrer dans la représentation en usant d'un langage rudimentaire. Le spectacle se crée par la dynamique entre les interacteurs et un système informatique autonome et génératif