This work describes 3D reconstruction using stereo vision. It presents methods for automatic localization of corresponding points in both images and their reprojection into 3D space. Application created can be used for navigation of a robot and object avoidance. Second part of the document describes chosen components of the robot. Path finding algorithms are also discussed, particulary Voronoi's diagram.

This report studies how a digital twin can be utilized through offlinerobot programming and simulation for a robot packaging line;additionally, the advantages and challenges of a robot digital twin arereported. This thesis project and the robot simulation is done incollaboration with Ikea Industry.The obtained result was in form of a digital twin which is a digital copyof a physical robot cell at Ikea Industry’s packaging line. The resultsshow that a digital twin can indeed be utilized for layout planning androbot optimization. An energy consumption chart which depends on thetime taken to package ten boards was created. This chart can be used forfurther optimization of the robot cell.The study also shows that a digital twin can save time and money,especially in the design phase, for medium to small companies that donot have the resources to create a dedicated physical robot cell fortesting.

Autonomous lawn mowers have been available to consumers for more than 20 years. During this period, advancements in embedded device computations and sensor performance have led to improvements in the reliability of these robots. Despite recent improvements, the opportunity for further innovation of such systems remains significant. Currently, many autonomous robots rely on electric wires installed underground to delimit the boundaries of the lawn. Such a configuration is simple, but more effective autonomous solutions are available. This thesis focuses on the analysis and related implementation of both localisation and mapping features for autonomous lawn mowers. Heterogeneous sensors and their different configurations are investigated and an Adaptive Extended Kalman Filter is proposed to fuse their measurements. This technique improves the pose estimation of the autonomous lawn mower, which is then exploited by the mapping module. Based on Bayesian’s inference, the mapping module updates the knowledge of the map based on direct interactions with the environment. The final results highlight the importance of precise localisation as the bottleneck for the development of new features. The improved pose estimation enables the employment of a virtual boundary, but it is not accurate enough to precisely map the presence of objects in the environment. Advanced features which could be developed from the proposed configuration are related to deterministic coverage algorithms and the interaction with lawn objects. / Autonoma gräsklippare har varit tillgängliga för konsumenter i mer än 20 år. Under denna period har framsteg inom beräkningar av inbyggda enheter och sensorprestanda lett till förbättringar av tillförlitligheten hos dessa robotar. Trots de senaste förbättringarna är möjligheten till innovation av sådana system fortfarande betydande. Autonoma robotar har fortfarande begränsade funktioner. De förlitar sig på elektriska ledningar installerade under jord för att avgränsa gräsmattans gränser, som de reagerar på utan resonemang. En sådan konfiguration anses nu vara föråldrad och mer effektiva autonoma lösningar finns tillgängliga. Den här avhandlingen fokuserar på att använda för närvarande tillgängliga tekniker för att designa de kärnmoduler som behövs för att förbättra kapaciteten hos dessa system. Analysen och relaterad implementering av både lokaliserings och kartläggningsfunktioner för autonoma gräsklippare presenteras. Heterogena sensorer och deras olika konfigurationer undersöks och ett Adaptive Extended Kalman Filter föreslås för att smälta samman deras mätningar. Denna teknik förbättrar poseuppskattningen av den autonoma gräsklipparen, som sedan utnyttjas av kartläggningsmodulen. Det valda tillvägagångssättet för den senare, baserat på Bayesians slutledning, lyckas uppdatera kunskapen om kartan baserat på direkta interaktioner med omgivningen. De slutliga resultaten belyser vikten av exakt lokalisering som den verkliga flaskhalsen för utvecklingen av nya funktioner. Den förbättrade positionsuppskattningen gör det möjligt att definiera en virtuell gräns. Definitionen inte tillräckligt korrekt för att korrekt kartlägga förekomsten av objekt i miljön Exempel på avancerade funktioner från den föreslagna konfigurationen är implementeringen av deterministiska täckningsalgoritmer och interaktionen med gräsmattaobjekt. / I tosaerba autonomi sono disponibili per i consumatori da oltre 20 anni. Durante questo periodo, i progressi nei calcoli dei dispositivi integrati e nelle prestazioni dei sensori hanno portato a miglioramenti nell’affidabilità di questi robot. Nonostante i recenti miglioramenti, l’opportunità di innovazione di tali sistemi rimane significativa. I robot autonomi hanno ancora funzionalità limitate. Si affidano a fili elettrici installati sottoterra per delimitare i confini del prato, a cui reagiscono senza ragionamento. Tale configurazione è ormai considerata obsoleta e sono disponibili soluzioni autonome più efficaci. Questa tesi si concentra sull’utilizzo delle tecniche attualmente disponibili per progettare i moduli principali necessari per far avanzare le capacità di questi sistemi. Vengono presentate l’analisi e la relativa implementazione delle funzionalità di localizzazione e mappatura per i tosaerba autonomi. Vengono studiati sensori eterogenei e le loro diverse configurazioni e viene proposto un filtro di Kalman adattivo esteso per fondere le loro misurazioni. Questa tecnica migliora la stima della posa del rasaerba autonomo, che viene poi sfruttata dal modulo di mappatura. L’approccio scelto per quest’ultimo, basato sull’inferenza bayesiana, riesce ad aggiornare la conoscenza della mappa basata su interazioni dirette con l’ambiente. I risultati finali evidenziano l’importanza di una localizzazione precisa come vero collo di bottiglia per lo sviluppo di nuove funzionalità. La stima della posa migliorata consente la definizione di un confine virtuale. La definizione non è sufficientemente precisa per mappare correttamente la presenza di oggetti nell’ambiente Esempi di funzionalità avanzate a partire dalla configurazione proposta sono l’implementazione di algoritmi di copertura deterministici e l’interazione con gli oggetti del prato.

Cette thèse a été effectuée dans le cadre du projet européen Koroibot dont l'objectif est le développement d'algorithmes de marche avancés pour les robots humanoïdes. Dans le but de contrôler les robots d'une manière sûre et efficace chez les humains, il est nécessaire de comprendre les règles, les principes et les stratégies de l'homme lors de la locomotion et de les transférer à des robots. L'objectif de cette thèse est d'étudier et d'identifier les stratégies de locomotion humaine et créer des algorithmes qui pourraient être utilisés pour améliorer les capacités du robot. La contribution principale est l'analyse sur les principes de piétons qui guident les stratégies d'évitement des collisions. En particulier, nous observons comment les humains adapter une tâche de locomotion objectif direct quand ils ont à interférer avec un obstacle en mouvement traversant leur chemin. Nous montrons les différences entre la stratégie définie par les humains pour éviter un obstacle non-collaboratif et la stratégie pour éviter un autre être humain, et la façon dont les humains interagissent avec un objet si se déplaçant en manier simil à l'humaine. Deuxièmement, nous présentons un travail effectué en collaboration avec les neuroscientifiques de calcul. Nous proposons une nouvelle approche pour synthétiser réalistes complexes mouvements du robot humanoïde avec des primitives de mouvement. Trajectoires humaines walking-to-grasp ont été enregistrés. L'ensemble des mouvements du corps sont reciblées et proportionnée afin de correspondre à la cinématique de robots humanoïdes. Sur la base de cette base de données des mouvements, nous extrayons les primitives de mouvement. Nous montrons que ces signaux sources peuvent être exprimées sous forme de solutions stables d'un système dynamique autonome, qui peut être considéré comme un système de central pattern generators (CPGs). Sur la base de cette approche, les stratégies réactives walking-to-grasp ont été développés et expérimenté avec succès sur le robot humanoïde HRP-2 au LAAS-CNRS. Dans la troisième partie de la thèse, nous présentons une nouvelle approche du problème de pilotage d'un robot soumis à des contraintes non holonomes par une porte en utilisant l'asservissement visuel. La porte est représentée par deux points de repère situés sur ses supports verticaux. La plan géométric qui a été construit autour de la porte est constituée de faisceaux de hyperboles, des ellipses et des cercles orthogonaux. Nous montrons que cette géométrie peut être mesurée directement dans le plan d'image de la caméra et que la stratégie basée sur la vision présentée peut également être lié à l'homme. Simulation et expériences réalistes sont présentés pour montrer l'efficacité de nos solutions. / This thesis has been done within the framework of the European Project Koroibot which aims at developing advanced algorithms to improve the humanoid robots locomotion. It is organized in three parts. With the aim of steering robots in a safe and efficient manner among humans it is required to understand the rules, principles and strategies of human during locomotion and transfer them to robots. The goal of this thesis is to investigate and identify the human locomotion strategies and create algorithms that could be used to improve robot capabilities. A first contribution is the analysis on pedestrian principles which guide collision avoidance strategies. In particular, we observe how humans adapt a goal-direct locomotion task when they have to interfere with a moving obstacle crossing their way. We show differences both in the strategy set by humans to avoid a non-collaborative obstacle with respect to avoid another human, and the way humans interact with an object moving in human-like way. Secondly, we present a work done in collaboration with computational neuroscientists. We propose a new approach to synthetize realistic complex humanoid robot movements with motion primitives. Human walking-to-grasp trajectories have been recorded. The whole body movements are retargeted and scaled in order to match the humanoid robot kinematics. Based on this database of movements, we extract the motion primitives. We prove that these sources signals can be expressed as stable solutions of an autonomous dynamical system, which can be regarded as a system of coupled central pattern generators (CPGs). Based on this approach, reactive walking-to-grasp strategies have been developed and successfully experimented on the humanoid robot HRP at LAAS-CNRS. In the third part of the thesis, we present a new approach to the problem of vision-based steering of robot subject to non-holonomic constrained to pass through a door. The door is represented by two landmarks located on its vertical supports. The planar geometry that has been built around the door consists of bundles of hyperbolae, ellipses, and orthogonal circles. We prove that this geometry can be directly measured in the camera image plane and that the proposed vision-based control strategy can also be related to human. Realistic simulation and experiments are reported to show the effectiveness of our solutions.

No description available.

This report will cover the work involved in building a quadruped robot which should to a certain extent resemeble a four-legged mammal. The introduction will present information related to what has inspired the project, purpose/aim, specifications, limitations and research questions. Most important in the introduction are probably the purpose/aim and research questions. Mainly, the goal was to have the robot be able to self-balance and later also be able to walk to some degree if possible. The first research question concerns how well a PID controller would affect the stability of the robot and the second question is about answering if referencing a fourlegged mammal is a good idea when building a quadruped robot. Theory and methods were combined and written as one chapter. This way relevant information could be provided in the appropriate places as the method for creating the robot was described. The chapter dives into the primary parts of the robot which are the choice of components, construction, inverse kinematics and last but not least the code including the implementation of a PID. The results show that PID regulation improves stability and performance, but PI regulation actually performed the best. Furthermore, the question regarding referencing a four-legged mammal remains inconclusive even though the model was sufficient for the task.

Autonomous robots interacting with humans in a social setting must consider the social-cultural environment when pursuing their objectives. Thus the social robot must perceive and understand the social cultural environment in order to be able to explain and predict the actions of its human interaction partners. This dissertation contributes to the emerging field of human-robot interaction for social robots in the following ways: 1. We used the social calculus technique based on culture sanctioned social metrics (CSSMs) to quantify, analyze and predict the behavior of the robot, human soldiers and the public perception in the Market Patrol peacekeeping scenario. 2. We validated the results of the Market Patrol scenario by comparing the predicted values with the judgment of a large group of human observers cognizant of the modeled culture. 3. We modeled the movement of a socially aware mobile robot in a dense crowds, using the concept of a micro-conflict to represent the challenge of giving or not giving way to pedestrians. 4. We developed an approach for the robot behavior in micro-conflicts based on the psychological observation that human opponents will use a consistent strategy. For this, the mobile robot classifies the opponent strategy reflected by the personality and social status of the person and chooses an appropriate counter-strategy that takes into account the urgency of the robots' mission. 5. We developed an alternative approach for the resolution of micro-conflicts based on the imitation of the behavior of the human agent. This approach aims to make the behavior of an autonomous robot closely resemble that of a remotely operated one.

Many people around the world live in islands with mountainous lands. These people plant upland rice for their staple food. However, farming in these disadvantageous farms requires high input and gains low yield. One possible solution for improving productivity is by utilizing precision seeding. This study is focused on developing a robot for precision seeding of rice that is suitable for farming in rough terrain. A bioinspired human arm robot for picking seeds and making a hole on the ground was developed in accordance with Aalborg method for bioinspired design. Development of a mobile platform to carry the robot arm was done using hybrid wheel and leg (wheg) wheels and skid steering locomotion. The NugalBot could climb obstacle and perform precision rice seed singulation. However, the performance of the mechanisms for making hole and for covering the hole was dependent on the hardness of the soil.

Building maps within an unknown environment while keeping track of the current position is a major step to accomplish safe and autonomous robot navigation. Within the last 20 years, Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (SLAM) became a topic of great interest in robotics. The basic idea of this technique is to combine proprioceptive robot motion information with external environmental information to minimize global positioning errors. Because the robot is moving in its environment, exteroceptive data comes from different points of view and must be expressed in the same coordinate system to be combined. The latter process is called registration. Iterative Closest Point (ICP) is a registration algorithm with very good performances in several 3D model reconstruction applications, and was recently applied to SLAM. However, SLAM has specific needs in terms of real-time and robustness comparatively to 3D model reconstructions, leaving room for specialized robotic mapping optimizations in relation to robot mapping. After reviewing existing SLAM approaches, this thesis introduces a new registration variant called Kd-ICP. This referencing technique iteratively decreases the error between misaligned point clouds without extracting specific environmental features. Results demonstrate that the new rejection technique used to achieve mapping registration is more robust to large initial positioning errors. Experiments with simulated and real environments suggest that Kd-ICP is more robust compared to other ICP variants. Moreover, the Kd-ICP is fast enough for real-time applications and is able to deal with sensor occlusions and partially overlapping maps. Realizing fast and robust local map registrations opens the door to new opportunities in SLAM. It becomes feasible to minimize the cumulation of robot positioning errors, to fuse local environmental information, to reduce memory usage when the robot is revisiting the same location. It is also possible to evaluate network constrains needed to minimize global mapping errors.

En cherchant à connaitre les origines de la vie sur Terre, on se demande également si elle peut se trouver ailleurs. Malgré le fait que Mars nous est voisine et qu'elle ne semble pas en démontrer la présence, on désire toutefois l'étudier et la comparer avec la Terre. Pour y arriver, l'Homme a recours à la technologie : les télescopes, satellites, sondes et robots servent à observer Mars. À chacune des expéditions d'observation de Mars, nous cherchons à en connaître davantage et améliorons en conséquence la technologie utilisée. C'est pour cela que la prochaine génération de véhicules d'exploration planétaire nécessitera une plus grande autonomie de navigation. De tels requis impliquent une gestion adéquate de données géoréférencées potentiellement volumineuses et denses, représentées sous la forme de cartes. Ce mémoire présente l'état des recherches faites sur un système de gestion de données utilisable dans un contexte d'exploration planétaire autonome. Pour valider un tel système, il a fallu utiliser, mais ,également constituer, un répertoire de cartes en trois dimensions ayant été géoréférencées. Afin d'obtenir un répertoire représentatif du contexte d'utilisation, il a également été nécessaire de développer un comportement d'exploration et de navigation sur une plateforme robotisée, capable d'acquérir les cartes requises. À l'aide de ce répertoire, il a été possible de vérifier les capacités, les performances ainsi que l'exactitude des opérations effectuées à l'aide du système de gestion proposé. Un article intégré au mémoire présente la conception d'un tel système de gestion de données, ainsi qu'une solution permettant de gérer dynamiquement une variété de données, l'incertitude des relations spatiales entre deux cartes, de procurer un mécanisme de planification de chemins au travers des cartes, ainsi que la corrélation des cartes pour les opérations de localisation. Cet article présente également les résultats expérimentaux sur l'utilisation du système de gestion atlas par un véhicule d'exploration autonome. En plus de démontrer la faisabilité et l'utilité d'un tel gestionnaire de données en navigation autonome, le système pourrait également être utilisé comme plateforme d'analyse afin de comparer les performances de différents algorithmes de recalage de surfaces.