Mobile Robots - State of the Art in Land, Sea, Air, and Collaborative Missions XiaoQi Chen, Y.Q. Chen and J.G. Chase Mobile Robots - State of the Art in Land, Sea, Air, and Collaborative Missions Edited by In-Tech intechweb.org XiaoQi Chen, Y.Q. Chen and J.G. Chase V Preface Since the introduction of the first industrial robot UNIMATE in a General Motors automo- bile factory in New Jersey in 1961, robots have gained stronger and stronger foothold in the industry. In the meantime, robotics research has been expanding from fix based robots to mobile robots at a stunning pace. There have been significant milestones that are worth not- ing in recent decades. Examples are the octopus-like Tentacle Arm developed by Marvin Minsky in 1968, the Stanford Cart crossing a chair-filled room without human assistance in 1979, and most recently, humanoid robots developed by Honda. Despite rapid technological developments and extensive research efforts in mobility, per- ception, navigation and control, mobile robots still fare badly in comparison with human ab- ilities. For example, in physical interactions with subjects and objects in an operational envi- ronment, a human being can easily relies on his/her intuitively force-based servoing to accomplish contact tasks, handling and processing materials and interacting with people safely and precisely. The intuitiveness, learning ability and contextual knowledge, which are natural part of human instincts, are hard to come by for robots. Hardware technologies including materials, novel actuator and mechanisms, and drives have been a severe limiting factor in mobile robots emulating human beings. The well- known Honda humanoid robot Asimo has a self weight of 52 Kg, and a lifting capacity of 1 Kg with two hands. In the 2008 Olympics held in Beijing, the women 53 Kg weightlifting gold medal went to a Thai girl who lifted 126 Kg in Clean and Jerk. Her lifting capacity to self weight ratio is about 2.4 while Asimo has the ratio of about 0.02. The ratio for a non- athletic adult would be about 0.4, much lower than an Olympic champion, but a magnitude higher than Asimo. The above observations simply highlight the monumental works and challenges ahead when researchers aspire to turn mobile robots to greater benefits to humankinds. This book is by no means to address all the issues associated mobile robots, but reports current states of some challenging research projects in mobile robotics ranging from land, humanoid, un- derwater, aerial robots, to rehabilitation. Chapter 1 provides an overview on mobile robotics. It proposes a functional model of gene- ralized robots by drawing the parallelism between robots and humans. It also points to ser- vice robots being a disruptive technology in decades to come. VI Chapter 2 introduces a field robot using the rotated-claw wheel that has strong capacity of climbing obstacles. The rotated-claw wheel overcomes the disadvantages of conventional mobile robot wheels, and provides a better solution for field and planetary robots. Chapter 3 presents a mobile wheeled robot with step climbing capabilities using parallel in- dividual axels. The wheel sets are designed to revolve in any direction independent of the rotation of the wheels, satisfying the primary requirements for the robot traversing rough terrains and climbing stairs. Chapter 4 reviews some major efforts made over the past 20 years in the field of cable- climbing mechanism design to provide a basis for future developments in this field. One application highlighted is power line inspection in the power industry. Chapter 5 proposes a multi-sensing fusion system to mimic the powerful sensing and navi- gation abilities of a cockroach. The paper proposes a multi-sensor fusion system, and a dis- tributed multi-CAN bus-mastering system based on Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) and Advanced RISC Machine (ARM) microprocessor. Chapter 6 highlights some characteristics observed from human abilities in performing both knowledge-centric activities and skill-centric activities. The observations can be utilised to guide the design of a humanoid robot’s body, brain and mind. Chapter 7 reports an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) prototype that had been de- veloped recently at the University of Canterbury. The AUV has been specially designed for shallow water tasks, such as inspecting and cleaning sea chests of ships. Chapter 8 establishes an approach to solve the full 3D Simultaneous Localisation and Map- ping (SLAM) problem, applied to an underwater environment. A new measurement system has been designed for large area’s globally-consistent SLAM: buoys for long-range estima- tion, and camera for short-range estimation and map building. Chapter 9 addresses flight dynamics modelling and method of model validation using an on-board instrumentation system. The validation process involves in-flight measurement of all parameters as well as wind speed detected by in-house built air-speed sensor, aiming for an accurate flight simulation system for auto-pilot development and preliminary design of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Chapter 10 describes a numerical procedure for optimal sensor-motion scheduling of diffu- sion systems for parameter estimation. The work introduces the optimal actuation frame- work for parameter identification in distributed parameter systems. This contribution lays a rigorous foundation for real-time estimation for a class of cyber-physical systems. Chapter 11 presents some heuristics for constructing the mobile collector collection route. Control schemes for coordinating multiple collectors are designed efficiently to maximize the performance. Chapter 12 discusses the development of the augmented reality (AR) for human-robot col- laboration (HRC) system from concept and background through the design of the necessary set of interfaces required to enhance human-robot interaction. The AR-HRC system gives the user the feeling of working in a collaborative human-robot team rather than the feeling of the robot being a tool, as a typical teleoperation interface provides. , and J.G. ChaseX.Q. Chen 1 , Y.Q. Chen , Editors 2 1 1 Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Canterbury, New Zealand 2 Center for Self-Organizing and Intelligent Systems (CSOIS) Utah State University, USA VII Chapter 13 details a set of classifications of indoor localization techniques. The classifica- tions presented provide a compact form of overview on WSN-based indoor localizations. The chapter further introduces server-based and range-based localization systems that can be used for the indoor service robot. Chapter 14 proposes a wearable soft parallel robot for ankle joint rehabilitation after care- fully studying the complexities of human ankle joint and its motions. The proposed device is an improvement over existing robot in terms of simplicity, rigidity and payload perform- ance. The collection of the above research works is suitable for robotics researchers, engineers and academics. It can be used as case studies in advanced robotics courses. Some chapters serve as tutorial references in nature, while other chapters allow methods and results to be readily reproducible. The editor is indebted to all authors for being forthcoming in sharing their knowledge and research work in such an open access platform. Their valuable contributions to this book are gratefully acknowledged. Special thanks to Aleksandar Lazinica the Edi tor-in-Chief of IN- TECH for his support in publishing this book, his passion and enthusiasm in bringing scien- tific knowledge to a larger public. xiaoqi.chen@canterbury.ac.nz IX Contents Preface V Mobile Robots - State of the Art in Land, Sea, Air, and Collaborative Missions 1. Mobiles Robots – Past Present and Future 001 X.Q. Chen, Y.Q. Chen, and J.G. Chas e 2. A Field Robot with Rotated-claw Wheels 033 Yue, Jizhong Xiao, Kai Li, Jun Du, Shaoping Wang 3. Mobile Wheeled Robot with Step Climbing Capabilities 049 Gary Boucher, Luz Maria Sanche z 4. Cable-Climbing Robots for Power Transmission Lines Inspection 063 Mostafa Nayyerloo, XiaoQi Chen, Wenhui Wang, and J Geoffrey Chas e 5. Bionic Limb Mechanism and Multi-Sensing Control for Cockroach Robots 085 Weihai Chen, XiaoQi Chen, Jingmeng Liu, Jianbin Zhang 6. Biologically-Inspired Design of Humanoids 105 Xie M., Xian L. B., Wang L. and Li J. 7. The State-of-Art of Underwater Vehicles – Theories and Applications 129 W.H. Wang, R.C. Engelaar, X.Q. Chen & J.G. Chas e 8. General Concept of 3D SLAM 153 Peter Zhang, Evangelous Millos & Jason Gu 9. Flight Dynamics Modelling and Experimental Validation for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles 177 X.Q. Chen, Q. Ou, D. R. Wong, Y. J. Li, M. Sinclair, A. Marburg 10. Optimal Real-Time Estimation Strategies for a Class of Cyber-Physical Systems Using Networked Mobile Sensors and Actuators 203 Christophe Tricaud & YangQuan Chen X 11. Effective Heuristics for Route Construction of Mobile Data Collectors 223 Samer Hanoun & Saeid Nahavandi 12. An Augmented Reality Human-Robot Collaboration System 245 Scott A. Green, J. Geoffrey Chase, XiaoQi Chen and Mark Billinghurst ȱ 13. Indoor Localization Techniques based on Wireless Sensor Networks 277 Hyo - Sung Ahn and Wonpil Yu ȱ 14. Multi-criteria Optimal Design of Cable Driven Ankle Rehabilitation Robot 303 P. K. Jamwal, S. Q. Xie, K. C. Aw and Y. H. Tsoi ȱ [...]... validation The perception cycle uses information stored in the long term memory to interpret data gathered during the acquisition cycle Finally, the learning and 14 Mobile Robots - State of the Art in Land, Sea, Air, and Collaborative Missions coordination cycle plans the future actions of the robot based on stored information of the surroundings In robotics, cognitive behaviours are achieved with the help of. .. These challenges include standardization, software, hardware and control In face of ever increasing aging population and human augmented functions, service robots will have significant impact on the society as well as individuals 22 Mobile Robots - State of the Art in Land, Sea, Air, and Collaborative Missions 6.1 Standards and architecture In the last century, the manufacturing industry has benefited... grips the part with a compliant robot end-effector grips part 24 Mobile Robots - State of the Art in Land, Sea, Air, and Collaborative Missions However this system’s force regulation during the polishing is still based on simple robot positioning control To increase or decrease the contact force which is detected by a spring mechanism mounted inside the polishing tool, the robot moves the part in or... computer The computer would then analyze the distance between the cart and the obstacles and steer accordingly Fig 7 Stanford Cart Genghis (1988, MIT) The Mobile Robots Group at MIT developed a six-legged walking robot named Genghis Khan, which was able to teach itself how to scramble over boards and other obstacles 10 Mobile Robots - State of the Art in Land, Sea, Air, and Collaborative Missions. .. natural and effective communication to take place The use of AR affords the integration of a multi-modal interface combining speech and gesture interaction, as well as providing the means for enhanced situational awareness The AR-HRC system gives the user the feeling of working in a collaborative human-robot team rather than the feeling of the robot being a tool, as a typical teleoperation interface... It consists of binocular vision system based on infrared 20 Mobile Robots - State of the Art in Land, Sea, Air, and Collaborative Missions imaging, and tactile sensors using fibre optic sensors and position sensitive detectors The paper further proposes a distributed multi-CAN bus-mastering system based on FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) and ARM (Advanced RISC Machine) microprocessor The system... military robots markets were $145 million in 2007 and are anticipated to reach $6.9 billion by 2014 8 Mobile Robots - State of the Art in Land, Sea, Air, and Collaborative Missions 4 Historical development of mobile robots 4.1 Evolution from fixed base robotics to mobile robotics Interest in mobile robotics mainly comes from the need to explore areas that humans cannot explore The reason may be that the. .. over the past 20 years in the field of cableclimbing mechanism design to provide a basis for future developments in this field History of the research in this field shows that due to the huge benefit of early detection of likely damage to the line, even the cable-climbing robots capable of only climbing on part of the line between two obstacles are in use, and further researches in this field will definitely... of leading the formation, the other robots have no information about their headings and simply follow the leader(s): they are called followers The followers usually try to maintain a set distance between them and the formation leader In the behaviour-based methods, the robots maintain formation thanks to two complementary processes: the first one , called detect-formation-position, computes the robot's... universal definition of “Robot” The well-known definition of Robot from the Robot Institute of America (RIA) is that a robot is "A reprogrammable, multifunctional manipulator designed to move material, parts, tools, or specialized devices through various programmed motions for the performance of a variety of tasks" 2 Mobile Robots - State of the Art in Land, Sea, Air, and Collaborative Missions It . motions for the performance of a variety of tasks". Mobile Robots - State of the Art in Land, Sea, Air, and Collaborative Missions2 It at best describes industrial robots and applications. converted to other types of energy such as Mobile Robots - State of the Art in Land, Sea, Air, and Collaborative Missions4 kinetic, mechanical, wave, etc while a task is performed by the robot. In this. 2014. Mobile Robots - State of the Art in Land, Sea, Air, and Collaborative Missions8 4. Historical development of mobile robots 4.1 Evolution from fixed base robotics to mobile robotics Interest