ANR are featured by mobility and communication capabilities as they involve mobile robots and ad-hoc sensor networks enabling ubiquitous applications. This work proposes a low-cost ANR surveillance system for intruder and fire events within a large environment that is divided into operational zones with sensor nodes. Each sensor node comprises of low-cost odor, smoke, infrared fire, and motion detector sensors, radio frequency (RF) transceivers for networking and communication. Events detected within the zones are routed to the robots while suppression systems are activated based on the event criticality. On receiving the event signals from different zones, the robots navigate to these zones to assess the scenario as required. This assessment is then routed to a base station for further processing. Each robot is associated with one operational zone, but is not limited to it, since it performs other environment related functions. The network enables a distributed system with sensor nodes as the primary task distributor, while the robots negotiate and redistribute these tasks. Hence, path planning, and navigation would be executed locally and communicated among the robot team for effective collaboration. This work aims to advance research in the field of ANR through applicational approaches.

This work presents a second order sliding mode control(2-SMC) used to control a quadcopter vehicle. The controller is divided into two subcontrollers for both fully actuated and underactuated degrees of freedom. Stability of the proposed controller is tested in Lyapunov sense. Hardware development and experimental setups to implement the proposed nonlinear control technique on the quadcopter are presented. Several simulations are carried out to ensure the validity of the proposed control scheme. Experimental results show the robustness of the proposed SMC against external disturbances.

Imagining analysis tools, and gas sensors are becoming more frequently integrated into smart systems for early plant disease detection. Multispectral and hyperspectral imaging techniques are commonly used for disease detection in plants and vegatitve produce. However, there is still a limitation in the capability of designing systems for the detection of diseases in real time under field conditions. This paper introduces the development of an automated system that has the capabilities of monitoring plant health and stresses under field conditions in real time. A robot is designed and implemented to provide field based analysis of plant health using visible and near infrared spectroscopy. Fusion of visible and near infrared images are used to calculate the Normalized Deference Vegetative Index (NDVI) to measure and monitor plant health. The robot is designed to have the functionality of moving across a specified path within an agriculture field and provide health information of leaves as well as position data. The system was tested in a tomato greenhouse under real field conditions. The developed system proved effective in accurately classifying plant health into one of 3 classes; underdeveloped, unhealthy, and healthy with an accuracy of 83%. A map with plant health and locations is produced for farmers and agriculturists to monitor the plant health across different areas. This system has the capability of providing early vital health analysis of plants for immediate action and possible selective pesticide spraying.

In this decade, deep convolutional neural network called DCNN has been attracting attention due to its high ability of image recognition and other applications. In this paper, a design application of DCNN is considered and developed for vision-based defect inspection. As a trial test, three kinds of DCNNs are designed, implemented and tested to inspect small defects, such as, crack, burr, protrusion, chipping and spot phenomena seen in the manufacturing process of resin molded articles. An image generator is also implemented to systematically generate range of relevant deformed version of similar images for training. The designed DCNNs are trained using the generated images and then evaluated through classification experiments. The usefulness of the proposed DCNN design application is demonstrated and discussed.

As the quadcopters industry grows exponentially each year. A reliable controller is needed to stabilize the quadcopter attitude and to follow a desired trajectory while considering the surrounding environment. The main challenge in controlling a quadcopter is the fact that it is a nonlinear system. Moreover, it's prone to disturbances. Thus, A mathematical model of the quadcopter was derived. Next, a hybrid adaptive controller was suggested. This was done by introducing a PID controller and tuning it's gains in real time using a fuzzy logic controller. The controllers were then evaluated through simulation with and without the effect of disturbance and noise. Finally, The results of each controller were validated.

In this paper, a method based on second order sliding mode control(2-SMC) is developed to design a nonlinear controller for a quadcopter vehicle subjected to disturbance in the z-axis. The controller is divided into two subcontrollers, one for the fully actuated degrees of freedom and the other one for underactuated degrees of freedom. Nonholonomic constraints governing the relation between underactuated subsystem are developed. Stability of the proposed controller is guaranteed in Lyapunov sense and different simulations are carried out to present the performance characteristics of the system. The chattering effect is highlighted and tackled.

In this paper, a curved surface fitting method using a raster-scanning window is proposed to smooth the original organized point cloud data (PCD) and extract the original features in the presence of noise. The method allows PCD to be smoothed while keeping its own original features. Then, a Stereolithography (STL) generator is proposed to produce triangulated patches from smoothed PCD, and this helps to deal with a triangular representation of a 3D surface geometry. The process allows reconstructing 3D digital data of a real object described using STL format from original PCD in the presence of noise for reverse engineering. The effectiveness and usefulness of the proposed techniques are demonstrated through actual experiments to smooth PCD, reconstruct STL, generate cutter location source (CLS) data and perform machining of the object model described in the original PCD.

Creating a standard for knowledge representation and reasoning in autonomous robotics is an urgent task if we consider recent advances in robotics as well as predictions about the insertion of robots in human daily life. Indeed, this will impact the way information is exchanged between multiple robots or between robots and humans and how they can all understand it without ambiguity. Indeed, Human Robot Interaction (HRI) represents the interaction of at least two cognition models (Human and Robot). Such interaction informs task composition, task assignment, communication, cooperation and coordination in a dynamic environment, requiring a flexible representation. Hence, this paper presents the IEEE RAS Autonomous Robotics (AuR) Study Group, which is a spin-off of the IEEE Ontologies for Robotics and Automation (ORA) Working Group, and and its ongoing work to develop the first IEEE-RAS ontology standard for autonomous robotics. In particular, this paper reports on the current version of the ontology for autonomous robotics as well as on its first implementation successfully validated for a human-robot interaction scenario, demonstrating the developed ontology's strengths which include semantic interoperability and capability to relate ontologies from different fields for knowledge sharing and interactions.

A camera-mounted tethered Quadrotor is proposed to substitute for proximity viewing check of a bridge or the wall in a tunnel. We first describe the design and manufacture of the airframe, and then manufacture a stabilizer for making the posture of the camera mounted on the airframe constant. Here, the camera can transmit its image to a smart-phone through a Wi-Fi communication system, and the stabilizer is controlled by a PID controller. To check whether the camera-mounted tethered Quadrotor manufactured is stabilized, some flight experiments are finally conducted indoors

A cast metal is generally produced by using a sand mold. A foamed polystyrene mold is used as the master mold for making the corresponding sand mold. Recently, the development of a flexible machining robot for foamed polystyrene materials is expected to be used in the cast metal industries because of the high cost and inefficiency of conventional large-sized CNC machine tools. To cope with the need, we already presented a machining system based on an industrial robot. Industrial robots have been recognized as a typical biomimetic machine pursuing the capability of human arm. The developed robotic CAM system provides a simple interface without using any robot languages between any CAD/CAM system and the machining robot. In this paper, a trajectory following controller with a capability of generating micro vibrational motion is completed for a ball endmill of the machining robot in order to enhance the machining performance of foamed polystyrene materials with curved surface. The micro vibrational motion is online generated along curved surface by post-processing original CL data. The implementation of the proposed controller and removal machining results along curved surface are illustrated.

Swarm robotics has been focused in order to express more advanced performance using lower performance devices. Swarming behaviors of multiple robots are need for working in industries or in places where a human cannot enter. In the natural world, some creatures which have simple biological function can acquire higher intelligence by swarming. Therefore, biomimetic method is effective in order to establish an efficient swarming system. In the swarming robotic system, because cost of the system increases in proportion to number of a robot, devices of robots are required to be simple. Furthermore, an implemented algorithm into robots should be designed considering a simplification of the individual robot with keeping correctness of the model of the robots. In this paper, a simple algorithm for swarming and following behaviors is proposed assuming that robots had only three sensors to detect distance information. The algorithm consists of nine patterns according to information of three PSD sensors. In the proposed algorithm, each robot's movement is determined based on the inputs of three distance sensors. Then, a virtual simulator for multiple mobile robotics is developed to evaluate the performance of the algorithm, in which the movement of a virtual robot is modeled based on an actual three-wheeled mobile robot. It is assumed in the simulator that the robot moves only to six directions and rotates counterclockwise or clockwise on the position; the robots do not communicate with each other; shape and kinematics of the robot are simplified in the two-dimensional plane. Several simulations using the proposed algorithm are conducted to evaluate the performance for the swarming and following behaviors. Results of the simulations show that the proposed algorithm can provide swarming and following behaviors.

Until now, we have proposed a multiple mobile robots system based on wireless communication using simple hardware and software. The controller of the system is developed based on a subsumption architecture to realize a swarm intelligence. The subsumption architecture is constructed in a supervisory PC server. The subsumption architecture generates eight kinds of simple commands. The server transmits a communication packet including the command to each mobile robot by wireless communication. Each mobile robot moves based on the received command while transmitting a response packet including six Position Sensitive Detector (PSD) sensors' information to the server. The sensors' information is used as the inputs for three agents in the subsumption architecture. In this paper, to realize a more biological behavior, a bend sensor is added in the robot through a compact A/D converter and the corresponding agent is newly designed in the controller of the server. It is expected that not only the added agent works as emergency escape function to defend the robot itself but also other analogue sensors can be easily equipped with. Also, to examine the actual delay of the system in using serial communication and wireless communication, dynamic sampling period is experimentally measured by using multi media timer with 2 ms resolution on Windows system. The dynamic sampling period is the communication time required between the PC server and the robot. In addition, the success rate of communication, which is defined as the ratio of reception times to transmission times, is evaluated. The measured results are shown and discussed.

Service robotics is becoming a leading application area of human-centered technologies, and the rise of household and personal assistance robots forecasts an utopist world of human--robot collaborative society. Along the road, one of the robotics community's major tasks is to work on the harmonization of trends, standardization of terms, interfaces and technologies. It is important to keep the scientific and social progress under control through sufficient public outreach and technology dissemination. Along those lines, the IEEE Robotics & Automation Society is sponsoring a working group entitled Ontologies for Robotics and Automation that will bridge cutting edge technology to users of the services---the general public. In this paper, the background of the project is presented, the definitions and examples of descriptive systems of relations are described, showing how ontologies can help to address the above challenges.

The IEEE RAS Ontologies for Robotics and Automation Working Group is dedicated to developing a methodology for knowledge representation and reasoning in robotics and automation. As part of this working group, the Autonomous Robots sub-group is tasked with developing ontology modules for autonomous robots. This paper describes the work in progress on the development of ontologies for autonomous systems. For autonomous systems, the focus is on the cooperation, coordination, and communication of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). The ontologies serve as a framework for working out concepts of employment with multiple vehicles for a variety of operational scenarios with emphasis on collaborative and cooperative missions.

In this paper, a new desktop orthogonal-type robot, which has abilities of compliant motion and stick-slip motion, is first presented for lapping small metallic molds with curved surface. The robot consists of three single-axis devices with a high position resolution of 1 μm. A thin wood stick tool is attached to the tip of the z-axis. The tool tip has a small ball-end shape. The control system is composed of a force feedback loop, position feedback loop and position feedforward loop. The force feedback loop controls the polishing force consisting of tool contact force and kinetic friction forces. The position feedback loop controls the position in pick feed direction, e.g., z-direction. The position feedforward loop leads the tool tip along a desired trajectory called cutter location data (CL data). The CL data are generated from the main-processor of a CAM system. The proposed robot realizes a compliant motion required for the surface following control along a spiral path. In order to improve the lapping performance, a small stick-slip motion control strategy is further added to the control system. The small stick-slip motion is orthogonally generated to the direction of the tool moving direction. Generally, the stick-slip motion is an undesirable phenomenon and should be eliminated in precision machineries. However, the proposed robot employs a small stick-slip motion to improve the lapping quality. The effectiveness of the robot is examined through an actual lapping test of an LED lens mold with a diameter of 4 mm.

This paper presents an application of a sensor fault tolerant control (FTC) scheme on a flexible joint and flexible link. A linear observer is used to reconstruct the faults. Then the reconstruction is subtracted from the faulty sensors to form a 'virtual sensor' and this signal (instead of the normally used faulty output) is then used to generate the control input. This minimizes performance degradation. A design method to make the virtual sensor insensitive to system uncertainties is presented. Two fault conditions are tested; total failure and incipient faults. Then the robustness is tested by implementing the joint's FTC scheme on the link. Excellent results have been obtained for both cases; the FTC scheme caused the system performance is almost identical to the fault-free scenario, even for simultaneous faults

Landmines are easy to lay but difficult to find and destroy. They are blind killers that should be forbidden as soon as possible. Nevertheless, there are about 100 million mines to be removed, and as many ready to be dispersed by hand or helicopter. A population of lightweight, low-cost, semi-autonomous robots is a clear answer to the problem of demining vast condemned areas. They will work together under close supervision of a monitoring station. They are named Pemex for "PErsonal Mine EXplorers" and this paper focuses on the original design and navigation of the 2-wheel Pemex-B. The Pemex-B robot searches for mines as a dog would. Ground pressure is low enough not to make the mine explode. It has to scan a large area, covering every square foot. In order to accelerate the exploration and get the best efficiency from the surveillance team, several robots have to be used. There are three levels of control: local scan; navigation (GPS and odometry) and collective behaviour (radio coordination).

An autonomous and decentralized system called ACTRESS (ACTor based Robot and Equipment Synthetic System) is being under development as an intelligent robot system which can execute high level tasks. ACTRESS is composed of multiple robotic agents. Each robotic agent is called robotor. A robotor may be a robot, a computing system and any other equip- ments. While researching in this field, many research issues need to have solutions, such issues may include, the communication among the agents and protocols, cooperation among a group of agents, describing the tasks to be executed, multi-agent motion planning, multi-agent task planning, task description, human interface role, solving deadlocks ... etc. The aim of this paper is to develop a simulation environment for an autonomous and decentralized multi-agent robotic system. For this purpose, it is neces- sary to simulate and analyze the main functions of each agent, design and analysis of the actions to be carried out by each agent, analyzing their real time behavior with a variety of situations considering their environ- ment and the treatment of unexpected events. Also, it is aecessary to find out an efficient strategy to realize effective means for the agents to form a cooperating manner that support task execution and problem solv- ing. In parallel with the mentioned purposes the ACTRESS structure is simulated as functions and behavior using the developed simulation environment. This simulation includes a group of mobile robots, human interface and global environment manager. Then, software integration that deal with various aspect of the overall problem is developed. Different experi- ments are performed to analyze the performance of each individual robotor and the overall system.

An autonomous and decentralized robot system, ACTRESS, is being developed as an intelligent robot system which can execute high level tasks. The concept of ACTRESS is introduced, and the communication framework between robotic agents that compose the robot system is proposed. Taking a task of pushing objects by multiple mobile robots in a certain working environment as a case study of ACTRESS, the strategy for organizing the robot system is discussed, and the required functions for the robot system are introduced. The optimal distribution of the functions is designed based on communication evaluation. An algorithm for static path planning and a strategy for dynamic path planning are proposed.>

A technique is developed based on free link concept to construct the available free space between obstacles within robot's environment in terms of free convex area. Then, a new kind of vertex graph called MAKLINK is constructed to support the generation of a collision free path. This graph is constructed using the midpoints of common free links between free convex area as passing points. These points correspond to nodes in a graph and the connection between them within each convex area as arcs in this graph. A collision free path can be efficiently generated using the MAKLINK graph. The complexity of the search for a collision free path is greatly reduced by minimizing the size of the graph to be searched concerning the number of nodes and the number of arcs connecting them. The analysis of the proposed algorithm shows its efficiency in terms of computation ability, safety, optimality, and in supporting robot navigation along the generated path.>

A method is presented for modeling a robot environment and structuring its free space in terms of a set of overlapped prime rectangular areas (PRAs) which are suited for path planning and navigation tasks. Next, a connectivity table for the overlapped PRAs is constructed to provide the structure necessary for path-finding. Using the generated overlapped PRAs, a simple and computationally effective online path planning algorithm is proposed to generate the optimal collision-free path in terms of intersected PRAs from the PRA containing a start point to a PRA containing a goal point within the robot's environment. Since the movements between the PRAs cannot have fixed cost distance attached to them, an efficient technique that dynamically allocates cost to path segments as the path develops is proposed. A real-time execution algorithm is developed to control the robot during the execution of the planned path. Experimental examples based on the proposed algorithms with its results are presented for selected environments executed on the mobile robot Yamabico.M (Level-12).>