Robotics

Anthropic Objects and Anthropomorphic Things

by Shaun May

Published in Puppetry International, Spring/Summer Issue 2012.

In this paper, I draw on research from outside of performance theory, specifically computer science and philosophy, in... more In this paper, I draw on research from outside of performance theory, specifically computer science and philosophy, in order to draw out a terminological distinction which I believe is essential to understanding the phenomenon of the animated puppet. Specifically, the difference between an object looking humanlike and an object being humanlike. Crucially, I argue that the latter is characterised by what Heidegger calls being-in-the-world.

Service robots for restoration of goods of cultural heritage

by Michela Cigola

Ceccarelli M., Cigola M., Service robots for restoration of goods of cultural heritage in Service Robots and Robotics: Design and Application edited by di M. Ceccarelli, published by IGI Global Hershey, Pennsylvania (USA) 2012; pp. 213-228. ISBN 978-1-4666-0291-5 (hardcover) - ISBN 978-1-4666-0292-2 (ebook); DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-0291-5.ch012

Preservation and benefit of goods of Cultural Heritage need careful activity of survey and restoration that can be... more Preservation and benefit of goods of Cultural Heritage need careful activity of survey and restoration that can be understood as service tasks for suitable robotic systems. New service robots can be conceived once the specificity of the application in Cultural Heritage area for architectural goods is carefully considered both with technical aspects and from operators viewpoints. In particular, in this chapter no technical aspects are also discussed as fundamental for the acceptance and use by no-technical operators in the new field of service robot application for survey and restoration of architectonic goods of Cultural Heritage value. Examples are illustrated from authors’ experience with the aim to stress the problems and challenges in applications for service robotic systems in Cultural Heritage frames.

Action observation in the infant brain: The role of body form and motion

by Emily S. Cross

Much research has been carried out to understand how our brains make sense of another agent in motion. Current views... more Much research has been carried out to understand how our brains make sense of another agent in motion. Current views based on human adult and monkey studies assume a matching process in the motor system biased towards actions performed by conspecifics and present in the observer’s motor repertoire. However, little is known about the neural correlates of action cognition in early ontogeny. In this study, we examined the processes involved in the observation of full body movements in 4-month-old infants using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to measure localized brain activation. In a 2 x 2 design, infants watched human or robotic figures moving in a smooth, familiar human-like manner, or in a rigid, unfamiliar robotic-like manner. We found that infant premotor cortex responded more strongly to observing robotic-like motion compared to human-like motion. Contrary to current views, this suggests that the infant motor system is flexibly engaged by novel movement patterns. Moreover, temporal cortex responses indicate that infants integrate information about form and motion during action observation. The response patterns obtained in premotor and temporal cortices during action observation in these young infants are very similar to those reported for adults (Cross et al., in press). These findings thus suggest that the brain processes involved in the analysis of an agent in motion in adults become functionally specialized very early in human development.

Robotic Lunar Ecopoiesis Test Bed: Bringing the Experimental Method to Terraforming

by Keli Rae

Our publication is in APPENDIX A:  P. J. Boston, P. Todd and K. R. McMillen. Robotic Lunar Ecopoiesis Test Bed: Bringing the
Experimental Method to Terraforming. Space Technology and Applications International Forum -
STAIF 2004, Ed. M. S. El-Genk, American Institute of Physics, Washington, DC, 2004.

The notion of ecologically terraforming another planet (aka ecopoiesis) has been discussed by a number of scholars.... more The notion of ecologically terraforming another planet (aka ecopoiesis) has been discussed by a number of scholars.
Some theoretical treatments of various aspects of ecopoiesis have appeared in the literature. However, experimental
terraforming studies have been rare to non-existent. This is not surprising because of the planetary scale and long durations
typically discussed. We describe a concept to perform basic ecopoietic experiments in a test facility constructed on the lunar
surface. Such a facility can provide long-term observation of organisms and their ecological, physiological, and evolutionary
interactions in a low gravity environment. Salient features of other extraterrestrial environments (e.g. the 0.38g Mars gravity)
can be simulated more easily in the lunar milieu than on Earth while providing much greater access for experimenters than
ecopoiesis experiments on Mars itself. Besides application of these proposed studies to possible future terraforming efforts,
basic evolutionary and ecological processes could be studied under extreme selection pressures including fractional gravity,
high radiation, and with a variety of atmospheres, soils, and other parameters. Novel, genetically engineered and selectively
bred organisms could be tested in such a facility without concern for accidental release into Earth’s environment.

A robotics-based approach to modeling of choice reaching experiments on visual attention

by Sören Strauss

Controlling SCARA using Virtual Open Sourced Teach Pendant and provide a unique HMI

by Rushabh Doshi

published in IWAMA 2012, SFI Norman, Norway

Develop a unique Virtual Teach Pendant using LabVIEW for eliminating the need of a hard wired Teach Pendant genreally... more Develop a unique Virtual Teach Pendant using LabVIEW for eliminating the need of a hard wired Teach Pendant genreally present in an Industrial Manipulator System. This Teach Pendant vi has 3 modes and is open sourced and can be programmed according to the need of the application for the system, so by just changing the software on the teach pendant we can make the Robotic system perform versatile operations like pick-place, painting, welding, cutting, etc

Hydrodynamic pressure sensing with an artificial lateral line in steady and unsteady flows

by Maarja Kruusmaa

Roberto Venturelli, Otar Akanyeti, Francesco Visentin, Jaas Ježov, Lily D Chambers, Gert Toming, Jennifer Brown, Maarja Kruusmaa, William M Megill and Paolo Fiorini, Bioinspiration & Biomimetics Volume 7 Number 3

With the overall goal being a better understanding of the sensing environment from the local perspective of a situated... more With the overall goal being a better understanding of the sensing environment from the local perspective of a situated agent, we studied uniform flows and Kármán vortex streets in a frame of reference relevant to a fish or swimming robot. We visualized each flow regime with digital particle image velocimetry and then took local measurements using a rigid body with laterally distributed parallel pressure sensor arrays. Time and frequency domain methods were used to characterize hydrodynamically relevant scenarios in steady and unsteady flows for control applications. Here we report that a distributed pressure sensing mechanism has the capability to discriminate Kármán vortex streets from uniform flows, and determine the orientation and position of the platform with respect to the incoming flow and the centre axis of the Kármán vortex street. It also enables the computation of hydrodynamic features which may be relevant for a robot while interacting with the flow, such as vortex shedding frequency, vortex travelling speed and downstream distance between vortices. A Kármán vortex street was distinguished in this study from uniform flows by analysing the magnitude of fluctuations present in the sensor measurements and the number of sensors detecting the same dominant frequency. In the Kármán vortex street the turbulence intensity was 30% higher than that in the uniform flow and the sensors collectively sensed the vortex shedding frequency as the dominant frequency. The position and orientation of the sensor platform were determined via a comparative analysis between laterally distributed sensor arrays; the vortex travelling speed was estimated via a cross-correlation analysis among the sensors.

How is dog gait affected by natural rough terrain?

by Michelle Reeve

Meeting abstract presented by Andrew J. Spence at SICB 2012.
WILSHIN, Simon; HAYNES, G. Clark; REEVE, Michelle; REVZEN, Shai; SPENCE, Andrew J.*; Integrative and Comparative Biology 52:198-198.
Royal Veterinary College; University of Pennsylvania; Royal Veterinary College; University of Pennsylvania; Royal Veterinary College aspence@rvc.ac.uk

In nature legged animals depend on locomotion over uneven terrain for survival and reproduction. One way in which... more In nature legged animals depend on locomotion over uneven terrain for survival and reproduction. One way in which animals may optimize their locomotor behaviour for this task is by adjusting the relative timing of their leg recirculation, or gait. Therefore, we asked how the relative leg timing of quadrupeds changes during locomotion over natural, uneven terrain, and compared this to our idealised notions of the walk, trot and gallop. Five male dogs of shoulder height 522.0 ± 62.6 mm (mean ± s.d.) and body mass 20.0 ± 2.5 kg (mean ± s.d.) were trialled at nominal walk, trot, and gallop speeds over flat and uneven terrain. Mean perturbation size on uneven terrain was 54.8 ± 44.6 mm versus 4.2 ± 3.1 mm on flat. Dogs were fitted with a wirelessly synchronized suite of five sensors, comprised of Global Position System and inertial measurement units. One device was attached to the proximal-most segment of each leg, and a fifth on the midline of the back at the front legs. Raw sensor data were used to compute animal speed, position, and a continuous estimate of leg phases. The centroids of relative leg phase (averaged across time within each stride), describing the gait used by the dog on each terrain at each nominal gait speed, were significantly different on the rough terrain (linear mixed-model; n=5 dogs, p<0.05). At walking speeds on the rough terrain, dog gait moves towards the trot. Averages and distances between gaits in relative leg phase space do not account for the dynamical and geometric structure of these phase variables, however. Theoretical developments required to handle these data will be discussed. To explain why we observe these changes in dog gait, we propose experiments in a physical model, the robot XRL.

Models of Cockroach Shelter Seeking Implemented on a Robotic Test Platform

by Brian Tietz

Master's Thesis, Case Western Reserve Univeristy

Animal behavior is often a model for robotic control, with benefits for both robotics and biology. This research... more Animal behavior is often a model for robotic control, with benefits for both robotics and biology. This research covers a new animal behavior for this category: cockroach shelter-seeking.
Cockroach behavior was tracked in a 91 cm by 91 cm arena, and significant trends were identified that form a stochastic navigation algorithm called RAMBLER. Components of RAMBLER were then implemented on a mobile robot, and compared with a deterministic model of the same cockroach behaviors. In the process of programming the robotic model, an interesting behavior was discovered when the cockroach loses contact with a barrier in the arena, posing new questions about animal behavior.

Robosonic: Manipulação de Sons Assistida por Robots

by Filipe Luz

Robosonic: Randomness-Based Manipulation of Sounds Assisted by Robots

by Filipe Luz

Self‐supervised learning to visually detect terrain surfaces for autonomous robots operating in forested terrain

by Phil Salesses

Variable Utility in Multi-Robot Task Allocation Systems

by Guilherme Bastos

Draft only. Published in Proc. of Latin American Robotic Symposium

Multi-Robot Task Allocation (MRTA) systems have been thoroughly studied by the robotic community in the last decade,... more Multi-Robot Task Allocation (MRTA) systems have been thoroughly studied by the robotic community in the last decade, with the purpose of creating systems that can solve real problems with good results. Most MRTA architectures consider non-variable utility measures to value task execution payoff. However, in realistic settings there are problems such as tasks having priority and time lifespan, that can be better modeled with variable utilities. This paper introduces variable utility applied to MRTA systems, and exemplifies it by presenting a model for a box-pushing problem with this new concept.

Robotic Implementation of Biological Bayesian Models for Visuo-Inertial Image Stabilization and Gaze Control

by João Filipe Ferreira

Towards expressive musical robots: a cross-modal framework for emotional gesture, voice and music

by Angelica Lim

Angelica Lim*, Tetsuya Ogata and Hiroshi G Okuno

EURASIP Journal on Audio, Speech, and Music Processing 2012, 2012:3 doi:10.1186/1687-4722-2012-3

It has been long speculated that expression of emotions from different modalities have the same underlying 'code',... more It has been long speculated that expression of emotions from different modalities have the same underlying 'code', whether it be a dance step, musical phrase, or tone of voice. This is the first attempt to implement this theory across three modalities, inspired by the polyvalence and repeatability of robotics. We propose a unifying framework to generate emotions across voice, gesture, and music, by representing emotional states as a 4-parameter tuple of speed, intensity, regularity, and extent (SIRE). Our results show that a simple 4-tuple can capture four emotions recognizable at greater than chance across gesture and voice, and at least two emotions across all three modalities. An application for multi-modal, expressive music robots is discussed.

Keywords: affective computing; gesture; entertainment robots.

Design, fabrication and applications of biomimetic sensors in biorobotics

by Maria Chiara Carrozza

Information Acquisition, 2005 IEEE International Conference on

Date:June 27 2005-July 3 2005

The aim of this paper is to discuss an ideal design procedure for biologically-inspired artificial sensors. The main... more The aim of this paper is to discuss an ideal design procedure for biologically-inspired artificial sensors. The main steps of this procedure are the following: (1) analysis of force and position sensors in animals and humans; (2) design and implementation of biologically-inspired sensors in innovative biorobotic and biomechatronic systems (e.g., antropomorphic robots, animaloids, and prostheses). According to this sequence, the first part of the paper is dedicated to the presentation of some features of force and motion sensors in animals and humans. Then, some applications of biologically-inspired systems to sense force and position in different robots are illustrated and discussed.

Long-term relationships as a benchmark for robot personhood

by Stephen J. Cowley

This appeared as:
MacDorman, K. F. & Cowley, S. J. (2008). Long-term relationships as a benchmark for robot personhood. To appear in AAAI 2008 Spring Symposium on Emotion, Personality, and Social Behavior. March 26-28, 2008. Stanford, California.

The human body constructs itself into a person by becoming attuned to the affective consequences of its actions in... more The human body constructs itself into a person by becoming attuned to the affective consequences of its actions in social relationships. Norms develop that ground perception and action, providing standards for appraising conduct. The body finds itself motivated to enact itself as a character in the drama of life, carving from its beliefs, intentions, and experiences a unique identity and perspective. If a biological body can construct itself into a person by exploiting social mechanisms, could an electromechanical body, a robot, do the same? To qualify for personhood, a robot body must be able to construct its own identity, to assume different roles, and to discriminate in forming friendships. Though all these conditions could be considered benchmarks of personhood, the most compelling benchmark, for which the above mentioned are prerequisites, is the ability to sustain long-term relationships. Long-term relationships demand that a robot continually recreate itself as it scripts its own future. This benchmark may be contrasted with those of previous research, which tend to define personhood in terms that are trivial, subjective, or based on assumptions about moral universals. Although personhood should not in principle be limited to one species, the most humanlike of robots will be best equipped for reciprocal relationships with human beings.

Robots as social mediators: coding for engineers

by Stephen J. Cowley

This appeared as:
Nabe, S., Cowley, S.J., Kanda, T. Ishiguro, H. Iraki, K. & Nargita, N. (2006). Robots and social mediators: coding for engineers. Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication. University of Hertfordshire, September, 6-8 2006, pp. 384-390.

Coding can contribute to robot design by suggesting behavioural benchmarks. These, however, depend on the level of... more Coding can contribute to robot design by suggesting behavioural benchmarks. These, however, depend on the level of analysis. In illustration, semi-formalised rules are used to investigate child-robot encounters. By using behaviour-level codes, we extract information about how children use the robot. This leads to findings about longditudinal changes in how children evaluate its behaviours. Children, we find, use the robot as a social mediator– to prompt synchronized social events. By focusing on a behavioural level, coding can benefit designers of robots, software and sensors.

Insieme ma soli di Sherry Turkle, un libro chiave sul meccanismo dell’auto inganno.

by Pietro Piro

Recensione critica a S. Turkle, Insieme ma soli. Perché ci aspettiamo sempre più dalla tecnologia e sempre meno dagli altri, Codice Edizioni, Torino 2012.

Il libro della psicologa del MIT di Boston Sherry Turkle, Insieme ma soli. Perché ci aspettiamo sempre più dalla... more Il libro della psicologa del MIT di Boston Sherry Turkle, Insieme ma soli. Perché ci aspettiamo sempre più dalla tecnologia e sempre meno dagli altri, ha il merito di riuscire a far luce sull’intimità del rapporto uomo-robot. Tuttavia, ci troviamo di fronte ad un libro drammatico. In cosa consiste questo dramma? L’uomo che vive nelle società del cosiddetto benessere avanzato si trova di fronte ad un bivio: o cambiare la propria realtà oppure, costruirsene un’artificiale dove vivere assecondando i propri desideri, perlopiù inconsci. L’autrice ci dimostra, senza troppi moralismi, che proprio dove l’organizzazione del lavoro assorbe maggiori energie, le persone sono spinte potentemente verso un mondo virtuale dove realizzare i propri bisogni più intimi. Analizzando questo libro nella sua portata più ampia, mi pare che faccia da calco al reale e non da carta, e che non sia stato scritto per indicarci la via d’uscita per una realtà (che appare, per chi ha ancora occhi collegati a un cuore umano, di una tristezza disarmante) quanto piuttosto, per avvertirci dell’eventualità di una futura espropriazione da parte della logica dei robot e preparare il terreno per nuove e imprevedibili relazioni di dominio.

Electromagnetic tracker measurement error simulation and tool design

by Gregory Fischer