In this paper, we show how the estimation of a robot’s world model can be improved by actively sensing the environment through considering the current world state estimate through minimizing the entropy of an underlying particle distribution. Being originally computationally expensive, this approach is optimized to become executable in real-time on a robot with limited resources. We demonstrate...

The implementation of high-performance robot controllers for complex control tasks such as playing autonomous robot soccer is tedious, errorprone, and a never ending programming task. In this paper we propose programmers to write autonomous controllers that optimize and automatically adapt themselves to changing circumstances of task execution using explicit perception, dynamics and action mode...

In our lab at the Center for Intelligent Systems we are currently developing a dual armed humanoid service robot called ISAC One of our focus areas in this research is the use of humanoid robots for en tertainment One application we have developed is using ISAC to play a musical instrument called the Theremin In this paper we present our Theremin playing robot and describe the software system u...

In this paper, we present the probably first application of the popular Dynamic Movement Primitives (DMP) approach to the domain of soccer-playing humanoid robots. DMPs are known for their ability to imitate previously demonstrated motions as well as to flexibly adapt to unforeseen changes to the desired trajectory with respect to speed and direction. As demonstrated in this paper, this makes t...

Self-localization on the field is one of the key perceptual tasks that a soccer robot, e. g. in the RoboCup competitions, must solve. This problem becomes harder, as the rules in RoboCup more and more discourage a solely color-based orientation on the field. While the field size increases, field boundary markers and goals become smaller and less colorful. For robust game play, robots therefore ...

This paper proposes a central pattern generators based control architecture using a frequency adaptive oscillator for learning to locomotion of humanoid robot. Central pattern generators are biological neural networks that can produce coordinated multidimensional rhythmic signals, under the control of simple input signals. They are found both in vertebrate and invertebrate animals for the contr...

Fast and flexible walking is necessary for humanoid robots in the Robocup soccer competition. We propose a new fuzzy-logic control scheme that would enable the robot to realize flexible walking with high standard of stability by restricting the step length and inclining the body of robot to an appropriate logic body control scheme uses the desired walking direction and rotating angle as an inpu...

In this paper, we illustrate the development of a realistic simulation of a humanoid robot model in a virtual environment using USARSim (Urban Search and Rescue Simulator). USARSim provides an accurate 3D simulation of a virtual environment with a detailed rendering and a realistic physics. Moreover, USARSim allows users to observe the virtual environment from different views. One of these is t...

Over the past few years, a number of successful humanoid platforms have been developed, including the Nao [1] and the DARwIn-OP [2], both of which are used by many research groups for the investigation of bipedal walking, fullbody motions, and human-robot interaction. The NimbRo-OP is an open humanoid platform under development by team NimbRo of the University of Bonn. Significantly larger than...

This manuscript present my research activities on real-time vision-based behaviors for complex robots such as humanoids. The underlying main scientific question structuring this work is the following: “What are the decisional processes which make possible for a humanoid robot to generate motion in real-time based upon visual information ?” In soccer humans can decide to kick a ball while runnin...