A planning technique for six-legged walking robot is presented in this thesis along with a terrain modelling approach that allows to exploit possible supporting footholds of the surface. The proposed approach for merging measurements provided by a depth camera sensor allows to reconstruct the robot surrounding. Based on the measurements of the environment, a grid based elevation map is construc...

Emergency preparedness planning for animal diseases is a relatively new concept that is only now being applied in Africa. Information can be drawn from numerous recent disease epidemics involving rinderpest, contagious bovine pleuropneumonia (CBPP) and Rift Valley fever. These examples clearly demonstrate the shortcomings and value of effective early warning with ensured early reaction in the c...

In this paper we present a formalization of behavior-based planning for nonholonomic robotic systems. This work provides a framework that integrates features of reactive planning models with modern control-theory-based robotic approaches in the area of path-planning for nonholonomic robots. In particular, we introduce a motion description language, MDLe, that provides a formal basis for robot p...

We propose a method that allows a motion planning algorithm to imitate the behavior of expert users in deformable environments. For instance, a surgeon inserting a probe knows intuitively which organs are more sensitive than others, but may not be able to mathematically represent a cost function that governs his or her motion. We hypothesize that the relative sensitivities of deformable objects...

Satellite domains are becoming a fashionable area of research within the AI community due to the complexity of the problems that these domains need to solve. With the current US and European focus on launching satellites for communication, broadcasting, or localization tasks, among others, the automatic control of these machines becomes an important problem. Many new techniques in both the plan...

This paper deals with the automation of dextrous grasping in a partly known environment using a stereo vision system and a multiingered hand mounted on a robot arm. EEective grasping requires a combination of sensing and planning capabilities: sensing to construct a well-adapted model of the situation and to guide the execution of the task, and planning to determine an appropriate grasping stra...

A two-states quantum system with one control is proved to be flat. This provides a simple procedure to design smooth open-loop controls that steer in finite time from one eigen-state to the other one. A three-states quantum system with one control is not flat in general. Following the Rabi oscillations used by physicists to control stimulated transition, we associate to this system an averaged ...

Abstract: The Coordination of the motion planning of the manipulator end point and the mobile base is a crucial task for a mobile robot control. The mobile manipulator is mounted on the mobile platform where the end point of the manipulator is guided to follow an arbitrarily chosen path .The mobile platform may move in such a manner so that the manipulator end may track the arbitrary trajectori...

The complexity of planning tasks have increased over the past decade. There is relatively poor understanding what the implications are of increased task complexity in planning and scheduling operations. Previous work in the behavorial sciences have investigated the concept of cognitive load, addressing both task complecity and task workload or stress, and have concluded that decision makers ten...