The aim of this paper is to describe the architecture of a Path Planner for Mobile Robots based on the paradigm of Cellular Automata. The environment representation is distributed, as the robot shape; both and the robot kinematics are parameters for the planner. Hence, it results to be very flexible, handling robots with quite different kinematics (omnidirectional, car-like, asymmetrical, etc.)...

This paper presents a Distributed Perception System for application of intelligent surveillance. The audio and video sensors distributed in the environment are used as a single sensor to reveal and track the presence of a person in the surveilled environment. The system prototype presented in this paper is composed of a static acoustic agent and a static vision agent cooperating with a mobile v...

Most of the previously employed dynamic modeling approaches, including Natural Orthogonal Complement Algorithm, have limitations on their application to the mobile robot, specifically at singular configurations. Also, in their dynamic modeling of mobile robots, wheel dynamics is usually ignored assuming that its dynamic effect is negligibly small. As a remedy for this, a singularity-free operat...

The evolutionary learning algorithm called particle swarm optimization (PSO) is developed in this paper. The image model of the embedded mobile robot is automatically generated with the omni-directional image concept to approach toward the behavior of the embedded mobile robot. The circumvolutory environment is dynamically captured from the head of the mobile robot, which will directly be trans...

Vision is an ideal sensor modality for intelligent robots. It provides rich information on the environment as required for recognizing objects and understanding situations in real time. Moreover, vision-guided robots may be largely calibration-free, which is a great practical advantage. Three vision-guided robots and their design concepts are introduced: an autonomous indoor vehicle, a calibrat...

The strength of appearance-based mapping models for mobile robots lies in their ability to represent the environment through high-level image features and to provide human-readable information. However, developing a mapping and a localization method using these kinds of models is very challenging, especially if robots must deal with long-term mapping, localization, navigation, occlusions, and d...

Mobile robots operating in real and populated environments usually execute tasks that require accurate knowledge on their position. Monte Carlo Localization (MCL) algorithms have been successfully applied for laser range finders. However, vision-based approaches present several problemswith occlusions, realtime operation, and environment modifications. In this article, an omnivision-based MCL a...

This paper discusses the mechanical design and simulation of a novel omnidirectional wheel based on Reuleaux-triangles. The main feature of our omniwheel is that the point of contact of the wheel with the floor is always at the same distance from the center of rotation. This produces smooth translational movement on a flat surface, even when the profile of the complete wheel assembly has gaps b...