This paper presents ROCI, a framework for developing applications for multi-robot teams. In ROCI, each robot is considered a node which contains several modules and may export different types of services and capabilities to other nodes. Each node runs a kernel that mediates the interactions of the robots in a team. This kernel keeps an updated database of all nodes and the functionalities that ...

Hyper-redundant robots have a large or infinite number of degrees of freedom. Such robots are analogous to snakes or tentacles and are useful for operation in highly constrained environments and novel forms of locomotion. This paper reviews newly developed methods for the kinematic analysis of hyper-redundant manipulators. These methods can be applied to a wide variety of hyper-redundant morpho...

This paper proposes a new obstacle avoidance algorithm for the CONTROLAB AGV which uses a similar strategy adopted by a blind person to avoid obstacles while walking. The AGV moves within an office environment with a known floorplan and uses an "electronic stick" consisting of infrared sensors to detect unknown obstacles. Initially a global potential field function is defined for each floorplan...

This paper is concerned with an application of the use of extra freedom in the coordinates transformation for exact linearizaion. We apply this technique to obstacle avoidance of a manipulator in the master-slave control. We show how to use the freedom for such an object and give the way to construct the linearizing coordinates transformation and feedback. Furthermore we evaluate the e ectivene...

52 Abstract— This paper deals with a low cost solution to obstacle avoidance for a mobile robot. This paper also presents a dynamic steering algorithm which ensures that the robot doesn't have to stop in front of an obstacle which allows robot to navigate smoothly in an unknown environment, avoiding collisions. The obstacle avoidance strategy has been described. Obstacle avoidance strategy and ...

This paper describes updated results from a partnership between the Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation and the Georgia Institute of Technology to develop, improve, and flight test a sensor, guidance, navigation, control, and real-time flight path optimization system to support high performance Nap-of-the-Earth (NOE) helicopter flight. The emphasis here is on optimization for a combination of low hei...

In this paper we present a novel method for obstacle avoidance using the stereo camera. The conventional obstacle avoidance methods and their limitations are discussed. A new algorithm is developed for the real-time obstacle avoidance which responds faster to unexpected obstacles. In this approach the depth map is divided into optimized number of regions and the minimum depth at each section is...

This paper describes the biological motivation, design and testing of a novel obstacle sensor system based on the chemical sounding mechanism observed in slime molds. The sensor system emits a volatile sounding chemical and adjacent obstacles reduce the dispersion of the chemical. The resulting increase in chemical concentration is detected and interpreted as indicating an obstacle. To demonstr...

This paper concerns motion plannings on kinematic model of six-legged robot from two distinct aspect. The system is subjected to intermittent nonholonomic constraints making the robot model strati ed which requires additional considerations in motion planning. An improved version of strati ed control is compared in this paper with an approach exploiting di erential atness of a restricted subsys...

In this paper, we investigate the issue of accurate estimation of the three-dimensional (3D) coordinates of a static scene from real images, combining xation and stereo cues. We may need to compute 3D data in many applications: vehicle positioning and maneuver, object observation and recognition, moving or xed obstacle avoidance, 3D mapping for surveillance, etc. More speci cally, we discuss th...