Intelligent Service Robots Research Articles

User-centric design of a personal assistance robot (FRASIER) for active aging.

We present our preliminary results from the design process for developing the Worcester Polytechnic Institute's personal assistance robot, FRASIER, as an intelligent service robot for enabling active aging. The robot capabilities include vision-based object detection, tracking the user and help with carrying heavy items such as grocery bags or cafeteria trays. This work-in-progress report outlines our motivation and approach to developing the next generation of service robots for the elderly. Our main contribution in this paper is the development of a set of specifications based on the adopted user-centered design process, and realization of the prototype system designed to meet these specifications.

An autonomic control system for high-reliable CPS

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) are composed of collaborating computational elements that control physical entities. The human desire to acquire useful information and to automatically control devices anytime and anywhere has increased the necessity to develop systems with high reliability. However, the CPS associated with the physical world and cyber world involve managing complexity and incurring the respective maintenance costs, such that it has been impossible to produce systems that are completely reliable. Thus, this paper presents an `Autonomic Control System for High-reliable Cyber-Physical Systems' that is comprised of eight processes, including fault analysis, fault event analysis, fault modeling, fault state interpretation, fault strategy decision, fault detection, diagnosis & reasoning, and maneuver execution. These processes facilitate the design and implementation of an autonomic control system that is superior to what was available before. As proof of the approach, we used an intelligent service robot (ISR) as a case study. The experimental results show that the ISR is able to detect a fault event during autonomic control of the CPS.

인간과의 안전한 상호 작용을 고려한 휴머노이드 조인트 모듈 개발

In this study, we have developed the humanoid joint modules which provide a variety of service while living with people in the future home life. The most important requirement is ensuring the safety for humans of the robot system for collaboration with people and providing physical service in dynamic changing environment. Therefore we should construct the mechanism and control system that each joint of the robot should response sensitively and rapidly to fulfill that. In this study, we have analyzed the characteristic of the joint which based on the target constituting the humanoid motion, developed the optimal actuator system which can be controlled based on each joint characteristic, and developed the control system which can control an multi-joint system at a high speed. In particular, in the design of the joint, we have defined back-drivability at the safety perspective and developed an actuator unit to maximize. Therefore we establish a foundation element technology for future commercialization of intelligent service robots

Multisensor Fusion-Based Concurrent Environment Mapping and Moving Object Detection for Intelligent Service Robotics

Intelligent service robot development is an important and critical issue for human community applications. With the diverse and complex service needs, the perception and navigation are essential subjects. This investigation focuses on the synergistic fusion of multiple sensors for an intelligent service robot that not only performs self-localization and mapping but also detects moving objects or people in the building it services. First of all, a new augmented approach of graph-based optimal estimation was derived for concurrent robot postures and moving object trajectory estimate. Moreover, all the moving object detection issues of a robot's indoor navigation are divided and conquered via multisensor fusion methodologies. From bottom to up, the estimation fusion methods are tactically utilized to get a more precise result than the one from only the laser ranger or stereo vision. Furthermore, for solving the consistent association problem of moving objects, a covariance area intersection belief assignment is applied for motion state evaluation and the complementary evidences such as kinematics and vision features are both synergized together to enhance the association efficiency with the evidence fusion method. The proof of concept with experiments has been successfully demonstrated and analyzed.

Guest editorial: technologies for practical robot applications

Robotics is on the verge of becoming the next disruptive technology to impact our society. Research volume, as well as technology development by the robotics industry, has grown exponentially in recent years. There are many market forecasts predicting a significant increase in the deployment of robotic systems in the next decade. Much of the increase of the robotics volume is expected to be in applications where robots act in direct support of humans, including health care, small-scale manufacturing, leisure and entertainment, the service sector and defense. In response to this growth, governments around the world have launched initiatives to support research and technology development in these areas. The main objective of the IEEE International Conference onTechnologies for Practical RobotApplications (TePRA) is to provide researchers, innovators, entrepreneurs and robotics professionals with a balanced forum in robotics science, engineering and technology. With an emphasis on practical applications and industry participation, TePRA technical programs featured more than 200 technical paper and poster presentations, robot demonstrations, student competitions, panel sessions and exhibits since 2009. The conference tracks covered application domains ranging from medical to defense, from educational to industrial robots, as well as new technologies in sensing, actuation and computation for enabling practical robot applications. This special issue of the Journal of Intelligent Service Robotics is a compilation of extended manuscripts selected from the 2013 TePRA technical program. The special issue

Machine Learning in a Humanoid Intelligent Service Robot

The service robot described herein is an engineering application combining mechanical technology and computer science. For service robots, intelligence is the core competence. The humanoid intelligent service robot developed at Chienkuo Technology University will possess five intelligent capabilities: marketing, advertisement, acceptance, guidance, and security. It must therefore be taught to obtain intelligence. The purpose of this research is to describe how an instructor teaches the humanoid intelligent service robot. First, according to the required basic action and distinct service script, the robot instructor demonstrates the basic human action. The digital 3D motion capture system captures these motions via video. The movements of the robot instructor's limbs and trunk will be digitized, encoded, and stored in the robot's intelligent computer memory. When service instructions activate the robot, it will replay the motions taught using 27 DC motors, 5 DC servo motors, and 10 solenoids.

Extending Action Languages for Intelligent Service Robot Task Planning

PDF HTML阅读 XML下载 导出引用 引用提醒 面向智能服务机器人任务规划的行动语言扩展 DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1001.2013.04331 作者: 作者单位: 作者简介: 通讯作者: 中图分类号: 基金项目: 国家自然科学基金(60745002, 61105039, 61175057); 国家高技术研究发展计划(863)(2008AA01Z150) Extending Action Languages for Intelligent Service Robot Task Planning Author: Affiliation: Fund Project: 摘要 | 图/表 | 访问统计 | 参考文献 | 相似文献 | 引证文献 | 资源附件 | 文章评论 摘要:针对智能服务机器人的任务规划,引入复合行动对行动语言C+进行了扩展,并实现了其求解系统.在扩展的行动语言C+中,复合行动被定义成一定条件下一系列基本行动的连续执行.通过刻画扩展的行动描述和其对应的转移系统的关系,证明了扩展行动语言相对于原始行动语言的可靠性和完备性.在智能服务机器人的任务规划中,复合行动可以看成是一种对于机器人能力的“高层”抽象.这样的扩展使得对于机器人规划系统的建模更加直观,具有更大的灵活性,并且扩展有增量式的优点.实验结果表明,通过引入复合行动,对于比较复杂的机器人任务规划问题,可以很好地改进求解效率. Abstract:To improve the task planning module in intelligent service robots, an extension of the action language C+ is proposed and implemented by introducing composite actions as a sequential executions of other actions. The soundness and completeness of the extension is proved by relating the action description in the extended C+ to its corresponding transition system. In the domain of robotic task planning, a composite action can be treated as a “high-level” abstraction of the robot’s physical functions. Such an extension leads to a more intuitive and flexible representation of the robot’s task planning system, and the knowledge of composite actions can be added to the domain incrementally. The experimental results show that for large domains, the extension leads to a great improvement of the solving efficiency. 参考文献 相似文献 引证文献

고신뢰 CPS를 위한 자율제어 시스템에 관한 연구

Cyber-Physical system(CPS) is characterized by collaborating computational elements controlling physical entities. In CPS, human desire to acquire useful information and control devices anytime and anywhere automatically has increased the necessity of a high reliable system. However, the physical world where CPS is deployed has management complexity and maintenance cost of 'CPS', so that it is impossible to make reliable systems. Thus, this paper presents an 'Autonomic Control System towards High-reliable Cyber-Physical Systems' that comprise 8-steps including 'fault analysis', 'fault event analysis', 'fault modeling', 'fault state interpretation', 'fault strategy decision', 'fault detection', 'diagnosis&reasoning' and 'maneuver execution'. Through these activities, we fascinate to design and implement 'Autonomic control system' than before. As a proof of the approach, we used a ISR(Intelligent Service Robot) for case study. The experimental results show that it achieves to detect a fault event for autonomic control of 'CPS'.

Impression Difference Between Intelligent Medicine Case and Small Service Robot in Self-Medication Support Situations

Medication management support systems were developed to prevent recipient’s mistakes such as forgetting to take medicine. The systems remind recipients to take medicine at the right time via a medicine case with a built-in speaker or display, and they must keep recipient motivation to continue doing so. In this research, the authors found factors to keep the motivation by evaluating recipient impression of a management support system. In addition to an intelligent medicine case, a small service robot was used as a reminder to supplement the above because some researchers reported that a robot has good features as a user interface. The authors defined three experimental situations and two conditions and compared the conditions in the situations based on a semantic differential. Questionnaires for overall evaluation and video analysis for objective evaluation were also used. Experimental results suggested that humane, friendly, flamboyant, sunny, and simple impressions improve recipient motivation and concentration.

The Human-Computer Interaction Analysis and Construction on Intelligent Service Robot

This paper studied the human-computer interaction for intelligent service robot system, and analyzed the human-computer interaction mode, human-computer function allocation and the robots intelligence. Combined with the specific case of the welcome robot, we described the construction of the intelligent service robot interaction system.

Development of intelligent service robots

The creation of intelligent robots has been a major goal of Artificial Intelligence since the early days and has provided many motivations to Artificial Intelligence researchers. Therefore, a large body of research has been done in this field and many relevantresultshaveshownthatintegrationofArtificialIntelligenceandRoboticstechniquesisaviableapproachtowardsthisgoal. ThisarticlesummarizestheeffortsandtheachievementsofseveralItalianresearchgroupsinthedevelopmentofintelligentrobotic systems characterized by a suitable integration of Artificial Intelligence and Robotic techniques. The contributions collected in this article show the long history of this research stream, the impact of the developed approaches in the scientific community, and the efforts towards actual deployment of the developed systems.

A Framework-Based Approach for Fault-Tolerant Service Robots

Recently the component-based approach has become a major trend in intelligent service robot development due to its reusability and productivity. The framework in a component-based system should provide essential services for application components. However, to our knowledge the existing robot frameworks do not yet support fault tolerance service. Moreover, it is often believed that faults can be handled only at the application level. In this paper, by extending the robot framework with the fault tolerance function, we argue that the framework-based fault tolerance approach is feasible and even has many benefits, including that: 1) the system integrators can build fault tolerance applications from non-fault-aware components; 2) the constraints of the components and the operating environment can be considered at the time of integration, which – cannot be anticipated eaily at the time of component development; 3) consistency in system reliability can be obtained even in spite of diverse application component sources. In the proposed construction, we build XML rule files defining the rules for probing and determining the fault conditions of each component, contamination cases from a faulty component, and the possible recovery and safety methods. The rule files are established by a system integrator and the fault manager in the framework controls the fault tolerance process according to the rules. We demonstrate that the fault-tolerant framework can incorporate widely accepted fault tolerance techniques. The effectiveness and real-time performance of the framework-based approach and its techniques are examined by testing an autonomous mobile robot in typical fault scenarios.

Caesar: an intelligent domestic service robot

In this paper we present Caesar, an intelligent domestic service robot. In domestic settings for service robots complex tasks have to be accomplished. Those tasks benefit from deliberation, from robust action execution and from flexible methods for human---robot interaction that account for qualitative notions used in natural language as well as human fallibility. Our robot Caesar deploys AI techniques on several levels of its system architecture. On the low-level side, system modules for localization or navigation make, for instance, use of path-planning methods, heuristic search, and Bayesian filters. For face recognition and human---machine interaction, random trees and well-known methods from natural language processing are deployed. For deliberation, we use the robot programming and plan language Readylog, which was developed for the high-level control of agents and robots; it allows combining programming the behaviour using planning to find a course of action. Readylog is a variant of the robot programming language Golog. We extended Readylog to be able to cope with qualitative notions of space frequently used by humans, such as "near" and "far". This facilitates human---robot interaction by bridging the gap between human natural language and the numerical values needed by the robot. Further, we use Readylog to increase the flexible interpretation of human commands with decision-theoretic planning. We give an overview of the different methods deployed in Caesar and show the applicability of a system equipped with these AI techniques in domestic service robotics.

Enriched Indoor Map Construction Based on Multisensor Fusion Approach for Intelligent Service Robot

The objective of this paper is to have an intelligent service robot that not only autonomously estimates the environment structure but also simultaneously detects the commonly recognized symbols/signs in the building. The result is an information-enriched map constructed by the environment geometry from a laser ranger and the indoor indicators from visual image. To implement this enriched map, multisensor fusion techniques, i.e., covariance intersection and covariance union, are tactically utilized for robust pose association and sign estimation. Furthermore, an improved alignment technique is applied to promote the mapping precision in a single simultaneous localization and mapping process with the posterior convenience. Additionally, a 2.5-D environment enriched map has been rapidly constructed with the Mesa SwissRanger. We have successfully experimentally demonstrated the proof of concept and summarized it in the conclusion.

유아교육용 로봇에 대한 유아의 인식 및 유아-로봇 간 상호작용의 특성

The purpose of this study is to examine how children perceived the use of intelligent service robots in early childhood education and identifying the characteristics of the interaction between the children concerned and the robots. The subjects of this study were 49 kindergarten students from Girin Kindergarten in Gyeonggi-do. The results of this study suggested that the children personalized the robot and recognized it as their friend, regardless of their ages. In the interactions between the children and the robot, the children engaged in physical contact with the robot and occasionally tried to control its functions. In the child-robot interaction, the children searched their favorite functions and used them repeatedly, but also lost interest in those repeated functions. Regardless of their interest levels, however, the attendance or portfolio organization functions. With regard to the interaction between peers, there were frequent quarrels regarding the use of the robot at first, but these conflicts were resolved by the intervention of peers or teachers, and the children who were familiar with the use of the robot helped their friends; this was viewed as constituting cooperative behavior. Children usually used the robot with their friends. The robot was a medium for children to find new friends. Peer group activities were explored and new friendships were created as a result of the use of the robot.

로봇은 살아 있을까? : 우리 반 교사보조로봇에 대한 유아의 인식

The purpose of this study was to investigate young children`s perceptions of a teacher assistant robot, IrobiQ. in a kindergarten classroom. The subjects of this study were 23 6-year-olds attending to G kindergarten located in E city, Korea, where the teacher assistant robot had been in operation since Oct. 2008. Each child responded to questions assessing the child`s perceptions of IrobiQ`s identity regarding four domains : it`s biological, intellectual, emotional and social identity. Some questions asked the child to affirm or deny some characteristics pertaining to the robot and the other questions asked the reasons for the answer given. The results indicated that while majority of children considered an IrobiQ not as a biological entity, but as a machine, they thought it could have an emotion and be their playmate. The implications of these results are two folds : firstly, they force us to reconsider the traditional ontological categories regarding intelligent service robots to understand human-robot interaction and secondly, they open up an ecological perspective on the design of teacher assistant robots for use with young children in early childhood education settings.

윈도우 유저 레벨 로봇 컴포넌트에 실시간성 지원 방법

미래 시장을 선도할 핵심 분야로 지능형 서비스 로봇을 꼽을 수 있으며, 지능형 서비스 로봇은 인간과 공존하면서 육체적, 정신적, 감성적으로 인간을 보조하는 로봇이다. 지능형 서비스 로봇은 인간과 밀접한 관계를 맺으며 동작하기 때문에 지능형 서비스 로봇이 제공하는 핵심 서비스의 안정적인 수행은 로봇 사용자의 안전을 보장하기 위한 필수적인 고려사항이다. 이러한 안전성을 위해서는 정해진 시간마다 주기적으로 핵심 서비스를 수행시키는 실시간성이 필수 불가결한 요소이다. 현재 많은 로봇 컴포넌트들이 개발의 편의성을 위해 범용 운영체제인 윈도우를 사용하지만, 윈도우는 실시간성을 지원하지 않는 문제점이 있으며 실시간성 제공을 위해 RTX나 INtime과 같은 고가의 써드파티를 별도로 설치하여 사용해야 한다. 또한 로봇 컴포넌트는 유저 레벨에서 동작하기 때문에 유저영역에서 실시간성을 제공할 수 있는 방법에 대한 연구가 필요하다. 본 논문에서는 범용 운영체제 윈도우의 커널 레벨에서 실시간성을 제공하는 RTiK을 이용하여 유저 레벨에서 동작하는 함수를 주기적으로 동작시키는 방법을 설계 및 구현하였다. Intelligent service robots leading the future market are robots which assist humans physically, mentally, and emotionally. Since intelligent service robots operate in a tightly coupled manner with humans, their safe operation should be an inevitable consideration. For this safety, real-time capabilities are necessary to execute certain services periodically. Currently, most robot components are being developed based on Windows for the sake of development convenience. However, since Windows does not support real-time, there is no option but to use expensive third-party software such as RTX and INTime. Also since most robot components are usually execute in user-level, we need to research how to support real-time in user-level. In this paper, we design and implement how to support real-time for components running in user-level on Windows using RTiK which actually supports real-time in kernel level on Windows.

무인화 환경 기반의 상점 자동 관리를 위한 지능형 서비스 로봇 시스템

This paper describes an intelligent service robot system for managing a store in an unmanned environment. The robot can be a good replacement for humans because it is possible to work all day and to remember lots of information. We design a system architecture for configuring many intelligent functions of intelligent service robot system which consists of four layers; a User Interaction Layer, a Behavior Scheduling Layer, a Intelligent Module Layer, and a Hardware Layer. We develop an intelligent service robot 'Part Timer' based on the designed system architecture. The 'Part Timer' has many intelligent function modules such as face detection-recognition-tracking module, speech recognition module, navigation module, manipulator module, appliance control module, etc. The 'Part Timer' is possible to answer the phone and this function gives convenient interface to users.

A task‐based and resource‐aware approach to dynamically generate optimal software architecture for intelligent service robots

SUMMARYIntelligent service robots provide various services to users by understanding the context and goals of a user task. In order to provide more reliable services, intelligent service robots need to consider various factors, such as their surrounding environments, users' changing needs, and constrained resources. To handle these factors, most of the intelligent service robots are controlled by a task‐based control system, which generates a task plan that represents a sequence of actions, and executes those actions by invoking the corresponding functions. However, the traditional task‐based control systems lack the consideration of resource factors even though intelligent service robots have limited resources (limited computational power, memory space, and network bandwidth). Moreover, system‐specific concerns such as the relationships among functional modules are not considered during the task generation phase. Without considering both the resource conditions and interdependencies among software modules as a whole, it will be difficult to efficiently manage the functionalities that are essential to provide core services to users. In this paper, we propose a mechanism for intelligent service robots to efficiently use their resources on‐demand by separating system‐specific information from task generation. We have defined a sub‐architecture that corresponds to each action of a task plan, and provides a way of using the limited resources by minimizing redundant software components and maintaining essential components for the current action. To support the optimization of resource consumption, we have developed a two‐phase optimization process, which is composed of the topological and temporal optimization steps. We have conducted an experiment with these mechanisms for an infotainment robot, and simulated the optimization process. Results show that our approach contributed to increase the utilization rate by 20% of the robot resources. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Editorial: special issue on space robotics

Outer space is a harsh environment, with extreme temperatures, vacuum, and intense cosmic radiation. The additional challenges ofmaneuvering inmicro gravity aswell as the requisite travel and communication across great distances make human access to space very difficult and limited. Thus, the application of intelligent robotics technology for outer space exploration is considered an important field. Robotics technology covers a large area of potential applications, from manipulation in the Earth’s orbit to locomotion on remote planets and from fully autonomous systems to human-inthe-loop systems for crew assistance. This special issue of the Springer Journal of Intelligent Service Robotics on Space Robotics seeks to present the latest developments in this exciting field of robotics research, in particular, addressing the issues of mathematical models for unique physics in both space free-floating robots and surface mobile robots, effective architectures for human crew assistance in complex mission scenarios, and specific implementation in hardware and software systems for ground-based verification. This special issue contains four peer-reviewed papers covering the exciting activities in the field of robotics applied in the orbital and planetary environments. In Nanos and Papadopoulos, mathematical models are investigated for a unique manipulator control on the use of free-floating space robots, where the presence of angular momentum influences on the behavior of the systems in orbital microgravity environment. In Ding, Deng, Gao, Nagatani and Yoshida, a