Personal Mobility Robot Research Articles

Fail-Safe Controller for Assisting Users of Personal Mobility Robot with BMI

Fail-Safe Controller for Assisting Users of Personal Mobility Robot with BMI

Rapid Development of a Mobile Robot for the Nakanoshima Challenge Using a Robot for Intelligent Environments

Automated mobile platforms are commonly used to provide services for people in an intelligent environment. Data on the physical position of personal electronic devices or mobile robots are important for information services and robotic applications. Therefore, automated mobile robots are required to reconstruct location data in surveillance tasks. This paper describes the development of an autonomous mobile robot to achieve tasks in intelligent environments. In particular, the robot constructed route maps in outdoor environments using laser imaging detection and ranging (LiDAR), and RGB-D sensors via simultaneous localization and mapping. The mobile robot system was developed based on a robot operating system (ROS), reusing existing software. The robot participated in the Nakanoshima Challenge, which is an experimental demonstration test of mobile robots in Osaka, Japan. The results of the experiments and outdoor field tests demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed robot system.

Coaxiality Evaluation of Coaxial Imaging System with Concentric Silicon-Glass Hybrid Lens for Thermal and Color Imaging.

Thermal imaging is useful for tasks such as detecting the presence of humans and recognizing surrounding objects in the operation of several types of robots, including service robots and personal mobility robots, which assist humans. Because the number of pixels on a thermal imager is generally smaller than that on a color imager, thermal images are more useful when combined with color images, assuming that the correspondence between points in the images captured by the two sensors is known. In the literature, several types of coaxial imaging systems have been reported that can capture thermal and color images, simultaneously, from the same point of view with the same optical axis. Among them, a coaxial imaging system using a concentric silicon–glass hybrid lens was devised. Long-wavelength infrared and visible light was focused using the hybrid lens. The focused light was subsequently split using a silicon plate. Separate thermal and color images were then captured using thermal and color imagers, respectively. However, a coaxiality evaluation of the hybrid lens has not been shown. This report proposes an implementation and coaxiality evaluation for a compact coaxial imaging system incorporating the hybrid lens. The coaxiality of the system was experimentally demonstrated by estimating the intrinsic and extrinsic parameters of the thermal and color imagers and performing 2D mapping between the thermal images and color images.

Development of mobile sensor terminals \u201cPortable Go\u201d for navigation in informationally structured and unstructured environments

This paper proposes a navigation system of a personal mobility robot in informationally structured and unstructured environments. First, we introduce a group of robots named Portable Go, which are equipped with laser range finders, gyros, and omni-directional wheels. The Portable Go robots expand the informationally structured environment by deploying in the informationally unstructured environment in advance. Then, a personal mobility robot based on an electric wheelchair is guided by eleven Portable Go robots in the new informationally structured environment which is just created by the Portable Go robots. Through navigation experiments, we verify that the proposed system navigates the personal mobility robot from the informationally structured environment to the informationally unstructured environment smoothly by using the Portable Go robots.

Development learning algorithm of mobile robot to detect obstacles in confined space

XXI century – the age of high technology. Now our life is surrounded by information technology: everyone has a cell phone, computer and other appliances (sometimes called gadgets). Themselves without noticing, we increasingly use them in their lives. Already it reached the point that we begin to use the robots for their own purposes. In less than ten years, each will have their own personal mobile robot. Properly programmed robot can perform many tasks. One of the common problems encountered in the design of robots, is the problem of developing an effective obstacle avoidance algorithm. Robot during their movement should not get stuck and stop until they have accomplished the task. To successfully perform this task in robot memory card should be stored workspace, which marked the places where there are obstacles to the robot. It is necessary to develop an algorithm that allows the robot to build a map of the area for the final (minimal) time. The map is a surface enclosed space that is divided into squares. The area of each square equal to the area of the robot base or square robot step length. To study the space used by an algorithm based on the algorithms of “Spiral” movement of the robot and the “movement along the wall”. There are many obstacles crawling algorithms. The most effective is Dijkstra's algorithm. This algorithm applies only to graphs with non-negative weights. Dijkstra's algorithm finds the shortest way to the top of the graph in order to remove them from a given source vertex. Central to Dijkstra's algorithm is that it is enough to compare the length of such paths

パーソナルモビリティロボットの公道実証実験

The author defines a Personal Mobility Robot (PMR) as a personal mobility device faster than walking but not so fast as an automobile, requiring less resources and energy than an automobile, applying robotic technologies to improve safety, compactness, convenience, and so on. The author and his colleagues acquired exceptional measures of road traffic law and technical standard of motor vehicles in order to enable practical experiments of PMRs those do not conform to specific articles of technical standard. A considerable amount of practical experiments of several types of PMR were carried out on the sidewalks of Tsukuba for several years. The following facts were found; PMRs are effective mobility means in the real world; most pedestrians accept PMRs to pass sidewalks; PMRs can be operated safely among pedestrians and bicycles on sidewalks. New types of PMR are being developed to be committed to the practical experiments and the number of participants in the experiments are increasing.

Posture Control for Personal Mobility Robot Using Feedback Compensation with Unstable Pole

SUMMARYThis paper presents a novel posture control approach using feedback compensation with an unstable pole. For a narrow and small personal mobility robot (PMR), this is needed in order to control its posture for achieving quick turning and high acceleration. However, in the conventional control approach that uses the posture angle as a controlled variable, the zero moment point (ZMP) does not settle to the desired point in the following cases: an unknown disturbance force given to the PMR, a fluctuation in the center of gravity of the PMR, and a change in the conditions between the tires and the road surface. In this paper, a novel control method using feedback compensation with an unstable pole is proposed to achieve the desired ZMP in the steady state. The proposed controller changes the control input for the actuator of posture control to zero in order to achieve the desired posture angle. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is verified through experiments using a prototype of the PMR.

A signal pattern recognition approach for mobile devices and its application to braking state classification on robotic mobility devices

Personal Mobility Robots, such as the Seqway may be the remedy for the transportation related problems in the congested environment, especially for the last and first mile problems of the elderly people. However, the vehicle segmentation issues for the mobility robots, impede the use of these devices on the shared paths. The mobility reports can only be used in the designated areas and private facilities. The traffic regulatory institutions lack robot–society interaction database. In this study, we proposed methods and algorithms which can be employed on a widespread computing device, such as an Android tablet, to gather travel information and rider behavior making use of the motion and position sensors of the tablet PC. The methods we developed, first filter the noisy sensor readings using a complementary filter, then align the body coordinate system of the device to the Segway’s motion coordinate. A couple of state of the art classification methods are integrated to classify the braking states of the Segway. The classification algorithms are not limited to classification of the braking states, but they can be used for other motion related maneuvers on the road surfaces. The detected braking states and the other classified features related to the motion are reflected to the screen of the Android tablet to inform the rider about the riding and motion conditions. The developed Android application also gathers these travel information to build a National database for further statistical analysis of the robot–society interaction.

パーソナルモビリティロボットの製作と実験特区への参加

パーソナルモビリティロボットの製作と実験特区への参加

Development of a Personal Mobility Robot “NENA”

<div class=""abs_img""><img src=""[disp_template_path]/JRM/abst-image/00260005/16.jpg"" width=""300"" />NENA and experiments in Tsukuba</div> A mobility robot “NENA” which can carry one person was developed by Utsunomiya University. The robot was developed based on the concept called “Design Framework” and it allowed the robot to equip with functions needed for manual driving and autonomous running and acceptable design for people. The robot fulfilled safety required for mobility robots used in the Tsukuba Mobility Robot Experimental Zone. </span>

2A1-H03 搭乗型移動支援ロボット『ROPITS』の開発 : 画像を用いた自己位置推定機能の検証(つくばモビリティロボット実験特区を活用した実証実験)

2A1-H03 搭乗型移動支援ロボット『ROPITS』の開発 : 画像を用いた自己位置推定機能の検証(つくばモビリティロボット実験特区を活用した実証実験)

2A1-H02 搭乗型移動ロボットの安全性と利便性の検証 : 日常生活を模擬したシナリオ走行における走行状況分析(つくばモビリティロボット実験特区を活用した実証実験)

2A1-H02 搭乗型移動ロボットの安全性と利便性の検証 : 日常生活を模擬したシナリオ走行における走行状況分析(つくばモビリティロボット実験特区を活用した実証実験)

2A1-H04 移動支援のための下り段差検知と路面走破性の判定(つくばモビリティロボット実験特区を活用した実証実験)

2A1-H04 移動支援のための下り段差検知と路面走破性の判定(つくばモビリティロボット実験特区を活用した実証実験)

2A1-I02 広域空間における磁気収集を目的としたパーソナルモビリティロボットの開発(つくばモビリティロボット実験特区を活用した実証実験)

Many studies on autonomous mobile robots field have been worked. However, mobile robots which work in actual environments are not developed yet. We have developed a personal mobility robot which supports persons in civil environment. The robot can also collect magnetic data during driving. It is permitted that we conduct experiments with use of the robot in Tsukuba Mobility Robot Special District. In the report, the specification of the robot is described. Moreover, the possibility is indicated that a constructed magnetic map by the robot can be shared by other robots. Finally, we discuss about the knowledge obtained by developing the robot.

2A1-H01 セグウェイを利用したシェアリングシステムによる実験走行データの紹介(つくばモビリティロボット実験特区を活用した実証実験)

2A1-H01 セグウェイを利用したシェアリングシステムによる実験走行データの紹介(つくばモビリティロボット実験特区を活用した実証実験)

2A1-I03 SFMによるつくばモビリティ実験特区の環境復元(つくばモビリティロボット実験特区を活用した実証実験)

2A1-I03 SFMによるつくばモビリティ実験特区の環境復元(つくばモビリティロボット実験特区を活用した実証実験)

搭乗型移動ロボットのための移動リスク低減アルゴリズムとつくば市ロボット特区における実証実験

搭乗型移動ロボットのための移動リスク低減アルゴリズムとつくば市ロボット特区における実証実験

2A1-I01 立ち乗り型モビリティロボットのシェアリングのシミュレータによる検討(つくばモビリティロボット実験特区を活用した実証実験)

2A1-I01 立ち乗り型モビリティロボットのシェアリングのシミュレータによる検討(つくばモビリティロボット実験特区を活用した実証実験)

Posture Control for Personal Mobility Robot using Feedback Compensation with Unstable Pole

This paper presents a novel posture control approach using feedback compensation with an unstable pole. For the narrow and small PMR (personal mobility robot), it is required to control its posture for achieving quick turning and high acceleration. However, in the conventional control approach that uses the posture angle as a controlled variable, the ZMP (zero moment point) cannot be settled to the desired point in the following cases: an unknown disturbance force given to the PMR, the fluctuation in the center of gravity of the PMR, and the conditioned change between the tires and the road surface. In this paper, a novel control method using feedback compensation with an unstable pole is proposed to achieve the desired ZMP at steady state. The proposed controller changes the control input for the actuator of the posture control to zero in order to achieve the desired posture angle. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is verified via experiments using a prototype of the PMR.

1P1-A05 つくばモビリティロボット実験特区におけるセグウェイを活用した実証実験(つくばモビリティロボット実験特区を活用した実証実験)

1P1-A05 つくばモビリティロボット実験特区におけるセグウェイを活用した実証実験(つくばモビリティロボット実験特区を活用した実証実験)