Bence Kovács

A novel potential field method for path planning of mobile robots by adapting animal motion attributes

This paper presents a concept for path planning of mobile robots in household environments. The proposed algorithm takes communicative means of locomotion into account in order to facilitate human-robot interaction. The well-known traditional artificial potential field method (APF) was extended by motion characteristics of household animals. The proposed algorithm includes velocity and orientation information and can be used in unknown, dynamic environments. The main contribution of this paper is the definition of an online, local path planning method by adapting animal motion attributes in order to assist human-robot interaction. The algorithm was implemented in an embedded system and evaluated on MOGI-ETHON, a holonomic drive mobile robot. Animal motion attributes were adapted to mobile robot path planning.The aim of the proposed method is to assist human-robot interaction.The proposed method is capable of on-line navigation in dynamic environments.Simulations were implemented and are accessible online for evaluation.The robotics implementation confirmed the simulation results.

Universal RT-middleware robot controller

This paper presents a new dimension of robotics for SMEs. Open AIST RT-middleware technology enables SMEs to reuse old robots or machine tools which have good mechanism but outworn electronics. The technical solutions are described for three different experimental systems of different machines. All the systems are universal in the term that they can be connected to many different machines. They were all developed as a RT-Middleware real-time component in order to make them flexibly connectable to each other to form a production cell. The third is our latest novel conception which is combining the reliability of the LinuxCNC software system and the flexibility of RTM technology with using modern hardware elements. One of our several LinuxCNC based controllers is presented as an experimental result.

Feasible utilization of the inherent characteristics of holonomic mobile robots

Abstract This paper presents a computationally inexpensive generic method to utilize the maximum velocity and acceleration of an omnidirectional mobile robot. The proposed method is based on the inverse kinematic and inverse dynamic models by defining novel velocity and acceleration reserve multipliers respectively. The defined multipliers enable a computationally inexpensive solution and give representative index numbers, showing the amount of utilized resources during online computation. The model was applied to control a kiwi drive mobile robot and validated by experimental measurements. An open-source Robot Operating System (ROS) catkin C + + package was published to enable the feasible implementation of the results.

Robot base with holonomic drive

Abstract This paper gives introspection to the concept of the Ethon – holonomic drive based mobile robot. Nowadays the mobile robots are widely spread at the industrial and the service sectors as well. It is a facing problem in the view of development cost and time that the mobile robots are redesigned for every different application, despite most of the mobile robots are move on wheels. Our mobile robot base development gives a solution for the movement of mobile robot applications whit its modularity, holonomic movement, high load and work time capacity. The robot base has 3 DoFs according to the holonomic wheels and it can move, handle or even drive different superstructures. [1]

Odometrija mobilnog robota bazirana na optičkom toku podržana s više senzora i fuzijom senzora

This paper introduces an optical flow based odometry solution for indoor mobile robots. The indoor localization of mobile robots is an important issue according to the increasing mobile robot market and the needs of the industrial, service and consumer electronics sectors. The robot odometry calculated from the robot kinematics accumulates the position error caused by the wheel slip but an optical flow based measurement is independent from wheel slipping so both methods have different credibility which was considered during the sensor fusion and the development. The focus of the research was to design an embedded system with high accuracy on the possibly lowest price to serve the needs of the consumer electronics sector without the need of expensive camera and real-time embedded computer based high level robot localization solutions. The paper proposes the theoretical background, the implementation and the experimental results as well. The universal optical flow module can be implemented in any kind of indoor mobile robot to measure the position and the orientation of the robot during the motion, even in the case of a 3 DoF holonomic drive like kiwi drive. The application of omnidirectional wheels in mobile robotics requires high accurate position and orientation feedback methods contrary to differential drives.

CRM TC covering paper - Robotics trends

Previously, robots were mainly used by big companies in high volume manufacturing (i.e.: car industry). Industrial robots were perfect to execute procedures simplified to tiny (angular) movements. Today robots have appeared in small and medium enterprises, and they will appear rapidly in non-engineering fields as well, like offices, hospitals, and even in our homes. Robotics grains ground in newer and newer fields and it is too wide to overview it in one paper. This paper tries to summarize the nowadays robotics trends from the point of view of industrial electronics and industrial informatics.

Shop-floor controller based on RT-middleware technology

Nowadays the flexible configuration of manufacturing cells becomes to an important requirement especially at small and medium sized companies. This method can make the production fast and effective at small series or frequent manufacturing changes. The shop-floor control method - presented in this paper - offers a solution for the facing problem of fast and easy reconfiguration. The hardware of the controller designed modular with software components for online configuration. This solution allows sensor integration on different levels for every part of the manufacturing cell. With unified programming language and the machine specific controllers (post-processing) the cells can be defined easily by different types of human-machine interaction. The shop-floor control architecture is implemented and validated on an Adept SCARA robot. The robot is driven by standalone, low-level, interchangeable, software and hardware components.