Gilles Caprari

Social Integration of Robots into Groups of Cockroaches to Control Self-Organized Choices

Collective behavior based on self-organization has been shown in group-living animals from insects to vertebrates. These findings have stimulated engineers to investigate approaches for the coordination of autonomous multirobot systems based on self-organization. In this experimental study, we show collective decision-making by mixed groups of cockroaches and socially integrated autonomous robots, leading to shared shelter selection. Individuals, natural or artificial, are perceived as equivalent, and the collective decision emerges from nonlinear feedbacks based on local interactions. Even when in the minority, robots can modulate the collective decision-making process and produce a global pattern not observed in their absence. These results demonstrate the possibility of using intelligent autonomous devices to study and control self-organized behavioral patterns in group-living animals.

Mobile micro-robots ready to use: Alice

This paper presents the latest developments around our mobile microrobot Alice. This small robot is the starting point driving and enabling enhancements in locomotion, energy, communication, perception and control. A set of new features and new HW modules is described. The robot itself is /spl sim/2/spl times/2/spl times/2 cm/sup 3/ and is able to move, sense, receive remote commands and locally communicate with neighbor robots. Extension modules implement a long range sensor, radio communication, a linear camera and an energy pack. The current projects in biomimetic, collective and evolutionary robotics using this set of tools are also shortly explained.

Aerial service robots for visual inspection of thermal power plant boiler systems

This work focuses on the use of MAVs for industrial inspection tasks. An efficient flight controller based on a model predictive control paradigm is developed. It allows for agile maneuvers in confined spaces while incorporating delays, saturations and inaccurate vehicle state estimates only available at low rate. The fast gradient method is used to solve the optimization problem and meet real-time constraints, given limited computational resources. The vehicle state is estimated from an on-board forward-looking camera system, tightly fused with inertial measurements. Experiments using a realistic industrial mock environment demonstrate the effectiveness, robustness and limitations of the proposed approach. The results show that egomotion estimation is robust under rapid motion, in poorly textured environments and under challenging lighting conditions. When coupled with the model predictive controller, the system requires only limited computational resources and sufficiently tracks an arbitrary trajectory.

Aggregation behaviour as a source of collective decision in a group of cockroach-like-robots

In group-living animals, aggregation favours interactions and information exchanges between individuals, and thus allows the emergence of complex collective behaviors. In previous works, a model of a self-enhanced aggregation was deduced from experiments with the cockroach Blattella germanica. In the present work, this model was implemented in micro-robots Alice and successfully reproduced the agregation dynamics observed in a group of cockroaches. We showed that this aggregation process, based on a small set of simple behavioral rules of interaction, can be used by the group of robots to select collectively an aggregation site among two identical or different shelters. Moreover, we showed that the aggregation mechanism allows the robots as a group to “estimate” the size of each shelter during the collective decision-making process, a capacity which is not explicitly coded at the individual level.

Fascination of down scaling — Alice the sugar cube robot

Design of mobile micro-robot (MMR) is still a challenge due to the restricted availability of basic components. However, the number of highly integrated microelectronic and micromechanical components is growing fast. Nevertheless, its integration to a micro-system requires a good knowledge of all the interactions between sensor, actuator, computation and energy source. Often compromises between performance and power consumption have to be found. This paper gives the basic considerations for building mobile micro-robots. The major scaling effects are presented and their impact on micro-system design is discussed. The mobile micro-robot Alice (Fig. 1), having the size of a sugar cube, is presented and discussed in the context of scaling laws. It has an autonomy of around 10 hours and is able to navigate based on simple behaviors like obstacle avoidance or wall following.

The autonomous miniature robot Alice: from prototypes to applications

We present an overview of the prototype family of Alice miniature mobile robots and the improvements achieved so far. Applications are often the final objective but also an incentive to correct and enhance the robot abilities. The research carried out with Alice and various real-world applications, which exceed the robots use as a research prototype, is presented. They include local and global localization, map building, control strategies for semi-autonomous operation via Internet and Matlab, its use for robot soccer tournaments and as a research platform for studies of collective behaviors.

InsBot: design of an autonomous mini mobile robot able to interact with cockroaches

This paper presents general ideas on design and implementation of robots to be used together with groups of animals. This work is part of the European project LEURRE aiming to study, model and control mixed societies of animals and robots. After a short presentation of the general project, the implications on the special requirements are discussed. The design process of the robot are described leading to the implementation of the autonomous mini robot called InsBot. This is very compact (19/spl times/30/spl times/41 mm/sup 3/), has many sensors (12 IR proximity, linear camera and temperature) and is able to interact with gregarious cockroaches.

Toward Micro Wall-Climbing Robots Using Biomimetic Fibrillar Adhesives

Climbing is a challenging task for autonomous mobile robots primarily due to requirements for agile locomotion, and high maneuverability as well as robust and efficient attachment and detachment. A novel miniature wall-climbing robot is proposed. The robot is adapted for the wall-climbing task by taking advantage of down scaling and its low design. Challenges encountered during robot miniaturization and performances of the robot are reported. The miniature robot prototype proved to be able to climb on inclined surfaces with a slope of up to 90° at a speed of 3.3mm/s. It is equipped with sensors that enable it to avoid obstacles, follow walls and detect free-falls. It can be controlled by remote control or act autonomously. Animals, such as Geckos, have developed amazing climbing ability through micro- and nano-fibers on their feet. These structures have inspired the study of dry adhesion and the design of synthetic fibrillar pads presented in the paper.

Locomotion System for a Mobile Robot on Magnetic Wheels With Both Axial and Circumferential Mobility and With Only an 8-mm Height for Generator Inspection With the Rotor Still Installed

This paper describes the locomotion system for a miniature climbing robot on magnetic wheels for inspecting large generator stators (>;1 m in diameter, >;10 MW, and installed in thermal power plants) with the rotor still installed. Due to its compact mechanical design, it is able to pass through narrow entrance gaps down to 9 mm. In comparison to previous designs, it is not only able to drive on axial paths on the stator but also switch to circumferential paths as well. This enhances the application scope to generators with internal obstacles and facilitates the future system integration toward fully autonomous scans. For the axial movement, the robot uses an adapted magnetic-wheeled drive unit from the previous generation. The circumferential paths are realized with inchworm locomotion (also called “frame walking”). This paper concludes with the test results and provides an outlook on future improvements and extensions toward a full robotic system.

Robot-Animal Interaction: Perception and Behavior of Insbot

This paper describes hardware and behavior implementation of a miniature robot in size of a match box that simulates the behavior of cockroaches in order to establish a social interaction with them. The robot is equipped with two micro-processors dedicated to hardware processing and behavior generation. The robot can discriminate cockroaches, other robots, environment boundaries and shelters. It has also three means of communication to monitor, log, supervise the biological experiment, and detect the other robots in short range. The behavioral model of the robot is a mixture of fusion in low-level and arbitration in high-level. In arbitration level a stochastic state machine selects the proper subtask. Then in fusion level, that subtask is decomposed to a hierarchy of sub-tasks. Each sub-task generates a potential field. The resultant force is then mapped to an action.