Joaquín López

WatchBot: A building maintenance and surveillance system based on autonomous robots

There is a growing interest in the use of intelligent technologies in new buildings. An intelligent system should be designed in a manner that allows minimum human intervention during daily operation. However, large buildings need substantial manpower for maintenance, management as well as surveillance to ensure a quality environment for the occupants. This paper describes a multi-robot system for building maintenance and surveillance applications over the Internet. Each robot can handle autonomously some daily maintenance and surveillance routine tasks, although remote control of the robots via the Internet or intranet is also possible. Apart from the user-started and scheduled tasks, the robots can also execute tasks to handle alarms triggered by the building automation system (BAS). Robots are connected to the central management office via a local area network. This paper shows the advantages of using mobile robots for building maintenance and surveillance tasks by improving efficiency and reducing manpower. The system was developed with the Robotics Integrated Development Environment (RIDE) and was tested intensively in different environments.

A framework for building mobile single and multi-robot applications

The complexity of robot software systems calls for the use of a well-conceived architecture together with programming tools to support it. One common feature of robot architectures is the modular decomposition of systems into simpler and largely independent components. These components implement primitive actions and report events about their state. The robot programming framework proposed here includes a tool (RoboGraph) to program and coordinate the activity (tasks) of these middleware modules. Project developers use the same task programming IDE (RoboGraph) on two different levels. The first is to program tasks that must be executed autonomously by one robot and the second is to program tasks that can include several robots and building elements. Tasks are described using a Signal Interpreted Petri Net (SIPN) editor and stored in an xml file. A dispatcher loads these files and executes the different Petri nets as needed. A monitor that shows the state of all the running nets is very useful for debugging and tracing purposes. The whole system has been used in several applications: A tour-guide robot (GuideBot), a multi-robot surveillance project (WatchBot) and a hospital food and laundry transportation system based on mobile robots.

Nonverbal communication with a multimodal agent via facial expression recognition

Based on our previous work in the development of a multimodal animated avatar oriented to human-machine interaction and social robotics, a facial expression recognition system is presented in this paper. Both the avatars architecture and facial recognition system have been oriented to FACS Action Units recognition and generation, so they can be easily integrated. The resulting animated system is able to maintain nonverbal and verbal bidirectional communication, enhancing the interaction with the avatar and making it more natural for the users.

Sacarino, a Service Robot in a Hotel Environment

This paper presents Sacarino, a service robot whose purpose is to work in a hotel providing information for guests about the hotel services and accompanying them through the hotel spaces. The article describes the three levels of the development of Sacarino: the hardware level, with the sensors, actuators and robot performance; the architecture level, which describes the different functional blocks; and the application level which describes the services offered by Sacarino. Finally, we show some preliminary results of the evaluation of Sacarino in the hotel environment and the way these results have been used to improve the robot.

Low cost indoor mobile robot localization system

In this paper a low cost mobile robot localization system that uses the popular Wii remote control (WiiMote) is presented. Both, the WiiMote and a specialized IR light source are located on top of the robot pointing upwards. The IR light is reflected on retroreflective tags located on the ceiling of the robot working area. Two solutions that depend on the working environment, amount of tags needed and robot characteristics are presented. The first solution is deterministic and more restrictive in the quality of sensor data and number of tags. The second solution is a stochastic solution that integrates dead-reckoning information and IR tag readings using a particle filter. The cost of the onboard localization device, including the WiiMote is less than

Dynamic Facial Emotion Recognition Oriented to HCI Applications

50 while each tag costs less than

GuideBot. A Tour Guide System Based on Mobile Robots

0.05. The system has been tested on a real mobile robot system used for security and surveillance tasks.

BellBot - A Hotel Assistant System Using Mobile Robots

As part of a multimodal animated interface previously presented in [38], in this paper we describe a method for dynamic recognition of displayed facial emotions on low resolution streaming images. First, we address the detection of Action Units of the Facial Action Coding System upon Active Shape Models and Gabor filters. Normalized outputs of the Action Unit recognition step are then used as inputs for a neural network which is based on real cognitive systems architecture, and consists on a habituation network plus a competitive network. Both the competitive and the habituation layer use differential equations thus taking into account the dynamic information of facial expressions through time. Experimental results carried out on live video sequences and on the Cohn-Kanade face database show that the proposed method provides high recognition hit rates.

Building a Warehouse Control System Using RIDE

There is a growing interest in the use of tour guide mobile robots in different environments such as museums, exhibitions and fairs. This type of robot should have autonomy, robust perception and navigation systems, and should also be oriented towards close interaction with humans. In this paper we present an automatic tour guide system based on a set of mobile platforms that interact with visitors to help them in different tasks. These tasks include giving tours to visitors, helping them find points of interest in a building and providing information about elements in the stands in a fair. Over the last few years, many tour guide robots have been developed and used in museums and at events. Most of these systems are based on a single robot and they do not include mechanisms to exchange information with the building automation system. The approach presented here uses several robots connected to a central server. The system also includes different devices in the building that are connected through a fieldbus to the central server. The system was developed with the Robotics Integrated Development Environment (RIDE) and was tested intensively at different events.

The Interdisciplinary Journal of Human-Computer Interaction

There is a growing interest in applying intelligent technologies to assistant robots. These robots should have a number of characteristics such as autonomy, easy reconfiguration, robust perception systems and they should be oriented towards close interaction with humans. In this paper we present an automatic hotel assistant system based on a series of mobile platforms that interact with guests and service personnel to help them in different tasks. These tasks include bringing small items to customers, showing them different points of interest in the hotel, accompanying the guests to their rooms and providing them with general information. Each robot can also autonomously handle some daily scheduled tasks. Apart from user-initiated and scheduled tasks, the robots can also perform tasks based on events triggered by the buildings automation system (BAS). The robots and the BAS are connected to a central server via a local area network. The system was developed with the Robotics Integrated Development Environment (RIDE) and was tested intensively in different environments.