Karsten Berns

Development of complex robotic systems using the behavior-based control architecture iB2C

This paper presents a development methodology for complex robotic systems using the behavior-based control architecture iB2C (integrated Behavior-Based Control). It is shown how architectural principles support several behavior-based mechanisms, e.g. coordination mechanisms, behavior interaction, and hierarchical abstraction. Furthermore, design guidelines and structural patterns are presented which support the design and implementation process. The provided analysis tools and visualization techniques help to manage the complexity of large behavior-based networks. Finally, application examples are presented and a step by step description of constructing a behavior-based control structure for the outdoor robot Ravon is given.

Climbing robots for maintenance and inspections of vertical structures-A survey of design aspects and technologies

The maintenance and inspection of large vertical structures with autonomous systems is still an unsolved problem. A large number of different robots exist which are able to navigate on buildings, ship hulls or other human-made structures. But, most of these systems are limited to special situations or applications. This paper deals with different locomotion and adhesion methods for climbing robots and presents characteristics, challenges and applications for these systems. Based on a given set of requirements these principles are examined and in terms of a comprehensive state-of-the-art more than hundred climbing robots are presented. Finally, this schematics is applied to design aspects of a wall-climbing robot which should be able to inspect large concrete buildings.

Controlling a multi-joint robot for autonomous sewer inspection

In this paper a multi-joint robot for sewer inspection tasks is presented. In order to increase the operating scope the robot has been designed to run round or over obstacles, to follow sewage branches and is operated with no wire attached to it. As a result of the wireless approach the robot has to carry an energy resource and must be abbe to act autonomously. In this paper we give a short description of the mechanical design and the electronic components used. Then we describe the control system and show sequences and results of in-pipe experiments.

Adaptive periodic movement control for the four legged walking machine BISAM

Presents an adaptive control architecture for the four legged walking machine BISAM. This architecture uses coupled neuro-oscillators as representation of periodic behaviours on different control levels such as joint movement, leg control and leg coordination. Coupled neuro-oscillators together with adaptive sensor based reflexes provide a robust and efficient representation for quadrupedal locomotion and support the use of online learning approaches to realize adaptation and optimization of locomotion behaviours.

Control of facial expressions of the humanoid robot head ROMAN

For humanoid robots which are able to assist humans in their daily life, the capability for adequate interaction with human operators is a key feature. If one considers that more than 60% of human communication is conducted non-verbally (by using facial expressions and gestures), an important research topic is how interfaces for this non-verbal communication can be developed. To achieve this goal, several robotic heads have been designed. However, it remains unclear how exactly such a head should look like and what skills it should have to be able to interact properly with humans. This paper describes an approach that aims at answering some of these design choices. A behavior-based control to realize facial expressions which is a basic ability needed for interaction with humans is presented. Furthermore a poll in which the generated facial expressions should be detected is visualized. Additionally, the mechatronical design of the head and the accompanying neck joint are given

Emotional Architecture for the Humanoid Robot Head ROMAN

Humanoid robots as assistance or educational robots is an important research topic in the field of robotics. Especially the communication of those robots with a human operator is a complex task since more than 60% of human communication is conducted non-verbally by using facial expressions and gestures. Although several humanoid robots have been designed it is unclear how a control architecture can be developed to realize a robot with the ability to interact with humans in a natural way. This paper therefore presents a behavior-based emotional control architecture for the humanoid robot head ROMAN. The architecture is based on 3 main parts: emotions, drives and actions which interact with each other to realize the human-like behavior of the robot. The communication with the environment is realized with the help of different sensors and actuators which will also be introduced in this paper.

Cromsci - Development of a Climbing Robot with Negative Pressure Adhesion for Inspections

Purpose – The non‐destructive inspection of large concrete walls (e.g. dams, bridge pylons) with autonomous systems is still an unsolved problem. One of the main difficulties is to develop a very flexible platform, which is able to move and inspect horizontal and vertical surfaces safely, and which is fast and cost‐efficient. The purpose of this paper is to present a climbing robot designed with these attributes in mind.Design/methodology/approach – This paper presents the Climbing RObot with Multiple Sucking Chambers for Inspection, which is designed for inspection of concrete walls. The propulsion system consists of three omnidirectional‐driven wheels for high maneuverability. The adhesion is performed by a vacuum system of seven controllable vacuum chambers and one large reservoir chamber. Pressure sensors and valves are integrated for controlling, which allows fast reaction on changing conditions.Findings – The comparison of simulated results and a simple prototype indicates that the developed physica...

Design Space Exploration for the BLAST Algorithm Implementation

The design and implementing of a key point detector on embedded reconfigurable hardware is investigated. The major challenges are efficient hardware/software partitioning of the key point detector algorithm, data flow management as well as efficient use of memory, bus and processor. We present a modular and manual hardware/software co-design, with its implementation on a Xilinx XUP-Virtex II Pro board co-design to solve these issues.This paper proposes optimizations of the methods and parameters used in both mathematical approximation and hardware design for logarithmic number system (LNS) arithmetic. First, we introduce a general polynomial approximation approach with an adaptive divide-in-halves segmentation method for evaluation of LNS arithmetic functions. Second, we develop a library generator that automatically generates optimized LNS arithmetic units with a wide bit-width range from 21 to 64 bits, to support LNS application development and design exploration. The basic arithmetic units are tested on practical FPGA boards as well as software simulation. When compared with existing LNS designs, our generated units provide in most cases 6% to 37% reduction in area and 20% to 50% reduction in latency. The key challenge for LNS remains on the application level. We show the performance of LNS versus floating-point for realistic applications: digital sine/cosine waveform generator, matrix multiplication and radiative Monte Carlo simulation. Our infrastructure for fast prototyping LNS FPGA applications allows us to efficiently study LNS number representation and its tradeoffs in speed and size when compared with floating-point designs.

{RAVON} -- The Robust Autonomous Vehicle for Off-road Navigation

Abstract: This chapter describes the work of the Robotics Research Lab at the University of Kaiserslautern in the field of autonomous off-road robotics. It introduces concepts developed for hazard detection, terrain classification, and collision-free autonomous navigation. As an example of a system implementing the described techniques, the mobile off-road robot RAVON is presented. Experiments have been carried out to prove the effectiveness of the approaches.

Probabilistic distance measures of the Dirichlet and Beta distributions

We give the analytical definitions of the Chernoff, Bhattacharyya and Jeffreys-Matusita probabilistic distances between two Dirichlet distributions and two Beta distributions as its special case. For all other known probabilistic distances we show their inappropriateness in the analytical case. We discuss the parameter learning of the Dirichlet distribution from a finite sample set and present an application for split-and-merge image segmentation.