Roberto Antonini

A Cloud Based Service for Management and Planning of Autonomous UAV Missions in Smart City Scenarios

Cloud Robotics is an emerging paradigm in which robots, seen as abstract agents, have the possibility to connect to a common network and share on a complex infrastructure the information and knowledge they gather about the physical world; or conversely consume the data collected by other agents or made available on accessible database and repositories. In this paper we propose an implementation of an emergency-management service exploiting the possibilities offered by cloud robotics in a smart city scenario. A high-level cloud-platform manages a number of unmanned aerial vehicles (quadrotor UAVs) with the goal of providing aerial support to citizens that require it via a dedicated mobile app. The UAV reaches the citizen while forwarding a real-time video streaming to a privileged user (police officer),connected to the same cloud platform, that is allowed to teleoperate it by remote.

Leveraging Open Data for Supporting a Cloud Robotics Service in a Smart City Environment

At the dawn of cloud robotics , one of the biggest challenges is to successfully exploit the power offered by the internet for acquiring and sharing information, in order to build a common knowledge base among the agents. In this paper , we propose a cloud robotics service for emergency management in a smart city scenario. The application is capable of collecting significant open data over the internet. Then it uses them in the mission planning phase, in order to autonomously define a set of waypoints toward the target coordinates.

A cloud-based framework for risk-aware intelligent navigation in urban environments

Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) are being widely studied and developed due to their mission flexibility, reconfigurable architecture and low cost. In this paper, a novel Cloud-based framework for intelligent navigation of RPAS in urban environments is proposed, toward achieving fully-autonomous missions without compromising safety. The advantages of the proposed approach reside in the flexibility in designing and implementing complex systems and algorithms with partial independence of the specific flying and control hardware. Thanks to the real-time use of Cloud-based algorithms, advanced control ability and risk-aware navigation and planning can be implemented, without increasing the flying pay-load. The proposed framework is structured in stacked logical layers, distributed between the Cloud and the RPAS, implementing the tasks of autonomous flying, processing information and decision-making. The architecture comprises five layers, including map and risk-aware path planning generation, and control layers. Important novelty elements are: (i) the definition of a dynamical risk-map, and (ii) an On-board Control System able to perform emergency maneuvers, if communication with the Cloud is poor or missing.

An Application of Laser-Based Autonomous Navigation for Data-Center Monitoring

Data-center monitoring has been a critical subject of research in recent years. Mobile robots have been successfully employed in the industrial field to efficiently perform common tasks. In this paper, we report some preliminary results on the study and development of a robotic system, in which a mobile robot equipped with a laser range sensor and an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) is able to autonomously navigate in a data-center room for accurate monitoring of critical measurements, such as servers’ external temperature, humidity and other physical quantities. The robot is able to autonomously create a map of a previously unknown room, localize therein and execute a list of measurements at different locations, which are provided by the user via a web graphical user interface (GUI). The robot is able to find the best trajectory to reach the given locations, while avoiding static and moving obstacles. The particular characteristics of the data-center scenario introduce specific problems related to map creation and localization using laser-based techniques (e.g., irregular surfaces as metal grids and high symmetry of the environment), which must be properly taken into account and are discussed throughout the paper. Preliminary experimental results show that the system is able to create a consistent map of the environment, to correctly localize itself therein and to follow a given path.

Energy management of telecommunication plants using Wireless Sensor Network

In order to face electricity consumption of a big telecommunication operator, a monitoring system to keep under control power absorption is needed. In this paper is presented a whole management platform based on Wireless Sensor Network, built by Telecom Italia, specifically focusing on lessons from the field learnt in two-year trial and trying to highlight business model standing behind the scene.