Introduction to Autonomous Mobile Robots

Prof. Yan Meng

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Stevens Institute of Technology
Course Logistics

z Instructor: Yan Meng

¾ Office: Burchard 411
¾ Phone: 201-216-5496
¾ Email: yan.meng@stevens.edu
¾ Office hour: Tuesday 3:00pm-5:00pm
¾ Course website:
http://www.ece.stevens-
tech.edu/~ymeng/courses/CPE521/CPE521A.htm
z Homework
¾ Homework will be due one week later after it is assigned
¾ Problem solutions will be posted on-line – LATE HOMEWORK WILL
NOT BE ACCEPTED AFTER THE SOLUTION IS POSTED
z Grading
¾ Homework 20% Midterm 20% Final 30% Project 30%
Course Syllabus

z Required Textbook:
¾ Roland Siegwart and Ilah Nourbakhsh, Introduction to Autonomous Mobile
Robots, MIT Press, April 2004, ISBN# 0-262-19502-X.
¾ Textbook website: http://autonomousmobilerobots.epfl.ch/
¾ Some reading materials and hands out will be distributed in class.
z Recommended readings:
¾ George A. Bekey, Autonomous Robots – From Biological Inspiration to
Implementation and Control, MIT Press, 2005. ISBN 0-262-02578-7.
¾ Robin Murphy, An Introduction to AI Robotics, MIT Press, November 2000.
ISBN 0-262-13383-0.
¾ Stefano Nolfi and Dario Floreano, Evolutionary Robotics: The Biology,
Intelligence, and Technology of Self-Organizing Machines, MIT Press,
2000, ISBN 0-262-14070-5.
¾ Thomas Braunl, Embedded Robotics: Mobile Robot Design and
Applications with Embedded Systems, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
New York, ISBN 3-540-03436-6.
Some Robotics Links

z http://www.ifi.unizh.ch/groups/ailab/links/robotic.html#companies
z http://www.cooper.edu/~mar/robotics_links.htm

z http://www.roboticsonline.com/links/

z http://www.ieee-ras.org/

z http://www.euronet.nl/users/ragman/link_64.html
 1
Applications of Mobile Robots

Indoor Outdoor
Structured Environments Unstructured Environments
 1
Autonomous Mobile Robots

z The three key questions in Mobile Robotics

¾ Where am I ?
¾ Where am I going ?
¾ How do I get there ?

z To answer these questions the robot has to

¾ have a model of the environment (given or autonomously built)
¾ perceive and analyze the environment
¾ find its position within the environment
¾ plan and execute the movement
z Basic tasks: deal with Locomotion and Navigation (Perception,
Localization, Planning and motion generation)
 1
Control of Mobile Robots

Knowledge, Mission
Data Base Commands ¾ Most functions for
save navigation are
’local’ not involving
Localization Cognition localization nor
"Position" Path Planning
Map Building Global Map
global cognition
Environment Model Path
Local Map ¾ Localization and
local Information Path global path planning
Extraction Execution Î slower update

Motion Control
rate, only when
Perception

Raw data Actuator Commands

needed

Sensing Acting ¾ This approach is

pretty similar to what
human beings do.
Real World
Environment
 1
Control Architectures / Strategies

z Control Loop
¾ dynamically changing
¾ no compact model available
¾ many sources of uncertainty

Localization "Position" Cognition

Global Map

Environment Model Path

Local Map

Perception Real World Motion Control

Environment
 1
Two Approaches

z Classical AI
(model based navigation)
¾ complete modeling
¾ function based
¾ horizontal
decomposition
z New AI
(behavior based navigation)
¾ sparse or no modeling
¾ behavior based
¾ vertical decomposition
¾ bottom up
z Possible Solution
¾ Combine Approaches
 Environment Representation and Modeling: 1
The Key for Autonomous Navigation

z Environment Representation
¾ Continuos Metric -> x,y,θ
¾ Discrete Metric -> metric grid
¾ Discrete Topological -> topological grid
z Environment Modeling
¾ Raw sensor data, e.g. laser range data, grayscale images
o large volume of data, low distinctiveness
o makes use of all acquired information
¾ Low level features, e.g. line other geometric features
o medium volume of data, average distinctiveness
o filters out the useful information, still ambiguities
¾ High level features, e.g. doors, a car, the Eiffel tower
o low volume of data, high distinctiveness
o filters out the useful information, few/no ambiguities, not enough information
 Environment Representation and Modeling: How we do it! 1

z Odometry z Modified z Feature-based

Environments Navigation

Corridor
crossing
Elevator door

Courtesy K. Arras
Entrance
How to find a treasure
Landing at night
Eiffel Tower
¾ not applicable ¾ expensive, ¾ still a challenge for
inflexible artificial systems
 1
Environment Representation: The Map Categories

z Recognizable Locations z Topological Maps

Courtesy K. Arras
z Metric Topological Maps z Fully Metric Maps (continuos or
discrete)
 1
Methods for Navigation: Approaches with Limitations

z Incrementally z Modifying the environments

(dead reckoning) (artificial landmarks / beacons)

Courtesy K. Arras
Inductive or optical tracks (AGV)

Odometric or initial
sensors (gyro) Reflectors or bar codes

¾ not applicable
¾ expensive, inflexible
 1
Methods for Localization: The Quantitative Metric Approach

1. A priori Map: Graph, metric 3. Matching:

Find correspondence

Courtesy K. Arras
of features

2. Feature Extraction (e.g. line segments) 4. Position Estimation:

e.g. Kalman filter, Markov

z representation of uncertainties
z optimal weighting acc. to a priori statistics
 1
Methods for Localization: The Quantitative Topological Approach

1. A priori Map: Graph 3. Library of driving behaviors

locally unique e.g. wall or midline following, blind step,
points enter door, application specific
behaviors
edges Example: Video-based navigation with
natural landmarks

2. Method for determining

the local uniqueness

e.g. striking changes on raw data level

or highly distinctive features Courtesy of [Lanser et al. 1996]

Map Building: How to Establish a Map
1. By Hand
2. Automatically: Map Building
The robot learns its environment
Motivation:
- by hand: hard and costly
- dynamically changing environment
- different look due to different perception
1
3. Basic Requirements of a Map:
¾ a way to incorporate newly sensed
information into the existing world
model
¾ information and procedures for
estimating the robot’s position
¾ information to do path planning and
other navigation task (e.g. obstacle
avoidance)
Courtesy K. Arras
predictability
z Measure of Quality of a map
¾ topological correctness
¾ metrical correctness
z But: Most environments are a mixture of
predictable and unpredictable features
→ hybrid approach
model-based vs. behaviour-based
 1
Map Building: The Problems

1. Map Maintaining: Keeping track of 2. Representation and

changes in the environment Reduction of Uncertainty

Courtesy K. Arras
e.g. disappearing position of robot -> position of wall
cupboard

position of wall -> position of robot

- e.g. measure of belief of each z probability densities for feature positions

environment feature z additional exploration strategies
 1
Map Building: Exploration and Graph Construction

1. Exploration 2. Graph Construction

Courtesy K. Arras
Where to put the nodes?

z Topology-based: at distinctive locations

- provides correct topology
- must recognize already visited location
z Metric-based: where features disappear or
- backtracking for unexplored openings get visible
 1
Automatic Guided Vehicles

z Newest generation of
Automatic Guided
Vehicle of VOLVO used
to transport motor
blocks from on
assembly station to an
other. It is guided by an
electrical wire installed
in the floor but it is also
able to leave the wire to
avoid obstacles. There
are over 4000 AGV only
at VOLVO’s plants.
 1
Helpmate

z HELPMATE is a mobile robot used in hospitals

for transportation tasks. It has various on board
sensors for autonomous navigation in the
corridors. The main sensor for localization is a
camera looking to the ceiling. It can detect the
lamps on the ceiling as reference (landmark).
http://www.ntplx.net/~helpmate/
 1
BR700 Cleaning Robot

z BR 700 cleaning robot

developed and sold by
Kärcher Inc., Germany.
Its navigation system is
based on a very
sophisticated sonar
system and a gyro.
http://www.kaercher.de
 1
ROV Tiburon Underwater Robot

z Picture of robot ROV Tiburon for

underwater archaeology
(teleoperated)- used by MBARI for
deep-sea research, this UAV provides
autonomous hovering capabilities for
the human operator.
 1
The Khepera Robot

z KHEPERA is a small mobile robot for research and education. It sizes only about 60
mm in diameter. Additional modules with cameras, grippers and much more are
available. More then 700 units have already been sold (end of 1998).
http://diwww.epfl.ch/lami/robots/K-family/ K-Team.html
Stevens Modular Autonomous Robot (SMARbot)

z Main specifications
¾ Cylindrical, about 3 inch
¾ ARM7TDMI based 32-bit LPC2292
microprocessor with 1 MB of SRAM
and 16 MB of Flash ROM
¾ Xilinx Spartan-3E FPGA with 1 MB
of SRAM
¾ Four layer modular boards
¾ 3.3V or 5V core voltage power
supply
¾ Two step motors with track treads
¾ ZigBee wireless communication
¾ Sensors
o One CMU camera
o Two SONAR sensors
o Three Infrared proximity sensors
o Four Bumper switches
o Two quadrature encoders
 SMARbot Overview

ZigBee wireless
module CMU cam2

Sensor board
SONAR sensors
FPGA board
Infrared sensors
Microprocessor
board
Bumper switch

Power board
Motors with
tank treads
 1
Forester Robot

z Pulstech developed
the first ‘industrial like’
walking robot. It is
designed moving wood
out of the forest. The
leg coordination is
automated, but
navigation is still done
by the human operator
on the robot.
http://www.plustech.fi/
 1
Robots for Tube Inspection

z HÄCHER robots for sewage tube

inspection and reparation. These
systems are still fully teleoperated.
http://www.haechler.ch

z EPFL / SEDIREP: Ventilation

inspection robot
 1
Autonomous Indoor Navigation (Pygmalion EPFL)

¾ very robust on-the-fly

localization
¾ one of the first systems
with probabilistic sensor
fusion
¾ 47 steps,78 meter length,
realistic office
environment,
z Video is here.
¾ conducted 16 times >
1km overall distance
¾ partially difficult
surfaces (laser),
partially few vertical
edges (vision)
SLAM (Simultaneous localization and mapping) by
EPFL
Multi-robot SLAM ( CMU)
 1
Tour-Guide Robot (Nourbakhsh, CMU)

z Video is here.
Minerva: a second-generation museum tour-guide robot
 1
Sojourner, First Robot on Mars

z The mobile robot

Sojourner was used
during the Pathfinder
mission to explore
the mars in summer
1997. It was nearly
fully teleoperated
from earth. However,
some on board
sensors allowed for
obstacle detection.
http://ranier.oact.hq.
nasa.gov/telerobotic
s_page/telerobotics.
shtm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZWOGcdC_PI
NASA Rover
RoboCup 2006

z Midsize Qualification Video Bremen 2006

¾ A short scene from the final in Osaka 05 against Eigen
 Modular Robots
http://www2.parc.com/spl/projects/modrobots/index.html
Modular Reconfigurable Robotics is an approach to building robots for
various complex tasks. Instead of designing a new and different
mechanical robot for each task, you just build many copies of one simple
module. The module can't do much by itself, but when you connect many
of them together you get a system that can do complicated things. In fact,
a modular robot can even reconfigure itself -- change its shape by moving
its modules around -- to meet the demands of different tasks or different
working environments.
Self-Reconfigurable Robots

z Traditional approaches of building separate robots for

separate tasks may not be cost efficient and appropriate for
those complex tasks in environments that are not human
friendly.
z Reconfigurable robot is modular, multifunctional, and
reconfigurable for different tasks at different mission
stages.
z Challenges: how to coordinate all modules to achieve a
common goal dynamically?
z Four layers: hardware, locomotion control, transform
control, and cognitive control.
z Available Reconfigurable Robots
¾ MTRAN( National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science
and Technology, Japan)
¾ SuperBot (Polymorphic Robotics Lab, University of Southern
California)
¾ Molecube (Cornell University)
¾ Others
 M-TRAN (Modular Transformer)

http://unit.aist.go.jp/is/dsysd/mtran3/
SuperBot (Polymorphic Robotics Laboratory, USC)

http://www.isi.edu/robots/superbot.htm
CrossCube (Stevens Embedded Systems and Robotics Lab)

z Limitations on locomotion designs and

high-level control algorithms on the
available reconfigurable robots
z Our objective: to tackle those limitations
and develop a highly flexible locomotion
mechanism and more intelligent GRN-
based cognitive control algorithm to adapt
to dynamic environments and tasks.
z CrossCube
¾ Hardware and locomotion: lattice-based
robot module that is able to rotate, climb
and parallel move on other modules
surface
¾ Transform and cognitive control: evolving
gene regulation network(GRN) based
algorithms.
CrossCube

z Self-reconfigure robot modules to

various shapes/forms based on
different task requirements or
environments.
z Can self-detect module failures and
self-repair malfunctions by
reconfiguration
z From homogeneous modules to
heterogeneous models
z Challenges
¾ Flexible, robust, adaptive, reliable,
interactive, integration, etc..
z Potential applications
¾ Urban search and rescue, security,
space exploration, transportation
through narrow and complex space,
etc.
(video demos)
Biological Inspired Robot: Snake Robot (Tokyo Institute
of Technology, Shigeo Hirose Group)

“On the evening of December 26, 1972, for the first time in the world we
succeeded in producing artificial serpentine movement at a speed of
approximately 40 cm/sec using the principles of a serpentine movement
which is the same as actual snakes. The entire length of the device is 2 m,
and it has 20 joints.”
– From http://www-robot.mes.titech.ac.jp/robot/snake/acm3/acm3_e.html
 Biological Inspired Robot: Snake Robot (Tokyo Institute
of Technology, Shigeo Hirose Group)

Serpentine Propulsion Raise head

The system consists perpendicularly connected as a straight chain by the unit

that has batteries, a control board, and actuator of 1 DOF, shell structure had
lightweight and high rigidity.
Swimming Snake Robot
Biological Inspired Robots: legged robots
Centralized versus Distributed Control Laws

z Global Centralized Control

¾ Allow for more coherent team cooperation
¾ Often results in increased communication requirements
¾ The knowledge is computationally costly
¾ Oftentimes all the needed global knowledge is not known
¾ Vulnerable with robot failures and in dynamic environment
z Local Distributed Control

¾ Computationally Simple
¾ Handle dynamic environments well Oftentimes unclear as to how
to design local control laws
¾ Must rely on physical sensors
¾ Oftentimes unclear as to how to design local control laws
Biological-Inspired Swarm Robots

z Swarm intelligence is an artificial intelligence (AI) technique based on

and modeled after the emergent, decentralized, self-organized,
collective behavior of insect colonies, bird flocks, and animal herds.
SI Nature’s Design: Insects

z Organizing highways to and

from their foraging sites by
leaving pheromone trails

z Form chains from their own

bodies to create a bridge to pull
and hold leafs together with silk

z Division of labour between

major and minor ants
SI Nature’s Design: Birds

z A flight of ducks use V

formation to reduce air drag and
conserve energy
z Optimize food searches by using
the eyes of other ducks
z Ducks in a flight gain
protection—better predator
avoidance odds
Swarm Intelligence Principles

z Positive Feedback
¾ Ants are able to attract more help when a food source is found
¾ More ants on a trail increases pheromone and attracts even more
ants
z Negative Feedback
¾ Pheromone Decay
¾ Distant food sources are exploited last
z Randomness
¾ Ant decisions are random
¾ Food sources are found randomly
z Multiple Interactions
¾ No individual can solve a given problem. Only through the
interaction of many can a solution be found
Swarm Robots

z Many of the dangerous, dirty, or Null jobs can be performed more effectively by
groups of robots working together, such as swarms.
z Applications
¾ Urbane search and rescue,Surveillance systems, Exploration, Constructions
¾ Much more ….
z Advantages
¾ Parallel processing, cover more areas, coordination, robust and flexible
z Main challenges
¾ Adapt their behaviors based on interaction with the environment and
other robots
¾ Become more proficient in their tasks over time
¾ Adapt to new situations as they occur
¾ Coordination and cooperation
Swarm-Bots Project ( Marco Dorigo group in Europe)

z The main objective of the Swarm-bots project is to study a novel approach to the
design and implementation of self-organizing and self-assembling artefacts.
z This approach was inspired by the recent studies in swarm intelligence in social
insects and other animal societies.
z An artefact composed of a number of simpler, insect-like, robots, built out of
relatively cheap components, capable of self-assembling and self-organizing to adapt
to its environment
Swarm Robots – MIT/iRobot

http://people.csail.mit.edu/jamesm/swarm.php
 Multi-cellular based Multi-Agent Systems (Stevens
Embedded Systems and Robotics Lab)
z Self-organization of large collective systems is a challenging task
¾ Autonomous, adaptable, evolvable, robust, self-repairable, emergent
¾ Suboptimal, non-controllable, non-predictable, not (easily) understandable
¾ Trade-off between global (centralized) and local (distributed) control
z Biological development, including cell growth, cell differentiation and morphogenesis,
can be seen as a self-organizing process
¾ Robust to genetic and environmental changes
¾ Use of global and local control
¾ Predictable and relatively understandable
z Biological development is under the temporal and spatial control of a gene regulatory
network (GRN)
z Can we borrow some ideas from developmental biology, in particular the
morphogenesis?

60
 Simulation Results: Forming shapes

The videos can be downloaded from http://www.ece.stevens-tech.edu/~ymeng/lab_home.htm

61
Preliminary Experimental Results on Multi-Robot
Formation

The video demo can be downloaded from http://www.ece.stevens-tech.edu/~ymeng/lab_home.htm

 1
The Honda Walking Robot http://www.honda.co.jp/tech/other/robot.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLGk9Q49y7k
 1
Entertainment Robots: Humanoid Robots (SONY)
DARPA Grand Challenge

z The DARPA Grand Challenge has been the most significant event for
the robotics community in more than a decade.

z A mobile ground robot had to traverse 132 miles of unrehearsed desert

terrain in less than 10 hours.

z In 2004, the best robot only made 7.3 miles.

z In 2005, Stanford won the challenge and the $2M prize in less than 7
hours travel time, and ahead of four other finishers.
Stanford STANLEY (http://robots.stanford.edu/)
DARPR Grand Challenge 2007

z The Urban Challenge. Teams will compete to build an autonomous

vehicle able to complete a 60-mile urban course safely in less than 6
hours.
z The DARPA Urban Challenge will take place in Victorville, California

on November 3, 2007.

z "It was an important step to have autonomous ground vehicles that

can navigate and drive across open and difficult terrain from city to
city. But the next big leap will be an autonomous vehicle that can
navigate and operate in traffic, a far more complex challenge for a
'robotic' driver. So this November we are very excited to be moving
from the desert to the city with our Urban Challenge."

Dr. Tony Tether, Director, DARPA

Unmanned Maritime System (Senior Design project)

z Point of Contact: M. DeLorme (Center for Maritime Systems)

z No of Students: 2
z Fields of Interest: Robotics, autonomous systems
z Project Sponsor: Office of Naval Research
z

z DESCRIPTION:
z

z The project involves the design, development and demonstration deployment of an unmanned
maritime system (UMS) or systems to perform a task to be specified by the project sponsor.
Students will be responsible for developing the system and deployment specifications based
on independent research and planning. This team will be part of a larger multidisciplinary
team working with students in Mechanical Engineering and Naval Engineering to accomplish
the project goals. Interested students MUST meet with Michael DeLorme
(mdelorme@stevens.edu) to further discuss the responsibilities and expectations of this project
and to submit a one page resume highlighting their qualifications as related to the proposed
project.
Homework #1

z In order to prepare your project, you may want to search for some
robot simulators from the websites. Please try to find at least two
robot simulators you like and try to use them to see if it is possible for
you to write control programs, such as localization, navigation, multi-
robot coordination, on those simulators.
z You can find your project partners and build up a group (at most 3

persons for undergraduates, and 2 persons for graduates), or you like to

do it individually (more credits).
z For the course project, you have two options

¾ Theoretical exploration: real research papers and propose some new

approaches
¾ Building robotic systems, which includes building real robotic systems or
running on a simulation