关键词： Electronics and devices Instrumentation and measurement Medical physics Biological physics  

摘要： New findings in the nervous system of invertebrates have shown how a number of features of central pattern generator (CPG) circuits contribute to the generation of robust flexible rhythms. In this paper we consider recently revealed strategies that living CPGs follow to design CPG control paradigms for modular robots. To illustrate them, we divide the task of designing an example CPG for a modular robot into independent problems. We formulate each problem in a general way and provide a bio-inspired solution for each of them: locomotion information coding, individual module control and inter-module coordination. We analyse the stability of the CPG numerically, and then test it on a real robot. We analyse steady state locomotion and recovery after perturbations. In both cases, the robot is able to autonomously find a stable effective locomotion state. Finally, we discuss how these strategies can result in a more general design approach for CPG-based locomotion.

关键词： field robotic   sports   FIFA   GPS  

摘要： Progress is constantly being made and new applications are constantly coming out in the area of field robotics. In this paper, a promising application of field robotics in football playing fields is introduced. An algorithmic approach for generating the way points required for the guidance of a GPS-based field robotic through a football playing field to automatically carry out periodical tasks such as cutting the grass field, pitch and line marking illustrations and lawn striping is represented. The manual operation of these tasks requires very skilful personnel able to work for long hours with very high concentration for the football yard to be compatible with standards of Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). In the other side, a GPS-based guided vehicle or robot with three implements;grass mower, lawn stripping roller and track marking illustrator is capable of working 24 h a day, in most weather and in harsh soil conditions without loss of quality. The proposed approach for the automatic operation of football playing fields requires no or very limited human intervention and therefore it saves numerous working hours and free a worker to focus on other tasks. An economic feasibility study showed that the proposed method is economically superimposing the current manual practices.

关键词： Robotics   Competition   Artificial intelligence   Robots   Soccer  

摘要： In the last two decades various intelligent robotics competitions have become very popular. Arguably the most well-known of these are the robotic soccer competitions. In addition to their value in attracting media and capturing the minds of the general public, these competitions also provide benchmark problems for various robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. As with any benchmark, care must be taken that the benchmark does not introduce unwarranted biases. This paper critically evaluates the AI contributions made by various robotic competitions on AI research.

关键词： dyadic interaction   Robot learning   Robot   Human machine interaction  

摘要： Imitation learning is a promising way to learn new behavior in robotic multiagent systems and in human-robot interaction. However, imitating agents should be able to decide autonomously which behavior, observed in others, is interesting to copy. This paper shows a method for extraction of meaningful chunks of information from a continuous sequence of observed actions by using a simple recurrent network (Elman Net). Results show that, independently of the high level of task-specific noise, Elman nets can be used for learning through prediction a reoccurring action patterns, observed in another robotic agent. We conclude that this primarily robot to robot interaction study can be generalized to human-robot interaction and show how we use these results for recognizing emotional behaviors in human-robot interaction scenarios. The limitations of the proposed approach and the future directions are discussed. (C) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

关键词： Object recognition  

摘要： With the recent proliferation of robust but computationally demanding robotic algorithms, there is now a need for a mobile robot platform equipped with powerful computing facilities. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of Beobot 2.0, an affordable research-level mobile robot equipped with a cluster of 16 2.2-GHz processing cores. Beobot 2.0 uses compact Computer on Module (COM) processors with modest power requirements, thus accommodating various robot design constraints while still satisfying the requirement for computationally intensive algorithms. We discuss issues involved in utilizing multiple COM Express modules on a mobile platform, such as interprocessor communication, power consumption, cooling, and protection from shocks, vibrations, and other environmental hazards such as dust and moisture. We have applied Beobot 2.0 to the following computationally demanding tasks: laser-based robot navigation, scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) object recognition, finding objects in a cluttered scene using visual saliency, and vision-based localization, wherein the robot has to identify landmarks from a large database of images in a timely manner. For the last task, we tested the localization system in three large-scale outdoor environments, which provide 3,583, 6,006, and 8,823 test frames, respectively. The localization errors for the three environments were 1.26, 2.38, and 4.08 m, respectively. The per-frame processing times were 421.45, 794.31, and 884.74 ms respectively, representing speedup factors of 2.80, 3.00, and 3.58 when compared to a single dual-core computer performing localization. (C) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

关键词： ROBOTICS   AUTONOMOUS robots   HIGH school students   COMPETITIONS  

摘要： The article focuses on the LOGOMOTION, the 20th season of the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC), a high school robotics tournament organized by For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST). It says that the game will showcase autonomous robots created by high school students from about 2,100 teams. It states that the competition is in honor of Jack Kamen, designer of the FIRST logo. It adds that the championship game will be held in Saint Louis, Missouri on April 27-30, 2011.

关键词： 机器人   RecurDyn   动力学建模   Matlab  

摘要： 为了全面分析4自由度液压机器人的综合性能,提出了基于数字化虚拟样机RecurDyn的仿真方法。以1台试验性4自由度液压机器人为对象,系统研究机器人的运动学特征。在RecurDyn中导入由CATIA建立的几何模型进行动力学的仿真分析,并通过Matlab对运动学和动力学进行数学建模计算来验证RecurDyn的正确性。该研究方法从系统的角度对4自由度液压机器人的性能进行了综合评估,提高了产品的开发速度和精度,降低了开发成本。

关键词： 智能机器人   竞赛活动   广州市   中小学   信息化   副主任   科技   青少年  

摘要： 12月19日，2010年广州市中小学智能机器人竞赛活动在广州市第五十二中学隆重开幕。省电教馆伍金球副馆长、省青少年科技中心叶新鹏副主任、市科技与信息化局马踞副局长、市科技与信息化局规划法规处张序处长、市教育局雷忠良副局长等领导出席了开幕式。

关键词： 机器人竞赛   组织工作者   培训班   教练员   广西   青少年   科技中心   辅导教师  

摘要： 2011年1月7～9日，由广西青少年科技中心、广西科技馆主办的“2011年广西青少年机器人竞赛组织工作者及教练员培训班”在广西科技馆成功召开。120多名机器人活动项目主管及辅导教师参加了培训。同期，2011年广西青少年机器人竞赛裁判组工作会议顺利召开。

摘要： 由中国人工智能学会智能机器人专业委员会主办、北京大学深圳研究生院承办的第9届中国智能机器人学术研讨会将于2011年11月11-13日在深圳举行，会议将组织赴香港和澳门的学术交流与参观活动，