iOSDev UK: Robots!!

Mark Neal, Co-ordinator for the Intelligent Robotics Research Group, Aberystwyth University

• learning & adaptation
  • neuro-endocrine control
• visual navigation
  • robots with cameras on top finding out where they are and how they are standing
  • gyroscopes etc don’t always work in harsh environments
  • map-building
• control systems
  • trying to make things that are redundant and reconfigurable by themselves
• try to get out of the lab!
  • sensors may start giving you junk…
  • ideally having stuff work over a few years
  • watch out for “Dalek syndrome” — falling down stairs
  • flexibility tends to be reversible, adaptation tends not
• department suffers from too much kit and not enough people
  • started in 1998/99
  • now have about 10 wheeled robots
  • 2 and 4 wheel pioneers — not enough ground clearance so best indoors
  • have had balloons and kits
  • now have quadracopters…
  • also have sailing robots
• robot: autonomous
  • try to avoid remote control other than start/stop
• would like to buy off the shelf and build software
  • works for little indoor bots
  • but bigger ones don’t really work outside
  • better to build yourself, or at least adapt
• pioneer
  • linux box on wheels
  • 16 sonars
  • laser scanners and grass don’t mix…
• iCub — fancy toy
  • human-shaped but can’t walk
  • investigating how kids learn to do hand-eye coordination
• IDRIS
  • weighs 400kg
  • 4 landrover sized tyres
  • have done lots of work laser scanning monuments
• ARGO
  • 6-wheel drive amphibious
  • £10K and then convert with a few more £K to make an autonomous robot
  • doing the same with GWiz electric cars
  • ARGO planned to be used as a radar tug in Greenland
  • power is the killer
• aerial robots
  • had three helium balloons navigating in formation
  • kite with aerial photographing — software is to stabilise the image based only on the camera
• sailing robots: Beagle B
  • 3.6m long
  • disabled sailor’s boat
  • vertical aerofoil wing on top instead of a sail
  • has to be autonomous since the Wi-Fi only extends about 30m
  • control system designed to use as little rudder and ropes as possible
  • almost no power to run: < 5W
  • 6W from solar panels
  • unusual to have an autonomous robot that lasts more than a few hours
  • these last at least 49 hours!