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This book contains a selection of papers accepted for presentation and discussion at ROBOT 2015: Second Iberian Robotics Conference, held in Lisbon, Portugal, November 19th-21th, 2015. ROBOT 2015 is part of a series of conferences that are a joint organization of SPR – “Sociedade Portuguesa de Robótica/ Portuguese Society for Robotics”, SEIDROB – S...
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... to pick a song and to program their robot to the song rhythm. Some teams use for this task the mixture of their robot dressing with a favourite song. All together, with some funny robot movements, the 60 seconds of dance on the stage can make the crowd laugh out loud. This third task makes teams to join the previous tasks into a single one: craftsman work, choreography, robot programming and loads of creativity. Since the working area of the event is open space, and four teams share the same workbench, it is interesting to observe how youngsters learn with each other, copying the best ideas, having their own ideas, in a friendly and peaceful environment. A University of Minho spin-off company named SAR – Solutions for Automation and Robotics, especially developed the robotic kit for RoboParty. These alumni were aware of the organisation’s intention and they helped on the launch and support of this event. Nowadays this robotic kit is commercially available and the company is still involved in the event. At each edition, a workshop is reserved inside the working area where they can provide close support to the needs of the participants. Having such young people handling for the first time of their lives small electronic components, one could expect to have damaged components, bad soldering or a component soldered in the wrong place. SAR company’s technicians are there during the whole event as they provide the last resort help to ensure every single robot will work in the end. This is one of the Organisation’s assurances to the participants and this has been achieved so far. The kit contents are all the mechanical and electronic parts to build the robot as shown in Fig. 14. The complete assembled robot with some of the extras is shown in Fig. 15. All the cables and chargers are supplied in the BOX so that the robot can start working immediately. After RoboParty, the robot belongs to the team and they can take it home/school. C. Extra sensors The robotic kit comes with the basic frontal infrared sensors allowing the robot to avoid obstacle collision. Some extra sensors designed for the kit can be acquired before or during the event. One very required sensor is the line following. With this sensor, attached underneath, the robot can be programmed to follow a dark line in a contrasting background. Together with obstacle avoidance, the robot becomes a complete autonomous traveller when well programmed. A special track and trial was created in order to allow teams to program and experiment their robot to achieve the best times (Fig. 16). Other extra sensor available with the robotic kit is a RGB colour sensor that returns a value with the colour read by the sensor. It can also be attached underneath the robot, side by side with the line follower. Teams may use this sensor to increase their capability in the different trials such as the dance trials, where the robot can follow different coloured lines on the floor, allowing a much richer and precise dance performance. Some other add-ons can also be acquired with the robotic kit such as a RGB LED, a loud speaker and a LCD 20x4 characters ...
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... This challenge can be tackled by using miniaturized components and flexible electronics, in addition to clever design solutions that would minimize the number of components without sacrificing the quality of the measurements. In the rest of the manuscript, we report the design and realization of a physical sensor that has been successfully integrated in the finger of a humanoid robot (i.e., Vizzy [6]), in addition to the simulations that characterize the fabricated tactile sensor. Our main contributions are: a novel design for magnetic-based tactile sensors and a physical realization of a miniaturized device. ...
... (a) Vizzy's finger is made of aluminum and is compatible withFigure 1aand is described in detail in a previous work[6]. (b) Redesigned 3D printed prototype for the middle phalange, the electronic interface, and the tactile sensor. ...
Tactile sensing is crucial for robots to manipulate objects successfully. However, integrating tactile sensors into robotic hands is still challenging, mainly due to the need to cover small multi-curved surfaces with several components that must be miniaturized. In this paper, we report the design of a novel magnetic-based tactile sensor to be integrated into the robotic hand of the humanoid robot Vizzy. We designed and fabricated a flexible 4 × 2 matrix of Si chips of magnetoresistive spin valve sensors that, coupled with a single small magnet, can measure contact forces from 0.1 to 5 N on multiple locations over the surface of a robotic fingertip; this design is innovative with respect to previous works in the literature, and it is made possible by careful engineering and miniaturization of the custom-made electronic components that we employ. In addition, we characterize the behavior of the sensor through a COMSOL simulation, which can be used to generate optimized designs for sensors with different geometries.
Motivated by the recent explosion of interest around Educational Robotics (ER), this paper attempts to re-approach this area by suggesting new ways of thinking and exploring the related concepts. The contribution of the paper is fourfold. First, future readers can use this paper as a reference point for exploring the expected learning outcomes of educational robotics. From an exhaustive list of potential learning gains, we propose a set of six learning outcomes that can offer a starting point for a viable model for the design of robotic activities. Second, the paper aims to serve as a survey for the most recent ER platforms. Driven by the growing number of available robotics platforms, we have gathered the most recent ER kits. We also propose a new way to categorize the platforms, free from their manufacturers’ vague age boundaries. The proposed categories, including
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, are derived from the prior knowledge and the programming skills that a student needs to use them efficiently. Third, as the number of ER competitions, and tournaments increases in parallel with ER platforms’ increase, the paper presents and analyses the most popular robotic events. Robotics competitions encourage participants to develop and showcase their skills while promoting specific learning outcomes. The paper aims to provide an overview of those structures and discuss their efficacy. Finally, the paper explores the educational aspects of the presented ER competitions and their correlation with the six proposed learning outcomes. This raises the question of which primary features compose a competition and achieve its’ pedagogical goals. This paper is the first study that correlates potential learning gains with ER competitions to the best of our knowledge.
The increasing use of mobile cooperative robots in a variety of applications also implies an increasing research effort on cooperative strategies solutions, typically involving communications and control. For such research, simulation is a powerful tool to quickly test algorithms, allowing to do more exhaustive tests before implementation in a real application. However, the transition from an initial simulation environment to a real application may imply substantial rework if early implementation results do not match the ones obtained by simulation, meaning the simulation was not accurate enough. One way to improve accuracy is to incorporate network and control strategies in the same simulation and to use a systematic procedure to assess how different techniques perform. In this paper, we propose a set of procedures called Integrated Robotic and Network Simulation Method (IRoNS Method), which guide developers in building a simulation study for cooperative robots and communication networks applications. We exemplify the use of the improved methodology in a case-study of cooperative control comparison with and without message losses. This case is simulated with the OMNET++/INET framework, using a group of robots in a rendezvous task with topology control. The methodology led to more realistic simulations while improving the results presentation and analysis.
Using a team of mobile robots connected through ad hoc networks is becoming increasingly attractive for a myriad of applications, including search, rescue and surveillance. In this paper, we present a method for the design and performance evaluation of complex wireless networked control systems, focusing on cooperative control strategy in robotic tasks. It is described a simulation architecture and specific developments that are required to simulate cooperative robotic systems over a mobile ad hoc network (MANET), regarding individual control, cooperative control, network model and topology control aspects. We assess the capabilities of the proposed method using OMNET++/INET simulator and a rendezvous task with topology control over a MANET. The rendez-vous task is implemented as a consensus problem and is solved by receding horizon control. The resulting simulation shows that not only it is possible to simulate this complex set of algorithms on OMNeT++, but if an organized simulation process is followed, it may allow a better planning of experimental cases to achieve more meaningful results.