Tarek Taha

Dubai Futue Labs · Robotics Lab

This paper proposes an innovative hazard identification and risk assessment mapping model for Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) environments, concentrating on a 3D mapping of the environment and performing grid-level semantic labeling to recognize all hazards types found in the scene and to distinguish their risk severity level. The introduced strateg...

The ability to decide if a solution to a pose-graph problem is globally optimal is of high significance for safety-critical applications. Converging to a local-minimum may result in severe estimation errors along the estimated trajectory. In this paper, we propose a graph neural network based on a novel implementation of a graph convolutional-like...

Coverage Path Planning (CPP) is an essential capability for autonomous robots operating in various critical applications such as fire fighting, and inspection. Performing autonomous coverage using a single robot system consumes time and energy. In particular, 3D large structures might contain some complex and occluded areas that shall be scanned ra...

Achieving high estimation accuracy is significant for semantic simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) tasks. Yet, the estimation process is vulnerable to several sources of error including limitations of the instruments used to perceive the environment, shortcomings of the employed algorithm, environmental conditions, or other unpredictable n...

In this paper, a novel dual-UAV collaborative aerial transport strategy based on energy distribution and load sharing is proposed. This paper presents the first experimental demonstration of dual-UAV collaborative aerial transport while distributing power consumption. The demonstration is performed while distributing the power consumption between t...

This video is regarding the published paper "Energy distribution in Dual-UAV collaborative transportation through load sharing", ASME JMR

This paper presents a strategy to autonomously explore unknown indoor environments, focusing on 3D mapping of the environment and performing grid level semantic labeling to identify all available objects. Unlike conventional exploration techniques that utilize geometric heuristics and information gain theory on an occupancy grid map, the work prese...

Aerial manipulation has direct application prospects in environment, construction, forestry, agriculture, search, and rescue. It can be used to pick and place objects and hence can be used for transportation of goods. Aerial manipulation can be used to perform operations in environments inaccessible or unsafe for human workers. This paper is a surv...

Visual simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) has attracted high attention over the past few years. In this paper, a comprehensive survey of the state-of-the-art feature-based visual SLAM approaches is presented. The reviewed approaches are classified based on the visual features observed in the environment. Visual features can be seen at dif...

Urban search and rescue missions require rapid intervention to locate victims and survivors in the affected environments. To facilitate this activity, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been recently used to explore the environment and locate possible victims. In this paper, a UAV equipped with multiple complementary sensors is used to detect the...

Fabrication of anisotropic piezoresistive materials is ultimately important for the realization of multi-loading recognization in robotics, auto-driving, artificial intelligence and health care, etc., whereas most of the existing production strategies are time-consuming and costly. Herein, we applied a simple structural design of carbonized cotton...

In this paper, a Next Best View (NBV) approach with a profiling stage and a novel utility function for 3D reconstruction using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is proposed. The proposed approach performs an initial scan in order to build a rough model of the structure that is later used to improve coverage completeness and reduce flight time. Then,...

Research studies on quadrotors have recently drawn significant interest from academia and industry. Faults and failures handling are the major weaknesses of conventional quadrotor platforms; therefore, an innovative actuation mechanism was introduced to allow tilting the rotors. Tilting rotors of multirotor platforms provide high dexterity for flyi...

This paper explores the application of a real-time dynamic programming (RTDP) algorithm to transport a payload using a multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in order to optimize journey time and energy consumption. The RTDP algorithm is developed by discretizing the journey into distance interval horizons and applying the RTDP sweep to the curr...

The most critical process in the inspection is the structure coverage which is a time and resource intensive task. In this paper, Search Space Coverage Path Planning (SSCPP) algorithm for inspecting complex structure using a vehicular system consisting of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is proposed. The proposed algorithm exploits our knowledge of th...

There has been an increasing interest in researching, developing and deploying multi-robot systems. This has been driven mainly by: the maturity of the practical deployment of a single-robot system and its ability to solve some of the most challenging tasks. Coverage path planning (CPP) is one of the active research topics that could benefit greatl...

In this paper, the modeling, design, and characterization of the passive discrete variable stiffness joint (pDVSJ-II) are presented. The pDVSJ-II is an extended proof of concept of a passive revolute joint with discretely controlled variable stiffness. The key motivation behind this design is the need for instantaneous switching between stiffness l...

In this paper, we introduce a coverage path planning algorithm with adaptive viewpoint sampling to construct accurate 3D models of complex large structures using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). The developed algorithm, Adaptive Search Space Coverage Path Planner (ASSCPP), utilizes an existing 3D reference model of the complex structure and the onboa...

In this paper, the modeling, design and characterization of the passive Discrete Variable Stiffness Joint (pDVSJ-II) are presented. The pDVSJ-II is an extended proof of concept of a passive revolute joint with discretely controlled variable stiffness. The key motivation behind this design is the need for instantaneous switching between stiffness le...

Nowadays, multi-rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are deployed widely in different fields to serve multiple purposes. Safety and reliability of multi-rotor system are rapidly growing research area, and enhancing the control design to account for system failure. In this paper, the Fault-Tolerance Control (FTC) is introduced as a method for recov...

A modified Next Best View (NBV) approach is presented to improve the 3D reconstruction of complex symmetric structures. Two new stages are introduced to the NBV approach; A profiling stage quickly scans the structure of interest and builds a rough model called the "profile". The profile is relatively sparse but captures the major geometric features...

Advancements in robotics and autonomous systems are being deployed nowadays in many application domains such as search and rescue, industrial automation, domestic services and healthcare. These systems are developed to tackle tasks in some of the most challenging, labour intensive and dangerous environments. Inspecting structures (e.g. bridges, bui...

In this paper, we introduce a coverage path planning algorithm for inspecting large structures optimized to generate highly accurate 3D models. Robotic inspection of structures such as aircrafts, bridges and buildings, is considered a critical task since missing any detail could affect the performance and integrity of the structures. Additionally,...

We introduce a simple method to fabricate a highly flexible resistive-type strain sensor composed of carbon paper (CP) and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) elastomer. The key resistance sensitive material of the sensor, carbon paper, is prepared from tissue paper by a simple high-temperature pyrolysis process. At the same time, the as-fabricated CP/PDMS...

In this paper, a frequency-domain modeling methodology that can be applied to various multi-rotor aerial vehicles is introduced. The primary contribution of this work is a systematic integration of the first-principles modeling and system identification approaches to generate flight dynamics models with good accuracy. The first-principles modeling...

Despite the fact that robots have reached a high level of autonomy in recent years, the need for human presence in certain situations is still essential, especially in search and rescue operations. The human extends the robots capabilities beyond of what they are capable of with current technologies. While current robotic devices are able to naviga...

This paper presents a framework for modelling the interaction between a human operator and a robotic device, that enables the robot to collaborate with the human to jointly accomplish tasks. States of the system are captured in a model based on a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP). States representing the human operator are motiva...

This paper presents an intelligent decision-making agent to assist wheelchair users in their daily navigation activities. Several navigational techniques have been successfully developed in the past to assist with specific behaviours such as "door passing" or "corridor following". These shared control strategies normally require the user to manuall...

This paper presents an intelligent decision-making agent to assist wheelchair users in their daily navigation activities. The system has the ability to predict the users' intended destination at a larger scale, that of a typical office or home arena. This system relies on minimal user input - obtained from a standard wheelchair joystick - in conjun...

A novel method which combines an optimised global path planner with a real-time sensor-based collision avoidance mechanism to accommodate for dynamic changes in the environment (e.g., people) is presented. The basic concept is to generate a continually changing parameterised family of virtual force fields for the robot based on characteristics such...

A novel method which combines an optimised global path planner with real-time sensor-based collision avoidance capabilities in order to avoid moving obstacles (e.g. people) in a complex environment is presented. The strategy is based on a time efficient one step path planning algorithm for navigating a large robotic platform in indoor environments....

A novel method which combines an optimised global path planner with real-time sensor-based collision avoidance capabilities in order to avoid moving obstacles (e.g. people) in a complex environment is presented. The strategy is based on a time efficient one step path planning algorithm for navigating a large robotic platform in indoor environments....

Electric wheelchairs give otherwise immobile people the free- dom of movement, they significantly increase independence and dramatically increase quality of life. However the physical control systems of such wheelchair can be prohibitive for some users; for example, people with severe tremors. Sev- eral assisted wheelchair platforms have been devel...

In this paper we present a time efficient one step path planning algorithm for navigating a large robotic platform in indoor environments. The proposed strategy, based on the generation of a novel search space [1], relies on non-uniform density sampling of the free areas to direct the computational resources to troubled and difficult regions, such...

This paper presents a one step smooth and efficient path planning algorithm for navigating a large robotic platform in known cluttered environments. The proposed strategy, based on the generation of a novel search space, relies on non-uniform density sampling of the free areas to direct the computational resources to troubled and difficult regions,...