The domain of ‘robotics’ is undergoing a major transformation in dimension as well as scope. Recent advances in various disciplines of technology have revolutionized this domain at an incredible pace far beyond the contemporary state of the art. Highlighting the forecasted population of robots in future and the resulting demand of massive energy consumption, this review addresses the application of renewable energy sources in uninterruptible supply for robots. The study analyzes the extensive field of renewable energy technology and discovers that comparing with traditional sources; green energies like solar, wind and biological have significant potential to drive robots. Listing the world-wide achievements attained by the applications of renewable energy technology for robots, the review finally presents the subject matter in context of Pakistan. It is shown that being rich in renewable energy resources, broad possibilities for robot technologies exist here. With a discussion on challenges to exploit this potential, suggestions are outlined. It is anticipated that wider dissemination of research developments in the integration of these streams will stimulate more exchanges and collaborations among the research community and contribute to further advancements.

The potential role of renewable energy sources in robot's power system: A case study of Pakistan

An autonomous all terrain robotic system for field demining missions

A probabilistic stable motion planning strategy applicable to reconfigurable robots is presented in this paper. The methodology derives a novel statistical stability criterion from the cumulative distribution of a tip-over metric. The measure is dynamically updated with imprecise terrain information, localization and robot kinematics to plan safety-constrained paths which simultaneously allow the widest possible visibility of the surroundings by simultaneously assuming highest feasible vantage robot configurations. The proposed probabilistic stability metric allows more conservative poses through areas with higher levels of uncertainty, while avoiding unnecessary caution in poses assumed at well-known terrain sections. The implementation with the well known grid based A* algorithm and also a sampling based RRT planner are presented. The validity of the proposed approach is evaluated with a multi-tracked robot fitted with a manipulator arm and a range camera using two challenging elevation terrains data sets: one obtained whilst operating the robot in a mock-up urban search and rescue arena, and the other from a publicly available dataset of a quasi-outdoor rover testing facility.

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Probabilistic stable motion planning with stability uncertainty for articulated vehicles on challenging terrains

Based on the well-known advantages of using an over-actuated mechanism for robots, this research proposes a holonomic highly-maneuverable autonomous robot design for demining service applications The proposed approach provides an interesting compromise between the design requirements of the demining robot applications and the over-actuated autonomous robots The robot body is mainly divided into two parts: the first part provides the robot with its required locomotion and it consists of a driving/steering subsystem with four driving wheels (4WD), four steering mechanisms (4SW), and a passive suspension subsystem The second part is a manipulator with three degrees of freedom that is designed based on two parallelogram mechanisms The proposed design insures many advantages over existing designs, including stability, maneuverability, autonomous navigation, and simplicity of the control effort constraints The robot model and its corresponding stability analysis were conducted and simulated in order to evaluate the motion of the robot over different environments rough terrains and slanted surfaces Moreover, a prototype of the proposed robot was developed and built and different types of sensors were used in order to help it take precise actuation decisions for navigation and control The prototype was experimentally tested for different scenarios and environments in order to validate the proposed design The testing results demonstrated decent performance of the robot in autonomous navigation and in localizing the detected objects

A Highly-Maneuverable Demining Autonomous Robot: an Over-Actuated Design

Autonomous mobile robots are required to find safe and feasible routes in the environment when operating over challenging terrains. The most influential tip-over stability measures are based on two criteria; the robot’s centre of mass (CM) and the support polygon defined by the convex area spanned between the ground contact points. The force angle (FA) stability margin is employed in this work given its widespread use and simple geometric interpretation.
A method to compute the contact points between a tracked robot and rugged terrain and predict robot’s stability axes on 3D meshed maps reconstructed from 3D point clouds using the open dynamics engine (ODE) is presented. The validity and the need for stability computations based on the proposed contact points prediction algorithm is established through experiments over two common indoor obstacles i.e. ramps and stairs.
An analytical strategy to generate stable paths for reconfigurable robots whilst also meeting additional navigational objectives is hereby proposed. The suggested solution looks at minimizing the length of the traversed path and the energy expenditure in changing postures, and also accounts for additional constraints in terms of sensor visibility and traction.
A statistical analysis of stability prediction to account for the uncertainties associated with the actual robot’s dynamic model, its localisation in the ground, and the terrain models is introduced. Probability density function (PDF) of contact points, CM and the FA stability measure are numerically estimated, with simulation results performed on the ODE simulator based on uncertain parameters. Two techniques are presented: a conventional standard Monte Carlo (SMC) scheme, and a structured unscented transform (UT) which results in significant improvement in computational efficiency.
A novel probabilistic stability criterion derived from the cumulative distribution of the FA margin is introduced that allows a safety constraint to be dynamically updated by available sensor data as it becomes available. The advantages of planning with probabilistic stability is demonstrated using a grid based A* algorithm as well as a sampling based RRT planner. The validity of the proposed approach is evaluated with a multi-tracked robot fitted with a manipulator arm and a range camera using two challenging 3D terrains data sets: one obtained whilst operating the robot in a mock-up urban search and rescue arena, and a second one from a publicly available on-line data from a quasi-outdoor rover testing facility.

/pdf/stable-path-planning-for-reconfigurable-robots-over-uneven-3cmfwbg7mh.pdf

Stable path planning for reconfigurable robots over uneven terrains

Humanitarian demining, the peaceful and non-explosive de-mining strategies, has been gaining worldwide acceptance lately. As the series of humanitarian demining, tele-operated mine detecting robot system was developed. This paper presents unique demining strategy of the demining robot system. There are two developed system called MIDERS-1 and MIDERS-2. The system is consisted of rough terrain mobile platform, multi degree of freedom manipulator, and the all-in-one mine detecting sensor module between ground penetrating radar and metal detector. We have focused that our cooperative demining procedure between the macroscopic and microscopic demining enhances the conventional human demining. With proposed methodology, the hardware configurations and functions are described.

YeonSub Jin

Papers

Mine Detecting Robot System