Sony Broadcast & Professional Research Laboratories

About: Sony Broadcast & Professional Research Laboratories is a company organization based out in Taipei, Taiwan. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Signal & Layer (electronics). The organization has 38708 authors who have published 63864 publications receiving 865637 citations.

Power transmitting apparatus, power transmission method, program, and power transmission system

Abstract: There is provided a power transmitting apparatus including a power transmission side communication unit for communicating with one or more power receiving apparatus for receiving transmitted power; a power transmission unit for transmitting power to the one or more power receiving apparatus in a non-contact manner; an allocating unit for dividing transmission of power from the power transmission unit to the power receiving apparatus to a plurality of dividing periods for every predetermined period, and allocating the one or more power receiving apparatus to one of the dividing periods; and a power transmission control unit for selectively transmitting power to the one or more power receiving apparatus for every dividing period based on the allocation result in the allocating unit.

Automatic configuration system for mapping node addresses within a bus structure to their physical location

Abstract: An automatic configuration system maps a device address of each node coupled to a bus structure to a network protocol address corresponding to the physical location of the node. A configuration database is built which includes the network protocol address of each node and its corresponding device address. A wiring database, including each device position within the network, is maintained within a network server. Preferably, the network is an IEEE 1394 serial bus network. A topology map, including the device addresses of the nodes within the network and their relationship to each other, is generated during a self-ID sequence and is maintained by the network server. This information is then compared to the wiring database by the network server in order to build a restored topology map including the corresponding device address for each device at each position. A DHCP database is then generated which includes each device address and its corresponding network protocol address. The network protocol address corresponds to the position of the respective device. Using the DHCP database, the network protocol address is maintained for the devices at each position, in order to monitor the positions of the devices and communications from the devices.

An experimental comparison of localization methods continued

Abstract: Localization is one of the fundamental problems in mobile robot navigation. Past experiments have shown that, in general, grid-based Markov localization is more robust than Kalman filtering while the latter can be more accurate than the former Recently new methods for localization employing particle filters have become popular. In this paper, we compare different localization methods using Kalman filtering, grid-based Markov localization, Monte Carlo Localization (MCL), and combinations thereof. We give experimental evidence that a combination of Markov localization and Kalman filtering as well as a variant of MCL outperform the other methods in terms of accuracy, robustness, and time needed for recovering from manual robot displacement, while requiring only few computational resources.

The challenges of joint attention

Abstract: This article discusses the concept of joint attention and the different skills underlying its development. Research in developmental psychology clearly states that the development of skills to understand, manipulate and coordinate attentional behavior plays a pivotal role for imitation, social cognition and the development of language. However, beside the fact that joint attention has recently received an increasing interest in the robotics community, existing models concentrate only on partial and isolated elements of these phenomena. In the line of Tomasello’s research, we argue that joint attention is much more than simultaneous looking because it implies a shared intentional relation to the world. This requires skills for attention detection, attention manipulation, social coordination and, most importantly, intentional understanding. After defining joint attention and its challenges, the current state-of-the-art of robotic and computational models relevant for this issue is discussed in relation to a developmental timeline drawn from results in child studies. From this survey, we identify open issues and challenges that still need to be addressed to understand the development of the various aspects of joint attention and conclude with the potential contribution of robotic models.

Position measuring apparatus, position measuring method, navigation apparatus, navigation method, information service method, automotive vehicle, and audio information transmitting and receiving method

Abstract: A position measuring apparatus includes a first position measuring device for position measuring a first position by receiving a first radio wave, a second position measuring device for position measuring a second position by receiving a second radio wave, an evaluating unit for evaluating uncertainty of data derived from the first position measuring device and/or the second position measuring device, and a selecting element for selecting data from the first position measuring device or the second position measuring device based on an output signal of the evaluating unit.