Ubiquitous Robot: A New Paradigm for Integrated Services
Author
Kim, Jong-Hwan, Lee, Kang-Hee, Kim, Yong-Duk, Kuppuswamy, Naveen Suresh, Jo, Jun
Published
2007
Conference Title
PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2007 IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ROBOTICS AND
AUTOMATION, VOLS 1-10
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1109/ROBOT.2007.363904
Copyright Statement
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Abstract—This paper presents the components and overall
architecture of the ubiquitous robot (Ubibot) system developed
to demonstrate ubiquitous robotics, a new paradigm for
integrated services. The system has been developed on the basis
of the definition of the ubiquitous robot as that of encompassing
the Software robot Sobot, Embedded Robot Embot and the
Mobile Robot Mobot. This tripartite partition, which
independently manifests Intelligence, Perception and Action,
enables the abstraction of intelligence through the
standardization of sensory data and motor or action commands.
The Ubibot system itself is introduced along with its component
subsystems of Embots, the Position Embot, Vision Embot and
Sound Embot, the Mobots of Mybot and HSR, the Sobot, Rity, a
virtual pet modeled as an artificial creature, and finally the
Middleware which seamlessly enables interconnection between
other components. Three kinds of experiments are devised to
demonstrate the fundamental features, of calm sensing, context
awareness and seamless service transcending the spatial
limitations in the abilities of earlier generation personal robots.
The experiments demonstrate the proof of concept of this
powerful new paradigm which shows great promise.
I. INTRODUCTION
e are upon the threshold of the ubiquitous era.
Developments in computer and network technology
have hastened this era, which is characterized by
objects and devices that are fully networked. Such an
environment shall ideally and fully be utilized by highly
advanced robots to provide us with a variety of services, at
any place, by any device, and whenever needed.
Ubiquitous computing (UC) coined by Mark Weiser [15],
motivated a paradigm shift in computer technology, in terms
of relationship between technology and human beings. This
shift has hastened the ubiquitous revolution which has further
manifested itself in the new multidisciplinary research area,
ubiquitous robotics, initiating the third generation of robotics
following the industrial robot first generation and the second
generation of the personal robot.
This work was supported by the Ministry of Information and
Communications, Korea, under the Information technology Research Center
(ITRC) Support Program.
Authors Jong-hwan Kim, Yong-Duk Kim and Naveen Suresh
Kuppuswamy are with the Robot Intelligence Technology Lab, Department
of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Korea Advanced Institute
of Science and Technology (KAIST), 373-1, Guseong-Dong, Yuseong-Gu,
Daejeon, 305-701, Republic of Korea (phone: +82-42-869-5448; fax:
+82-42-869-8877; emails: {johkim, ydkim, naveen} @rit.kaist.ac.kr).
Kang-Hee Lee is with the Application Technology Lab,
Telecommunication R&D Center, Telecommunication Network business,
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.; (email : kanghee76.lee@samsung.com)
Jun-Jo is with the Robotics and Computer Games Lab, Griffith University,
Gold Coast Campus, Australia; (email : j.jo@griffith.edu.au)
The second generation of robotics was characterized by
stand-alone type robotic platforms serving as personal robots
providing a wide variety of services. This generation however
was characterized by the spatially localized entity - the
personal robot itself, thereby leading to limitations, which
could prevent it from serving humans better. Later
advancements in internetworking lead to innovative
architectures being researched [5]. Yet the nub of the problem
was the limited ability to sense the user’s requirements, since
all sensory capabilities were located onto the robot platform,
thus introducing spatial limitations in the ability to sense and
thus serve.
The ubiquitous robotic systems negate the necessity for
personal robotics to utilize this conventional notion of a
stand-alone robot platform. This notion forms the crux of the
current generation of robotics, that of the personal robot. In
this regard, Brady defined robotics as the ‘Intelligent
connection of perception to action’ [2]. Ubiquitous robotics
lends itself to that description, by allowing us to redefine the
interconnection between the three components, intelligence,
perception and action, by manifesting them individually as
the intelligent software robot - Sobot, the perceptive
embedded robot - Embot and the physically active mobile
robot – Mobot, respectively, as described in [7]. The
interconnection is therefore created through the network and
the integration is carried out using the middleware in the
ubiquitous space (u-space). Ubiquitous robotic systems are
emerging and it is not difficult to imagine their widespread
prevalence in the UC era.
The ubiquitous robot system, the Ubibot has been under
development at the Robot Intelligence Technology Lab,
KAIST since 2000. Following the general concepts of
ubiquitous computing it is designed to be seamless, calm, and
context aware. This paper describes the architecture and
functioning of the Ubibot system including its component
subsystems.
Section 2 of this paper defines and describes the ubiquitous
robot system along with its constituent components, the
Embot, the Sobot, and the Mobot. Section 3 describes in
detail the implementation of the Ubibot system including the
Embots, the Mobots Mybot, and HSR, and the Sobot Rity.
Section 4 presents some experimental results as a proof of
concept. The conclusions are finally presented in Section 5.
II. UBIQUITOUS
ROBOT SYSTEM
The ubiquitous robot system as defined earlier comprises
of Sobots, Embots and Mobots in their various forms. The
ubiquitous robot is created and exists within a u-space which
provides both its physical and virtual environment. It is
Ubiquitous Robot: A New Paradigm for Integrated Services
Jong-Hwan Kim, Kang-Hee Lee, Yong-Duk Kim, Naveen Suresh Kuppuswamy and Jun Jo
W
2007 IEEE International Conference on
Robotics and Automation
Roma, Italy, 10-14 April 2007
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anticipated that in the years to come the world will consist
of many such u-spaces, each being based on the IPv6 protocol
or a similar system and be interconnected through wired or
wireless broadband network in real time.
This can be conceptualized as a networked cooperative
robot system. The core intelligence of this system is
constituted by software robots. Distributed Embot sensors
ensure that the Sobots possess context aware perceptive
capabilities. Lastly, Mobots act upon the service requests in
the physical domain. Ubiquitous robots will thus be able to
understand what the user needs, even without the issuance of
a direct command, and be able to supply continuous and
seamless service.
The primary advantage of the ubiquitous robot system is
that they permit abstraction of intelligence from the
real-world by decoupling it from perception and action
capabilities. Sensory information is standardized along with
motor or action information and this permits, the abstract
intelligence to proceed with the task of providing services in a
calm and context aware manner.
Ubiquitous robots provide us with services through the
network at anytime and anywhere in a u-space through its
distributed capabilities provided by the component Sobot,
Embot and Mobot systems. Each ubiquitous robot however
has specific individual intelligence and roles, and can
communicate information through networks.
Some of the integrated services and solutions offered by
the ubiquitous robot technology include ubiquitous home
services for security and safety, location based services like
GIS, health services in telemedicine, ubiquitous learning
systems and ubiquitous commerce services.
As mentioned earlier, the ubiquitous robot system
incorporates three kinds of robot systems: Sobots, Embots
and Mobots under the ambit of its broader definition provided
earlier.
A. Software Robot: Sobot
Sobots are the intelligent component of the Ubibot system
whose domain lies wholly within the software realm of the
network. It can easily traverse through the network to connect
with other systems irrespective of temporal and geographical
limitations. Sobots are capable of operating as intelligent
entities without help from other ubiquitous robots and have
and are typically characterized by self-learning,
context-aware intelligence and, calm and seamless interaction
abilities. Within the u-space, Sobots try and recognize the
prevalent situation and often make decisions on the course of
action and implement them without directly consulting the
user each time. They are proactive and demonstrate rational
behavior and show capabilities to learn new skills. It is also
totally pervasive in its scope and thus is able to provide
seamless services throughout the network.
B. Embedded Robot: Embot
The embedded robots as the name implies are implanted
within the environment or upon Mobots. Utilizing a wide
variety of sensors in a sensor network, Embots detect and
monitor the location of a user or a Mobot, authenticating them
and also integrate assorted sensory information thus
comprehending the current environmental situation. Embots
are also networked and equipped with processing capabilities
and thus may deliver information directly or under the
Sobot’s instructions to the user.
Embots are characterized by their calm sensing,
information processing and information communication
capabilities. Embots offer great functionality by being able to
sense features such as human behavior, status, relationships
and also environmental conditions impacting human
behavior.
C. Mobile Robot: Mobot
Mobots offer a broad range of services for general users
specifically within the physical domain of the u-space.
Mobility is a key property of Mobots, as well as the general
capacity to provide services in conjunction with Embots and
Sobots. The Mobot is usually in continuous communication
with the Sobot in order to provide practical services based on
information given by the Embot. Alternately Mobots, serve
Embots as a platform for data gathering.
D. Middleware
Middleware allows communication within and among
ubiquitous robots using a variety of network interfaces and
protocols. Middleware usually varies from one vendor to the
next depending upon a variety of factors. The selected
middleware allows conversion of the constituent entities of
the ubiquitous robot system into specific components with
respect to the developer, thereby making it convenient to
update functions, maintain resources and perform power
management. The Middleware structure for a ubiquitous
robot system must contain at least one interface and one
broker. The interfaces refer to the hardware level interfaces of
the communication protocols such as Bluetooth and Ethernet
and the software level interfaces like HTTP and FTP. The
broker enables the system to make an offer of service
irrespective of the operating structure, position and type of
interface. This thus enables Sobots to receive information
from a wide variety of Embots and to communicate with the
Mobots.
III. T
HE UBIBOT SYSTEM
Embot
Sobot
Position Embot
Voice Embot
Rity
Virtual environment
Vision Embot
Mobot
HSR
MyBOT
U-space
Middleware
Sobot interface
Ubibot broker
Embot interface
Mobot interface
Human Beings
Real Environment
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Fig. 1. The Ubibot System Architecture
The ubiquitous robot system, Ubibot, was developed to
demonstrate the ubiquitous robot paradigm. It consists of
multiple Embots, the Mobots Mybot and HSR and the Sobot
Rity. The architecture of the Ubibot system can be seen in
Figure 1. The technical aspects of the various component
systems are described in this Section.
A. Embots
The Ubibot system uses 3 kinds of Embots. They are the
Vision Embot, Sound Embot, and Position Embot.
1) Vision Embot: The Vision Embot, shown in Fig. 2, can
detect 10 objects for each color and can perform
face-recognition for 10 faces, for a distance within 1m from
the USB camera sensor. The face detection algorithm can
detect faces within 120 cm of the camera, under various
lighting conditions, with an operating time of 50~100ms,
images being captured at a rate of 16 frame/sec. The input
image is of resolution 320x240 and can have a plane rotation
of -15~+15 deg under complex backgrounds of the interior.
The face recognition module then acts on the detected face
date with an operating time of ~1second, in an average of 2
fame/sec having a plane rotation lying between -10~+10 deg.
It transmits the detected results asynchronously to the
Middleware at periodic intervals.
Fig. 2. Screenshot of the Vision Embot client performing Face Detection
2) Sound Embot: It uses a preprocessing algorithm which
constantly discriminates against background noise in the
process categorizing them into 5 levels (noisy, normal, calm,
sudden loud, and sudden calm) and also can recognize 10
short sentences.
Fig. 3. Screenshot of the Sound Embot Client performing Speech recognition
The processor employed is the speaker-independent
multi-voice recognizer which has strong noise endurance. It
has a recognition rate of more than 99% in training and in
noiseless environments. In more realistic conditions, it has a
recognition rate of more than 90% in speech from a randomly
chosen speaker approximately 80cms from the microphone
sensor in an environment of noise level 60dB with a total
running time being around 10ms per speech. The Sound
Embot then transmits the detection results asynchronously to
the Middleware at periodic intervals of once in 4 seconds. It is
depicted in Fig. 3.
(a) (b)
(c)
Fig. 4. The Position Embot showing, (a) the PCB type Antenna, (b) the RFID
Array, (c) Screenshot of the Position Embot client window
3) Position Embot: The Position Embot shown in Fig. 3,
delivers location of robot, object, and human in 2D (x,y)
coordinates with a static measured error of under 3 cm. It uses
an array of RFID tags (ISO 15693 Standard Measure) each of
which has a range of 18 cm and is spaced at 10cm from each
other, with around 256 RFID tags covering a floor area of
1.5x1.5m. The receiver section is composed of a PCB type
antenna module coupled with a 13.56 MHz Reader module.
An anti-collision function is used to enable the antenna to
read all of the tags. The position of the robot is calculated
based on a weighted average within a fixed time frame using
the collected data as in [4]. The detected cartesian coordinates
are transmitted to middleware once every tenth of a second.
B. Mobot: Mybot and HSR
The Ubibot at RIT Lab utilizes two kinds of mobile robots,
the wheeled mobile personal robot type Mybot and the small
sized humanoid robot HSR.
1) Mybot: The mobile robot type Mobot, Mybot using a
differential drive platform powered by DC motors. It is 31cm
x 21cm x 42cm in size and weighs 12 Kg. It has an onboard
Pentium III 850Mhz computer handling the drive, control and
sensors. It is equipped with six Polaroid 6500 ultrasonic
sensors covering 15cm~5m in all directions on the horizontal
plane. It has a mount for a Tablet PC which then
communicates with the onboard PC to display the Sobot
environment in real time apart from handling the wireless
network access through a built-in WiFi card. A USB camera
is provided to enable the operation of the Vision Embot. The
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platform can move with a top speed of 70 cm/s and a peak
acceleration of 300cm/s
2
(a) (b)
Fig. 5. Mobots: (a) Mybot - Wheeled mobile robot and (b) HSR -
Humanoid robot type
As it can be seen from Fig. 5a, it also has 2 arms with
grippers at the end, enabling it to provide a wide variety of
service. These arms also have additional purpose of serving
as the means through which Mybot can emote. Mybot also
has an interactive interface in the form of its tablet PC. Once
the Sobot downloads itself onto the Mybot, it can be visually
seen on the screen.
2) HSR: HSR (HanSaRam) is a small sized humanoid in
continuous research and development at the RIT Lab since
2000. In its current version developed in 2006, HSR VII, seen
in Fig. 5b, measures 52.8cms tall and weighs 4.5kgs. It
consists of 13 DC motors in the lower body with 14 RC
servomotors in the upper body giving it a total of 27 DOFs. It
has a hand with fingers which can flex together. It thus has the
ability for fully independent locomotion, sensing and
processing, utilizing an onboard Pentium III compatible 666
MHz PC. Currently, stable walking has been achieved using
the PO/PC technique [8], [11]. HSR has not as yet been
integrated into the ubiquitous robot framework and the
development of the behavior mapper needed to map the Sobot
behaviors onto that of a humanoid shall be undertaken as a
future work.
C. Sobot: Rity
The Ubibot system that was developed utilized the
software robot, Rity, which was also designed to fulfill the
requirements for an artificial creature. The artificial creature
is defined as an agent that behaves autonomously driven by
its own motivation, homeostasis, and emotion as in [16], [17],
[1], [4].
Fig. 6. The Artificial Creature Rity, the Sobot of the Ubibot system,
expressing different emotions
It must be able to interact with humans and its environment
in real time. Rity visually resembles a simulated 12 DOF dog
with which users can interact in a number of ways as shown in
Fig. 6 and in Fig.8. Since the Sobot is the intelligent
component of the Ubibot system, Rity has a complex internal
architecture with 14 internal states. It has 47 perceptions,
exhibits 5 facial expressions, some of which are shown in Fig.
6 and can exhibit a total of 77 behaviors. It has its own unique
IP address with which it can be accessed.
Similar to humans, Rity holds several essential internal
state components such as motivation, homeostasis, and
emotion as in [6], [9], and [10]. It is an intelligent software
robot that lives inside the virtual world of a computer network,
but interfaces with the real world through the peripheral
hardware attached to the network: cameras, input devices,
screens, and audio systems. In this way, it is represented on
the screen visually as a dog and may interact with humans
based on stimuli that it receives from its peripheral sensors, in
a manner based on studies in imitating dog ethology [3] and
on the 5 factor personality model [13]. The internal
architecture of Rity is depicted in Fig. 7.
Virtual environment
Fig. 7. Internal Architecture of Rity
The general architecture of Rity is composed of 5 primary
modules.
1. Perception Module: perceives the environment with virtual
or real sensors.
2. Internal State Module: defines motivation, homeostasis,
and emotion.
3. Behavior Selection Module: selects a proper behavior for
the perceived information.
4. Learning Module: learns from interaction with people.
5. Motor Module: executes a behavior and expresses
emotion.
When accessed through a PC, the client window shown in
fig.8 displays various parameters and settings for the user.
Rity has also been additionally used for the development of
the radical concept of genetic robot wherein robotic genomes
encode the artificial creature’s personality as in [12]. Its
personality is dictated by the artificial evolution process of
robotic chromosomes, which is a set of computerized DNA
(Deoxyribonucleic acid) code, for the creation of artificial
creatures that can think, feel, express intention and desire, and
could ultimately reproduce their kind and evolve their
species.
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![Fig. 4. The Position Embot showing, (a) the PCB type Antenna, (b) the RFID Array, (c) Screenshot of the Position Embot client window 3) Position Embot: The Position Embot shown in Fig. 3, delivers location of robot, object, and human in 2D (x,y) coordinates with a static measured error of under 3 cm. It uses an array of RFID tags (ISO 15693 Standard Measure) each of which has a range of 18 cm and is spaced at 10cm from each other, with around 256 RFID tags covering a floor area of 1.5x1.5m. The receiver section is composed of a PCB type antenna module coupled with a 13.56 MHz Reader module. An anti-collision function is used to enable the antenna to read all of the tags. The position of the robot is calculated based on a weighted average within a fixed time frame using the collected data as in [4]. The detected cartesian coordinates are transmitted to middleware once every tenth of a second.](/figures/fig-4-the-position-embot-showing-a-the-pcb-type-antenna-b-2z3vygkm.webp)
