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Dr G. Sen Gupta
Massey University New Zealand URL: http://seat.massey.ac.nz/staff/profile_short.asp?StaffID=20440 Lecture Hour: 2 hours "Sensors and Measurements for Robotics" |
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Robots have changed the way we work, play, live and unfortunately fight wars. Robots invaded the workplace many decades ago, initially for factory automation. They are increasing their presence in the home at a very rapid pace, primarily for assisted living. Wars are being fought using robots on the ground, above and below the waters and in the air. In the next decade, the world will witness the largest growth of robots in the service industry. From the days of industrial automation using monstrous robots, the world has advanced to micro and nano robots traversing the veins of a human body to deliver drugs. What makes the robots so capable and versatile as they are today? Will they ever be able to attain the full functionality, intelligence and versatility of human beings? Or is it a wishful thinking? What will be the breakthrough technology that will enable the robots to make that quantum jump in their capabilities? For successful completion of tasks, robots have to perceive the world around them, the workspace in which they operate. At the heart of this perception are the inputs from a gamut of sensors. Accurate measurement of physical parameters and fusion of sensory data has a profound influence on the accuracy of the perception model. While a lot of energy and resources are still being expended for research into robot locomotion and actuators for motion, it is the advancement in sensors and measurement technology that will catapult the robots to the next level of versatility and acceptance. Miniaturization of sensors and precision measurement will be the flavor of research in the next decade which will make a career in instrumentation and measurement a very attractive proposition for young scientists and researchers. This presentation will – • Highlight the importance of sensing and measurement in the world of robotics • Give an overview of the various sensors and sensing technologies that are in vogue in robotics • Discuss future direction of research and development of sensors for robotics – MEMS, biological sensors etc. • Illustrate case studies of advanced sensing and instrumentation in autonomous robots such as a swarm of super intelligent Nano Quadrocopters, a robot to inspect plant health and growth in a laboratory, and a manually operated robot to move hospital beds. This presentation will be informative for industry and academicians and enthuse engineers and students to take up a career in sensors and instrumentation. |
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Professor Donald Bailey
Massey UniversityNew Zealand URL: http://sprg.massey.ac.nz Lecture Hour: 3 or 4 hours (half day) "Accelerating Robot Vision Using FPGAs" |
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FPGAs are increasingly being used as an implementation platform for real-time image processing applications because their structure is able to exploit parallelism. Their small size and low power makes them well suited for embedded and mobile robot vision. The potential speed gains make it an attractive topic, although there are many challenges to successfully implementing working algorithms on FPGAs. Most newcomers simply port an existing software algorithm to an FPGA implementation. Unfortunately, this generally gives disappointing results, because most image processing algorithms have been optimised for a serial processor. This tutorial aims to help those wishing to use FPGAs to accelerate robot vision algorithms through some of the pitfalls, and provide a range of techniques that result in an efficient implementation, both computationally and in terms of resource requirements. The main advantage of coupling an image sensor with an FPGA is a small, compact, intelligent camera. Much of the vision processing can be implemented directly in such a camera, reducing the computational burden on the computing platform. For robot vision, having an intelligent camera can significantly reduce the size, weight and power requirements of the complete system. To make effective use of the FPGA platform, it is necessary to exploit parallelism. The most common form of parallelism for vision applications is through streaming, which introduces strict timing constraints. While this is straight forward for low-level vision algorithms, transforming intermediate level and high level vision algorithms to work in such a way is particularly difficult. The algorithm development process will be discussed, highlighting the differences between software and FPGA based implementations. The structure of typical image processing algorithms will be analysed with the implications for FPGA based implementation. Architecture selection is considered at both the system level, and also the computational level. A range of techniques will be reviewed for overcoming timing, bandwidth, and resource constraints. The development process will be illustrated with practical examples and case studies. This tutorial is targeted to those who wish to explore using FPGAs for robot vision. It will • Introduce the basics of FPGA technology • Explain parallelism in the context of vision systems • Present a design approach for FPGA based vision processing • Demonstrate how vision can be implemented efficiently and effectively using FPGAs |
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Organizer : Young J. Ryoo Mokpo National University, Korea URL: isl.mokpo.ac.kr Workshop Hour: 2.5 hours "Effective Education of Humanoid Robot Using DARwIn - Open Platform" |
| There are many humanoid robots, HUBO, ASIMO, CHARLI, etc in research site. However, it is still struggle to teach the humanoid robot in education site. Because a full-sized humanoid robot in research site is not affordable for an educational experimental set, but also heavy for student to manage it. As a better solution, a small-sized humanoid robot, DARwIn-OP has affordable price and light weight for easy handle. Also it is an open plat form that offers the CAD files to design the mechanism of humanoid robot as well as the source files to program the motion of it. We had tried to teach a class of humanoid robot to under graduated students in my university. The students were interested in the class, and enjoyed to understand humanoid robot technology and design it. To use the open platform of a humanoid robot in education is very effective method. We’d like to share the experience about it in the workshop. The workshop includes the following contents. • Introduction of open platform of humanoid robot • Design of mechanism for humanoid robot • Design of electronic hardware for humanoid robot • Software and programming for humanoid robot - Walking theory and applications |
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