LAND UNMANNED COMPLEX WITH PASSIVE RANGE MEASUREMENT

The automatic robotic complex will obviously become one of the main subjects in the conduct of military actions in the near future. To control movement parameters, as well as search, target detection and aiming, the complex includes a technical vision system. The minimum sufficient configuration of such a system includes a television search camera with a wide field of view, television and thermal imaging sights, and a rangefinder. The use of laser rangefinders ensures high accuracy of aiming weapons, but generates a powerful unmasking feature. To ensure the secrecy of the functioning of the robotic complex, range finders can operate in a passive mode using information from on-board television cameras. But at the same time, the metrological characteristics of the information measuring channel are significantly deteriorated. Accuracy of five methods of passive distance measurement with application of TV-systems of land unmanned complex is assessed in paper. Classic method of TV-sight external-base range-finder with scale, designed on human height 1,65 m, is ensuring measurement accuracy 135 m on distance 1000 m. External base method, when a range finger scale is forming on remote display as variable length vertical line in process of target framing, is ensuring measurement accuracy 100,3 m on dis-tance 1000 m. Fixed-base range-finder method, when distance between entrance pupils of TV-sight and wide viewing field camera using as base, is ensuring measurement accuracy 76 m on distance 1000 m. Distance measurement method due to displacement of land unmanned complex ensures a measurement accuracy up to 168 m on distance 1000 m. Measurement method due to using zoom-objective is not suitable for land unmanned complex. Proposals have been formulated for the spatial layout of the computer vision system, in which the method of the fixed-base rangefinder is implemented, which ensures the highest measurement accuracy.

DEVELOPMENT OF RANGE FINDER BASED ON ULTRASONIC DISTANCE SENSOR HC-SR04

The article considers the development of a range meter to an object in centimeters based on an ultrasonic distance sensor HC-SR04.

Hardware accelerated image processing on FPGA based PYNQ-Z2 board

In this paper we present the partial results of a research in progress made in order to develop a prototype of a self-driving car’s controller and processing unit. The framework that we used consisted of a camera for input of visual imagery information (Logitech 720p), a laser range finder for depth and object sensing (Parallax; PulsedLight LIDAR-Lite v2), and the main processing board, an FPGA based accelerator board PYNQ Z2.

Development of a Mobile Robot That Plays Tag with Touch-and-Away Behavior Using a Laser Range Finder

The development of robots that play with humans is a challenging topic for robotics. We are developing a robot that plays tag with human players. To realize such a robot, it needs to observe the players and obstacles around it, chase a target player, and touch the player without collision. To achieve this task, we propose two methods. The first one is the player tracking method, by which the robot moves towards a virtual circle surrounding the target player. We used a laser range finder (LRF) as a sensor for player tracking. The second one is a motion control method after approaching the player. Here, the robot moves away from the player by moving towards the opposite side to the player. We conducted a simulation experiment and an experiment using a real robot. Both experiments proved that with the proposed tracking method, the robot properly chased the player and moved away from the player without collision. The contribution of this paper is the development of a robot control method to approach a human and then move away safely.

Efficient Non-Odometry Method for Environment Mapping and Localisation of Mobile Robots

The paper presents the simple algorithm of simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) without odometry information. The proposed algorithm is based only on scanning laser range finder. The theoretical foundations of the proposed method are presented. The most important element of the work is the experimental research. The research underlying the paper encompasses several tests, which were carried out to build the environment map to be navigated by the mobile robot in conjunction with the trajectory planning algorithm and obstacle avoidance.

Development and Experimental Verification of a Person Tracking System of Mobile Robots Using Sensor Fusion of Inertial Measurement Unit and Laser Range Finder for Occlusion Avoidance

The authors have been developing a mobile robot to assist doctors in hospitals in managing medical tools and patient electronic medical records. The robot tracks behind a mobile medical worker while maintaining a constant distance from the worker. However, it was difficult to detect objects in the sensor’s invisible region, called occlusion. In this study, we propose a sensor fusion method to estimate the position of a robot tracking target indirectly by an inertial measurement unit (IMU) in addition to the direct measurement by an laser range finder (LRF) and develop a human tracking system to avoid occlusion by a mobile robot. Based on this, we perform detailed experimental verification of tracking a specified person to verify the validity of the proposed method.

Efficient Detection of Robot Kidnapping in Range Finder-Based Indoor Localization Using Quasi-Standardized 2D Dynamic Time Warping

This paper proposes an augmented online approach to detect kidnapping events within range-finder-based indoor localization. The method is specifically designed for an Internet of Things (IoT)-Aided Robotics Platform that enables the system to detect kidnapping across all time instances of an indoor mobile robotic operation with high accuracy and maintain a high accuracy in the face of relocalization failures. The approach is based on similarity degree of geometry shape of the environment obtained from range scan data between two consecutive time instances. The proposed approach named Quasi-Standardized Two-Dimensional Dynamic Time Warping (QS-2DDTW) is based on the Multidimensional Dynamic Time Warping (MD-DTW) with homogeneity variance test imbued in it. A series of simulations are preformed against maximum current weight, measurement entropy, and the four metrics in metric based detector. The result shows that the proposed method yields high performance in terms of its ability to distinguish kidnapping condition from normal condition and that it has low dependency towards relocalization process, thus ensures the accuracy of detection is not disturbed by relocalization.