Integration of Robotic Platforms in a Communicating Environment with Application in the Aid of Elderly Oana-Teodora IOVA supervised by Jean-Pierre MERLET Table of Contents 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 3 1.1 A Short History of Robots ........................................................................................................ 3 1.2 The COPRIN Team ................................................................................................................... 4 2 Constructing and Programming the Robots ................................................................................... 6 2.1 Lynxmotion Aluminium 4WD1 Rover ...................................................................................... 6 2.2 Lynxmotion AL5A Robotic Arm ............................................................................................... 6 2.3 PobBot Golden Pack ................................................................................................................ 7 2.4 SoccerBot ................................................................................................................................ 7 3 Integration of the Robots in a Communicating Environment ......................................................... 8 3.1 Hardware ................................................................................................................................ 8 3.2 Geometrical Model ................................................................................................................. 9 3.3 Software ................................................................................................................................ 10 3.3.1 Robot Controllers .......................................................................................................... 10 3.3.2 Algorithm ...................................................................................................................... 10 4 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................... 15 References: ........................................................................................................................................... 16 Annex 1: ................................................................................................................................................ 17 Annex 2: ................................................................................................................................................ 18 2 1 Introduction 1.1 A Short History of Robots Since the beginnings of civilization man wanted to make things that would assist him. After discovering mechanics and the means of creating complex mechanisms that would perform repetitive functions, they created objects such as waterwheels and pumps. Technological advances were slow, but there were more complex machines, generally limited to a very small number, which performed more grandiose functions, such as those invented by Hero of Alexandria (steam-power device, wind wheel). In 1495 Leonardo da Vinci designed a mechanical device that looks like an armoured knight. The mechanisms inside made the knight to sit up, wave its arms and move its head via a flexible neck while opening and closing its jaw. The word robot comes from the Czech word robota, meaning drudgery or slave-like labour. It was first used to describe fabricated workers in a fictional 1920s play by Czech author Karel Capek called Rossum’s Universal Robots. In the story, a scientist invents robots to help people by performing simple, repetitive tasks. However, once the robots are used to fight wars, they turn on their human owners and take over the world. In 1941 the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov first used the word robotics to describe the technology of robots and predicted the rise of a powerful robot industry. Next year, Asimov wrote Runaround , a story about robots which contained the Three Laws of Robotics : 1. A robot may not injure a human, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. But real robots don’t become possible until the 1950’s and 60’s, with the invention of transistors and integrated circuits. Compact, reliable electronics and a growing computer industry added brains to the brawn of already existing machines. In 1961 the first industrial robot, Unimate (universal automation) (Fig. 1a), was installed in the General Motors automobile factory in New Jersey. In 1963 the first artificial robotic arm to be controlled by a computer was designed. The Rancho Arm (Fig. 1b) was intended as a tool for the handicapped and its six joints gave it the flexibility of a human arm. Nowadays, a robot is a machine able to extract information from its environment and use knowledge about its world to move safely in a meaningful and purposive manner. Currently, there are many types of robots, based on their use: - industrial robots: they usually consist of a jointed arm (multi-linked manipulator) and an end effector (frequently a gripper) that is attached to a fixed surface. Typical applications include welding, assembling, pick and place, packaging and palletizing, product inspection, and testing, all accomplished with high endurance, speed, and precision. - military robots are autonomous robots or remote-controlled devices designed for military applications, such as: taking surveillance photographs, launching missiles at ground without 3 Fig. 1a Unimate Robot Fig. 1b Rancho Arm Robot a pilot, patrolling around a military base, or even use small arms weapons by remote control (Fig. 2a). - medical robots that can be used in surgery (Fig. 2b), lifting and moving patients, assisting patients in recovery etc. - Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs): these are used for transporting material inside large or oversized buildings like hospitals, container ports, and warehouses, using wires or markers placed in the floor, or lasers, or vision, to sense the environment they operate in. An advanced form of the AGV is the SGV, or the Self Guided Vehicle, which can be taught to autonomously navigate within a space. - service robots: used in house cleaning, care for the elderly, or cleaning hazardous waste. In this category, we can include also the humanoid robots, such as ASIMO (Fig. 2c), originally developed to assist people. It can walk, climb stairs, run, but is currently not capable of operating autonomously in any real work environment. Fig. 2a The SWORDS Robot Fig. 2b A laparoscopic Fig. 2c ASIMO robotic surgery machine 1.2 The COPRIN Team The COPRIN Team (Constraints solving, OPtimisation, Robust INterval analysis) has the centre at INRIA Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. The head of the team is M. Jean-Pierre Merlet, who was also my supervisor. Sophia Antipolis is a technology park northwest of Antibes and southwest of Nice, France, created in 1970-1984. Several institutions and companies in the fields of computer-science, 4 electronics, biotechnology, mathematics are located here, along with the European headquarters of the W3C. The research topic of the COPRIN team is solving the system of constraints using both consistency methods and interval analysis. Furthermore, symbolic computation will systematically be used to specialize the solving algorithms according to the structure of the problem in view of a better efficiency. The second major research axis of the project is robotics, especially the design of new structures that must satisfy stringent performance requirements, while taking into account uncertainties that are unavoidable for robotized systems. The mathematical tools that are developed as first research axis of the project are especially useful for this kind of problems. There are two years since the team started a strategic move towards assistance robots . The long term goal is to provide robotized devices for assistance, including smart objects that may help disabled, elderly and handicapped people in their personal life. These devices will be adapted to the end-user and to its everyday environment, so they should be affordable and able to be controlled through a large variety of simple interfaces. One of the projects that the COPRIN team is involved right now is the Large Scale Initiative Action - Personally Assisted Living (LSIA Pal) project. The objective of this project is to create a research infrastructure that will enable experiments with technologies for improving the quality of life for persons who have suffered a loss of autonomy through age, illness or accident. In particular, the project seeks to enable development of technologies that can provide services for elderly and fragile persons, as well as their immediate family, caregivers and social groups. One of the crucial problems addressed in this project is the prevention and detection of falls and the activity monitoring. Existing telehomecare systems cause many false alarms and therefore became unusable in a real world [16]. As a result, a great amount of experimental analysis and validation are needed to ensure a robust data and video analysis to detect risky situations and reduce false alarms. Other projects [5, 10] that addressed the problem