1926044
Real-time vision-based control of a nonholonomic mobile robot
This paper considers the problem of vision-based control of a nonholonomic mobile robot. We describe the design and implementation of real-time estimation and control algorithms on a car-like robot platform using a single omni-directional camera as a sensor without explicit use of odometry. We provide experimental results for each of these vision-based control objects. The algorithms are packaged as control modes and can be combined hierarchically to perform higher level tasks involving multiple robots.
6879835
Calibrating an air-ground control system from motion correspondences
In this paper we consider the problem of controlling the motion of a vehicle moving on a ground plane based on aerial imagery. In the course of this work we propose a novel analysis of the relationship between the velocity of the vehicle on the ground plane and the velocity of its projection in the image. We show that this relationship provides information about a subset of the parameters of the homography relating the ground plane to the aerial image plane and describe how we can recover this relationship from available measurements.
7023425
A Paradigm for Dynamic Coordination of Multiple Robots
In this paper, we present a paradigm for coordinating multiple robots in the execution of cooperative tasks. The basic idea in the paper is to assign to each robot in the team, a role that determines its actions during the cooperation. The robots dynamically assume and exchange roles in a synchronized manner in order to perform the task successfully, adapting to unexpected events in the environment. We model this mechanism using a hybrid systems framework and apply it in different cooperative tasks: cooperative manipulation and cooperative search and transportation. Simulations and real experiments demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed paradigm are presented.
15738427
A potential field based approach to multi-robot manipulation
We describe a framework for controlling and coordinating a group of robots for cooperative manipulation tasks. The framework enables a decentralized approach to planning and control. It allows the robots to approach the object, organize themselves into a formation that will trap the object, and then transport the object to the desired destination. Our controllers and planners are derived from simple potential fields and the hierarchical composition of potential fields. We show how these potential field based controllers and planners benefit complex group interactions, specifically for manipulating and transporting objects in the plane. Theoretically, we show how we can derive results on formation stability with potential field based controllers in many cases. Simulation results demonstrate successful application to a wide range of examples without showing sensitivity to parameters. Because the framework is decentralized at both trajectory generation level and the estimation and control agent level, our framework can potentially scale to groups of tens and hundreds of robots.
29516211
Control of Contact Interactions with Acatastatic Nonholonomic Constraints
A robot arm performs many tasks by interacting with objects or other robots in the environment. It is important for the robot arm to be able to exhibit controlled interactions with the objects and other robots. The contact motion between the robot arm and an object can be rolling, sliding, or separation. In this article, we address the problem of maintaining rolling contact between the robot arm and an external moving object. We assume that a nominal model of the motion of the moving object is available. The dynamic system that characterizes the motion of the robot arm and the moving object in this case is acatastatic and nonholonomic. We have designed a nonlinear feedback for the control of such a system that successfully maintains rolling contact. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the system.
5542960
Metrics for analysis and optimization of grasps and fixtures
We develop two quality measures for the analysis and optimization of grasps and fixtures. The first metric is a measure of stability and is obtained by analyzing the effect of small perturbations in the position of the grasped object or small disturbance forces on the grasped object The second metric is a measure of robustness to errors in the positions of the fixture elements. In addition, we explore the effect that the stiffness of the fixture elements has on these two quality measures and propose a design optimization approach to maximize stability and robustness to errors.
10751860
Multilevel Diffusion Schemes for Repartitioning of Adaptive Meshes
For a large class of irregular mesh applications, the structure of the mesh changes from one phase of the computation to the next. Eventually, as the mesh evolves, the adapted mesh has to be repartitioned to ensure good load balance. If this new graph is partitioned from scratch, it may lead to an excessive migration of data among processors. In this paper, we present schemes for computing repartitionings of adaptively refined meshes that perform diffusion of vertices in a multilevel framework. These schemes try to minimize vertex movement without significantly compromising the edge-cut. We present heuristics to control the tradeoff between edge-cut and vertex migration costs. We also show that multilevel diffusion produces results with improved edge-cuts over single-level diffusion, and is better able to make use of heuristics to control the tradeoff between edge-cut and vertex migration costs than single-level diffusion.
35078097
An adaptive location management algorithm for mobile computing
In mobile computing mobile hosts or mobile units move randomly from one place to another within a well-defined geographical area. This requires some mechanism for identifying the exact location of a mobile host. Such mechanisms are usually referred to as location management and is one of the essential components for supporting mobility. In the past a number of efficient location management schemes have been suggested but they lack adaptability. We believe that an adaptable location management scheme is more desirable because of frequent change in the location of mobile hosts. In this paper, we report a location management algorithm, which adapts to the constant changing scenario. Our algorithm makes use of some of the concepts of location management schemes proposed in the past.
37917309
Management of Concurrency in Interpolation Based Grid File Organization and its Performance
The mathematical structure of the interpolation based grid file organization provides a suitable platform for supporting a high degree of concurrency under a concurrency control mechanism. To demonstrate this capability, we first identified its useful properties for designing a concurrency control mechanism and then developed a deadlock-free two-phase locking based mechanism using dynamic attributes of transactions. To establish the usefulness of our system (concurrency control and the file organization), we measured its performance through simulation modeling. We show that our system handles a number of different types of workloads efficiently and the directory overhead does not strictly depend on the type of workload.
5480787
Parallel Formulations of Decision-Tree Classification Algorithms
Classification decision tree algorithms are used extensively for data mining in many domains such as retail target marketing, fraud detection, etc. Highly parallel algorithms for constructing classification decision trees are desirable for dealing with large data sets in reasonable amount of time. Algorithms for building classification decision trees have a natural concurrency, but are difficult to parallelize due to the inherent dynamic nature of the computation. In this paper, we present parallel formulations of classification decision tree learning algorithm based on induction. We describe two basic parallel formulations. One is based on Synchronous Tree Construction Approach and the other is based on Partitioned Tree Construction Approach. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using these methods and propose a hybrid method that employs the good features of these methods. We also provide the analysis of the cost of computation and communication of the proposed hybrid method. Moreover, experimental results on an IBM SP-2 demonstrate excellent speedups and scalability.
47278894
Equilibria in Topology Control Games for Ad Hoc Networks
We study topology control problems in ad hoc networks where network nodes get to choose their power levels in order to ensure desired connectivity properties. Unlike most other work on this topic, we assume that the network nodes are owned by different entities, whose only goal is to maximize their own utility that they get out of the network without considering the overall performance of the network. Game theory is the appropriate tool to study such selfish nodes: we define several topology control games in which the nodes need to choose power levels in order to connect to other nodes in the network to reach their communication partners while at the same time minimizing their costs. We study Nash equilibria and show that—among the games we define—these can only be guaranteed to exist if each network node is required to be connected to all other nodes (we call this the Strong Connectivity Game). For a variation called Connectivity Game, where each node is only required to be connected (possibly via intermediate nodes) to a given set of nodes, we show that Nash equilibria do not necessarily exist. We further study how to find Nash equilibria with incentive-compatible algorithms and compare the cost of Nash equilibria to the cost of a social optimum, which is a radius assignment that minimizes the total cost in a network where nodes cooperate. We also study variations of the games; one where nodes not only have to be connected, but k-connected, and one that we call the Reachability Game, where nodes have to reach as many other nodes as possible, while keeping costs low. We extend our study of the Strong Connectivity Game and the Connectivity Game to wireless networks with directional antennas and wireline networks, where nodes need to choose neighbors to which they will pay a link. Our work is a first step towards game-theoretic analyses of topology control in wireless and wireline networks.