TY - CHAP A1 - Niemueller, T. A1 - Lakemeyer, G. A1 - Reuter, S. A1 - Jeschke, S. A1 - Ferrein, Alexander T1 - Benchmarking of Cyber-Physical Systems in Industrial Robotics: The RoboCup Logistics League as a CPS Benchmark Blueprint T2 - Cyber-Physical Systems: Foundations, Principles and Applications N2 - In the future, we expect manufacturing companies to follow a new paradigm that mandates more automation and autonomy in production processes. Such smart factories will offer a variety of production technologies as services that can be combined ad hoc to produce a large number of different product types and variants cost-effectively even in small lot sizes. This is enabled by cyber-physical systems that feature flexible automated planning methods for production scheduling, execution control, and in-factory logistics. During development, testbeds are required to determine the applicability of integrated systems in such scenarios. Furthermore, benchmarks are needed to quantify and compare system performance in these industry-inspired scenarios at a comprehensible and manageable size which is, at the same time, complex enough to yield meaningful results. In this chapter, based on our experience in the RoboCup Logistics League (RCLL) as a specific example, we derive a generic blueprint for how a holistic benchmark can be developed, which combines a specific scenario with a set of key performance indicators as metrics to evaluate the overall integrated system and its components. KW - Smart factory KW - Industry 4.0 KW - Cyber-physical systems KW - Multi-robot systems KW - Autonomous mobile robots Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-803801-7.00013-4 SP - 193 EP - 207 PB - Academic Press CY - London ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Walenta, Robert A1 - Schellekens, Twan A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Schiffer, Stefan T1 - A decentralised system approach for controlling AGVs with ROS T2 - AFRICON, Proceedings Y1 - 2017 SN - 978-1-5386-2775-4 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/AFRCON.2017.8095693 SN - 2153-0033 N1 - AFRICON <2017, 18-20 Sept., Cape Town, South Africa> SP - 1436 EP - 1441 PB - IEEE ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schiffer, Stefan A1 - Ferrein, Alexander T1 - Decision-Theoretic Planning with Fuzzy Notions in GOLOG JF - International Journal of Uncertainty, Fuzziness and Knowledge-Based Systems N2 - In this paper we present an extension of the action language Golog that allows for using fuzzy notions in non-deterministic argument choices and the reward function in decision-theoretic planning. Often, in decision-theoretic planning, it is cumbersome to specify the set of values to pick from in the non-deterministic-choice-of-argument statement. Also, even for domain experts, it is not always easy to specify a reward function. Instead of providing a finite domain for values in the non-deterministic-choice-of-argument statement in Golog, we now allow for stating the argument domain by simply providing a formula over linguistic terms and fuzzy uents. In Golog’s forward-search DT planning algorithm, these formulas are evaluated in order to find the agent’s optimal policy. We illustrate this in the Diner Domain where the agent needs to calculate the optimal serving order. Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1142/S0218488516400134 SN - 1793-6411 VL - 24 IS - Issue Suppl. 2 SP - 123 EP - 143 PB - World Scientific CY - Singapur ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Stopforth, Riaan A1 - Davrajh, Shaniel A1 - Ferrein, Alexander T1 - South African robotics entity for a collaboration initiative T2 - Pattern Recognition Association of South Africa and Robotics and Mechatronics International Conference (PRASA-RobMech), 2016 Y1 - 2017 SN - 978-1-5090-3335-5 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/RoboMech.2016.7813144 N1 - PRASA-RobMech, Nov. 30 2016-Dec. 2 2016, Stellenbosch, South Africa SP - 1 EP - 6 PB - IEEE ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Niemueller, Tim A1 - Zwilling, Frederik A1 - Lakemeyer, Gerhard A1 - Löbach, Matthias A1 - Reuter, Sebastian A1 - Jeschke, Sabina A1 - Ferrein, Alexander T1 - Cyber-Physical System Intelligence T2 - Industrial Internet of Things N2 - Cyber-physical systems are ever more common in manufacturing industries. Increasing their autonomy has been declared an explicit goal, for example, as part of the Industry 4.0 vision. To achieve this system intelligence, principled and software-driven methods are required to analyze sensing data, make goal-directed decisions, and eventually execute and monitor chosen tasks. In this chapter, we present a number of knowledge-based approaches to these problems and case studies with in-depth evaluation results of several different implementations for groups of autonomous mobile robots performing in-house logistics in a smart factory. We focus on knowledge-based systems because besides providing expressive languages and capable reasoning techniques, they also allow for explaining how a particular sequence of actions came about, for example, in the case of a failure. KW - Smart factory KW - Industry 4.0 KW - Multi-robot systems KW - Autonomous mobile robots KW - RoboCup Y1 - 2017 SN - 978-3-319-42559-7 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42559-7_17 N1 - Springer Series in Wireless Technology SP - 447 EP - 472 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Steinbauer, Gerald T1 - Looking back on 20 Years of RoboCup JF - KI - Künstliche Intelligenz Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13218-016-0443-y SN - 1610-1987 VL - 30 IS - 3-4 SP - 321 EP - 323 PB - Springer CY - Berlin ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Steinbauer, Gerald A1 - Ferrein, Alexander T1 - 20 Years of RoboCup JF - KI - Künstliche Intelligenz Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13218-016-0442-z SN - 1610-1987 VL - 30 IS - 3-4 SP - 221 EP - 224 PB - Springer CY - Berlin ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Steinbauer, Gerald T1 - The Interplay of Aldebaran and RoboCup JF - KI - Künstliche Intelligenz Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13218-016-0440-1 SN - 1610-1987 VL - 30 IS - 3-4 SP - 325 EP - 326 PB - Springer CY - Berlin ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Niemueller, Tim A1 - Karras, Ulrich A1 - Ferrein, Alexander T1 - Meisterschaft der Maschinen: Die Industrial Logistic Liga JF - C´t Magazin für Computertechnik Y1 - 2017 IS - 26 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Niemueller, Tim A1 - Neumann, Tobias A1 - Henke, Christoph A1 - Schönitz, Sebastian A1 - Reuter, Sebastian A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Jeschke, Sabina A1 - Lakemeyer, Gerhard T1 - Improvements for a robust production in the RoboCup logistics league 2016 T2 - RoboCup 2016: Robot World Cup XX. RoboCup 2016. Y1 - 2017 SN - 978-3-319-68792-6 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68792-6_49 SP - 589 EP - 600 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Engemann, Heiko A1 - Wiesen, Patrick A1 - Kallweit, Stephan A1 - Deshpande, Harshavardhan A1 - Schleupen, Josef T1 - Autonomous mobile manipulation using ROS T2 - Advances in Service and Industrial Robotics Y1 - 2018 SN - 978-3-319-61276-8 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61276-8_43 N1 - International Conference on Robotics in Alpe-Adria Danube Region RAAD 2017; Mechanisms and Machince Science book series, Vol 49. SP - 389 EP - 401 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Steinbauer, Gerald T1 - 20 Years of RoboCup - A Subjective Retrospection JF - KI - Künstliche Intelligenz N2 - This summer, RoboCup competitions were held for the 20th time in Leipzig, Germany. It was the second time that RoboCup took place in Germany, 10 years after the 2006 RoboCup in Bremen. In this article, we give an overview on the latest developments of RoboCup and what happened in the different leagues over the last decade. With its 20th edition, RoboCup clearly is a success story and a role model for robotics competitions. From our personal view point, we acknowledge this by giving a retrospection about what makes RoboCup such a success. Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13218-016-0449-5 SN - 1610-1987 VL - 30 IS - 3 SP - 225 EP - 232 PB - Springer CY - Berlin ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Schleupen, Josef A1 - Engemann, Heiko A1 - Bagheri, Mohsen A1 - Kallweit, Stephan A1 - Dahmann, Peter T1 - Developing a climbing maintenance robot for tower and rotor blade service of wind turbines T2 - Advances in Robot Design and Intelligent Control : Proceedings of the 25th Conference on Robotics in Alpe-Adria-Danube Region (RAAD16) Y1 - 2017 SN - 978-3-319-49058-8 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49058-8_34 N1 - Advances in Robot Design and Intelligent Control ; Vol. 540 SP - 310 EP - 319 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Maier, Christopher A1 - Mühlbacher, Clemens A1 - Niemüller, Tim A1 - Steinbauer, Gerald A1 - Vassos, Stravros T1 - Controlling logistics robots with the action-based language YAGI T2 - Intelligent Robotics and Applications: 9th International Conference, ICIRA 2016, Tokyo, Japan, August 22-24, 2016, Proceedings, Part I Y1 - 2016 SN - 978-3-319-43505-3 (Print) SN - 978-3-319-43506-0 (Online) U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43506-0_46 N1 - Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics) VL - 9834 SP - 525 EP - 537 PB - Springer ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Niemueller, Tim A1 - Reuter, Sebastian A1 - Ferrein, Alexander ED - Almeida, Luis T1 - Fawkes for the RoboCup Logistics League T2 - RoboCup 2015: Robot World Cup XIX Y1 - 2016 SN - 978-3-319-29339-4 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29339-4_31 N1 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science ; 9513 SP - 365 EP - 373 PB - Springer International Publishing CY - Cham ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Niemueller, Tim A1 - Reuter, Sebastian A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Jeschke, Sabina A1 - Lakemeyer, Gerhard ED - Almeida, Luis T1 - Evaluation of the RoboCup Logistics League and Derived Criteria for Future Competitions T2 - RoboCup 2015: Robot World Cup XIX Y1 - 2016 SN - 978-3-319-29339-4 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29339-4_3 N1 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science ; 9513 SP - 31 EP - 43 PB - Springer International Publishing CY - Cham ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Niemueller, Tim A1 - Reuter, Sebastian A1 - Ewert, Daniel A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Jeschke, Sabina A1 - Lakemeyer, Gerhard ED - Almeida, Luis T1 - The Carologistics Approach to Cope with the Increased Complexity and New Challenges of the RoboCup Logistics League 2015 T2 - RoboCup 2015: Robot World Cup XIX Y1 - 2016 SN - 978-3-319-29339-4 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29339-4_4 N1 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science ; 9513 SP - 47 EP - 59 PB - Springer International Publishing CY - Cham ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Booysen, Tracy A1 - Mathew, Thomas A1 - Knox, Greig A1 - Fong, W. K. A1 - Stüttgen, Marcel A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Steinbauer, Gerald T1 - The Scarab Project T2 - ICRA 2015 Developing Countries Forum N2 - Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) is an active research field in the robotics community. Despite recent advances for many open research questions, these kind of systems are not widely used in real rescue missions. One reason is that such systems are complex and not (yet) very reliable; another is that one has to be an robotic expert to run such a system. Moreover, available rescue robots are very expensive and the benefits of using them are still limited. In this paper, we present the Scarab robot, an alternative design for a USAR robot. The robot is light weight, humanpackable and its primary purpose is that of extending the rescuer’s capability to sense the disaster site. The idea is that a responder throws the robot to a certain spot. The robot survives the impact with the ground and relays sensor data such as camera images or thermal images to the responder’s hand-held control unit from which the robot can be remotely controlled. Y1 - 2015 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Stopforth, Riaan A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Steinbauer, Gerald T1 - Europe and South African collaboration on the Mechatronics and Robotics systems as part of the SA Robotics Center T2 - ICRA 2015 Developing Countries Forum N2 - Mechatronics consist of the integration of mechanical engineering, electronic integration and computer science/ engineering. These broad fields are essential for robotic systems, yet it makes it difficult for the researchers to specialize and be experts in all these fields. Collaboration between researchers allow for the integration of experience and specialization, to allow optimized systems. Collaboration between the European countries and South Africa is critical, as each country has different resources available, which the other countries might not have. Applications with the need for approval of any restrictions, can also be obtained easier in some countries compared to others, thus preventing the delays of research. Some problems that have been experienced are discussed, with the Robotics Center of South Africa as a possible solution. Y1 - 2015 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Niemueller, Tim A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Reuter, Sebastian A1 - Jeschke, Sabina A1 - Lakemeyer, Gerhard T1 - The RoboCup Logistics League as a Holistic Multi-Robot Smart Factory Benchmark T2 - Proceedings of the IROS 2015 Open forum on evaluation of results, replication of experiments and benchmarking in robotics research N2 - With autonomous mobile robots receiving increased attention in industrial contexts, the need for benchmarks becomes more and more an urgent matter. The RoboCup Logistics League (RCLL) is one specific industry-inspired scenario focusing on production logistics within a Smart Factory. In this paper, we describe how the RCLL allows to assess the performance of a group of robots within the scenario as a whole, focusing specifically on the coordination and cooperation strategies and the methods and components to achieve them. We report on recent efforts to analyze performance of teams in 2014 to understand the implications of the current grading scheme, and derived criteria and metrics for performance assessment based on Key Performance Indicators (KPI) adapted from classic factory evaluation. We reflect on differences and compatibility towards RoCKIn, a recent major benchmarking European project. Y1 - 2015 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Maier, Christopher A1 - Mühlbacher, Clemens A1 - Niemueller, Tim A1 - Steinbauer, Gerald A1 - Vassos, Stravros T1 - Controlling Logistics Robots with the Action-based Language YAGI T2 - Proceedings of the 2015 IROS Workshop on Workshop on Task Planning for Intelligent Robots in Service and Manufacturing Y1 - 2015 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Leingartner, Max A1 - Maurer, Johannes A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Steinbauer, Gerald T1 - Evaluation of Sensors and Mapping Approaches for Disasters in Tunnels JF - Journal of Field Robotics N2 - Ground or aerial robots equipped with advanced sensing technologies, such as three-dimensional laser scanners and advanced mapping algorithms, are deemed useful as a supporting technology for first responders. A great deal of excellent research in the field exists, but practical applications at real disaster sites are scarce. Many projects concentrate on equipping robots with advanced capabilities, such as autonomous exploration or object manipulation. In spite of this, realistic application areas for such robots are limited to teleoperated reconnaissance or search. In this paper, we investigate how well state-of-the-art and off-the-shelf components and algorithms are suited for reconnaissance in current disaster-relief scenarios. The basic idea is to make use of some of the most common sensors and deploy some widely used algorithms in a disaster situation, and to evaluate how well the components work for these scenarios. We acquired the sensor data from two field experiments, one from a disaster-relief operation in a motorway tunnel, and one from a mapping experiment in a partly closed down motorway tunnel. Based on these data, which we make publicly available, we evaluate state-of-the-art and off-the-shelf mapping approaches. In our analysis, we integrate opinions and replies from first responders as well as from some algorithm developers on the usefulness of the data and the limitations of the deployed approaches, respectively. We discuss the lessons we learned during the two missions. These lessons are interesting for the community working in similar areas of urban search and rescue, particularly reconnaissance and search. Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/rob.21611 SN - 1556-4967 VL - 33 IS - 8 SP - 1037 EP - 1057 PB - Wiley-VCH CY - Weinheim ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Limpert, Nicolas A1 - Schiffer, Stefan A1 - Ferrein, Alexander T1 - A Local Planner for Ackermann-Driven Vehicles in ROS SBPL T2 - Proceedings of the International Conference on Pattern Recognition Association of South Africa and Robotics and Mechatronics (PRASA-RobMech), 2015 Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/RoboMech.2015.7359518 SP - 172 EP - 177 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Kallweit, Stephan A1 - Scholl, Ingrid A1 - Reichert, Walter T1 - Learning to Program Mobile Robots in the ROS Summer School Series T2 - Proceedings 6th International Conference on Robotics in Education (RiE 15) N2 - The main objective of our ROS Summer School series is to introduce MA level students to program mobile robots with the Robot Operating System (ROS). ROS is a robot middleware that is used my many research institutions world-wide. Therefore, many state-of-the-art algorithms of mobile robotics are available in ROS and can be deployed very easily. As a basic robot platform we deploy a 1/10 RC cart that is wquipped with an Arduino micro-controller to control the servo motors, and an embedded PC that runs ROS. In two weeks, participants get to learn the basics of mobile robotics hands-on. We describe our teaching concepts and our curriculum and report on the learning success of our students. Y1 - 2015 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Niemueller, Tim A1 - Reuter, Sebastian A1 - Ewert, Daniel A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Jeschke, Sabina A1 - Lakemeyer, Gerhard T1 - Decisive Factors for the Success of the Carologistics RoboCup Team in the RoboCup Logistics League 2014 T2 - RoboCup 2014: Robot World Cup XVIII Y1 - 2015 SN - 978-3-319-18615-3 N1 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science ; 8992 SP - 155 EP - 167 PB - Springer ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Krückel, Kai A1 - Nolden, Florian A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Scholl, Ingrid T1 - Intuitive visual teleoperation for UGVs using free-look augmented reality displays T2 - 2015 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Seattle, WA Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ICRA.2015.7139809 SP - 4412 EP - 4417 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Goeckel, Tom A1 - Schiffer, Stefan A1 - Wagner, Hermann A1 - Lakemeyer, Gerhard T1 - The Video Conference Tool Robot ViCToR T2 - Intelligent Robotics and Applications : 8th International Conference, ICIRA 2015, Portsmouth, UK, August 24-27, 2015, Proceedings, Part II N2 - We present a robotic tool that autonomously follows a conversation to enable remote presence in video conferencing. When humans participate in a meeting with the help of video conferencing tools, it is crucial that they are able to follow the conversation both with acoustic and visual input. To this end, we design and implement a video conferencing tool robot that uses binaural sound source localization as its main source to autonomously orient towards the currently talking speaker. To increase robustness of the acoustic cue against noise we supplement the sound localization with a source detection stage. Also, we include a simple onset detector to retain fast response times. Since we only use two microphones, we are confronted with ambiguities on whether a source is in front or behind the device. We resolve these ambiguities with the help of face detection and additional moves. We tailor the system to our target scenarios in experiments with a four minute scripted conversation. In these experiments we evaluate the influence of different system settings on the responsiveness and accuracy of the device. Y1 - 2015 SN - 978-3-319-22876-1 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22876-1_6 N1 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science ; 9245 SP - 61 EP - 73 PB - Springer ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Ferrein, Alexander T1 - 3D-Mapping von Straßentunneln T2 - 16. Geokinematischer Tag, 07. und 08. Mai 2015 : Tagungsband / Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg Y1 - 2015 N1 - Schriftenreihe des Instituts für Markscheidewesen und Geodsäsie an der Technischen Universität Bergakademie Freiberg SP - 31 EP - 40 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Alhwarin, Faraj A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Gebhardt, Andreas A1 - Kallweit, Stephan A1 - Scholl, Ingrid A1 - Tedjasukmana, Osmond Sanjaya T1 - Improving additive manufacturing by image processing and robotic milling T2 - 2015 IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE), Aug 24-28, 2015 Gothenburg, Sweden Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/CoASE.2015.7294217 SP - 924 EP - 929 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Kallweit, Stephan A1 - Gottschalk, Michael A1 - Walenta, Robert T1 - ROS based safety concept for collaborative robots in industrial applications T2 - Advances in robot design and intelligent control : proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Robotics in Alpe-Adria-Danube Region (RAAD). (Advances in intelligent systems and computing ; 371) N2 - The production and assembly of customized products increases the demand for flexible automation systems. One approach is to remove the safety fences that separate human and industrial robot to combine their skills. This collaboration possesses a certain risk for the human co-worker, leading to numerous safety concepts to protect him. The human needs to be monitored and tracked by a safety system using different sensors. The proposed system consists of a RGBD camera for surveillance of the common working area, an array of optical distance sensors to compensate shadowing effects of the RGBD camera and a laser range finder to detect the co-worker when approaching the work cell. The software for collision detection, path planning, robot control and predicting the behaviour of the co-worker is based on the Robot Operating System (ROS). A first prototype of the work cell shows that with advanced algorithms from the field of mobile robotics a very flexible safety concept can be realized: the robot not simply stops its movement when detecting a collision, but plans and executes an alternative path around the obstacle. KW - Collaborative robot KW - Human-Robot interaction KW - Safety concept KW - Workspace monitoring KW - Path planning Y1 - 2016 SN - 978-3-319-21289-0 (Print) ; 978-3-319-21290-6 (E-Book) U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21290-6_3 SP - 27 EP - 35 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Leingartner, Max A1 - Maurer, Johannes A1 - Steinbauer, Gerald A1 - Ferrein, Alexander T1 - Evaluation of sensors and mapping approaches for disasters in tunnels T2 - IEEE International Symposium on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics : SSRR : 21-26 Oct. 2013, Linkoping, Sweden Y1 - 2013 SN - 978-1-4799-0879-0 SP - 1 EP - 7 ER -