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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.
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.
The Scarab Project
(2015)
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.
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.
Rugged terrain robot designs are important for field robotics missions. A number of commercial platforms are available, however, at an impressive price. In this paper, we describe the hardware and software component of a low-cost wheeled rugged-terrain robot. The robot is based on an electric children quad bike and is modified to be driven by wire. In terms of climbing properties, operation time and payload it can compete with some of the commercially available platforms, but at a far lower price.