Tesis sobre el tema "Autonomous"

The autonomous bike was conceived by Jens G. Balchen back in the eighties, and later picked up by Amund Skavhaug. The idea of a two-wheeled, self-powered, yet riderless bike has since been pursued intermittently over the years. Audun S{o}lvberg was the last person working on the project in 2007, making large headway towards the final goal of the bike: An outdoor ride, preformed by a riderless bicycle.The same goal is shared by this thesis; to make the bike work as intended and get the bicycle running outside. Additionally, as it would be naive to assume that this work would leave the bike in perfect condition, the thesis focuses on documenting issues that are left unfixed upon completion. Unfortunately, a fully functional, outdoor demonstration was not achieved, but half of the battle was won: Two of the three motors residing on the bike can be fully controlled by an external device.At the start of the work, the instrumentation system was mostly completed. A computer, running a QNX Neutrino Operating System, interfacing with potmeters, motors, Inertial Measurement Units and a GPS where available, mounted on the bike. Drivers communicating with the hardware was already written, and a Simulink model, meant to control the bike had been developed. However, the motherboard was in need of replacement, and the Simulink model was not finalized or even tested. The system was also lacking wireless networking capabilities.Yet, at the onset of the thesis, it was believed that the project was very close to reaching its ultimate goal.As the work progressed, several issues became apparent, emerging along with problems being solved. The motherboard was replaced with a motherboard{}, implicitly requiring a new hard drive to be installed. The OS was upgraded from version 6.3.0 to 6.4.1, to bring it up to date and as a requirement for some of the motherboard hardware. All of the device drivers where modified to work without their counterpart hardware connected, easing development of the Simulink model. The model was shown to be unreliable, but the hardware interface subsystem was completed and tested to allow for easy integration in separate projects. To demonstrate the capabilities of subsystem, a Bike Demo model was created, allowing the steer and pendulum to be controlled by the used of the bike accelerometer, using orientation data as reference. The intent was for the demo to serve as a control system for an outdoor ride. Ultimately the motor controller card was found to be incompatible with the propulsion motor, unable to deliver sufficient current. At the time of discovery, too little time reminded for the problem to be rectified. A demonstration of control system however, was successfully concluded.An attempt to bring wireless networking to the bike failed. Arguably too much time was spent making USB Wifi devices working with the QNX OS, when easier alternatives could perhaps have solved the problem earlier.The thesis has a large focus on the work ahead, as the system is complex and unreliable by its very nature. All known issues are detailed and summarized, and the various chapters describing hardware and software have been outlined in an attempt to serve as a go-to reference for students taking on the autonomous bike project in the future.

In this dissertation we generalise the basic theory of Hopf algebras to the context of autonomous pseudomonoids in monoidal bicategories. Autonomous pseudomonoids were introduced in [13] as generalisations of both autonomous monoidal categories and Hopf algebras. Much of the theory of autonomous pseudomonoids developed in [13] was inspired by the example of autonomous (pro)monoidal enriched categories. The present thesis aims to further develop the theory with results inspired by Hopf algebra theory instead. We study three important results in Hopf algebra theory: the so-called 'fundamental theorem of Hopf modules', the 'Drinfel'd quantum double' and its relation with the centre of monoidal categories, and 'Radford's formula'. The basic result of this work is a general fundamental theorem of Hopf modules that establishes conditions equivalent to the existence of a left dualization. With this result as a base, we are able to construct the centre (defined in [83]) and the lax centre of an autonomous pseudomonoid as an Eilenberg-Moore construction for certain monad. As an application we show that the Drinfel'd double of a finite-dimensional Hopf algebra is equivalent to the centre of the associated pseudomonoid. The next piece of theory we develop is a general Radford's formula for autonomous map pseudomonoids formula in the case of a (coquasi) Hopf algebra. We also introduce 'unimodular' autonomous pseudomonoids. In the last part of the dissertation we apply the general theory to enriched categories with a (chosen) class of (co)limits, with emphasis in the case of finite (co)limits. We construct tensor products of such categories by means of pseudo-commutative enriched monads (a slight generalisation of the pseudo-commutative 2-monads of [37], and showing that lax-idempotent 2-monads are pseudo-commutative. Finally we apply the general theory developed for pseudomonoids to deduce the main results of [27].

Automation will challenge our notions about communication between the vehicle and its surroundings. This thesis explores how an autonomous Peugeot vehicle could look like if the exterior design would be smart and aware about the world around it.  Using as reference the needs of a small family and inspired by ripple effects as a reaction to an impulse, the design process also included research, ideation and form development using analog and digital tools. Animation and video were also used for testing and visualising the ‘autonomous language’.  The result is a concept vehicle with an active skin and a unique sculpture reflecting its new architecture, enabled by an electric powertrain and autonomous driving technology. New light mode that lets the lights be projected towards the vehicle instead of the road will enhance the volume description of the vehicle to be visible especially at night. The design process included context research, needs of people inside and outside of the vehicle, interviews, ideation, package study, digital form development and physical model. It is important to me that my concept fits into a believable context of the future and creates a vision upon issues that we strive to develop today.

The ubiquity of digital media provides an unprecedented possibility to redefine the process and methods of design. Through experience from a series of creative projects, I investigate how certain aspects of the web allow for design to attain a degree of autonomy, thus producing results that go beyond anticipation and expertise of the author. Utilizing an unlimited capacity to store the content and retrieve immediate feedback, the designer’s role can be shifted to that of an initiator defining rules and boundaries, from which the process can evolve independently based on the input of users and data. The design output in such conditions is the development of schemes in which the author remains, but is marginalized as a producer – consciously restraining his level of control. Rather then struggling to add something singular to the bottomless pit of information, the designer is relegated in the role of medium: collecting and recombining the bits of fragmented data into the structures conveying meaning.

This paper describes an autonomous platform that can map an indoor single-floor environment in two spatial dimensions. The design uses the Simultaneous, Localization, and Mapping (SLAM) algorithm, which utilizes inertial measurement unit (IMU), microcontroller unit (MCU), and a 360-degree laser scanner to autonomously maneuver and generate a building floor plan accessible by the user.

This thesis explored the possibility to use line following technology to automate forklifts in a warehouse scenario. This was done to reduce the need for staff to always be present in the warehouse. A prototype forklift was constructed with three wheels, where driving and steering was done by the rear wheel. To control the forklift an Arduino Uno was used. The line following was done using Infrared Radiation (IR) sensors. Different setups of line following sensors were tested to achieve a forklift capable of following a line. Different layouts of the operating area were also tested. Line following was found to work best when two sensors were placed in front of the front wheels when going forward and two by the back wheel when reversing. The conclusion was made that a setup of four sensors was enough to achieve a line following forklift. For the operating area, the best layout was found to be an X-shaped one. Using 90° corners proved to be the easiest to navigate.
Denna avhandling undersökte möjligheten att använda linjeföljningsteknologi för att automatisera gaffeltruckar i ett varuhus. Detta gjordes med målet att minska behovet på att alltid ha personal närvarande. En gaffeltrucksprototyp konstruerades med tre hjul, bakhjulsdrift och styrning på bakhjulet. För att styra gaffeltrucken användes en Arduino Uno. Linjeföljningen utfördes av IR sensorer. Tester utfördes på olika konfigurationer av linjeföljarsensorerna för att uppnå linjeföljning. Utformningen på arbetsområdet testades också. Linjeföljning visade sig fungera bäst när två sensorer var placerade framför framhjulen när man körde framåt och två vid bakhjulet när man backade. Slutsatsen blev att fyra sensorer var tillräckligt för att uppnå linjeföljningsförmåga. Den bästa utformningen på arbetsytan konstaterades vara en X-formad yta. Att använda 90° hörn visade sig vara lättast att navigera genom.

[EN] This thesis addresses the treatment of perturbed problems with splitting methods. After motivating these problems in Chapter 1, we give a thorough introduction in Chapter 2, which includes the objectives, several basic techniques and already existing methods. In Chapter 3, we consider the numerical integration of non-autonomous separable parabolic equations using high order splitting methods with complex coefficients (methods with real coefficients of order greater than two necessarily have negative coefficients). We propose to consider a class of methods that allows us to evaluate all time dependent operators at real values of the time, leading to schemes which are stable and simple to implement. If the system can be considered as the perturbation of an exactly solvable problem and the flow of the dominant part is advanced using real coefficients, it is possible to build highly efficient methods for these problems. We show the performance of this class of methods for several numerical examples and present some new improved schemes. In Chapter 4, we propose splitting methods for the computation of the exponential of perturbed matrices which can be written as the sum A = D+epsilon*B of a sparse and efficiently exponentiable matrix D with sparse exponential exp(D) and a dense matrix epsilon*B which is of small norm in comparison with D. The predominant algorithm is based on scaling the large matrix A by a small number 2^(-s) , which is then exponentiated by efficient Padé or Taylor methods and finally squared in order to obtain an approximation for the full exponential. In this setting, the main portion of the computational cost arises from dense-matrix multiplications and we present a modified squaring which takes advantage of the smallness of the perturbation matrix B in order to reduce the number of squarings necessary. Theoretical results on local error and error propagation for splitting methods are complemented with numerical experiments and show a clear improvement over existing methods when medium precision is sought. In Chapter 5, we consider the numerical integration of the perturbed Hill's equation. Parametric resonances can appear and this property is of great interest in many different physical applications. Usually, the Hill's equations originate from a Hamiltonian function and the fundamental matrix solution is a symplectic matrix. This is a very important property to be preserved by the numerical integrators. In this chapter we present new sixth-and eighth-order symplectic exponential integrators that are tailored to the Hill's equation. The methods are based on an efficient symplectic approximation to the exponential of high dimensional coupled autonomous harmonic oscillators and yield accurate results for oscillatory problems at a low computational cost. Several numerical examples illustrate the performance of the new methods. Conclusions and pointers to further research are detailed in Chapter 6.
[ES] Esta tesis aborda el tratamiento de problemas perturbados con métodos de escisión (splitting). Tras motivar el origen de este tipo de problemas en el capítulo 1, introducimos los objetivos, varias técnicas básicas y métodos existentes en capítulo 2. En el capítulo 3 consideramos la integración numérica de ecuaciones no autónomas separables y parabólicas usando métodos de splitting de orden mayor que dos usando coeficientes complejos (métodos con coeficientes reales de orden mayor de dos necesariamente tienen coeficientes negativos). Proponemos una clase de métodos que permite evaluar todos los operadores con dependencia temporal en valores reales del tiempo lo cual genera esquemas estables y fáciles de implementar. Si el sistema se puede considerar como una perturbación de un problema resoluble de forma exacta y si el flujo de la parte dominante se avanza usando coeficientes reales, es posible construir métodos altamente eficientes para este tipo de problemas. Demostramos la eficiencia de estos métodos en varios ejemplos numéricos. En el capítulo 4 proponemos métodos de splitting para el cálculo de la exponencial de matrices perturbadas que se pueden escribir como suma A = D + epsilon*B de una matriz dispersa y eficientemente exponenciable con exponencial dispersa exp(D) y una matriz densa epsilon*B de noma pequeña. El algoritmo predominante se basa en escalar la matriz grande con un número pequeño 2^(-s) para poder exponenciar el resultado con métodos eficientes de Padé o Taylor y finalmente obtener la aproximación a la exponencial elevando al cuadrado repetidamente. En este contexto, el coste computacional proviene de las multiplicaciones de matrices densas y presentamos una cuadratura modificada aprovechando la estructura perturbada para reducir el número de productos. Resultados teóricos sobre errores locales y propagación de error para métodos de splitting son complementados con experimentos numéricos y muestran una clara mejora sobre métodos existentes a precisión media. En el capítulo 5, consideramos la integración numérica de la ecuación de Hill perturbada. Resonancias paramétricas pueden aparecer y esta propiedad es de gran interés en muchas aplicaciones físicas. Habitualmente, las ecuaciones de Hill provienen de una función hamiltoniana y la solución fundamental es una matriz simpléctica, una propiedad muy importante que preservar con los integradores numéricos. Presentamos nuevos integradores simplécticos exponenciales de orden seis y ocho tallados a la ecuación de Hills. Estos métodos se basan en una aproximación simpléctica eficiente a la exponencial de osciladores armónicos acoplados de dimensión alta y dan lugar a resultados precisos para problemas oscilatorios a un coste computacional bajo y varios ejemplos numéricos ilustran su rendimiento. Conclusiones e indicadores para futuros estudios se detallan en el capítulo 6.
[CAT] La present tesi està enfocada al tractament de problemes perturbats utilitzant, entre altres, mètodes d'escisió (splitting). Comencem motivant l'oritge d'aquest tipus de problems al capítol 1, i a continuació introduïm el objectius, diferents tècniques bàsiques i alguns mètodes existents al capítol 2. Al capítol 3, consideram la integració numèrica d'equacions no autònomes separables i parabòliques utilitzant mètodes d'splitting d'ordre major que dos utilitzant coeficients complexos (mètodes amb coeficients reials d'ordre major que dos necesariament tenen coeficients negatius). Proposem una clase de mètodes que permeten evaluar tots els operadors amb dependència temporal explícita amb valors reials del temps. Esta forma de procedir genera esquemes estables i fàcils d'implementar. Si el sistema es pot considerar com una perturbació d'un problema exactament resoluble, i la part dominant s'avança utilitzant coeficients reials, es posible construir mètodes altament eficients per aquest tipus de problemes Demostrem la eficiència d'estos mètodes per a diferents exemples numèrics. Al capítol 4, proposem mètodes d'splitting per al càcul de la exponencial de matrius pertorbades que es poden escriure com suma A = D + epsilon*B (una matriu que es pot exponenciar fàcilment i eficientemente, com es el cas d'algunes matrius disperses exp(D), i una matriu densa epsilon*B de norma menuda). L'algorisme predominant es basa en escalar la matriu gran amb un nombre menut 2^(-s) per a poder exponenciar el resultat amb mètodes eficients de Padé o Taylor i finalment obtindre la aproximació a la exponencial elevant al quadrat repetidament. En este context, el cost computacional prové de les multiplicacions de matrius denses i presentem una quadratura modificada aprofitant la estructura de matriu pertorbada per reduir el nombre de productes. Resultats teòrics sobre errors locals i propagació d'error per a mètodes d'splitting son analitzats i corroborats amb experiments numèrics, mostrant una clara millora respecte a mètodes existens quan es busca una precisió moderada. Al capítol 5, considerem la integració numèrica de l'ecuació de Hill pertorbada. En este tipus d'equacions poden apareixer resonàncies paramètriques i esta propietat es de gran interés en moltes aplicacions físiques. Habitualment, les equacions de Hill provenen d'una función hamiltoniana i la solució fonamental es una matriu simplèctica, siguent esta una propietat molt important a preservar pels integradors numèrics. Presentams nous integradors simplèctics exponencials d'orden sis i huit construits especialmente per resoldre l'ecuació de Hill. Estos mètodes es basen en una aproxmiació simplèctica eficient a la exponencial d'osciladors harmònics acoplats de dimensió alta i donen lloc a resultats precisos per a problemas oscilatoris a un cost computacional baix. La eficiencia dels mètodes s'il.lustra en diferents exemples numèrics. Conclusions i indicadors per a futurs estudis es detallen al capítol 6.
Seydaoglu, M. (2016). Splitting methods for autonomous and non-autonomous perturbed equations [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/71358
TESIS

How can a non-autonomous compaction roller be converted to become temporarily autonomous while it performs a 500hours endurance test? Particularlysince the compaction rollers in question is not built to be autonomous and shall not be autonomous after the endurance test is completed. The autonomous system shall also be adaptable to all compaction rollers which Dynapac is developing and shall be moved to another machine when the endurance test is completed. In this thesis a concept is engineered of how the whole autonomous system will work and a prototype is fabricated of how to convert the current manual mechanical steering to be performed by a computer. The steering prototype has been tested on a Dynapac CC4200 double drumasphalt compaction roller and worked as intended. To develop this, anextensive risk analysis is also established andwith it a requirements list of what's needed to be fulfilled when performing autonomous testing of a compaction roller. The work has been done using the method “design thinking” which is a collection of multiple methods to create new concepts and ideas. The final concept resulted in a navigation system which uses GNSS for path planning and limitation of the operation area. It also uses radar to detect foreign objects in its path to prevent a collision. Multiple systems arealso proposed to be used for malfunction detection of the roller, which is a major part of a human operator’sjob when testing out new machines. The test track for the machine was undefined and also hadto be engineeredas part of the concept. It resultedin closing the area of operation with a mesh fence to prevent access to the area from unauthorised personnel and geo-fence to prevent the machine from escaping. Access to the area is only granted to authorized personnel and only when the autonomous rolleris shut off. Due to the machines in question isn’t fully developed, theycan’t be trusted enough to have people inside the area of operation asthe autonomous machineis operating.
Hur kanen icke-autonom vägvältomvandlas tillatt bli tillfälligt autonom medan den utför ett 500timmar långttidsprov?Särskilt sedanvägvältenifrågainte ärbyggd för att vara autonom och ska intevara autonom efter attlångtidsprovetär slutfört. Det autonoma systemet skaävenkunna anpassas tillalla vältar som Dynapac utvecklar och ska flyttas till en annan maskin närlångtidsprovetär klart. Idenna avhandling konstrueras ett koncept för hur hela det autonoma systemet kommer att fungera ochenprototyp tillverkaspå hur man konverterar den nuvarande manuella mekaniska styrningen till attstyras av en dator. Styrprototypen testades på en Dynapac CC4200 asfaltsvält med dubbla valsar ochfungerade bra. En omfattande riskanalys utvecklades ochlika såen kravlista över vad som behöveruppnås vid autonom testning av en vägvält. Arbetet har gjorts med hjälp av metoden “designthinking”, vilket är en samling av flera metoder för att skapa nya koncept och idéer. Det slutgiltigakonceptet resulterade i ett navigationssystem som använder GNSS för navigering och begränsning avkörområdet. Den använder också radar för att upptäcka främmande föremål i sin vägvilketförhindrarkollision. Flera system föreslås användasförfunktionsfelsdetektering på välten, vilket är en viktig delav en mänskligoperatörs arbetevid provning av nya maskiner. Maskinen kommer att vara i ett slutetområde som är avskilt med ett nätstängsel.Tillträde till området ges endast till behörig personal ochendast när den autonoma välten är avstängd. På grund avmaskinerna ifråga inte är fullt utvecklade,kan de inte litas på tillräckligt för att ha personer inom körområdet medan det autonoma systemet är idrift.

The Hopping Rotochute is a promising micro vehicle with the capability of exploring rough and complex terrains with minimum energy consumption. While it is able to fly over obstacles via thrust produced by its coaxial rotor, its physical architecture, inspired from a "Weebles Wooble," provides re-orientation wherever it hits the ground. Therefore, this aerial and ground vehicle represents a potential hybrid vehicle capable of reconnaissance and surveillance missions in complex environments. The most recent version of the Hopping Rotochute is manually controlled to follow a trajectory. The control commands, listed in a file prior to the particular mission, are executed exactly as defined, like a "batch job," regardless of the uncertain external events. This control scheme is likely to cause great deviations from the route. Consequently, the vehicle may finish the mission very far away from the desired end point. However, if a vehicle is capable of receiving the control commands during a mission, "interactive processing" can be realized and efficient path tracking would be achieved. Hence, the development of the Hopping Rotochute that follows a trajectory autonomously reveals the foundation of this thesis. Two control approaches inspired the proposed methodology for developing an autonomous trajectory-following algorithm. The first approach is rule-based control that enables decision making through conditional statements. In this thesis, rule-based control is used to select a target point for a particular hop based on the existence of an obstacle and/or wind in the environment. The second approach is model predictive control employed to predict future outputs from hop performance models. In other words, this technique approaches the problem by providing intelligence pertaining to how a particular hop will end up before being attempted. Hence, the optimum control commands are selected based on the predicted performance of a particular hop. This research demonstrates that the autonomous Hopping Rotochute can be realized by rule-based control embedded with some performance models. In the assumption of known boundaries such as wall and ceiling information, this study has two aims: (1) to avoid obstacles by creating a smaller operational volume inside the real boundaries so that the vehicle is restricted from exiting the operational volume and no violation occurs within the real boundaries; (2) to estimate the wind by previous hops to select the next hopping point with respect to the estimated wind information. Based on the developed methodology, simulations are conducted for four different scenarios in the existence of obstacles and/or wind, and the results of the simulations are analyzed. Finally, based on the statistics of simulation results, the effectiveness of the proposed methodology is discussed.

In this thesis we have designed and implemented components for an autonomoussystem for material re handling in the construction business, an autonomouswheel loader. Our achievements was at the end of this thesis demonstratedon a prototype machine. Our main contribution to the autonomous wheelloader is a new software platform design, with this new platform future expansionsis made easier. We have also developed several software components forthis platform that solves tasks required for autonomous operation with the wheelloader the most important listed below.ˆ Mission state machineˆ Vision algorithm, detect and parametrizes a load receiver (in this thesis ahauler) from LiDAR scanner dataˆ Translation algorithm, translate the wheel loader to a dynamic target andthere empty the payloadLow level development on the vision system of the autonomous wheel loaderwas also required to bee able to reach the target of the thesis. We have implementeda communication driver and a API for a LiDAR scanner and a API for aservo controller. A mechanical xture have been designed in CAD, manufacturingof this xture was achieved using a CNC mill.
I det här examensarbetet har designat och implementerat komponenter till ettsystem för automatiserad materialhantering i anläggningsbranschen, en autonomhjullastare. Examensarbetet avslutas med en uppvisning av den prototyp somvi implementerat våra komponenter på. Vårt främsta bidrag till systemet är enny mjukvarudesign, med det nya upplägget har det blivit enklare att integreranya komponenter i systemet. Förutom plattformen så har vi tagit fram komponenteroch lösningar för era delsystem som krävs för autonom operation medhjullastaren, dessa har vi listat några av dessa nedan.ˆ Tillståndsmaskin för hantering av övergripande uppdrag.ˆ Bildbehandlingsalgoritmer, som utifrån LiDAR data parametriserar lastmottagaren(i detta examensarbete en dumper)ˆ Dynamisk translationsalgoritm, denna används för att genomföra en tömningssekvenspå en godtycklig koordinat.Mycket jobb har även lagts på utveckling av underliggande system och funktionalitet,bland annat har vi implementerat kommunikations protokoll och APIför en LiDAR skanner samt ett API för en servo controller. Vi har också konstrueraten mekanisk vagga för LiDAR skannern och servomotorn i CAD, dennakonstruktion tillverkade vi senare i en CNC fräs.

Thesis (M.Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2003.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 71-73).
As the face of warfare changes, the military has started to explore the application of robotics on the battlefield. Robots give soldiers a flexible, technologically advanced, disposable set of eyes and ears to assist them with their goal. This thesis deals with the design and implementation of a system to allow a small highly mobile tactical robot to climb stairs autonomously. A subsumption architecture is used to coordinate and control the maneuver. Various approaches to the problem including evolved architectures and use of contraction analysis are explored. Code was written and tested for functionality with basic test software. The functionality of parts of the system and control architecture was tested on the robot in a simulated operational environment.
by Kailas Narendran.
M.Eng.

The purpose of this study was to investigate novel methods on an unmanned sailing boat, which enables it to sail fully autonomously, navigate safely, and perform long-term missions. The author used robotic sailing boat prototypes for field experiments as his main research method. Two robotic sailing boats have been developed especially for this purpose. A compact software model of a sailing boat's behaviour allowed for further evaluation of routing and obstacle avoidance methods in a computer simulation. The results of real-world experiments and computer simulations are validated against each other. It has been demonstrated that autonomous boat sailing is possible by the effective combination of appropriate new and novel techniques that will allow autonomous sailing boats to create appropriate routes, to react properly on obstacles and to carry out sailing manoeuvres by controlling rudder and sails. Novel methods for weather routing, collision avoidance, and autonomous manoeuvre execution have been proposed and successfully demonstrated. The combination of these techniques in a layered hybrid subsumption architecture make robotic sailing boats a promising tool for many applications, especially in ocean observation.

Automation in mining industry is one of the important research and application areas of artificial intelligence. Also it is one of the key areas that autonomous vehicle technology being built upon. In order to accomplish autonomous driving, researchers get help from many different areas such as computer science, mechanical engineering, mathematics, and even psychology, and many more areas. With the current speed of technological development, in the near future, it will be inevitable that autonomous driving will be reality in many areas including mining areas, public and private transportation. It is obvious that autonomous vehicles will be major type of transportation when benefits of autonomous vehicles realized by the public. In this work, a lighting system for autonomous mining vehicle that has never been truly and intensively studied was developed. In this study, a state-of-the-art lighting system was designed and tested for realization of autonomous mining vehicle. Not only lighting system but also cleaning system for the surfaces of headlamps, sensors, and cameras has been developed and two patent application has been made. Also human vehicle interaction was studied.
Automation i gruvindustrin är ett av de viktigaste forsknings- och tillämpningsområdena för artificiell intelligens. Det är också ett av nyckelområdena för autonom fordonsteknik. För att åstadkomma autonom körning, behöver forskare ta hjälp från många olika områden såsom t.ex. datavetenskap, maskinteknik, matematik men även psykologi. Med den nuvarande teknikutvecklingshastigheten så kommer det inom en snar framtid vara fullt möjligt för autonom körning att bli verklighet inom områden såsom t.ex. gruvnäringen samt offentliga och privata transporter. Det är uppenbart att förflyttning med autonoma fordon kommer vara en viktig typ av transport när fördelarna med autonoma fordon går upp för allmänheten. Detta arbete fokuserar på ett belysningssystem för ett autonomt gruvfordon, ett område som inte tidigare blivit särskilt ordentligt studerat. I denna studie har ett modernt belysningssystem utformats och testats för användande i autonoma gruvfordon. Studien täcker inte bara belysningssystemet utan även rengöringssystem för belysningsenheter, sensorer och kameror. Två patentansökningar har lämnats in. Även samspelet mellan människa och fordon har studerats.

This work discusses the algorithms and implementation of a multi-robot system for locating radioactive sources. The estimation algorithm presented in this work is able to fuse measurements collected by γ-ray spectrometers carried by an unmanned aerial and unmanned ground vehicle into a single consistent estimate of the probability distribution over the position of a point source in an environment. By constructing a set of hypotheses on the position of the point source, this method converts a non-linear problem into many independent linear ones. Since the underlying model is probabilistic, candidate paths may be evaluated by their expected reduction in uncertainty, allowing the algorithm to select good paths for vehicles to take. An initial hardware test conducted at Savannah River National Laboratory served as a proof of concept and demonstrated that the algorithm successfully locates a radioactive source in the environment, and moves the vehicle to that location. This approach also demonstrated the capability to utilize radiation data collected from an unmanned aerial vehicle to aid the ground vehicle’s exploration. Subsequent numerical experiments characterized the performance of several reward functions and different exploration algorithms in scenarios covering a range of source strengths and region sizes. These experiments demonstrated the improved performance of planning-based algorithms over the myopic method initially tested in the hardware experiments.
Doctor of Philosophy
This work discusses the use of unmanned aerial and ground vehicles to autonomously locate radioactive materials. Using radiation detectors onboard each vehicle, they are commanded to search the environment using a method that incorporates measurements as they are collected. A mathematical model allows measurements taken from different vehicles in different positions to be combined together. This approach decreases the time required to locate sources by using previously collected measurements to improve the quality of later measurements. This approach also provides a best estimate of the location of a source as data is collected. This algorithm was tested in an experiment conducted at Savannah River National Laboratory. Further numerical experiments were conducted testing different reward functions and exploration algorithms.

Lack of healthcare assistance is one of the issues that European countries such as Sweden face due to the increase of the ageing phenomenon which leads to a higher demand for personnel in hospitals, basic attendance, and housing. Therefore, a tool is clearly required to fulfil these social needs. The thesis focuses on the elderly but especially on those with reduced mobility and develops a wheeled domestic mobile robot whose objective is to deliver their pills at the right time of the day. The main goal is the implementation of automatic drug delivery. The project presents a selection of the most suitable wheel-based robot, and a study and evaluation of different techniques and algorithms used for indoor positioning, navigation, facial recognition, and a communication interface between the patient and the robot. The robot used for the development of this thesis was the TurtleBot3 Burger and was evaluated upon a map created using the Hector SLAM method. Results showed that the Bluetooth technology (iBeacon), as well as the trilateration algorithm, are suitable choices for detecting a human in an indoor environment; a successful average drift error of 0.83 metres was obtained for indoor localization, and further results showed the facial recognition system achieved an accuracy of around 90%. It is concluded that the robot is capable of reaching and identifying the patient in an indoor environment, and so this project can be considered as the first step of implementation of a totally autonomous medical robot ready for domestic use.

This work discusses autonomous computing systems, as implemented in hardware, and the properties required for such systems to function. Particular attention is placed on shifting the associated complexity into the systems themselves, and making them responsible for their own resources and operation. The resulting systems present simpler interfaces to their environments, and are able to respond to changes within themselves or their environments with little or no outside intervention. This work proposes a roadmap for the development of autonomous computing systems, and shows that their individual components can be implemented with present day technology. This work further implements a proof-of-concept demonstration system that advances the state-of-the-art. The system detects activity on connected inputs, and responds to the conditions without external assistance. It works from mapped netlists, that it dynamically parses, places, routes, configures, connects, and implements within itself, at the finest granularity available, while continuing to run. The system also models itself and its resource usage, and keeps that model synchronized with the changes that it undergoes—a critical requirement for autonomous systems. Furthermore, because the system assumes responsibility for its resources, it is able to dynamically avoid resources that have been masked out, in a manner suitable for defect tolerance.
Ph. D.

Nowadays, it is of crucial importance for the manufacturing industry to be prepared for the application and understanding of autonomous mobile robots. Given this fact, educational institutions have to provide knowledge and experience to students. These autonomous mobile robots are made and controlled using different platforms and programming languages. Currently, the University of Skövde wishes to expand the range of tools to be available for building and experimenting with autonomous robots. For this purpose, this thesis project has two main goals. The first goal is finding the best available robotic platform for small scale, self-built, programmable robots. Such a platform has to include all the hardware necessary for later implementation with the software. The platform is evaluated in this thesis following different criteria. The second goal is to build a robot using the chosen platform. The robot has to perform a certain task taking advantage of its specific hardware. The development of the task has been achieved using the Robot Operative System (ROS). This thesis provides step by step instructions of how to build the platform and perform the task.

Thesis: S.M. in Architecture Studies (Urbanism), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, 2019
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 104-105).
Innovations in transportation give us a chance to rethink and redefine the art of city design, centered as much on the quality of public space as on economic efficiency. Transportation is the backbone of urbanism. What is a city if not a group of buildings distributed in space and thus functioning together. Historically, innovations in transportation challenged the temporal and spatial qualities of the city. The automobile expanded the city in breadth. The elevator built it up in height. However, with the expansion of the city size, density and prosperity, we have sacrificed public domain, and worsened of the quality of the urban form. This thesis looks into the relationships between transportation technology as a driver and space as a medium of urban design. With the rapid introduction of new technologies in transportation (autonomous vehicles) there is an opportunity to rethink the aesthetics of the urban form and its perception. Through design research, this thesis seeks to synthesize principles of spatial design and propose potential alternatives to the future of urbanism. Keywords: Aesthetic urbanism, Perception of space, Autonomous Transportation
by Pavlo Kryvozub.
S.M. in Architecture Studies (Urbanism)
S.M.inArchitectureStudies(Urbanism) Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture

Since the 1970s the technology within autonomous systems has been a fast-growing subject, the main reasons be-ing an increased interest in automation and decreased prices of sensors and hardware components. There is a wide range of different complexities within different autonomous systems, but this thesis will contribute to an understanding of the basic principles in an autonomous system and its components. This is made by constructing an autonomous beverage dispenser that will fill a glass, re-gardless of its size, with a certain level of liquid. The pur-pose of this thesis is therefore to construct a demonstrator that illustrates how individual components can create an autonomous system. To make it possible, an ultrasonic sensor and a peristaltic pump will fill the glass with a certain level of liquid. Another ultrasonic sensor together with a linear actuator are used to make the system adaptable to different sizes of glasses. With this setup and combining them through a microcontroller the two modules will act as an autonomous system. The performance of the demonstrator was evaluated by measuring the errors of the registered liquid level in the different glasses. Two other experiments were conducted, but on each module individually. The experiments conducted on this system showed results that were within the scope, but there are future improvements that can be made and expansions to support the knowledge of autonomous sys-tems even more.
Under de senaste 50 åren har teknologin inom automa-tisering ökat kraftigt, vilket speglas i dagens samhälle där många produkter helt eller delvis är automatiserade. Den främsta anledningen till detta är att intresset inom området ökat i samband med att priser på ingående komponenter minskat. Idag finns det ett stort spektrum av olika komplexa au-tomatiserade produkter, men vad denna rapport riktar in sig pa˚ är att ge en förståelse för grunderna inom ett autonomt system och hur denna byggs upp av olika ingående komponenter. För att konkretisera detta kommer en auto-nom dryckesautomat konstrueras, vilken ska fylla ett glas med en godtycklig form till en given nivå. Syftet med denna rapport är således att konstruera en prototyp som ska konkretisera hur individuella ingående komponenter kan bygga upp ett autonomt system. Detta möjliggörs genom att systemet delas upp i två moduler. I den första modulen ingår en ultraljudssensor och en peristaltik pump som tillsammans ska fylla glaset med den givna nivån av vätska. Den andra modulen består av en ultraljudssensor och en linjäraktuator och dessa används för att göra systemet mer anpassbar till glas av olika storlekar. Detta upplägg och kombinationen av komponenter kommer att skapa ett autonomt system genom att koppla samman modulerna med hjälp av en mikrokontroller. Systemets prestanda mäts genom att utföra tester på med hur bra precision systemet kan leverera en önskad mängd vätskenivå till olika glas. Utöver detta test kommer ytterligare två individuella tester genomföras på de två modulerna. De utförda experimenten uppnådde godkända resultat som var inom projektets ramar, men en vidareutveckling av projektet skulle kunna främja en ökad förståelse av autonoma system samt minska felen.

Senescent cells interact with the surrounding microenvironment achieving both pro- oncogenic and tumour-suppressive outcomes. In addition to autocrine and paracrine signalling mediated by factors of the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP), we have recently identified that NOTCH1 can drive a unique form of senescence in adjacent cells via juxtacrine signalling. Here, we show that NOTCH1 signalling confers a dramatic impact on chromatin structure during senescence. RAS-induced senescent (RIS) fibroblasts often develop chromatin structures called senescence-associated heterochromatic foci (SAHF). We find that NOTCH1 inhibits SAHF formation at least partially through transcriptional repression of a critical structural component, high-mobility group A (HMGA). Using ATAC-sequencing (assay for transposase accessible chromatin) we demonstrate that nucleosome positioning is substantially altered in RIS and that this re-distribution is also antagonised by NOTCH1, resulting in a distinct chromatin landscape. Importantly, normal or cancer cells that express the NOTCH ligand jagged-1 can drive similar chromatin structural changes in adjacent cells in a cell-cell contact dependent manner. In addition, using a highly optimised chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP-seq) protocol and the proximity ligation assay ‘Hi-C’, we demonstrate that HMGA proteins are directly involved in the formation of long-range interactions in RIS cells that may underpin SAHF formation. These ChIP-seq data have also allowed us to identify a unique HMGA1 binding profile, potentially suggesting a novel role for HMGA1 in gene regulation. Together, our data indicate that NOTCH signalling, both cell-autonomously and non-cell-autonomously, can repress HMGA1, a multi-faceted protein that regulates nucleosome positioning (1D structure), SAHF formation (3D structure) and potentially mRNA abundance.

Stomata are entry sites for bacterial pathogens and can affect the outcome of infection to the disadvantage of the pathogen. This is referred to as stomatal immunity. Guard cells can mediate certain responses in a cell-autonomous manner, but this question remains to be addressed for pathogen-induced stomatal closure. This study reports transient and stable transgenic approaches to study guard cell responses. I employed virus-induced gene silencing and guard cell-specific promoters to investigate guard cell autonomy and non-autonomous signalling events during pathogen-induced stomatal closure. Plants that express FLAGELLIN SENSING 2 (FLS2) only in the guard cells retained stomatal closure to flg22 and wild-type-like susceptibility levels to bacterial infection. Interestingly, guard cell-specific knock-down of FLS2 did not impair stomatal closure or resistance to bacteria, suggesting that non-autonomous signalling events can mediate stomatal closure during pathogen invasion. Screening mutants of abscisic acid (ABA) signalling components revealed that pathogen-induced stomatal closure is independent from the prototypic drought stomatal closure pathway. I showed that OPEN STOMATA 1 is not involved in pathogen-induced stomatal closure and that it was inactive after flg22 treatment. Instead, the mutant of a related kinase SUCROSE NON-FERMENTING RECEPTOR KINASE 2.3 (SnRK2.3) was impaired in its flg22 stomatal closure response suggesting that SnRK2.3 plays an important role in this response. SnRK2.3 interacted with BOTRYRIS-INDUCED KINASE 1 in split-YFP and co-immunoprecipitation assays. Interestingly, the PBS1-like 1 (PBL1) mutant was impaired in flg22-induced stomatal closure and PBL1 activated SLOW ANION CHANNEL-ASSOCIATED 1 HOMOLOGUE 3 (SLAH3) in oocyte measurements. This suggests PBL1 as major player in MAMP-induced stomatal closure. My data reveal that aspects of stomatal immunity involve both guard cell-specific signalling events and non-symplastic cell-to-cell signalling. This work implicates independence of ABA- and pathogen-induced stomatal closure pathways and PBL1 as major regulator through direct activation of the anion channel SLAH3.

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2016.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 223-234).
Semi-autonomous and autonomous vehicles have been of interest for reasons such as safety, efficiency, and convenience. The thesis proposes a homotopy-based hierarchical motion planning and control framework for vehicle navigation. A homotopy is, roughly speaking, a set of trajectories with the same high-level navigation decision. The motivation of the proposed hierarchical framework based on homotopy class is twofold: compatibility with humans decision and computational benefits. The approach explicitly identifies and enumerates feasible homotopy classes corresponding to different navigation decisions allowing for interaction with a human operator/ supervisor. Also, the approach has computational benefits, specifically enabling a divide-and-conquer strategy. In a collision-free trajectory generation problem, the presence of obstacles serves to creating discontinuities in the set of feasible trajectories. However, the complexity can be reduced significantly if we independently consider multiple distinct continuous sets of feasible trajectories, where no discontinuity is created. The thesis first presents a method for enumeration and representation of the navigation decisions by cell sequences to divide a collision-free vehicle navigation problem using cell decomposition. Then, it proposes a sampling-based method to evaluate the desirability of each navigation decisions in terms of control input safety margin. In order to make a vehicle navigate safely within a chosen navigation decision, a model predictive control framework is utilized with a corresponding navigation decision constraint. The constraint is non-convex, but a sequence of convex cells is prescribed in advance. An efficient formulation of the problem into mixed integer programming is proposed and validated in the thesis. Finally, a user study in a driving simulator shows that users accept semi-autonomous/ autonomous vehicles based on the proposed framework on highways as much as regular vehicles.
by Junghee Park.
Ph. D.

Thesis: Ph. D., Joint Program in Oceanography/Applied Ocean Science and Engineering (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering; and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), 2015.
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. Vita.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 203-213).
The capabilities of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and their ability to perform tasks both autonomously and adaptively are rapidly improving, and the desire to quickly and efficiently sample the ocean environment as Earth's climate changes and natural disasters occur has increased significantly in the last decade. As such, this thesis proposes to develop a method for single and multiple AUVs to collaborate autonomously underwater while autonomously adapting their motion to changes in their local environments, allowing them to sample and track various features of interest with greater efficiency and synopticity than previously possible with preplanned AUV or ship-based surveys. This concept is demonstrated to work in field testing on multiple occasions: with a single AUV autonomously and adaptively tracking the depth range of a thermocline or acousticline, and with two AUVs coordinating their motion to collect a data set in which internal waves could be detected. This research is then taken to the next level by exploring the problem of adaptively and autonomously tracking spatiotemporally dynamic underwater fronts and plumes using individual and autonomously collaborating AUVs.
by Stephanie Marie Petillo.
Ph. D.

Before vehicles that go to sale for public it goes through many stages of testing in different fields. All types of pre-production cars are the vehicles that come after prototypes which allow the OEM to find out possible issues by running different categories of tests. One of the most important fields of test is regarding safety. When it comes to autonomous cars, where safety is crucial, the number of tests to carry out, time for handling them and their complexity is increased. To reduce costs, complexity and time some of them might be simulated. After the analysis is done the cars have to be tested in real time to collect more data, not only from car sensors but also through observation from the tests filmed. This thesis contains an overview of whole project leading to develop an autonomous platform, driving after autonomous car and controlled by simulation environment and solving major issues of the project. The filming of autonomous cars remotely had two major issues. One of the issues was to integrate all the different software and platforms. The trajectories of the autonomous cars were controlled in different software and the trajectories of the RC were managed in different software. The solution to integrate all the software and platforms is shown in this thesis. The second issue was to make the RC car to follow the waypoints that are generated by simulation and by communicating with real car using a PID controller. The project is prepared for future improvements, like installing a camera to the RC car which will follow predefined test independently.

This thesis presents the integration of an acoustic tracking system within an autonomous underwater AUV (AUV) to enable real-time tracking of sharks tagged with artificial acoustic sources. The tracking system consists of two hydrophones and a receiver unit that outputs a measurement of the relative angle to the tagged shark. Since only two hydrophones are used, the sign of the relative angle measurement is unknown. To overcome this ambiguity, a particle filter algorithm was developed to estimate the position of the acoustic source. When combined with an active control system that drives vehicle to obtain different orientations with respect to the acoustic source, real-time autonomous localization, tracking, and following of a tagged shark is shown to be possible. Four types of ocean experiments were used to validate the system including: 1) AUV tracking of a stationary tag, 2) AUV tracking of a tagged kayak, 3) AUV tracking of a tagged AUV, and 4) AUV tracking of a tagged shark. These experiments were analyzed with respect to the localization error, associated error variance, and distance between the AUV and the tag. The final shark tracking experiments took place in SeaPlane Lagoon, Los Angeles, CA, where the AUV was able to autonomously track and follow a tagged Leopard Shark for several hours.

This project is concerned with an investigation of simple communication between ANN-controlled mobile robots. Two robots are trained on a (seemingly) simple navigation task: to stay close to each other while avoiding collisions with each other and other obstacles.

A simple communication scheme is used: each of the robots receives some of the other robots’ outputs as inputs for an algorithm which produces extra inputs for the ANNs controlling the robots.

In the experiments documented here the desired cooperation was achieved. The different problems are analysed with experiments, and it is concluded that it is not easy to gain cooperation between autonomous mobile robots by using only output from one robot as input for the other in ANNs.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have a tremendous appeal. One can imagine a large number of applications such as search-and-rescue, traffic monitoring, aerial mapping, etc. Helicopters are particularly attractive due to their Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) capabilities. The research on UAVs has shown rapid development in recent years, and offers a great number of challenges. This thesis is the result of a project which is a part of the Autonomous Remote Controlled Helicopter (ARCH) project at the Department of Computer and Information Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology. The ARCH project has already gained public interest, when it was featured on a television program (Schrödingers katt, NRK. September 2004). The object of this thesis is divided into three main sections. Firstly, it is to create and describe a remote control system for controlling the UAV in semi-autonomous mode, that will also enable the UAV to autonomously follow objects (pursuit-mode). Secondly, it is to create and describe a virtual cockpit which is to be used with the remote control system. Finally, it is to create and describe an image stabilization system, which can stabilize the visual information sent from the UAV to the ground and the virtual cockpit. These three components have been combined and integrated into the client prototype called ARCH Groundstation. Together, these three components provides a platform for an operator to control the ARCH UAV in semi-autonomous mode.

This thesis presents actuators used in autonomous microsystems. Characteristic for all actuators presented is the low drive voltage and the low power consumption. Different motion mechanisms have been studied and applied in various locomotion modules for microrobots. High resolution movement of a monolithic piezoceramic PZT rotational arm module, using a quasi-static motion mechanism, was demonstrated in a 10x10x20 mm3 autonomous robot. The rotational arm comprises multilayer PZT bimorphs and is fabricated by a wet-building technology. The multilayer approach enables operation of the modules at the low drive voltages provided by the robot electronics. In addition a locomotion module has been designed and fabricated based on the above principles. A three-legged locomotion module with piezoceramic unimorphs, moving by tapping the legs against the floor, has been investigated. Characteristics such as low power consumption, high velocities, low drive voltages and a high weight carrying capability were demonstrated using a resonant motion mechanism. Highly miniaturized three-legged locomotion modules were developed for a 3x3x3 mm3 autonomous microrobot. The modules comprise a multilayer structure of the electroactive copolymer P(VDF-TrFE) on a flexible printed circuit board (FPC) substrate. A novel multilayer fabrication process suitable for mass production was used. It is based on sequential deposition of spun cast copolymer with evaporated aluminum electrodes. Reactive ion etching is used to microstructure the copolymer and the FPC. The mechanical deformability of the FPC is exploited when folding the 2D FPC-multilayer assembly into 3D locomotion modules. Locomotion was demonstrated by moving a glass slider corresponding to the robot weight. A modular building technology for microsystems is presented. It uses surface mounting technology and conductive adhesives to assemble modules on a double-sided FPC. Complex geometries were achieved by subsequent folding the FPC. The feasibility of the technology was demonstrated by assembly of the 3x3x3 mm3 autonomous microrobots.

A web crawler provides an automated way to discover web events ? creation, deletion, or updates of web pages. Competition among web crawlers results in redundant crawling, wasted resources, and less-than-timely discovery of such events. This thesis presents a cooperative sharing crawler algorithm and sharing protocol. Without resorting to altruistic practices, competing (yet cooperative) web crawlers can mutually share discovered web events with one another to maintain a more accurate representation of the web than is currently achieved by traditional polling crawlers. The choice to share or merge is entirely up to an individual crawler: sharing is the act of allowing a crawler M to access another crawler's web-event data (call this crawler S), and merging occurs when crawler M requests web-event data from crawler S. Crawlers can choose to share with competing crawlers if it can help reduce contention between peers for resources associated with the act of crawling. Crawlers can choose to merge from competing peers if it helps them to maintain a more accurate representation of the web at less cost than directly polling web pages. Crawlers can control how often they choose to merge through the use of a parameter ρ, which dictates the percentage of time spent either polling or merging with a peer. Depending on certain conditions, pathological behaviour can arise if polling or merging is the only form of data collection. Simulations of communities of simple cooperating web crawlers successfully show that a combination of polling and merging (0 < ρ < 1) can allow an individual member of the cooperating community a higher degree of accuracy in their representation of the web as compared to a traditional polling crawler. Furthermore, if web crawlers are allowed to evaluate their own performance, they can dynamically switch between periods of polling and merging to still perform better than traditional crawlers. The mutual performance gain increases as more crawlers are added to the community.

The usage of a robotic simulator hasprovidedthe advantages of the efficientdevelopment and testing of robotics applications, saving time and resources and making easier publics demonstrations. This thesis project consists on the simulation of a wheel loader at an industrial environment inthe cycle of material handling. For the development of the Project have been used the Robot Operating System (ROS) and Gazebo frameworks which allows to reproduce the 3D map of the work site as well as the robotic wheel loaderand simulate it in a realistic way. The developed softwarealsoprovidesthemechanism to drive the wheel loader throughthereproduced terrain, to controlthe movement of the different articulated joints of the robot, to recompile information of the environmentthroughdifferent sensors (Laser, Odometry, GPS, IMU, etc) and to provide of a waypoint routes to the robot. Furthermore the simulator will be able to reproduce and integrate an asphalt plant modelto the scenario. Allowing an interaction with the wheel loader, this will transport gravel from the piles of the terrain to the pocket of the asphalt plant.

Developments in distributed system technology facilitate the sharing of resources, even at a global level. This thesis explores sharing computational resources using mobile computations, agents, and autonomic techniques. We propose autonomous mobile programs (AMPs) which are aware of their resource needs and sensitive to the environment in which they execute. AMPs periodically use a cost model to decide where to execute in a network. Unusually this form of autonomous mobility affects only where the program executes and not what it does. We present a generic AMP cost modei, together with a validated instantiation and comparative performance results for four AMPs. We demonstrate that AMPs are able to dynamically relocate themselves to minimise execution time in the presence of varying network resources. Collections of AMPs effectively perform decentralised dynamic load balancing. Experiments on small LANs show that collections of AMPs quickly obtain and maintain optimal or near-optimal ball1nce. The advantages of our decentralised approach are that it has the potential to scale to very large and dynamic networks, and to achieve improved balance, and offers guarantees to limit overheads under reasonable assumptions. In an autonomous mobile program, the program must contain explicit control of self-aware mobile coordination. To encapsulate this for common patterns of computation over collections, autonomous mobility skeletons (AMSs) are proposed. These are akin to algorithmic skeletons in being polymorphic higher order functions, but where algorithmic skeletons abstract over parallel coordination, AMSs abstract over autonomous mobile coordination. AMS cost models have been built over collection iterations. The automap, autofold and Autolterator AMSs are presented, together with performance measurements for Jocaml, Java Voyager, and JavaGo implementations on LANs. An AMS considers only the cost of the current collective computation, but it is more useful to know the cost of the entire program. We have extended our AMS cost models to be parameterised on the cost of the remainder of the program. A cost calculus to estimate the costs for the remainder of a computation at arbitrary points has been built. An automatic Jocaml cost analyser based oil the calculus produces cost equations parameterised on program variables in context, and may be used to find both cost in higher-order functions and the cost for the remainder of the program. Costed autonomous mobility skeletons (CAMSs) have been built, which not only encapsulate common patterns of autonomous mobility but take additional cost parameters to provide costs for the remainder of the program. Potential performance improvements are assessed by comparing CAMS to AMS programs. The results show that CAMS programs perform more effectively than AMS programs, because they have more accurate cost information. Hence a CAMS program may move to a faster location when the corresponding AMS program does not.

This report covers the basic approach to creating a new multirotor design. All the way from creating a concept, through design requirements and finally evaluation. Both control algorithms and system design is covered. The main problem solved is that of the danger of naked propellers used on most multirotor drones and how to make them safer and easier to fly in populated areas.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2003.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 175-185).
Deep-sea archaeology, an emerging application of autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) technology, requires precise navigation and guidance. As science requirements and engineering capabilities converge, navigating in the sensor-limited ocean remains a fundamental challenge. Despite the logistical cost, the standards of archaeological survey necessitate using fixed acoustic transponders - an instrumented navigation environment. This thesis focuses on the problems particular to operating precisely within such an environment by developing a design method and a navigation algorithm. Responsible documentation, through remote sensing images, distinguishes archaeology from salvage, and fine-resolution imaging demands precision navigation. This thesis presents a design process for making component and algorithm level tradeoffs to achieve system-level performance satisfying the archaeological standard. A specification connects the functional requirements of archaeological survey with the design parameters of precision navigation. Tools based on estimation fundamentals - the Cram6r-Rao lower bound and the extended Kalman filter - predict the system-level precision of candidate designs. Non-dimensional performance metrics generalize the analysis results. Analyzing a variety of factors and levels articulates the key tradeoffs: sensor selection, acoustic beacon configuration, algorithm selection, etc. The abstract analysis is made concrete by designing a survey and navigation system for an expedition to image the USS Monitor. Hypothesis grid (Hgrid) is both a representation of the sensed environment and an algorithm for building the representation. Range observations measuring the line-of-sight distance between two acoustic transducers are subject to multipath errors and spurious returns.
The quality of this measurement is dependent on the location of the estimator. Hgrids characterize the measurement quality by generating a priori association probabilities - the belief that subsequent measurements will correspond to the direct-path, a multipath, or an outlier - as a function of the estimated location. The algorithm has three main components: the mixed-density sensor model using Gaussian and uniform probability distributions, the measurement classification and multipath model identification using expectation-maximization (EM), and the grid-based spatial representation. Application to data from an autonomous benthic explorer (ABE) dive illustrates the algorithm and shows the feasibility of the approach.
by Brian Steven Bingham.
Ph.D.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2010.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 105-113).
In this thesis we address the problem of drift-free navigation for underwater vehicles performing harbor surveillance and ship hull inspection. Maintaining accurate localization for the duration of a mission is important for a variety of tasks, such as planning the vehicle trajectory and ensuring coverage of the area to be inspected. Our approach uses only onboard sensors in a simultaneous localization and mapping setting and removes the need for any external infrastructure like acoustic beacons. We extract dense features from a forward-looking imaging sonar and apply pair-wise registration between sonar frames. The registrations are combined with onboard velocity, attitude and acceleration sensors to obtain an improved estimate of the vehicle trajectory. In addition, an architecture for a persistent mapping is proposed. With the intention of handling long term operations and repetitive surveillance tasks. The proposed architecture is flexible and supports different types of vehicles and mapping methods. The design of the system is demonstrated with an implementation of some of the key features of the system. In addition, methods for re-localization are considered. Finally, results from several experiments that demonstrate drift-free navigation in various underwater environments are presented.
by Hordur Johannsson.
S.M.

Thesis (MSc (Mathematical Sciences. Computer SCience))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009.
In this thesis we consider the dynamic path planning problem for robotics. The dynamic path planning problem, in short, is the task of determining an optimal path, in terms of minimising a given cost function, from one location to another within a known environment of moving obstacles. Our goal is to investigate a number of well-known path planning algorithms, to determine for which circumstances a particular algorithm is best suited, and to propose changes to existing algorithms to make them perform better in dynamic environments. At this stage no thorough comparison of theoretical and actual running times of path planning algorithms exist. Our main goal is to address this shortcoming by comparing some of the wellknown path planning algorithms and our own improvements to these path planning algorithms in a simulation environment. We show that the visibility graph representation of the environment combined with the A* algorithm provides very good results for both path length and computational cost, for a relatively small number of obstacles. As for a grid representation of the environment, we show that the A* algorithm produces good paths in terms of length and the amount of rotation and it requires less computation than dynamic algorithms such as D* and D* Lite.

This project focused on building a GPS controlled 6-wheel autonomous robot. It is a self-guided autonomous robot, which can be maneuvered with the help of GPS module and compass together interfaced with the microcontroller Arduino Mega. The 6-wheels of the robot are interfaced with monster motor shield and then connected to the Arduino Mega. The speed of the robot is controlled using PWM signals sent from the Arduino board. When the robot starts, it locates its current position using the GPS module. The destination coordinates are already given in the code. Once the current location is fixed, it calculates the distance and heading between the two points. The compass module tells the current heading of the robot. The final heading is calculated by taking the difference between actual heading and current heading. With the help of final heading angle, the robot moves towards its desired location. As the robot moves close to the destination the distance reduces. The minimum distance is predefined as 5 meters in the algorithm since the precision of GPS module is within the range of 5 to 6 meters. Once the distance is less than 5 meters the robot stops, assuming it has reached to the destination location.

The purpose of building this robot was to guide the robot to multiple locations autonomously with the destination locations predefined in the algorithm. To maneuver the robot to the multiple locations it is very important to calculate the accurate distance and heading. For this project, the main task was to design an algorithm that can calculate the exact distance between any two locations and guide the robot in the proper direction. The motors used for this project have high torque and the updating speed of the GPS module is slow. It was very important to keep the speed of the motor very low and change the speed of the motor only when there was a need to change the direction of the robot. The algorithm designed was able to fulfill these tasks and guided the robot to multiple locations and reach the final destination.

Today the industry is constantly getting more automated. Every machine need an algorithm to run and some even need to make decisions in how to perform their tasks in the best way. These problems can be as large as transportation systems, or as small as solving a puzzle. The 3D-puzzle known as Rubik’s cube have enticed millions of people since its release in mid 1970s. With 43 quintillion possible combinations the Rubik’s cube present a complex problem that requires both logical thinking and memorization. Recently Rubik’s Cube community has seen a rise of robots that can automatically solve a Rubik’s Cube.The goal of this Bachelor’s Thesis is to investigate the e˙ect of di˙erent solving algorithms on the energy consumption of a mechanical system. The Demonstrator system we will use is a Rubik’s cube solver that can solve any scrambled cube. This is done by optically scanning the cube and building a virtual image of it. Two di˙erent solving algorithms will be run in order to solve the cube and calculate the required permutations. The energy consumption in the two cases of the algorithms will be calculated and compared. From this data, conclusions regarding choice of algorithm will be made. A more complex algorithm that results in fewer moves will be more energy eÿcient, at least under the circumstances that the computation cost is ignored. When compared, the optimized algorithm only used 8% of the simpler version.
Dagens industrier blir allt mer och mer automatiserad. Varje maskin behöver en algoritm för att fungra, och vissa maskiner måste även ta beslut om hur de ska utföra sin uppgift på bästa vis. Dessa problem kan vara allt från stora transportproblem, till att lösa små pussel. 3D pusslet Rubiks Kub har fänglsat miljoner människor sedan det skapades i mitten av 1970-talet. Med 43 Kvin-tiljoner möjliga kombinationer är Rubiks Kub ett komplicerat problem som kräver både logiskt tänkande och memorisering. Senaste trenden är att skapa robotar som löser kuben automatiskt.Målet med detta kandiatprojekt är att utreda kopplingen mellan val av lös-ningsalgoritm och energiåtgången för ett mekaniskat system. För att genomföra utredningen ska vi andvända oss av en kubiks kub lösare som kan automatiskt lösa en kub från alla positioner. Den fungerar genom att kuben läses in optiskt och så skapas en virituell kopia. Två olika lösningsalgoritmer kommer att köras för att lösa kuben och deras resultat i energiåtgång kommer att gämföras. Från denna data kommer slutsatser att dras om de två algoritmerna. En mer kom-pliserad algoritm som kräver färre drag kommer att vara mer energie˙ektivt, åtminstånde när man ignorerar beräkningskostnad och dess energi. Vi kom fram till att en optimerad algoritm andvände bara 8% av energin jämför med en simplare algoritm.

Time keeps on changing our perception of what is possible in our personal life and around us. Over time, jobs such as elevator operator was essential to make the elevator keep its speed, stop parallel to the floor and keep passengers safe in case of emergency. Nowadays elevator passengers just have to enter their destination and wait to be transported there. An operator would be superfluous for this, today, simple procedure. This paper aims to create a set of interaction strategies to provide an efficient and pleasurable journey for the passenger traveling with an autonomous bus, as well as evaluate concepts where these strategies have been applied. The strategies and concepts will be developed from an extensive user- and literature research where the situation of today will be analysed and looked upon with the eyes of tomorrow, to find challenges and needs. Findings shows that passengers have to trust the vehicle and service. At the same time vehicle and service providers have to provide a reliable and consistent service. Four design directions were created to establish this trust between the user and vehicle and service. To enable control and give passengers an efficient journey, passengers have to be provided with adequate and reliable information. The information regarding the bus’s behaviour should be communicated in a transparent way so the bus’s intentions and actions are understandable from a passenger point of view. Also, passengers have to be enabled to stay safe when using the bus, during commuting and emergency, through giving them cues in how an emergency should be handled.

Today?s wireless communications involve more antenna capabilities while occupying the same amount of space. Antennas are able to operate at multiple frequencies [1]-[2], change polarizations [6], have selectable radiation patterns [1] and are becoming smaller. Likewise, antennas are serving multiple applications. However, many reconfigurable antennas use a separate power source to operate or use software defined radios. In certain instances this can be a limiting factor. To address this limit a novel autonomously reconfigurable antenna is presented in this thesis which allows for simple use at multiple frequencies [21]. This design uses power harvesting circuitry in combination with a reconfigurable antenna to demonstrate the ability to transmit at different frequencies, without the use of a separate power source. Furthermore this thesis presents a prototype for an autonomous reconfigurable antenna that operates at 1.25 GHz and 1.6 GHz.

Deploying robots in unknown and complex areas for inspection tasks is becoming a real need for various application scenarios. Recently, there has been an increasing interest to develop and use autonomous aerial robots in environments such as urban voids and subterranean mine tunnels, aiming to decrease the human presence in dangerous or inaccessible areas. These areas are characterized by complete darkness and narrow tunnels, where the ground can often be rough and not traversible for mobile vehicles, thus the developments focus on Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs). MAVs are mechanically simple and agile platforms that can navigate through cluttered areas and have the potential to perform complex exploration tasks when equipped with proper onboard sensors. One of the key milestones in the development of autonomous robots is self-exploration. The definition of self-exploration according to [7] is "the act of moving through an unknown environment while building a map that can be used for subsequent navigation". By reaching this milestone, robots would be freed from the limitation of requiring already existing maps for navigation. In this thesis, a frontier-based exploration algorithm is established and evaluated to understand how such method could be used to reach the self-exploration milestone. By marking the border between what is known and unknown the method is able to determine the next desired position for the robot to expand the map. The resulting algorithm, together with a path planning method and 3-dimensional mapping framework, the method was tested and examined in simulated environments with different levels of complexity.