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Файл:Readings in Robotics Engineering. Учебное пособие
.pdf
1.5. How do drones sense the world? Video
21
Sight
Robots detect vision in ways that are both like and unlike human vision.
Some robots have cameras that create images similar to what we see with our
eyes. Robots process these images very differently than humans; human brains
give context to the images we see, while robot computers process information
as objects in space. Context is the interrelated information about something that
gives it meaning. A robot wouldn’t know that a chair is a chair; it knows that
there are rectangles and squares next to each other in space. Robots can see
using sensors that detect waves in the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum, the electromagnetic waves that travel through space. Humans can see the part of the
EM spectrum known as visible light, i.e. the colors of the rainbow. Robots can
detect radio waves, ultraviolet (UV) waves, infrared (IR) waves and more–all
of which are outside the range of what humans can see.
Sound
Robot sensors and ears detect EM waves. The sound waves heard with
human ears can also be detected by some robot sensors, like microphones. Other robot sensors can detect waves beyond our capabilities, such as ultrasound.
A bird, a falling piano, rain on the roof and a ringing phone all have different
meanings to different people. We use sounds both to tell where things are and
to tell what those things are. (Fun fact: people with low vision sometimes use
clicks to tell where things are around them!) The human brain makes connections between sounds we hear to let us recognize and identify our environment,
which robots cannot do yet.
Robots can use sound for echolocation, locating an object using sound.
Robots still have a hard time recognizing the difference between sounds
(a bird vs. a plane vs. Superman). This challenge is on the forefront of robotics research.
Touch
Humans use touch to determine features of our surroundings, like temperature, pressure and texture. Robot sensors can sense these same qualities and
more. Some robots use sensors to detect objects through contact, like a Roomba. Similar to sight and sound, a robot doesn’t necessarily know the content of
what they detect (a chair, a slimy banana peel, or Grandma giving you a hug); it
knows that there is an obstacle to be avoided or to find.
Part I. Sensing the World
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Smell and taste
Smell and taste, seemingly straightforward senses, are actually very
complex and involve a lot of human memory in addition to the sensing actions
of the nose and tongue. Neuroscientists are still working to figure out exactly
how these complicated senses work. Robot sensors can mimic a nose or tongue
by using chemical detection technologies such as spectrometers or other filters
that react to certain chemicals (imagine a litmus paper, used inside a robot).
These sensors can go beyond human capabilities of smell and taste, since there
are some chemicals humans definitely would not want to ingest. Robots don’t
need to worry about getting sick!
Proprioception: A hidden sense
Proprioception is your body’s awareness of where it is in space. When
you stand up, your body is able to balance itself and recognize that you are
standing. This sense involves multiple sensors, including touch and your body’s
internal balancing mechanisms. Robots have many sensors that compare to this
ability. Gyroscopes and accelerometers detect movement and speed; air pressure sensors and other touch sensors allow robots to position themselves for
different tasks. Robots can also detect their exact position in space using sensors like the Global Positioning System (GPS) – something we humans can
only do with our smartphones, thanks to robotics!
The activities in this lesson use multiple human senses, focusing mostly
on sight, sound, touch and proprioception. Have students identify these senses
throughout the lesson, and encourage them to think about how their human
sensors compare to those of robots.
Discuss:
What are uniquely human abilities?
What combinations of senses do we use to recognize our friend from a
stranger?
What careers involve not just robot sensors, but human sensors and
senses as well?
https://www.fi.edu/sites/default/files/EducatorGuide_RobotRevolution_Ex
hibit_edguide-robot-revolution.pdf
1.5. How do drones sense the world? Video
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Match the type of sensors with its function:
• Thermometer
• Camera
• Ultrasound
• Thermal Camera
• Gyroscope
• Accelerometer
• Microphone
• Pressure sensors: air, water, touch
• Chemical detection
• EM wave detection
Vision sensor most similar to human
sight, as it detects the same wavelengths
as human eyes. Used to produce images
like photographs or moving videos.
Cost: Moderate
Weight: Medium
Sound sensor that detects sound signals within the human range of hearing.
Used to detect sounds from objects
ranging from the very small, like insects, to the very large, like airplanes.
Cost: Moderate
Weight: Medium
TPressure sensor that detects physical contact. Can sense a squeeze, but
cannot measure weight. Often used in
everyday objects, such as keyboards, or
to test performance of products, like car
brakes.
Cost: Inexpensive
Weight: Light.
Part I. Sensing the World
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Movement sensor that detects velocity
and orientation. Used inside robots to
measure balance. Allows a robot to correct its own movement to stabilize itself.
Cost: Inexpensive
Weight: Light.
Infrared camera. Detects light wavelengths outside the range of human vision and creates an image on a screen.
Often used to detect temperature differences. Can also be used for night vision.
Cost: Expensive
Weight: Medium
LIDAR. Measures distance, shape and
speed of objects by bouncing a laser off
an object and analyzing the reflected
light. Often used to make high-resolution
maps.
Cost: Expensive
Weight: Medium
Infrared thermometer. Uses a laser to
detect temperatures from a distance.
Sometimes accuracy can be affected by
surrounding objects. Often used to measure temperatures of moving objects, objects out of reach, or objects too hot or too
cold to touch.
Cost: Inexpensive
Weight: Medium
Ultrasound detector. Senses sound
wavelengths higher than the range of
human hearing. Used to detect objects
and measure distances. Can detect a wide
area from a single point. Used in medicine, underwater exploration (called Sonar), materials science and more.
Cost: Inexpensive
Weight: Light-Medium
1.6. What does a car need to be autonomous? Discussion
25
Mass spectrometer. Uses a laser
to measure the mass of atoms and
molecules. Can identify substances,
such as rocks or metals, by separating individual elements and compounds.
Cost: Expensive
Weight: Heavy
Global Positioning System. Detects exact location by determining
its own distance from satellites orbiting Earth. Often used to track
devices and objects, such as in cars
and smartphones.
Cost: Moderate
Weight: Light.
Think of your own sensor.
https://www.fi.edu/sites/default/files/EducatorGuide_RobotRevolution_Ex
hibit_edguide-robot-revolution.pdf
BUILDING AUTONOMOUS ROBOTS
What does a car need to drive autonomously? In this activity, we'll look
at how robots process sensor data and respond to the world around them.
1.6. What does a car need to be autonomous? Discussion
When designing a robot, it’s important to choose the right sensors to en-
able the robot to be aware of its environment and perform the tasks required.
In this discussion, we’d like you to think about what sensors a car would
need in order for it to become autonomous.
You might like to think about the following questions:
• How can the car know where it is?
• What items in the world are static, and can be known beforehand?
• What items in the world change? How often do they change?
• What does the car need to detect?
Part I. Sensing the World
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1.7. Processing sensor data Video
Autonomous systems need to process large volumes of data which can
arrive from multiple, diverse sensors such as RADAR, LIDAR and cameras. In
this video, Dr Lyudmila Mihaylova explains how her research is tackling this
challenge, by developing intelligent algorithms that can extract meaningful
information from these large data sets.
Lyudmila also discusses her research with the SETA consortium,
which is helping to change the way that mobility is organised, monitored and
planned in large metropolitan areas. By collecting and processing dynamic data
from people, cars, city sensors and distributed databases, this project hopes to
inform decision makers on how to improve town planning and infrastructure, as
well as allowing individuals to plan their journeys in a more efficient and sustainable way.
Discussion
Would you like to see this sort of technology applied to where you live?
How do you think it could help you?
Transcript
0:05 This is part of a video surveillance system where people are moving
and the purpose of this system is to detect pedestrians and track their motion, and
possibly analyse behaviour. One application area for autonomous vehicles is airports and train stations. You can think about Heathrow, Terminal Five, where the
pods are transporting passengers from the terminal to the parking place. The
pods, they need to know how many passengers are at Terminal Five and how
many they need to transport to the parking. And with my research, we focus on
sensor data fusion algorithms that can detect the number of people that are at the
parking, and then the pods will transport them to the terminal.
1:01 Before we see autonomous cars being ubiquitous there’s a long way
to go. Whereas it’s much easier to have connected vehicles, because the vehicle
can have all kinds of sensors and be connected with other vehicles, and with a
transportation centre. In order to facilitate commuters to go from place A to B, we
are developing algorithms that can predict better paths, and the shortest, or the
most beautiful paths. Or going through areas where there are historical monuments, the most economical paths, and those with least pollution. So these are
1.8. Responding to a changing environment Video
27
different objectives which can be achieved. We have data from the city centre of
Birmingham. These are traffic loop data. We have video camera feeds.
2:00 We have a GSM data, possibly data from bus stations, taxi drivers,
and others, and from metropolitan areas. One of the objectives is to predict the
traffic. Also we have social networks. So we have the involvement of social
network information from Twitter, from Facebook. If people want to find out in
real time what’s the weather, what’s the traffic status, they can use Twitter and
online data, then send their information, and improve their mobility. We are
working together with the city centres. It depends on how quickly the cities, the
councils, would accept this technology in our everyday life. It should come in
the next two, three years.
1.8. Responding to a changing environment Video
As well as being able to sense their environment, autonomous robots
need to be able to react to it.
In this video, Dr Owen McAree explains the importance of designing
robots that can respond to a changing environment and how this challenge is
being met at Sheffield Robotics using youBots and drones.
Discussion
How might you feel if you arrived for a business meeting and were met
at the door by a robot to guide you?
Transcript
0:08 When you send a robot out into the real world, as it were, you’ve
got certain things that you know about that are fixed. Like trees don’t tend to
move and buildings don’t tend to move and things like that. But there’s lots of
things in the real world that do move, predominantly things like people, and
vehicles, and animals, and those sorts of things. And what you really don’t
want is, you don’t want a robot that just forgets about those things and just
crashes into them, or drives into people, or anything like that. Because that’s
not really a very good robot. It’s not very good at its job.
0:33 So it’s those dynamic parts of the environment that are really challenging for robots, because it’s not only about knowing where they are, it’s
knowing about what they’re going to do next and where they’re going to go, so
Part I. Sensing the World
28
that you can behave almost socially, so the robot can interact socially with
these elements in the environment. What we’ve been doing with the youBots
is - they have a sensor on the front of them, which is a laser scanner sensor, so
that can detect other objects in the environment.
0:58 Now, you can simply be very reactive and say, “I’ve seen some-
thing, therefore I should stop,” for example, but that’s not very useful, because
that means the robot doesn’t really get on with its job then. So, what you want to
do with these is you want to say, “I’ve seen something, I think it’s a person, and I
think this person is going to walk in front of me, so I’m going to stop and go behind them, or maybe I can go a bit faster and go in front of them,” and just inter-
act in a very natural way, just like humans do. When we see another person, we
just don’t panic and stop. We re-evaluate the situation and walk around.
1:27 And that’s the sort of work we’re trying to do with the youBots. We
have a robot that we’re trying to send out as a guide robot. Our lab here in Shef-
field is actually quite difficult to find. So, we want to be able to send a robot to
the front of the building to collect visitors, so we don’t have to keep going out
there and doing that. But in order to do that, it has to go through a number of
buildings that have got students in, they’ve got other staff in, there are even other
departments who don’t know about the robotics that are going on. So it’s a very
challenging environment for that robot to have to navigate through.
1:54 The robot that we’ve been using is called the KUKA youBot. It’s a
small-scale version of a large industrial robot. They use it in warehouses and
factories - the larger version - to move things around. At the moment, these
systems are remotely operated. But what we are trying to develop, as we’ve
talked about today, is more autonomous manoeuvring for them, so it can free
up the human operators to do other tasks rather than just driving the robot
around for them. One of the big benefits with these robots is that they can actu-
ally move in all directions. So it’s very useful in a manufacturing setting, being
able to drive sideways.
2:28 They have some very clever wheels that allow them to drive in all
directions. One of the reasons that that’s very useful for our work, as well, is
that it allows the youBot to manoeuvre very similar to a drone. Obviously only
in two dimensions. It can’t go up and down like a drone, but it can manoeuvre
sideways and backwards and forwards and everything, just like a drone.
2:46 And a lot of the technologies that we’re developing in terms of
working in dynamic situations - ultimately, we want to apply them to drones, to
1.8. Responding to a changing environment Video
29
flying systems - to be able to avoid other aircraft, or birds, or things that might
appear in the environment when you’re trying to do, for example, a building
inspection with a drone, or something like that.
MAKING RESPONSIBLE DECISIONS
If we are to work and live alongside autonomous robots, it is important
that they are designed to act in responsible ways. We look at the principles and
challenges involved in programming robots to make responsible decisions.
Warm-up (Pair Work)
1) What is your favorite movie that features robots?
2) Is there a difference between a machine, like a microwave, and a ro-
bot? How would you define “robot”?
3) Is there a strong robotics industry in your country?
4) How do we currently use robots?
Reading: Robot Guards & Other Robot News
Three 152-centimeter tall automatons will soon begin working as prison guards in the South Korean city of Pohang. The four-wheeled robots were
developed as part of the government’s $864,000 robotic guard program. The
robots have been designed to relieve human guards, not replace them, in order
to allow guards to focus more on the rehabilitation of inmates. The robots are
equipped with an affable appearance and sensors that allow them to detect behavior among inmates that could escalate into violence or suicide.
The program, slated to launch in March 2012, is part of a larger effort to
make South Korea a world leader in robotics. Elsewhere, English-speaking
robots have been deployed as teaching assistants in some Korean schools.
Many other projects are in the works, such as personal assistant robots to care
for the elderly.
Abroad & Beyond
In the wake of the nuclear reactor problems in Japan, there has been in-
creased focus on improving nuclear power plant safety worldwide. Engineers in
America, home to 104 reactors, have developed an egg-size robot that can navigate underground pipes in order to check for leaks and corrosion. The robot is
able to withstand extreme radioactive conditions.
In space news, a new NASA space rover named Curiosity is now on its
way to Mars. The large rover has an elaborate landing procedure that allows it
Part I. Sensing the World
30
to land in tight spots of geological interest. Curiosity is scheduled to land in
August 2012, and its main objective is to evaluate the inhabitability of the
planet. While engineers are confident in the rover’s landing abilities, there is
always the possibility a software bug or glitch could endanger the approximately 2.5 billion-dollar mission. [276 words]
[Sources: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15893772, http://www.
sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110721112624.htm, http://robots.net/article/3275.html]
Comprehension Questions
1) True or False: Robots have been designed to help with the rehabilita-
tion of inmates.
2) What’s the purpose of the robots’ sensors?
3) True or False: South Korea is the world leader in robotics.
4) What have engineers developed in America for the nuclear power in-
dustry?
5) Where is Curiosity now?
Robots Discussion Question: Which idea do you think is the most
useful?
Match the words with their meaning as used in the article.
automaton
affable
escalate
(verb)
slated
deploy (verb)
in the works
corrosion
withstand
elaborate (ad-
jective)
inhabitability
glitch
become greater, worse, or more serious, etc
pleasant, friendly, and easy to talk to
a small problem or fault that stops sth working successfully
complicated and detailed; carefully prepared
the gradual destruction of a material due to chemical action
the ability to live in a particular place
planned for a particular time in the future
being developed for the future
move soldiers/weapons/equipment into position for action
resist; be strong enough to not be damaged
robot
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