|
Research Projects
AViRobots
Title: Development of an intelligent surveillance and security infrastructure system based on mobile robots Funded by: AVI (Agčncia Valenciana de la Innovació)
Duration: 01/2023 - 12/2025
Description: The project focuses on the use of terrestrial mobile robots for the surveillance of indoor and outdoor environments, access control and people identification. It is proposed the realization of technological developments that digitize and automate the tasks of surveillance of buildings and infrastructures by means of mobile robots aided by artificial intelligence techniques. The project considers the development of a complete surveillance system that will integrate: a set of intelligent mobile robots equipped with sensors, a human-machine interface software system that will allow efficient interaction between operators and robots and, finally, a wireless communications system that will allow the exchange of information in the system.
The developed system can be exploited by security companies for the surveillance of indoor or outdoor environments or by law enforcement agencies. During the course of the project, a demonstration system will be created to validate this application and make it ready for a level close to the market. In this way, the aim is to reduce uncertainties about the technical and commercial viability of this technology. The demonstrators will make it possible to test the operation of the monitoring system under real operating conditions and will also make it possible to present the product to companies interested in its commercial exploitation.
This project with reference INNVA1/2023/61 has been funded by the Valencian Innovation Agency.
Keywords: Mobile robots, visual perception, multisensory fusion, infrastructure surveillance
Head Researcher: Arturo Gil, Luis Payá More Information...
TED2021
Title: Development of intelligent mobile technologies to address security tasks and surveillance indoors and outdoors Funded by: Agencia Estatal de Investigación. Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación
Duration: 12/2022 - 11/2024
Description: This project proposes using mobile robots and machine learning technologies to carry out surveillance and security tasks in indoor and outdoor environments. During the course of the project, it is expected to generate scientific knowledge and carry out technological developments that digitize and automate the tasks of surveillance of buildings, infrastructures and industry. Such developments are expected to have potential of technology transfer to security companies, State security forces and emergency units.
Currently, these tasks are carried out by specialized personnel, with the aid mainly of cameras located in fixed positions and cctv systems. In this project, it is proposed to perform this surveillance in a much more effective way and more safely for these personnel, with the support of cooperating mobile robots that can patrol the areas to be monitored and use different types of sensors (omnidirectional vision cameras, infrared cameras, laser range and proximity sensors) and sensor fusion technologies to address two major problems: (a) robot navigation through the environment to be monitored, including building a model or map, localization and trajectory planning and (b) interpretation of the environment so that suspicious objects, intrusions by unauthorized personnel and other potentially dangerous situations such as fire sources and overheating in facilities can be detected. The project includes the creation of an intuitive graphical interface that allows the user to interact with the robots and maps created, know the alarms that have been generated and influence the task carried out by the robots.
Both the cooperation between the robots themselves and the cooperation between the potential remote operator and the robots is critical to effective surveillance. It is a cutting-edge technological aspect with great development in current international research works. Other technologies involved in the project, such as object and person recognition, deep learning and autonomous robot navigation, are also among the most developed today. The proposing research group has a consolidated track record and extensive experience in the fields of mobile robotics, machine learning, image processing and sensor fusion.
Therefore, the proposed idea is framed within the field of digital transition and seeks to improve and enhance technology to apply it to security and surveillance tasks in buildings, infrastructures and facilities. The main goal of the project is to ameliorate the quality of the work of security employees and improve the competitiveness of security companies. In particular, the use of mobile robots is proposed in situations in which the use of static security cameras is inappropriate or insufficient, or to serve as support and assistance to existing security personnel. A use case will be, for example, the surveillance of large areas of land in adverse conditions (cold, extreme heat). In addition, the mobile robots will be equipped with sensors that will allow the detection of intrusions or security failures in low or no lighting conditions. The proposal also aims to have a minimum ecological impact, as it will use highly efficient electric mobile robots.
This project has been founded by Agencia Estatal de Investigación. Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación
 
Keywords: Mobile robot, computer vision, image processing, sensor fusion, robot navigation, deep learning
Head Researcher: A. Gil, L. Payá More Information...
SubActuatedRobots
Title: Securing manipulator robots with free-swinging joint failures by extinguishing their uncontrolled self-movements Funded by: CONSELLERIA DE INNOVACIÓN, UNIVERSIDADES, CIENCIA Y SOCIEDAD DIGITAL
Duration: 1/1/22-31/12/23
Description:
When a fully actuated robot suffers a free swing failure (or torque failure) in any of its actuated joints, the robot becomes underactuated and allows uncontrolled movements even if we block the rest of the healthy actuators. Such uncontrolled movements are dangerous because they can cause the robot to collide with itself or with obstacles in the environment.
In this project we propose to develop a method to control robots that have suffered such free swing failure, in order to lock the underactuated robot without using redundant actuators or brakes, safely suppressing its uncontrolled free swing movements. The proposed method consists of varying the healthy actuated joints until the self-motion motions of the underactuated robot degenerate to a point. Such self-motion varieties are higher-dimensional curves, surfaces, and analogs, and their shape and size change as the healthy actuated joints move. Since uncontrolled motions of an underactuated robot occur along such self-motion moieties, making such moieties degenerate at a point effectively suppresses such uncontrolled motions, since the range of uncontrolled motion of the robot is reduced to a single point.
Keywords: Parallel robot, underactuated, redundant, self-moving varieties, free swing failure, torque failure
Head Researcher: Adrián Peidró More Information...
RETIC
Title: Planning of robotic movements in metallic structures Funded by: Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche
Duration: 01/01/2021 - 31/12/2022
Description:
Nowadays, we encounter three-dimensional metallic lattice structures in numerous artificial constructions, such as stadiums, high-voltage or telecommunications towers, airports, construction sites, pipeline networks in refineries, nuclear power plants, and aerospace constructions. These structures, composed of interconnected bars forming genuine metallic networks, require periodic inspection and maintenance to preserve their good condition and functionality and to prevent their structural stability from being compromised by deterioration. Examples of the required tasks include coating the metallic bars of the structure with protective paints to prevent corrosion, non-destructive inspection to detect possible cracks and welding defects, and tightening threaded joints, among others.
Traditionally, these tasks have been performed by human operators who, equipped with safety mechanisms such as harnesses, have to climb the structure and carry out the aforementioned operations. Despite the possible safety measures that can be adopted, performing these operations is dangerous for humans, who are subjected to significant safety and health risks. In order to avoid these dangers to human operators, the possibility of performing these hazardous tasks at height using robots (autonomous or teleoperated) has been pursued over the past three decades. In this project, the objective is to plan movements that a hybrid robot can perform so that it can navigate through these structures and pass through the structural nodes, attaching itself appropriately to carry out inspection and maintenance tasks.
Head Researcher: Oscar Reinoso Garcia More Information...
TorqFailRob
Title: Control of parallel robots that have suffered torque failure Funded by: Universidad Miguel Hernández, Vdo. de Investigación
Duration: 1/1/22-31/12/22
Description:
This project aims to develop control and stabilization algorithms for parallel robots that have suffered torque failure in one of their actuators. When this happens, the joint connected to the failed actuator behaves as a passive joint that can rotate freely, causing the loss of control of the robot. This is a dangerous situation since the robot can move freely without control and could collide with itself or with objects in the environment.
The method intended to be applied in this project is novel since it does not require brakes or redundant actuators, and consists of moving the healthy actuators of the robot to positions where the self-motion varieties vanish. Such self-motion varieties are curves or surfaces on which the robot can slide freely when its healthy actuators are blocked.
Keywords: variety of self-motion, parallel, underactuated robot
Head Researcher: Adrián Peidró More Information...
ParallelRobots
Title: Design and study of computational torque regulators for traversing singularities in parallel robots Funded by: CONSELLERIA DE INNOVACIÓN, UNIVERSIDADES, CIENCIA Y SOCIEDAD DIGITAL, Generalitat Valenciana
Duration: 01/01/2021-31/12/2021
Description:
Parallel robots control the movement of their end-effector or gripper through multiple kinematic chains connected in parallel, forming closed kinematic chains. This provides them with greater structural rigidity and dynamic performance, but it also limits their workspace and divides it into different regions separated by parallel-type singularities (also known as type 2 singularities) that do not exist in serial or open kinematic chain robots. When the robot crosses one of these singularities, it is not possible to control the movement of its end-effector in any arbitrary direction, requiring infinitely large actuation torques in the actuators. This makes it difficult to cross such singularities to fully utilize the robot's workspace.
In previous works, other researchers have avoided the divergence of actuation torques by designing the end-effector's trajectory so that, when crossing the singularity, the robot's dynamic model does not degenerate, satisfying a non-degeneration condition derived by other researchers in the past. The drawback is that the trajectory used to cross the singularity cannot be arbitrary; it must be designed to meet the mentioned non-degeneration condition.
In this project, we propose the design of new Computed-Torque Control laws that allow crossing the mentioned parallel singularities while avoiding the divergence of the actuation torques, so that they remain finite during the crossing of the singularity, and additionally avoiding the need to design the trajectory to achieve this, thus allowing arbitrary trajectories. To achieve this in the present project, we propose considering the small modeling errors that always occur when modeling the dynamics of the robot to be controlled. These small errors cause the tracking of the desired trajectory to be imperfect, which provides some margin to meet the non-degeneration condition simply by adjusting the proportional and derivative gains of the regulator, leaving the trajectory completely free. The proposed control will be tested in this project through simulation with example parallel robots, and also through testing on real parallel robots.
Project funded by the Department of Innovation, Universities, Science, and Digital Society of the Generalitat Valenciana.
Keywords: parallel robot, singularity, computational torque control
Head Researcher: Adrián Peidró More Information...
OMMNI-SLAM
Title: Map Building by Means of Appearance Visual Systems for Robot Navigation Funded by: CICYT Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación
Duration: 01/01/2017 al 31/12/2019
Description: In order to be truly autonomous, a mobile robot should be capable of navigating through any kind of environment while carrying out a task. In order to do that it is considered necessary that the robot possesses the ability to create a model of its workspace that allows to estimate its position inside it and navigate along a trajectory.
Map building and navigation is currently a very active research area, in which a large number of researchers focus on and where very different approaches have emerged based on diverse algorithms and using various kind of sensorial information. To the present days, most of the efforts have been focusing on construction of models of the environment based on a set of significant points extracted from it without considering the global appearance of the scene.
Considering the concepts posed above, we propose the improvement and development of new mechanisms that allow an efficient, robust and precise modelling of the environment by making use of omnidirectional vision systems. The research group has experience in the mentioned areas and during the last years has developed different approaches in the areas of map building, localization, exploration and SLAM by means of information gathered by different kind of vision systems installed on the robots. In order to carry out these approaches, an extensive study of the different description methods has been performed, both based on the extraction of significant points and local descriptors and also those methods based on the global appearance of the image, with remarkable results.
Keywords: Mobile robots, autonomous navigation, computer vision, omnidirectional systems
Head Researcher: L. Payá, O. Reinoso More Information...
NAVICOM
Title: Robotic Navigation in Dynamic Environments by means of Compact Maps with Global Appearance Visual Information Funded by: CICYT Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación
Duration: 01/09/2014 al 31/05/2017
Description: Carrying out a task by a team of mobile robots that move across an unknown environment is one of the open research lines with a higher scope for a large development in the mid-term. In order to accomplish this task it has been proved necessary to possess a highly detailed map of the environment that will allow the localization of the robots as they execute a particular task. During the last years the proposer research team has worked with remarkable results in the field of SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) with teams of mobile robots. The work has considered the use of robots equipped with cameras and the inclusion of the visual information gathered in order to build map models. So far, different kind of maps have been built, including metric maps based on visual landmarks, as well as topological maps base on global appearance-based information extracted from images.
These maps have allowed the navigation of the robots in these maps as well as the performance of high level tasks in the environment. Nonetheless, there exists space for improvement in several areas related to the research carried out so far. Currently, one of the important problems consists in the treatment of the visual information and the updating of this information as the environment changes gradually. In addition, the maps should be created considering the dynamic and static part of the environment (for example when other mobile robots or people move in the environment), thus leading to the creation of more realistic models, as well as strategies to update the maps as changes are detected. A different research line considers the creation of maps that combine simultaneously the information about the topology of the environment, as well as semantic and metric information that will allow a more effective localization of the robot in large environments and, in addition, will enable a hierarchical localization in these maps. The proposed research project considers to tackle the aforementioned lines, thus considering the task of developing dynamic visual maps that will incorporate the semantic and topological structure of the environment, as well as the metric information when the robots perform trajectories with 6 degrees of freedom.
Keywords: Mobile Robots, Visual Maps, Topological and Compact Navigation, Visual SLAM
Head Researcher: A. Gil, O. Reinoso More Information...
AICO-SLAM
Title: Localization and Visual Map Creation for Robot Navigation with 6 DOF Funded by: Generalitat Valenciana
Duration: Enero 2015 - Dic 2016
Description:
The execution of tasks by mobile robots moving in an unknown environment is one of the lines of research currently open and which is expected to have the greatest impact in the medium term. For this purpose, it is necessary to have as much precise and detailed information as possible as a reference so that the robot or robots that are performing a certain task can be located within the work environment. During the last few years, a lot of work has been done with excellent results in this line of research on the creation of environment maps through which robots can be located in a joint process (Simultaneous Localization And Mapping). The proposing research group has focused during the last years in this line of research having as starting data for the creation of the map, the visual information of each of the vision systems that the robots have. From this visual information, metric maps are extracted so that the robots can locate themselves and perform navigation tasks as accurately as possible.
It is in this area where the present research project is focused, in which, based on the results achieved so far, it is proposed to undertake new lines of research consisting of developing dynamic visual maps taking into account the semantic and topological information provided by the vision systems, all in environments with 6 degrees of freedom.
Keywords: Visual SLAM, Robotics
Head Researcher: L.M. Jiménez More Information...
Technical Assistance
RemoteRoboticsLab
Title: Convenio de Colaboración para el desarrollo del proyecto "Hacia la formación práctica ubicua y digital en robótica mediante laboratorios remotos” Funded by: Centro de Inteligencia Digital de la Provincia de Alicante (CENID)
Duration: 6 meses (abril 2022 - octubre 2022)
Description: Este proyecto pretende desarrollar un laboratorio remoto, que consiste en una plataforma ciberfísica que permite al estudiantado de carreras técnicas conectarse a robots de forma remota, para hacer prácticas de laboratorio y experimentos con dichos robots, a través de Internet. Esto permitirá dotar al estudiantado de mayor flexibilidad espacial y temporal, permitiéndoles hacer prácticas de laboratorio de forma ubicua, sin limitarlos a tener que desplazarse a un laboratorio físico para realizar las prácticas únicamente en las horas en las que el acceso a dicho laboratorio está habilitado. El estudiantado se conectará a los robots reales a través de un servidor web y, a través de una interfaz, podrá comandar movimientos o experimentos para realizar con los robots remotos. El movimiento de los robots se mostrará a través de una webcam en tiempo real, y también se devolverá información relativa a los resultados del experimento remoto, información que será captada mediante sensores de posición, velocidad, y fuerza, colocados en el robot real. Los robots remotos que se implementarán para hacer prácticas a distancia serán de tipo paralelo o de cadena cinemática cerrada, ya que éstos disponen de mayor riqueza que los robots tradicionales de cadena cinemática serie, a la hora de ser estudiados en asignaturas de control y robótica.
Las actividades que abarcará este proyecto serán las siguientes cuatro: 1) construcción de dos robots paralelos con los que el estudiantado pueda realizar prácticas y experimentos a través de internet, 2) implementación del servidor web que gestione las reservas y el acceso remoto de los robots por parte del estudiantado, 3) la programación de interfaces gráficas de usuario que permitan al estudiantado comandar órdenes y experimentos a la vez que se observa el movimiento del robot en tiempo real a través de una webcam, y 4) diseño de prácticas y experimentos didácticos a realizar con la ayuda del laboratorio remoto desarrollado. El principal resultado esperado de este proyecto es la materialización del mencionado laboratorio remoto, que permitirá flexibilizar la realización ubicua de prácticas con robots reales a distancia, haciendo uso de las tecnologías digitales al servicio de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje.
Keywords: Robot paralelo, laboratorio remoto, prácticas de laboratorio, identificación, control
Head Researcher: Adrián Peidró More Information...
abionica1.21T
Title: Empleo de algoritmos para conciencia situacional en vuelo mediante visión artificial Funded by: Abionica Solutions S.L.
Duration: 05/2021 - 11/2021
Head Researcher: A. Gil
Tonalidad de Pieles
Title: Desarrollo de un software para la detección y medición de los diferentes tonos de piel Funded by: PIES CUADRADOS LEATHER S.L.
Duration: 2019 - 2020
Description: El objetivo de esta propuesta es el estudio, desarrollo e implementación de un sistema de clasificación mediante visión por computador de la tonalidad de piezas de cuero teñido atendiendo a la apariencia visual del tono de la piel.
La medida de color y clasificación de grandes piezas de cuero teñido para obtener una producción uniforme en la industria del calzado, es un problema técnico no resuelto debido a las dificultades impuestas por la alta variabilidad espacial de la tonalidad y de la textura de la misma. En la percepción visual de la tonalidad de un producto influyen múltiples factores: iluminación, propiedades de absorción del material y la respuesta del sensor utilizado. Cada uno de estos factores está sujeto a variación tanto espacial como temporal. Los trabajos en el campo de la percepción de color han dado lugar a una conjunto de modelos y herramientas para definir de forma univoca el color puntual respecto a unas referencias espectrales, pero la medida y percepción de diferencias de tonalidad en materiales no uniformes, aplicados a la producción de elementos con múltiples piezas donde la compatibilidad de la apariencia visual es determinante, es un problema mucho más complejo y sujeto todavía a estudio.
Sobre esta base, se propone el estudio y desarrollo de los diferentes aspectos y tecnologías aplicados a la clasificación de la tonalidad de pieles. Se propone la necesidad del estudio e implementación de descriptores de color uniformes que permitan la medida de distancia de apariencia visual de forma robusta. El estudio de técnicas de calibración y corrección de color que permita observar las variaciones espaciales y temporales del sistema de captación y de iluminación. Adicionalmente se propone el estudio de descriptores texturales aplicables a imágenes en color y que tengan en cuenta no solo la tonalidad puntual sino la variabilidad espacial del mismo debido a la textura del material. Se diseñarán y analizarán técnicas de clasificación y reconocimiento de patrones que permitan establecer reglas de decisión robustas. Por último se implementarán los resultados obtenidos en un sistema industrial de clasificación de pieles mediante visión por computador.
Head Researcher: O. Reinoso More Information...
|
