Kangaroo Robot on Robocluser.dk and TechMedia.dk

In Danish, click on here
In English, click on here

Our lab was also featured on Techmedia.dk.

A swarm of Kangaroo Robots for Emergency Responses

A swarm of mobile robots can be applied in many applications including exploration and mapping, surveillance and reconnaissance, patrol and monitoring, victim identification in hazardous environments. More advantageous than a single robot, a robot swarm should be sent into human impassible areas for cooperative exploration and data gathering. Such emergency response services require a strategy allowing fast deployment and exploration of mobile robots.
This work presents a strategic method and technological solution to emergency response services by inspiration from the Kangaroo family. We describe a semi-autonomous system consisting of a Kangaroo “mother” robot carrying a number of “child” robots sitting on her “pouch”. Depending on situation, the mother allows the children to jump out exploration, data gathering, or call them back for data collection and displacement

Kangaroo robotic system: a heterogeneous Swarm of Mobile Robots for Fast Deployment and Exploration

See our latest work.

Spring 2011 project proposals

The More-than-One robotics lab has a number of project proposals for IAS2, IAS4, NDS2 and ES6 students in the Spring semester 2011.

IAS2:
1. Modelling and Control of Robot Formation and Transformation
2. Modelling and Control of Schooling Fish Behaviours with the Presence of Predators
3. A Heterogeneous Team of Mobile Robots for Surveillance and Coverage

IAS4:
1. Modelling and Control of Bird Flocking

NDS2 and NDS4
1. Self-organized Ad-hoc Network of Robot Swarms
2. Deployment and Optimization of Mobile Robotic Sensor Networks

Bachelor Project (6th semester)
1. A Chain Formation of Mobile Robots: Modelling and Control
2. ONE Wheel Balancing Robots: Modelling and Control

You can download the proposals from your semester website or drop an email to Trung. You are also welcomed to come by Trung's office for more info and discussion (C2-211, email: DUNGNT at ES dot AAU dot DK)

An article about the MoreLab.org on RoboCluster

The lab was featured by the RobotCluster, the Danish national innovation network of robotics, automation and intelligent mechanical systems.
For info (in Danish), click on here
For a Google translated English version, click on here:

Robotic technology embedded in Water Puppets ???

Water puppetry is a Vietnamese art performance where puppets made of wood and lacquered perform on water. Characteristic of puppets are usually expressed through its face and motion controlled by the puppeteers who are hidden behind the screen. Performance of the puppets are very diverse as they can move, dance, dive, fly, and even breathe fire.
A play of water puppets reveals daily life of Vietnamese farmers reflecting the culture and spirits of Vietnamese people, the Red Delta River civilization.
Today I watched a VTV show named Cultures, Events and Personage about a story of the artist, Chu Luong. He is an artist of the water puppetry, whose life is for the art. He told about his passion of the water puppetry, the working condition of the puppeteers, the status of the water puppetry in Vietnam, impact of the water puppetry introducing Vietnamese culture to the world and of course his puppets. As he said, soul of the puppets is mostly expressed on its face. This information together with my awareness of the body motion of the water puppets seen in past triggered a crazy idea in my mind about how to embed robotics in the water puppets. As seen, the puppet is a rigid body with very few degree of freedom. I do not know why there are only few (I have to ask puppeteers), but I guess that the puppeteers can only control the puppets with a limited few degree of freedom, especially standing in water and hidden behind the screen. However, I strongly believe that the puppet with high degree of freedom in their body reveals more meaning through their body motion. The robotic technology embedded in the puppets might:
- issue more control degree for the puppeteers
- allow sophisticated motion of the puppets
- synchronize the puppets' degree of freedom along with the puppeteers control
- and if all the puppets are programmed to perform a play, the control role of the puppeteers is released and they can freely act as a DJ in musics to add their feeling to the performance stream.

One thing I am wondering is is I do no know whether this creative changes the traditional property of the water puppetry. But I know, it is definitely a crazy idea . Will see!

Another accepted paper in Robio2010

We have another accepted paper in IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (Robio 2010). The paper is about quantitative analysis for selection of distributed control of robot swarm.

An accepted paper in DARS 2010

We have an accepted paper in the 10th International Symposium in Distributed Autonomous Robotics System (DARS 2010). Simon and (Rene maybe) will go to give a poster presentation in Lausanne, Switzerland. This paper will appear as a book chapter in Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics Series.
Good news!

Two new project proposals selected by 7th semester IAS student

- The first group will work with new robots for a project: "Dancing with robots". At the end, we expect that the robots will response to human body acting whist maintaining their attitude automatically (mainly heading synchronization in this project). Moreover, we expect that the swarm of robots will dance according to musical melodies played by human.

- The second group will work with a heterogeneous group of robots for a project: "A swam of Kangaroo robots". The project is about a marsupial robot (Kangaroo mother) loading and unloading their offspring giving advantages of fast deployment and withdraw for searching and rescue in hazard environment. The mothership will carry small robots and deploy them in an narrow area that the mother is not accessible. In this project, two research subjects of multi-query and cooperative control for loading and unloading offspring are emphasized.

Successful Master thesis defence

Congratulations to Simon Bjerg Mikkelsen who successfully defended his Master thesis in swarm formation.
He graduated with a very good mark. This result is as acknowledgment to his research contribution to swarm formation. During the thesis, he published two conference papers. This is exceptionally good result for a Master degree.
Once, congratulations to Simon and wish him a bright future!