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Projects
This project focuses on the biological interaction between humans and robots. The objective is to supervise, evaluate and control machines using biological parameters of humans such as cerebral, cardiac, or respiratory activity. In the short term there are two applications. The first one is related with elder persons with some pathology. The objective is to build a system that supervises the biological parameters of the humans while using the wheelchair. Then, the system will be able to detect anomalies in the cerebral, cardiac or respiratory activity that could correspond to non desirable situations and to send an alarm flag to an external computer. This external computer could warn the responsible or carer of the person. The second one is more related with persons with severe diseases like brain stem or nonhemorrhagic stroke in the ventral pons that can cause the locked-in syndrome: tetraplegia and paralysis of cranial nerves. These patients are said to be “locked in” since they are conscious and alert but they cannot use their mussels and therefore cannot communicate. The objective is to construct a brain-computer interface that allows them to command our intelligent wheelchair. This would be a large step in improving their autonomy.
The main project
objective is the research in exploration strategies: a set of perception-
action techniques that allow to obtain environment information, to plan
motions for refining and completing this information (active perception),
and to perform safe robot motions in non- structured scenarios. In recent
years, these techniques have been greatly improved and have been applied
in indoor environments with very good results. The goal of this project is
to further develop these techniques to apply them to novel problems and
more difficult scenarios, like rescue operations. The research team will
develop new Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (SLAM) techniques using
partial information gathered from sensors such as vision, and multi-vehicle
map building techniques for big environments. Also, dynamic environment
modelling and object tracking techniques will be developed. To cope with
non-linear problems and non-Gaussian distributions of error arising in
complex and big scenarios, new Bayesian estimation methods for SLAM will
be investigated. For computer vision, robust wide-baseline matching
techniques will be developed. Furthermore, the team will develop new
navigation techniques that take into account the robot and environment
dynamics, and multi-robot navigation strategies. The research project
pursues two novel applications of the exploration strategies: (1) Search
and rescue robots for confined or hazardous environments such as roadway
tunnels after an accident or big outdoor and underground spaces like
parkings; (2) An ARVA (Appareil de Recherche de Victimes d'Avalanches)
system for rescue teams allowing fast and precise localization of multiple
victims in snow avalanches, using radio-location and optimal estimation
techniques. The project is starting and we have adquired some new vehicles:
The objetive of the project is to develop a wheelchair prototype with a system to help to handicapped persons for driving it, based on the information provided by the perception systems. The system will allow to drive the wheelchair in supervising mode and autonomously, depending on the chosen functions and without modifying the environment. Several functions will be implemented for obstacle detection, dangerous situations detection and actuation to avoid it, navigation avoiding obstacles and moving in difficult environments (doorways, corridors, etc.) and autonomous navigation functions locating the wheelchair in indoor environments. An special relevance will be the security of the system. The perception system will be used to obtain environmental information, recognising it, and to detect and avoid obstacles while the wheelchair is moving. The economical aspects will be taken into account, because of the objective is to develop a low cost prototype, due to the kind of the people that will utilise it. The results will be oriented to improve the quality of life of handicapped people, according to the requirements established by the enterprises of the sector and no resolved with the commercial products in the market so far. Some people that collaboted in the
project and the wheelchair:
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