This paper provides a tutorial introduction to visual servo control of robotic manipulators. Since the topic spans many disciplines our goal is limited to providing a basic conceptual framework. We begin by reviewing the prerequisite topics from robotics and computer vision, including a brief review of coordinate transformations, velocity representation, and a description of the geometric aspects of the image formation process. We then present a taxonomy of visual servo control systems. The two major classes of systems, position-based and image-based systems, are then discussed. Since any visual servo system must be capable of tracking image features in a sequence of images, we include an overview of feature-based and correlation-based methods for tracking. We conclude the tutorial with a number of observations on the current directions of the research field of visual servo control. 1 Introduction Today there are over 800,000 robots in the world, mostly working in factory environment...

Articial intelligence researchers attempting to create engaging apparently living creatures may nd important insight in the work of artists who have explored the idea of believable character In particular appropriately timed and clearly expressed emotion is a central requirement for believable characters We discuss these ideas and suggest how they may apply to believable interactive characters which we call believable agents This work was supported in part by Fujitsu Laboratories and Mitsubishi Electric Research Laborato ries The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the ocial policies either expressed or implied of any other parties Keywords articial intelligence emotion believable agents art animation believable characters BELIEVABILITY Believability There is a notion in the Arts of believable character It does not mean an honest or reliable character but one that provides the illusion of life and thus permits the audience s suspension of disbelief The idea of believability has long been studied and explored in literature theater lm radio drama and other media Traditional character animators are among those artists who have sought to create believable characters and the Disney animators of the s made great strides toward this goal The rst page of the enormous classic reference work on Disney animation Thomas and Johnston begins with these words Disney animation makes audiences really believe in characters whose adventures and misfortunes make people laugh and even cry There is a special ingredient in our type of animation that produces drawings that appear to think and make decisions and act of their own volition it is what creates the illusion of life Many articial intelligence researchers have long wished to build robots and their cousins called agents that seem to think feel and live These are creatures with whom you d want to share some of your life as with a companion or a social pet For instance in his

This book presents a unified treatment of many different kinds of planning algorithms. The subject lies at the crossroads between robotics, control theory, artificial intelligence, algorithms, and computer graphics. The particular subjects covered include motion planning, discrete planning, planning under uncertainty, sensor-based planning, visibility, decision-theoretic planning, game theory, information spaces, reinforcement learning, nonlinear systems, trajectory planning, nonholonomic planning, and kinodynamic planning.

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Many Computer Vision applications both in the industry and in the consumer market need simple, cheap, and reasonably accurate camera calibration. In this context, the term \minimalist " refers to any artefact-based calibration method that attempts to keep the complexity and cost

We are interested in designing systems that support communication and collaboration among large groups of people over computer networks. We begin by asking what properties of the physical world support graceful human-human communication in face-to-face situations, and argue that it is possible to design digital systems that support coherent behavior by making participants and their activities visible to one another. We call such systems “socially translucent systems ” and suggest that they have three characteristics—visibility, awareness, and accountability—which enable people to draw upon their social experience and expertise to structure their interactions with one another. To motivate and focus our ideas we develop a vision of knowledge communities, conversationally based systems that support the creation, management and reuse of knowledge in a social context. We describe our experience in designing and deploying one layer of functionality for knowledge communities, embodied in a working system called “Babble, ” and discuss research issues raised by a socially translucent approach to design. Categories and Subject Descriptors: H.1.2 [Models and Principles]: User/Machine Systems—Human factors; Human information processing; H.5.2 [Information Interfaces and

The key to utilizing the potential of multirobot systems is cooperation. How can we achieve cooperation in systems composed of failure-prone autonomous robots operating in noisy, dynamic environments? In this paper, we present a novel method of dynamic task allocation for groups of such robots. We implemented and tested an auction-based task allocation system which we call MURDOCH, built upon a principled, resource centric, publish /subscribe communication model. A variant of the Contract Net Protocol, MURDOCH produces a distributed approximation to a global optimum of resource usage. We validated MURDOCH in two very different domains: a tightly coupled multirobot physical manipulation task and a loosely coupled multirobot experiment in long-term autonomy. The primary contribution of this paper is to show empirically that distributed negotiation mechanisms such as MURDOCH are viable and effective for coordinating physical multirobot systems.

Despite more than a decade of experimental work in multi-robot systems, important theoretical aspects of multi-robot coordination mechanisms have, to date, been largely untreated. To address this issue, we focus on the problem of multi-robot task allocation (MRTA). Most work on MRTA has been ad hoc and empirical, with many coordination architectures having been proposed and validated in a proof-of-concept fashion, but infrequently analyzed. With the goal of bringing objective grounding to this important area of research, we present a formal study of MRTA problems. A domain-independent taxonomy of MRTA problems is given, and it is shown how many such problems can be viewed as instances of other, well-studied, optimization problems. We demonstrate how relevant theory from operations research and combinatorial optimization can be used for analysis and greater understanding of existing approaches to task allocation, and to show how the same theory can be used in the synthesis of new approaches.

Abstract. This paper has two goals. The first is to develop a variety of robust methods for the computation of the Fundamental Matrix, the calibration-free representation of camera motion. The methods are drawn from the principal categories of robust estimators, viz. case deletion diagnostics, M

No official endorsement should be inferred. Keywords: Climbing robots, Dynamic locomotion, Minimalism, Nonlinear analysis, Openloop, Dynamics in locomotion is highly useful, as can be seen in animals and is becoming apparent in robots. For instance, chimpanzees are dynamic climbers that can reach virtually any part of a tree and even move to neighboring trees, while sloths are quasistatic climbers confined only to a few branches. Although dynamic maneuvers are undoubtedly beneficial, only a few engineered systems use them, most of which locomote horizontally. This is because the design and control are often extremely complicated. This thesis explores a family of dynamic climbing robots which extend robotic dynamic legged locomotion from horizontal motions such as walking, hopping, and running, to vertical motions such as leaping maneuvers. The motion of these dynamic robots resembles the motion of an athlete jumping and climbing inside a chute. Whereas this environment might be an unnavigable obstacle for a slow, quasistatic