Intuitively representing the motion of a snake robot is difficult. This is in part because the internal shape changes that the robot uses to locomote involve the entire body and no single point on the robot intuitively represents the robot’s pose at all times. To address this issue, we present a method of defining body coordinate frames that departs from the typical convention of rigidly fixing...

This paper describes methods pertaining to the vision-guided robotic control of fabric motion for performing simulated joining operations for apparel manufacturing. The determination of robot motion paths is based on visual information defining the position of the fabric edges in world coordinates. The usefulness of the shape analysis and motion control algorithms is demonstrated via experiment...

This paper describes a method of modeling the motion uncertainty of moving obstacles and its application to mobile robot motion planning. The method explicitly considers three sources of motion uncertainty: path ambiguity, velocity uncertainty, and observation uncertainty. The model is represented by a probabilistic distribution over possible position on a path of a moving obstacle. Using this ...

In order to better study the trajectory of robot motion, a motion trajectory planning and simulation based on 6-DOF manipulator arm robot is designed. Three and five polynomial methods are adopted to plan motion trajectories. The advantages and disadvantages of the three and five polynomial trajectory planning are summarized. The trajectory planning in the right angle space can make the robot a...

We present an algorithm for underwater robots to visually detect and track human motion. Our objective is to enable human-robot interaction by allowing a robot to follow behind a human moving in (up to) six degrees of freedom. In particular, we have developed a system to allow a robot to detect, track and follow a scuba diver by using frequencydomain detection of biological motion patterns. The...

In this paper we present a method of whole-body manipulation of large objects by a humanoid robot using a pivoting motion. Pivoting manipulation can be an alternative to pushing or lifting for more dexterous and stable operation, which is often used by humans to move large and bulky furniture. This paper describes a method and control techniques for a humanoid robot to perform the manipulation ...

We have attempted to realize a dancing humanoid robot which can imitate dance performances by a human. It is impossible to realize a performance including leg actions on a robot by direct conversion of motion data captured from a dancer. Constrains of robot legs and the dynamic balance must be considered. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a framework based on primitives of leg actions....

Motions reinforce meanings in human-robot communication, when they are relevant and initiated at the right times. Given a task of using motions for an autonomous humanoid robot to communicate, different sequences of relevant motions are generated from the motion library. Each motion in the motion library is stable, but a sequence may cause the robot to be unstable and fall. We are interested in...

Constraints play a central role in the analysis and planning of robot motion. We suggest that constraints form an appropriate language with which to program robot motion as well and describe the Least Constraint framework.