No abstract

Search and rescue (SAR) is a challenging application for autonomous robotics research. The requirements of this kind of application are very demanding and are still far from being met. One of the most compelling requirements is the capability of robots to adapt their functionalities to harsh and heterogeneous environments. In order to meet this requirement, it is common to embed contextual knowledge into robotic modules. We have previously developed a context-based architecture that decouples contextual knowledge, and its use, from typical robotic functionalities. In this paper, we show how it is possible to use this approach to enhance the performance of a robotic system involved in SAR missions. In particular, we provide a case study on exploration and victim detection tasks, specifically tailored to a given SAR mission. Moreover, we extend our contextual knowledge formalism in order to manage complex rules that deal with spatial and temporal aspects that are needed to model mission requirements. The approach has been validated through several experiments that show the effectiveness of the presented methodology for SAR. (C) Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden and The Robotics Society of Japan, 200

In this paper we present some results obtained through an experimental evaluation of tangible user interfaces (TUIs), comparing their novel interaction paradigms with more conventional interfaces, such as a joypad and a keyboard. Our main goal is to make a formal assessment of TUIs in robotics through a rigorous and extensive experimental evaluation. Firstly, we identified the main benefits of TUIs for robot teleoperation in a urban search and rescue task. Secondly, we provide an evaluation framework to allow for an effective comparison of tangible interfaces with other input devices

Speech technologies nowadays available on mobile devices show an increased performance both in terms of the language that they are able to capture and in terms of reliability. The availability of performant speech recognition engines suggests the deployment of vocal interfaces also in consumer robots. In this paper, we report on our current work, by specifically focussing on the difficulties that arise in grounding the user's utterances in the environment where the robot is operating. © 2013 Springer-Verlag