The focus of this paper is on situational awareness of airborne agents capable of 6D motion, in particular multi-rotor UAVs. We propose the fusion of 2D laser range finder, altitude, and attitude sensor data in order to perform simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) indoors. In contrast to other planar 2D laser range finder based SLAM approaches, we perform SLAM on a 3D instead of a 2D map. To represent the 3D environment an octree based map is used. Our scan registration algorithm is derived from Hector SLAM. We evaluate the performance of our system in simulation and on a real multirotor UAV equipped with a 2D laser range finder, inertial measurement unit, and altitude sensor. The results show significant improvement in the localization and representation accuracy over current 2D map SLAM methods. The system is implemented using Willow Garage's robot operating system.

Abstract. Designing intelligent products, systems and related services require the designers to be able to integrate technology in their designs. Among other skills, programming is the key for the designers to prototype and experiment with the intelligent behaviors. However most of the design students do not have inherent affinity towards programming and electronics. The AdMoVeo robotic platform is designed, purely for the purpose of teaching the industrial design students basic skills of programming. Moreover we aim at a platform that motivates and encourages the design students to explore their creativity with their passions in graphical and behavioral design. This paper presents the hardware and software design of the platform, and shares the experiences in using it in a programming course.

Abstract-Multi-agent system of autonomous interactive blocks that can display its active state through color and light intensity has been developed. Depending on the individual rules, these autonomous blocks could express emergent behaviors which are a basis for various educational games. The multi-agent system is used for developing games for behavioral training of autistic children. This paper features the functional and electronic design of the individual blocks and transformation of the multi-agent system to a platform that allows multiple games to be designed through easy reprogramming of the blocks. Three game concepts that show the type of games that can easily be implemented and reprogrammed are described. The impact of this platform is shortly mentioned in the discussion. The initial tests of using the platform for various educational games are very positive. However, the results of user tests go beyond the scope of this paper and are not discussed in the text that follows.

Visual feature detection with limited resources of simple robots is an essential requirement for swarm robotic systems. Robots need to localize their position, to determine their orientation, and need to be able to acquire extra information from their surrounding environment using their sensors, while their computational and storage capabilities might be very limited. This paper evaluates the performance of an experimental framework, in which environmental elements such as landmarks and QR-codes are considered as key visual features. The performance is evaluated for environmental light disturbances and distance variations and feature detection speed is thoroughly examined. The applicability of the approach is shown in a real robot scenario by using epuck robots. Finally, the results of applying the approach to a completely different setting, i.e., simulation of pheromones using glowing trail detection, are presented. These results indicate the broad applicability range of the developed feature detection techniques.

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