What we refer to as automation changes over time; when functions previously carried out by humans... more What we refer to as automation changes over time; when functions previously carried out by humans are carried out reliably by technology they become ‘machine operation’ rather than automation. On the other hand, certain functions preserve their automation label as they continue to be carried out by both humans and machines. The aim of this chapter is therefore to provide
Many of the advances in computing and technology have increased the decisionmaking capabilities o... more Many of the advances in computing and technology have increased the decisionmaking capabilities of UVS to the point where they may now make truly independent decisions regarding by which route they might travel, what constitutes a target, and whether and by what means these targets should be engaged, possibly with lethal force. As a result, it is now widely acknowledged
In this chapter, attention is drawn to the fact that some changes intended to increase productivi... more In this chapter, attention is drawn to the fact that some changes intended to increase productivity have resulted in performance declines because the technical systems and the social systems into which the technology has been embedded have been misaligned. In particular, since military UVS are expected to change and probably reduce the involvement of humans in certain tasks, and as
The aspirational capability objectives for UVS in the air, land and maritime environments articul... more The aspirational capability objectives for UVS in the air, land and maritime environments articulated by several national roadmap documents (e.g. [202] [205] [206] [267] [268] [278] [281]) may effectively be expressed as: 2008-10 conduct of ISR missions; 2015-2020 autonomous patrol; and, 2025-2030 strike capability and combat missions. This implies a need for persistent UVS autonomy in complex dynamic military environments
Cost drivers and the requirement for UVS to be mobile and adaptive means that a number of systems... more Cost drivers and the requirement for UVS to be mobile and adaptive means that a number of systems – either component technologies or multiple UVS – will need to be controlled by a relatively small number of people. This implies both a high degree of autonomy, and that humans will be retained within the decision-making loop at some level. In
The term millimetre waves refers to that portion of the electromagnetic spectrum between 30 and 3... more The term millimetre waves refers to that portion of the electromagnetic spectrum between 30 and 300 GHz, corresponding to wavelengths between 10 and 1mm. For robotic applications, most activity is concentrated around the atmospheric window at 94GHz [Seashore et al., ...
International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 1998
This paper provides an analysis of Kalman #lterbased systems with respect to fault detection. By ... more This paper provides an analysis of Kalman #lterbased systems with respect to fault detection. By usingfrequency domain techniques, a metric is developed thatdescribes the detectability of a fault by showing how a faultis transmitted to the #lter innovations #if at all#. Throughexperiment, it is shown that redundancy must be employedfor guaranteed detection of faults, and that unlike sensorsshould be used.
This chapter discusses the issue of machine perception from the perspective of a system design pr... more This chapter discusses the issue of machine perception from the perspective of a system design process. The three issues of information gathering, data representation and reasoning are discussed, leading to a general high-level model of the problem. The model is intended to be generic enough to allow a wide variety of tasks to be performed using a single set of
Proceedings. 1998 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.98CH36146), 1998
Abstract|This paper provides an analysis of Kalman lter based systems with respect to fault detec... more Abstract|This paper provides an analysis of Kalman lter based systems with respect to fault detection. By using frequency domain techniques, a metric is developed that describes the detectability of a fault by showing how a fault is transmitted to the lter innovations if at all. Through experiment, it is shown that redundancy must be employed for guaranteed detection of faults, and that unlike sensors should be used. Further, it is shown that modelling errors can be treated within the same framework as`hard' actuator or sensor faults.
Proceedings 2002 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.02CH37292), 2002
Three dimensional terrain maps are useful representations of environments for various robotic app... more Three dimensional terrain maps are useful representations of environments for various robotic applications. Unfortunately, sensor data (from which such maps are built) is uncertain and contains errors which are usually not accounted for in existing terrain building algorithms. In real-time applications, it is necessary to quantify these uncertainties to allow map construction decisions to be made online. This paper addresses this issue by providing a representation that explicitly accounts for sensing uncertainty. This is achieved through the use of stochastic simulation techniques. The result is in an algorithm for online 3D multi-resolution surface reconstruction of unknown, and unstructured environments. Results of the surface reconstruction algorithm in a real environment are presented.
2013 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2013
ABSTRACT Operating in vegetated environments is a major challenge for autonomous robots. Obstacle... more ABSTRACT Operating in vegetated environments is a major challenge for autonomous robots. Obstacle detection based only on geometric features causes the robot to consider foliage, for example, small grass tussocks that could be easily driven through, as obstacles. Classifying vegetation does not solve this problem since there might be an obstacle hidden behind the vegetation. In addition, dense vegetation typically needs to be considered as an obstacle. This paper addresses this problem by augmenting probabilistic traversability map constructed from laser data with ultra-wideband radar measurements. An adaptive detection threshold and a probabilistic sensor model are developed to convert the radar data to occupancy probabilities. The resulting map captures the fine resolution of the laser map but clears areas from the traversability map that are induced by obstacle-free foliage. Experimental results validate that this method is able to improve the accuracy of traversability maps in vegetated environments.
Position information P obtained from standard global positioning system (GPS) receivers is known ... more Position information P obtained from standard global positioning system (GPS) receivers is known to be corrupted with colored (time-correlated) noise. To make effective use of GPS information in a navigation system it is essential to model this colored noise and to incorporate additional sensing to de-correlate and eliminate its effect. In this paper frequency domain techniques are employed to generate
2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2013
ABSTRACT This paper addresses the problem of ensuring mobile robot motion safety when reacting to... more ABSTRACT This paper addresses the problem of ensuring mobile robot motion safety when reacting to soft and hard hazards in a static environment. The work is aimed at off-road navigation for mobile ground robots where soft hazards are posed by varying terrain conditions (e.g. deformable soil, slopes, vegetation). Soft hazards pose operating constraints (i.e. speed limits) to the mobile robot that need to be satisfied to ensure motion safety. This paper presents a new morphological erosion operator that generalizes binary obstacle growing to mobility space (the space of speed limits) to deal with both hard and soft hazards seamlessly. This ensures that topological constraints due to vehicle size as well as momentum are taken into account, and leads to a straight-forward approach to generalize the concept of 'regions of inevitable collision' for soft hazards.
Proceedings of International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 1997
ABSTRACT Position information obtained from standard GPS receivers is known to be corrupted with ... more ABSTRACT Position information obtained from standard GPS receivers is known to be corrupted with coloured (time-correlated) noise. To make effective use of GPS information in a navigation system it is essential to model this coloured noise and to incorporate additional sensing to de-correlate and eliminate its effect. In this paper frequency domain techniques are employed to generate a model for GPS noise sources. This model shows clearly what type and combination of additional sensor information is necessary to de-correlate GPS errors and to make best use of position information in navigation tasks. The frequency-domain methodology proposed has wider application in the design of sensor suites for high-performance navigation systems. Experimental results are presented demonstrating the method in fusing standard GPS latitude and longitude information with information from a velocity sensor
What we refer to as automation changes over time; when functions previously carried out by humans... more What we refer to as automation changes over time; when functions previously carried out by humans are carried out reliably by technology they become ‘machine operation’ rather than automation. On the other hand, certain functions preserve their automation label as they continue to be carried out by both humans and machines. The aim of this chapter is therefore to provide
Many of the advances in computing and technology have increased the decisionmaking capabilities o... more Many of the advances in computing and technology have increased the decisionmaking capabilities of UVS to the point where they may now make truly independent decisions regarding by which route they might travel, what constitutes a target, and whether and by what means these targets should be engaged, possibly with lethal force. As a result, it is now widely acknowledged
In this chapter, attention is drawn to the fact that some changes intended to increase productivi... more In this chapter, attention is drawn to the fact that some changes intended to increase productivity have resulted in performance declines because the technical systems and the social systems into which the technology has been embedded have been misaligned. In particular, since military UVS are expected to change and probably reduce the involvement of humans in certain tasks, and as
The aspirational capability objectives for UVS in the air, land and maritime environments articul... more The aspirational capability objectives for UVS in the air, land and maritime environments articulated by several national roadmap documents (e.g. [202] [205] [206] [267] [268] [278] [281]) may effectively be expressed as: 2008-10 conduct of ISR missions; 2015-2020 autonomous patrol; and, 2025-2030 strike capability and combat missions. This implies a need for persistent UVS autonomy in complex dynamic military environments
Cost drivers and the requirement for UVS to be mobile and adaptive means that a number of systems... more Cost drivers and the requirement for UVS to be mobile and adaptive means that a number of systems – either component technologies or multiple UVS – will need to be controlled by a relatively small number of people. This implies both a high degree of autonomy, and that humans will be retained within the decision-making loop at some level. In
The term millimetre waves refers to that portion of the electromagnetic spectrum between 30 and 3... more The term millimetre waves refers to that portion of the electromagnetic spectrum between 30 and 300 GHz, corresponding to wavelengths between 10 and 1mm. For robotic applications, most activity is concentrated around the atmospheric window at 94GHz [Seashore et al., ...
International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 1998
This paper provides an analysis of Kalman #lterbased systems with respect to fault detection. By ... more This paper provides an analysis of Kalman #lterbased systems with respect to fault detection. By usingfrequency domain techniques, a metric is developed thatdescribes the detectability of a fault by showing how a faultis transmitted to the #lter innovations #if at all#. Throughexperiment, it is shown that redundancy must be employedfor guaranteed detection of faults, and that unlike sensorsshould be used.
This chapter discusses the issue of machine perception from the perspective of a system design pr... more This chapter discusses the issue of machine perception from the perspective of a system design process. The three issues of information gathering, data representation and reasoning are discussed, leading to a general high-level model of the problem. The model is intended to be generic enough to allow a wide variety of tasks to be performed using a single set of
Proceedings. 1998 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.98CH36146), 1998
Abstract|This paper provides an analysis of Kalman lter based systems with respect to fault detec... more Abstract|This paper provides an analysis of Kalman lter based systems with respect to fault detection. By using frequency domain techniques, a metric is developed that describes the detectability of a fault by showing how a fault is transmitted to the lter innovations if at all. Through experiment, it is shown that redundancy must be employed for guaranteed detection of faults, and that unlike sensors should be used. Further, it is shown that modelling errors can be treated within the same framework as`hard' actuator or sensor faults.
Proceedings 2002 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.02CH37292), 2002
Three dimensional terrain maps are useful representations of environments for various robotic app... more Three dimensional terrain maps are useful representations of environments for various robotic applications. Unfortunately, sensor data (from which such maps are built) is uncertain and contains errors which are usually not accounted for in existing terrain building algorithms. In real-time applications, it is necessary to quantify these uncertainties to allow map construction decisions to be made online. This paper addresses this issue by providing a representation that explicitly accounts for sensing uncertainty. This is achieved through the use of stochastic simulation techniques. The result is in an algorithm for online 3D multi-resolution surface reconstruction of unknown, and unstructured environments. Results of the surface reconstruction algorithm in a real environment are presented.
2013 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2013
ABSTRACT Operating in vegetated environments is a major challenge for autonomous robots. Obstacle... more ABSTRACT Operating in vegetated environments is a major challenge for autonomous robots. Obstacle detection based only on geometric features causes the robot to consider foliage, for example, small grass tussocks that could be easily driven through, as obstacles. Classifying vegetation does not solve this problem since there might be an obstacle hidden behind the vegetation. In addition, dense vegetation typically needs to be considered as an obstacle. This paper addresses this problem by augmenting probabilistic traversability map constructed from laser data with ultra-wideband radar measurements. An adaptive detection threshold and a probabilistic sensor model are developed to convert the radar data to occupancy probabilities. The resulting map captures the fine resolution of the laser map but clears areas from the traversability map that are induced by obstacle-free foliage. Experimental results validate that this method is able to improve the accuracy of traversability maps in vegetated environments.
Position information P obtained from standard global positioning system (GPS) receivers is known ... more Position information P obtained from standard global positioning system (GPS) receivers is known to be corrupted with colored (time-correlated) noise. To make effective use of GPS information in a navigation system it is essential to model this colored noise and to incorporate additional sensing to de-correlate and eliminate its effect. In this paper frequency domain techniques are employed to generate
2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2013
ABSTRACT This paper addresses the problem of ensuring mobile robot motion safety when reacting to... more ABSTRACT This paper addresses the problem of ensuring mobile robot motion safety when reacting to soft and hard hazards in a static environment. The work is aimed at off-road navigation for mobile ground robots where soft hazards are posed by varying terrain conditions (e.g. deformable soil, slopes, vegetation). Soft hazards pose operating constraints (i.e. speed limits) to the mobile robot that need to be satisfied to ensure motion safety. This paper presents a new morphological erosion operator that generalizes binary obstacle growing to mobility space (the space of speed limits) to deal with both hard and soft hazards seamlessly. This ensures that topological constraints due to vehicle size as well as momentum are taken into account, and leads to a straight-forward approach to generalize the concept of 'regions of inevitable collision' for soft hazards.
Proceedings of International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 1997
ABSTRACT Position information obtained from standard GPS receivers is known to be corrupted with ... more ABSTRACT Position information obtained from standard GPS receivers is known to be corrupted with coloured (time-correlated) noise. To make effective use of GPS information in a navigation system it is essential to model this coloured noise and to incorporate additional sensing to de-correlate and eliminate its effect. In this paper frequency domain techniques are employed to generate a model for GPS noise sources. This model shows clearly what type and combination of additional sensor information is necessary to de-correlate GPS errors and to make best use of position information in navigation tasks. The frequency-domain methodology proposed has wider application in the design of sensor suites for high-performance navigation systems. Experimental results are presented demonstrating the method in fusing standard GPS latitude and longitude information with information from a velocity sensor
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Papers by Steve Scheding