Field and Service Robotics : Results of the 12th International Conference

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Foreword Preface Contents About the Editors Multi-session Lake-Shore Monitoring in Visually Challenging Conditions 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 3 Method 3.1 Intra-survey Keyframe Creation 3.2 Drift Control from GPS and Factor-Graphs 3.3 Global Map Alignment 3.4 Iterative Multi-session SLAM 3.5 Local Trajectory Optimization 3.6 Image Pair Selection 4 Results and Experiments 4.1 Global Map Alignment 4.2 Image Pairs Dataset 5 Conclusion References Autonomous Visual Assistance for Robot Operations Using a Tethered UAV 1 Introduction 2 Co-Robots Team 2.1 Tele-Operated Ground Primary Robot 2.2 Autonomous Aerial Visual Assistant 2.3 Human Operator 3 Visual Assistance Components 3.1 Viewpoint Quality Reward 3.2 Explicit Risk Representation 3.3 Risk-Aware Reward-Maximizing Planning 4 Tethered Motion 4.1 Tether-Based Indoor Localization 4.2 Motion Primitives 4.3 Tether Contact Planning 5 System Demonstration 5.1 Indoor Test 5.2 Outdoor Test 6 Conclusions References Tethered Dual-Wheeled Robot for Exploration of Volcanic Fumaroles on Steep Slopes 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 3 System Design of a Steep Slope Traversal Robot 3.1 Proposal of Passive Tether Guide Module 3.2 Steep Slope Traversal Method 3.3 Development of Steep Slope Exploration RObot with Dual Wheels 3.4 Evaluation of the Passive Tether-Guide Module 3.5 Results of the Experimental Test 4 Field Experiments 4.1 Steep Slope Traversal 4.2 Experiment of Observation Scenario 4.3 Lessons Learned 5 Conclusions References Robotic Reliability Engineering: Experience from Long-Term TritonBot Development 1 Introduction 2 Background and Related Work 3 TritonBot Overview 4 Scaling up TritonBot over the Long-Term Deployment 4.1 Scalability Challenges in TritonBot 4.2 Forward- and Backward-Compatibility 4.3 Decoupling Software Components 4.4 Managing Robotic Software with Linux Containers 5 Tolerating and Coping with Failures 5.1 Resilience Challenges in TritonBot 5.2 Recovering from Transient Failures 5.3 Relying on Separate Subsystems 5.4 Monitoring the System 6 Learning from the Past 6.1 Learning Challenges in TritonBot 6.2 Learning from Long-Term Deployment 6.3 Learning from Rare Failures 7 Conclusion References Autonomous Driving of Six-Wheeled Dump Truck with a Retrofitted Robot 1 Introduction 2 Robotization of Existing Six-Wheeled Dump Truck 2.1 Development of Retrofitted Robot: SAM 2.2 Sensing Unit for Acquisition of Vehicle Status 2.3 Path Tracking Method for Six-Wheeled Dump Truck 3 Obstacle Detection 3.1 Acquisition Function of Environmental Information Based on 3D LiDAR 3.2 Examination of Suitable Installation Configuration of 3D LiDAR 3.3 Derivation of Unmeasurable Region 3.4 Obstacle Detection Method 4 Initial Field Experiments 4.1 Experiments of Forward and Backward Path Tracking 4.2 Emergency Stop Experiment by Detection of Obstacles 5 Conclusions References Pre-robotic Navigation Identification of Pedestrian Crossings and Their Orientations 1 Introduction 2 Related Works 3 Methodology Description 3.1 Sourcing Street Maps and Satellite Imagery 3.2 Zebra Crossing Detection 3.3 Orientation Estimation 4 Conclusion References Improvement in Measurement Area of Three-Dimensional LiDAR Using Mirrors Mounted on Mobile Robots 1 Introduction 2 Installation Condition of Mirrors to Acquire Desired Detection Areas 2.1 Mirror Installation Requirements 2.2 Geometrical Conditions to Satisfy Requirements 2.3 Method of Deriving Mirror Angle that Satisfies Design Requirements 3 Verification Test 3.1 Test Method 3.2 Calibration of Reflected Points 3.3 Results 3.4 Discussion 4 Utility Verification Test in the Proposed Method 4.1 Required Information for a Tracked Vehicle to Climb Stairs 4.2 Test Method 4.3 Test Results 5 Conclusion References The Hulk: Design and Development of a Weather-Proof Vehicle for Long-Term Autonomy in Outdoor Environments 1 Introduction 2 Design Guidelines 3 Base Vehicle 4 Sensor and Computer Payload 5 Safety Systems 5.1 Hardware Safety-Curtain System 5.2 Software Safety Curtain 6 Vehicle Modification 6.1 Sensor and Compute Bay 6.2 Rear Interface Compartment 6.3 Control Interface 7 Human–Robot Interaction 7.1 Bystander Interaction 7.2 Supervisor and Operator Interaction 7.3 Mechanic Interaction 8 Conclusions and Future Work References Effects of Turning Radius on Skid-Steered Wheeled Robot Power Consumption on Loose Soil 1 Introduction 2 Power Modeling of Skid-Steered Wheeled Robots 2.1 Kinematic Model 2.2 Power Model 3 Test Equipment and Setup 3.1 Clearpath Husky A200 3.2 Five-Axis Single-Wheel Test Bed 4 Results 4.1 Power Model for Hard Ground Limitation on Loose Soil 4.2 Torque-Proportional Curve 4.3 Sinkage 4.4 Sand Bulldozing Force (FSB) 5 Conclusion, Future Work, and Practical Lessons Learned References Toward Precise Robotic Grasping by Probabilistic Post-grasp Displacement Estimation 1 Introduction 2 Related Works 3 Learning Precise Robotic Grasping 3.1 Problem Statement 3.2 Overview of the Approach 3.3 Simulation Data 3.4 Grasp Quality and Post-grasp Displacement Estimation 4 Experiments 4.1 Evaluated Grasp Displacement Models 4.2 Training GQN and GDN 4.3 Evaluation in Simulation 4.4 Evaluation with Real-World Robot 5 Conclusion References Development of HYDROVER: A Torque-Controlled Hydraulic Rover 1 Introduction 2 Robot Design 2.1 Machine Overview 2.2 Actuation and Control System 3 Controller Overview 4 Preliminary Experiments 4.1 Torque Control of Legs 4.2 Slope Experiments 5 Conclusion References VI-SLAM for Subterranean Environments 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 2.1 Visual-Inertial SLAM Techniques 2.2 Landmark Depth Estimation in Sparse Visual SLAM 3 VI-SLAM Method 3.1 Direct Depth Measurement 4 Experiments 4.1 Sensor Setup 4.2 Dataset Description 4.3 Test Description 4.4 Error Evaluation 5 Results 6 Conclusions References Simultaneous Localization and Mapping of Subterranean Voids with Gaussian Mixture Models 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 3 Methodology 3.1 Gaussian Mixture Model 3.2 Pose Graph SLAM via GMM Registration 4 Results 4.1 Mine 4.2 Cave 5 Discussion and Future Work 6 Conclusion References Obstacle Climbing of Tracked Robot for Unfixed Cylindrical Obstacle Using Sub-tracks 1 Introduction 2 Research Scope 3 Climbing Over an Unfixed Cylindrical Obstacle Using Sub-tracks 3.1 Conditions that a Tracked Robot Should Meet in Climbing Over an Unfixed Cylindrical Obstacle 4 Experiments 4.1 Description of the Experiment 4.2 Experimental Equipment and Environment 4.3 Climbing-Over Conditions for Kenaf 4.4 Results 5 Discussion 5.1 Motion Strategy of Rear Sub-tracks 5.2 The Effect of the Front Sub-tracks and Utilization 6 Conclusion References Multi-rover Exploration Strategies: Coverage Path Planning with Myopic Sensing 1 Introduction 1.1 Background and Motivations 1.2 Related Work 2 Multi-rover Myopic Exploration 2.1 Problem Formulation and Initial Assumptions 2.2 Single Rover Myopic Coverage 2.3 Extension to Multi-rover Systems 3 Simulations and Results 3.1 Single Rover Coverage Results 3.2 Reduced Percentage of Completeness 3.3 Multi-rover Coverage Results 4 Conclusions and Future Developments References Machine Learning Techniques for AUV Side-Scan Sonar Data Feature Extraction as Applied to Intelligent Search for Underwater Archaeological Sites 1 Introduction 2 Background 3 Intelligent Shipwreck Search 3.1 Site Identification Algorithm Pipeline 3.2 Scan Discretizer 3.3 Data Augmenter 3.4 Image Feature Extractor 3.5 Edge Detector 3.6 Image Scalar 3.7 Neural Network 3.8 Scan Target Extractor 4 Experiments 4.1 Data Collection 4.2 Labelled Data Set Creation 4.3 Neural Network Training 4.4 Results 5 Conclusions and Future Work References Ridge-Tracking for Strawberry Harvesting Support Robot According to Farmer’s Behavior 1 Introduction 2 Strawberry Harvesting Support Using “MY DONKEY®” 2.1 Strawberry Harvesting 2.2 System Configuration 3 Ridge-Tracking Control According to Farmer’s Behavior 3.1 Ridge Detection 3.2 User Detection 3.3 Ridge-Tracking Control Using Fuzzy Potential Method 4 Experiments 5 Conclusions References ANYmal in the Field: Solving Industrial Inspection of an Offshore HVDC Platform with a Quadrupedal Robot 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 3 Problem Statement 3.1 Description of the Environment 3.2 Robot's Mission 4 The Robotic Inspection System 4.1 Sensors and Actuators 4.2 Mobility and Navigation 4.3 Robot Control and User Interface 5 Field Tests 6 Results of the Feasibility Study 7 Conclusion References Large-Scale 3D Mapping of Subarctic Forests 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 3 Theory 3.1 New Formulation for Point-to-Gaussian Cost Function 3.2 Adding Penalty Terms to ICP 3.3 Iterative Closest Point Mapping 4 Experimental Setup 4.1 Data Acquisition Platform 5 Field Results 5.1 Effects of Adding GNSS Penalty to ICP 5.2 The Forêt Montmorency Dataset Results and Discussion 5.3 Steps Toward Real-Time Large-Scale Lidar Mapping 6 Conclusion References Revisiting Boustrophedon Coverage Path Planning as a Generalized Traveling Salesman Problem 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 3 Geometric Path Generation 3.1 Sweep Pattern Permutation 3.2 Polygon Decomposition 4 Coverage Path Planning 4.1 Pruning 5 Results 5.1 Simulation Benchmark 5.2 Experiment 6 Conclusion References Fast Exploration Using Multirotors: Analysis, Planning, and Experimentation 1 Introduction 2 Steady-State Velocity Analysis 2.1 System Model and Safety Constraints 2.2 Steady-State Exploration Scenarios 2.3 Bounds on Velocity 3 Action Representation 3.1 Motion Primitive Library Generation 3.2 Action Space for Fast Exploration 4 Action Selection 4.1 Information-Theoretic Exploration Objectives 4.2 Safety at High Speeds 5 Results 5.1 Aerial Platform 5.2 Simulated Exploration of a Warehouse Environment 5.3 Hardware Experiments Under Varied Conditions 6 Conclusion and Future Work References Ray Tracing and Use of Shadows as Features for Determining Location in Lunar Polar Terrain 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 3 Ray Traced Stereo Scan Matching to Geometric Maps 3.1 Stereo Correspondence and Ray Construction 3.2 Camera Sensor Model Based on Disparity 3.3 Observed Terrain Occupancy 3.4 Expected Terrain Occupancy 3.5 Observation Likelihood Maximization 4 Detection and Registration of Shadow Features 4.1 Shadow Detection 4.2 Shadow Registration Using Ray Tracing 5 Experiments and Results 6 Conclusion and Future Work References Planning for Robotic Dry Stacking with Irregular Stones 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 3 Methods 3.1 Notation 3.2 Structure Planning 3.3 Object Pose Detection 4 Experiments 4.1 Experimental Setup 4.2 Results 5 Conclusion and Future Work References Actively Articulated Wheel-on-Limb Mobility for Traversing Europa Analogue Terrain 1 Introduction 1.1 Europa Analogue Surface 1.2 Versatile Mobility 2 Mobility Modes 3 Actively Articulated Suspension 3.1 Driftless Motion for Redundant Limbs 3.2 Feedback Controller 4 Experiment Design 5 Experiment Results 6 Conclusions and Future Work References Meander-Based River Coverage by an Autonomous Surface Vehicle 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 3 Proposed Method 3.1 Meander-Based Coverage (M-cover) 4 Results 5 Conclusion References Autonomous 3D Semantic Mapping of Coral Reefs 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 2.1 Object Detection 2.2 Visual Odometry 3 Approach 3.1 Detection 3.2 Tracking 3.3 Counting 3.4 Semantic Mapping 3.5 Coral Volume Estimation 4 Experimental Results and Discussion 4.1 Counting 4.2 Volumetric Coral Evaluation 5 Conclusion References Dynamic Autonomous Surface Vehicle Controls Under Changing Environmental Forces 1 Introduction 1.1 Problem Definition 1.2 Related Work 1.3 Contributions 2 Methodology 2.1 External Force Effects 2.2 Proactive Control Through Way-Point Augmentation 3 Experiments 3.1 Platform 3.2 Experimental Approach 4 Results 4.1 Way-Point Navigation 4.2 Proactive Effects Augmented Way-Point Navigation Controller 5 Conclusions References Airborne Particle Classification in LiDAR Point Clouds Using Deep Learning 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 3 Airborne Particle Classification in LiDAR Point Clouds 3.1 Classification Input Features 3.2 Voxel Classification Approach 3.3 Point Classification Approach 4 Experimental Setup 4.1 Dataset 4.2 Performance Metrics 4.3 Evaluation Parameters 5 Experimental Results 5.1 Voxel Classification Evaluation 5.2 Point Classification Evaluation 5.3 Performance Comparison 5.4 Differentiate Dust from Fog Particles 5.5 Use Cases 6 Conclusion and Future Work References Experimental Validation of Structured Receding Horizon Estimation and Control for Mobile Ground Robot Slip Compensation 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 3 Preliminaries 3.1 System Model 4 Method 4.1 Receding Horizon Estimation and Control 4.2 Nonlinear Receding Horizon Estimation 4.3 Structured Noise Blocking in Estimation 4.4 Nonlinear Receding Horizon Control 4.5 Solution Methods 5 Experimental Setup 5.1 RHE Configuration 5.2 RHC Configuration 6 Results and Discussion 7 Conclusion References Lessons Learned from Deploying Autonomous Vehicles at UC San Diego 1 Introduction 2 Technical Approach 2.1 Containers 2.2 Autoware/ROS 2.3 Perception and Tracking 2.4 Detection and Pose Estimation of Vehicles 2.5 Vehicle Control and Path Tracking 2.6 AVL Logger 3 Experimental Results 3.1 Localization and Mapping 3.2 Motion Planning and Logic 4 Conclusion References Smooth Local Planning Incorporating Steering Constraints 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 3 Integrating Mechanical Steering Constraints 3.1 Formalizing Mechanical Steering Constraints 3.2 Constraint Unification 4 From Paths to Velocity Commands 5 Integrating Steering Constraints into the Local Planner 5.1 Mechanical Steering Constraints in a Post-processing Filter 5.2 Mechanical Steering Constraints in the Local Planner 6 Evaluation 7 Conclusions References A Planning Framework for Persistent, Multi-UAV Coverage with Global Deconfliction 1 Introduction 2 Related Work 3 Problem Formulation 4 Approach 4.1 System Manager 4.2 Prioritized Planner 4.3 Goal Assigner 4.4 Goal Planner 5 Experimental Setup and Results 5.1 Evaluation Metrics 5.2 Simulation Experiments 5.3 Real-World Experiments 6 Conclusion and Future Work References This book comprises select proceedings of the 12th Conference on Field and Service Robotics (FSR 2019) focusing on cutting-edge research carried out in different applications of robotics, including agriculture, search and rescue, aerial marine, industrial, and space. It focuses on experiments and demonstrations of robotics applied to complex and dynamic environments and covers diverse applications. The essays are written by leading international experts, making it a valuable resource for researchers and practicing engineers alike.