Browse Topic: Terrain
Autonomous vehicle navigation requires signal processing of the vehicle’s sensors to provide meaningful information to the planners such that challenging artifacts like shadows, rare events, obstructive vegetation, etc. are identified properly, avoiding ill-informed navigation. Using a single algorithm such as semantic segmentation of camera images is often not enough to identify those challenging features but can be overcome by processing more than one type of sensor and fusing their results. In this work, semantic segmentation of camera image and LiDAR point cloud signals is performed using Echo State Networks to overcome the challenge of shadows identified as obstructions in off-road terrains. The coordination of algorithms processing multiple sensor signals is shown to avoid unnecessary road obstructions caused by high-contrast shadows for more informed navigational planning
Usually hosted in Southern California, the Advanced Clean Transportation (ACT) Expo moved about 265 miles (425 km) north and east for its latest edition, taking place in Las Vegas from May 20-23. Interestingly, that distance challenges the range limits of most Class 8 battery-electric trucks, particularly if traversing hilly terrain or hauling heavy loads. One electric truck capable of covering such a stretch - with its estimated range of up to 500 miles (805 km) fully loaded at 82,000 lb GCW - is the Tesla Semi, which made its trade-show debut at the ACT Expo. “Achieving strong range-to-mass ratios is only possible with a dedicated, purpose-built, ground-up electric platform - exactly what the Semi is. There's no wasted space, the powertrain and the vehicle work hand in hand,” Dan Priestley, senior manager of engineering for the Tesla Semi, said during a keynote in Las Vegas
ANYmal has for some time had no problem coping with the stony terrain of Swiss hiking trails. Now researchers at ETH Zurich have taught this quadrupedal robot some new skills: it is proving rather adept at parkour, a sport based on using athletic maneuvers to smoothly negotiate obstacles in an urban environment, which has become very popular. ANYmal is also proficient at dealing with the tricky terrain commonly found on building sites or in disaster areas
Centipedes are known for their wiggly walk. With tens to hundreds of legs, they can traverse any terrain without stopping
A team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory that's creating a snake-like robot for traversing extreme terrain is taking on the challenge with the mentality of a startup: Build quickly, test often, learn, adjust, repeat. Called EELS (short for Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor), the self-propelled, autonomous robot was inspired by a desire to look for signs of life in the ocean hiding below the icy crust of Saturn's moon Enceladus by descending narrow vents in the surface that spew geysers into space
In recent decades, significant technological advances have made cruise control systems safer, more automated, and available in more driving scenarios. However, comparatively little progress has been made in optimizing vehicle efficiency while in cruise control. In this paper, two distinct strategies are proposed to deliver efficiency benefits in cruise control by leveraging flexibility around the driver’s requested set speed, and road information that is available on-board in many new vehicles. In today’s cruise control systems, substantial energy is wasted by rigidly controlling to a single set speed regardless of the terrain or road conditions. Introducing even a small allowable “error band” around the set speed can allow the propulsion system to operate in a pseudo-steady state manner across most terrain. As long as the vehicle can remain in the allowed speed window, it can maintain a roughly constant load, traveling slower up hills and faster down hills. This strategy reduces the
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images are a powerful tool for studying the Earth’s surface. They are radar signals generated by an imaging system mounted on a platform such as an aircraft or satellite. As the platform moves, the system emits sequentially high-power electromagnetic waves through its antenna. The waves are then reflected by the Earth’s surface, re-captured by the antenna, and finally processed to create detailed images of the terrain below
A team of researchers from the Department of Mechanical Science and Bioengineering at Osaka University have invented a new kind of walking robot that takes advantage of dynamic instability to navigate. By changing the flexibility of the couplings, the robot can be made to turn without the need for complex computational control systems. This work may assist the creation of rescue robots that are able to traverse uneven terrain
Researchers from MIT’s Improbable Artificial Intelligence Lab, part of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), have developed a legged robotic system that can dribble a soccer ball under the same conditions as humans. The bot used a mixture of onboard sensing and computing to traverse different natural terrains such as sand, gravel, mud, and snow, and adapt to their varied impact on the ball’s motion. Like every committed athlete, “DribbleBot” could get up and recover the ball after falling
A research team led by Professor Jemin Hwangbo of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at KAIST has developed a quadrupedal robot control technology that can walk robustly with agility even in deformable terrain such as sandy beach
Genesys Aerosystems, a Moog company, offers a line of avionics specifically designed for the military/special-mission market. Originally, the system was developed as part of the FAA’s Capstone Program — first established in 1999 — to reduce the excessively high number of controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) accidents in the southeast region of Alaska
Genesys Aerosystems, a Moog company, offers a line of avionics specifically designed for the military/special-mission market. Originally, the system was developed as part of the FAA's Capstone Program - first established in 1999 - to reduce the excessively high number of controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) accidents in the southeast region of Alaska. Implementation of this technology by pilots in the southeast Alaska region immediately reduced the CFIT accident rate from an average of one fatality every nine days to zero among commercial aircraft. Twenty years later, the Capstone equipment continues to provide exceptional safety, and Genesys has become a leading avionics supplier to military and special-mission fleet operators around the world, including the U.S. Navy, U.S. Army, and over 35 foreign militaries and other government operators
An interdisciplinary team of University of Minnesota Twin Cities scientists and engineers has developed a first-of-its-kind, plant-inspired extrusion process that enables synthetic material growth. The new approach will allow researchers to build better soft robots that can navigate hard-to-reach places, complicated terrain, and potentially areas within the human body
The future battlefield will be filled with multiple dissimilar energy networks including unmanned and manned vehicular platforms actively engaged in cooperative control and communications capable of overpowering an adversary and dominating the battlespace. This chaotic multi-domain operational environment will be limited by variable operating conditions (mission profiles, terrain, atmospheric conditions), copious amounts of real-time actionable intelligence derived from weapon and sensor suites, and most importantly, the energy capabilities of each platform
Coastal and riverine shorelines are dynamic landscapes that change continually in response to environmental forces. The combination of static infrastructure with dynamic and diverse landscapes creates management challenges for navigation, storm damage reduction, and ecosystem health that are exacerbated during natural disasters. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) flood risk management (FRM) mission strives to reduce the nation's flood risk and increase resilience to disasters. FRM is inherently interdisciplinary, requiring accurate identification of environmental, physical, and infrastructure features that can reduce risk from flood and coastal storm disasters
CS-3D-Api now has a GPU implementation of an alternative 3D reconstruction method to the existing block-matching (BM) approach. The approach is based on the semi-global matching (SGM) algorithm, which is very accurate at object borders, fine structures and in weakly textured terrain. It combines concepts of global and local stereo methods for accurate, pixel- wise matching at low runtime
Researchers have developed new software that can enable people using robotic prosthetics or exoskeletons to walk in a safer, more natural manner on different types of terrain. The new framework incorporates computer vision into prosthetic leg control and includes robust artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms that allow the software to better account for uncertainty
The collective behaviors of ants, honeybees, and birds to solve problems and overcome obstacles is something researchers have developed in aerial and underwater robotics. Developing small-scale swarm robots with the capability to traverse complex terrain, however, comes with a unique set of challenges. Researchers have built multi-legged robots capable of maneuvering in challenging environments and accomplishing difficult tasks collectively, mimicking their natural-world counterparts
Robots that need to use their arms to make their way across treacherous terrain are being equipped with an algorithm that found successful paths three times as often as standard algorithms, while needing much less processing time. The new algorithm speeds up path planning for robots that use arm-like appendages to maintain balance on treacherous terrain such as disaster areas or construction sites
Off road navigation demands ground robots to traverse complex and often changing terrain. Classification and assessment of terrain can improve path planning strategies by reducing travel time and energy consumption. In this paper we introduce a terrain classification and assessment framework that relies on both exteroceptive and proprioceptive sensor modalities. The robot captures an image of the terrain it is about to traverse and records corresponding vibration data during traversal. These images are manually labelled and used to train a support vector machine (SVM) in an offline training phase. Images have been captured under different lighting conditions and across multiple locations to achieve diversity and robustness to the model. Acceleration data is used to calculate statistical features that capture the roughness of the terrain whereas angular velocities are used to calculate roll and pitch angles experienced by the robot. These features are used to train a k-means clustering
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