IEEE Robotics and Automation Society News Feed

Navigation by the Soles of Your Feet (and the Seat of Your Pants)

2009-11-08T01:30:13Z

Vibrating driver's seats and shoe inserts are proving that humans can gather information using unusual parts of the body.

Good Vibrations: Actuator-embedded insoles gave wearers directions

BY Anne-Marie Corley // October 2009, IEEE Spectrum on-line

30 October 2009—The human gateway to the electronic world is mostly through our eyes and ears. But devices that connect through our sense of touch have been developed for the fingertips, the chest, the back, and even the tongue. Now researchers in Mexico have come up with a device to communicate via your feet, and a collaboration between a Dutch organization and General Motors has tested a way to communicate potentially vital driving information through none other than your rear end.

The point of these new tactile devices is to develop touch-sensitive applications for virtual reality, gaming, robotics, rehabilitation, navigation, and assistance for the blind or visually impaired, among others things.

The shoe dropped at the recent IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2009). Ramiro Velazquez, an assistant professor in the Mechatronics and Control Systems Lab at Mexico's Panamerican University, presented his computer-sole interface, which will be worn inside a shoe in its final version. It's the first device to stimulate the bottom of the feet to convey information, rather than to enhance sensation. The goal of his study, Velazquez says, was to answer the question, "Are we capable of understanding information through our feet?"

The answer, it turns out, is yes.

His group chose to stimulate an area of the foot that has a high concentration of receptors for texture and vibration sensing—around where the arch and the ball of the foot meet, along the outer edge of the sole. The researchers arrayed four rows of four miniature vibrating motors of the type used in cellphones, available commercially for US $10, in the shoe insert. Each of these 16 actuators could be activated independently and at different vibrating frequencies to transmit signals, meant to communicate directions and patterns, to 20 research subjects in their study.

First, the researchers tested whether people could understand "dynamic directions," or signals moving in certain directions on the bottom of the feet, while the subjects simply sat still. The researchers matched cardinal directions to patterns on the shoe insert by vibrating rows and columns of the actuators one after another. They vibrated heel row to toe row, for example, to indicate north, or forward, and reversed the direction from toe row to heel row to indicate south, or backward.

The researchers also tested the subjects' ability to perceive geometric shapes made by the vibrating actuators; patterns of vibration, like the alerts for calls or text messages on cellphones; and navigation cues using the dynamic directions as before but this time while the subjects were walking blindfolded around obstacles in a room. They found that people were best at sensing directions and recognizing patterns. In the navigation test, completed by five of the original 20 subjects, four tested well. One got pretty turned around, though even he eventually made it through the obstacle course.

Certain information is just not easily discernible when transmitted via foot communication, Velazquez found. The test subjects had difficulty determining geometric shapes, such as a line, a circle, or a square. Velazquez explains that because vibrations expand throughout the skin, very specific geometric information—such as a diagonal line—is difficult to distinguish.

Still, humans can glean a lot from the soles of their feet. Now that his group has seen what's possible, Velazquez hopes they can create "a new tactile language for the feet" that you'd learn just like any other language.

Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute professor Mel Siegel says that although the device is "clearly an early prototype," it shows the promise of "really doing something useful," like aiding the visually impaired. It also comes at a time when our primary senses for navigation and mapping the world around us—our eyes and ears—are overloaded, Siegel points out. "Everyone talks about sensory overload," he says. But if you could use this "other modality"—touch—you might be able to take in important information without competition in the same arena from other visual or audio signals, Siegel says, although experiments would need to prove that hypothesis.

Robots in the Real World: How robotics will tranform our lives

2009-11-05T14:55:14Z

In a special report from IEEE Spectrum released this week, we meet some of the world’s most creative minds in robotics to find out how their robots will transform our lives—for real. “Engineers of the New Millennium: Robots for Real.” Many of the people interviewed in the report are members of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society

Stories in the report include

'Lessons from a Mechanical Child', with an interview with Auke Ijspeert of the Biologically Inspired Robotics Group at EPFL-Zurich. Ijspeert describes their work with RobotCub, an initiative whose goal is to study cognitive function by building a humanoid, childlike robot, known as iCub.
'Amazing Androids of Hiroshi Ishiguro', In one of his labs at the University of Osaka, Ishiguro builds androids to help us understand how the human mind works.Duk Fehr,
'The A-Team of Robots', featuring Duk Fehr and Nikos Papanikolopolous, of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities' Center ofr Distributed Robotics, where the Scout robot, among others was invented. Also featured in this story is Sgt. Chir Kuklok for the Plymouth, MN SWAT team, which uses the scout as 'a first set of eyes on dangerous situations.'

The report is being aired on public radio stations in the United States, and is available for download as an audio slide show on Spectrum's "Inside Technology website at http://spectrum.ieee.org/static/special-report-robots-for-real. The website points to other recent features including

12 University-Industry Teams From 5 Countries Finalists in US/Australian Robotics Competiton

2009-11-04T16:27:54Z

Twelve of the world’s most technologically-savvy universities and several innovative companies have teamed up and are now finalists in an international robotics competition with a U.S. $1.6 million purse. In addition to the prize money, winning teams will have a unique opportunity to work with American and Australian military organizations to develop the advanced robots that will work alongside – and instead of – Soldiers on future battlefields.
The Multi-Autonomous Ground Robotics International Challenge (MAGIC) 2010 is being co-hosted by the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) and the Australian Department of Defence’s (ADOD’s) Defence Science and Technology Organisation. TARDEC is the core of ground robotics development for the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command and U.S. Department of Defense.
The MAGIC 2010 competition, the first of its kind in the world, has been established to attract entries that will further the development of fully autonomous robots for military, commercial and civilian emergency applications. Competing teams will ultimately field squads of unmanned vehicle prototypes that autonomously coordinate, plan and execute a series of timed tasks including classifying and responding to simulated threats and exploring/mapping diverse terrains.
“The levels of quality and innovation in the MAGIC 2010 submissions surpassed our expectations,” said TARDEC Director Dr. Grace M. Bochenek. “We are excited to move on to the next step in this collaborative, competitive process. MAGIC 2010 will lead to groundbreaking robotics research in critical new arenas that will address operational challenges, increase energy security and save Soldiers’ lives.”

MAGIC 2010 entries were open to international organizations from industry and academia. Twenty-three entries were received from the United States, Australia, Canada, Poland, Japan, South Korea and Turkey. Ten university/industry teams, selected as semifinalists, will each receive U.S. $50,000 in seed money to pursue their technology submissions. They include:
Australia

MAGICIAN (including the University of Western Australia (Robotics and Automation Laboratory, Adaptive Systems Research Group), Flinders University (Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Systems Laboratories), Edith Cowan University (Artificial Intelligence and Software Engineering Cluster), Thales Australia (D3S&A, Naval Division), ILLIARC Pty Ltd.)
STRATEGIC ENGINEERING (including an Australian robotics company specializing in advanced sensing, vision systems, autonomous vehicles, industrial robotics and field robotic platforms, and the University of Adelaide.)

Canada

NORTHERN HUNTERS – Canada (including Amtech Aeronautical Ltd, Scientific Instrumentation Ltd, Royal Military College of Canada.)

Japan

CHIBA TEAM/Chiba University – Japan (including Chiba University and Analytical Software Inc.)

Turkey

CAPPADOCIA – Turkey (including ASELSAN (Turkish military electronics company) with Bilkent University, Bogazici University, Middle East Technical University from Turkey, and Ohio State University (Control & Intelligent Transportation Research Lab) in the United States.)

United States

RASR - Reconnaissance and Autonomy for Small Robots Team – United States (including Robotics Research, LLC, General Dynamics Robotic Systems, QinetiQ-North America, Del Services, Cedar Creek Defense University, Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and the University of Michigan.)

TEAM CORNELL, Cornell University – United States (School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.)
TEAM MICHIGAN – United States (including SoarTech with research support from the University of Michigan.)
VIRGINIA TECH – United States (Department of Mechanical Engineering).
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA – United States (including BAE Systems experts as auxiliary team members.)

Two other teams from Australia were also selected as semifinalists by the judging panel and have the opportunity to further compete by self-funding their projects:

NUMINENCE - Australia (including Numinence Pty Ltd and LaTrobe University with support from 10 small companies).

12 UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES - Australia (including Kumamoto University, Japan, and University of Western Sydney).

“These teams presented us with outstanding presentations, ideas and strategies,” noted Dr. Jim Overholt, director of TARDEC’s Joint Center for Robotics, and co-chair of Magic 2010. “The intellectual capabilities and vision that these organizations have brought to the field of robotics with their proposals is truly impressive. We are fortunate to be part of an event that will witness the fruition of these ideas and the potential development of new technologies for future military and commercial use.”
Between now and June 2010, MAGIC 2010 judges will visit the 12 semi-finalists to cut the field down to five finalists. Each of those five remaining teams will receive an additional U.S. $50,000 to complete their entries.
The final MAGIC 2010 challenge is scheduled to take place Nov. 8 – 13, 2010, in an undisclosed location in Australia.
The grand prize winner will be announced at the Land Warfighter Conference Nov. 15 – 19 in Brisbane, Australia. During that conference, final awards of U.S. $750,000, $250,000 and $100,000 will be presented respectively to the three top teams to further their robotics research.
More information on MAGIC 2010 go to www.dsto.defence.gov.au/MAGIC2010/.

ABOUT TARDEC
Headquartered at the Detroit Arsenal in Warren, MI, TARDEC is the United States laboratory for advanced military automotive technology and serves as the Ground Systems Integrator for all Department of Defense (DOD) manned and unmanned ground vehicle systems.

Nominations for IEEE-RAS Student Activities Committee Co-chairs

2009-11-03T21:43:33Z

The IEEE Robotics and Automation Society is seeking applications for two cochairs of the Student Activities Committee (SAC), who will serve a one year term. They will work together with the chair of the SAC.

The IEEE-RAS Student Activities Committee promotes student participationin the Society activities in cooperation with all Society Boards, Committees and Working Groups, especially with Membership Activities Board (MAB). The mission of the committee includes, for example, working on issues of interest to student members and interacting with student members through IEEE student branches and chapters, student events at RAS conferences, and social media such as RAS groups on Facebook and Twitter.

The Co-chairs of this Committee are appointed by the President from a slate of candidate Society student members recommended by the Membership Activities Board to serve a one-year term in 2010. Candidates may be undergraduate or graduate students, but must be student members of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society in good standing.

If you wish to be considered for nomination for chair, please send the following to the Vice-President-Elect for Member Activities, Prof. Stefano Stramligioli. Applications must include:

1. A letter indicating why you are interested in serving as Student Activities Chair

2. A copy of your CV or resumé, and

3. A letter of support from a faculty member at your college or university who is an active member of IEEE RAS.

All applications are due by November 20, 2009.

Sebastian Wrede named Best Reviewer for RAM 2009

2009-11-03T21:22:29Z

The Editorial Board of IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine has named Sebastian Wrede as the Best Reviewer for 2009. Wrede is with the Applied Computer Science Group, Bielefeld University, Germany.

Stefano Stramigioli, Editor in Chief of the magazine, noted that the recognition was 'to value Wrede's work and time investment for the good quality of the magazine."

Robotics and Automation Magazine, which is included with member dues of theIEEE Robotics and Automation Society, features peer reviewed technical articles and highly regarded tutorial features, as well as a variety of columns and departments focusing on various aspects of the world wide robotics and automation community.

This Magazine is listed in the 2009 edition of Thomson's Journal of Citation Reports as having the highest Impact Factor among robotics publications.

IERA Award 2010 - Call for Applications IEEE/IFR Invention & Entrepreneurship in Robotics and Automation Award

2009-11-03T20:22:50Z

The International Federation of Robotics (IFR) and the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (IEEE RAS) jointly sponsor the Invention and Entrepreneurship in Robotics and Automation Award. The purpose of this award is to highlight and honour the achievements of the inventors with value creating ideas and entrepreneurs who propel those ideas into world-class products. At the same time the joint disposition of the award underlines the determination of both organizations to promote stronger collaboration between robotics science and robotics industry.
Up to one award will be given annually to the individual(s) whose entrepreneurial efforts have taken an earlier conceptual innovation and evolved it into a commercialized product. The winner(s) are expected to present the underlying principles of the concept, how they transformed this into the product, and demonstrate the commercial product realized from the concept. The presentation will be at the IEEE/IFR Joint Forum on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Robotics and Automation on 8 June 2010 in Munich, which is being held in conjunction with the 41st International Symposium on Robotics and the 6th German Conference on Robotics. Just a prototype product or proof of concept is not acceptable.
The award consists of a plaque and a $2,000 honorarium. In case there are multiple winners, each recipient will receive a plaque and the honorarium will be equally split between the recipients.
Nominees will be solicited through an award sub-committee and in response to a general call for nominees. The Call for Applications containing detailed information can be downloaded as a pdf (38 kb).
The deadline for submitting applications is 31 March 2010.
See the RAS Industrial Activities Board Webpage for more information about the award. S list of previous IERA award recipients may be found on the RAS Awards Page.

New IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing

2009-11-01T23:32:49Z

The new IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing seeks original manuscripts for publication. This new online only
journal will publish cross disciplinary and international archival results of research on the design of systems that can recognize, interpret, and simulate human emotions and related affective phenomena.

The journal will publish original research on the principles and theories explaining why and how affective factors condition interaction between humans and technology, on how affective sensing and simulation techniques can inform our understanding of human affective processes, and on the design, implementation and evaluation of systems that carefully consider affect among the factors that influence their usability. Surveys of existing work will be considered for publication when they propose a new viewpoint on the history and the perspective on this domain.

The journal covers but is not limited to the
following topics:

Sensing & Analysis
(Cyber)Psychology & Behavior
Behavior Generation & User Interaction

Editor-in-Chief is Jonathan Grathch, University of Southern California. Sponsors are the IEEE Computer Society, Systems, Man & Cybernetics Society, and Computational Intelligence Society. IEEE Robotics & Automation Society and several other societies are tech;nical cosponsors.

For more information about T-Affective Computing, see http://www.computer.org/portal/web/tac. Submit papers online via https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/taffc-cs.

Brain-Machine Interface Offers Hope to the Paralyzed

2009-10-28T12:35:29Z

From the IEEE Institute

The melding of a brain-computer interface with a prosthetic device will let paralyzed people walk again if Miguel Nicolelis has his way.

Codirector of the Center for Neuroengineering at Duke University Medical Center, in Durham, N.C., Nicolelis and his team are developing a real-time interface together with a full-body exoskeleton to be controlled by signals from a paraplegic’s brain.

Nicolelis has assembled an international team of neurophysiologists, computer scientists, engineers, roboticists, neurologists, and neurosurgeons at laboratories around the world for his project. Their goal is to enable a paralyzed person to walk again by the end of 2012. The Walk Again Project, the first worldwide nonprofit brain-research initiative of its kind, includes partners in Europe, Latin America, and the United States.

“We’ve created a consortium that will manage all the scientific and clinical aspects of this work with the goal of making someone walk again,” Nicolelis says.

Since he briefed reporters about his work at a media event held in March to celebrate IEEE’s 125 anniversary, the team has developed a simulation of an entire exoskeleton that can be controlled by a brain-machine interface (BMI).

BMI BEGINNINGS
Nicolelis’s project began to show results four years ago, when he and his group implanted electrodes in a rhesus monkey’s brain that detected when it intended to move an arm. Later the animal was able control with only its thoughts the reaching and grasping movements performed by a robotic arm.

That was accomplished by first decoding brain signals from the monkey’s cerebral cortex while it held a joystick to move a shape in a video game. The signals were sent to the robot’s arm, which then mimicked the monkey's movements, leading it to control the game. The monkey eventually realized that just thinking about moving the shape was enough to move it, so it stopped holding the joystick and instead controlled the game purely through thought.

Three years later, another rhesus monkey was implanted with a new BMI in her brain’s motor and sensory cortex to control a computer-screen image of a human-like figure walking on a treadmill—part of the Computational Brain Project of the Japan Science and Technology Agency in Kyoto. Watching the robotic figure walking on the treadmill on the screen at the Duke laboratory, the monkey was rewarded for walking in sync with the robot. The treadmill was turned off after an hour, but the monkey was able to direct the robot to walk for another few minutes. The experiment indicated that part of the monkey’s brain had become dedicated to controlling the robot, as if the robot were an extension of the monkey.

That showed it was possible to establish functional links between the brain and a robotic, or computational, device—which could lead to the ability to control the movement of limbs.

NEXT STEPS
Nicolelis says his newest BMI has merged efforts to control arms and legs into a single interface for the entire body that could be applied to controlling the exoskeleton. So far, however, the merge has been accomplished only on a computer. During the next few months, Nicolelis plans to test a virtual whole-body interface, merging what “we have done for arms and legs into a single device and see if we can get these monkeys to control a whole body avatar,” he says. He is collaborating with Robotics and Automation Society member Gordon Cheng, a professor of cognition for technical systems at Technical University, Munich.

“We want to be sure the signals coming from the brain will be able to control this simulation,” Nicolelis says. If successful, he adds, the next step will be to build a real exoskeleton.

His exoskeleton will be fundamentally different from others being developed, he says. Some are focused on the robotics aspect, while others work more with the brain. His version will employ a direct interface between the brain and the exoskeleton, he says: “A lot of people are building exoskeletons, but they don’t rely on brain signals like we do.”

If the animal testing proves successful, he plans to determine whether paralyzed people can learn to reproduce the types of signals needed to control the exoskeleton. He says he expects to have the results of clinical trials on human beings in 12 to 18 months.

He believes his work will someday allow communication from human brain to human brain, he says, adding, “Our neuroprosthetic device may restore motor functions initially, but in the future it will be used to restore other functions.”

-By Kathy Kowalenko, IEEE Staff

IEEE Transactions on Haptics -Editor in Chief

2009-10-23T13:48:51Z

The Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Haptics, Professor Edward Colgate, is currently standing for reappointment to a second three-year term. The Management Committee of the Transactions invites comments upon his reappointment. Please send comments to Peter Luh , Chairperson of the Management Committee, by February 15, 2010.

Cast your ballot for new RAS AdCom members!

2009-10-09T17:07:22Z

All voting members of IEEE RAS should have received either a paper ballot or an invitation and instructions for casting their ballot electronically to elect six new members of the Administrative Committee.

While the candidates are listed on the ballot according to their geographical area of residence --The Americas; Europe, Africa and Middle East (IEEE Region 8); and Asia, Austrialia and Pacific -- all members may vote for candidates from any region.

Thanks to all the volunteers who agreed to stand for election:

Vijay Kumar	Tony Maciejewski	Gaurav Sukhatme	Jing Xiao	Oliver Brock	Ralf Koeppe	Danica Kragic

J.P. Laumond	Roland Siegwart	Hajime Asama	H. Durrant -Whyte	Katsushi Ikeuchi	Frank Chongwoo Park