Autonomous Legged Mobile Robot

Objective

LEGRO aims to further the investigation of technical problems involved in the realisation of mobile semi-autonomous vehicles that use "legs" instead of wheels to navigate in difficult and partly unstructured environments. The focus of the Group will be to fill the gap between the current state of experimental devices and programs, suited to operate in a laboratory setting, and the requirements of industrial product design. In particular, areas such as kinematic design and analysis, dynamic simulation and mechanical design for reliability, gait organisation and planning techniques, control techniques for real time equilibrium maintenance, sensorial information processing and sensor-based control, tactile information in autonomous obstacle avoidance, and man-machine interface design for various level of control, will be investigated.

The investigation will also involve the application of advanced object-oriented software engineering methods, software reuse technology and domain analysis, in order to obtain a product design that responds to the needs for a flexible, universal base module to be integrated into a modern IT-based system. In this context the evaluation of real time hardware and software architectures, real time operating systems and scheduling will be carried out.

ACTIVITIES

The expertise of the Group is broad enough to tackle the design of a legged vehicle and its semi-autonomous guidance system. Sub-groups will be formed with closer affinities in goals and methods, that will concentrate on tackling specific topics. The coordinator will organise general Group meetings to review the state of advancement of research in specific areas. One of these meetings, probably near the conclusion of the Group activity, will be open to the international scientific community and to general public. A semi-annual LEGRO newsletter informing the public about the ongoing work will be distributed.

POTENTIAL

Legged locomotion systems possess significant advantages over wheeled vehicles for moving on difficult terrains. Typical applications are in dangerous situations, as in decommissioning of nuclear plants, or in unstructured environments, as in planetary or underwater exploration, forestry, and mining. The IT aspects of this project also promise interesting results in the design of modular robotic components that do not stand alone, but are meant to be integrated into a larger, IT-driven system architecture. Only recently have methods in IT become available to assist this type of design in an effective way. The application of Object-Oriented software engineering methods and recent advances in software reuse and domain analysis will provide a common set of conventions and terminology for interfaces to other parts of the overall system architecture.

Fields of science

• natural sciences › computer and information sciences › software › software applications › system software › operating systems
• engineering and technology › environmental engineering › mining and mineral processing
• natural sciences › computer and information sciences › data science › data processing
• agricultural sciences › agriculture, forestry, and fisheries › forestry

Programme(s)

• FP3-ESPRIT 3 - Specific research and technological development programme (EEC) in the field of information technologies, 1990-1994

Topic(s)

Data not available

Call for proposal

Data not available

Funding Scheme

Data not available

Coordinator

Tecnospazio SpA

Address

Via Montefeltro 8
20156 Milano
Italy

Participants (6)

2i Industrial Informatics GmbH

Germany

Address

Haierweg 20e
79114 Freiburg

BABBAGE INSTITUTE FOR KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGYX

Belgium

Address

Plateaustraat, 22
9000 Ghent

FREE UNIVERSITY OF BRUSSELS MECHANICAL ENGINEERING AND ROBOTICS

Belgium

Address

, 50
Bruxelles

Intecs Sistemi SpA

Italy

Address

Via A. Fratti 14
56125 Pisa

UNIVERSITY OF COIMBRA

Portugal

Address

Coimbra

Università degli Studi di Pisa

Italy

Address

Via Diotisalvi, 2
56126 Pisa