State of the art

State of the Art of group 5

Navigation

There has been a lot of research and patents on autonomous moving and navigating. Robots are able to detect humans and other objects and can distinguish the places where it can drive. Using object recognition and laser detection it is even possible to navigate in crowded places with many pedestrians and cyclists.

Trash collecting

Collecting trash is difficult for a robot, because of the many different shapes, materials and colors that the trash can have. Cleaning dust is easy with a vacuum cleaner but bigger trash can't be done with a vacuum cleaner and must be picked up by the robot. To do this the robot needs good object recognition and must be able to grab objects of many different shapes.

Weed removal

Robots are able to detect and remove weed. It is possible to accurately recognize different kinds of weed by machine vison and precisely remove these without effecting the surrounding area.

Communication

When there are multiple robots which must work together on one task it is important that they can communicate with each other and divide the tasks. Communication can also be used to prevent robots from colliding and let them work more efficiently. There are multiple papers and patents about communication between robots, human-robot interaction and multiple robots driving on sidewalks and other smart city applications.

Jasper

[1][2] Article about a trash collecting robot (team). It is about office cleanup, but with some changes the technique can also be relevant for outside use. It is about a competition. One document describes the solution of the winning team, the other gives some more information about the competition.

[3] A patent for sucking and filtering for a dust collection vehicle.

[4] A patent for an autonomous lawn mower robot. Also about navigating over the lawn.

[5] Paper about weed control, describing navigating through specific areas, detecting weed with a camera, making weed maps and spraying weed.

[6] A patent for a snow sweeper for sidewalks.

Tom

[7] Paper about the design of an autonomous vacuum cleaner.

[8] Paper about pathing algorithms for autonomous vacuum cleaner robots.

[9] Analysis of snow melting approaches.

[10] Paper about machine vision application for weed removal.

[11] Analysis of pavement maintenance methods.

[12] Research into small (< 20kg) urban robots for disaster relief.

Stan

[13] Paper about navigation on pavements, avoiding litter, pedestrians and bicycles.

[14] Paper about asphalt analysis, to detect whether the road needs maintenance. This paper was actually meant for airborne sensing, but could be used by our robot as well.

[15] Paper about stair-climbing methods for robots, useful for our robot to easily get on or off the pavement.

[16] Article about weather forecasting in the road [network. Could be used by our robot to predict which task it has to do (e.g. de-icing the road)

[17] Paper about autonomous docking at a recharging station for autonomous vehicles in general

[18] Article about an autonomous cleaning robot for outdoor use, including path-finding and memory of cleaned areas

Ruben

[19] Patent for communication of an autonomous sidewalk robot

[20] Patent for an autonomous neighborhood vehicle controllable through a neighborhood social network

[21] Patent for a system and method for navigating an autonomous vehicle using laser detection and ranging

[22] Paper about autonomous vehicles navigating trough sidewalks buildings and hallways

[23]] Paper about an Autonomous Robot for Garbage Detection and Collection

[24] Paper about multiple robots in smart city applications

Mathijs

[25] Paper on small autonomous robots working together to do big tasks.

[26] Paper on autonomous navigation on crowded sidewalks.

[27] Paper on robot navigation in highly populated pedestrian zones.

[28] Paper on human-robot interaction in urban environments.

[29] Paper on the design of a litter collecting robot.

[30] Article on electric snow removal by placing heating mats.

Weed detection and removal

[31] Paper about an algorithm that can detect weeds and also classify it.

[32] Paper about weed recognition trough image processing.

[33] Paper about mechanical weed removal.

[34] Paper about an intelligent mechanical weeding machine

[35] Paper where test for mechanical weed control in greenhouses work not sure if accessible

[36] Thesis on weed control. Very interesting also techniques for removing weed are discussed