An robotic sculpture speaking to people An robotic sculpture speaking to people “Would you like a drink?” Fiberglass and robotics Albano Guatti, 2005 University of Padova Dept. of Information Engineering IAS-Lab (Intelligent Autonomous System Lab) Emanuele Menegatti, A. Pretto, S. Tonello, A. Lastra, A Guatti IT+Robotics srl, Contrà Valmerlara, Vicenza (VI)

University of Padova An interactive robotic sculpture Goals: -An interactive robotic sculpture conceived and realized by the artist Albano Guatti. -The robotic part was totally developed by the IAS-lab and IT+Robotics according to Guatti’s concept Introduction 1/1 Requirements: The robot should be autonomous and it should be able: -to move in a unknown and unstructured environment in a ‘natural’ way -to locate people in the environment, -to navigate toward a person avoiding the obstacles -to approach the person -to ask the person different pre-recorded questions. The more likely is: ”Would you like a drink?” Targets and Results 1

Metodology 1/2 The robotic sculpture overview 2 University of Padova An interactive robotic sculpture

Metodology 1/2 The omnidirectional camera 2 University of Padova An interactive robotic sculpture The sensor it constitutes the neck of the feminine statue it is embedeed in the appearance of the statue 360° field of view enables to locate the person without turning on the spot Logitech USB webcam+custom made hyperbolic mirror+perspex cylinder Image processing: Background subtraction Skin detection Robustness to light variations

Metodology 1/2 Skin detection 2 University of Padova An interactive robotic sculpture The skin detection heuristic algorithm robust to lighting no need for calibration based on the statistic of the moments of pixel distribution bg nomalized color space

Metodology 1/2 The sonars 2 University of Padova An interactive robotic sculpture The sensor: 24 Polaroid 6500 series A ring around the sculpture base at 30 cm from the floor They can sense an obstacle of 3-4 cm diameter at 50 cm Low reliability beyond 2 m Software: sonars data are processed using a modified VHF (Vector Field Histogram) All the readings of the sonars are organized inside a grid, of dimensions 4x4 m

Metodology 1/2 The floor sensors 2 University of Padova An interactive robotic sculpture The sensor: Four custom made floor sensor to detect floor discontinuties in the front of the robot Designed and realized at IAS-Lab High brightness led + photoresistor + circuitry Readout in Pioneer2 board analog input Software: Floor sensor reflectivity is measured at 4 Hz Data are stored in a queue When all data in the queue are over a threshold a floor discontinuity is detected

Metodology 1/2 The driving system 2 University of Padova An interactive robotic sculpture The driving system: 2 independent driven wheels 2 custer wheel to balance 1 Pioneer2 motor control board Pioneer2 control board: P2OS (Pioneer2 Operating System) several I/O ports: –Digital IN –Analog IN –Motor control port

Metodology 1/2 The laudspeakers 2 University of Padova An interactive robotic sculpture The audio system: 2 automotive loudspeakers 1 automotive audio-amplifier Headphone audio output of a laptop The computer: Acer TravelMate 290 Centrino 1.6 GHz 512 MB RAM –provides computational power –Sends commands to Pioneer2 board via USB/Serial port –Grab camera’s images via USB –Plays the voice files The computer

Metodology 1/2 The behaviours 2 University of Padova An interactive robotic sculpture The robot is controlled by a finite state machine The events detected in the envronment trigger the change of state The software is written in C++ running under Linux Multi-threding software which scheduling is controlled by ADE (i.e. IAS-Lab scheduling and networking system) Graphical user interface for non-professional users LETMEGOTHROUGH RANDOMSTEADY GOTOPERSONSAY

Artisti -From experience of Artisti RoboCup team into a commercial product: -IAS-Lab of the University of Padua -IT+Robotics srl a spin-off of the University of Padua. -The robot performed at: -Palace Golinelli (Venice, Italy) 3 days 8h -SMAU 2005 (Milan, Italy) 5 days 10h -Discovery Film Festival 2006 (Rovereto, Italy) 3 days 8h -It has encountered hundreds of people and avoided them! Conclusions 1/1 Conclusions 14 April, ICRA 2007 University of Padova An interactive robotic sculpture IAS-Lab

Prototypes 2/2 Video demos 16 University of Padova An interactive robotic sculpture June, Eurobot 2006 IT+Robotics srl, Contrà Valmerlara, Vicenza (VI)

Thanks for your attention Any questions? Fine University of Padova Advanced experimentations on Robotics for academical education June, Eurobot 2006