Search results for " Robotics"
showing 10 items of 118 documents
Teaching Physics Concepts Using Educational Robotics
2019
This paper reports a study included in the national project PROMISE funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research. It examines the application of an educational robotics laboratory with secondary school students for learning concept about physics. In the paper we describe the didactic strategies that have been implemented during the activities and we give some qualitative outcomes related to effectiveness of the laboratory. Indeed we observed interesting results in students both in term of learning and of interest and participation. The importance of teacher involvement in this type of intervention will also be discussed.
A Playful Experiential Learning System With Educational Robotics
2020
This article reports on two studies that aimed to evaluate the effective impact of educational robotics in learning concepts related to Physics and Geography. The reported studies involved two courses from an upper secondary school and two courses from a lower secondary school. Upper secondary school classes studied topics of motion physics, and lower secondary school classes explored issues related to geography. In each grade, there was an “experimental group” that carried out their study using robotics and cooperative learning and a “control group” that studied the same concepts without robots. Students in both classes were subjected to tests before and after the robotics laboratory, to c…
Robots that look like humans: A brief look into humanoid robotics
2018
This article provides a brief overview of the technology of humanoid robots. First, historical development and hardware progress are presented mainly on human-size full-body biped humanoid robots, together with progress in pattern generation of biped locomotion. Then, «whole-body motion» – coordinating leg and arm movements to fully leverage humanoids’ high degrees of freedom – is presented, followed by its applications in fields such as device evaluation and large-scale assembly. Upper-body humanoids with a mobile base, which are mainly utilized for research on human-robot interaction and cognitive robotics, are also introduced before addressing current issues and perspectives.
Symbolic and conceptual representation of dynamic scenes: Interpreting situation calculus on conceptual spaces
2001
In (Chella et al. [1,2]) we proposed a framework for the representation of visual knowledge, with particular attention to the analysis and the representation of scenes with moving objects and people. One of our aims is a principled integration of the models developed within the artificial vision community with the propositional knowledge representation systems developed within symbolic AI. In the present note we show how the approach we adopted fits well with the representational choices underlying one of the most popular symbolic formalisms used in cognitive robotics, namely the situation calculus.
COEDU-IN Project: an inclusive co-educational project for teaching computational thinking and digital skills at early ages
2021
Learning to program is the new literacy of the 21st century. Computational thinking, closely related to programming, requires thinking and solving problems with different levels of abstraction and is independent of hardware devices. The early childhood education stage provides teachers with the opportunity to lay the foundations for a comprehensive quality education using innovative tools and technologies. Educational robotics in early childhood education becomes a tool that facilitates the acquisition of knowledge to children, playfully, based on the principles of interactivity, social interrelationships, collaborative work, creativity, constructivist and constructionist learning, and a st…
SEAI: Social Emotional Artificial Intelligence Based on Damasio’s Theory of Mind
2018
A socially intelligent robot must be capable to extract meaningful information in real-time from the social environment and react accordingly with coherent human-like behaviour. Moreover, it should be able to internalise this information, to reason on it at a higher abstract level, build its own opinions independently and then automatically bias the decision-making according to its unique experience. In the last decades, neuroscience research highlighted the link between the evolution of such complex behaviour and the evolution of a certain level of consciousness, which cannot leave out of a body that feels emotions as discriminants and prompters. In order to develop cognitive systems for s…
Remote programming of network robots within the UJI Industrial Robotics Telelaboratory: FPGA vision and SNRP network protocol
2009
This paper presents the UJI Industrial Robotics Telelaboratory, which lets Ph.D. and Master’s degree students perform robotics and computer vision tele-experiments. By using this system, students are able to program experiments remotely via the Web, in order to combine the use of a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) to provide real-time vision processing, a conveyor belt, and a Motoman industrial manipulator. This paper introduces the novel SNRP protocol (i.e., Simple Network Robot Protocol), which permits the integration of network robots and sensors within an e-learning platform in a simple and reliable manner. As long as the students are able to interact remotely with a real robotic sc…
Two-stage procedure based on smoothed ensembles of neural networks applied to weed detection in orange groves
2014
The potential impacts of herbicide utilization compel producers to use new methods of weed control. The problem of how to reduce the amount of herbicide and yet maintain crop production has stimulated many researchers to study selective herbicide application. The key of selective herbicide application is how to discriminate the weed areas efficiently. We introduce a procedure for weed detection in orange groves which consists of two different stages. In the first stage, the main features in an image of the grove are determined (Trees, Trunks, Soil and Sky). In the second, the weeds are detected only in those areas which were determined as Soil in the first stage. Due to the characteristics …
Lightguide Technology For Adverse Industrial Environments
1987
The lightguide technology has several unique fetures that open up new possibilities of its applications in alverse environments. These factors make this technology attractive in comparizon with classical metal cable based and radio technologies. In the paper we will review relevant works carried out in this country, namely: techno-logical specialization processess for industrial application oriented optical fibres and cables, classification of adverse environments and design rules for cables and optoelectronics, description of our technological facility, fiber optic health protection systems in adverse environments, example of real life applications of ruggedized fibre optic systems in HV/H…
SmartLeg: An intelligent active robotic prosthesis for lower-limb amputees
2011
In recent years, there has been a worldwide interest in improvement of mobility of people with lower limb amputation. In spite of significant development of new technologies during the last decade, commercial below-knee and above-knee prostheses are still energetically passive devices. However, many locomotive functions, like walking up stairs and slopes, need significant power in knee and ankle joints. The additional power for doing previously mentioned activities needs to be achieved by means of external energy sources, which should be integral prosthetic components. This paper presents preliminary investigations towards an active robotic prosthesis that could potentially enable people wi…