Monash University > Engineering > ECSE > Staff > Rar

A/Prof R. Andrew Russell

Room G05 in Building 36
Department of Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering
MONASH UNIVERSITY, AUSTRALIA

Phone: +61 3 9905 3462
Fax: +61 3 9905 3454
Email: andy.russell@eng.monash.edu.au

CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS

Tactile Sensing (see publications) -

This is an important sensing modality for robotic systems, especially those involved in the grasping, recognition and precise manipulation of objects. Tactile sensing is not as well developed as computer vision, in part, because of the lack of suitable sensors. I have designed a number of highly compliant tactile sensors using the following principles:

* Nephelometric,|
* Fluid resistance (electrical resistance), and
* Strain sensitive rubber.

Giving a tactile sensor a compliant surface enlarges the area of contact and thus increases the information that can be gathered from non-planer surfaces. I have also developed tactile sensors to determine the thermal properties of touched objects and whisker proximity sensors.

The processing of tactile sensory data and sensory control of robotic mechanisms are other current research topics. Sensory manipulation and object recognition experiments are performed using the Monash Dextrous Gripper shown below. The gripper has two 6-degree-of-freedom fingers which are each actuated by a Stewart platform mechanism. A 6-axis force/torque sensor detects forces acting on the work-surface and load cells in the root of each finger detect gripping forces. The fingers also incorporate tactile sensor arrays.

The Monash Dextrous Gripper

Tactile output devices -

Shape and force displays provide the natural complement to tactile sensors and allow tactile information (either real or synthetic) to be displayed. The following picture shows an 8 by 8 array shape display. Each of the 64 rods can be set to a height within a 5 cm range.

A prototype tactile shape display

Robot chemical sensing (see publications) -

Quite a number of animals and insects mark their environment with traces of chemicals. Territorial animals deposit pheromone markings to indicate the boundaries of their territory and to warn off competitors. Foraging ants lay trails for worker ants to follow. Having deposited an odour mark the stored information that it represents is available to be read at a later time by the creature that made the marking or by others of the same species. These markings can be used as an aid to navigation or to help coordinate the actions of a group of creatures. To perform useful tasks in an unconstrained environment mobile robots have to solve similar navigational and organisational problems to those that challenge insects and other simple creatures. I have called any method of storing information in the environment in a form that dissipates over time a short-lived navigational marker. The following picture shows a miniature robot equipped to detect odour marking on the ground.

Miniature robot equipped to follow chemical trail trails on the ground

Many of the potential applications for chemical sensing robots involve locating the source of a chemical plume released into the air. With this kind of capability a mobile robot could perform some of the tasks that we currently assign to sniffer dogs including the detection of::

o plant matter, drugs and other materials important to the customs service,

o truffles,

o victims of avalanches and earthquakes,

o escaped prisoners,

o chemical leaks, and

o mines and unexploded bombs.

In most cases vast improvements will be required in chemical sensing technologies before robots can perform these tasks. However, even without improved sensors it is still possible to make progess in areas such as robot design and control algorithms.

A robot eqipped with two conducive polymer chemical sensors and a wind vane

locates the source of a plume of ammonia

Robot learning (see publications)

Robot learning is a very appealing area of research that has a number of potential benefits. A robot with the ability to learn would require less application-specific programming to customise it for performing a particular operation. If the environment changed then a learning robot may also be able to adapt appropriately without external guidance.

For me this is a new area of research and so there are no publications as yet. The current project focuses on the transition between an organism whose genetically evolved competence is purely inherited and one with the added ability to learn from its environment. The framework of the project draws on Rolf Pfeifer's ideas about building complete autonomous systems that he calls "Fungus Eaters". For this project a self-contained environment EDEN has been constructed to act as an ecological niche for a mobile robot (ADAM Robot). It is anticipated that the robot will be able to improve its performance by learning from its interactions with this environment. See below for a QickTime video clip.

ADAM Robot feeds from a 'flower' in EDEN

Other topics (see publications)

In order to build the robotic platforms necessary to try out new robotic sensors I also maintain an interest in robotic mechanisms and novel robotic actuators such as shape-memory alloy, electrorheological fluid clutches, magnetic fluids, etc.

Some Media Coverage

Chemical sensing

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/09/10/1062902115129.html?from=storyrhs

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.07/race_pr.html

http://www.abc.net.au/ra/innovations/stories/s990572.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1358531,00.html

Robot Learning

http://radio.weblogs.com/0105910/2003/08/20.html

http://www-pso.adm.monash.edu.au/news/Story.asp?ID=1075&SortType=7

Video Clips

The following video clips show some recent experiments.

LEGO robot hockey preliminary 2002 (4.9MB)

ADAM Robot learns to avoid bumping into a wall (1.4MB)

ADAM Robot in EDEN (a longer version of the previous clip) 2.8MB)

Robot following a chemical trail (1,4MB)

Robot locating the source of a chemical plume (1.1MB)

Same as the previous clip (better quality for people prepared to wait longer - 3.1MB)

A tennis ball collecting robot (2.3MB)

The tennis ball collecting robot was built by a final year thesis project student based on a robot seen in the labs of Prof. Masayuki Inaba at the University of Tokyo.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Tactile Sensing

1. Hellard, G., and Russell, R.A., 'A tactile sensor array that also grasps objects', Proc. 2006 Australasian Conference on Robotics and Automation, Aukland, pp.1-6, 2006.

2. Russell, R.A. and Wijaya, J.A., 'Object location and recognition using whisker sensors', Australian Conference on Robotics and Automation, CD-ROM Proceedings ISBN 0-9587583-5-2, 2003.

3. Hellard, G., and Russell, R.A., 'A robust sensitive and economical tactile sensor for a robot manipulator', Proc. 2002 Australasian Conference on Robotics and Automation, Aukland, 27-29 November, 2002, pp.100-104.

4. Russell, R.A., 'Object recognition by a 'smart' tactile sensor', Proceedings of the Australian Conference on Robotics and Automation, Melbourne, Aug 30- Sept 1, 2000, pp. 93-98.

5. Russell, R.A., 'A nephelometric tactile sensor', in Advanced Topics in Artificial Intelligence: Proceedings of 10th Austrailan Joint Conference on AI, Abdul Sattar (ed.), Springer, 1997, pp. 466-474.

6. Russell, R.A. 'Sliding to improve the agility of robotic grippers', Proceedings of the 1995 National Conference of the Australian Robot Association, Melbourne, 5-7 July, 1995, pp.138-146.

Robot chemical sensing

1. Kowadlo, G., and Russell, R.A., 'Using naive physics for odor localization in a cluttered indoor environment', Autonomous Robots, Vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 215-230, 2006.

2. Kowadlo, G., Rawlinson, D. J., Russell, R. A., Jarvis, R. A., 'Bi-modal search using complementary sensing (olfaction/vision) for odour source localisation', Proceedings of the International Conference of Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2006, 15-19 May IEEE, Orlando, Florida, USA, pp. 1-6., 2006

3. Purnamdjaja, A. H., Russell, R. A., 'Robotic pheromones: using temperature modulation in tin oxide gas sensors to differentiate swarm's behaviour', 9th International Conference on Control, Automation, Robotics and Vision 5-8 December, IEEE, Singapore, pp. 1136-1141, 2006.

4. Russell, R. A., 'Taste and search in a robotics context', Preceedings of the 2006 Australasian Conference on Robotics & Automation, 6-8 December, ARAA, Auckland NZ, pp. 1-6, 2006

5. Kowadlo, G., Russell, R. A., 'Advanced airflow modeling using naive physics for odour localisation', Proc of Australasian Conference on Robotics and Automation, 5-7 December, Australian Robotics and Automation Assoc, Sydney Australia, pp. 1-10, 2005

6. Purnamadjaja, A. H., Russell, R. A.,'Congregation behaviour in a robot swarm using pheromone communication', Proc of the Australasian Conference on Robotics and Automation, 5-7 December, Australian Robotics and Automaton Association, Sydney Australia, pp. 1-7, 2005.

6. Russell, R. A., 'A ground-penetrating robot for underground chemical source location', Intelligent Robots and Systems, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on, 2-6 August, IEEE, NJ USA, pp. 1879-1884, 2005.

17. Russell, R.A., 'Robotic location of underground chemical sources', Robotica, Vol.22, Issue 1, pp. 109-115, 2004.

8. Russell, R.A., Bab-Hadiashar, A., Shepherd, R.L. and Wallace, G.G., 'A comparison of reactive robot chemotaxis algorithms', Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Vol. 45, Issue 2, pp. 83-97, 2003.

9. Kowadlow, G. and Russell, R.A., 'Naive physics for effective odour localisation', Australian Conference on Robotics and Automation, CD-ROM Proceedings ISBN 0-9587583-5-2, 2003.

10. Russell, R.A. and Purnamadjaja, A.H., "Odour and airflow: complementary senses for a humanoid robot", Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Washington DC, May 2002, pp.1842-1847.

11. Russell, R.A., 'Tracking chemical plumes in constrained environments', Robotica, Vol. 19, Issue 4, July 2001, pp. 451-458.

12. Russell, R.A., 'Survey of robotic applications for odor-sensing technology', International Journal of Robotics Research, Vol. 20, No.2, February 2001, pp. 144-162.

713 Purnamadjaja, A.H., and Russell, R.A., 'A sense of smell for a humanoid robot', Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Science and Technology, Hobart, Tasmania, 17-20 December, 2000, pp. 312-316.

14. Russell, R.A. and Kennedy, S., 'A novel airflow sensor for miniature mobile robots', Mechatronics, Elsevier Science, Vol. 10, No. 8, 2000, pp.935-942.

15. Russell, R.A., Kleeman, L., and Kennedy, S., 'Using volatile chemicals to help locate targets in complex environments', Proceedings of the Australian Conference on Robotics and Automation, Melbourne, Aug 30- Sept 1, 2000, pp. 87-91.

16. Russell, R.A., 'The world of odor: a relatively unexplored sensory dimension for robots', Proceedings of the 1999 International Symposium on Robotics Research, Salt Lake City, Utah, pp. 74-79.

17. Russell, R.A., 'Ant trails &endash; an example for robots to follow?' Proceedings IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Detroit, Michigan, May 1999, pp. 2698-2703.

18. Russell, R.A. 'An odour sensing robot draws inspiration from the insect world',Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Bioelectromagnetism, Melbourne, 15-18 February, 1998, pp. 49-50.

19. Russell, R.A., Thiel, D. and Mackay-Sim, A., 'Recruiting swarm robots using coded odour trails', Proceeding of the International Conference on Field & service Robotics, Canberra, 8-10 December 1997, pp. 472-476.

20. Russell, R.A. 'Heat: A short lived navigational marker', Video Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 1997, Albuquerque.

21. Russell, R.A. , 'Heat trails as short-lived navigational markers for mobile robots',Proceedings of the 1997 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Albuquerque, pp. 3534-3539.

22. Russell, R.A., 'Laying and sensing odor markings as a strategy for assisting mobile robot navigation tasks', IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, September 1995, pp. 3-9.

23. Russell, R.A., 'A practical demonstration of the application of olfactory sensing to robot navigation', Proceedings of the IARP Workshop Robotics for the Service Industries, Sydney, 18-19th May, 1995, pp. 35-43.

24. Russell, R.A., Thiel, D., Deveza, R., and Mackay-Sim, A. 'A robotic system to locate hazardous chemical leaks', Proceedings of the 1995 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Nagoya, .pp. 556-561.

Robot Learning

1. Russell, R.A. 'Mobile robot learning by self-observation', Autonomous Robots, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Vol. 16, Issue 1, pp. 81-93, 2004.

Books

1. Russell, R.A. Robot tactile Sensing, Prentice Hall, Australia, ISBN 0 13 781592 1, 184pp, 1990.

2. Russell, R.A. Odour Sensing for Mobile Robots, World Scientific, ISBN 981023791X, 217pp. 1999.