ACRA 2003

Australasian Conference on Robotics Automation 2003

Jonathan Roberts and Gordon Wyeth (eds)

Brisbane, Australia
ISBN 0-9587583-5-2

All full papers submitted to ACRA 2003 will undergo a peer-review process. Each manuscript will be reviewed by at least two reviewers who will give detailed comments. If the submission is accepted, the authors will submit a revised (“camera-ready”) version that takes into account this feedback. The review process is managed by the program chair of the conference.

All papers are reviewed using a single-blind review process: authors declare their names and affiliations in the manuscript for the reviewers to see, but reviewers do not know each other’s identities, nor do the authors receive information about who has reviewed their manuscript.

Welcome to ACRA 2003.

ACRA, the Australasian Conference on Robotics and Automation, is the annual conference for the Australian Robotics and Automation Association, and Australia and New Zealand’s leading forum for work in all areas of robotics and automation. ACRA attracts researchers and practitioners from around Australia and New Zealand, and an increasing number of roboticists from overseas. The work presented at ACRA 2003 is highly relevant to current interests in international robotics research, including hot topics such as autonomous mapping and humanoid robots. ACRA 2003 also has a definite Australian robotics flavour, with an emphasis on outdoor robotics and applications in the primary industries that continue to form the basis of the Australian and New Zealand economies in the 21st century.

We have endeavoured to ensure a balanced programme: maintaining a high standard of quality, while being inclusive of the up and coming students and junior researchers in the Australasian robotics community. The Programme Committee accepted 55 full papers for presentation and publication after a review process in which full manuscripts were reviewed by at least two committee members. The accepted papers were drawn from 64 papers submitted in total. In keeping with recent trends, the primary medium for the proceedings is CD-ROM, and we will be maintaining the proceedings online at the ARAA website. In addition to the technical paper programme, the programme includes a number of interesting live robotics demonstrations, the Annual General Meeting for the ARAA, and plenty of social opportunities for Australasian and international robotics researchers to network and develop cross-institutional links.

We hope you enjoy your time at the conference and that you come away knowing a little bit more, having met and discussed robotics issues with a colleague, having attended a paper session, or having had a quite technical debate over dinner. To all, we warmly welcome you to ACRA 2003, and to Brisbane.

Jonathan Roberts & Gordon Wyeth
Co-chairs ACRA
Brisbane, December 2003

on behalf of the Programme Committee.

Organisation

Sponsoring Organisations

Australian Robotics and Automation Association Inc.
CSIRO
University of Queensland

Co-chairs

Jonathan Roberts
Gordon Wyeth

Programme Committee

David Austin
Nick Barnes
John Billingsly
Thomas Braunl
Glen Bright
MWM Gamini Dissanayake
Matthew Dunbabin
Werner Friedrich
Ray Jarvis
Bruce MacDonald
Phillip McKerrow
Jonathan Roberts
Andy Russell
Pavan Sikka
Salah Sukkarieh
Koren Ward
Gordon Wyeth
Alex Zelinsky

Table of Contents

Applications

Robots for pre-orientation and interaction of toddlers and preschoolers who are blind
B Bartlett, V Estivill-Castro, S Seymon & A Tourky
Video 1
Driver assistance: contemporary road safety
Andrew Dankers, Luke Fletcher, Lars Petersson & Alexander Zelinsky
Video 1Video 2Video 3Video 4Video 5
Karlsruhe surgical robotics research
Jorg Raczkowsky, Sascha Dauber, Dirk Engel, Harald Hoppe, Werner Korb, Oliver Schorr, Stefan Hassfeld & Heinz Worn
Video 1Video 2
DNA analysis using a portable robotic instrument
Daksh Sadarangani, Bruce Macdonald, Allen G Rodrigo & David Saul

Walking Robots

Automatic gait optimisation for quadruped robots
Min Sub Kim & William Uther
Control of a heavyweight biped robot in the frontal plane
Joe Cronin, Richard Willgoss & Robin Ford
Cerebellar joint compensation for a humanoid robot
Damien Kee & Gordon Wyeth
Improved joint control using a genetic algorithm for a humanoid robot
Jonathan Roberts, Damien Kee & Gordon Wyeth

Multi-Robot Teams

Achieving cooperation in a distributed multi-robot team
Mark M Chang & Gordon Wyeth
Production rules as chromosomes of GA for robotic swarm applications
Kai Wing Tang & Ray A Jarvis
Behavioural approach for multi-robot exploration
Haye Lau
Graphical simulation and visualisation tool for a distributed robot programming environment
Felix-Etienne Trepanier & Bruce A MacDonald
Classifying an opponent’s behaviour in robot soccer
David Ball and Gordon Wyeth

Vision

Creating composite images for estimation the effectiveness of mobile robot coverage algorithms
Sylvia C Wong, Lee Middleton & Bruce A MacDonald
Representation and learning of visual information for pose recognition
David Prasser & Gordon Wyeth
Fusion of multimodal visual cues for model-based object tracking
Geoffrey Taylor & Lindsay Kleeman
VIdeo 1
An ordered list approach to real-time line detection based on the hough transform
Chris Madden & Robert Mahony
Red is the new black – or is it ?
David Austin & Nick Barnes
Video 1Video 2

Sensors I

Wind sensor and robotic model wasp development
David Harvey, Tien-Fu Lu & Michael Keller
Naïve physics for effective odour localisation
Gideon Kowadlo & R Andrew Russell
Chemical source location and the RoboMole project
R Andrew Russell
Object location and recognition using whisker sensors
R Andrew Russell & Jaury Adi Wijaya

Vision and Programming

A survey of robot programming systems
Geoffrey Biggs & Bruce MacDonald
Sensing for visual homing
Kane Usher, Matthew Dunbabin, Peter Corke & Peter Ridley
Performance of temporal filters for optical flow estimation in mobile robot corridor centring and visual odometry
Chris McCarthy & Nick Barnes
Techniques for improving vision and locomotion on the sony AIBO robot
Michael J Quinland, Stephan K Chalup & Richard H Middleton

Navigation

HOMER – a high speed robot for indoor exploration
Nathan Wilson, Matt Rozyn & Michael Andrews
Combining wavefront propagation and possibility theory for autonomous navigation in an indoor environment
Cindy Leung & Adel Al-Jumaily
High precision GPS guidance of mobile Robots
Richard Willgoss, Vivian Rosenfeld & John Billingsley
Short-safe compromise patch for mobile robot navigation in a dynamic unknown environment
Sardjono Trihatmo & R A Jarvis
Covert path planning for autonomous robot navigation in known environments
Mohamed Marzouqui & Ray Jarvis
On robotic path planning using rapidly exploring random trees
Zoltan Deak Jnr & Ray Jarvis

Outdoor Robots

Submarine dynamic modelling
Peter Ridley, Julien Fontan & Peter Corke
Submarine automatic control
Peter Ridley, Julien Fontan & Peter Corke
Terrain aided underwater navigation – a deeper insight into generic monte carlo localization
Alexander Bachmann & Stefan B Williams
Helicopter automation using a low-cost sensing system
Gregg Buskey, Jonathan Roberts, Peter Corke & Gordon Wyeth
A helicopter named Dolly – Behavioural cloning for autonomous helicopter control
Gregg Buskey, Jonathan Roberts & Gordon Wyeth

Manipulators

On-line singularity avoidance, collision detection and task level programming utilizing a world model
Per Cederberg, Magnus Olsson & Bunnar Bolmsjo
The effect of ill-conditioned inertial matrix on controlling robot manipulator
Yueshi Shen & Roy Featherstone
New ways of generate better configurations using geometric features
Antonio Benitex & Daniel Vallejo
A chattering-free variable structure controller for tracking of robotic manipulators
Tri V M Nguyen, Q P Ha & Hung T Nguyen

Robots in Agriculture

Control of industrial robots for meat processing applications
Zeng Li, Peter Ring, Kym MacRae & Andrew Hinsch
A new approach to detech the cutting position for a robotic beef carcass scribing system
Zeng Li & Andrew Hinsch
Machine vision system for counting macadamia nuts
Mark Dunn & John Billingsley
Modular decentralized control of fruit picking redundant manipulator
Timothy R Vittor, Richard A Willgoss & Tomonari Furukawa

Localisation and Mapping

A Hybrid approach to finding cycles in hybrid maps
Margaret E Jefferies, Wenrong Weng, Jesse T Baker, Michael C Cosgrove & Michael Mayo
Three-Dimensional robotic mapping
Ian Mahon & Stefan B Williams
Line-based SMC SLAM method in environment with polygonal obstacles
David C K Yuen & Bruce A MacDonald
Bearing-only SLAM in indoor environments using a modified particle filter
N M Kwok & G Dissanayake
Six Dof D-SLAM
Lee Ling (Sharon) Ong, Matthew Ridley, Jong-Hyuk Kim, Eric Nettleton & Salah Sukkarieh
Video 1
Hippocampal models for simultaneous localisation and mapping on an autonomous robot
Michael Milford & Gordon Wyeth

Sensors II

Tracking people with networks of heterogeneous sensors
Alex Brooks & Stefan Williams
Active monocular fixation using the log-polar sensor
Albert Yeung & Nick Barnes
Uncertainty of line segments extracted from static SICK PLS laser scans
Albert Diosi & Lindsay Kleeman
Proximity Identification and tracking for mining automation
Garry Einicke

Index of Authors

Author Paper Movie
Al-Jumaily, Adel 32
Andrews, Michael 47
Austin, David 50 Video 1Video 2
Bachmann, Alexander 22
Baker, Jesse T. 33
Ball, David 53
Barnes, Nick 141550
Bartlett, B. 13 Video 1
Benitez, Antonio 45
Biggs, Geoffrey 27
Billingsley, John 125
Bolmsjo, Gunnar 46
Brooks, Alex 7
Buskey, Gregg 4041
Cederberg, Per 46
Chalup, Stephan K. 42
Chang, Mark 54
Clout, Ray 47
Corke, Peter 9104044
Cosgrove, Michael C. 33
Cronin, Joe 52
Dankers, Andrew 21 Video 1Video 2Video 3Video 4Video 5
Dauber, Sascha 8
Deak, Zoltan 36
Diosi, Albert 38
Dissanayake, G. 24
Dunbabin, Matthew 44
Dunn, Mark 1
Eager, David 47
Einicke, Garry 34
Engel, Dirk 8
Estivill-Castro, V. 13
Featherstone, Roy 48
Fletcher, Luke 21 Video 1Video 2Video 3Video 4Video 5
Fontan, Julien 910
Ford, Robin 52
Furukawa, Tomonari 26
Ha, Q. P. 2
Harvey, David 16
Hassfeld, Stefan 8
Hinsch, Andrew 612
Hoppe, Harald 8
Jarvis, Ray 11193643
Jefferies, Margaret E. 33
Kee, Damien 5155
Keller, Michael 16
Kim, Jong-Hyuk 31 Video 1
Kim, Min Sub 39
Kleeman, Lindsay 2038 VIdeo 1
Korb, Werner 8
Kowadlo, Gideon 18
Kwok, N. M. 24
Lau, Haye 23
Leung, Cindy 32
Li, Zeng 612
Lu, Tien-Fu 16
MacDonald, Bruce A. 517272829
MacRae, Kym 12
Madden, Chris 37
Mahon, Ian 30
Mahony, Robert 37
Marzouqi, Mohamed 11
Mayo, Michael 33
McCarthy, Chris 15
Middleton, Lee 5
Middleton, Richard H. 42
Milford, Michael 35
Nettleton, Eric 31 Video 1
Nguyen, Hung T. 2
Nguyen, Tri V. M. 2
Olsson, Magnus 46
Ong, Lee Ling (Sharon) 31 Video 1
Peterson, Lars 21 Video 1Video 2Video 3Video 4Video 5
Prasser, David 49
Quinlan, Michael J. 42
Raczkowsky, Jorg 8 Video 1Video 2
Ridley, Matthew 31 Video 1
Ridley, Peter 91044
Ring, Peter 12
Roberts, Jonathan 404151
Rodrigo, Allen G. 29
Rosenfeld, Vivian 25
Rozyn, Matt 47
Russell, Andrew 3418
Sadarangani, Daksh 29
Saul, David 29
Schorr, Oliver 8
Seymon, S. 13
Shen, Yueshi 48
Sukkarieh, Salah 31 Video 1
Tang, Kai Wing 19
Taylor, Geoffrey 20 Video 1
Tourky, A. 13
Trepanier, Felix-Etienne 28
Trihatmo, Sardjono 43
Usher, Kane 44
Uther, William 39
Vallejo, Daniel 45
Vittor, Timothy R. 26
Weng, Wenrong 33
Wijaya, Jaury Adi 4
Willgoss, Richard 252652
Williams, Stefan 72230
Wilson, Nathan 47
Wong, Sylvia C. 5
Worn, Heinz 8
Wyeth, Gordon 35404149515354,55
Yeung, Albert 14
Yuen, David C. K. 17
Zelinsky, Alex 21 Video 1Video 2Video 3Video 4Video 5