When you walk around campus this spring, you won't have to worry about tripping over any of the small convoys of robots that might cross your path. Even if you don't see them, they will be watching out for you.
The robots that will be wandering the campus byways are modified, motorized wheelchairs equipped with computerized sonar and optical systems that help them sense and steer away from any unexpected obstacles they might crash into or fall over.
The devices, which will travel in pairs, will be linked via a wireless communications system to keep them moving in tandem. Following behind them will be Roman Kuc, professor of electrical engineering, and the group of undergraduates who built the self-guiding robots in his laboratory. Kuc and his team want to see whether the robots, which already can negotiate the hallways of Becton Applied Science and Engineering Center, can manage to avoid the many hazards that abound in the "real" world -- including people, cars, posts, walls, stairs, benches, curbs and, one day, other robots.
Kuc (pronounced "koots") directs the Intelligent Sensors Laboratory. He isn't as concerned with creating robots that can keep themselves out of harm as he is with developing tools that can keep people from crashing or falling. Some day, he says, such devices could benefit blind people or those who use wheelchairs.
"When new users get an electric wheelchair," says Kuc, "the first thing they do is put a gash in the wall and the second thing they do is run over a pet. The elderly especially encounter problems operating them." A wheelchair -- or other moving vehicle -- equipped with "smart" devices could potentially recognize dangerous obstacles and take evasive maneuvers to avoid collisions and prevent injuries, he notes.
Kuc has long been interested in the problems faced by physically disabled individuals; in fact, he has chaired Yale's Advisory Committee on Resources for Students and Faculty with Disabilities. He is particularly interested in helping people with disabilities make their way through the world.
For instance, knowing that blind people can easily become disoriented when crossing streets or other unbounded spaces, he decided to create a device that could help. Using a handheld vibrator taken from a pager, he linked it to a digital compass that can guide a person on a designated course. Two blind people on campus have tried a prototype of the device. According to Kuc, "One loved it, one didn't."
Learning from nature
In his projects, Kuc applies one of nature's most sensitive guidance systems: hearing. The Yale researcher is a leading authority on how bats and dolphins send out sounds and listen for echoes to detect and locate even minute objects and barriers. This allows them to negotiate their way through complex and sometimes dangerous environments in three dimensions at high speed, very often in the company of other bats or dolphins.
Camera systems are more commonly used as guidance systems for robotic devices, explains the Yale researcher, but those systems prove unpractical when robots encounter novel situations. "We decided to take a closer look at how echolocation is used in nature to see if we might be missing something," says Kuc.
With bat and dolphin behavior in mind, he has engineered various sonar detection systems for humans. By combining microcontrollers and sonar sensors, scientists in his laboratory have built numerous tools that locate objects in space. Typically, in these devices, a transducer emits sound waves that bounce off objects -- much like the high-pitched squeals of bats and clicking sounds of dolphins -- while rotating transducer "ears" act as receivers for detecting echoes and locating their source.
Putting a bat's or dolphin's sonar system onto a robot or other moving system requires adapting equipment to specialized uses, explains Kuc, pointing out that the equipment he uses for such projects is typically available at any electronic parts store. "If it is to be practical," he says, "it has to be inexpensive."
The projects his laboratory tackles are well-suited for the undergraduates he teaches, says Kuc, who is director of educational affairs in the Faculty of Engineering, and whose introductory Electrical Engineering 101 course attracts hundreds of students each year.
"Students," he says, "can actually design these systems. They learn to recognize problems that are interesting and challenging, yet doable."
Mechanical engineering major Paul Ellison '01 is working with Kuc on a project to develop a device that can be incorporated into a handicapped person's van, such as one his grandfather drives. Ellison's grandfather uses a lift that requires eight feet of clearance between neighboring vehicles in order for him to enter and exit the van. When the van is parked, the sonar-based sensing system can warn other drivers if they have parked too close.
"We're not pushing the science," Kuc says. "We're pushing the human-machine interface."
Talking cars
In addition to helping disabled individuals, the systems that Kuc's laboratory is developing could have a wide variety of applications. In one project, the Yale engineer is taking his discoveries underwater. He is collaborating with scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to build an autonomous underwater vehicle for self-guided exploration.
These systems also have the potential for making roadways safer. Just as bats and dolphins use sonar to maintain a constant distance from other bats and dolphins, robots can "talk" to each other to keep a set distance apart, explains Kuc. Someday, such interactive communication systems may prove useful in preventing traffic snarls and even accidents, he notes. For example, interactive sensor systems in cars could warn vehicles when they venture too close to one another, conceivably triggering automated evasive maneuvers, such as slowing the vehicles down. Other devices could help vehicles on the same roadway travel together in convoys -- just like the pair of robots that will soon be venturing around campus. Like the wheelchair robots, automobiles could someday be equipped with ground position systems for self-guided travel.
For elderly drivers, such innovations could prove especially valuable. "You want to give people time to think in order to respond safely," says Kuc. He is collaborating with Dr. Richard Marottoli, associate professor of internal medicine in geriatrics, to help understand the effect of dementia, a common problem among the elderly, on driving. They are looking at ways to monitor driver performance and awareness, which could have benefits for disease diagnosis and traffic safety.
Meanwhile, the students in Kuc's laboratory have been perfecting the tandem robot wheelchairs. "It's an iterative process," the Yale engineer says. "We want to try it out so we can make a better product. We're out of the lab and in the hallway now. Next comes the real world."
-- By Marc Wortman
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