Lino Marques | Universidade de Coimbra (original) (raw)
Papers by Lino Marques
2019 Third IEEE International Conference on Robotic Computing (IRC), 2019
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 2019
The use of drones has seen a surge in the last few years with their employment in a large variety... more The use of drones has seen a surge in the last few years with their employment in a large variety of applications. However, this popularity has also made improper drone use a threat to privacy, economy and human lives, requiring the development of methods to detect and track drones. In this work, we present and experimentally validate an airborne drone detection system that utilizes a millimeter wave radar system to detect and follow target drones.
2018 IEEE SENSORS, 2018
In this paper, we show the feasibility of using an off the shelf short range automotive radar wor... more In this paper, we show the feasibility of using an off the shelf short range automotive radar working at 24GHz frequency for through-wall mapping. For this purpose, an enclosed arena made of portable wall segments was constructed, creating various indoor wall configurations, and these were probed from the outside using the radar mounted on the top of a differential drive robot. It was shown that the radar can detect most wall segments hidden behind the outer walls, and the robot can construct a 2D map of the environment in sufficient detail probing the environment with a short range radar from multiple known positions.
2019 IEEE International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions (ICARSC), 2019
Mobile robot navigation mostly relies on information gathered by lidars and cameras to detect and... more Mobile robot navigation mostly relies on information gathered by lidars and cameras to detect and map obstacles. However, these sensors become useless both in fires and other environments that have reduced visibility due to smoke, dust and smog. Radars, on the other hand, are not affected by these and therefore provide a viable solution to support robots in low visibility environments. However, radars provide sparse measurements and may detect multi-path reflections, resulting in perception of ghost objects. This work demonstrates the use of a radar to support mobile robot mapping in indoor environments. A range based filtering approach is proposed to reduce the effect of ghost detections and the approach is validated in different scenarios.
The paper gives a short description of LOCOSTRA project and introduces the most recent work done ... more The paper gives a short description of LOCOSTRA project and introduces the most recent work done within the project – the robust, simple, low-cost autonomy enhancement module. LOCOSTRA (LOw-COst TRActor for Humanitarian Demining), a remotely controlled, armoured demining machine is the output of an eighteen months project co-funded by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development and the Italian Institute for Foreign Trade and coordinated by the University of Genova. The autonomy enhancement module is part of a recent work undertaken in order to upgrade the LOCOSTRA remote control system. Using easy available components we have created a fully operating system which satisfies the principal requirements of reliability, low cost, and ease of future upgrade. The autonomy enhancement module introduces new important functions to the control system such as the supervision of the safety of the machine’s operations and remote control assistance and provides a suitable base for further develo...
2017 IEEE International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions (ICARSC), 2017
In a post-war scenario, humanitarian demining is an important and dangerous task that consists in... more In a post-war scenario, humanitarian demining is an important and dangerous task that consists in basically 4 phases: Scanning the terrain, detecting potential landmines, distinguishing what is a real landmine from other objects and removing the landmine. Scanning the terrain is usually done in small areas by using the human arm or a robotic arm before touching the object; detecting potential landmines is usually achieved by thresholding the sensor signal, removing the landmines are often achieved by blowing in place method. The biggest challenge is to distinguish the landmines from other objects, this step is normally achieved by touching the object with a pressure probe, but this approach is dangerous and time consuming, specially because the number of false-positives in such a detection is often very high, and one false-negative would be enough to cause a death or a bad injury. Thus, this paper focus on optimizing machine learning techniques to reduce the false positives of such ...
18th IAARC/CIB/IEEE/IFAC International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction, Sep 12, 2001
problems of pneumatic manipulators positioning in angle trajectories and in long linear trajector... more problems of pneumatic manipulators positioning in angle trajectories and in long linear trajectories for construction applications are discussed. Optimal positioning of a pneumatic manipulator of angle trajectories with minimum control energy consumption is solved. An implementation of the control system is presented. A control algorithm for a pneumatic manipulator of long linear trajectories based on a two-phase movement of the endeffector is investigated. Experimental results are shown.
International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems, 2020
Energy autonomy is an important aspect that needs to be improved in order to increase efficiency ... more Energy autonomy is an important aspect that needs to be improved in order to increase efficiency in mobile robotic tasks. Having accurate power models allows the estimation of energy consumption along different trajectories. This article proposes a power model for two-wheel differential drive mobile robots. The proposed model takes into account the dynamic parameters of the robot and its motors, and predicts the energy consumption for trajectories with variable accelerations and variable payloads. The experimental validation of the proposed model was performed with a Nomad Super Scout II mobile robot which was driven along straight and curved trajectories, with different payloads and accelerations. The experiments using the proposed model showed accuracies of 96.67% along straight trajectories and 81.25% along curved trajectories in the estimation of energy consumption.
Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 2015
This paper aims to analyze the number of actuators as well as the actuation strategy for underact... more This paper aims to analyze the number of actuators as well as the actuation strategy for underactuated prosthetic hands. Two comprehensive analyses were performed for this purpose. 16 possible actuation strategies in five categories of one to five actuators were defined. Based on these 16 strategies two analyses were performed: grasp diversity and grasp functionality. In the first analysis, we defined a performance metric based on all possible grasps by the human hand, while in the second analysis only the top grasps with the highest frequency of usage were considered. By comparing the performance of these strategies we obtained some interesting results regarding the best actuation strategies for the under-actuated anthropomorphic hands. Such study can be useful for designers in the early stages of designing a prosthetic terminal, for deciding the number of actuators and how such actuators are allocated to the DOFs of the hand. In other words, this study shows which joints of the hands should be coupled together and driven by a single actuator, in order to get the best performance with minimum number of actuators. This is important for developing hands, which have a small number of actuators (i.e. less than 5 actuators), and thus benefit from a simple electromechanical structure. Actuation Strategies for Under-actuated Anthropomorphic Hands.Sixteen actuation strategies in five groups (1-5 actuators).2 benchmarks for grasp diversity and grasp functionality.2 comprehensive analyses for each criteria.Suggestions for design of efficient under-actuated hands with minimum actuators.
2015 IEEE International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions, 2015
Field robotics competitions usually require a degree of logistics that is out of reach for most o... more Field robotics competitions usually require a degree of logistics that is out of reach for most of the academic and non-academic community. Nevertheless these events are a source of innovation. This article proposes a framework for remote field robotics competitions, allowing virtually anyone from around the world to participate in a robotics challenge, regardless of resources. This framework, addressed in depth in this article, allows challengers to develop their entries under a simulated environment, and later test their ideas on a state of the art robotics platform, always without ever getting into direct contact with the actual robot. The framework was validated on the Humanitarian Robotics and Automation Technology Challenge (HRATC), an international humanitarian demining competition.
2008 International Symposium on Power Electronics, Electrical Drives, Automation and Motion, 2008
Page 1. Abstract--Electric vehicles (EVs) are fundamental components for a sustainable mobility. ... more Page 1. Abstract--Electric vehicles (EVs) are fundamental components for a sustainable mobility. Unless a major technological breakthrough is achieved in energy storage and battery technology, EVs future will pass by multiple ...
![Research paper thumbnail of Robotics for Environmental Monitoring [From the Guest Editors]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/90301796/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, 2012
IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, 2012
We characterize the range of the attenuated and non-attenuated X-ray transform of compactly suppo... more We characterize the range of the attenuated and non-attenuated X-ray transform of compactly supported vector fields in the plane. The characterization is in terms of a Hilbert transform associated with the A-analytic functionsà la Bukhgeim. As an application we determine necessary and sufficient conditions for the attenuated Doppler and X-ray data to be mistaken for each other.
Mobile Robots for Dynamic Environments
ABSTRACT The field of swarms and swarm robotics, and the more general field of multi-agent dynami... more ABSTRACT The field of swarms and swarm robotics, and the more general field of multi-agent dynamic systems is an active research field which has been popular for more than two decades now. Since the pio-neering work by Reynolds [1] on simulation of a flock of birds in flight, extensive work has been done on modeling and analysis of the swarm behavior as well as development of swarm control and coordination algorithms. Collection of some of the related results can be found in the recent special journal issues [2, 3], edited books [4–8] and monographs [9–14] on swarm robotics and multi-agent dynamic systems. A mobile robot swarm, in general, can be defined as a network of mobile robots moving on a (two-dimensional) plane or a three-dimensional space to perform certain cooperative tasks. Within this context each individual robot in the swarm is considered as a dynamic agent. There is no direct mechanical link between pairs of robot agents within the swarm, but rather some wireless sensing and communication links between certain assigned pairs. The main purpose of using mobile robot swarms is to collectively reach goals that are difficult to achieve by an individual robot or a monolithic robot system. A sample experimental robot swarm moving on plane is shown in Figure 9.1
2019 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
Coverage performance in a coverage path planning problem depends both on the path created and on ... more Coverage performance in a coverage path planning problem depends both on the path created and on the footprint of the sensor used. The footprint can be increased either by increasing the size of the sensor, or by mounting the sensor on a robotic arm to allow scanning over larger areas as the platform moves, effectively creating a virtual sensor with a larger footprint than the physical sensor’s. However, the virtual footprint comes at a cost requiring formulating an optimization problem for the area of interest. In this work, three common strategies to use a metal detector on a platform are discussed, their time and energy performances are formulated and the corresponding optima are found.
2017 IEEE International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions (ICARSC)
It has been generally assumed that skid-steered wheeled robots have good odometry during translat... more It has been generally assumed that skid-steered wheeled robots have good odometry during translations, but unacceptable odometry during rotations. In this paper we propose an improved kinematic model for skid steered wheeled robots that enables directly using wheel rotations to estimate angular velocities and hence improve dead reckoning performance. The proposed model also takes into account position of the center of mass, giving good results even if the center of mass is displaced considerably.
This paper presents a brief overview of sensor technologies for close-in detection of buried expl... more This paper presents a brief overview of sensor technologies for close-in detection of buried explosive devices and describes the research and development activities planned to be carried-out in the framework of FP7/SEC-2011/TIRAMISU project to advance the state of the art in this area.
2016 International Conference on Robotics and Automation for Humanitarian Applications (RAHA), 2016
This paper introduces the problem of detection of landmines and unexploded ordnances. This is a s... more This paper introduces the problem of detection of landmines and unexploded ordnances. This is a serious humanitarian problem affecting dozens of countries across the world. A solution using robots for cleaning affected areas would have a huge positive impact for the life of persons living there and has for long been foreseen, but this approach has its own difficulties. The paper presents a Challenge aiming to engage researchers across the world into this problem and helping to improve robotics demining. The different phases of the Humanitarian Robotics and Automation Technology Challenge (HRATC) are described and the progresses achieved after three years of running the Challenge are analyzed and discussed.
2019 Third IEEE International Conference on Robotic Computing (IRC), 2019
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 2019
The use of drones has seen a surge in the last few years with their employment in a large variety... more The use of drones has seen a surge in the last few years with their employment in a large variety of applications. However, this popularity has also made improper drone use a threat to privacy, economy and human lives, requiring the development of methods to detect and track drones. In this work, we present and experimentally validate an airborne drone detection system that utilizes a millimeter wave radar system to detect and follow target drones.
2018 IEEE SENSORS, 2018
In this paper, we show the feasibility of using an off the shelf short range automotive radar wor... more In this paper, we show the feasibility of using an off the shelf short range automotive radar working at 24GHz frequency for through-wall mapping. For this purpose, an enclosed arena made of portable wall segments was constructed, creating various indoor wall configurations, and these were probed from the outside using the radar mounted on the top of a differential drive robot. It was shown that the radar can detect most wall segments hidden behind the outer walls, and the robot can construct a 2D map of the environment in sufficient detail probing the environment with a short range radar from multiple known positions.
2019 IEEE International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions (ICARSC), 2019
Mobile robot navigation mostly relies on information gathered by lidars and cameras to detect and... more Mobile robot navigation mostly relies on information gathered by lidars and cameras to detect and map obstacles. However, these sensors become useless both in fires and other environments that have reduced visibility due to smoke, dust and smog. Radars, on the other hand, are not affected by these and therefore provide a viable solution to support robots in low visibility environments. However, radars provide sparse measurements and may detect multi-path reflections, resulting in perception of ghost objects. This work demonstrates the use of a radar to support mobile robot mapping in indoor environments. A range based filtering approach is proposed to reduce the effect of ghost detections and the approach is validated in different scenarios.
The paper gives a short description of LOCOSTRA project and introduces the most recent work done ... more The paper gives a short description of LOCOSTRA project and introduces the most recent work done within the project – the robust, simple, low-cost autonomy enhancement module. LOCOSTRA (LOw-COst TRActor for Humanitarian Demining), a remotely controlled, armoured demining machine is the output of an eighteen months project co-funded by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development and the Italian Institute for Foreign Trade and coordinated by the University of Genova. The autonomy enhancement module is part of a recent work undertaken in order to upgrade the LOCOSTRA remote control system. Using easy available components we have created a fully operating system which satisfies the principal requirements of reliability, low cost, and ease of future upgrade. The autonomy enhancement module introduces new important functions to the control system such as the supervision of the safety of the machine’s operations and remote control assistance and provides a suitable base for further develo...
2017 IEEE International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions (ICARSC), 2017
In a post-war scenario, humanitarian demining is an important and dangerous task that consists in... more In a post-war scenario, humanitarian demining is an important and dangerous task that consists in basically 4 phases: Scanning the terrain, detecting potential landmines, distinguishing what is a real landmine from other objects and removing the landmine. Scanning the terrain is usually done in small areas by using the human arm or a robotic arm before touching the object; detecting potential landmines is usually achieved by thresholding the sensor signal, removing the landmines are often achieved by blowing in place method. The biggest challenge is to distinguish the landmines from other objects, this step is normally achieved by touching the object with a pressure probe, but this approach is dangerous and time consuming, specially because the number of false-positives in such a detection is often very high, and one false-negative would be enough to cause a death or a bad injury. Thus, this paper focus on optimizing machine learning techniques to reduce the false positives of such ...
18th IAARC/CIB/IEEE/IFAC International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction, Sep 12, 2001
problems of pneumatic manipulators positioning in angle trajectories and in long linear trajector... more problems of pneumatic manipulators positioning in angle trajectories and in long linear trajectories for construction applications are discussed. Optimal positioning of a pneumatic manipulator of angle trajectories with minimum control energy consumption is solved. An implementation of the control system is presented. A control algorithm for a pneumatic manipulator of long linear trajectories based on a two-phase movement of the endeffector is investigated. Experimental results are shown.
International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems, 2020
Energy autonomy is an important aspect that needs to be improved in order to increase efficiency ... more Energy autonomy is an important aspect that needs to be improved in order to increase efficiency in mobile robotic tasks. Having accurate power models allows the estimation of energy consumption along different trajectories. This article proposes a power model for two-wheel differential drive mobile robots. The proposed model takes into account the dynamic parameters of the robot and its motors, and predicts the energy consumption for trajectories with variable accelerations and variable payloads. The experimental validation of the proposed model was performed with a Nomad Super Scout II mobile robot which was driven along straight and curved trajectories, with different payloads and accelerations. The experiments using the proposed model showed accuracies of 96.67% along straight trajectories and 81.25% along curved trajectories in the estimation of energy consumption.
Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 2015
This paper aims to analyze the number of actuators as well as the actuation strategy for underact... more This paper aims to analyze the number of actuators as well as the actuation strategy for underactuated prosthetic hands. Two comprehensive analyses were performed for this purpose. 16 possible actuation strategies in five categories of one to five actuators were defined. Based on these 16 strategies two analyses were performed: grasp diversity and grasp functionality. In the first analysis, we defined a performance metric based on all possible grasps by the human hand, while in the second analysis only the top grasps with the highest frequency of usage were considered. By comparing the performance of these strategies we obtained some interesting results regarding the best actuation strategies for the under-actuated anthropomorphic hands. Such study can be useful for designers in the early stages of designing a prosthetic terminal, for deciding the number of actuators and how such actuators are allocated to the DOFs of the hand. In other words, this study shows which joints of the hands should be coupled together and driven by a single actuator, in order to get the best performance with minimum number of actuators. This is important for developing hands, which have a small number of actuators (i.e. less than 5 actuators), and thus benefit from a simple electromechanical structure. Actuation Strategies for Under-actuated Anthropomorphic Hands.Sixteen actuation strategies in five groups (1-5 actuators).2 benchmarks for grasp diversity and grasp functionality.2 comprehensive analyses for each criteria.Suggestions for design of efficient under-actuated hands with minimum actuators.
2015 IEEE International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions, 2015
Field robotics competitions usually require a degree of logistics that is out of reach for most o... more Field robotics competitions usually require a degree of logistics that is out of reach for most of the academic and non-academic community. Nevertheless these events are a source of innovation. This article proposes a framework for remote field robotics competitions, allowing virtually anyone from around the world to participate in a robotics challenge, regardless of resources. This framework, addressed in depth in this article, allows challengers to develop their entries under a simulated environment, and later test their ideas on a state of the art robotics platform, always without ever getting into direct contact with the actual robot. The framework was validated on the Humanitarian Robotics and Automation Technology Challenge (HRATC), an international humanitarian demining competition.
2008 International Symposium on Power Electronics, Electrical Drives, Automation and Motion, 2008
Page 1. Abstract--Electric vehicles (EVs) are fundamental components for a sustainable mobility. ... more Page 1. Abstract--Electric vehicles (EVs) are fundamental components for a sustainable mobility. Unless a major technological breakthrough is achieved in energy storage and battery technology, EVs future will pass by multiple ...
IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, 2012
IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, 2012
We characterize the range of the attenuated and non-attenuated X-ray transform of compactly suppo... more We characterize the range of the attenuated and non-attenuated X-ray transform of compactly supported vector fields in the plane. The characterization is in terms of a Hilbert transform associated with the A-analytic functionsà la Bukhgeim. As an application we determine necessary and sufficient conditions for the attenuated Doppler and X-ray data to be mistaken for each other.
Mobile Robots for Dynamic Environments
ABSTRACT The field of swarms and swarm robotics, and the more general field of multi-agent dynami... more ABSTRACT The field of swarms and swarm robotics, and the more general field of multi-agent dynamic systems is an active research field which has been popular for more than two decades now. Since the pio-neering work by Reynolds [1] on simulation of a flock of birds in flight, extensive work has been done on modeling and analysis of the swarm behavior as well as development of swarm control and coordination algorithms. Collection of some of the related results can be found in the recent special journal issues [2, 3], edited books [4–8] and monographs [9–14] on swarm robotics and multi-agent dynamic systems. A mobile robot swarm, in general, can be defined as a network of mobile robots moving on a (two-dimensional) plane or a three-dimensional space to perform certain cooperative tasks. Within this context each individual robot in the swarm is considered as a dynamic agent. There is no direct mechanical link between pairs of robot agents within the swarm, but rather some wireless sensing and communication links between certain assigned pairs. The main purpose of using mobile robot swarms is to collectively reach goals that are difficult to achieve by an individual robot or a monolithic robot system. A sample experimental robot swarm moving on plane is shown in Figure 9.1
2019 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
Coverage performance in a coverage path planning problem depends both on the path created and on ... more Coverage performance in a coverage path planning problem depends both on the path created and on the footprint of the sensor used. The footprint can be increased either by increasing the size of the sensor, or by mounting the sensor on a robotic arm to allow scanning over larger areas as the platform moves, effectively creating a virtual sensor with a larger footprint than the physical sensor’s. However, the virtual footprint comes at a cost requiring formulating an optimization problem for the area of interest. In this work, three common strategies to use a metal detector on a platform are discussed, their time and energy performances are formulated and the corresponding optima are found.
2017 IEEE International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions (ICARSC)
It has been generally assumed that skid-steered wheeled robots have good odometry during translat... more It has been generally assumed that skid-steered wheeled robots have good odometry during translations, but unacceptable odometry during rotations. In this paper we propose an improved kinematic model for skid steered wheeled robots that enables directly using wheel rotations to estimate angular velocities and hence improve dead reckoning performance. The proposed model also takes into account position of the center of mass, giving good results even if the center of mass is displaced considerably.
This paper presents a brief overview of sensor technologies for close-in detection of buried expl... more This paper presents a brief overview of sensor technologies for close-in detection of buried explosive devices and describes the research and development activities planned to be carried-out in the framework of FP7/SEC-2011/TIRAMISU project to advance the state of the art in this area.
2016 International Conference on Robotics and Automation for Humanitarian Applications (RAHA), 2016
This paper introduces the problem of detection of landmines and unexploded ordnances. This is a s... more This paper introduces the problem of detection of landmines and unexploded ordnances. This is a serious humanitarian problem affecting dozens of countries across the world. A solution using robots for cleaning affected areas would have a huge positive impact for the life of persons living there and has for long been foreseen, but this approach has its own difficulties. The paper presents a Challenge aiming to engage researchers across the world into this problem and helping to improve robotics demining. The different phases of the Humanitarian Robotics and Automation Technology Challenge (HRATC) are described and the progresses achieved after three years of running the Challenge are analyzed and discussed.