Neuronal Controller would provide more intelligence to robots

Mauricio Fernando Jaramillo Morales, a researcher of Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Manizales, finished his master in Linear Engineering and Industrial Automation, and with it, the design and prototype of a robot capable of recognizing and discriminating objects in different places.

This robot does not need an operator since, by means of web cams; it explores the zone, looks at the objects, determines positions and, based on this information, selects trajectories to go to unexplored places.

For finding mines, Jaramillo, now a professor in the campus, is fixing the car changing the sensors for others that can locate magnetic units.

"Robots built for this type of application are remote controlled, something that limits the amount of zones that it can cover. On the contrary, with ours, it would be easy to find autonomously the mines. The information is gathered in a computer and from there, the orders can be set," explained the researcher.

Besides, the apparatus can discriminate what it finds, for this reason, the reconstruction in three dimensions is important, for instance, if something is in an environment out of the rank to be human (such as debris), it sends the information to the computer and therefore, the objects in the place can be determined.

"Initially, the idea was only to build the scene where the robot was, now with this advancement, we increased the information regarding the place the robot is and now it can move to unknown places. Besides, we can work with several objects in the same space and the robot is capable of building three dimension images," explained Jaramillo Morales.

One of the advancements of this study is the control issue, since at the beginning, a prototype was developed with a basic controller that gave the robot a mobile trajectory; now, they have installed a neuronal controller for it to move more fluently, without crashing with the objects. It surrounds them and moves in the spaces at random.

"In the simulation process, we have observed that everything works properly, the idea is changing from simulation to reality. The objective is to find support by means of the Doctorate in Linear Engineering of Research in Automation, as a joined labor with other universities," concluded the researcher.