Cryptex Programmable Memory Mechanism (CPMM): A mechanically programmable path mechanism for minimally invasive surgery tools

In the history of medicine and surgery, a slow transition is made from open surgery to minimally invasive surgery. Nowadays, natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES) is investigated and tested. A NOTES procedure includes flexible instruments, which are inserted through natural orifices such as the mouth, nose, anus or vagina. The...

Low-cost stereo-based obstacle avoidance for small UAVs using uncertainty maps

The last years there is a wide interest in UAVs which can be attributed to their low cost and wide range of use in recreational, commercial and scientific applications. Despite the large increase in drones, UAV flights are permitted only in secluded areas. In order to be granted access to public areas, it must prove its capacity to sense and...

Lyapunov Stable Path Planning and Control for Autonomous Vehicles

In modern society cars are one of the most important means of transportation. Unfortunately, many people die in car accidents around the world. Research shows that the number of fatal casualties in car accidents has been increasing for the past decade and that the largest cause of these accidents is the human driver. For this reason, research on...

A Novel Fast Marching Approach for COLREGS Compliant Dynamic Obstacle Avoidance for Unmanned Surface Vehicles

Successful implementation of fully autonomous vehicles is a much desired objective. Within the area of unmanned marine craft or unmanned surface vehicles (USV), the implementation of truly autonomous navigation is still a challenge. During times in which humans are still actively involved in the processof maritime navigation, regulations are...

Generative CoLearn: steering and cost prediction with generative adversarial nets in kinodynamic RRT

Kinodynamic planning is motion planning in state space and aims to satisfy kinematic and dynamic constraints. To reduce its computational cost, a popular approach is to use sampling based methods such as RRT with off-line machine learning for estimating the steering cost and inputs. However, scalability and robustness are still open challenges...

Simultaneous Multi-Robot Task Scheduling and Path Planning: An integrated approach to task scheduling and path planning for mobile robots in production environments

Manufacturing processes often run on a schedule, because each production step takes a certain amount of time, after which a component is transported to the next machine. Mobile robots can be used to automate transportation of components between production steps. To do so, a task scheduler assigns transportation tasks to robots and a path planner...

Informative Path Planning for Search and Rescue using a UAV

Target search in an obstacle filled environment is a practically relevant challenge in robotics that has a huge impact in the society. The wide range of applications include searching for victims in a search and rescue operation, detecting weeds in precision agriculture, patrolling borders for military and navy, automated census of endangered...

Guidance, Navigation and Control of Autonomous Vessels: An Implementation using a Control-Based Framework

This thesis report proposes a framework to implement Navigation, Guidance and Control (GNC) systems, that enable point-to-point autonomy for displacement vessels. A model-based control approach is chosen as the basis of the GNC systems. The resulting algorithms are implemented for verification in a 1:25 scale model of a Azimuth Stern Drive (ASD)...

Vehicle Trajectory Prediction Using Road Structure

An autonomous vehicle should be able to operate amidst numerous other human-driven vehicles, each driving on its own trajectory. To safely navigate in such a dynamic environment, the autonomous vehicle should be able to predict trajectories of the vehicles operating in its vicinity and use these to plan its own path. Most related work uses a...

Potential Field Methods for Safe Reinforcement Learning: Exploring Q-Learning and Potential Fields

A Reinforcement Learning (RL) agent learns about its environment through exploration. For most physical applications such as search and rescue UAVs, this exploration must take place with safety in mind. Unregulated exploration, especially at the beginning of a run, will lead to fatal situations such as crashes. One approach to mitigating these...

Noise Abatement 3D Flight Planning Using a Snake Algorithm

The aviation industry has struggled with reducing the amount of noise that aircraft generate, especially when flying close to communities. This effort has led to the introduction of technological and operational novelties such as efficient trajectory planning. In line with these operational efforts, a tool has been designed in the TU Delft,...

Advanced Path Planning for a Neurosurgical Flexible Catheter: Improving the performance of sampling-based motion planning

At Mechatronics in Medicine (MiM) Laboratory of Imperial College London, a neurosurgical steerable flexible probe ( STING) that is used to access deep brain lesions through curved trajectories is currently being developed. The focus of my research project is mainly on trajectory planning of the flexible probe i.e. investigation on how to...