Yu-Lin Zhao

This paper presents a 3D vision-based autonomous navigation system for wheeled mobile robots equipped with an RGB-D camera. The system integrates SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping), motion planning, and obstacle avoidance to operate in both static and dynamic environments. A real-time pipeline is developed to construct sparse and dense maps for precise localization and path planning. Navigation meshes (NavMeshes) derived from 3D reconstructions facilitate efficient A* path planning. Additionally, a dynamic “U-map” generated from depth data identifies obstacles, enabling rapid NavMesh updates for obstacle avoidance. The proposed system achieves real-time performance and robust navigation across diverse terrains, including uneven surfaces and ramps, offering a comprehensive solution for 3D vision-guided robotic navigation.

SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping), primarily relying on camera or LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) sensors, plays a crucial role in robotics for localization and environmental reconstruction. This paper assesses the performance of two leading methods, namely ORB-SLAM3 and SC-LeGO-LOAM, focusing on localization and mapping in both indoor and outdoor environments. The evaluation employs artificial and cost-effective datasets incorporating data from a 3D LiDAR and an RGB-D (color and depth) camera. A practical approach is introduced for calculating ground-truth trajectories and during benchmarking, reconstruction maps based on ground truth are established. To assess the performance, ATE and RPE are utilized to evaluate the accuracy of localization; standard deviation is employed to compare the stability during the localization process for different methods. While both algorithms exhibit satisfactory positioning accuracy, their performance is suboptimal in scenarios with inadequate textures. Furthermore, 3D reconstruction maps established by the two approaches are also provided for direct observation of their differences and the limitations encountered during map construction. Moreover, the research includes a comprehensive comparison of computational performance metrics, encompassing Central Processing Unit (CPU) utilization, memory usage, and an in-depth analysis. This evaluation revealed that Visual SLAM requires more CPU resources than LiDAR SLAM, primarily due to additional data storage requirements, emphasizing the impact of environmental factors on resource requirements. In conclusion, LiDAR SLAM is more suitable for the outdoors due to its comprehensive nature, while Visual SLAM excels indoors, compensating for sparse aspects in LiDAR SLAM. To facilitate further research, a technical guide was also provided for the researchers in related fields.

This paper presents the development of a visual-perception system on a dual-arm mobile robot for human-robot interaction. This visual system integrates three subsystems. Hand gesture recognition is utilized to trigger human-robot interaction. Engagement and intention of the participants are detected and quantified through a cognitive system. Visual servoing uses YOLO to identify the object to be tracked and hybrid, model-based tracking to follow the object’s geometry. The proposed visual-perception system is implemented in the developed dual-arm mobile robot, and experiments are conducted to validate the proposed method’s effects on human-robot interaction applications.

The highly infectious and serious nature of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has highlighted the need for hospital space disinfection technology and the prevention of human exposure to pathogenic environments. This research developed novel chlorine dioxide (ClO ₂ ) sterilization technology to reduce bacteria and viruses in the air and on surfaces. A smart sterilization robot system was also developed to spray disinfectants in operating theaters or patients’ rooms, designed according to the results of controlled experiments and the requirements for hospital disinfection. The system was built incorporated a semi-automatic remote-controlled module and an automatic intelligent disinfection function; that is, it could operate independently according to specific epidemic prevention strategies, which were implemented using a combination of Internet of Things (IoT) applications and a gesture recognition function. The elimination of Escherichia coli ( E. coli ) bacteria on sample plates was 99.8 % effective. This paper reviews the evolution of various disinfection technologies and describes a disinfection robot system in detail.