10 accepted papers
Drone audition, namely the hearing capability of a drone, is expected to compensate for the drawbacks of visual sensors in search-and-rescue missions. Current multi-rotor drones have limitations of flight duration and sound processing due to ego-noise generated by rotors and air-flow. Drone audition…
We consider the design of under-actuated articulated mechanism that are able to maintain stable static balance. Our method augments an user-provided design with counter-weights whose mass and attachment locations are automatically computed. The optimized counterweights adjust the center of gravity s…
Drone audition, or auditory processing for drones equipped with a microphone array, is expected to compensate for problems affecting drones' visual processing, in particular occlusion and poor-illumination conditions. The current state of drone audition still assumes a single sound source. When a dr
Statically balanced spring mechanisms are used in many applications that support our daily lives. However, creating new designs is a challenging problem since the designer has to simultaneously determine the right number of springs, their connectivity, attachment points, and other parameters. We pro
This paper presents the design and implementation of a preliminary version of a programmable drawing automaton (PDA-0) that draws a user-specified 3D trajectory. PDA-0 is strongly inspired by Jaquet Droz's a programmable drawing automaton built in the 1770s using 6,000 moving parts, which was hand-c…
For a deeper understanding of ecological functions and semantics of wild bird vocalizations (i.e., songs and calls), it is important to clarify the fine-scaled and detailed relationships among their characteristics of vocalizations and their behavioral contexts. However, it takes a lot of time and e…
This paper addresses online outdoor sound source localization using a microphone array embedded in an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). In addition to sound source localization, sound source enhancement and robust communication method are also described. This system is one instance of deployment of our…
Analyzing the auditory scene of real environments is challenging partly because an unknown number and type of sound sources are observed at the same time and partly because these sounds are observed on a significantly different sound pressure level at the microphone. These are difficult problems eve…
3D posture estimation for a hose-shaped robot is critical in rescue activities due to complex physical environments. Conventional sound-based posture estimation assumes rather flat physical environments and focuses only on 2D, resulting in poor performance in real world environments with rubble. Thi…
The ability of robots to listen to several things at once with their own “ears”, that is, robot audition, is an important factor in improving interaction and symbiosis between humans and robots. The critical issue in robot audition is real-time processing and robustness against noisy environments wi…