Mobile Robot with Artificial Olfactory Function

摘要

We have been developed an intelligent mobile robot with an artificial olfactory function to re cognize odours and to track odour source location. This mobile robot also has been installed an engine for speech recognition and synthesis, and is controlled by wireless communication. An artificial olfactory system based on array of 7 gas sensors has been installed in the mobile robot for odour recognition, and 11 gas sensors also are located in the bottom of robot to track odour sources. 3 optical sensors are also in- cluded in the intelligent mobile robot, which is driven by 2 D.C. motors, for clash avoidance in a way of direction toward an odour source. Throughout the experimental trails, it is confirmed that the intelligent mobile robot is capable of not only the odour recogni- tion using artificial neural network algorithm, but also the tracking odour source using the step-by-step approach method. The pre- liminary results are promising that intelligent mobile robot, which has been developed, is applicable to service robot system for environmental monitoring, localization of odour source, odour tracking of hazardous areas etc. There are much interesting to develop intelligent mobile ro- bot that emulates the sense of human being. Most of r e- searches for intelligent mobile robot have been concentrated with hearing and seeing using speech and/or image processing and synthesis techniques last decades. It made possible to colors recognition, component classifications, and distances measurements using image processing techniques. Also, the intelligent mobile robot has been developed to recognize ap- proximate hundred words as speaker independently using speech recognition techniques. However, it has been difficult to find an intelligent mobile robot with an artificial olfactory function comparing with developed countries , even if the smelling is an important factor of human being. For development of an intelligent mobile robot having an artificial olfactory system, it is essential to produce an artifi- cial olfactory system. The gas chromatography (GC) has been used the odour monitoring system, which is large size analyti- cal instrument and cost a great deal for purchase and operation. It has some limitations for intelligent mobile robot such as space, location problems, slow processing times, and interface with robot. The odour sensing system, which has small size and fast processing times, is more adaptable for interfacing with intelligent mobile robot. The field showed little sign of advanced research before Moriizumis research group publication in the middle of 90s from Tokyo Institute of Technology (1)(2). They developed a mobile r with plural gas and anemometric sensors to search for toxic gas leak location and an origin of a fire at its initial stage and the location of ethanol gas source. Russel et al have also demonstrated a robot system to locate hazardous chemical leaks (3). The mission of pathfinder from NASA was included a mobile robot to analysis odours in the Mars. In present research, we have been developed an intelligent mobile robot with an artificial olfactory function to recognize odours and to track odour source location. This mobile robot also has been installed an engine for speech recognition and synthesis, and is controlled by wireless communication. An artificial olfactory system based on array of 7 gas sensors has been installed in the mobile robot for odour recognition, and 11 gas sensors also are located in the bottom of robot to track odour sources. 3 optical sensors are also included in the intel- ligent mobile robot, which is driven by 2 D.C. motors, for clash avoidance in a way of direction toward an odour source. The overall system of intelligent mobile robot is controlled by a host processor and a sub -processor for olfaction and speech signal processing. The intelligent software is provided for odour recognition and tracking of odour source to an intel- ligent mobile robot. We adapted the Lev