NAO in Research
NAO is an ideal platform for researchers in various fields. Learn some of the research fields below:
Localization & Navigation
Autonomy requires robots to perceive the environment. Once a robot has an accurate map, it can move precisely, quickly, and confidently through the environment. Once a robot precisely knows its location, creating an accurate map is simple. The difficulty is when a robot has no accurate map or precise location. It needs to move through an unknown area while creating a map. This is exactly what we do in our daily lives and is, likewise, an important capability in intelligent robots.
The Humanoid Robots Lab at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (Germany) uses NAO with a Laser Head in their research:
“Our research is about humanoid robot navigation in complex indoor environments. That includes localization in a 3D environment, traversing multiple levels connected by stairs or ramps, and path planning in these environments.”
Locomotion
With NAO, control can take place in joint space or Cartesian space. Choregraphe is the perfect tool for control in joint space.
You have easy access to NAO’s 25 degrees of freedom. You can accurately get and manipulate joint positions and the joint speed of the motors.
It features a timeline, movement recorder, and curve editor to tune movements.
Thanks to internal variables (more than 3000) accessible through the ALMemory module, you can finely control NAO using your preferred language (C++ or Python).
You can control the speed and position and get the electric current of each motor.
Aldebaran Robotics developed unique and state-of-the-art features in the area of control, such as Whole Body Motion or Omnidirectional Walking.
Control is a major research topic for our customers, and there is a vast array of publications on the subject.
If you want to test new control devices, such as the Kinect(C), or develop and test your own walk algorithm, NAO is the perfect platform to explore control.
Perception & Cognition
Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of sensory information. For a robot, it means processing sensory data to get semantic data. Cognition refers to the mental functions, mental processes (thoughts), and states of intelligent entities and focuses on specific mental processes, such as comprehension, inference, decision-making, planning, and learning.
DFKI Bremen, the RoboCup champions, explains how they work with NAO in the areas of perception, behavior, and motion control while teaching the robot to play soccer:
“To make robots play soccer, we distinguish between four different levels in our system. The first is perception. Here, we try to determine what the robot currently sees in the world, such as the goals, field lines, ball, and other robots. In the second stage, the robot builds models from this information—for example, to determine where it is on the field, where the ball is, and where the other robots are as well as the ball's speed so the goal keeper can decide when to dive for it. The third is behavior control that uses this information to make decisions: when to walk, when to kick, when to stand up. The fourth is motion control, where these decisions are executed.”
Human-Robot Interaction
Human-robot interaction (HRI) is the interdisciplinary study of interaction dynamics between humans and robots. Researchers and practitioners specializing in HRI come from a variety of fields, including engineering, computer science, social sciences, and the humanities. An engaging and accessible robotics platform with advanced communication features makes NAO the choice for exploring HRI-related research topics.
NAO can identify specific people, react to voice commands, and uses expressive gestures to communicate. NAO interacts with humans thanks to its loudspeakers, microphones, cameras, tactile sensors, multiple LED lights, prehensile hands, and whole-body motion. Its embedded software modules include text-to-speech and voice recognition as well as face and object detection and sound localization. NAO speaks multiple languages and has an adjustable voice control.
NAO is used in HRI research projects all over the world:
Monitoring the elderly
“The NAO robot should provide news, films, and TV clips, which are projected from within it onto any surface. It also can evaluate a patient’s mental and emotional state through behavior and conversation and suggest activities.”
Jim Juola, professor of cognitive psychology, University of Kansas
NAO for Autism - Breaking the Barriers of Tecnology Based Therapy
The ASK NAO Project: http://asknao.aldebaran-robotics.com/
