IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2015 - 29

Software
Action
Components Maps Recipes Objects

External
APls + DBs

RoboEarth
Database

RoboEarth
Cloud Engine

Clients

HAL

- Generic Software Components

Figure 11. The goal of the RoboEarth project was to offer a cloud robotics infrastructure,
which includes everything needed to close the loop from robot to the cloud and back to
the robot. RoboEarth's World-Wide-Web style database stores knowledge generated by
humans-and robots-in a machine-readable format. APIs: application program interfaces;
HAL: hardware abstraction layer. (Photo courtesy of http://roboearth.org.)

[3] A. Nagaty, C. Thibault, M. Trentini, and H. Li,
"Probabilistic cooperative target localization," IEEE
Trans. Automat. Sci. Eng., vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 786-794,
July 2015.
[4] J. V. Hook, P. Tokekar, and V. Isler, "Algorithms
for cooperative active localization of static targets
with mobile bearing sensors under communication constraints transactions on robotics," IEEE
Trans. Robot., 2015, to be published.
[5] K. Hausman, J. Mueller, A. Hariharan, N. Ayanian, and G. S. Sukhatme, "Cooperative control for
target tracking with onboard sensing," in Proc. Int.
Symp. Experimental Robotics, June 2014.
[6] T. H. Chung, K. D. Jones, M. A. Day, M.
Jones, and M. R. Clement, "50 VS. 50 by 2015:
Swarm Vs. Swarm UAV live-f ly competition at
the naval postgraduate school," in Proc. AUVSI
North America, 2013.
[7] S. Gil, S. Kumar, D. Katabi, and D. Rus, "Guaranteeing spoof-resilient multi-robot networks,"
Robot. Sci. Syst., July 2015.
[8] P. R. Giordano, A. Franchi, C. Secchi, and H. H.
Bülthoff, "A passivity-based decentralized strategy
for generalized connectivity maintenance," Int. J.
Robot. Res., vol. 32, no. 3, pp. 299-323, 2013.

Biorobotics with Hybrid
and Multimodal Locomotion
By Kin Huat Low, Samer Mohammed, Tianjiang Hu,
Justin Seipel, Ravi Vaidyanathan, and Jorge Solis

he IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) Technical
Committee (TC) on Biorobotics was formed with the goal of
providing a forum and dissemination
mechanism for the interaction between
biological and artificial (autonomous or
semiautonomous) systems and to present biology as a learning tool for novel
engineering paradigms. In 2007, in an
effort to define the scope of the technical field of the TC, the TC on Biorobotics was created to focus on various
research fields that involve the understanding and implementation of complex living organisms by virtue of

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2015.2452173
Date of publication: 11 September 2015

mechatronic systems. One such field is
biologically inspired robotics, which is
characterized by a multidisciplinary approach that aims to strengthen the collaboration between roboticists and
biologists. To this end, two main approaches are adopted for research in
Biorobotics: 1) the application of biological concepts/methodologies to improve
the current capabilities of robots, for example, extending the robot's flexibility
and robustness by adopting design
principles of biological systems and 2)
the application of advanced robotic
technology to improve the current techniques/methodologies adopted by biologists. The principles and techniques of
hybrid and multimodal locomotion recently have been emphasized and ex-

plored by researchers for better
performance of bioinspired movements.
Highlights of Recent Activities
TC-Organized Workshop
at IROS 2013
The IEEE RAS TC on Biorobotics organized the workshop "Biologically
Inspired Based Strategies for Hybrid and
Multimodal Locomotion" in conjunction
with the IEEE International Conference
on Intelligent Robots and Systems
(IROS), held at Tokyo Big Sight, Japan, on
3-7 November 2013 (Figures 1 and 2).
Biologically based concepts for
hybrid and multimodal locomotion
have revealed new challenges regarding
mechanical design, sensor integration,

September 2015

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

http://www.roboearth.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2015