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About

About

Born at Porto, Portugal, April  6, 1973, received the M.Sc.in Electrical and Computer Engineering on Faculty of Engineering of University of Porto, Portugal in 1999. He obtained a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering on Faculty of Engineering of University of Porto in the area of Control and Robotics, with the thesis “Planning Cooperative tasks and trajectories in Multiple Robots” in 2011. Presently he is a Professor at Computers and Electrical Engineering Department of the Oporto University. He is also a researcher in Robotic and Intelligent Systems of the INESC-TEC (Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering of Porto, Portugal). His research interests are in the ï¬�eld of robotics and automation: path planning, obstacle avoidance, simulation, navigation, manipulator, mobile manipulators. 

Interest
Topics
Details

Details

  • Name

    Pedro Gomes Costa
  • Role

    Senior Researcher
  • Since

    01st June 2009
012
Publications

2024

A Performance Comparison between Different Industrial Real-Time Indoor Localization Systems for Mobile Platforms

Authors
Rebelo, PM; Lima, J; Soares, SP; Oliveira, PM; Sobreira, H; Costa, P;

Publication
SENSORS

Abstract
The flexibility and versatility associated with autonomous mobile robots (AMR) have facilitated their integration into different types of industries and tasks. However, as the main objective of their implementation on the factory floor is to optimize processes and, consequently, the time associated with them, it is necessary to take into account the environment and congestion to which they are subjected. Localization, on the shop floor and in real time, is an important requirement to optimize the AMRs' trajectory management, thus avoiding livelocks and deadlocks during their movements in partnership with manual forklift operators and logistic trains. Threeof the most commonly used localization techniques in indoor environments (time of flight, angle of arrival, and time difference of arrival), as well as two of the most commonly used indoor localization methods in the industry (ultra-wideband, and ultrasound), are presented and compared in this paper. Furthermore, it identifies and compares three industrial indoor localization solutions: Qorvo, Eliko Kio, and Marvelmind, implemented in an industrial mobile platform, which is the main contribution of this paper. These solutions can be applied to both AMRs and other mobile platforms, such as forklifts and logistic trains. In terms of results, the Marvelmind system, which uses an ultrasound method, was the best solution.

2024

Comparison of Pallet Detection and Location Using COTS Sensors and AI Based Applications

Authors
Caldana, D; Carvalho, R; Rebelo, PM; Silva, MF; Costa, P; Sobreira, H; Cruz, N;

Publication
ROBOT 2023: SIXTH IBERIAN ROBOTICS CONFERENCE ADVANCES IN ROBOTICS, VOL 1

Abstract
Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) are seeing an increased introduction in distinct areas of daily life. Recently, their use has expanded to intralogistics, where forklift type AMR are applied in many situations handling pallets and loading/unloading them into trucks. One of the these vehicles requirements, is that they are able to correctly identify the location and status of pallets, so that the forklifts AMR can insert the forks in the right place. Recently, some commercial sensors have appeared in the market for this purpose. Given these considerations, this paper presents a comparison of the performance of two different approaches for pallet detection: using a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) sensor and a custom developed application based on Artificial Intelligence algorithms applied to an RGB-D camera, where both the RGB and depth data are used to estimate the position of the pallet pockets.

2024

Hybrid Localization Solution for Autonomous Mobile Robots in Complex Environments

Authors
Rebelo, PM; Valente, A; Oliveira, PM; Sobreira, H; Costa, P;

Publication
ROBOT 2023: SIXTH IBERIAN ROBOTICS CONFERENCE ADVANCES IN ROBOTICS, VOL 1

Abstract
Mobile robot platforms capable of operating safely and accurately in dynamic environments can have a multitude of applications, ranging from simple delivery tasks to advanced assembly operations. These abilities rely heavily on a robust navigation stack, which requires stable and accurate pose estimations within the environment. The wide range of AMR's applications and the characteristics of multiple industrial environments (indoor and outdoor) have led to the development of a flexible and robust robot software architecture that allows the fusion of different data sensors in real time. In this way, and in terms of localization, AMRs have greater precision when it comes to uncontrolled and unstructured environments. These complex environments feature a variety of dynamic and unpredictable elements, such as variable layouts, limited visibility, unstructured spaces, and uncertain terrain. This paper presents a multi-localization system for industrial mobile robots in complex and dynamic industrial scenarios, based on different localization technologies and methods that can interact together and simultaneously.

2024

Control of a Mobile Robot Through VDA5050 Standard

Authors
Brilhante, M; Rebelo, PM; Oliveira, PM; Sobreira, H; Costa, P;

Publication
ROBOT 2023: SIXTH IBERIAN ROBOTICS CONFERENCE ADVANCES IN ROBOTICS, VOL 1

Abstract
Since creating universally capable robots is challenging for a single manufacturer, a diverse fleet of robots from various manufacturers is utilized. However, these heterogeneous fleets encounter communication and interoperability issues. As a result, there is a growing need for a standardized interface that is capable of communicating, controlling and managing a diverse fleet without these interoperability issues. This paper presents a translation software module capable of controlling an autonomous mobile robot and communicating with a ROS-based robot fleet manager using the VDA5050 Standard and exchanging information via the MQTT communication protocol, aiming at flexibility and control across different robot brands. The effectiveness of the software in controlling a mobile robot via the VDA5050 standard was demonstrated by the results. It accurately analysed data from the Robot Fleet Manager, converted it into VDA 5050 JSON messages and skilfully translated it back into ROS messages. The robot's behavior remained consistent before and after the VDA5050 implementation.

2024

Integration of a Free Navigation Autonomous Mobile Robot into a Graph and ROS-Based Robot Fleet Manager

Authors
Rebelo, PM; Féliz, MC; Oliveira, PM; Sobreira, H; Costa, P;

Publication
ROBOT 2023: SIXTH IBERIAN ROBOTICS CONFERENCE ADVANCES IN ROBOTICS, VOL 1

Abstract
The need for interoperability between robots of different brands and navigation typologies, graph-based and free navigation, is increasing and this has led to the development of a new approach to empower a graph and ROS-based robot fleet manager for the management of free navigation mobile robots. For this implementation and validation, in real tests, the OMRON LD-90 was the mobile robot platform chosen, which has the particularity of not allowing the execution of a waypoints sequence. A software module was developed to exchange data between a non-ROS-based mobile robot and a specific ROS-based robot fleet manager. This is an approach applicable to any free navigation Autonomous Mobile Robot (AMR) with the necessary adaptations regarding the information provided by the different robot brands.

Supervised
thesis

2023

Gestão e Controlo de um Robô Móvel através do Protocolo VDA5050

Author
Marina Rodrigues Brilhante

Institution
UP-FEUP

2023

OMRON Mobile Robot ROS-based Control and Management

Author
Miguel Cardoso Félix

Institution
UP-FEUP

2023

Path Planning for Different Types of Robots in Docking and Obstacle Avoidance

Author
Miguel Pinheiro Tavares

Institution
UP-FEUP

2023

An intelligent approach to fault tolerance in cyber physical systems

Author
Luis Fernando Piardi

Institution
UP-FEUP

2023

Web-based user interface development for multiple robots interaction

Author
João Francisco Nogueira Cerqueira

Institution
UP-FEUP