Abstract
This paper presents an approach to the problem of novelty detection in the context of semantic room categorization. The ability to assign semantic labels to areas in the environment is crucial for autonomous agents aiming to perform complex human-like tasks and human interaction. However, in order to be robust and naturally learn the semantics from the human user, the agent must be able to identify gaps in its own knowledge. To this end, we propose a method based on graphical models to identify novel input which does not match any of the previously learnt semantic descriptions. The method employs a novelty threshold defined in terms of conditional and unconditional probabilities. The novelty threshold is then optimized using an unconditional probability density model trained from unlabelled data.

Abstract
This paper presents an approach to the identification of playing cards and counting of chips in a poker game environment, using an entry-level webcam and computer vision methodologies. Most of the previous works on playing cards identification rely on optimal camera position and controlled environment. The presented approach is intended to suit a real and uncontrolled environment along with its constraints. The recognition of playing cards lies on template matching, while the counting of chips is based on colour segmentation combined with the Hough Circles Transform. With the proposed approach it is possible to identify the cards and chips in the table correctly. The overall accuracy of the rank identification achieved is around 94%.

Abstract
Biped walking by using all joint movements and DOFs in both directions (sagittal plane and coronal plane) is one of the most complicated research topics in robotics. In this paper, angular trajectories of a stable biped walking for a humanoid robot are generated by a Truncated Fourier Series (TFS) approach. The movements of legs and arms in sagittal plane are implemented by an optimized gait generator and a new model is proposed that can also produce the movement of legs in coronal plane based on TFS. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is used to find the best angular trajectories and optimize TFS. Experimental results show that the using joints movements in sagittal and coronal planes to compose the walking skill allowed the biped robot to walk faster than previous methods that only used the joints in sagittal plane. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.

Abstract
In soccer games, a performance indicator is defined as a selection of action variables that aims to define all aspects of accomplishment of the game goals. However their perception during the match is extremely difficult. Over the years, soccer has been used in many research areas including the robotic international soccer competition, RoboCup. The aim of this research project is to present a comparison study, performed to detect similarities between these two games (Human versus Robotic Simulation 2D soccer). Having an off-line automatic event detection tool as a base, a collection of final game statistics was done and the Mann-Whitney test was used to verify their statistical significance. The results show that the most frequent events occurred in both types of game are successful passes. In what concerns stopped game situation types, in both types of games, the most frequent one is the Throw in situation (Human-59,8%, versus Robotic-74,1%) and the less frequent is the Corner situation (Human-13,7%, versus Robotic-10,3%). Some differences still reside, especially in the frequency of set pieces and the action prior the goal. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.

Abstract
As the number of handicapped people increases worldwide, Intelligent Wheelchairs (IW) are becoming the solution to enable a higher degree of independence for wheelchair users. In addition, IW Projects relevance is increasing, mainly in the fields of robotics and safety-related systems due to their inherent and still unresolved problems related with environment uncertainty, sale communications and collaboration methodologies. This paper describes the development of new communication system, based on multi-agent systems (MAS) methodologies and motivated by Intelligent Wheelchair systems, as a mean to enable fault-tolerant communications in open transmission systems and as an agent collaboration enabler. It provides an overview of the related work, the background and the main constraints to system development. It; proposes and discusses a new communication model, based on messages, for multi-agent; systems, that tackles the problems that exist in a dynamic and uncertain environment in the field of mobile robotics. The achieved results enable us to conclude on time effectiveness of the proposed communication model and its adequacy to the field of mobile robots in dynamic environments while establishing a comparison with a commonly used Multi-Agent Platform, JADE.

Abstract
Nowadays one can witness the increase of the world population carrying some kind of physical disability, affecting locomotion. With the objective of responding to numerous mobility problems, various intelligent wheelchair related projects have been created in the last years. The development of an intelligent Wheelchair requires a lot of testing due to the complexity of the algorithms used and the obligation of achieving a failproof final product. This paper describes the some need for an Intelligent-Wheelchair specific simulator as well as the requirements of such a simulator. The simulator implementation, based on "Ciber-Mouse" simulator, is also described with emphasis on analyzing the limitations concerning intelligent wheelchair simulation using this adapted simulator. The changes applied on the existing software and the difficulties of robotic simulation development are described in detail. Experimental results are also presented showing that not only the simulator reveals flexible simulation capabilities but, also, enabled to validate the algorithms implemented in the physical intelligent wheelchair controlling agent.