#dijkstra's algorithm is so hot.

[arcalranem]

doing a "Contemporary Math for IT" class, and I gotta say

I fucking LOVE networking algorithms.

[ladylillianrose]

First Comes Marriage a Max Richman/Zoey Clarke Fanfiction

A/N: Apologies for taking so long to update, work and school have been a lot to handle as of late. In just a few weeks I'm starting my last semester of grad school so updates may not be as frequent as they have been before! Thank you all for your support and comments, I really appreciate them!

As always a huge thank you to my lovely beta AubreyRichman

Any dialogue you recognize is from the episodes Pilot and Best Friend.

Chapter Two

Chapter One

Zoey quickly ran to the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. Max was singing her another love song? What was going on here? 

She thought back to the other day when she had been about to tell Max about her strange powers.

________________________________________________________________

“There she is, our new team leader! Is it weird that I’m now a little intimated by you?” Max teased.

“Oh, please,” Zoey grinned, waving him off.

“So first day, how you feeling?”

“Really good actually. You know, I just want to tell you what a great friend you’ve been through all this, Max. It’s just been really comforting to know that I have you, as like my rock. And, crazy thing is, I haven’t even told you everything that’s been going on with me lately. You wouldn’t believe….”

Max suddenly looked anxious, he started playing with the ring on his right finger, something she noticed he only did when he was nervous.

“Are you alright? What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Nothing, it’s just…. Last night”

I was sleeping and right in the middle of a good dream

Like all, at once I wake up from something that keeps knocking at my brain

Zoey sighed, “Okay, now you’re singing too. I don’t think I know this one.” She took a seat in Max’s chair and watched as he danced around his desk. It was quite endearing to watch.

Before I go insane I hold my pillow to my head

And spring up in my bed screaming out the words I dread

“What words are those?” she asked, curiously. Max turned around to face her and sang the last words she had ever expected to hear from him.

I think I love you!

“I’m sorry, what?” Zoey laughed out nervously. Max slid over to her on his knees.

I think I love you so what am I so afraid of

He held out his hands for hers, spinning her around in the chair.

I'm afraid that I'm not sure of a love there is no cure for

Max danced up the staircase, as he continued his song.

I think I love you isn't that what life is made of

Though it worries me to say that I never felt this way

Zoey stared at him unsure of how to react to his revelation.

Max looked at her confused, “What?” 

________________________________________________________________

And now here she was splashing cold water on her face, trying to hide how flushed Max’s newest love song had made her. How long had her best friend had these feelings for her? She glanced down at the ring on her right hand, did he have these feelings for her when they got married? He would have said something right?

Zoey sighed, this was all too much to deal with right now, she would just try and make it through the day and think about it later. She nodded at her reflection and squared her shoulders before heading back out to the bullpen.

________________________________________________________________

Zoey stood at the cereal bar, eating and trying to think about what she should do about Max.  Speak of the devil.

Max approached her grinning, “Great news, I won the lottery!”

“What?”  Does Max even play the lottery?

“Well, the restaurant lottery. I finally got us into that fancy farm-to-table place," he explained.

“You got us into Hand-Picked?!” Zoey couldn't believe it.

“Yeah! Thursday night. Is it a date?"

Zoey panicked, "Is it a date?!"

Max looked at her oddly, "What? No. I just thought we could have a celebration of sorts…."

Zoey was confused, "Like for my promotion?"

Max awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck, "Well, yes that, but it's also been a year…."

"A year?" She repeated.

He glanced significantly at the ring on her right hand and cleared his throat. "Umm yeah, a year…"

Understanding dawned on her face, "Oh wow, you're right! A year already?"

Max grinned, "I know, it just flew by. So, what do you say?"

Zoey worried her bottom lip, she didn't know what to do. "Let me check my schedule, make sure there isn't any family thing going on that night and I'll let you know?"

Max nodded, "Sounds good," and he headed back to his desk.

Zoey pulled out her phone, "Mo, we have an emergency! Meet me at Golden Gate Grind in 10!"

________________________________________________________________

"It happened again. I heard Max sing another love song to me this morning, and, this time it seemed way less ambiguous than last time."

Mo looked curious, "What song was it?"

Zoey winced, "Sucker."

Mo grinned, "Ooh, that songs hot! How did Max look doing it?"

Zoey blushed as she thought about how distracting and attractive she had found Max while he sang to her. "It doesn't matter. My best friend is super into me, Mo!"

"So what? He’s attractive and single, you’re attractive and single, I don’t know why you haven’t tried to lock that down already!” Mo said, rolling his eyes.

Zoey was about to respond when she heard the notes of a song beginning.

“Zoey, are you even listening to me?” Mo asked.

 "I’m listening, just not to you at the moment," Zoey responded distractedly as she listened to the people in the cafe sing.

"You mean you're hearing a heart song right now?"

"Yeah, and it's very emotional and moving." Zoey stood entranced as she watched the people in the cafe sing and dance to, "I Wanna Dance With Somebody."

Her eyes followed their usual barista Autumn, as she sadly sang.

I need a man who'll take a chance

On a love that burns hot enough to last

So when the night falls

My lonely heart calls

Zoey could feel a plan forming in her head.

"Hey, Autumn," she smiled at her.

"Oh hey, Zoey, the usual?"

"Yeah. And actually, I think I'll get something to go for my buddy, Max. Speaking of Max, what's your take on Max? You like his vibe? Appearance? General outlook? You a fan?"

She could feel Mo glaring at her, "Zoey, this is not a good idea."

Zoey waved her hand dismissively, "Quiet Mo, I'm working here."

Mo rolled his eyes, "I reserve the right to say I told you so," he murmured.

________________________________________________________________

"Zoey, this feels weird," Autumn said as she nervously smoothed her clothes. "You sure Max is okay with it?"

"Psh, of course, he is!" Zoey led Autumn over to the chair Max was working in.

"Hey. Guess what? I used Dijkstra's algorithm to find the shortest paths between all hunt locations so we can make sure our guests get to…. Hi," Max finally looked up to see Zoey and Autumn standing in front of him.

"Hey Max, you know Autumn right?"

"Umm sure. Hey," he responded, unsure of what was happening.

"So, turns out I can't make it Thursday, but Autumn is a big fan of farm-to-table and would love to take my place," Zoey explained, as she nudged Autumn forward.

"Oh," Max tried not to look too crestfallen. He had been looking forward to spending their first anniversary together.  She's only your wife on paper, it's not a real marriage remember? No need to celebrate an anniversary that doesn't mean anything.

"Only if you're cool with it," Autumn interrupted his train of thought.

"Well, yeah. Um, I mean, I can't really think of anyone else I would take at the moment," Max agreed. Best not to waste the reservation, and Autumn seemed nice enough.

"Great!" Zoey exclaimed eagerly. "I'm gonna go work on the thing," she quickly backed away as Max watched her with an unreadable expression on his face.

Zoey sighed, relieved to have found a solution to her problem. She glanced back and saw Max laughing at something Autumn said. She shook her head, ignoring the ache she felt in her chest as she watched them. Thinking no more on the subject, she threw herself into her work.

________________________________________________________________

Zoey was walking around the bullpen checking in on her team's progress, ignoring Max who was trying to get her attention.

Max got tired of waiting for her to look at him, "Hey, Zo. Will you tell me the truth?"

Zoey's eyes widened in a panic and she gestured for him to follow her.

"Why didn't you want to go to dinner with me?" Max asked, looking at her sadly.

"What? No, I have a thing," she started.

Max raised his eyebrows at her, "Uh-huh, a rather convenient thing. You've been acting weird since I mentioned Hand-Picked. What's going on?"

"I just think that people might suspect something if we were to go to a place like Hand-Picked." Zoey nervously played with her ring as she spoke.

"Everyone knows we're friends, Zoey. It's not like we haven't had dinner together before."

"I just think that it's not such a good idea, especially since I'm your boss now. We need to be extra careful that nobody finds out about…"

"Considering it's been a year and no one is even remotely suspicious, I think we're okay. What? You think that we eat some pickled beets out of a Mason jar, and they suddenly realize that we're married?" Max replied sarcastically.

"Keep your voice down," Zoey hissed.

Max glanced over at the team, none of whom were paying attention to the two of them.

"I'm pretty sure that nobody cares," Max rolled his eyes.

"Max, I don't want to fight about this," Zoey sighed.

"No, wouldn't want the team to think we were in the middle of a lover's quarrel now, would we? If you need to create some boundaries between us, fine, " Max bit out as he walked back to his desk.

Zoey winced at his harsh tone, she knew she had hurt him.

Max spent the rest of the day refusing to even look in her direction. When they were done for the day he quickly packed his things and left, not even saying goodbye.

Zoey felt that ache in her chest again as she watched him leave. She groaned in frustration and placed her head on her desk. This was a disaster, she needed to fix things and fast.

[juniperpublishers-robotics-blog]

Autonomous Robot Path Planning and Internet of Things-Juniper Publishers

Abstract

Robotics is known as a new revolution to the entity of beings that varies according to its uses. In modern day environments, robotics and automation are involved in almost every industrial activity and conveniently improve the efficiency, productivity and reliability of a system. Autonomous Guided Robot (AGR) systems are classified as rover based robotics that require vision type and touch  sensors. The AGR should be able to maneuver and counteract with the environment using sensors to detect the obstacles around, remember its current position and calculate a new path to take. Robotics Automation with industrial robots in combination with Internet of things, the birth of intelligent flexible automation systems, with the technical advantages of intelligent flexible automation systems, the company recently signed several million more than the contract, industry all over the hot die forging automation, automation of internal combustion engines, engine Assembly, automotive automatic battery swap station and so on. Thus, in this paper an over view of the significance of path planning and internet of robotic things is presented.

Keywords: Industrial robot; path planning; Internet of things (IoT)

Introduction

Robotics is implemented in medical practice, construction, outer-space exploration, household assistance, mobile transportation and quite recently, under water exploration [1-3]. Currently there has been study of automated guided robots which is used in transportation and exploration that can be configured for different terrain. These designs are onlocomotion, Hopfield Neural Network, Genetic Algorithm and etc [4-6]. For example, JPL (Jet PropulsionLaboratory, NASA) in U.S.A have developed many rovers. Sojourner which were landed in Mars in 1997 adopted rocker-bogie locomotion, Blue Rover uses three-segment locomotion, the mini Mars rover Go-For has an active wheel-legged locomotion, Nano Rover utilize posable tructchassis and Elastic Loop Mobility System was also designed as new type of locomotion for planetary exploration [7].

Robot Path Planning or robot Motion Planning is one of the important areas of interest in robot's offline decision making algorithms. In this problem, the aim is to find a collision free path, which the robot can follow to reach the target from its start position. Analysis and research on autonomous path planning has included innovative advancements in the use of artificial intelligence (AI). With advancement in the study of this subject, technology with uncontrollable situations such as outer space exploration and deep sea excavation can be further improved. New technology such as autonomous vehicle systems may also beable to utilize such algorithms which are fail-safe. With sensors, robots are said to be able to obtain vision, sense of touch, balance, and even hearing. According to their tasks and application, robots are given the appropriate sensors that function as the feedback systems in a controller [8].

Once the collision-free configuration space is described asa graph, the shortest path between two nodes can be searched .An overview about common path finding algorithms is given in [9] depth-first, breadth-first and best-first search, the algorithm of Dijkstra and finally the A* algorithm. All these approaches find a solution, if one exists. Especially the Dijkstra and A*algorithm are in the focus of research [10], as they promise theoptimal path with a minimal computing time. The algorithm of Dijkstra was developed in 1959 and always finds the shortest path between two given nodes or proves that no solution exists [11]. For this purpose, the costs g(n) fromthe start node is assigned to each considered node n. There by the nodes with the smallest value of g(n) are prioritized which guarantees an optimal path.

On this basis, the widely used A* algorithm was presented in 1968 [12]. The method finds a least-cost path between astart and a goal node. This is achieved by evaluating a cost function f(n) of a node n to determine in which sequence the search visits nodes in order to expand the fewest possible nodes. The function f(n) is the sum of the known costs g(n) from the start node to n and the estimated costs h(n) (also called heuristic function) from n to the goal node. The A* algorithm is complete it will always find a solution if one exists. Furthermore it computes the optimal path if the heuristic h(n) does not over estimate the costs to the goal and is faster than the algorithm of Dijkstra [13].

For a robot with m joints, the configuration space is an m dimensional space spanned by the degrees of freedom of the robot system and sub divided in collision-free regions. Based on this configuration space movements of the robot can be determined. Assuming a six dimensional standard industrial robot, the discretization of the space according to collisions would be a time consuming process. Consequently, an effective method for building a collision-free configuration space is needed.

Robotic system has brought tremendous changes in various socio-economical aspects of human society during the past decades [14]. Industrial robot manipulators have been widely deployed and used in all sorts of industries to perform repetitive, tedious, critical, and/or dangerous tasks, such as product assembly, car painting, box packaging, and shield welding. These preprogrammed robots have always been very successful at their accomplishments in several structured industrial applications due to their high accuracy, precision, endurance, and speed. Robotic technologies have been integrated with existing network technologies to extend the range of functional values of these robots when deployed in unstructured environments while fostering the emergence of networked robotics during 90's [15]. The limitations have motivated the researchers to think of new form of efficient robotic systems i.e., "Cloud Robotics”. Cloud robotics may be described as a system that relies on the "Cloud Computing” [16] infra structure to access vast amount of processing power and data to support its operation [17]. That means not all sensing, computation, and memory is integrated into a single stand alone system as it was in case of networked robotics. Cloud Robotic systems often include some portion of its capacity for local processing for low-latency responses when network access is unavailable or unreliable i.e., offline. One example of Cloud Robotics is the Google self-driving car that indexes the Google maps, images, and other relevant information, collected by the satellites and the crowd sourced Clouds to facilitate accurate localization. Although, Cloud Robotics is benefited from big data analytics, cloud computing, human computation, and collaborative robot learning, it suffers from various issues such as inter operability, heterogeneity, time- varying network latency, security, multi-robot management, common infrastructure design, Quality-of-Service (QoS), and standardization [17,18]. Due to the IoRT's inherent virtues of qualitative handling of mentioned issues, it is envisaged that it will overcome these constraints, leading to more intelligent, collaborative, heterogeneous, efficient, self-adaptive, context aware, and yet cheaper robotic networks. An architecture of robotic internet of things is shown in Figure 1.

In the developed world, automated production line equipment for industrial robot automation equipment has become the mainstream and the future direction of development. Foreign car industry, electrical industry, engineering machinery industry has extensive use of industrial robots, such as automated production lines in order to guarantee the quality of products, to increase productivity, while avoiding a large number of occupational accidents. Global industrial robots used in many countries for nearly half a century of experience has shown that the popularization of industrial robots are automated production, improve production efficiency and effective means of promoting enterprise and development of social productive forces. Things with perception, information transmission, intelligence analysis and decision making characteristics such as through perception, equivalent to added features to industrial robots, vision, touch and even taste through network messaging, smart analysis and decision, equivalent to industrial robots human intelligence has given so that robots can do most people is needed to complete the work.

Conclusion

Internet of Robotic Things allows robots or robotic systems to connect, share, and disseminate the distributed computation resources, business activities, context information, and environmental data with each other, and to access novel knowledge and specialized skills not learned by them, all under a hood of sophisticated architectural framework. This opens a new horizon in the domain of connected robotics that we believe shall lead to fascinating futuristic developments. It indeed allows adapting into connected ecosystem where resource constraint deployment of inexpensive robots shall be leveraged by heterogeneous technologies, be it, communications network, processing units, different genre of devices, or clouds services. Enormous developments could be foreseen to get benefited from the IoRT approach such, SLAM, grasping, navigation, and many more that are beyond the discussion. In this paper, a novel Internet of Robotic Things architecture is proposed considering conjugation between recently grown IoT and robotics together.

For more open access journals please visit: Juniper publishers

For more articles please click on: Robotics & Automation Engineering Journal

Abstract

Robotics is known as a new revolution to the entity of beings that varies according to its uses. In modern day environments, robotics and automation are involved in almost every industrial activity and conveniently improve the efficiency, productivity and reliability of a system. Autonomous Guided Robot (AGR) systems are classified as rover based robotics that require vision type and touch  sensors. The AGR should be able to maneuver and counteract with the environment using sensors to detect the obstacles around, remember its current position and calculate a new path to take. Robotics Automation with industrial robots in combination with Internet of things, the birth of intelligent flexible automation systems, with the technical advantages of intelligent flexible automation systems, the company recently signed several million more than the contract, industry all over the hot die forging automation, automation of internal combustion engines, engine Assembly, automotive automatic battery swap station and so on. Thus, in this paper an over view of the significance of path planning and internet of robotic things is presented.

Keywords: Industrial robot; path planning; Internet of things (IoT)

Introduction

Robotics is implemented in medical practice, construction, outer-space exploration, household assistance, mobile transportation and quite recently, under water exploration [1-3]. Currently there has been study of automated guided robots which is used in transportation and exploration that can be configured for different terrain. These designs are onlocomotion, Hopfield Neural Network, Genetic Algorithm and etc [4-6]. For example, JPL (Jet PropulsionLaboratory, NASA) in U.S.A have developed many rovers. Sojourner which were landed in Mars in 1997 adopted rocker-bogie locomotion, Blue Rover uses three-segment locomotion, the mini Mars rover Go-For has an active wheel-legged locomotion, Nano Rover utilize posable tructchassis and Elastic Loop Mobility System was also designed as new type of locomotion for planetary exploration [7].

Robot Path Planning or robot Motion Planning is one of the important areas of interest in robot's offline decision making algorithms. In this problem, the aim is to find a collision free path, which the robot can follow to reach the target from its start position. Analysis and research on autonomous path planning has included innovative advancements in the use of artificial intelligence (AI). With advancement in the study of this subject, technology with uncontrollable situations such as outer space exploration and deep sea excavation can be further improved. New technology such as autonomous vehicle systems may also beable to utilize such algorithms which are fail-safe. With sensors, robots are said to be able to obtain vision, sense of touch, balance, and even hearing. According to their tasks and application, robots are given the appropriate sensors that function as the feedback systems in a controller [8].

Once the collision-free configuration space is described asa graph, the shortest path between two nodes can be searched .An overview about common path finding algorithms is given in [9] depth-first, breadth-first and best-first search, the algorithm of Dijkstra and finally the A* algorithm. All these approaches find a solution, if one exists. Especially the Dijkstra and A*algorithm are in the focus of research [10], as they promise theoptimal path with a minimal computing time. The algorithm of Dijkstra was developed in 1959 and always finds the shortest path between two given nodes or proves that no solution exists [11]. For this purpose, the costs g(n) fromthe start node is assigned to each considered node n. There by the nodes with the smallest value of g(n) are prioritized which guarantees an optimal path.

On this basis, the widely used A* algorithm was presented in 1968 [12]. The method finds a least-cost path between astart and a goal node. This is achieved by evaluating a cost function f(n) of a node n to determine in which sequence the search visits nodes in order to expand the fewest possible nodes. The function f(n) is the sum of the known costs g(n) from the start node to n and the estimated costs h(n) (also called heuristic function) from n to the goal node. The A* algorithm is complete it will always find a solution if one exists. Furthermore it computes the optimal path if the heuristic h(n) does not over estimate the costs to the goal and is faster than the algorithm of Dijkstra [13].

For a robot with m joints, the configuration space is an m dimensional space spanned by the degrees of freedom of the robot system and sub divided in collision-free regions. Based on this configuration space movements of the robot can be determined. Assuming a six dimensional standard industrial robot, the discretization of the space according to collisions would be a time consuming process. Consequently, an effective method for building a collision-free configuration space is needed.

Robotic system has brought tremendous changes in various socio-economical aspects of human society during the past decades [14]. Industrial robot manipulators have been widely deployed and used in all sorts of industries to perform repetitive, tedious, critical, and/or dangerous tasks, such as product assembly, car painting, box packaging, and shield welding. These preprogrammed robots have always been very successful at their accomplishments in several structured industrial applications due to their high accuracy, precision, endurance, and speed. Robotic technologies have been integrated with existing network technologies to extend the range of functional values of these robots when deployed in unstructured environments while fostering the emergence of networked robotics during 90's [15]. The limitations have motivated the researchers to think of new form of efficient robotic systems i.e., "Cloud Robotics”. Cloud robotics may be described as a system that relies on the "Cloud Computing” [16] infra structure to access vast amount of processing power and data to support its operation [17]. That means not all sensing, computation, and memory is integrated into a single stand alone system as it was in case of networked robotics. Cloud Robotic systems often include some portion of its capacity for local processing for low-latency responses when network access is unavailable or unreliable i.e., offline. One example of Cloud Robotics is the Google self-driving car that indexes the Google maps, images, and other relevant information, collected by the satellites and the crowd sourced Clouds to facilitate accurate localization. Although, Cloud Robotics is benefited from big data analytics, cloud computing, human computation, and collaborative robot learning, it suffers from various issues such as inter operability, heterogeneity, time- varying network latency, security, multi-robot management, common infrastructure design, Quality-of-Service (QoS), and standardization [17,18]. Due to the IoRT's inherent virtues of qualitative handling of mentioned issues, it is envisaged that it will overcome these constraints, leading to more intelligent, collaborative, heterogeneous, efficient, self-adaptive, context aware, and yet cheaper robotic networks. An architecture of robotic internet of things is shown in Figure 1.

In the developed world, automated production line equipment for industrial robot automation equipment has become the mainstream and the future direction of development. Foreign car industry, electrical industry, engineering machinery industry has extensive use of industrial robots, such as automated production lines in order to guarantee the quality of products, to increase productivity, while avoiding a large number of occupational accidents. Global industrial robots used in many countries for nearly half a century of experience has shown that the popularization of industrial robots are automated production, improve production efficiency and effective means of promoting enterprise and development of social productive forces. Things with perception, information transmission, intelligence analysis and decision making characteristics such as through perception, equivalent to added features to industrial robots, vision, touch and even taste through network messaging, smart analysis and decision, equivalent to industrial robots human intelligence has given so that robots can do most people is needed to complete the work.

Conclusion

Internet of Robotic Things allows robots or robotic systems to connect, share, and disseminate the distributed computation resources, business activities, context information, and environmental data with each other, and to access novel knowledge and specialized skills not learned by them, all under a hood of sophisticated architectural framework. This opens a new horizon in the domain of connected robotics that we believe shall lead to fascinating futuristic developments. It indeed allows adapting into connected ecosystem where resource constraint deployment of inexpensive robots shall be leveraged by heterogeneous technologies, be it, communications network, processing units, different genre of devices, or clouds services. Enormous developments could be foreseen to get benefited from the IoRT approach such, SLAM, grasping, navigation, and many more that are beyond the discussion. In this paper, a novel Internet of Robotic Things architecture is proposed considering conjugation between recently grown IoT and robotics together.

For more open access journals please visit: Juniper publishers

For more articles please click on: Robotics & Automation Engineering Journal