Cooperative Distributed Systems Laboratory Facilities

Cooperative Distributed Systems (CDS) Lab

414 Old Chemistry Building

The facilities at the Cooperative Distributed Systems (CDS) Laboratory at the University of Cincinnati are adequate to conduct experiments in the area of distributed sensing, control, and swarm robotics.

Facilities consist of the following:

  • 10' x 10' test bed platform
  • 7 Khepera III mobile robots
  • 2 AscTec Pelican quadrotors
  • 1 AscTec Hummingbird
  • 5 Skybotix CoaX Miniature Aerial Vehicles
  • 3 3DRobotics quadrotors, one hexacopter
  • 3 Parrot Quadrotor drone
  • Pioneer 3-DX mobile robot
  • Pioneer 3-AT mobile robot
  • QBot mobile robot
  • Prosilica camera for motion tracking
  • Super computer

These facilities provide state of art experimental setup for verification of algorithms in the simulation environment, and then a seamless transfer of codes from simulation to the physical robots. The overhead Prosilica and Cognex cameras provide the global position information, and communicate with robots and the PC via TCP/IP protocol.

Collaboratory for Medical Innovation and Implementation (CMII) Lab

517A Old Chemistry Building

The CMII lab has designed for carrying out research involving human motion tracking,  exoskeleton development, and human robot interaction.

Facilities in this lab consist of the following:

  • NaturalPoint Optitrack motion tracking system
  • force plates
  • BTS wireless EMG
  • Emotiv Brain Computer Interface, OpenBCI 16 channel R&D kit.

The optitrack system can track optical markers in 3D space at a sub-millimeter accuracy. This lab facilitates very accurate gait analysis with the help of the above mentioned setup. 

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Multi-Agent System Research (UAV-MASTER) Lab

517A Old Chemistry Building

This lab provides the facilities for the experimentation with UAV platforms. The UAV-MASTER lab primarily has the Integrated Multi- Aerial and Ground vehicle Experimental (IMAGE) platform.

The various facilities available here include:

  • 2 AscTec Pelican quadrotors
  • 5 Skybotix CoaX Miniature Aerial Vehicles
  • 3 3DRobotics quadrotors, one hexacopter
  • one Horsefly (Octocopter)
  • 1 aeroquad quadcopter, 1 fixed wing UAV
  • 1 high payload gas engine helicopter
  • 3 Parrot Quadrotor drone

Certificates of Authorization (COA): The University of Cincinnati has obtained five COAs from the US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) to allow operation of 5 different kinds of multi-rotor (quadrotor, hexacopter, and octocopter), and helicopter Wilmington Airport near Dayton, OH). COAs for the same vehicles for West Virginia Research Forest are being processed currently.