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Less is more: two NH hydrogen bond donors in a preorganized receptor provide greater anion affinity than the four NH moieties present in the classic anion receptor, calix[4]pyrrole.

Two-phenoxy walled calix[4]pyrroles 1 and 2 strapped with small rigid linkers containing pyridine and benzene, respectively, have been synthesized. 1H NMR spectroscopic analyses carried out in CDCl3 revealed that both of receptors 1 and 2 recognize only F− and HCO3− among various test anions with high preference for HCO3− (as the tetraethylammonium, TEA+ salt) relative to F− (as the TBA+ salt). The bound HCO3− anion was completely released out of the receptors upon the addition of F− (as the tetrabutylammonium, TBA+ salt) as a result of significantly enhanced affinities and selectivities of the receptors for F− once converted to the TEAHCO3 complexes. Consequently, relatively stable TEAF complexes of receptors 1 and 2 were formed via anion metathesis occurring within the receptor cavities. By contrast, the direct addition of TEAF to receptors 1 and 2 produces different complexation products initially, although eventually the same TEAF complexes are produced as via sequential TEAHCO3 and TBAF addition. These findings are rationalized in terms of the formation of different ion pair complexes involving interactions both inside and outside of the core receptor framework., The inherent selectivity of anion receptors can be reversed by ion pairing occurring both inside and outside of the receptor cavity.

The binding properties of the pyrrole-strapped calix[4]pyrrole 2 for cesium halide ion pairs were studied via (1)H NMR spectroscopic and single crystal X-ray diffraction analyses. Receptor 2 was found to bind CsF, CsCl, and CsBr in the solid state and in chloroform/methanol (4/1, v/v) solution with relatively high affinity as compared with the parent calix[4]pyrrole 1. It was also revealed by solid-liquid extraction experiments that receptor 2 was capable of solubilizing CsF in CDCl(3), a medium in which this salt is otherwise insoluble. Single crystal X-ray diffraction analyses and (1)H NMR spectroscopic data recorded in 20% CD(3)OD in CDCl(3) provide support for the suggestion that the strap pyrrolic NH proton of 2, as well as those of the calix[4]pyrrole framework, contribute to anion recognition, thus increasing affinity for cesium halide salts relative to the parent system 1. In the solid state, receptor 2 interacts with CsF to form a two dimensional coordination polymer in the presence of methanol. A linear coordination polymer is observed in the case of CsCl and CsBr. Receptor 2 was also found to form a complex with CsF in chloroform/methanol (4/1, v/v) solution, albeit with a different binding mode than is seen in the solid state.

The global convergence of MCL is time-consuming because of a large number of random samples. Moreover, its success is not guaranteed at all times. This paper presents a novel approach to reduce the number of samples of MCL and one heuristic approach to detect localization failure using thinning edges extracted in real time. Random samples are drawn only around the neighborhood of the thinning edges rather than over the entire free space and localization quality is estimated through the probabilistic analysis of samples added around the thinning edges. A series of experiments verified the performance of the proposed scheme.

Monte Carlo localization is known to be one of the most reliable methods for pose estimation of a mobile robot. Many studies have been conducted to improve performance of MCL. Although MCL is capable of estimating the robot pose when the initial pose of a robot is not given, it takes much time for convergence because a large number of random samples are required, especially for the large-scale environment. For practical implementation of MCL, therefore, it is desirable to reduce the number of samples without affecting the localization performance. This paper presents a novel approach to reduce the number of samples used in the particle filter for efficient implementation of MCL. To this end, the topological information is extracted in real time through the thinning algorithm from the range data of a laser scanner. The topological map is first created from the given grid map of the environment. The robot scans the local environment and generates a local topological map. The robot then navigates along this local topological edge, which coincides with the global topological map obtained off-line from the given global grid map. By constraining the robot's motion on this local edge, random samples are drawn only around the neighborhood of the topological edge rather than over the entire free space. Hence the sample size required for MCL can be drastically reduced, thereby reducing computational time for the MCL process. A series of experiments based on this proposed MCL/TI show that the number of samples can be reduced considerably, and thus the time required for pose estimation can be substantially decreased