Regenerative patterning in Swarm Robots: mutual benefits of research in robotics and stem cell biology.

Science.gov (United States)

Rubenstein, Michael; Sai, Ying; Chuong, Cheng-Ming; Shen, Wei-Min

2009-01-01

This paper presents a novel perspective of Robotic Stem Cells (RSCs), defined as the basic non-biological elements with stem cell like properties that can self-reorganize to repair damage to their swarming organization. Self here means that the elements can autonomously decide and execute their actions without requiring any preset triggers, commands, or help from external sources. We develop this concept for two purposes. One is to develop a new theory for self-organization and self-assembly of multi-robots systems that can detect and recover from unforeseen errors or attacks. This self-healing and self-regeneration is used to minimize the compromise of overall function for the robot team. The other is to decipher the basic algorithms of regenerative behaviors in multi-cellular animal models, so that we can understand the fundamental principles used in the regeneration of biological systems. RSCs are envisioned to be basic building elements for future systems that are capable of self-organization, self-assembly, self-healing and self-regeneration. We first discuss the essential features of biological stem cells for such a purpose, and then propose the functional requirements of robotic stem cells with properties equivalent to gene controller, program selector and executor. We show that RSCs are a novel robotic model for scalable self-organization and self-healing in computer simulations and physical implementation. As our understanding of stem cells advances, we expect that future robots will be more versatile, resilient and complex, and such new robotic systems may also demand and inspire new knowledge from stem cell biology and related fields, such as artificial intelligence and tissue engineering.

Identifying Factors Reinforcing Robotization: Interactive Forces of Employment, Working Hour and Wage

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joonmo Cho

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Unlike previous studies on robotization approaching the future based on the cutting-edge technologies and adopting a framework where robotization is considered as an exogenous variable, this study considers that robotization occurs endogenously and uses it as a dependent variable for an objective examination of the effect of robotization on the labor market. To this end, a robotization indicator is created based on the actual number of industrial robots currently deployed in workplaces, and a multiple regression analysis is performed using the robotization indicator and labor variables such as employment, working hours, and wage. The results using the multiple regression considering the triangular relationship of employment–working-hours–wages show that job destruction due to robotization is not too remarkable yet that use. Our results show the complementary relation between employment and robotization, but the substituting relation between working hour and robotization. The results also demonstrate the effects of union, the size of the company and the proportion of production workers and simple labor workers etc. These findings indicate that the degree of robotization may vary with many factors of the labor market. Limitations of this study and implications for future research are also discussed.

Development of robot for light repairing work of nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Katayanagi, Hiroshi; Shoji, Yoshito; Tamura, Kimiyoshi; Yamashita, Shigeru.

1990-01-01

When leakage occurs in the primary cooling system and auxiliary machinery system of nuclear reactors, in order to limit the leakage to outside to minimum, and prevent the escalation to accidents and troubles, the retightening of valve glands, the repair of leakage at piping flanges and so on become necessary. For the labor saving and the reduction of radiation exposure of workers, the development of a robot which can carry out these repair works by remote operation has been performed from 1985 to 1989. At the time of the development, the working areas in nuclear power stations were surveyed, the objects of application were narrowed down, and the development of elementary technologies and job analysis were carried out, thereafter, a robot was manufactured for trial. Subsequently, it was confirmed by using the mock-up facilities that the robot can do remote repair. The robot for light repairing works which was developed is described in this report. The functional features of the robot, the course of its development and the results of the mock-up test are reported. Hereafter, the expansion of the range of repair works and to make the robot intelligent are intended to make it into a practical robot. (K.I.)

Development of Live-working Robot for Power Transmission Lines

Science.gov (United States)

Yan, Yu; Liu, Xiaqing; Ren, Chengxian; Li, Jinliang; Li, Hui

2017-07-01

Dream-I, the first reconfigurable live-working robot for power transmission lines successfully developed in China, has the functions of autonomous walking on lines and accurately positioning. This paper firstly described operation task and object of the robot; then designed a general platform, an insulator replacement end and a drainage plate bolt fastening end of the robot, presented a control system of the robot, and performed simulation analysis on operation plan of the robot; and finally completed electrical field withstand voltage tests in a high voltage hall as well as online test and trial on actual lines. Experimental results show that by replacing ends of manipulators, the robot can fulfill operation tasks of live replacement of suspension insulators and live drainage plate bolt fastening.

Robots could assist scientists working in Greenland

Science.gov (United States)

Showstack, Randy

2011-07-01

GREENLAND—Tom Lane and Suk Joon Lee, recent graduates of Dartmouth University's Thayer School of Engineering, in Hanover, N. H., are standing outside in the frigid cold testing an autonomous robot that could help with scientific research and logistics in harsh polar environments. This summer, Lane, Lee, and others are at Summit Station, a U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)-sponsored scientific research station in Greenland, fine-tuning a battery-powered Yeti robot as part of a team working on the NSF-funded Cool Robot project. The station, also known as Summit Camp, is located on the highest point of the Greenland Ice Sheet (72°N, 38°W, 3200 meters above sea level) near the middle of the island. It is a proving ground this season for putting the approximately 68-kilogram, 1-cubic-meter robot through its paces, including improving Yeti's mobility capabilities and field-testing the robot. (See the electronic supplement to this Eos issue for a video of Yeti in action (http://www.agu.org/eos_elec/).) During field-testing, plans call for the robot to collect data on elevation and snow surface characteristics, including accumulation. In addition, the robot will collect black carbon and elemental carbon particulate matter air samples around Summit Camp's power generator to help study carbon dispersion over snow.

A Web-Based Integration Procedure for the Development of Reconfigurable Robotic Work-Cells

OpenAIRE

Paulo Ferreira; Victoria Reyes; João Mestre

2013-01-01

Concepts related to the development of reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMS) and methodologies to provide the best practices in the processing industry and factory automation, such as system integration and web-based technology, are major issues in designing next-generation manufacturing systems (NGMS). Adaptable and integrable devices are crucial for the success of NGMS. In robotic cells the integration of manufacturing components is essential to accelerate system adaptability. Sensors,...

Remote Robotic Cleaning System for Contaminated Hot-Cell Floor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Ki Ho; Park, Jang Jin; Yang, Myung S.; Kwon, Hyo Kjo

2005-01-01

The M6 hot-cell of the Irradiated Material Examination Facility at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) has been contaminated with spent fuel debris and other radioactive waste due to the DUPIC nuclear fuel development processes. As the hot-cell is active, direct human workers' access, even with protection, to the in-cell is not possible because of the nature of the high radiation level of the spent PWR fuel. A remote robotic cleaning system has been developed for use in a highly radioactive environment of the M6 hot-cell. The remote robotic cleaning system was designed to completely eliminate human interaction with hazardous radioactive contaminants. This robotic cleaning system was also designed to remove contaminants or contaminated smears placed or fixed on the floor of the M6 hot-cell by mopping it in a remote manner. The environmental, functional and mechanical design considerations, control system and capabilities of the developed remote robotic cleaning system are presented

What pupils can learn from working with robotic direct manipulation environments

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lou Slangen; Hanno van Keulen; Koeno Gravemeijer

2011-01-01

This study investigates what pupils aged 10-12 can learn from working with robots, assuming that understanding robotics is a sign of technological literacy. We conducted cognitive and conceptual analysis to develop a frame of reference for determining pupils' understanding of robotics. Four

What pupils can learn from working with robotic direct manipulation environments

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lou Slangen; Hanno van Keulen; Koeno Gravemeijer

2010-01-01

This study investigates what pupils aged 10-12 can learn from working with robots, assuming that understanding robotics is a sign of technological literacy. We conducted cognitive and conceptual analysis to develop a frame of reference for determining pupils' understanding of robotics. Four

What Pupils Can Learn from Working with Robotic Direct Manipulation Environments

Science.gov (United States)

Slangen, Lou; van Keulen, Hanno; Gravemeijer, Koeno

2011-01-01

This study investigates what pupils aged 10-12 can learn from working with robots, assuming that understanding robotics is a sign of technological literacy. We conducted cognitive and conceptual analysis to develop a frame of reference for determining pupils' understanding of robotics. Four perspectives were distinguished with increasing…

Working with Robots: The Real Story.

Science.gov (United States)

Fey, Carol

1986-01-01

Looks at some of the realities of life with robots: robots aren't replacing entire shifts of workers; a robot is just a tool; regular plant personnel maintain robots; and job category and seniority dictate who is trained to maintain robots. (CT)

Robonaut: a robot designed to work with humans in space

Science.gov (United States)

Bluethmann, William; Ambrose, Robert; Diftler, Myron; Askew, Scott; Huber, Eric; Goza, Michael; Rehnmark, Fredrik; Lovchik, Chris; Magruder, Darby

2003-01-01

The Robotics Technology Branch at the NASA Johnson Space Center is developing robotic systems to assist astronauts in space. One such system, Robonaut, is a humanoid robot with the dexterity approaching that of a suited astronaut. Robonaut currently has two dexterous arms and hands, a three degree-of-freedom articulating waist, and a two degree-of-freedom neck used as a camera and sensor platform. In contrast to other space manipulator systems, Robonaut is designed to work within existing corridors and use the same tools as space walking astronauts. Robonaut is envisioned as working with astronauts, both autonomously and by teleoperation, performing a variety of tasks including, routine maintenance, setting up and breaking down worksites, assisting crew members while outside of spacecraft, and serving in a rapid response capacity.

Robotics at Savannah River

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Byrd, J.S.

1983-01-01

A Robotics Technology Group was organized at the Savannah River Laboratory in August 1982. Many potential applications have been identified that will improve personnel safety, reduce operating costs, and increase productivity using modern robotics and automation. Several active projects are under way to procure robots, to develop unique techniques and systems for the site's processes, and to install the systems in the actual work environments. The projects and development programs are involved in the following general application areas: (1) glove boxes and shielded cell facilities, (2) laboratory chemical processes, (3) fabrication processes for reactor fuel assemblies, (4) sampling processes for separation areas, (5) emergency response in reactor areas, (6) fuel handling in reactor areas, and (7) remote radiation monitoring systems. A Robotics Development Laboratory has been set up for experimental and development work and for demonstration of robotic systems

Robotic Patterning a Superhydrophobic Surface for Collective Cell Migration Screening.

Science.gov (United States)

Pang, Yonggang; Yang, Jing; Hui, Zhixin; Grottkau, Brian E

2018-04-01

Collective cell migration, in which cells migrate as a group, is fundamental in many biological and pathological processes. There is increasing interest in studying the collective cell migration in high throughput. Cell scratching, insertion blocker, and gel-dissolving techniques are some methodologies used previously. However, these methods have the drawbacks of cell damage, substrate surface alteration, limitation in medium exchange, and solvent interference. The superhydrophobic surface, on which the water contact angle is greater than 150 degrees, has been recently utilized to generate patterned arrays. Independent cell culture areas can be generated on a substrate that functions the same as a conventional multiple well plate. However, so far there has been no report on superhydrophobic patterning for the study of cell migration. In this study, we report on the successful development of a robotically patterned superhydrophobic array for studying collective cell migration in high throughput. The array was developed on a rectangular single-well cell culture plate consisting of hydrophilic flat microwells separated by the superhydrophobic surface. The manufacturing process is robotic and includes patterning discrete protective masks to the substrate using 3D printing, robotic spray coating of silica nanoparticles, robotic mask removal, robotic mini silicone blocker patterning, automatic cell seeding, and liquid handling. Compared with a standard 96-well plate, our system increases the throughput by 2.25-fold and generates a cell-free area in each well non-destructively. Our system also demonstrates higher efficiency than conventional way of liquid handling using microwell plates, and shorter processing time than manual operating in migration assays. The superhydrophobic surface had no negative impact on cell viability. Using our system, we studied the collective migration of human umbilical vein endothelial cells and cancer cells using assays of endpoint

Sprint: The first flight demonstration of the external work system robots

Science.gov (United States)

Price, Charles R.; Grimm, Keith

1995-01-01

The External Works Systems (EWS) 'X Program' is a new NASA initiative that will, in the next ten years, develop a new generation of space robots for active and participative support of zero g external operations. The robotic development will center on three areas: the assistant robot, the associate robot, and the surrogate robot that will support external vehicular activities (EVA) prior to and after, during, and instead of space-suited human external activities respectively. The EWS robotics program will be a combination of technology developments and flight demonstrations for operational proof of concept. The first EWS flight will be a flying camera called 'Sprint' that will seek to demonstrate operationally flexible, remote viewing capability for EVA operations, inspections, and contingencies for the space shuttle and space station. This paper describes the need for Sprint and its characteristics.

A direct methanol fuel cell system to power a humanoid robot

Science.gov (United States)

Joh, Han-Ik; Ha, Tae Jung; Hwang, Sang Youp; Kim, Jong-Ho; Chae, Seung-Hoon; Cho, Jae Hyung; Prabhuram, Joghee; Kim, Soo-Kil; Lim, Tae-Hoon; Cho, Baek-Kyu; Oh, Jun-Ho; Moon, Sang Heup; Ha, Heung Yong

In this study, a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) system, which is the first of its kind, has been developed to power a humanoid robot. The DMFC system consists of a stack, a balance of plant (BOP), a power management unit (PMU), and a back-up battery. The stack has 42 unit cells and is able to produce about 400 W at 19.3 V. The robot is 125 cm tall, weighs 56 kg, and consumes 210 W during normal operation. The robot is integrated with the DMFC system that powers the robot in a stable manner for more than 2 h. The power consumption by the robot during various motions is studied, and load sharing between the fuel cell and the back-up battery is also observed. The loss of methanol feed due to crossover and evaporation amounts to 32.0% and the efficiency of the DMFC system in terms of net electric power is 22.0%.

Vision-based Nano Robotic System for High-throughput Non-embedded Cell Cutting.

Science.gov (United States)

Shang, Wanfeng; Lu, Haojian; Wan, Wenfeng; Fukuda, Toshio; Shen, Yajing

2016-03-04

Cell cutting is a significant task in biology study, but the highly productive non-embedded cell cutting is still a big challenge for current techniques. This paper proposes a vision-based nano robotic system and then realizes automatic non-embedded cell cutting with this system. First, the nano robotic system is developed and integrated with a nanoknife inside an environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM). Then, the positions of the nanoknife and the single cell are recognized, and the distance between them is calculated dynamically based on image processing. To guarantee the positioning accuracy and the working efficiency, we propose a distance-regulated speed adapting strategy, in which the moving speed is adjusted intelligently based on the distance between the nanoknife and the target cell. The results indicate that the automatic non-embedded cutting is able to be achieved within 1-2 mins with low invasion benefiting from the high precise nanorobot system and the sharp edge of nanoknife. This research paves a way for the high-throughput cell cutting at cell's natural condition, which is expected to make significant impact on the biology studies, especially for the in-situ analysis at cellular and subcellular scale, such as cell interaction investigation, neural signal transduction and low invasive cell surgery.

Friendly network robotics; Friendly network robotics

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

1997-03-01

This paper summarizes the research results on the friendly network robotics in fiscal 1996. This research assumes an android robot as an ultimate robot and the future robot system utilizing computer network technology. The robot aiming at human daily work activities in factories or under extreme environments is required to work under usual human work environments. The human robot with similar size, shape and functions to human being is desirable. Such robot having a head with two eyes, two ears and mouth can hold a conversation with human being, can walk with two legs by autonomous adaptive control, and has a behavior intelligence. Remote operation of such robot is also possible through high-speed computer network. As a key technology to use this robot under coexistence with human being, establishment of human coexistent robotics was studied. As network based robotics, use of robots connected with computer networks was also studied. In addition, the R-cube (R{sup 3}) plan (realtime remote control robot technology) was proposed. 82 refs., 86 figs., 12 tabs.

Vision-based Nano Robotic System for High-throughput Non-embedded Cell Cutting

Science.gov (United States)

Shang, Wanfeng; Lu, Haojian; Wan, Wenfeng; Fukuda, Toshio; Shen, Yajing

2016-03-01

Cell cutting is a significant task in biology study, but the highly productive non-embedded cell cutting is still a big challenge for current techniques. This paper proposes a vision-based nano robotic system and then realizes automatic non-embedded cell cutting with this system. First, the nano robotic system is developed and integrated with a nanoknife inside an environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM). Then, the positions of the nanoknife and the single cell are recognized, and the distance between them is calculated dynamically based on image processing. To guarantee the positioning accuracy and the working efficiency, we propose a distance-regulated speed adapting strategy, in which the moving speed is adjusted intelligently based on the distance between the nanoknife and the target cell. The results indicate that the automatic non-embedded cutting is able to be achieved within 1-2 mins with low invasion benefiting from the high precise nanorobot system and the sharp edge of nanoknife. This research paves a way for the high-throughput cell cutting at cell’s natural condition, which is expected to make significant impact on the biology studies, especially for the in-situ analysis at cellular and subcellular scale, such as cell interaction investigation, neural signal transduction and low invasive cell surgery.

Multiagent Modeling and Simulation in Human-Robot Mission Operations Work System Design

Science.gov (United States)

Sierhuis, Maarten; Clancey, William J.; Sims, Michael H.; Shafto, Michael (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

This paper describes a collaborative multiagent modeling and simulation approach for designing work systems. The Brahms environment is used to model mission operations for a semi-autonomous robot mission to the Moon at the work practice level. It shows the impact of human-decision making on the activities and energy consumption of a robot. A collaborative work systems design methodology is described that allows informal models, created with users and stakeholders, to be used as input to the development of formal computational models.

On Throughput Maximization in Constant Travel-Time Robotic Cells

OpenAIRE

Milind Dawande; Chelliah Sriskandarajah; Suresh Sethi

2002-01-01

We consider the problem of scheduling operations in bufferless robotic cells that produce identical parts. The objective is to find a cyclic sequence of robot moves that minimizes the long-run average time to produce a part or, equivalently, maximizes the throughput rate. The robot can be moved in simple cycles that produce one unit or, in more complicated cycles, that produce multiple units. Because one-unit cycles are the easiest to understand, implement, and control, they are widely used i...

Design And Implementation Of Integrated Vision-Based Robotic Workcells

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Michael J.

1985-01-01

Reports have been sparse on large-scale, intelligent integration of complete robotic systems for automating the microelectronics industry. This paper describes the application of state-of-the-art computer-vision technology for manufacturing of miniaturized electronic components. The concepts of FMS - Flexible Manufacturing Systems, work cells, and work stations and their control hierarchy are illustrated in this paper. Several computer-controlled work cells used in the production of thin-film magnetic heads are described. These cells use vision for in-process control of head-fixture alignment and real-time inspection of production parameters. The vision sensor and other optoelectronic sensors, coupled with transport mechanisms such as steppers, x-y-z tables, and robots, have created complete sensorimotor systems. These systems greatly increase the manufacturing throughput as well as the quality of the final product. This paper uses these automated work cells as examples to exemplify the underlying design philosophy and principles in the fabrication of vision-based robotic systems.

Robotized Surface Mounting of Permanent Magnets

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Erik Hultman

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Using permanent magnets on a rotor can both simplify the design and increase the efficiency of electric machines compared to using electromagnets. A drawback, however, is the lack of existing automated assembly methods for large machines. This paper presents and motivates a method for robotized surface mounting of permanent magnets on electric machine rotors. The translator of the Uppsala University Wave Energy Converter generator is used as an example of a rotor. The robot cell layout, equipment design and assembly process are presented and validated through computer simulations and experiments with prototype equipment. A comparison with manual assembly indicates substantial cost savings and an improved work environment. By using the flexibility of industrial robots and a scalable equipment design, it is possible for this assembly method to be adjusted for other rotor geometries and sizes. Finally, there is a discussion on the work that remains to be done on improving and integrating the robot cell into a production line.

Robotics, stem cells, and brain-computer interfaces in rehabilitation and recovery from stroke: updates and advances.

Science.gov (United States)

Boninger, Michael L; Wechsler, Lawrence R; Stein, Joel

2014-11-01

The aim of this study was to describe the current state and latest advances in robotics, stem cells, and brain-computer interfaces in rehabilitation and recovery for stroke. The authors of this summary recently reviewed this work as part of a national presentation. The article represents the information included in each area. Each area has seen great advances and challenges as products move to market and experiments are ongoing. Robotics, stem cells, and brain-computer interfaces all have tremendous potential to reduce disability and lead to better outcomes for patients with stroke. Continued research and investment will be needed as the field moves forward. With this investment, the potential for recovery of function is likely substantial.

First Application of Robot Teaching in an Existing Industry 4.0 Environment: Does It Really Work?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Astrid Weiss

2016-07-01

Full Text Available This article reports three case studies on the usability and acceptance of an industrial robotic prototype in the context of human-robot cooperation. The three case studies were conducted in the framework of a two-year project named AssistMe, which aims at developing different means of interaction for programming and using collaborative robots in a user-centered manner. Together with two industrial partners and a technological partner, two different application scenarios were implemented and studied with an off-the-shelf robotic system. The operators worked with the robotic prototype in laboratory conditions (two days, in a factory context (one day and in an automotive assembly line (three weeks. In the article, the project and procedures are described in detail, including the quantitative and qualitative methodology. Our results show that close human-robot cooperation in the industrial context needs adaptive pacing mechanisms in order to avoid a change of working routines for the operators and that an off-the-shelf robotic system is still limited in terms of usability and acceptance. The touch panel, which is needed for controlling the robot, had a negative impact on the overall user experience. It creates a further intermediate layer between the user, the robot and the work piece and potentially leads to a decrease in productivity. Finally, the fear of the worker of being replaced by an improved robotic system was regularly expressed and adds an additional anthropocentric dimension to the discussion of human-robot cooperation, smart factories and the upcoming Industry 4.0.

Intuitive Robot Tasks with Augmented Reality and Virtual Obstacles

OpenAIRE

Gaschler, Andre;Springer, Maximilian;Rickert, Markus;Knoll, Alois

2017-01-01

Today's industrial robots require expert knowledge and are not profitable for small and medium sized enterprises with their small lot sizes. It is our strong belief that more intuitive robot programming in an augmented reality robot work cell can dramatically simplify re-programming and leverage robotics technology in short production cycles. In this paper, we present a novel augmented reality system for defining virtual obstacles, specifying tool positions, and specifying robot tasks. We eva...

USING OF ROBOTS-MANIPULATORS IN LABORATORY WORKS IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Viktor Yehorov

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Studying of technical disciplines in higher education institution as a rule consists of 2 parts – theories and practice. Practice, is a type of educational process which allows to realize theoretical knowledge to the applied sphere. In particular it allows to provide an object visually, creating its image and visually adequate perception. This work is devoted to development of laboratory base of technical college with use of robots manipulators on occupations. Its relevance is shown. The overview of modern stands is provided in different higher education institutions, the analysis of their benefits and shortcomings is this. The task of creation of the robot manipulator for sorting of objects of color is set. The robot model including an automatic management system it is developed. The sensor of color, the regulator and the executive mechanism allowing to move objects to the corresponding reservoirs is its part. Possibilities of further development of a question, in particular, creations of physical model for use are given in laboratory works.

USING OF ROBOTS-MANIPULATORS IN LABORATORY WORKS IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

V. Yehorov

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Studying of technical disciplines in higher education institution as a rule consists of 2 parts – theories and practice. Practice, is a type of educational process which allows to realize theoretical knowledge to the applied sphere. In particular it allows to provide an object visually, creating its image and visually adequate perception. This work is devoted to development of laboratory base of technical college with use of robots manipulators on occupations. Its relevance is shown. The overview of modern stands is provided in different higher education institutions, the analysis of their benefits and shortcomings is this. The task of creation of the robot manipulator for sorting of objects of color is set. The robot model including an automatic management system it is developed. The sensor of color, the regulator and the executive mechanism allowing to move objects to the corresponding reservoirs is its part. Possibilities of further development of a question, in particular, creations of physical model for use are given in laboratory works.

Robot Actors, Robot Dramaturgies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jochum, Elizabeth

This paper considers the use of tele-operated robots in live performance. Robots and performance have long been linked, from the working androids and automata staged in popular exhibitions during the nineteenth century and the robots featured at Cybernetic Serendipity (1968) and the World Expo...

Analyzing Robotic Kinematics Via Computed Simulations

Science.gov (United States)

Carnahan, Timothy M.

1992-01-01

Computing system assists in evaluation of kinematics of conceptual robot. Displays positions and motions of robotic manipulator within work cell. Also displays interactions between robotic manipulator and other objects. Results of simulation displayed on graphical computer workstation. System includes both off-the-shelf software originally developed for automotive industry and specially developed software. Simulation system also used to design human-equivalent hand, to model optical train in infrared system, and to develop graphical interface for teleoperator simulation system.

Biological Soft Robotics.

Science.gov (United States)

Feinberg, Adam W

2015-01-01

In nature, nanometer-scale molecular motors are used to generate force within cells for diverse processes from transcription and transport to muscle contraction. This adaptability and scalability across wide temporal, spatial, and force regimes have spurred the development of biological soft robotic systems that seek to mimic and extend these capabilities. This review describes how molecular motors are hierarchically organized into larger-scale structures in order to provide a basic understanding of how these systems work in nature and the complexity and functionality we hope to replicate in biological soft robotics. These span the subcellular scale to macroscale, and this article focuses on the integration of biological components with synthetic materials, coupled with bioinspired robotic design. Key examples include nanoscale molecular motor-powered actuators, microscale bacteria-controlled devices, and macroscale muscle-powered robots that grasp, walk, and swim. Finally, the current challenges and future opportunities in the field are addressed.

Exploratorium: Robots.

Science.gov (United States)

Brand, Judith, Ed.

2002-01-01

This issue of Exploratorium Magazine focuses on the topic robotics. It explains how to make a vibrating robotic bug and features articles on robots. Contents include: (1) "Where Robot Mice and Robot Men Run Round in Robot Towns" (Ray Bradbury); (2) "Robots at Work" (Jake Widman); (3) "Make a Vibrating Robotic Bug" (Modesto Tamez); (4) "The Robot…

Molecular Robots Obeying Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.

Science.gov (United States)

Kaminka, Gal A; Spokoini-Stern, Rachel; Amir, Yaniv; Agmon, Noa; Bachelet, Ido

2017-01-01

Asimov's three laws of robotics, which were shaped in the literary work of Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) and others, define a crucial code of behavior that fictional autonomous robots must obey as a condition for their integration into human society. While, general implementation of these laws in robots is widely considered impractical, limited-scope versions have been demonstrated and have proven useful in spurring scientific debate on aspects of safety and autonomy in robots and intelligent systems. In this work, we use Asimov's laws to examine these notions in molecular robots fabricated from DNA origami. We successfully programmed these robots to obey, by means of interactions between individual robots in a large population, an appropriately scoped variant of Asimov's laws, and even emulate the key scenario from Asimov's story "Runaround," in which a fictional robot gets into trouble despite adhering to the laws. Our findings show that abstract, complex notions can be encoded and implemented at the molecular scale, when we understand robots on this scale on the basis of their interactions.

Human-rating Automated and Robotic Systems - (How HAL Can Work Safely with Astronauts)

Science.gov (United States)

Baroff, Lynn; Dischinger, Charlie; Fitts, David

2009-01-01

Long duration human space missions, as planned in the Vision for Space Exploration, will not be possible without applying unprecedented levels of automation to support the human endeavors. The automated and robotic systems must carry the load of routine housekeeping for the new generation of explorers, as well as assist their exploration science and engineering work with new precision. Fortunately, the state of automated and robotic systems is sophisticated and sturdy enough to do this work - but the systems themselves have never been human-rated as all other NASA physical systems used in human space flight have. Our intent in this paper is to provide perspective on requirements and architecture for the interfaces and interactions between human beings and the astonishing array of automated systems; and the approach we believe necessary to create human-rated systems and implement them in the space program. We will explain our proposed standard structure for automation and robotic systems, and the process by which we will develop and implement that standard as an addition to NASA s Human Rating requirements. Our work here is based on real experience with both human system and robotic system designs; for surface operations as well as for in-flight monitoring and control; and on the necessities we have discovered for human-systems integration in NASA's Constellation program. We hope this will be an invitation to dialog and to consideration of a new issue facing new generations of explorers and their outfitters.

Decreased Time to Return to Work Using Robotic-Assisted Unicompartmental Knee Arthroplasty Compared to Conventional Techniques.

Science.gov (United States)

Jinnah, Alexander H; Augart, Marco A; Lara, Daniel L; Jinnah, Riyaz H; Poehling, Gary G; Gwam, Chukwuweike U; Plate, Johannes F

2018-06-01

Unicompartmental knee arthroplasty (UKA) is a commonly used procedure for patients suffering from debilitating unicompartmental knee arthritis. For UKA recipients, robotic-assisted surgery has served as an aid in improving surgical accuracy and precision. While studies exist detailing outcomes of robotic UKA, to our knowledge, there are no studies assessing time to return to work using robotic-assisted UKA. Thus, the purpose of this study was to prospectively assess the time to return to work and to achieve the level of work activity following robotic-assisted UKA to create recommendations for patients preoperatively. We hypothesized that the return to work time would be shorter for robotic-assisted UKAs compared with TKAs and manual UKAs, due to more accurate ligament balancing and precise implementation of the operative plan. Thirty consecutive patients scheduled to undergo a robotic-assisted UKA at an academic teaching hospital were prospectively enrolled in the study. Inclusion criteria included employment at the time of surgery, with the intent on returning to the same occupation following surgery and having end-stage knee degenerative joint disease (DJD) limited to the medial compartment. Patients were contacted via email, letter, or phone at two, four, six, and 12 weeks following surgery until they returned to work. The Baecke physical activity questionnaire (BQ) was administered to assess patients' level of activity at work pre- and postoperatively. Statistical analysis was performed using SAS Enterprise Guide (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, North Carolina) and Excel® (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Washington). Descriptive statistics were calculated to assess the demographics of the patient population. Boxplots were generated using an Excel® spreadsheet to visualize the BQ scores and a two-tailed t-test was used to assess for differences between pre- and postoperative scores with alpha 0.05. The mean time to return to work was 6.4 weeks (SD=3.4, range 2

Piezoresistive pressure sensor array for robotic skin

Science.gov (United States)

Mirza, Fahad; Sahasrabuddhe, Ritvij R.; Baptist, Joshua R.; Wijesundara, Muthu B. J.; Lee, Woo H.; Popa, Dan O.

2016-05-01

Robots are starting to transition from the confines of the manufacturing floor to homes, schools, hospitals, and highly dynamic environments. As, a result, it is impossible to foresee all the probable operational situations of robots, and preprogram the robot behavior in those situations. Among human-robot interaction technologies, haptic communication is an intuitive physical interaction method that can help define operational behaviors for robots cooperating with humans. Multimodal robotic skin with distributed sensors can help robots increase perception capabilities of their surrounding environments. Electro-Hydro-Dynamic (EHD) printing is a flexible multi-modal sensor fabrication method because of its direct printing capability of a wide range of materials onto substrates with non-uniform topographies. In past work we designed interdigitated comb electrodes as a sensing element and printed piezoresistive strain sensors using customized EHD printable PEDOT:PSS based inks. We formulated a PEDOT:PSS derivative ink, by mixing PEDOT:PSS and DMSO. Bending induced characterization tests of prototyped sensors showed high sensitivity and sufficient stability. In this paper, we describe SkinCells, robot skin sensor arrays integrated with electronic modules. 4x4 EHD-printed arrays of strain sensors was packaged onto Kapton sheets and silicone encapsulant and interconnected to a custom electronic module that consists of a microcontroller, Wheatstone bridge with adjustable digital potentiometer, multiplexer, and serial communication unit. Thus, SkinCell's electronics can be used for signal acquisition, conditioning, and networking between sensor modules. Several SkinCells were loaded with controlled pressure, temperature and humidity testing apparatuses, and testing results are reported in this paper.

Robot engineering

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jung, Seul

2006-02-15

This book deals with robot engineering, giving descriptions of robot's history, current tendency of robot field, work and characteristic of industrial robot, essential merit and vector, application of matrix, analysis of basic vector, expression of Denavit-Hartenberg, robot kinematics such as forward kinematics, inverse kinematics, cases of MATLAB program, and motion kinematics, robot kinetics like moment of inertia, centrifugal force and coriolis power, and Euler-Lagrangian equation course plan, SIMULINK position control of robots.

Robot engineering

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jung, Seul

2006-02-01

This book deals with robot engineering, giving descriptions of robot's history, current tendency of robot field, work and characteristic of industrial robot, essential merit and vector, application of matrix, analysis of basic vector, expression of Denavit-Hartenberg, robot kinematics such as forward kinematics, inverse kinematics, cases of MATLAB program, and motion kinematics, robot kinetics like moment of inertia, centrifugal force and coriolis power, and Euler-Lagrangian equation course plan, SIMULINK position control of robots.

Design and development of a work robot to place ATLAS SCT modules onto barrel cylinders

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Terada, S.; Kobayashi, H.; Sengoku, H.; Kato, Y.; Hara, K.; Honma, F.; Ikegami, Y.; Iwata, Y.; Kohriki, T.; Kondo, T.; Nakano, I.; Takashima, R.; Tanaka, R.; Ujiie, N.; Unno, Y.; Yasuda, S.

2005-01-01

More than 2000 silicon modules need to be placed and fastened on the ATLAS SCT barrel tracker. A semi-automatic pick-and-place work robot was designed and developed to cope with the module placement for the SCT barrel assembly. We found that this robot could place modules to a mechanical precision of better than 25 μm

Design and development of a work robot to place ATLAS SCT modules onto barrel cylinders

CERN Document Server

Terada, S; Honma, F; Ikegami, Y; Iwata, Y; Kato, Y; Kobayashi, H; Kohriki, T; Kondo, T; Nakano, I; Sengoku, H; Takashima, R; Tanaka, R; Ujiie, N; Unno, Y; Yasuda, S

2005-01-01

More than 2000 silicon modules need to be placed and fastened on the ATLAS SCT barrel tracker. A semi-automatic pick-and-place work robot was designed and developed to cope with the module placement for the SCT barrel assembly. We found that this robot could place modules to a mechanical precision of better than 25 mum.

A Hybrid Robotic Control System Using Neuroblastoma Cultures

Science.gov (United States)

Ferrández, J. M.; Lorente, V.; Cuadra, J. M.; Delapaz, F.; Álvarez-Sánchez, José Ramón; Fernández, E.

The main objective of this work is to analyze the computing capabilities of human neuroblastoma cultured cells and to define connection schemes for controlling a robot behavior. Multielectrode Array (MEA) setups have been designed for direct culturing neural cells over silicon or glass substrates, providing the capability to stimulate and record simultaneously populations of neural cells. This paper describes the process of growing human neuroblastoma cells over MEA substrates and tries to modulate the natural physiologic responses of these cells by tetanic stimulation of the culture. We show that the large neuroblastoma networks developed in cultured MEAs are capable of learning: establishing numerous and dynamic connections, with modifiability induced by external stimuli and we propose an hybrid system for controlling a robot to avoid obstacles.

Novel high resolution tactile robotic fingertips

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Drimus, Alin; Jankovics, Vince; Gorsic, Matija

2014-01-01

This paper describes a novel robotic fingertip based on piezoresistive rubber that can sense pressure tactile stimuli with a high spatial resolution over curved surfaces. The working principle is based on a three-layer sandwich structure (conductive electrodes on top and bottom and piezoresistive...... with specialized data acquisition electronics that acquire 500 frames per second provides rich information regarding contact force, shape and angle for bio- inspired robotic fingertips. Furthermore, a model of estimating the force of contact based on values of the cells is proposed....

Robots and Humans in Planetary Exploration: Working Together?

Science.gov (United States)

Landis, Geoffrey A.; Lyons, Valerie (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

Today's approach to human-robotic cooperation in planetary exploration focuses on using robotic probes as precursors to human exploration. A large portion of current NASA planetary surface exploration is focussed on Mars, and robotic probes are seen as precursors to human exploration in: Learning about operation and mobility on Mars; Learning about the environment of Mars; Mapping the planet and selecting landing sites for human mission; Demonstration of critical technology; Manufacture fuel before human presence, and emplace elements of human-support infrastructure

User-centered design of a patient’s work station for haptic robot-based telerehabilitation after stroke

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ivanova Ekaterina

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Robotic therapy devices have been an important part of clinical neurological rehabilitation for several years. Until now such devices are only available for patients receiving therapy inside rehabilitation hospitals. Since patients should continue rehabilitation training after hospital discharge at home, intelligent robotic rehab devices could help to achieve this goal. This paper presents therapeutic requirements and early phases of the user-centered design process of the patient’s work station as part of a novel robot-based system for motor telerehabilitation.

Micro Robotics Lab

Data.gov (United States)

Federal Laboratory Consortium — Our research is focused on the challenges of engineering robotic systems down to sub-millimeter size scales. We work both on small mobile robots (robotic insects for...

Cloud Robotics Platforms

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Busra Koken

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Cloud robotics is a rapidly evolving field that allows robots to offload computation-intensive and storage-intensive jobs into the cloud. Robots are limited in terms of computational capacity, memory and storage. Cloud provides unlimited computation power, memory, storage and especially collaboration opportunity. Cloud-enabled robots are divided into two categories as standalone and networked robots. This article surveys cloud robotic platforms, standalone and networked robotic works such as grasping, simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM and monitoring.

Next generation light robotic

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Villangca, Mark Jayson; Palima, Darwin; Banas, Andrew Rafael

2017-01-01

-assisted surgery imbibes surgeons with superhuman abilities and gives the expression “surgical precision” a whole new meaning. Still in its infancy, much remains to be done to improve human-robot collaboration both in realizing robots that can operate safely with humans and in training personnel that can work......Conventional robotics provides machines and robots that can replace and surpass human performance in repetitive, difficult, and even dangerous tasks at industrial assembly lines, hazardous environments, or even at remote planets. A new class of robotic systems no longer aims to replace humans...... with so-called automatons but, rather, to create robots that can work alongside human operators. These new robots are intended to collaborate with humans—extending their abilities—from assisting workers on the factory floor to rehabilitating patients in their homes. In medical robotics, robot...

Robot Futures

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christoffersen, Anja; Grindsted Nielsen, Sally; Jochum, Elizabeth Ann

Robots are increasingly used in health care settings, e.g., as homecare assistants and personal companions. One challenge for personal robots in the home is acceptance. We describe an innovative approach to influencing the acceptance of care robots using theatrical performance. Live performance...... is a useful testbed for developing and evaluating what makes robots expressive; it is also a useful platform for designing robot behaviors and dialogue that result in believable characters. Therefore theatre is a valuable testbed for studying human-robot interaction (HRI). We investigate how audiences...... perceive social robots interacting with humans in a future care scenario through a scripted performance. We discuss our methods and initial findings, and outline future work....

Working Safely with Robot Workers: Recommendations for the New Workplace

Science.gov (United States)

Murashov, Vladimir; Hearl, Frank; Howard, John

2016-01-01

The increasing use of robots in performing tasks alongside or together with human coworkers raises novel occupational safety and health issues. The new 21st century workplace will be one in which occupational robotics plays an increasing role. This paper describes the increasing complexity of robots and proposes a number of recommendations for the practice of safe occupational robotics. PMID:26554511

Working safely with robot workers: Recommendations for the new workplace.

Science.gov (United States)

Murashov, Vladimir; Hearl, Frank; Howard, John

2016-01-01

The increasing use of robots in performing tasks alongside or together with human co-workers raises novel occupational safety and health issues. The new 21st century workplace will be one in which occupational robotics plays an increasing role. This article describes the increasing complexity of robots and proposes a number of recommendations for the practice of safe occupational robotics.

Non-manufacturing applications of robotics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dauchez, P.

2000-12-01

This book presents the different non-manufacturing sectors of activity where robotics can have useful or necessary applications: underwater robotics, agriculture robotics, road work robotics, nuclear robotics, medical-surgery robotics, aids to disabled people, entertainment robotics. Service robotics has been voluntarily excluded because this developing sector is not mature yet. (J.S.)

From an Idea to a Working Robot Prototype: Distributing Knowledge of Robotics through Science Museum Workshops

Science.gov (United States)

Polishuk, Alexander; Verner, Igor; Mir, Ronen

This paper presents our experience of teaching robotics to primary and middle school students at the Gelfand Center for Model Building, Robotics & Communication which is part of the Israel National Museum of Science, Technology and Space (MadaTech). The educational study examines the value and characteristics of students’ teamwork in the museum robotics workshops.

An advanced semiautonomous robotic system for hazardous response work for decontamination and decommissioning

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Crane, C.; Tulenko, J.F.

1990-01-01

The articulated transporter/manipulator system (ATMS) under development by the University of Florida (UF) with Odetics Corporation as lead subcontractor will be able to manipulate through obstructed areas. Since 1987, the Advanced Technology Division of the US Department of Energy has sponsored a university team composed of the UF, University of Michigan, University of Tennessee, and the University of Texas under the leadership of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to pursue innovative robotics research leading to the development of advanced robotic systems. The UF has the task of developing the ATMS innovative transport system. As part of this task, UF has been focusing on developing horizontal and external navigation algorithms that carry out ongoing ATMS autonomous path planning. The flexibility of the ATMS is also being demonstrated as a surveillance/maintenance robot for the PRISM reactor. The ATMS has demonstrated that it can carry out autonomous planning responding both to obstacles and set operating levels. The ATMS also has demonstrated that it has sufficient flexibility to serve in a surveillance/maintenance mode. Work is progressing on developing the hardware to deliver the mechanical capabilities demonstrated by simulated robotic system

Healthcare Robotics

OpenAIRE

Riek, Laurel D.

2017-01-01

Robots have the potential to be a game changer in healthcare: improving health and well-being, filling care gaps, supporting care givers, and aiding health care workers. However, before robots are able to be widely deployed, it is crucial that both the research and industrial communities work together to establish a strong evidence-base for healthcare robotics, and surmount likely adoption barriers. This article presents a broad contextualization of robots in healthcare by identifying key sta...

Robots Social Embodiment in Autonomous Mobile Robotics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Brian Duffy

2008-11-01

Full Text Available This work aims at demonstrating the inherent advantages of embracing a strong notion of social embodiment in designing a real-world robot control architecture with explicit ?intelligent? social behaviour between a collective of robots. It develops the current thinking on embodiment beyond the physical by demonstrating the importance of social embodiment. A social framework develops the fundamental social attributes found when more than one robot co-inhabit a physical space. The social metaphors of identity, character, stereotypes and roles are presented and implemented within a real-world social robot paradigm in order to facilitate the realisation of explicit social goals.

Socially intelligent robots: dimensions of human-robot interaction.

Science.gov (United States)

Dautenhahn, Kerstin

2007-04-29

Social intelligence in robots has a quite recent history in artificial intelligence and robotics. However, it has become increasingly apparent that social and interactive skills are necessary requirements in many application areas and contexts where robots need to interact and collaborate with other robots or humans. Research on human-robot interaction (HRI) poses many challenges regarding the nature of interactivity and 'social behaviour' in robot and humans. The first part of this paper addresses dimensions of HRI, discussing requirements on social skills for robots and introducing the conceptual space of HRI studies. In order to illustrate these concepts, two examples of HRI research are presented. First, research is surveyed which investigates the development of a cognitive robot companion. The aim of this work is to develop social rules for robot behaviour (a 'robotiquette') that is comfortable and acceptable to humans. Second, robots are discussed as possible educational or therapeutic toys for children with autism. The concept of interactive emergence in human-child interactions is highlighted. Different types of play among children are discussed in the light of their potential investigation in human-robot experiments. The paper concludes by examining different paradigms regarding 'social relationships' of robots and people interacting with them.

Robot, human and communication; Robotto/ningen/comyunikeshon

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Suehiro, T.

1996-04-10

Recently, some interests on the robots working with human beings under the same environment as the human beings and living with the human beings were promoting. In such robots, more suitability for environment and more robustness of system are required than those in conventional robots. Above all, communication of both the human beings and the robots on their cooperations is becoming a new problem. Hitherto, for the industrial robot, cooperation between human beings and robot was limited on its programming. As this was better for repeated operation of the same motion, its adoptable work was limited to some comparatively simpler one in factory and was difficult to change its content partially or to apply the other work. Furthermore, on the remote-controlled intelligent work robot represented by the critical work robot, its cooperation between the human beings and the robot can be conducted with the operation at remote location. In this paper, the communication of the robots lived with the human beings was examined. 17 refs., 1 fig.

Work in progress: Robotics mapping of landmine and UXO contaminated areas

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, K; Jørgensen, R N; Bøgild, A

Explosive remnants of war like landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) are a serious threat in post conflict environments around the World. Aside from the killing and injury of many people the landmines and UXO have a significant impact on the local economy due to inac- cessible roads and loss...... the knowledge and experience from the agricultural plant nursing robotics domain to demining applications. The aim is to have a reliable, efficient and user-friendly autonomous robot capable of mapping as well as visually marking detected landmines and UXO within a bounded area. The operator specifies the area...... Detection System (WADS) developed by the organization Danish Church Aid. Current status of the project is that the first autonomous area coverage tests have been performed successfully using Casmobot, a tracked mower platform capable of working in rough terrain including steep slopes. An improved modular...

Japan's ARTRA robot moves forward

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Takehara, Ken

1992-01-01

Work on the Japanese ARTRA robot has progressed to the point where a demonstration robot has been built. However, much work remains before ARTRA can realize its goal of developing a highly sophisticated remotely-controlled robot to replace the human maintenance worker in a radioactive environment. (author)

Evolving self-assembly in autonomous homogeneous robots: experiments with two physical robots.

Science.gov (United States)

Ampatzis, Christos; Tuci, Elio; Trianni, Vito; Christensen, Anders Lyhne; Dorigo, Marco

2009-01-01

This research work illustrates an approach to the design of controllers for self-assembling robots in which the self-assembly is initiated and regulated by perceptual cues that are brought forth by the physical robots through their dynamical interactions. More specifically, we present a homogeneous control system that can achieve assembly between two modules (two fully autonomous robots) of a mobile self-reconfigurable system without a priori introduced behavioral or morphological heterogeneities. The controllers are dynamic neural networks evolved in simulation that directly control all the actuators of the two robots. The neurocontrollers cause the dynamic specialization of the robots by allocating roles between them based solely on their interaction. We show that the best evolved controller proves to be successful when tested on a real hardware platform, the swarm-bot. The performance achieved is similar to the one achieved by existing modular or behavior-based approaches, also due to the effect of an emergent recovery mechanism that was neither explicitly rewarded by the fitness function, nor observed during the evolutionary simulation. Our results suggest that direct access to the orientations or intentions of the other agents is not a necessary condition for robot coordination: Our robots coordinate without direct or explicit communication, contrary to what is assumed by most research works in collective robotics. This work also contributes to strengthening the evidence that evolutionary robotics is a design methodology that can tackle real-world tasks demanding fine sensory-motor coordination.

Modelling of industrial robot in LabView Robotics

Science.gov (United States)

Banas, W.; Cwikła, G.; Foit, K.; Gwiazda, A.; Monica, Z.; Sekala, A.

2017-08-01

Currently can find many models of industrial systems including robots. These models differ from each other not only by the accuracy representation parameters, but the representation range. For example, CAD models describe the geometry of the robot and some even designate a mass parameters as mass, center of gravity, moment of inertia, etc. These models are used in the design of robotic lines and sockets. Also systems for off-line programming use these models and many of them can be exported to CAD. It is important to note that models for off-line programming describe not only the geometry but contain the information necessary to create a program for the robot. Exports from CAD to off-line programming system requires additional information. These models are used for static determination of reachability points, and testing collision. It’s enough to generate a program for the robot, and even check the interaction of elements of the production line, or robotic cell. Mathematical models allow robots to study the properties of kinematic and dynamic of robot movement. In these models the geometry is not so important, so are used only selected parameters such as the length of the robot arm, the center of gravity, moment of inertia. These parameters are introduced into the equations of motion of the robot and motion parameters are determined.

Balancing Theory and Practical Work in a Humanoid Robotics Course

Science.gov (United States)

Wolff, Krister; Wahde, Mattias

2010-01-01

In this paper, we summarize our experiences from teaching a course in humanoid robotics at Chalmers University of Technology in Goteborg, Sweden. We describe the robotic platform used in the course and we propose the use of a custom-built robot consisting of standard electronic and mechanical components. In our experience, by using standard…

Soft Robotics.

Science.gov (United States)

Whitesides, George M

2018-04-09

This description of "soft robotics" is not intended to be a conventional review, in the sense of a comprehensive technical summary of a developing field. Rather, its objective is to describe soft robotics as a new field-one that offers opportunities to chemists and materials scientists who like to make "things" and to work with macroscopic objects that move and exert force. It will give one (personal) view of what soft actuators and robots are, and how this class of soft devices fits into the more highly developed field of conventional "hard" robotics. It will also suggest how and why soft robotics is more than simply a minor technical "tweak" on hard robotics and propose a unique role for chemistry, and materials science, in this field. Soft robotics is, at its core, intellectually and technologically different from hard robotics, both because it has different objectives and uses and because it relies on the properties of materials to assume many of the roles played by sensors, actuators, and controllers in hard robotics. © 2018 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

MicroBioRobots for single cell manipulation

Science.gov (United States)

Sakar, Mahmut Selman

One of the great challenges in nano and micro scale science and engineering is the independent manipulation of biological cells and small man-made objects with active sensing. For such biomedical applications as single cell manipulation, telemetry, and localized targeted delivery of chemicals, it is important to fabricate microstructures that can be powered and controlled without a tether in fluidic environments. These microstructures can be used to develop microrobots that have the potential to make existing therapeutic and diagnostic procedures less invasive. Actuation can be realized using various different organic and inorganic methods. Previous studies explored different forms of actuation and control with microorganisms. Bacteria, in particular, offer several advantages as controllable microactuators: they draw chemical energy directly from their environment, they are genetically modifiable, and they are scalable and configurable in the sense that any number of bacteria can be selectively patterned. Additionally, the study of bacteria inspires inorganic schemes of actuation and control. For these reasons, we chose to employ bacteria while controlling their motility using optical and electrical stimuli. In the first part of the thesis, we demonstrate a biointegrated approach by introducing MicroBioRobots (MBRs). MBRs are negative photosensitive epoxy (SU8) microfabricated structures with typical feature sizes ranging from 1-100 mum coated with a monolayer of the swarming Serratia marcescens . The adherent bacterial cells naturally coordinate to propel the microstructures in fluidic environments which we call Self-Actuation. First, we demonstrate the control of MBRs using self-actuation, DC electric fields and ultra-violet radiation and develop an experimentally-validated mathematical model for the MBRs. This model allows us to to steer the MBR to any position and orientation in a planar micro channel using visual feedback and an inverted microscope. Examples

Robotic vision system for random bin picking with dual-arm robots

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kang Sangseung

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Random bin picking is one of the most challenging industrial robotics applications available. It constitutes a complicated interaction between the vision system, robot, and control system. For a packaging operation requiring a pick-and-place task, the robot system utilized should be able to perform certain functions for recognizing the applicable target object from randomized objects in a bin. In this paper, we introduce a robotic vision system for bin picking using industrial dual-arm robots. The proposed system recognizes the best object from randomized target candidates based on stereo vision, and estimates the position and orientation of the object. It then sends the result to the robot control system. The system was developed for use in the packaging process of cell phone accessories using dual-arm robots.

Identifying Factors Reinforcing Robotization: Interactive Forces of Employment, Working Hour and Wage

OpenAIRE

Joonmo Cho; Jinha Kim

2018-01-01

Unlike previous studies on robotization approaching the future based on the cutting-edge technologies and adopting a framework where robotization is considered as an exogenous variable, this study considers that robotization occurs endogenously and uses it as a dependent variable for an objective examination of the effect of robotization on the labor market. To this end, a robotization indicator is created based on the actual number of industrial robots currently deployed in workplaces, and a...

Robotic multi-well planar patch-clamp for native and primary mammalian cells

Science.gov (United States)

Milligan, Carol J; Li, Jing; Sukumar, Piruthivi; Majeed, Yasser; Dallas, Mark L; English, Anne; Emery, Paul; Porter, Karen E; Smith, Andrew M; McFadzean, Ian; Beccano-Kelly, Dayne; Bahnasi, Yahya; Cheong, Alex; Naylor, Jacqueline; Zeng, Fanning; Liu, Xing; Gamper, Nikita; Jiang, Lin-Hua; Pearson, Hugh A; Peers, Chris; Robertson, Brian; Beech, David J

2009-01-01

Multi-well robotic planar patch-clamp has become common in drug development and safety programmes because it enables efficient and systematic testing of compounds against ion channels during voltage-clamp. It has not, however, been adopted significantly in other important areas of ion channel research, where conventional patch-clamp remains the favoured method. Here we show the wider potential of the multi-well approach with the capability for efficient intracellular solution exchange, describing protocols and success rates for recording from a range of native and primary mammalian cells derived from blood vessels, arthritic joints, and the immune and central nervous systems. The protocol involves preparing a suspension of single cells to be dispensed robotically into 4-8 microfluidic chambers each containing a glass chip with a small aperture. Under automated control, giga-seals and whole-cell access are achieved followed by pre-programmed routines of voltage paradigms and fast extracellular or intracellular solution exchange. Recording from 48 chambers usually takes 1-6 hr depending on the experimental design and yields 16-33 cell recordings. PMID:19197268

Physical Human Robot Interaction for a Wall Mounting Robot - External Force Estimation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Alonso García, Alejandro; Villarmarzo Arruñada, Noelia; Pedersen, Rasmus

2018-01-01

The use of collaborative robots enhances human capabilities, leading to better working conditions and increased productivity. In building construction, such robots are needed, among other tasks, to install large glass panels, where the robot takes care of the heavy lifting part of the job while...

Robotics for nuclear facilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Abe, Akira; Nakayama, Ryoichi; Kubo, Katsumi

1988-01-01

It is highly desirable that automatic or remotely controlled machines perform inspection and maintenance tasks in nuclear facilities. Toshiba has been working to develop multi-functional robots, with one typical example being a master-slave manipulator for use in reprocessing facilities. At the same time, the company is also working on the development of multi-purpose intelligent robots. One such device, an automatic inspection robot, to be deployed along a monorail, performs inspection by means of image processing technology, while and advanced intelligent maintenance robot is equipped with a special wheel-locomotion mechanism and manipulator and is designed to perform maintenance tasks. (author)

Concurrent Path Planning with One or More Humanoid Robots

Science.gov (United States)

Sanders, Adam M. (Inventor); Reiland, Matthew J. (Inventor)

2014-01-01

A robotic system includes a controller and one or more robots each having a plurality of robotic joints. Each of the robotic joints is independently controllable to thereby execute a cooperative work task having at least one task execution fork, leading to multiple independent subtasks. The controller coordinates motion of the robot(s) during execution of the cooperative work task. The controller groups the robotic joints into task-specific robotic subsystems, and synchronizes motion of different subsystems during execution of the various subtasks of the cooperative work task. A method for executing the cooperative work task using the robotic system includes automatically grouping the robotic joints into task-specific subsystems, and assigning subtasks of the cooperative work task to the subsystems upon reaching a task execution fork. The method further includes coordinating execution of the subtasks after reaching the task execution fork.

Mobile robots and remote systems in nuclear applications; Robots moviles y sistemas remotos en aplicaciones nucleares

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Segovia de los Rios, J. A.; Benitez R, J. S., E-mail: armando.segovia@inin.gob.m [ININ, Departamento de Automatizacion e Instrumentacion, Carretera Mexico-Toluca s/n, 52750 Ocoyoacac, Estado de Mexico (Mexico)

2010-07-01

Traditionally, the robots have been used in the industry for the colored to the spray, welding, schemed, assemble and handling of materials. However, these devices have had a deep impact in the nuclear industry where the first objective has been to reduce the exhibition and the personnel contact with radioactive materials. Knowing the utility of the mobile robots and remote systems in nuclear facilities in the world, the Department of Automation and Instrumentation of the Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Nucleares (ININ) has carried out some researches and applications that they have facilitated the work of the researches and professionals of the ININ involved in the handling of radioactive materials, as the system with monorail for the introduction of irradiated materials in a production cell of Iodine-131 and the robot vehicle for the radioactive materials transport TRASMAR (contraction of Transportacion Asistida de Materiales Radiactivos). (Author)

Integration of Haptics in Agricultural Robotics

Science.gov (United States)

Kannan Megalingam, Rajesh; Sreekanth, M. M.; Sivanantham, Vinu; Sai Kumar, K.; Ghanta, Sriharsha; Surya Teja, P.; Reddy, Rajesh G.

2017-08-01

Robots can differentiate with open loop system and closed loop system robots. We face many problems when we do not have a feedback from robots. In this research paper, we are discussing all possibilities to achieve complete closed loop system for Multiple-DOF Robotic Arm, which is used in a coconut tree climbing and cutting robot by introducing a Haptic device. We are working on various sensors like tactile, vibration, force and proximity sensors for getting feedback. For monitoring the robotic arm achieved by graphical user interference software which simulates the working of the robotic arm, send the feedback of all the real time analog values which are produced by various sensors and provide real-time graphs for estimate the efficiency of the Robot.

Hydraulic bilateral construction robot; Yuatsushiki bilateral kensetsu robot

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Maehata, K.; Mori, N. [Kayaba Industry Co. Ltd., Tokyo (Japan)

1999-05-15

Concerning a hydraulic bilateral construction robot, its system constitution, structures and functions of important components, and the results of some tests are explained, and the researches conducted at Gifu University are described. The construction robot in this report is a servo controlled system of a version developed from the mini-shovel now available in the market. It is equipped, in addition to an electrohydraulic servo control system, with various sensors for detecting the robot attitude, vibration, and load state, and with a camera for visualizing the surrounding landscape. It is also provided with a bilateral joy stick which is a remote control actuator capable of working sensation feedback and with a rocking unit that creates robot movements of rolling, pitching, and heaving. The construction robot discussed here, with output increased and response faster thanks to the employment of a hydraulic driving system for the aim of building a robot system superior in performance to the conventional model designed primarily for heavy duty, proves after tests to be a highly sophisticated remotely controlled robot control system. (NEDO)

The application of manipulator robot for nuclear plant maintenance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kohata, Yukifumi; Fujita, Jun; Onishi, Ken; Tsuhari, Hiroyuki; Hosoe, Fumihiro

2010-01-01

In the maintenance works at nuclear power plant, robots are used because of high radiation, narrow space and underwater work. Various robots are needed because there is various maintenance works. This is inefficiency. As the solutions, we developed manipulator robots for the access of specialized tools. This study shows manipulator robots developed by MHI, application example to maintenance works and effectiveness of manipulator robots. When robotization of maintenance works are considered, manipulator technology is very effective solution means. We achieved efficiency improvement and the reliability improvement by developing a high generality manipulator. (author)

FPGA for Robotic Applications: from Android/Humanoid Robots to Artificial Men

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tole Sutikno

2011-12-01

Full Text Available Researches on home robots have been increasing enormously. There has always existed a continuous research effort on problems of anthropomorphic robots which is now called humanoid robots. Currently, robotics has evolved to the point that different branches have reached a remarkable level of maturity, that neural network and fuzzy logic are the main artificial intelligence as intelligent control on the robotics. Despite all this progress, while aiming at accomplishing work-tasks originally charged only to humans, robotic science has perhaps quite naturally turned into the attempt to create artificial men. It is true that artificial men or android humanoid robots open certainly very broad prospects. This “robot” may be viewed as a personal helper, and it will be called a home-robot, or personal robot. This is main reason why the two special sections are issued in the TELKOMNIKA sequentially.

Socially Impaired Robots: Human Social Disorders and Robots' Socio-Emotional Intelligence

OpenAIRE

Vitale, Jonathan; Williams, Mary-Anne; Johnston, Benjamin

2016-01-01

Social robots need intelligence in order to safely coexist and interact with humans. Robots without functional abilities in understanding others and unable to empathise might be a societal risk and they may lead to a society of socially impaired robots. In this work we provide a survey of three relevant human social disorders, namely autism, psychopathy and schizophrenia, as a means to gain a better understanding of social robots' future capability requirements. We provide evidence supporting...

Designing Emotionally Expressive Robots

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tsiourti, Christiana; Weiss, Astrid; Wac, Katarzyna

2017-01-01

Socially assistive agents, be it virtual avatars or robots, need to engage in social interactions with humans and express their internal emotional states, goals, and desires. In this work, we conducted a comparative study to investigate how humans perceive emotional cues expressed by humanoid...... robots through five communication modalities (face, head, body, voice, locomotion) and examined whether the degree of a robot's human-like embodiment affects this perception. In an online survey, we asked people to identify emotions communicated by Pepper -a highly human-like robot and Hobbit – a robot...... for robots....

Evolution of robotic arms.

Science.gov (United States)

Moran, Michael E

2007-01-01

The foundation of surgical robotics is in the development of the robotic arm. This is a thorough review of the literature on the nature and development of this device with emphasis on surgical applications. We have reviewed the published literature and classified robotic arms by their application: show, industrial application, medical application, etc. There is a definite trend in the manufacture of robotic arms toward more dextrous devices, more degrees-of-freedom, and capabilities beyond the human arm. da Vinci designed the first sophisticated robotic arm in 1495 with four degrees-of-freedom and an analog on-board controller supplying power and programmability. von Kemplen's chess-playing automaton left arm was quite sophisticated. Unimate introduced the first industrial robotic arm in 1961, it has subsequently evolved into the PUMA arm. In 1963 the Rancho arm was designed; Minsky's Tentacle arm appeared in 1968, Scheinman's Stanford arm in 1969, and MIT's Silver arm in 1974. Aird became the first cyborg human with a robotic arm in 1993. In 2000 Miguel Nicolalis redefined possible man-machine capacity in his work on cerebral implantation in owl-monkeys directly interfacing with robotic arms both locally and at a distance. The robotic arm is the end-effector of robotic systems and currently is the hallmark feature of the da Vinci Surgical System making its entrance into surgical application. But, despite the potential advantages of this computer-controlled master-slave system, robotic arms have definite limitations. Ongoing work in robotics has many potential solutions to the drawbacks of current robotic surgical systems.

A Quantitative Analysis of Dressing Dynamics for Robotic Dressing Assistance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Greg Chance

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Assistive robots have a great potential to address issues related to an aging population and an increased demand for caregiving. Successful deployment of robots working in close proximity with people requires consideration of both safety and human–robot interaction (HRI. One of the established activities of daily living where robots could play an assistive role is dressing. Using the correct force profile for robot control will be essential in this application of HRI requiring careful exploration of factors related to the user’s pose and the type of garments involved. In this paper, a Baxter robot was used to dress a jacket onto a mannequin and human participants considering several combinations of user pose and clothing type (base layers, while recording dynamic data from the robot, a load cell, and an IMU. We also report on suitability of these sensors for identifying dressing errors, e.g., fabric snagging. Data were analyzed by comparing the overlap of confidence intervals to determine sensitivity to dressing. We expand the analysis to include classification techniques such as decision tree and support vector machines using k-fold cross-validation. The 6-axis load cell successfully discriminated between clothing types with predictive model accuracies between 72 and 97%. Used independently, the IMU and Baxter sensors were insufficient to discriminate garment types with the IMU showing 40–72% accuracy, but when used in combination this pair of sensors achieved an accuracy similar to the more expensive load cell (98%. When observing dressing errors (snagging, Baxter’s sensors and the IMU data demonstrated poor sensitivity but applying machine learning methods resulted in model with high predicative accuracy and low false negative rates (≤5%. The results show that the load cell could be used independently for this application with good accuracy but a combination of the lower cost sensors could also be used without a significant loss in

Industrial Robots Join the Work Force.

Science.gov (United States)

Martin, Gail M.

1982-01-01

Robots--powerful, versatile, and easily adapted to new operations--may usher in a new industrial age. Workers throughout the labor force could be affected, as well as the nature of the workplace, skill requirements of jobs, and concomitant shifts in vocational education. (SK)

The Power of Educational Robotics

Science.gov (United States)

Cummings, Timothy

The purpose of this action research project was to investigate the impact a students' participation in educational robotics has on his or her performance in the STEM subjects. This study attempted to utilize educational robotics as a method for increasing student achievement and engagement in STEM subjects. Over the course of 12 weeks, an after-school robotics program was offered to students. Guided by the standards and principles of VEX IQ, a leading resource in educational robotics, students worked in collaboration on creating a design for their robot, building and testing their robot, and competing in the VEX IQ Crossover Challenge. Student data was gathered through a pre-participation survey, observations from the work they performed in robotics club, their performance in STEM subject classes, and the analysis of their end-of-the-year report card. Results suggest that the students who participate in robotics club experienced a positive impact on their performance in STEM subject classes.

Perspectives of construction robots

Science.gov (United States)

Stepanov, M. A.; Gridchin, A. M.

2018-03-01

This article is an overview of construction robots features, based on formulating the list of requirements for different types of construction robots in relation to different types of construction works.. It describes a variety of construction works and ways to construct new or to adapt existing robot designs for a construction process. Also, it shows the prospects of AI-controlled machines, implementation of automated control systems and networks on construction sites. In the end, different ways to develop and improve, including ecological aspect, the construction process through the wide robotization, creating of data communication networks and, in perspective, establishing of fully AI-controlled construction complex are formulated.

Human-Robot Teaming: From Space Robotics to Self-Driving Cars

Science.gov (United States)

Fong, Terry

2017-01-01

In this talk, I describe how NASA Ames has been developing and testing robots for space exploration. In our research, we have focused on studying how human-robot teams can increase the performance, reduce the cost, and increase the success of space missions. A key tenet of our work is that humans and robots should support one another in order to compensate for limitations of manual control and autonomy. This principle has broad applicability beyond space exploration. Thus, I will conclude by discussing how we have worked with Nissan to apply our methods to self-driving cars, enabling humans to support autonomous vehicles operating in unpredictable and difficult situations.

Robots: An Impact on Education.

Science.gov (United States)

Blaesi, LaVon; Maness, Marion

1984-01-01

Provides background information on robotics and robots, considering impact of robots on the workplace and concerns of the work force. Discusses incorporating robotics into the educational system at all levels, exploring industry-education partnerships to fund introduction of new technology into the curriculum. New funding sources and funding…

Robotic hand project

OpenAIRE

Karaçizmeli, Cengiz; Çakır, Gökçe; Tükel, Dilek

2014-01-01

In this work, the mechatronic based robotic hand is controlled by the position data taken from the glove which has flex sensors mounted to capture finger bending of the human hand. The angular movement of human hand’s fingers are perceived and processed by a microcontroller, and the robotic hand is controlled by actuating servo motors. It has seen that robotic hand can simulate the movement of the human hand that put on the glove, during tests have done. This robotic hand can be used not only...

Robotics for nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shiraiwa, Takanori; Watanabe, Atsuo; Miyasawa, Tatsuo

1984-01-01

Demand for robots in nuclear power plants is increasing of late in order to reduce workers' exposure to radiations. Especially, owing to the progress of microelectronics and robotics, earnest desire is growing for the advent of intellecturized robots that perform indeterminate and complicated security work. Herein represented are the robots recently developed for nuclear power plants and the review of the present status of robotics. (author)

Robotics for nuclear power plants

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Shiraiwa, Takanori; Watanabe, Atsuo; Miyasawa, Tatsuo

1984-10-01

Demand for robots in nuclear power plants is increasing of late in order to reduce workers' exposure to radiations. Especially, owing to the progress of microelectronics and robotics, earnest desire is growing for the advent of intellecturized robots that perform indeterminate and complicated security work. Herein represented are the robots recently developed for nuclear power plants and the review of the present status of robotics.

The application of manipulator robot for nuclear power plant maintenance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fujita, Jun; Onishi, Ken

2009-01-01

In the maintenance works at nuclear power plant, robots are used because of high radiation, narrow space and underwater work. In light of manufacture period, cost and reliability, various maintenance works are requested to be done by one robot. As one of the solutions, we developed manipulator robots for the access of specialized tools. This study shows manipulator robots developed by MHI, application example to maintenance works and effectiveness of manipulator robots. When robotization of maintenance works are considered, manipulator technology is very effective solution means. The manipulator technologies in this study are able to apply to robotization needed under radiation environment. (author)

Service robots, care ethics, and design

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Wynsberghe, Amy Louise

2016-01-01

It should not be a surprise in the near future to encounter either a personal or a professional service robot in our homes and/or our work places: according to the International Federation for Robots, there will be approx 35 million service robots at work by 2018. Given that individuals will

Swarming Robot Design, Construction and Software Implementation

Science.gov (United States)

Stolleis, Karl A.

2014-01-01

In this paper is presented an overview of the hardware design, construction overview, software design and software implementation for a small, low-cost robot to be used for swarming robot development. In addition to the work done on the robot, a full simulation of the robotic system was developed using Robot Operating System (ROS) and its associated simulation. The eventual use of the robots will be exploration of evolving behaviors via genetic algorithms and builds on the work done at the University of New Mexico Biological Computation Lab.

Automated Cable Preparation for Robotized Stator Cable Winding

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Erik Hultman

2017-04-01

Full Text Available A method for robotized cable winding of the Uppsala University Wave Energy Converter generator stator has previously been presented and validated. The purpose of this study is to present and validate further developments to the method: automated stand-alone equipment for the preparation of the winding cables. The cable preparation consists of three parts: feeding the cable from a drum, forming the cable end and cutting the cable. Forming and cutting the cable was previously done manually and only small cable drums could be handled. Therefore the robot cell needed to be stopped frequently. The new equipment was tested in an experimental robot stator cable winding setup. Through the experiments, the equipment was validated to be able to perform fully automated and robust cable preparation. Suggestions are also given on how to further develop the equipment with regards to performance, robustness and quality. Hence, this work represents another important step towards demonstrating completely automated robotized stator cable winding.

Modelling cooperation of industrial robots as multi-agent systems

Science.gov (United States)

Hryniewicz, P.; Banas, W.; Foit, K.; Gwiazda, A.; Sekala, A.

2017-08-01

Nowadays, more and more often in a cell is more than one robot, there is also a dual arm robots, because of this cooperation of two robots in the same space becomes more and more important. Programming robotic cell consisting of two or more robots are currently performed separately for each element of the robot and the cell. It is performed only synchronization programs, but no robot movements. In such situations often placed industrial robots so they do not have common space so the robots are operated separately. When industrial robots are a common space this space can occupy only one robot the other one must be outside the common space. It is very difficult to find applications where two robots are in the same workspace. It was tested but one robot did not do of movement when moving the second and waited for permission to move from the second when it sent a permit - stop the move. Such programs are very difficult and require a lot of experience from the programmer and must be tested separately at the beginning and then very slowly under control. Ideally, the operator takes care of exactly one robot during the test and it is very important to take special care.

Multi-Locomotion Robotic Systems New Concepts of Bio-inspired Robotics

CERN Document Server

Fukuda, Toshio; Sekiyama, Kosuke; Aoyama, Tadayoshi

2012-01-01

Nowadays, multiple attention have been paid on a robot working in the human living environment, such as in the field of medical, welfare, entertainment and so on. Various types of researches are being conducted actively in a variety of fields such as artificial intelligence, cognitive engineering, sensor- technology, interfaces and motion control. In the future, it is expected to realize super high functional human-like robot by integrating technologies in various fields including these types of researches. The book represents new developments and advances in the field of bio-inspired robotics research introducing the state of the art, the idea of multi-locomotion robotic system to implement the diversity of animal motion. It covers theoretical and computational aspects of Passive Dynamic Autonomous Control (PDAC), robot motion control, multi legged walking and climbing as well as brachiation focusing concrete robot systems, components and applications. In addition, gorilla type robot systems are described as...

Evolutionary Developmental Robotics: Improving Morphology and Control of Physical Robots.

Science.gov (United States)

Vujovic, Vuk; Rosendo, Andre; Brodbeck, Luzius; Iida, Fumiya

2017-01-01

Evolutionary algorithms have previously been applied to the design of morphology and control of robots. The design space for such tasks can be very complex, which can prevent evolution from efficiently discovering fit solutions. In this article we introduce an evolutionary-developmental (evo-devo) experiment with real-world robots. It allows robots to grow their leg size to simulate ontogenetic morphological changes, and this is the first time that such an experiment has been performed in the physical world. To test diverse robot morphologies, robot legs of variable shapes were generated during the evolutionary process and autonomously built using additive fabrication. We present two cases with evo-devo experiments and one with evolution, and we hypothesize that the addition of a developmental stage can be used within robotics to improve performance. Moreover, our results show that a nonlinear system-environment interaction exists, which explains the nontrivial locomotion patterns observed. In the future, robots will be present in our daily lives, and this work introduces for the first time physical robots that evolve and grow while interacting with the environment.

Work-rate-guided exercise testing in patients with incomplete spinal cord injury using a robotics-assisted tilt-table.

Science.gov (United States)

Laubacher, Marco; Perret, Claudio; Hunt, Kenneth J

2015-01-01

Robotics-assisted tilt-table (RTT) technology allows neurological rehabilitation therapy to be started early thus alleviating some secondary complications of prolonged bed rest. This study assessed the feasibility of a novel work-rate-guided RTT approach for cardiopulmonary training and assessment in patients with incomplete spinal cord injury (iSCI). Three representative subjects with iSCI at three distinct stages of primary rehabilitation completed an incremental exercise test (IET) and a constant load test (CLT) on a RTT augmented with integrated leg-force and position measurement and visual work rate feedback. Feasibility assessment focused on: (i) implementation, (ii) limited efficacy testing, (iii) acceptability. (i) All subjects were able follow the work rate target profile by adapting their volitional leg effort. (ii) During the IETs, peak oxygen uptake above rest was 304, 467 and 1378 ml/min and peak heart rate (HR) was 46, 32 and 65 beats/min above rest (subjects A, B and C, respectively). During the CLTs, steady-state oxygen uptake increased by 42%, 38% and 162% and HR by 12%, 20% and 29%. (iii) All exercise tests were tolerated well. The novel work-rate guided RTT intervention is deemed feasible for cardiopulmonary training and assessment in patients with iSCI: substantial cardiopulmonary responses were observed and the approach was found to be tolerable and implementable. Implications for Rehabilitation Work-rate guided robotics-assisted tilt-table technology is deemed feasible for cardiopulmonary assessment and training in patients with incomplete spinal cord injury. Robotics-assisted tilt-tables might be a good way to start with an active rehabilitation as early as possible after a spinal cord injury. During training with robotics-assisted devices the active participation of the patients is crucial to strain the cardiopulmonary system and hence gain from the training.

Soft computing in advanced robotics

CERN Document Server

Kobayashi, Ichiro; Kim, Euntai

2014-01-01

Intelligent system and robotics are inevitably bound up; intelligent robots makes embodiment of system integration by using the intelligent systems. We can figure out that intelligent systems are to cell units, while intelligent robots are to body components. The two technologies have been synchronized in progress. Making leverage of the robotics and intelligent systems, applications cover boundlessly the range from our daily life to space station; manufacturing, healthcare, environment, energy, education, personal assistance, logistics. This book aims at presenting the research results in relevance with intelligent robotics technology. We propose to researchers and practitioners some methods to advance the intelligent systems and apply them to advanced robotics technology. This book consists of 10 contributions that feature mobile robots, robot emotion, electric power steering, multi-agent, fuzzy visual navigation, adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system, swarm EKF localization and inspection robot. Th...

Effect of cognitive biases on human-robot interaction: a case study of robot's misattribution

OpenAIRE

Biswas, Mriganka; Murray, John

2014-01-01

This paper presents a model for developing long-term human-robot interactions and social relationships based on the principle of 'human' cognitive biases applied to a robot. The aim of this work is to study how a robot influenced with human ‘misattribution’ helps to build better human-robot interactions than unbiased robots. The results presented in this paper suggest that it is important to know the effect of cognitive biases in human characteristics and interactions in order to better u...

Achievements and prospects of robotics in dismantling operations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Clement, G.; Goetghebeur, S.; Ravera, J.P.

1993-01-01

After a definition of 'robotic systems' (poly functionality is the main concept), the nuclear facilities that have used robotic systems for their dismantling are reviewed; the various robot intervention domains in dismantling, the different types of machines and the work carried out by robots are presented. Difficulties arising from robot utilization for reactor dismantling, robot design considerations, reliability, personnel training needs, tooling and costs are discussed. Applicability criteria are derived concerning radio protection, hard working conditions, task complexity, multiplicity and quality, and costs

A Novel Bioinspired Vision System: A Step toward Real-Time Human-Robot Interactions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Abdul Rahman Hafiz

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Building a human-like robot that could be involved in our daily lives is a dream of many scientists. Achieving a sophisticated robot's vision system, which can enhance the robot's real-time interaction ability with the human, is one of the main keys toward realizing such an autonomous robot. In this work, we are suggesting a bioinspired vision system that helps to develop an advanced human-robot interaction in an autonomous humanoid robot. First, we enhance the robot's vision accuracy online by applying a novel dynamic edge detection algorithm abstracted from the rules that the horizontal cells play in the mammalian retina. Second, in order to support the first algorithm, we improve the robot's tracking ability by designing a variant photoreceptors distribution corresponding to what exists in the human vision system. The experimental results verified the validity of the model. The robot could have a clear vision in real time and build a mental map that assisted it to be aware of the frontal users and to develop a positive interaction with them.

Robot Tracer with Visual Camera

Science.gov (United States)

Jabbar Lubis, Abdul; Dwi Lestari, Yuyun; Dafitri, Haida; Azanuddin

2017-12-01

Robot is a versatile tool that can function replace human work function. The robot is a device that can be reprogrammed according to user needs. The use of wireless networks for remote monitoring needs can be utilized to build a robot that can be monitored movement and can be monitored using blueprints and he can track the path chosen robot. This process is sent using a wireless network. For visual robot using high resolution cameras to facilitate the operator to control the robot and see the surrounding circumstances.

Friendly network robotics; Friendly network robotics

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

1998-03-01

A working group (WG) study was conducted aiming at realizing human type robots. The following six working groups in the basement field were organized to study in terms mostly of items of technical development and final technical targets: platform, and remote attendance control in the basement field, maintenance of plant, etc., home service, disaster/construction, and entertainment in the application field. In the platform WG, a robot of human like form is planning which walks with two legs and works with two arms, and the following were discussed: a length of 160cm, weight of 110kg, built-in LAN, actuator specifications, modulated structure, intelligent driver, etc. In the remote attendance control WG, remote control using working function, stabilized movement, stabilized control, and network is made possible. Studied were made on the decision on a remote control cockpit by open architecture added with function and reformable, problems on the development of the standard language, etc. 77 ref., 82 figs., 21 tabs.

Multi-robot caravanning

KAUST Repository

Denny, Jory; Giese, Andrew; Mahadevan, Aditya; Marfaing, Arnaud; Glockenmeier, Rachel; Revia, Colton; Rodriguez, Samuel; Amato, Nancy M.

2013-01-01

of waypoints. At the heart of our algorithm is the use of leader election to efficiently exploit the unique environmental knowledge available to each robot in order to plan paths for the group, which makes it general enough to work with robots that have

Robots and art exploring an unlikely symbiosis

CERN Document Server

Kroos, Christian; Stelarc, Stelarc

2016-01-01

The first compendium on robotic art of its kind, this book explores the integration of robots into human society and our attitudes, fears and hopes in a world shared with autonomous machines. It raises questions about the benefits, risks and ethics of the transformative changes to society that are the consequence of robots taking on new roles alongside humans. It takes the reader on a journey into the world of the strange, the beautiful, the uncanny and the daring – and into the minds and works of some of the world’s most prolific creators of robotic art. Offering an in-depth look at robotic art from the viewpoints of artists, engineers and scientists, it presents outstanding works of contemporary robotic art and brings together for the first time some of the most influential artists in this area in the last three decades. Starting from a historical review, this transdisciplinary work explores the nexus between robotic research and the arts and examines the diversity of robotic art, the encounter with rob...

Report on the actual situations of the commercially applied, industrial robots; Sangyoyo robot ni kansuru kigyo jittai chosa hokokusho

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

1991-08-01

Described herein are the actual situations of industrial robots as the FY 1991 questionnaire survey results. The questionnaires were sent to 541 factories, and 74% thereof were recovered. The major machine types fall into categories of manual manipulator, stationary sequence manipulator, remote controlling robot, sequence robot, playback robot, numerically controlling robot and intelligent robot. They are mainly driven by hydraulic, pneumatic, or electrical power. Their mechanism types cover polar coordinate, cylindrical coordinate, rectangular coordinate and articulation types, among others. They are mainly controlled by electronically, electrically (hydraulic or relay), or pneumatically. The major purposes for general works include casting, forging, resin processing, heat treatment, pressing, welding, coating, machining, cutting, assembling, reception/delivery of goods, and testing/inspection. The special works they are in service include those for power/gas/water services, construction works, and research and development. By work step, they are in service, e.g., for loading/unloading goods, palletising/packing goods, supporting, screening, welding, spraying/coating, grinding, clamping, assembling, and riveting. (NEDO)

Effects of Interruptibility-Aware Robot Behavior

OpenAIRE

Banerjee, Siddhartha; Silva, Andrew; Feigh, Karen; Chernova, Sonia

2018-01-01

As robots become increasingly prevalent in human environments, there will inevitably be times when a robot needs to interrupt a human to initiate an interaction. Our work introduces the first interruptibility-aware mobile robot system, and evaluates the effects of interruptibility-awareness on human task performance, robot task performance, and on human interpretation of the robot's social aptitude. Our results show that our robot is effective at predicting interruptibility at high accuracy, ...

Pose estimation for mobile robots working on turbine blade

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ma, X.D.; Chen, Q.; Liu, J.J.; Sun, Z.G.; Zhang, W.Z. [Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China). Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials Processing Technology, Ministry of Education, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

2009-03-11

This paper discussed a features point detection and matching task technique for mobile robots used in wind turbine blade applications. The vision-based scheme used visual information from the robot's surrounding environment to match successive image frames. An improved pose estimation algorithm based on a scale invariant feature transform (SIFT) was developed to consider the characteristics of local images of turbine blades, pose estimation problems, and conditions. The method included a pre-subsampling technique for reducing computation and bidirectional matching for improving precision. A random sample consensus (RANSAC) method was used to estimate the robot's pose. Pose estimation conditions included a wide pose range; the distance between neighbouring blades; and mechanical, electromagnetic, and optical disturbances. An experimental platform was used to demonstrate the validity of the proposed algorithm. 20 refs., 6 figs.

Two Legged Walking Robot

OpenAIRE

Kraus, V.

2015-01-01

The aim of this work is to construct a two-legged wirelessly controlled walking robot. This paper describes the construction of the robot, its control electronics, and the solution of the wireless control. The article also includes a description of the application to control the robot. The control electronics of the walking robot are built using the development kit Arduino Mega, which is enhanced with WiFi module allowing the wireless control, a set of ultrasonic sensors for detecting obstacl...

Robotics 101

Science.gov (United States)

Sultan, Alan

2011-01-01

Robots are used in all kinds of industrial settings. They are used to rivet bolts to cars, to move items from one conveyor belt to another, to gather information from other planets, and even to perform some very delicate types of surgery. Anyone who has watched a robot perform its tasks cannot help but be impressed by how it works. This article…

A Low-Cost Immersive Virtual Reality System for Teaching Robotic Manipulators Programming

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vicente Román-Ibáñez

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Laboratory tasks are a powerful pedagogical strategy for developing competences in science and engineering degrees, making students understand in a practical way the theoretical topics explained in the classroom. However, performing experiments in real conditions is usually expensive in terms of time, money and energy, as it requires expensive infrastructures that are generally difficult to maintain in good conditions. To overcome this problem, virtual reality has proven to be a powerful tool to achieve sustainability, making it easy to update laboratories without the need to acquire new equipment. Moreover, the ability to introduce practical knowledge into classrooms without leaving them, makes virtual laboratories capable of simulating typical operating environments as well as extreme situations in the operation of different devices. A typical subject in which students can benefit from the use of virtual laboratories is robotics. In this work we will develop an immersive virtual reality (VR pedagogical simulator of industrial robotic arms for engineering students. With the proposed system, students will know the effects of their own designed trajectories on several different robotic arms and cell environments without having to buy all of them and being safe of damaging the cell components. The simulation will be checking for collisions of the elements in the scene and alert the student when they happen. This can be achieved with a robotic simulator, but the integration with immersive VR is intended to help students better understand robotics. Moreover, even having a real robotic arm available for students, with this proposed VR method, all the students have the opportunity to manage and learn his own version of the robotic cell, without waiting times generated by having less robotic arms than students in classroom.

Intelligent robots for nuclear power plant inspection and surveillance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Miyazawa, Tatsuo; Suzuki, Kazumi; Fujie, Hideo; Fujii, Masaaki; Asai, Takashi; Sugimoto, Hiroshi.

1986-01-01

Recently, the research and development of robotizing the patrol and works in nuclear power plants have been actively carried out since the TMI-2 accident in March, 1979. In this paper, among these robots, six examples of the movable robots, of which the working and movement were intellectualized by using information processing techniques and others, are reported, and their intellectualization is concretely discussed. In Japan, the development of the supporting system for nuclear power generation was carried out for five years from fiscal year 1980 as the project subsidized by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, and during this period, the inspection robots for LWR plants were developed. The development of the robots for ultimate working as the large scale project of the Agency of Industrial Science and Technology aiming at further heightening the function is in progress as the eight-year project from fiscal year 1983. Monorail type automatic surveillance robots, system maintenance robots 'AMOOTY', variable crawler type intelligent movable robots, hybrid running type intelligent movable robots, monorail running type small checkup robots, and floor running type checkup and light work robots are reported. Sense information processing control and a robot language processor for expanding the function of autonomous control are outlined. (Kako, I.)

Robots and humans: synergy in planetary exploration

Science.gov (United States)

Landis, Geoffrey A.

2004-01-01

How will humans and robots cooperate in future planetary exploration? Are humans and robots fundamentally separate modes of exploration, or can humans and robots work together to synergistically explore the solar system? It is proposed that humans and robots can work together in exploring the planets by use of telerobotic operation to expand the function and usefulness of human explorers, and to extend the range of human exploration to hostile environments. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Human-Robot Planetary Exploration Teams

Science.gov (United States)

Tyree, Kimberly

2004-01-01

The EVA Robotic Assistant (ERA) project at NASA Johnson Space Center studies human-robot interaction and robotic assistance for future human planetary exploration. Over the past four years, the ERA project has been performing field tests with one or more four-wheeled robotic platforms and one or more space-suited humans. These tests have provided experience in how robots can assist humans, how robots and humans can communicate in remote environments, and what combination of humans and robots works best for different scenarios. The most efficient way to understand what tasks human explorers will actually perform, and how robots can best assist them, is to have human explorers and scientists go and explore in an outdoor, planetary-relevant environment, with robots to demonstrate what they are capable of, and roboticists to observe the results. It can be difficult to have a human expert itemize all the needed tasks required for exploration while sitting in a lab: humans do not always remember all the details, and experts in one arena may not even recognize that the lower level tasks they take for granted may be essential for a roboticist to know about. Field tests thus create conditions that more accurately reveal missing components and invalid assumptions, as well as allow tests and comparisons of new approaches and demonstrations of working systems. We have performed field tests in our local rock yard, in several locations in the Arizona desert, and in the Utah desert. We have tested multiple exploration scenarios, such as geological traverses, cable or solar panel deployments, and science instrument deployments. The configuration of our robot can be changed, based on what equipment is needed for a given scenario, and the sensor mast can even be placed on one of two robot bases, each with different motion capabilities. The software architecture of our robot is also designed to be as modular as possible, to allow for hardware and configuration changes. Two focus

Design of Piano -playing Robotic Hand

OpenAIRE

Lin Jen-Chang; Hsin-Cheng Li; Kuo-Cheng Huang; Shu-Wei Lin

2013-01-01

Unlike the market slowdown of industrial robots, service & entertainment robots have been highly regarded by most robotics reseach and market research agencies. In this study we developed a music playing robot (which can also work as a service robot) for public performance. The research is mainly focused on the mechanical and electrical control of piano-playing robot, the exploration of correlations among music theory, rhythm and piano keys, and eventually the research on playing skill of...

The EMeRGE modular robot, an open platform for quick testing of evolved robot morphologies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Moreno Garcia, Rodrigo; Liu, Ceyue; Faina, Andres

2017-01-01

This work presents the hardware design and implementation of the EMeRGE open modular robot platform. EMeRGE (Easy Modular Embodied Robot Generation) modules are designed to be cheap and easy to build and their hardware is open for anyone to use and modify. Four magnetic connectors enable the quick...... assembly of different complex robot morphologies like the ones generated by evolutionary robotics experiments. Non-human agents, like robotic manipulators, can also take advantage of the magnetic connectors to assemble and disassemble morphologies....

Shared robotic system: automated pipette calibration and pipette tip filter assembly

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Addison, J.H. Jr.; Dyches, G.M.

1985-01-01

At the Savannah River Laboratory a Zymate Laboratory Automation System has been developed to perform two completely independent tasks within one work cell. One operation is the precise calibration of pipettes; the other is the assembly of a filter in a pipette tip. Since neither task requires full robot time, the shared system is an economical means of robotizing both processes. These are tedious, repetitive, time consuming tasks; and human operators fail to yield constant results. Automation insures a repeatable process which increases product quality

Advanced robot locomotion.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Neely, Jason C.; Sturgis, Beverly Rainwater; Byrne, Raymond Harry; Feddema, John Todd; Spletzer, Barry Louis; Rose, Scott E.; Novick, David Keith; Wilson, David Gerald; Buerger, Stephen P.

2007-01-01

This report contains the results of a research effort on advanced robot locomotion. The majority of this work focuses on walking robots. Walking robot applications include delivery of special payloads to unique locations that require human locomotion to exo-skeleton human assistance applications. A walking robot could step over obstacles and move through narrow openings that a wheeled or tracked vehicle could not overcome. It could pick up and manipulate objects in ways that a standard robot gripper could not. Most importantly, a walking robot would be able to rapidly perform these tasks through an intuitive user interface that mimics natural human motion. The largest obstacle arises in emulating stability and balance control naturally present in humans but needed for bipedal locomotion in a robot. A tracked robot is bulky and limited, but a wide wheel base assures passive stability. Human bipedal motion is so common that it is taken for granted, but bipedal motion requires active balance and stability control for which the analysis is non-trivial. This report contains an extensive literature study on the state-of-the-art of legged robotics, and it additionally provides the analysis, simulation, and hardware verification of two variants of a proto-type leg design.

A trend of robotics in nuclear facilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nakayama, Ryoichi

1993-01-01

In order to operate stably nuclear power stations, the periodic inspection determined by the law has been carried out once every year in Japan. For reducing the radiation exposure of workers and improving work efficiency and work quality, the automation and the use of robots have been promoted. Also in fuel reprocessing plants and the facilities for storing radioactive wastes, the remotely operated devices for handling uranium and plutonium are indispensable. The course of the development of the robots for nuclear power plants classified by ages is shown. The research and development have been advanced from special automatic machines of first generation since 1965, through versatile robots of second generation since 1980 to intellectual robots of third generation since 1985. Automatic fuel exchanger, control rod moving mechanism and the ultrasonic flaw detector for pipings are those of first generation. As those of second generation, various movable inspection robots and the manipulators for them were developed. The ultimate working robot completed in 1990 is that of third generation. As the trend of the practical use, monorail type inspection robots and underwater inspection robots and various manipulators are reported. (K.I.)

Dual Arm Work Platform teleoperated robotics system. Innovative technology summary report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1998-12-01

The US Department of Energy (DOE) and the Federal Energy Technology Center (FETC) has developed a Large Scale Demonstration Project (LSDP) at the Chicago Pile-5 Research Reactor (CP-5) at Argonne National Laboratory-East (ANL). The objective of the LSDP is to demonstrate potentially beneficial Deactivation and Decommissioning (D and D) technologies in comparison with current baseline technologies. The Dual Arm Work Platform (DAWP) demonstration focused on the use of the DAWP to segment and dismantle the CP-5 reactor tank and surrounding bio-shield components (including the graphite block reflector, lead and boral sheeting) and performing some minor tasks best suited for the use of teleoperated robotics that were not evaluated in this demonstration. The DAWP system is not a commercially available product at this time. The CP-5 implementation was its first D and D application. The demonstration of the DAWP was to determine the areas on which improvements must be made to make this technology commercially viable. The results of the demonstration are included in this greenbook. It is the intention of the developers to incorporate lessons learned at this demonstration and current technological advancements in robotics into the next generation of the DAWP

Springer handbook of robotics

CERN Document Server

Khatib, Oussama

2016-01-01

The second edition of this handbook provides a state-of-the-art cover view on the various aspects in the rapidly developing field of robotics. Reaching for the human frontier, robotics is vigorously engaged in the growing challenges of new emerging domains. Interacting, exploring, and working with humans, the new generation of robots will increasingly touch people and their lives. The credible prospect of practical robots among humans is the result of the scientific endeavour of a half a century of robotic developments that established robotics as a modern scientific discipline. The ongoing vibrant expansion and strong growth of the field during the last decade has fueled this second edition of the Springer Handbook of Robotics. The first edition of the handbook soon became a landmark in robotics publishing and won the American Association of Publishers PROSE Award for Excellence in Physical Sciences & Mathematics as well as the organization’s Award for Engineering & Technology. The second edition o...

Multi-robot caravanning

KAUST Repository

Denny, Jory

2013-11-01

We study multi-robot caravanning, which is loosely defined as the problem of a heterogeneous team of robots visiting specific areas of an environment (waypoints) as a group. After formally defining this problem, we propose a novel solution that requires minimal communication and scales with the number of waypoints and robots. Our approach restricts explicit communication and coordination to occur only when robots reach waypoints, and relies on implicit coordination when moving between a given pair of waypoints. At the heart of our algorithm is the use of leader election to efficiently exploit the unique environmental knowledge available to each robot in order to plan paths for the group, which makes it general enough to work with robots that have heterogeneous representations of the environment. We implement our approach both in simulation and on a physical platform, and characterize the performance of the approach under various scenarios. We demonstrate that our approach can successfully be used to combine the planning capabilities of different agents. © 2013 IEEE.

Self-Organizing Robots

CERN Document Server

Murata, Satoshi

2012-01-01

It is man’s ongoing hope that a machine could somehow adapt to its environment by reorganizing itself. This is what the notion of self-organizing robots is based on. The theme of this book is to examine the feasibility of creating such robots within the limitations of current mechanical engineering. The topics comprise the following aspects of such a pursuit: the philosophy of design of self-organizing mechanical systems; self-organization in biological systems; the history of self-organizing mechanical systems; a case study of a self-assembling/self-repairing system as an autonomous distributed system; a self-organizing robot that can create its own shape and robotic motion; implementation and instrumentation of self-organizing robots; and the future of self-organizing robots. All topics are illustrated with many up-to-date examples, including those from the authors’ own work. The book does not require advanced knowledge of mathematics to be understood, and will be of great benefit to students in the rob...

A study on dynamically reconfigurable robotic systems, 3

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fukuda, Toshio; Kawauchi, Yoshio; Buss, M.; Asama, Hajime.

1990-01-01

The dynamically reconfigurable robotic system (DRRS) is a new kind of robotic system which is able to reconfigurate itself to an optimal structure depending on the purpose and exvironment. To realize this concept, we proposed the CEBOT (cell-structured robot). Communication is needed in the CEBOT system as follows. When cells are separated, a communication master cell needs to know the other cell's function and position and determine the target cell for docking. Mobile cells should be able to coordinate with other mobile cell. When cells are docked, forming a cell structure/module, a master cell should control the bending joint cell and know which cells the construction is composed of. In this paper, we propose a communication protocol for both cases with optical sensor applicable to CEBOT. Some experimental results are shown by realizing the proposed communication method between cells. (author)

The Mobile Robot "Little Helper"

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hvilshøj, Mads; Bøgh, Simon; Madsen, Ole

2009-01-01

Increased customer needs and intensified global competition require intelligent and flexible automation. The interaction technology mobile robotics addresses this, so it holds great potential within the industry. This paper presents the concepts, ideas and working principles of the mobile robot...... this show promising results regarding industrial integration, exploitation and maturation of mobile robotics....

Multi-sensor measurement system for robotic drilling

OpenAIRE

Frommknecht, Andreas; Kühnle, Jens; Pidan, Sergej; Effenberger, Ira

2015-01-01

A multi-sensor measurement system for robotic drilling is presented. The system enables a robot to measure its 6D pose with respect to the work piece and to establish a reference coordinate system for drilling. The robot approaches the drill point and performs an orthogonal alignment with the work piece. Although the measurement systems are readily capable of achieving high position accuracy and low deviation to perpendicularity, experiments show that inaccuracies in the robot's 6D-pose and e...

Improvement of the operation of wheels mobile robot TRASMAR2; Mejora del funcionamiento del robot movil de ruedas TRASMAR2

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Guerra C, D. A.; Tovar M, R. [Instituto Tecnologico de San Luis Potosi, Av. Tecnologico s/n, Col. UPA Soledad de Graciano Sanchez, 78437 San Luis Potosi (Mexico); Gonzalez M, J. L.; Segovia de los Rios, A., E-mail: deniwar@gmail.com [ININ, Carretera Mexico-Toluca s/n, 52750 Ocoyoacac, Estado de Mexico (Mexico)

2013-10-15

In the Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Nucleares (ININ), personnel have been working in the development of wheels mobile robots for the surveillance and supervision of contaminated areas, and for the radioactive material transport. One of these achievements is the wheels mobile robot denominated TRASMAR2, which is sought that works in the tele operated form using net technologies, in particular, using a Web page by means of the client-servant technology. For this, diverse circuits and control programs have been development with the purpose that the robot carries out the movements that are required, being considered the use of sensors to avoid collisions. The different programs have been implemented in different micro controllers, and although the robot was working, is necessary to optimize and to concentrate these programs on a single micro controller. In this work are presented the analysis of the previously implemented programs, as the realized changes, including new programs required to improve the robot operation. As complement, was development and implemented an alternative proposal of the robot's tele operation by means of a Web page using Lab view, which is described in the work. With this proposal tele operate the robot was achieved, although its application is evaluating due to the resources that is consumes. (author)

Robot modelling; Control and applications with software

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ranky, P G; Ho, C Y

1985-01-01

This book provides a ''picture'' of robotics covering both the theoretical aspect of modeling as well as the practical and design aspects of: robot programming; robot tooling and automated hand changing; implementation planning; testing; and software design for robot systems. The authors present an introduction to robotics with a systems approach. They describe not only the tasks relating to a single robot (or arm) but also systems of robots working together on a product or several products.

New Trends in Robotics for Agriculture: Integration and Assessment of a Real Fleet of Robots

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luis Emmi

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Computer-based sensors and actuators such as global positioning systems, machine vision, and laser-based sensors have progressively been incorporated into mobile robots with the aim of configuring autonomous systems capable of shifting operator activities in agricultural tasks. However, the incorporation of many electronic systems into a robot impairs its reliability and increases its cost. Hardware minimization, as well as software minimization and ease of integration, is essential to obtain feasible robotic systems. A step forward in the application of automatic equipment in agriculture is the use of fleets of robots, in which a number of specialized robots collaborate to accomplish one or several agricultural tasks. This paper strives to develop a system architecture for both individual robots and robots working in fleets to improve reliability, decrease complexity and costs, and permit the integration of software from different developers. Several solutions are studied, from a fully distributed to a whole integrated architecture in which a central computer runs all processes. This work also studies diverse topologies for controlling fleets of robots and advances other prospective topologies. The architecture presented in this paper is being successfully applied in the RHEA fleet, which comprises three ground mobile units based on a commercial tractor chassis.

New Trends in Robotics for Agriculture: Integration and Assessment of a Real Fleet of Robots

Science.gov (United States)

Gonzalez-de-Soto, Mariano; Pajares, Gonzalo

2014-01-01

Computer-based sensors and actuators such as global positioning systems, machine vision, and laser-based sensors have progressively been incorporated into mobile robots with the aim of configuring autonomous systems capable of shifting operator activities in agricultural tasks. However, the incorporation of many electronic systems into a robot impairs its reliability and increases its cost. Hardware minimization, as well as software minimization and ease of integration, is essential to obtain feasible robotic systems. A step forward in the application of automatic equipment in agriculture is the use of fleets of robots, in which a number of specialized robots collaborate to accomplish one or several agricultural tasks. This paper strives to develop a system architecture for both individual robots and robots working in fleets to improve reliability, decrease complexity and costs, and permit the integration of software from different developers. Several solutions are studied, from a fully distributed to a whole integrated architecture in which a central computer runs all processes. This work also studies diverse topologies for controlling fleets of robots and advances other prospective topologies. The architecture presented in this paper is being successfully applied in the RHEA fleet, which comprises three ground mobile units based on a commercial tractor chassis. PMID:25143976

New trends in robotics for agriculture: integration and assessment of a real fleet of robots.

Science.gov (United States)

Emmi, Luis; Gonzalez-de-Soto, Mariano; Pajares, Gonzalo; Gonzalez-de-Santos, Pablo

2014-01-01

Computer-based sensors and actuators such as global positioning systems, machine vision, and laser-based sensors have progressively been incorporated into mobile robots with the aim of configuring autonomous systems capable of shifting operator activities in agricultural tasks. However, the incorporation of many electronic systems into a robot impairs its reliability and increases its cost. Hardware minimization, as well as software minimization and ease of integration, is essential to obtain feasible robotic systems. A step forward in the application of automatic equipment in agriculture is the use of fleets of robots, in which a number of specialized robots collaborate to accomplish one or several agricultural tasks. This paper strives to develop a system architecture for both individual robots and robots working in fleets to improve reliability, decrease complexity and costs, and permit the integration of software from different developers. Several solutions are studied, from a fully distributed to a whole integrated architecture in which a central computer runs all processes. This work also studies diverse topologies for controlling fleets of robots and advances other prospective topologies. The architecture presented in this paper is being successfully applied in the RHEA fleet, which comprises three ground mobile units based on a commercial tractor chassis.

Fish and robots swimming together: attraction towards the robot demands biomimetic locomotion.

Science.gov (United States)

Marras, Stefano; Porfiri, Maurizio

2012-08-07

The integration of biomimetic robots in a fish school may enable a better understanding of collective behaviour, offering a new experimental method to test group feedback in response to behavioural modulations of its 'engineered' member. Here, we analyse a robotic fish and individual golden shiners (Notemigonus crysoleucas) swimming together in a water tunnel at different flow velocities. We determine the positional preference of fish with respect to the robot, and we study the flow structure using a digital particle image velocimetry system. We find that biomimetic locomotion is a determinant of fish preference as fish are more attracted towards the robot when its tail is beating rather than when it is statically immersed in the water as a 'dummy'. At specific conditions, the fish hold station behind the robot, which may be due to the hydrodynamic advantage obtained by swimming in the robot's wake. This work makes a compelling case for the need of biomimetic locomotion in promoting robot-animal interactions and it strengthens the hypothesis that biomimetic robots can be used to study and modulate collective animal behaviour.

Mobile robots and remote systems in nuclear applications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Segovia de los Rios, J. A.; Benitez R, J. S.

2010-01-01

Traditionally, the robots have been used in the industry for the colored to the spray, welding, schemed, assemble and handling of materials. However, these devices have had a deep impact in the nuclear industry where the first objective has been to reduce the exhibition and the personnel contact with radioactive materials. Knowing the utility of the mobile robots and remote systems in nuclear facilities in the world, the Department of Automation and Instrumentation of the Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Nucleares (ININ) has carried out some researches and applications that they have facilitated the work of the researches and professionals of the ININ involved in the handling of radioactive materials, as the system with monorail for the introduction of irradiated materials in a production cell of Iodine-131 and the robot vehicle for the radioactive materials transport TRASMAR (contraction of Transportacion Asistida de Materiales Radiactivos). (Author)

Robotic Automation in Computer Controlled Polishing

Science.gov (United States)

Walker, D. D.; Yu, G.; Bibby, M.; Dunn, C.; Li, H.; Wu, Y.; Zheng, X.; Zhang, P.

2016-02-01

We first present a Case Study - the manufacture of 1.4 m prototype mirror-segments for the European Extremely Large Telescope, undertaken by the National Facility for Ultra Precision Surfaces, at the OpTIC facility operated by Glyndwr University. Scale-up to serial-manufacture demands delivery of a 1.4 m off-axis aspheric hexagonal segment with surface precision robots and computer numerically controlled ('CNC') polishing machines for optical fabrication. The objective was not to assess which is superior. Rather, it was to understand for the first time their complementary properties, leading us to operate them together as a unit, integrated in hardware and software. Three key areas are reported. First is the novel use of robots to automate currently-manual operations on CNC polishing machines, to improve work-throughput, mitigate risk of damage to parts, and reduce dependence on highly-skilled staff. Second is the use of robots to pre-process surfaces prior to CNC polishing, to reduce total process time. The third draws the threads together, describing our vision of the automated manufacturing cell, where the operator interacts at cell rather than machine level. This promises to deliver a step-change in end-to-end manufacturing times and costs, compared with either platform used on its own or, indeed, the state-of-the-art used elsewhere.

Tele-operated service robots : ROSE

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Osch, van M.P.W.J.; Bera, D.; Hee, van K.M.; Koks, Y.; Zeegers, H.

2014-01-01

Service robots are robots that are intended to perform tasks normally done by humans in an environment in which humans work as well. However, they are neither required to accomplish these tasks in the same way as humans nor need to look like a human being. A tele-operated robot is controlled from a

The merits of a robot: a Dutch experience.

Science.gov (United States)

Mobach, Mark P

2006-01-01

To determine the merits of a robot at the community pharmacy in a quasi-experiment. The applied methods for data-collection were barcode-time measurements, direct observations, time-interval studies, and tally at a Dutch community pharmacy. The topics consisted of workload, waiting times, congestion, slack, general work, counter work, and work at the consultation room. The topics were studied in pre-test and post-test stages, each stage during six weeks. By using these topics and some additional data from the pharmacy, the economics of the robot were also assessed. The workload decreased with 15 prescriptions per person per day. The waiting times decreased with one minute and 18 seconds per dispensing process, reducing the wait until counter contact. The day congestion decreased with one hour 27 minutes and 36 seconds, and the day slack increased with 28 minutes. The analysis of the general work showed no appreciable difference in the bulk of the care-related activities and the other activities. However, some work was re-shuffled: 7% increase at counter work and 7% decrease at logistics. Moreover, statistically significant increases were observed at counter work (5%) and robot work (4%), and significant decreases at telephone (3%) and filling work in presence of the patient (4%). The counter tally study showed a rise in care-related activities with 8%. Moreover, it also illuminated a statistically significant decrease at no information (11%) and an increase at only social (2%). The consultation room was never used during the study. The pharmacy economics of the robot showed that the robot had high estimated costs for purchase, depreciation, and maintenance: EUR 187,024 in the first year. Moreover, the robot had positive impact on waiting times, congestion, staffing, logistics, and care-related work, which was estimated on EUR 91,198 in the first year. The estimated payback time of the robot was three years. An introduction of the robot may indeed have the often

Firing Room Remote Application Software Development & Swamp Works Laboratory Robot Software Development

Science.gov (United States)

Garcia, Janette

2016-01-01

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is creating a way to send humans beyond low Earth orbit, and later to Mars. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is working to make this possible by developing a Spaceport Command and Control System (SCCS) which will allow the launch of Space Launch System (SLS). This paper's focus is on the work performed by the author in her first and second part of the internship as a remote application software developer. During the first part of her internship, the author worked on the SCCS's software application layer by assisting multiple ground subsystems teams including Launch Accessories (LACC) and Environmental Control System (ECS) on the design, development, integration, and testing of remote control software applications. Then, on the second part of the internship, the author worked on the development of robot software at the Swamp Works Laboratory which is a research and technology development group which focuses on inventing new technology to help future In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) missions.

Robots Spur Software That Lends a Hand

Science.gov (United States)

2014-01-01

While building a robot to assist astronauts in space, Johnson Space Center worked with partners to develop robot reasoning and interaction technology. The partners created Robonaut 1, which led to Robonaut 2, and the work also led to patents now held by Universal Robotics in Nashville, Tennessee. The NASA-derived technology is available for use in warehousing, mining, and more.

Control of free-flying space robot manipulator systems

Science.gov (United States)

Cannon, Robert H., Jr.

1989-01-01

Control techniques for self-contained, autonomous free-flying space robots are being tested and developed. Free-flying space robots are envisioned as a key element of any successful long term presence in space. These robots must be capable of performing the assembly, maintenance, and inspection, and repair tasks that currently require astronaut extra-vehicular activity (EVA). Use of robots will provide economic savings as well as improved astronaut safety by reducing and in many cases, eliminating the need for human EVA. The focus of the work is to develop and carry out a set of research projects using laboratory models of satellite robots. These devices use air-cushion-vehicle (ACV) technology to simulate in two dimensions the drag-free, zero-g conditions of space. Current work is divided into six major projects or research areas. Fixed-base cooperative manipulation work represents our initial entry into multiple arm cooperation and high-level control with a sophisticated user interface. The floating-base cooperative manipulation project strives to transfer some of the technologies developed in the fixed-base work onto a floating base. The global control and navigation experiment seeks to demonstrate simultaneous control of the robot manipulators and the robot base position so that tasks can be accomplished while the base is undergoing a controlled motion. The multiple-vehicle cooperation project's goal is to demonstrate multiple free-floating robots working in teams to carry out tasks too difficult or complex for a single robot to perform. The Location Enhancement Arm Push-off (LEAP) activity's goal is to provide a viable alternative to expendable gas thrusters for vehicle propulsion wherein the robot uses its manipulators to throw itself from place to place. Because the successful execution of the LEAP technique requires an accurate model of the robot and payload mass properties, it was deemed an attractive testbed for adaptive control technology.

Sensory Robot Gripper

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Drimus, Alin

The project researches and proposes a tactile sensor system for equipping robotic grippers, thus giving them a sense of touch. We start by reviewing work that covers the building of tactile sensors and we focus on the flexible sensors with multiple sensing elements. As the piezoresistive, capacit......The project researches and proposes a tactile sensor system for equipping robotic grippers, thus giving them a sense of touch. We start by reviewing work that covers the building of tactile sensors and we focus on the flexible sensors with multiple sensing elements. As the piezoresistive......, such as establishing of contact, release of contact or slip. The proposed applications are just a few examples of the advantages of equipping robotic grippers with such a tactile sensor system, that is robust, fast, affordable, adaptable to any kind of gripper and has properties similar to the human sense of touch....... Based on experimental validation, we are confident that our proposed tactile sensor solution can be successfully employed in other application areas like reactive grasping, exploration of unknown objects, slip avoidance, dexterous manipulation or service robotics....

The Human-Robot Interaction Operating System

Science.gov (United States)

Fong, Terrence; Kunz, Clayton; Hiatt, Laura M.; Bugajska, Magda

2006-01-01

In order for humans and robots to work effectively together, they need to be able to converse about abilities, goals and achievements. Thus, we are developing an interaction infrastructure called the "Human-Robot Interaction Operating System" (HRI/OS). The HRI/OS provides a structured software framework for building human-robot teams, supports a variety of user interfaces, enables humans and robots to engage in task-oriented dialogue, and facilitates integration of robots through an extensible API.

Kinematic Modelling and Simulation of a 2-R Robot Using SolidWorks and Verification by MATLAB/Simulink

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mahmoud Gouasmi

2012-12-01

Full Text Available The simulation of robot systems is becoming very popular, especially with the lowering of the cost of computers, and it can be used for layout evaluation, feasibility studies, presentations with animation and off-line programming. The trajectory planning of redundant manipulators is a very active area since many tasks require special characteristics to be satisfied. The importance of redundant manipulators has increased over the last two decades because of the possibility of avoiding singularities as well as obstacles within the course of motion. The angle that the last link of a 2 DOF manipulator makes with the x-axis is required in order to find the solution for the inverse kinematics problem. This angle could be optimized with respect to a given specified key factor (time, velocity, torques while the end-effector performs a chosen trajectory (i.e., avoiding an obstacle in the task space. Modeling and simulation of robots could be achieved using either of the following models: the geometrical model (positions, postures, the kinematic model and the dynamic model. To do so, the modelization of a 2-R robot type is implemented. Our main tasks are comparing two robot postures with the same trajectory (path and for the same length of time, and establishing a computing code to obtain the kinematic and dynamic parameters. SolidWorks and MATLAB/Simulink softwares are used to check the theory and the robot motion simulation. This could be easily generalized to a 3-R robot and possibly therefore to any serial robot (Scara, Puma, etc.. The verification of the obtained results by both softwares allows us to qualitatively evaluate and underline the validityof the chosen model and obtain the right conclusions. The results of the simulations are discussed and an agreement between the two softwares is certainly obtained.

Robotics in General Surgery

OpenAIRE

Wall, James; Chandra, Venita; Krummel, Thomas

2008-01-01

In summary, robotics has made a significant contribution to General Surgery in the past 20 years. In its infancy, surgical robotics has seen a shift from early systems that assisted the surgeon to current teleoperator systems that can enhance surgical skills. Telepresence and augmented reality surgery are being realized, while research and development into miniaturization and automation is rapidly moving forward. The future of surgical robotics is bright. Researchers are working to address th...

Robotics for nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nakayama, Ryoichi; Kimura, Motohiko; Abe, Akira

1993-01-01

A continuing need exists for automatic or remote-controlled machines or robots which can perform inspection and maintenance tasks in nuclear power plants. Toshiba has developed several types of monofunctional and multi- functional robots for such purposes over the past 20 years, some of which have already been used in actual plants. This paper describes new multifunctional robots for inspection and maintenance. An inspection robot has been applied in an actual plant for two years for performance testing. Maintenance robots for grinding tasks have also been developed, which can be easily teleoperated by the operator using automatic control. These new robots are expected to be applied to actual inspection and maintenance work in nuclear power plants. (author)

Transoral robotic surgery for the base of tongue squamous cell carcinoma: a preliminary comparison between da Vinci Xi and Si.

Science.gov (United States)

Alessandrini, Marco; Pavone, Isabella; Micarelli, Alessandro; Caporale, Claudio

2017-09-13

Considering the emerging advantages related to da Vinci Xi robotic platform, the aim of this study is to compare for the first time the operative outcomes of this tool to the previous da Vinci Si during transoral robotic surgery (TORS), both performed for squamous cell carcinomas (SCC) of the base of tongue (BOT). Intra- and peri-operative outcomes of eight patients with early stage (T1-T2) of the BOT carcinoma and undergoing TORS by means of the da Vinci Xi robotic platform (Xi-TORS) are compared with the da Vinci Si group ones (Si-TORS). With respect to Si-TORS group, Xi-TORS group demonstrated a significantly shorter overall operative time, console time, and intraoperative blood loss, as well as peri-operative pain intensity and length of mean hospital stays and nasogastric tube positioning. Considering recent advantages offered by surgical robotic techniques, the da Vinci Xi Surgical System preliminary outcomes could suggest its possible future routine implementation in BOT squamous cell carcinoma procedures.

Effective Human-Robot Collaborative Work for Critical Missions

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The objective of this project is to improve human-robot interaction (HRI) in order to enhance the capability of NASA critical missions. This research will focus two...

R and D on robots for nuclear power plants in 'advanced robot technology' project

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ando, Hiroaki

1987-01-01

The project aims at developing a safe man-robot system of high mobility and workability, highly adaptable to the working environment, and readily and reliably remote-controlled. The plan is to develop 'multi-purpose robots' that can do monitoring, inspection and light work quickly and correctly in areas where access of humans is difficult (e.g. hot spots and the inner space of the primary containment vessel), and 'robots used exclusively for valves, pumps, and other equipment, multi-functional to be used only for specific purposes'. This can be expected to be completed on the basis of results in research and development for the multi-purpose robots. R and D on the total system means manufacturing an optimum system with sufficient functions and performance required for the robot by combining existing technologies most adequately on the basis of the results of research and development on the project. After conceptual drawing and conceptual design, the system will be manufactured and demonstration tests will be completed by fiscal 1987 or 1988. This report describes the total image of the robots concerning the shape, locomotion, manipulation, perception, communication, control management, reliability and environmental durability, and then outlines the research and development activities regarding locomotion, manipulator, tectile sensor, actuator, single-eye three-dimensional measurement, visual data processing, optical spacial transmission, failure repair controller, functional reduction, robot health care and radiation resistance. (Nogami, K.)

Inventing Japan's 'robotics culture': the repeated assembly of science, technology, and culture in social robotics.

Science.gov (United States)

Sabanović, Selma

2014-06-01

Using interviews, participant observation, and published documents, this article analyzes the co-construction of robotics and culture in Japan through the technical discourse and practices of robotics researchers. Three cases from current robotics research--the seal-like robot PARO, the Humanoid Robotics Project HRP-2 humanoid, and 'kansei robotics' - show the different ways in which scientists invoke culture to provide epistemological grounding and possibilities for social acceptance of their work. These examples show how the production and consumption of social robotic technologies are associated with traditional crafts and values, how roboticists negotiate among social, technical, and cultural constraints while designing robots, and how humans and robots are constructed as cultural subjects in social robotics discourse. The conceptual focus is on the repeated assembly of cultural models of social behavior, organization, cognition, and technology through roboticists' narratives about the development of advanced robotic technologies. This article provides a picture of robotics as the dynamic construction of technology and culture and concludes with a discussion of the limits and possibilities of this vision in promoting a culturally situated understanding of technology and a multicultural view of science.

Robot dispatching Scenario for Accident Condition Monitoring of NPP

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Jongseog

2013-01-01

In March of 2011, unanticipated big size of tsunami attacks Fukushima NPP, this accident results in explosion of containment building. Tokyo electric power of Japan couldn't dispatch a robot for monitoring of containment inside. USA Packbot robot used for desert war in Iraq was supplied to Fukushima NPP for monitoring of high radiation area. Packbot also couldn't reach deep inside of Fukushima NPP due to short length of power cable. Japanese robot 'Queens' also failed to complete a mission due to communication problem between robot and operator. I think major reason of these robot failures is absence of robot dispatching scenario. If there was a scenario and a rehearsal for monitoring during or after accident, these unanticipated obstacles could be overcome. Robot dispatching scenario studied for accident of nuclear power plant was described herein. Study on scenario of robot dispatching is performed. Flying robot is regarded as good choice for accident monitoring. Walking robot with arm equipped is good for emergency valve close. Short time work and shift work by several robots can be a solution for high radiation area. Thin and soft cable with rolling reel can be a good solution for long time work and good communication

Conceptual design for transmission line inspection robot

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jalal, M F Abdul; Sahari, K S Mohamed; Anuar, A; Arshad, A D Mohd; Idris, M S

2013-01-01

Power transmission line is used for power distribution purposes due to their cost effective measure compared to underlying cable. However, prolonged exposure to natural weather may cause fatigue stress to the lines as well as induce material failure. Therefore, periodical line inspection is considered uttermost important as a preventive measure to avoid power outage. However, transmission line inspection has always been a high risk and expensive work. Hazardous works that may harm operator as well as routine that requires precise handling can be performed by robots. Various types of robots have been designed and developed for line inspection but only perform well on a straight and continuous line. As these robots encounter an obstacle during the inspection, then the real problem in terms of robot stability and smooth operation arises. In this paper, conceptual design and evaluation for transmission line inspection robot is presented. The inspection robot mobile robot must be able to bypass or avoid obstacles as it travels along the power transmission line.

Working on the robot society. : Visions and insights from science about the relation technology and employment.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Est, R.; Kool, L.

2015-01-01

The report Working on the robot society sets out current scientific findings for the relationship between technology and employment. It looks at the future and describes the policy options. In so doing, the report provides a joint fund of knowledge for societal and political debate on how the

Emotion based human-robot interaction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Berns Karsten

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Human-machine interaction is a major challenge in the development of complex humanoid robots. In addition to verbal communication the use of non-verbal cues such as hand, arm and body gestures or mimics can improve the understanding of the intention of the robot. On the other hand, by perceiving such mechanisms of a human in a typical interaction scenario the humanoid robot can adapt its interaction skills in a better way. In this work, the perception system of two social robots, ROMAN and ROBIN of the RRLAB of the TU Kaiserslautern, is presented in the range of human-robot interaction.

A concept for ubiquitous robotics in industrial environment

Science.gov (United States)

Sallinen, Mikko; Heilala, Juhani; Kivikunnas, Sauli

2007-09-01

In this paper a concept for industrial ubiquitous robotics is presented. The concept combines two different approaches to manage agile, adaptable production: firstly the human operator is strongly in the production loop and secondly, the robot workcell will be more autonomous and smarter to manage production. This kind of autonomous robot cell can be called production island. Communication to the human operator working in this kind of smart industrial environment can be divided into two levels: body area communication and operator-infrastructure communication including devices, machines and infra. Body area communication can be supportive in two directions: data is recorded by means of measuring physical actions, such as hand movements, body gestures or supportive when it will provide information to user such as guides or manuals for operation. Body area communication can be carried out using short range communication technologies such as NFC (Near Field communication) which is RFID type of communication. In the operator-infrastructure communication, WLAN or Bluetooth -communication can be used. Beyond the current Human Machine interaction HMI systems, the presented system concept is designed to fulfill the requirements for hybrid, knowledge intensive manufacturing in the future, where humans and robots operate in close co-operation.

Advances in Robotics and Virtual Reality

CERN Document Server

Hassanien, Aboul

2012-01-01

A beyond human knowledge and reach, robotics is strongly involved in tackling challenges of new emerging multidisciplinary fields. Together with humans, robots are busy exploring and working on the new generation of ideas and problems whose solution is otherwise impossible to find. The future is near when robots will sense, smell and touch people and their lives. Behind this practical aspect of human-robotics, there is a half a century spanned robotics research, which transformed robotics into a modern science. The Advances in Robotics and Virtual Reality is a compilation of emerging application areas of robotics. The book covers robotics role in medicine, space exploration and also explains the role of virtual reality as a non-destructive test bed which constitutes a premise of further advances towards new challenges in robotics. This book, edited by two famous scientists with the support of an outstanding team of fifteen authors, is a well suited reference for robotics researchers and scholars from related ...

Mergeable nervous systems for robots.

Science.gov (United States)

Mathews, Nithin; Christensen, Anders Lyhne; O'Grady, Rehan; Mondada, Francesco; Dorigo, Marco

2017-09-12

Robots have the potential to display a higher degree of lifetime morphological adaptation than natural organisms. By adopting a modular approach, robots with different capabilities, shapes, and sizes could, in theory, construct and reconfigure themselves as required. However, current modular robots have only been able to display a limited range of hardwired behaviors because they rely solely on distributed control. Here, we present robots whose bodies and control systems can merge to form entirely new robots that retain full sensorimotor control. Our control paradigm enables robots to exhibit properties that go beyond those of any existing machine or of any biological organism: the robots we present can merge to form larger bodies with a single centralized controller, split into separate bodies with independent controllers, and self-heal by removing or replacing malfunctioning body parts. This work takes us closer to robots that can autonomously change their size, form and function.Robots that can self-assemble into different morphologies are desired to perform tasks that require different physical capabilities. Mathews et al. design robots whose bodies and control systems can merge and split to form new robots that retain full sensorimotor control and act as a single entity.

D2 Delta Robot Structural Design and Kinematics Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Xudong; wang, Song; Dong, Yu; Yang, Hai

2017-12-01

In this paper, a new type of Delta robot with only two degrees of freedom is proposed on the basis of multi - degree - of - freedom delta robot. In order to meet our application requirements, we have carried out structural design and analysis of the robot. Through SolidWorks modeling, combined with 3D printing technology to determine the final robot structure. In order to achieve the precise control of the robot, the kinematics analysis of the robot was carried out. The SimMechanics toolbox of MATLAB is used to establish the mechanism model, and the kinematics mathematical model is used to simulate the robot motion control in Matlab environment. Finally, according to the design mechanism, the working space of the robot is drawn by the graphic method, which lays the foundation for the motion control of the subsequent robot.

Human Robot Interaction for Hybrid Collision Avoidance System for Indoor Mobile Robots

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mazen Ghandour

2017-06-01

Full Text Available In this paper, a novel approach for collision avoidance for indoor mobile robots based on human-robot interaction is realized. The main contribution of this work is a new technique for collision avoidance by engaging the human and the robot in generating new collision-free paths. In mobile robotics, collision avoidance is critical for the success of the robots in implementing their tasks, especially when the robots navigate in crowded and dynamic environments, which include humans. Traditional collision avoidance methods deal with the human as a dynamic obstacle, without taking into consideration that the human will also try to avoid the robot, and this causes the people and the robot to get confused, especially in crowded social places such as restaurants, hospitals, and laboratories. To avoid such scenarios, a reactive-supervised collision avoidance system for mobile robots based on human-robot interaction is implemented. In this method, both the robot and the human will collaborate in generating the collision avoidance via interaction. The person will notify the robot about the avoidance direction via interaction, and the robot will search for the optimal collision-free path on the selected direction. In case that no people interacted with the robot, it will select the navigation path autonomously and select the path that is closest to the goal location. The humans will interact with the robot using gesture recognition and Kinect sensor. To build the gesture recognition system, two models were used to classify these gestures, the first model is Back-Propagation Neural Network (BPNN, and the second model is Support Vector Machine (SVM. Furthermore, a novel collision avoidance system for avoiding the obstacles is implemented and integrated with the HRI system. The system is tested on H20 robot from DrRobot Company (Canada and a set of experiments were implemented to report the performance of the system in interacting with the human and avoiding

A review on humanoid robotics in healthcare

OpenAIRE

Joseph Azeta; Christian Bolu; Abiodun Abioye A.; Oyawale Festus

2018-01-01

Humanoid robots have evolved over the years and today it is in many different areas of applications, from homecare to social care and healthcare robotics. This paper deals with a brief overview of the current and potential applications of humanoid robotics in healthcare settings. We present a comprehensive contextualization of humanoid robots in healthcare by identifying and characterizing active research activities on humanoid robot that can work interactively and effectively with humans so ...

A robot-automated work site for repair of the Chinon A3 reactor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Raynal, A.

1987-01-01

In 1982, following degradation due to corrosion of low-carbon steel by carbon dioxide gas, the utility undertook to repair some of the support structures at Chinon A3. This involved consolidation and reinforcing thermocouples and gas monitor pipeworks supports. A welding process was selected and the use of robots became indispensable because of the large number of components to be replaced (200 per outage). Two robots, supplied with tool heads and replacement components from outside the reactor were used. The robots and their servers were coordinated by a central computer and monitored by a closed circuit television system. Each repair operation was performed after ''training'' on a full-scale mockup of the top of the reactor reconstructed from telemetry of the real reactor dimensions. Since becoming operational in June 1986, the robots have accumulated over 20 000 hours of operation and seventy parts have been welded to the reactor. A 3D CAD system has been adapted to simulate the robots and analyse long trajectories in order to reduce robot learning time [fr

Pyrotechnic robot - constructive design and command

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ionel A. Staretu

2013-10-01

Full Text Available Pyrotechnic robots are service robots used to reduce the time for intervention of pyrotechnic troops and to diminish the danger for the operators. Pyrotechnic robots are used to inspect dangerous areas or/and to remove and to distroy explosive or suspicious devices/objects. These robots can be used to make corridors through mined battle fields, for manipulation and neutralization of unexploded ammunition, for inspection of vehicles, trains, airplanes and buildings. For these robots, a good functional activity is determined with regard to work space dimensions,, robotic arm kinematics and gripper characteristics. The paper shows the structural, kinematic, static synthesis and analysis as well as the design and functional simulation of the robotic arm and the grippers attached on the pyrotechnic robot designed by the authors.

Intelligence for Human-Assistant Planetary Surface Robots

Science.gov (United States)

Hirsh, Robert; Graham, Jeffrey; Tyree, Kimberly; Sierhuis, Maarten; Clancey, William J.

2006-01-01

The central premise in developing effective human-assistant planetary surface robots is that robotic intelligence is needed. The exact type, method, forms and/or quantity of intelligence is an open issue being explored on the ERA project, as well as others. In addition to field testing, theoretical research into this area can help provide answers on how to design future planetary robots. Many fundamental intelligence issues are discussed by Murphy [2], including (a) learning, (b) planning, (c) reasoning, (d) problem solving, (e) knowledge representation, and (f) computer vision (stereo tracking, gestures). The new "social interaction/emotional" form of intelligence that some consider critical to Human Robot Interaction (HRI) can also be addressed by human assistant planetary surface robots, as human operators feel more comfortable working with a robot when the robot is verbally (or even physically) interacting with them. Arkin [3] and Murphy are both proponents of the hybrid deliberative-reasoning/reactive-execution architecture as the best general architecture for fully realizing robot potential, and the robots discussed herein implement a design continuously progressing toward this hybrid philosophy. The remainder of this chapter will describe the challenges associated with robotic assistance to astronauts, our general research approach, the intelligence incorporated into our robots, and the results and lessons learned from over six years of testing human-assistant mobile robots in field settings relevant to planetary exploration. The chapter concludes with some key considerations for future work in this area.

Human centric object perception for service robots

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Alargarsamy Balasubramanian, A.C.

2016-01-01

The research interests and applicability of robotics have diversified and seen a
tremendous growth in recent years. There has been a shift from industrial robots operating in constrained settings to consumer robots working in dynamic environments associated closely with everyday human

Robots for use in autism research.

Science.gov (United States)

Scassellati, Brian; Admoni, Henny; Matarić, Maja

2012-01-01

Autism spectrum disorders are a group of lifelong disabilities that affect people's ability to communicate and to understand social cues. Research into applying robots as therapy tools has shown that robots seem to improve engagement and elicit novel social behaviors from people (particularly children and teenagers) with autism. Robot therapy for autism has been explored as one of the first application domains in the field of socially assistive robotics (SAR), which aims to develop robots that assist people with special needs through social interactions. In this review, we discuss the past decade's work in SAR systems designed for autism therapy by analyzing robot design decisions, human-robot interactions, and system evaluations. We conclude by discussing challenges and future trends for this young but rapidly developing research area.

Development of 6-DOF painting robot control system

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Junbiao; Liu, Jianqun; Gao, Weiqiang

2017-01-01

With the development of society, the spraying technology of manufacturing industry in China has changed from the manual operation to the 6-DOF (Degree Of Freedom)robot automatic spraying. Spraying painting robot can not only complete the work which does harm to human being, but also improve the production efficiency and save labor costs. Control system is the most critical part of the 6-DOF robots, however, there is still a lack of relevant technology research in China. It is very necessary to study a kind of control system of 6-DOF spraying painting robots which is easy to operation, and has high efficiency and stable performance. With Googol controller platform, this paper develops programs based on Windows CE embedded systems to control the robot to finish the painting work. Software development is the core of the robot control system, including the direct teaching module, playback module, motion control module, setting module, man-machine interface, alarm module, log module, etc. All the development work of the entire software system has been completed, and it has been verified that the entire software works steady and efficient.

The age of em work, love, and life when robots rule the Earth

CERN Document Server

Hanson, Robin

2016-01-01

Robots may one day rule the world, but what is a robot-ruled Earth like? Many think that the first truly smart robots will be brain emulations or "ems." Robin Hanson draws on decades of expertise in economics, physics, and computer science to paint a detailed picture of this next great era in human (and machine) evolution - the age of em.

Sound over Matter: The Effects of Functional Noise, Robot Size and Approach Velocity in Human-Robot Encounters

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Joosse, M.P.; Lohse, M.; Evers, Vanessa

2014-01-01

In our previous work we introduced functional noise as a modality for robots to communicate intent [6]. In this follow-up experiment, we replicated the first study with a robot which was taller in order to find out if the same results would apply to a tall vs. a short robot. Our results show a

Social categorization of social robots: anthropomorphism as a function of robot group membership.

Science.gov (United States)

Eyssel, Friederike; Kuchenbrandt, Dieta

2012-12-01

Previous work on social categorization has shown that people often use cues such as a person's gender, age, or ethnicity to categorize and form impressions of others. The present research investigated effects of social category membership on the evaluation of humanoid robots. More specifically, participants rated a humanoid robot that either belonged to their in-group or to a national out-group with regard to anthropomorphism (e.g., mind attribution, warmth), psychological closeness, contact intentions, and design. We predicted that participants would show an in-group bias towards the robot that ostensibly belonged to their in-group--as indicated by its name and location of production. In line with our hypotheses, participants not only rated the in-group robot more favourably--importantly, they also anthropomorphized it more strongly than the out-group robot. Our findings thus document that people even apply social categorization processes and subsequent differential social evaluations to robots. ©2011 The British Psychological Society.

External Environment Sensing by a Module on Self-reconfiguration Robot

Science.gov (United States)

Goto, Tomotsugu; Uchida, Masafumi; Onogaki, Hitoshi

In the situation in which a robot and a human work together by collaborating with each other, a robot and a human share one working environment, and each interferes in each other. The boundary of each complex dynamic occupation area changes in the connection movement which is the component of collaborative works at this time. The main restraint condition which relates to the robustness of that connection movement is each physical charactristics, that is, the embodiment. A robot body is variability though the embodiment of a human is almost fixed. Therefore, the safe and the robust connection movement is brought when a robot has the robot body which is well suitable for the embodiment of a human. A purpose for this research is that the colaboration works between the self-reconfiguration robot and a human is realized. To achieve this purpose, sensing function of external environment on a module was examined. A module is a component of the self-reconfiguration robot. A robot body vibrates when a module actuates an arm actively. This vibration is observed by using some acceleration sensors. Measured datas reflects a difference of objects that it touches a robot body. In this paper, the sensing technique of external environment which identifies this difference by using the neural network is proposed.

Feedforward Coordinate Control of a Robotic Cell Injection Catheter.

Science.gov (United States)

Cheng, Weyland; Law, Peter K

2017-08-01

Remote and robotically actuated catheters are the stepping-stones toward autonomous catheters, where complex intravascular procedures may be performed with minimal intervention from a physician. This article proposes a concept for the positional, feedforward control of a robotically actuated cell injection catheter used for the injection of myogenic or undifferentiated stem cells into the myocardial infarct boundary zones of the left ventricle. The prototype for the catheter system was built upon a needle-based catheter with a single degree of deflection, a 3-D printed handle combined with actuators, and the Arduino microcontroller platform. A bench setup was used to mimic a left ventricle catheter procedure starting from the femoral artery. Using Matlab and the open-source video modeling tool Tracker, the planar coordinates ( y, z) of the catheter position were analyzed, and a feedforward control system was developed based on empirical models. Using the Student's t test with a sample size of 26, it was determined that for both the y- and z-axes, the mean discrepancy between the calibrated and theoretical coordinate values had no significant difference compared to the hypothetical value of µ = 0. The root mean square error of the calibrated coordinates also showed an 88% improvement in the z-axis and 31% improvement in the y-axis compared to the unmodified trial run. This proof of concept investigation leads to the possibility of further developing a feedfoward control system in vivo using catheters with omnidirectional deflection. Feedforward positional control allows for more flexibility in the design of an automated catheter system where problems such as systemic time delay may be a hindrance in instances requiring an immediate reaction.

Structural synthesis of parallel robots

CERN Document Server

Gogu, Grigore

This book represents the fifth part of a larger work dedicated to the structural synthesis of parallel robots. The originality of this work resides in the fact that it combines new formulae for mobility, connectivity, redundancy and overconstraints with evolutionary morphology in a unified structural synthesis approach that yields interesting and innovative solutions for parallel robotic manipulators.  This is the first book on robotics that presents solutions for coupled, decoupled, uncoupled, fully-isotropic and maximally regular robotic manipulators with Schönflies motions systematically generated by using the structural synthesis approach proposed in Part 1.  Overconstrained non-redundant/overactuated/redundantly actuated solutions with simple/complex limbs are proposed. Many solutions are presented here for the first time in the literature. The author had to make a difficult and challenging choice between protecting these solutions through patents and releasing them directly into the public domain. T...

Laws on Robots, Laws by Robots, Laws in Robots : Regulating Robot Behaviour by Design

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Leenes, R.E.; Lucivero, F.

2015-01-01

Speculation about robot morality is almost as old as the concept of a robot itself. Asimov’s three laws of robotics provide an early and well-discussed example of moral rules robots should observe. Despite the widespread influence of the three laws of robotics and their role in shaping visions of

Simple Obstacle Avoidance Algorithm for Rehabilitation Robots

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Stuyt, Floran H.A.; Römer, GertWillem R.B.E.; Stuyt, Harry .J.A.

2007-01-01

The efficiency of a rehabilitation robot is improved by offering record-and-replay to operate the robot. While automatically moving to a stored target (replay) collisions of the robot with obstacles in its work space must be avoided. A simple, though effective, generic and deterministic algorithm

Peer-to-Peer Human-Robot Interaction for Space Exploration

Science.gov (United States)

Fong, Terrence; Nourbakhsh, Illah

2004-01-01

NASA has embarked on a long-term program to develop human-robot systems for sustained, affordable space exploration. To support this mission, we are working to improve human-robot interaction and performance on planetary surfaces. Rather than building robots that function as glorified tools, our focus is to enable humans and robots to work as partners and peers. In this paper. we describe our approach, which includes contextual dialogue, cognitive modeling, and metrics-based field testing.

Towards Using a Generic Robot as Training Partner

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sørensen, Anders Stengaard; Savarimuthu, Thiusius Rajeeth; Nielsen, Jacob

2014-01-01

In this paper, we demonstrate how a generic industrial robot can be used as a training partner, for upper limb training. The motion path and human/robot interaction of a non-generic upper-arm training robot is transferred to a generic industrial robot arm, and we demonstrate that the robot arm can...... implement the same type of interaction, but can expand the training regime to include both upper arm and shoulder training. We compare the generic robot to two affordable but custom-built training robots, and outline interesting directions for future work based on these training robots....

ELRA: The exposure limiting robotic apparatus

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Knighton, G.C.; Rosenberg, K.E.; Henslee, S.P.; Michelbacher, J.A.; Wilkes, C.W.

1992-09-01

A problem situation involving the handling of radioactive material at Argonne National Laboratory -- West (ANL-W) was solved through the use of remote handling techniques, providing significant exposure reduction to personnel. Robotic devices can be useful, but the cost of a robot is often prohibitive for many jobs. A low cost, disposable robot was built which successfully removed a highly radioactive and potentially explosive system from a hot cell at ANL-W

5th International Robotic Sailing Conference

CERN Document Server

Finnis, James

2013-01-01

Robotic sailing offers the potential of wind propelled vehicles which are sufficiently autonomous to remain at sea for months at a time. These could replace or augment existing oceanographic sampling systems, be used in border surveillance and security or offer a means of carbon neutral transportation. To achieve this represents a complex, multi-disciplinary challenge to boat designers and naval architects, systems/electrical engineers and computer scientists.  Since 2004 a series of competitions in the form of the Sailbot, World Robotic Sailing Championship and Microtransat competitions have sparked an explosion in the number of groups working on autonomous sailing robots. Despite this interest the longest distance sailed autonomously remains only a few hundred miles. Many of the challenges in building truly autonomous sailing robots still remain unsolved. These proceedings present the cutting edge of work in a variety of fields related to robotic sailing. They will be presented during the 5th International...

Frugal Design and Surgical Robotics

OpenAIRE

McKinley, Stephen Alan

2016-01-01

A new era of robotic surgery is poised to begin when critical patents held by Intuitive Surgical (IS) expire in 2016. IS market dominance for decades has led to an effective monopoly that will be challenged by several commercial enterprises working on next generation general robotic surgery systems. Robotic surgery has the potential to alleviate the skill-gap between experienced and inexperienced surgeons through the automation of sub-tasks within surgicalprocedures.The primary objective of...

On Robot Modelling using Maple

OpenAIRE

Wallén, Johanna

2007-01-01

This report studies robot modelling by means of the computer algebra tool Maple. First coordinate systems are described, and the more general way with transformation matrices is chosen in the further work. The position kinematics of the robot are then described by homogeneous transformations. The Denavit-Hartenberg representation is used, which is a systematic way to develop the forward kinematics for rigid robots. The velocity kinematics is then described by the Jacobian. The industrial robo...

Robots show us how to teach them: feedback from robots shapes tutoring behavior during action learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Vollmer, Anna-Lisa; Mühlig, Manuel; Steil, Jochen J; Pitsch, Karola; Fritsch, Jannik; Rohlfing, Katharina J; Wrede, Britta

2014-01-01

Robot learning by imitation requires the detection of a tutor's action demonstration and its relevant parts. Current approaches implicitly assume a unidirectional transfer of knowledge from tutor to learner. The presented work challenges this predominant assumption based on an extensive user study with an autonomously interacting robot. We show that by providing feedback, a robot learner influences the human tutor's movement demonstrations in the process of action learning. We argue that the robot's feedback strongly shapes how tutors signal what is relevant to an action and thus advocate a paradigm shift in robot action learning research toward truly interactive systems learning in and benefiting from interaction.

Robotics research at Electrotechnical Laboratory-R and D program for advanced robot technology

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wakamatsu, S; Akahori, H; Shirai, Y; Kakikura, M

1983-01-01

The purposes of this paper are both to introduce the outline of robotics researches at Electrotechnical Laboratory and to describe the relation between those researches and the national project so called robotics for critical work. The authors first describe the robotics researches and related topics historically which have been continued from the latter half of 1960s as a part of researches on artificial intelligence at Electrotechnical Laboratory. Secondly, they mention the present aspects of our researches, its relation with past results, and changes of basic concepts on robotics systems. Finally, as an extension of our researches, they propose some approaches to establish the following techniques which make very important roles for the success of the national project; (1) manipulation techniques, (2) sensor techniques, (3) autonomous robot control techniques, (4) advanced tele-operation techniques and, (5) system totalizing techniques. 15 references.

The Snackbot: Documenting the Design of a Robot for Long-term Human-Robot Interaction

Science.gov (United States)

2009-03-01

distributed robots. Proceedings of the Computer Supported Cooperative Work Conference’02. NY: ACM Press. [18] Kanda, T., Takayuki , H., Eaton, D., and...humanoid robots. Proceedings of HRI’06. New York, NY: ACM Press, 351-352. [23] Nabe, S., Kanda, T., Hiraki , K., Ishiguro, H., Kogure, K., and Hagita

Non-manufacturing applications of robotics; Applications non-manufacturieres de la robotique

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dauchez, P. [LIRMM, Laboratoire d' Informatique, de Robotique et de Microelectronique de Montpellier, 34 (France)

2000-12-01

This book presents the different non-manufacturing sectors of activity where robotics can have useful or necessary applications: underwater robotics, agriculture robotics, road work robotics, nuclear robotics, medical-surgery robotics, aids to disabled people, entertainment robotics. Service robotics has been voluntarily excluded because this developing sector is not mature yet. (J.S.)

The Robots for Nuclear Power Plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Choi, Chang Hwan; Kim, Seung Ho; Kim, Chang Hoi; Seo, Yong Chil; Shin, Ho Cheol; Lee, Sung Uk; Jung, Kyung Min; Jung, Seung Ho; Choi, Young So

2005-01-01

Nuclear energy becomes a major energy source worldwide even though the debating environmental and safety dispute. In order to cope with the issues related to the nuclear power plant, the uncertain human factors need to be minimized by automating the inspection and maintenance work done by human workers. The demands of robotic system in nuclear industry have been growing to ensure the safety of nuclear facilities, to detect early unusual condition of it through an inspection, to protect the human workers from irradiation, and to maintain it efficiently. NRL (Nuclear Robotics Laboratory) in KAERI has been developing robotic systems to inspect and maintain nuclear power plants in stead of human workers for over thirteen years. In order to carry out useful tasks, a nuclear robot generally requires the followings. First, the robot should be protected against radiation. Second, a mobile system is required to access to the work place. Third, a kind of manipulator is required to complete the tasks such as handling radioactive wastes and other contaminated objects, etc. Fourth, a sensing system such as cameras, ultrasonic sensors, temperature sensors, dosimetry equipments etc., are required for operators to observe the work place. Lastly, a control system to help the operators control the robots. The control system generally consists of a supervisory control part and remote control part. The supervisory control part consists of a man-machine interface such as 3D graphics and a joystick. The remote control part manages the robot so that it follow the operator's command

A Service-Oriented Framework for the Development of Home Robots

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tsung-Hsien Yang

2013-02-01

Full Text Available In recent years, researchers have been building home robots able to interact and work with people. Yet, because of the complicated and independent robot development environments, it is not always easy to share and reuse robot code created by different providers. In this work, we present an ontology-based framework that integrates service-oriented computing environments with the standard web interface to develop reusable robotic services. In addition to the service discovery, selection, and composition processes often performed by traditional web services, our work also includes an adaptive mechanism through which the user can iteratively modify composite robotic services to suit his or her needs. The proposed methodology has been implemented and evaluated, and the results show that our framework can be used to build robotic services successfully.

Admittance Control for Robot Assisted Retinal Vein Micro-Cannulation under Human-Robot Collaborative Mode.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, He; Gonenc, Berk; Iordachita, Iulian

2017-10-01

Retinal vein occlusion is one of the most common retinovascular diseases. Retinal vein cannulation is a potentially effective treatment method for this condition that currently lies, however, at the limits of human capabilities. In this work, the aim is to use robotic systems and advanced instrumentation to alleviate these challenges, and assist the procedure via a human-robot collaborative mode based on our earlier work on the Steady-Hand Eye Robot and force-sensing instruments. An admittance control method is employed to stabilize the cannula relative to the vein and maintain it inside the lumen during the injection process. A pre-stress strategy is used to prevent the tip of microneedle from getting out of vein in in prolonged infusions, and the performance is verified through simulations.

Robots conquering local government services

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Jeppe Agger; Andersen, Kim Normann; Sigh, Anne

2016-01-01

labour-intensive services, the public administration research community is short on knowledge of the impact on the work processes carried out in public organizations and how staff and clients react toward robots. This case study investigates the implementation and use of robot vacuum cleaners in Danish......The movement of robots from the production line to the service sector provides a potentially radical solution to innovate and transform public service delivery. Although robots are increasingly being adopted in service delivery (e.g., health- and eldercare) to enhance and in some cases substitute...... eldercare, demonstrating how robot vacuums have proven to have considerable interpretive flexibility with variation in the perceived nature of technology, technology strategy, and technology use between key stakeholders in eldercare....

Development of a robot system for converter relining; Tenro chikuro robot system no kaihatsu

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ito, Y; Kurahashi, M [Nissan Motor Co. Ltd., Tokyo (Japan)

1995-09-12

In steelmaking plants, the relining work of converters requires plenty of manpower and time. Recently, the number of expert brick workers has decreased, and it has been difficult to get together the necessary number of workers for the converter relining. To solve these problems, a robot system has been developed and realized for the converter relining. The system consists of two intelligent robots and an automatic brick conveying machine. With visual function and flexibly controlled hands, the robot enables to heap up bricks in the same manner as expert workers do. The automatic brick conveying machine consists of roller conveyers and a cage lifter that convey bricks on palettes to the suitable position for the robot to easily handle. This robot system has enabled to save much labor for the converter relining. 8 figs.

Research on Modeling Technology of Virtual Robot Based on LabVIEW

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Z.; Huo, J. L.; Y Sun, L.; Y Hao, X.

2017-12-01

Because of the dangerous working environment, the underwater operation robot for nuclear power station needs manual teleoperation. In the process of operation, it is necessary to guide the position and orientation of the robot in real time. In this paper, the geometric modeling of the virtual robot and the working environment is accomplished by using SolidWorks software, and the accurate modeling and assembly of the robot are realized. Using LabVIEW software to read the model, and established the manipulator forward kinematics and inverse kinematics model, and realized the hierarchical modeling of virtual robot and computer graphics modeling. Experimental results show that the method studied in this paper can be successfully applied to robot control system.

A review on humanoid robotics in healthcare

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joseph Azeta

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Humanoid robots have evolved over the years and today it is in many different areas of applications, from homecare to social care and healthcare robotics. This paper deals with a brief overview of the current and potential applications of humanoid robotics in healthcare settings. We present a comprehensive contextualization of humanoid robots in healthcare by identifying and characterizing active research activities on humanoid robot that can work interactively and effectively with humans so as to fill some identified gaps in current healthcare deficiency.

A Skill-based Robot Co-worker for Industrial Maintenance Tasks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Koch, Paul Jacob; van Amstel, Marike Koch; Dębska, Patrycja

2017-01-01

This paper investigates the concept of a sensor based robot co-worker working in flexible industrial environments together with and alongside human operators. In this particular work, a realisation of a robot co-worker scenario is developed in order to demonstrate the implementation of a robot co......-worker from the starting point of an autonomous industrial mobile manipulator. The cobot is applied on the industrially relevant task of screwing by the use of a skill-based approach. The technical work on the human-robot interface and the screwing skill is described....

Medical Robotics - A Real Challenge of Present and Especially Future

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ionel STARETU

2013-12-01

Full Text Available If we make a brief scan of the field known as Medical Robotics, we find that in recent years there has been an impetuous development of applications involving medical robots. Obviously, the most spectacular are remote robotic surgery systems, which, for example, in U.S. have been used in more than 3.5-4 million interventions. The systems AESOP, da Vinci and ZEUS are currently run in minimally invasive robotic surgery. Encouraging results were obtained at MIT (USA using robots in physiotherapy. Pearl is a robot designed as personal assistant of older patients, affected by disabilities. The Universities of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon successfully develop it. In Plymouth and Aachen, researchers are involved in the creation of intelligent wheelchairs. At the University of Karlsruhe, robotic systems applicable to neurosurgery are created. Thus, the MICRoN project aims to create a robot to manipulate micron-sized objects with nanometer precision, applications including intervention in the living biological cells. In several research centers one works on the improvement of neural interfaces, from which it is expected a new generation of prostheses, controlled through functional electrical stimulation. It is also projected that the microsystem technology (MST will have a major impact in medicine through the introduction of new diagnostic techniques, dosing, remote microsurgery and neural prostheses, all based on the concept of minimally invasive therapy, mentioned above. This is the approximate image of research in Medical Robotics and obviously of some related fields, whose dynamics has been impressive lately, a trend that is maintained and even has clear signs of amplification, and fully justifies this approach. In this context, we will present the main concepts and applications of medical robotics in order to achieve a more suggestive and convincing image of this area of great interest and perspective.

Towards Service Robots for Everyday Environments Recent Advances in Designing Service Robots for Complex Tasks in Everyday Environments

CERN Document Server

Zöllner, Marius; Bischoff, Rainer; Burgard, Wolfram; Haschke, Robert; Hägele, Martin; Lawitzky, Gisbert; Nebel, Bernhard; Plöger, Paul; Reiser, Ulrich

2012-01-01

People have dreamed of machines, which would free them from unpleasant, dull, dirty and dangerous tasks and work for them as servants, for centuries if not millennia. Service robots seem to finally let these dreams come true. But where are all these robots that eventually serve us all day long, day for day? A few service robots have entered the market: domestic and professional cleaning robots, lawnmowers, milking robots, or entertainment robots. Some of these robots look more like toys or gadgets rather than real robots. But where is the rest? This is a question, which is asked not only by customers, but also by service providers, care organizations, politicians, and funding agencies. The answer is not very satisfying. Today’s service robots have their problems operating in everyday environments. This is by far more challenging than operating an industrial robot behind a fence. There is a comprehensive list of technical and scientific problems, which still need to be solved. To advance the state of the art...

Robotics in Colorectal Surgery

Science.gov (United States)

Weaver, Allison; Steele, Scott

2016-01-01

Over the past few decades, robotic surgery has developed from a futuristic dream to a real, widely used technology. Today, robotic platforms are used for a range of procedures and have added a new facet to the development and implementation of minimally invasive surgeries. The potential advantages are enormous, but the current progress is impeded by high costs and limited technology. However, recent advances in haptic feedback systems and single-port surgical techniques demonstrate a clear role for robotics and are likely to improve surgical outcomes. Although robotic surgeries have become the gold standard for a number of procedures, the research in colorectal surgery is not definitive and more work needs to be done to prove its safety and efficacy to both surgeons and patients. PMID:27746895

Robotic applications at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Griebenow, B.E.; Marts, D.J.

1990-01-01

The Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL) has several programs and projected programs that involve work in hazardous environments. Robotics/remote handling technology is being considered for an active role in these programs. The most appealing aspect of using robotics is in the area of personnel safety. Any task requiring an individual to enter a hazardous or potentially hazardous environment can benefit substantially from robotics by removing the operator from the environment and having him conduct the work remotely. Several INEL programs were evaluated based on their applications for robotics and the results and some conclusions are discussed in this paper. 1 fig

Robotic approaches for rehabilitation of hand function after stroke.

Science.gov (United States)

Lum, Peter S; Godfrey, Sasha B; Brokaw, Elizabeth B; Holley, Rahsaan J; Nichols, Diane

2012-11-01

The goal of this review was to discuss the impairments in hand function after stroke and present previous work on robot-assisted approaches to movement neurorehabilitation. Robotic devices offer a unique training environment that may enhance outcomes beyond what is possible with conventional means. Robots apply forces to the hand, allowing completion of movements while preventing inappropriate movement patterns. Evidence from the literature is emerging that certain characteristics of the human-robot interaction are preferable. In light of this evidence, the robotic hand devices that have undergone clinical testing are reviewed, highlighting the authors' work in this area. Finally, suggestions for future work are offered. The ability to deliver therapy doses far higher than what has been previously tested is a potentially key advantage of robotic devices that needs further exploration. In particular, more efforts are needed to develop highly motivating home-based devices, which can increase access to high doses of assisted movement therapy.

Cultural Robotics: The Culture of Robotics and Robotics in Culture

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hooman Samani

2013-12-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we have investigated the concept of “Cultural Robotics” with regard to the evolution of social into cultural robots in the 21st Century. By defining the concept of culture, the potential development of a culture between humans and robots is explored. Based on the cultural values of the robotics developers, and the learning ability of current robots, cultural attributes in this regard are in the process of being formed, which would define the new concept of cultural robotics. According to the importance of the embodiment of robots in the sense of presence, the influence of robots in communication culture is anticipated. The sustainability of robotics culture based on diversity for cultural communities for various acceptance modalities is explored in order to anticipate the creation of different attributes of culture between robots and humans in the future.

Service Robots

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Clemmensen, Torkil; Nielsen, Jeppe Agger; Andersen, Kim Normann

The position presented in this paper is that in order to understand how service robots shape, and are being shaped by, the physical and social contexts in which they are used, we need to consider both work/organizational analysis and interaction design. We illustrate this with qualitative data...... and personal experiences to generate discussion about how to link these two traditions. This paper presents selected results from a case study that investigated the implementation and use of robot vacuum cleaners in Danish eldercare. The study demonstrates interpretive flexibility with variation...

Self-Reconfiguration Planning of Robot Embodiment for Inherent Safe Performance

Science.gov (United States)

Uchida, Masafumi; Nozawa, Akio; Asano, Hirotoshi; Onogaki, Hitoshi; Mizuno, Tota; Park, Young-Il; Ide, Hideto; Yokoyama, Shuichi

In the situation in which a robot and a human work together by collaborating with each other, a robot and a human share one working environment, and each interferes in each other. In other ward, it is impossible to avoid the physical contact and the interaction of force between a robot and a human. The boundary of each complex dynamic occupation area changes in the connection movement which is the component of collaborative works at this time. The main restraint condition which relates to the robustness of that connection movement is each physical charactristics, that is, the embodiment. A robot body is variability though the embodiment of a human is almost fixed. Therefore, the safe and the robust connection movement is brought when a robot has the robot body which is well suitable for the embodiment of a human. A purpose for this research is that the colaboration works between the self-reconfiguration robot and a human is realized. To achieve this purpose, a self-reconfiguration algorithm based on some indexes to evaluate a robot body in the macroscopic point of view was examined on a modular robot system of the 2-D lattice structure. In this paper, it investigated effect specially that the object of learning of each individual was limited to the cooperative behavior between the adjoining modules toward the macroscopic evaluation index.

Kinematics analysis and simulation of a new underactuated parallel robot

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wenxu YAN

2017-04-01

Full Text Available The number of degrees of freedom is equal to the number of the traditional robot driving motors, which causes defects such as low efficiency. To overcome that problem, based on the traditional parallel robot, a new underactuated parallel robot is presented. The structure characteristics and working principles of the underactuated parallel robot are analyzed. The forward and inverse solutions are derived by way of space analytic geometry and vector algebra. The kinematics model is established, and MATLAB is implied to verify the accuracy of forward and inverse solutions and identify the optimal work space. The simulation results show that the robot can realize the function of robot switch with three or four degrees of freedom when the number of driving motors is three, improving the efficiency of robot grasping, with the characteristics of large working space, high speed operation, high positioning accuracy, low manufacturing cost and so on, and it will have a wide range of industrial applications.

Controlling the autonomy of a reconnaissance robot

Science.gov (United States)

Dalgalarrondo, Andre; Dufourd, Delphine; Filliat, David

2004-09-01

In this paper, we present our research on the control of a mobile robot for indoor reconnaissance missions. Based on previous work concerning our robot control architecture HARPIC, we have developed a man machine interface and software components that allow a human operator to control a robot at different levels of autonomy. This work aims at studying how a robot could be helpful in indoor reconnaissance and surveillance missions in hostile environment. In such missions, since a soldier faces many threats and must protect himself while looking around and holding his weapon, he cannot devote his attention to the teleoperation of the robot. Moreover, robots are not yet able to conduct complex missions in a fully autonomous mode. Thus, in a pragmatic way, we have built a software that allows dynamic swapping between control modes (manual, safeguarded and behavior-based) while automatically performing map building and localization of the robot. It also includes surveillance functions like movement detection and is designed for multirobot extensions. We first describe the design of our agent-based robot control architecture and discuss the various ways to control and interact with a robot. The main modules and functionalities implementing those ideas in our architecture are detailed. More precisely, we show how we combine manual controls, obstacle avoidance, wall and corridor following, way point and planned travelling. Some experiments on a Pioneer robot equipped with various sensors are presented. Finally, we suggest some promising directions for the development of robots and user interfaces for hostile environment and discuss our planned future improvements.

Robot vision for nuclear advanced robot

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nakayama, Ryoichi; Okano, Hideharu; Kuno, Yoshinori; Miyazawa, Tatsuo; Shimada, Hideo; Okada, Satoshi; Kawamura, Astuo

1991-01-01

This paper describes Robot Vision and Operation System for Nuclear Advanced Robot. This Robot Vision consists of robot position detection, obstacle detection and object recognition. With these vision techniques, a mobile robot can make a path and move autonomously along the planned path. The authors implemented the above robot vision system on the 'Advanced Robot for Nuclear Power Plant' and tested in an environment mocked up as nuclear power plant facilities. Since the operation system for this robot consists of operator's console and a large stereo monitor, this system can be easily operated by one person. Experimental tests were made using the Advanced Robot (nuclear robot). Results indicate that the proposed operation system is very useful, and can be operate by only person. (author)

Pantomimic gestures for human-robot interaction

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Burke, Michael G

2015-10-01

Full Text Available -1 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS 1 Pantomimic Gestures for Human-Robot Interaction Michael Burke, Student Member, IEEE, and Joan Lasenby Abstract This work introduces a pantomimic gesture interface, which classifies human hand gestures using...

Improvement of the operation of wheels mobile robot TRASMAR2

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Guerra C, D. A.; Tovar M, R.; Gonzalez M, J. L.; Segovia de los Rios, A.

2013-10-01

In the Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Nucleares (ININ), personnel have been working in the development of wheels mobile robots for the surveillance and supervision of contaminated areas, and for the radioactive material transport. One of these achievements is the wheels mobile robot denominated TRASMAR2, which is sought that works in the tele operated form using net technologies, in particular, using a Web page by means of the client-servant technology. For this, diverse circuits and control programs have been development with the purpose that the robot carries out the movements that are required, being considered the use of sensors to avoid collisions. The different programs have been implemented in different micro controllers, and although the robot was working, is necessary to optimize and to concentrate these programs on a single micro controller. In this work are presented the analysis of the previously implemented programs, as the realized changes, including new programs required to improve the robot operation. As complement, was development and implemented an alternative proposal of the robot's tele operation by means of a Web page using Lab view, which is described in the work. With this proposal tele operate the robot was achieved, although its application is evaluating due to the resources that is consumes. (author)

Robot motion control in mobile environment

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Iliya V Miroshnik; HUANG Xian-lin(黄显林); HE Jie(贺杰)

2003-01-01

With the problem of robot motion control in dynamic environment represented by mobile obstacles,working pieces and external mechanisms considered, a relevant control actions design procedure has been pro-posed to provide coordination of robot motions with respect to the moving external objects so that an extension ofrobot spatial motion techniques and active robotic strategies based on approaches of nonlinear control theory canbe achieved.

Gathering asychronous mobile robots with inaccurate compasses

OpenAIRE

Souissi, Samia; Defago, Xavier; Yamashita, Masafumi

2006-01-01

This paper considers a system of asynchronous autonomous mobile robots that can move freely in a twodimensional plane with no agreement on a common coordinate system. Starting from any initial configuration, the robots are required to eventually gather at a single point, not fixed in advance (gathering problem). Prior work has shown that gathering oblivious (i.e., stateless) robots cannot be achieved deterministically without additional assumptions. In particular, if robots can detect multipl...

Calibration of robotic drilling systems with a moving rail

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tian Wei

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Industrial robots are widely used in aircraft assembly systems such as robotic drilling systems. It is necessary to expand a robot’s working range with a moving rail. A method for improving the position accuracy of an automated assembly system with an industrial robot mounted on a moving rail is proposed. A multi-station method is used to control the robot in this study. The robot only works at stations which are certain positions defined on the moving rail. The calibration of the robot system is composed by the calibration of the robot and the calibration of the stations. The calibration of the robot is based on error similarity and inverse distance weighted interpolation. The calibration of the stations is based on a magnetic strip and a magnetic sensor. Validation tests were performed in this study, which showed that the accuracy of the robot system gained significant improvement using the proposed method. The absolute position errors were reduced by about 85% to less than 0.3 mm compared with the maximum nearly 2 mm before calibration.

A flexible, computer-integrated robotic transfer system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lewis, W.I. III; Taylor, R.M.

1987-01-01

This paper reviews a robotic system used to transport materials across a radiation control zone and into a row of shielded cells. The robot used is a five-axis GCA 600 industrial robot mounted on a 50-ft ESAB welding track. Custom software incorporates the track as the sixth axis of motion. An IBM-PC integrates robot control, force sensing, and the operator interface. Multiple end-effectors and a quick exchange mechanism are used to handle a variety of materials and tasks. Automatic error detection and recovery is a key aspect of this system

Store-Carry and Forward-Type M2M Communication Protocol Enabling Guide Robots to Work together and the Method of Identifying Malfunctioning Robots Using the Byzantine Algorithm

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yoshio Suga

2016-11-01

Full Text Available This paper concerns a service in which multiple guide robots in an area display arrows to guide individual users to their destinations. It proposes a method of identifying malfunctioning robots and robots that give wrong directions to users. In this method, users’ mobile terminals and robots form a store-carry and forward-type M2M communication network, and a distributed cooperative protocol is used to enable robots to share information and identify malfunctioning robots using the Byzantine algorithm. The robots do not directly communicate with each other, but through users’ mobile terminals. We have introduced the concept of the quasi-synchronous number, so whether a certain robot is malfunctioning can be determined even when items of information held by all of the robots are not synchronized. Using simulation, we have evaluated the proposed method in terms of the rate of identifying malfunctioning robots, the rate of reaching the destination and the average length of time to reach the destination.

A Multi-Sensorial Hybrid Control for Robotic Manipulation in Human-Robot Workspaces

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Juan A. Corrales

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Autonomous manipulation in semi-structured environments where human operators can interact is an increasingly common task in robotic applications. This paper describes an intelligent multi-sensorial approach that solves this issue by providing a multi-robotic platform with a high degree of autonomy and the capability to perform complex tasks. The proposed sensorial system is composed of a hybrid visual servo control to efficiently guide the robot towards the object to be manipulated, an inertial motion capture system and an indoor localization system to avoid possible collisions between human operators and robots working in the same workspace, and a tactile sensor algorithm to correctly manipulate the object. The proposed controller employs the whole multi-sensorial system and combines the measurements of each one of the used sensors during two different phases considered in the robot task: a first phase where the robot approaches the object to be grasped, and a second phase of manipulation of the object. In both phases, the unexpected presence of humans is taken into account. This paper also presents the successful results obtained in several experimental setups which verify the validity of the proposed approach.

Enabling Effective Human-Robot Interaction Using Perspective-Taking in Robots

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Trafton, J. G; Cassimatis, Nicholas L; Bugajska, Magdalena D; Brock, Derek P; Mintz, Farilee E; Schultz, Alan C

2005-01-01

...) and present a cognitive architecture for performing perspective-taking called Polyscheme. Finally, we show a fully integrated system that instantiates our theoretical framework within a working robot system...

Design of Piano -playing Robotic Hand

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lin Jen-Chang

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Unlike the market slowdown of industrial robots, service & entertainment robots have been highly regarded by most robotics reseach and market research agencies. In this study we developed a music playing robot (which can also work as a service robot for public performance. The research is mainly focused on the mechanical and electrical control of piano-playing robot, the exploration of correlations among music theory, rhythm and piano keys, and eventually the research on playing skill of keyboard instrument. The piano-playing robot is capable of control linear motor, servo-motor and pneumatic devices in accordance with the notes and rhythm in order to drive the mechanical structure to proper positions for pressing the keys and generating music. The devices used for this robot are mainly crucial components produced by HIWIN Technology Corp. The design of robotic hand is based on the direction of anthropomorphic hand such that five fingers will be used for playing piano. The finger actuations include actions of finger rotation, finger pressing, and finger lifting; time required for these 3 stages must meet the requirement of rhythm. The purpose of entertainment robot can be achieved by playing electric piano with robotic hand, and we hope this research can contribute to the development of domestic entertainment music playing robots.

Admittance Control for Robot Assisted Retinal Vein Micro-Cannulation under Human-Robot Collaborative Mode

Science.gov (United States)

Gonenc, Berk; Iordachita, Iulian

2017-01-01

Retinal vein occlusion is one of the most common retinovascular diseases. Retinal vein cannulation is a potentially effective treatment method for this condition that currently lies, however, at the limits of human capabilities. In this work, the aim is to use robotic systems and advanced instrumentation to alleviate these challenges, and assist the procedure via a human-robot collaborative mode based on our earlier work on the Steady-Hand Eye Robot and force-sensing instruments. An admittance control method is employed to stabilize the cannula relative to the vein and maintain it inside the lumen during the injection process. A pre-stress strategy is used to prevent the tip of microneedle from getting out of vein in in prolonged infusions, and the performance is verified through simulations. PMID:29607442

Human-Robot Interaction

Science.gov (United States)

Sandor, Aniko; Cross, E. Vincent, II; Chang, Mai Lee

2015-01-01

Human-robot interaction (HRI) is a discipline investigating the factors affecting the interactions between humans and robots. It is important to evaluate how the design of interfaces affect the human's ability to perform tasks effectively and efficiently when working with a robot. By understanding the effects of interface design on human performance, workload, and situation awareness, interfaces can be developed to appropriately support the human in performing tasks with minimal errors and with appropriate interaction time and effort. Thus, the results of research on human-robot interfaces have direct implications for the design of robotic systems. For efficient and effective remote navigation of a rover, a human operator needs to be aware of the robot's environment. However, during teleoperation, operators may get information about the environment only through a robot's front-mounted camera causing a keyhole effect. The keyhole effect reduces situation awareness which may manifest in navigation issues such as higher number of collisions, missing critical aspects of the environment, or reduced speed. One way to compensate for the keyhole effect and the ambiguities operators experience when they teleoperate a robot is adding multiple cameras and including the robot chassis in the camera view. Augmented reality, such as overlays, can also enhance the way a person sees objects in the environment or in camera views by making them more visible. Scenes can be augmented with integrated telemetry, procedures, or map information. Furthermore, the addition of an exocentric (i.e., third-person) field of view from a camera placed in the robot's environment may provide operators with the additional information needed to gain spatial awareness of the robot. Two research studies investigated possible mitigation approaches to address the keyhole effect: 1) combining the inclusion of the robot chassis in the camera view with augmented reality overlays, and 2) modifying the camera

Robot for Investigations and Assessments of Nuclear Areas

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kanaan, Daniel; Dogny, Stephane [AREVA D and S/DT, 30206 Bagnols sur Ceze (France)

2015-07-01

RIANA is a remote controlled Robot dedicated for Investigations and Assessments of Nuclear Areas. The development of RIANA is motivated by the need to have at disposal a proven robot, tested in hot cells; a robot capable of remotely investigate and characterise the inside of nuclear facilities in order to collect efficiently all the required data in the shortest possible time. It is based on a wireless medium sized remote carrier that may carry a wide variety of interchangeable modules, sensors and tools. It is easily customised to match specific requirements and quickly configured depending on the mission and the operator's preferences. RIANA integrates localisation and navigation systems. The robot will be able to generate / update a 2D map of its surrounding and exploring areas. The position of the robot is given accurately on the map. Furthermore, the robot will be able to autonomously calculate, define and follow a trajectory between 2 points taking into account its environment and obstacles. The robot is configurable to manage obstacles and restrict access to forbidden areas. RIANA allows an advanced control of modules, sensors and tools; all collected data (radiological and measured data) are displayed in real time in different format (chart, on the generated map...) and stored in a single place so that may be exported in a convenient format for data processing. This modular design gives RIANA the flexibility to perform multiple investigation missions where humans cannot work such as: visual inspections, dynamic localization and 2D mapping, characterizations and nuclear measurements of floor and walls, non destructive testing, samples collection: solid and liquid. The benefits of using RIANA are: - reducing the personnel exposures by limiting the manual intervention time, - minimizing the time and reducing the cost of investigation operations, - providing critical inputs to set up and optimize cleanup and dismantling operations. (authors)

Robot for Investigations and Assessments of Nuclear Areas

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kanaan, Daniel; Dogny, Stephane

2015-01-01

RIANA is a remote controlled Robot dedicated for Investigations and Assessments of Nuclear Areas. The development of RIANA is motivated by the need to have at disposal a proven robot, tested in hot cells; a robot capable of remotely investigate and characterise the inside of nuclear facilities in order to collect efficiently all the required data in the shortest possible time. It is based on a wireless medium sized remote carrier that may carry a wide variety of interchangeable modules, sensors and tools. It is easily customised to match specific requirements and quickly configured depending on the mission and the operator's preferences. RIANA integrates localisation and navigation systems. The robot will be able to generate / update a 2D map of its surrounding and exploring areas. The position of the robot is given accurately on the map. Furthermore, the robot will be able to autonomously calculate, define and follow a trajectory between 2 points taking into account its environment and obstacles. The robot is configurable to manage obstacles and restrict access to forbidden areas. RIANA allows an advanced control of modules, sensors and tools; all collected data (radiological and measured data) are displayed in real time in different format (chart, on the generated map...) and stored in a single place so that may be exported in a convenient format for data processing. This modular design gives RIANA the flexibility to perform multiple investigation missions where humans cannot work such as: visual inspections, dynamic localization and 2D mapping, characterizations and nuclear measurements of floor and walls, non destructive testing, samples collection: solid and liquid. The benefits of using RIANA are: - reducing the personnel exposures by limiting the manual intervention time, - minimizing the time and reducing the cost of investigation operations, - providing critical inputs to set up and optimize cleanup and dismantling operations. (authors)

Fuzzy Behaviors for Control of Mobile Robots

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Saleh Zein-Sabatto

2003-02-01

Full Text Available In this research work, an RWI B-14 robot has been used as the development platform to embody some basic behaviors that can be combined to build more complex robotics behaviors. Emergency, avoid-obstacle, left wall- following, right wall-following, and move-to-point behaviors have been designed and embodied as basic robot behaviors. The basic behaviors developed in this research are designed based on fuzzy control technique and are integrated and coordinated to from complex robotics system. More behaviors can be added into the system as needed. A robot task can be defined by the user and executed by the intelligent robot control system. Testing results showed that fuzzy behaviors made the robot move intelligently and adapt to changes in its environment.

Human-Robot Teaming: Communication, Coordination, and Collaboration

Science.gov (United States)

Fong, Terry

2017-01-01

In this talk, I will describe how NASA Ames has been studying how human-robot teams can increase the performance, reduce the cost, and increase the success of a variety of endeavors. The central premise of our work is that humans and robots should support one another in order to compensate for limitations of automation and manual control. This principle has broad applicability to a wide range of domains, environments, and situations. At the same time, however, effective human-robot teaming requires communication, coordination, and collaboration -- all of which present significant research challenges. I will discuss some of the ways that NASA Ames is addressing these challenges and present examples of our work involving planetary rovers, free-flying robots, and self-driving cars.

Autodesk Robot Structural Analysis Professional 2016 essentials

CERN Document Server

Marsh, Ken

2016-01-01

Autodesk Robot Structural Analysis Professional 2016 - Essentials is an excellent introduction to the essential features, functions, and workflows of Autodesk Robot Structural Analysis Professional. Master the tools you will need to make Robot work for you: Go from zero to proficiency with this thorough and detailed introduction to the essential concepts and workflows of Robot Structural Analysis Professional 2016. - Demystify the interface - Manipulate and manage Robot tables like a pro - Learn how to use Robot's modeling tools - Master loading techniques - Harness Robot automated load combinations - Decipher simplified seismic loading - Discover workflows for steel and concrete design - Gain insights to help troubleshoot issues Guided exercises are provided to help cement fundamental concepts in Robot Structural Analysis and drive home key functions. Get up to speed quickly with this essential text and add Robot Structural Analysis Professional 2016 to your analysis and design toolbox. New in 2016: AWC-NDS ...

The use of robots for advanced intervention devices

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1981-01-01

The main purpose of robots is to improve working conditions and to protect operators. Robots also enable interventions to be carried out in environments inaccessible to man. Extensive work carried out by the CEA in this field has led to the realization of equipment and original materials. Although, a lot of the development activities were initially related to nuclear work, a great diversity of applications have been found in other fields. Several applications are cited in this article; they are related to computer assisted remote controlled manipulators, remote controlled exploratory vehicles, robot medical equipment, and oceanographic research equipment [fr

Spline-based automatic path generation of welding robot

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Niu Xuejuan; Li Liangyu

2007-01-01

This paper presents a flexible method for the representation of welded seam based on spline interpolation. In this method, the tool path of welding robot can be generated automatically from a 3D CAD model. This technique has been implemented and demonstrated in the FANUC Arc Welding Robot Workstation. According to the method, a software system is developed using VBA of SolidWorks 2006. It offers an interface between SolidWorks and ROBOGUIDE, the off-line programming software of FANUC robot. It combines the strong modeling function of the former and the simulating function of the latter. It also has the capability of communication with on-line robot. The result data have shown its high accuracy and strong reliability in experiments. This method will improve the intelligence and the flexibility of the welding robot workstation.

New trends in medical and service robots challenges and solutions

CERN Document Server

Pisla, Doina; Bleuler, Hannes

2014-01-01

This volume describes new frontiers in medical and service robotics in the light of recent developments in technology to advance robot design and implementation. In particular, the work looks at advances in design, development and implementation of contemporary surgical, rehabilitation and biorobots. Surgical robots allow surgeons greater access to areas under operation using more precise and less invasive methods. Rehabilitation robots facilitate and support the lives of the infirm, elderly people, or those with dysfunction of body parts affecting movement. These robots are also used for rehabilitation and related procedures, such as training and therapy. Biorobots are designed to imitate the cognition of humans and animals. The need to substitute humans working on delicate, tiresome and monotonous tasks, or working with potentially health-damaging toxic materials, requires intelligent, high-performance service robots with the ability to cooperate, advanced communication and sophisticated perception and cogn...

Learning for intelligent mobile robots

Science.gov (United States)

Hall, Ernest L.; Liao, Xiaoqun; Alhaj Ali, Souma M.

2003-10-01

Unlike intelligent industrial robots which often work in a structured factory setting, intelligent mobile robots must often operate in an unstructured environment cluttered with obstacles and with many possible action paths. However, such machines have many potential applications in medicine, defense, industry and even the home that make their study important. Sensors such as vision are needed. However, in many applications some form of learning is also required. The purpose of this paper is to present a discussion of recent technical advances in learning for intelligent mobile robots. During the past 20 years, the use of intelligent industrial robots that are equipped not only with motion control systems but also with sensors such as cameras, laser scanners, or tactile sensors that permit adaptation to a changing environment has increased dramatically. However, relatively little has been done concerning learning. Adaptive and robust control permits one to achieve point to point and controlled path operation in a changing environment. This problem can be solved with a learning control. In the unstructured environment, the terrain and consequently the load on the robot"s motors are constantly changing. Learning the parameters of a proportional, integral and derivative controller (PID) and artificial neural network provides an adaptive and robust control. Learning may also be used for path following. Simulations that include learning may be conducted to see if a robot can learn its way through a cluttered array of obstacles. If a situation is performed repetitively, then learning can also be used in the actual application. To reach an even higher degree of autonomous operation, a new level of learning is required. Recently learning theories such as the adaptive critic have been proposed. In this type of learning a critic provides a grade to the controller of an action module such as a robot. The creative control process is used that is "beyond the adaptive critic." A

To Err Is Robot: How Humans Assess and Act toward an Erroneous Social Robot

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nicole Mirnig

2017-05-01

Full Text Available We conducted a user study for which we purposefully programmed faulty behavior into a robot’s routine. It was our aim to explore if participants rate the faulty robot different from an error-free robot and which reactions people show in interaction with a faulty robot. The study was based on our previous research on robot errors where we detected typical error situations and the resulting social signals of our participants during social human–robot interaction. In contrast to our previous work, where we studied video material in which robot errors occurred unintentionally, in the herein reported user study, we purposefully elicited robot errors to further explore the human interaction partners’ social signals following a robot error. Our participants interacted with a human-like NAO, and the robot either performed faulty or free from error. First, the robot asked the participants a set of predefined questions and then it asked them to complete a couple of LEGO building tasks. After the interaction, we asked the participants to rate the robot’s anthropomorphism, likability, and perceived intelligence. We also interviewed the participants on their opinion about the interaction. Additionally, we video-coded the social signals the participants showed during their interaction with the robot as well as the answers they provided the robot with. Our results show that participants liked the faulty robot significantly better than the robot that interacted flawlessly. We did not find significant differences in people’s ratings of the robot’s anthropomorphism and perceived intelligence. The qualitative data confirmed the questionnaire results in showing that although the participants recognized the robot’s mistakes, they did not necessarily reject the erroneous robot. The annotations of the video data further showed that gaze shifts (e.g., from an object to the robot or vice versa and laughter are typical reactions to unexpected robot behavior

Audio localization for mobile robots

OpenAIRE

de Guillebon, Thibaut; Grau Saldes, Antoni; Bolea Monte, Yolanda

2009-01-01

The department of the University for which I worked is developing a project based on the interaction with robots in the environment. My work was to define an audio system for the robot. This audio system that I have to realize consists on a mobile head which is able to follow the sound in its environment. This subject was treated as a research problem, with the liberty to find and develop different solutions and make them evolve in the chosen way.

Energy Efficiency of Robot Locomotion Increases Proportional to Weight

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Larsen, Jørgen Christian; Støy, Kasper

2011-01-01

The task of producing steady, stable and energy efficient locomotion in legged robots with the ability to walk in un- known terrain have for many years been a big challenge in robotics. This work is focusing on how different robots build from the modular robotic system, LocoKit by Larsen et. la [3...

Energy Efficiency of Robot Locomotion Increases Proportional to Weight

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Larsen, J. C.; Stoy, K.

2011-01-01

The task of producing steady, stable and energy efficient locomotion in legged robots with the ability to walk in unknown terrain have for many years been a big challenge in robotics. This work is focusing on how different robots build from the modular robotic system, LocoKit by Larsen et al. [1...

Towards Bio-Inspired Chromatic Behaviours in Surveillance Robots

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sampath Kumar Karutaa Gnaniar

2016-09-01

Full Text Available The field of Robotics is ever growing at the same time as posing enormous challenges. Numerous works has been done in biologically inspired robotics emulating models, systems and elements of nature for the purpose of solving traditional robotics problems. Chromatic behaviours are abundant in nature across a variety of living species to achieve camouflage, signaling, and temperature regulation. The ability of these creatures to successfully blend in with their environment and communicate by changing their colour is the fundamental inspiration for our research work. In this paper, we present dwarf chameleon inspired chromatic behaviour in the context of an autonomous surveillance robot, “PACHONDHI”. In our experiments, we successfully validated the ability of the robot to autonomously change its colour in relation to the terrain that it is traversing for maximizing detectability to friendly security agents and minimizing exposure to hostile agents, as well as to communicate with fellow cooperating robots.

Robots and service innovation in health care.

Science.gov (United States)

Oborn, Eivor; Barrett, Michael; Darzi, Ara

2011-01-01

Robots have long captured our imagination and are being used increasingly in health care. In this paper we summarize, organize and criticize the health care robotics literature and highlight how the social and technical elements of robots iteratively influence and redefine each other. We suggest the need for increased emphasis on sociological dimensions of using robots, recognizing how social and work relations are restructured during changes in practice. Further, we propose the usefulness of a 'service logic' in providing insight as to how robots can influence health care innovation. The Royal Society of Medicine Press Ltd 2011.

FIRST robots compete

Science.gov (United States)

2000-01-01

FIRST teams and their robots work to go through the right motions at the FIRST competition. Students from all over the country are at the KSC Visitor Complex for the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Southeast Regional competition March 9-11 in the Rocket Garden. Teams of high school students are testing the limits of their imagination using robots they have designed, with the support of business and engineering professionals and corporate sponsors, to compete in a technological battle against other schools' robots. Of the 30 high school teams competing, 16 are Florida teams co-sponsored by NASA and KSC contractors. Local high schools participating are Astronaut, Bayside, Cocoa Beach, Eau Gallie, Melbourne, Melbourne Central Catholic, Palm Bay, Rockledge, Satellite, and Titusville.

Human-Robot Interaction

Science.gov (United States)

Rochlis-Zumbado, Jennifer; Sandor, Aniko; Ezer, Neta

2012-01-01

Risk of Inadequate Design of Human and Automation/Robotic Integration (HARI) is a new Human Research Program (HRP) risk. HRI is a research area that seeks to understand the complex relationship among variables that affect the way humans and robots work together to accomplish goals. The DRP addresses three major HRI study areas that will provide appropriate information for navigation guidance to a teleoperator of a robot system, and contribute to the closure of currently identified HRP gaps: (1) Overlays -- Use of overlays for teleoperation to augment the information available on the video feed (2) Camera views -- Type and arrangement of camera views for better task performance and awareness of surroundings (3) Command modalities -- Development of gesture and voice command vocabularies

Computer-controlled wall servicing robot

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lefkowitz, S. [Pentek, Inc., Corapolis, PA (United States)

1995-03-01

After four years of cooperative research, Pentek has unveiled a new robot with the capability to automatically deliver a variety of cleaning, painting, inspection, and surveillance devices to large vertical surfaces. The completely computer-controlled robot can position a working tool on a 50-foot tall by 50-foot wide vertical surface with a repeatability of 1/16 inch. The working end can literally {open_quotes}fly{close_quotes} across the face of a wall at speed of 60 per minute, and can handle working loads of 350 pounds. The robot was originally developed to decontaminate the walls of reactor fueling cavities at commercial nuclear power plants during fuel outages. If these cavities are left to dry after reactor refueling, contamination present in the residue could later become airborne and move throughout the containment building. Decontaminating the cavity during the refueling outage reduces the need for restrictive personal protective equipment during plant operations to limit the dose rates.

Using insects to drive mobile robots - hybrid robots bridge the gap between biological and artificial systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Ando, Noriyasu; Kanzaki, Ryohei

2017-09-01

The use of mobile robots is an effective method of validating sensory-motor models of animals in a real environment. The well-identified insect sensory-motor systems have been the major targets for modeling. Furthermore, mobile robots implemented with such insect models attract engineers who aim to avail advantages from organisms. However, directly comparing the robots with real insects is still difficult, even if we successfully model the biological systems, because of the physical differences between them. We developed a hybrid robot to bridge the gap. This hybrid robot is an insect-controlled robot, in which a tethered male silkmoth (Bombyx mori) drives the robot in order to localize an odor source. This robot has the following three advantages: 1) from a biomimetic perspective, the robot enables us to evaluate the potential performance of future insect-mimetic robots; 2) from a biological perspective, the robot enables us to manipulate the closed-loop of an onboard insect for further understanding of its sensory-motor system; and 3) the robot enables comparison with insect models as a reference biological system. In this paper, we review the recent works regarding insect-controlled robots and discuss the significance for both engineering and biology. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Robotics

Science.gov (United States)

Popov, E. P.; Iurevich, E. I.

The history and the current status of robotics are reviewed, as are the design, operation, and principal applications of industrial robots. Attention is given to programmable robots, robots with adaptive control and elements of artificial intelligence, and remotely controlled robots. The applications of robots discussed include mechanical engineering, cargo handling during transportation and storage, mining, and metallurgy. The future prospects of robotics are briefly outlined.

Framework to Implement Collaborative Robots in Manual Assembly: A Lean Automation Approach

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Malik, Ali Ahmad; Bilberg, Arne

The recent proliferation of smart manufacturing technologies has emerged the concept of hybrid automation for assembly systems utilizing the best of humans and robots in a combination. Based on the ability to work alongside human-workers the next generation of industrial robots (or robotics 2...... of virtual simulations is discussed for validation and optimization of human-robot work environment....

Probabilistic scan mode of a robot manipulator workspace using EEG signals. Part I

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Auat Cheein, Fernando A; Di Sciascio, Fernando; Freire Bastos, Teodiano; Carelli, Ricardo

2007-01-01

In this paper a probabilistic-based workspace scan mode of a manipulator robot is presented. The scan mode is governed by a Brain Computer Interface (BCI) based on Event Related Potentials (Synchronization and Dessynchronization events). The user is capable to select a specific position at the robot's workspace, which should be reached by the manipulator. The robot workspace is divided into cells. Each cell has a probability value associated with it. Once the robot reaches a cell, its probability value is updated. The mode the scan is made is determined by the probability of all cells at the workspace. Finally, the manipulator is teleoperated via TCP/IP

Evolutionary Robotics: What, Why, and Where to

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stephane eDoncieux

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Evolutionary robotics applies the selection, variation, and heredity principles of natural evolution to the design of robots with embodied intelligence. It can be considered as a subfield of robotics that aims to create more robust and adaptive robots. A pivotal feature of the evolutionary approach is that it considers the whole robot at once, and enables the exploitation of robot features in a holistic manner. Evolutionary robotics can also be seen as an innovative approach to the study of evolution based on a new kind of experimentalism. The use of robots as a substrate can help address questions that are difficult, if not impossible, to investigate through computer simulations or biological studies. In this paper we consider the main achievements of evolutionary robotics, focusing particularly on its contributions to both engineering and biology. We briefly elaborate on methodological issues, review some of the most interesting findings, and discuss important open issues and promising avenues for future work.

Child, Robot and Educational Material : A Triadic Interaction

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Davison, Daniel Patrick

The process in which a child and a robot work together to solve a learning task can be characterised as a triadic interaction. Interactions between the child and robot; the child and learning materials; and the robot and learning materials will each shape the perception and appreciation the child

Child, Robot and Educational Material: A Triadic Interaction

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Davison, Daniel Patrick

The process in which a child and a robot work together to solve a learning task can be characterised as a triadic interaction. Interactions between the child and robot; the child and learning materials; and the robot and learning materials will each shape the perception and appreciation the child

Robot 2015 : Second Iberian Robotics Conference : Advances in Robotics

CERN Document Server

Moreira, António; Lima, Pedro; Montano, Luis; Muñoz-Martinez, Victor

2016-01-01

This book contains a selection of papers accepted for presentation and discussion at ROBOT 2015: Second Iberian Robotics Conference, held in Lisbon, Portugal, November 19th-21th, 2015. ROBOT 2015 is part of a series of conferences that are a joint organization of SPR – “Sociedade Portuguesa de Robótica/ Portuguese Society for Robotics”, SEIDROB – Sociedad Española para la Investigación y Desarrollo de la Robótica/ Spanish Society for Research and Development in Robotics and CEA-GTRob – Grupo Temático de Robótica/ Robotics Thematic Group. The conference organization had also the collaboration of several universities and research institutes, including: University of Minho, University of Porto, University of Lisbon, Polytechnic Institute of Porto, University of Aveiro, University of Zaragoza, University of Malaga, LIACC, INESC-TEC and LARSyS. Robot 2015 was focussed on the Robotics scientific and technological activities in the Iberian Peninsula, although open to research and delegates from other...

Why Robots Should Be Social: Enhancing Machine Learning through Social Human-Robot Interaction.

Science.gov (United States)

de Greeff, Joachim; Belpaeme, Tony

2015-01-01

Social learning is a powerful method for cultural propagation of knowledge and skills relying on a complex interplay of learning strategies, social ecology and the human propensity for both learning and tutoring. Social learning has the potential to be an equally potent learning strategy for artificial systems and robots in specific. However, given the complexity and unstructured nature of social learning, implementing social machine learning proves to be a challenging problem. We study one particular aspect of social machine learning: that of offering social cues during the learning interaction. Specifically, we study whether people are sensitive to social cues offered by a learning robot, in a similar way to children's social bids for tutoring. We use a child-like social robot and a task in which the robot has to learn the meaning of words. For this a simple turn-based interaction is used, based on language games. Two conditions are tested: one in which the robot uses social means to invite a human teacher to provide information based on what the robot requires to fill gaps in its knowledge (i.e. expression of a learning preference); the other in which the robot does not provide social cues to communicate a learning preference. We observe that conveying a learning preference through the use of social cues results in better and faster learning by the robot. People also seem to form a "mental model" of the robot, tailoring the tutoring to the robot's performance as opposed to using simply random teaching. In addition, the social learning shows a clear gender effect with female participants being responsive to the robot's bids, while male teachers appear to be less receptive. This work shows how additional social cues in social machine learning can result in people offering better quality learning input to artificial systems, resulting in improved learning performance.

Why Robots Should Be Social: Enhancing Machine Learning through Social Human-Robot Interaction.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joachim de Greeff

Full Text Available Social learning is a powerful method for cultural propagation of knowledge and skills relying on a complex interplay of learning strategies, social ecology and the human propensity for both learning and tutoring. Social learning has the potential to be an equally potent learning strategy for artificial systems and robots in specific. However, given the complexity and unstructured nature of social learning, implementing social machine learning proves to be a challenging problem. We study one particular aspect of social machine learning: that of offering social cues during the learning interaction. Specifically, we study whether people are sensitive to social cues offered by a learning robot, in a similar way to children's social bids for tutoring. We use a child-like social robot and a task in which the robot has to learn the meaning of words. For this a simple turn-based interaction is used, based on language games. Two conditions are tested: one in which the robot uses social means to invite a human teacher to provide information based on what the robot requires to fill gaps in its knowledge (i.e. expression of a learning preference; the other in which the robot does not provide social cues to communicate a learning preference. We observe that conveying a learning preference through the use of social cues results in better and faster learning by the robot. People also seem to form a "mental model" of the robot, tailoring the tutoring to the robot's performance as opposed to using simply random teaching. In addition, the social learning shows a clear gender effect with female participants being responsive to the robot's bids, while male teachers appear to be less receptive. This work shows how additional social cues in social machine learning can result in people offering better quality learning input to artificial systems, resulting in improved learning performance.

SpRoUTS (Space Robot Universal Truss System): Reversible Robotic Assembly of Deployable Truss Structures of Reconfigurable Length

Science.gov (United States)

Jenett, Benjamin; Cellucci, Daniel; Cheung, Kenneth

2015-01-01

Automatic deployment of structures has been a focus of much academic and industrial work on infrastructure applications and robotics in general. This paper presents a robotic truss assembler designed for space applications - the Space Robot Universal Truss System (SpRoUTS) - that reversibly assembles a truss from a feedstock of hinged andflat-packed components, by folding the sides of each component up and locking onto the assembled structure. We describe the design and implementation of the robot and show that the assembled truss compares favorably with prior truss deployment systems.

An autonomous robot for harvesting cucumbers in greenhouses

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Henten, van E.J.; Hemming, J.; Tuijl, van B.A.J.; Kornet, J.G.; Meuleman, J.; Bontsema, J.; Os, van E.A.

2002-01-01

This paper describes the concept of an autonomous robot for harvesting cucumbers in greenhouses. A description is given of the working environment of the robot and the logistics of harvesting. It is stated that for a 2 ha Dutch nursery, 4 harvesting robots and one docking station are needed during

Hexapod Robot

Science.gov (United States)

Begody, Ericka

2016-01-01

The project I am working on at NASA-Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX is a hexapod robot. This project was started by various engineers at the Trick Lab. The goal of this project is to have the hexapod track a yellow ball or possibly another object from left to right and up/down. The purpose is to have it track an object like a real creature. The project will consist of using software and hardware. This project started with a hexapod robot which uses a senor bar to track a yellow ball but with a limited field of vision. The sensor bar acts as the robots "head." Two servos will be added to the hexapod to create flexion and extension of the head. The neck and head servos will have to be programmed to be added to the original memory map of the existing servos. I will be using preexisting code. The main programming language that will be used to add to the preexisting code is C++. The trick modeling and simulation software will also be used in the process to improve its tracking and movement. This project will use a trial and error approach, basically seeing what works and what does not. The first step is to initially understand how the hexapod works. To get a general understanding of how the hexapod maneuvers and plan on how to had a neck and head servo which works with the rest of the body. The second step would be configuring the head and neck servos with the leg servos. During this step, limits will be programmed specifically for the each servo. By doing this, the servo is limited to how far it can rotate both clockwise and counterclockwise and this is to prevent hardware damage. The hexapod will have two modes in which it works in. The first mode will be if the sensor bar does not detect an object. If the object it is programmed to look for is not in its view it will automatically scan from left to right 3 times then up and down once. The second mode will be if the sensor bar does detect the object. In this mode the hexapod will track the object from left to

Adaptive heterogeneous multi-robot teams

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Parker, L.E.

1998-11-01

This research addresses the problem of achieving fault tolerant cooperation within small- to medium-sized teams of heterogeneous mobile robots. The author describes a novel behavior-based, fully distributed architecture, called ALLIANCE, that utilizes adaptive action selection to achieve fault tolerant cooperative control in robot missions involving loosely coupled, largely independent tasks. The robots in this architecture possess a variety of high-level functions that they can perform during a mission, and must at all times select an appropriate action based on the requirements of the mission, the activities of other robots, the current environmental conditions, and their own internal states. Since such cooperative teams often work in dynamic and unpredictable environments, the software architecture allows the team members to respond robustly and reliably to unexpected environmental changes and modifications in the robot team that may occur due to mechanical failure, the learning of new skills, or the addition or removal of robots from the team by human intervention. After presenting ALLIANCE, the author describes in detail the experimental results of an implementation of this architecture on a team of physical mobile robots performing a cooperative box pushing demonstration. These experiments illustrate the ability of ALLIANCE to achieve adaptive, fault-tolerant cooperative control amidst dynamic changes in the capabilities of the robot team.

Research on the inspection robot for cable tunnel

Science.gov (United States)

Xin, Shihao

2017-03-01

Robot by mechanical obstacle, double end communication, remote control and monitoring software components. The mechanical obstacle part mainly uses the tracked mobile robot mechanism, in order to facilitate the design and installation of the robot, the other auxiliary swing arm; double side communication part used a combination of communication wire communication with wireless communication, great improve the communication range of the robot. When the robot is controlled by far detection range, using wired communication control, on the other hand, using wireless communication; remote control part mainly completes the inspection robot walking, navigation, positioning and identification of cloud platform control. In order to improve the reliability of its operation, the preliminary selection of IPC as the control core the movable body selection program hierarchical structure as a design basis; monitoring software part is the core part of the robot, which has a definite diagnosis Can be instead of manual simple fault judgment, instead the robot as a remote actuators, staff as long as the remote control can be, do not have to body at the scene. Four parts are independent of each other but are related to each other, the realization of the structure of independence and coherence, easy maintenance and coordination work. Robot with real-time positioning function and remote control function, greatly improves the IT operation. Robot remote monitor, to avoid the direct contact with the staff and line, thereby reducing the accident casualties, for the safety of the inspection work has far-reaching significance.

Cultural Robotics: The Culture of Robotics and Robotics in Culture

OpenAIRE

Hooman Samani; Elham Saadatian; Natalie Pang; Doros Polydorou; Owen Noel Newton Fernando; Ryohei Nakatsu; Jeffrey Tzu Kwan Valino Koh

2013-01-01

In this paper, we have investigated the concept of “Cultural Robotics” with regard to the evolution of social into cultural robots in the 21st Century. By defining the concept of culture, the potential development of a culture between humans and robots is explored. Based on the cultural values of the robotics developers, and the learning ability of current robots, cultural attributes in this regard are in the process of being formed, which would define the new concept of cultural robotics. Ac...

Sociable Robots Through Self-Maintained Energy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Trung Dung Ngo

2006-12-01

Full Text Available Research of autonomous mobile robots has mostly emphasized interaction and coordination that are natually inspired from biological behavior of birds, insects, and fish: flocking, foraging, collecting, and sharing. However, most research has been only focused on autonomous behaviors in order to perform robots like animals, whereas it is lacked of determinant to those behaviours: energy. Approaching to clusted amimal and the higher, collective and sharing food among individuals are major activity to keep society being. This paper issues an approach to sociable robots using self-maintained energy in cooperative mobile robots, which is dominantly inspired from swarm behavior of collecting and sharing food of honey-bee and ant. Autonomous mobile robots are usually equipped with a finite energy, thus they can operate in a finite time. To overcome the finitude, we describe practical deployment of mobile robots that are capable of carrying and exchanging fuel to other robots. Mechanism implementation including modular hardware and control architecture to demonstrate the capabicities of the approach is presented. Subsequently, the battery exchange algorithm basically based on probabilistic modeling of total energy on each robot located in its local vicinity is described. The paper is concluded with challenging works of chain of mobile robots, rescue, repair, and relation of heterogeneous robots.

Sociable Robots through Self-maintained Energy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Henrik Schioler

2008-11-01

Full Text Available Research of autonomous mobile robots has mostly emphasized interaction and coordination that are natually inspired from biological behavior of birds, insects, and fish: flocking, foraging, collecting, and sharing. However, most research has been only focused on autonomous behaviors in order to perform robots like animals, whereas it is lacked of determinant to those behaviours: energy. Approaching to clusted amimal and the higher, collective and sharing food among individuals are major activity to keep society being. This paper issues an approach to sociable robots using self-maintained energy in cooperative mobile robots, which is dominantly inspired from swarm behavior of collecting and sharing food of honey-bee and ant. Autonomous mobile robots are usually equipped with a finite energy, thus they can operate in a finite time. To overcome the finitude, we describe practical deployment of mobile robots that are capable of carrying and exchanging fuel to other robots. Mechanism implementation including modular hardware and control architecture to demonstrate the capabicities of the approach is presented. Subsequently, the battery exchange algorithm basically based on probabilistic modeling of total energy on each robot located in its local vicinity is described. The paper is concluded with challenging works of chain of mobile robots, rescue, repair, and relation of heterogeneous robots.

Afterword: Robot Conceptualizations Between Continuity and Innovation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Leopoldina Fortunati

2013-01-01

Full Text Available The aim of this afterword is to discuss a topic that links all the papers presented in this special issue. This transversal topic is the forms of social robots. Firstly, social robots form is discussed in light of the forms of robotics we have inherited from the past. This includes the models of society that each of them embodied, as well as the social logic of the emotions connected to them. Secondly, social robots form is analyzed in light of the arrival in a new area for robotics, that of robots in the domestic sphere. Here, the system of filters created by the mass appropriation of information and communication technologies in the last two decades, has set the premise for a change of the social contract that has made social robot penetration possible. Whilst exploring the models and the meanings of social robots in the domestic sphere it emerges that robotics is following two different paths: one addressing the material part of housework (more traditional robotics and the other addressing the immaterial part of reproduction work (more innovative robotics. Finally, the paper analyzes the dematerialization process of social robotics that is still taking place, a practice that is defined herein as “ubiquitous social roboting.”

Control of free-flying space robot manipulator systems

Science.gov (United States)

Cannon, Robert H., Jr.

1990-01-01

New control techniques for self contained, autonomous free flying space robots were developed and tested experimentally. Free flying robots are envisioned as a key element of any successful long term presence in space. These robots must be capable of performing the assembly, maintenance, and inspection, and repair tasks that currently require human extravehicular activity (EVA). A set of research projects were developed and carried out using lab models of satellite robots and a flexible manipulator. The second generation space robot models use air cushion vehicle (ACV) technology to simulate in 2-D the drag free, zero g conditions of space. The current work is divided into 5 major projects: Global Navigation and Control of a Free Floating Robot, Cooperative Manipulation from a Free Flying Robot, Multiple Robot Cooperation, Thrusterless Robotic Locomotion, and Dynamic Payload Manipulation. These projects are examined in detail.

Analyzing the effects of human-aware motion planning on close-proximity human-robot collaboration.

Science.gov (United States)

Lasota, Przemyslaw A; Shah, Julie A

2015-02-01

The objective of this work was to examine human response to motion-level robot adaptation to determine its effect on team fluency, human satisfaction, and perceived safety and comfort. The evaluation of human response to adaptive robotic assistants has been limited, particularly in the realm of motion-level adaptation. The lack of true human-in-the-loop evaluation has made it impossible to determine whether such adaptation would lead to efficient and satisfying human-robot interaction. We conducted an experiment in which participants worked with a robot to perform a collaborative task. Participants worked with an adaptive robot incorporating human-aware motion planning and with a baseline robot using shortest-path motions. Team fluency was evaluated through a set of quantitative metrics, and human satisfaction and perceived safety and comfort were evaluated through questionnaires. When working with the adaptive robot, participants completed the task 5.57% faster, with 19.9% more concurrent motion, 2.96% less human idle time, 17.3% less robot idle time, and a 15.1% greater separation distance. Questionnaire responses indicated that participants felt safer and more comfortable when working with an adaptive robot and were more satisfied with it as a teammate than with the standard robot. People respond well to motion-level robot adaptation, and significant benefits can be achieved from its use in terms of both human-robot team fluency and human worker satisfaction. Our conclusion supports the development of technologies that could be used to implement human-aware motion planning in collaborative robots and the use of this technique for close-proximity human-robot collaboration.

Automatic Operation For A Robot Lawn Mower

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Y. Y.; Cao, Z. L.; Oh, S. J.; Kattan, E. U.; Hall, E. L.

1987-02-01

A domestic mobile robot, lawn mower, which performs the automatic operation mode, has been built up in the Center of Robotics Research, University of Cincinnati. The robot lawn mower automatically completes its work with the region filling operation, a new kind of path planning for mobile robots. Some strategies for region filling of path planning have been developed for a partly-known or a unknown environment. Also, an advanced omnidirectional navigation system and a multisensor-based control system are used in the automatic operation. Research on the robot lawn mower, especially on the region filling of path planning, is significant in industrial and agricultural applications.

Human-Automation Allocations for Current Robotic Space Operations

Science.gov (United States)

Marquez, Jessica J.; Chang, Mai L.; Beard, Bettina L.; Kim, Yun Kyung; Karasinski, John A.

2018-01-01

Within the Human Research Program, one risk delineates the uncertainty surrounding crew working with automation and robotics in spaceflight. The Risk of Inadequate Design of Human and Automation/Robotic Integration (HARI) is concerned with the detrimental effects on crew performance due to ineffective user interfaces, system designs and/or functional task allocation, potentially compromising mission success and safety. Risk arises because we have limited experience with complex automation and robotics. One key gap within HARI, is the gap related to functional allocation. The gap states: We need to evaluate, develop, and validate methods and guidelines for identifying human-automation/robot task information needs, function allocation, and team composition for future long duration, long distance space missions. Allocations determine the human-system performance as it identifies the functions and performance levels required by the automation/robotic system, and in turn, what work the crew is expected to perform and the necessary human performance requirements. Allocations must take into account each of the human, automation, and robotic systems capabilities and limitations. Some functions may be intuitively assigned to the human versus the robot, but to optimize efficiency and effectiveness, purposeful role assignments will be required. The role of automation and robotics will significantly change in future exploration missions, particularly as crew becomes more autonomous from ground controllers. Thus, we must understand the suitability of existing function allocation methods within NASA as well as the existing allocations established by the few robotic systems that are operational in spaceflight. In order to evaluate future methods of robotic allocations, we must first benchmark the allocations and allocation methods that have been used. We will present 1) documentation of human-automation-robotic allocations in existing, operational spaceflight systems; and 2) To

Easy Reconfiguration of Modular Industrial Collaborative Robots

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schou, Casper

2016-01-01

the production staff collaborating to perform common tasks. This change of environment imposes a much more dynamic lifecycle for the robot which consequently requires new ways of interacting. This thesis investigates how the changeover to a new task on a collaborative robot can be performed by the shop floor...... operators already working alongside the robot. To effectively perform this changeover, the operator must both reconfigure the hardware of the robot and reprogram the robot to match the new task. To enable shop floor operators to quickly and intuitively program the robot, this thesis proposes the use...... of parametric, task-related robot skills with a manual parameterization method. Reconfiguring the hardware entails adding, removing, or modifying some of the robot’s components. This thesis investigate how software configurator tools can aid the operator in selecting appropriate hardware modules, and how agent...

Electronics and Software Engineer for Robotics Project Intern

Science.gov (United States)

Teijeiro, Antonio

2017-01-01

I was assigned to mentor high school students for the 2017 First Robotics Competition. Using a team based approach, I worked with the students to program the robot and applied my electrical background to build the robot from start to finish. I worked with students who had an interest in electrical engineering to teach them about voltage, current, pulse width modulation, solenoids, electromagnets, relays, DC motors, DC motor controllers, crimping and soldering electrical components, Java programming, and robotic simulation. For the simulation, we worked together to generate graphics files, write simulator description format code, operate Linux, and operate SOLIDWORKS. Upon completion of the FRC season, I transitioned over to providing full time support for the LCS hardware team. During this phase of my internship I helped my co-intern write test steps for two networking hardware DVTs , as well as run cables and update cable running lists.

From Human-Computer Interaction to Human-Robot Social Interaction

OpenAIRE

Toumi, Tarek; Zidani, Abdelmadjid

2014-01-01

Human-Robot Social Interaction became one of active research fields in which researchers from different areas propose solutions and directives leading robots to improve their interactions with humans. In this paper we propose to introduce works in both human robot interaction and human computer interaction and to make a bridge between them, i.e. to integrate emotions and capabilities concepts of the robot in human computer model to become adequate for human robot interaction and discuss chall...

Lazy motion planning for robotic manipulators

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Andrien, A.R.P.; van de Molengraft, M.J.G.; Bruyninckx, H.P.J.

2017-01-01

Robotic manipulators are making a shift towards mobile bases in both industry and domestic environments, which puts high demands on efficient use of the robot’s limited energy resources. In this work, the problem of reducing energy usage of a robot manipulator during a task is investigated. We

Development of a Modular Robotic Platform

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Claudiu Ioan Cirebea

2014-12-01

Full Text Available In this paper a modular robotic platform is presented, for students and researchers laboratory work based on the Matlab-Simulink and dSpace real time control platform. The goal of this combination is to stimulate and to experiment with real time hardware and software in courses where mobile robotics is adopted as a motivating platform to introduce mechatronics competencies. Its many possibilities for modifications and extensions make experiments very easy. We used, for example, an omnidirectional mobile robot configuration with three Swedish wheels, whose kinematic model was simulated using Simulink. For real-time control, of the robot, the developed model has been implemented using DSpace platform DS1103.

Multi-robot team design for real-world applications

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Parker, L.E.

1996-10-01

Many of these applications are in dynamic environments requiring capabilities distributed in functionality, space, or time, and therefore often require teams of robots to work together. While much research has been done in recent years, current robotics technology is still far from achieving many of the real world applications. Two primary reasons for this technology gap are that (1) previous work has not adequately addressed the issues of fault tolerance and adaptivity in multi-robot teams, and (2) existing robotics research is often geared at specific applications and is not easily generalized to different, but related, applications. This paper addresses these issues by first describing the design issues of key importance in these real-world cooperative robotics applications: fault tolerance, reliability, adaptivity, and coherence. We then present a general architecture addressing these design issues (called ALLIANCE) that facilities multi-robot cooperation of small- to medium-sized teams in dynamic environments, performing missions composed of loosely coupled subtasks. We illustrate an implementation of ALLIANCE in a real-world application, called Bounding Overwatch, and then discuss how this architecture addresses our key design issues.

Multi-robots to micro-surgery: Selected robotic applications at Sandia National Laboratories

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bennett, P.C. [Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States). Intelligent Systems and Robotics Center

1996-11-01

The Intelligent Systems and Robotics Center (ISRC) at Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program organization, pursuing research, development and applications in a wide range of field. Activities range from large-scale applications such as nuclear facility dismantlement for the US Department of Energy (DOE), to aircraft inspection and refurbishment, to automated script and program generation for robotic manufacturing and assembly, to miniature robotic devices and sensors for remote sensing and micro-surgery. This paper describes six activities in the large and small scale that are underway and either nearing technology transfer stage or seeking industrial partners to continue application development. The topics of the applications include multiple arm coordination for intuitively maneuvering large, ungainly work pieces; simulation, analysis and graphical training capability for CP-5 research reactor dismantlement; miniature robots with volumes of 16 cubic centimeters and less developed for inspection and sensor deployment; and biomedical sensors to enhance automated prosthetic device production and fill laparoscopic surgery information gap.

A tracked robot with novel bio-inspired passive "legs".

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Bo; Jing, Xingjian

2017-01-01

For track-based robots, an important aspect is the suppression design, which determines the trafficability and comfort of the whole system. The trafficability limits the robot's working capability, and the riding comfort limits the robot's working effectiveness, especially with some sensitive instruments mounted on or operated. To these aims, a track-based robot equipped with a novel passive bio-inspired suspension is designed and studied systematically in this paper. Animal or insects have very special leg or limb structures which are good for motion control and adaptable to different environments. Inspired by this, a new track-based robot is designed with novel "legs" for connecting the loading wheels to the robot body. Each leg is designed with passive structures and can achieve very high loading capacity but low dynamic stiffness such that the robot can move on rough ground similar to a multi-leg animal or insect. Therefore, the trafficability and riding comfort can be significantly improved without losing loading capacity. The new track-based robot can be well applied to various engineering tasks for providing a stable moving platform of high mobility, better trafficability and excellent loading capacity.

Modular robotic applications in nuclear power plant maintenance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Glass, S.W.; Ranson, C.C.; Reinholtz, C.F.; Calkins, J.M.

1996-01-01

General-purpose factory automation robots have experienced limited use in nuclear maintenance and hazardous-environment work spaces due to demanding requirements on size, weight, mobility and adaptability. Robotic systems in nuclear power plants are frequently custom designed to meet specific space and performance requirements. Examples of these custom configurations include Framatome Technologies COBRA trademark Steam Generator Manipulator and URSULA trademark Reactor Vessel Inspection Manipulator. The use of custom robots in nuclear plants has been limited because of the lead time and expense associated with custom design. Developments in modular robotics and advanced robot control software coupled with more powerful low-cost computers, however, are helping to reduce the cost and schedule for deploying custom robots. A modular robotic system allows custom robot configurations to be implemented using standard (modular) joints and adaptable controllers. This paper discusses Framatome Technologies (FTI) current and planned developments in the area of modular robot system design

Biological Immune System Applications on Mobile Robot for Disabled People

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Songmin Jia

2014-01-01

Full Text Available To improve the service quality of service robots for the disabled, immune system is applied on robot for its advantages such as diversity, dynamic, parallel management, self-organization, and self-adaptation. According to the immune system theory, local environment condition sensed by robot is considered an antigen while robot is regarded as B-cell and possible node as antibody, respectively. Antibody-antigen affinity is employed to choose the optimal possible node to ensure the service robot can pass through the optimal path. The paper details the immune system applications on service robot and gives experimental results.

Analyzing the Effects of Human-Aware Motion Planning on Close-Proximity Human–Robot Collaboration

Science.gov (United States)

Shah, Julie A.

2015-01-01

Objective: The objective of this work was to examine human response to motion-level robot adaptation to determine its effect on team fluency, human satisfaction, and perceived safety and comfort. Background: The evaluation of human response to adaptive robotic assistants has been limited, particularly in the realm of motion-level adaptation. The lack of true human-in-the-loop evaluation has made it impossible to determine whether such adaptation would lead to efficient and satisfying human–robot interaction. Method: We conducted an experiment in which participants worked with a robot to perform a collaborative task. Participants worked with an adaptive robot incorporating human-aware motion planning and with a baseline robot using shortest-path motions. Team fluency was evaluated through a set of quantitative metrics, and human satisfaction and perceived safety and comfort were evaluated through questionnaires. Results: When working with the adaptive robot, participants completed the task 5.57% faster, with 19.9% more concurrent motion, 2.96% less human idle time, 17.3% less robot idle time, and a 15.1% greater separation distance. Questionnaire responses indicated that participants felt safer and more comfortable when working with an adaptive robot and were more satisfied with it as a teammate than with the standard robot. Conclusion: People respond well to motion-level robot adaptation, and significant benefits can be achieved from its use in terms of both human–robot team fluency and human worker satisfaction. Application: Our conclusion supports the development of technologies that could be used to implement human-aware motion planning in collaborative robots and the use of this technique for close-proximity human–robot collaboration. PMID:25790568

Selected Topics in MicroNano-robotics for Biomedical Applications

CERN Document Server

2013-01-01

Selected Topics in Micro/Nano-robotics for Biomedical Applications features a system approach and incorporates modern methodologies in autonomous mobile robots for programmable and controllable micro/nano-robots aiming at biomedical applications. The book provides chapters of instructional materials and cutting-edge research results in micro/nanorobotics for biomedical applications. The book presents new sensing technology on nanofibers, new power supply techniques including miniature fuel cells and energy harvesting devices, and manipulation techniques including AFM-based nano-robotic manipulation, robot-aided optical tweezers, and robot-assisted catheter surgery systems. It also contains case studies on using micro/nano-robots in biomedical environments and in biomedicine, as well as a design example to conceptually develop a Vitamin-pill sized robot to enter human’s gastrointestinal tract. Each chapter covers a different topic of the highly interdisciplinary area. Bring together the selected topics into ...

Development of a Survivable Cloud Multi-Robot Framework for Heterogeneous Environments

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Isaac Osunmakinde

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Cloud robotics is a paradigm that allows for robots to offload computationally intensive and data storage requirements into the cloud by providing a secure and customizable environment. The challenge for cloud robotics is the inherent problem of cloud disconnection. A major assumption made in the development of the current cloud robotics frameworks is that the connection between the cloud and the robot is always available. However, for multi-robots working in heterogeneous environments, the connection between the cloud and the robots cannot always be guaranteed. This work serves to assist with the challenge of disconnection in cloud robotics by proposing a survivable cloud multi-robotics (SCMR framework for heterogeneous environments. The SCMR framework leverages the combination of a virtual ad hoc network formed by robot-to-robot communication and a physical cloud infrastructure formed by robot-to-cloud communications. The quality of service (QoS on the SCMR framework was tested and validated by determining the optimal energy utilization and time of response (ToR on drivability analysis with and without cloud connection. The design trade-off, including the result, is between the computation energy for the robot execution and the offloading energy for the cloud execution.

Memetic Engineering as a Basis for Learning in Robotic Communities

Science.gov (United States)

Truszkowski, Walter F.; Rouff, Christopher; Akhavannik, Mohammad H.

2014-01-01

This paper represents a new contribution to the growing literature on memes. While most memetic thought has been focused on its implications on humans, this paper speculates on the role that memetics can have on robotic communities. Though speculative, the concepts are based on proven advanced multi agent technology work done at NASA - Goddard Space Flight Center and Lockheed Martin. The paper is composed of the following sections : 1) An introductory section which gently leads the reader into the realm of memes. 2) A section on memetic engineering which addresses some of the central issues with robotic learning via memes. 3) A section on related work which very concisely identifies three other areas of memetic applications, i.e., news, psychology, and the study of human behaviors. 4) A section which discusses the proposed approach for realizing memetic behaviors in robots and robotic communities. 5) A section which presents an exploration scenario for a community of robots working on Mars. 6) A final section which discusses future research which will be required to realize a comprehensive science of robotic memetics.

Is Ethics of Robotics about Robots? Philosophy of Robotics Beyond Realism and Individualilsm.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Coeckelbergh, Mark

2011-01-01

If we are doing ethics of robotics, what exactly is the object of our inquiry? This paper challenges 'individualist' robot ontology and 'individualist' social philosophy of robots. It is argued that ethics of robotics should not study and evaluate robotics exclusively in terms of individual

Autonomous Mobile Robot That Can Read

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Létourneau Dominic

2004-01-01

Full Text Available The ability to read would surely contribute to increased autonomy of mobile robots operating in the real world. The process seems fairly simple: the robot must be capable of acquiring an image of a message to read, extract the characters, and recognize them as symbols, characters, and words. Using an optical Character Recognition algorithm on a mobile robot however brings additional challenges: the robot has to control its position in the world and its pan-tilt-zoom camera to find textual messages to read, potentially having to compensate for its viewpoint of the message, and use the limited onboard processing capabilities to decode the message. The robot also has to deal with variations in lighting conditions. In this paper, we present our approach demonstrating that it is feasible for an autonomous mobile robot to read messages of specific colors and font in real-world conditions. We outline the constraints under which the approach works and present results obtained using a Pioneer 2 robot equipped with a Pentium 233 MHz and a Sony EVI-D30 pan-tilt-zoom camera.

Hands Off: Mentoring a Student-Led Robotics Team

Science.gov (United States)

Dolenc, Nathan R.; Mitchell, Claire E.; Tai, Robert H.

2016-01-01

Mentors play important roles in determining the working environment of out-of-school-time clubs. On robotics teams, they provide guidance in hopes that their protégés progress through an engineering process. This study examined how mentors on one robotics team who defined their mentoring style as "let the students do the work" navigated…

Adaptation of the IBM ECR [electric cantilever robot] robot to plutonium processing applications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Armantrout, G.A.; Pedrotti, L.R.; Halter, E.A.; Crossfield, M.

1990-12-01

The changing regulatory climate in the US is adding increasing incentive to reduce operator dose and TRU waste for DOE plutonium processing operations. To help achieve that goal the authors have begun adapting a small commercial overhead gantry robot, the IBM electric cantilever robot (ECR), to plutonium processing applications. Steps are being taken to harden this robot to withstand the dry, often abrasive, environment within a plutonium glove box and to protect the electronic components against alpha radiation. A mock-up processing system for the reduction of the oxide to a metal was prepared and successfully demonstrated. Design of a working prototype is now underway using the results of this mock-up study. 7 figs., 4 tabs

Dynamic photogrammetric calibration of industrial robots

Science.gov (United States)

Maas, Hans-Gerd

1997-07-01

Today's developments in industrial robots focus on aims like gain of flexibility, improvement of the interaction between robots and reduction of down-times. A very important method to achieve these goals are off-line programming techniques. In contrast to conventional teach-in-robot programming techniques, where sequences of actions are defined step-by- step via remote control on the real object, off-line programming techniques design complete robot (inter-)action programs in a CAD/CAM environment. This poses high requirements to the geometric accuracy of a robot. While the repeatability of robot poses in the teach-in mode is often better than 0.1 mm, the absolute pose accuracy potential of industrial robots is usually much worse due to tolerances, eccentricities, elasticities, play, wear-out, load, temperature and insufficient knowledge of model parameters for the transformation from poses into robot axis angles. This fact necessitates robot calibration techniques, including the formulation of a robot model describing kinematics and dynamics of the robot, and a measurement technique to provide reference data. Digital photogrammetry as an accurate, economic technique with realtime potential offers itself for this purpose. The paper analyzes the requirements posed to a measurement technique by industrial robot calibration tasks. After an overview on measurement techniques used for robot calibration purposes in the past, a photogrammetric robot calibration system based on off-the- shelf lowcost hardware components will be shown and results of pilot studies will be discussed. Besides aspects of accuracy, reliability and self-calibration in a fully automatic dynamic photogrammetric system, realtime capabilities are discussed. In the pilot studies, standard deviations of 0.05 - 0.25 mm in the three coordinate directions could be achieved over a robot work range of 1.7 X 1.5 X 1.0 m3. The realtime capabilities of the technique allow to go beyond kinematic robot

ROBOT TASK SCENE ANALYZER

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hamel, William R.; Everett, Steven

2000-01-01

Environmental restoration and waste management (ER and WM) challenges in the United States Department of Energy (DOE), and around the world, involve radiation or other hazards which will necessitate the use of remote operations to protect human workers from dangerous exposures. Remote operations carry the implication of greater costs since remote work systems are inherently less productive than contact human work due to the inefficiencies/complexities of teleoperation. To reduce costs and improve quality, much attention has been focused on methods to improve the productivity of combined human operator/remote equipment systems; the achievements to date are modest at best. The most promising avenue in the near term is to supplement conventional remote work systems with robotic planning and control techniques borrowed from manufacturing and other domains where robotic automation has been used. Practical combinations of teleoperation and robotic control will yield telerobotic work systems that outperform currently available remote equipment. It is believed that practical telerobotic systems may increase remote work efficiencies significantly. Increases of 30% to 50% have been conservatively estimated for typical remote operations. It is important to recognize that the basic hardware and software features of most modern remote manipulation systems can readily accommodate the functionality required for telerobotics. Further, several of the additional system ingredients necessary to implement telerobotic control--machine vision, 3D object and workspace modeling, automatic tool path generation and collision-free trajectory planning--are existent

ROBOT TASK SCENE ANALYZER

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

William R. Hamel; Steven Everett

2000-08-01

Environmental restoration and waste management (ER and WM) challenges in the United States Department of Energy (DOE), and around the world, involve radiation or other hazards which will necessitate the use of remote operations to protect human workers from dangerous exposures. Remote operations carry the implication of greater costs since remote work systems are inherently less productive than contact human work due to the inefficiencies/complexities of teleoperation. To reduce costs and improve quality, much attention has been focused on methods to improve the productivity of combined human operator/remote equipment systems; the achievements to date are modest at best. The most promising avenue in the near term is to supplement conventional remote work systems with robotic planning and control techniques borrowed from manufacturing and other domains where robotic automation has been used. Practical combinations of teleoperation and robotic control will yield telerobotic work systems that outperform currently available remote equipment. It is believed that practical telerobotic systems may increase remote work efficiencies significantly. Increases of 30% to 50% have been conservatively estimated for typical remote operations. It is important to recognize that the basic hardware and software features of most modern remote manipulation systems can readily accommodate the functionality required for telerobotics. Further, several of the additional system ingredients necessary to implement telerobotic control--machine vision, 3D object and workspace modeling, automatic tool path generation and collision-free trajectory planning--are existent.

Robots As Intentional Agents: Using Neuroscientific Methods to Make Robots Appear More Social.

Science.gov (United States)

Wiese, Eva; Metta, Giorgio; Wykowska, Agnieszka

2017-01-01

Robots are increasingly envisaged as our future cohabitants. However, while considerable progress has been made in recent years in terms of their technological realization, the ability of robots to interact with humans in an intuitive and social way is still quite limited. An important challenge for social robotics is to determine how to design robots that can perceive the user's needs, feelings, and intentions, and adapt to users over a broad range of cognitive abilities. It is conceivable that if robots were able to adequately demonstrate these skills, humans would eventually accept them as social companions. We argue that the best way to achieve this is using a systematic experimental approach based on behavioral and physiological neuroscience methods such as motion/eye-tracking, electroencephalography, or functional near-infrared spectroscopy embedded in interactive human-robot paradigms. This approach requires understanding how humans interact with each other, how they perform tasks together and how they develop feelings of social connection over time, and using these insights to formulate design principles that make social robots attuned to the workings of the human brain. In this review, we put forward the argument that the likelihood of artificial agents being perceived as social companions can be increased by designing them in a way that they are perceived as intentional agents that activate areas in the human brain involved in social-cognitive processing. We first review literature related to social-cognitive processes and mechanisms involved in human-human interactions, and highlight the importance of perceiving others as intentional agents to activate these social brain areas. We then discuss how attribution of intentionality can positively affect human-robot interaction by (a) fostering feelings of social connection, empathy and prosociality, and by (b) enhancing performance on joint human-robot tasks. Lastly, we describe circumstances under which

Robots As Intentional Agents: Using Neuroscientific Methods to Make Robots Appear More Social

Science.gov (United States)

Wiese, Eva; Metta, Giorgio; Wykowska, Agnieszka

2017-01-01

Robots are increasingly envisaged as our future cohabitants. However, while considerable progress has been made in recent years in terms of their technological realization, the ability of robots to interact with humans in an intuitive and social way is still quite limited. An important challenge for social robotics is to determine how to design robots that can perceive the user’s needs, feelings, and intentions, and adapt to users over a broad range of cognitive abilities. It is conceivable that if robots were able to adequately demonstrate these skills, humans would eventually accept them as social companions. We argue that the best way to achieve this is using a systematic experimental approach based on behavioral and physiological neuroscience methods such as motion/eye-tracking, electroencephalography, or functional near-infrared spectroscopy embedded in interactive human–robot paradigms. This approach requires understanding how humans interact with each other, how they perform tasks together and how they develop feelings of social connection over time, and using these insights to formulate design principles that make social robots attuned to the workings of the human brain. In this review, we put forward the argument that the likelihood of artificial agents being perceived as social companions can be increased by designing them in a way that they are perceived as intentional agents that activate areas in the human brain involved in social-cognitive processing. We first review literature related to social-cognitive processes and mechanisms involved in human–human interactions, and highlight the importance of perceiving others as intentional agents to activate these social brain areas. We then discuss how attribution of intentionality can positively affect human–robot interaction by (a) fostering feelings of social connection, empathy and prosociality, and by (b) enhancing performance on joint human–robot tasks. Lastly, we describe circumstances under

Robots As Intentional Agents: Using Neuroscientific Methods to Make Robots Appear More Social

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eva Wiese

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Robots are increasingly envisaged as our future cohabitants. However, while considerable progress has been made in recent years in terms of their technological realization, the ability of robots to interact with humans in an intuitive and social way is still quite limited. An important challenge for social robotics is to determine how to design robots that can perceive the user’s needs, feelings, and intentions, and adapt to users over a broad range of cognitive abilities. It is conceivable that if robots were able to adequately demonstrate these skills, humans would eventually accept them as social companions. We argue that the best way to achieve this is using a systematic experimental approach based on behavioral and physiological neuroscience methods such as motion/eye-tracking, electroencephalography, or functional near-infrared spectroscopy embedded in interactive human–robot paradigms. This approach requires understanding how humans interact with each other, how they perform tasks together and how they develop feelings of social connection over time, and using these insights to formulate design principles that make social robots attuned to the workings of the human brain. In this review, we put forward the argument that the likelihood of artificial agents being perceived as social companions can be increased by designing them in a way that they are perceived as intentional agents that activate areas in the human brain involved in social-cognitive processing. We first review literature related to social-cognitive processes and mechanisms involved in human–human interactions, and highlight the importance of perceiving others as intentional agents to activate these social brain areas. We then discuss how attribution of intentionality can positively affect human–robot interaction by (a fostering feelings of social connection, empathy and prosociality, and by (b enhancing performance on joint human–robot tasks. Lastly, we describe

Expert robots in nuclear plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Byrd, J.S.; Fisher, J.J.; DeVries, K.R.; Martin, T.P.

1987-01-01

Expert robots enhance a safety and operations in nuclear plants. E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, Savannah River Laboratory, is developing expert mobile robots for deployment in nuclear applications at the Savannah River Plant. Knowledge-based expert systems are being evaluated to simplify operator control, to assist in navigation and manipulation functions, and to analyze sensory information. Development work using two research vehicles is underway to demonstrate semiautonomous, intelligence, expert robot system operation in process areas. A description of the mechanical equipment, control systems, and operating modes is presented, including the integration of onboard sensors. A control hierarchy that uses modest computational methods is being used to allow mobile robots to autonomously navigate and perform tasks in known environments without the need for large computer systems

Expert robots in nuclear plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Byrd, J.S.; Fisher, J.J.; DeVries, K.R.; Martin, T.P.

1987-01-01

Expert robots will enhance safety and operations in nuclear plants. E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, Savannah River Laboratory, is developing expert mobile robots for deployment in nuclear applications at the Savannah River Plant. Knowledge-based expert systems are being evaluated to simplify operator control, to assist in navigation and manipulation functions, and to analyze sensory information. Development work using two research vehicles is underway to demonstrate semiautonomous, intelligent, expert robot system operation in process areas. A description of the mechanical equipment, control systems, and operating modes is presented, including the integration of onboard sensors. A control hierarchy that uses modest computational methods is being used to allow mobile robots to autonomously navigate and perform tasks in known environments without the need for large computer systems

Advanced robot vision system for nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Onoguchi, Kazunori; Kawamura, Atsuro; Nakayama, Ryoichi.

1991-01-01

We have developed a robot vision system for advanced robots used in nuclear power plants, under a contract with the Agency of Industrial Science and Technology of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. This work is part of the large-scale 'advanced robot technology' project. The robot vision system consists of self-location measurement, obstacle detection, and object recognition subsystems, which are activated by a total control subsystem. This paper presents details of these subsystems and the experimental results obtained. (author)

Pioneer robot testing and training status

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Herndon, J.; Nosovsky, A.; Garin, E.; Goncharov, B.; Neretin, Y.

2001-01-01

The U. S. Department of Energy developed the Pioneer Robot and provided it to the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant (ChNPP) within the framework of international technical assistance. At the Pioneer Robot has been transferred to ChNPP ownership for broad use in ChNPP activities related to decommissioning and emergency response, as well as in Unit Shelter. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is working with ChNPP and SLIRT to test the Pioneer Robot operation in a broader scope, and to provide additional operational training

Potential Applications of Light Robotics in Nanomedicine

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Glückstad, Jesper

We have recently pioneered a new generation of 3D micro-printed light robotic structures with multi-functional biophotonics capabilities. The uniqueness of this light robotic approach is that even if a micro-biologist aims at exploring e.g. cell biology at nanoscopic scales, the main support...... of each micro-robotic structure can be 3D printed to have a size and shape that allows convenient laser manipulation in full 3D – even using relatively modest numerical aperture optics. An optical robot is typically equipped with a number of 3D printed "track-balls" that allow for real-time 3D light...... manipulation with six-degrees-of-freedom. This creates a drone-like functionality where each light-driven robot can be e.g. joystick-controlled and provide the user a feeling of stretching his/her hands directly into and interacting with the biologic micro-environment. The light-guided robots can thus act...

Nano-biophotonics explored by Light Robotics

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Glückstad, Jesper; Villangca, Mark Jayson; Palima, Darwin

for harnessing most of the functionalities required to develop the fascinating concept of true so-­‐called Light Robotics. We foresee that it will soon become possible to equip 3D laser-printed robotic micro-­‐structures with multi functional biophotonics nanoprobes or nanotips fabricated with true nanoscopic...... resolution. The uniqueness of such an approach is that even if a micro biologist aims at exploring e.g. cell biology at nanoscopic scales, the main support of each laser-­‐robotic structure can be 3D printed to have a size and shape that allows convenient laser manipulation in full 3D– even using relatively...... modest numerical aperture optics. An optical robot is typically equipped with a number of 3D printed "trackballs" that allow for real-­‐time 3D light manipulation with six-­‐degrees-­‐of-­‐freedom. This creates a drone-­‐like functionality where each light-­‐driven robot can be e.g. joystick...

The universal robot

Science.gov (United States)

Moravec, Hans

1993-12-01

Our artifacts are getting smarter, and a loose parallel with the evolution of animal intelligence suggests one future course for them. Computerless industrial machinery exhibits the behavioral flexibility of single-celled organisms. Today's best computer-controlled robots are like the simpler invertebrates. A thousand-fold increase in computer power in the next decade should make possible machines with reptile-like sensory and motor competence. Properly configured, such robots could do in the physical world what personal computers now do in the world of data - act on our behalf as literal-minded slaves. Growing computer power over the next half-century will allow this reptile stage to be surpassed, in stages producing robots that learn like mammals, model their world like primates, and eventually reason like humans. Depending on your point of view, humanity will then have produced a worthy successor, or transcended some of its inherited limitations and so transformed itself into something quite new.

MPC-Based Path Following Control of an Omnidirectional Mobile Robot with Consideration of Robot Constraints

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kiattisin Kanjanawanishkul

2015-01-01

Full Text Available In this paper, the path following problem of an omnidirectional mobile robot (OMR has been studied. Unlike nonholonomic mobile robots, translational and rotational movements of OMRs can be controlled simultaneously and independently. However the constraints of translational and rotational velocities are coupled through the OMR's orientation angle. Therefore, a combination of a virtual-vehicle concept and a model predictive control (MPC strategy is proposed in this work to handle both robot constraints and the path following problem. Our proposed control scheme allows the OMR to follow the reference path successfully and safely, as illustrated in simulation experiments. The forward velocity is close to the desired one and the desired orientation angle is achieved at a given point on the path, while the robot's wheel velocities are maintained within boundaries.

Light robotics: a new field of research

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Engay, Einstom; Chouliara, Manto; Bañas, Andrew

2018-01-01

After years of working on light-driven trapping and manipulation, we can see that a confluence of developments is now ripe for the emergence of a new area that can contribute to nanobiophotonics - Light Robotics - which combines advances in microfabrication and optical micromanipulation together...... with intelligent control ideas from robotics, wavefront engineering and information optics. In the Summer 2017 we are publishing a 482 pages edited Elsevier book volume covering the fundamental aspects needed for Light Robotics including optical trapping systems, microfabrication and microassembly as well...... as underlying theoretical principles and experimental illustrations for optimizing optical forces and torques for Light Robotics...

‘Active citizenship’ and feeding assistive robotics

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nickelsen, Niels Christian Mossfeldt

2018-01-01

Would you want to be fed by a robot? This question may or may not sound attractive to a severely disabled citizen striving for self-reliance. Recently assistive robotics have become a new factor to rely on in relation to a number of aspects of social work and health care. These initiatives have...... study, I discuss the ways humans engage with them, how they co-produce everyday life in housing institutions, and the sensitivity of assistive robotics. During the latest years, Feeding Assistive Robotics (FAR) have enjoyed strong political endorsement in Denmark. Nevertheless, I argue, it is difficult...

8th International Robotic Sailing Conference

CERN Document Server

Haug, Florian

2016-01-01

This book presents the cutting edge developments within a broad field related to robotic sailing. The contributions were presented during the 8th International Robotic Sailing Conference, which has taken place as a part of the 2015 World Robotic Sailing Championships in Mariehamn, Åland (Finland), August 31st – September 4th 2015. Since more than a decade, a series of competitions such as the World Robotic Sailing Championship have stimulated a variety of groups to work on research and development around autonomous sailing robots, which involves boat designers, naval architects, electrical engineers and computer scientists. While many of the challenges in building a truly autonomous sailboat are still unsolved, the books presents the state of the art of research and development within platform optimization, route and stability planning, collision avoidance, power management and boat control.

Application of robotics to distribution systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ramsbottom, W

1986-06-01

Robotic technology has been recognized as having potential application in lifeline maintenance and repair. A study was conducted to investigate the feasibility of utilizing robotics for this purpose, and to prepare a general design of appropriate equipment. Four lifeline tasks were selected as representative of the majority of work. Based on a detailed task decomposition, subtasks were rated on amenability to robot completion. All tasks are feasible, but in some cases special tooling is required. Based on today's robotics, it is concluded that a force reflecting master/slave telemanipulator, augmented by automatic robot tasks under a supervisory control system, provides the optimal approach. No commercially available products are currently adequate for lifeline work. A general design of the telemanipulator, which has been named the SKYARM has been developed, addressing all subsystems such as the manipulator, video, control power and insulation. The baseline system is attainable using today's technology. Improved performance and lower cost will be achieved through developments in artificial intelligence, machine vision, supervisory control and dielectrics. Immediate benefits to utilities include increased safety, better service and savings on a subset of maintenance tasks. In 3-5 years, the SKYARM will prove cost effective as a general purpose lifeline tool. 7 refs., 26 figs., 3 tabs.

Long-reach articulated robots for inspection and mini-invasive interventions in hazardous environments: Recent robotics research, qualification testing, and tool developments

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Perrot, Yann; Kammerer, Nolwenn; Measson, Yvan; Verney, Alexandre; Gargiulo, Laurent; Houry, Michael; Keller, Delphine; Piolain, Gerard

2012-01-01

The Interactive Robotics Laboratory of CEA LIST is in charge of the development of remote handling technologies to meet energy industry requirements. This paper reports the research and development activities in advanced robotics systems for inspection or light intervention in hazardous environments with limited access such as blind hot cells in the nuclear industry or the thermonuclear experimental Tokamak fusion reactor. A long-reach carrier robot called the articulated inspection arm (AIA) and diagnostics and tools for inspection or intervention are described. Finally experimental field tests are presented and actual challenges in modeling the robot's flexibilities are discussed. (authors)

Robotics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Scheide, A.W.

1983-01-01

This article reviews some of the technical areas and history associated with robotics, provides information relative to the formation of a Robotics Industry Committee within the Industry Applications Society (IAS), and describes how all activities relating to robotics will be coordinated within the IEEE. Industrial robots are being used for material handling, processes such as coating and arc welding, and some mechanical and electronics assembly. An industrial robot is defined as a programmable, multifunctional manipulator designed to move material, parts, tools, or specialized devices through variable programmed motions for a variety of tasks. The initial focus of the Robotics Industry Committee will be on the application of robotics systems to the various industries that are represented within the IAS

Gesture-Based Extraction of Robot Skill Parameters for Intuitive Robot Programming

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pedersen, Mikkel Rath; Krüger, Volker

2015-01-01

a working system capable of TbD would be ideal. Contrary to current TbD approaches, that generally aim to recognize both action and where it is applied, we propose a division of labor, where the operator manually specifies the action the robot should perform, while gestures are used for specifying...... the relevant action parameter (e.g. on which object to apply the action). Using this two-step method has the advantages that there is no uncertainty of which action the robot will perform, it takes into account that the environment changes, so objects do not need to be at predefined locations......, and the parameter specification is possible even for inexperienced users. Experiments with 24 people in 3 different environments verify that it is indeed intuitive, even for a robotics novice, to program a mobile manipulator using this method....

Decommissioning? Why not use a robot

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bares, L.C.

1995-01-01

Tasks which may be accomplished by robots alone or in conjunction with human workers in decommissioning nuclear facilities include: routine surveillance in contaminated areas; radiation surveys and sampling; preparation of work area; decontamination of walls and floors; disassembly of contaminated equipment and piping; internal decontamination of piping and waste storage/processing tanks; sorting materials; removal of large activated/contaminated structures; asbestos removal and packaging; transport of waste from disassembly areas; tending waste processing equipment; waste packaging for storage. The status of the technology is briefly reviewed and examples of the use of robots in decommissioning work in the USA are described. Although the use of robots in this field is not extensive so far, that use is increasing and information on its costs and benefits are becoming available. (UK)

Why Robots Should Be Social: Enhancing Machine Learning through Social Human-Robot Interaction

Science.gov (United States)

de Greeff, Joachim; Belpaeme, Tony

2015-01-01

Social learning is a powerful method for cultural propagation of knowledge and skills relying on a complex interplay of learning strategies, social ecology and the human propensity for both learning and tutoring. Social learning has the potential to be an equally potent learning strategy for artificial systems and robots in specific. However, given the complexity and unstructured nature of social learning, implementing social machine learning proves to be a challenging problem. We study one particular aspect of social machine learning: that of offering social cues during the learning interaction. Specifically, we study whether people are sensitive to social cues offered by a learning robot, in a similar way to children’s social bids for tutoring. We use a child-like social robot and a task in which the robot has to learn the meaning of words. For this a simple turn-based interaction is used, based on language games. Two conditions are tested: one in which the robot uses social means to invite a human teacher to provide information based on what the robot requires to fill gaps in its knowledge (i.e. expression of a learning preference); the other in which the robot does not provide social cues to communicate a learning preference. We observe that conveying a learning preference through the use of social cues results in better and faster learning by the robot. People also seem to form a “mental model” of the robot, tailoring the tutoring to the robot’s performance as opposed to using simply random teaching. In addition, the social learning shows a clear gender effect with female participants being responsive to the robot’s bids, while male teachers appear to be less receptive. This work shows how additional social cues in social machine learning can result in people offering better quality learning input to artificial systems, resulting in improved learning performance. PMID:26422143

A Genetic Algorithm-based Heuristic for Part-Feeding Mobile Robot Scheduling Problem

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dang, Vinh Quang; Nielsen, Izabela Ewa; Bocewicz, Grzegorz

2012-01-01

This present study deals with the problem of sequencing feeding tasks of a single mobile robot with manipulation arm which is able to provide parts or components for feeders of machines in a manufacturing cell. The mobile robot has to be scheduled in order to keep machines within the cell producing...... products without any shortage of parts. A method based on the characteristics of feeders and inspired by the (s, Q) inventory system, is thus applied to define time windows for feeding tasks of the robot. The performance criterion is to minimize total traveling time of the robot in a given planning horizon...

Current trend of robotics application in medical

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Olanrewaju, O A; Faieza, A A; Syakirah, K

2013-01-01

The applications of robotics in recent years has emerged beyond the field of manufacturing or industrial robots itself. Robotics applications are now widely used in medical, transport, underwater, entertainment and military sector. In medical field, these applications should be emphasized in view of the increasing challenges due to the variety of findings in the field of medicine which requires new inventions to ease work process. The objective of this review paper is to study and presents the past and on-going research in medical robotics with emphasis on rehabilitation (assistive care) and surgery robotics which are certainly the two main practical fields where robots application are commonly used presently. The study found that, rehabilitation and surgery robotics applications grow extensively with the finding of new invention, as well as research that is being undertaken and to be undertaken. The importance of medical robot in medical industry is intended to offer positive outcomes to assist human business through a complicated task that involves a long period, accuracy, focus and other routines that cannot be accomplished by human ability alone.

Autonomously Implemented Versatile Path Planning for Mobile Robots Based on Cellular Automata and Ant Colony

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adel Akbarimajd

2012-02-01

Full Text Available A path planning method for mobile robots based on two dimensional cellular automata is proposed. The method can be applied for environments with both concave and convex obstacles. It is also appropriate for multi-robot problems as well as dynamic environments. In order to develop the planning method, environment of the robot is decomposed to a rectangular grid and the automata is defined with four states including Robot cell, Free cell, Goal cell and Obstacle cell. Evolution rules of automata are proposed in order to direct the robot toward its goal. CA based path planner method is afterwards modified by a colony technique to be applicable for concave obstacles. Then a layered architecture is proposed to autonomously implement the planning algorithm. The architecture employs an abstraction approach which makes the complexity manageable. An important feature of the architecture is internal artifacts that have some beliefs about the world. Most actions of the robot are planned and performed with respect to these artifacts.

FY 1998 Report on research and development project. Research and development of human-cooperative/coexisting robot systems; 1998 nendo ningen kyocho kyozongata robot system kenkyu kaihatsu seika hokokusho

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

2000-03-01

This R and D project is aimed at development of the human-cooperative/coexisting robot systems with high safety and reliability, capable of performing complicated works cooperatively and in a coexisting manner with humans in human working and living spaces, in order to help improve safety and efficiency in various industrial areas, improve services and convenience in manufacturing and service areas, and create new industries. The trend surveys cover humanoid robot systems, remote control systems and simulators, and the application surveys cover services for humans, basic humanoids and entertainment communication. The 1998 R and D efforts include research and development, fabrication and surveys for the following themes; (1) fabrication of robot platforms for supporting manual works, (2) development of surrounded visual display systems, (3) development of robot arm manipulation and force displaying systems, (4) development of a dynamic simulator, (5) development of a distributed software platform, (6) researches and development of computation algorithm for kinematic chain dynamics, (7) development of motion teaching system for multi-functional robots, (8) investigation of trends in robotics technology, and (9) researches and surveys of robot application. (NEDO)

Robotics and general surgery.

Science.gov (United States)

Jacob, Brian P; Gagner, Michel

2003-12-01

Robotics are now being used in all surgical fields, including general surgery. By increasing intra-abdominal articulations while operating through small incisions, robotics are increasingly being used for a large number of visceral and solid organ operations, including those for the gallbladder, esophagus, stomach, intestines, colon, and rectum, as well as for the endocrine organs. Robotics and general surgery are blending for the first time in history and as a specialty field should continue to grow for many years to come. We continuously demand solutions to questions and limitations that are experienced in our daily work. Laparoscopy is laden with limitations such as fixed axis points at the trocar insertion sites, two-dimensional video monitors, limited dexterity at the instrument tips, lack of haptic sensation, and in some cases poor ergonomics. The creation of a surgical robot system with 3D visual capacity seems to deal with most of these limitations. Although some in the surgical community continue to test the feasibility of these surgical robots and to question the necessity of such an expensive venture, others are already postulating how to improve the next generation of telemanipulators, and in so doing are looking beyond today's horizon to find simpler solutions. As the robotic era enters the world of the general surgeon, more and more complex procedures will be able to be approached through small incisions. As technology catches up with our imaginations, robotic instruments (as opposed to robots) and 3D monitoring will become routine and continue to improve patient care by providing surgeons with the most precise, least traumatic ways of treating surgical disease.

Applying virtual reality to remote control of mobile robot

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chen Chin-Shan

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this research is based on virtual reality to assisted pick and place tasks. Virtual reality can be utilized to control remote robot for pick and place element. The operator monitored and controlled the situation information of working site by Human Machine Interface. Therefore, we worked in harsh or dangerous environments that thing can be avoided. The procedure to operate mobile robot in virtual reality describes as follow: An experiment site with really experimental equipment is first established. Then, the experimental equipment and scene modeling are input to virtual reality for establishing a environment similar to the reality. Finally, the remote mobile robot is controlled to operate pick and place tasks through wireless communication by the object operation in virtual reality. The robot consists of a movable robot platform and robotic arm. The virtual reality is constructed by EON software; the Human Machine Interface is established by Visual Basic. The wireless connection is equipped the wireless Bluetooth, which is set the PC and PLC controller. With experimental tests to verify the robot in virtual reality and the wireless remote control, the robot could be operated and controlled to successfully complete pick and place tasks in reality by Human Machine Interface.

Robot Pintar Penyambut Costumer pada Pusat Perbelanjaan Kota Manado

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muhamad Dwisnanto Putro

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Aspects of robotics technology have now been able to explore and reach the entertainment, education, and health.  Making robots with privileges and special expertise is closely related to the needs of the modern world that requires a device with a high capacity are useful to help the work of man. On the other hand, advanced technology is useful to complete the work that could not and did not want to do by men as a greeter job. Greeter costumer jobs is a very tedious job. So it is necessary in the field of robotics technology that is smart robot greeter customers that replace the role of humans to improve the quality of waiters, efficiency, and economical savings at shopping centers in the city of Manado. The smart robot is designed to greet the customer by giving the greeting on the customer entrance and exit shopping center. The robot system is powered with less use of multiple technologies including ultrasonic distance and PIR sensors to detect humans, servo and DC motor as an actuator of the robot, and use voice module so that the robot can speak. The robot system is also equipped with a remote control using the Android smartphone so the smart robot can perform monitoring, operation, and control over long distances. The test results describe the action of robots have been able to make the detection of costumer and activities greeting the customer with the analysis of determining the value of the parameter distance between ultrasonic sensors use trigonometry comparative analysis.

New Methods for Kinematic Modelling and Calibration of Robots

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Søe-Knudsen, Rune

2014-01-01

the accuracy in an easy and accessible way. The required equipment is accessible, since the cost is held to a minimum and can be made with conventional processing equipment. Our first method calibrates the kinematics of a robot using known relative positions measured with the robot itself and a plate...... with holes matching the robot tool flange. The second method calibrates the kinematics using two robots. This method allows the robots to carry out the collection of measurements and the adjustment, by themselves, after the robots have been connected. Furthermore, we also propose a method for restoring......Improving a robot's accuracy increases its ability to solve certain tasks, and is therefore valuable. Practical ways of achieving this improved accuracy, even after robot repair, is also valuable. In this work, we introduce methods that improve the robot's accuracy and make it possible to maintain...

Virtual Reality, 3D Stereo Visualization, and Applications in Robotics

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Livatino, Salvatore

2006-01-01

, while little can be found about the advantages of stereoscopic visualization in mobile robot tele-guide applications. This work investigates stereoscopic robot tele-guide under different conditions, including typical navigation scenarios and the use of synthetic and real images. This work also...

Laser Energy Transmission for a Wireless Energy Supply to Robots

OpenAIRE

Kawashima, Nobuki; Takeda, Kazuya

2008-01-01

We can find a lot of robot applications in construction activities, where it is very difficult or dangerous for a man to access and only robots can work. The time will come soon when the actual use of those robots is extensively realized and the wireless energy transmission technology using laser is a unique means to supply energy to those robots.

Augmented Robotics Dialog System for Enhancing Human–Robot Interaction

Science.gov (United States)

Alonso-Martín, Fernando; Castro-González, Aívaro; de Gorostiza Luengo, Francisco Javier Fernandez; Salichs, Miguel Ángel

2015-01-01

Augmented reality, augmented television and second screen are cutting edge technologies that provide end users extra and enhanced information related to certain events in real time. This enriched information helps users better understand such events, at the same time providing a more satisfactory experience. In the present paper, we apply this main idea to human–robot interaction (HRI), to how users and robots interchange information. The ultimate goal of this paper is to improve the quality of HRI, developing a new dialog manager system that incorporates enriched information from the semantic web. This work presents the augmented robotic dialog system (ARDS), which uses natural language understanding mechanisms to provide two features: (i) a non-grammar multimodal input (verbal and/or written) text; and (ii) a contextualization of the information conveyed in the interaction. This contextualization is achieved by information enrichment techniques that link the extracted information from the dialog with extra information about the world available in semantic knowledge bases. This enriched or contextualized information (information enrichment, semantic enhancement or contextualized information are used interchangeably in the rest of this paper) offers many possibilities in terms of HRI. For instance, it can enhance the robot's pro-activeness during a human–robot dialog (the enriched information can be used to propose new topics during the dialog, while ensuring a coherent interaction). Another possibility is to display additional multimedia content related to the enriched information on a visual device. This paper describes the ARDS and shows a proof of concept of its applications. PMID:26151202

Robotic Teaching Assistance for the "Tower of Hanoi" Problem

Science.gov (United States)

Thien, Nguyen Duc; Terracina, Annalisa; Iocchi, Luca; Mecella, Massimo

2016-01-01

In this work the authors investigate the effectiveness of robotics in education. Rather than creating excitement for children when playing with robots in games, they are examining the overall learning environment where a robot acts as a teaching assistant. They designed a suitable lesson plan when groups of teenagers participate in activities…

Study for wireless power transmission of nuclear robot system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Jongseog

2013-01-01

Gasoline engine or electric motor is generally used for driving power of working. Gasoline tank is uncomfortable to carry. Battery capacity does not sustain long time working. Frequent moving back of robot to power charger or refueling tank is inconvenient. Long power cable connection occur winding problem if there are complex structures in walking way. We need some solution for continuous supply of robot energy at the free moving condition of robot. 'Wireless power transmission' is one of the solutions. Some experiment result to transmit wireless power to moving robot is described herein. To find possible wireless power transmission method for nuclear robot, wireless power transmission tests were performed. As result of these tests, it was confirmed that wireless power transmission by using dipole and mat type magnetic induction were possible. As result of flying robot experiment, it was realized that development of light weight core for receiver and wave reflection device for high directional transmitter are necessary for practical use of the dipole type wireless power transmission. Small size core and high directional transmitter will be next target. Mat type wireless power transmission is regarded as useful for robot power charging station in the inside containment

Study for wireless power transmission of nuclear robot system

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Jongseog [Central Research Institute of Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co., Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2013-05-15

Gasoline engine or electric motor is generally used for driving power of working. Gasoline tank is uncomfortable to carry. Battery capacity does not sustain long time working. Frequent moving back of robot to power charger or refueling tank is inconvenient. Long power cable connection occur winding problem if there are complex structures in walking way. We need some solution for continuous supply of robot energy at the free moving condition of robot. 'Wireless power transmission' is one of the solutions. Some experiment result to transmit wireless power to moving robot is described herein. To find possible wireless power transmission method for nuclear robot, wireless power transmission tests were performed. As result of these tests, it was confirmed that wireless power transmission by using dipole and mat type magnetic induction were possible. As result of flying robot experiment, it was realized that development of light weight core for receiver and wave reflection device for high directional transmitter are necessary for practical use of the dipole type wireless power transmission. Small size core and high directional transmitter will be next target. Mat type wireless power transmission is regarded as useful for robot power charging station in the inside containment.

Extending NGOMSL Model for Human-Humanoid Robot Interaction in the Soccer Robotics Domain

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rajesh Elara Mohan

2008-01-01

Full Text Available In the field of human-computer interaction, the Natural Goals, Operators, Methods, and Selection rules Language (NGOMSL model is one of the most popular methods for modelling knowledge and cognitive processes for rapid usability evaluation. The NGOMSL model is a description of the knowledge that a user must possess to operate the system represented as elementary actions for effective usability evaluations. In the last few years, mobile robots have been exhibiting a stronger presence in commercial markets and very little work has been done with NGOMSL modelling for usability evaluations in the human-robot interaction discipline. This paper focuses on extending the NGOMSL model for usability evaluation of human-humanoid robot interaction in the soccer robotics domain. The NGOMSL modelled human-humanoid interaction design of Robo-Erectus Junior was evaluated and the results of the experiments showed that the interaction design was able to find faults in an average time of 23.84 s. Also, the interaction design was able to detect the fault within the 60 s in 100% of the cases. The Evaluated Interaction design was adopted by our Robo-Erectus Junior version of humanoid robots in the RoboCup 2007 humanoid soccer league.

Multi-Robot, Multi-Target Particle Swarm Optimization Search in Noisy Wireless Environments

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kurt Derr; Milos Manic

2009-05-01

Multiple small robots (swarms) can work together using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) to perform tasks that are difficult or impossible for a single robot to accomplish. The problem considered in this paper is exploration of an unknown environment with the goal of finding a target(s) at an unknown location(s) using multiple small mobile robots. This work demonstrates the use of a distributed PSO algorithm with a novel adaptive RSS weighting factor to guide robots for locating target(s) in high risk environments. The approach was developed and analyzed on multiple robot single and multiple target search. The approach was further enhanced by the multi-robot-multi-target search in noisy environments. The experimental results demonstrated how the availability of radio frequency signal can significantly affect robot search time to reach a target.

A Plug and Produce Framework for Industrial Collaborative Robots

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schou, Casper; Madsen, Ole

2017-01-01

Collaborative robots are today ever more interesting in response to the increasing need for agile manufacturing equipment. Contrary to traditional industrial robots, collaborative robots are intended for working in dynamic environments alongside the production staff. To cope with the dynamic...... environment and workflow, new configuration and control methods are needed compared to those of traditional industrial robots. The new methods should enable shop floor operators to reconfigure the robot. This article presents a plug and produce framework for industrial collaborative robots. The article...... focuses on the control framework enabling quick and easy exchange of hardware modules as an approach to achieving plug and produce. To solve this, an agent-based system is proposed building on top of the robot operating system. The framework enables robot operating system packages to be adapted...

R and D project for large industrial technologies in fiscal 1989. Report on achievements in R and D of robots for critical works; 1989 nendo seika hokokusho. Ogata kogyo gijutsu kenkyu kaihatsu jigyo. Kyokugen sagyo robot no kenkyu kaihatsu

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

1990-03-01

Research and development have been performed on basic technologies common to different types of robots to carry out works in critical conditions. This paper summarizes the achievements in fiscal 1989. In the R and D of sensor technologies, a prototype tri-axial one-millimeter sensor array and a signal processing device were produced and evaluations were given. A prototype production and evaluations were made on a system that can recognize comprehensively the slip, hardness, and moment as the tri-axial tactile information. In the R and D of motive force technologies, discussions were given on improvement of sensitivity of the torque sensor in the actuator for force control. Design and prototype fabrication were carried out on a speed reducer integrated actuator having a torque sensor for the manipulator's elbow joint. In addition, a force controlled controller was fabricated on a trial basis, which compensates the non-linearity of the force controlled actuator by means of software control. In the R and D of the robot languages, an application program was prepared on a representative work related to movements of a critical work robot. Verification was also conducted on the reasonability of the grammar specifications. (NEDO)

Usage of industrial robots in nuclear power industry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Matsuo, Yoshio; Hamada, Kenjiro

1982-01-01

Japan is now at the top level in the world in robot technology.Its application to nuclear power field is one of the most expected. However, their usage spreads over various types of nuclear power plants, their manufacture and operation, and other areas such as fuel reprocessing plants and reactor plant decommissioning. The robots as used for the operation of BWR nuclear power plants, already developed and under development, are described: features in the nuclear-power usage of robots, the robots used currently for automatic fuel exchange, the replacement of control rod drives and in-service inspection; the robots under development for travelling inspection device and the inspection of main steam-relief safety valves, future development of robots. By robot usage, necessary personnel, work period and radiation exposure can be greatly reduced, and safety and reliability are also raised. (Mori, K.)

Feedback Control Design for a Walking Athlete Robot

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xuan Vu Trien Nguyen

2017-06-01

Full Text Available In the paper, authors generalized the dynamic model of an athlete robot with elastic legs through Lagrange method. Then, a feed-back controller was designed to control the robot through a step-walking. The research just focused on stance phase – the period that robot just touched one leg on the ground. The simulation results showed that system worked well with the designed controller.

HiMoP: A three-component architecture to create more human-acceptable social-assistive robots : Motivational architecture for assistive robots.

Science.gov (United States)

Rodríguez-Lera, Francisco J; Matellán-Olivera, Vicente; Conde-González, Miguel Á; Martín-Rico, Francisco

2018-05-01

Generation of autonomous behavior for robots is a general unsolved problem. Users perceive robots as repetitive tools that do not respond to dynamic situations. This research deals with the generation of natural behaviors in assistive service robots for dynamic domestic environments, particularly, a motivational-oriented cognitive architecture to generate more natural behaviors in autonomous robots. The proposed architecture, called HiMoP, is based on three elements: a Hierarchy of needs to define robot drives; a set of Motivational variables connected to robot needs; and a Pool of finite-state machines to run robot behaviors. The first element is inspired in Alderfer's hierarchy of needs, which specifies the variables defined in the motivational component. The pool of finite-state machine implements the available robot actions, and those actions are dynamically selected taking into account the motivational variables and the external stimuli. Thus, the robot is able to exhibit different behaviors even under similar conditions. A customized version of the "Speech Recognition and Audio Detection Test," proposed by the RoboCup Federation, has been used to illustrate how the architecture works and how it dynamically adapts and activates robots behaviors taking into account internal variables and external stimuli.

Towards Versatile Robots Through Open Heterogeneous Modular Robots

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lyder, Andreas

arises, a new robot can be assembled rapidly from the existing modules, in contrast to conventional robots, which require a time consuming and expensive development process. In this thesis we define a modular robot to be a robot consisting of dynamically reconfigurable modules. The goal of this thesis......Robots are important tools in our everyday life. Both in industry and at the consumer level they serve the purpose of increasing our scope and extending our capabilities. Modular robots take the next step, allowing us to easily create and build various robots from a set of modules. If a problem...... is to increase the versatility and practical usability of modular robots by introducing new conceptual designs. Until now modular robots have been based on a pre-specified set of modules, and thus, their functionality is limited. We propose an open heterogeneous design concept, which allows a modular robot...

Force-feedback tele operation of industrial robots a cost effective solution for decontamination of nuclear plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Desbats, P.; Andriot, C.; Gicquel, P.; Viallesoubranne, J.P.; Souche, C.

1998-01-01

Decontamination and maintenance in hot cells are some new emerging applications of industrial robots in the nuclear fuel cycle plants. Industrial robots are low cost, accurate and reliable manipulator arms which are used in manufacturing industries usually. Thanks to the recent evolution of robotics technologies, some industrial robots may be adapted to nuclear environment. These robots are transportable, sealed and can be decontaminated, and they may be 'hardened' up to a level of irradiation dose sufficient for operation in low and medium irradiating/contaminating environments. Although industrial robots are usually programmed to perform specific and repetitive tasks, they may be remotely tele-operated by human operators as well. This allows industrial robots to perform usual tele-manipulation tasks encountered in the nuclear plants and more. The paper presents the computer based tele-operation control system TAO2000 TM , developed by the Tele-operation and Robotics Service of CEA, which has been applied to the RX90 TM industrial robot from ST-UBLI company. This robot has been selected in order to perform various maintenance and decontamination tasks in COGEMA plants. TAO2000 provides the overall tele-robotic and robotic functions necessary to perform any remote tele-operation application in hostile environment: force-feedback master-slave control; computer- assisted tele-operation of mechanical processes; trajectory programming as well as various robotics functions; graphical modelling of working environment and simulation; automatic path planning with obstacle avoidance; man-machine interface for tasks programming and mission execution. Experimental results reported in the paper demonstrate the feasibility of force-feedback master-slave control of standard industrial robots. Finally, the design of new, cost effective. tele-operation systems based on industrial robots may be intended for nuclear plants maintenance. (author)

An Infant Development-inspired Approach to Robot Hand-eye Coordination

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fei Chao

2014-02-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a novel developmental learning approach for hand-eye coordination in an autonomous robotic system. Robotic hand-eye coordination plays an important role in dealing with real-time environments. Under the approach, infant developmental patterns are introduced to build our robot's learning system. The method works by first constructing a brain-like computational structure to control the robot, and then by using infant behavioural patterns to build a hand-eye coordination learning algorithm. This work is supported by an experimental evaluation, which shows that the control system is implemented simply, and that the learning approach provides fast and incremental learning of behavioural competence.

A survey of bio-inspired compliant legged robot designs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhou Xiaodong; Bi Shusheng

2012-01-01

The roles of biological springs in vertebrate animals and their implementations in compliant legged robots offer significant advantages over the rigid legged ones in certain types of scenarios. A large number of robotics institutes have been attempting to work in conjunction with biologists and incorporated these principles into the design of biologically inspired robots. The motivation of this review is to investigate the most published compliant legged robots and categorize them according to the types of compliant elements adopted in their mechanical structures. Based on the typical robots investigated, the trade-off between each category is summarized. In addition, the most significant performances of these robots are compared quantitatively, and multiple available solutions for the future compliant legged robot design are suggested. Finally, the design challenges for compliant legged robots are analysed. This review will provide useful guidance for robotic designers in creating new designs by inheriting the virtues of those successful robots according to the specific tasks. (topical review)

Posture manipulation for rescue activity via small traction robots

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Iwano, Yuki; Osuka, Koichi; Amano, Hisanori

2006-01-01

We discuss a conceptual design of rescue robots against nuclear-power plant accidents. We claim that the rescue robots in nuclear-power plants should have the following properties. (1) The size is small. (2) The structure is simple. (3) The number of the robots is large. This paper studies the rescue robots to rescue people in an area polluted with radioactive leakage in nuclear power institutions. In particular, we propose a rescue system which consists of a group of small mobile robots. First, small traction robots set the posture of the fainted victims to carry easily, and carry them to the safety space with the mobile robots for the stretcher composition. In this paper, we describe the produced small traction robots. And, we confirm that the robots can manipulate a 40 kg dummy doll's posture. We also examine the optimal number of robots from a perspective of working efficiency in the assumption spot. (author)

A natural-language interface to a mobile robot

Science.gov (United States)

Michalowski, S.; Crangle, C.; Liang, L.

1987-01-01

The present work on robot instructability is based on an ongoing effort to apply modern manipulation technology to serve the needs of the handicapped. The Stanford/VA Robotic Aid is a mobile manipulation system that is being developed to assist severely disabled persons (quadriplegics) in performing simple activities of everyday living in a homelike, unstructured environment. It consists of two major components: a nine degree-of-freedom manipulator and a stationary control console. In the work presented here, only the motions of the Robotic Aid's omnidirectional motion base have been considered, i.e., the six degrees of freedom of the arm and gripper have been ignored. The goal has been to develop some basic software tools for commanding the robot's motions in an enclosed room containing a few objects such as tables, chairs, and rugs. In the present work, the environmental model takes the form of a two-dimensional map with objects represented by polygons. Admittedly, such a highly simplified scheme bears little resemblance to the elaborate cognitive models of reality that are used in normal human discourse. In particular, the polygonal model is given a priori and does not contain any perceptual elements: there is no polygon sensor on board the mobile robot.

Evaluation of robotic inspection systems at nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

White, J.R.; Eversole, R.E.; Farnstrom, K.A.; Harvey, H.W.; Martin, H.L.

1984-03-01

This report presents and demonstrates a cost-effective approach for robotics application (CARA) to surveillance and inspection work in existing nuclear power plants. The CARA was developed by the Remote Technology Corporation to systematically determine the specific surveillance/inspection tasks, worker hazards, and access or equipment placement restraints in each of the many individual rooms or areas at a power plant. Guidelines for designing inspection robotics are included and are based upon the modular arrangement of commercially-available sensors and other components. Techniques for maximizing the cost effectiveness of robotics are emphasized in the report including: selection of low-cost robotic components, minimal installation work in plant areas, portable systems for common use in different areas, and standardized robotic modules. Factors considered as benefits are reduced radiation exposure, lower man-hours, shorter power outage, less waste material, and improved worker safety concerns. A partial demonstration of the CARA methodology to the Sequoyah (PWR) and Browns Ferry (BWR) Plants is provided in the report along with specific examples of robotic installations in high potential areas

Intelligent robotics and remote systems for the nuclear industry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wehe, D.K.; Lee, J.C.; Martin, W.R.; Tulenko, J.

1989-01-01

The nuclear industry has a recognized need for intelligent, multitask robots to carry out tasks in harsh environments. From 1986 to the present, the number of robotic systems available or under development for use in the nuclear industry has more than doubled. Presently, artificial intelligence (AI) plays a relatively small role in existing robots used in the nuclear industry. Indeed, the lack of intelligence has been labeled the ''Achilles heel'' of all current robotic technology. However, larger-scale efforts are underway to make the multitask robot more sensitive to its environment, more capable to move and perform useful work, and more fully autonomous via the use of AI. In this paper, we review the terminology, the history, and the factors which are motivating the development of robotics and remove systems; discuss the applications related to the nuclear industry; and, finally, examine the state of the art of the technologies being applied to introduce more autonomous capabilities. Much of this latter work can be classified as within the artificial intelligence framework. (orig.)

University Research Program in Robotics - "Technologies for Micro-Electrical-Mechanical Systems in directed Stockpile Work (DSW) Radiation and Campaigns", Final Technical Annual Report, Project Period 9/1/06 - 8/31/07

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

James S. Tulenko; Carl D. Crane

2007-12-13

The University Research Program in Robotics (URPR) is an integrated group of universities performing fundamental research that addresses broad-based robotics and automation needs of the NNSA Directed Stockpile Work (DSW) and Campaigns. The URPR mission is to provide improved capabilities in robotics science and engineering to meet the future needs of all weapon systems and other associated NNSA/DOE activities.

Biomimetic vibrissal sensing for robots.

Science.gov (United States)

Pearson, Martin J; Mitchinson, Ben; Sullivan, J Charles; Pipe, Anthony G; Prescott, Tony J

2011-11-12

Active vibrissal touch can be used to replace or to supplement sensory systems such as computer vision and, therefore, improve the sensory capacity of mobile robots. This paper describes how arrays of whisker-like touch sensors have been incorporated onto mobile robot platforms taking inspiration from biology for their morphology and control. There were two motivations for this work: first, to build a physical platform on which to model, and therefore test, recent neuroethological hypotheses about vibrissal touch; second, to exploit the control strategies and morphology observed in the biological analogue to maximize the quality and quantity of tactile sensory information derived from the artificial whisker array. We describe the design of a new whiskered robot, Shrewbot, endowed with a biomimetic array of individually controlled whiskers and a neuroethologically inspired whisking pattern generation mechanism. We then present results showing how the morphology of the whisker array shapes the sensory surface surrounding the robot's head, and demonstrate the impact of active touch control on the sensory information that can be acquired by the robot. We show that adopting bio-inspired, low latency motor control of the rhythmic motion of the whiskers in response to contact-induced stimuli usefully constrains the sensory range, while also maximizing the number of whisker contacts. The robot experiments also demonstrate that the sensory consequences of active touch control can be usefully investigated in biomimetic robots.

Navigation control of a multi-functional eye robot

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ali, F.A.M.; Hashmi, B.; Younas, A.; Abid, B.

2016-01-01

The advancement in robotic field is enhanced rigorously in the past Few decades. Robots are being used in different fields of science as well as warfare. The research shows that in the near future, robots would be able to serve in fighting wars. Different countries and their armies have already deployed several military robots. However, there exist some drawbacks of robots like their inefficiency and inability to work under abnormal conditions. Ascent of artificial intelligence may resolve this issue in the coming future. The main focus of this paper is to provide a low cost and long range most efficient mechanical as well as software design of an Eye Robot. Using a blend of robotics and image processing with an addition of artificial intelligence path navigation techniques, this project is designed and implemented by controlling the robot (including robotic arm and camera) through a 2.4 GHz RF module manually. Autonomous function of the robot includes navigation based on the path assigned to the robot. The path is drawn on a VB based application and then transferred to the robot wirelessly or through serial port. A Wi-Fi based Optical Character Recognition (OCR) implemented video streaming can also be observed at remote devices like laptops. (author)

Discovery Mondays: "Robots: At your service!"

CERN Multimedia

2005-01-01

Two of the ISOLDE robots. Robots at CERN? Yes, because their presence is essential for replacing human beings when some tasks are too difficult for them, for example when materials are too fragile or too risky to work with. Come and discover the ISOLDE robots. You will also be able to meet "the Crab", in charge of carrying the LHC magnets in its claws. EPFL engineers from Autonomous Systems Lab and the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems will introduce you to some of their creations, including a robot built for planetary exploration, an indoor flying robot and a microrobot as tiny as a lump of sugar. At the next Discovery Monday, you will have the opportunity to meet robots of many sizes and forms. You will be amazed by their diversity and their personalities. Join us at the Microcosm (Reception Building 33, Meyrin site) on Monday 4 April from 7.30 p.m. to 9.00 p.m. Entrance Free http://www.cern.ch/microcosm http://intranet.cern.ch/Microcosm/LundisDecouverte/

Discovery Mondays: "Robots: At your service!"

CERN Multimedia

2005-01-01

Two of the ISOLDE robots. Robots at CERN? Yes, because their presence is essential for replacing human beings when some tasks are too difficult for them, for example when materials are too fragile or too risky to work with. Come and discover the ISOLDE robots. You will also be able to meet "the Crab", in charge of carrying the LHC magnets in its claws. EPFL engineers from Autonomous Systems Lab and the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems will introduce you to some of their creations, including a robot built for planetary exploration, an indoor flying robot and a microrobot as tiny as a lump of sugar. At the next Discovery Monday, you will have the opportunity to meet robots of many sizes and forms. You will be amazed by their diversity and their personalities. Join us at the Microcosm (Reception Building 33, Meyrin site) on Monday 4 April from 7.30 p.m. to 9.00 p.m. Entrance Free http://www.cern.ch/microcosm http://cern.ch/lundisdecouverte

A Recipe for Soft Fluidic Elastomer Robots.

Science.gov (United States)

Marchese, Andrew D; Katzschmann, Robert K; Rus, Daniela

2015-03-01

This work provides approaches to designing and fabricating soft fluidic elastomer robots. That is, three viable actuator morphologies composed entirely from soft silicone rubber are explored, and these morphologies are differentiated by their internal channel structure, namely, ribbed, cylindrical, and pleated. Additionally, three distinct casting-based fabrication processes are explored: lamination-based casting, retractable-pin-based casting, and lost-wax-based casting. Furthermore, two ways of fabricating a multiple DOF robot are explored: casting the complete robot as a whole and casting single degree of freedom (DOF) segments with subsequent concatenation. We experimentally validate each soft actuator morphology and fabrication process by creating multiple physical soft robot prototypes.

Method and System for Controlling a Dexterous Robot Execution Sequence Using State Classification

Science.gov (United States)

Sanders, Adam M. (Inventor); Platt, Robert J., Jr. (Inventor); Quillin, Nathaniel (Inventor); Permenter, Frank Noble (Inventor); Pfeiffer, Joseph (Inventor)

2014-01-01

A robotic system includes a dexterous robot and a controller. The robot includes a plurality of robotic joints, actuators for moving the joints, and sensors for measuring a characteristic of the joints, and for transmitting the characteristics as sensor signals. The controller receives the sensor signals, and is configured for executing instructions from memory, classifying the sensor signals into distinct classes via the state classification module, monitoring a system state of the robot using the classes, and controlling the robot in the execution of alternative work tasks based on the system state. A method for controlling the robot in the above system includes receiving the signals via the controller, classifying the signals using the state classification module, monitoring the present system state of the robot using the classes, and controlling the robot in the execution of alternative work tasks based on the present system state.

Problems in software development for nuclear robotics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shinohara, Yoshikuni

1986-01-01

Major technical problems in developing softwares for intelligent robots for future nuclear applications are explained briefly. In order that a robot can perform various kinds of complex works, it must be equipped with a high level of artificial intelligence which includes sensing functions such as visiual, auditory, tactile, proximity sensing, cognitive functions such as recognition of objects and understanding of working environment, decision-making functions such as work planning and control functions such as manipulator and locomotion controls. A large amount of various kinds of signals and informations must be processed with a high speed for an integrated control of these functions. It will be desirable that the computer program for controlling a robot which must run in a real-time will have a functionally hierarchical and distributed structure from the view point of software development. Parallel processing will be required from the view point of computation time. (author)

Industrial Human-Robot Collaboration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Philipsen, Mark Philip; Rehm, Matthias; Moeslund, Thomas B.

2018-01-01

In the future, robots are envisioned to work side by side with humans in dynamic environments both in production contexts but also more and more in societal context like health care, education, or commerce. This will require robots to become socially accepted, to become able to analyze human...... intentions in meaningful ways, and to become proactive. It is our conviction that this can only be achieved on the basis of a tight combination of multimodal signal processing and AI techniques in real application context....

Robots Conquering the Homeland of the Vikings

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Agger Nielsen, Jeppe; Sigh, Anne; Andersen, Kim Normann

The movement of robots from the production line to the service sector provides a protein solution to innovate and transform public service delivery. However, although robots increasingly are adopted in public service delivery (e.g., in healthcare and eldercare) as an alternative to traditional...... labor intensive services, little is known about their impact on organizations work processes, and how key stakeholders react toward robots. On this backdrop, this single case study investigates implementation and use of robot vacuum cleaners in Danish eldercare at the local government level. Using...... an extended version of the technological frame concept, this paper illustrates how technologist, managers, frontline staff and clients have different perceptions towards robot vacuum cleaning. The technologist and managers praise the new innovation for facilitating savings on the current accounts. By contrast...

Choreographic and Somatic Approaches for the Development of Expressive Robotic Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Amy LaViers

2018-03-01

Full Text Available As robotic systems are moved out of factory work cells into human-facing environments questions of choreography become central to their design, placement, and application. With a human viewer or counterpart present, a system will automatically be interpreted within context, style of movement, and form factor by human beings as animate elements of their environment. The interpretation by this human counterpart is critical to the success of the system’s integration: “knobs” on the system need to make sense to a human counterpart; an artificial agent should have a way of notifying a human counterpart of a change in system state, possibly through motion profiles; and the motion of a human counterpart may have important contextual clues for task completion. Thus, professional choreographers, dance practitioners, and movement analysts are critical to research in robotics. They have design methods for movement that align with human audience perception; they can help identify simplified features of movement that will effectively accomplish human-robot interaction goals; and they have detailed knowledge of the capacity of human movement. This article provides approaches employed by one research lab, specific impacts on technical and artistic projects within, and principles that may guide future such work. The background section reports on choreography, somatic perspectives, improvisation, the Laban/Bartenieff Movement System, and robotics. From this context methods including embodied exercises, writing prompts, and community building activities have been developed to facilitate interdisciplinary research. The results of this work are presented as an overview of a smattering of projects in areas like high-level motion planning, software development for rapid prototyping of movement, artistic output, and user studies that help understand how people interpret movement. Finally, guiding principles for other groups to adopt are posited.

Task decomposition for multilimbed robots to work in the reachable-but-unorientable space

Science.gov (United States)

Su, Chao; Zheng, Yuan F.

1990-01-01

Multilimbed industrial robots that have at least one arm and two or more legs are suggested for enlarging robot workspace in industrial automation. To plan the motion of a multilimbed robot, the arm-leg motion-coordination problem is raised and task decomposition is proposed to solve the problem; that is, a given task described by the destination position and orientation of the end-effector is decomposed into subtasks for arm manipulation and for leg locomotion, respectively. The former is defined as the end-effector position and orientation with respect to the legged main body, and the latter as the main-body position and orientation in the world coordinates. Three approaches are proposed for the task decomposition. The approaches are further evaluated in terms of energy consumption, from which an optimal approach can be selected.

Concept design of robotic modules for needlescopic surgery.

Science.gov (United States)

Sen, Shin; Harada, Kanako; Hewitt, Zackary; Susilo, Ekawahyu; Kobayashi, Etsuko; Sakuma, Ichiro

2017-08-01

Many minimally invasive surgical procedures and assisting robotic systems have been developed to further minimize the number and size of incisions in the body surface. This paper presents a new idea combining the advantages of modular robotic surgery, single incision laparoscopic surgery and needlescopic surgery. In the proposed concept, modules carrying therapeutic or diagnostic tools are inserted in the abdominal cavity from the navel as in single incision laparoscopic surgery and assembled to 3-mm needle shafts penetrating the abdominal wall. A three degree-of-freedom robotic module measuring 16 mm in diameter and 51 mm in length was designed and prototyped. The performance of the three connected robotic modules was evaluated. A new idea of modular robotic surgery was proposed, and demonstrated by prototyping a 3-DOF robotic module. The performance of the connected robotic modules was evaluated, and the challenges and future work were summarized.

Bio-robots automatic navigation with electrical reward stimulation.

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Chao; Zhang, Xinlu; Zheng, Nenggan; Chen, Weidong; Zheng, Xiaoxiang

2012-01-01

Bio-robots that controlled by outer stimulation through brain computer interface (BCI) suffer from the dependence on realtime guidance of human operators. Current automatic navigation methods for bio-robots focus on the controlling rules to force animals to obey man-made commands, with animals' intelligence ignored. This paper proposes a new method to realize the automatic navigation for bio-robots with electrical micro-stimulation as real-time rewards. Due to the reward-seeking instinct and trial-and-error capability, bio-robot can be steered to keep walking along the right route with rewards and correct its direction spontaneously when rewards are deprived. In navigation experiments, rat-robots learn the controlling methods in short time. The results show that our method simplifies the controlling logic and realizes the automatic navigation for rat-robots successfully. Our work might have significant implication for the further development of bio-robots with hybrid intelligence.

An immune-inspired swarm aggregation algorithm for self-healing swarm robotic systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Timmis, J; Ismail, A R; Bjerknes, J D; Winfield, A F T

2016-08-01

Swarm robotics is concerned with the decentralised coordination of multiple robots having only limited communication and interaction abilities. Although fault tolerance and robustness to individual robot failures have often been used to justify the use of swarm robotic systems, recent studies have shown that swarm robotic systems are susceptible to certain types of failure. In this paper we propose an approach to self-healing swarm robotic systems and take inspiration from the process of granuloma formation, a process of containment and repair found in the immune system. We use a case study of a swarm performing team work where previous works have demonstrated that partially failed robots have the most detrimental effect on overall swarm behaviour. We have developed an immune inspired approach that permits the recovery from certain failure modes during operation of the swarm, overcoming issues that effect swarm behaviour associated with partially failed robots. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Reliability and radiation tolerance of robots for nuclear applications

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lauridsen, K [Risoe National Lab. (Denmark); Decreton, M [SCK.CEN (Belgium); Seifert, C C [Siemens AG (Germany); Sharp, R [AEA Technology (United Kingdom)

1996-10-01

The reliability of a robot for nuclear applications will be affected by environmental factors such as dust, water, vibrations, heat, and, in particular, ionising radiation. The present report describes the work carried out in a project addressing the reliability and radiation tolerance of such robots. A widely representative range of components and materials has been radiation tested and the test results have been collated in a database along with data provided by the participants from earlier work and data acquired from other sources. A radiation effects guide has been written for the use by designers of electronic equipment for robots. A generic reliability model has been set up together with generic failure strategies, forming the basis for specific reliability modelling carried out in other projects. Modelling tools have been examined and developed for the prediction of the performance of electronic circuits subjected to radiation. Reports have been produced dealing with the prediction and detection of upcoming failures in electronic systems. Operational experience from the use of robots in radiation work in various contexts has been compiled in a report, and another report has been written on cost/benefit considerations about the use of robots. Also the possible impact of robots on the safety of the surrounding plant has been considered and reported. (au) 16 ills., 236 refs.

Reliability and radiation tolerance of robots for nuclear applications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lauridsen, K.; Decreton, M.; Seifert, C.C.; Sharp, R.

1996-10-01

The reliability of a robot for nuclear applications will be affected by environmental factors such as dust, water, vibrations, heat, and, in particular, ionising radiation. The present report describes the work carried out in a project addressing the reliability and radiation tolerance of such robots. A widely representative range of components and materials has been radiation tested and the test results have been collated in a database along with data provided by the participants from earlier work and data acquired from other sources. A radiation effects guide has been written for the use by designers of electronic equipment for robots. A generic reliability model has been set up together with generic failure strategies, forming the basis for specific reliability modelling carried out in other projects. Modelling tools have been examined and developed for the prediction of the performance of electronic circuits subjected to radiation. Reports have been produced dealing with the prediction and detection of upcoming failures in electronic systems. Operational experience from the use of robots in radiation work in various contexts has been compiled in a report, and another report has been written on cost/benefit considerations about the use of robots. Also the possible impact of robots on the safety of the surrounding plant has been considered and reported. (au) 16 ills., 236 refs

1st Latin American Congress on Automation and Robotics

CERN Document Server

Baca, José; Moreno, Héctor; Carrera, Isela; Cardona, Manuel

2017-01-01

This book contains the proceedings of the 1st Latin American Congress on Automation and Robotics held at Panama City, Panama in February 2017. It gathers research work from researchers, scientists, and engineers from academia and private industry, and presents current and exciting research applications and future challenges in Latin American. The scope of this book covers a wide range of themes associated with advances in automation and robotics research encountered in engineering and scientific research and practice. These topics are related to control algorithms, systems automation, perception, mobile robotics, computer vision, educational robotics, robotics modeling and simulation, and robotics and mechanism design. LACAR 2017 has been sponsored by SENACYT (Secretaria Nacional de Ciencia, Tecnologia e Inovacion of Panama).

Modelling and simulation of multi spindle drilling redundant SCARA robot using SolidWorks and MATLAB/SimMechanics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Saravana Mohan Mariappan

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Los robots son sistemas electromecánicos que necesitan enfoque mecatrónico antes de fabricarlos, esto con el fin de reducir el costo de desarrollo. En este trabajo se presenta un nuevo intento de modelado PRRP (prismáticos-revoluto-revoluto-prismático, una configuración redundante SCARA (Brazo robótico articulado de respuesta selectiva, herramienta de perforación milti-eje (MSDT usando el software CAD de SolidWorks y el estudio dinámico con la ayuda de MATLAB/SimMechanics de perforación. Un SCARA con MSDT se utiliza para perforar varios agujeros en las placas de circuito impreso (PCB y la chapa metálica. En este trabajo, el modelo de CAD 3D del robot propuesto se convierte en un diagrama de bloque SimMechanics exportando a MATLAB/SimMechanics segunda generación de tecnología de modelado y simulación. Entonces se realiza una simulación SimMechanics y utilizando su capacidad de detección de movimiento la velocidad de parámetros dinámicos y la torsión del manipulador se observa la estructura del robot variable modificado. Los resultados de la simulación indican un cambio considerable en el rendimiento dinámico para diferentes parámetros de diseño.

Current status of endovascular catheter robotics.

Science.gov (United States)

Lumsden, Alan B; Bismuth, Jean

2018-06-01

In this review, we will detail the evolution of endovascular therapy as the basis for the development of catheter-based robotics. In parallel, we will outline the evolution of robotics in the surgical space and how the convergence of technology and the entrepreneurs who push this evolution have led to the development of endovascular robots. The current state-of-the-art and future directions and potential are summarized for the reader. Information in this review has been drawn primarily from our personal clinical and preclinical experience in use of catheter robotics, coupled with some ground-breaking work reported from a few other major centers who have embraced the technology's capabilities and opportunities. Several case studies demonstrating the unique capabilities of a precisely controlled catheter are presented. Most of the preclinical work was performed in the advanced imaging and navigation laboratory. In this unique facility, the interface of advanced imaging techniques and robotic guidance is being explored. Although this procedure employs a very high-tech approach to navigation inside the endovascular space, we have conveyed the kind of opportunities that this technology affords to integrate 3D imaging and 3D control. Further, we present the opportunity of semi-autonomous motion of these devices to a target. For the interventionist, enhanced precision can be achieved in a nearly radiation-free environment.

LEGO Robotics: An Authentic Problem Solving Tool?

Science.gov (United States)

Castledine, Alanah-Rei; Chalmers, Chris

2011-01-01

With the current curriculum focus on correlating classroom problem solving lessons to real-world contexts, are LEGO robotics an effective problem solving tool? This present study was designed to investigate this question and to ascertain what problem solving strategies primary students engaged with when working with LEGO robotics and whether the…

Simulation of Intelligent Single Wheel Mobile Robot

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maki K. Rashid

2008-11-01

Full Text Available Stabilization of a single wheel mobile robot attracted researcher attentions in robotic area. However, the budget requirements for building experimental setups capable in investigating isolated parameters and implementing others encouraged the development of new simulation methods and techniques that beat such limitations. In this work we have developed a simulation platform for testing different control tactics to stabilize a single wheel mobile robot. The graphic representation of the robot, the dynamic solution, and, the control scheme are all integrated on common computer platform using Visual Basic. Simulation indicates that we can control such robot without knowing the detail of it's internal structure or dynamics behaviour just by looking at it and using manual operation tactics. Twenty five rules are extracted and implemented using Takagi-Sugeno's fuzzy controller with significant achievement in controlling robot motion during the dynamic simulation. The resulted data from the successful implementation of the fuzzy model are used to utilize and train a neurofuzzy controller using ANFIS scheme to produce further improvement in robot performance

Performance Evaluation Methods for Assistive Robotic Technology

Science.gov (United States)

Tsui, Katherine M.; Feil-Seifer, David J.; Matarić, Maja J.; Yanco, Holly A.

Robots have been developed for several assistive technology domains, including intervention for Autism Spectrum Disorders, eldercare, and post-stroke rehabilitation. Assistive robots have also been used to promote independent living through the use of devices such as intelligent wheelchairs, assistive robotic arms, and external limb prostheses. Work in the broad field of assistive robotic technology can be divided into two major research phases: technology development, in which new devices, software, and interfaces are created; and clinical, in which assistive technology is applied to a given end-user population. Moving from technology development towards clinical applications is a significant challenge. Developing performance metrics for assistive robots poses a related set of challenges. In this paper, we survey several areas of assistive robotic technology in order to derive and demonstrate domain-specific means for evaluating the performance of such systems. We also present two case studies of applied performance measures and a discussion regarding the ubiquity of functional performance measures across the sampled domains. Finally, we present guidelines for incorporating human performance metrics into end-user evaluations of assistive robotic technologies.

Automatic Battery Swap System for Home Robots

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Juan Wu

2012-12-01

Full Text Available This paper presents the design and implementation of an automatic battery swap system for the prolonged activities of home robots. A battery swap station is proposed to implement battery off-line recharging and on-line exchanging functions. It consists of a loading and unloading mechanism, a shifting mechanism, a locking device and a shell. The home robot is a palm-sized wheeled robot with an onboard camera and a removable battery case in the front. It communicates with the battery swap station wirelessly through ZigBee. The influences of battery case deflection and robot docking deflection on the battery swap operations have been investigated. The experimental results show that it takes an average time of 84.2s to complete the battery swap operations. The home robot does not have to wait several hours for the batteries to be fully charged. The proposed battery swap system is proved to be efficient in home robot applications that need the robots to work continuously over a long period.

Simulation of obstacles’ effect on industrial robots’ working space using genetic algorithm

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M.F. Aly

2014-07-01

Full Text Available The study of robot workspace is an interesting problem since its applications are directly related to industry. However, it involves several mathematical complications; Thus, many of the arising questions are left without a definite answer. With the motivation of industrial demand, the need for finding better answers than the existing ones lasts. The workspace (WS determination of a robot with general structural parameters is a complex problem, which cannot be solved in an explicit way. Closed form solutions are only available in some particular cases. Otherwise, computational algorithms and numerical techniques are used. The task becomes even much more complicated by the presence of obstacles in the robot accessible region. Obstacle presence does not only exclude points from the original WS but it affects the whole robot workspace’s shape and size to the extent that it sometimes divides the working space in two or more separate regions that cannot be linked by the same robot. Much research work in the literature is directed toward path planning in the presence of obstacles without having to determine the robot WS. However, a real situation in industry occurs when the knowledge of the WS is of importance in facility layout. This paper presents an approach for the estimation of a generic open-chain robot in the presence of obstacles with any desired number of prismatic and/or revolute joints of any order. Joints’ axes may have any orientation relative to each other. The robot can be placed in free space or in a work cell consisting of a set of Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC machines and some obstacles.

Mobile Robots in Human Environments

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Svenstrup, Mikael

intelligent mobile robotic devices capable of being a more natural and sociable actor in a human environment. More specific the emphasis is on safe and natural motion and navigation issues. First part of the work focus on developing a robotic system, which estimates human interest in interacting......, lawn mowers, toy pets, or as assisting technologies for care giving. If we want robots to be an even larger and more integrated part of our every- day environments, they need to become more intelligent, and behave safe and natural to the humans in the environment. This thesis deals with making...... as being able to navigate safely around one person, the robots must also be able to navigate in environments with more people. This can be environments such as pedestrian streets, hospital corridors, train stations or airports. The developed human-aware navigation strategy is enhanced to formulate...

International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems - IROS 2011

CERN Document Server

Rosen, Jacob; Redundancy in Robot Manipulators and Multi-Robot Systems

2013-01-01

The trend in the evolution of robotic systems is that the number of degrees of freedom increases. This is visible both in robot manipulator design and in the shift of focus from single to multi-robot systems. Following the principles of evolution in nature, one may infer that adding degrees of freedom to robot systems design is beneficial. However, since nature did not select snake-like bodies for all creatures, it is reasonable to expect the presence of a certain selection pressure on the number of degrees of freedom. Thus, understanding costs and benefits of multiple degrees of freedom, especially those that create redundancy, is a fundamental problem in the field of robotics. This volume is mostly based on the works presented at the workshop on Redundancy in Robot Manipulators and Multi-Robot Systems at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems - IROS 2011. The workshopwas envisioned as a dialog between researchers from two separate, but obviously relatedfields of robotics: on...

Robot development for nuclear material processing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pedrotti, L.R.; Armantrout, G.A.; Allen, D.C.; Sievers, R.H. Sr.

1991-07-01

The Department of Energy is seeking to modernize its special nuclear material (SNM) production facilities and concurrently reduce radiation exposures and process and incidental radioactive waste generated. As part of this program, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) lead team is developing and adapting generic and specific applications of commercial robotic technologies to SNM pyrochemical processing and other operations. A working gantry robot within a sealed processing glove box and a telerobot control test bed are manifestations of this effort. This paper describes the development challenges and progress in adapting processing, robotic, and nuclear safety technologies to the application. 3 figs

Integrated Robotic systems for Humanitarian Demining

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

E. Colon

2007-06-01

Full Text Available This paper summarises the main results of 10 years of research and development in Humanitarian Demining. The Hudem project focuses on mine detection systems and aims at provided different solutions to support the mine detection operations. Robots using different kind of locomotion systems have been designed and tested on dummy minefields. In order to control these robots, software interfaces, control algorithms, visual positioning and terrain following systems have also been developed. Typical data acquisition results obtained during trial campaigns with robots and data acquisition systems are reported. Lessons learned during the project and future work conclude this paper.

Initial Work Toward a Robotically Assisted EVA Glove

Science.gov (United States)

Rogers, J.; Peters, B.; McBryan, E.; Laske, E.

2016-01-01

The Space Suit RoboGlove is a device designed to provide additional grasp strength or endurance for an EVA crew member since gloved hand performance is a fraction of what the unencumbered human hand can achieve. There have been past efforts to approach this problem by employing novel materials and construction techniques to the glove design, as well as integrating powered assistance devices. This application of the NASA/GM RoboGlove technology uses a unique approach to integrate the robotic actuators and sensors into a Phase VI EVA glove. This design provides grasp augmentation to the glove user while active, but can also function as a normal glove when disabled. Care was taken to avoid adding excessive bulk to the glove or affecting tactility by choosing low-profile sensors and extrinsically locating the actuators. Conduits are used to guide robotic tendons from linear actuators, across the wrist, and to the fingers. The second generation of the SSRG includes updated electronics, sensors, and actuators to improve performance. The following discusses the electromechanical design, softgoods integration, and control system of the SSRG. It also presents test results from the first integration of a powered mobility element onto a space suit, the NASA Mark III. Early results show that sensor integration did not impact tactile feedback in the glove and the actuators show potential for reduction in grasp fatigue over time.

Walking in the uncanny valley: importance of the attractiveness on the acceptance of a robot as a working partner

Science.gov (United States)

Destephe, Matthieu; Brandao, Martim; Kishi, Tatsuhiro; Zecca, Massimiliano; Hashimoto, Kenji; Takanishi, Atsuo

2015-01-01

The Uncanny valley hypothesis, which tells us that almost-human characteristics in a robot or a device could cause uneasiness in human observers, is an important research theme in the Human Robot Interaction (HRI) field. Yet, that phenomenon is still not well-understood. Many have investigated the external design of humanoid robot faces and bodies but only a few studies have focused on the influence of robot movements on our perception and feelings of the Uncanny valley. Moreover, no research has investigated the possible relation between our uneasiness feeling and whether or not we would accept robots having a job in an office, a hospital or elsewhere. To better understand the Uncanny valley, we explore several factors which might have an influence on our perception of robots, be it related to the subjects, such as culture or attitude toward robots, or related to the robot such as emotions and emotional intensity displayed in its motion. We asked 69 subjects (N = 69) to rate the motions of a humanoid robot (Perceived Humanity, Eeriness, and Attractiveness) and state where they would rather see the robot performing a task. Our results suggest that, among the factors we chose to test, the attitude toward robots is the main influence on the perception of the robot related to the Uncanny valley. Robot occupation acceptability was affected only by Attractiveness, mitigating any Uncanny valley effect. We discuss the implications of these findings for the Uncanny valley and the acceptability of a robotic worker in our society. PMID:25762967

Novel Selective Detection Method of Tumor Angiogenesis Factors Using Living Nano-Robots.

Science.gov (United States)

Al-Fandi, Mohamed; Alshraiedeh, Nida; Owies, Rami; Alshdaifat, Hala; Al-Mahaseneh, Omamah; Al-Tall, Khadijah; Alawneh, Rawan

2017-07-14

This paper reports a novel self-detection method for tumor cells using living nano-robots. These living robots are a nonpathogenic strain of E. coli bacteria equipped with naturally synthesized bio-nano-sensory systems that have an affinity to VEGF, an angiogenic factor overly-expressed by cancer cells. The VEGF-affinity/chemotaxis was assessed using several assays including the capillary chemotaxis assay, chemotaxis assay on soft agar, and chemotaxis assay on solid agar. In addition, a microfluidic device was developed to possibly discover tumor cells through the overexpressed vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Various experiments to study the sensing characteristic of the nano-robots presented a strong response toward the VEGF. Thus, a new paradigm of selective targeting therapies for cancer can be advanced using swimming E. coli as self-navigator miniaturized robots as well as drug-delivery vehicles.

Robots and Cultural Heritage: New Museum Experiences

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Claudio Germak

2015-12-01

Full Text Available The introduction of new technologies to enhance the visiting museum experience is not a novelty. A large variety of interactive systems are nowadays available, including virtual tours, which makes cultural heritage accessible remotely. The theme of increase in accessibility and attractiveness has lately been faced with the employment of the service robotics, covering various types of applications. Regrettably, many of robotics solutions appear less successful in terms of utility and usability. On the basis of this awareness, a design for a new robotic solution for cultural heritage has been proposed. The project, developed at the royal residence of Racconigi Castle, consists of a telepresence robot designed as a tool to explore inaccessible areas of the heritage. The employed robot, called Virgil, was expressly designed for the project. The control of the robot is entrusted to the museum guides in order to enhance their work and enrich the cultural storytelling.

ANDROID BASED TELEOPERATION FOR THE FINCH ROBOT

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Oliver Faust

2016-09-01

Full Text Available The act of creating a robot involves systems engineering and creative problem solutions. It is about using established components to create a system that works in the natural or at least in the human environment. The current project is no exception, we have used the Robot Operating System (ROS to create an android based teleoperator application for the Finch robot. A Raspberry Pi processing platform establishes the link between the android device and the Finch robot. The most creative task, during the system design, was to translate the commands from the teleoperator application into wheel movements of the Finch robot. The translation must take into account the physical setup of the robot, including unintended negative influences, such as drag. The command translation involved a nonlinear coordinate transformation. The ROS framework enabled us to focus on that nonstandard coordinate translation task by offering a high level of abstraction and the ability to create component functionalities independently.

Robotics in Orthopedics: A Brave New World.

Science.gov (United States)

Parsley, Brian S

2018-02-16

Future health-care projection projects a significant growth in population by 2020. Health care has seen an exponential growth in technology to address the growing population with the decreasing number of physicians and health-care workers. Robotics in health care has been introduced to address this growing need. Early adoption of robotics was limited because of the limited application of the technology, the cumbersome nature of the equipment, and technical complications. A continued improvement in efficacy, adaptability, and cost reduction has stimulated increased interest in robotic-assisted surgery. The evolution in orthopedic surgery has allowed for advanced surgical planning, precision robotic machining of bone, improved implant-bone contact, optimization of implant placement, and optimization of the mechanical alignment. The potential benefits of robotic surgery include improved surgical work flow, improvements in efficacy and reduction in surgical time. Robotic-assisted surgery will continue to evolve in the orthopedic field. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Cooperative multi-robot observation of multiple moving targets

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Parker, L.E.; Emmons, B.A.

1997-01-01

An important issue that arises in the automation of many security, surveillance, and reconnaissance tasks is that of monitoring, or observing, the movements of targets navigating in a bounded area of interest. A key research issue in these problems is that of sensor placement--determining where sensors should be located to maintain the targets in view. In complex applications of this type, the use of multiple sensors dynamically moving over time is required. In this paper, the authors investigate the sue of a cooperative team of autonomous sensor-based robots for multi-robot observation of multiple moving targets. They focus primarily on developing the distributed control strategies that allow the robot team to attempt to maximize the collective tie during which each object is being observed by at least one robot in the area of interest. The initial efforts in this problem address the aspects of distributed control in homogeneous robot teams with equivalent sensing and movement capabilities working in an uncluttered, bounded area. This paper first formalizes the problem, discusses related work, and then shows that this problem is NP-hard. They then present a distributed approximate approach to solving this problem that combines low-level multi-robot control with higher-level control

Multivariable Frequency Response Functions Estimation for Industrial Robots

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hardeman, T.; Aarts, Ronald G.K.M.; Jonker, Jan B.

2005-01-01

The accuracy of industrial robots limits its applicability for high demanding processes, like robotised laser welding. We are working on a nonlinear exible model of the robot manipulator to predict these inaccuracies. This poster presents the experimental results on estimating the Multivariable

Teaching Functional Patterns through Robotic Applications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. Boender

2016-11-01

Full Text Available We present our approach to teaching functional programming to First Year Computer Science students at Middlesex University through projects in robotics. A holistic approach is taken to the curriculum, emphasising the connections between different subject areas. A key part of the students' learning is through practical projects that draw upon and integrate the taught material. To support these, we developed the Middlesex Robotic plaTfOrm (MIRTO, an open-source platform built using Raspberry Pi, Arduino, HUB-ee wheels and running Racket (a LISP dialect. In this paper we present the motivations for our choices and explain how a number of concepts of functional programming may be employed when programming robotic applications. We present some students' work with robotics projects: we consider the use of robotics projects to have been a success, both for their value in reinforcing students' understanding of programming concepts and for their value in motivating the students.

Cooperative robots and sensor networks 2014

CERN Document Server

Khelil, Abdelmajid

2014-01-01

This book is the second volume on Cooperative Robots and Sensor Networks. The primary objective of this book is to provide an up-to-date reference for cutting-edge studies and research trends related to mobile robots and wireless sensor networks, and in particular for the coupling between them. Indeed, mobile robots and wireless sensor networks have enabled great potentials and a large space for ubiquitous and pervasive applications. Robotics and wireless sensor networks have mostly been considered as separate research fields and little work has investigated the marriage between these two technologies. However, these two technologies share several features, enable common cyber-physical applications and provide complementary support to each other. The book consists of ten chapters, organized into four parts. The first part of the book presents three chapters related to localization of mobile robots using wireless sensor networks. Two chapters presented new solutions based Extended Kalman Filter and Particle Fi...

Calibration of Robot Reference Frames for Enhanced Robot Positioning Accuracy

OpenAIRE

Cheng, Frank Shaopeng

2008-01-01

This chapter discussed the importance and methods of conducting robot workcell calibration for enhancing the accuracy of the robot TCP positions in industrial robot applications. It shows that the robot frame transformations define the robot geometric parameters such as joint position variables, link dimensions, and joint offsets in an industrial robot system. The D-H representation allows the robot designer to model the robot motion geometry with the four standard D-H parameters. The robot k...

The ISIS operation: Robotics repair work on the CHINON A3 natural uranium, carbon dioxide cooled, graphite moderated reactor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hilmoine, R.M.E.

1989-01-01

After describing the upper internal support structures of the CHINON A3 reactor, the problems resulting from their degradation due to corrosion and to the difficulties of the ISIS operation are presented here. The repair method is as follows: all tools and repair parts reach the working area by the feeding-pipes drilled through the 7 m thick concrete vessel surrounding the reactor core; the robots handle into the reactor, the tool heads and the repair parts which are automatically positioned and welded around the corroded structure, thus restoring the support of measurement devices. The parts are either linked together or to the existing structure by means of 2 studs of 12 mm in diameter. The different phases to sort out a problem are: in-core topography, reconforming of the full-scale mock-up with the repair area, learning on this mock-up and in-core repair. The technical specificities of the robots used are the following: they have an 11 meter long, 0.22 meter across telescopic mast with jointed arms reaching a radius of 2.7 m. Then the useful load is 70 daN and the repeatability 0.1 mm. Different tool heads can be handled by the robot: telemeter and laser reconstruction: it allows to locate the in core points and to materialize them on the mock-up by a laser crossed-beams locating technique; scouring: it cleans the corroded parts of the structures before welding; welding: it allows the parts handling and the carried studs welding; screwing; tensile test: carried out when the stud welds are defective. A high level computerized control system is organized around a central unit which calculates the displacements of robots and synchronises the actions of different tools by communicating with several local units. A 100,000 hour designing, a 200,000 hour building and assembling and a 450,000 hour operating on working area were necessary to repair 15 out of the 102 corroded structures by fitting and welding 205 repair parts. 10 figs

Experimental Robot Model Adjustments Based on Force–Torque Sensor Information

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Santiago Martinez

2018-03-01

Full Text Available The computational complexity of humanoid robot balance control is reduced through the application of simplified kinematics and dynamics models. However, these simplifications lead to the introduction of errors that add to other inherent electro-mechanic inaccuracies and affect the robotic system. Linear control systems deal with these inaccuracies if they operate around a specific working point but are less precise if they do not. This work presents a model improvement based on the Linear Inverted Pendulum Model (LIPM to be applied in a non-linear control system. The aim is to minimize the control error and reduce robot oscillations for multiple working points. The new model, named the Dynamic LIPM (DLIPM, is used to plan the robot behavior with respect to changes in the balance status denoted by the zero moment point (ZMP. Thanks to the use of information from force–torque sensors, an experimental procedure has been applied to characterize the inaccuracies and introduce them into the new model. The experiments consist of balance perturbations similar to those of push-recovery trials, in which step-shaped ZMP variations are produced. The results show that the responses of the robot with respect to balance perturbations are more precise and the mechanical oscillations are reduced without comprising robot dynamics.

Robotic Planetary Drill Tests

Science.gov (United States)

Glass, Brian J.; Thompson, S.; Paulsen, G.

2010-01-01

Several proposed or planned planetary science missions to Mars and other Solar System bodies over the next decade require subsurface access by drilling. This paper discusses the problems of remote robotic drilling, an automation and control architecture based loosely on observed human behaviors in drilling on Earth, and an overview of robotic drilling field test results using this architecture since 2005. Both rotary-drag and rotary-percussive drills are targeted. A hybrid diagnostic approach incorporates heuristics, model-based reasoning and vibration monitoring with neural nets. Ongoing work leads to flight-ready drilling software.

Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot (RASSOR) Phase 2 and Smart Autonomous Sand-Swimming Excavator

Science.gov (United States)

Sandy, Michael

2015-01-01

The Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot (RASSOR) Phase 2 is an excavation robot for mining regolith on a planet like Mars. The robot is programmed using the Robotic Operating System (ROS) and it also uses a physical simulation program called Gazebo. This internship focused on various functions of the program in order to make it a more professional and efficient robot. During the internship another project called the Smart Autonomous Sand-Swimming Excavator was worked on. This is a robot that is designed to dig through sand and extract sample material. The intern worked on programming the Sand-Swimming robot, and designing the electrical system to power and control the robot.

Small-scale soft-bodied robot with multimodal locomotion

Science.gov (United States)

Hu, Wenqi; Lum, Guo Zhan; Mastrangeli, Massimo; Sitti, Metin

2018-02-01

Untethered small-scale (from several millimetres down to a few micrometres in all dimensions) robots that can non-invasively access confined, enclosed spaces may enable applications in microfactories such as the construction of tissue scaffolds by robotic assembly, in bioengineering such as single-cell manipulation and biosensing, and in healthcare such as targeted drug delivery and minimally invasive surgery. Existing small-scale robots, however, have very limited mobility because they are unable to negotiate obstacles and changes in texture or material in unstructured environments. Of these small-scale robots, soft robots have greater potential to realize high mobility via multimodal locomotion, because such machines have higher degrees of freedom than their rigid counterparts. Here we demonstrate magneto-elastic soft millimetre-scale robots that can swim inside and on the surface of liquids, climb liquid menisci, roll and walk on solid surfaces, jump over obstacles, and crawl within narrow tunnels. These robots can transit reversibly between different liquid and solid terrains, as well as switch between locomotive modes. They can additionally execute pick-and-place and cargo-release tasks. We also present theoretical models to explain how the robots move. Like the large-scale robots that can be used to study locomotion, these soft small-scale robots could be used to study soft-bodied locomotion produced by small organisms.

Inverse Kinematic Analysis and Evaluation of a Robot for Nondestructive Testing Application

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zongxing Lu

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The robot system has been utilized in the nondestructive testing field in recent years. However, only a few studies have focused on the application of ultrasonic testing for complex work pieces with the robot system. The inverse kinematics problem of the 6-DOF robot should be resolved before the ultrasonic testing task. A new effective solution for curved-surface scanning with a 6-DOF robot system is proposed in this study. A new arm-wrist separateness method is adopted to solve the inverse problem of the robot system. Eight solutions of the joint angles can be acquired with the proposed inverse kinematics method. The shortest distance rule is adopted to optimize the inverse kinematics solutions. The best joint-angle solution is identified. Furthermore, a 3D-application software is developed to simulate ultrasonic trajectory planning for complex-shape work pieces with a 6-DOF robot. Finally, the validity of the scanning method is verified based on the C-scan results of a work piece with a curved surface. The developed robot ultrasonic testing system is validated. The proposed method provides an effective solution to this problem and would greatly benefit the development of industrial nondestructive testing.

Learning Semantics of Gestural Instructions for Human-Robot Collaboration

Science.gov (United States)

Shukla, Dadhichi; Erkent, Özgür; Piater, Justus

2018-01-01

Designed to work safely alongside humans, collaborative robots need to be capable partners in human-robot teams. Besides having key capabilities like detecting gestures, recognizing objects, grasping them, and handing them over, these robots need to seamlessly adapt their behavior for efficient human-robot collaboration. In this context we present the fast, supervised Proactive Incremental Learning (PIL) framework for learning associations between human hand gestures and the intended robotic manipulation actions. With the proactive aspect, the robot is competent to predict the human's intent and perform an action without waiting for an instruction. The incremental aspect enables the robot to learn associations on the fly while performing a task. It is a probabilistic, statistically-driven approach. As a proof of concept, we focus on a table assembly task where the robot assists its human partner. We investigate how the accuracy of gesture detection affects the number of interactions required to complete the task. We also conducted a human-robot interaction study with non-roboticist users comparing a proactive with a reactive robot that waits for instructions. PMID:29615888

RoboSmith: Wireless Networked Architecture for Multiagent Robotic System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Florin Moldoveanu

2010-11-01

Full Text Available In this paper is presented an architecture for a flexible mini robot for a multiagent robotic system. In a multiagent system the value of an individual agent is negligible since the goal of the system is essential. Thus, the agents (robots need to be small, low cost and cooperative. RoboSmith are designed based on these conditions. The proposed architecture divide a robot into functional modules such as locomotion, control, sensors, communication, and actuation. Any mobile robot can be constructed by combining these functional modules for a specific application. An embedded software with dynamic task uploading and multi-tasking abilities is developed in order to create better interface between robots and the command center and among the robots. The dynamic task uploading allows the robots change their behaviors in runtime. The flexibility of the robots is given by facts that the robots can work in multiagent system, as master-slave, or hybrid mode, can be equipped with different modules and possibly be used in other applications such as mobile sensor networks remote sensing, and plant monitoring.

Learning Semantics of Gestural Instructions for Human-Robot Collaboration.

Science.gov (United States)

Shukla, Dadhichi; Erkent, Özgür; Piater, Justus

2018-01-01

Designed to work safely alongside humans, collaborative robots need to be capable partners in human-robot teams. Besides having key capabilities like detecting gestures, recognizing objects, grasping them, and handing them over, these robots need to seamlessly adapt their behavior for efficient human-robot collaboration. In this context we present the fast, supervised Proactive Incremental Learning (PIL) framework for learning associations between human hand gestures and the intended robotic manipulation actions. With the proactive aspect, the robot is competent to predict the human's intent and perform an action without waiting for an instruction. The incremental aspect enables the robot to learn associations on the fly while performing a task. It is a probabilistic, statistically-driven approach. As a proof of concept, we focus on a table assembly task where the robot assists its human partner. We investigate how the accuracy of gesture detection affects the number of interactions required to complete the task. We also conducted a human-robot interaction study with non-roboticist users comparing a proactive with a reactive robot that waits for instructions.

Dialogues with social robots enablements, analyses, and evaluation

CERN Document Server

Wilcock, Graham

2017-01-01

This book explores novel aspects of social robotics, spoken dialogue systems, human-robot interaction, spoken language understanding, multimodal communication, and system evaluation. It offers a variety of perspectives on and solutions to the most important questions about advanced techniques for social robots and chat systems. Chapters by leading researchers address key research and development topics in the field of spoken dialogue systems, focusing in particular on three special themes: dialogue state tracking, evaluation of human-robot dialogue in social robotics, and socio-cognitive language processing. The book offers a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners in both academia and industry whose work involves advanced interaction technology and who are seeking an up-to-date overview of the key topics. It also provides supplementary educational material for courses on state-of-the-art dialogue system technologies, social robotics, and related research fields.

National project : advanced robot for nuclear power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tsunemi, T.; Takehara, K.; Hayashi, T.; Okano, H.; Sugiyama, S.

1993-01-01

The national project 'Advanced Robot' has been promoted by the Agency of Industrial science and Technology, MITI for eight years since 1983. The robot for a nuclear plant is one of the projects, and is a prototype intelligent one that also has a three dimensional vision system to generate an environmental model, a quadrupedal walking mechanism to work on stairs and four fingered manipulators to disassemble a valve with a hand tool. Many basic technologies such as an actuator, a tactile sensor, autonomous control and so on progress to high level. The prototype robot succeeded functionally in official demonstration in 1990. More refining such as downsizing and higher intelligence is necessary to realize a commercial robot, while basic technologies are useful to improve conventional robots and systems. This paper presents application studies on the advanced robot technologies. (author)

Training Engineering Disciplines and Skills through Robot Projects

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Friesel, Anna

The popularity of robots in educational activities increased the last 10-15 years. Engineering education all over the world includes courses and projects involving design, use and programming of robots in a variety of programs at technical colleges and universities. At the same time there is a gr......The popularity of robots in educational activities increased the last 10-15 years. Engineering education all over the world includes courses and projects involving design, use and programming of robots in a variety of programs at technical colleges and universities. At the same time...... there is a growing interest to work with robots. Robotic skills are also highly requested in industrial companies. At the Technical University of Denmark, DTU Diplom, we have several projects involving building and programing robots in our bachelor programs in Electronics, Computer Science, IT and Mechanical...... Engineering. This presentation deals with our experience in robotic activities in different programs in order to enhance understanding of mathematics, physics and different technical disciplines in the named programs. We also observed the increased motivation for learning theory when we combine traditional...

Towards Competitive Commercial Autonomous Robots: The Configuration Problem

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kjærgaard, Morten; Andersen, Nils Axel; Ravn, Ole

2011-01-01

knowledge about the underlying algorithms. The framework also makes it possible for the robot to autonomously calibrate itself, resulting in higher stability of the robot and less development time required. The work is a result of an industrial research project aimed at lowering development costs...

An Analogue Interface for Musical Robots

OpenAIRE

Long, Jason; Kapur, Ajay; Carnegie, Dale

2016-01-01

The majority of musical robotics performances, projects and installations utilise microcontroller hardware to digitally interface the robotic instruments with sequencer software and other musical controllers, often via a personal computer. While in many ways digital interfacing offers considerable power and flexibility, digital protocols, equipment and audio workstations often tend to suggest particular music-making work-flows and have resolution and timing limitations. This paper describes t...