bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Planning in a Continuous Domain—An Introduction
Authors: Salter Richard M. 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYMuch of the work of Artificial Intelligence concerns the representation and symbolic manipulation of various domains. One problem shared by existing systems is their limitation to discrete states and state changes, brought about by the linking of declarative states with points in time. With this identification, models of continuous processes must forego such declarative states, resulting in a loss of decomposability that limits the amount of complexity that can be handled by a given amount of computation.In this paper we develop a model for robot problem solving over a domain of continuous actions. The proposed world model consists of a vector of piecewise defined functions of time, i.e. functions that can be represented using finite sets of expressions and finite partitions of time intervals. The critical points of these functions are represented symbolically as discrete events. The goal is represented as a point through which the world model vector must thread at some point in model time. World model functions are transformed by adding events at various discrete points in time which transform the trajectories in the direction of the goal. As events are added, formulas relating the event times are added to the description of the world. The result is a partial order of events which represents a plan for “forcing” the world function to achieve the goal.The relationships between this model and the classical problem-solving systems (e.g. STRIPS) are utilized in order to produce a planning procedure. This procedure is applied to a robot problem which can be solved using the model. We conclude by presenting an analysis and prospectus of considerations for an actual implementation of these ideas.
A new method for calculating the Jacobian for a robot manipulator
Authors: Lenarčič Jadran 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYA new method for calculating the Jacobian for a general n degree-of-freedom robot manipulator is presented and compared with some known other methods. The computational efficiency of the method is estimated in terms of the number of multiplications, additions/subtractions, trigonometric functions required, and the execution time on a VAX 11/750 computer. It is shown that the new method proposed in this paper is one of the most efficient when applied on a robot manipulator with successively parallel or rectangular joint rotations.
Production scheduling and operational control of flexible manufacturing systems
Authors: Bonfioli M. , Garetti M. , Pozzetti A. 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYOnly hardware and software flexibility combined can yield the overall system flexibility required in newly designed FMSs in which the expected part mix is quite large and continually changing.The paper shows how modular design and integration are fundamental steps in software design for the management and control of FMSs. The main subsystems of a control system, built up by putting together a number of standardized modules requiring little or no customization, are also described. An experimental control system designed according to these criteria is also presented.
Grouping problem in scheduling flexible manufacturing systems
Authors: Kusiak Andrew , Vannelli† Anthony , Kumar‡ K. Ravi 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYIn this paper the problem of grouping parts and fixtures in Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMSs) is discussed. A network formulation of the grouping problem is presented. Based on this formulation an efficient heuristic algorithm is developed. The importance of grouping of parts and fixtures in FMSs as well as some of the computational results are discussed.
The induced vibration touch sensor – a new dynamic touch sensing concept
Authors: Patterson Robert W. , Nevill Gale E. 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYThis report describes a new touch sensing concept in which active, exploratory touching resembles the manner in which humans use their fingertips. The concept utilizes the vibrations produced during sliding motion of the sensor to provide information for characterizing objects and features. The sensing system consists of a textured compliant artificial “skin”, a transduction element, and means for recognizing items of interest.A relatively simple prototype was fabricated and tested for a range of potentially useful tactile tasks. Results from these experiments demonstrate the promise of the concept. The prototype sensor is shown to be effective at recognizing feature size and shape, patterns of features, feature orientation, feature position, and surface texture.
Flexible production organization of workpiece movement
Authors: Coudurier J. F. 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYThe flexible turning cell developed at CETIM has enabled us, among other things, to investigate how the movement of workpieces could be organized in flexible production cells.The very design of flexible cells leads to the following questions about the manufacturing process to be considered: – type of product, – type of operational side, – type of management/control, – type of data transmission.These questions are answered by calling upon group technology for both the product and operational sides, and upon simulation to define precisely the operational side, and the type of management/control and data transmission system to be used.For simple cells (i.e. those with few work-stations) the system can be analyzed in detail without resorting to simulation. Thus equipment limitations such as those set by robot control can be taken into account to analyze the possibilities to interlink numerous different paths.With this approach simpler real-time operation can be implemented. It also permits handling operations on different types of workpieces (i.e. of different shape and sequence) simultaneously.
On the use of deformation matrices in artificial vision Systems
Authors: Jumarie Guy 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYAt present, the procedure which is most widely used to identify an object consists of displacing its image in order that it be as close as possible to a reference pattern, and then to make a decision based upon the value of an Euclidean distance. This decision may be either in a deterministic framework or in a statistical one. The transformations so involved are translation and rotation. It is shown that, if one takes for granted the invariance of the amount of information involved by the object considered as an informational source, then there is another class of transformations, referred to as deformation, which should be also taken into account. The question is examined, and its consequences in the design of artificial vision are outlined in both the deterministic and stochastic cases.
Low cost tactile gripper using silicone rubber sensor array
Authors: Kah-Bin Lim , Yoon-Song Chong 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYA low cost tactile sensor using commercially available conductive silicone rubber has been developed. It comprises a two dimensional array arranged in 3 mm centre-to-centre distance. Each sensor element has a zero-force resistance of about 0.3 kohm and it has a logarithmic characteristic curve of resistance versus force. An 8 × 8 prototype tactile sensor array over an area of 3 cm × 3 cm has been fabricated and mounted on the gripper of a robot for testing and evaluation. The associated software has also been developed. The limitations of the sensor are also discussed.
Dynamic behaviour of a SCARA robot with links subjected to different velocity trajectories
Authors: Ibrahim M. Y. , Cook C. , Tieu K. 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYThe dynamics of a mechanical manipulator have the inherent characteristics of being highly non-linear and strongly coupled due to the interaction of the inertial, centripetal, coriolis and gravitational forces.These characteristics produce difficulties in predicting the dynamic behaviour of a given manipulator's structure. These interactive forces depend largely on the geometrical configuration and operational conditions of a manipulator. Therefore, it is essential to investigate the dynamics behaviour under different conditions in order to obtain an optimal design.This paper presents a study of the dynamics behaviour of a robot's arm with particular reference to the mechanical manipulator being designed by the AEAC. A computer software package has been developed to facilitate the investigation of the potential dynamics behaviour of a robot's arm and provides the designer with useful information for the real time control of high performance robots. This package also enables the designer to closely monitor the implications of his design.The software of this package is based on the Lagrangian model, taking advantage of the recursive formulation. A brief description of the types of velocity trajectories used in this study is also included in this paper.The software for the modelling was written inFORTRAN 77in single precision and run on a UNIVAC operating system.
A new control method for motor vehicles for the severely handicapped
Authors: Suzuki Yoshitaka , Niinomi Sigeru , Saitoh Yoshiyuki , Hatakeyama Takuroh , Tsuchiya Kazuo 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYThis report deals with the development of new control vehicles for the bedridden, physically handicapped person who needs a help-system for carrying things to the bedside from the stock in the room. This new control method is characterized by a unit loop system on the drive track. This unit loop system was constructed to execute three actions: stop, backward and right forward movement, under the control of a on-board microcomputer.This control method is used in small rooms. It also enables one to increase the driving area of a vehicle without reprogramming and adjusting the control mechanism.
Effect of sensor size in robotic tactile sensor arrays
Authors: Groot A. W. De 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYThe degree to which a binary tactile (or visual) image matches the original object is limited by the resolution of the sensor array. Given this fundamental limitation it is still possible to minimize the error in the image formed by the interconnection of the centers of activated sensors along the object's edge. This is achieved by a suitable choice of the physical size of each sensor within the limits of the pixel size. An empirical investigation shows that normally a sensor area of about 50% of the square of the resolution yields an optimal result.
Intelligent robot programming: you can't get there from here – a viewpoint
Authors: Rock S.T. 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYThe goal of a sophisticated robot programming system is the ability to accept natural language input, such as English, and be able to convert this to a series of robot commands that will achieve the desired robot movement. This paper first examines what is meant by the concept of natural language understanding. Then a bottom-up development of a model of a robot system identifies the levels of control in a robot system and the role of software at each of these. This is related to the various models of software hierarchy that have been proposed by different authors and an essential deviation from these at the object level (or sub-task level) is identified. Finally, a new route is proposed that should be taken in defining the levels of software if intelligent programming of robots is to be achieved.
Consistent impulse conditions in Lagrangian system dynamics
Authors: Cotsaftis M. , Vibet C. 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYThe general problem of including impulse effects in Lagrangian dynamics is discussed. A self-consistent method is developed, and a block-diagram representation, including initial conditions, is introduced that displays the feature of the method. Example of a collision of two dissimilar robots is provided for illustration.
Development of a pneumatic vibratory wrist for robotic assembly
Authors: Jeong Kyu Won , Cho Hyung Suck 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYIn this paper a pneumatic vibratory wrist operated with a PWM controller is developed for robotic assembly. In the vibratory assembly system, the vibratory wrist can perform random search motion of a hole to compensate the position error at the early stage of an insertion process. Since the vibration characteristics of the wrist, such as the amplitude and trajectory of the vibration, are critical to assembly performance, they are experimentally investigated for various system controller parameters. In addition, a series of insertion experiments are performed to evaluate the assembly performance of the proposed wrist. The results show that within a wide range of operating conditions the wrist vibration can effectively compensate for large positioning errors when this wrist is used for a chamferless peg-in-hole task.
A new generation of pneumatic servos for industrial robots
Authors: Pu J. , Weston R. H. 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYThis paper reports on a continuation of research activities at the Loughborough University of Technology (LUT) which are aimed at evolving second generation pneumatic drives and provides an introduction to various aspects which must be considered in the design and use of industrial pneumatic servo-driven robots. The paper illustrates how a new generation of fast and accurate pneumatic servo drives, demonstrating excellent performance/cost characteristics, will become available and will rival electric and hydraulic counterparts in many areas of industrial control.
Collision-free path generation for a mobile robot by an artificial transformation of obstacle spaces
Authors: Ozaki H. , Shimadzu T. , Mohri A. 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYThis paper presents a new method to generate a smooth collision-free path of a mobile robot. The path is generated as follows: First, the obstacle spaces are artificially contracted to obtain an initial collision-free path which leads the mobile robot from the start point to the goal; then the path is iteratively modified to avoid the obstacle spaces which are gradually restored (this is carried out in consideration of the index introduced to evaluate the correctness of the path), in the final step, all the obstacle spaces are fully restored and the obtained path becomes a desirable collision-free one. The proposed method is effectively applied to an example of planning planar movements of a mobile robot.
Statically balanced direct drive manipulator
Authors: Kazerooni H. 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYA practical architecture, using a four-bar-linkage, is considered for the University of Minnesota direct drive rotot. This statically-balanced direct drive robot has been constructed for stability analysis of the robot in constrained maneuvers.2–6As a result of the elimination of the gravity forces (without any counter weights), smaller actuators and consequently smaller amplifiers were chosen. The motors yield acceleration of 5 g at the robot end point without overheating. High torque, low speed, brush-less AC synchronous motors are used to power the robot. Graphite-epoxy composite material is used for the construction of the robot links. A 4-node parallel processor has been used to control the robot. The dynamic tracking accuracy-with the feedforward torque method as a control law- has been derived experimentally.
A numerical algorithm for solving robot inverse kinematics
Authors: Gupta K. C. , Singh V. K. 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYAn extension of the inverse kinematics algorithm by Gupta and Kazerounian is presented. The robot kinematics is formulated by using the Zero Reference Position Method. Euler parameters and the related vector forms of the spatial rotation concatenation have been used to improve the efficiency of the velocity Jacobian computation. The joint rates are formally integrated by using a modified predictor-corrector method particularized to robot inverse kinematics – it is a strict descending,p(1)c(0 –n), variable step algorithm. The definitions of the rotational error and overall error measure have been revised. Depending upon the convergence criteria used, these modifications reduce the overall computational time by 20%.
Haptic Perception with an Articulated, Sensate Robot Hand
Authors: Stansfield Sharon A. 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYIn this paper we present a series of haptic exploratory procedures, or EPs, implemented for a multi-fingered, articulated, sensate robot hand. These EPs are designed to extract specific tactile and kinesthetic information from an object via their purposive invocation by an intelligent robotic system. Taken together, they form an active robotic touch perception system to be used both in extracting information about the environment for internal representation and in acquiring grasps for manipulation. The theory and structure of this robotic haptic system is based upon models of human haptic exploration and information processing.The haptic system presented utilizes an integrated robotic system consisting of a PUMA 560 robot arm, a JPL/Stanford robot hand, with joint torque sensing in the fingers, a wrist force/torque sensor, and a 256 element, spatially-resolved fingertip tactile array. We describe the EPs implemented for this system and provide experimental results which illustrate how they function and how the information which they extract may be used. In addition to the sensate hand and arm, the robot also contains structured-lighting vision and a Prolog-based reasoning system capable of grasp generation and object categorization. We present a set of simple tasks which show how both grasping and recognition may be enhanced by the addition of active touch perception.
Compliance Control and Stability Analysis of Cooperating Robot manipulators
Authors: Kazerooni H. 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYThe work presented here is the description of the control strategy of two cooperating robots. A two–finger hand is an example of such a System. The control method allows for position control of the contact point by one of the robots while the other robot controls the contact force. The stability analysis of two robot manipulators has been investigated using unstructured models for dynamic behavior of robot manipulators. For the stability of two robots, there must be some initial compliance in either robot. The initial compliance in the robots can be obtained by a non-zero sensitivity function for the tracking controller or a passive compliant element such as an RCC.
A Closed Form 3D Self-Positioning algorithm for a mobile robot using vision and guide-marks
Authors: Bien Zeungnam , Kwon Ho Yeol , Youn Jeongnam , Suh Il Hong 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYIn this paper, the 3D self-positioning problem of a mobile robot is investigated under the assumption that there are given a set of guide points along with camera vision as the detection mechanism. The minimal number of guide points is discussed to determine the position and orientation of a mobile robot via a single or multiple camera system. For practical application, a closed form 3D self-positioning algorithm is proposed using a stereo camera system with triple guide points. It is further shown that a double triangular pattern is an effective guide-mark that is robust against measurement noise in feature extraction. Then, by simulation, the sensitivity of positioning errors due to image errors are analyzed. It is experimentally shown that the proposed method with triple guide points works well for a walking robot equipped with a stereo camera in laboratory environment.
A hybrid control algorithm for robotic manipulators
Authors: Lee J. S. , Kwon W. H. 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYIn this paper, new hybrid control laws for the position control of robotic manipulators are proposed. The proposed control laws are composed of discrete feedforward component and continuous feedback component. The open loop nominal torque about the desired trajectories is taken as the feedforward component, while a modified version of the sliding mode control is taken as the feedback component. For the three proposed control laws, we give sufficient conditions which guarantee the bounded tracking errors in spite of the modeling errors. The existence of the control gains which satisfy these conditions is shown by numerical examples. The computational burden of feedback control is analyzed, which shows that the feedback control can be used in real time digital control. The robustness and the good tracking performance of proposed algorithms are demonstrated by the numerical simulation of a manipulator position control under payloads and parameter uncertainties.
A new simulation scheme for self-tuning adaptive control of robot manipulators
Authors: Wang Q. , Broome D. R. 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYIn most dynamic adaptive control simulation of robotic manipulators, the Langrange–Euler (L–E) dynamic equations are first piecewise linearized about the desired reference and then discretized and rewritten in a state space form. This makes things very complicated and it is easy to make errors. What is more is that with a different reference this work must be done again. A new simulation scheme – Backward Recursive Self-Tuning Adaptive (BRSTA) – as it will be called, is suggested in this paper for adaptive controller design of robot manipulators. A two degree of freedom robot manipulator is used to verify the scheme in the condition of highly nonlinear and highly coupled system. A one degree of freedom robot manipulator is used for comparing both the forward and backward methods. The main advantages of this scheme include that it can be used for evaluating the self-tuning adaptive control laws and provide the initial process parameters for real-time control. And it is concluded here that the Newton–Euler (N–E) dynamic equations are equally well qualified as the Langrange–Euler (L-E) equations for the simulation of self-tuning adaptive control of robot manipulators.
Design of an advanced robotic vehicle evaluation laboratory
Authors: Jarka Richard E. , Sabri Zeinab A. , Adams S. Keith , Liang Enju , Barnett Michael , Rodriguez Rodrigo J. , Husseiny Abdo A. 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYRobotic vehicles have a wide field of applications in the civilian and military industry including manufacturing, assembly lines, security, operation in hostile environment, and testing. In the defense area, robotic vehicles have the potential for force multiplication and removing the soldier from hazardous environments on the battlefield. To make such vehicles avaialable requires research, development, testing and demonstration of advanced robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and systems. A realistic effort towards that objective requires the establishment of an advanced laboratory responsible for evaluation and development of subsystems and integration of the various elements into vehicles for field tests. Hence, requirements for the laboratory are given including a layout design and link analysis of the different components. As the first part of planning the laboratory, the technology was assessed to assure inclusion of the state-of-the-art equipment. Then, equipment requirements were defined, including interactions between pieces of equipment and providing for support, recording and monitoring equipment.
Time-suboptimal quasi-continuous path generation for industrial robots
Authors: Troch I. 
Published: March 2009

SUMMARYThe problem of constructing a smooth path with respect to time throughNgiven points in configuration space is considered. Two variants of an algorithm suggested by Paul are presented and evaluated. It is shown that the algorithms suggested in this paper yield in general considerable improvements in two respects: Firstly, the deviation of the resulting path from the given points is reduced markedly and secondly, the overall time needed for the movement is reduced significantly and consequently, is closer to the true minimum-time. The price to be paid for these improvements is a moderate increase of computation time allowing still online use of the algorithm.