23 research outputs found
Motion Planning for Manipulation With Heuristic Search
Heuristic searches such as A* search are a popular means of finding least-cost
plans due to their generality, strong theoretical guarantees on completeness
and optimality, simplicity in implementation, and consistent behavior. In
planning for robotic manipulation, however, these techniques are commonly
thought of as impractical due to the high-dimensionality of the planning
problem. As part of this thesis work, we have developed a heuristic
search-based approach to motion planning for manipulation that does deal
effectively with the high-dimensionality of the problem. In this thesis,
I will present the approach together with its theoretical properties and show
how to apply it to single-arm and dual-arm motion planning with upright
constraints on a PR2 robot operating in non-trivial cluttered spaces. Then
I will explain how we extended our approach to manipulation planning for
n-arms with regrasping. In this work, the planner itself makes all of the
discrete decisions, including which arm to use for the pickup and putdown, whether
handoffs are necessary and how the object should be grasped at each step along
the way.
An extensive experimental analysis in both simulation and on a physical PR2
shows that, in terms of runtime, our approach is on par with some of the most
common sampling-based approaches. This includes benchmarking our planning
framework on two domains that we constructed that are common to manufacturing:
pick-and-place of fast moving objects and the autonomous assembly of small
objects. Between these applications, the planner exhibited fast planning times
and the ability to robustly plan paths into and out of tight working
environments that are common to assembly. The closing work of this thesis
includes an exhaustive study of the natural tradeoff that occurs between
planning efficiency versus solution quality for different values of the
heuristic inflation factor. A comparison of the solution quality of our planner
to paths computed by an asymptotically optimal approach given a great deal of
time for path optimization is included as well. Finally, a set of experimental
results are included that show that due to our approach\u27s deterministic
cost-minimization, similar input tends to lead to similarity in the output. This
kind of local consistency is important to the predictability of the robot\u27s
motions and contributes to human-robot safety
Structured manifolds for motion production and segmentation : a structured Kernel Regression approach
Steffen JF. Structured manifolds for motion production and segmentation : a structured Kernel Regression approach. Bielefeld (Germany): Bielefeld University; 2010
Proceedings of the NASA Conference on Space Telerobotics, volume 3
The theme of the Conference was man-machine collaboration in space. The Conference provided a forum for researchers and engineers to exchange ideas on the research and development required for application of telerobotics technology to the space systems planned for the 1990s and beyond. The Conference: (1) provided a view of current NASA telerobotic research and development; (2) stimulated technical exchange on man-machine systems, manipulator control, machine sensing, machine intelligence, concurrent computation, and system architectures; and (3) identified important unsolved problems of current interest which can be dealt with by future research
Visual and Camera Sensors
This book includes 13 papers published in Special Issue ("Visual and Camera Sensors") of the journal Sensors. The goal of this Special Issue was to invite high-quality, state-of-the-art research papers dealing with challenging issues in visual and camera sensors
Fabricate 2020
Fabricate 2020 is the fourth title in the FABRICATE series on the theme of digital fabrication and published in conjunction with a triennial conference (London, April 2020). The book features cutting-edge built projects and work-in-progress from both academia and practice. It brings together pioneers in design and making from across the fields of architecture, construction, engineering, manufacturing, materials technology and computation. Fabricate 2020 includes 32 illustrated articles punctuated by four conversations between world-leading experts from design to engineering, discussing themes such as drawing-to-production, behavioural composites, robotic assembly, and digital craft
Proceedings of the European Conference on Agricultural Engineering AgEng2021
This proceedings book results from the AgEng2021 Agricultural Engineering Conference under auspices of the European Society of Agricultural Engineers, held in an online format based on the University of Évora,
Portugal, from 4 to 8 July 2021.
This book contains the full papers of a selection of abstracts that were the base for the oral presentations and posters presented at the conference.
Presentations were distributed in eleven thematic areas: Artificial Intelligence, data processing and
management; Automation, robotics and sensor technology; Circular Economy; Education and Rural development; Energy and bioenergy; Integrated and sustainable Farming systems; New application
technologies and mechanisation; Post-harvest technologies; Smart farming / Precision agriculture; Soil, land and water engineering; Sustainable production in Farm buildings
The Application of Mixed Reality Within Civil Nuclear Manufacturing and Operational Environments
This thesis documents the design and application of Mixed Reality (MR) within a nuclear
manufacturing cell through the creation of a Digitally Assisted Assembly Cell (DAAC). The
DAAC is a proof of concept system, combining full body tracking within a room sized
environment and bi-directional feedback mechanism to allow communication between users within
the Virtual Environment (VE) and a manufacturing cell. This allows for training, remote assistance,
delivery of work instructions, and data capture within a manufacturing cell.
The research underpinning the DAAC encompasses four main areas; the nuclear industry, Virtual
Reality (VR) and MR technology, MR within manufacturing, and finally the 4 th Industrial
Revolution (IR4.0). Using an array of Kinect sensors, the DAAC was designed to capture user
movements within a real manufacturing cell, which can be transferred in real time to a VE, creating
a digital twin of the real cell. Users can interact with each other via digital assets and laser pointers
projected into the cell, accompanied by a built-in Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) system. This
allows for the capture of implicit knowledge from operators within the real manufacturing cell, as
well as transfer of that knowledge to future operators. Additionally, users can connect to the VE
from anywhere in the world. In this way, experts are able to communicate with the users in the real
manufacturing cell and assist with their training. The human tracking data fills an identified gap in
the IR4.0 network of Cyber Physical System (CPS), and could allow for future optimisations
within manufacturing systems, Material Resource Planning (MRP) and Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP).
This project is a demonstration of how MR could prove valuable within nuclear manufacture. The
DAAC is designed to be low cost. It is hoped this will allow for its use by groups who have
traditionally been priced out of MR technology. This could help Small to Medium Enterprises
(SMEs) close the double digital divide between themselves and larger global corporations. For
larger corporations it offers the benefit of being low cost, and, is consequently, easier to roll out
across the value chain. Skills developed in one area can also be transferred to others across the
internet, as users from one manufacturing cell can watch and communicate with those in another.
However, as a proof of concept, the DAAC is at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) five or six and,
prior to its wider application, further testing is required to asses and improve the technology.
The work was patented in both the UK (S. R EDDISH et al., 2017a), the US (S. R EDDISH et al.,
2017b) and China (S. R EDDISH et al., 2017c). The patents are owned by Rolls-Royce and cover
the methods of bi-directional feedback from which users can interact from the digital to the real
and vice versa.
Stephen Reddish
Mixed Mode Realities in Nuclear Manufacturing
Key words: Mixed Mode Reality, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Nuclear, Manufacture,
Digital Twin, Cyber Physical Syste
The 29th Aerospace Mechanisms Symposium
The proceedings of the 29th Aerospace Mechanisms Symposium, which was hosted by NASA Johnson Space Center and held at the South Shore Harbour Conference Facility on May 17-19, 1995, are reported. Technological areas covered include actuators, aerospace mechanism applications for ground support equipment, lubricants, pointing mechanisms joints, bearings, release devices, booms, robotic mechanisms, and other mechanisms for spacecraft
Advances and Applications of DSmT for Information Fusion. Collected Works, Volume 5
This fifth volume on Advances and Applications of DSmT for Information Fusion collects theoretical and applied contributions of researchers working in different fields of applications and in mathematics, and is available in open-access. The collected contributions of this volume have either been published or presented after disseminating the fourth volume in 2015 in international conferences, seminars, workshops and journals, or they are new. The contributions of each part of this volume are chronologically ordered.
First Part of this book presents some theoretical advances on DSmT, dealing mainly with modified Proportional Conflict Redistribution Rules (PCR) of combination with degree of intersection, coarsening techniques, interval calculus for PCR thanks to set inversion via interval analysis (SIVIA), rough set classifiers, canonical decomposition of dichotomous belief functions, fast PCR fusion, fast inter-criteria analysis with PCR, and improved PCR5 and PCR6 rules preserving the (quasi-)neutrality of (quasi-)vacuous belief assignment in the fusion of sources of evidence with their Matlab codes.
Because more applications of DSmT have emerged in the past years since the apparition of the fourth book of DSmT in 2015, the second part of this volume is about selected applications of DSmT mainly in building change detection, object recognition, quality of data association in tracking, perception in robotics, risk assessment for torrent protection and multi-criteria decision-making, multi-modal image fusion, coarsening techniques, recommender system, levee characterization and assessment, human heading perception, trust assessment, robotics, biometrics, failure detection, GPS systems, inter-criteria analysis, group decision, human activity recognition, storm prediction, data association for autonomous vehicles, identification of maritime vessels, fusion of support vector machines (SVM), Silx-Furtif RUST code library for information fusion including PCR rules, and network for ship classification.
Finally, the third part presents interesting contributions related to belief functions in general published or presented along the years since 2015. These contributions are related with decision-making under uncertainty, belief approximations, probability transformations, new distances between belief functions, non-classical multi-criteria decision-making problems with belief functions, generalization of Bayes theorem, image processing, data association, entropy and cross-entropy measures, fuzzy evidence numbers, negator of belief mass, human activity recognition, information fusion for breast cancer therapy, imbalanced data classification, and hybrid techniques mixing deep learning with belief functions as well
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"In these pages you will learn about the fascinating research endeavors that each of our faculty members is undertaking. We have divided their research into the broad categories of health, sustainability, information, and systems. While we recognize the imperfect nature of categorizing research that, by its very nature may be interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary, we nonetheless believe it will be helpful as a way to see the depth and breadth of our research endeavors within each grouping. As you read the profiles on these pages, I know you will begin to appreciate that, taken as a whole, the research spectrum at Columbia Engineering is exceptional and that, as our professors go about their work, they are at the cusp of making breakthroughs that will have a major impact on the way we live our lives today and tomorrow.