A "Sidewinding" Locomotion Gait for Hyper-Redundant Robots

This paper considers the kinematics of a novel form of hyper-redundant mobile robot locomotion which is analogous to the 'sidewinding' locomotion of desert snakes. This form of locomotion can be generated by a repetitive travel wave of mechanism bending. Using a continuous backbone curve model, we develop algorithms which enable travel in a uniform direction as well as changes in direction

Generation of High Spatial Resolution Terrestrial Surface from Low Spatial Resolution Elevation Contour Maps via Hierarchical Computation of Median Elevation Regions

We proposed a simple yet effective morphological approach to convert a sparse Digital Elevation Model (DEM) to a dense Digital Elevation Model. The conversion is similar to that of the generation of high-resolution DEM from its low-resolution DEM. The approach involves the generation of median contours to achieve the purpose. It is a sequential step of the I) decomposition of the existing sparse Contour map into the maximum possible Threshold Elevation Region (TERs). II) Computing all possible non-negative and non-weighted Median Elevation Region (MER) hierarchically between the successive TER decomposed from a sparse contour map. III) Computing the gradient of all TER, and MER computed from previous steps would yield the predicted intermediate elevation contour at a higher spatial resolution. We presented this approach initially with some self-made synthetic data to show how the contour prediction works and then experimented with the available contour map of Washington, NH to justify its usefulness. This approach considers the geometric information of existing contours and interpolates the elevation contour at a new spatial region of a topographic surface until no elevation contours are necessary to generate. This novel approach is also very low-cost and robust as it uses elevation contours.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures,1 table, 1 algorith

Drift-diffusion based real-time dynamic terrain deformation

In the natural world, terrains are dynamic entities that change their morphology due to their interaction with other agents in the environment. However, in real-time applications terrains are often represented as static meshes, which present no interaction capabilities. This paper presents a novel real-time 2D method for dynamic terrain simulations, aimed for applications in the entertainment industry. This method is based on a Dynamically-Displaced Height-map and on the numerical solutions, obtained using an Euler method, of a modified drift-diffusion equation. The method allows objects to interact with the terrain and to deform it in real time, it is easy to implement and generates different kinds of realistic tracks depending on the soil composition