Automata depository model with autonomous robots

One of the actual topics on robotics research in the recent decades is the robots' autonomy. The methods of self-sufficient problem-solving of the machines brings on several questions in programming, so mobile robots started to extend as tools of education as well. Our final goal was in this project to create the model of an automata, depository that constitutes a closed system from the users' point of view. We model such circumstances that make autonomy important like extreme high or low temperature, closeness of dangerous materials. These circumstances substantiates the need of robots and that they have to solve their problems self-sufficiently, without any direct human interaction. The model builds up from two main components: the Central Controlling Unit (CCU), and the group of robots. The robots ply in the depository using the line following method. During their activity may turn up some conflict situations, whose autonomous handling is the main topic of our research. Using the right wayfinder algorithm and the representation of the map of the depository, the robots find out after a short information excange, who of them has to give way to the other in order to solve the conflict in optimal time. The communication between the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Robots and the Central Controlling Unit is based on a BlueTooth connection. The robots' autonomy means that if they loose connection with the CCU, they can finish their commands that they have already received. Nevertheless navigating their physical relocation and sense any incidental new barrier is absolutely their task

Multi-Robot Coordination : Applications in Orchard Bin Management and Informative Path Planning

Efficient coordination is desired for multi-robot systems in many scenarios. In this research, we first provide a multi-robot system to help human workers during tree fruit harvest. We present an auction-based method to coordinate a team of self-propelled bin carriers to retrieve fruit bins. Second, we propose a more general information gathering problem in a dynamic environment. In this problem, locations of points of interest change over time. Further, the amount of meaningful information or reward that can be obtained from each point is limited. We propose to use a distributed sampling algorithm for task allocation, and a receding horizon strategy for path planning in this problem. To evaluate its performance, the proposed algorithm is compared to a baseline algorithm that implements sequential auction for task allocation with greedy path planning. Experimental results suggest that the proposed algorithm is more suitable for solving the aforementioned information gathering problem. Finally we present an effective approach to coordinating a team of UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) to simultaneous explore, map, and search in unknown environments. The UAVs can perform a weighted trade off between the three sub-tasks. Moreover, human operators can limit the time allowed for each UAV to remain without a valid communication link to the control base station. We compare results to a market-based baseline algorithm. Results suggest that our relay system improves the efficiency of exploring, mapping, and searching tasks

Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes (supplement 331)

This bibliography lists 129 reports, articles and other documents introduced into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information System during December, 1989. Subject coverage includes: aerospace medicine and psychology, life support systems and controlled environments, safety equipment, exobiology and extraterrestrial life, and flight crew behavior and performance

Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes (supplement 347)

This bibliography lists 166 reports, articles and other documents introduced into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information System during Feb. 1991. Subject coverage includes: aerospace medicine and psychology, life support systems and controlled environments, safety equipment, exobiology and extraterrestrial life, and flight crew behavior and performance

Synchronous Online Philosophy Courses: An Experiment in Progress

There are two main ways to teach a course online: synchronously or asynchronously. In an asynchronous course, students can log on at their convenience and do the course work. In a synchronous course, there is a requirement that all students be online at specific times, to allow for a shared course environment. In this article, the author discusses the strengths and weaknesses of synchronous online learning for the teaching of undergraduate philosophy courses. The author discusses specific strategies and technologies he uses in the teaching of online philosophy courses. In particular, the author discusses how he uses videoconferencing to create a classroom-like environment in an online class

Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes (supplement 376)

This bibliography lists 265 reports, articles and other documents introduced into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information System during Jun. 1993. Subject coverage includes: aerospace medicine and physiology, life support systems and man/system technology, protective clothing, exobiology and extraterrestrial life, planetary biology, and flight crew behavior and performance

Dancing Media: The Contagious Movement of Posthuman Bodies (or Towards A Posthuman Theory of Dance)

My dissertation seeks to define a posthuman theory of dance through a historical study of the dancer as an instrument or technology for exploring emergent visual media, and by positioning screendance as an experimental technique for animating posthuman relation and thought. Commonly understood as ephemeral, dance is produced by assemblages that include bodies but are not limited to them. In this way, dance exceeds the human body. There is a central tension in the practice of dance, between the persistent presumption of the dancing body as a channel for human expression, and dance as a technicity of the body—a discipline and a practice of repeated gesture—that calls into question categories of the human. A posthuman theory of dance invites examination of such tensions and interrogates traditional notions of authenticity, ownership and commodification, as well as the bounded, individual subject who can assess the surrounding world with precise clarity, certain of where the human begins and ends. The guiding historical question for my dissertation is: if it is possible to describe both a modern form of posthuman dance (turn of the 19th-20th century), and a more recent form of posthuman dance (turn of the 20th-21st century), are they part of the same assemblage or are they constituted differently, and if so, how? Throughout my four chapters, I explore an array of case studies from early modernism to advanced capitalism, including Loie Fuller’s otherworldly stage dances; the scientific motion studies of Muybridge and Marey; Fritz Lang’s dancing maschinenmensch (or the first on-screen dancing machine) in the 1927 film Metropolis; the performances of singer-dancer hologram pop star, Hatsune Miku; and American engineering firm Boston Dynamics’ dancing military robots. The figure of the “dancing machine” (McCarren) is central to my project, especially given that dance has historically been used as a means of testing machines—from automata to robots to CGI images animated with MoCap—in their capacity to be lively or human-like. In each case, I am interested in how dance continues to be productive of some kind of subjectivity (or interiority, or “soul”), even in the absence of the human body, and how technique and gesture passes between bodies, both virtual and organic, dispersing agency often attributed to the human alone. I propose that a posthuman theory of dance is a necessary intervention to the broad and contradictory field of posthumanism because dance returns us to questions about bodies that are often suspiciously ignored in theories of posthumanism, especially regarding race (and historically racist categories of non/inhumanity), thereby exposing many of posthumanism’s biases, appropriations, dispossessions and erasures. Throughout my dissertation, I look to dance as both a concrete example and as a method of thinking through the potentials and limitations of posthumanism

An approach to open virtual commissioning for component-based automation

Increasing market demands for highly customised products with shorter time-to-market and at lower prices are forcing manufacturing systems to be built and operated in a more efficient ways. In order to overcome some of the limitations in traditional methods of automation system engineering, this thesis focuses on the creation of a new approach to Virtual Commissioning (VC). In current VC approaches, virtual models are driven by pre-programmed PLC control software. These approaches are still time-consuming and heavily control expertise-reliant as the required programming and debugging activities are mainly performed by control engineers. Another current limitation is that virtual models validated during VC are difficult to reuse due to a lack of tool-independent data models. Therefore, in order to maximise the potential of VC, there is a need for new VC approaches and tools to address these limitations. The main contributions of this research are: (1) to develop a new approach and the related engineering tool functionality for directly deploying PLC control software based on component-based VC models and reusable components; and (2) to build tool-independent common data models for describing component-based virtual automation systems in order to enable data reusability. [Continues.