Ono: an open platform for social robotics

In recent times, the focal point of research in robotics has shifted from industrial ro- bots toward robots that interact with humans in an intuitive and safe manner. This evolution has resulted in the subfield of social robotics, which pertains to robots that function in a human environment and that can communicate with humans in an int- uitive way, e.g. with facial expressions. Social robots have the potential to impact many different aspects of our lives, but one particularly promising application is the use of robots in therapy, such as the treatment of children with autism. Unfortunately, many of the existing social robots are neither suited for practical use in therapy nor for large scale studies, mainly because they are expensive, one-of-a-kind robots that are hard to modify to suit a specific need. We created Ono, a social robotics platform, to tackle these issues. Ono is composed entirely from off-the-shelf components and cheap materials, and can be built at a local FabLab at the fraction of the cost of other robots. Ono is also entirely open source and the modular design further encourages modification and reuse of parts of the platform

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

Machinability assessment and tool selection for milling.

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DX204223 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Advanced Automation for Space Missions

The feasibility of using machine intelligence, including automation and robotics, in future space missions was studied

Integrated Production-Inventory Models in Steel Mills Operating in a Fuzzy Environment

Despite the paramount importance of the steel rolling industry and its vital contributions to a nation’s economic growth and pace of development, production planning in this industry has not received as much attention as opposed to other industries. The work presented in this thesis tackles the master production scheduling (MPS) problem encountered frequently in steel rolling mills producing reinforced steel bars of different grades and dimensions. At first, the production planning problem is dealt with under static demand conditions and is formulated as a mixed integer bilinear program (MIBLP) where the objective of this deterministic model is to provide insights into the combined effect of several interrelated factors such as batch production, scrap rate, complex setup time structure, overtime, backlogging and product substitution, on the planning decisions. Typically, MIBLPs are not readily solvable using off-the-shelf optimization packages necessitating the development of specifically tailored solution algorithms that can efficiently handle this class of models. The classical linearization approaches are first discussed and employed to the model at hand, and then a hybrid linearization-Benders decomposition technique is developed in order to separate the complicating variables from the non-complicating ones. As a third alternative, a modified Branch-and-Bound (B&B) algorithm is proposed where the branching, bounding and fathoming criteria differ from those of classical B&B algorithms previously established in the literature. Numerical experiments have shown that the proposed B&B algorithm outperforms the other two approaches for larger problem instances with savings in computational time amounting to 48%. The second part of this thesis extends the previous analysis to allow for the incorporation of internal as well as external sources of uncertainty associated with end customers’ demand and production capacity in the planning decisions. In such situations, the implementation of the model on a rolling horizon basis is a common business practice but it requires the repetitive solution of the model at the beginning of each time period. As such, viable approximations that result in a tractable number of binary and/or integer variables and generate only exact schedules are developed. Computational experiments suggest that a fair compromise between the quality of the solutions and substantial computational time savings is achieved via the employment of these approximate models. The dynamic nature of the operating environment can also be captured using the concept of fuzzy set theory (FST). The use of FST allows for the incorporation of the decision maker’s subjective judgment in the context of mathematical models through flexible mathematical programming (FMP) approach and possibilistic programming (PP) approach. In this work, both of these approaches are combined where the volatility in demand is reflected by a flexible constraint expressed by a fuzzy set having a triangular membership function, and the production capacity is expressed as a triangular fuzzy number. Numerical analysis illustrates the economical benefits obtained from using the fuzzy approach as compared to its deterministic counterpart

Ansatz zur Unterstützung von Wissenstransfer und Entscheidungsfindung bei der Produktentwicklung mit faserverstärkten Kunststoffen durch Bereitstellung von situationsspezifischen Gestaltungsrichtlinien = Approach to support knowledge transfer and decision making in product development with fibrereinforced plastics through situation-specific design guidelines

„Denn Wissen selbst ist Macht" ist ein Satz, der vor langer Zeit von Francis Bacon geschrieben wurde. Im Laufe der Zeit hat nicht nur das Wissen an Bedeutung gewonnen, sondern vor allem auch der Umgang damit. Die Aussage "Wenn wir nur wüssten, was wir wissen" (Davenport & Prisak, 1998) ist zutreffend für viele Unternehmen. Es ist nicht mehr ein Mangel an Informationen, sondern ein Informationsüberschuss, der problematisch geworden ist. Die Möglichkeit, erfahrungsbasierte sowie entwicklungsrelevante Informationen in jeder Phase der Produktentwicklung zu finden und anzuwenden, hat zunehmend an Bedeutung für mittelständische und große Unternehmen gewonnen. Computergestützte Systeme leisten zusammen mit den Fortschritten der Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien in den letzten Jahrzehnten einen wesentlichen Beitrag zur Unterstützung des Wissensmanagements. Eine Herausforderung liegt derzeit weniger in den Informationstechnologien als vielmehr in der Entwicklung, Einführung und der kontinuierlichen Weiterentwicklung von Methoden für einen effizienten Umgang mit Wissen. Nicht nur die Unterstützung bei der Suche nach Informationen, sondern auch Methoden, die die qualitative, zielorientierte Erfassung und Dokumentation von relevantem Erfahrungswissen unterstützen, sind notwendig. Diese Arbeit trägt dazu bei, die Entscheidungsfindung in den frühen Phasen der Produktentwicklung mit faserverstärkten Kunststoffen zu unterstützen. Einerseits steht die Entwicklung eines Ansatzes zur Verbesserung des Wissenstransfers durch repräsentative Informationsdokumentation in Gestaltungsrichtlinien im Vordergrund. Als Grundlage für die Entwicklung des Ansatzes dient eine umfassende Analyse der bestehenden Gestaltungsrichtlinien für faserverstärkte Kunststoffe in der Literatur, Interviews mit Industrievertretern und die Durchführung von Studien. Andererseits steht auch ein Ansatz zur effizienten Entscheidungsunterstützung durch die Bereitstellung von situationsgerechten Informationen in Gestaltungsrichtlinien im Vordergrund. Eine Analyse verschiedener Methoden der multikriteriellen Entscheidungsunterstützung, einschließlich deren Bewertung auf die Eignung für den Einsatz, sowie die Erstellung einer Testumgebung zur Validierung des entwickelten Algorithmus zur Bereitstellung interaktiver Informationen in Gestaltungsrichtlinien trugen zur Konzeptentwicklung bei

EG-ICE 2021 Workshop on Intelligent Computing in Engineering

The 28th EG-ICE International Workshop 2021 brings together international experts working at the interface between advanced computing and modern engineering challenges. Many engineering tasks require open-world resolutions to support multi-actor collaboration, coping with approximate models, providing effective engineer-computer interaction, search in multi-dimensional solution spaces, accommodating uncertainty, including specialist domain knowledge, performing sensor-data interpretation and dealing with incomplete knowledge. While results from computer science provide much initial support for resolution, adaptation is unavoidable and most importantly, feedback from addressing engineering challenges drives fundamental computer-science research. Competence and knowledge transfer goes both ways