1,864 research outputs found
Recommended from our members
Hands in the Real World
Robots face a rapidly expanding range of potential applications beyond controlled environments, from remote exploration and search-and-rescue to household assistance and agriculture. The focus of physical interaction is typically delegated to end-effectors -- fixtures, grippers or hands -- as these machines perform manual tasks. Yet, effective deployment of versatile robot hands in the real world is still limited to few examples, despite decades of dedicated research. In this paper we review hands that found application in the field, aiming to discuss open challenges with more articulated designs, discussing novel trends and perspectives. We hope to encourage swift development of capable robotic hands for long-term use in varied real world settings. The first part of the paper centers around progress in artificial hand design, identifying key functions for a variety of environments. The final part focuses on the overall trends in hand mechanics, sensors and control, and how performance and resiliency are qualified for real world deployment
A method to benchmark the balance resilience of robots
Robots that work in unstructured scenarios are often subjected to collisions with the environment or external agents. Accordingly, recently, researchers focused on designing robust and resilient systems. This work presents a framework that quantitatively assesses the balancing resilience of self-stabilizing robots subjected to external perturbations. Our proposed framework consists of a set of novel Performance Indicators (PIs), experimental protocols for the reliable and repeatable measurement of the PIs, and a novel testbed to execute the protocols. The design of the testbed, the control structure, the post-processing software, and all the documentation related to the performance indicators and protocols are provided as open-source material so that other institutions can replicate the system. As an example of the application of our method, we report a set of experimental tests on a two-wheeled humanoid robot, with an experimental campaign of more than 1100 tests. The investigation demonstrates high repeatability and efficacy in executing reliable and precise perturbations
A Lightweight Universal Gripper with Low Activation Force for Aerial Grasping
Soft robotic grippers have numerous advantages that address challenges in
dynamic aerial grasping. Typical multi-fingered soft grippers recently
showcased for aerial grasping are highly dependent on the direction of the
target object for successful grasping. This study pushes the boundaries of
dynamic aerial grasping by developing an omnidirectional system for autonomous
aerial manipulation. In particular, the paper investigates the design,
fabrication, and experimental verification of a novel, highly integrated,
modular, sensor-rich, universal jamming gripper specifically designed for
aerial applications. Leveraging recent developments in particle jamming and
soft granular materials, the presented gripper produces a substantial holding
force while being very lightweight, energy-efficient and only requiring a low
activation force. We show that the holding force can be improved by up to 50%
by adding an additive to the membrane's silicone mixture. The experiments show
that our lightweight gripper can develop up to 15N of holding force with an
activation force as low as 2.5N, even without geometric interlocking. Finally,
a pick and release task is performed under real-world conditions by mounting
the gripper onto a multi-copter. The developed aerial grasping system features
many useful properties, such as resilience and robustness to collisions and the
inherent passive compliance which decouples the UAV from the environment.Comment: 21 pages, 19 figures; corrected affiliation
Robust Energy Management for Green and Survivable IP Networks
Despite the growing necessity to make Internet greener, it is worth pointing
out that energy-aware strategies to minimize network energy consumption must
not undermine the normal network operation. In particular, two very important
issues that may limit the application of green networking techniques concern,
respectively, network survivability, i.e. the network capability to react to
device failures, and robustness to traffic variations. We propose novel
modelling techniques to minimize the daily energy consumption of IP networks,
while explicitly guaranteeing, in addition to typical QoS requirements, both
network survivability and robustness to traffic variations. The impact of such
limitations on final network consumption is exhaustively investigated. Daily
traffic variations are modelled by dividing a single day into multiple time
intervals (multi-period problem), and network consumption is reduced by putting
to sleep idle line cards and chassis. To preserve network resiliency we
consider two different protection schemes, i.e. dedicated and shared
protection, according to which a backup path is assigned to each demand and a
certain amount of spare capacity has to be available on each link. Robustness
to traffic variations is provided by means of a specific modelling framework
that allows to tune the conservatism degree of the solutions and to take into
account load variations of different magnitude. Furthermore, we impose some
inter-period constraints necessary to guarantee network stability and preserve
the device lifetime. Both exact and heuristic methods are proposed.
Experimentations carried out with realistic networks operated with flow-based
routing protocols (i.e. MPLS) show that significant savings, up to 30%, can be
achieved also when both survivability and robustness are fully guaranteed
Multilayer Environment and Toolchain for Holistic NetwOrk Design and Analysis
The recent developments and research in distributed ledger technologies and
blockchain have contributed to the increasing adoption of distributed systems.
To collect relevant insights into systems' behavior, we observe many evaluation
frameworks focusing mainly on the system under test throughput. However, these
frameworks often need more comprehensiveness and generality, particularly in
adopting a distributed applications' cross-layer approach. This work analyses
in detail the requirements for distributed systems assessment. We summarize
these findings into a structured methodology and experimentation framework
called METHODA. Our approach emphasizes setting up and assessing a broader
spectrum of distributed systems and addresses a notable research gap. We
showcase the effectiveness of the framework by evaluating four distinct systems
and their interaction, leveraging a diverse set of eight carefully selected
metrics and 12 essential parameters. Through experimentation and analysis we
demonstrate the framework's capabilities to provide valuable insights across
various use cases. For instance, we identify that a combination of Trusted
Execution Environments with threshold signature scheme FROST introduces minimal
overhead on the performance with average latency around \SI{40}{\ms}. We
showcase an emulation of realistic systems behavior, e.g., Maximal Extractable
Value is possible and could be used to further model such dynamics. The METHODA
framework enables a deeper understanding of distributed systems and is a
powerful tool for researchers and practitioners navigating the complex
landscape of modern computing infrastructures
Object Handovers: a Review for Robotics
This article surveys the literature on human-robot object handovers. A
handover is a collaborative joint action where an agent, the giver, gives an
object to another agent, the receiver. The physical exchange starts when the
receiver first contacts the object held by the giver and ends when the giver
fully releases the object to the receiver. However, important cognitive and
physical processes begin before the physical exchange, including initiating
implicit agreement with respect to the location and timing of the exchange.
From this perspective, we structure our review into the two main phases
delimited by the aforementioned events: 1) a pre-handover phase, and 2) the
physical exchange. We focus our analysis on the two actors (giver and receiver)
and report the state of the art of robotic givers (robot-to-human handovers)
and the robotic receivers (human-to-robot handovers). We report a comprehensive
list of qualitative and quantitative metrics commonly used to assess the
interaction. While focusing our review on the cognitive level (e.g.,
prediction, perception, motion planning, learning) and the physical level
(e.g., motion, grasping, grip release) of the handover, we briefly discuss also
the concepts of safety, social context, and ergonomics. We compare the
behaviours displayed during human-to-human handovers to the state of the art of
robotic assistants, and identify the major areas of improvement for robotic
assistants to reach performance comparable to human interactions. Finally, we
propose a minimal set of metrics that should be used in order to enable a fair
comparison among the approaches.Comment: Review paper, 19 page
C++ Design Patterns for Low-latency Applications Including High-frequency Trading
This work aims to bridge the existing knowledge gap in the optimisation of
latency-critical code, specifically focusing on high-frequency trading (HFT)
systems. The research culminates in three main contributions: the creation of a
Low-Latency Programming Repository, the optimisation of a market-neutral
statistical arbitrage pairs trading strategy, and the implementation of the
Disruptor pattern in C++. The repository serves as a practical guide and is
enriched with rigorous statistical benchmarking, while the trading strategy
optimisation led to substantial improvements in speed and profitability. The
Disruptor pattern showcased significant performance enhancement over
traditional queuing methods. Evaluation metrics include speed, cache
utilisation, and statistical significance, among others. Techniques like Cache
Warming and Constexpr showed the most significant gains in latency reduction.
Future directions involve expanding the repository, testing the optimised
trading algorithm in a live trading environment, and integrating the Disruptor
pattern with the trading algorithm for comprehensive system benchmarking. The
work is oriented towards academics and industry practitioners seeking to
improve performance in latency-sensitive applications
A Hybrid Optimization Algorithm for Efficient Virtual Machine Migration and Task Scheduling Using a Cloud-Based Adaptive Multi-Agent Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient Technique
This To achieve optimal system performance in the quickly developing field of cloud computing, efficient resource management—which includes accurate job scheduling and optimized Virtual Machine (VM) migration—is essential. The Adaptive Multi-Agent System with Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (AMS-DDPG) Algorithm is used in this study to propose a cutting-edge hybrid optimization algorithm for effective virtual machine migration and task scheduling. An sophisticated combination of the War Strategy Optimization (WSO) and Rat Swarm Optimizer (RSO) algorithms, the Iterative Concept of War and Rat Swarm (ICWRS) algorithm is the foundation of this technique. Notably, ICWRS optimizes the system with an amazing 93% accuracy, especially for load balancing, job scheduling, and virtual machine migration. The VM migration and task scheduling flexibility and efficiency are greatly improved by the AMS-DDPG technology, which uses a powerful combination of deterministic policy gradient and deep reinforcement learning. By assuring the best possible resource allocation, the Adaptive Multi-Agent System method enhances decision-making even more. Performance in cloud-based virtualized systems is significantly enhanced by our hybrid method, which combines deep learning and multi-agent coordination. Extensive tests that include a detailed comparison with conventional techniques verify the effectiveness of the suggested strategy. As a consequence, our hybrid optimization approach is successful. The findings show significant improvements in system efficiency, shorter job completion times, and optimum resource utilization. Cloud-based systems have unrealized potential for synergistic optimization, as shown by the integration of ICWRS inside the AMS-DDPG framework. Enabling a high-performing and sustainable cloud computing infrastructure that can adapt to the changing needs of modern computing paradigms is made possible by this strategic resource allocation, which is attained via careful computational utilization
Compensation Admittance Load Flow: A Computational Tool for the Sustainability of the Electrical Grid
Compensation Admittance Load Flow (CALF) is a power flow analysis method that was developed to enhance the sustainability of the power grid. This method has been widely used in power system planning and operation, as it provides an accurate representation of the power system and its behavior under different operating conditions. By providing a more accurate representation of the power system, it can help identify potential problems and improve the overall performance of the grid. This paper proposes a new approach to the load flow (LF) problem by introducing a linear and iterative method of solving LF equations. The aim is to obtain fast results for calculating nodal voltages while maintaining high accuracy. The proposed CALF method is fast and accurate and is suitable for the iterative calculations required by large energy utilities to solve the problem of quantifying the maximum grid acceptance capacity of new energy from renewable sources and new loads, known as hosting capacity (HC) and load capacity (LC), respectively. Speed and accuracy are achieved through a properly designed linearization of the optimization problem, which introduces the concept of compensation admittance at the node. The proposed method was validated by comparing the results obtained with those coming from state-of-the-art methods
- …