30 research outputs found

    Theoretical Approaches in Non-Linear Dynamical Systems

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    From Preface: The 15th International Conference „Dynamical Systems - Theory and Applications” (DSTA 2019, 2-5 December, 2019, Lodz, Poland) gathered a numerous group of outstanding scientists and engineers who deal with widely understood problems of theoretical and applied dynamics. Organization of the conference would not have been possible without great effort of the staff of the Department of Automation, Biomechanics and Mechatronics of the Lodz University of Technology. The patronage over the conference has been taken by the Committee of Mechanics of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Poland. It is a great pleasure that our event was attended by over 180 researchers from 35 countries all over the world, who decided to share the results of their research and experience in different fields related to dynamical systems. This year, the DSTA Conference Proceedings were split into two volumes entitled „Theoretical Approaches in Non-Linear Dynamical Systems” and „Applicable Solutions in Non-Linear Dynamical Systems”. In addition, DSTA 2019 resulted in three volumes of Springer Proceedings in Mathematics and Statistics entitled „Control and Stability of Dynamical Systems”, „Mathematical and Numerical Approaches in Dynamical Systems” and „Dynamical Systems in Mechatronics and Life Sciences”. Also, many outstanding papers will be recommended to special issues of renowned scientific journals.Cover design: Kaźmierczak, MarekTechnical editor: Kaźmierczak, Mare

    A Bio-inspired architecture for adaptive quadruped locomotion over irregular terrain

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    Tese de doutoramento Programa Doutoral em Engenharia Electrónica e de ComputadoresThis thesis presents a tentative advancement on walking control of small quadruped and humanoid position controlled robots, addressing the problem of walk generation by combining dynamical systems approach to motor control, insights from neuroethology research on vertebrate motor control and computational neuroscience. Legged locomotion is a complex dynamical process, despite the seemingly easy and natural behavior of the constantly present proficiency of legged animals. Research on locomotion and motor control in vertebrate animals from the last decades has brought to the attention of roboticists, the potential of the nature’s solutions to robot applications. Recent knowledge on the organization of complex motor generation and on mechanics and dynamics of locomotion has been successfully exploited to pursue agile robot locomotion. The work presented on this manuscript is part of an effort on the pursuit in devising a general, model free solution, for the generation of robust and adaptable walking behaviors. It strives to devise a practical solution applicable to real robots, such as the Sony’s quadruped AIBO and Robotis’ DARwIn- OP humanoid. The discussed solutions are inspired on the functional description of the vertebrate neural systems, especially on the concept of Central Pattern Generators (CPGs), their structure and organization, components and sensorimotor interactions. They use a dynamical systems approach for the implementation of the controller, especially on the use of nonlinear oscillators and exploitation of their properties. The main topics of this thesis are divided into three parts. The first part concerns quadruped locomotion, extending a previous CPG solution using nonlinear oscillators, and discussing an organization on three hierarchical levels of abstraction, sharing the purpose and knowledge of other works. It proposes a CPG solution which generates the walking motion for the whole-leg, which is then organized in a network for the production of quadrupedal gaits. The devised solution is able to produce goal-oriented locomotion and navigation as directed through highlevel commands from local planning methods. In this part, active balance on a standing quadruped is also addressed, proposing a method based on dynamical systems approach, exploring the integration of parallel postural mechanisms from several sensory modalities. The solutions are all successfully tested on the quadruped AIBO robot. In the second part, is addressed bipedal walking for humanoid robots. A CPG solution for biped walking based on the concept of motion primitives is proposed, loosely based on the idea of synergistic organization of vertebrate motor control. A set of motion primitives is shown to produce the basis of simple biped walking, and generalizable to goal-oriented walking. Using the proposed CPG, the inclusion of feedback mechanisms is investigated, for modulation and adaptation of walking, through phase transition control according to foot load information. The proposed solution is validated on the humanoid DARwIn-OP, and its application is evaluated within a whole-body control framework. The third part sidesteps a little from the other two topics. It discusses the CPG as having an alternative role to direct motor generation in locomotion, serving instead as a processor of sensory information for a feedback based motor generation. In this work a reflex based walking controller is devised for the compliant quadruped Oncilla robot, to serve as purely feedback based walking generation. The capabilities of the reflex network are shown in simulations, followed by a brief discussion on its limitations, and how they could be improved by the inclusion of a CPG.Esta tese apresenta uma tentativa de avanço no controlo de locomoção para pequenos robôs quadrúpedes e bipedes controlados por posição, endereçando o problema de geração motora através da combinação da abordagem de sistemas dinâmicos para o controlo motor, e perspectivas de investigação neuroetologia no controlo motor vertebrado e neurociência computacional. Andar é um processo dinâmico e complexo, apesar de parecer um comportamento fácil e natural devido à presença constante de animais proficientes em locomoção terrestre. Investigação na área da locomoção e controlo motor em animais vertebrados nas últimas decadas, trouxe à atenção dos roboticistas o potencial das soluções encontradas pela natureza aplicadas a aplicações robóticas. Conhecimento recente relativo à geração de comportamentos motores complexos e da mecânica da locomoção tem sido explorada com sucesso na procura de locomoção ágil na robótica. O trabalho apresentado neste documento é parte de um esforço no desenho de uma solução geral, e independente de modelos, para a geração robusta e adaptável de comportamentos locomotores. O foco é desenhar uma solução prática, aplicável a robôs reais, tal como o quadrúpede Sony AIBO e o humanóide DARwIn-OP. As soluções discutidas são inspiradas na descrição funcional do sistema nervoso vertebrado, especialmente no conceito de Central Pattern Generators (CPGs), a sua estrutura e organização, componentes e interacção sensorimotora. Estas soluções são implementadas usando uma abordagem em sistemas dinâmicos, focandos o uso de osciladores não lineares e a explorando as suas propriedades. Os tópicos principais desta tese estão divididos em três partes. A primeira parte explora o tema de locomoção quadrúpede, expandindo soluções prévias de CPGs usando osciladores não lineares, e discutindo uma organização em três níveis de abstracção, partilhando as ideias de outros trabalhos. Propõe uma solução de CPG que gera os movimentos locomotores para uma perna, que é depois organizado numa rede, para a produção de marcha quadrúpede. A solução concebida é capaz de produzir locomoção e navegação, comandada através de comandos de alto nível, produzidos por métodos de planeamento local. Nesta parte também endereçado o problema da manutenção do equilíbrio num robô quadrúpede parado, propondo um método baseado na abordagem em sistemas dinâmicos, explorando a integração de mecanismos posturais em paralelo, provenientes de várias modalidades sensoriais. As soluções são todas testadas com sucesso no robô quadrupede AIBO. Na segunda parte é endereçado o problema de locomoção bípede. É proposto um CPG baseado no conceito de motion primitives, baseadas na ideia de uma organização sinergética do controlo motor vertebrado. Um conjunto de motion primitives é usado para produzir a base de uma locomoção bípede simples e generalizável para navegação. Esta proposta de CPG é usada para de seguida se investigar a inclusão de mecanismos de feedback para modulação e adaptação da marcha, através do controlo de transições entre fases, de acordo com a informação de carga dos pés. A solução proposta é validada no robô humanóide DARwIn-OP, e a sua aplicação no contexto do framework de whole-body control é também avaliada. A terceira parte desvia um pouco dos outros dois tópicos. Discute o CPG como tendo um papel alternativo ao controlo motor directo, servindo em vez como um processador de informação sensorial para um mecanismo de locomoção puramente em feedback. Neste trabalho é desenhado um controlador baseado em reflexos para a geração da marcha de um quadrúpede compliant. As suas capacidades são demonstradas em simulação, seguidas por uma breve discussão nas suas limitações, e como estas podem ser ultrapassadas pela inclusão de um CPG.The presented work was possible thanks to the support by the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation through the PhD grant SFRH/BD/62047/2009

    Dynamical systems : mechatronics and life sciences

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    Proceedings of the 13th Conference „Dynamical Systems - Theory and Applications" summarize 164 and the Springer Proceedings summarize 60 best papers of university teachers and students, researchers and engineers from whole the world. The papers were chosen by the International Scientific Committee from 315 papers submitted to the conference. The reader thus obtains an overview of the recent developments of dynamical systems and can study the most progressive tendencies in this field of science

    Advances in Computer Science and Engineering

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    The book Advances in Computer Science and Engineering constitutes the revised selection of 23 chapters written by scientists and researchers from all over the world. The chapters cover topics in the scientific fields of Applied Computing Techniques, Innovations in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Applications and Advances in Applied Modeling

    Proceedings of the 2018 Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering (CSME) International Congress

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    Published proceedings of the 2018 Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering (CSME) International Congress, hosted by York University, 27-30 May 2018

    Treatise on Hearing: The Temporal Auditory Imaging Theory Inspired by Optics and Communication

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    A new theory of mammalian hearing is presented, which accounts for the auditory image in the midbrain (inferior colliculus) of objects in the acoustical environment of the listener. It is shown that the ear is a temporal imaging system that comprises three transformations of the envelope functions: cochlear group-delay dispersion, cochlear time lensing, and neural group-delay dispersion. These elements are analogous to the optical transformations in vision of diffraction between the object and the eye, spatial lensing by the lens, and second diffraction between the lens and the retina. Unlike the eye, it is established that the human auditory system is naturally defocused, so that coherent stimuli do not react to the defocus, whereas completely incoherent stimuli are impacted by it and may be blurred by design. It is argued that the auditory system can use this differential focusing to enhance or degrade the images of real-world acoustical objects that are partially coherent. The theory is founded on coherence and temporal imaging theories that were adopted from optics. In addition to the imaging transformations, the corresponding inverse-domain modulation transfer functions are derived and interpreted with consideration to the nonuniform neural sampling operation of the auditory nerve. These ideas are used to rigorously initiate the concepts of sharpness and blur in auditory imaging, auditory aberrations, and auditory depth of field. In parallel, ideas from communication theory are used to show that the organ of Corti functions as a multichannel phase-locked loop (PLL) that constitutes the point of entry for auditory phase locking and hence conserves the signal coherence. It provides an anchor for a dual coherent and noncoherent auditory detection in the auditory brain that culminates in auditory accommodation. Implications on hearing impairments are discussed as well.Comment: 603 pages, 131 figures, 13 tables, 1570 reference

    Engineering limit cycle systems:adaptive frequency oscillators and applications to adaptive locomotion control of compliant robots

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    In this thesis, we present a dynamical systems approach to adaptive controllers for locomotion control. The approach is based on a rigorous mathematical framework using nonlinear dynamical systems and is inspired by theories of self-organization. Nonlinear dynamical systems such as coupled oscillators are an interesting approach for the on-line generation of trajectories for robots with many degrees of freedom (e.g. legged locomotion). However, designing a nonlinear dynamical system to satisfy a given specification and goal is not an easy task, and, hitherto no methodology exists to approach this problem in a unified way. Nature presents us with satisfactory solutions for the coordination of many degrees of freedom. One central feature observed in biological subjects is the ability of the neural systems to exploit natural dynamics of the body to achieve efficient locomotion. In order to be able to exploit the body properties, adaptive mechanisms must be at work. Recent work has pointed out the importance of the mechanical system for efficient locomotion. Even more interestingly, such well suited mechanical systems do not need complicated control. Yet, in robotics, in most approaches, adaptive mechanisms are either missing or they are not based on a rigorous framework, i.e. they are based on heuristics and ad-hoc approaches. Over the last three decades there has been enormous progress in describing movement coordination with the help of Synergetic approaches. This has led to the formulation of a theoretical framework: the theory of dynamic patterns. This framework is mathematically rigorous and at the same time fully operational. However, it does not provide any guidelines for synthetic approaches as needed for the engineering of robots with many degrees of freedom, nor does it directly help to explain adaptive systems. We will show how we can extend the theoretical framework to build adaptive systems. For this purpose, we propose the use of multi-scale dynamical systems. The basic idea behind multi-scale dynamical systems is that a given dynamical system gets extended by additional slow dynamics of its parameters, i.e. some of the parameters become state variables. The advantages of the framework of multi-scale dynamical systems for adaptive controllers are 1) fully dynamic description, 2) no separation of learning algorithm and learning substrate, 3) no separation of learning trials or time windows, 4) mathematically rigorous, 5) low dimensional systems. However, in order to fully exploit the framework important questions have to be solved. Most importantly, methodologies for designing the feedback loops have to be found and important theoretical questions about stability and convergence properties of the devised systems have to be answered. In order to tackle this challenge, we first introduce an engineering view on designing nonlinear dynamical systems and especially oscillators. We will highlight the important differences and freedom that this engineering view introduces as opposed to a modeling one. We then apply this approach by first proposing a very simple adaptive toy-system, consisting of a dynamical system coupled to a spring-mass system. Due to its spring-mass dynamics, this system contains clear natural dynamics in the form of resonant frequencies. We propose a prototype adaptive multi-scale system, the adaptive frequency oscillator, which is able to adapt its intrinsic frequency to the resonant frequency of the body dynamics. After a small sidetrack to show that we can use adaptive frequency oscillators also for other applications than for adaptive controllers, namely for frequency analysis, we then come back to further investigation of the adaptive controller. We apply the same controller concept to a simple spring-mass hopper system. The spring-mass system consists of a body with two legs attached by rotational joints. The legs contain spring-damper elements. Finally, we present results of the implementation of the controller on a real robot, the experimental robot PUPPY II. This robot is a under-actuated robot with spring dynamics in the knee joints. It will be shown, that due to the appropriate simplification and concentration on relevant features in the toy-system the controller concepts works without a fundamental change on all systems from the toy system up to the real robot

    Aeronautical engineering: A continuing bibliography with indexes (supplement 301)

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    This bibliography lists 1291 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in Feb. 1994. Subject coverage includes: design, construction and testing of aircraft and aircraft engines; aircraft components, equipment, and systems; ground support systems; and theoretical and applied aspects of aerodynamics and general fluid dynamics
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