Mechatronic design of the Twente humanoid head

This paper describes the mechatronic design of the Twente humanoid head, which has been realized in the purpose of having a research platform for human-machine interaction. The design features a fast, four degree of freedom neck, with long range of motion, and a vision system with three degrees of freedom, mimicking the eyes. To achieve fast target tracking, two degrees of freedom in the neck are combined in a differential drive, resulting in a low moving mass and the possibility to use powerful actuators. The performance of the neck has been optimized by minimizing backlash in the mechanisms, and using gravity compensation. The vision system is based on a saliency algorithm that uses the camera images to determine where the humanoid head should look at, i.e. the focus of attention computed according to biological studies. The motion control algorithm receives, as input, the output of the vision algorithm and controls the humanoid head to focus on and follow the target point. The control architecture exploits the redundancy of the system to show human-like motions while looking at a target. The head has a translucent plastic cover, onto which an internal LED system projects the mouth and the eyebrows, realizing human-like facial expressions

Local error estimates for adaptive simulation of the Reaction-Diffusion Master Equation via operator splitting

The efficiency of exact simulation methods for the reaction-diffusion master equation (RDME) is severely limited by the large number of diffusion events if the mesh is fine or if diffusion constants are large. Furthermore, inherent properties of exact kinetic-Monte Carlo simulation methods limit the efficiency of parallel implementations. Several approximate and hybrid methods have appeared that enable more efficient simulation of the RDME. A common feature to most of them is that they rely on splitting the system into its reaction and diffusion parts and updating them sequentially over a discrete timestep. This use of operator splitting enables more efficient simulation but it comes at the price of a temporal discretization error that depends on the size of the timestep. So far, existing methods have not attempted to estimate or control this error in a systematic manner. This makes the solvers hard to use for practitioners since they must guess an appropriate timestep. It also makes the solvers potentially less efficient than if the timesteps are adapted to control the error. Here, we derive estimates of the local error and propose a strategy to adaptively select the timestep when the RDME is simulated via a first order operator splitting. While the strategy is general and applicable to a wide range of approximate and hybrid methods, we exemplify it here by extending a previously published approximate method, the Diffusive Finite-State Projection (DFSP) method, to incorporate temporal adaptivity

The Arena: An indoor mixed reality space

ln this paper, we introduce the Arena, an indoor space for mobile mixed reality interaction. The Arena includes a new user tracking system appropriate for AR/MR applications and a new Too/kit oriented to the augmented and mixed reality applications developer, the MX Too/kit. This too/kit is defined at a somewhat higher abstraction levei, by hiding from the programmer low-level implementation details and facilitating ARJMR object-oriented programming. The system handles, uniformly, video input, video output (for headsets and monitors), sound aurelisation and Multimodal Human-Computer Interaction in ARJMR, including, tangible interfaces, speech recognition and gesture recognition.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A Proposal for a Three Detector Short-Baseline Neutrino Oscillation Program in the Fermilab Booster Neutrino Beam

A Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) physics program of three LAr-TPC detectors located along the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) at Fermilab is presented. This new SBN Program will deliver a rich and compelling physics opportunity, including the ability to resolve a class of experimental anomalies in neutrino physics and to perform the most sensitive search to date for sterile neutrinos at the eV mass-scale through both appearance and disappearance oscillation channels. Using data sets of 6.6e20 protons on target (P.O.T.) in the LAr1-ND and ICARUS T600 detectors plus 13.2e20 P.O.T. in the MicroBooNE detector, we estimate that a search for muon neutrino to electron neutrino appearance can be performed with ~5 sigma sensitivity for the LSND allowed (99% C.L.) parameter region. In this proposal for the SBN Program, we describe the physics analysis, the conceptual design of the LAr1-ND detector, the design and refurbishment of the T600 detector, the necessary infrastructure required to execute the program, and a possible reconfiguration of the BNB target and horn system to improve its performance for oscillation searches.Comment: 209 pages, 129 figure

Optimization of a Parallel Mechanism Design with Respect to a Stewart Platform Control Design

Předkládaná práce se zabývá návrhem modelu dynamiky paralelního manipulátoru optimálního pro účely návrhu řízení. Zvolený přístup je založen na modelování dynamiky systému v simulačním prostředí Matlab SimMechanics následovaném linearizací modelu. Výsledný stavový lineární model mimo jiné umožňuje snadné posouzení řiditelnosti a pozorovatelnosti modelu. Díky své relativní jednoduchosti je model také výpočetně nenáročný. Přístup je demonstrován na návrhu dvouvrstvého řízení SimMechanics modelu Stewartovy platformy, na kterém bylo následně navržené řízení úspěšně testováno. Podstatná část práce obsahuje přístup k modelování neurčitých parametrů dynamického modelu Stewartovy platformy a stejnosměrného motoru Maxon RE 35 a jeho výsledky. Předložený přístup je založen na modelování parametrické neurčitosti způsobem, kdy je neurčitost definována individuálně pro jednotlivé prvky stavových matic modelu. Samotná neurčitost je potom určena rozdílem mezi jednotlivými parametry příslušných matic nominálního modelu a modelu se stanovenou maximální neurčitostí parametrů. Výsledný neurčitostní model je vzhledem ke své stavové reprezentaci vhodný pro návrh regulátoru založeném na metodách návrhu robustního řízení, například minimalizaci normy H-nekonečno. Popsaná metoda byla použita pro kompenzaci posunu mezi pracovními body, okolo kterých je prováděna linearizace a pro kompenzaci nepřesnosti modelování vybraných parametrů modelů Stewartovy platformy a stejnosměrného motoru. Získané modely (v prostředí SimMechanics a neurčitostní model) byly experimentálně porovnány s chováním jednoho z lineárních pohonů Stewartovy platformy. Rozdíl v datech obdržených ze simulace v prostředí SimMechanics a naměřených na reálném stroji byl téměř kompletně pokryt neurčitostním modelem. Prezentovaná metoda neurčitostního modelování je velice univerzální a aplikovatelná na libovolný stavový model.The proposed work is dealing with an optimal model of a parallel manipulator dynamics for a control design purposes. The approach is based on modeling of the system dynamics in Matlab Simmechanics followed by the model linearization. The obtained linear model may be simply inspected from the controllability and observability point of view. It is also computational modest thanks to its simplicity. This is demonstrated on designing of a two – layer control for a model of a Stewart platform. The control based on such a linear model was successfully tested on the original nonlinear model. The essential part of the the work is dealing with modeling of uncertain parameters in the dynamic model of the Stewart platform and DC motor Maxon RE 35. The proposed approach is based on modeling of a parametric uncertainty where the uncertainty is defined individually for particular elements of the model state matrices. The uncertainty itself is set by the difference between parameters of corresponding matrices of the nominal linear model and model with maximally perturbed parameters. The obtained uncertain model is for its form suitable for the robust control design methods, for example via minimizing an H-infinity norm. The method was used for a compensation of the shifting of the linearization operating points in the Stewart platform and for compensation of the modeling inaccuracy of selected parameters in the Stewart platform and the DC motor model. The obtained models (SimMechanics and uncertain state - space) were compared with the single linear actuator of the Stewart platform. The difference between the simulated SimMechanics model and measured data was almost completely covered by the uncertain model. The method is highly versatile and applicable on any state-space model.

Lightweight design and encoderless control of a miniature direct drive linear delta robot

This paper presents the design, integration and experimental validation of a miniature light-weight delta robot targeted to be used for a variety of applications including the pick-place operations, high speed precise positioning and haptic implementations. The improvements brought by the new design contain; the use of a novel light-weight joint type replacing the conventional and heavy bearing structures and realization of encoderless position measurement algorithm based on hall effect sensor outputs of direct drive linear motors. The description of mechanical, electrical and software based improvements are followed by the derivation of a sliding mode controller to handle tracking of planar closed curves represented by elliptic fourier descriptors (EFDs). The new robot is tested in experiments and the validity of the improvements are verified for practical implementation

Real-time control architecture for a multi UAV test bed

The purpose of this thesis is to develop a control architecture running at real-time for a multi unmanned aerial vehicle test bed formed by three AscTec Hummingbird mini quadrotors. The reliable and reconfigurable architecture presented here has a FPGA-based embedded system as main controller. Under the implemented control system, different practical applications have been performed in the MARHES Lab at the University of New Mexico as part of its research in cooperative control of mobile aerial agents. This thesis also covers the quadrotor modeling, the design of a position controller, the real-time architecture implementation and the experimental flight tests. A hybrid approach combining first-principles with system identification techniques is used for modeling the quadrotor due to the lack of information around the structure of the onboard controller designed by AscTec. The complete quadrotor model structure is formed by a black-box subsystem and a point-mass submodel. Experimental data have been gathered for system identification and black-box submodel validation purposes; while the point-mass submodel is found applying rigid-body dynamics. Using the dynamical model, a position control block based in lead-lag and PI compensators is developed and simulated. Improvements in trajectory tracking performance are achieved estimating the linear velocity of the aerial robot and incorporating velocity lead-lag compensators to the control approach. The velocity of the aerial robot is computed by numerical differentiation of position data. Simulation results to a variety of input signals of the control block in cascade with the complete dynamic model of the quadrotor are included. The control block together with the velocity estimation is fully programmed in the embedded controller. A graphical user interface, GUI, as part of the architecture is designed to display real-time data of position and orientation streamed from the motion tracking system as well as to contain useful user controllers. This GUI facilitates that a single operator conducts and oversees all aspects of the different applications where one or multiple quadrotors are used. Experimental tests have helped to tune the control parameters determined by simulation. The performance of the whole architecture has been validated through a variety of practical applications. Autonomous take off, hovering and landing, target surveillance, trajectory tracking and suspended payload transportation are just some of the applications carried out employing the real-time control architecture proposed in this thesis

Sensor fusion and actuator system of a quadrotor helicopter

This article focuses on the sensor and actuator system of an autonomous indoor quadrotor helicopter. The sensor system has two parts: an inertial measurement unit (IMU) and a vision system. The fusion between the two systems is solved by extended Kalman filters. The calibration of the inertial measurement unit is described for various types of errors. The variance analysis is performed for the noise sources of sensors. The actuators of the helicopter are the four rotors. The identification and low level control of the brushless DC motor based rotor system is also presented. The embedded control system integrates a lot of processors and communication lines. The verification of the system´s parts were performed under real-time conditions. The main results of the paper are the new calibration algorithm for the different sensors and the real-time realization of the complex sensory system that may be part of a formation control system of UAVs

Design and Implementation of Indoor Disinfection Robot System

After the outbreak of COVID-19 virus, disinfection has become one of the important means of epidemic prevention. Traditional manual disinfection can easily cause cross infection problems. Using robots to complete disinfection work can reduce people's social contact and block the spread of viruses. This thesis implements an engineering prototype of a indoor disinfection robot from the perspective of product development, with the amin of using robots to replace manual disinfection operations. The thesis uses disinfection module, control module and navigation module to compose the hardware of the robot. The disinfection module uses ultrasonic atomizers, UV-C ultraviolet disinfection lamps, and air purifiers to disinfect and disinfect the ground and air respectively. The control module is responsible for the movement and obstacle avoidance of the robot. The navigation module uses Raspberry Pi and LiDAR to achieve real-time robot positioning and two-dimensional plane mapping. In terms of robot software,we have done the following work: (1) Based on the ROS framework, we have implemented functions such as SLAM mapping, location positioning, and odometer data calibration.(2) Customize communication protocols to manage peripheral devices such as UV-C lights, ultrasonic atomizers, air purifiers, and motors on the control board. (3) Develop an Android mobile app that utilizes ROSBridge's lightweight communication architecture to achieve cross platform data exchange between mobile devices and navigation boards, as well as network connectivity and interaction between mobile phones and robots Finally, this thesis implements an engineering prototype of a household disinfection robot from the perspective of product development