14 research outputs found

    Robotics in Germany and Japan

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    This book comprehends an intercultural and interdisciplinary framework including current research fields like Roboethics, Hermeneutics of Technologies, Technology Assessment, Robotics in Japanese Popular Culture and Music Robots. Contributions on cultural interrelations, technical visions and essays are rounding out the content of this book

    Design and Simulation of a Mechanical Hand

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    A variety of mechanical hand designs have been developed in the past few decades. The majority of the designs were made with the sole purpose of imitating the human hand and its capabilities; however, none of these designs have been equipped with all the motions and sensory capabilities of the human hand. The primary goal of this thesis project was to design a robotic hand with the required amount of degrees-of-freedom and necessary constraints to achieve all the motions of the human hand. Demonstration of the American Sign Language (ASL) alphabet, using a virtual design and controls platform, was used as a means of proving the dexterity of the designed hand. The objectives of the thesis were accomplished using a combination of computerized 3-D modeling, kinematic modeling, and LabView programming. A mechanical hand model was designed using SolidWorks. Actuation methods were incorporated into the design based on the structure of the connecting tendons in the human hand. To analyze the motions of the mechanical hand model, finger assemblies were manufactured at two different scales (full and Πsize) using rapid prototyping. These finger assemblies were used to study the developed forces within the joints prone to failure when subjected to actuation and spring forces. A free body diagram and an Ansys model were created to quantify the force and stress concentrations at the contact point of the pin joint in the distal interphalangeal joint, a location of failure in the rapid prototype assembly. A complete kinematic model was then developed for the mechanical hand using the Denavit-Hartenberg principle to map all the joints of the hand and finger tips in a universal frame of reference. A program was developed using LabView and Matlab software tools to incorporate the developed kinematic model of the designed hand and plot the 3-D locations of all joints in the universal frame of reference for each letter of the ASL alphabet. The program was then interfaced with the SolidWorks hand assembly to virtually control the motions of the designed assembly and to optimize the hand motions. In summary, a mechanical human hand model and interacting software platform were developed to simulate the dexterity of a designed human hand and to implement virtual controls, based on kinematic modeling, to achieve the optimum motion patterns needed to demonstrate the ASL alphabet. The designed hand was capable of performing all the static gestures of the ASL alphabet

    Haptic communication between partner dancers and swing as a finite state machine

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    Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2005.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Vita.Includes bibliographical references (p. 129-138).To see two expert partners, one leading and the other following, swing dance together is to watch a remarkable two-agent communication and control system in action. Even blindfolded, the follower can decode the leader's moves from haptic cues. The leader composes the dance from the vocabulary of known moves so as to complement the music he is dancing to. Systematically addressing questions about partner dance communication is of scientific interest and could improve human-robotic interaction, and imitating the leader's choreographic skill is an engineering problem with applications beyond the dance domain. Swing dance choreography is a finite state machine, with moves that transition between a small number of poses. Two automated choreographers are presented. One uses an optimization and randomization scheme to compose dances by a sequence of shortest path problems, with edge lengths measuring the dissimilarity of dance moves to each bar of music. The other solves a two-player zero-sum game between the choreographer and a judge. Choosing moves at random from among moves that are good enough is rational under the game model.(cont.) Further, experiments presenting conflicting musical environments to two partners demonstrate that although musical expression clearly guides the leader's choice of moves, the follower need not hear the same music to properly decode the leader's signals. Dancers embody gentle interaction, in which each participant extends the capabilities of the other, and their cooperation is facilitated by a shared understanding of the motions to be performed. To demonstrate that followers use their understanding of the move vocabulary to interact better with their leaders, an experiment paired a haptic robot leader with human followers in a haptically cued dance to a swing music soundtrack. The subjects' performance differed significantly between instances when the subjects could determine which move was being led and instances when the subjects could not determine what the next move would be. Also, two-person teams that cooperated haptically to perform cyclical aiming tasks showed improvements in the Fitts' law or Schmidt's law speed-accuracy tradeoff consistent with a novel endpoint compromise hypothesis about haptic collaboration.by Sommer Elizabeth Gentry.Ph.D

    Re-situating Performance Within The Ambiguous, The Liminal, And The Threshold: Performance Practice Understood Through Theories Of Embodiment

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    This thesis investigates performance as an embodied practice. It draws on theories of embodiment, which act as a catalyst for thinking about performance, and thus provide an interdisciplinary framework for conceptualising the body in performance. I explore a discourse that situates performance itself within the liminal, as an in-between condition, as something that does not fit in. I reflect on performances, ranging from music to cosmetic surgery, and I highlight the in-between conditions and the marginalised space that in my view posits performance as multivalent, multifaceted and full of potential. This line of enquiry is informed by my view of the body as a site of change, discord and ambiguity; what one can refer to as the threshold condition, or what Victor Turner calls the “state of betwixt and between” (Turner, 1982, p.17). I take the body as a starting point for this discussion, as I consider the body as a vanguard to providing a different view to the majority of current music and performance writings. I subscribe to the view that the multi-faceted and, at times, highly controversial debate that has been applied to the body, has not been equivalently explored in the discussion of performance. My background as a music performer who works extensively with new technologies leads me to examine predominantly performance environments that use such technologies. I thus draw on examples from laptop performances and from my work as designer and musician of various performative environments. Other ideas in this thesis are informed by the ways in which I engage with an instrument, prepare for, and think about a performance, as well as from being a listener to somebody else’s performance. A body of writings from various other disciplines forms the backbone to my investigation. I believe that these writings draw attention to essential facets of performance activities and provide different ways of conceptualising performance that I argue are currently under-explored in current music and performance texts

    Classification et Caractérisation de l'Expression Corporelle des Emotions dans des Actions Quotidiennes

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    The work conducted in this thesis can be summarized into four main steps.Firstly, we proposed a multi-level body movement notation system that allows the description ofexpressive body movement across various body actions. Secondly, we collected a new databaseof emotional body expression in daily actions. This database constitutes a large repository of bodilyexpression of emotions including the expression of 8 emotions in 7 actions, combining video andmotion capture recordings and resulting in more than 8000 sequences of expressive behaviors.Thirdly, we explored the classification of emotions based on our multi-level body movement notationsystem. Random Forest approach is used for this purpose. The advantage of using RandomForest approach in our work is double-fold : 1) reliability of the classification model and 2) possibilityto select a subset of relevant features based on their relevance measures. We also comparedthe automatic classification of emotions with human perception of emotions expressed in differentactions. Finally, we extracted the most relevant features that capture the expressive content of themotion based on the relevance measure of features returned by the Random Forest model. Weused this subset of features to explore the characterization of emotional body expression acrossdifferent actions. A Decision Tree model was used for this purpose.Ce travail de thĂšse peut ĂȘtre rĂ©sumĂ© en quatre Ă©tapes principales. PremiĂšrement, nousavons proposĂ© un systĂšme d’annotation multi-niveaux pour dĂ©crire le mouvement corporel expressif dansdiffĂ©rentes actions. DeuxiĂšmement, nous avons enregistrĂ© une base de donnĂ©es de l’expression corporelledes Ă©motions dans des actions quotidiennes. Cette base de donnĂ©es constitue un large corpus de comportementsexpressifs considĂ©rant l’expression de 8 Ă©motions dans 7 actions quotidiennes, combinant Ă  la fois lesdonnĂ©es audio-visuelle et les donnĂ©es de capture de mouvement et donnant lieu Ă  plus que 8000 sĂ©quencesde mouvement expressifs. TroisiĂšmement, nous avons explorĂ© la classification des Ă©motions en se basantsur notre systĂšme d’annotation multi-niveaux. L’approche des forĂȘts alĂ©atoires est utilisĂ©e pour cette fin. L’utilisationdes forĂȘts alĂ©atoires dans notre travail a un double objectif : 1) la fiabilitĂ© du modĂšle de classification,et 2) la possibilitĂ© de sĂ©lectionner un sous-ensemble de paramĂštres pertinents en se basant sur la mesured’importance retournĂ©e par le modĂšle. Nous avons aussi comparĂ© la classification automatique des Ă©motionsavec la perception humaine des Ă©motions exprimĂ©es dans diffĂ©rentes actions. Finalement, nous avonsextrait les paramĂštres les plus pertinents qui retiennent l’expressivitĂ© du mouvement en se basant sur la mesured’importance retournĂ©e par le modĂšle des forĂȘts alĂ©atoires. Nous avons utilisĂ© ce sous-ensemble deparamĂštres pour explorer la caractĂ©risation de l’expression corporelle des Ă©motions dans diffĂ©rentes actionsquotidiennes. Un modĂšle d’arbre de dĂ©cision a Ă©tĂ© utilisĂ© pour cette fin

    Bowdoin Orient v.135, no.1-25 (2005-2006)

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    https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/bowdoinorient-2000s/1006/thumbnail.jp

    Bowdoin Orient v.132, no.1-24 (2000-2001)

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    https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/bowdoinorient-2000s/1001/thumbnail.jp
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