Biomechatronics: Harmonizing Mechatronic Systems with Human Beings

This eBook provides a comprehensive treatise on modern biomechatronic systems centred around human applications. A particular emphasis is given to exoskeleton designs for assistance and training with advanced interfaces in human-machine interaction. Some of these designs are validated with experimental results which the reader will find very informative as building-blocks for designing such systems. This eBook will be ideally suited to those researching in biomechatronic area with bio-feedback applications or those who are involved in high-end research on manmachine interfaces. This may also serve as a textbook for biomechatronic design at post-graduate level

Towards adaptive and autonomous humanoid robots: from vision to actions

Although robotics research has seen advances over the last decades robots are still not in widespread use outside industrial applications. Yet a range of proposed scenarios have robots working together, helping and coexisting with humans in daily life. In all these a clear need to deal with a more unstructured, changing environment arises. I herein present a system that aims to overcome the limitations of highly complex robotic systems, in terms of autonomy and adaptation. The main focus of research is to investigate the use of visual feedback for improving reaching and grasping capabilities of complex robots. To facilitate this a combined integration of computer vision and machine learning techniques is employed. From a robot vision point of view the combination of domain knowledge from both imaging processing and machine learning techniques, can expand the capabilities of robots. I present a novel framework called Cartesian Genetic Programming for Image Processing (CGP-IP). CGP-IP can be trained to detect objects in the incoming camera streams and successfully demonstrated on many different problem domains. The approach requires only a few training images (it was tested with 5 to 10 images per experiment) is fast, scalable and robust yet requires very small training sets. Additionally, it can generate human readable programs that can be further customized and tuned. While CGP-IP is a supervised-learning technique, I show an integration on the iCub, that allows for the autonomous learning of object detection and identification. Finally this dissertation includes two proof-of-concepts that integrate the motion and action sides. First, reactive reaching and grasping is shown. It allows the robot to avoid obstacles detected in the visual stream, while reaching for the intended target object. Furthermore the integration enables us to use the robot in non-static environments, i.e. the reaching is adapted on-the- fly from the visual feedback received, e.g. when an obstacle is moved into the trajectory. The second integration highlights the capabilities of these frameworks, by improving the visual detection by performing object manipulation actions

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

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

Nostratic Dictionary

A revised edition can be found at http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/244080.Aharon Dolgopolsky is the leading authority on the Nostratic macrofamily. His 'Nostratic Dictionary' presented here is, of course, something very much more than a dictionary. It is the most thorough and extensive demonstration and documentation so far of what may be termed the Nostratic hypothesis: that several of the world's best- known language families are related in their origin, their grammar and their lexicon, and that they belong together in a larger unit, of earlier origin, the Nostratic macrofamily. It should at once be noted that several elements of this enterprise are controversial. For while the Nostratic hypothesis has many supporters, it has been criticized on rather fundamental grounds by a number of distinguished linguists. The matter was reviewed some years ago in a symposium held at the McDonald Institute, and positions remain very much polarized. It was a result of that meeting that the decision was taken to invite Aharon Dolgopolsky to publish his Dictionary - a much more substantial treatise than any work hitherto undertaken on the subject - at the McDonald Institute. For it became clear that the diversities of view expressed at that symposium were not likely to be resolved by further polemical exchanges. Instead, a substantial body of data was required, whose examination and evaluation could subsequently lead to more mature judgments. Those data are presented here, and that more mature evaluation can now proceed.McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research Alfred P. Sloan Foundatio