33,220 research outputs found
Natural Virtual Reality User Interface to Define Assembly Sequences for Digital Human Models
Digital human models (DHMs) are virtual representations of human beings. They are used to conduct, among other things, ergonomic assessments in factory layout planning. DHM software tools are challenging in their use and thus require a high amount of training for engineers. In this paper, we present a virtual reality (VR) application that enables engineers to work with DHMs easily. Since VR systems with head-mounted displays (HMDs) are less expensive than CAVE systems, HMDs can be integrated more extensively into the product development process. Our application provides a reality-based interface and allows users to conduct an assembly task in VR and thus to manipulate the virtual scene with their real hands. These manipulations are used as input for the DHM to simulate, on that basis, human ergonomics. Therefore, we introduce a software and hardware architecture, the VATS (virtual action tracking system). This paper furthermore presents the results of a user study in which the VATS was compared to the existing WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointer) interface. The results show that the VATS system enables users to conduct tasks in a significantly faster way
3-D Hand Pose Estimation from Kinect's Point Cloud Using Appearance Matching
We present a novel appearance-based approach for pose estimation of a human
hand using the point clouds provided by the low-cost Microsoft Kinect sensor.
Both the free-hand case, in which the hand is isolated from the surrounding
environment, and the hand-object case, in which the different types of
interactions are classified, have been considered. The hand-object case is
clearly the most challenging task having to deal with multiple tracks. The
approach proposed here belongs to the class of partial pose estimation where
the estimated pose in a frame is used for the initialization of the next one.
The pose estimation is obtained by applying a modified version of the Iterative
Closest Point (ICP) algorithm to synthetic models to obtain the rigid
transformation that aligns each model with respect to the input data. The
proposed framework uses a "pure" point cloud as provided by the Kinect sensor
without any other information such as RGB values or normal vector components.
For this reason, the proposed method can also be applied to data obtained from
other types of depth sensor, or RGB-D camera
Safe, Remote-Access Swarm Robotics Research on the Robotarium
This paper describes the development of the Robotarium -- a remotely
accessible, multi-robot research facility. The impetus behind the Robotarium is
that multi-robot testbeds constitute an integral and essential part of the
multi-agent research cycle, yet they are expensive, complex, and time-consuming
to develop, operate, and maintain. These resource constraints, in turn, limit
access for large groups of researchers and students, which is what the
Robotarium is remedying by providing users with remote access to a
state-of-the-art multi-robot test facility. This paper details the design and
operation of the Robotarium as well as connects these to the particular
considerations one must take when making complex hardware remotely accessible.
In particular, safety must be built in already at the design phase without
overly constraining which coordinated control programs the users can upload and
execute, which calls for minimally invasive safety routines with provable
performance guarantees.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, 3 code samples, 72 reference
AAO Starbugs: software control and associated algorithms
The Australian Astronomical Observatory's TAIPAN instrument deploys 150
Starbug robots to position optical fibres to accuracies of 0.3 arcsec, on a 32
cm glass field plate on the focal plane of the 1.2 m UK-Schmidt telescope. This
paper describes the software system developed to control and monitor the
Starbugs, with particular emphasis on the automated path-finding algorithms,
and the metrology software which keeps track of the position and motion of
individual Starbugs as they independently move in a crowded field. The software
employs a tiered approach to find a collision-free path for every Starbug, from
its current position to its target location. This consists of three
path-finding stages of increasing complexity and computational cost. For each
Starbug a path is attempted using a simple method. If unsuccessful,
subsequently more complex (and expensive) methods are tried until a valid path
is found or the target is flagged as unreachable.Comment: 10 pages, to be published in Proc. SPIE 9913, Software and
Cyberinfrastructure for Astronomy IV; 201
NBSymple, a double parallel, symplectic N-body code running on Graphic Processing Units
We present and discuss the characteristics and performances, both in term of
computational speed and precision, of a numerical code which numerically
integrates the equation of motions of N 'particles' interacting via Newtonian
gravitation and move in an external galactic smooth field. The force evaluation
on every particle is done by mean of direct summation of the contribution of
all the other system's particle, avoiding truncation error. The time
integration is done with second-order and sixth-order symplectic schemes. The
code, NBSymple, has been parallelized twice, by mean of the Computer Unified
Device Architecture to make the all-pair force evaluation as fast as possible
on high-performance Graphic Processing Units NVIDIA TESLA C 1060, while the
O(N) computations are distributed on various CPUs by mean of OpenMP Application
Program. The code works both in single precision floating point arithmetics or
in double precision. The use of single precision allows the use at best of the
GPU performances but, of course, limits the precision of simulation in some
critical situations. We find a good compromise in using a software
reconstruction of double precision for those variables that are most critical
for the overall precision of the code. The code is available on the web site
astrowww.phys.uniroma1.it/dolcetta/nbsymple.htmlComment: Paper composed by 29 pages, including 9 figures. Submitted to New
Astronomy
Combining Coarse-Grained Protein Models with Replica-Exchange All-Atom Molecular Dynamics
We describe a combination of all-atom simulations with CABS, a
well-established coarse-grained protein modeling tool, into a single multiscale
protocol. The simulation method has been tested on the C-terminal beta hairpin
of protein G, a model system of protein folding. After reconstructing atomistic
details, conformations derived from the CABS simulation were subjected to
replica-exchange molecular dynamics simulations with OPLS-AA and AMBER99sb
force fields in explicit solvent. Such a combination accelerates system
convergence several times in comparison with all-atom simulations starting from
the extended chain conformation, demonstrated by the analysis of melting
curves, the number of native-like conformations as a function of time and
secondary structure propagation. The results strongly suggest that the proposed
multiscale method could be an efficient and accurate tool for high-resolution
studies of protein folding dynamics in larger systems.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure
Mechanism of unidirectional movement of kinesin motors
Kinesin motors have been studied extensively both experimentally and
theoretically. However, the microscopic mechanism of the processive movement of
kinesin is still an open question. In this paper, we propose a hand-over-hand
model for the processivity of kinesin, which is based on chemical, mechanical,
and electrical couplings. In the model the processive movement does not need to
rely on the two heads' coordination in their ATP hydrolysis and mechanical
cycles. Rather, the ATP hydrolyses at the two heads are independent. The much
higher ATPase rate at the trailing head than the leading head makes the motor
walk processively in a natural way, with one ATP being hydrolyzed per step. The
model is consistent with the structural study of kinesin and the measured
pathway of the kinesin ATPase. Using the model the estimated driving force of ~
5.8 pN is in agreements with the experimental results (5~7.5 pN). The
prediction of the moving time in one step (~10 microseconds) is also consistent
with the measured values of 0~50 microseconds. The previous observation of
substeps within the 8-nm step is explained. The shapes of velocity-load (both
positive and negative) curves show resemblance to previous experimental
results.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figure
Sampled data systems passivity and discrete port-Hamiltonian systems
In this paper, we present a novel way to approach the interconnection of a continuous and a discrete time physical system first presented in [1][2] [3]. This is done in a way which preserves passivity of the coupled system independently of the sampling time T. This strategy can be used both in the field of telemanipulation, for the implementation of a passive master/slave system on a digital transmission line with varying time delays and possible loss of packets (e.g., the Internet), and in the field of haptics, where the virtual environment should `feel¿ like a physical equivalent system
- …