Computer hardware and software for robotic control

The KSC has implemented an integrated system that coordinates state-of-the-art robotic subsystems. It is a sensor based real-time robotic control system performing operations beyond the capability of an off-the-shelf robot. The integrated system provides real-time closed loop adaptive path control of position and orientation of all six axes of a large robot; enables the implementation of a highly configurable, expandable testbed for sensor system development; and makes several smart distributed control subsystems (robot arm controller, process controller, graphics display, and vision tracking) appear as intelligent peripherals to a supervisory computer coordinating the overall systems

From 3D Models to 3D Prints: an Overview of the Processing Pipeline

Due to the wide diffusion of 3D printing technologies, geometric algorithms for Additive Manufacturing are being invented at an impressive speed. Each single step, in particular along the Process Planning pipeline, can now count on dozens of methods that prepare the 3D model for fabrication, while analysing and optimizing geometry and machine instructions for various objectives. This report provides a classification of this huge state of the art, and elicits the relation between each single algorithm and a list of desirable objectives during Process Planning. The objectives themselves are listed and discussed, along with possible needs for tradeoffs. Additive Manufacturing technologies are broadly categorized to explicitly relate classes of devices and supported features. Finally, this report offers an analysis of the state of the art while discussing open and challenging problems from both an academic and an industrial perspective.Comment: European Union (EU); Horizon 2020; H2020-FoF-2015; RIA - Research and Innovation action; Grant agreement N. 68044

A Similarity Measure for Material Appearance

We present a model to measure the similarity in appearance between different materials, which correlates with human similarity judgments. We first create a database of 9,000 rendered images depicting objects with varying materials, shape and illumination. We then gather data on perceived similarity from crowdsourced experiments; our analysis of over 114,840 answers suggests that indeed a shared perception of appearance similarity exists. We feed this data to a deep learning architecture with a novel loss function, which learns a feature space for materials that correlates with such perceived appearance similarity. Our evaluation shows that our model outperforms existing metrics. Last, we demonstrate several applications enabled by our metric, including appearance-based search for material suggestions, database visualization, clustering and summarization, and gamut mapping.Comment: 12 pages, 17 figure

Definition of avionics concepts for a heavy lift cargo vehicle. Volume 1: Executive summary

A cost effective, multiuser simulation, test, and demonstration facility to support the development of avionics systems for future space vehicles is examined. The technology needs and requirements of future Heavy Lift Cargo Vehicles (HLCVs) are analyzed and serve as the basis for sizing of the avionics facility, although the lab is not limited in use to support of HLCVs. Volume 1 provides a summary of the vehicle avionics trade studies, the avionics lab objectives, a summary of the lab's functional requirements and design, physical facility considerations, and cost estimates