A Massively-Parallel 3D Simulator for Soft and Hybrid Robots

Simulation is an important step in robotics for creating control policies and testing various physical parameters. Soft robotics is a field that presents unique physical challenges for simulating its subjects due to the nonlinearity of deformable material components along with other innovative, and often complex, physical properties. Because of the computational cost of simulating soft and heterogeneous objects with traditional techniques, rigid robotics simulators are not well suited to simulating soft robots. Thus, many engineers must build their own one-off simulators tailored to their system, or use existing simulators with reduced performance. In order to facilitate the development of this exciting technology, this work presents an interactive-speed, accurate, and versatile simulator for a variety of types of soft robots. Cronos, our open-source 3D simulation engine, parallelizes a mass-spring model for ultra-fast performance on both deformable and rigid objects. Our approach is applicable to a wide array of nonlinear material configurations, including high deformability, volumetric actuation, or heterogenous stiffness. This versatility provides the ability to mix materials and geometric components freely within a single robot simulation. By exploiting the flexibility and scalability of nonlinear Hookean mass-spring systems, this framework simulates soft and rigid objects via a highly parallel model for near real-time speed. We describe an efficient GPU CUDA implementation, which we demonstrate to achieve computation of over 1 billion elements per second on consumer-grade GPU cards. Dynamic physical accuracy of the system is validated by comparing results to Euler-Bernoulli beam theory, natural frequency predictions, and empirical data of a soft structure under large deformation

Establishing a Framework for the development of Multimodal Virtual Reality Interfaces with Applicability in Education and Clinical Practice

The development of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) content with multiple sources of both input and output has led to countless contributions in a great many number of fields, among which medicine and education. Nevertheless, the actual process of integrating the existing VR/AR media and subsequently setting it to purpose is yet a highly scattered and esoteric undertaking. Moreover, seldom do the architectures that derive from such ventures comprise haptic feedback in their implementation, which in turn deprives users from relying on one of the paramount aspects of human interaction, their sense of touch. Determined to circumvent these issues, the present dissertation proposes a centralized albeit modularized framework that thus enables the conception of multimodal VR/AR applications in a novel and straightforward manner. In order to accomplish this, the aforesaid framework makes use of a stereoscopic VR Head Mounted Display (HMD) from Oculus Rift©, a hand tracking controller from Leap Motion©, a custom-made VR mount that allows for the assemblage of the two preceding peripherals and a wearable device of our own design. The latter is a glove that encompasses two core modules in its innings, one that is able to convey haptic feedback to its wearer and another that deals with the non-intrusive acquisition, processing and registering of his/her Electrocardiogram (ECG), Electromyogram (EMG) and Electrodermal Activity (EDA). The software elements of the aforementioned features were all interfaced through Unity3D©, a powerful game engine whose popularity in academic and scientific endeavors is evermore increasing. Upon completion of our system, it was time to substantiate our initial claim with thoroughly developed experiences that would attest to its worth. With this premise in mind, we devised a comprehensive repository of interfaces, amid which three merit special consideration: Brain Connectivity Leap (BCL), Ode to Passive Haptic Learning (PHL) and a Surgical Simulator

A Review of Platforms for the Development of Agent Systems

Agent-based computing is an active field of research with the goal of building autonomous software of hardware entities. This task is often facilitated by the use of dedicated, specialized frameworks. For almost thirty years, many such agent platforms have been developed. Meanwhile, some of them have been abandoned, others continue their development and new platforms are released. This paper presents a up-to-date review of the existing agent platforms and also a historical perspective of this domain. It aims to serve as a reference point for people interested in developing agent systems. This work details the main characteristics of the included agent platforms, together with links to specific projects where they have been used. It distinguishes between the active platforms and those no longer under development or with unclear status. It also classifies the agent platforms as general purpose ones, free or commercial, and specialized ones, which can be used for particular types of applications.Comment: 40 pages, 2 figures, 9 tables, 83 reference

Discrete event simulation and virtual reality use in industry: new opportunities and future trends

This paper reviews the area of combined discrete event simulation (DES) and virtual reality (VR) use within industry. While establishing a state of the art for progress in this area, this paper makes the case for VR DES as the vehicle of choice for complex data analysis through interactive simulation models, highlighting both its advantages and current limitations. This paper reviews active research topics such as VR and DES real-time integration, communication protocols, system design considerations, model validation, and applications of VR and DES. While summarizing future research directions for this technology combination, the case is made for smart factory adoption of VR DES as a new platform for scenario testing and decision making. It is put that in order for VR DES to fully meet the visualization requirements of both Industry 4.0 and Industrial Internet visions of digital manufacturing, further research is required in the areas of lower latency image processing, DES delivery as a service, gesture recognition for VR DES interaction, and linkage of DES to real-time data streams and Big Data sets

Augmented reality X-ray vision on optical see-through head mounted displays

Abstract. In this thesis, we present the development and evaluation of an augmented reality X-ray system on optical see-through head-mounted displays. Augmented reality X-ray vision allows users to see through solid surfaces such as walls and facades, by augmenting the real view with virtual images representing the hidden objects. Our system is developed based on the optical see-through mixed reality headset Microsoft Hololens. We have developed an X-ray cutout algorithm that uses the geometric data of the environment and enables seeing through surfaces. We have developed four different visualizations as well based on the algorithm. The first visualization renders simply the X-ray cutout without displaying any information about the occluding surface. The other three visualizations display features extracted from the occluder surface to help the user to get better depth perception of the virtual objects. We have used Sobel edge detection to extract the information. The three visualizations differ in the way to render the extracted features. A subjective experiment is conducted to test and evaluate the visualizations and to compare them with each other. The experiment consists of two parts; depth estimation task and a questionnaire. Both the experiment and its results are presented in the thesis