Development of an expert system for supporting the selection of robot grippers

The aim of this thesis is to lay the basis for the development of an expert system for the selection of robot grippers. This work has started with a review of the literature of the grasping principles, of releasing strategies and of the main problems concerning the automatic assembly or, more in general, the handling. Later, we have studied a set of parameters constituting the input of the expert system, together with a set of rules aimed at choosing the appropriate gripper. The work ends with a series of tests, with a focus on the food industry, reporting the results and discussing the possibility of future developments

Technology, Innovation, and Regional Economic Development

A report by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) that focuses on high-technology development initiatives in several regions of the United States

State of the art review on walking support system for visually impaired people

The technology for terrain detection and walking support system for blind people has rapidly been improved the last couple of decades but to assist visually impaired people may have started long ago. Currently, a variety of portable or wearable navigation system is available in the market to help the blind for navigating their way in his local or remote area. The focused category in this work can be subgroups as electronic travel aids (ETAs), electronic orientation aids (EOAs) and position locator devices (PLDs). However, we will focus mainly on electronic travel aids (ETAs). This paper presents a comparative survey among the various portable or wearable walking support systems as well as informative description (a subcategory of ETAs or early stages of ETAs) with its working principal advantages and disadvantages so that the researchers can easily get the current stage of assisting blind technology along with the requirement for optimising the design of walking support system for its users

An investigation of trends and issues of technology education

The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of the current technology education movement and its impacts, problems, directions, as well as prospects for future development of technology education;A survey questionnaire consisting of three parts was used for collecting the data pertaining to program characteristics, objectives, problems, solutions, and prospects of technology education. Factor analysis was performed to verify the underlying structure of the instrument. Four orthogonal factors were extracted from the analysis for philosophical objectives of technology education. These four factors were: (1) technological literacy, (2) conventional IA objective, (3) intellectual development, and (4) use of tools and machines;Six problem factors derived from factor analysis were labeled as: (1) teaching content, (2) perception of program, (3) teacher education program, (4) student recruitment, (5) facility, and (6) teacher shortage;Six solution factors for solving TE problems were also extracted from factor analysis. They included: (1) curriculum development, (2) public relations, (3) teacher education, (4) perspective teacher recruitment, (5) female student recruitment, and (6) facility planning and innovation;Three prospect factors were extracted from factor analysis and were identified as: (1) program quality and image, (2) facility and curriculum, and (3) graduate and enrollment. These derived factors were used for further hypothesis testing;Eight hypotheses were formulated and tested in this study;Results of the study indicated that the responses of the three subject groups were very uniform. Their perceptions on most of the objective, problem, solution, and prospect factors of technology education were not significantly different from one another;A technology education curriculum development framework was presented along with the teaching scope and sequence for K-12

Conference on Intelligent Robotics in Field, Factory, Service, and Space (CIRFFSS 1994), volume 1

The AIAA/NASA Conference on Intelligent Robotics in Field, Factory, Service, and Space (CIRFFSS '94) was originally proposed because of the strong belief that America's problems of global economic competitiveness and job creation and preservation can partly be solved by the use of intelligent robotics, which are also required for human space exploration missions. Individual sessions addressed nuclear industry, agile manufacturing, security/building monitoring, on-orbit applications, vision and sensing technologies, situated control and low-level control, robotic systems architecture, environmental restoration and waste management, robotic remanufacturing, and healthcare applications

Technology 2000, volume 1

The purpose of the conference was to increase awareness of existing NASA developed technologies that are available for immediate use in the development of new products and processes, and to lay the groundwork for the effective utilization of emerging technologies. There were sessions on the following: Computer technology and software engineering; Human factors engineering and life sciences; Information and data management; Material sciences; Manufacturing and fabrication technology; Power, energy, and control systems; Robotics; Sensors and measurement technology; Artificial intelligence; Environmental technology; Optics and communications; and Superconductivity