Three dimensional surface reconstruction of lower limb prosthetic model using infrared sensor array

This thesis addresses the development of a shape detector device using infrared sensor to reconstruct a three-dimensional image of an object. The threedimension image is produced based on the object surface using image processing technique. Conventionally, infrared sensors are used for detection of an obstacle and distance measurement to avoid collisions. However, it is not common to use infrared sensors to measure the size of an object. Hence, this research aims to investigate the feasibility of infrared sensors in measuring the object dimension for three-dimension image reconstruction. Experiments were executed to study the minimum distance range utilising GP2D120 infrared sensor. From the experiment, the distance between the sensor and object surface should be more than 5 cm. The scanning device consists of the infrared sensor array was placed in a black box with the object in the center. The scanning process required the object to turn 360 ° clockwise in an xy plane and the resolution for z-axis is 2 mm, in order to obtain data for the image reconstruction. Reference polygon shape models with various dimensions were used as scanning objects in the experiments. The device scans object diameter every 2 mm in thickness, 100 mm in height, and the total time required to collect data for each layer is 60 seconds. The reconstructed object accuracy is above 80 % based on the comparison between a solid and printed model dimension. Four different lower limb prosthetic models with different shapes were used as the object in the scanning experiments. The experimental findings show that the prosthetic shapes reconstructed with an average accuracy of 97 %. This system shows good reproducibility where the collected data using the infrared sensor device need further improvement so that it can be applied in medical field for orthotics and prosthetics purpose

Low-Cost Dual Rotating Infrared Sensor for Mobile Robot Swarm Applications

This paper presents a novel low-cost position detection prototype from practical design to implementation of its control schemes. This prototype is designed to provide mobile robot swarms with advanced sensing capabilities in an efficient, cost-effective way. From the observation of bats’ foraging behaviors, the prototype with a particular emphasis on variable rotation range and speed, as well as 360° observation capability has been developed. The prototype also aims at giving each robot reliable information about identification of neighboring robots from objects and their positions. For this purpose, an observation algorithm-based sensor is proposed. The implementation details are explained, and the effectiveness of the control schemes is verified through extensive experiments. The sensor provides real-time location of stationary targets positioned 100 cm away within an average error of 2.6 cm. Moreover, experimental results show that the prototype observation capability can be quite satisfactory for practical use of mobile robot swarms

Heterogeneous Robot Swarm – Hardware Design and Implementation

Swarm robotics is one the most fascinating, new research areas in the field of robotics, and one of it's grand challenge is the design of swarm robots that are both heterogeneous and self-sufficient. This can be crucial for robots exposed to environments that are unstructured or not easily accessible for a human operator, such as a collapsed building, the deep sea, or the surface of another planet. In Swarm robotics; self-assembly, self-reconfigurability and self-replication are among the most important characteristics as they can add extra capabilities and functionality to the robots besides the robustness, flexibility and scalability. Developing a swarm robot system with heterogeneity and larger behavioral repertoire is addressed in this work. This project is a comprehensive study of the hardware architecture of the homogeneous robot swarm and several problems related to the important aspects of robot's hardware, such as: sensory units, communication among the modules, and hardware components. Most of the hardware platforms used in the swarm robot system are homogeneous and use centralized control architecture for task completion. The hardware architecture is designed and implemented for UB heterogeneous robot swarm with both decentralized and centralized control, depending on the task requirement. Each robot in the UB heterogeneous swarm is equipped with different sensors, actuators, microcontroller and communication modules, which makes them distinct from each other from a hardware point of view. The methodology provides detailed guidelines in designing and implementing the hardware architecture of the heterogeneous UB robot swarm with plug and play approach. We divided the design module into three main categories - sensory modules, locomotion and manipulation, communication and control. We conjecture that the hardware architecture of heterogeneous swarm robots implemented in this work is the most sophisticated and modular design to date