Recommended fine positioning test for the Development Test Flight (DTF-1) of the NASA Flight Telerobotic Servicer (FTS)

Test procedures are proposed for the NASA DTF (Development Test Flight)-1 positioning tests of the FTS (Flight Telerobotic Servicer). The unique problems associated with the DTF-1 mission are discussed, standard robot performance tests and terminology are reviewed and a very detailed description of flight-like testing and analysis is presented. The major technical problem associated with DTF-1 is that only one position sensor can be used, which will be fixed at one location, with a working volume which is probably smaller than some of the robot errors to be measured. Radiation heating of the arm and the sensor could also cause distortions that would interfere with the test. Two robot performance testing committees have established standard testing procedures relevant to the DTF-1. Due to the technical problems associated with DTF-1, these procedures cannot be applied directly. These standard tests call for the use of several test positions at specific locations. Only one position, that of the position sensor, can be used by DTF-1. Off-line programming accuracy might be impossible to measure and in that case it will have to be replaced by forward kinetics accuracy

A Low-Cost and Low-Tech Solution to Test for Variations Between Multiple Offline Programming Software Packages.

This research paper chronicles the attempt to bring forth a low-cost and low-tech testing methodology whereby multiple offline programming (OLP) software packages’ generated programs may be compared when run on industrial robots. This research was initiated by the discovery that no real research exists to test between iterations of OLP software packages and that most research for positional accuracy and/or repeatability on industrial robots is expensive and technologically intensive. Despite this, many countries’ leaders are pushing for intensive digitalization of manufacturing and Small and Mediumsized Enterprises (SMEs) are noted to be lagging in adoption of such technologies. The research consisted of creating a test utilizing commonplace and inexpensive measuring devices in dial indicators to test the X, Y and Z axes of movement on a Fanuc R-2000iC/165F industrial robot. Unfortunately, the robot in question was unable to produce consistent results so that the research could be properly examined. It is assumed that the inconsistency could be linked to wear on the physical robot due to it having been utilized in heavy industrial work prior to being donated to the University where this research was conducted. Recommendations for future research and methods whereby the research could be refined are presented in the final chapter

From Concept to Market: Surgical Robot Development

Surgical robotics and supporting technologies have really become a prime example of modern applied information technology infiltrating our everyday lives. The development of these systems spans across four decades, and only the last few years brought the market value and saw the rising customer base imagined already by the early developers. This chapter guides through the historical development of the most important systems, and provide references and lessons learnt for current engineers facing similar challenges. A special emphasis is put on system validation, assessment and clearance, as the most commonly cited barrier hindering the wider deployment of a system

Application of the ISO 9283 standard to test repeatability of the Baxter robot

Industrial robots are becoming more cost-efficient and safer to work with. Rethink Robotics has created an industrial robot called Baxter that is less expensive and more compliant. Unfortunately, while Rethink has an accuracy specification for Baxter, there is some confusion about the repeatability specification of Baxter. This thesis applies the ISO 9283 standard to test the manipulation repeatability of Baxter using an IR motion capture system. This test method varies movement speed, payload weight, and target location while measuring repeatability. The average positional repeatability was determined to be 2.9 mm and 3.3 mm for the left and right arms respectively. The average orientation repeatability was determined to be 0.003 to 0.0047 radians for the left arm and 0.0037 to 0.0054 radians for the right arm

Thermal Performance of a Multi-Axis Smoothing Cell

Multi Axis Robots have traditionally been used in industry for pick and place, de-burring, and welding operations. Increasing technological advances have broadened their application and today robots are increasingly being used for higher precision applications in the medical and nuclear sectors. In order to use robots in such roles it is important to understand their performance. Thermal effects in machine tools are acknowledged to account for up to 70% of all errors (Bryan J. , 1990) and therefore need to be considered. This research investigates thermal influences on the accuracy and repeatability of a six degree of freedom robotic arm, which forms an integral part of a smoothing cell. The cell forms part of a process chain currently being developed for the processing of high accuracy freeform surfaces, intended for use on the next generation of ground based telescopes. The robot studied was a FANUC 710i/50 with a lapping spindle the end effector. The robot geometric motions were characterised and the structure was thermally mapped at the latter velocity. The thermal mapping identified the key areas of the robot structure requiring more detailed analysis. Further investigation looked into thermal variations in conjunction with geometric measurements in order to characterise the robot thermal performance. Results showed thermal variations of up to 13ºC over a period of six hours, these produced errors of up to 100μm over the 1300mm working stroke slow. Thermal modelling carried out predicted geometric variation of 70μm to 122μm for thermal variations up to 13ºC over a period of six hours. The modelling was 50% to 75% efficient in predicting thermal error magnitudes in the X axis. With the geometric and modelling data a recommendation for offline compensation would enable significant improvement in the robots positioning capability to be achieved

Industrial and Medical Cyber-Physical Systems: Tackling User Requirements and Challenges in Robotics

Robotics is one of the major megatrends unfolding these days. Clearly, robots are capable of doing much more outside the factories than ever imagined, and that has a great impact on the whole society. This chapter provides some practical updates and guidelines on a few exciting aspects of automated technologies: applied robotics in the industry, in service and personal use and in the operating theaters, performing not only teleoperated surgeries but complex, delicate procedures as well. However, building reliable autonomous systems is not easy, and for another while, human operators will be required as a fallback option. Ensuring the safety of such hybrid control systems is complex, and requires novel human–machine interfaces. Situation awareness remains a key issue, keeping humans in the loop. Arguably, the social robotic sector is growing much faster than any industrial one, and as predicted, there soon will be robots in every household and around

Načrtovanje in razvoj orodja za zaznavanje sile pri napredni sakrokolpopeksiji

Modern minimally invasive surgery can be stressful and tiring for surgeons and assistans, so in order to relieve some work load a camera holding robot and a vaginal manipulator holding robot is being designed for use in laparoscopic sarcocolpopexy. A force sensing vaginal manipulator tool was designed in order to provide relevant information to the robot and for other analysis. A second force sensing device was also developed, a clip-on sensor which can be detached from typical vaginal manipulator. par Together with the tool a software to record and display live information during surgery was also developed. Part of the developed software was also a calibration matrix calculation, which is used to calculate force used by assistant on the patient from raw data given by device.V moderni kirurgiji se vse bolj pogosto uporabljajo minimalno invazivne metode v vse več operacijah. V nasprotju s tradicionalno kirurgijo ta omogoča hitrejše zdravljenje po operaciji in manj vidnih brazgotin. Medenični prolaps se zgodi zaradi staranja podpornega tkiva, kar povzroča nenaraven spust organov trebušne votline (mehur, maternica, črevesje,...) skozi vagino. Poglavitni vzroki za medenični prolaps so starost, debelost in naraven porod po štiridesetem letu starosti. par Sakrokolpopeksija je operacija, s katero se popravi vaginalni zid po prolapsu. Fino mrežico se našije na maternico in sprednji longitudinalni ligament, ki nato podpira organe trebušne votline. Sakrokolpopeksija je že bila prilagojena za minimalno invazivno kirurgijo (laparoskopska sakrokolpopeksija), zato je potrebnih le nekaj majhnih rezov na trebuhu za vstavitev inštrumentov. Za takšen poseg so potrebni kirurg, dva asistenta in medicinska sestra, vendar velikokrat operaciji prisustvuje več asistentov učencev. En asistent uporablja kamero znotraj pacientovega telesa, drugi pa drži vaginalni manipulator in tako asistira kirurgu. Zaradi omejenega prostora okoli pacienta in števila osebja to pogosto pomeni, da morajo biti kirurg in asistenti v nenaravnih položajih (pokrčene roke ali dolgotrajna drža rok v iztegnjenem položaju, sklanjanje nad pacientom itd.), kar potem sčasoma lahko vodi do utrujenosti in zdravstvenih problemov. Kot rešitev za te težave se razvija robot, ki bi glede na kirurgove ukaze sam držal vaginalni manipulator in kamero. Da bi lahko robot učinkovito uporabljal vaginalni manipulator, mora imeti neke vrste povratno zanko, da ne bi pri operaciji po nepotrebnem poškodoval zdravega tkiva. V ta namen se razvijata dva različna senzorja sile in sicer en v sami glavi manipulatorja, prikazan na sliki 1.02 A, drugi pa za ročaj. Po končanem testiranju se bo primerjalo rezultate obeh senzorjev in odločilo, če so res potrebne vse prostostne stopnje, ki jih ponuja senzor v glavi, ali so dovolj le tiste, ki jih meri senzor v ročaju. Senzor v glavi orodja je bil oblikovan tako, da so posamične meritve sil čimbolj ločene med seboj, torej da sila, ki deluje v eno smer ne vpliva na meritve v preostalih smereh. To je bilo doseženo z dvema elementoma, ki smo ju poimenovali malteški križ (slika 1.02 B) in aksialni pretvornik (slika 1.02 C). Vsak od teh elementov je potreben v dveh izvedbah, saj želimo meriti 6 prostostnih stopenj, 3 sile in 3 navore. Za visoko ločljivost pri merjenju teh prostostnih stopenj je potrebnih 24 uporovih lističev, ki se jih nalepi na elemente v pol-mostični konfiguraciji. To nam skupaj da 12 izhodov, ki jih merimo prek cRIO krmilnika in modulov za merjenje uporovih lističev, podjetja National Instruments. Za namene branja meritev je bilo v programskem okolju Labview napisanih več programov in sicer program za izračun kalibracijske matrike K, katere vrednosti so se uporabile pri preračunavanju surovih meritev v silo v programu namenjenemu uporabi v operacijski dvorani. Program bi izpisoval in izrisoval graf sil med operacijo, poleg tega pa bi tudi opozarjal, če je sila uporabljena na pacientu prevelika in lahko vodi v poškode. Poleg teh dveh programov je bil napisan tudi program za testiranje meritev. Te so bile opravljene s pomočjo testne postavitve, za kar smo uporabili kar kos aluminija pravokotne oblike, na katerega sta bila nalepljena uporova lističa v pol-mostični konfiguraciji. Kos aluminija je bil na eni strani vpet na mizo, na drugi pa je imel obešeno gugalnico za uteži. Sam material za orodje je bil izbran na podlagi cenovne dostopnosti in biokompatibilnosti ter možnosti parne sterilizacije, tako je bilo izbrano nerjaveče jeklo za notranjo konstrukcijo in PEEK plastika za ohišje senzorja. Lastnosti materiala so se upoštevale tudi pri oblikovanju, z namenom znižanja stroškov izdelave in združljivostjo z elementi prosto dostopnimi na trgu, npr. vijaki. Med načrtovanjem naslednjih verzij bi se lahko več stvari izboljšalo. Predvsem so pri trenutnem modelu orodja težave z sterilizacijo, saj je pri prototipni verziji potrebna uporaba kirurškega pokrivala. To samo po sebi ni težava, težava je, da bi lahko pokrivalo omejevalo gibanje senzorja in s tem kvarilo meritve. Poleg tega so tudi v samem programu napake, ki bi lahko vplivale na natančnost meritev. Tu govorimo o dejstvu, da je bila občutljivost merilnih gredi malteškega križa privzeta kot enakovredna med vsemi štirimi gredmi. Žal temu ni tako, saj sta gredi na notranji strani križa manj občutljivi, zaradi nezanemarljivo majhne debeline notranjega nosilnega obroča. To napako se lahko zlahka programsko popravi z dodatkom večih elementov v kalibracijsko matriko

Low-Cost Wearable Data Acquisition for Stroke Rehabilitation: A Proof-of-Concept Study on Accelerometry for Functional Task Assessment

Background: An increasingly aging society and consequently rising number of patients with poststroke-related neurological dysfunctions are forcing the rehabilitation field to adapt to ever-growing demands. Although clinical reasoning within rehabilitation is dependent on patient movement performance analysis, current strategies for monitoring rehabilitation progress are based on subjective time-consuming assessment scales, not often applied. Therefore, a need exists for efficient nonsubjective monitoring methods. Wearable monitoring devices are rapidly becoming a recognized option in rehabilitation for quantitative measures. Developments in sensors, embedded technology, and smart textile are driving rehabilitation to adopt an objective, seamless, efficient, and cost-effective delivery system. This study aims to assist physiotherapists’ clinical reasoning process through the incorporation of accelerometers as part of an electronic data acquisition system. Methods: A simple, low-cost, wearable device for poststroke rehabilitation progress monitoring was developed based on commercially available inertial sensors. Accelerometry data acquisition was performed for 4 first-time poststroke patients during a reach-press-return task. Results: Preliminary studies revealed acceleration profiles of stroke patients through which it is possible to quantitatively assess the functional movement, identify compensatory strategies, and help define proper movement. Conclusion: An inertial data acquisition system was designed and developed as a low-cost option for monitoring rehabilitation. The device seeks to ease the data-gathering process by physiotherapists to complement current practices with accelerometry profiles and aid the development of quantifiable methodologies and protocols.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio