423 research outputs found
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Improvement of acoustic emission technology for stress corrosion cracking
This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonThis thesis investigates the advancement of Acoustic emission (AE) monitoring techniques and analysis methods that could be applied in the field of Structural Health Monitoring (SHM), with an emphasis on the use of advanced AE techniques to detect and locate damage and their application on the monitoring of corrosion and Stress corrosion cracking (SCC) in complex metallic structures. The work was divided into three main areas of research, which are an investigation into using FE (Finite Element) generated delta-T mapping to locate experimental AE signals on complex structures, source location of AE signals generated by corrosion and an experimental investigation into SCC damage locations on a metallic specimen.Lloyd's Register Foundation, Brunel University London and the National Structural Integrity Research Centre (NSIRC
Cooperative Material Handling by Human and Robotic Agents:Module Development and System Synthesis
In this paper we present the results of a collaborative effort to design and implement a system for cooperative material handling by a small team of human and robotic agents in an unstructured indoor environment. Our approach makes fundamental use of human agents\u27 expertise for aspects of task planning, task monitoring, and error recovery. Our system is neither fully autonomous nor fully teleoperated. It is designed to make effective use of human abilities within the present state of the art of autonomous systems. It is designed to allow for and promote cooperative interaction between distributed agents with various capabilities and resources. Our robotic agents refer to systems which are each equipped with at least one sensing modality and which possess some capability for self-orientation and/or mobility. Our robotic agents are not required to be homogeneous with respect to either capabilities or function. Our research stresses both paradigms and testbed experimentation. Theory issues include the requisite coordination principles and techniques which are fundamental to the basic functioning of such a cooperative multi-agent system. We have constructed a testbed facility for experimenting with distributed multi-agent architectures. The required modular components of this testbed are currently operational and have been tested individually. Our current research focuses on the integration of agents in a scenario for cooperative material handling
Localization, Navigation and Activity Planning for Wheeled Agricultural Robots – A Survey
Source at:https://fruct.org/publications/volume-32/fruct32/High cost, time intensive work, labor shortages
and inefficient strategies have raised the need of employing
mobile robotics to fully automate agricultural tasks and fulfil
the requirements of precision agriculture. In order to perform
an agricultural task, the mobile robot goes through a sequence
of sub operations and integration of hardware and software
systems. Starting with localization, an agricultural robot uses
sensor systems to estimate its current position and orientation in
field, employs algorithms to find optimal paths and reach target
positions. It then uses techniques and models to perform feature
recognition and finally executes the agricultural task through
an end effector. This article, compiled through scrutinizing the
current literature, is a step-by-step approach of the strategies and
ways these sub-operations are performed and integrated together.
An analysis has also been done on the limitations in each sub
operation, available solutions, and the ongoing research focus
Characterisation of a nuclear cave environment utilising an autonomous swarm of heterogeneous robots
As nuclear facilities come to the end of their operational lifetime, safe decommissioning becomes a more prevalent issue. In many such facilities there exist ‘nuclear caves’. These caves constitute areas that may have been entered infrequently, or even not at all, since the construction of the facility. Due to this, the topography and nature of the contents of these nuclear caves may be unknown in a number of critical aspects, such as the location of dangerous substances or significant physical blockages to movement around the cave. In order to aid safe decommissioning, autonomous robotic systems capable of characterising nuclear cave environments are desired. The research put forward in this thesis seeks to answer the question: is it possible to utilise a heterogeneous swarm of autonomous robots for the remote characterisation of a nuclear cave environment? This is achieved through examination of the three key components comprising a heterogeneous swarm: sensing, locomotion and control. It will be shown that a heterogeneous swarm is not only capable of performing this task, it is preferable to a homogeneous swarm. This is due to the increased sensory and locomotive capabilities, coupled with more efficient explorational prowess when compared to a homogeneous swarm
A review of laser scanning for geological and geotechnical applications in underground mining
Laser scanning can provide timely assessments of mine sites despite adverse
challenges in the operational environment. Although there are several published
articles on laser scanning, there is a need to review them in the context of
underground mining applications. To this end, a holistic review of laser
scanning is presented including progress in 3D scanning systems, data
capture/processing techniques and primary applications in underground mines.
Laser scanning technology has advanced significantly in terms of mobility and
mapping, but there are constraints in coherent and consistent data collection
at certain mines due to feature deficiency, dynamics, and environmental
influences such as dust and water. Studies suggest that laser scanning has
matured over the years for change detection, clearance measurements and
structure mapping applications. However, there is scope for improvements in
lithology identification, surface parameter measurements, logistic tracking and
autonomous navigation. Laser scanning has the potential to provide real-time
solutions but the lack of infrastructure in underground mines for data
transfer, geodetic networking and processing capacity remain limiting factors.
Nevertheless, laser scanners are becoming an integral part of mine automation
thanks to their affordability, accuracy and mobility, which should support
their widespread usage in years to come
Seismic events miss important kinematically governed grain scale mechanisms during shear failure of porous rock
Catastrophic failure in brittle, porous materials initiates when smaller-scale fractures localise along an emergent fault zone in a transition from stable crack growth to dynamic rupture. Due to the rapid nature of this critical transition, the precise micro-mechanisms involved are poorly understood and difficult to image directly. Here, we observe these micro-mechanisms directly by controlling the microcracking rate to slow down the transition in a unique rock deformation experiment that combines acoustic monitoring (sound) with contemporaneous in-situ x-ray imaging (vision) of the microstructure. We find seismic amplitude is not always correlated with local imaged strain; large local strain often occurs with small acoustic emissions, and vice versa. Local strain is predominantly aseismic, explained in part by grain/crack rotation along an emergent shear zone, and the shear fracture energy calculated from local dilation and shear strain on the fault is half of that inferred from the bulk deformation
Multimodal machine learning for intelligent mobility
Scientific problems are solved by finding the optimal solution for a specific task. Some problems can be solved analytically while other problems are solved using data driven methods. The use of digital technologies to improve the transportation of people and goods, which is referred to as intelligent mobility, is one of the principal beneficiaries of data driven solutions. Autonomous vehicles are at the heart of the developments that propel Intelligent Mobility. Due to the high dimensionality and complexities involved in real-world environments, it needs to become commonplace for intelligent mobility to use data-driven solutions. As it is near impossible to program decision making logic for every eventuality manually. While recent developments of data-driven solutions such as deep learning facilitate machines to learn effectively from large datasets, the application of techniques within safety-critical systems such as driverless cars remain scarce.Autonomous vehicles need to be able to make context-driven decisions autonomously in different environments in which they operate. The recent literature on driverless vehicle research is heavily focused only on road or highway environments but have discounted pedestrianized areas and indoor environments. These unstructured environments tend to have more clutter and change rapidly over time. Therefore, for intelligent mobility to make a significant impact on human life, it is vital to extend the application beyond the structured environments. To further advance intelligent mobility, researchers need to take cues from multiple sensor streams, and multiple machine learning algorithms so that decisions can be robust and reliable. Only then will machines indeed be able to operate in unstructured and dynamic environments safely. Towards addressing these limitations, this thesis investigates data driven solutions towards crucial building blocks in intelligent mobility. Specifically, the thesis investigates multimodal sensor data fusion, machine learning, multimodal deep representation learning and its application of intelligent mobility. This work demonstrates that mobile robots can use multimodal machine learning to derive driver policy and therefore make autonomous decisions.To facilitate autonomous decisions necessary to derive safe driving algorithms, we present an algorithm for free space detection and human activity recognition. Driving these decision-making algorithms are specific datasets collected throughout this study. They include the Loughborough London Autonomous Vehicle dataset, and the Loughborough London Human Activity Recognition dataset. The datasets were collected using an autonomous platform design and developed in house as part of this research activity. The proposed framework for Free-Space Detection is based on an active learning paradigm that leverages the relative uncertainty of multimodal sensor data streams (ultrasound and camera). It utilizes an online learning methodology to continuously update the learnt model whenever the vehicle experiences new environments. The proposed Free Space Detection algorithm enables an autonomous vehicle to self-learn, evolve and adapt to new environments never encountered before. The results illustrate that online learning mechanism is superior to one-off training of deep neural networks that require large datasets to generalize to unfamiliar surroundings. The thesis takes the view that human should be at the centre of any technological development related to artificial intelligence. It is imperative within the spectrum of intelligent mobility where an autonomous vehicle should be aware of what humans are doing in its vicinity. Towards improving the robustness of human activity recognition, this thesis proposes a novel algorithm that classifies point-cloud data originated from Light Detection and Ranging sensors. The proposed algorithm leverages multimodality by using the camera data to identify humans and segment the region of interest in point cloud data. The corresponding 3-dimensional data was converted to a Fisher Vector Representation before being classified by a deep Convolutional Neural Network. The proposed algorithm classifies the indoor activities performed by a human subject with an average precision of 90.3%. When compared to an alternative point cloud classifier, PointNet[1], [2], the proposed framework out preformed on all classes. The developed autonomous testbed for data collection and algorithm validation, as well as the multimodal data-driven solutions for driverless cars, is the major contributions of this thesis. It is anticipated that these results and the testbed will have significant implications on the future of intelligent mobility by amplifying the developments of intelligent driverless vehicles.</div
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