Robotics 2010

Without a doubt, robotics has made an incredible progress over the last decades. The vision of developing, designing and creating technical systems that help humans to achieve hard and complex tasks, has intelligently led to an incredible variety of solutions. There are barely technical fields that could exhibit more interdisciplinary interconnections like robotics. This fact is generated by highly complex challenges imposed by robotic systems, especially the requirement on intelligent and autonomous operation. This book tries to give an insight into the evolutionary process that takes place in robotics. It provides articles covering a wide range of this exciting area. The progress of technical challenges and concepts may illuminate the relationship between developments that seem to be completely different at first sight. The robotics remains an exciting scientific and engineering field. The community looks optimistically ahead and also looks forward for the future challenges and new development

Lunar surface transportation systems conceptual design lunar base systems study Task 5.2

Conceptual designs for three categories of lunar surface transportation were described. The level of understanding for the capabilities and design approach varies between the vehicles representing these categories. A summary of the vehicle categories and current state of conceptual design is provided. Finally, a brief evaluation and discussion is provided for a systematic comparison of transportation categories and effectiveness in supporting transportation objectives

Study of the thermal processes for man-in- space

Heat transfer mechanism for cooling human body in spacecraft cabins and extravehicular pressurized suit

Design for Flooding: Māpunapuna Industrial Park.

D.Arch. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 2018

1998 NASA-ASEE-Stanford Summer Faculty Fellowship Program

This report presents the essential features and highlights of the 1998 Summer Faculty Fellowship Program at Ames Research Center and Dryden Flight Research Center in a comprehensive and concise form. Summary reports describing the fellows' technical accomplishments are enclosed in the attached technical report. The proposal for the 1999 NASA-ASEE-Stanford Summer Faculty Fellowship Program is being submitted under separate cover. Of the 31 participating fellows, 27 were at Ames and 4 were at Dryden. The Program's central feature is the active participation by each fellow in one of the key technical activities currently under way at either the NASA Ames Research Center or the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. The research topic is carefully chosen in advance to satisfy the criteria of: (1) importance to NASA, (2) high technical level, and (3) a good match to the interests, ability, and experience of the fellow, with the implied possibility of NASA-supported follow-on work at the fellow's home institution. Other features of the Summer Faculty Fellowship Program include participation by the fellows in workshops and seminars at Stanford, the Ames Research Center, and other off-site locations. These enrichment programs take place either directly or remotely, via the Stanford Center for Professional Development, and also involve specific interactions between fellows and Stanford faculty on technical and other academic subjects. A few, brief remarks are in order to summarize the fellows' opinions of the summer program. It is noteworthy that 90% of the fellows gave the NASA-Ames/Dryden- Stanford program an "excellent" rating and the remaining 10%, "good." Also, 100% would recommend the program to their colleagues as an effective means of furthering their professional development as teachers and researchers. Last, but not least, 87% of the fellows stated that a continuing research relationship with their NASA colleagues' organization probably would be maintained. Therefore, the NASA-ASEE- Ames/Dryden-Stanford Program has met its goals very well and every effort will be made to continue to do so in the future

Embodied decision biases during walking

For many years, research of psychology has viewed cognition as a sequential and modular process, with action being only as the output of a higher-level cognitive process. This is a problem when studying decision-making in everyday behavior, where lower-level motor control (such as walking) often needs to occur at the same time as higher-level decision processes (such as avoiding an obstacle to the left or right). For these situations, research in multitasking, embodiment, and specifically embodied decision-making suggests that information-processing at the level of motor control can influence decision-making through crosstalk between the processes and parallel feedback of action costs. This challenges the traditional view of decision-making as a modular and sequential process. Thus, we set out to investigate the assumed influences of lower-level actions on higher-level decisions when action and decision-making must run concurrently. To do that, we first implemented a novel experimental paradigm for studying decision-making during the whole-body movement of walking. Participants were asked to walk toward an obstacle and to concurrently decide to turn toward a target on the left or right for reward. We manipulated the action of walking toward the obstacle by predetermining the swing leg before turning in front of the obstacle. Results revealed that the body dynamics of concurrent action influenced decision-making. More specifically, participants preferred turning toward the side of the swing leg, even at the expense of receiving less reward. After validating the experimental paradigm, we investigated the type of embodied decision bias present in the walking task. Thereby, we focused on the bias by action costs during action. If the decision process receives parallel feedback during movement, the cost dynamics during movement should influence decision-making. In four experiments, we manipulated the action costs of turning under various conditions

Submerged Floating Tunnels: A review and study of their use for strait crossings

Se trata de desarrollar un estudio comparativo entre la construcción de túneles sumergidos y túneles flotante

Towards energy-efficient limit-cycle walking in biped service robots: design analysis, modeling and experimental study of biped robot actuated by linear motors

Researchers have been studying biped robots for many years, and, while many advances in the field have been accomplished, there still remain the challenge to transfer the existing solutions into real applications. The main issues are related to mobility and autonomy. In mobility, biped robots have evolved greatly, nevertheless they are still far from what a human can do in the work-site. Similarly, autonomy of biped platforms has been tackled on several different grounds, but its core problem still remains, and it is associated to energy issues. Because of these energy issues, lately the main attention has been redirected to the long term autonomy of the biped robotics platforms. For that, much effort has been made to develop new more energy-efficient biped robots. The GIMBiped project in Aalto University was established to tackle the previous issues in energy efficiency and mobility, through the study and implementation of dynamic and energy-efficient bipedal robotic waking. This thesis falls into the first studies needed to achieve the previous goal using the GIMBiped testbed, starting with a detailed analysis of the nonlinear dynamics of the target system, using a modeling and simulation tools. This work also presents an assessment of different control techniques based on Limit Cycle walking, carried out on a two-dimensional kneed bipedal simulator. Furthermore, a numerical continuation analysis of the mechanical parameters of the first GIMBiped prototype was performed, using the same approximated planar kneed biped model. This study is done to analyze the effect that such variations in the mechanical design parameters produce in the stability and energy-efficiency of the system.Finally, experiments were performed in the GIMBiped testbed. These experiments show the results of a hybrid control technique proposed by the author, which combines traditional ZMP-based walking approach with a Limit Cycle trajectory-following control. Furthermore the results of a pure ZMP-based type of control are also presented.

Pattern to process: methodological investigations into the formation and interpretation of spatial patterns in archaeological landscapes

My research has shown that the type of regional archaeological data analysis required by landscape archaeological approaches is an area where both theory and method are still in their infancy. High-level theories about the occurrence, scope, and effects of processes such as centralization, urbanization, and Hellenization/Romanization cannot yet be supported by middle range theory, which itself cannot be developed until the basic business of generating information of sufficient quality about the archaeological record has been tackled. Currently, archaeological data can be made to fit almost any interpretation generated, ultimately, on the basis of the ancient written sources. If we are to escape from this selfreinforcing cycle, research should perhaps no longer be focused on the classical themes generated by culture-historical approaches, but should seek its own proper field of operation. In the area of methods and methodology, I have demonstrated the pervasive influence of systematic research and visibility biases on the patterns that are present in the archaeological data generated over the past 50 years or so. There are mechanisms at work, both in the traditional archaeological interpretation of limited numbers of excavated sites and historical sources, and in the landscape archaeological approach, that cause the systematic undervaluation of unobtrusive remains. The significance of systematic biases in both the coarse site-based data sets resulting from desktop and ‘topographic’ studies and the more detailed site-based or ‘continuous’ data resulting from intensive field surveys has become much clearer as a result of the studies reported here. This should have practical consequences for the ways in which we study the existing archaeological record, plan future landscape archaeological research, and conduct field surveys. Site databases, the traditional starting point for regional archaeological studies, can no longer be taken at face value; rather, they require careful source criticism before being used to support specific arguments and hypotheses about settlement and land use dynamics. My studies have also shown that future data collection, whether through field survey, excavation or other methods, has to take place in a much more methodical manner if we are to produce data that are sufficiently standardized to be successfully exchanged, compared, and interpreted by others – guidelines for which should become embodied in an international standard defining ‘best practice in landscape archaeology’.

A 21st century campus aesthetic: photography, memory, performance

Master of Landscape ArchitectureDepartment of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community PlanningLaurence A. Clement, Jr.Advancements in technology, architecture, landscape, planning and design, and education are being pursued in the 21st century. Unfortunately, the campuses of higher education institutions, which promote such advancements, do not reflect the vision of innovation and creativity. Rather, the exterior environments on college campuses portray a 19th century gardenesque landscape aesthetic, which emphasizes a “park-like” appearance and discounts ecological functions. The Kansas State University campus evidences a gardenesque aesthetic that arguably is not performing socially or ecologically to its fullest potential. This Master’s Project and Report uses an open space on K-State’s campus, Coffman Commons, to challenge its aesthetic performance. Campus landscape aesthetic performance can be improved by designing a community amenity that celebrates ecological processes, especially regarding stormwater, and involves the campus community in the design process. A conceptual framework, rooted in the Vitruvian Triad, directs the project’s methodology. Methods of photojournalism and design are conducted. Photojournalism is used to collect aesthetic responses of Coffman Commons from K-State students, faculty, and staff. Their photographic and textual responses inform the design process. The photography method allows each participant to confer importance to aspects of the landscape that moved them. Through photographic coding and content analysis, commonalities are discovered in the landscape with which each person identifies. The participants’ written descriptions further inform an understanding of expectations and hopes for Coffman Commons. Influenced by the photographic research and guided by set goals and objectives, the design method allows the innovation of a contextually specific and personable design solution for Coffman Commons. The design exhibits two community amenities which invite social activity to Coffman Commons. The amenities incorporate visible water systems (rain gardens and dry swales) - increasing the ecological performance of the Commons, and provide research opportunities for piezoelectric technology. The design also features inscriptions which honor Dr. Coffman and K-State Distinguished Faculty. This Master’s Project and Report transforms a gardensque campus landscape into a high-performance landscape that responsibly manages stormwater and enriches user experience