Design and Experimental Evaluation of a Hybrid Wheeled-Leg Exploration Rover in the Context of Multi-Robot Systems

With this dissertation, the electromechanic design, implementation, locomotion control, and experimental evaluation of a novel type of hybrid wheeled-leg exploration rover are presented. The actively articulated suspension system of the rover is the basis for advanced locomotive capabilities of a mobile exploration robot. The developed locomotion control system abstracts the complex kinematics of the suspension system and provides platform control inputs usable by autonomous behaviors or human remote control. Design and control of the suspension system as well as experimentation with the resulting rover are in the focus of this thesis. The rover is part of a heterogeneous modular multi-robot exploration system with an aspired sample return mission to the lunar south pole or currently hard-to-access regions on Mars. The multi-robot system pursues a modular and reconfigurable design methodology. It combines heterogeneous robots with different locomotion capabilities for enhanced overall performance. Consequently, the design of the multi-robot system is presented as the frame of the rover developments. The requirements for the rover design originating from the deployment in a modular multi-robot system are accentuated and summarized in this thesis

Volume 1 – Symposium

We are pleased to present the conference proceedings for the 12th edition of the International Fluid Power Conference (IFK). The IFK is one of the world’s most significant scientific conferences on fluid power control technology and systems. It offers a common platform for the presentation and discussion of trends and innovations to manufacturers, users and scientists. The Chair of Fluid-Mechatronic Systems at the TU Dresden is organizing and hosting the IFK for the sixth time. Supporting hosts are the Fluid Power Association of the German Engineering Federation (VDMA), Dresdner Verein zur Förderung der Fluidtechnik e. V. (DVF) and GWT-TUD GmbH. The organization and the conference location alternates every two years between the Chair of Fluid-Mechatronic Systems in Dresden and the Institute for Fluid Power Drives and Systems in Aachen. The symposium on the first day is dedicated to presentations focused on methodology and fundamental research. The two following conference days offer a wide variety of application and technology orientated papers about the latest state of the art in fluid power. It is this combination that makes the IFK a unique and excellent forum for the exchange of academic research and industrial application experience. A simultaneously ongoing exhibition offers the possibility to get product information and to have individual talks with manufacturers. The theme of the 12th IFK is “Fluid Power – Future Technology”, covering topics that enable the development of 5G-ready, cost-efficient and demand-driven structures, as well as individual decentralized drives. Another topic is the real-time data exchange that allows the application of numerous predictive maintenance strategies, which will significantly increase the availability of fluid power systems and their elements and ensure their improved lifetime performance. We create an atmosphere for casual exchange by offering a vast frame and cultural program. This includes a get-together, a conference banquet, laboratory festivities and some physical activities such as jogging in Dresden’s old town.:Group A: Materials Group B: System design & integration Group C: Novel system solutions Group D: Additive manufacturing Group E: Components Group F: Intelligent control Group G: Fluids Group H | K: Pumps Group I | L: Mobile applications Group J: Fundamental

Bathrooms, bubbles and systems : archigram and the landscapes of transience

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2001.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 168-175).The dissertation studies the Archigram, the primary avant-garde architectural publication in Britain from 1961 to 1970, and the related avant-garde practices that engendered the high-tech movement. Drawing on the histories of technology, architecture and popular culture, the study explores the roots of architecture's foray into the realm of electronic information. By challenging the machine-based model of technology that had defined modernist architectural theory and production, my thesis unfolds, the publishers of the Archigram struggled to reconcile architectural form with emerging technologies and to represent visually the dissolution of the artifact into a landscape of complex and indeterminate systems. This attempt to conceive an essentially material object, such as a house, in a world viewed as a series of impulses was among the earliest architectural explorations of the dilemmas introduced by electronic culture. Using the concept of mobility and flux as a unifying thread, the dissertation examines the strategy for developing an architecture based in the practice of representation and of dissemination. The desire to set structures in motion by liberating them from the anchor of urban infrastructures required a reconsideration of the architectural object. For architecture to fully abandon its traditional role as environmental hardware, the conflict between the processes of indeterminacy and the dependence of those processes on a closed system would have to be overcome.(cont.) This tension between the physical and the dematerialized led from megastructural networks to self-contained skins, and finally to the disintegration of architectural objects into a technologically driven version of the Picturesque. In the ultimate merging of the environmental domain with that of information, architecture would become its absence, marked in the landscape only as the residue of a nomadic culture of information.by Hadas A. Steiner.Ph.D

Vision 21: Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering in the Era of Cyberspace

The symposium Vision-21: Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering in the Era of Cyberspace was held at the NASA Lewis Research Center on March 30-31, 1993. The purpose of the symposium was to simulate interdisciplinary thinking in the sciences and technologies which will be required for exploration and development of space over the next thousand years. The keynote speakers were Hans Moravec, Vernor Vinge, Carol Stoker, and Myron Krueger. The proceedings consist of transcripts of the invited talks and the panel discussion by the invited speakers, summaries of workshop sessions, and contributed papers by the attendees

Advanced Automation for Space Missions

The feasibility of using machine intelligence, including automation and robotics, in future space missions was studied

Geotechnical Engineering for the Preservation of Monuments and Historic Sites III

The conservation of monuments and historic sites is one of the most challenging problems facing modern civilization. It involves, in inextricable patterns, factors belonging to different fields (cultural, humanistic, social, technical, economical, administrative) and the requirements of safety and use appear to be (or often are) in conflict with the respect of the integrity of the monuments. The complexity of the topic is such that a shared framework of reference is still lacking among art historians, architects, structural and geotechnical engineers. The complexity of the subject is such that a shared frame of reference is still lacking among art historians, architects, architectural and geotechnical engineers. And while there are exemplary cases of an integral approach to each building element with its static and architectural function, as a material witness to the culture and construction techniques of the original historical period, there are still examples of uncritical reliance on modern technology leading to the substitution from earlier structures to new ones, preserving only the iconic look of the original monument. Geotechnical Engineering for the Preservation of Monuments and Historic Sites III collects the contributions to the eponymous 3rd International ISSMGE TC301 Symposium (Naples, Italy, 22-24 June 2022). The papers cover a wide range of topics, which include: 　 - Principles of conservation, maintenance strategies, case histories - The knowledge: investigations and monitoring - Seismic risk, site effects, soil structure interaction - Effects of urban development and tunnelling on built heritage - Preservation of diffuse heritage: soil instability, subsidence, environmental damages The present volume aims at geotechnical engineers and academics involved in the preservation of monuments and historic sites worldwide

Gesture and Speech in Interaction - 4th edition (GESPIN 4)

International audienceThe fourth edition of Gesture and Speech in Interaction (GESPIN) was held in Nantes, France. With more than 40 papers, these proceedings show just what a flourishing field of enquiry gesture studies continues to be. The keynote speeches of the conference addressed three different aspects of multimodal interaction:gesture and grammar, gesture acquisition, and gesture and social interaction. In a talk entitled Qualitiesof event construal in speech and gesture: Aspect and tense, Alan Cienki presented an ongoing researchproject on narratives in French, German and Russian, a project that focuses especially on the verbal andgestural expression of grammatical tense and aspect in narratives in the three languages. Jean-MarcColletta's talk, entitled Gesture and Language Development: towards a unified theoretical framework,described the joint acquisition and development of speech and early conventional and representationalgestures. In Grammar, deixis, and multimodality between code-manifestation and code-integration or whyKendon's Continuum should be transformed into a gestural circle, Ellen Fricke proposed a revisitedgrammar of noun phrases that integrates gestures as part of the semiotic and typological codes of individuallanguages. From a pragmatic and cognitive perspective, Judith Holler explored the use ofgaze and hand gestures as means of organizing turns at talk as well as establishing common ground in apresentation entitled On the pragmatics of multi-modal face-to-face communication: Gesture, speech andgaze in the coordination of mental states and social interaction.Among the talks and posters presented at the conference, the vast majority of topics related, quitenaturally, to gesture and speech in interaction - understood both in terms of mapping of units in differentsemiotic modes and of the use of gesture and speech in social interaction. Several presentations explored the effects of impairments(such as diseases or the natural ageing process) on gesture and speech. The communicative relevance ofgesture and speech and audience-design in natural interactions, as well as in more controlled settings liketelevision debates and reports, was another topic addressed during the conference. Some participantsalso presented research on first and second language learning, while others discussed the relationshipbetween gesture and intonation. While most participants presented research on gesture and speech froman observer's perspective, be it in semiotics or pragmatics, some nevertheless focused on another importantaspect: the cognitive processes involved in language production and perception. Last but not least,participants also presented talks and posters on the computational analysis of gestures, whether involvingexternal devices (e.g. mocap, kinect) or concerning the use of specially-designed computer software forthe post-treatment of gestural data. Importantly, new links were made between semiotics and mocap data

Safety and Reliability - Safe Societies in a Changing World

The contributions cover a wide range of methodologies and application areas for safety and reliability that contribute to safe societies in a changing world. These methodologies and applications include: - foundations of risk and reliability assessment and management - mathematical methods in reliability and safety - risk assessment - risk management - system reliability - uncertainty analysis - digitalization and big data - prognostics and system health management - occupational safety - accident and incident modeling - maintenance modeling and applications - simulation for safety and reliability analysis - dynamic risk and barrier management - organizational factors and safety culture - human factors and human reliability - resilience engineering - structural reliability - natural hazards - security - economic analysis in risk managemen

A History of Materials and Technologies Development

The purpose of the book is to provide the students with the text that presents an introductory knowledge about the development of materials and technologies and includes the most commonly available information on human development. The idea of the publication has been generated referring to the materials taken from the organic and non-organic evolution of nature. The suggested texts might be found a purposeful tool for the University students proceeding with studying engineering due to the fact that all subjects in this particular field more or less have to cover the history and development of the studied object. It is expected that studying different materials and technologies will help the students with a better understanding of driving forces, positive and negative consequences of technological development, etc