A general purpose stabilised balloon platform

The development of a three axis stabilized balloon platform capable of being operated in three modes of increasing accuracy is discussed. The system relies on angular motion sensing for primary feedback with linear accelerometers, magnetometers, and a star sensor for positional information. When under primary control the system will acquire and stabilize on any accessible part of the celestial sphere. A video verification system is included to provide pointing confirmation. Under improved accuracy control, the star sensor is used to lock onto a target star

Learning to Navigate Cloth using Haptics

We present a controller that allows an arm-like manipulator to navigate deformable cloth garments in simulation through the use of haptic information. The main challenge of such a controller is to avoid getting tangled in, tearing or punching through the deforming cloth. Our controller aggregates force information from a number of haptic-sensing spheres all along the manipulator for guidance. Based on haptic forces, each individual sphere updates its target location, and the conflicts that arise between this set of desired positions is resolved by solving an inverse kinematic problem with constraints. Reinforcement learning is used to train the controller for a single haptic-sensing sphere, where a training run is terminated (and thus penalized) when large forces are detected due to contact between the sphere and a simplified model of the cloth. In simulation, we demonstrate successful navigation of a robotic arm through a variety of garments, including an isolated sleeve, a jacket, a shirt, and shorts. Our controller out-performs two baseline controllers: one without haptics and another that was trained based on large forces between the sphere and cloth, but without early termination.Comment: Supplementary video available at https://youtu.be/iHqwZPKVd4A. Related publications http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~karenliu/Robotic_dressing.htm

System for measuring Reynolds in a turbulently flowing fluid

A system for measuring momentum flux in a turbulently flowing fluid includes: a sensing apparatus for dynamically sensing the mainstream and the cross velocity components of the fluid, a transducer operative to provide two electrical output signals representative of the velocity components in the mainstream and in the cross direction, and signal processors to derive the Reynolds stress wave and the Reynolds stress

A physical model suggests that hip-localized balance sense in birds improves state estimation in perching: implications for bipedal robots

In addition to a vestibular system, birds uniquely have a balance-sensing organ within the pelvis, called the lumbosacral organ (LSO). The LSO is well developed in terrestrial birds, possibly to facilitate balance control in perching and terrestrial locomotion. No previous studies have quantified the functional benefits of the LSO for balance. We suggest two main benefits of hip-localized balance sense: reduced sensorimotor delay and improved estimation of foot-ground acceleration. We used system identification to test the hypothesis that hip-localized balance sense improves estimates of foot acceleration compared to a head-localized sense, due to closer proximity to the feet. We built a physical model of a standing guinea fowl perched on a platform, and used 3D accelerometers at the hip and head to replicate balance sense by the LSO and vestibular systems. The horizontal platform was attached to the end effector of a 6 DOF robotic arm, allowing us to apply perturbations to the platform analogous to motions of a compliant branch. We also compared state estimation between models with low and high neck stiffness. Cross-correlations revealed that foot-to-hip sensing delays were shorter than foot-to-head, as expected. We used multi-variable output error state-space (MOESP) system identification to estimate foot-ground acceleration as a function of hip- and head-localized sensing, individually and combined. Hip-localized sensors alone provided the best state estimates, which were not improved when fused with head-localized sensors. However, estimates from head-localized sensors improved with higher neck stiffness. Our findings support the hypothesis that hip-localized balance sense improves the speed and accuracy of foot state estimation compared to head-localized sense. The findings also suggest a role of neck muscles for active sensing for balance control: increased neck stiffness through muscle co-contraction can improve the utility of vestibular signals. Our engineering approach provides, to our knowledge, the first quantitative evidence for functional benefits of the LSO balance sense in birds. The findings support notions of control modularity in birds, with preferential vestibular sense for head stability and gaze, and LSO for body balance control,respectively. The findings also suggest advantages for distributed and active sensing for agile locomotion in compliant bipedal robots

Mueller matrix polarimetry of plasmon resonant silver nano-rods: biomedical prospects

Fundamental understanding of the light-matter interaction in the context of nano-particles is immensely bene- fited by the study of geometry dependent tunable Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance (LSPR) and has been demonstrated to have potential applications in various areas of science. The polarization characteristics of LSPR in addition to spectroscopic tuning can be suitably exploited in such systems as contrast enhancement mech- anisms and control parameters. Such polarization characteristics like diattenuation and retardance have been studied here using a novel combination of Muller-matrix polarimetry with the T-matrix matrix approach for silver nano-rods to show unprecedented control and sensitivity to local refractive index variations. The study carried out over various aspect ratios for a constant equal volume sphere radius shows the presence of longitu- dinal (dipolar and quadrupolar) and transverse (dipolar) resonances; arising due to differential contribution of polarizabilities in two directions. The overlap regions of these resonances and the resonances themselves exhibit enhanced retardance and diattenuation respectively. The spectral and amplitude tunability of these polarimetric parameters through the aspect ratios to span from the minimum to maximum ([0, 1] in the case of diattenuation and [0, {\pi}] in the case of retardance) presents a novel result that could be used to tailor systems for study of biological media. On the other hand, the high sensitivity of diattenuation dip (caused by equal contribution of polarizabilities) could be possibly used for medium characterization and bio-sensing or bio-imaging studies.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, Proceedings of the Saratov Fall Meeting, 201

Ultrahigh Enhancement of Electromagnetic Fields by Exciting Localized with Extended Surface Plasmons

Excitation of localized surface plasmons (LSPs) of metal nanoparticles (NPs) residing on a flat metal film has attracted great attentions recently due to the enhanced electromagnetic (EM) fields found to be higher than the case of NPs on a dielectric substrate. In the present work, it is shown that even much higher enhancement of EM fields is obtained by exciting the LSPs through extended surface plasmons (ESPs) generated at the metallic film surface using the Kretschmann-Raether configuration. We show that the largest EM field enhancement and the highest surface-enhanced fluorescence intensity are obtained when the incidence angle is the ESP resonance angle of the underlying metal film. The finite-difference time-domain simulations indicate that excitation of LSPs using ESPs can generate 1-3 orders higher EM field intensity than direct excitation of the LSPs using incidence from free space. The ultrahigh enhancement is attributed to the strong confinement of the ESP waves in the vertical direction. The drastically intensified EM fields are significant for highly-sensitive refractive index sensing, surface-enhanced spectroscopies, and enhancing the efficiency of optoelectronic devices.Comment: 25 pages, 5 figures and supplimentary informatio