Application of the Rotation Matrix Natural Invariants to Impedance Control of Rotational Parallel Robots

Force control of parallel robots with rotational degrees of freedom through impedance algorithms is considerably influenced by the representation method of the end-effector orientation. Using the natural invariants of the rotation matrix and the angular velocity vector in the impedance control law has some theoretical advantages, which derive from the Euclidean-geometric meaning of these entities. These benefits are particularly evident in case of robotic architectures with three rotational degrees of freedom (serial or parallel wrists with spherical motion). The behaviour of a 3-CPU parallel robot controlled by an impedance algorithm based on this concepts is assessed through multibody simulations, and the results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approach

A methodology for the Lower Limb Robotic Rehabilitation system

The overall goal of this thesis is to develop a new functional lower limb robot-assisted rehabilitation system for people with a paretic lower limb. A unilateral rehabilitation method is investigated, where the robot acts as an assistive device to provide the impaired leg therapeutic training through simulating the kinematics and dynamics of the ankle and lower leg movements. Foot trajectories of healthy subjects and post-stroke patients were recorded by a dedicated optical motion tracking system in a clinical gait measurement laboratory. A prototype 6 degrees of freedom parallel robot was initially built in order to verify capability of achieving singularity-free foot trajectories of healthy subjects in various exercises. This was then followed by building and testing another larger parallel robot to investigate the real-sized foot trajectories of patients. The overall results verify the designed robot’s capability in successfully tracking foot trajectories during different exercises. The thesis finally proposes a system of bilateral rehabilitation based on the concept of self-learning, where a passive parallel mechanism follows and records motion signatures of the patient’s healthy leg, and an active parallel mechanism provides motion for the impaired leg based on the kinematic mapping of the motion produced by the passive mechanism

Industrial Robotics

This book covers a wide range of topics relating to advanced industrial robotics, sensors and automation technologies. Although being highly technical and complex in nature, the papers presented in this book represent some of the latest cutting edge technologies and advancements in industrial robotics technology. This book covers topics such as networking, properties of manipulators, forward and inverse robot arm kinematics, motion path-planning, machine vision and many other practical topics too numerous to list here. The authors and editor of this book wish to inspire people, especially young ones, to get involved with robotic and mechatronic engineering technology and to develop new and exciting practical applications, perhaps using the ideas and concepts presented herein

Analytical Workspace, Kinematics, and Foot Force Based Stability of Hexapod Walking Robots

Many environments are inaccessible or hazardous for humans. Remaining debris after earthquake and fire, ship hulls, bridge installations, and oil rigs are some examples. For these environments, major effort is being placed into replacing humans with robots for manipulation purposes such as search and rescue, inspection, repair, and maintenance. Mobility, manipulability, and stability are the basic needs for a robot to traverse, maneuver, and manipulate in such irregular and highly obstructed terrain. Hexapod walking robots are as a salient solution because of their extra degrees of mobility, compared to mobile wheeled robots. However, it is essential for any multi-legged walking robot to maintain its stability over the terrain or under external stimuli. For manipulation purposes, the robot must also have a sufficient workspace to satisfy the required manipulability. Therefore, analysis of both workspace and stability becomes very important. An accurate and concise inverse kinematic solution for multi-legged robots is developed and validated. The closed-form solution of lateral and spatial reachable workspace of axially symmetric hexapod walking robots are derived and validated through simulation which aid in the design and optimization of the robot parameters and workspace. To control the stability of the robot, a novel stability margin based on the normal contact forces of the robot is developed and then modified to account for the geometrical and physical attributes of the robot. The margin and its modified version are validated by comparison with a widely known stability criterion through simulated and physical experiments. A control scheme is developed to integrate the workspace and stability of multi-legged walking robots resulting in a bio-inspired reactive control strategy which is validated experimentally

Modelling and Optimization of Wave Energy Converters

Wave energy offers a promising renewable energy source. This guide presents numerical modelling and optimisation methods for the development of wave energy converter technologies, from principles to applications. It covers oscillating water column technologies, theoretical wave power absorption, heaving point absorbers in single and multi-mode degrees of freedom, and the relatively hitherto unexplored topic of wave energy harvesting farms. It can be used as a specialist student textbook as well as a reference book for the design of wave energy harvesting systems, across a broad range of disciplines, including renewable energy, marine engineering, infrastructure engineering, hydrodynamics, ocean science, and mechatronics engineering. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.routledge.com/ has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

Nanomedicine applications mediated by electromagnetic fields

Recently, the introduction of nanotechnologies into medical applications has become more frequent due to the growing of several diseases originating from alteration of biological processes at molecular and nanoscale level (e.g. mutated genes, cell malfunction due to viruses or bacteria). The nanomedicine combines the innovation of the nanotechnology materials (shape and size of nm scale) to health care, providing new promising techniques for the diagnosis, the prevention, the tissue regeneration and therapeutic fields. Disorders like cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, cardiovascular problems or inflammatory diseases are serious challenges to be dealt with. For this reason researches are focusing their attention to the nanomaterials unique properties [Murty et al., 2013, Xia et al., 2009]. The progress in nanomedicine ranges from nanoparticles for molecular diagnostics, imaging and therapy to integrated medical nanosystems [Nune et al., 2009, Shi, 2009] to act at the cellular level inside the body. For a recent review on challenges, opportunities, and clinical applications in nanomedicine an interesting review is the one of Wicki et al. [Wicki et al., 2015]. Despite the concerns raised by the authors in their review, the expert opinion on clinical opportunities finds a generalized consensus on stimuli-responsive systems for targeting the compound (drug, gene, biomolecule) at the site of interest and on the use of lipid based nanosystems for the biocompatible platform to be used in clinical trials. In this scenario is placed the main activity of this Ph.D. thesis whose aim is to provide a multiscale and multidisciplinary approach to demonstrate the capability to activate lipid-based nanosystems by means of electromagnetic fields (EMFs). Specifically, the attention will be focused, on a first part, on the liposome-based systems mediated by EMF to provide a proof-of-concept of EMF stimuli-response systems for applications of drug delivery. This aspect will be approached both form a theoretic, technological and experimental point of view. Moreover, because proteins are considered a fundamental pattern as bio-sensors for signaling cell processes, a molecular dynamics simulation approach will be provided to study the interaction mechanisms between EMFs and proteins structures for potential protein activation

Abstracts of Papers Presented at the Seventy-Eight Annual Meeting, Virginia Academy of Science, May 23-26, 2000, Radford University, Radford, VA

This document is a list of the abstracts of papers presented at the seventy-eighth meeting of the Virginia Academy of Science that took place at Radford University on May 23 through the 26th, 2000

Intelligent Circuits and Systems

ICICS-2020 is the third conference initiated by the School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering at Lovely Professional University that explored recent innovations of researchers working for the development of smart and green technologies in the fields of Energy, Electronics, Communications, Computers, and Control. ICICS provides innovators to identify new opportunities for the social and economic benefits of society.　 This conference bridges the gap between academics and R&D institutions, social visionaries, and experts from all strata of society to present their ongoing research activities and foster research relations between them. It provides opportunities for the exchange of new ideas, applications, and experiences in the field of smart technologies and finding global partners for future collaboration. The ICICS-2020 was conducted in two broad categories, Intelligent Circuits & Intelligent Systems and Emerging Technologies in Electrical Engineering