Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes (supplement 405)

This bibliography lists 225 reports, articles and other documents introduced into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information System during Sep. 1995. Subject coverage includes: aerospace medicine and physiology, life support systems and man/system technology, protective clothing, exobiology and extraterrestrial life, planetary biology, and flight crew behavior and performance

Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes (supplement 324)

This bibliography lists 200 reports, articles and other documents introduced into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information System during May, 1989. Subject coverage includes: aerospace medicine and psychology, life support systems and controlled environments, safety equipment, exobiology and extraterrestrial life, and flight crew behavior and performance

Aerospace Medicine and Biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes (supplement 274)

This bibliography lists 128 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in July 1985

Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 218, April 1981

This bibliography lists 161 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in March 1981

Aerospace Medicine and Biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes

This bibliography lists 417 reports, articles and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in March 1985

Investigations into the design of a wheelchair-mounted rehabilitation robotic manipulator

This research describes the steps towards the development of a low-cost wheelchair-mounted manipulator for use by the physically disabled and elderly. A detailed review of world rehabilitation robotics research has been conducted, covering fifty-six projects. This identified the main areas of research, their scope and results. From this review, a critical investigation of past and present wheelchair-mounted robotic arm projects was undertaken. This led to the formulation of the key design parameters in a final design specification. The results of a questionnaire survey of fifty electric wheelchair users is presented, which has for the first time established the needs and abilities of this disability group. An analysis of muscle type actuators, which mimic human muscle, is presented and their application to robotics, orthotics and prosthetics is given. A new type of rotary pneumatic muscle actuator, the flexator, is introduced and through extensive testing its performance characteristics elucidated. A review of direct-drive rotary pneumatic, hydraulic and electrical actuators has highlighted their relative performance characteristics and has rated their efficiency in terms of their peak torque to motor mass ratio, Tp/MM. From this, the flexator actuator has been shown to have a higher Tp/MM ratio than most conventional actuators. A novel kinematic arrangement is presented which combines the best features of the SCARA and vertically articulated industrial robot geometries, to form the 'Scariculated' arm design. The most appropriate actuator for each joint of this hybrid manipulator was selected, based on the criteria of high Tp/MM ratio, low cost, safety and compatibility. The final design incorporates conventional pneumatic linear double-acting cylinders, a vane type rotary actuator, two dual flexator actuators, and stepping motors for the fme control of the wrist/end effector. An ACSL simulation program has been developed which uses mass flow rate equations, based on one-dimensional compressible flow theory and suppressed critical pressure ratios, to simulate the dual flexator actuator. Theoretical and empirical data is compared and shows a high degree of correlation between results. Finally, the design and development work on two prototypes is discussed. The latest prototype consists of a five-axis manipulator whose pneumatic joints are driven by pulse width modulated solenoid valves. An 8051 microprocessor with proportional error feedback modilles the mark to space ratio of the PWM signal in proportion to the angular error of the joints. This enables control over individual joint speeds, reprogrammable memory locations and position monitoring of each joint. The integration of rehabilitation robotic manipulators into the daily lives of the physically disabled and elderly will significantly influence the role of personal rehabilitation in the next century

Multi-Robot Systems: Challenges, Trends and Applications

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue entitled “Multi-Robot Systems: Challenges, Trends, and Applications” that was published in Applied Sciences. This Special Issue collected seventeen high-quality papers that discuss the main challenges of multi-robot systems, present the trends to address these issues, and report various relevant applications. Some of the topics addressed by these papers are robot swarms, mission planning, robot teaming, machine learning, immersive technologies, search and rescue, and social robotics

Aerospace medicine and biology: A cumulative index to a continuing bibliography (supplement 306)

This publication is a cumulative index to the abstracts contained in the Supplements 294 through 305 of Aerospace Medicine and Biology: A Continuing Bibliography. It includes seven indexes - subject, personal author, corporate source, foreign technology, contract number, report number, and accession number