A Rapidly Reconfigurable Robotics Workcell and Its Applictions for Tissue Engineering

This article describes the development of a component-based technology robot system that can be rapidly configured to perform a specific manufacturing task. The system is conceived with standard and inter-operable components including actuator modules, rigid link connectors and tools that can be assembled into robots with arbitrary geometry and degrees of freedom. The reconfigurable "plug-and-play" robot kinematic and dynamic modeling algorithms are developed. These algorithms are the basis for the control and simulation of reconfigurable robots. The concept of robot configuration optimization is introduced for the effective use of the rapidly reconfigurable robots. Control and communications of the workcell components are facilitated by a workcell-wide TCP/IP network and device level CAN-bus networks. An object-oriented simulation and visualization software for the reconfigurable robot is developed based on Windows NT. Prototypes of the robot systems configured to perform 3D contour following task and the positioning task are constructed and demonstrated. Applications of such systems for biomedical tissue scaffold fabrication are considered.Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA

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

Controllo di robot omnidirezionale tramite Ethercat

La tesi tratta lo sviluppo del software di controllo della piattaforma omnidirezionale del Barcellona Mobile Manipulator. Lo sviluppo del progetto ha richiesto: a) lo studio della comunicazione EtherCAT tra il PC di controllo e i driver dei motori; b) lo sviluppo di un opportuno master EtherCAT; c ) lo sviluppo di software sia per il controllo in tempo reale mediante un joystick che per il tracking di una traiettoria pianificat

Visual Servoing in Robotics

Visual servoing is a well-known approach to guide robots using visual information. Image processing, robotics, and control theory are combined in order to control the motion of a robot depending on the visual information extracted from the images captured by one or several cameras. With respect to vision issues, a number of issues are currently being addressed by ongoing research, such as the use of different types of image features (or different types of cameras such as RGBD cameras), image processing at high velocity, and convergence properties. As shown in this book, the use of new control schemes allows the system to behave more robustly, efficiently, or compliantly, with fewer delays. Related issues such as optimal and robust approaches, direct control, path tracking, or sensor fusion are also addressed. Additionally, we can currently find visual servoing systems being applied in a number of different domains. This book considers various aspects of visual servoing systems, such as the design of new strategies for their application to parallel robots, mobile manipulators, teleoperation, and the application of this type of control system in new areas

The Complete Reference (Volume 4)

This is the fourth volume of the successful series Robot Operating Systems: The Complete Reference, providing a comprehensive overview of robot operating systems (ROS), which is currently the main development framework for robotics applications, as well as the latest trends and contributed systems. The book is divided into four parts: Part 1 features two papers on navigation, discussing SLAM and path planning. Part 2 focuses on the integration of ROS into quadcopters and their control. Part 3 then discusses two emerging applications for robotics: cloud robotics, and video stabilization. Part 4 presents tools developed for ROS; the first is a practical alternative to the roslaunch system, and the second is related to penetration testing. This book is a valuable resource for ROS users and wanting to learn more about ROS capabilities and features.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Design and implementation of a domestic disinfection robot based on 2D lidar

In the battle against the Covid-19, the demand for disinfection robots in China and other countries has increased rapidly. Manual disinfection is time-consuming, laborious, and has safety hazards. For large public areas, the deployment of human resources and the effectiveness of disinfection face significant challenges. Using robots for disinfection therefore becomes an ideal choice. At present, most disinfection robots on the market use ultraviolet or disinfectant to disinfect, or both. They are mostly put into service in hospitals, airports, hotels, shopping malls, office buildings, or other places with daily high foot traffic. These robots are often built-in with automatic navigation and intelligent recognition, ensuring day-to-day operations. However, they usually are expensive and need regular maintenance. The sweeping robots and window-cleaning robots have been put into massive use, but the domestic disinfection robots have not gained much attention. The health and safety of a family are also critical in epidemic prevention. This thesis proposes a low-cost, 2D lidar-based domestic disinfection robot and implements it. The robot possesses dry fog disinfection, ultraviolet disinfection, and air cleaning. The thesis is mainly engaged in the following work: The design and implementation of the control board of the robot chassis are elaborated in this thesis. The control board uses STM32F103ZET6 as the MCU. Infrared sensors are used in the robot to prevent from falling over and walk along the wall. The Ultrasonic sensor is installed in the front of the chassis to detect and avoid the path's obstacles. Photoelectric switches are used to record the information when the potential collisions happen in the early phase of mapping. The disinfection robot adopts a centrifugal fan and HEPA filter for air purification. The ceramic atomizer is used to break up the disinfectant's molecular structure to produce the dry fog. The UV germicidal lamp is installed at the bottom of the chassis to disinfect the ground. The robot uses an air pollution sensor to estimate the air quality. Motors are used to drive the chassis to move. The lidar transmits its data to the navigation board directly through the wires and the edge-board contact on the control board. The control board also manages the atmosphere LEDs, horn, press-buttons, battery, LDC, and temperature-humidity sensor. It exchanges data with and executes the command from the navigation board and manages all kinds of peripheral devices. Thus, it is the administrative unit of the disinfection robot. Moreover, the robot is designed in a way that reduces costs while ensuring quality. The control board’s embedded software is realized and analyzed in the thesis. The communication protocol that links the control board and the navigation board is implemented in software. Standard commands, specific commands, error handling, and the data packet format are detailed and processed in software. The software effectively drives and manages the peripheral devices. SLAMWARE CORE is used as the navigation board to complete the system design. System tests like disinfecting, mapping, navigating, and anti-falling were performed to polish and adjust the structure and functionalities of the robot. Raspberry Pi is also used with the control board to explore 2D Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) algorithms, such as Hector, Karto, and Cartographer, in Robot Operating System (ROS) for the robot’s further development. The thesis is written from the perspective of engineering practice and proposes a feasible design for a domestic disinfection robot. Hardware, embedded software, and system tests are covered in the thesis

Proceedings of the NASA Conference on Space Telerobotics, volume 1

The theme of the Conference was man-machine collaboration in space. Topics addressed include: redundant manipulators; man-machine systems; telerobot architecture; remote sensing and planning; navigation; neural networks; fundamental AI research; and reasoning under uncertainty

Proceedings of the NASA Conference on Space Telerobotics, volume 5

Papers presented at the NASA Conference on Space Telerobotics are compiled. The theme of the conference was man-machine collaboration in space. The conference provided a forum for researchers and engineers to exchange ideas on the research and development required for the application of telerobotics technology to the space systems planned for the 1990's and beyond. Volume 5 contains papers related to the following subject areas: robot arm modeling and control, special topics in telerobotics, telerobotic space operations, manipulator control, flight experiment concepts, manipulator coordination, issues in artificial intelligence systems, and research activities at the Johnson Space Center

Ground Robotic Hand Applications for the Space Program study (GRASP)

This document reports on a NASA-STDP effort to address research interests of the NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC) through a study entitled, Ground Robotic-Hand Applications for the Space Program (GRASP). The primary objective of the GRASP study was to identify beneficial applications of specialized end-effectors and robotic hand devices for automating any ground operations which are performed at the Kennedy Space Center. Thus, operations for expendable vehicles, the Space Shuttle and its components, and all payloads were included in the study. Typical benefits of automating operations, or augmenting human operators performing physical tasks, include: reduced costs; enhanced safety and reliability; and reduced processing turnaround time