Vision-Based Soft Mobile Robot Inspired by Silkworm Body and Movement Behavior

Designing an inexpensive, low-noise, safe for individual, mobile robot with an efficient vision system represents a challenge. This paper proposes a soft mobile robot inspired by the silkworm body structure and moving behavior. Two identical pneumatic artificial muscles (PAM) have been used to design the body of the robot by sewing the PAMs longitudinally. The proposed robot moves forward, left, and right in steps depending on the relative contraction ratio of the actuators. The connection between the two artificial muscles gives the steering performance at different air pressures of each PAM. A camera (eye) integrated into the proposed soft robot helps it to control its motion and direction. The silkworm soft robot detects a specific object and tracks it continuously. The proposed vision system is used to help with automatic tracking based on deep learning platforms with real-time live IR camera. The object detection platform, named, YOLOv3 is used effectively to solve the challenge of detecting high-speed tiny objects like Tennis balls. The model is trained with a dataset consisting of images of   Tennis balls. The work is simulated with Google Colab and then tested in real-time on an embedded device mated with a fast GPU called Jetson Nano development kit. The presented object follower robot is cheap, fast-tracking, and friendly to the environment. The system reaches a 99% accuracy rate during training and testing. Validation results are obtained and recorded to prove the effectiveness of this novel silkworm soft robot. The research contribution is designing and implementing a soft mobile robot with an effective vision system

Inclusion of chemical effect in a fully coupled THM finite element code

Bentonite-rich clays can be used as a buffer / backfill material in deep geological repositories for nuclear waste. The prediction of the long-term performance of a buffer / backfill in such a complex environment, where the temperature, humidity and chemistry of water change, requires a fully thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical (THMC) coupled numerical code. This paper presents a simple extension of a THM coupled finite element code to include chemical effects. After deriving the governing salt mass balance equation and discussing its implementation into the code, the paper verifies the extended framework against an analytical solution for 1D salt transport. In addition, the article presents a validation example in which the code replicates experimental data. The numerical results obtained from the extended THMC coupled finite element code encourage further investigation of the chemical effects on the mechanical and thermal behaviour of the material, which would serve the ultimate goal of achieving a safer design of the nuclear waste storage facility.Postprint (published version

Formulating layered adjustable autonomy for unmanned aerial vehicles

Purpose - In this paper, we propose a Layered Adjustable Autonomy (LAA) as a dynamically adjustable autonomy model for a multi-agent system. It is mainly used to efficiently manage humans and agents share control of autonomous systems and maintain humans’ global control over the agents. Design/Methodology/Approach - We apply the LAA model in an agent-based autonomous Unmanned Arial Vehicle (UAV) system. The UAV system implementation consists of two parts, software, and hardware. The software part represents the controller and the cognitive and the hardware represents the computing machinery and the actuator of the UAV system. The UAV system performs three experimental scenarios of dance, surveillance and search missions. The selected scenarios demonstrate different behaviors in order to create a suitable test plan and ensure significant results. Findings - The results of the UAV system tests prove that segregating the autonomy of a system as multidimensional and adjustable layers enables humans and/or agents to perform actions in a convenient autonomy levels. Hence, reducing the adjustable autonomy drawbacks of constraining the autonomy of the agents, increasing humans’ workload and exposing the system to disturbances. Originality/value - The application of the LAA model in a UAV manifests the significance of implementing dynamic adjustable autonomy. Assessing the autonomy within three phases of agents run cycle (task-selection, actions-selection, actions-execution) is an original idea that aims to direct agents’ autonomy towards performance competency. The agents’ abilities are well exploited when an incompetent agent switches with a more competent on

Modeling and Experimental Investigation of Laminar Ceiling Air Distribution System for Operating Room in Merjan Teaching Hospital

Room air distribution in operating rooms is critical to successful surgical treatment. The present study investigated the effects of the location of the air supply and exhaust grills on the air movement and air parameters inside an operating room. This paper presents an experimental and numerical analysis of air distribution in the operating room. The experimental work was conducted in an operating room in Merjan Teaching Hospital in the city of Babylon. Air was supplied from one square plenum box located in the middle of the ceiling, while air was exhausted through eight grills: large exhaust grills in the four upper corners and small exhaust grills in the four lower corners. In the theoretical work, a model of the operating room was developed and two cases were analyzed using the FLUEN 6.3.26 software program. The first case included all eight exhaust grills, while the second case included only the four lower exhaust grills. The ceiling system gave good ventilation for air distribution inside the operating room. There was no clear effect of the small exhaust grills located in the upper corners of the operating room. The height of the ceiling room is an effective factor in air distribution