Risk management in solitary agricultural work: new technologies for handling emergency and falls from great heights (SHADE)

Solitary work and agricultural activities are the scenarios of a large number of severe injuries and deaths, also because first aid may be difficult to achieve in isolated locations. This work proposes a technology available on smartphones that allows triggering an emergency call when a fall from height or an unconsciousness state is detected. The results of several tests, which include different detection algorithms and scenarios, are reported in this work. Tests performed with the aid of a dummy have allowed developing a reliable algorithm for the detection of dangerous situations. This system is available as an Android application

Modeling the vibration of spatial flexible mechanisms through an equivalent rigid-link system/component mode synthesis approach

In this paper, a novel formulation for modeling the vibration of spatial flexible mechanisms and robots is introduced. The formulation is based on the concepts of equivalent rigid-link system (ERLS) that allows kinematic equations of motion for the ERLS decoupled from the compatibility equations of the displacement at the joint to be written. With respect to the available literature, in which the ERLS concept has been proposed together with a finite element method (FEM) approach (ERLS-FEM), the formulation is extended in this paper through a modal approach and, in particular, a component mode synthesis technique which allows a reduced-order system of dynamic equations to be maintained even when a fine discretization is needed. The model is validated numerically by comparing it with the results obtained from the Adams-Flex\u2122 software, which implements the well-known floating frame of reference approach for a benchmark L-shaped mechanism. A good agreement between the two models is shown

Energetic analysis of industrial robots for pick-and-place operations

none4restrictedF. Vidussi, P. Boscariol, L. Scalera, A. GasparettoVidussi, F.; Boscariol, P.; Scalera, L.; Gasparetto, A

Enhancing Energy Efficiency of a 4-DOF Parallel Robot Through Task-Related Analysis

Enhancing energy efficiency is one of the main challenges of today\u2019s industrial robotics and manufacturing technology. In this paper a task-related analysis of the energetic performance of a 4-DOF industrial parallel robot is presented, and the optimal location of a predefined task with respect to the robot workspace is investigated. An optimal position of the task relative to the robot can indeed reduce the actuators\u2019 effort and the energy consumption required to complete the considered operation. The dynamic and electro-mechanical models of the manipulators are developed and implemented to estimate the energy consumption of a parametrized motion with trapezoidal speed profile, i.e., a pick-and-place operation. Numerical results provide energy consumption maps that can be adopted to place the starting and ending points of the task in the more energy-efficient location within the robot workspace

Experimental Validation of a Dynamic Model for Lightweight Robots

Nowadays, one of the main topics in robotics research is dynamic performance improvement by means of a lightening of the overall system structure. The effective motion and control of these lightweight robotic systems occurs with the use of suitable motion planning and control process. In order to do so, model-based approaches can be adopted by exploiting accurate dynamic models that take into account the inertial and elastic terms that are usually neglected in a heavy rigid link configuration. In this paper, an effective method for modelling spatial lightweight industrial robots based on an Equivalent Rigid Link System approach is considered from an experimental validation perspective. A dynamic simulator implementing the formulation is used and an experimental test-bench is set-up. Experimental tests are carried out with a benchmark L-shape mechanism

Experimental validation of a special state observer for a class of flexible link mechanisms

This paper presents an experimental validation of a state observer for flexible-link manipulators (FLM). The design of this observer is based on an accurate dynamic model of the mechanisms, able to take into account the coupled rigid-flexible dynamics of the system. Experimental results on a single-link manipulator affected by gravity force show that the proposed observer achieves a good estimation of the plant dynamics even if the displacement signal is not measured. The evaluation of the performance is done experimentally by comparing the estimated elastic displacement with the measures obtained on the field

Dynamics and control of flexible-links mechanism

In questa tesi vengono affrontate alcune problematiche legate alla modellizzazione dinamica, alla simulazione Real-Time ed al controllo predittivo di meccanismi a membri deformabil