Experimental verification of a completely soft gripper for grasping and classifying beam members in truss structures

© 2018 IEEE. Robotic object exploration and identification methods to date have attempted to mimic human Exploratory Procedures (EPs) using complex, rigid robotic hands with multifaceted sensory suites. For applications where the target objects may have different or unknown cross-sectional shapes and sizes (e.g. beam members in truss structures), rigid grippers are not a good option as they are unable to adapt to the target objects. This may make it very difficult to recognise the shape and size of a beam member and the approaching angles which would result in a secure grasp. To best meet the requirements of adaptability and compliancy, a soft robotic gripper with simple exteroceptive force sensors has been designed. This paper experimentally verifies the gripper design by assessing its performance in grasping and adapting to a variety of target beam members in a truss structure. The sensor arrangement is also assessed by verifying that sufficient data is extracted during a grasp to recognise the approaching angle of the gripper. Firstly, the gripper is used to grasp each beam member from various angles of approach and readings from the force sensors are collected. Secondly, the collected sensor data is used to train and then test a range of commonly used classifiers for classification of the angle of approach. Thirdly, the classification results are analysed. Through this process, it is found that the gripper is proficient in grasping the variety of target beam members. Despite the uncertainty in the gripper pose, the sensor data collected from the soft gripper during a grasp is sufficient for classification of the angles of approach

Tactile Based Active Perception of Structural Members in Truss Structures

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology.Complex Three-Dimensional (3D) truss structures such as power transmission towers require regular inspection and maintenance during their service life. Developing a robot to climb and explore such complex structures is challenging. Changing lighting conditions can render vision sensors unreliable; therefore, the robot should be endowed with a complementary sensory modality such as touch for accurate perception of the environment, including recognising a structural beam member and its properties of cross-sectional shape, size and the grasping Angle-of-Approach (AoA). The research presented in this thesis addresses three questions related to grasping and touch based perception of beam members in truss structures. (1) Methods for designing adaptive grippers for grasping a wide variety of structural beam member cross-sectional shapes and sizes; (2) Sensing for data collection and methods for classifying beam member properties; and (3) Efficient methods for selecting the next best grasping action to confidently recognise a beam member. A stiffness constrained topology optimisation design method is developed and applied in designing a soft gripper for grasping a variety of cross-sectional shapes of beam members. The gripper design is verified through both simulation and experiments. It is found that the gripper is proficient in grasping different shapes and sizes of beam members, with adequate contact points. A comparative study of commonly used machine learning classifiers is conducted to analyse the effectiveness of recognising a structural beam member and its properties. Using data collected during grasping with a soft gripper, the cross-sectional shape, size and grasping AoA of a beam member are classified. Evaluation of the various classifiers revealed that a Random Forest (RF) classifier with 100 trees achieved high classification accuracies, with short training and classification times. An information-based method for selecting the next best grasping AoA to confidently recognise a beam member is developed. This method is verified through simulation using grasping data collected with a soft gripper. The results show that this method can correctly recognise a structural beam member and its properties, typically with fewer than four grasping actions. This method can be generally used with many different gripper designs and sensor arrangements

Reconstruction of Wind Tunnel Tests using CFD for a Reusable First Stage during Rocket Retro-Propulsion

The RETPRO project (Validation of Wind Tunnel Test and CFD Techniques for Retropropulsion), as part of ESA's Future Launcher Preparatory Programme, aims at preparing the tools, necessary for a reliable design and simulation of future rocket launchers or spacecraft. A particular focus is assigned to vertical take-off and landing configurations using retro propulsion as part of their control concept for entry, descent, and landing manoeuvres. Wind tunnel tests and computational fluid dynamics are used to generate a comprehensive aerodynamic database, which is required for flight dynamics simulations, enabling mission and performance analyses of possible future launcher designs. This paper focuses on the presentation and discussion of steady-state numerical simulation results which reconstruct selected wind tunnel tests during both powered and unpowered descent phases. The CFD simulations cover a Mach number range from 2 up to 7, with dry air used to model the exhaust plume. Typical flow topologies and features are discussed, with quantitative results coming from a comparison of force balance and surface pressure measurements between experimental results and CFD simulations. Schlieren images from the experiments are used to evaluate the plume structure and shock stand-off distances. For the unpowered descent cases the agreement between schlieren images, force and pressure measurements is extremely strong. During powered descent the basic plume structure is captured well despite the highly unsteady and fluctuating flow field. Pressure and force measurements gave mixed results, but overall the studies show that RANS simulations perform well compared to experimental data

HEXAFLY-INT: An Overview of Waverider Subsonic Investigations

Hypersonic waveriders have the potential to significantly reduce travel times on long haul civilian transport routes. The design of hypersonic aircraft is heavily influenced by the aerodynamic efficiency at the cruise Mach number, resulting in less than ideal geometries for subsonic flight. Waverider aerodynamics and stability in the low speed regime is rarely investigated and not well understood, but is crucial for horizontal take-offs and landings. This paper gives an overview of all work completed within the HEXAFLY-INT project with respect to subsonic investigations. It covers a wide range of static and dynamic wind tunnel tests in the longitudinal and lateral-directional planes. The experimental investigations are complemented by in depth numerical computations which validate the experimental data. It was found that flow separation, non-linear vortex lift and subsequent bursting at high angles of attack govern the aircraft stability derivaties. This is due to the low aspect ratio, highly swept delta wings which are present on the vehicle, as well as sharp edges which give rise to high pressure gradients at moderate angles of attack

Condensation Modelling of Expanding Cold Gas Jets during Hypersonic Retro-Propulsion Manoeuvres within the RETPRO Project

The RETPRO project (Validation of Wind Tunnel Test and CFD Techniques for Retropropulsion), as part of ESA’s Future Launchers Preparatory Programme, aims at preparing the tools, necessary for a reliable design and simulation of future rocket launchers or spacecraft. A particular focus is assigned to vertical take-off and landing configurations using retro propulsion as part of their control concept for entry, descent, and landing manoeuvres. Wind tunnel tests and computational fluid dynamics are used to generate a comprehensive aerodynamic database, which is required for flight dynamics simulations, enabling mission and performance analyses of possible future launcher designs. Windtunnel tests are conducted in the DLR Cologne H2K facility, with room temperature dry air ejected through selected nozzles to simulate the exhaust plume. Condensation effects might occur in the plume due to the low static freestream pressure at Mach 7, combined with the expanding flow in the nozzle. This paper presents results from numerical investigations including a vapour-equilibirum model which evaluate the potential influence of plume condensation on measured data in the wind tunnel. A qualitative comparison between experimental and numerical results is presented through Schlieren photographs. Condensation was observed in the numerical results, causing the flow path in and around the plume to be altered. Surface pressure coefficients in the condensation case were observed to be approximately 5% lower than when using the standard ideal gas model. Finally, the shock stand off distance was reduced, but not significantly. The comparison with tunnel data was therefore more-or-less the same as with the ideal gas model and the use of the condensation model was not deemed necessary for subsequent computations

The Relationship Between Function and Disease Activity as Measured by the HAQ and DAS28 Varies Over Time and by Rheumatoid Factor Status in Early Inflammatory Arthritis (EIA). Results from the CATCH Cohort§

Objective: To investigate the relationship between function and disease activity in early inflammatory arthritis (EIA). Methods: Canadian Early Arthritis Cohort (CATCH) (n=1143) is a multi-site EIA cohort. Correlations between the Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index (HAQ) and DAS28 were done at every 3 months for the first year and then at 18 and 24 months. We also investigated the relationship between HAQ and DAS28 by age (<65 versus ≥65) and RF (positive vs negative). Results: Mean HAQ and DAS28 scores were highest at the initial visit with HAQ decreasing over 24 months from a baseline of 0.94 to 0.40 and DAS28 scores decreasing from 4.54 to 2.29. All correlations between HAQ and DAS28 were significant at all time points (p<0.01). The correlations between HAQ and DAS28 were variable over time. The strongest correlation between HAQ and DAS28 occurred at initial visit (most DMARD naive) (n=1,143) and 18 months (r=0.57, n=321) and 24 months (r=0.59, n=214). The baseline correlation between HAQ and DAS28 was significantly different than correlations obtained at 3, 6, and 12 months (p=0.02, 0.01, and 0.01, respectively). Age did not change the association between HAQ and DAS28 {<65 years old (r=0.50, n=868) versus ≥65 (r=0.48, n=254), p=0.49}. The correlation between HAQ and DAS28 was stronger with RF+ patients (r=0.63, n=636) vs RF negative (r=0.47, n=477), p=0.0043 Conclusion: Over 2 years in EIA, HAQ and DAS both improved; correlations at time points were different over 2 years and RF status affected the correlations

Sustained rheumatoid arthritis remission is uncommon in clinical practice

Introduction: Remission is an important goal of therapy in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), but data on duration of remission are lacking. Our objective was to describe the duration of remission in RA, assessed by different criteria. Methods: We evaluated patients from the Brigham and Women's Rheumatoid Arthritis Sequential Study (BRASS) not in remission at baseline with at least 2 years of follow-up. Remission was assessed according to the Disease Activity Score 28-C-reactive protein (DAS28-CRP4), Simplified Disease Activity Index (SDAI), and Clinical Disease Activity Index (CDAI) scores, and the recently proposed American College of Rheumatology (ACR)/European League against Rheumatism (EULAR) criteria for remission. Analyses were performed by using Kaplan-Meier survival curves. Results: We identified 871 subjects with ≥2 years of follow-up. Of these subjects, 394 were in remission at one or more time-points and not in remission at baseline, according to at least one of the following criteria: DAS28-CRP < 2.6 (n = 309), DAS28-CRP < 2.3 (n = 275), SDAI (n = 168), CDAI (n = 170), and 2010 ACR/EULAR (n = 158). The median age for the 394 subjects at entrance to BRASS was 56 years; median disease duration was 8 years; 81% were female patients; and 72% were seropositive. Survival analysis performed separately for each remission criterion demonstrated that < 50% of subjects remained in remission 1 year later. Median remission survival time was 1 year. Kaplan-Meier curves of the various remission criteria did not significantly differ (P = 0.29 according to the log-rank test). Conclusions: This study shows that in clinical practice, a minority of RA patients are in sustained remission