A Perching Mechanism for Micro Aerial Vehicles

Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs) with perching capabilities can be used to efficiently place sensors in aloft locations. A major challenge for perching is to build a lightweight mechanism that can be easily mounted on a MAV, allowing it to perch (attach and detach on command) to walls of different materials. To date, only very few systems have been proposed that aim at enabling MAVs with perching capabilities. Typically, these solutions either require a delicate dynamic flight maneuver in front of the wall or expose the MAV to very high impact forces when colliding head-first with the wall. In this article, we propose a 4.6g perching mechanism that allows MAVs to perch on walls of natural and man- made materials such as trees and painted concrete facades of buildings. To do this, no control for the MAV is needed other than flying head-first into the wall. The mechanism is designed to translate the impact impulse into a snapping movement that sticks small needles into the surface and uses a small electric motor to detach from the wall and recharge the mechanism for the next perching sequence. Based on this principle, it damps the impact forces that act on the platform to avoid damage of the MAV. We performed 110 sequential perches on a variety of substrates with a success rate of 100%. The main contributions of this article are (i) the evaluation of different designs of perching, (ii) the description and formal modeling of a novel perching mechanism, and (iii) the demonstration and characterization of a functional prototype on a microglider

Highly Compact Robots for Inspection of Power Plants

This paper reports on a 3 years applied research project dealing with several inspection scenarios of power plants and resulting in many robot prototypes and 3 main achievements. The project is a common effort between industry and university, including ALSTOM together with researchers from the 2 Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology. The goal is to generate knowledge and transfer technology to the industry in the field of robot inspection. The method is to collect commercial scenarios, study them, make some exploratory prototypes, select the best scenarios and develop enhanced prototypes for the most promising applications. The 3 most evolved robots are MagneBike for steam chest, AirGapCrawler for generators and TubeCrawler for boiler tube. The supporting technologies that have been developed are adhesion, locomotion, system integration and localization

Digital technologies to support planning, treatment, and fabrication processes and outcome assessments in implant dentistry. Summary and consensus statements. The 4th EAO consensus conference 2015

OBJECTIVE The aim of this multicenter randomized controlled clinical trial was to test posterior zirconia-ceramic fixed dental prostheses (FDPs) veneered with a computer-aided design/computer- assisted manufacture (CAD/CAM) lithium disilicate veneering ceramic (CAD-on) and manually layered zirconia veneering ceram OBJECTIVE The task of this working group was to assess the existing knowledge in computer-assisted implant planning and placement, fabrication of reconstructions applying computers compared to traditional fabrication, and assessments of treatment outcomes using novel imaging techniques. MATERIAL AND METHODS Three reviews were available for assessing the current literature and provided the basis for the discussions and the consensus report. One review dealt with the use of computers to plan implant therapy and to place implants in partially and fully edentulous patients. A second one focused on novel techniques and methods to assess treatment outcomes and the third compared CAD/CAM-fabricated reconstructions to conventionally fabricated ones. RESULTS The consensus statements, the clinical recommendations, and the implications for research, all of them after approval by the plenum of the consensus conference, are described in this article. The three articles by Vercruyssen et al., Patzelt & Kohal, and Benic et al. are presented separately as part of the supplement of this consensus conference.ic with respect to survival of the FDPs, and technical and biologic outcomes. METHOD AND MATERIALS Sixty patients in need of one posterior three-unit FDP were included. The zirconia frameworks were produced with a CAD/CAM system (Cerec inLab 3D/Cerec inEOS inLab). Thirty FDPs were veneered with a CAD/CAM lithium disilicate veneering ceramic (Cad-on) (test) and 30 were veneered with a layered zirconia veneering ceramic (control). For the clinical evaluation at baseline, 6, and 12 months, the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) criteria were used. The biologic outcome was judged by comparing the plaque control record (PCR), bleeding on probing (BOP), and probing pocket depth (PPD). Data were statistically analyzed. RESULTS Fifty-six patients were examined at a mean follow-up of 13.9 months. At the 1-year follow-up the survival rate was 100% in the test and in the control group. No significant differences of the technical outcomes occurred. Major chipping occurred in the control group (n = 3) and predominantly minor chipping in the test group (minor n = 2, major n = 1). No biologic problems or differences were found. CONCLUSIONS Both types of zirconia-ceramic FDPs exhibited very good clinical outcomes without differences between groups. Chipping occurred in both types of FDPs at small amounts, yet the extension of the chippings differed. The test FDPs predominantly exhibited minor chipping, the control FDPs major chipping