A Geografia dos Naturalistas-Geógrafos no Século das Luzes

Para nós, a geografia moderna nasceu de um sonho. Do sonho que habita o homem desde os primeiros tempos da modernidade – o de dominar o mundo e a natureza através da razão e da ciência. Do desejo que nutriu o Século das Luzes, de tudo compreender, de racionalizar o mundo, transformando-o num lugar visível, calculável e inteligível; de se utilizar a natureza e todas as suas criaturas para alcançar um progresso sem limites. Esse sonho que se encontrava então reforçado por uma série de elementos..

Robotic tactile perception of object properties: a review

Touch sensing can help robots understand their surrounding environment, and in particular the objects they interact with. To this end, roboticists have, in the last few decades, developed several tactile sensing solutions, extensively reported in the literature. Research into interpreting the conveyed tactile information has also started to attract increasing attention in recent years. However, a comprehensive study on this topic is yet to be reported. In an effort to collect and summarize the major scientific achievements in the area, this survey extensively reviews current trends in robot tactile perception of object properties. Available tactile sensing technologies are briefly presented before an extensive review on tactile recognition of object properties. The object properties that are targeted by this review are shape, surface material and object pose. The role of touch sensing in combination with other sensing sources is also discussed. In this review, open issues are identified and future directions for applying tactile sensing in different tasks are suggested

Design and Evaluation of a Wearable Skin Stretch Device for Haptic Guidance

5sinoneWe present a wearable skin stretch device for the forearm. It is composed of four cylindrical end effectors, evenly distributed around the user's forearm. They can generate independent skin stretch stimuli at the palmar, dorsal, ulnar, and radial sides of the arm. When the four end effectors rotate in the same direction, the wearable device provides cutaneous stimuli about a desired pronation/supination of the forearm. On the other hand, when two opposite end effectors rotate in different directions, the cutaneous device provides cutaneous stimuli about a desired translation of the forearm. To evaluate the effectiveness of our device in providing navigation information, we carried out two experiments of haptic navigation. In the first one, subjects were asked to translate and rotate the forearm toward a target position and orientation, respectively. In the second experiment, subjects were asked to control a 6-DoF robotic manipulator to grasp and lift a target object. Haptic feedback provided by our wearable device improved the performance of both experiments with respect to providing no haptic feedback. Moreover, it showed similar performance with respect to sensory substitution via visual feedback, without overloading the visual channel.noneChinello, F.; Pacchierotti, C.; Bimbo, J.; Tsagarakis, N. G.; Prattichizzo, D.Chinello, F.; Pacchierotti, C.; Bimbo, J.; Tsagarakis, N. G.; Prattichizzo, D