Kinect-Based Vision System of Mine Rescue Robot for Low Illuminous Environment

This paper presents Kinect-based vision system of mine rescue robot working in illuminous underground environment. The somatosensory system of Kinect is used to realize the hand gesture recognition involving static hand gesture and action. A K-curvature based convex detection method is proposed to fit the hand contour with polygon. In addition, the hand action is completed by using the NiTE library with the framework of hand gesture recognition. In addition, the proposed method is compared with BP neural network and template matching. Furthermore, taking advantage of the information of the depth map, the interface of hand gesture recognition is established for human machine interaction of rescue robot. Experimental results verify the effectiveness of Kinect-based vision system as a feasible and alternative technology for HMI of mine rescue robot

Chromatographic fingerprinting and quantitative analysis for the quality evaluation of Xinkeshu tablet

A simple, sensitive and accurate method based on high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with diode array detector (DAD) was developed and validated for systematic quality evaluation of one type of traditional Chinese medicine preparations named Xinkeshu (XKS) tablet. In this study, the chromatographic fingerprints of XKS tablet were developed first, 23 peaks were selected as the common peaks to evaluate the similarities among different batches of XKS samples, which were manufactured in a long time span of three years. Additionally, simultaneous quantification of six markers in XKS tablet, including Danshensu, Protocatechuic aldehyde, Puerarin, Daidzin, Salvianolic acid B and Daidzein, was performed. The validation results showed that the developed method was specific, accurate, precise and robust. The preliminary explanation on why a close similarity between fingerprints did not exactly mean similar contents of chemical components in samples was given. The contribution of each chromatographic peak to similarity was also evaluated. The developed method offers an efficient, reliable and practical approach for systematic quality evaluation of XKS tablet. Keywords: Fingerprint analysis, Quality evaluation, Multi-ingredient quantitative analysis, Xinkeshu tablet, High-performance liquid chromatograph

Geographical origin discrimination and polysaccharides quantitative analysis of Radix codonopsis with micro near-infrared spectrometer engine

At present, Tradition Chinese Medicine (TCM) industry in China is in the stage from the empirical development to industrial production. Near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy has been widely used in the quality control of TCM’s modernization with its characteristics including rapidness, nondestruction, simplicity, economy, and so on. In this study, as one type of a portable micro NIR spectrometer, Micro NIR 1700 was used to establish the qualitative models for identification of geographical region and authenticity of Radix codonopsis based on discriminant analysis (DA) method. Both of the DA models had better predictive ability with 100% accuracy. In addition, a method for rapid quantitative analysis of polysaccharide in Radix codonopsis was also developed based on Micro NIR 1700 spectrometer with partial least-squares (PLS) algorithm. In the PLS calibration model, the NIR spectra of samples were pretreated with different preprocessing methods and the spectral region was selected with different variable selection methods as well. The performance of the final PLS model was evaluated according to correlation coefficient of calibration (Rc), correlation coefficient of prediction (Rp), root mean squared error of cross validation (RMSECV), and root mean squared of prediction (RMSEP). The values of Rc, Rp, RMSECV, and RMSEP were 0.9775, 0.9602, 2.496, and 2.734g/mL, respectively. This work demonstrated that micro infrared spectrometer could be more convenient and rapid for quality control of Radix codonopsis, and the presented models would be a useful reference for quality control of other similar raw materials of TCM

Side-chain engineering of PEDOT derivatives as dopant-free hole-transporting materials for efficient and stable n-i-p structured perovskite solar cells

Low-cost poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) and its derivatives have been widely used as hole-transporting materials (HTMs) in p-i-n perovskite solar cells (PSCs). However, reports on the use of PEDOT-based HTMs in regular PSCs have been rather limited up till now due to the low solubility of PEDOT in organic solvents. In this work, we report three PEDOT derivatives, namely, PEDOT-C6 (P6), PEDOT-C10 (P10), and PEDOT-C14 (P14), with a simple synthetic process by tailoring the length of the alkyl side-chains, and apply them as dopant-free HTMs in mesoscopic n-i-p structured PSCs. It is revealed that the alkyl side-chain length has a significant impact on the film morphology, hole transport capability, and thus the overall solar cell performance. The devices with P10 afford a champion PCE of 16.2% at one sun illumination (100 mW cm(-2), AM 1.5G), which is significantly higher compared to those based on P6 (12.1%) and P14 (14.8%) under identical conditions. This has been the highest PCE reported so far for dopant-free PEDOT-based HTMs in conventional PSCs. The greatly enhanced photovoltaic performance observed for the P10-based devices is mainly attributed to the superior film formation property and hole transport capability of P10. Furthermore, the devices utilizing P10 also show excellent ambient stability, retaining 75% of their initial performance at a relative humidity (RH) of 80% after 120 h due to the high moisture resistivity of the HTM. The present work provides a new avenue for further developing low-cost, efficient, and stable HTMs in PSCs in the future