3,700 research outputs found

    Stability analysis of a free falling pararotor

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    The pararotor is a decelerator device based on the autorotation of a rotating wing. When it is dropped, it generates an aerodynamic force parallel to the main motion direction, acting as a decelerating force. In this paper, the rotational motion equations are shown for the vertical flight without any lateral wind component and some simplifying assumptions are introduced to obtain analytic solutions of the motion. First, the equilibrium state is obtained as a function of the main parameters. Then the equilibrium stability is analyzed. The motion stability depends on two nondimensional parameters, which contain geometric, inertia, and aerodynamic characteristics of the device. Based on these two parameters a stability diagram can be defined. Some stability regions with different types of stability trajectories (nodes, spirals, focuses) can be identified for spinning motion around axes close to the major, minor, and intermediate principal axes. It is found that the blades contribute to stability in a case of spin around the intermediate principal inertia axis, which is otherwise unstable. Subsequently, the equations for determining the angles of nutation and spin of the body are obtained, thus defining the orientation of the body for a stationary motion and the parameters on which that position depends

    A framework for compliant physical interaction : the grasp meets the task

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    Although the grasp-task interplay in our daily life is unquestionable, very little research has addressed this problem in robotics. In order to fill the gap between the grasp and the task, we adopt the most successful approaches to grasp and task specification, and extend them with additional elements that allow to define a grasp-task link. We propose a global sensor-based framework for the specification and robust control of physical interaction tasks, where the grasp and the task are jointly considered on the basis of the task frame formalism and the knowledge-based approach to grasping. A physical interaction task planner is also presented, based on the new concept of task-oriented hand pre-shapes. The planner focuses on manipulation of articulated parts in home environments, and is able to specify automatically all the elements of a physical interaction task required by the proposed framework. Finally, several applications are described, showing the versatility of the proposed approach, and its suitability for the fast implementation of robust physical interaction tasks in very different robotic systems

    Reliable non-prehensile door opening through the combination of vision, tactile and force feedback

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    Whereas vision and force feedback—either at the wrist or at the joint level—for robotic manipulation purposes has received considerable attention in the literature, the benefits that tactile sensors can provide when combined with vision and force have been rarely explored. In fact, there are some situations in which vision and force feedback cannot guarantee robust manipulation. Vision is frequently subject to calibration errors, occlusions and outliers, whereas force feedback can only provide useful information on those directions that are constrained by the environment. In tasks where the visual feedback contains errors, and the contact configuration does not constrain all the Cartesian degrees of freedom, vision and force sensors are not sufficient to guarantee a successful execution. Many of the tasks performed in our daily life that do not require a firm grasp belong to this category. Therefore, it is important to develop strategies for robustly dealing with these situations. In this article, a new framework for combining tactile information with vision and force feedback is proposed and validated with the task of opening a sliding door. Results show how the vision-tactile-force approach outperforms vision-force and force-alone, in the sense that it allows to correct the vision errors at the same time that a suitable contact configuration is guaranteed.This research was partly supported by the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation under the WCU (World Class University) program funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, S. Korea (Grant No. R31-2008-000-10062-0), by the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreements 217077 (EYESHOTS project), and 248497(TRIDENT Project), by Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (DPI-2008-06636; and DPI2008-06548-C03-01), by Fundació Caixa Castelló-Bancaixa (P1-1B2008-51; and P1-1B2009-50) and by Universitat Jaume I

    Pararotor dynamics: center of mass displacement from the blade plane—analytical approach

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    The pararotor is a biology-inspired decelerator device based on the autorotation of a rotary wing whose main purpose is to guide a load descent into a certain atmosphere. This paper focuses on a practical approach to the general dynamic stability of a pararotor whose center of mass is displaced from the blade plane. The analytical study departs from the motion equations of pararotor flight, considering the center of mass displacement from the blade plane, studied over a number of simplifying hypotheses that allows determining the most important influences to flight behavior near equilibrium. Two practical indexes are developed to characterize the stability of a pararotor in terms of geometry, inertia, and the aerodynamic characteristics of the device. Based on these two parameters, a stability diagram can be defined upon which stability regions can be identified. It was concluded that the ability to reach stability conditions depends mainly on a limited number of parameters associated with the pararotor configuration: the relationship between moments of inertia, the position of the blades, the planform shape (associated with the blade aerodynamic coefficients and blade area), and the vertical distance between the center of mass and the blade plane. These parameters can be evaluated by computing practical indexes to determine stability behavior

    Ensayos Experimentales del Efecto Magnus sobre diferentes cuerpos cilíndricos

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    La presente publicación presenta el desarrollo de diferentes ensayos experimentales con el fin de poder determinar las características aerodinámicas asociadas al Efecto Magnus en cuerpos no cilíndricos circulares. Se realiza la descripción del banco y los equipos utilizados para los ensayos, los modelos, la metodología y los resultados de los ensayos realizados. Se presentan la sustentación y resistencia aerodinámica de los modelos para diferentes velocidades de rotación y de la corriente de aire

    Improving Local Symmetry Estimations in RGB-D Images by Fitting Superquadrics

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    [Abstract] Real-time manipulation tasks rely on finding good candidates for apprehension points which, in turn, usually requires the computation of local symmetries. When RGB-D images are used as input information, these local symmetries can be deduced from segmenting these images and computing geometric moments for each cluster of points. This approach gives a rough approximation because it does not take into account that the considered points lie on a surface. In this paper, to improve the quality of the symmetry estimations, we propose a simple refinement process that takes as input the estimation obtained using moments and then fits a superquadric to the considered set of points. We evaluate our approach on data collected using a Microsoft's Kinect 2 sensor. The obtained experimental results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed approach.This work has been partially supported by by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under projects DPI2014-57220-C2-2-P and DPI2014-57746-C3https://doi.org/10.17979/spudc.978849749808

    Wireless HROV Control with Compressed Visual Feedback Using Acoustic and RF Links

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    Underwater cooperative robotics offers the possibility to perform challenging intervention applications, such as recovering archeological objects as within the context of the MERBOTS research project, or grasping, transporting and assembly of big objects, using more than one mobile manipulator, as faced by the TWINBOT project. In order to enhance safety during the intervention, it is reasonable to avoid the umbilical, also giving more mobility to the robots, and enabling a broader set of cooperative movements. Several solutions, based on acoustic, radiofrequency (RF) or Visual Light Communication (VLC) have been proposed for underwater communications in the literature. This paper presents the architecture of an underwater wireless communication framework for the control of multiple semi-autonomous robots in cooperative interventions. The proposed framework is composed of several modules as the virtual reality interface using UWSim, the Underwater Multi-robot Cooperative Intervention Remote Control Protocol (UMCI-RCP) and a Generic Link Layer (GLL). UMCI-RCP allows the control of an underwater robot over limited communication links. UMCI-RCP integrates a progressive compression algorithm that provides visual feedback at a constant rate and ensures image reception even in channels with loses. The Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) medium access strategy minimizes the jitter of transmitted packets. The GLL has been designed in order to provide support for multimodal transmission (i.e. acoustic, RF and VLC) and also to interface with the UWSim-NET simulator so that facilitates the experimentation either with a real or with a simulated modem. The possibility of exchange real and simulated devices in the proposed framework are demonstrated by means of a teleoperation experiment with a BlueROV equipped with the S100 RF modems. Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) capabilities are demonstrated repeating the experiment with the real modems and modeling the BlueROV, and also modeling both the modems and the BlueROV
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