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1 – 10 of 33
Article
Publication date: 1 June 1995

F Ferrari, J Nielsen, P Questa and G Sandini

Outlines the work of the Interactive Image Based Device for EffectiveCommunication project [IBIDEM] in its aim of developing a video phone usefulfor lip‐reading by…

Abstract

Outlines the work of the Interactive Image Based Device for Effective Communication project [IBIDEM] in its aim of developing a video phone useful for lip‐reading by hearing‐impaired people, based on a new generation of space‐variant sensors and using standard telephone lines. The IBIDEM project is constructing a video phone using a camera with a retina‐like sensor, a motorized system for moving the viewpoint of the camera, as well as a display for the transmitted images which will allow high resolution in the area of interest i.e. lips or figures, whilst still maintaining a wide field of view. Experiments have been carried out to evaluate the minimum requirements for the video phone in terms of spatial and temporal resolution and the technical limitations which have to be taken into account in the design of a visual sensor.

Details

Sensor Review, vol. 15 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0260-2288

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 January 2009

Antonio Gonzalez Rodriguez, Nestor Eduardo Nava Rodriguez and Angel Gaspar Gonzalez Rodriguez

The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel actuator with adaptable compliance for robotic applications.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel actuator with adaptable compliance for robotic applications.

Design/methodology/approach

In order to achieve limb actuation similar to that of human muscles, a novel actuator with adaptable compliance is proposed. Three principal design paradigms currently exist in the development of artificial muscles that have been adopted at several research centres, universities and commercial organizations around the world. The first approach consists of using compliant actuator systems such as pneumatic actuators. The second approach undertakes the development of electroactive polymers that deform when a voltage is applied. The third approach involves electromechanical devices typically comprising an electrical actuator and an elastic element in combination. The proposed actuator extends on the third approach. It comprises an electrical DC motor in serial configuration and a novel elastic device exhibiting variable stiffness.

Findings

The novel elastic device complements the mechanical structure of the device, enabling adaptation to the dynamic effects of external forces.

Practical implications

Several applications for the actuator with adaptable compliance have been identified in the field of human‐like robotics.

Originality/value

Prototypic experimentation has successfully demonstrated the variable stiffness of the device.

Details

Industrial Robot: An International Journal, vol. 36 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0143-991X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 20 October 2014

Bo Xu, Huaqing Min and Fangxiong Xiao

This article aims to provide a brief overview of the field now known as “evolutionary developmental robotics (evo-devo-robo)”, which is based on the concept and principles of…

Abstract

Purpose

This article aims to provide a brief overview of the field now known as “evolutionary developmental robotics (evo-devo-robo)”, which is based on the concept and principles of evolutionary and development principles such as evolutionary developmental psychology, evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) and evolutionary cognitive neuroscience.

Design/methodology/approach

Evo-devo-robo is a new field bringing together developmental robotics and evolutionary robotics to form a new research area. Basic concepts and the origins of the field are described, and then some basic principles of evo-devo-robo that have been developed so far are discussed.

Findings

Finally, some misunderstand concepts and the most promising future research developments in this area are discussed.

Originality/value

Basic concepts and the origins of the field are described, and then some basic principles of evo-devo-robo that have been developed so far are discussed. Finally, some misunderstood concepts and the most promising future research developments in this area are discussed.

Details

Industrial Robot: An International Journal, vol. 41 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0143-991X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 February 1981

C. Braccini, G. Gambardella, G. Sandini and V. Tagliasco

A technique in which the features of retinal receptors, receptive fields of the peripheral cells and cortical retinotopic mapping can be combined to perform a template matching…

Abstract

A technique in which the features of retinal receptors, receptive fields of the peripheral cells and cortical retinotopic mapping can be combined to perform a template matching system requiring a single reference pattern has been devised for artificial vision algorithms.

Details

Sensor Review, vol. 1 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0260-2288

Article
Publication date: 22 November 2023

Yangmin Xie, Jiajia Liu and Yusheng Yang

Proper platform pose is important for the mobile manipulator to accomplish dexterous manipulation tasks efficiently and safely, and the evaluation criterion to qualify…

Abstract

Purpose

Proper platform pose is important for the mobile manipulator to accomplish dexterous manipulation tasks efficiently and safely, and the evaluation criterion to qualify manipulation performance is critical to support the pose decision process. This paper aims to present a comprehensive index to evaluate the manipulator’s operation performance from various aspects.

Design/methodology/approach

In this research, a criterion called hybrid manipulability (HM) is proposed to assess the performance of the manipulator’s operation, considering crucial factors such as joint limits, obstacle avoidance and stability. The determination of the optimal platform pose is achieved by selecting the pose that maximizes the HM within the feasible inverse reachability map associated with the target object.

Findings

A self-built mobile manipulator is adopted as the experimental platform, and the feasibility of the proposed method is experimentally verified in the context of object-grasping tasks both in simulation and practice.

Originality/value

The proposed HM extends upon the conventional notion of manipulability by incorporating additional factors, including the manipulator’s joint limits, the obstacle avoidance situation during the operation and the manipulation stability when grasping the target object. The manipulator can achieve enhanced stability during grasping when positioned in the pose determined by the HM.

Details

Industrial Robot: the international journal of robotics research and application, vol. 51 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0143-991X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 29 April 2014

Dalibor Petkovic, Mirna Issa, Nenad D. Pavlovic, Lena Zentner, Md Nor Ridzuan Daud and Shahaboddin Shamshirband

Tactile sensing is the process of determining physical properties and events through contact with objects in the world. The purpose of this paper is to establish a novel design of…

Abstract

Purpose

Tactile sensing is the process of determining physical properties and events through contact with objects in the world. The purpose of this paper is to establish a novel design of an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) for estimation of contact position of a new tactile sensing structure.

Design/methodology/approach

The major task is to investigate implementations of carbon-black-filled silicone rubber for tactile sensation; the silicone rubber is electrically conductive and its resistance changes by loading or unloading strains.

Findings

The sensor-elements for the tactile sensing structure were made by press-curing from carbon-black-filled silicone rubber. The experimental results can be used as training and checking data for the ANFIS network.

Originality/value

This system is capable to find any change of contact positions and thus indicates state of the current contact location of the tactile sensing structure. The behavior of the use silicone rubber shows strong non-linearity, therefore, the sensor cannot be used for high accurate measurements. The greatest advantage of this sensing material lies in its high elasticity.

Article
Publication date: 22 March 2013

Dalibor Petković, Mirna Issa, Nenad D. Pavlović and Lena Zentner

The aim of this paper is to investigate implementations of carbon‐black filled silicone rubber for tactile sensation.

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this paper is to investigate implementations of carbon‐black filled silicone rubber for tactile sensation.

Design/methodology/approach

The sensor‐elements for this tactile sensing structure were made by press‐curing from carbon‐black filled silicone rubber.

Findings

The behaviour of the silicone rubber shows strong non‐linearity, therefore, the sensor cannot be used for accurate measurements. The greatest advantage of this material lies in its high elasticity.

Originality/value

A new method for artificial tactile sensing skin for robotic applications.

Details

Sensor Review, vol. 33 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0260-2288

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 31 July 2019

Yitao Pan, Yuan Chen and Lin Li

The purpose of this paper is to propose a two-degrees-of-freedom wire-driven 4SPS/U rigid‒flexible parallel trunk joint mechanism based on spring, in order to improve the robot’s…

1161

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to propose a two-degrees-of-freedom wire-driven 4SPS/U rigid‒flexible parallel trunk joint mechanism based on spring, in order to improve the robot’s athletic ability, load capacity and rigidity, and to ensure the coordination of multi-modal motion.

Design/methodology/approach

First, based on the rotation transformation matrix and closed-loop constraint equation of the parallel trunk joint mechanism, the mathematical model of its inverse position solution is constructed. Then, the Jacobian matrix of velocity and acceleration is derived by time derivative method. On this basis, the stiffness matrix of the parallel trunk joint mechanism is derived on the basis of the principle of virtual work and combined with the deformation effect of the rope driving pair and the spring elastic restraint pair. Then, the eigenvalue distribution of the stiffness matrix and the global stiffness performance index are used as the stiffness evaluation index of the mechanism. In addition, the performance index of athletic dexterity is analyzed. Finally, the distribution map of kinematic dexterity and stiffness is drawn in the workspace by numerical simulation, and the influence of the introduced spring on the stiffness distribution of the parallel trunk joint mechanism is compared and analyzed. It is concluded that the stiffness in the specific direction of the parallel trunk joint mechanism can be improved, and the stiffness distribution can be improved by adjusting the spring elastic structure parameters of the rope-driven branch chain.

Findings

Studies have shown that the wire-driven 4SPS/U rigid‒flexible parallel trunk joint mechanism based on spring has a great kinematic dexterity, load-carrying capacity and stiffness performance.

Research limitations/implications

The soft-mixed structure is not mature, and there are few new materials for the soft-mixed mixture; the rope and the rigid structure are driven together with a large amount of friction and hindrance factors, etc.

Practical implications

It ensures that the multi-motion mode hexapod mobile robot can meet the requirement of sufficient different stiffness for different motion postures through the parallel trunk joint mechanism, and it ensures that the multi-motion mode hexapod mobile robot in multi-motion mode can meet the performance requirement of global stiffness change at different pose points of different motion postures through the parallel trunk joint mechanism.

Social implications

The trunk structure is a very critical mechanism for animals. Animals in the movement to achieve smooth climbing, overturning and other different postures, such as centipede, starfish, giant salamander and other multi-legged animals, not only rely on the unique leg mechanism, but also must have a unique trunk joint mechanism. Based on the cooperation of these two mechanisms, the animal can achieve a stable, flexible and flexible variety of motion characteristics. Therefore, the trunk joint mechanism has an important significance for the coordinated movement of the whole body of the multi-sport mode mobile robot (Huang Hu-lin, 2016).

Originality/value

In this paper, based on the idea of combining rigid parallel mechanism with wire-driven mechanism, a trunk mechanism is designed, which is composed of four spring-based wire-driven 4SPS/U rigid‒flexible parallel trunk joint mechanism in series. Its spring-based wire-driven 4SPS/U rigid‒flexible parallel trunk joint mechanism can make the multi-motion mode mobile robot have better load capacity, mobility and stiffness performance (Qi-zhi et al., 2018; Cong-hao et al., 2018), thus improving the environmental adaptability and reliability of the multi-motion mode mobile robot.

Details

International Journal of Structural Integrity, vol. 10 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-9864

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 October 2013

Dong Liu, Ming Cong, Yu Du and Clarence W. de Silva

Indoor robotic tasks frequently specify objects. For these applications, this paper aims to propose an object-based attention method using task-relevant feature for target…

Abstract

Purpose

Indoor robotic tasks frequently specify objects. For these applications, this paper aims to propose an object-based attention method using task-relevant feature for target selection. The task-relevant feature(s) are deduced from the learned object representation in semantic memory (SM), and low dimensional bias feature templates are obtained using Gaussian mixture model (GMM) to get an efficient attention process. This method can be used to select target in a scene which forms a task-specific representation of the environment and improves the scene understanding by driving the robot to a position in which the objects of interest can be detected with a smaller error probability.

Design/methodology/approach

Task definition and object representation in SM are proposed, and bias feature templates are obtained using GMM deduction for features from high dimension to low dimension. Mean shift method is used to segment the visual scene into discrete proto-objects. Given a task-specific object, the top-down bias attention uses obtained statistical knowledge of the visual features of the desired target to impact proto-objects and generate the saliency map by combining with the bottom-up saliency-based attention so as to maximize target detection speed.

Findings

Experimental results show that the proposed GMM-based attention model provides an effective and efficient method for task-specific target selection under different conditions. The promising results show that the method may provide good approximation to how humans combine target cues to optimize target selection.

Practical implications

The present method has been successfully applied in plenty of natural scenes of indoor robotic tasks. The proposed method has a wide range of applications and is using for an intelligent homecare robot cognitive control project. Due to the computational cost, the current implementation of this method has some limitations in real-time application.

Originality/value

The novel attention model which uses GMM to get the bias feature templates is proposed for attention competition. It provides a solution for object-based attention, and it is effective and efficient to improve search speed due to the autonomous deduction of features. The proposed model is adaptive without requiring predefined distinct types of features for task-specific objects.

Details

Industrial Robot: An International Journal, vol. 40 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0143-991X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 21 August 2017

Robert Bogue

This paper aims to provide details of recent developments in robotic tactile sensing.

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to provide details of recent developments in robotic tactile sensing.

Design/methodology/approach

Following a short introduction, this paper first provides an overview of tactile sensing effects and technologies. It then discusses recent developments in tactile sensing skins. Tactile sensing for robotic prosthetics and hands is then considered and is followed by a discussion of “tactile intelligence”. Various experimental results are included. Finally, brief concluding comments are drawn.

Findings

This shows that many advanced, sensitive and technologically varied tactile sensing devices are being developed. These devices are expected to impart robots with a range of enhanced capabilities such as improved gripping and manipulation, object recognition, the control and robotic hands and prosthetics and collision detection.

Originality/value

Tactile sensing has an increasingly important role to play in robotics, and this paper provides a technical insight into a number of recent developments and their applications.

Details

Industrial Robot: An International Journal, vol. 44 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0143-991X

Keywords

1 – 10 of 33