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The current threats to US security, both military and civilian, have led to an increased interest in the development of technologies to safeguard national facilities such as military bases, federal buildings, nuclear power plants, and national laboratories. As a result, the imaging, robotics, and intelligent systems (IRIS) laboratory at the University of Tennessee has established a research consortium, known as security automation and future electromotive robotics (SAFER), to develop, test, and deploy sensing and imaging systems. In this paper, we describe efforts made to build multi‐perspective mosaics of infrared and color video data for the purpose of under vehicle inspection. It is desired to create a large, high‐resolution mosaic that may be used to quickly visualize the entire scene shot by a camera making a single pass underneath the vehicle. Several constraints are placed on the video data in order to facilitate the assumption that the entire scene in the sequence exists on a single plane. Therefore, a single mosaic is used to represent a single video sequence.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new propeller-type climbing robot called EJBot for climbing various types of structures that include significant obstacles, besides inspection of industrial vessels made of various materials, including non-ferromagnetic material. The inspection includes capturing images for important spots and measuring the wall thickness.

The design mainly consists of two coaxial upturned propellers mounted on a mobile robot with four standard wheels. A new hybrid actuation system that consists of propeller thrust forces and standard wheel torques is considered as the adhesion system for this climbing robot. This system generates the required adhesion force to support the robot on the climbed surfaces. Dynamic simulation using ADAMS is performed and ensures the success of this idea.

Experimental tests to check the EJBot’s capabilities of climbing different surfaces, such as smooth, rough, flat and cylindrical surfaces like the real vessel, are successfully carried out. In addition, the robot stops accurately on the climbed surface at any desired location for inspection purposes, and it overcomes significant obstacles up to 40 mm.

This proposed climbing robot is needed for petrochemical and liquid gas vessels, where a regular inspection of the welds and the wall thickness is required. The interaction between the human and these vessels is dangerous and not healthy due to the harmful environment inside these vessels.

This robot utilizes propeller thrusts and wheel torques simultaneously to generate adhesion and traction forces. Therefore, a versatile robot able to climb different kinds of structures is obtained.

The purpose of this study is to provide an in-depth understanding about the indoor-orbital electrical inspection robot, which is useful for motivating the further investigation on the inspection of electrical equipment. Currently, electric energy has a strong correlation with the economic development of the country. Intelligent substations play an important role in the transmission and distribution of the electricity; the maintenance of the substation has attracted intensive attention due to the requirement of reliability and safety. The indoor-orbital electrical inspection robot has increasingly become the main tool to realize the unmanned. Hence, a systematic review is conducted systematically reviewing the current technical status of the indoor-orbital electrical inspection robot and discuss the existed problems.

In this paper, the most essential achievements in the field of indoor-orbital electrical inspection robots were reported to present the current status, and the mechanical structures and key inspective technologies were also discussed.

Four recommendations are provided from the analyzed review, which have made constructive comments on the overall structural design, functionality, intelligence and future development direction of the indoor-orbital electrical inspection robot, respectively.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first systematic review study on indoor-orbital electrical inspection robots; it fills the theoretical gap and proffers design ideas and directions for the development of the indoor-orbital electrical inspection robot.

In this paper, an optical inspection method of the ball grid array package(BGA) is proposed using a binocular machine vision system.

The height of each solder ball is calculated based on spatial geometrical size and location obtained from the two CCD cameras capturing range images of a LED illuminated BGA chip at certain orientation.

The structure of this system is simple and the accuracy is 0.02 mm, The experimental results have proved the validity of this system for BGA failure detection.

The developed machine vision system can provide some of the critical factors for BGA quality evaluation, such as the height of solder ball, diameter, pitch and coplanarity.

Compared with other systems, the structure of this system is simple and accurate, which meets the demand of off‐line and on‐line inspection. The limitation of this system is that the margin of field of view (FOV) is fuzzy. Further study could be focused on this problem.

The purpose of this paper is to review the progress of machine vision as it applies to automated assembly applications.

A series of technological developments is described: 3D vision, smart cameras, near infrared (NIR) imaging and LED illumination. Associated with each are relevant assembly applications.

Advances in multi‐core processors are facilitating the development of 3D image processing algorithms for robot guidance and product inspection, which in turn enable the automation of skilful and labour‐intensive tasks. Machine vision products are becoming more capable, yet simpler to use. NIR imaging is useful for inspecting semiconductors and bottle filling. Advances in LED lighting address difficult inspection tasks at the macro and microscopic levels.

The paper recognises the emergence of 3D machine vision as a new tool in assembly automation. Updates engineers on other relevant machine vision advances.

This paper aims to review the use of imaging technologies in robotics, with an emphasis on inspection applications and the control of autonomous robots.

Following a brief introduction, this paper first considers vision‐based robotic inspection systems and highlights a selection of recent applications. Second, it considers the use of vision in autonomous robot navigation and discusses some of the challenges and recent developments.

This shows that developments in machine vision have led to vision systems being used in a diversity of component‐level and in‐service robotic inspection tasks. It also illustrates that vision systems have a key role to play in the emerging generation of autonomous, mobile robots.

This paper provides a review of recent developments in vision‐based robotic inspection and autonomous, mobile robot navigation.

The paper presents design details and applications of the recently developed 3‐D laser radar from Z+F. It presents models which have been constructed using the data from “inspection of tunnel tubes”, modelling of a “car body welding cell” and a “car body gripper” in the automotive industry as well as a “chemical process plant”. The laser radar was developed for use in industrial environments. Its twin design aims are measurement performance and robustness. The laser radar can be used with a range of mechanical beam deflection units to meet the needs of specific applications.

Aircraft flight pressurization/depressurization cycling causes the skin to inflate and deflate, stressing it around the rivets that fasten it to the airframe. The resulting strain, exacerbated by corrosion, drives the growth of initially microscopic cracks. To avoid catastrophe, aircraft are inspected periodically for cracks and corrosion. The inspection technology employed is ∼90 percent naked‐eye vision. We have developed and demonstrated robotic deployment of both remote enhanced 3D‐stereoscopic video instrumentation for visual inspection and remote eddy current probes for instrumented inspection. This article describes the aircraft skin inspection application, how robotic deployment may alleviate human performance problems and workplace hazards during inspection, practical robotic deployment systems, their instrumentation packages, and our progress toward developing image enhancement and understanding techniques that could help aircraft inspectors to find cracks, corrosion, and other visually detectable damage.

Briefly reviews previous literature by the author before presenting an original 12 step system integration protocol designed to ensure the success of companies or countries in their efforts to develop and market new products. Looks at the issues from different strategic levels such as corporate, international, military and economic. Presents 31 case studies, including the success of Japan in microchips to the failure of Xerox to sell its invention of the Alto personal computer 3 years before Apple: from the success in DNA and Superconductor research to the success of Sunbeam in inventing and marketing food processors: and from the daring invention and production of atomic energy for survival to the successes of sewing machine inventor Howe in co‐operating on patents to compete in markets. Includes 306 questions and answers in order to qualify concepts introduced.