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Humanitarian de‐mining tasks require the use of specific detecting sets to detect landmines. These sets are normally based on a one‐point sensor, which must be moved over the infested terrain by a combination of a scanning manipulator and a mobile platform. The purpose of this paper is to present the development of the sensor head and the scanning manipulator.

The manipulator needs sensors in order to negotiate ground irregularities and detect obstacles in the path of the mine‐detecting set. All of the sensors must be integrated into a sensor head that is in charge of both detecting land mines and providing overall sensor functions for the mobile platform's steering controller.

The sensor head is based on a commercial mine‐detecting set and a ground‐tracking set based on a network of range sensors tailor‐made for this purpose; the scanning manipulator is based on a mechanism with five degrees of freedom.

The design assessment and some experiments are reported.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how commercially‐off‐the‐shelf sensors and stimulators, such as infrared rangers and vibrators, can be retrofitted as a useful assistive technology in real and virtual environments.

The paper describes how a wearable range‐vibrotactile device is designed and tested in the real‐world setting, as well as thorough evaluations in a virtual environment for complicated navigation tasks and neuroscience studies.

In the real‐world setting, a person with normal vision who has to navigate their way around a room with their eyes closed will quickly rely on their arms and hands to explore the room. The authors’ device allows a person to “feel” their environment without touching it. Due to inherent difficulties in testing human subjects when navigating a real environment, a virtual environment affords us an opportunity to scientifically and extensively test the prototype before deploying the device in the real‐world.

This project serves as a starting‐point for further research in benchmarking assistive technology for the visually impaired and to eventually develop a man‐machine sensorimotor model that will improve current state‐of‐the‐art technology, as well as a better understanding of neural coding in the human brain.

Based on 2012 World Health Organization, there are 39 million blind people. This project will have a direct impact on this community.

The paper demonstrates a low cost design of assistive technology that has been tested and evaluated in real and virtual environments, as well as integration of sensor designs and neuroscience.

This paper aims to design and implement the multiple adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (MANFIS) architecture-based sensor-actuator (motor) control technique for mobile robot navigation in different two-dimensional environments with the presence of static and moving obstacles.

The three infrared range sensors have been mounted on the front, left and right side of the robot, which reads the forward, left forward and right forward static and dynamic obstacles in the environment. This sensor data information is fed as inputs into the MANFIS architecture to generate appropriate speed control commands for right and left motors of the robot. In this study, we have taken one assumption for moving obstacle avoidance in different scenarios the speed of the mobile robot is at least greater than or equal to the speed of moving obstacles and goal.

Graphical simulations have designed through MATLAB and virtual robot experimentation platform (V-REP) software and experiments have been done on Arduino MEGA 2560 microcontroller-based mobile robot. Simulation and experimental studies demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed MANFIS architecture.

This paper designs and implements MANFIS architecture for mobile robot navigation between a static and moving obstacle in different simulation and experimental environments. Also, the authors have compared this developed architecture to the other navigational technique and found that our developed architecture provided better results in terms of path length in the same environment.

This paper aims to design a Takagi–Sugeno fuzzy model with a simulated annealing hybrid algorithm (fuzzy-SAA) that was implemented for mobile robot navigation and obstacle avoidance in a cluttered environment.

The SAA is used to optimize the output parameters of the fuzzy controller. The ultrasonic range finder sensor and sharp infrared range sensor are used for calculating the different obstacle distances, such as front, right and left obstacle distance, for selecting the suitable steering angle control command in the environment.

The simulation and experimental results show the proposed method is feasible and valid for a wheeled mobile robot moving in a cluttered environment.

The developed fuzzy-SAA hybrid algorithm provides better results (in terms of navigation path length and time) as compared to previous works, which verifies the effectiveness and efficiency of the developed hybrid algorithm.

A novel type of artistic Artificial Life environment is introduced and where evolving agents, who have the ability to make and listen to sound, populate a synthetic world are described. An evolvable, rule‐based system which drives agent behaviour and where agents compete for limited resources in a virtual environment that is influenced by the presence and movement of the artwork's audience is discussed. It is shown that through a link between the real and virtual spaces, virtual agents evolve implicitly and try to maintain the interest of the human audience.

The purpose of this paper was to propose a method based on an Artificial Neural Network and a real-time vision algorithm, to learn welding skills in industrial robotics.

By using an optic camera to measure the bead geometry (width and height), the authors propose a real-time computer vision algorithm to extract training patterns and to enable an industrial robot to acquire and learn autonomously the welding skill. To test the approach, an industrial KUKA robot and a welding gas metal arc welding machine were used in a manufacturing cell.

Several data analyses are described, showing empirically that industrial robots can acquire the skill even if the specific welding parameters are unknown.

The approach considers only stringer beads. Weave bead and bead penetration are not considered.

With the proposed approach, it is possible to learn specific welding parameters despite of the material, type of robot or welding machine. This is due to the fact that the feedback system produces automatic measurements that are labelled prior to the learning process.

The main contribution is that the complex learning process is reduced into an input-process-output system, where the process part is learnt automatically without human supervision, by registering the patterns with an automatically calibrated vision system.

Describes the work undertaken by Oxford University’s robotics group, founded in 1985 by Professor Mike Brady. States that these university scientists have their feet firmly on the ground and illustrates this by giving details of a number of industrially‐sponsored projects with which they are involved; in the medical, automotive and defence sectors. Shows how the group fits in to Oxford’s engineering department as a whole.

Snake-inspired robots are of great significance in many fields because of their great adaptability to the environment. This paper aims to systematically illustrate the research progress of snake-inspired robots according to their application environments. It classifies snake-inspired robots according to the numbers of degrees of freedom in each joint and briefly describes the modeling and control of snake-inspired robots. Finally, the application fields and future development trends of snake-inspired robots are analyzed and discussed.

This paper summarizes the research progress of snake-inspired robots and clarifies the requirements of snake-inspired robots for self-adaptive environments and multi-functional tasks. By equipping various sensors and tool modules, snake-inspired robots are developed from fixed-point operation in a single environment to autonomous operation in an amphibious environment. Finally, it is pointed out that snake-inspired robots will be developed in terms of rigid and flexible deformable structure, long endurance and multi-function and intelligent autonomous control.

Inspired by the modular and reconfigurable concepts of biological snakes, snake-inspired robots are well adapted to unknown and changing environments. Therefore, snake-inspired robots will be widely used in industrial, military, medical, post-disaster search and rescue applications. Snake-inspired robots have become a hot research topic in the field of bionic robots.

This paper summarizes the research status of snake-inspired robots, which facilitates the reader to be a comprehensive and systematic understanding of the research progress of snake-inspired robots. This helps the reader to gain inspiration from biological perspectives.

Inductive guidance system for the SmartCart AGV allows very fast installation and re‐layout using adhesive stainless steel strips on the floor. Vehicles are self‐contained and can be individually programmed. The manufacturer gains its experience in AGVs through contract manufacture and has now designed its own system.

Infrared sensors are the fastest growing segment of a $1 billion a year temperature sensor market. Matt Guerreiri of Raytek explains why.