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1 – 10 of over 119000This paper is designed to encourage electronic device designers to take a new look at a recent technology, Hall‐effect sensing, that has seen exceptional growth in certain areas…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper is designed to encourage electronic device designers to take a new look at a recent technology, Hall‐effect sensing, that has seen exceptional growth in certain areas, but could find much wider application and acceptance due to new supporting technologies.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper introduces Hall‐effect technology, and then explores how it has been applied, in particular, differentiating between the primary types of Hall sensors, and the highly differentiated range of sensing behaviors they can provide. In addition, it explores some of the enabling technologies, such as advances in signal processing, that have made this technology so much more robust than in its earliest days. This allows the application of the extreme high‐reliability benefit of contactless Hall sensing to a broader range of applications than ever before.
Findings
In addition to the advances that have made Hall‐effect sensing more practical, there are additional contributions to the designs of complete solutions. These advances include power and space reduction, as well as integration of diagnostic and protection functions that allow Hall sensor ICs to provide the advanced data‐driven features that are becoming more in demand in miniaturized portable consumer electronics, automobiles, and other growing industries.
Research limitations/implications
The research is intended as a general introduction to an emerging, yet complex technology. It is limited to standard configurations, and simplified explanations of magnetic effects.
Originality/value
This paper can be of great value to application designers who specialize in either the mechanical or electrical engineering disciplines, and who would like a cross‐disciplinary introduction to this technology, which requires a foundation in both areas simultaneously. In addition, the somewhat mysterious realm of electromagnetics is presented in a practical way, allowing the reader to gain enough confidence to begin experimenting with this innovative technology.
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An extensive survey of over 300 reports worldwide shows that the state‐of‐the‐art in tactile sensing — defined as continuously variable touch sensing over an area where there is…
Abstract
An extensive survey of over 300 reports worldwide shows that the state‐of‐the‐art in tactile sensing — defined as continuously variable touch sensing over an area where there is special resolution — is primitive. Only now is a new level of sophistication beginning to appear. However, for industrial systems the simplest may prove to be the most reliable.
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Guangkai Sun, Yang Hu, Mingli Dong, Yanlin He, Mingxin Yu and Lianqing Zhu
Soft robotics is a burgeoning field owing to its high adaptability and safety in human–machine interaction and unstructured environments. However, the feedback control of soft…
Abstract
Purpose
Soft robotics is a burgeoning field owing to its high adaptability and safety in human–machine interaction and unstructured environments. However, the feedback control of soft actuators with flexible sensors is still a challenge.
Design/methodology/approach
To address this issue, this study proposes an optical fibre-based sensing membrane for the posture measurement of soft pneumatic bending actuators. The major contribution is the development of a flexible sensing membrane with a high sensitivity and repeatability for the feedback control of soft actuators. The characteristics of sensing membrane were analysed. The relationship between wavelength shift and bending curvature was derived. The curvatures of soft actuator were measured at four bending status, and the postures were reconstructed.
Findings
The results indicate that the measurement error is less than 2.1% of the actual bending curvature. The sensitivity is up to 212.8 pm/m−1, and the signal fluctuation in repeated measurements is negligible. This approach has broad application prospects in soft robotics, because it makes the optical fibre achieve more strength and compatible with soft actuators, thus improving the sensing accuracy, sensitivity and reliability of fibre sensors.
Originality/value
Different from previous approaches, an optical fibre with FBGs is embedded into a multilayered polyimide film to form a flexible sensing membrane, and the membrane is embedded into a soft pneumatic bending actuator as the smart strain limited layer which is able to measure the posture in real time. This approach makes the optical fibre stronger and compatible with the soft pneumatic bending actuator, and the sensing accuracy, sensitivity and reliability are improved. The proposed sensing configuration is effective for the feedback control of the soft pneumatic bending actuators.
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To describe new technological approaches and improvements to existing methods of measuring position in automation, sports and general applications.
Abstract
Purpose
To describe new technological approaches and improvements to existing methods of measuring position in automation, sports and general applications.
Design/methodology/approach
Starts with interesting applications of established sensor technology in motorsports and aircraft manufacture. Then examines some new position sensors based on novel technology.
Findings
Optical techniques including lasers and linear encoding enable high precision position sensing over long distances. Laser scanning systems have some advantages over vision systems for pick and place applications. Differential global positioning system (GPS) and carrier‐wave techniques are giving millimeter accuracy to GPSs.
Originality/value
Highlights the more exciting aspects of position sensing.
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Describes the development and fabrication of an inductive position sensing system based on low cost printed circuit technology. Applications include rotary, linear and 3D position…
Abstract
Describes the development and fabrication of an inductive position sensing system based on low cost printed circuit technology. Applications include rotary, linear and 3D position sensing.
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To describe the architecture of iPOS (short for iPAQ positioning system), a novel fault‐tolerant and adaptive self‐positioning system with quality‐of‐service (QoS) guarantees for…
Abstract
Purpose
To describe the architecture of iPOS (short for iPAQ positioning system), a novel fault‐tolerant and adaptive self‐positioning system with quality‐of‐service (QoS) guarantees for resource‐limited mobile devices.
Design/methodology/approach
The iPOS architecture is based on a novel sensor modelling technique in combination with a probabilistic data‐fusion engine, which is capable of efficiently combining the location information obtained from an arbitrary number of heterogeneous location sensors. As a proof of concept, the paper present a prototypical implementation for handheld devices, which was evaluated by means of practical experiments.
Findings
A major advantage of the iPOS positioning system is its extensibility and flexibility, which is achieved by means of an open plugin architecture and the support of global positioning coordinates according to the WGS‐84 standard. The iPOS system scales very well with respect to the number of sensor plugins that can be operated in parallel. The main limiting factor for the number of supported active plugins is the amount of available system resources on the MoD. With regard to recognition, the experimental results indicate a good accuracy of the fusion‐based positioning system in comparison to the accuracy of the individual sensing technologies. Thanks to the explicit modelling of reliable sensor events, the iPOS system is capable of providing QoS guarantees to applications with regard to the achieved positioning accuracy.
Research limitations/implications
During the experiments, the author recognized time synchronisation as an important challenge that should be addressed as part of future work.
Practical implications
The system enables resource‐restricted mobile devices and computerised objects to exploit computing resources found in their immediate physical vicinity (locality).
Originality/value
The paper presents a novel lightweight sensor‐fusion architecture for fault‐tolerant and adaptive self‐positioning that performs well on resource‐limited mobile devices. A special feature of the developed data‐fusion architecture is the application of a novel event modelling technique that enables the positioning system to give QoS guarantees under certain conditions.
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A. Albu‐Schäffer, S. Haddadin, Ch. Ott, A. Stemmer, T. Wimböck and G. Hirzinger
The paper seeks to present a new generation of torque‐controlled light‐weight robots (LWR) developed at the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics of the German Aerospace Center.
Abstract
Purpose
The paper seeks to present a new generation of torque‐controlled light‐weight robots (LWR) developed at the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics of the German Aerospace Center.
Design/methodology/approach
An integrated mechatronic design approach for LWR is presented. Owing to the partially unknown properties of the environment, robustness of planning and control with respect to environmental variations is crucial. Robustness is achieved in this context through sensor redundancy and passivity‐based control. In the DLR root concept, joint torque sensing plays a central role.
Findings
In order to act in unstructured environments and interact with humans, the robots have design features and control/software functionalities which distinguish them from classical robots, such as: load‐to‐weight ratio of 1:1, torque sensing in the joints, active vibration damping, sensitive collision detection, compliant control on joint and Cartesian level.
Practical implications
The DLR robots are excellent research platforms for experimentation of advanced robotics algorithms. Space and medical robotics are further areas for which these robots were designed and hopefully will be applied within the next years. Potential industrial application fields are the fast automatic assembly as well as manufacturing activities done in cooperation with humans (industrial robot assistant). The described functionalities are of course highly relevant also for the potentially huge market of service robotics. The LWR technology was transferred to KUKA Roboter GmbH, which will bring the first arms on the market in the near future.
Originality/value
This paper introduces a new type of LWR with torque sensing in each joint and describes a consistent approach for using these sensors for manipulation in human environments. To the best of one's knowledge, the first systematic experimental evaluation of possible injuries during robot‐human crashes using standardized testing facilities is presented.
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Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to introduce the DoraHand, and the basic capability and performance have been verified in this paper. Besides the idea of sharing modular design and sensor design, the authors want to deliver an affordable and practical dexterous hand to the research area to contribute to the robotic manipulation area.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper introduced the DoraHand, a novel scalable and practical modular dexterous hand, which, adopting modular finger and palm design, fully actuated joint and tactile sensors, can improve the dexterity for robotic manipulation and lower the complexity of maintenance. A series of experiments are delivered to verify the performance of the hand and sensor module.
Findings
The parameters of the DoraHand are verified and suitable for the research of robotics manipulation area, the sensing capability has been tested with the static experiment and the slip prediction algorithm. And, the advantage of modular design and extensible interface have been verified by the real application.
Research limitations/implications
The authors continue improving the DoraHand and extend it to more different applications. The authors want to make the DoraHand as a basic research platform in the robotic manipulation area.
Practical implications
The DoraHand has been sent to more than ten different research institutes for different research applications. The authors continue working on this hand for better performance, easier usage and more affordability.
Social implications
This kind of dexterous hand can help researchers get rid of complex physical issues and pay more attention to the algorithm part; it can help to make robotic manipulation work more popular.
Originality/value
The key design in the DoraHand is the modular finger and sensing module. With the special design in mechanical and electrical parts, the authors build reliable hardware and can support the diversity requirement in the robotic manipulation area. The hand with tactile sensing capability can be used in more research and applications with its extensibility.
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Describes research into managers′ experiences of significantorganizational change attempts. The research project was aimed atdeveloping frameworks which: describe, illuminate and…
Abstract
Describes research into managers′ experiences of significant organizational change attempts. The research project was aimed at developing frameworks which: describe, illuminate and enable a better understanding of managers′ journeys through organizational change; serve as a template for bringing together the very diverse and fragmented literature relating to individuals experiencing change; highlight issues and pointers for the design and facilitation of effective organizational change initiatives. The first part describes the context, spirit, intentions, sample and methodology of the research. Also, reviews a broad range of literature which can inform our understanding of individuals in change. Propounds the need to open up the “real world” of organizational change, as perceived and experienced by managers, rather than any “ideal” view of how that world is desired or supposed to be. Presents and discusses research findings on the sensed and initiating “primary” triggers for change‐that is, the formal and communicated organizational change objectives; and the perceived and felt “secondary” triggers for change‐that is, the issues raised by, and the implications of, the organizational changes for individual managers. The second part presents a framework depicting the phases and components of managers′ journeys through organizational change. On the framework, the experience of managers can be located, in terms of their thoughts, feelings and behaviours, as the processes of change unfold. While each manager′s journey was found to be unique, the framework proved to be ubiquitous in enabling the mapping of all the managers′ journeys, and it also accommodates literature on phenomena as diverse as learning, personal transition, catastrophe and survival, trauma and stress, loss and “death”, and worry and grief. The findings emphasize the profoundness and deeply felt emotionality of many managers′ experiencing of change in organizations. Finally, identifies the outcomes of managers′ journeys through significant attempts at organizational change. Also presents the reported helping and hindering factors to those journeys. Implications of these findings are pursued, particularly in terms of the leadership and development roles and behaviours required, if the organization and its management are to move beyond simply requiring change towards actively facilitating its achievement.
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