The Infona portal uses cookies, i.e. strings of text saved by a browser on the user's device. The portal can access those files and use them to remember the user's data, such as their chosen settings (screen view, interface language, etc.), or their login data. By using the Infona portal the user accepts automatic saving and using this information for portal operation purposes. More information on the subject can be found in the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. By closing this window the user confirms that they have read the information on cookie usage, and they accept the privacy policy and the way cookies are used by the portal. You can change the cookie settings in your browser.
Master-slave surgical robots have been studied and developed to support surgeons. Robotic functions such as motion scaling and hand shaking correction can extend the ability of surgeons. However, some problems are remaining in robotic surgery. Operation time which can become the burden to surgeons is still long. Surgeons must assess the situation, decide the next task correctly, and achieve tasks...
We describe a new series pneumatic artificial muscle (sPAM) and its application as an actuator for a soft continuum robot. The robot consists of three sPAMs arranged radially around a tubular pneumatic backbone. Analogous to tendons, the sPAMs exert a tension force on the robot's pneumatic backbone, causing bending that is approximately constant curvature. Unlike a traditional tendon driven continuum...
When full automation of mobile robots is not possible or desirable, teleoperation constitutes an alternative. The human operator can be supported with direction cues to facilitate localization or navigation. These cues are presented typically in the auditory, haptic and/or visual modality. An experiment was conducted to evaluate systematically and empirically the (uni-modal and multi-modal) effects...
Fuzzy theory was motivated by the need to create human-like solutions that allow representing vagueness and uncertainty that exist in the real-world. These capabilities have been recently further enhanced by deep learning since it allows converting complex relation between data into knowledge. In this paper, we present a novel Deep-Neuro-Fuzzy strategy for unsupervised estimation of the interaction...
Over the past few decades, robot actuators with variable stiffness or impedance control have been developed. This control adjusts the stiffness of the task space of joint space, enabling the robot to perform explosive tasks and to interact with environments and humans. However, planning the robot stiffness is a difficult task, except in a few optimal control problems, such as maximizing the output...
The shortage of physicians afflicting developed countries encourages engineers and doctors to collaborate towards the development of telemedicine. In particular, robotic systems have the potential for helping doctors making examination. A very common examination that can be the goal of a robotic system is palpation. Most of the robotics systems that have been developed for palpation present interesting...
Realizing accurate robotic manipulation of flexible objects is very challenging. It asks for dexterous manipulation skill, and demands good adaptation to dynamic uncertainties due to deformation. Unlike traditional methods that basically depend on complex modeling, we follow the opposite approach by exploring possible simplifications based on high-speed motion strategy as well as high-speed visual...
Dividing the control authority of the slave robot among operators, based on the available information to them and their controlling strategy, is absolutely essential for cooperative teleoperation systems. Although there have been many studies on this, most of the analysis were limited to fixed authority and its effect on stability. None of the research has discussed how to allocate the control authority...
The coordination of the upper limbs has been shown to be beneficial for post-stroke treatment. In virtual reality based rehabilitation, bimanual exercises can be performed by exploiting haptic rendering techniques that allow object manipulation with two haptic devices. Haptic interaction generally involves spherical end-effectors with invariant shapes. Furthermore, the position of the end-effectors...
This paper describes the development of an ankle training robot force visualization for eccentric contraction training. In the mechanism of walking, the eccentric contraction of the tibialis anterior muscle plays an important part in the phase between heel-strike and foot-flat as a shock absorber. However, the eccentric contraction has not been reported in previous research on ankle rehabilitation...
Chronic hemiparetic stroke survivors need 3D point-to-point movements every day at home. We compared device-assisted 3D reaching exercise performed by chronic stroke and evaluated the effect of active-assisted/active devices and 2D/3D visual feedback. We chose two arms to serve as upper extremity exercise devices, with active-assisted and active modes. 2D/3D visual feedback of the target position...
A novel approach for stabilization and navigation of swarms of Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs) along a predefined path through a complex environment with obstacles is introduced in this paper. The method enables to control large MAV swarms (in literature also called UAV swarms) based only on onboard sensors and without any inter-vehicle communication. The proposed method relies on visual localization...
This paper investigates the effect of maximum indentation force and depth on people's ability to accurately discriminate compliance using indirect visual information only. Participants took part in two psychophysical experiments in which they were asked to choose the ‘softest’ sample out of a series of presented sample pairs. In the experiments, participants observed a computer-actuated tip indent...
Error feedback is critical for supporting motor adaptation in rehabilitation, sports, piloting, and skilled manual tasks. Error augmentation interventions, in which participants' errors are amplified with either visual or haptic feedback during training has shown success over repetitive practice. Here we show that the statistical tendencies arising from free movement exploration can improve error...
We introduce the modelling and control of a rolling microrobot. The microrobot is capable of manipulating micro-objects through the use of a magnetic visual control system. This system consists of a rod-shaped microrobot, a magnetic actuation system and a visual control system. Motion of the rolling microrobot on a supporting surface is induced by a rotating magnetic field. As the robot is submerged...
In this paper, robot control by human motion data is considered. The conventional motion reproduction structure had its limitation on the performance due to the lack of means for environmental sensing. This study implements the widely used vision based approach. The possible reproduction structure with both visual and tactile senses are discussed. The proposed reproduction structure with both visual...
To perform a tool-using task by manipulating some target object, a robot needs to a) determine the desired effects of the task b) determine a suitable tool c) generate the correct position and orientation in which tool should be placed relative to the target object and d) determine the action to subsequently manipulate the tool after it is placed. Thus, learning to use tool requires robot to determine...
Haptic stimulation can help humans learn perceptual motor skills, but the precise way in which it influences the learning process has not yet been clarified. This study investigates the role of the kinesthetic and cutaneous components of haptic feedback during the learning of a viscous curl field, taking also into account the influence of visual feedback. We present the results of an experiment in...
We propose two novel human-centric force control methods for a power assist robot for lifting objects with it by the human. For this purpose, we developed a 1 DoF experimental power assist system for lifting objects. We included human's weight perception in the robot dynamics, and derived two novel force control methods for the system. We then implemented the force control methods separately. For...
In this research, we successfully demonstrated dexterous manipulation of sheet-like elastic objects, namely, playing cards, using a high-speed robot system. In particular, our goal was to achieve card flicking by vibrating a fingertip of a robot hand at high speed and card catching by using high-speed visual feedback based on a high-speed vision system. We discuss card grasping in the initial state...
Set the date range to filter the displayed results. You can set a starting date, ending date or both. You can enter the dates manually or choose them from the calendar.