Robotics, Volume 8, Issue 3

This article presents a multiplatform application for the tele-operation of a robot hand using virtualization in Unity 3D. This approach grants usability to users that need to control a robotic hand, allowing supervision in a collaborative way. This...

In robotic processes, the compliance of the robot arm plays a very important role. In some conditions, for example, in robotic assembly, robot arm compliance can compensate for small position and orientation errors of the end-effector. In other proce...

Grasping an unknown object in a pile is no easy task for a robot—it is often difficult to distinguish different objects; objects occlude one another; object proximity limits the number of feasible grasps available; and so forth. In this paper,...

Roaming complexity in terrains and unexpected environments pose significant difficulties in robotic exploration of an area. In a broader sense, robots have to face two common tasks during exploration, namely, walking on the drylands and swimming thro...

Single-actuator mobile robots offer the benefits of low energy consumption, low weight and size, and low cost, but their motion is typically only one-dimensional. By using auxiliary binary mechanisms that redirect and channel the driving force of the...

In this paper, the development of an assistance system for the elderly that combines robots with a network of sensors and actuators is described. The architecture was developed with the aim of interaction. With this reason, the system incorporates pa...

The tracking of people is an indispensable capacity in almost any robotic application. A relevant case is the @home robotic competitions, where the service robots have to demonstrate that they possess certain skills that allow them to interact with t...

This paper aims to describe how additive manufacturing can be useful in enhancing a robotic course, allowing students to focus on all aspects of the multidisciplinary components of this subject. A three-year experience of the course of “robotic...

Multi-robot mapping and environment modeling have several advantages that make it an attractive alternative to the mapping with a single robot: faster exploration, higher fault tolerance, richer data due to different sensors being used by different s...

In this paper, we experimentally evaluate the performance of a sensor concept for solving the direct kinematics problem of a general planar 3-RPR parallel mechanism by using solely the linear actuators’ orientations. At first, we review classic...

Pick-and-place manipulators have become one of the principal components of almost all manufacturing plants. The process of sizing the number of manipulators required to efficiently carry out pick-and-place tasks depends on the complexities of such pl...

This paper presents our work over the last decade in developing functional microrobotic systems, which include wireless actuation of microrobots to traverse complex surfaces, addition of sensing capabilities, and independent actuation of swarms of mi...

Assembly kitting lines typically deal with components that present different quantities in the final kit. Re-configurable feeders are not advisable for low quantity components since this solution leads to high inefficiency, due to the time required f...

This paper is an extension of our previous work about a modular anthropomorphic robotic hand with soft enhancements focusing on simultaneous pinch grasp and suction-based object manipulations. The base structure is a tendon-driven robotic hand compri...

Industrial manipulators and parallel robots are often used for tasks, such as drilling or milling, that require three translational, but only two rotational degrees of freedom (“3T2R”). While kinematic models for specific mechanisms for t...

Exoskeleton robots are a rising technology in industrial contexts to assist humans in onerous applications. Mechanical and control design solutions are intensively investigated to achieve a high performance human-robot collaboration (e.g., transparen...

This paper deals with the reconfiguration analysis of a 3-DOF (degrees-of-freedom) parallel manipulator (PM) which belongs to the cylindrical parallel mechanisms family. The PM is composed of a base and a moving platform shaped as equilateral triangl...

The mobile robot kinematic model is a nonlinear affine system, which is constrained by velocity and acceleration limits. Therefore, the traditional control methods may not solve the tracking problem because of the physical constraint. In this paper,...

In this paper, we investigate the problem of grasping previously unseen objects in unstructured environments which are cluttered with multiple objects. Object geometry, reachability, and force-closure analysis are considered to address this problem....

This paper describes the development of a convolutional neural network for the control of a home monitoring robot (FumeBot). The robot is fitted with a Raspberry Pi for on board control and a Raspberry Pi camera is used as the data feed for the neura...

Metals and glass are excellent for containing electrolytes and liquids in general, but their rigid mechanics limits their application for mechanically active ionic actuators or flexible/ stretchable electrochemical devices such as batteries and super...

Mobile target search is a problem pertinent to a variety of applications, including wilderness search and rescue. This paper proposes a hybrid approach for target search utilizing a team of mobile agents supported by a network of static sensors. The...

In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been used in several fields including, for example, archaeology, cargo transport, conservation, healthcare, filmmaking, hobbies and recreational use. UAVs are aircraft characterized by the absence...

Cable-Driven Parallel Robots (CDPR) operate over a large positional workspace and a relatively large orientation workspace. In the present work, the expansion of the orientation Wrench Feasible Workspace (WFW) in a planar four-cable passive reconfigu...

This paper addresses a strategy learning problem in the RoboCupSoccer Small Size League (SSL). We propose a novel method based on action sequences to cluster an opponent’s strategies online. Our proposed method is composed of the following thre...

Several bio-inspired underwater robots have been demonstrated in the last few years that can horizontally swim using different smart actuators. However, very few works have been presented on robots which can swim vertically, have a payload and resemb...

In this paper, we describe the development of a robot that plays the “darumasan-ga- koronda” game with human players. It is a big challenge to develop a robot that can play with human players. We first observed the human–human game...

One of the active challenges in multi-robot missions is related to managing operator workload and situational awareness. Currently, the operators are trained to use interfaces, but in the near future this can be turned inside out: the interfaces will...

The cooperation between humans and robots is becoming increasingly important in our society. Consequently, there is a growing interest in the development of models that can enhance and enrich the interaction between humans and robots. A key challenge...

The use of unmanned vehicles to perform tiring, hazardous, repetitive tasks, is becoming a reality out of the academy laboratories, getting more and more interest for several application fields from the industrial, to the civil, to the military conte...

Online Social Networks (OSNs), such as Facebook and Twitter, have become a very important part of many people’s daily lives. Unfortunately, the high popularity of these platforms makes them very attractive to spammers. Machine learning (ML) tec...

Wire-driven continuum manipulators are gaining more attention due to their flexibility and dexterity features. In comparison with traditional manipulators, the continuum structure is compliant and safe for human tissue and is able to easily adapt to...

This study developed a wearable hearing-assist system that can identify the direction of a sound source while using short-term interaural time differences (ITDs) of sound pressure and convey the sound source direction to a hearing-impaired person via...