Robotics, Volume 9, Issue 4

This article presents the development of a fuzzy guidance system (FGS) for unmanned aerial vehicles capable of pursuing and performing rendezvous with static and mobile targets. The system is designed to allow the vehicle to approach a maneuvering ta...

Mobile robotics is a widespread field of research, whose differentiation from general robotics is often based only on the ability to move. However, mobile robots need unique capabilities, such as the function of navigation. Also, there are limiting f...

The project presented in this paper develops within the field of automation in the medical-surgical sector. It aims at automating the process for the realization of prosthetic devices for the skull in cranioplasty, following a craniotomy intervention...

Human–robot interaction in board games is a rapidly developing field of robotics. This paper presents a robot capable of playing Russian checkers designed for entertaining, training, and research purposes. Its control program is based on a nove...

A long-term vision of evolutionary robotics is a technology enabling the evolution of entire autonomous robotic ecosystems that live and work for long periods in challenging and dynamic environments without the need for direct human oversight. Evolut...

Underactuated, modular and compliant hands and grippers are interesting solutions in grasping and manipulation tasks due to their robustness, versatility, and adaptability to uncertainties. However, this type of robotic hand does not usually have eno...

The patient population needing physical rehabilitation in the upper extremity is constantly increasing. Robotic devices have the potential to address this problem, however most of the rehabilitation robots are technically advanced and mainly designed...

In the last decade, the objectives outlined by the needs of personal robotics have led to the rise of new biologically-inspired techniques for arm motion planning. This paper presents a literature review of the most recent research on the generation...

This paper presents a wavelet-based image guided tracking control system for unmanned multirotor aerial vehicle system with the presence of uncertainty. The visual signals for the visual tracking process are developed by using wavelet coefficients. T...

Modern mobile robots tend to be used in numerous exploration and search and rescue applications. Essentially they are coordinated by human operators and collaborate with inspection or rescue teams. Over the time, robots became more advanced and capab...

As systems grow more automatized, the human operator is all too often overlooked. Although human-robot interaction (HRI) can be quite demanding in terms of cognitive resources, the mental states (MS) of the operators are not yet taken into account by...

Parallel kinematic machines (PKMs) have demonstrated their potential in many applications when high stiffness and accuracy are needed, even at micro- and nanoscales. The present paper is focused on the functional design of a parallel platform providi...

Research and development of autonomous mobile robotic solutions that can perform several active agricultural tasks (pruning, harvesting, mowing) have been growing. Robots are now used for a variety of tasks such as planting, harvesting, environmental...

The work described in this paper aims at exploiting the characteristic of a special deformable actuator with rolling membranes to realize a device with defined Remote Center of Compliance (RCC). Starting from theoretical approaches to the definition...

A new generation electric high-speed train called Aerotrain has levitation wings and levitates under Wing-in-Ground (WIG) effect along a U-shaped guideway. The previous study found that lacking knowledge of the design makes the prototype unable to re...

The inspection of legacy mine workings is a difficult, time consuming, costly task, as traditional methods require multiple boreholes to be drilled to allow sensors to be placed in the voids. Discrete sampling of the void from static locations also m...

Life-like humanoid robots are on the rise, aiming at communicative purposes that resemble humanlike conversation. In human social interaction, the facial expression serves important communicative functions. We examined whether a robot’s face is...

The forward position solution (FPS) of any complex parallel mechanism (PM) can be solved through solving in sequence all of the independent loops contained in the PM. Therefore, when solving the positions of a PM, all independent loops, especially th...

Improvements in robotics and artificial intelligence have enabled robotics to be developed for use in a nuclear environment. However, the harsh environment and dangerous nature of the tasks pose several challenges in deploying robots. There may be so...

Human ecology has played an essential role in the spread of mosquito-borne diseases. With standing water as a significant factor contributing to mosquito breeding, artificial containers disposed of as trash—which are capable of holding standing...

For bipedal robots to walk over complex and constrained environments (e.g., narrow walkways, stepping stones), they have to meet precise control objectives of speed and foot placement at every single step. This control that achieves the objectives pr...

In this paper, we present an approach for the minimum-energy trajectory planning in industrial robotic systems. The method is based on the dynamic and electro-mechanical modeling of one-degree-of-freedom systems and the derivation of the energy formu...

Recent advances in computational technology have enabled the use of model-based simulation with real-time motion tracking to estimate ground reaction forces during gait. We show here that a biomechanical-based model including a foot-ground contact ca...

A sliding mode observer is presented, which is rigorously proven to achieve finite-time state estimation of a dual-parallel underactuated (i.e., single-input multi-output) cart inverted pendulum system in the presence of parametric uncertainty. A sal...

The majority of the industrial material handling mechanisms used in the manipulation or assembly of mesoscale objects are slow and require precision programming and tooling, mainly because they are based on sequential robotic pick-n-place operations....

The detection and description of features is one basic technique for many visual robot navigation systems in both indoor and outdoor environments. Matched features from two or more images are used to solve navigation problems, e.g., by establishing s...

In this paper, a novel time-phased directional-sensor network deployment strategy is presented for the mobile-target search problem, e.g., wilderness search and rescue (WiSAR). The proposed strategy uses probabilistic target-motion models combined wi...

This article sought to address issues related to human-robot cooperation tasks focusing especially on robotic operation using bio-signals. In particular, we propose to develop a control scheme for a robot arm based on electromyography (EMG) signal th...

The program For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) for young students incorporates project-based learning (PBL) with designing and building wireless-controlled robots. The students are guided by experts, mostly engineers. T...

The need for intervention in underwater environments has increased in recent years but there is still a long way to go before AUVs (Autonomous Underwater Vehicleswill be able to cope with really challenging missions. Nowadays, the solution adopted is...

Approximately 70% of the upper extremity amputations refers to partial hand loss with the involvement of one or more fingers. Historically, this type of limb amputation has been addressed adopting simple opposition designs that use the movement of th...

Using a social robot has been proven to have multiple benefits for the training of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). However, there is no clarity on the impact of the interaction quality between a child with ASD and a robot on the effecti...

Multi-robot systems are often static and pre-configured during the design time of their software. Emerging cooperation between unknown robots is still rare and limited. Such cooperation might be basic like sharing sensor data or complex like conjoine...

Conventional control of robotic manipulators requires prior knowledge of their kinematic structure. Model-learning controllers have the advantage of being able to control robots without requiring a complete kinematic model and work well in less struc...

Robotics will significantly impact large sectors of the economy with relatively low productivity, such as Agri-Food production. Deploying agricultural robots on the farm is still a challenging task. When it comes to localising the robot, there is a n...

The structure of humanoid robots can be inspired to human anatomy and operation with open challenges in mechanical performance that can be achieved by using parallel kinematic mechanisms. Parallel mechanisms can be identified in human anatomy with op...