Creating the brain and interacting with the brain: an integrated approach to understanding the brain

In the past two decades, brain science and robotics have made gigantic advances in their own fields, and their interactions have generated several interdisciplinary research fields. First, in the ‘understanding the brain by creating the brain’ approach, computational neuroscience models have been applied to many robotics problems. Second, such brain-motivated fields as cognitive robotics and developmental robotics have emerged as interdisciplinary areas among robotics, neuroscience and cognitive science with special emphasis on humanoid robots. Third, in brain–machine interface research, a brain and a robot are mutually connected within a closed loop. In this paper, we review the theoretical backgrounds of these three interdisciplinary fields and their recent progress. Then, we introduce recent efforts to reintegrate these research fields into a coherent perspective and propose a new direction that integrates brain science and robotics where the decoding of information from the brain, robot control based on the decoded information and multimodal feedback to the brain from the robot are carried out in real time and in a closed loop.     

四川南桠河一期工程姚河坝水电斜井开挖施工技术浅论

以姚河坝水电站引水隧洞50°倾角、长度为194.734m的斜井开挖为实例,从施工测量、开挖方法、通风防尘、临时支护斜井及安全施工等方面探讨长洞身、大倾角斜井在无爬罐条件下的人工开挖方法.     

Learning-based dynamic coupling of discrete and continuous trackers

We present a data-driven dynamic coupling between discrete and continuous methods for tracking objects of high dofs, which overcomes the limitations of previous techniques. In our approach, two trackers work in parallel, and the coupling between them is based on the tracking error. We use a model-based continuous method to achieve accurate results and, in cases of failure, we re-initialize the model using our discrete tracker. This method maintains the accuracy of a more tightly coupled system, while increasing its efficiency. At any given frame, our discrete tracker uses the current and several previous frames to search into a database for the best matching solution. For improved robustness, object configuration sequences, rather than single configurations, are stored in the database. We apply our framework to the problem of 3D hand tracking from image sequences and the discrimination between fingerspelling and continuous signs in American Sign Language.     

误读与纠正

分析材料试验机度盘偏转角度小 (准确度低 )、试样打滑、定义 (上屈服强度 -下屈服强度 -屈服强度 )模糊、不同应力速率等导致误读 ,并针对误读原因提出纠正方法。     

Real-time accurate hand path tracking and joint trajectory planning for industrial robots (I)

Previously, researchers raised the accuracy for a robot’s hand to track a specified path in Cartesian space mainly through increasing the number of knots on the path and the number of the path’s segments, which results in the heavier online computational burden for the robot controller. Aiming at overcoming this drawback, the authors propose a new kind of real-time accurate hand path tracking and joint trajectory planning method. Through selecting some extra knots on the specified hand path by a certain rule and introducing a sinusoidal function to the joint displacement equation of each segment, this method can greatly raise the path tracking accuracy of robot’s hand and does not change the number of the path’s segments. It also does not increase markedly the computational burden of robot controller. The result of simulation indicates that this method is very effective, and has important value in increasing the application of industrial robots. Foundation item: Foundation of the Robotics Laboratory, Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. RL200002) Biography of the first author: TAN Guan-zheng, Dr., professor, born in Oct. 1962, majoring in artificial intelligence, robotics and automation.     

羊皮服装革的弯曲应力松弛性能及其与(手感)弹性之关系研究

本文研究了羊皮服装革的弯曲应力衰减性能。对应力衰减常数（αｂ）及其与羊皮服装革手感弹性的关系进行了讨论。结果表明：αｂ与革的手感弹性相关。αｂ值定量反映出革的手感弹性优劣。     

Grasping objects localized from uncertain point cloud data

Robotic grasping is very sensitive to how accurate is the pose estimation of the object to grasp. Even a small error in the estimated pose may cause the planned grasp to fail. Several methods for robust grasp planning exploit the object geometry or tactile sensor feedback. However, object pose range estimation introduces specific uncertainties that can also be exploited to choose more robust grasps. We present a grasp planning method that explicitly considers the uncertainties on the visually-estimated object pose. We assume a known shape (e.g. primitive shape or triangle mesh), observed as a–possibly sparse–point cloud. The measured points are usually not uniformly distributed over the surface as the object is seen from a particular viewpoint; additionally this non-uniformity can be the result of heterogeneous textures over the object surface, when using stereo-vision algorithms based on robust feature-point matching. Consequently the pose estimation may be more accurate in some directions and contain unavoidable ambiguities.The proposed grasp planner is based on a particle filter to estimate the object probability distribution as a discrete set. We show that, for grasping, some ambiguities are less unfavorable so the distribution can be used to select robust grasps. Some experiments are presented with the humanoid robot iCub and its stereo cameras.     

基于似人特性的机器人拟人臂自主抓取动作规划

针对拟型服务机器人在家庭环境中的自主抓取任务,提出了一种强调运动姿态似人特性的机器人手臂动作的运动规划方法.该方法基于人体工程学中的快速上肢评估准则评价机器人运动姿态的似人特性,并在此基础上以机器人传速速率最优为目标规划机器人持物动作的姿态构型.最后以Motoman SDA10D拟人双臂机器人为例,具体介绍了该方法的应用和规划的结果,规划结果证明了该方法的可行性和有效性.     

Gravity optimised particle filter for hand tracking

This paper presents a gravity optimised particle filter (GOPF) where the magnitude of the gravitational force for every particle is proportional to its weight. GOPF attracts nearby particles and replicates new particles as if moving the particles towards the peak of the likelihood distribution, improving the sampling efficiency. GOPF is incorporated into a technique for hand features tracking. A fast approach to hand features detection and labelling using convexity defects is also presented. Experimental results show that GOPF outperforms the standard particle filter and its variants, as well as state-of-the-art CamShift guided particle filter using a significantly reduced number of particles.     

类人机器人通信子系统的设计与实现

针对类人机器人足球比赛通信环境的高效性和实时性要求,提出了一套无线通信系统设计方案。该通信方案主要解决三个问题:通信平台、通信模块硬件设计和通信协议。其中,通信平台是实现信息交互的物理硬件,通信模块的硬件设计是无线传输模块的控制电路设计,通信协议是类人机器人系统中协作信息内容和格式的约定。本文建立了类人足球机器人通信子系统的通信平台,给出了基于该系统的硬件设计,并为多机器人系统提出了一套可行的对话协议。实验和比赛结果证明了该通信系统的可行性。