Development of error-compensating UI for autonomous production cells

This contribution deals with the impact of human error on the overall system reliability in flexible manufacturing systems (FMS). Autonomous production cells are used to illustrate an error-compensating system design on the basis of Sheridan's (1997) paradigm of supervisory control. In order to specify human errors and their effects in terms of system disturbances, a taxonomy of system disturbances is recommended. This taxonomic approach was derived by a value benefit analysis and is based on HEDOMS (Human Error and Disturbance Occurrence in Manufacturing Systems) with slight modifications and Reason's GEMS (Generic Error Modelling System). The taxonomy is used for data acquisition. Next, a risk priority equivalent to FMEA (Failure Mode and Effect Analysis) is introduced to structure the data according to their relevance. Then, Vicente's and Rasmussen's guidelines (1987) for an ecological interface design are related to the paradigm of supervisory control. On the basis of these guidelines four case studies are presented to show their successful applicability for interface design in FMS.     

Head-mounted display for supervisory control in autonomous production cells

This paper presents the investigation of a head-mounted display as an innovative interface on the shop floor. The display used is voice controlled and designed to support operators of next-generation manufacturing systems in critical supervisory tasks. The connection of the display to a modern numerical control is explained from a technical point of view. A usability study is presented, which investigates the user's perspective according to 13 skilled operators. This study focuses on the highly critical task of ‘approach’. The results indicate that the head-mounted display enables the operator to fulfil the control task without the necessity of conventional eye and head movements, which induce visual and motor strain. The majority of the participants are in favour of an innovative display technology as a component of future human-machine interfaces.     

面向BREW平台的可视化UI设计工具开发

为了解决BREW移动平台下应用界面(UI)开发缺乏可视化设计工具,UI开发效率低下的问题,类比其它平台的UI设计现状,开发了一款面向BREW平台的新型可视化UI设计工具.分析了软件的工作流程,针对软件实现过程中的UI保存、界面可视化设计、界面代码自动化生成等几个重点环节进行了论述.测试结果表明,该工具软件为开发人员提供了所见即所得的UI设计效果,且方便调整,代码自动生成功能也极大地减轻了程序员的编码工作量.     

A comparative simulation study of work processes in autonomous production cells

An approach to human‐centered design and assessment of work processes in flexible manufacturing systems with the help of dynamic task networks is presented. To model and simulate the task networks, the method of timed colored Petri Nets is used. Two task networks are developed. The first task network is a model of work processes in Autonomous Production Cells (APCs). The second task network represents work processes in conventional Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC)‐based manufacturing systems. The material processing technology is associated with 5‐axis milling. The values of attributes of task elements were acquired empirically on a fine‐grained level with reference to a sample milling order. Comparative hypotheses regarding time‐on‐task, supervisory control functions, levels of cognitive control, human error (HE), and labor division were then formulated. To test these hypotheses, several simulation experiments were conducted. The results from inferential statistics show that single‐operator APCs have a 30% higher efficiency in relation to total time‐on‐task. Moreover, the level of cognitive control is significantly shifted toward rule‐ and knowledge‐based behavior. Surprisingly, the simulation of minor HE does not demonstrate a significantly worse performance from APCs. A simulated labor division among central process planner and production operator allows an additional efficiency improvement of approximately 15%. However, the labor division has two important drawbacks: first, a sequential incompleteness of operators' task spectrum occurs; second, the operator has to cope with hierarchical task incompleteness. Finally, a sensitivity analysis was carried out to investigate the effects of varying lot sizes and number of processed orders. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

休闲益智类手机游戏的UI与特效开发

笔者以Unity引擎为例阐述了休闲益智类手游UI与特效的制作。从界面制作步骤、色彩运用和色彩搭配三方面研究休闲益智类手机游戏UI的制作,并以Unity引擎为例阐述手游特效制作。休闲益智类手机游戏的特效制作由三个部分组成,分别是Unity2D动画特效、Shader特效和Unity粒子系统制作特效。     

EXT技术在Web界面设计与实现中的应用研究

EXT是一个可开发丰富的Web界面的JavaScript框架。本文简要介绍了EXT技术的发展背景和核心概念及其原理机制,通过EXT技术对Web应用系统布局功能的设计和实现,浅谈了如何使用EXT来提高页面易用性和改善用户体验。     

基于VxWorks实时控制系统中文交互界面开发平台

针对基于VxWorks的实时控制装置的中文交互界面的实现,抽象出此类交互界面通用的界面元素的概念和相互之间的关系,在此基础上给出针对此类交互界面的开发平台.该平台下层用到VxWorks下的WindML库,采用了界面元素管理和以事件为驱动的运行机制,提供上层库函数用于具体构建不同需求的界面.     

Reusing UI elements with Model-Based User Interface Development

This paper introduces the potential for reusing UI elements in the context of Model-Based UI Development (MBUID) and provides guidance for future MBUID systems with enhanced reutilization capabilities. Our study is based upon the development of six inter-related projects with a specific MBUID environment which supports standard techniques for reuse such as parametrization and sub-specification, inclusion or shared repositories.We analyze our experience and discuss the benefits and limitations of each technique supported by our MBUID environment. The system architecture, the structure and composition of UI elements and the models specification languages have a decisive impact on reusability. In our case, more than 40% of the elements defined in the UI specifications were reused, resulting in a reduction of 55% of the specification size. Inclusion, parametrization and sub-specification have facilitated modularity and internal reuse of UI specifications at development time, whereas the reuse of UI elements between applications has greatly benefited from sharing repositories of UI elements at run time.     

Harmonization of decentralized, autonomous production areas

The characteristics of one-of-a-kind production (OKP) and its order processing require an OKP-specific PPC concept. This concept is based on a two-level hierarchical approach. The disposition autonomy of the production areas and the simultaneous production necessitate the harmonization of planning results and production activities. Some examples of harmonization tasks are described. Based on a classification of conceivable harmonization approaches and their rating the paper presents two specific concepts for harmonization: a centralized coordination and a decentralized synchronization.     

An autonomous decentralized supply chain planning system for multi-stage production processes

In this paper, we propose an autonomous decentralized optimization system for multi-stage production processes. The proposed system consists of a Material Requirement Planning subsystem, a Distribution Planning subsystem and Decentralized Scheduling subsystems belonging to each production stage that constitute the entire plant. In the proposed system, each subsystem repeats both optimization of the schedule at each subsystem and data exchange among the subsystems. Computational results demonstrate that the results of the proposed planning system are superior to those of the hierarchical planning system, despite the fact that the proposed system has wide flexibility for adding the constraints and modifying the criterion of performance evaluation.This revised version was published in June 2005 with corrected page numbers.     

Development environments for autonomous mobile robots: A survey

Robotic Development Environments (RDEs) have come to play an increasingly important role in robotics research in general, and for the development of architectures for mobile robots in particular. Yet, no systematic evaluation of available RDEs has been performed; establishing a comprehensive list of evaluation criteria targeted at robotics applications is desirable that can subsequently be used to compare their strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, there are no practical evaluations of the usability and impact of a large selection of RDEs that provides researchers with the information necessary to select an RDE most suited to their needs, nor identifies trends in RDE research that suggest directions for future RDE development. This survey addresses the above by selecting and describing nine open source, freely available RDEs for mobile robots, evaluating and comparing them from various points of view. First, based on previous work concerning agent systems, a conceptual framework of four broad categories is established, encompassing the characteristics and capabilities that an RDE supports. Then, a practical evaluation of RDE  usability in designing, implementing, and executing robot architectures is presented. Finally, the impact of specific RDEs on the field of robotics is addressed by providing a list of published applications and research projects that give concrete examples of areas in which systems have been used. The comprehensive evaluation and comparison of the nine RDEs concludes with suggestions of how to use the results of this survey and a brief discussion of future trends in RDE design.

Development of tethered autonomous mobile robot systems for field works

This paper describes the implementation details, advantages and potential applications of autonomous tethered mobile robot systems using the 'hyper-tether' concept. Hyper-tether is a new research area on tethered connections, which provide tethering among different mobile robot types, such as a robot with the environment and a robot with humans and animals. Its basic function is to actively control the tether's tension and/or length, but it also considers tether launching, anchoring, power delivery, data communication cabling and built-in trajectory command generation capabilities. Many of these features can be efficiently applied to build a tethered mobile robot system which remotely manipulates a working tool that can be useful for land-mine detection and removal, trimming of gardens and grass cutting of wide areas (e.g. golf courses, soccer and baseball fields), spraying of agricultural chemicals, forestry and construction works, etc. In this paper, a simple prototype of hypertether's winch-tether pair and a working tool equipped with a grass cutter was constructed, and basic experiments were performed to demonstrate the validity of the proposed system.     

基于XML的交易界面开发语言与运行时引擎

针对银行、证券、邮政等交易应用环境的特定需求,提出了一种基于XML的交易界面开发语言——TXUL,实现了交易界面描述与业务逻辑代码的分离,从而降低了交易界面开发与维护的难度,并利用引用机制使界面描述代码的可重用性得到增强。本文详细阐述了TXUL及其运行时引擎的设计和实现过程,通过UML描述TXUL的语法结构并映射为XML Schema,给出了一个基于Eclipse RCP的TXUL应用示例。     

Development of autonomous underwater vehicles in Japan

In the hope of expanding underwater observation and research, the Institute of Industrial Science (IIS) at the University of Tokyo started extensive R&D on autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) in 1984. IIS has constructed nine vehicles, including three ocean-going vehicles, one lake survey vehicle and various testbed vehicles. The R-One Robot is equipped with a closed-cycle diesel engine system and it successfully completed a 12-h operation of long-range autonomous diving in the Pacific Ocean in 1998. Utilizing the testbed robots, many intelligent systems, especially those for underwater vision systems, have been developed. The success of these AUVs at the IIS has led to the establishment of the 'Underwater Technology Research Center' which opened on 1 April 1999. This new center also plans to collaborate both nationally and internationally with other facilities for further R&D of AUVs and other new underwater observation technologies.     

一种基于文档的移动平台间UI控件对应方法

多平台开发是移动应用软件开发的一个重要特点,同时还具有版本演化快和开发周期短的要求,这给移动开发带来了巨大的挑战。由于目前主流的移动平台大多采用MVC架构模式,并且在开发上体现出了UI驱动和事件驱动的特点,因此不同平台(如iOS和Android等)之间的UI控件具有较强的对应性,这给移动应用的开发人员在多平台开发时提供了重要的参考。提出了一种基于文档来理解不同平台之间UI控件对应性的方法,该方法以iOS和Android两种移动平台为研究对象,通过自然语言处理技术来分析从官方文档中抓取的UI控件描述文字,基于空间向量模型计算控件之间的相似度,并针对移动应用的特点设计了同义词集来保证匹配的准确性。基于所提方法,对iOS和Android平台上的典型UI控件进行了具体实验,结果表明,在单控件对应性方面,该方法能找到大部分的控件对应性,具有较高的准确度。     

Towards a general purpose architecture for UI generation

Many software projects spend a significant proportion of their time developing the User Interface (UI), therefore any degree of automation in this area has clear benefits. Such automation is difficult due principally to the diversity of architectures, platforms and development environments. Attempts to automate UI generation to date have contained restrictions which did not accommodate this diversity, leading to a lack of wide industry adoption or standardisation. The authors set out to understand and address these restrictions. We studied the issues of UI generation (especially duplication) in practice, using action research cycles guided by interviews, adoption studies and close collaboration with industry practitioners. In addressing the issues raised in our investigation, we identified five key characteristics any UI generation technique would need before it should expect wide adoption or standardisation. These can be summarised as: inspecting existing, heterogeneous back-end architectures; appreciating different practices in applying inspection results; recognising multiple, and mixtures of, UI widget libraries; supporting multiple, and mixtures of, UI adornments; applying multiple, and mixtures of, UI layouts. Many of these characteristics seem ignored by current approaches. In addition, we discovered an emergent feature of these characteristics that opens the possibility of a previously unattempted goal - namely, retrofitting UI generation to an existing application.     

Development of a novel autonomous lower extremity exoskeleton robot for walking assistance

Today, exoskeletons are widely applied to provide walking assistance for patients with lower limb motor incapacity. Most existing exoskeletons are under-actuated, resulting in a series of problems, e.g., interference and unnatural gait during walking. In this study, we propose a novel intelligent autonomous lower extremity exoskeleton (Auto-LEE), aiming at improving the user experience of wearable walking aids and extending their application range. Unlike traditional exoskeletons, Auto-LEE has 10 degrees of freedom, and all the joints are actuated independently by direct current motors, which allows the robot to maintain balance in aiding walking without extra support. The new exoskeleton is designed and developed with a modular structure concept and multi-modal human-robot interfaces are considered in the control system. To validate the ability of self-balancing bipedal walking, three general algorithms for generating walking patterns are researched, and a preliminary experiment is implemented.

     

Development of an indoor navigation system for a monocular-vision-based autonomous mobile robot

We have developed a technology for a robot that uses an indoor navigation system based on visual methods to provide the required autonomy. For robots to run autonomously, it is extremely important that they are able to recognize the surrounding environment and their current location. Because it was not necessary to use plural external world sensors, we built a navigation system in our test environment that reduced the burden of information processing mainly by using sight information from a monocular camera. In addition, we used only natural landmarks such as walls, because we assumed that the environment was a human one. In this article we discuss and explain two modules: a self-position recognition system and an obstacle recognition system. In both systems, the recognition is based on image processing of the sight information provided by the robot’s camera. In addition, in order to provide autonomy for the robot, we use an encoder and information from a two-dimensional space map given beforehand. Here, we explain the navigation system that integrates these two modules. We applied this system to a robot in an indoor environment and evaluated its performance, and in a discussion of our experimental results we consider the resulting problems.     

Development of constrained control allocation for ship berthing by using autonomous tugboats

International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems - In this paper, we propose a new approach to ship berthing by using autonomous tugboats. This approach overcomes the nominal effectiveness...     

Web UI设计职责的思考

随着近年我国互联网的不断壮大,在各类网络行业的蓬勃发展中,Web设计师作为设计行业的代表,将扮演着越来越重要的角色。在新的互联网时代,如何获得良好的用户体验成为设计的核心问题。而目前大多数WebUI设计师并没有脱离美工的束缚,仅从视觉上来提升用户体验。数字网络时代的发展需要设计师贡献更多的职责和力量,同时也赋予了他们更广阔的发展空间,而不应只局限于界面的设计上,这就需要设计师能够打开思路,看到更远,重新思考设计的含义。