Design and evaluation of a high− fidelity virtual reality manufacturing planning system

Virtual Reality - Manufacturing applications of virtual reality (VR) technology are growing. The challenge is to design, integrate, and evaluate VR simulation for manufacturing Systems that...     

The Line‐Based Transformation Model (LBTM) for image‐to‐image registration of high‐resolution satellite image data

Image‐to‐image registration is a prerequisite step for many important applications in different disciplines. In the field of remote sensing, the launch of new high‐resolution satellites raises the need for a fast and dynamic technique for image‐to‐image registration in order to obtain full benefit from these satellites, especially for applications such as Earth monitoring and map updating. This paper presents the utilization of the Line‐Based Transformation Model (LBTM) for image‐to‐image registration following the successful use of the LBTM for the rectification of high‐resolution satellite images using linear features as control features.

The developed model is similar in structure to some other point‐based transformation models. However, line segments on linear features are used first to recover the model transformation coefficients. Based on the recovered coefficients, the whole image is registered using the ordinary point‐based form of the model. Line segments on linear features have been chosen due to their existence in images regardless of the type of the land‐use covered by the images and because line segments can be easily extracted from the images. Moreover, control points may not exist or a complete match between points on images cannot be achieved. Different forms of the developed model are discussed and results using different high‐resolution satellite images from both IKONOS and QuickBird satellites are presented. The experimental results of the new technique show high integrity of the new model and indicate that image‐to‐image registration by LBTM is reliable.     

Design and implementation of a workflow-based resource broker with information system on computational grids

The grid is a promising infrastructure that can allow scientists and engineers to access resources among geographically distributed environments. Grid computing is a new technology which focuses on aggregating resources (e.g., processor cycles, disk storage, and contents) from a large-scale computing platform. Making grid computing a reality requires a resource broker to manage and monitor available resources. This paper presents a workflow-based resource broker whose main functions are matching available resources with user requests and considering network information statuses during matchmaking in computational grids. The resource broker provides a graphic user interface for accessing available and the appropriate resources via user credentials. This broker uses the Ganglia and NWS tools to monitor resource status and network-related information, respectively. Then we propose a history-based execution time estimation model to predict the execution time of parallel applications, according to previous execution results. The experimental results show that our model can accurately predict the execution time of embarrassingly parallel applications. We also report on using the Globus Toolkit to construct a grid platform called the TIGER project that integrates resources distributed across five universities in Taichung city, Taiwan, where the resource broker was developed.

Design and Implementation of a Novel Spherical Mobile Robot

In this paper, the design, modeling and implementation of a novel spherical mobile robot is presented. The robot composes of a spherical outer shell made of a transparent thermoplastic material, two pendulums, two DC motors with gearboxes, two equipments for linear motion and two control units. It possesses four distinct motional modes including: driving, steering, jumping and zero-radius turning. In driving and steering modes, the robot moves along straight and circular trajectories, respectively. The robot performs these motional modes using movable internal masses. In the jumping mode, it can jump over obstacles and in the zero-radius turning mode, the robot can turn with zero-radius to improve the motion flexibility. Furthermore, the attempts to establish the dynamic models of some motional modes are made and finally, the accuracy of the obtained dynamic models is verified by simulation and experimental results.     

Evaluation of gang scheduling performance and cost in a cloud computing system

Cloud Computing refers to the notion of outsourcing on-site available services, computational facilities, or data storage to an off-site, location-transparent centralized facility or “Cloud.” Gang Scheduling is an efficient job scheduling algorithm for time sharing, already applied in parallel and distributed systems. This paper studies the performance of a distributed Cloud Computing model, based on the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) architecture that implements a Gang Scheduling scheme. Our model utilizes the concept of Virtual Machines (or VMs) which act as the computational units of the system. Initially, the system includes no VMs, but depending on the computational needs of the jobs being serviced new VMs can be leased and later released dynamically. A simulation of the aforementioned model is used to study, analyze, and evaluate both the performance and the overall cost of two major gang scheduling algorithms. Results reveal that Gang Scheduling can be effectively applied in a Cloud Computing environment both performance-wise and cost-wise.     

Design and control of a planar bipedal robot ERNIE with parallel knee compliance

This paper presents the development of the planar bipedal robot ERNIE as well as numerical and experimental studies of the influence of parallel knee joint compliance on the energetic efficiency of walking in ERNIE. ERNIE has 5 links—a torso, two femurs and two tibias—and is configured to walk on a treadmill so that it can walk indefinitely in a confined space. Springs can be attached across the knee joints in parallel with the knee actuators. The hybrid zero dynamics framework serves as the basis for control of ERNIE’s walking. In the investigation of the effects of compliance on the energetic efficiency of walking, four cases were studied: one without springs and three with springs of different stiffnesses and preloads. It was found that for low-speed walking, the addition of soft springs may be used to increase energetic efficiency, while stiffer springs decrease the energetic efficiency. For high-speed walking, the addition of either soft or stiff springs increases the energetic efficiency of walking, while stiffer springs improve the energetic efficiency more than do softer springs. Electronic Supplementary Material  The online version of this article () contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Entanglement and Berry phase in a 9 × 9 Yang–Baxter system

A M-matrix which satisfies the Hecke algebraic relations is presented. Via the Yang–Baxterization approach, we obtain a unitary solution \breveR(q,j₁,j₂){\breve{R}(\theta,\varphi_{1},\varphi_{2})} of Yang–Baxter equation. It is shown that any pure two-qutrit entangled states can be generated via the universal \breveR{\breve{R}}-matrix assisted by local unitary transformations. A Hamiltonian is constructed from the \breveR{\breve{R}}-matrix, and Berry phase of the Yang–Baxter system is investigated. Specifically, for j₁ = j₂{\varphi_{1}\,{=}\,\varphi_{2}}, the Hamiltonian can be represented based on three sets of SU(2) operators, and three oscillator Hamiltonians can be obtained. Under this framework, the Berry phase can be interpreted.     

Design and control of a heavy material handling manipulator for agricultural robots

In this paper, we propose a manipulation system for agricultural robots that handle heavy materials. The structural systems of a mobile platform and a manipulator are selected and designed after proposing new knowledge about agricultural robots. Also, the control systems for these structural systems are designed in the presence of parametric perturbation and uncertainty while avoiding conservative results. The validity of both the structural and control systems is confirmed by conducting watermelon harvesting experiments in an open field. Furthermore, an explicit design procedure is confirmed for both the structural and control systems and three key design tools are clarified.

A framework for development and evaluation of a dynamic subchannel allocation scheme in an OFDMA system

This paper presents a framework for allocating radio resources to the Access Points (APs) introducing an Access Point Controller (APC). Radio resources can be either time slots or subchannels. The APC assigns subchannels to the APs using a dynamic subchannel allocation scheme. The developed framework evaluates the dynamic subchannel allocation scheme for a downlink multicellular Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) system. In the considered system, each AP and the associated Mobile Terminals (MTs) are not operating on a frequency channel with fixed bandwidth, rather the channel bandwidth for each AP is dynamically adapted according to the traffic load. The subchannels assignment procedure is based on quality estimations due to the interference measurements and the current traffic load. The traffic load estimation is realized with the measurement of the utilization of the assigned radio resources. The reuse partitioning for the radio resources is done by estimating mutual Signal to Interference Ratio (SIR) of the APs. The developed dynamic subchannel allocation ensures Quality of Service (QoS), better traffic adaptability, and higher spectrum efficiency with less computational complexity.

Design of hybrid type’s optical pickup actuator for system stability in high density reading and recording

Recently, there has been a trend to have large capacity and high data transfer rate in optical disk drive. Pickup actuator also should have high performance for satisfying this trend. Since moving magnet type actuator has more simple and robust structure than moving coil type one, we designed moving magnet type to accomplish high flexible mode frequency. However, the driving sensitivity of moving magnet type actuator was low because of its characteristics as following. At first, moving parts including magnets are heavy and electromagnetic (EM) circuits are not closed-loop owing to yoke composed of paramagnetic materials. Therefore, in order to increase the driving sensitivity without the degradation of the other dynamic characteristics, EM circuits were redesigned by adding solenoid coils on existing mechanism. As a result, the hybrid type actuator composed of moving magnet type and moving coil type was suggested to obtain high sensitivities and high flexible mode frequency. Design variables of EM circuits and structure parts were decided through parametric study and design of experiments procedure. Optimization algorithm using variable metric method was used to improve performance. Based on these results, the final model was presented.     

Design and performance evaluation of a biomimetic microrobot for the father–son underwater intervention robotic system

Underwater intervention is a favorite and difficult task for AUVs. To realize the underwater manipulation for the small size spherical underwater robot SUR-II, a father–son underwater intervention robotic system (FUIRS) is proposed in our group. The FUIRS employs a novel biomimetic microrobot to realize an underwater manipulation task. This paper describes the biomimetic microrobot which is inspired by an octopus. The son robot can realize basic underwater motion, i.e. grasping motion, object detection and swimming motion. To enhance the payload, a novel buoyancy force adjustment method was proposed which can provides 11.8 mN additional buoyancy force to overcome the weight of the object in water. Finally, three underwater manipulation experiments are carried out to verify the performance of the son robot. One is carried by swimming motion and buoyancy adjustment; the other two are only carried by buoyancy adjustment. And the experimental results show that the son robot can realize the underwater manipulation of different shape and size objects successfully. The swimming motion can reduce the time cost of underwater manipulation remarkably.     

Simulation of a viscoelastic flexible multibody system using absolute nodal coordinate and fractional derivative methods

This paper employs a new finite element formulation for dynamics analysis of a viscoelastic flexible multibody system. The viscoelastic constitutive equation used to describe the behavior of the system is a three-parameter fractional derivative model. Based on continuum mechanics, the three-parameter fractional derivative model is modified and the proposed new fractional derivative model can reduce to the widely used elastic constitutive model, which meets the continuum mechanics law strictly for pure elastic materials. The system equations of motion are derived based on the absolute nodal coordinate formulation (ANCF) and the principle of virtual work, which can relax the small deformation assumption in the traditional finite element implementation. In order to implement the viscoelastic model into the absolute nodal coordinate, the Grünwald definition of the fractional derivative is employed. Based on a comparison of the HHT-I3 method and the Newmark method, the HHT-I3 method is used to solve the equations of motion. Another particularity of the proposed method based on the ANCF method lies in the storage of displacement history only during the integration process, reducing the numerical computation considerably. Numerical examples are presented in order to analyze the effects of the truncation number of the Grünwald series (fading memory phenomena) and the value of several fractional model parameters and solution convergence aspects. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Design and implementation of a 700–2,600 MHz RF SiP module for micro base station

In this paper, we present a complete 700–2,600 MHz RF SiP module for micro base station. This RF SiP design integrates transmitter, receiver, feedback module, ADC/DAC and CLK module. The module consists of two multi-layer organic substrates that are vertically stacked using BGA interconnections. With the integration of 33 chips and about 600 passive components, this RF SiP module retains small form factor and measures 5.25 cm × 5.25 cm × 0.7 cm. The RF input signal transmission path insertion loss is less than 0.34 dB and the return loss is less than ?14 dB at 2.6 GHz. Full load thermal simulation result indicates that each chip junction temperature is below 100 °C. We summarize the RF SiP module design, assembly and simulated thermal characteristics. The proposed RF SiP can generally be characterized by small size, low cost and short development cycle.     

Analysis of kinematics/statics and workspace of a 2(SP+SPR+SPU) serial–parallel manipulator

The kinematics/statics and workspace of a 2(SP+SPR+SPU) serial–parallel manipulator are studied systematically. First, a 2(SP+SPR+SPU) manipulator including an upper and a lower SP+SPR+SPU parallel manipulators is constructed, and the inverse/forward displacements, velocity, acceleration and statics of the lower/upper parallel manipulators are studied, respectively. Second, the kinematics and statics of the lower/upper manipulators are combined and the displacement, velocity, acceleration, statics, and workspace of a 2(SP+SPR+SPU) manipulator are analyzed systematically. Third, the analytic solutions’ examples are given and verified by the simulation mechanism. This manipulator has some potential applications for the robot’s arm, leg, and twist, the serial–parallel machine tools, the sensor, the surgical manipulator, the tunnel borer, the barbette of warship, and the satellite surveillance platform.     

Design and implementation of a novel two stage mechanical–magnetic variable stiffness actuator (M²-VSA)

This paper presents the design and implementation of a novel joint-based magnetic actuator for robotic manipulators using variable stiffness mechanism. This new actuator prototype, namely M²-VSA, is developed as an improvement over previous actuators in its class. The robotic arm with M²-VSA joint can safely interact with human operators and work in hazardous conditions. The main novelty in this work is the use of magnetic force in accompanying with springs in a novel arrangement to adjust the joints’ stiffness and mitigate the effect of impact. The theoretical framework and advantages of the design are discussed in detail. Experimental studies through various tests show the effectiveness and efficiency of mechanical–magnetic joint as a safe mechanism in environments where human and robotics have interaction.     

Identification of plant species by using high spatial and spectral resolution thermal infrared (8.0-13.5 μm) imagery

High spatial and spectral resolution thermal infrared imagery (8.0-13.5 μm) from the SEBASS airborne sensor was used to analyze and map tree canopy spectral features at the State Arboretum of Virginia, near Boyce, Virginia. Fifty tree species were analyzed and about half were directly identified with varying degrees of success on the basis of spectral matched filtering that utilized laboratory-measured leaf spectra as the target signatures. Spectral averages of pixels extracted from SEBASS emissivity data compared favorably with laboratory spectra of leaves collected from individual tree species. Best results were obtained from species having relatively strong spectral contrast, wide and flat leaves, closed planophile canopies, and/or large canopy areas. Tree species having small leaves or unfavorable leaf orientations showed spectral attenuation likely resulting from cavity blackbody effects. Increased spatial resolution and better image calibration and atmospheric correction might lead to further improvements in thermal infrared plant species identification.     

Spectral variability and bidirectional reflectance behaviour of urban materials at a 20 cm spatial resolution in the visible and near‐infrared wavelengths. A case study over Toulouse (France)

This letter presents an experiment carried out in Toulouse in May 2004 to study the spectral variability and bidirectional reflectance behaviour of urban materials. The measurements were carried out at a 20 cm spatial resolution in the visible and near‐infrared (350–2500 nm). These measurements allow quantification of three main types of reflectance spatial variability. In addition to these in situ experiments, the bidirectional properties of urban material samples were studied in the laboratory with a goniometer.