Integrating a flexible anthropomorphic, robot hand into the control, system of a humanoid robot

This article presents the approaches taken to integrate a novel anthropomorphic robot hand into a humanoid robot. The requisites enabling such a robot hand to use everyday objects in an environment built for humans are presented. Starting from a design that resembles the human hand regarding size and movability of the mechatronical system, a low-level control system is shown providing reliable and stable controllers for single joint angles and torques, entire fingers and several coordinated fingers. Further on, the high-level control system connecting the low-level control system with the rest of the humanoid robot is presented. It provides grasp skills to the superior robot control system, coordinates movements of hand and arm and determines grasp patterns, depending on the object to grasp and the task to execute. Finally some preliminary results of the system, which is currently tested in simulations, will be presented.     

Die Geschichte der Vakuumkühlung. The History of Vacuum Refrigeration

The use of the high evaporation enthalpy of water is one of the oldest technologies of refrigeration for food preservation used by the mankind. One could nearly celebrate the true 5000^th anniversary of this technology. Nowadays we call the refrigeration by evaporation from wet surfaces “adiabatic refrigeration”, it regulates, for instance, our body heat by evaporating sweat. After the introduction of some vacuum pumps into the experimental scientific works, 250 years ago, namely in Great Britan, the modern form of “artificial” refrigeration began its career, the evaporation of liquids under the absence of permanent gasses in vacuum. The vacuum refrigeration has been nearly abruptly stopped by the development of compression refrigeration processes, about 150 years ago. Only after world war 2, a reintroduction of vacuum refrigeration began again. Now, at the beginning of the 3. milennium, there are good chances for recovering terrain.     

Environmental Control of Triplet Emission in Donor–Bridge–Acceptor Organometallics

Carbene‐metal‐amides (CMAs) are a promising family of donor–bridge–acceptor molecular charge‐transfer (CT) emitters for organic light‐emitting diodes. A universal approach is demonstrated to tune the energy of their CT emission. A blueshift of up to 210 meV is achievable in solid state via dilution in a polar host matrix. The origin of this shift has two components: constraint of thermally‐activated triplet diffusion, and electrostatic interactions between guest and polar host. This allows the emission of mid‐green CMA archetypes to be tuned to sky blue without chemical modifications. Monte‐Carlo simulations based on a Marcus‐type transfer integral successfully reproduce the concentration‐ and temperature‐dependent triplet diffusion process, revealing a substantial shift in the ensemble density of states in polar hosts. In gold‐bridged CMAs, this shift does not lead to a significant change in luminescence lifetime, thermal activation energy, reorganization energy, or intersystem crossing rate. These discoveries offer new insight into coupling between the singlet and triplet manifolds in CMA materials, revealing a dominant interaction between states of CT character. The same approach is employed using materials which have been chemically modified to alter the energy of their CT state directly, shifting the emission of sky‐blue chromophores into the practical blue range.     

Der Schau- und Lehrstollen Arzberg/Steiermark: Beispiel für eine intelligente Nachnutzung eines Altbergbaus

Touristic mines are by far not only of public interest. During guided tours the importance of mining and mineral resources for society can be explained in a proper way. Mineral deposits, for long time not accessible and only known from old literature can now be studied in detail by scientists. Old underground mines can be used for different purposes. With respect to Arzberg the different possibilities of utilization of old underground workings are described in detail: A touristic mine serves not only as an attraction, but also as a training centre for underground geological mapping, geochemistry and geophysics research laboratory of universities. For many years the ZAMG (Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics) has been operating a seismic station, and parts of the old mine workings have been used for cheese refinery since 2006. Furthermore, the mine water is utilized for extracting geothermal energy and serves the cooling chambers. The combined use of the old mine workings by different parties permits sharing the substantial maintenance costs.     

metaSMT: focus on your application and not on solver integration

International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer - Many applications from artificial intelligence and formal methods use decision procedures as their core solving engines. In this...     

Passive 350 GHz Video Imaging Systems for Security Applications

Journal of Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves - Passive submillimeter-wave imaging is a concept that has been in the focus of interest as a promising technology for personal security...