Polypyrrole Whelk‐Like Arrays toward Robust Controlling Manipulation of Organic Droplets Underwater

Whelk‐like polypyrrole (PPy) arrays film is successfully prepared by electropolymerization of pyrrole in the presence of low‐surface‐energy tetraethylammonium perfluorooctanesulfonate (TEAPFOS) as dopant. The underwater wettability of PPy whelk‐like arrays can be successfully tuned by electrical doping/dedoping of PFOS ions. Interestingly, CCl₄ droplets with microliter‐size as a representative sample are gathered together to form a larger droplet underwater at the potential of +0.8 V (vs Ag/AgCl), because PPy is in its PFOS‐doped states. Note that CCl₄ droplet can climb uphill successfully on the inclined whelk‐like arrays PPy film under the applied potential of ?1.0 V (vs Ag/AgCl), which may be attributed to wettability gradient derived from different oxidation states of PPy induced by electrochemical potential. These results may provide a simple strategy for on‐demand manipulation of organic droplets underwater at low voltage.     

Autonomous Magnetic Microrobots by Navigating Gates for Multiple Biomolecules Delivery

The precise delivery of biofunctionalized matters is of great interest from the fundamental and applied viewpoints. In spite of significant progress achieved during the last decade, a parallel and automated isolation and manipulation of rare analyte, and their simultaneous on‐chip separation and trapping, still remain challenging. Here, a universal micromagnet junction for self‐navigating gates of microrobotic particles to deliver the biomolecules to specific sites using a remote magnetic field is described. In the proposed concept, the nonmagnetic gap between the lithographically defined donor and acceptor micromagnets creates a crucial energy barrier to restrict particle gating. It is shown that by carefully designing the geometry of the junctions, it becomes possible to deliver multiple protein‐functionalized carriers in high resolution, as well as MCF‐7 and THP‐1 cells from the mixture, with high fidelity and trap them in individual apartments. Integration of such junctions with magnetophoretic circuitry elements could lead to novel platforms without retrieving for the synchronous digital manipulation of particles/biomolecules in microfluidic multiplex arrays for next‐generation biochips.     

Development and progress in acoustic phase-gradient metamaterials for wavefront modulation

Acoustic metamaterials (AMs) for sound wave manipulation have attracted significant attention due to their fascinating functionalities, such as anomalous reflection/refraction, acoustic cloaking, sound absorption, acoustic imaging, etc. The acoustic phase-gradient metamaterials possess the capability of wavefront manipulation, thus, are fundamental to designing these fascinating functionalities. The underlying mechanism is controlling the acoustic responses (the phase and/or amplitude) of the units by varying the parameters so that one can redirect the wavefront in the desired manner. In this article, we review the state-of-the-art on development of phase-gradient metamaterials for wavefront manipulation. The governing principles of the phase-gradient metamaterials for wave control in static and moving media are first introduced. Then, according to the unit type, the phase-gradient metamaterials are roughly classified into three categories: the locally resonant structures, the space-coiling structures and the material-filling structures. Afterwards, three representative functionalities of the gradient metamaterials are reviewed, including acoustic cloaking, sound absorption/isolation and acoustic lens. Finally, the limitations of present metamaterials and possible future directions for development are concluded.     

Slippage control in soft finger grasping and manipulation

Handling objects with robotic soft fingers without considering the odds of slippage are not realistic. Grasping and manipulation algorithms have to be tested under such conditions for evaluating their robustness. In this paper, a dynamic analysis of rigid object manipulation with slippage control is studied using a two-link finger with soft hemispherical tip. Dependency on contact forces applied by a soft finger while grasping a rigid object is examined experimentally. A power-law model combined with a linear viscous damper is used to model the elastic behavior and damping effect of the soft tip, respectively. In order to obtain precise dynamic equations governing the system, two second-order differential equations with variable coefficients have been designed to describe the different possible states of the contact forces accordingly. A controller is designed based on the rigid fingertip model using the concept of feedback linearization for each phase of the system dynamics. Numerical simulations are used to evaluate the performance of the controller. The results reveal that the designed controller shows acceptable performance for both soft and rigid finger manipulation in reducing and canceling slippage. Furthermore, simulations indicate that the applied force in the soft finger manipulation is considerably less than the rigid “one.”.     

Model-free learning on robot kinematic chains using a nested multi-agent topology

This paper proposes a model-free learning scheme for the developmental acquisition of robot kinematic control and dexterous manipulation skills. The approach is based on a nested-hierarchical multi-agent architecture that intuitively encapsulates the topology of robot kinematic chains, where the activity of each independent degree-of-freedom (DOF) is finally mapped onto a distinct agent. Each one of those agents progressively evolves a local kinematic control strategy in a game-theoretic sense, that is, based on a partial (local) view of the whole system topology, which is incrementally updated through a recursive communication process according to the nested-hierarchical topology. Learning is thus approached not through demonstration and training but through an autonomous self-exploration process. A fuzzy reinforcement learning scheme is employed within each agent to enable efficient exploration in a continuous state–action domain. This paper constitutes in fact a proof of concept, demonstrating that global dexterous manipulation skills can indeed evolve through such a distributed iterative learning of local agent sensorimotor mappings. The main motivation behind the development of such an incremental multi-agent topology is to enhance system modularity, to facilitate extensibility to more complex problem domains and to improve robustness with respect to structural variations including unpredictable internal failures. These attributes of the proposed system are assessed in this paper through numerical experiments in different robot manipulation task scenarios, involving both single and multi-robot kinematic chains. The generalisation capacity of the learning scheme is experimentally assessed and robustness properties of the multi-agent system are also evaluated with respect to unpredictable variations in the kinematic topology. Furthermore, these numerical experiments demonstrate the scalability properties of the proposed nested-hierarchical architecture, where new agents can be recursively added in the hierarchy to encapsulate individual active DOFs. The results presented in this paper demonstrate the feasibility of such a distributed multi-agent control framework, showing that the solutions which emerge are plausible and near-optimal. Numerical efficiency and computational cost issues are also discussed.     

Fault‐tolerant display image‐data‐manipulation unit for system‐on‐panel

Abstract— Bit‐partitioned and conventional shifts, as well as type transformations of multimedia data, are frequently used for display image‐processing systems. A data manipulation unit with fault‐recovery capability based on redundancies is proposed for system‐on‐panel with low processing technology yield. Utilizing data manipulations that are similar to normal shift operation, a proposed data‐manipulation unit is designed with a few additional paths added to the existing barrel shifter. The design methodologies are verified with FPGA and the performance is evaluated in terms of the advantages.     

Semiochemicals for use with parasitoids: Status and future

Allelochemicals are known to serve important roles at all steps in the host-searching sequence of parasitoids. We discuss the various roles of these allelochemics and the type of information needed to develop their use in pest control, which to date has been very limited. Rapid advancements are being made with respect to airborne chemicals and longer-range foraging behavior. Moreover, recent discoveries have shown that genetic diversity in parasitoid populations and phenotypic plasticity of individuals, together with their physiological state, often result in substantial variations in the response to chemical cues. Successful application of semiochemical-parasitoid systems will require management of these intrinsic parasitoid variables as well as management of the foraging environment. We illustrate emerging technology for such an application. For the immediate future, the development of this technology will allow us to: (1) define the genetic and phenotypic foraging profiles important to consistent and efficient parasitoid foraging, and (2) establish the proper propagation and release procedures and monitoring bioassays necessary to ensure appropriate behavioral and physiological qualities of released organisms. For the long term, we envision technology for comprehensively manipulating the pest/crop environment in ways that would provide foraging stimuli and other needs important to retention and efficiency of parasitoids.     

Survey on model-based manipulation planning of deformable objects

A systematic overview on the subject of model-based manipulation planning of deformable objects is presented. Existing modeling techniques of volumetric, planar and linear deformable objects are described, emphasizing the different types of deformation. Planning strategies are categorized according to the type of manipulation goal: path planning, folding/unfolding, topology modifications and assembly. Most current contributions fit naturally into these categories, and thus the presented algorithms constitute an adequate basis for future developments.     

基于UML动态模型的数据操纵建模

针对传统数据建模过少关注对系统功能的实现建立模型的问题,在UML动态模型的基础上将界面交互模型与数据操纵过程相结合,并应用于数据操纵模型的构建中.该数据操纵模型从用户界面出发,用动态模型展现用户与系统的交互过程.实验证明,该方法能够降低软件维护的复杂性,提高软件的重用率,从而提高了软件开发过程效率和可维护性.