HANDS: a multimodal dataset for modeling toward human grasp intent inference in prosthetic hands

Intelligent Service Robotics - Upper limb and hand functionality is critical to many activities of daily living, and the amputation of one can lead to significant functionality loss for...     

A novel approach for determining the flow patterns in centrifuges by means of Laser-Doppler-Anemometry

The flow pattern in process machinery has a significant impact on the product quality, because it influences the residence time, the mixing of components and the stability of chemical reactions. Hence the determination of the residence time and the measurement of the flow patterns have been the emphasis of many studies. The work presented shows a novel approach for the determination of the tangential and axial velocity profiles in a tubular bowl centrifuge. For the first time, flow velocities inside a fast rotating centrifuge have been measured using Laser-Doppler-Anemometry. The rotor of the centrifuge is made of carbon fibre reinforced plastic with an inner diameter of 100 mm and a length of 200 mm. The maximum rotational speed is 20,000 rpm, creating the multiple of 22,400 times the earth gravitational force. No failure of the material was detected at any process parameters. The centrifuge is operated with two different setups. One setup employs an assembly of two coaxial cylinders, in which the void between them is entirely filled with water. In the second arrangement, only the outer rotor is assembled and the centrifuge is operated like an overflow centrifuge. The Laser-Doppler measurements of the axial fluid velocity are confirmed by determining the residence time distribution at various parameters. The results obtained show an effective tangential acceleration; the liquid exhibits a rigid body rotation for rotational speeds up to 8000 rpm for throughputs between 0.5 and 1.8 l/min. The axial flow pattern depend on the volume flux and the rotational speed. The cross-section through which the liquid flows was in most cases between 60% and 100% of the overall area. The influence of the inlet subsides towards the outlet with an inlet zone of 15% of the length of the rotor. No boundary layer flow was detected in the overflow setup, which is due to the plunged inlet and the effective tangential acceleration of the incoming liquid.     

Function-Level Processor (FLP): A Novel Processor Class for Efficient Processing of Streaming Applications

The exponential growth in computation demand drives chip vendors to heterogeneous architectures combining Instruction-Level Processors (ILPs) and custom HW Accelerators (HWACCs) in an attempt to provide the needed processing capabilities while meeting power/energy requirements. ILPs, on one hand, are highly flexible, but power inefficient. Custom HWACCs, on the other hand, are inflexible (focusing on dedicated kernels), but highly power efficient. New processing architectures are needed that combine the power efficiency of HWACCs while still retaining sufficient flexibility to realize applications across targeted markets. This article introduces Function-Level Processors (FLPs) to fill the gap between ILPs and dedicated HWACCs. FLPs are comprised of configurable Function Blocks (FBs) implementing selected functions which are then interconnected via programmable point-to-point connections constructing an extensible/configurable macro data-path. An FLP raises programming abstraction to a Function-Set Architecture (FSA) controlling FBs allocation, configuration and scheduling. We demonstrate FLP benefits with an industry example of the Pipeline-Vision Processor (PVP). We highlight the gained flexibility by mapping 10 embedded vision applications entirely to the FLP-PVP offering up to 22.4 GOPs/s with an average power of 120 mW. The results also demonstrate that our FLP-PVP solution consumes 1/18th - 1/14th of the power of an ILP and 1/5th of the power of a hybrid ILP+HWACCs.