Developing a vision-based auto-recharging system for mobile robots

This article describes a vision-based auto-recharging system that guides a mobile robot moving toward a docking station. The system contains a docking station and a mobile robot. The docking station contains a docking structure, a control device, a charger, a safety detection device, and a wireless RF interface. The mobile robot contains a power detection module (voltage and current), an auto-switch, a wireless RF interface, a controller, and a camera. The controller of the power detection module is a Holtek chip. The docking structure is designed with one active degree of freedom and two passive degrees of freedom. For image processing, the mobile robot uses a webcam to capture a real-time image. The image signal is transmitted to the controller of the mobile robot via a USB interface. We use an Otsu algorithm to calculate the distance and orientation of the docking station from the mobile robot. In the experiment, the proposed algorithm guided the mobile robot to the docking station.     

Detection of a brain aneurysm and a way to search for a brain aneurysm aimed at the development of a system to simulate an operation

In this article, a system is proposed for a simulated operation which would help a trainee surgeon to perform a medical operation to ensure that a cerebral aneurysm does not burst. The physician will have acquired empirical medical technologies from operations in traditional clinical teaching. However, there is a problem with safety and the burden to the patient. Therefore, recently a new training approach for a simulated medical operation using virtual reality has been explored. With the aim of developing a simulated system for a medical operation for a cerebral aneurysm, we considered the necessary functions such as detecting the brain aneurysm that is the target of the operation, and searching for a suitable blood vessel to make a plan for the operation.     

A superscalar simulation employing poisson distributed stalls

This paper presents a statistical approach to estimating the performance of a superscalar processor. Traditional trace-driven simulators can take a large amount time to conduct a performance evaluation of a machine, especially as the number of instructions increases. The result of this type of simulation is typically tied to the particular trace that was run. Elements such as dependencies, delays, and stalls are all a direct result of the particular trace being run, and can differ from trace to trace. This paper describes a model designed to separate simulation results from a specific trace. Rather than running a trace-driven simulation, a statistical model is employed, more specifically a Poisson distribution, to predict how these types of delay affects performance. Through the use of this statistical model, a performance evaluation can be conducted using a general code model, with specific stall rates, rather than a particular code trace. This model allows simulations to quickly run tens of millions of instructions and evaluate the performance of a particular micro-architecture while at the same time, allowing the flexibility to change the structure of the architecture.     

A proposal of bargaining solution for cooperative contract in a supply chain

As a problem in supply chain management, the decision problem of terms and conditions of a contract between a supplier and a retailer is recognized commonly. The concept of cooperative bargaining between a supplier and a retailer is the key concepts to resolve this problem in the supply chain. Then, the bargaining evaluation function by Nash in the game theory exists as a tool to obtain the solution by cooperation bargaining. The Nash bargaining solution is derived under the premise that a power balance between a supplier and a retailer is equal. However, the situation where the power balance between a supplier and a retailer in actual bargaining is not equal is supposed frequently. For the purpose of reflecting the power balance in obtaining the bargaining solution, the concept of a general bargaining solution was proposed and then the general bargaining evaluation function for obtaining the general bargaining solution was devised. However, in the case of adopting the general bargaining evaluation function as a bargaining tool, some problems are included. In this article, we address the problems in the general bargaining solution. Then, we propose a new concept of bargaining process to obtain a solution under considering the existence of power balance between a supplier and a retailer.     

An experimental remote handling system

An experimental robotic remote handling system is described which has been constructed in order to investigate various engineering problems in advanced remote handling such as the man-machine interface, system control and communication. The device consists of a mobile and a control station. The mobile station comprises an electrical manipulator having seven degrees of freedom, a TV camera, a control sub-computer, a servo-control unit, radio transmitters and receivers, batteries, etc., which are mounted on a crawler-type vehicle. The control station is equipped with the master arm of the manipulator, radio transmitters and receivers, a TV monitor, a main control computer and its peripheral devices, etc. The manipulator can be operated in either a master-slave, a playback or a programmed control mode with the assistance of control computers. Communication between the mobile and the control stations is made using optical fibres or a radio link.     

HelSweeper: Screw-sweeps of canal surfaces

A tube is a solid bounded by the union of a one-parameter family of circles that may be decomposed into canal-surfaces and planar disks or annuli. A screw-sweep is the region swept by a shape during a screw motion. HelSweeper computes the boundary of a screw-sweep of an arbitrary union of tubes and polyhedra. To do so, it generates a superset of faces, splits them at their intersections, and selects the face portions that form the desired boundary. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in the fact that the faces contributed to this superset by a tube are each a screw-sweeps of a rigid curve (generator), which is the locus of grazing points, and that each grazing point is formulated as the intersection of a circle of the tube with a corresponding screw-plane. Hence, each such face is a one-parameter family of helices, each being the screw-sweep of a grazing point.     

Exact combinatorial bounds on the probability of overfitting for empirical risk minimization

Three general methods for obtaining exact bounds on the probability of overfitting are proposed within statistical learning theory: a method of generating and destroying sets, a recurrent method, and a blockwise method. Six particular cases are considered to illustrate the application of these methods. These are the following model sets of predictors: a pair of predictors, a layer of a Boolean cube, an interval of a Boolean cube, a monotonic chain, a unimodal chain, and a unit neighborhood of the best predictor. For the interval and the unimodal chain, the results of numerical experiments are presented that demonstrate the effects of splitting and similarity on the probability of overfitting.     

Basic position/force control of a single-axis arm designed with an ultrasonic motor

Recently, many studies on assist robots have been conducted in which the development of a unique system is required to support elderly people, physically handicapped people, and/or care givers. One typical system is called the assist suit, which has been used on a trial basis. The assist suit is a mechatronics device which can assist physical human actions. However, the current assist suit has a few problems with respect to cost, size, weight, endurance, and so on. This article describes a fundamental study concerning a compact assist device. The assist device supports one spot on the body, such as a knee, an elbow, or a shoulder. First, a simple single-axis arm was designed using an ultrasonic motor which can generate a high torque from a low velocity range. Then a servo-system, a torque control system, and a passive torque control system were designed and their characteristics were evaluated. In addition, the stability of the servo-system was analyzed. Here, the passive torque control includes a stiffness control and a compliance control.     

On the controllability of systems with a time-varying delay†

This paper is concerned with the controllability of a system with a time-varying delay. The system to be considered here is described by a linear differential-difference equation of a retarded type, where a time-varying delay is a certain class of a time-varying function. First, the concepts of controllability for linear differential-difference systems with a constant delay, introduced by Weiss (1987), are developed to the system with a time-varying delay. Second, necessary and sufficient conditions for controllability are obtained. Finally, the controllability of a stationary system with a constant delay is treated, including the results of Chyung and Lee (1966).     

PSoC-based embedded design and quartz tuning fork for low-temperature measurement system design

This article describes a commercial quartz tuning fork (QTF), 8 mm in height by 3 mm in diameter, holding a two-terminal electronic component with a nominal frequency of 32.768 kHz and 12.5 pF typical load capacitance packed in a vacuum-sealed metal container, which has been used as a sensor for low-temperature measurement with good sensitivity, repeatability, and reliability. An embedded readout design with the support of a programmable system on-chip (PSoC) and virtual instrument control program, which uses a personal computer as an input/output device, provides online data acquisition of the QTF frequency data, which will in turn provide the measurement of the low-temperature bath in which the QTF is immersed. The embedded PSoC readout captures the varying frequency signals from the QTF as a response to the measurement temperature, processes it, and sends the frequency value to a personal computer, where LabVIEW, a graphical language ("G" language), displays the data in a graphical format. The QTFs for low temperature (300 K to 77 K) are well studied, whereas a sensor using a PSoC embedded design as a readout is a novel design implementation.     

Bayesian recognition of local 3-d shape by approximating image intensity functions with quadric polynomials

The recognition in image data of viewed patches of spheres, cylinders, and planes in the 3-D world is discussed as a first step to complex object recognition or complex object location and orientation estimation. Accordingly, an image is partitioned into small square windows, each of which is a view of a piece of a sphere, or of a cylinder, or of a plane. Windows are processed in parallel for recognition of content. New concepts and techniques include approximations of the image within a window by 2-D quadric polynomials where each approximation is constrained by one of the hypotheses that the 3-D surface shape seen is either planar, cylindrical, or spherical; a recognizer based upon these approximations to determine whether the object patch viewed is a piece of a sphere, or a piece of a cylinder, or a piece of a plane; lowpass filtering of the image by the approximation. The shape recognition is computationally simple, and for large windows is approximately Bayesian minimum-probability-of-error recognition. These classifications are useful for many purposes. One such purpose is to enable a following processor to use an appropriate estimator to estimate shape, and orientation and location parameters for the 3-D surface seen within a window.     

A disruption recovery plan in a three-stage production-inventory system

This paper proposes a recovery plan for managing disruptions in a three-stage production-inventory system under a mixed production environment. First, a mathematical model is developed to deal with a disruption at any stage while maximizing total profit during the recovery-time window. The model is solved after the occurrence of a disruption event, with changed data used to generate a revised plan. We also propose a new and efficient heuristic for solving the developed mathematical model. Second, multiple disruptions are considered, where a new disruption may or may not affect the recovery plans of earlier disruptions. The heuristic, developed for a single disruption, is extended to deal with a series of disruptions so that it can be implemented for disruption recovery on a real-time basis. We compare the heuristic solutions with those obtained by a standard search algorithm for a set of randomly generated disruption test problems, and that show the consistent performance of our developed heuristic with lower computational times. Finally, some numerical examples and a real-world case study are presented to demonstrate the benefits and usefulness of our proposed approach.     

Near-future perception system: Previewed Reality

ABSTRACT

The present paper introduces a near-future perception system called Previewed Reality. In a co-existence environment of a human and a robot, unexpected collisions between the human and the robot must be avoided to the extent possible. In many cases, the robot is controlled carefully so as not to collide with a human. However, it is almost impossible to perfectly predict human behavior in advance. On the other hand, if a user can determine the motion of a robot in advance, he/she can avoid a hazardous situation and exist safely with the robot. In order to ensure that a user perceives future events naturally, we developed a near-future perception system named Previewed Reality. Previewed Reality consists of an informationally structured environment, a VR display or an AR display, and a dynamics simulator. A number of sensors are embedded in an informationally structured environment, and information such as the position of furniture, objects, humans, and robots, is sensed and stored structurally in a database. Therefore, we can forecast possible subsequent events using a robot motion planner and a dynamics simulator and can synthesize virtual images from the viewpoint of the user, which will actually occur in the near future. The viewpoint of the user, which is the position and orientation of a VR display or an AR display, is also tracked by an optical tracking system in the informationally structured environment, or the SLAM technique on an AR display. The synthesized images are presented to the user by overlaying these images on a real scene using the VR display or the AR display. This system provides human-friendly communication between a human and a robotic system, and a human and a robot can coexist safely by intuitively showing the human possible hazardous situations in advance.     

Neural-Based Learning Classifier Systems

UCS is a supervised learning classifier system that was introduced in 2003 for classification in data mining tasks. The representation of a rule in UCS as a univariate classification rule is straightforward for a human to understand. However, the system may require a large number of rules to cover the input space. Artificial neural networks (NNs), on the other hand, normally provide a more compact representation. However, it is not a straightforward task to understand the network. In this paper, we propose a novel way to incorporate NNs into UCS. The approach offers a good compromise between compactness, expressiveness, and accuracy. By using a simple artificial NN as the classifier's action, we obtain a more compact population size, better generalization, and the same or better accuracy while maintaining a reasonable level of expressiveness. We also apply negative correlation learning (NCL) during the training of the resultant NN ensemble. NCL is shown to improve the generalization of the ensemble.     

A vertical and floor line-based monocular SLAM system for corridor environments

In this paper, we propose a vertical and floor line-based monocular simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) system which utilizes vertical lines, floor lines, and vanishing points as sensory input to perform robust SLAM in corridor environments. By combining three map feature types, our design can help a robot to perform accurate pose estimation, repeatable loop closure, and to construct a more expressive environmental map. As a primitive element of a geometric structure, a line segment has one additional dimension compared to a point feature, thereby allowing the use of line segments to easily represent a geometric structure using a smaller number of features. This system presents map features on a 2D ground space: the vertical line as a projection point, the floor line as the original line, and the vanishing point as a directional vector. Although the vertical line, floor line, and vanishing point use different parameterization and initialization methods, their measurement models are integrated into a unified extended Kalman filter (EKF) framework. Experimental results show that our system can be deployed in a structured indoor environment as a suitable SLAM solution.     

A multimodal language to communicate with life-supporting robots through a touch screen and a speech interface

This article proposes a multimodal language to communicate with life-supporting robots through a touch screen and a speech interface. The language is designed for untrained users who need support in their daily lives from cost-effective robots. In this language, the users can combine spoken and pointing messages in an interactive manner in order to convey their intentions to the robots. Spoken messages include verb and noun phrases which describe intentions. Pointing messages are given when the user’s finger touches a camera image, a picture containing a robot body, or a button on a touch screen at hand which convey a location in their environment, a direction, a body part of the robot, a cue, a reply to a query, or other information to help the robot. This work presents the philosophy and structure of the language.     

A new desk-top encounter-type haptic device with an actively driven pen-tablet LCD panel

In conventional haptic devices for virtual reality (VR) systems, a user interacts with a scene by handling a tool (such as a pen) using a mechanical device (i.e. an end-effector-type haptic device). In the case that the device can ‘mimic’ a VR object, the user can interact directly with the VR object without the mechanical constraint of a device (i.e. an encounter-type haptic device). A new challenge of an encounter-type haptic device is displaying the visuals and haptic information simultaneously on a single device. We are proposing a new desk-top encounter-type haptic device with an actively driven pen-tablet LCD panel. The proposed device is capable of providing pseudo-3D visuals and haptic information on a single device. As the result, the system provides to the user a sense of interaction with a real object. To develop a proof-of-concept prototype, a compact parallel mechanism was developed and implemented. The aim of this research is to propose a new concept in haptic research. In this paper, the concept, the prototype, and some preliminary evaluation tests with the proposed system are presented.     

A new deterministic approach in a decision support system for ship’s trajectory planning

The paper introduces a Decision Support System for ships, developed to solve a problem of collision avoidance with static and dynamic obstacles. The system maps the decision making capability of a human (navigation) expert to solve the path planning problem for a ship in a complex navigation environment. It can be further developed to provide automatic control of a ship. It utilizes a new, fast and effective, deterministic method, called the Trajectory Base Algorithm, to calculate a safe, optimal path for a ship. The system structure, a detailed explanation of a new method, followed by results of simulation tests are all presented in the paper. The results proof a successful application of the method to solve a path planning problem for ships with the consideration of both static and dynamic obstacles in the environment, marine traffic regulations and dynamic properties of a ship, what makes this approach applicable in commercial systems. The approach can also be adapted for application in mobile robots path planning. The experimental results and ability of the system to achieve a new functionality of full autonomy show significance of this contribution to the development of Expert and Intelligent Systems domain. The author believes that autonomous systems constitute the future of Expert and Intelligent Systems.     

Simplifying Subtyping Constraints: A Theory

This paper offers a theoretical study of constraint simplification, a fundamental issue for the designer of a practical type inference system with subtyping. In the simpler case where constraints are equations, a simple isomorphism between constrained type schemes and finite state automata yields a complete constraint simplification method. Using it as a guide for the intuition, we move on to the case of subtyping, and describe several simplification algorithms. Although no longer complete, they are conceptually simple, efficient, and very effective in practice. Overall, this paper gives a concise theoretical account of the techniques found at the core of our type inference system. Our study is restricted to the case where constraints are interpreted in a non-structural lattice of regular terms. Nevertheless, we highlight a small number of general ideas, which explain our algorithms at a high level and may be applicable to a variety of other systems.