A Real-Time Kinematics on the Translational Crawl Motion of a Quadruped Robot

It is known that the kinematics of a quadruped robot is complex due to its topology and the redundant actuation in the robot. However, it is fundamental to compute the inverse and direct kinematics for the sophisticated control of the robot in real-time. In this paper, the translational crawl gait of a quadruped robot is introduced and the approach to find the solution of the kinematics for such a crawl motion is proposed. Since the resulting kinematics is simplified, the formulation can be used for the real-time control of the robot. The results of simulation and experiment shows that the present method is feasible and efficient.     

Analysis and Control for an Omnidirectional Mobile Manipulator

This paper describes analysis and control for a holonomic omnidirectional mobile manipulator, in which the holonomic omnidirectional platform consists of three lateral orthogonal wheel assemblies and a mounted manipulator with three rotational joints is located at the center of gravity of the platform. We first introduce the kinematic model for the mobile manipulator and derive the dynamical model by using the Newton–Euler method, where a model which simultaneously takes account of features of both the manipulator and the mobile parts is given to analyze the effect of the movement of mounted manipulator on the platform. Then, the computed torque control and the resolved acceleration control methods are used to show that the holonomic omnidirectional mobile manipulator can be controlled so as to retain any end-effector position and orientation, irrespective of the direction of external applied force. The validity of the model and the effectiveness of the present mobile manipulator are proved by using several numerical simulations and 3D animations.     

EXPLOITING SUBTREES IN AUTO‐PARSED DATA TO IMPROVE DEPENDENCY PARSING

Dependency parsing has attracted considerable interest from researchers and developers in natural language processing. However, to obtain a high‐accuracy dependency parser, supervised techniques require a large volume of hand‐annotated data, which are extremely expensive. This paper presents a simple and effective approach for improving dependency parsing with subtrees derived from unannotated data, which are easy to obtain. First, we use a baseline parser to parse large‐scale unannotated data. Then, we extract subtrees from dependency parse trees in the auto‐parsed data. Next, the extracted subtrees are classified into several sets according to their frequency. Finally, we design new features based on the subtree sets for parsing algorithms. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed approach, we conduct experiments on the English Penn Treebank and Chinese Penn Treebank. The results show that our approach significantly outperforms baseline systems. It also achieves the best accuracy for the Chinese data and an accuracy competitive with the best known systems for the English data.     

Neural network approach to acquiring free-gait motion of quadruped robots in obstacle avoidance

In obstacle avoidance by a legged mobile robot, it is not necessary to avoid all of the obstacles by turning only, because it can climb or stride over some of them, depending on the obstacle configuration and the state of the robot, unlike a wheel-type or a crawler-type robot. It is thought that mobility efficiency to a destination is improved by crawling over or striding over obstacles. Moreover, if robots have many legs, like 4-legged or 6-legged types, then the robot's movement range is affected by the order of the swing leg. In this article a neural network (NN) is used to determine the action of a quadruped robot in an obstacle-avoiding situation by using information about the destination, the obstacle configuration, and the robot's self-state. To acquire a free gait in static walking, the order of the swing leg is realized using an alternative NN whose inputs are the amount of movement and the robot's self-state. The design parameters of the former NN are adjusted by a genetic algorithm (GA) off-line. This work was presented in part at the 9th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, January 28–30, 2004     

Design and Analysis of Broadband Dual-Gate Balanced Low-Noise Amplifiers

In this paper, we present three MMIC low-noise amplifiers using dual-gate GaAs HEMT devices in a balanced amplifier configuration. The designs target three different frequency bands including 4-9 GHz, 9-20 GHz, and 20-40 GHz. These dual-gate balanced designs demonstrate the excellent qualities of balanced amplifiers in terms of stability and matched characteristics, while demonstrating higher bandwidth than designs with a single-stage common-source device. Additionally, noise performance is excellent, with the 4-9 GHz LNA demonstrating <1.75 dB noise figure (NF), the 9-20 GHz LNA <2.75 dB NF and the 20-40 GHz LNA <2.5 dB NF. Demonstrating high gain and excellent bandwidth, the dual-gate devices seem a logical choice for the balanced amplifier topology.     

Finding all solutions of piecewise‐linear resistive circuits using the dual simplex method

An efficient algorithm is proposed for finding all solutions of piecewise‐linear (PWL) resistive circuits using linear programming (LP). This algorithm is based on a simple test (termed the LP test) for non‐existence of a solution to a system of PWL equations in a given region. In the conventional LP test, the system of PWL equations is transformed into an LP problem, to which the simplex method is applied. However, this algorithm requires a very large number of pivotings because the simplex method is applied on many regions. In this paper, we introduce the dual simplex method to the LP test, which makes the average number of pivotings per region much smaller (less than one, for example) and makes the algorithm very efficient. By numerical examples, it is shown that the proposed algorithm could find all solutions of large‐scale problems, including those where the number of variables is 300 and the number of linear regions is 10³⁰⁰, in practical computation time. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Laser‐induced discharge in a rod–plane electrode in the presence of a negative dc electric field

Discharge induction experiments were performed between a plate and a rod on a plate electrode configuration with a gap length of 1 m using a high‐power CO₂ laser and a dc voltage generator. The electrodes are parallel planes. Each plate electrode consists of a central flat part having a diameter of 3 m with a circular edge on a cross section. The length of the rod is 10 cm. A chain of plasma beads of length 10 cm was created on the tip of the rod by the CO₂ laser and used for artificial triggering of negative high‐voltage sparkover. The behavior of streamer, leader, and return stroke was observed by an image converter camera. It was found that a positive upward traveling leader can be triggered from the tip of the rod on the lower plane to the upper plane by the chain of plasma beads created by the CO₂ laser. This apparatus is useful for study for realization of laser‐induced lightning. © 2000 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 132(4): 19–27, 2000     

Effects of addition of diacylglycerols on fat crystallization in oil‐in‐water emulsion

The effects of addition of diacylglycerols (DAGs) on the crystallization behavior of n‐hexadecane dispersed in oil‐in‐water emulsion (oil 20% and water 80%, v/v) were studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and ultrasonic velocity measurement. In an attempt to modify the crystallization rate of n‐hexadecane, five DAGs having the fatty acid moieties of behenic (DAB), stearic (DAS), palmitic (DAP), lauric (DAL) and oleic acid (DAO) were added to n‐hexadecane, which was mixed with water and Tween 20 for emulsification. The DSC study showed that the addition of DAB, DAS or DAP (1.0 wt‐% with respect to n‐hexadecane) increased the crystallization temperature (Tc) of a n‐hexadecane/water emulsion from 3 °C (without DAG) to 8 °C, whereas the addition of DAL and DAO showed no effect. The ultrasonic velocity measurement also revealed that the addition of DAGs resulted in increasing the Tc of n‐hexadecane in O/W emulsion. These effects were discussed by taking into account the formation of molecular aggregates at the interface due to the addition of DAGs, which act as a template for crystallization of n‐hexadecane. The template‐assisted crystallization depends on the structure of the fatty acid chains present in the DAG: the longer the fatty acid moiety of DAG , the more is the crystallization of n‐hexadecane in O/W emulsion accelerated.     

Size of polymeric particles forming hemodialysis membranes determined from water and solute permeabilities

Regarding hemodialysis membranes as layers packed with uniform polymeric particles, the size of the particles is determined using the Kozeny–Carman equation. Diameter of the spheres forming cellulosic membranes is the same order as the size of primary polymeric particles determined by electron microscopy in a previous article. Pore radii of the membranes calculated by the Kozeny–Carman equation are in agreement with those determined by the tortuous capillary pore model. The result suggests that an estimate of a pore radius of a membrane is feasible by the Kozeny–Carman equation only with water permeability of the membrane. Intramembrane diffusion coefficients of vitamin B₁₂ calculated from an equation derived from the analogy of heat conduction in heterogeneous media consisting of a continuous phase and particles are larger than the experimental values. The result suggests the failure of the analogy between heat conduction and diffusion of vitamin B₁₂ in a heterogeneous medium. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 67:833–840, 1998     

Dispersive XAFS Study on Cu and Mo Species in Zeolites During the Catalyst Preparation

A time-resolved energy dispersive XAFS (DXAFS) technique is applied to elucidate the local structure of catalyst precursors and active species during the preparation of catalysts. The structure of ion-exchanged copper species in ZSM-5 zeolite during temperature-programmed reduction and the structure of molybdenum carbonyl species in NaY zeolite during temperature-programmed decarbonylation were investigated by the DXAFS technique. The way of the analysis of XAFS data during the dynamic processes is also discussed. The XANES spectra were analyzed to determine the ratio of different species involved in the system as a function of temperature as well as the curve-fitting analysis of the time-resolved EXAFS. The detailed analysis of the XANES and EXAFS shed light on the structural changes during the dynamic processes. In Cu-ZSM-5, a stepwise reduction process of Cu species and the subsequent growth of Cu particles during the reduction were elucidated. In Mo–NaY, the formation of Mo subcarbonyl monomer species as an intermediate of molybdenum oxycarbide dimer species was observed. This paper demonstrates that the DXAFS technique is useful to study the chemistry of catalyst preparation and can provide vital information that cannot be obtained by other techniques.