关键词： 跳跃机器人   仿生机器人   多刚体动力学   欠驱动   拉格朗日方程  

摘要： 针对弹跳机器人高驱动功率的要求,设计了一种含有弹簧储能机构的间歇式跳跃仿蛙机器人。为了分析机器人在弹簧储能机构驱动下的起跳运动规律,对机器人起跳阶段的动力学进行了研究。首先建立了简化的机器人机构模型,并采用D-H方法建立了机器人起跳阶段的位置、速度和加速度方程;然后根据多刚体动力学拉格朗日方法推导了机器人起跳阶段的动力学方程,并利用MATLAB对拉格朗日方程进行数值求解,得到了机器人起跳阶段的关节角度变化规律、质心运动轨迹和起跳完成时刻质心速度。最后利用ADAMS进行了起跳阶段的动力学仿真,验证了动力学方程数值求解结果的有效性。

关键词： 机器人机构   就这样   分类整理   常规赛   WRO   机器人竞赛   奥林匹克竞赛   这一天   指导教师   Robot  

摘要： 在得知能够参加2015世界青少年机器人邀请赛的WRO项目时,我们既欢喜又担心,开心的是有机会参加高水平的比赛,担心的是想在高水平的比赛上取得好成绩不是件容易的事。我们得到了学校、家长的全力支持,不管结果如何,首先要做到全力以赴。就这样,我们开始了紧张而有序的搭建、编程、调试、模拟、改进这样一个反反复复的过程。首先,我们重新分类整理几十上百种零部件,重新＂抚摸＂他们。

关键词： Robotics   Shipments   Revenue   Demand  

摘要： "In 2015, robotic toys accounted for more than half of the year’s total shipments, but consumer UAVs is proving to be the fastest growing segment over the next decade," says Phil Solis, research director at ABI Research. "We anticipate consumer UAVs including toy UAVs to surpass robotic toys in terms of shipment share in a few years and account for more than half of consumer robotics product shipments by 2021."

关键词： autism spectrum disorder   social robotics   autism therapy   humanoid robots   autism diagnosis  

摘要： Social robotics could be a promising method for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) treatment. The aim of this article is to carry out a systematic literature review of the studies on this topic that were published in the last 10 years. We tried to address the following questions: can social robots be a useful tool in autism therapy? We followed the PRISMA guidelines, and the protocol was registered within PROSPERO database (CRD42015016158). We found many positive implications in the use of social robots in therapy as for example: ASD subjects often performed better with a robot partner rather than a human partner;sometimes, ASD patients had, toward robots, behaviors that TD patients had toward human agents;ASDs had a lot of social behaviors toward robots;during robotic sessions, ASDs showed reduced repetitive and stereotyped behaviors and, social robots manage to improve spontaneous language during therapy sessions. Therefore, robots provide therapists and researchers a means to connect with autistic subjects in an easier way, but studies in this area are still insufficient. It is necessary to clarify whether sex, intelligence quotient, and age of participants affect the outcome of therapy and whether any beneficial effects only occur during the robotic session or if they are still observable outside the clinical/experimental context. Autism Res2016, 9: 165-183. (c) 2015 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

关键词： Electronic nose   Volatile classification   Odor recognition   time-series   Prototype learning   Relevance learning  

摘要： Odor classification by a robot equipped with an electronic nose (e-nose) is a challenging task for pattern recognition since volatiles have to be classified quickly and reliably even in the case of short measurement sequences, gathered under operation in the field. Signals obtained in these circumstances are characterized by a high-dimensionality, which limits the use of classical classification techniques based on unsupervised and semi-supervised settings, and where predictive variables can be only identified using wrapper or post-processing techniques. In this paper, we consider generative topographic mapping through time (GTM-TT) as an unsupervised model for time-series inspection, based on hidden Markov models regularized by topographic constraints. We further extend the model such that supervised classification and relevance learning can be integrated, resulting in supervised GTM-TT. Then, we evaluate the suitability of this new technique for the odor classification problem in robotics applications. The performance is compared with classical techniques as nearest neighbor, as an absolute baseline, support vector machine and a recent time-series kernel approach, demonstrating the eligibility of our approach for high-dimensional data. Additionally, we exploit the learning system introduced in this work, providing a measure of the relevance of each sensor and individual time points in the classification process, from which important information can be extracted.

关键词： Evolutionary Robotics   Coevolution   Simulator   Artificial Neural Networks   Differentially-Steered   Mobile robotics  

摘要： Evolutionary Robotics (ER) strives for the automatic creation of robotic controllers and morphologies. The ER process is normally performed in simulation in order to reduce the time required and robot wear. Simulator development is a time consuming process which requires expert knowledge and must traditionally be completed before the ER process can commence. Traditional simulators have limited accuracy, can be computationally expensive and typically do not account for minor operational differences between physical robots. This research proposes the automatic creation of simulators concurrently with the normal ER process. The simulator is derived from an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to remove the need for formulating an analytical model for the robot. The ANN simulator is improved concurrently with the ER process through real-world controller evaluations which continuously generate behavioural data. Simultaneously, the ER process is informed by the improving simulator to evolve better controllers which are periodically evaluated in the real-world. Hence, the concurrent processes provide further targeted behavioural data for simulator improvement. The concurrent and real-time creation of both controllers and ANN-based simulators is successfully demonstrated for a differentially-steered mobile robot. Various parameter settings in the proposed algorithm are investigated to determine factors pertinent to the success of the proposed approach. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

关键词： General surgery training   Robotic surgery   Robotic education   Virtual reality robotic simulation  

摘要： While robotic-assisted operations have become more prevalent, many general surgery residencies do not have a formal robotic training curriculum. We sought to ascertain how well current general surgery training permits acquisition of robotic skills by comparing robotic simulation performance across various training levels. Thirty-six participants were categorized by level of surgical training: eight medical students (MS), ten junior residents (JR), ten mid-level residents (MLR), and eight senior residents (SR). Participants performed three simulation tasks on the da Vinci (A (R)) Skills Simulator (MatchBoard, EnergyDissection, SutureSponge). Each task's scores (0-100) and cumulative scores (0-300) were compared between groups. There were no differences in sex, hand dominance, video gaming history, or prior robotic experience between groups;however, SR was the oldest (p < 0.001). The median overall scores did not differ: 188 (84-201) for MS, 183 (91-234) for JR, 197 (153-218) for MLR, and 205 (169-229) for SR (p = 0.14). The median SutureSponge score was highest for SR (61, range 39-81) compared to MS (43, range 26-61), JR (43, range 11-72), and MLR (55, range 36-68) (p = 0.039). However, there were no significant differences in MatchBoard (p = 0.27) or EnergyDissection (p = 0.99) scores between groups. There was a positive correlation between SutureSponge score and number of laparoscopic cases logged (p = 0.005, r (2) = 0.21), but this correlation did not exist for the MatchBoard or EnergyDissection tasks. Lastly, there was no correlation between total lifetime hours of video gaming and overall score (p = 0.89, R (2) = 0.0006). Robotic skillsets acquired during general surgery residency show minimal improvement during the course of training, although laparoscopic experience is correlated with advanced robotic task performance. Changes in residency curricula or pursuit of fellowship training may be warranted for surgeons seeking proficiency.

关键词： erectile dysfunction   general surgery   laparoscopy   rectal neoplasms   robotics   treatment outcome  

摘要： ObjectiveRobot-assisted surgery has been reported to be a safe and effective alternative to conventional laparoscopy for the treatment of rectal cancer in a minimally invasive manner. Nevertheless, substantial data concerning functional outcomes and long-term oncological adequacy is still lacking. We aimed to assess the current role of robotics in rectal surgery focusing on patients' functional and oncological outcomes. MethodsA comprehensive review was conducted to search articles published in English up to 11 September 2015 concerning functional and/or oncological outcomes of patients who received robot-assisted rectal surgery. All relevant papers were evaluated on functional implications such as postoperative sexual and urinary dysfunction and oncological outcomes. ResultsRobotics showed a general trend towards lower rates of sexual and urinary postoperative dysfunction and earlier recovery compared with laparoscopy. The rates of 3-year local recurrence, disease-free survival and overall survival of robotic-assisted rectal surgery compared favourably with those of laparoscopy. ConclusionsThis study fails to provide solid evidence to draw definitive conclusions on whether robotic systems could be useful in ameliorating the outcomes of minimally invasive surgery for rectal cancer. However, the available data suggest potential advantages over conventional laparoscopy with reference to functional outcomes.

关键词： survey   Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV)   underwater robotics   Autonomous Surface Vehicle (ASV)   middleware  

摘要： Currently, there is a plethora of solutions regarding interconnectivity and interoperability for networked robots so that they will fulfill their purposes in a coordinated manner. In addition to that, middleware architectures are becoming increasingly popular due to the advantages that they are capable of guaranteeing (hardware abstraction, information homogenization, easy access for the applications above, etc.). However, there are still scarce contributions regarding the global state of the art in intermediation architectures for underwater robotics. As far as the area of robotics is concerned, this is a major issue that must be tackled in order to get a holistic view of the existing proposals. This challenge is addressed in this paper by studying the most compelling pieces of work for this kind of software development in the current literature. The studied works have been assessed according to their most prominent features and capabilities. Furthermore, by studying the individual pieces of work and classifying them several common weaknesses have been revealed and are highlighted. This provides a starting ground for the development of a middleware architecture for underwater robotics capable of dealing with these issues.

摘要： Issue Title: Special Issue: Current Developments in Robotics and Mobile Machines