关键词： 旋量理论   线性代数   几何基础   机器人学   机构学   Hamilton四元数   Clifford   有限位移  

摘要： 本书起始于直线几何与线性代数，紧密联系李群、李代数、Hamilton四元数、Clifford对偶四元数、对偶数等基本概念而自然过渡到旋量代数与有限位移旋量。作者在书中首次全面、深入地阐述旋量代数在向鼍空间与射影几何理论下的演变与推理，提出旋量代数与李代数、四元数代数以及有限位移旋量与李群之间的关联理论，展现出旋量理论与经典数学以及现代数学的内在关联，总结提炼出许多论证严密、意义明确的引理、定理与推论，由此阐述第一篇“几何基础、旋量代数与李群、李代数”，给出机构学与机器人学的几何基础与数学理论。

关键词： China   Disasters   Robotics/trends   Software   Space Flight  

摘要： A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article 'China's Lunar Rover Languishes,' published in the June 6, 2014 issue.

关键词： Satellite swarm control   Evolutionary robotics   Neural networks   Particle swarm optimization  

摘要： We propose and study a decentralized formation flying control architecture based on the evolutionary robotic technique. We develop our control architecture for the MIT SPHERES robotic platform on board the International Space Station and we show how it is able to achieve micrometre and microradians precision at the path planning level. Our controllers are homogeneous across satellites and do not make use of labels (i.e. all satellites can be exchanged at any time). The evolutionary process is able to produce homogeneous controllers able to plan, with high precision, for the acquisition and maintenance of any triangular formation.

关键词： Cardiac output: afterload, preload   Robot-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy   Transpulmonary thermodiluation  

摘要： Study Objective: To determine and interpret the changes in preload, afterload, and cardiac function in the different phases of robot-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy. Design: Prospective, observational monocenter study. Setting: Operating room at a university hospital. Patients: 31 consecutive, ASA physical status 1, 2, and 3 patients. Interventions: Observations were made at 5 distinct time points: baseline after induction of anesthesia, after initiation of capnoperitoneum, immediately after a 45 degrees head-down tilt, 15 minutes after the 45 degrees head-down tilt was established, after the release of the capnoperitoneum, and 5 minutes after the patient was returned to a horizontal position (end). Measurements: Transpulmonary thermodilution and pulse contour analysis were used to record hemodynamic changes in preload, afterload, and cardiac function. Main Results: While central venous pressure increased threefold from baseline, none of the other preload parameters showed excessive fluid overload or demand. There was no significant change in cardiac contractility over time. Afterload increased significantly during the capnoperitoneum and significantly decreased compared with baseline after the release of abdominal pressure at the end of the procedure. Heart rate and cardiac index increased significantly during robot-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy. Conclusions: Selective arterial vasodilation at the time of capnoperitoneum may normalize afterload and myocardial oxygen demand. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

关键词： 3D tracking   Chemotaxis   Bio-hybrid   Swimming speed  

摘要： The last decade has seen remarkable growth in the development of bio-hybrid micron-scale systems, which combine bacteria, tissue, and other biological material with synthetic components to produce uniquely capable devices. Serratia marcescens, a gram-negative bacteria, has many characteristics useful for bio-hybrid systems, including natural adhesiveness, high motility, and ease of cultivation. In light of the utility of the bacterium S. marcescens as a component of bio-hybrid microsystems, we characterize the motility of the species in a fashion useful for those developing such microdevices. The species also provides a complementary platform for studying attributes of flagellated bacteria motility which have thus far been primarily discussed in Escherichia coli. Using a three-dimensional multi-bacteria single-camera tracking system, we capture the trajectories of individual bacteria and calculate run speeds and tumble rates. The mean speed and tumble rate at room temperature are found to be 26 mu m/s and 1.34 +/- 0.16 tumbles/s, respectively. We characterize the relationship between motility and position on a growth plate and examine the effect of viscosity and temperature on bacterial motion. A linear relationship is found between speed and temperature proportional to that seen previously with E. coli. We also quantify the response of S. marcescens to the chemoattractant L-aspartate, with the strongest chemotactic response at a gradient of 10(-4) M/mm. Finally, population scale measurements are compared to individual bacterial dynamics in a linear gradient and are used to validate a simple model of bacterial population dynamics under chemotaxis.

摘要： Evolutionary robotics combines evolutionary computing with robotics [1, 2, 4, 7–10]. It is a field that “aims to apply evolutionary computation techniques to evolve the overall design or controllers, or both, for real and simulated autonomous robots” [9]. It is a useful approach “both for investigating the design space of robotic applications and for testing scientific hypotheses of biological mechanisms and processes” [4].

关键词： RISCWare   Middleware   Plug and play   Teleoperation   Face detection   Face recognition   Modular design   Architecture   RISCbot II  

摘要： In this paper, the RISCWare framework is proposed as a robotic middleware for the modular design of sensory modules, actuation platforms, and task descriptions. This framework will be used to customize robotic platforms by simply defining the available sensing devices, actuation platforms and required tasks. In addition, this framework will significantly increase the capability of robotic industries in the analysis, design, and development of autonomous mobile platforms. RISCWare is comprised of three modules. The first module encapsulates the sensors, which gather information about the remote or local environment. The second module defines the platforms, manipulators, and actuation methods. The last module describes the tasks that the robotic platforms will perform such as teleoperation, navigation, obstacle avoidance, manipulation, 3-D reconstruction, and map building. The objective is to design a middleware framework to allow a user to plug in new sensors, tasks or actuation hardware, resulting in a fully functional operational system. Furthermore, the user is able to install and uninstall hardware/software components through system lifetime with ease and modularity. In addition, when hardware devices are plugged into the framework, they are automatically detected by the middleware layer, which loads the appropriate software and avails the device for applications usage. This automatic detection and configuration of devices make it efficient and seamless for end users to add and use new devices and software applications. Several experiments, performed on the RISCbot II mobile robot, are implemented to evaluate the RISCWare framework with respect to applicability and resource utilization.

关键词： Evolutionary robotics   Selective pressures   Goal refiner   Process helper   Task-specific   Task-agnostic  

摘要： Evolutionary robotics (ER) is often viewed as the application of a family of black-box optimization algorithms-evolutionary algorithms-to the design of robots, or parts of robots. When considering ER as black-box optimization, the selective pressure is mainly driven by a user-defined, black-box fitness function, and a domain-independent selection procedure. However, most ER experiments face similar challenges in similar setups: the selective pressure, and, in particular, the fitness function, is not a pure user-defined black box. The present review shows that, because ER experiments share common features, selective pressures for ER are a subject of research on their own. The literature has been split into two categories: goal refiners, aimed at changing the definition of a good solution, and process helpers, designed to help the search process. Two sub-categories are further considered: task-specific approaches, which require knowledge on how to solve the task and task-agnostic ones, which do not need it. Besides highlighting the diversity of the approaches and their respective goals, the present review shows that many task-agnostic process helpers have been proposed during the last years, thus bringing us closer to the goal of a fully automated robot behavior design process.