关键词： magnetic bioinspired micromanipulation   magnetic drug delivery   magnetic microrobots   magnetically guided capsule endoscopy   magnetotactic bacteria  

摘要： In recent years, magnetism has gained an enormous amount of interest among researchers for actuating different sizes and types of bio/soft robots, which can be via an electromagnetic-coil system, or a system of moving permanent magnets. Different actuation strategies are used in robots with magnetic actuation having a number of advantages in possible realization of microscale robots such as bioinspired microrobots, tetherless microrobots, cellular microrobots, or even normal size soft robots such as electromagnetic soft robots and medical robots. This review provides a summary of recent research in magnetically actuated bio/soft robots, discussing fabrication processes and actuation methods together with relevant applications in biomedical area and discusses future prospects of this way of actuation for possible improvements in performance of different types of bio/soft robots.

关键词： Robotics training   Creativity   Learning   Students   Physics  

摘要： The ever-increasing advances in technology have made it necessary to make use of new educational methods in educational systems. Therefore, in this study, the effects of robotics training on students' creativity and learning physics were investigated. The research design was pretest posttest quasi-experimental, including one control and one treatment groups. The participants of the study included 120 males and females from 11th grade, studying at different schools in Tehran, Iran (members of the robotic schools training plan) in the educational year 2016-17. They were selected and studied through multistage random cluster sampling. After an eight-session treatment period, the data were collected through employing the Torrance Creativity Questionnaire (1979) including four dimensions namely fluidity, flexibility, innovation, and detailed explanation in the format of 60 items, a test of 10 learning points, and a package of training on robotic constructs in physics. For data analysis, Covariance analysis was employed. The findings indicated that Robotics training influenced and improved creativity and learning in physics among the participants.

关键词： Unmanned aerial vehicle   Intelligent systems   Autonomous mission   Decentralized architecture   Decision-making  

摘要： Efficient algorithm integration is a key issue in aerial robotics. However, only a few integration solutions rely on a cognitive approach. Cognitive approaches break down complex problems into independent units that may deal with progressively lower-level data interfaces, all the way down to sensors and actuators. A cognitive architecture defines information flow among units to produce emergent intelligent behavior. Despite the improvements in autonomous decision-making, several key issues remain open. One of these issues is the selection, coordination, and decision-making related to the several specialized tasks required for fulfilling mission objectives. This work addresses decision-making for the cognitive unmanned-aerial-vehicle architecture coined as ARCog. The proposed architecture lays the groundwork for the development of a software platform aligned with the requirements of the state-of-the-art technology in the field. The system is designed to provide high-level decision-making. Experiments prove that ARCog works correctly in its target scenario.

关键词： robotics   robotic surgical procedures   TORS   head and neck neoplasms   haptics   costs  

摘要： Simple Summary The means of therapy in oncologic diseases have been developing continuously over the past years, intending to improve the overall survival and quality of life of affected patients. In head and neck oncology the surgical therapy is one of the key pillars in curative treatment. The standardized surgical techniques are supplemented and improved by the application of technical devices. The ambition is the reduction in peri- and postoperative morbidity, hospitalization time, and the enhancement of functional outcome. In other surgical specialties, the application of robotics is widely seen as standard. The purpose of this review is to outline the current status of robotics in head and neck surgery in the context of the present literature, to demonstrate reasonable application fields, and to discuss the expenditure of the usage of such tools. Furthermore, this review offers an overview of current research in this field. Background. In the past few years, surgical robots have recently entered the medical field, particularly in urology, gynecology, and general surgery. However, the clinical effectiveness and safety of robot-assisted surgery (RAS) in the field of head and neck surgery has not been clearly established. In this review, we evaluate to what extent RAS can potentially be applied in head and neck surgery, in which fields it is already daily routine and what advantages can be seen in comparison to conventional surgery. Data sources. For this purpose, we conducted a systematic review of trials published between 2000 and 2021, as well as currently ongoing trials registered in ***. The results were structured according to anatomical regions, for the topics "Costs," "current clinical trials," and "robotic research" we added separate sections for the sake of clarity. Results. Our findings show a lack of large-scale systematic randomized trials on the use of robots in head and neck surgery. Most studies include small case series or lack a c

关键词： Autonomous navigation system   Road marks painting   Laser simulator (LS)   Laser range finder (LRF)   Wi-Fi camera   Odometry   Sensor fusion  

摘要： The design and experimental works of an autonomous robotic platform for road marks painting are presented in this paper as the first autonomous system of its kind. The whole system involves two main sub-systems, namely: an autonomous mobile robot navigation system which is used for recognizing the roads and estimating the position of road marks, and automatic road marks painting system that is attached to the mobile robot platform to control the spray of the paint on the road's surface. The experimental results show the capability of the proposed system to perform the task of autonomous road marks painting with accuracy of +/- 10 cm.

关键词： Robots   Testing   Automation   Pandemics   Robot kinematics   COVID-19   Viruses (medical)   Laboratories   Remote laboratories   Research and development   Clinical trials  

摘要： The clinical and analytical laboratory has been at the forefront of the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. This is where testing is carried out, guiding hospitalization and providing information on the spread of the disease. It is also central to the development of new medicines and the vaccines that are still being tested. Laboratories make extensive use of robotics and automation to safely improve quality and productivity at an acceptable cost.

关键词： Social robotics   Human-robot interaction   Bibliometric analysis   Topic modelling   Natural language processing  

摘要： The fast growth of social robotics (SR) has not been unidirectional, but rather towards a multidisciplinary scenario, creating a need for collaboration between different fields. This divergent expansion calls for a clear analysis of the field aimed at better orienting the research, thus paving the future of social robotics. This paper aims at understanding how the SR research field evolved in the last two decades by analyzing academic publications in SR and human-robot interaction using natural language processing (NLP) techniques. The analysis spotted an overlap between SR and human-robot interaction research fields that have been disambiguated using a data-driven approach that leads to the identification of a new group of papers we clustered under the concept of "soft HRI." This research topic has been analyzed by extracting trends and insights. Finally, another topic modelling step has been applied to identify seven sub-topics that have been discussed and analyzed picturing the current state of the art of SR. The paper reports a complete overview of the SR research field identifying various topics and sub-topics helping researchers in understanding the evolution of this field, thus supporting the strategic placing and evolution of their research activities.

关键词： Manta ray robot   Computational fluid dynamics   Hydrodynamic analysis   Motion simulation  

摘要： Current research on the hydrodynamics of manta ray robots is limited to the qualitative study of pectoral fin performance;other aspects such as the hydrodynamics and motion simulation of the overall robot are rarely addressed. A hydrodynamic analysis is therefore used in this study in conjunction with a six degrees of freedom (6DOF) motion equation to conduct motion simulations predicting the hydrodynamic characteristics and motion performance of a proposed manta ray robot. Though the rising and diving motions of manta ray robots are typically realized through a buoyancy adjustment device or a rudder used for attitude adjustment, these methods are slow. This study accordingly proposes a hybrid manta ray robot driven by two pectoral fins and two vertical propellers used as auxiliary power for attitude adjustment. A structural model of the proposed manta ray robot is provided and used to conduct a complete hydrodynamics analysis and establish the 6DOF motion equation. An empirical equation is then established to describe the hydrodynamics of the pectoral fins, and its applicability is proven using a computational fluid dynamics simulation. The motion of the robot is predicted in different situations using motion simulations, demonstrating that the robot provides relatively good motion performance. The relationship between the forward speed of the robot and the flapping speed of the pectoral fins is then discussed based on the simulation results. The motion simulation results also show that the propellers can effectively adjust the posture of the robot and help to improve robot motion stability by countering the effects of the pectoral fin flapping movement. Finally, the applicability of the 6DOF motion equation simplify verified by a computational fluid dynamics motion simulation. The findings of this study are expected to provide theoretical guidance for the optimization of the proposed manta ray robot structure and its control system design.

关键词： Robots   Cloud computing   Quality of service   Task analysis   Resource management   Optimization   Energy consumption   Networked cloud robotics   robotic streaming workflow   quality of service   computation offloading  

摘要： Computation offloading for cloud robotics is receiving considerable attention in academic and industrial communities. However, current solutions face challenges: 1) traditional approaches do not consider the characteristics of networked cloud robotics (NCR) (e.g., heterogeneity and robotic cooperation);2) they fail to capture the characteristics of tasks in a robotic streaming workflow (RSW) (e.g., strict latency requirements and varying task semantics);and 3) they do not consider quality-of-service (QoS) issues for cloud robotics. In this paper, we address these issues by proposing a QoS-aware RSW allocation algorithm for NCR with joint optimization of latency, energy efficiency, and cost, while considering the characteristics of both RSW and NCR. We first propose a novel framework that combines individual robots, robot clusters, and a remote cloud for computation offloading. We then formulate the joint QoS optimization problem for RSW allocation in NCR while considering latency, energy consumption, and operating cost, and show that the problem is NP-hard. Next, we construct a data flow graph based on the characteristics of RSW and NCR, and transform the RSW allocation problem into a mixed-integer linear programming problem. To obtain a near-optimal solution in reasonable time, we also develop a heuristic algorithm. Experiments comparing our approach with others demonstrate significant performance gains, with improved QoS and reduced execution times.

关键词： Swarm Robotics   multi-robot systems   robotics   Swarm Intelligence  

摘要： Known as an artificial intelligence subarea, Swarm Robotics is a developing study field investigating bio-inspired collaborative control approaches and integrates a huge collection of agents, reasonably plain robots, in a distributed and decentralized manner. It offers an inspiring essential platform for new researchers to be engaged and share new knowledge to examine their concepts in analytical and heuristic strategies. This paper introduces an overview of current activities in Swarm Robotics and examines the present literature in this area to establish to approach between a realistic swarm robotic system and real-world enforcements. First, we review several Swarm Intelligence concepts to define Swarm Robotics systems, reporting their essential qualities and features and contrast them to generic multi-robotic systems. Second, we report a review of the principal projects that allow realistic study of Swarm Robotics. We demonstrate knowledge regarding current hardware platforms and multi-robot simulators. Finally, the forthcoming promissory applications and the troubles to surpass with a view to achieving them have been described and analyzed.