Deutschmann B, Monje CA, Ott C. Multi-input multi-output fractional-order control of an underactuated continuum mechanism. International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems 2020; 17(6):1-11. doi:10.1177/1729881420969578

In recent years, the trimaran as a novel ship has been greatly developed. The subsequent large vertical motion needs to be studied and resolved. In this article, an experimental study for a trimaran vertical stabilization control is carried out. Three modes including the bare trimaran (the trimaran without appendages, the trimaran with fixed appendages, and the trimaran with controlled appendages)

A fault-detection method for relative navigation based on Kullback–Leibler divergence (KLD) is proposed. Different from the traditional χ 2-based approaches, the KLD for a filter is following a hybrid distribution that combines χ 2 distribution and F-distribution. Using extended Kalman filter (EKF) as the estimator, the distance between the priori and posteriori data of EKF is calculated to detect

Surmounting obstacles during continuously climbing in a complex environment is an important issue for pole-climbing robots. An obstacle-surmounting strategy is presented for a pole-climbing robot. The force and moment applied on the pole-climbing robot in static status were analyzed, and the analysis of pole-climbing robot’s upward vertical climbing was conducted. The climbing execution has four steps:

This article presents a tracking control design for two-link robot manipulators. To achieve robust tracking control performance, a super-twisting sliding mode control (STSMC) is derived. The stability of the system based on the proposed approach is proved based on the Lyapunov theorem. However, one problem with the designed STSMC is to properly set its parameters during the design. Therefore, it is

Human drivers have rich and diverse driving characteristics on curved roads. Finding the characteristic quantities of the experienced drivers during curve driving and applying them to the steering control of autonomous vehicles is the research goal of this article. We first recruited 10 taxi drivers, 5 bus drivers, and 5 driving instructors as the representatives of experienced drivers and conducted

To improve the order fulfillment throughput and space utilization in the robotic mobile fulfillment system (RMFS), the research developed two design aspects: the layout design and the warehouse structural parameter configuration. Based on the semiopen queue network theory, we built the queue network model to estimate the performance of RMFS. A scheme was proposed to move the picking stations inside

Audiovisual speech recognition is a favorable solution to multimodality human–computer interaction. For a long time, it has been very difficult to develop machines capable of generating or understanding even fragments of natural languages; the fused sight, smelling, touching, and so on provide machines with possible mediums to perceive and understand. This article presents a detailed review of recent

Brain–computer interfaces (BCI) have been focused on improving people’s lifestyles with motor or communication disabilities. However, the utilization of this technology has found news applications, such as increasing human capacities. Nowadays, several researchers are working on probing human capabilities to control several robotic devices simultaneously. The design of BCI is an intricate work that

Existing visual simultaneous localization and mapping (V-SLAM) algorithms are usually sensitive to the situation with sparse landmarks in the environment and large view transformation of camera motion, and they are liable to generate large pose errors that lead to track failures due to the decrease of the matching rate of feature points. Aiming at the above problems, this article proposes an improved

The accuracy of underwater target recognition by autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is a powerful guarantee for underwater detection, rescue, and security. Recently, deep learning has made significant improvements in digital image processing for target recognition and classification, which makes the underwater target recognition study becoming a hot research field. This article systematically describes

This article proposes a new stable biped walking pattern generator with preset step-length value, optimized by multi-objective JAYA algorithm. The biped robot is modeled as a kinetic chain of 11 links connected by 10 joints. The inverse kinematics of the biped is applied to derive the specified biped hip and feet positions. The two objectives related to the biped walking stability and the biped to

Hand-eye calibration is a fundamental step for a robot equipped with vision systems. However, this problem usually interacts with robot calibration because robot geometric parameters are not very precise. In this article, a new calibration method considering the rotation parameters of the robot pose is proposed. First, a constraint least square model is established assuming that each spherical center

Surface defects affect the quality and safety of oil seals. It is a challenge to detect such defects in a vision system because of the unequal reflection property of oil seal surfaces and low contrast between the defect and the background. This article proposes a visual detection method (VDM) for oil seal surface defects and outlines two key issues of VDMs. First, we present a superpixel segmentation

Path tracking is one of the most important aspects of autonomous vehicles. The current research focuses on designing path-tracking controllers taking into account the stability of the yaw and the nonholonomic constraints of the vehicle. In most cases, the lateral controller design relies on identifying a path reference point, the one with the shortest distance to the vehicle giving the current state

The utilization of upper extremity exoskeleton robots has been proved to be a scientifically effective approach for rehabilitation training. In the process of rehabilitation training, it is necessary to detect the fatigue degree during rehabilitation training in order to formulate a reasonable training plan and achieve better training efficiency. Based on the integral value of surface electromyography

We present a deliberative trajectory planning method to avoid collisions with traffic vessels. It also plans traversal across wavefields generated by these vessels and minimizes the risk of failure. Our method searches over a state-space consisting of pose and time. And, it produces collision-free and minimum-risk trajectory. It uses a lookup table to account for motion uncertainty and failure risk

This article treats the design and implementation of a multi-input multi-output fractional-order controller for a nonlinear system composed of a tendon-driven continuum mechanism. As the continuum can be deformed along all Cartesian directions, it is suitable for the application as a flexible neck of a humanoid robot. In this work, a model-based control approach is proposed to control the position

We consider the NP-hard problem of multirobot informative path planning in the presence of communication constraints, where the objective is to collect higher amounts of information of an ambient phenomenon. We propose a novel approach that uses continuous region partitioning into Voronoi components to efficiently divide an initially unknown environment among the robots based on newly discovered obstacles

This article proposes a novel device for wrist motion rehabilitation. The proposed mechatronic architecture is based on a simple user-friendly design, which includes a mobile platform for hand support, which is operated by a single actuator. A dedicated assist-as-needed control is designed to operate the device for the required movements. The proposed control strategy is also integrated into a gaming

A novel iterative learning control (ILC) for perspective dynamic system (PDS) is designed and illustrated in detail in this article to overcome the uncertainties in path tracking of mobile service robots. PDS, which transmits the motion information of mobile service robots to image planes (such as a camera), provides a good control theoretical framework to estimate the robot motion problem. The proposed

In the process of strawberry easily broken fruit picking, in order to reduce the damage rate of the fruit, improves accuracy and efficiency of picking robot, field put forward a motion capture system based on international standard badminton edge feature detection and capture automation algorithm process of night picking robot badminton motion capture techniques training methods. The badminton motion

Autonomous vehicles include driverless, self-driving and robotic cars, and other platforms capable of sensing and interacting with its environment and navigating without human help. On the other hand, semiautonomous vehicles achieve partial realization of autonomy with human intervention, for example, in driver-assisted vehicles. Autonomous vehicles first interact with their surrounding using mounted

The article presents a friction dynamic modeling method for a flexible parallel robot considering the characteristics of nonlinear friction. An approximate friction model which is proposed by Kostic et al. is applied to establish the dynamic model with Lagrange method. Parameters identification is completed by least square method, and the tracking accuracy and the stability of the robot are systematically

To learn the optimal collision avoidance policy of merchant ships controlled by human experts, a finite-state Markov decision process model for ship collision avoidance is proposed based on the analysis of collision avoidance mechanism, and an inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) method based on cross entropy and projection is proposed to obtain the optimal policy from expert’s demonstrations. Collision

Face recognition plays an important role in many robotic and human–computer interaction systems. To this end, in recent years, sparse-representation-based classification and its variants have drawn extensive attention in compress sensing and pattern recognition. For image classification, one key to the success of a sparse-representation-based approach is to extract consistent image feature representations

In this work, we propose a robust place recognition measurement in natural environments based on salient landmark screening and convolutional neural network (CNN) features. First, the salient objects in the image are segmented as candidate landmarks. Then, a category screening network is designed to remove specific object types that are not suitable for environmental modeling. Finally, a three-layer

The study is concerned with the problem of online planning low-cost cooperative paths; those are energy-efficient, easy-to-execute, and low collision probability for unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) based on the artificial vector field and environmental heuristics. First, we propose an artificial vector field method by following the global optimally path and the current to maximize the known environmental

With the growth of the number of elderly and disabled with motor dysfunction, the demand for assisted exercise is increasing. Wearable power assistance robots are developed to provide athletic ability of limbs for the elderly or the disabled who have weakened limbs to better self-care ability. Existing wearable power-assisted robots generally use surface electromyography (sEMG) to obtain effective

In the installation process of large-scale external cladding, the labor intensity is high, and it is dangerous and hard to guarantee good construction quality. In view of these issues, this study designs a construction robot for external cladding installation, as a better solution. First, the advantages and disadvantages of the current building external cladding hanging process are discussed. The components

Multipath interference has been one of the most difficult problems when using global navigation satellite system-based vehicular navigation in urban environments. In this article, we develop a multipath mitigation algorithm exploiting the sparse estimation theory that improves the absolute positioning accuracy in urban environments. The navigation observation model is established by considering the

Object recognition is a prerequisite to control a soft gripper successfully grasping an unknown object. Visual and tactile recognitions are two commonly used methods in a grasping system. Visual recognition is limited if the size and weight of the objects are involved, whereas the efficiency of tactile recognition is a problem. A visual–tactile recognition method is proposed to overcome the disadvantages

Unmanned aerial vehicle route planning is a complex multiconstrained multiobjective optimization problem. Due to the complexity of various constraints and the mutual coupling between them, the expression of constraint conditions is not universal and normative. The development, maintenance, and upgrading of an existing route planning system are very difficult. In this article, by establishing the polychromatic

To satisfy the requirements of position control accuracy and allow unmanned underwater vehicle to maintain in the target zone with energy consumption as little as possible, this article proposes a flexible dynamic positioning strategy and control method, so as to extend the operating time of unmanned underwater vehicle dynamic positioning. Taking the distance between unmanned underwater vehicle and

The advantage of adversarial domain adaptation is that it uses the idea of adversarial adaptation to confuse the feature distribution of two domains and solve the problem of domain transfer in transfer learning. However, although the discriminator completely confuses the two domains, adversarial domain adaptation still cannot guarantee the consistent feature distribution of the two domains, which may

The energy storage efficiency is an important performance of a robot or a man–machine interaction device. This article will introduce the process of design and energy storage research of a variable stiffness elastic actuator with a two-elements and one actuator mod. Firstly, the principle model will be present to analyze the operation theory. Then, the simulation and experiment model will be described

Manual lifting tasks involve repetitive raising, holding and stacking movements with heavy objects. These arm movements are notable risk factors for muscle pain, fatigue, and musculoskeletal disorders in workers. An upper-limb wearable robot, as a 6-DOF dual-arm exoskeleton, which was designed to augment workers’ strength and minimize muscular activation in the arm during repetitive lifting tasks.

Nowadays, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have achieved massive improvement, which brings great convenience and advantage. Meanwhile, threats posed by them may damage public security and personal safety. This article proposes an architecture of intelligent anti-UAVs low-altitude defense system. To address the key problem of discovering UAVs, research based on multisensor information fusion is carried

Stand–sit–stand (STS) motions are the most frequently performed activities of everyday life and require extensive movement of knee joint. People suffering from knee joint disorders face difficulties in performing this motion. The compact knee exoskeleton (KE) has proven to be a viable, less complex, and cheaper alternative to the available entire lower-, upper-, and full-body exoskeletons. With growing

The long-range autonomous underwater vehicle is a new underwater vehicle with capability of stereoscopic observation of the ocean over a wide range of time series. This article proposed a novel control strategy for the long-range autonomous underwater vehicle considering the energy consumption. The vertical motion model of long-range autonomous underwater vehicle and the mathematical model of energy

This article presents a novel path planning algorithm for autonomous land vehicles. There are four main contributions: Firstly, an evaluation standard is introduced to measure the performance of different algorithms and to select appropriate parameters for the proposed algorithm. Secondly, a guideline generated by human or global planning is employed to develop the heuristic function to overcome the

Most driving torques in serial industrial robots are used to overcome the weight of the robot. Although actuators account for a large proportion of the total mass of a robot, they have yet to become a positive factor that enables the robot to achieve gravity balance. This study presents a host–parasite structure to reconstruct the distribution of actuators and achieve gravity balance in robots. First

A fixed time robust control method is presented for trajectory tracking control of quadrotor systems with motor dynamics in the presence of unmodeled disturbances and external disturbances. The recommended control method avoids the negative effect to the quadrotor system caused by motor dynamic which is considered as first-order dynamic with dynamic disturbance. And fixed time extended state observer

A tensegrity is a self-stressed pin-jointed system consisting of tensile members and compressive members. As its shape can be actively controlled by changing the prestress of its members, it has great potential to be used as a shape-controllable locomotive system. Particularly, the six-strut spherical tensegrity has been studied intensively as a rolling locomotive system. In this study, the rolling

Due to the absorption and scattering effect on light when traveling in water, underwater images exhibit serious weakening such as color deviation, low contrast, and blurry details. Traditional algorithms have certain limitations in the case of these images with varying degrees of fuzziness and color deviation. To address these problems, a new approach for single underwater image enhancement based on

This article mainly considers the problem of trajectory tracking control problem of quad-rotor system with velocity constrain under the consideration of safety. A model-based nonlinear controller is proposed which can guarantee not only the asymptotical stability for control system but also the velocity under a safe range. Firstly, based on backstepping design, a position tracking controller with velocity

With the development of technology, human motion capture data have been widely used in the fields of human–computer interaction, interactive entertainment, education, and medical treatment. As a problem in the field of computer vision, human motion recognition has become a key technology in somatosensory games, security protection, and multimedia information retrieval. Therefore, it is important to

Path planning is of great significance in motion planning and cooperative navigation of multiple robots. Nevertheless, because of its high complexity and nondeterministic polynomial time hard nature, efficiently tackling with the issue of multi-robot path planning remains greatly challenging. To this end, enhancing a coevolution mechanism and an improved particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm

Pedestrian detection is a particular case of object detection that helps to reduce accidents in advanced driver-assistance systems and autonomous vehicles. It is not an easy task because of the variability of the objects and the time constraints. A performance comparison of object detection methods, including both GPU and non-GPU implementations over a variety of on-road specific databases, is provided

This article proposes a new reconfigurable parallel mechanism using a spatial overconstrained platform. This proposed mechanism can be used as a machine tool. The mobility is analyzed by Screw Theory. The inverse kinematic model is established by applying the closed-loop equation. Next, the dynamic model of the presented mechanism is established by Lagrange formulation. To control the presented mechanism

The underwater environment is extremely complex and variable, which makes it difficult for underwater robots detecting or recognizing surroundings using images acquired with cameras. Ghost imaging as a new imaging technique has attracted much attention due to its special physical properties and potential for imaging of objects in optically harsh or noisy environments. In this work, we experimentally

Multijoint industrial robots can be used for 3D printing to manufacture the complex freeform surfaces. The postprocessing is the basis of the precise printing. Due to the nonlinear motion of the rotational joint, nonlinear error is inevitable in multijoint industrial robots. In this article, the postprocessing and the path optimization based on the nonlinear errors are proposed to improve the accuracy

Aiming at a long-term formation-keeping problem for the satellite swarm, the concept of a loosely displaced formation is proposed in this article. On this basis, a continuous low-thrust control strategy for maintaining the loosely displaced formation is designed. The control objective is to reduce more fuel consumption during the formation-keeping. For achieving that, we proposed a forward-feedback

Multiagent coordination is highly desirable with many uses in a variety of tasks. In nature, the phenomenon of coordinated flocking is highly common with applications related to defending or escaping from predators. In this article, a hybrid multiagent system that integrates consensus, cooperative learning, and flocking control to determine the direction of attacking predators and learns to flock away

In a given manufacturing setting where workers or robots are coexisting in a confined area and their movements are not coordinated due to loss in communication or because they are freely ranging relative to each other, the development of an onboard safeguard system for a robot becomes a necessity to reduce accidents while the production efficiency is uncompromised. This article develops a two-dimensional

To improve the robustness performance of dynamic sliding mode control to the time-varying uncertainties without the upper bound information in a hybrid robot system, a global robust super-twisting algorithm with adaptive switching gains is proposed. The main contributions are as follows: (1) for the problem that the robustness of the sliding mode control system is not guaranteed in the reaching phase

Natural gas leakage on offshore platforms has a great impact on safety production, and effective and reasonable leakage detection methods can prevent the harm caused by natural gas leakage. This article proposes a method based on ant colony optimization (ACO) for multirobots to collaboratively search for leaking natural gas sources on offshore platforms. First, analyze the structure and environment

To enhance the capability of neural networks, research on attention mechanism have been deepened. In this area, attention modules make forward inference along channel dimension and spatial dimension sequentially, parallelly, or simultaneously. However, we have found that spatial attention modules mainly apply convolution layers to generate attention maps, which aggregate feature responses only based

Cooperative tracking control problem of multiple water–land amphibious robots is discussed in this article with consideration of unknown nonlinear dynamics. Firstly, the amphibious robot dynamic model is formulated as an uncoupled nonlinear one in horizontal plane through eliminating relatively small sway velocity of the platform. Then cooperative tracking control algorithm is proposed with a two-stage

In robotics, the tough problem about the dynamic target capturing consists of tracking the target by the robot manipulator and grasping the target by the robot finger. For the sake of space, this article deals with only the first problem, tracking the dynamic target by the robot manipulator. The traditional approaches of capturing the dynamic target may work well when they are employed in low-dimensional