Engineering Commons^™

Garbage Float, Gabor Papp, Max Woolverton, Scott Ulatowski, Daniel Ross, Nicholas Gayle, Bryan Merchan-Aragon, Noah Yco, Nicholas Fawcett, Jared Wright, Abdulaziz Salman G Alshahrani, Andrew Mcquire

Mechanical and Civil Engineering Student Publications

Trash pileup in our waters is an increasing problem. Removing floating plastics and debris from our ecosystem would reduce mortality rate of marine animals. Solutions for this already exist but most of them are proprietary and expensive. Therefore, an autonomous, publicly available and cheap alternative was developed to skim and clean the water surface from garbage.

A Robust Platform For Mobile Robotics Teaching And Developing Using Arduino’S Integrated Development Environment (Ide) For Programming The Arduino Mega 2560, Sajjad Alhassan

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In light of the rapid pace at which development happens with modern technology, mobile robots play an important role in our daily lives. This is due to their great importance in facilitating the affairs of life in various economic, commercial, industrial, scientific, and many other fields. In this research and project, we have restructured the microcontroller and system for one of the mobile robots (CEENBOT) that was designed by the University of Nebraska and replaced it with an Arduino Mega 2560.

The purpose of using the Arduino Mega 2560 robot is to provide alternative programming for the CEENBOT platform to …

Optimising Existing Digital Workflow For Structural Engineering Organisations Through The Partnering Of Bim And Lean Processes, John Mclaughlin, Barry Mcauley

Conference Papers

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is now seen as one of the leading transformative processes within the Architectural, Engineering and Construction (AEC) sector and has the potential to assist in streamlining the structural design process. However, its practical implementation can often add another layer to the existing workflow and can result, to its detriment, in the primary objective of optimising structural workflows being hindered. This can lead to structural organisations producing 3D models in tandem with traditional drawings, a lack of human intervention regarding software interoperability, and a reluctance to move away from conventional work methods. This paper will explore how …

Lessons To Be Learned In Adoption Of Autonomous Equipment For Field Crops, James Lowenberg-Deboer, Karl Behrendt, Melf-Hinrich Ehlers, Carl R. Dillon, Andreas Gabriel, Iona Yuelu Huang, Ian Kumwenda, Tyler Mark, Andreas Meyer-Aurich, Gabor Milics, Kehinde Oluseyi Olagunju, Søren Marcus Pedersen, Jordan M. Shockley, David Rose

Agricultural Economics Faculty Publications

Autonomous equipment for crop production is on the verge of technical and economic feasibility, but government regulation may slow its adoption. Key regulatory issues include requirements for on-site human supervision, liability for autonomous machine error, and intellectual property in robotic learning. As an example of the impact of regulation on the economic benefits of autonomous crop equipment, analysis from the United Kingdom suggests that requiring 100% on-site human supervision almost wipes out the economic benefits of autonomous crop equipment for small and medium farms and increases the economies-of-scale advantage of larger farms.

A Brief Bibliometric Survey On Night Vision Bot Using Dynamic Ir And Object Detection, Devesh Abhyankar Mr., Gurumoorty Suresh Mr., Hrithik Sambhaji Karjule Mr., Parth Bhardwaj Mr., Harish Muleva Mr., Anurag Mahajan Dr.

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This study aims to analyse the work done in the field of Night Vision Robots using IR and Object Detection from 2011 to 2021, using the bibliometric methods. This paper presents a Scopus database review on "Night Vision Bot using Dynamic IR and Object Detection". The necessity for doing this bibliometric survey is that to know how the technology in the field of mobile robotics and night vision, as well as to object detection, has evolved over the years. This paper shows the importance of Night Vision Robot from the year 2011 and continued up to 2021 April. The database …

Path Planning With Deep Neural Networks, Paul Simmerling, Brendan Sayers, Paulo Alcantara Silva

Honors Scholar Theses

This report will cover the work and plans of the ECE 2107 Senior design team. The goal of the project is to design and build a fully autonomous self-driving car. This car will have a complete sensor suite including LIDAR, an IMU, a camera, and encoders. It will be based on a multi-level system where the highest level uses a neural network for advanced signal processing and analysis. The current state of the project is discussed as well as the final results. Project management and other constraints will be briefly investigated. This team is building a self driving car testbed …

Design And Implementation Of Kawaii Robots By Japanese And American University Students Using Remote Collaboration, Dave Berque, Hiroko Chiba, Michiko Ohkura, Midori Sugaya, Peeraya Sripian, Tipporn Laohakangvalvit

Computer Science Faculty publications

This paper describes our approach to the design and implementation of virtual Kawaii robots and spaces by Japanese and American university students using remote collaboration. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to change our planned 7-week collaboration from in-person to virtual with a resultant change in the target product of our collaboration from real robots to virtual robots. Based on our new plan, students designed virtual spaces with robot pairs, proposed evaluation items for the robot pairs, evaluated their designs, and analyzed the results. The students designed each robot pair with the goal that one robot would be more …

Design Of A Robotic Inspection Platform For Structural Health Monitoring, Jason R. Soto

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Actively monitoring infrastructure is key to detecting and correcting problems before they become costly. The vast scale of modern infrastructure poses a challenge to monitoring due to insufficient personnel. Certain structures, such as refineries, pose additional challenges and can be expensive, time-consuming, and hazardous to inspect.

This thesis outlines the development of an autonomous robot for structural-health-monitoring. The robot is capable of operating autonomously in level indoor environments and can be controlled manually to traverse difficult terrain. Both visual and lidar SLAM, along with a procedural-mapping technique, allow the robot to capture colored-point-clouds.

The robot is successfully able to automate …

Tangle-Free Exploration With A Tethered Mobile Robot, Danylo Shapovalov, Guilherme Pereira

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Exploration and remote sensing with mobile robots is a well known field of research, but current solutions cannot be directly applied for tethered robots. In some applications, tethers may be very important to provide power or allow communication with the robot. This paper presents an exploration algorithm that guarantees complete exploration of arbitrary environments within the length constraint of the tether, while keeping the tether tangle-free at all times. While we also propose a generalized algorithm that can be used with several exploration strategies, our implementation uses a modified frontier-based exploration approach, where the robot chooses its next goal in …

Chapman Ambassador Tour Robot, Alexandra Lewandowski, Yanni Parissis, Khiry Carter, Hilary Lee

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Being a student ambassador improves a student's confidence and leadership skills. With an increasing demand for technology skills, our project will display how the ambassador robot can assist student ambassadors while improving upon their efficiency, by discussing information during college campus tours and familiarizing students with robot applications and their technology. The ambassador robot can support students during tours by answering a question about specific knowledge that may have slipped an ambassador's mind. The robot will also be able to create a group-focused atmosphere that will allow ambassadors to have the opportunity to lean on a dependable teammate for specific …

Effective Exploration Behavior For Chemical-Sensing Robots, Kevin Nickels, Hoa Nguyen, Duncan M. Frasch, Timothy F. Davison

Engineering Faculty Research

Mobile robots that can effectively detect chemical effluents could be useful in a variety of situations, such as disaster relief or drug sniffing. Such a robot might mimic biological systems that exhibit chemotaxis, which is movement towards or away from a chemical stimulant in the environment. Some existing robotic exploration algorithms that mimic chemotaxis suffer from the problems of getting stuck in local maxima and becoming “lost”, or unable to find the chemical if there is no initial detection. We introduce the use of the RapidCell algorithm for mobile robots exploring regions with potentially detectable chemical concentrations. The RapidCell algorithm …

Flex-Ro: A Robotic High Throughput Field Phenotyping System, Joshua N. Murman

Department of Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations and Theses

Research in agriculture is critical to developing techniques to meet the world’s demand for food, fuel, fiber, and feed. Optimization of crop production per unit of land requires scientists across disciplines to collaborate and investigate new areas of science and tools for data collection. The use of robotics has been adopted in several industries to supplement labor, and accurately perform repetitious tasks. However, the use of autonomous robots in commercial agricultural production is still limited. The Flex-Ro (Flexible structured Robotic platform) was developed for use in large area fields as a multipurpose tool to perform monotonous agricultural tasks.

This work …

Locomotion Of A Cylindrical Rolling Robot With A Shape Changing Outer Surface, Michael G. Puopolo, Jamey D. Jacob, Emilio Gabino

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A cylindrical rolling robot is developed that generates roll torque by changing the shape of its flexible, elliptical outer surface whenever one of four elliptical axes rotates past an inclination called trigger angle. The robot is equipped with a sensing/control system by which it measures angular position and angular velocity, and computes error with respect to a desired step angular velocity profile. When shape change is triggered, the newly assumed shape of the outer surface is determined according to the computed error. A series of trial rolls is conducted using various trigger angles, and energy consumed by the actuation motor …

Modelling And Control Of A Novel Walker Robot For Post-Stroke Gait Rehabilitation, Emre Sariyildiz, Hsiao-Ju Cheng, Gokhan M. Yagli, Haoyong Yu

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

In this paper, a novel walker robot is proposed for post-stroke gait rehabilitation. It consists of an omni-directional mobile platform which provides high mobility in horizontal motion, a linear motor that moves in vertical direction to support the body weight of a patient and a 6-axis force/torque sensor to measure interaction force/torque between the robot and patient. The proposed novel walker robot improves the mobility of pelvis so it can provide more natural gait patterns in rehabilitation. This paper analytically derives the kinematic and dynamic models of the novel walker robot. Simulation results are given to validate the proposed kinematic …

Studying The Effects Of Serpentine Soil On Adapted And Non-Adapted Species Using Arduino Technology, Kiana Saniee, Edward Himelblau, Brian Paavo

STAR Program Research Presentations

Abstract: Serpentine soils are formed from ultramafic rocks and are represent an extreme environment for plants. Serpentine soils are unique in that they carry high concentrations of heavy metals, are nutrient deficient, particularly in calcium, and have poor water retention capabilities. Although these soils constitute harsh conditions for plant growth, there are a number of species that are adapted and even endemic to serpentine soil. Water retention by commercial potting mix was compared with serpentine soil. Also, serpentine adapted and non-adapted species were grown in both soil treatments and physiological data were collected. We used the Arduino electronic platform to …

Design, Testing And Evaluation Of Robotic Mechanisms And Systems For Environmental Monitoring And Interaction, James K. Higgins

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have significantly lowered the cost of remote aerial data collection. The next generation of UAVs, however, will transform the way that scientists and practitioners interact with the environment. In this thesis, we address the challenges of flying low over water to collect water samples and temperature data. We also develop a system that allows UAVs to ignite prescribed fires. Specifically, this thesis contributes a new peristaltic pump designed for use on a UAV for collecting water samples from up to 3m depth and capable of pumping over 6m above the water. Next, temperature sensors and their …

Design Of Medical Devices For Diagnostics In The Gastrointestinal System, Charles R. Welch

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis presents the design, controls, and testing of two systems: a novel colonoscope locomotion design for diagnostics, and a biosensor capsule that implants a sensor in the small intestine. Each system requires special design considerations for use in the gastrointestinal system.

Colonoscopy procedures are recommended as a screening for colon cancer and related conditions after the age of 50. The need for an improved colonoscope that reduces the colonoscopy time and patient discomfort is apparent. The semi-autonomous device presented here could likely reduce the colonoscopy procedure time by allowing the physician to focus more on the diagnosis and less …

“My Logic Is Undeniable”: Replicating The Brain For Ideal Artificial Intelligence, Samuel C. Adams

Senior Honors Theses

Alan Turing asked if machines can think, but intelligence is more than logic and reason. I ask if a machine can feel pain or joy, have visions and dreams, or paint a masterpiece. The human brain sets the bar high, and despite our progress, artificial intelligence has a long way to go. Studying neurology from a software engineer’s perspective reveals numerous uncanny similarities between the functionality of the brain and that of a computer. If the brain is a biological computer, then it is the embodiment of artificial intelligence beyond anything we have yet achieved, and its architecture is advanced …

Cooperative 3-D Map Generation Using Multiple Uavs, Andrew Erik Lawson

University Scholar Projects

This report aims to demonstrate the feasibility of building a global 3-D map from multiple UAV robots in a GPS-denied, indoor environment. Presented are the design of each robot and the reasoning behind choosing its hardware and software components, the process in which a single robot obtains a individual 3-D map entirely onboard, and lastly how the mapping concept is extended to multiple robotic agents to form a global 3-D map using a centralized server. In the latter section, this report focuses on two algorithms, Online Mapping and Map Fusion, developed to facilitate the cooperative approach. A limited selection …

Immersive Teleoperation Of A Robot Arm Using Electro-Tactile Feedback, Daniel Pamungkas, Koren Ward

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

2015 IEEE. Teleoperation can allow an operator to control a robot remotely in inaccessible and hostile places. To achieve more dexterous control of a tele-operated robot some researchers are developing user interfaces equipped with vision and tactile feedback. 3D visual perception and tactile feedback can also assist the operator to feel immersed in the robot's environment and embodied within the robot to some extent. Most existing tactile feedback systems use electro-mechanical actuators and linkages. However, these systems are complex, cumbersome and consequently make it difficult for the operator feel embodied within the robot. To improve on these drawbacks, this paper …

Design And Assembly Of Parabolic Flight Payload To Evaluate Miniature In Vivo Surgical Robots In Microgravity, Kearney M. Lackas

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Laparoscopic surgery, also known as minimally invasive surgery (MIS), changed the face of surgery in the 1990s. With these procedures, surgeons use long, slender tools which pass through several small incisions. Performing surgery in this fashion has shown many benefits including reduced pain and recovery times, lower costs, and less scarring post-recovery.

The use of surgical robotics has shown several key advantages over MIS techniques. Minimally invasive surgeries typically require unnatural movements, have limited visibility, greatly reduce dexterity, and provide little tactile feedback. Through robot kinematics and specialized sensors, surgical robots can resolve many of these limitations, especially in terms …

Electro-Tactile Feedback System For Achieving Embodiment In A Tele-Operated Robot, Daniel Pamungkas, Koren Ward

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Tele-operation can enable an operator to control a robot remotely in inaccessible and hazardous environments. However, controlling a robot remotely via a conventional monitor and control panel can be difficult and slow. To achieve faster and more dexterous operation of the robot, enhanced 3D perception and some form of tactile or neural feedback is needed to achieve some degree of embodiment within the robot's physical structure and world. To achieve this objective we have devised an immersive tele-operation system comprised of a stereo vision headset and an electro-tactile feedback system that is worn by the operator, connected to stereo cameras …

Electro-Tactile Feedback For Tele-Operation Of A Mobile Robot, Daniel Pamungkas, Koren Ward

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

It is well known that haptic feedback can facilitate the tele-operation of a remotely controlled robot by providing the user with intuitive tactile and/or force sensations from the robot's interactions with the environment. However, such mechanical haptic feedback systems can be complex, cumbersome, costly and application specific. This paper presents a novel tele-operation haptic feedback system that overcomes many of these limitations by providing electro-tactile feedback to the operator via wireless electrodes placed on the operator's skin. We show that this form feedback can provide a viable substitute for force and tactile feedback systems without the need for mechanical linkages …

Tele-Operation Of A Robot Arm With Electro Tactile Feedback, Daniel S. Pamungkas, Koren Ward

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Tactile feedback from a remotely controlled robotic arm can facilitate certain tasks by enabling the user to experience tactile or force sensations from the robot's interaction with the environment. However, equipping both the robot and the user with tactile sensing and feedback systems can be complex, expensive, restrictive and application specific. This paper introduces a new tele-operation haptic feedback method involving electro-tactile feedback. This feedback system is inexpensive, easy to setup and versatile in that it can provide the user with a diverse range of tactile sensations and is suitable for a variety of tasks. We demonstrate the potential of …

A Novel Three Degrees Of Freedom Partially Decoupled Robot With Linear Actuators, Gursel Alici, Jaime Gallardo-Alvarado, Ramon Rodrguez-Castro

Faculty of Engineering - Papers (Archive)

In this work, a new translational robot formed with two different parallel manipulators with a common control point is introduced. An asymmetric parallel manipulator provides three translational degrees of freedom to the proposed robot while the orientation of the end-effector platform is kept constant by means of a Delta-like manipulator. An exact solution is easily derived to solve the forward displacement analysis while a semi-closed form solution is available for solving the inverse displacement analysis. The infinitesimal kinematics of the robot is approached by applying the theory of screws. Finally, a numerical example that consists of solving the inverse/forward displacement …

A Comparative Study Of Three Inverse Kinematic Methods Of Serial Industrial Robot Manipulators In The Screw Theory Framework, Emre Sariyildiz, Eray Cakiray, Hakan Temeltas

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

In this paper, we compare three inverse kinematic formulation methods for the serial industrial robot manipulators. All formulation methods are based on screw theory. Screw theory is an effective way to establish a global description of rigid body and avoids singularities due to the use of the local coordinates. In these three formulation methods, the first one is based on quaternion algebra, the second one is based on dual-quaternions, and the last one that is called exponential mapping method is based on matrix algebra. Compared with the matrix algebra, quaternion algebra based solutions are more computationally efficient and they need …

Performance Analysis Of Numerical Integration Methods In The Trajectory Tracking Application Of Redundant Robot Manipulators, Emre Sariyildiz, Hakan Temeltas

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Differential kinematic is one of the most important solution methods in robot kinematics. The main advantage of the differential kinematic method is that it can be easily implemented any kind of mechanisms. Also, an accurate and efficient kinematic based trajectory tracking application can be easily implemented by using this method. In differential kinematic method, we use Jacobian as a mapping operator in the velocity space. Inversion of Jacobian matrix transforms the desired trajectory velocities, which are the linear and angular velocities of the end effector, into the joint velocities. The joint velocities are required to be integrated to obtain the …

A Comparison Study Of The Numerical Integration Methods In The Trajectory Tracking Application Of Redundant Robot Manipulators, Emre Sariyildiz, Hakan Temeltas

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Differential kinematic has a wide range application area in robot kinematics. The main advantage of the differential kinematic is that it can be easily implemented any kind of mechanisms. In differential kinematic method, Jacobian is used as a mapping operator in the velocity space. The joint velocities are required to be integrated to obtain the pose of the robot manipulator. This integration can be evaluated by using numerical integration methods, since the inverse kinematic equations are highly complex and nonlinear. Thus, the performances of the numerical integration methods affect the trajectory tracking application. This paper compares the performances of numerical …

A Computer Vision Application To Accurately Estimate Object Distance, Kayton B. Parekh

Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science Honors Projects

Scientists have been working to create robots that perform manual work for years. However, creating machines that can navigate themselves and respond to their environment has proven to be difficult. One integral task to such research is to estimate the position of objects in the robot's visual field.

In this project we examine an implementation of computer vision depth perception. Our application uses color-based object tracking combined with model-based pose estimation to estimate the depth of specific objects in the view of our Pioneer 2 and Power Wheels robots. We use the Camshift algorithm for color-based object tracking, which uses …

Design Of A Flexural Transmission For A Dexterous Telesurgical Robot For Throat And Upper Airway: A Preliminary Result, Chin-Hsing Kuo, Russell H. Taylor, Jian S. Dai, I. Iordachita

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

No abstract provided.