Engineering Commons^™

Computer-Based Stereoscopic Parts Recognition For Robotic Applications, Ahmad A. Fayed

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Most of robotic handling and assembly operations are based on sensors such as range and touch sensors. In certain circumstances, such as in the presence of ionizing radiation where most customary sensors will degrade over time due to radiation exposure, these sensors won't function properly. Utilizing two or more cameras (stereo vision) located outside the target zone and analyzing their images to identify location and dimensions of parts within the robot workspace is an alternative for using sensors. Object Recognition is affected by the light condition which oftentimes causes the gray-scale or red, green, and blue values to have a …

Robotic Fingerspelling Hand For The Deaf-Blind, Jerry Vin

Master's Theses

Because communication has always been difficult for people who are deaf-blind, The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute (SKERI), in conjunction with the California Polytechnic State University Mechanical Engineering department, has commissioned the design, construction, testing, and programming of a robotic hand capable of performing basic fingerspelling to help bridge the communication gap. The hand parts were modeled using SolidWorks and fabricated using an Objet rapid prototyper. Its fingers are actuated by 11 Maxon motors, and its wrist is actuated by 2 Hitec servo motors. The motors are controlled by Texas Instruments L293D motor driver chips, ATtiny2313 slave microcontroller chips programmed to …

Semantically Grounded Learning From Unstructured Demonstrations, Scott D. Niekum

Open Access Dissertations

Robots exhibit flexible behavior largely in proportion to their degree of semantic knowledge about the world. Such knowledge is often meticulously hand-coded for a narrow class of tasks, limiting the scope of possible robot competencies. Thus, the primary limiting factor of robot capabilities is often not the physical attributes of the robot, but the limited time and skill of expert programmers. One way to deal with the vast number of situations and environments that robots face outside the laboratory is to provide users with simple methods for programming robots that do not require the skill of an expert.

For this …

Fully Compliant Mechanisms For Bearing Subtraction In Robotics And Space Applications, Ezekiel G. Merriam

Theses and Dissertations

Robotics and space applications represent areas where compliant mechanisms can continue to make a significant impact by reducing costs and weight while improving performance. Because of the nature of these applications, a common need is for bearing replacement mechanisms, or mechanisms that perform the function of a bearing without the complexity and failure modes associated with bearings. Static balancing is a design strategy that attempts to reduce the actuation effort of a mechanism, and has been applied to compliant mechanisms in some applications. Monolithic construction, especially by means of 3D printing technology, is a strategy whereby the mechanism links and …

Caddy: A 2005 Roborodentia Entry With Vision And Path Planning Abilities, Taylor Braun-Jones

Computer Engineering

Roborodentia is an autonomous robotics competition held each year during Cal Poly’s Open House. For the 2005 competition, robot entries needed to navigate a maze searching for three randomly placed golf balls, collect them, and then deposit the balls in the “nest” at the end of the maze. A newly added aspect for the 2005 competition included two bonus balls that were placed on a platform behind the wall in two predetermined corners of the maze.

Caddy is a robot that was entered into the 2005 Roborodentia competition. Caddy included a vision system that allowed searching for balls down untraveled …

A Robotic Neuro-Musculoskeletal Simulator For Spine Research, Robb W. Colbrunn

ETD Archive

An influential conceptual framework advanced by Panjabi represents the living spine as a complex neuromusculoskeletal system whose biomechanical functioning is rather finely dependent upon the interactions among and between three principal subsystems: the passive musculoskeletal subsystem (osteoligamentous spine plus passive mechanical contributions of the muscles), the active musculoskeletal subsystem (muscles and tendons), and the neural and feedback subsystem (neural control centers and feedback elements such as mechanoreceptors located in the soft tissues) [1]. The interplay between subsystems readily encourages "thought experiments" of how pathologic changes in one subsystem might influence another--for example, prompting one to speculate how painful arthritic changes …

Evolutionary Ground Reaction Force Control Of A Prosthetic Leg Testing Robot, Ronald Davis.

ETD Archive

Typical tests of prosthetic legs for transfemoral amputees prove to be cumbersome and tedious. These tests are burdened by acclimation time, lack of repeatability between subjects, and the use of complex gait analysis labs to collect data. To create a new method for prosthesis testing, we design and construct a robot that can simulate the motion of a human hip. We discuss the robot from concept to completion, including methods for modeling and control design. Two single-input-single-output (SISO) sliding mode controllers are developed using analytical and experimental methods. We use human gait data as reference inputs to the controller. When …

Human Intention Recognition Based Assisted Telerobotic Grasping Of Objects In An Unstructured Environment, Karan Hariharan Khokar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation work, a methodology is proposed to enable a robot to identify an object to be grasped and its intended grasp configuration while a human is teleoperating a robot towards the desired object. Based on the detected object and grasp configuration, the human is assisted in the teleoperation task. The environment is unstructured and consists of a number of objects, each with various possible grasp configurations. The identification of the object and the grasp configuration is carried out in real time, by recognizing the intention of the human motion. Simultaneously, the human user is assisted to preshape over …