Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Vibrissae-Inspired Vision-Based Magnetic-Actuated Whisker, Zhixian Hu, Yi Cheng, Juan P. Wachs, Yu She

School of Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

Tactile perception is significant for robotic operation in unstructured environments. Whisker-based sensors offer lightweight bio-inspired solutions, yet most rely on single-whisker sensing and are limited by passive interaction and constrained functionality. Here we present a circular array of eight independently actuated whiskers, each driven by a pulse-switchable permanent magnet and tracked by a camera. This design enables simultaneous multi-point sensing and coordinated actuation, supporting diverse functions. Quantitative analyses demonstrate accurate pixel-to-physical mapping, consistent pixel-to-force characterization, and long-term repeatability. In this work, we show that an vibrissae-inspired vision-based magnetic-actuated whisker array integrating distributed perception with active interaction achieves reliable physical mapping, …

From Test Tracks To Carbon Tracks: Evaluating The Carbon Emissions Of Autonomous Vehicle Development, Sarah Deniz

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

Autonomous vehicle (AV) development has seen a sharp increase in the past 10 years, and there is a significant energy cost of training AVs to meet safety regulations. The training process includes virtual simulation training as well as physical training on public roads and within private testing facilities. The high energy expenditure associated with AV training has a respective environmental cost that can be quantified as a lifetime “carbon debt” of released carbon emissions. The environmental sustainability of AVs has not been thoroughly studied in currently available literature, and this paper showcases a model that quantifies the total “carbon debt” …

Diffog: Differentiable Policy Trajectory Optimization With Generalizability, Zhengtong Xu, Zichen Miao, Qiang Qiu, Zhe Zhang, Yu She

School of Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

Imitation-learning-based visuomotor policies excel at manipulation tasks but often produce suboptimal action trajectories compared to model-based methods. Directly mapping camera data to actions via neural networks can result in jerky motions and difficulties in meeting critical constraints, compromising safety and robustness in real-world deployment. For tasks that require high robustness or strict adherence to constraints, ensuring trajectory quality is crucial. However, the lack of interpretability in neural networks makes it challenging to generate constraint-compliant actions in a controlled manner. This article introduces differentiable policy trajectory optimization with generalizability (DiffOG), a learning-based trajectory optimization framework designed to enhance visuomotor policies. By …

Tacscope: A Miniaturized Vision-Based Tactile Sensor For Surgical Applications, Md Rakibul Islam Prince, Sheeraz Athar, Pokuang Zhou, Yu She

School of Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

The lack of tactile feedback in robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery (RMIS) limits surgeons’ ability to palpate tissues, a critical technique for locating abnormalities such as tumors. To address this challenge, we introduce TacScope, a novel, vision-based tactile sensor leveraging the magnification properties of a spherical-surface elastomer to provide tactile feedback for advanced clinical applications. TacScope features a robust, low-cost, and easyly fabricate design, enabling seamless integration into surgical robotic setups. It reconstructs high-resolution 3D geometry from variations in particle-density distribution across its elastomer surface, requiring only a single image for calibration. The curved elastomer membrane alters particle-density distribution under …

Dynamic Flowsheet Modeling Of Shot Peening Processes, Langdon Feltner, Paul Mort

15th International Conference on Shot Peening

Process flowsheet modeling is used to map and predict performance by integrating sub-models within a system. This paper presents a dynamic flowsheet for shot peening used to track the effects of media characteristics, removal of worn media, and replenishment thereof. Input parameters include media characteristics, media feed rate, velocity (i.e., air pressure), effective impact area (i.e., nozzle setup), and recharge replenishment. The media working mix is described dynamically using tri-modal size and shape characteristics: as-manufactured, conditioned, and worn modes, each having impact-dependent rate coefficients for transition to the next mode, i.e., as-manufactured > conditioned > worn > debris. The flowsheet includes the effect …

Portable Inspection Technology For Shot Peening As Preventive Maintenance At Steel Bridges, Yoshihiro Watanabe, Ryosuke Watanabe, Mitsuru Handa, Kanehisa Hattori, Masato Yamawaki, Koji Kinoshita

15th International Conference on Shot Peening

Positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy (PALS) is a non-destructively technique to study open-volume lattice defects such as vacancies or dislocations, which is used for fatigue, aging and shot peening inspection. In this study, we developed a portable PALS apparatus that has the ability for on-site measurement[1,2]. We developed the light-shielding technique which enable us to do on-site measurement. Furthermore, we downsized the apparatus size using Monte Carlo simulation technique. We validated that the developed portable apparatus has the same measurement capabilities as the conventional system[1]. We concluded that the developed portable apparatus is sufficiently able to capture the change caused by …

Robotic System With Tactile-Enabled Leaf Tracking For High-Resolution Hyperspectral Imaging Device For Autonomous Corn Leaf Phenotyping In Controlled Environments, Xuan Li, Ziling Chen, Raghava Uppuluri, Pokuang Zhou, Tianzhang Zhao, Darrell Zachary Good, Yu She, Jian Jin

School of Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

Hyperspectral imaging of individual corn leaves provides valuable data for analyzing nutrient content and diagnosing diseases. However, existing leaf-level imaging techniques face challenges such as low spatial resolution and labor-intensive processes. To address these limitations, this study developed a robotic system integrated with a high-resolution line-scanning hyperspectral imaging device to autonomously scan a corn leaf. The hyperspectral imaging device used a vision-based tactile sensor for active leaf tracking throughout the scanning process, ensuring high image quality. Additionally, the device incorporated an in-hand leaf manipulation mechanism that ensured the leaf was properly positioned on the tactile sensing area at the start …

A Feasibility Study Into The Usability And Application Of An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle For Aircraft Inspection And Quality Assurance Inspections, Reece P. Bhave

Journal of Aviation Technology and Engineering

The global aviation industry is often characterized as one of the safest modes of transportation in the modern world. With an abundance of quality assurance inspections and checks to determine operations safety, modern-day commercial aircraft that are utilized for passenger and cargo flights are held to a higher safety standard defined by regulatory bodies, such as the Federal Aviation Administration in the United States of America and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency in the European Union. While these quality standards are maintained via a series of inspections, checks, and preventative maintenance procedures, they are limited to only visual or …

A Technical And Statistical Analysis Of Unleaded Aviation Fuel (Ul94) Adoption In A High- Volume Collegiate Aviation Environment, Nicholas D. Wilson, Ryan Guthridge, Brandon Wild, Jeremy Roesler, Daniel Kasowski, Nick Geinert, Aaron Terbest, Aaron Fettig, Robert Kraus

Journal of Aviation Technology and Engineering

The University of North Dakota (UND) adopted unleaded aviation fuel (UL94) for approximately a four-month period in the summer and early fall of 2023. The UL94 fuel was used in all reciprocating engine fleets based at the university’s primary training airport, Grand Forks International Airport in North Dakota. During the operational implementation of UL94, the UND flew 46,600 flight hours, consuming 386,778 gallons of fuel across all fleets powered by Lycoming engines. After approximately two months of using UL94, operational reports and maintenance inspections began to indicate potential for exhaust valve seat recession (EVSR), although early indications were limited in …

Enhanced Global Oil Spill Dataset From 1967 To 2023 Based On Text-Form Incident Information, Yiming Liu, Zhuoli Yin, Hua Cai

The School of Sustainability Engineering and Environmental Engineering (SEE) Faculty Publications

Knowing how much oil was released into the environment in each incident is critical to studying the environmental, ecological, and economic impacts of oil spills. However, the release amounts (RAs) for numerous oil spill incidents remain unavailable in a structured format for large-scale analysis. The most extensive global oil spill database, managed by NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration, only documents the worst-case scenario estimations in the machine-readable dataset, while more accurate values are embedded within unstructured incident descriptions and subsequent updates. To enhance the dataset with more accurate RAs, we developed a framework to extract the actual RAs from …

Safe Human–Robot Collaboration With Risk Tunable Control Barrier Functions, Vipul K. Sharma, Pokuang Zhou, Zhengtong Xu, Yu She, S. Sivaranjani

School of Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

In this article, we consider the problem of guaranteeing safety constraint satisfaction in human–robot collaboration (HRC) with uncertain human position. We pose this problem as a chance-constrained problem with safety (chance) constraints represented by uncertain control barrier functions, where the probability of safety constraint satisfaction under uncertainty is bounded by a tunable user-defined risk. We solve this stochastic optimization problem using a sampling-based approach and obtain a risk-tunable controller to safely accomplish HRC tasks. We demonstrate the safety and performance of this approach through both simulation and hardware experiments on a 7 degree-of-freedom Franka–Panda manipulator and characterize the tradeoff between …

In-Hand Singulation, Scooping, And Cable Untangling With A 5-Dof Tactile-Reactive Gripper, Yuhao Zhou, Pokuang Zhou, Shaoxiong Wang, Yu She

School of Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

Manipulation tasks often require a high degree of dexterity, typically necessitating grippers with multiple degrees of freedom (DOF). While a robotic hand equipped with multiple fingers can execute precise and intricate manipulation tasks, the inherent redundancy stemming from its high-DOF often adds complexity that may not be required. In this paper, we introduce the design of a tactile sensor-equipped gripper with two fingers and five-DOF. We present a novel design integrating a GelSight tactile sensor, enhancing sensing capabilities and enabling finer control during specific manipulation tasks. To evaluate the gripper's performance, we conduct experiments involving three challenging tasks: 1) retrieving, …

Ohio Dot Automated Driving System Deployment Project Findings, Ben Ritchey

Purdue Road School

Attendees will gain a comprehensive understanding of the findings from the OhioDOT Automated Driving Systems (ADS) Deployment project of tractor semi-trailers and Ford transit vans operating on Ohio public roads using Level 2/3 technology. The tractors used truck platooning technology and were operated by a motor carrier in revenue service. The passenger vans operated in three project designated routes using HD maps and were operated by project team members.

Cost-Effective Active Laser Scanning System For Depth-Aware Deep-Learning-Based Instance Segmentation In Poultry Processing, Pouya Sohrabipour, Chaitanya Kumar Reddy Pallerla, Amirreza Davar, Siavash Mahmoudi, Philip Crandall, Wan Shou, Yu She, Dongyi Wang

School of Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

The poultry industry plays a pivotal role in global agriculture, with poultry serving as a major source of protein and contributing significantly to economic growth. However, the sector faces challenges associated with labor-intensive tasks that are repetitive and physically demanding. Automation has emerged as a critical solution to enhance operational efficiency and improve working conditions. Specifically, robotic manipulation and handling of objects is becoming ubiquitous in factories. However, challenges exist to precisely identify and guide a robot to handle a pile of objects with similar textures and colors. This paper focuses on the development of a vision system for a …

Dartbot: Overhand Throwing Of Deformable Objects With Tactile Sensing And Reinforcement Learning, Shoaib Aslam, Krish Kumar, Pokuang Zhou, Hongyu Yu, Michael Yu Wang, Yu She

School of Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

Object transfer through throwing is a classic dynamic manipulation task that necessitates precise control and perception capabilities. However, developing dynamic models for unstructured environments using analytical methods presents challenges. In this study, we present DartBot, a robot that integrates tactile exploration and reinforcement learning to achieve robust throwing skills for nonrigid relatively small objects under the influence of moment of inertia which cause the object to spin in the air. Unlike traditional sim-to-real transfer methods, our approach involves direct training of the agent on a real hardware robot equipped with a high-resolution tactile sensor, enabling reinforced learning in a realistic …

Designing An Interactive Application To Prevent Runway Incursion: A Systems Engineering Approach, Yixuan Cheng, Dahai Liu, Dennis Vincenzi, Donald S. Metscher

Journal of Aviation Technology and Engineering

Runway incursion is a leading cause of serious incidents and accidents at airports. A common cause of runway incursions is unfamiliarity with the airport layout. To address this, we designed an electronically interactive application intended as a practice tool for pilots during flight preparation. The aim of this application is to improve pilots’ familiarity with airports, ultimately helping to reduce runway incursions, with the goals of being interactive, affordable, easily accessible, and designed for use on mobile devices. We applied a systems engineering approach that adheres to human factors engineering principles to ensure user-friendly design and optimization of the interaction …

Desktop-Scale Robot Tape Manipulation For Additive Manufacturing, Nahid Tushar, Rencheng Wu, Yu She, Wenchao Zhou, Wan Shou

School of Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

Advancements in additive manufacturing and robotic automation have enabled diverse fabrication techniques using various materials. However, small-scale tape placement for three-dimensional (3D) printing remains underexplored, with most research focused on large-scale composite manufacturing using carbon fiber prepreg tapes. This work presents an innovative, automated, and cost-effective tape placement system that extends traditional methods beyond carbon fiber prepreg. We developed a customized tape print module (TPM) integrated with a robotic arm, enabling precise and versatile tape placements. Our system supports non-linear toolpaths, complex patterns, and controllable placements on multi-plane surfaces, creating overhangs without support. We demonstrate circuit printing with copper tape …

Vilp: Imitation Learning With Latent Video Planning, Zhengtong Xu, Qiang Qiu, Yu She

School of Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

In the era of generative AI, integrating video generation models into robotics opens new possibilities for the general-purpose robot agent. This letter introduces imitation learning with latent video planning (VILP). We propose a latent video diffusion model to generate predictive robot videos that adhere to temporal consistency to a good degree. Our method is able to generate highly time-aligned videos from multiple views, which is crucial for robot policy learning. Our video generation model is highly time-efficient. For example, it can generate videos from two distinct perspectives, each consisting of six frames with a resolution of 96 × 160 pixels, …

Unit: Data Efficient Tactile Representation With Generalization To Unseen Objects, Zhengtong Xu, Raghava Uppuluri, Xinwei Zhang, Cael Fitch, Philip Glen Crandall, Wan Shou, Dongyi Wang, Yu She

School of Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

UniT is an approach to tactile representation learning, using VQGAN to learn a compact latent space and serve as the tactile representation. It uses tactile images obtained from a single simple object to train the representation with generalizability. This tactile representation can be zero-shot transferred to various downstream tasks, including perception tasks and manipulation policy learning. Our benchmarkings on in-hand 3D pose and 6D pose estimation tasks and a tactile classification task show that UniT outperforms existing visual and tactile representation learning methods. Additionally, UniT's effectiveness in policy learning is demonstrated across three real-world tasks involving diverse manipulated objects and …

Vibtac: A High-Resolution High-Bandwidth Tactile Sensing Finger For Multi-Modal Perception In Robotic Manipulation, Sheeraz Athar, Xinwei Zhang, Jun Ueda, Ye Zhao, Yu She

School of Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

Tactile sensing is pivotal for enhancing robot manipulation abilities by providing crucial feedback for localized information. However, existing sensors often lack the necessary resolution and bandwidth required for intricate tasks. To address this gap, we introduce VibTac, a novel multi-modal tactile sensing finger designed to offer high-resolution and high-bandwidth tactile sensing simultaneously. VibTac seamlessly integrates vision-based and vibration-based tactile sensing modes to achieve high-resolution and high-bandwidth tactile sensing respectively, leveraging a streamlined human-inspired design for versatility in tasks. This paper outlines the key design elements of VibTac and its fabrication methods, highlighting the significance of the Elastomer Gel Pad (EGP) …

Fatigue-Resistant Mechanoresponsive Color-Changing Hydrogels For Vision-Based Tactile Robots, Jiabin Liu, Wei Li, Yu She, Sean Blanchard, Shaoting Lin

School of Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

Mechanoresponsive color-changing materials that can reversibly and resiliently change color in response to mechanical deformation are highly desirable for diverse modern technologies in optics, sensors, and robots; however, such materials are rarely achieved. Here, a fatigue-resistant mechanoresponsive color-changing hydrogel (FMCH) is reported that exhibits reversible, resilient, and predictable color changes under mechanical stress. At its undeformed state, the FMCH remains dark under a circular polariscope; upon uniaxial stretching of up to six times its initial length, it gradually shifts its color from black, to gray, yellow, and purple. Unlike traditional mechanoresponsive color-changing materials, FMCH maintains its performance across various strain …

Kitchen Ergonomics In Health And Healthcare: A Rapid Scoping Review, Haozhi Chen, Nicholas Anton, Richard J. Holden, Denny Yu

Purdue University Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund

Although traditional workplace settings such as hospitals and clinics are well-studied, non-clinical areas like home kitchens, which connect clinical healthcare with the care provided in daily living settings, have received less attention. During the early stages of the global pandemic, there has been an increase in home cooking activities due to widespread isolation and restrictions imposed on dining publicly. Ergonomics is at the intersection between work environments and human task performance, and kitchen ergonomics informs knowledge on effective, safe, and efficient cooking practices while maintaining the desired kitchen functionality. Numerous contributions across various disciplines have added knowledge to the kitchen …

How Individuals’ Opinions Influence Society’S Resistance To Epidemics: An Agent-Based Model Approach, Geonsik Yu, Michael Garee, Mario Ventresca, Yuehwern Yih

Purdue University Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund

Background

Protecting public health from infectious diseases often relies on the cooperation of citizens, especially when self-care interventions are the only viable tools for disease mitigation. Accordingly, social aspects related to public opinion have been studied in the context of the recent COVID-19 pandemic. However, a comprehensive understanding of the effects of opinion-related factors on disease spread still requires further exploration.

Methods

We propose an agent-based simulation framework incorporating opinion dynamics within an epidemic model based on the assumption that mass media channels play a leading role in opinion dynamics. The model simulates how opinions about preventive interventions change over …

Nature Of Occupational Incidents Among Roofing Contractors: A Data Mining Approach, Ikechukwu Sylvester Onuchukwu, Pouya Gholizadeh, Genian Liko, Behzad Esmaeili

Purdue University Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund

Given that roofing contractors in the construction industry have the highest fatality rate among specialty contractors, understanding the root cause of incidents among roofers is critical for improving safety outcomes. This study applied frequency analysis and decision tree data-mining techniques to analyze roofers’ fatal and non-fatal accident reports. The frequency analysis yielded insights into the leading cause of accidents, with fall to a lower level (83%) being the highest, followed by incidence sources relating to structures and surfaces (56%). The most common injuries experienced by roofing contractors were fractures (49%) and concussions (15%), especially for events occurring in residential buildings, …

Letac-Mpc: Learning Model Predictive Control For Tactile-Reactive Grasping, Zhengtong Xu, Yu She

School of Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

Grasping is a crucial task in robotics, necessitating tactile feedback and reactive grasping adjustments for robust grasping of objects under various conditions and with differing physical properties. In this article, we introduce LeTac-MPC, a learning-based model predictive control (MPC) for tactile-reactive grasping. Our approach enables the gripper to grasp objects with different physical properties on dynamic and force-interactive tasks. We utilize a vision-based tactile sensor, GelSight (Yuan et al. 2017), which is capable of perceiving high-resolution tactile feedback that contains information on the physical properties and states of the grasped object. LeTac-MPC incorporates a differentiable MPC layer designed to model …

Leto: Learning Constrained Visuomotor Policy With Differentiable Trajectory Optimization, Zhengtong Xu, Yu She

School of Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper introduces LeTO, a method for learning constrained visuomotor policy with differentiable trajectory optimization. Our approach integrates a differentiable optimization layer into the neural network. By formulating the optimization layer as a trajectory optimization problem, we enable the model to end-to-end generate actions in a safe and constraint-controlled fashion without extra modules. Our method allows for the introduction of constraint information during the training process, thereby balancing the training objectives of satisfying constraints, smoothing the trajectories, and minimizing errors with demonstrations. This “gray box” method marries optimization-based safety and interpretability with powerful representational abilities of neural networks. We quantitatively …

Vistac Toward A Unified Multimodal Sensing Finger For Robotic Manipulation, Sheeraz Athar, Gaurav Patel, Zhengtong Xu, Qiang Qiu, Yu She

School of Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

Tactile sensors are crucial in providing contact geometry information necessary for object manipulation. However, it remains highly nontrivial for a tactile sensor to be able to perceive a distant object before manipulation. In this work, we present an innovative robotic finger, VisTac, which seamlessly combines high-resolution tactile and visual perception in a single unified device, while adhering to essential mechanical constraints, such as a human-finger-like wedge-shaped top, vital for manipulation tasks. Furthermore, we discuss the fabrication of a key component in the device; the semitransparent membrane with light-dependent opacity, thus enabling the contact surface to effortlessly transition between visual and …

Reducing Uncertainty In Sea-Level Rise Prediction: A Spatial-Variability-Aware Approach, Subhankar Ghosh, Shuai An, Arun Sharma, Jayant Gupta, Shashi Shekhar, Aneesh Subramanian

I-GUIDE Forum

Given multi-model ensemble climate projections, the goal is to accurately and reliably predict future sea-level rise while lowering the uncertainty. This problem is important because sea-level rise affects millions of people in coastal communities and beyond due to climate change's impacts on polar ice sheets and the ocean. This problem is challenging due to spatial variability and unknowns such as possible tipping points (e.g., collapse of Greenland or West Antarctic ice-shelf), climate feedback loops (e.g., clouds, permafrost thawing), future policy decisions, and human actions. Most existing climate modeling approaches use the same set of weights globally, during either regression or …

Cable Manipulation With A Tactile-Reactive Gripper, Yu She, Shaoxiong Wang, Siyuan Dong, Neha Sunil, Alberto Rodriguez, Edward Adelson

School of Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

Cables are complex, high-dimensional, and dynamic objects. Standard approaches to manipulate them often rely on conservative strategies that involve long series of very slow and incremental deformations, or various mechanical fixtures such as clamps, pins, or rings. We are interested in manipulating freely moving cables, in real time, with a pair of robotic grippers, and with no added mechanical constraints. The main contribution of this paper is a perception and control framework that moves in that direction, and uses real-time tactile feedback to accomplish the task of following a dangling cable. The approach relies on a vision-based tactile sensor, GelSight, …

Agile And Lean Six Sigma Integration: A Leadership Framework, Alessandro Laureani

International Conference on Lean Six Sigma

Submitting final version of the paper attached.

Agile and Lean Six Sigma integration: a Leadership framework

Author: Alessandro Laureani, Independent Lean Six Sigma Scholar, Ireland

E-mail: [email protected] Phone: +353 87 914 4532

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how Agile methodologies and Lean Six Sigma can coexist and propose a Leadership framework to successfully merge Agile methodologies with Lean Six Sigma practice.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper builds on the author’s doctoral thesis on Leadership for Lean Six Sigma, and integrate Agile practices based on the author’s experience in the software development industry.

Findings

Agile methodologies, that came to …