Design Of Robotic System Research Articles

Design of robotic hydrogen-filling system for hydrogen-powered vehicles

Background: The application of hydrogen-powered vehicles is increasingly widespread, however, the hydrogen-filling process can be dangerous, to ensure both safety and efficiency. A new robotic hydrogen-filling system whose consisting of a hybrid robot combined with an automatic guided vehicle and robotic arm is designed. Methods: An analysis of functional composition of the system was performed, and the hardware scheme was designed. A dual-differential drive AGV and an end effector including a holding jaw and a sucker were designed. According to the system workflow, the control system is divided into four modules. A path planning simulation considering obstacle avoidance is carried out based on improved artificial potential field method and a trajectory planning of the operating arm is completed using source code written in MATLAB. Results: The simulation results show that the automatic guided vehicle can avoid obstacles and move to the specified position. The planed trajectory for robotic arm has certain smoothness, which can be proved that the operating arm can complete the process of grasping the hydrogenation gun. Conclusions: The robotic hydrogen-filling system can replace human beings in most of the work of the hydrogen-filling process, which provides a theoretical basis for automatic hydrogen refueling station.

Use of Interaction Design Methodologies for Human–Robot Collaboration in Industrial Scenarios

The key concept of collaborative robotics is represented by the presence of a strict interaction between a human user and the robotic system. As such, the study of the interaction is of paramount importance for a successful implementation of the system. In this article, we propose a novel approach to address the problem of designing a collaborative robotic system for industrial applications, focusing on the characteristics of the interaction. In particular, we will propose a set of methodologies focused on interaction design, inspired by those used for the design of user interfaces. These methodologies will allow the design of collaborative robotic systems following a user-centered approach, thus putting emphasis not only on safety and adaptability of the robotic systems (which have been widely addressed in the literature), but also on the interaction experience. While the proposed methodology was developed considering general collaborative robotics applications, two real industrial case studies were considered, to instantiate the considered framework and showcase its applicability to the real-world domain. Note to Practitioners—This article aims at bridging the gap between interaction design and collaborative robotics. In particular, the proposed methodology will represent a toolset for robotic experts (researchers and system integrators), for understanding the user experience and designing the robotic system ensuring an effective interaction. In fact, while robotics experts are typically well aware of issues and methodologies related to technological and application aspects, they often tend to ignore the principles of interaction. Such principles are commonly adopted in the design of computer-based human–machine interfaces or web applications, but, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, have never been applied to the design of collaborative robotic systems for industrial applications. Hence, this article will serve as a fundamental step to bring interaction design principles into the robot integration domain.

Design and Control of a Crawler-Type Wall-Climbing Robot System for Measuring Paint Film Thickness of Offshore Wind Turbine Tower

Design and Control of a Crawler-Type Wall-Climbing Robot System for Measuring Paint Film Thickness of Offshore Wind Turbine Tower

Design and implementation of agent-based robotic system for agile manufacturing: A case study of ARIAC 2021

We share our experience and lessons learned from participating in the Agile Robotics for Industrial Automation Competition (ARIAC), 2021. We won 1st place in the finals and benefited from an agent-based architecture, task assignment strategy, and modular software programming design method based on the Unified Modeling Language . • An agent-based architecture is proposed to implement an agile industrial robotics system. • Instant task assignment strategy for scheduling in proposed to handle the unknown disturbances. • The development takes loosely-coupled software modules to reduce the design effort.

Embodied Intelligence in Plants

Envisioning a rethink of the design of robotic systems is necessary for a step-change in developing more sustainable and efficient artificial machines. Recent trends in robotics have embraced the idea of taking inspiration from plants to create energy-efficient components, self-morphing growing robots, biodegradable robots, and the definition of novel models of embodied intelligence and morphological computation. Plants can move and grow in air, soil, and water. They can sense and explore the surrounding environment, continuously grow and adapt their shape, and even communicate with each other and with other organisms. Their role for us and our planet is fundamental: for the oxygen we breathe, the food we eat, and to preserve the equilibrium of biodiversity and global climate. Understanding their functioning is of paramount importance and represents an opportunity not only for scientific advancements but also for rethinking the design of artificial technologies that can better integrate with our ecosystems. With a specific focus on the aspects of plants’ embodied intelligence, this contribution highlights some of the features of plants that have been investigated for engineering design and introduces new research lines currently at the forefront of the field. A perspective for innovation in science and robotics inspired by plants is also discussed, with a vision toward a new generation of sustainable robots.

Design and validation of a medical robotic device system to control two collaborative robots for ultrasound-guided needle insertions.

The percutaneous biopsy is a critical intervention for diagnosis and staging in cancer therapy. Robotic systems can improve the efficiency and outcome of such procedures while alleviating stress for physicians and patients. However, the high complexity of operation and the limited possibilities for robotic integration in the operating room (OR) decrease user acceptance and the number of deployed robots. Collaborative systems and standardized device communication may provide approaches to overcome named problems. Derived from the IEEE 11073 SDC standard terminology of medical device systems, we designed and validated a medical robotic device system (MERODES) to access and control a collaborative setup of two KUKA robots for ultrasound-guided needle insertions. The system is based on a novel standard for service-oriented device connectivity and utilizes collaborative principles to enhance user experience. Implementing separated workflow applications allows for a flexible system setup and configuration. The system was validated in three separate test scenarios to measure accuracies for 1) co-registration, 2) needle target planning in a water bath and 3) in an abdominal phantom. The co-registration accuracy averaged 0.94 ± 0.42 mm. The positioning errors ranged from 0.86 ± 0.42 to 1.19 ± 0.70 mm in the water bath setup and from 1.69 ± 0.92 to 1.96 ± 0.86 mm in the phantom. The presented results serve as a proof-of-concept and add to the current state of the art to alleviate system deployment and fast configuration for percutaneous robotic interventions.

Approaches and Challenges in Internet of Robotic Things

The Internet of robotic things (IoRT) is the combination of different technologies including cloud computing, robots, Internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML). IoRT plays a major role in manufacturing, healthcare, security, and transport. IoRT can speed up human development by a very significant percentage. IoRT allows robots to transmit and receive data to and from other devices and users. In this paper, IoRT is reviewed in terms of the related techniques, architectures, and abilities. Consequently, the related research challenges are presented. IoRT architectures are vital in the design of robotic systems and robotic things. The existing 3–7-tier IoRT architectures are studied. Subsequently, a detailed IoRT architecture is proposed. Robotic technologies provide the means to increase the performance and capabilities of the user, product, or process. However, robotic technologies are vulnerable to attacks on data security. Trust-based and encryption-based mechanisms can be used for secure communication among robotic things. A security method is recommended to provide a secure and trustworthy data-sharing mechanism in IoRT. Significant security challenges are also discussed. Several known attacks on ad hoc networks are illustrated. Threat models ensure integrity confidentiality and availability of the data. In a network, trust models are used to boost a system’s security. Trust models and IoRT networks play a key role in obtaining a steady and nonvulnerable configuration in the network. In IoRT, remote server access results in remote software updates of robotic things. To study navigation strategies, navigation using fuzzy logic, probabilistic roadmap algorithms, laser scan matching algorithms, heuristic functions, bumper events, and vision-based navigation techniques are considered. Using the given research challenges, future researchers can get contemporary ideas of IoRT implementation in the real world.

A Design Framework of Exploration, Segmentation, Navigation, and Instruction (ESNI) for the Lifecycle of Intelligent Mobile Agents as a Method for Mapping an Unknown Built Environment.

Recent work on intelligent agents is a popular topic among the artificial intelligence community and robotic system design. The complexity of designing a framework as a guide for intelligent agents in an unknown built environment suggests a pressing need for the development of autonomous agents. However, most of the existing intelligent mobile agent design focus on the achievement of agent’s specific practicality and ignore the systematic integration. Furthermore, there are only few studies focus on how the agent can utilize the information collected in unknown build environment to produce a learning pipeline for fundamental task prototype. The hierarchical framework is a combination of different individual modules that support a type of functionality by applying algorithms and each module is sequentially connected as a prerequisite for the next module. The proposed framework proved the effectiveness of ESNI system integration in the experiment section by evaluating the results in the testing environment. By a series of comparative simulations, the agent can quickly build the knowledge representation of the unknown environment, plan the actions accordingly, and perform some basic tasks sequentially. In addition, we discussed some common failures and limitations of the proposed framework.

Mathematical Analysis and Design of a Novel 5-DOF 3D Printer Robotic System

In this study, the mathematical analysis and design of a new 3D printer with 5 degrees of freedom were carried out. Thanks to the developed system, a new concept has been brought to the multi-axis 3D printer mechanisms, and thus, it is aimed to improve the part quality in additive manufacturing (AM) processes. As a result of adding the 4th and 5th axes to the moving platform of the system, the production time of the part was accelerated. It is also possible to print more complex and curved shapes with less support. To design a system with these features, first of all, the kinematic analysis of the system was obtained using vector algebra, and the workspace of the current printer was determined by considering the system constraints in this article. By giving detailed information about the mechanical and electrical components of the designed system, the working principle of the whole system is presented. According to the findings obtained in the studies, the kinematic analyses performed for the proposed system proved to be correct and a new system was proposed especially for additive manufacturing technologies.

Implementing ethical aspects in the development of a robotic system for nursing care: a qualitative approach

BackgroundAs robotics in nursing care is still in an early explorative research phase, it is not clear which changes robotic systems will ultimately bring about in the long term. According to the approach of “Responsible Research and Innovation”, the research project “PfleKoRo” aims to anticipate and mitigate ethical risks that might be expected when starting to develop a robot. The robot under investigation is intended to be a hands-on support in nursing care in due course. Therefore, the question is which ethical risks and requirements must be considered when developing the robot.MethodsGuided by the British Standard for the design of robotic systems, ethical risks related to the robot’s use were identified at the outset (Step 1). This was followed by the definition of the requirements needed to mitigate ethical risks (Step 2). Professional nurses, patients and relatives were involved in focus groups and interviews in Step 1. The transcribed interviews and focus groups were then analysed using content analysis. The available literature and expert guidance were taken into account in both steps. Finally, validation and verification methods were defined (Step 3).ResultsSixteen professional nurses participated in three focus groups. Individual interviews were held with a total of eight patients and relatives. Ethical risks and requirements could be defined in the context of dignity, autonomy, privacy, human relationships and safety in the project. Professional nurses feared most issues relating to safety and that the robot would lead to more workload instead of relief, whereas patients and relatives frequently raised the issue of the staffing ratio. Despite the focus on possible negative consequences, participants also made uncritical or optimistic comments regarding the robot’s use in the future.ConclusionFocus groups, individual interviews and existing literature revealed to some extent different ethical issues. Along with identified risks, the results suggest a general open-mindedness of nurses, patients and relatives towards the introduced robot. When investigating the ethical implications of robots for nursing care, one should include multiple perspectives and, in particular, potentially affected individuals.

Design and implementation of shoes arrangement robot system for unknown environment

In recent years, the robot and artificial intelligence technology have developed rapidly, but there still remains a challenging problem to realize the contact operation of robot in home environment. In order to make the robot arrange shoes automatically, we design an autonomous shoes arrangement robot system based on the 3D vision. In this system, the instance segmentation network and minimum enclosing rectangle are used to recognize the shoes and their orientation, and the grasping pose and placing pose of robot are estimated accurately by means of the point cloud information of depth camera. In addition, the convolution neural network and cosine similarity are adopted to match with a pair of shoes. Afterwards, we evaluate the accuracy of shoe orientation recognition and shoe matching in the system, and then carry out a real robot arrangement experiment. The result show that this method could assure 96.2% accuracy of shoe orientation recognition, and the matching accuracy of shoes increases from 62.6% to 87.4% when the VGG16 network is added to the shoes matching algorithm. In conclusion, this method can accurately recognize the shoes and their orientation, and then match with a pair of shoes, meanwhile, improves the stability of the robot shoes arrangement.

Choreobot: A Reference Framework and Online Visual Dashboard for Supporting the Design of Intelligible Robotic Systems

As robots are equipped with software that makes them increasingly autonomous, it becomes harder for humans to understand and control these robots. Human users should be able to understand and, to a certain amount, predict what the robot will do. The software that drives a robotic system is often very complex, hard to understand for human users, and there is only limited support for ensuring robotic systems are also intelligible. Adding intelligibility to the behavior of a robotic system improves the predictability, trust, safety, usability, and acceptance of such autonomous robotic systems. Applying intelligibility to the interface design can be challenging for developers and designers of robotic systems, as they are expert users in robot programming but not necessarily experts on interaction design. We propose Choreobot, an interactive, online, and visual dashboard to use with our reference framework to help identify where and when adding intelligibility to the interface design is required, desired, or optional. The reference framework and accompanying input cards allow developers and designers of robotic systems to specify a usage scenario as a set of actions and, for each action, capture the context data that is indispensable for revealing when feedforward is required. The Choreobot interactive dashboard generates a visualization that presents this data on a timeline for the sequence of actions that make up the usage scenario. A set of heuristics and rules are included that highlight where and when feedforward is desired. Based on these insights, the developers and designers can adjust the interactions to improve the interaction for the human users working with the robotic system.

Model‐based robust control design and experimental validation of collaborative industrial robot system with uncertainty

AbstractBased on the traditional PID control and robust control algorithm, a novel practical robust control method is designed for the 6‐DOF collaborative industrial robot with uncertainty. The proposed algorithm consists of a robust term and a model‐based PD control term, which we call MPDP controller. It is demonstrated by Lyapunov theoretical analysis that the algorithm is able to guarantee uniform boundedness and uniform ultimate boundedness of the system. Simulations and experiments show the good performance of MPDP control in a robot with smaller steady‐state tracking errors and better robustness compared to PID controllers.

Supporting elderly’s independent living with a mobile robot platform

With the increased aging population, and declined support from the families, societies will need new tools to ensure the well-being of the elderly. Many of them would prefer living at home, but they will need help and assistance from someone. Technological innovations in the field of robotic systems can be used to enable independent living, to prolong the life of the elderly in their familiar home environments, to maintain the social connections by reducing social isolation and to improve the quality of life in general. In this paper, we present the design and validation of a low-cost mobile robot system that can assist elderly and professional caregivers in everyday activities. The robot structure and its control objectives are described in detail. The developed assistive telepresence robot was tested in simulation and experimentally. On field experiments were conducted in real environment, with potential end users, which is a major advantage of this study. The results of the evaluation were very satisfactory and have shown that participants can operate the robot safely and efficiently. The participants were very satisfied with the performance and features of the robot.

Editorial

Dear Readers, I am very happy to announce the fifth regular issue of 2022. In this issue, a variety of topical research aspects of computer science are covered in four articles by 14 authors from 7 countries. Allow me to express my appreciation to all authors for their sound research and to the editorial board for the highly valuable reviews and comments for improvement. This continuous stream of relevant and novel contributions, along with the generous support of the consortium members, sustains the quality of our journal. In the ongoing effort to further strengthen our journal, I would like to expand the editorial board: If you are a tenured associate professor or above with a strong publication record, you are welcome to apply to join our editorial board. We are also interested in high-quality proposals for special issues on new topics and trends. Please consider yourself and encourage your colleagues to submit high-quality articles or special issues for our journal. In the fifth regular issue, I am very pleased to introduce the following 4 accepted articles: María Castañeda, Mercedes G. Merayo, Juan Boubeta-Puig, and Iván Calvo from Spain introduce MODELFY, a novel model-driven solution for designing a decision-making process based on fuzzy automata that allows users to abstract from technical complexities. Natasa Koceska and Saso Koceski from North Macedonia present in their work the design and validation of a low-cost mobile robot system that can assist elderly people and professional caregivers in everyday activities. In a collaborative research between Palestine, the USA, Saudi Arabia and Libya, Thaer Thaher, Mohammed Awad, Mohammed Aldasht, Alaa Sheta, Hamza Turabieh and Hamouda Chantar have developed an enhanced evolutionary-based approach to feature selection using the Grey Wolf Optimizer for classification of high-dimensional biological data. Nikola Zornić and Aleksandar Marković from Serbia present a methodological framework for building a hybrid agent-based model that integrates machine learning algorithms aimed at overcoming some of the elaborated problems related to the use of a utility function.

Design of Transverse Brachiation Robot and Motion Control System for Locomotion between Ledges at Different Elevations.

Bio-inspired transverse brachiation robots mimic the movement of human climbers as they traverse along ledges on a vertical wall. The constraints on the locomotion of these robots differ considerably from those of conventional brachiation robots due primarily to the need for robust hand-eye coordination. This paper describes the development of a motion control strategy for a brachiation robot navigating between wall ledges positioned on a level plane or at different elevations. We based our robot on a four-link arm-body-tail system performing a four-phase movement, including a release phase, body reversal phase, swing-up phase, and grasping phase. We designed a gripper that uses passive wrist joint motion to grasp the ledge during the tail swing. We also developed a dynamic model by which to coordinate the swing-up movement, define the phase switching conditions, and time the grasping action of the grippers. In experiments, the robot proved highly effective in traversing between wall ledges of the same or different elevations.

LightBot: A Multi-Light Position Robotic Acquisition System for Adaptive Capturing of Cultural Heritage Surfaces.

Multi-light acquisitions and modeling are well-studied techniques for characterizing surface geometry, widely used in the cultural heritage field. Current systems that are used to perform this kind of acquisition are mainly free-form or dome-based. Both of them have constraints in terms of reproducibility, limitations on the size of objects being acquired, speed, and portability. This paper presents a novel robotic arm-based system design, which we call LightBot, as well as its applications in reflectance transformation imaging (RTI) in particular. The proposed model alleviates some of the limitations observed in the case of free-form or dome-based systems. It allows the automation and reproducibility of one or a series of acquisitions adapting to a given surface in two-dimensional space.

Modelling and simulation of robotic production systems

Modern manufacturing systems consist of a sequence of robotic systems, such as robotic cells, which are widely used in the industry. As they become commonplace and play important roles in modern industrial production, efficient modelling and use of robotic cells become a necessity. Robotization brings many measurable benefits. It enables effective utilization of both human resources and the possessed machine park and thus contributing to the improvement of product quality and efficiency. Industrial robots not only increase the growth of productivity, by replacing man in monotonous works, requiring enormous, not achievable for human precision but above all ensure the accuracy and repeatability of the product quality. Appropriate design and modelling of robotic manufacturing systems are crucial in the efficient integration of work cell components and proper maintenance of robotic production systems. Therefore, new solutions for programming environments in industrial applications are sought which not only allow reprogramming of industrial robots but also enable the virtual design of new production lines, which in turn allows the faster introduction of higher quality products. This article presents the modelling and programming of robotic work cells in the Siemens Process Simulate environment.

Motion simulation and impact gap verification of a wheeled vibration-driven robot for pipelines inspection

Vibration-driven locomotion systems and mobile robots are widely used in different industries, in particular, for inspecting and monitoring the pipelines. Among the great variety of such robots designs, the ones based on the wheeled chassis and equipped with the vibratory drive are of the most widespread. The novelty of the present paper consists in substantiating the design parameters of the wheeled robot working under the vibro-impact conditions and driven by the crank-slider excitation mechanism. The main goal of this research is maximizing the robot average speed. While simulating the robot dynamic behavior, the numerical methods are used, in particular, the finite-element methods and the Runge-Kutta methods, which are implemented in the SolidWorks and MapleSim software. The obtained results presented in the form of time dependencies of the robot kinematic and dynamic characteristics can be of significant practical interest for the researchers and designers of the similar robotic systems.

Experimental Characterization of A-AFiM, an Adaptable Assistive Device for Finger Motions

Robot rehabilitation devices are attracting significant research interest, aiming at developing viable solutions for increasing the patient’s quality of life and enhancing clinician’s therapies. This paper outlines the design and implementation of a low-cost robotic system that can assist finger motion rehabilitation by controlling and adapting both the position and velocity of fingers to the users′ needs. The proposed device consists of four slider-crank mechanisms. Each slider-crank is fixed and moves one finger (from the index to the little finger). The finger motion is adjusted through the regulation of a single link length of the mechanism. The trajectory that is generated corresponds to the natural flexion and extension trajectory of each finger. The functionality of this mechanism is validated by experimental image processing. Experimental validation is performed through tests on healthy subjects to demonstrate the feasibility and user-friendliness of the proposed solution.