Mobile Arm Research Articles

Mapeando alguns conhecimentos matemáticos incorporados no “esquadro móvel” de Ottavio Fabri (1544-1612)

Este artigo apresenta os primeiros resultados de um estudo preliminar sobre a construção e o uso de um antigo instrumento matemático. Nele, realiza-se um mapeamento de conhecimentos matemáticos incorporados no instrumento “esquadro móvel”, descrito no tratado L’uso della squadra mobile de Ottavio Fabri (1615) com o intuito de, posteriormente, elaborar uma atividade didática na interface entre história e ensino de matemática. Por meio de uma situação de medição, busca-se aqui demonstrar que as partes do instrumento sintetizam conceitos e que o braço móvel estabelece relações entre esses conceitos. O artigo conclui que o “esquadro móvel” apresenta elementos com os quais é possível compor um conjunto de ações para ensinar matemática e, desse modo, aponta para algumas potencialidades didáticas deste instrumento. Este estudo tem por base um documento original e recentes estudos em história da ciência e da matemática. O documento foi analisado contemplando três esferas de análise, a saber, historiográfica, epistemológica e contextual. A análise histórica buscou privilegiar alguns aspectos epistemológicos com a intenção de construir interfaces entre história e ensino de matemática conforme recentes estudos relacionados à incorporação de questões históricas no âmbito do ensino e da aprendizagem de matemática.

Mobile arm supports in Duchenne muscular dystrophy: a pilot study of user experience and outcomes

Purpose This pilot study examined whether two different types of non-powered mobile arm supports (MAS) enhanced upper limb function and independence with activities of daily living (ADLs) in people with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). Method A mixed methods cross-sectional design was used. Participants were four males with DMD, aged 16 to 20 years (M = 18.25 years). Two participants were current MAS users, and two had previously used MAS. To explore experiences of MAS use, semi-structured interviews were undertaken, then transcribed verbatim and analysed thematically. To measure the impact of MAS on arm function and ADLs, participants using MAS completed the Performance of the Upper Limb (PUL) and the DMD Upper Limb Patient Reported Outcome Measure with and without MAS. Participants no longer using MAS only completed the PUL without MAS. Results MAS enhanced upper limb function and independence with ADLs in three of four participants. Eating and drinking was most often positively impacted by MAS. Access to informal support for MAS set-up, and ongoing input from a clinician or assistive technology (AT) supplier with MAS expertise, were important enablers to successful MAS use. Barriers to use included inadequate upper limb strength, interference of MAS with wheelchair controls, and AT funding delays. Conclusion MAS should be considered by individuals with DMD and clinicians working with them as the disease progresses and strength declines. Potential barriers to MAS use need to be addressed to ensure maximum utility. AT funding delays must also be minimized to avoid impact on outcomes of people with DMD. Implications for Rehabilitation Individuals with DMD, and clinicians working with them, may consider MAS to aid achievement of functional goals as the disease progresses and upper limb function declines. Both objective and subjective outcome measures should be used when evaluating the effectiveness of MAS. Consideration should be given to the potential interference of MAS with wheelchair controls and the availability of informal or paid supports (e.g., family, support workers, teachers) to aid MAS use. Efficient and timely funding of MAS is required, as delays may negatively impact outcomes for people with progressive neurological conditions, such as DMD.

Welding supports of pins in mobile platforms

The demand for mixed joints of hard-welded steels used in civil engineering and transport is increasing. An example of this can be welding of pins of high-strength steel S690 QL (1.8928) with the arms of a movable platform made of DOCOL 1200M steel from the AHSS group. This joint is difficult to make properly, due to significant differences in the thickness of welded elements and different chemical composition of both steels. The thickness of the cylindrical pin is 40 mm, the diameter of the pin is 50 mm. The thickness of the metal sheet used for the mobile platform arm is 2 mm. . Joints of varying thickness and chemical composition may have cracks in the heat affected zone and in the weld. The purpose of the article is to determine the most appropriate welding parameters and the selection of filler materials that will allow to obtain the correct joint without welding defects.

Deep Bayesian Nonparametric Learning of Rules and Plans from Demonstrations with a Learned Automaton Prior

We introduce a method to learn imitative policies from expert demonstrations that are interpretable and manipulable. We achieve interpretability by modeling the interactions between high-level actions as an automaton with connections to formal logic. We achieve manipulability by integrating this automaton into planning, so that changes to the automaton have predictable effects on the learned behavior. These qualities allow a human user to first understand what the model has learned, and then either correct the learned behavior or zero-shot generalize to new, similar tasks. We build upon previous work by no longer requiring additional supervised information which is hard to collect in practice. We achieve this by using a deep Bayesian nonparametric hierarchical model. We test our model on several domains and also show results for a real-world implementation on a mobile robotic arm platform.

The highly stable air-operating ionic polymer metal composite actuator with consecutive channels and its potential application in soft gripper

In this study, a highly stable air-operating ionic polymer–metal composite (IPMC) actuator with consecutive channels suitable for transportation of the cations and anions of ionic liquids was prepared by introducing and removing copper foam. The electromechanical properties of this novel porous IPMC were investigated. Scanning electron microscopy observation showed that channels and pores ranging in size from ∼100 nm to ∼50 μm were distributed in the Nafion membrane. The porous IPMC was doped with 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium thiocyanate ionic liquid. A larger capacitance (285.00 mF cm−2) was obtained, which can be attributed to the electric double layer generated at the interface between the ionic polymer membrane and platinum electrode under the input voltage. The fast ion migration channels, high conductivity, and large capacitance enabled high strain of 0.051%–0.666%, a relatively large blocking force of 17.63 mN, and excellent actuation durability for more than 180 000 cycles to be achieved. Furthermore, a soft gripper consisting of a bio-inspired micropillar dry adhesive glued on one surface of the porous IPMC assembled with a mobile mechanical arm was fabricated, and the soft gripper successfully grabbed objects with various features.

Bager sa dvodelnom ili trodelnom strelom - implikacije dinamičkog ponašanja i konstrukcije

The purpose of this work is to compare, with the same digging diagrams, the velocity, accelerations and dynamic performances of two excavators with different arm configurations. In particular, constructive solutions involving the use of two and three mobile arms will be examined. For excavators the different construction geometry (2-3 arms) is mainly dictated by reasons of use, in fact the 3 arms solution is normally used in areas that allow poor mobility of vehicle and present obstacles during the excavation phase. The dynamic comparison between the two solutions is performed on real working conditions to which they can be subjected during the exercise. The elaborations are performed both analytically and numerically. Essentially the analysis shows that in the condition of leveling and lifting at minimum distance from the rotation axis the dynamic performances are similar, there are significant differences in the lifting condition at the maximum distance. The diversity also implies significant variations in the forces of the hydraulic cylinders used to move both the load and the arms, an aspect which finds greater emphasis even in the case in which the arms are made by adopting unconventional materials for their realization as aluminum and composites.

Design of Service Robot for Wearing and Taking off Footwear

In order to realize the automation and integration of wearing and taking off shoes and socks, a service robot for wearing and taking off footwear was designed to help persons living with waist or leg problems in this paper. Through the analysis of the process of wearing and taking off shoes and socks, the robot could carry out this work automatic. The robot mainly consists of intelligent identification system, device for wearing and removing shoes or socks, mobile mechanical arm and power drive with control system. In addition, an auxiliary foot lifting device is designed to cooperate with the service robot for wearing and taking off footwear. The virtual motion simulation of the machine is carried out, and the feasibility of the machine function and the rationality of the structure design are analyzed here.

Facilitating Upper Limb Function using Assistive Technology in a Neurological Patient with Bilateral Upper Limb Impairment: A Case Report

Purpose: A combination of a stroke and spinal cord injury adversely affecting both upper limbs is an unusual combination for a patient presenting for outpatient rehabilitation services. Although the management of these conditions in isolation is well documented, there is limited literature regarding rehabilitation for these conditions in combination, particularly the use of assistive technology in this setting. Methods: A case report is presented of a 53-year-old male referred for outpatient rehabilitation following a left-sided stroke, with resultant dense right sided hemiplegia. A pre-existing spinal cord injury had affected his left upper limb such that he had marked proximal weakness. This combination of impairments meant he was unable to perform even basic activities of daily living involving the upper limbs. A therapy program, led by an occupational therapist with support and input from the multi-disciplinary team, included the use of an assistive device (a mobile arm support) to facilitate functional upper limb activities. This greatly improved his ability to do upper limb functional activities. Conclusion: The use of an assistive device enabled the patient to engage in meaningful activities of daily living involving the upper limbs.

Ectopic suicide inhibition of thioredoxin glutathione reductase

Selective suicide inhibitors represent a seductively attractive approach for inactivation of therapeutically relevant enzymes since they are generally devoid of off-target toxicity in vivo. While most suicide inhibitors are converted to reactive species at enzyme active sites, theoretically bioactivation can also occur in ectopic (secondary) sites that have no known function. Here, we report an example of such an “ectopic suicide inhibition”, an unprecedented bioactivation mechanism of a suicide inhibitor carried out by a non-catalytic site of thioredoxin glutathione reductase (TGR). TGR is a promising drug target to treat schistosomiasis, a devastating human parasitic disease. Utilizing hits selected from a high throughput screening campaign, time-resolved X-ray crystallography, molecular dynamics, mass spectrometry, molecular modeling, protein mutagenesis and functional studies, we find that 2-naphtholmethylamino derivatives bound to this novel ectopic site of Schistosoma mansoni (Sm)TGR are transformed to covalent modifiers and react with its mobile selenocysteine-containing C-terminal arm. In particular, one 2-naphtholmethylamino compound is able to specifically induce the pro-oxidant activity in the inhibited enzyme. Since some 2-naphtholmethylamino analogues show worm killing activity and the ectopic site is not conserved in human orthologues, a general approach to development of novel and selective anti-parasitic therapeutics against schistosoma is proposed.

A pilot study of using smartphone application versus routine follow up for patients' care in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

9 Background: Web-based patient reported outcome (PRO) improved quality of life (QoL), and overall survival (OS) in patients with advanced NSCLC who were treating with specific therapy. Lung Cancer Care application is a mobile application program that provides patients with individually tailored information on patient reported outcome. This study aims to invent a novel mobile application evaluating PRO for Thai NSCLC patients, and to evaluate the validity of mobile application. Methods: Our mobile application-based PRO was designed for monitoring quality of life. The validity of the application was tested following guidelines for translating, and validating a questionnaire. The quality of life score (FACT-L score). After the validated mobile application-based PRO, patients with advanced NSCLC were randomized to use mobile application-based PRO versus routine follow-up. The primary endpoint was quality of life (QoL). Secondary endpoint was OS. Results: Thirty-three patients with advanced NSCLC were enrolled. The mean of FACT-L score at baseline in mobile application-based PRO arm and routine follow up arm was similar (90.08 ± 5.66 vs 91.78 ± 5.26, p-value= 0.82). Patients with mobile application group had more FACT-L score at 3 months than patients with routine follow up arm (106 ± 5.97 vs 99.96 ± 5.74, p-value = 0.07). There was a trend towards increased in different mean of FACT-L score at baseline and 3 months in patients with mobile application compared to patients with routine follow up ( p-value = 0.05). The median follow-up time was 5.43 months, patients with mobile application had longer median OS than patients with routine follow up (4 months vs 2.9 months, p-value = 0.5). Conclusions: Lung Cancer Care application based on self-reported symptoms is a novel electronic device for real-time patient care monitoring. Our study results showed trend towards improved quality of life from using this novel mobile application. However, there was small samples for pilot testing, the relatively large sampling errors may reduce the statistical power needed to validate this tool.

Development and Evaluation of MOVit: An Exercise-Enabling Interface for Driving a Powered Wheelchair.

Powered wheelchair users can experience negative health effects from reduced physical activity. If a user could exercise by driving the chair, it might improve fitness. This paper presents the development of MOVit, an exercise-enabling, wheelchair driving interface. The design goal of MOVit was that users cyclically move their arms to drive the chair, thereby providing a light level of exercise while driving. MOVit supports this arm movement with custom mobile arm supports that also serve as the sensors that provide controller inputs. Here, we first quantified how increasing the frequency and amplitude of arm movement increase oxygen consumption and heart rate. Then, we evaluated two novel control methods for driving by moving the arm supports. Participants without impairment ( N = 24 ) were randomized to one of the two methods, or conventional joystick control, and performed driving tests over two days on a simulator and test course. Our results indicate that driving speed and accuracy were significantly lowered with the exercise-enabling methods compared to joystick control (ANOVA, ), but the decreases were small (speed was ~0.1 m/s less and course tracking error ~1 cm greater). These results show, for the first time, the feasibility of exercising while driving a powered wheelchair.

Learning framework for inverse kinematics of a highly redundant mobile manipulator

A learning framework is proposed to solve the inverse kinematic problems of a highly redundant mobile manipulator designed to traverse on rough terrains. The problem is not trivial to solve and there does not exist a closed form solution. The learning framework is designed based on the Kohonen Self Organizing Map (KSOM) to establish the mapping between the task-space and joint-space while resolving redundancy exist in the system. The standard KSOM learning architecture is modified to ensure proper coordination between the mobile base and arm satisfying multiple constraints such as wheels of the mobile robot always remain in contact with the terrain and maximize the manipulability for the robot arm while solving inverse kinematics. The network is trained for 14 DoF mobile manipulator traverse on uneven terrain. This method can be extended to other types of robot, such as high degrees of the manipulator. To validate the proposed network architecture several simulations have been performed and experimented on a mobile manipulator considering robot traverse on different types of terrains. The results show the effectiveness of the proposed framework.

Development of mobile dual PR arm agricultural robot

New efficient and low-cost technology for planting and watering are needed for the growth of agriculture sector. This paper deals with the novel design, fabrication and control of a mobile dual Prismatic-Revolute (PR) arm agricultural robot which can be used by farmers and households for domestic cultivation. Proposed robot is a prototype of a low cost wheeled robotic system which consists of four main subsystems such as digging module, seed module, moisture sensor-based watering module and inline motion module. This work also includes the kinematic, static and dynamic analysis of the robotic system. Time history plots of dual arm mechanism and results of static & dynamic analysis are presented. Farming experimentation is carried out using the prototype and results are analysed. This dual PR arm agricultural robot is a good, economical solution for agricultural problem of farmers and can also be used for domestic cultivation.

Olfactory Arm Mobile Robot for Object Inspection Based on Fuzzy Logic and Support Vector Machine

In recent years, there have been suspicious objects containing chemical materials intentionally placed on roads, fields and parking lots. The objects are considered harmful to be examined. Therefore, we need tools that can replace people in checking the dangerous objects. Robot is considered as a technology that can be applied to handle it. This study has designed a mobile robot system equipped with robotic arm and electronic nose to inspect the suspected object. The robotic arm is used to bring the electronic nose closer to the object’s surface. This robot can find the source of gas and surround the object with a distance of 20 cm. The movement of the mobile robot and robotic arm is controlled using fuzzy logic. The Support Vector Machine method is used to identify gas types. This olfactory arm mobile robot can find a gas source and recognize the type of gas with a success rate of 92%.

Application of Mobile Mechanical Arm in Curtain Wall Installation of Xinhua Star

Chengdu Xinhua Star Project is designed by integrating insert unit elements with aluminum panel boxed eave. Because the unit elements are installed between the upper and lower floors, the traditional vertical lifting process cannot meet the installation requirements. Therefore, this project uses the mobile mechanical arm developed by our company for installing unit element indoors. The mobile mechanical arm is 3045×1699×1320mm with the rated load of 600kg, the self-weight of 1750kg and the counterweight of 600kg. It can be disassembled or separate transportation and has the functions of free displacement, three-dimensional adjustment and absorption and grabbing. During construction on site, first of all, the grid lines, finished surface line, and bottom and top locating lines of the adapting piece of the unit element are clearly marked and set out on the main structure. According to the geometric dimension of the mechanical arm and the locating line of the curtain wall, the movement locating line of the mechanical arm is drawn. Then, the mechanical arm is operated indoors for installation. The indoor installation process of curtain wall explored by this project provides a new idea for the construction of the unitized curtain wall of ultra-high rise buildings. It can alleviate the construction difficulty of the unitized curtain wall, reduce the safety risks and measure costs of outdoor installation of the unitized curtain wall of ultra-high rise buildings, thus being a new type of curtain wall construction process that is worthy of promotion and application.

Model based reconfiguration of flexible production systems

Shopfloor uncertainty is a key aspect that limits the flexibility potential of nowadays manufacturing systems. Modular robotic systems are considered as a main enabler for production system reconfigurability. However, their fixed control logic, based on pre-programmed operations, does not allow the effective exploitation of their capabilities. This paper proposes a scalable assembly execution control framework that facilitates the real time a) process level reconfiguration and b) resource level behavior adaptation considering the dynamic changes of the working environment. A set of cognition modules for environment and process perception are wrapped as digital services consumed by the execution orchestration mechanism. A synthesis of multiple sensors’ data is created comprising a digital twin of the workplace that is real time updated based on the sensors’ input. This sensor based reconstructed scene is used as input to the cognition modules facilitating the real time reconfiguration of the manufacturing operations execution. This set of digital services has been deployed and tested in a case study from the automotive industry employing mobile dual arm workers and human operators.

AI based combined scheduling and motion planning in flexible robotic assembly lines

One of the latest trends in EU manufacturing research, is to increase reconfigurability of production systems by introducing mobile dual arm workers able to collaborate with humans in dynamic changing environments. The flexibility of the system is increased by the ability of the mobile robots to easily re-locate themselves inside the shopfloor for performing various assembly operations. This paper presents a multi – level decision making framework targeting on the dynamic work balancing among the human operators and robot resources. The proposed mechanism exploits Artificial Intelligence techniques for generating efficient task sequences while ensuring optimal and collision free path generation for the assigned resources. The focus is given on the integration of multi- criteria decision-making mechanisms with mobile robots’ low-level planning modules for deriving effective reconfiguration plans considering the shopfloors real time status. The developments have been tested in a case study from the automotive industry.

Teleoperation system for a mobile robot arm with visual servomechanism based on turning radius determination using angle information of image

This paper considers the development of a teleoperation system for a mobile robot arm with visual servo mechanism. The robot to be operated mainly consists of a mobile robot and a robot arm with USB camera. The robot is teleoperated according to the control command which is generated by combining the manual operation with the autonomous control via the vision system based on the USB camera images. In this paper, a control method of determining the turning radius of the mobile robot is proposed based on the angle information of image corresponding to the error of a target position from the reference one. To evaluate the proposed teleoperation system, experiments of pressing a button were conducted by using an actual robot. It was verified from the experimental results that sufficiently high success rate of teleoperation could be obtained by the proposed method.

Mobile trailer support arm: modeling and analysis of breakage

Calculation of vehicle elements load is a mandatory operation in the engineering of transport. The paper presents the calculation schemes of the static loading of the lever supports of the mobile hopper of bulk materials and determines internal force factors. The numerical values of equivalent stresses distributed on the lever of the mobile hopper of bulk materials are determined. The visualization of the results of calculating the stresses performed by the classical cross-section method and the finite element method is given. The results of both calculations show that the dangerous zone in the cross section of the lever is the neighbourhood of the hydraulic cylinder attachment. The analysis by the loading method shows the risk of breakage in the place of attachment of the hydraulic cylinder bracket from the side of the support wheel. To eliminate the revealed shortage there are proposals and recommendations given by the authors.

Faster R-CNN for Object Location in a Virtual Environment for Sorting Task

This paper presents the implementation of a mobile robotic arm simulation whose task is to order different objects randomly distributed in a workspace. To develop this task, it is used a Faster R-CNN which is going to identify and locate the disordered elements, reaching 99% accuracy in validation tests and 100% in real-time tests, i.e. the robot was able to collect and locate all the objects to be ordered, taking into account that the virtual environment is controlled and the size of the input image obtained from the workspace to be entered to the network should be 700x525 px.