Sensory Robot Research Articles

Skin-inspired, sensory robots for electronic implants

Drawing inspiration from cohesive integration of skeletal muscles and sensory skins in vertebrate animals, we present a design strategy of soft robots, primarily consisting of an electronic skin (e-skin) and an artificial muscle. These robots integrate multifunctional sensing and on-demand actuation into a biocompatible platform using an in-situ solution-based method. They feature biomimetic designs that enable adaptive motions and stress-free contact with tissues, supported by a battery-free wireless module for untethered operation. Demonstrations range from a robotic cuff for detecting blood pressure, to a robotic gripper for tracking bladder volume, an ingestible robot for pH sensing and on-site drug delivery, and a robotic patch for quantifying cardiac function and delivering electrotherapy, highlighting the application versatilities and potentials of the bio-inspired soft robots. Our designs establish a universal strategy with a broad range of sensing and responsive materials, to form integrated soft robots for medical technology and beyond.

(Invited) 3D Morphable Electronic Systems Via Deterministic Microfolding

DNA and proteins fold in three dimensions (3D) to enable functions that sustain life. Emulation of such reversible folding schemes for functional materials can create promising opportunities for advancing a wide range of technologies. In particular, morphing 3D mesostructures via multiple dimensions for high-performance materials including monocrystalline silicon can enable unconventional designs in sensory robotics, biomedical devices, microelectronics, and microelectromechanical systems. Existing approaches to morphing functional materials mostly rely on planar processes, which often complicates needed mechanisms for structural reconfiguration and limits the choice of materials composition and dimension. This presentation will introduce a bioinspired microfolding strategy to realize 3D reconfigurable microelectronic systems in freestanding forms with various advanced materials and complex architectures. The microfolding mechanism allows access to any transitional states of the folded 3D structures in a reversible fashion, to modulate functionalities on demand. Demonstrations on microantennas for telecommunication, wearable accelerometers for tremor monitoring, and epicardial bioelectronic probes for cardiac mapping, all of which are achieved via the microfolding strategy, further highlight the high potential for a broad range of applications in healthcare and communications industry.

Design and Implementation of an Intelligent Moving Target Robot System for Shooting Training

The paper proposed intelligent moving sensory robot localization (IMSRL) method for shooting training in military applications. It's a conceptual design of a human-like intelligent target robot. It offers concept strategies based on standard military shooting training and combat utilization scenarios in light of the current trend toward intellectual and remotely operated training equipment and the practical implementations of mobile target robots elsewhere. With photogrammetry and pattern matching through model information and forefront goal isolation, characteristic point recovery, and movement prediction to Kalman filtering, IMSRL relies on a method for monitoring feature points of moving targets. Performance values and the ability to recognize and follow moving targets increase significantly in simulated experiments using the suggested strategy. Parameters such as confidence level may enhance motion target recognition, tracking reliability, and precision. In contrast, inter-frame centroid distance can be used to evaluate the efficiency and consistency of these processes.

Mammalian-brain-inspired neuromorphic motion-cognition nerve achieves cross-modal perceptual enhancement

Perceptual enhancement of neural and behavioral response due to combinations of multisensory stimuli are found in many animal species across different sensory modalities. By mimicking the multisensory integration of ocular-vestibular cues for enhanced spatial perception in macaques, a bioinspired motion-cognition nerve based on a flexible multisensory neuromorphic device is demonstrated. A fast, scalable and solution-processed fabrication strategy is developed to prepare a nanoparticle-doped two-dimensional (2D)-nanoflake thin film, exhibiting superior electrostatic gating capability and charge-carrier mobility. The multi-input neuromorphic device fabricated using this thin film shows history-dependent plasticity, stable linear modulation, and spatiotemporal integration capability. These characteristics ensure parallel, efficient processing of bimodal motion signals encoded as spikes and assigned with different perceptual weights. Motion-cognition function is realized by classifying the motion types using mean firing rates of encoded spikes and postsynaptic current of the device. Demonstrations of recognition of human activity types and drone flight modes reveal that the motion-cognition performance match the bio-plausible principles of perceptual enhancement by multisensory integration. Our system can be potentially applied in sensory robotics and smart wearables.

The effect of robotic coding education on preschoolers’ problem solving and creative thinking skills

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of robotics and coding instruction on preschoolers’ problem-solving skills and creative thinking abilities. Designed as a quasi-experimental research with pretest–posttest control groups, this study was conducted in a preschool in Amasya province of Turkey. A total of 40 preschool students were recruited in this study. The data were collected through ‘the Problem-Solving Skill Scale (PSSS)’ and ‘the Creative Thinking Abilities Test’. The experimental procedure lasted for four weeks, and a total of 32 -h lesson was conducted. During the procedure in the experimental group, WeDo 2.0 Educational Robotics Kit was employed, while pen and paper activities were conducted in the control group. The participants in the experimental group performed ‘GlowingSnail’, ‘Moovingsatellite’, ‘Spacecraft’, ‘Milo Science’, ‘Milo’s Motion Sensory Robot’, and ‘Frog Robot’ activities, whereas those in the control group read such stories as ‘Winnie the Witch under the Sea’, ‘Where Do Emotions and Broken Hearts Go’, ‘the Aliens Activity’, and ‘Timing, and listened to ‘the Planets’ song. The results show that robotics and coding instruction has provided statistically significant contribution to preschoolers’ problem-solving skills compared to the pen and paper activities. Further, imagination and originality factors in the language domain as well as completion, new elements addition, and unconventionality factors in the drawing domain were found to be statistically significant compared to the other factors. Several limitations and recommendations are provided.

Sensorimotor Representation Learning for an \u201cActive Self\u201d in Robots: A Model Survey

Safe human-robot interactions require robots to be able to learn how to behave appropriately in spaces populated by people and thus to cope with the challenges posed by our dynamic and unstructured environment, rather than being provided a rigid set of rules for operations. In humans, these capabilities are thought to be related to our ability to perceive our body in space, sensing the location of our limbs during movement, being aware of other objects and agents, and controlling our body parts to interact with them intentionally. Toward the next generation of robots with bio-inspired capacities, in this paper, we first review the developmental processes of underlying mechanisms of these abilities: The sensory representations of body schema, peripersonal space, and the active self in humans. Second, we provide a survey of robotics models of these sensory representations and robotics models of the self; and we compare these models with the human counterparts. Finally, we analyze what is missing from these robotics models and propose a theoretical computational framework, which aims to allow the emergence of the sense of self in artificial agents by developing sensory representations through self-exploration.

High interactive sensory robot system design in the indoor autonomous services applications

High interactive sensory robot system design in the indoor autonomous services applications

Method of monaural localization of the acoustic source direction from the standpoint of the active perception theory

Currently, the scientific and educational center of the “Transport” of NNSTU performs work on the creation of the universal rescue vehicle. This vehicle is a robot, and intended to reduce the number of human victims in accidents on offshore oil platforms. An actual problem is the development of a method for determining the location of a person overboard in low visibility conditions, when a traditional vision is not efficient. One of the most important sensory robot systems is the acoustic sensor system, because it is omnidirectional and does not require finding of an acoustic source in visibility scope. Features of the acoustic sensor robot system can complement the capabilities of the video sensor in the solution of the problem of localization of a person or some event in the environment. This paper describes the method of determination of the direction of the acoustic source using just one microphone. The proposed method is based on the active perception theory.

Bio-inspired micro/mini propulsion at air-water interface: A review

This paper reviews and discusses the propulsion of water-floating natural creatures and man-made devices at the air-water interface. Natural creatures with a large ratio of body weight to surface tension force normally propel themselves by repeatedly slapping and stroking their feet while natural creatures with a small ratio of body weight to surface tension force are floated dominantly by surface tension and are propelled by various propulsion mechanisms. Some animals developed unique walking and propelling methods such as leaping, sailing, meniscus climbing, and utilizing of Marangoni effect. Inspired by the natural creatures, a large number of water walking robots and propulsion methods have been developed. Many of them are based on the walking and propelling of water striders, although they require complicated fabrication and structures. Some of the recently developed devices are propelled by the gradient of surface tension (via addition of heat or surfactant) or by streaming flows (induced from oscillations of bubbles or interfaces). These methods need relatively simple mechanical structures and fabrication but are effective only in limited conditions. The bio-inspired water floating and propelling systems can be applied to environment monitoring systems, surveillance security systems, educational robots, and toys. In particular, this paper suggests applying those systems to “smart dust” sensory robots and pollutant collecting devices.

Development of the BITE Master II and its application to the study of cheese hardness

Instrumental methods to assess food texture are often used without considering parameters relevant to the sensory perception of food texture and without considering conditions occurring in the mouth during chewing. The objective of this research was to develop a sensory robot capable of closely mimicking the human bite and to conduct its preliminary testing with various cheeses.

Distributed cooperative load redistribution for fault tolerance in a team of four object-lifting robots

Fault tolerance in a team of cooperative and distributed object-lifting robots is dealt with. It is assumed that one of four object lifting robots misses a portion of its lifting power and the robots must redistribute the load among themselves to perform their task. Two distributed and cooperative methods for load reallocation among the position-controlled robots without requiring them to change their grasp positions are introduced. The first method benefits from the existing redundancy in the number and lifting power of robots. In the second method, the object is tilted in order to move the zero moment point (ZMP) away from the faulty robot and, consequently, redistributing the load. Difficulties in controlling ZMP movements are pointed out. Therefore, the second fault-clearing procedure is designed such that the ZMP position is controlled without resorting to sophisticated or centralized control algorithms. Stability of the proposed methods is mathematically proven and the deadlocks are investigated. It is also noted that the required sensory system and robot behavior in the proposed strategies are exactly the same as those used in the object-lifting task. Consequently, no additional complexity is imposed on the system. The basic idea in ALLIANCE is used for developing a mechanism for each robot to process help requests and select proper actions in a distributed fashion without negotiating with its teammates. Simulation results are given to support the developed methods.

Sensory Robotics for the Handling of Limp Materials

Sensory Robotics for the Handling of Limp Materials

Recognizing 3D Objects Using Tactile Sensing and Curve Invariants

A general paradigm for recognizing 3D objects is offered, and applied to some geometric primitives (spheres, cylinders, cones, and tori). The assumption is that a curve on the surface, or a pair of intersecting curves, was measured with high accuracy (for instance, by a sensory robot). Differential invariants of the curve(s) are then used to recognize the surface. The motivation is twofold: the output of some devices is not surface range data, but such curves. Also, a considerable speedup is obtained by using curve data, as opposed to surface data which usually contains a much higher number of points. We survey global, algebraic methods for recognizing surfaces, and point out their limitations. After introducing some notions from differential geometry and elimination theory, the differential and “semi-differential” approaches to the problem are described, and novel invariants which are based on the curve's curvature and torsion are derived.

Using NASREM for real-time sensory interactive robot control

SUMMARYThe Flight Telerobotic Servicer (FTS) is a robotic device which will be used to build and maintain Space Station Freedom. The FTS is expected to evolve from its initial capability of teleoperation toward greater autonomy by taking advantage of advances in technology as they become available. In order to support this evolution, NASA has chosen the NASA/NIST Standard Reference model for Telerobot Control System Architecture (NASREM) as the FTS functional architecture. As a result of the definition of generic interfaces in NASREM, the system can be modified without major impact. Consequently, different approaches to solve a problem can be tested easily. This paper describes the implementation of NASREM in the NIST laboratory. The approach is to build a flexible testbed to enhance research in robot control, computer vision, and related areas. To illustrate the real-time aspects of the implementation, a sensory interactive motion control experiment will be described.

A strategy for sensors and rules in flexible robotic assembly

Abstract A suitable description for the problem- domain of assembly is a necessary prerequisite for practical error recovery. This article presents an alternative approach to flexible assembly involving sensory robotics by describing the assembly process itself in a framework which identifies the success of the intended operation. A rule is assigned to each of the sequential sub-processes in order to achieve each particular sub-goal state. Thus the use of artificial intelligence techniques provides a useful aid in a potentially complex situation of information processing. Error detection is achieved by receiving sensor values which deviate from the expected ones within the scope of a rule. By allowing the system to learn from its mistakes, costly pre-programming efforts are avoided and the cell is able to cope with unforeseen circumstances.

Towards a theory of sensory robotics

SUMMARYA partial review of some efforts in robotics research is presented. We identify two broad categories of work: one characterised by application-driven experimental engineering, the other by a more ‘scientific’ approach based on testing theoretical models through implementation. We argue that although the former represents some of the best practical results obtained to-date, this experiment-first-theory-later approach does not contribute to a homogeneous body of knowledge. If robotics is to make measured progress, sound theoretical ground is needed. We argue for a task-specific paradigm for future theoretical work founded on formal models. To this end, we present a general analysis of a sensory robotic system, and identify key elements that must be defined in any formal model before we can decide what sensory information is useful for a given task.

Robotic eye-head-neck motions and visual-navigation reflex learning using adaptive linear neurons: [formula omitted]. Laboratory for Sensory Robotics, College of Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215 USA

Robotic eye-head-neck motions and visual-navigation reflex learning using adaptive linear neurons: [formula omitted]. Laboratory for Sensory Robotics, College of Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215 USA

Early vison applications of feature-map diffusion-enhancement nets: [formula omitted]. Laboratory for Sensory Robotics, College of Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215 USA

Early vison applications of feature-map diffusion-enhancement nets: [formula omitted]. Laboratory for Sensory Robotics, College of Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215 USA

The development of a sensory robot for inspection of painted surfaces.

The finish of a painted car body surface is one of the important values by which many customers select the car. It requires both excellent skill and susfained eye consentration to find small defects on the painted surface. It has become an urgent need to develop automatic inspection equipment solving the above-mentioned problems.

Research into error recovery for sensory robots

Error recovery is the detection and correction of abnormal events or conditions in the operation of a robot system.