Task Execution Capability Research Articles

Secure Computing for Fog-Enabled Industrial IoT.

Smart cities are powered by several new technologies to enhance connectivity between devices and develop a network of connected objects which can lead to many smart industrial applications. This network known as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) consists of sensor nodes that have limited computing capacity and are sometimes not able to execute intricate industrial tasks within their stipulated time frame. For faster execution, these tasks are offloaded to nearby fog nodes. Internet access and the diverse nature of network types make IIoT nodes vulnerable and are under serious malicious attacks. Malicious attacks can cause anomalies in the IIoT network by overloading complex tasks, which can compromise the fog processing capabilities. This results in an increased delay of task computation for trustworthy nodes. To improve the task execution capability of the fog computing node, it is important to avoid complex offloaded tasks due to malicious attacks. However, even after avoiding the malicious tasks, if the offloaded tasks are too complex for the fog node to execute, then the fog nodes may struggle to process all legitimate tasks within their stipulated time frame. To address these challenges, the Trust-based Efficient Execution of Offloaded IIoT Trusted tasks (EEOIT) is proposed for fog nodes. EEOIT proposes a mechanism to detect malicious nodes as well as manage the allocation of computing resources so that IIoT tasks can be completed in the specified time frame. Simulation results demonstrate that EEOIT outperforms other techniques in the literature in an IIoT setting with different task densities. Another significant feature of the proposed EEOIT technique is that it enhances the computation of trustable tasks in the network. The results show that EEOIT entertains more legitimate nodes in executing their offloaded tasks with more executed data, with reduced time and with increased mean trust values as compared to other schemes.

Hybrid Path Planning Model for Multiple Robots Considering Obstacle Avoidance

To solve the problem that the single robot task execution capability is not enough to meet the whole handling task demand under complex conditions, the hybrid path planning models such as multi-robot path planning and formation cooperative control considering obstacle avoidance are studied. Firstly, for the robot global path finding problem, on the basis of the construction for a robot working environment model based on the geometric map model building method, an improved particle swarm algorithm-based global path planning model is proposed to solve the problems of low robot path planning solution efficiency and easy to fall into local optimal solutions. Secondly, for the multi-robot cooperative formation control and obstacle avoidance and inter-robot collision avoidance problems, a multi-robot formation local path planning model based on the improved artificial potential field method is constructed, a simulated annealing algorithm is introduced to optimize the traditional artificial potential field method, and a multi-robot formation control strategy, robot obstacle avoidance, and inter-robot collision avoidance methods are designed in combination with the pilot-following method to improve the robot formation path exploration The proposed method can improve the path exploration capability and handling efficiency of robot formation. Finally, the global path planning model of the robot based on the improved particle swarm algorithm is simulated and analyzed using Matlab 7.0 to verify the outstanding performance of the model in pathfinding capability. Then the local path planning model of multi-robot formation based on the improved artificial potential field is simulated and analyzed to verify the improved algorithm has good path planning as well as obstacle avoidance performance. The hybrid path planning model is applied to a real case and simulated, and the results show that the improved algorithm improves the exploration capability of the robot formation, effectively avoids obstacles, and verifies its reliability and superiority in the hybrid path planning process.

Phoenix: Towards Designing and Developing a Human Assistant Rover

Human-assistance rovers have a broad prospect in the field of space robotics, as a significant number of organizations and researchers have been investing in the design and development of sophisticated rovers for planetary exploration. In order to promote research and development in the design of next-generation MARS rovers, an annual University Rover Challenge (URC) is hosted by the MARS Society in the United States. In this study, we highlight the design and development process of several novel subsystems of a human-assistance planetary exploration rover and their successive integration in the prototype named PHOENIX, which is a rover that participated in the URC 2021. First, a detailed requirement elicitation has been conducted, for designing a conceptual framework for a rover capable of planetary exploration. Secondly, the design and development process has been detailed for five basic subsystems (power, communication, primary-manipulator, chassis with drive, processing) and two mission-specific subsystems (scientific exploration and autonomous navigation), as well as their successive integration into the rover. Afterwards, a detailed evaluation study has been conducted in order to validate the performance of the developed system. Terrain traversability, autonomy in navigation, and sophisticated task execution capabilities have been evaluated individually within this study. Additionally, the capability of the rover in detecting bio-signatures from soil samples using a novel Multiple Bio-molecular Rapid Life Detection (MBLDP-R) protocol has also been evaluated. The developed scientific exploration subsystem is capable of detecting the presence of life from soil samples with a 92% success rate, and from rock samples with a success rate of 93.33%.

3D-Printed Multi-Stimuli-Responsive Mobile Micromachines.

Magnetically actuated and controlled mobile micromachines have the potential to be a key enabler for various wireless lab-on-a-chip manipulations and minimally invasive targeted therapies. However, their embodied, or physical, task execution capabilities that rely on magnetic programming and control alone can curtail their projected performance and functional diversity. Integration of stimuli-responsive materials with mobile magnetic micromachines can enhance their design toolbox, enabling independently controlled new functional capabilities to be defined. To this end, here, we show three-dimensional (3D) printed size-controllable hydrogel magnetic microscrews and microrollers that respond to changes in magnetic fields, temperature, pH, and divalent cations. We show two-way size-controllable microscrews that can reversibly swell and shrink with temperature, pH, and divalent cations for multiple cycles. We present the spatial adaptation of these microrollers for penetration through narrow channels and their potential for controlled occlusion of small capillaries (30 μm diameter). We further demonstrate one-way size-controllable microscrews that can swell with temperature up to 65% of their initial length. These hydrogel microscrews, once swollen, however, can only be degraded enzymatically for removal. Our results can inspire future applications of 3D- and 4D-printed multifunctional mobile microrobots for precisely targeted obstructive interventions (e.g., embolization) and lab- and organ-on-a-chip manipulations.

Evaluation of Attention Towards Motor Task in Children with Developmental Co-Ordination Disorder- A Pilot Study

Motor task execution capability again included in the writing task. The ability of the child to copy down the letters from the blackboard and the ability to listen to the dictated word and coordinate the writing task along with the listening task to complete the note-taking process. Lack of motor task execution capability will exclude the child from green land play. Playing demands attention skill as well as motor co-ordination. We aimed to compare the level of attention among children with and without DCD during their functional activities that demand motor performance. Ten children with and without DCD were included in the study. Their motor performance was assessed with the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (MABC), and a self-reported questionnaire evaluated attention during the tasks of the MABC. All children with DCD had higher MABC impairment scores and lower attention scores than their peers. It has been documented that children with DCD were less attentive to movements than their peers, and the positive reinforcement can modulate their performance by the parents or therapist.

Towards a Collaborative Omnidirectional Mobile Robot in a Smart Cyber-Physical Environment

This paper presents current progress in a three-fold research project, focusing on increasing the movement flexibility in smart cyber-physical environments, which are becoming more prevalent with industry 4.0. The objective is to design and develop a new research platform in the form of a highly flexible omnidirectional mobile manipulator with a full kinematics model. The research platform entails an omnidirectional autonomous mobile platform with an integrated collaborative manipulator, making it a single dynamic system. This task is split into three parts: 1) designing and constructing a flexible low cost omnidirectional mobile platform, 2) the addition of a collaborative robot arm to add task execution capabilities, 3) design the 9 DoF model for the system. This paper presents the first step towards the overall goal of collaborative omnidirectional mobile manipulators. The constructed mobile robot was able to generate and navigate an obstacle free path, using sensor data, from an initial pose to a goal pose.

Suggesting Coping Strategies for the Various Stresses from Body Weight in Korean Males -A Qualitative Approach-

This study investigates coping strategies of overweight or underweight males in Korea. For this purpose, the authors identify types of stress related to weight management. A qualitative method was utilized to collect the data related to successful weight management experiences of males aged 20-37 years. Data were analyzed based on a motivation theory of coping, which suggests coping strategy elements. The results of this study identified the stress related to weight: dissatisfaction with appearance, others' disapproval of appearance, health problems, weaker athletic ability, negative self-perception, passiveness about appearance, lower romantic attractiveness, others' disapproval of lower romantic attractiveness, weakened task execution capability, and negative stereotypes about task execution capability. In addition, six coping strategies were suggested: improved appearance, improved physical function, improved positive self-perception, more choices to improve appearance, enhanced romantic relationship, and enhanced job performance. This study shows that weight problems in modern society are diverse and complex. Therefore a man who has abnormal weight needs to clarify his stress first and then proposes strategies that are appropriate for each type of stress.

Compound locomotion control system combining crawling and walking for multi-crawler multi-arm robot to adapt unstructured and unknown terrain

How to improve task performance and how to control a robot in extreme environments when just a few sensors can be used to obtain environmental information are two of the problems for disaster response robots (DRRs). Compared with conventional DRRs, multi-arm multi-flipper crawler type robot (MAMFR) have high mobility and task-execution capabilities. Because, crawler robots and quadruped robots have complementary advantages in locomotion, therefore we have the vision to combine both of these advantages in MAMFR. Usually, MAMFR (like four-arm four-flipper robot OCTOPUS) was designed for working in extreme environments such as that with heavy smoke and fog. Therefore it is a quite necessary requirement that DRR should have the ability to work in the situation even if vision and laser sensors are not available. To maximize terrains adaption ability, self-balancing capability, and obstacle getting over capability in unstructured disaster site, as well as reduce the difficulty of robot control, we proposed a semi-autonomous control system to realize this compound locomotion method for MAMFRs. In this control strategy, robot can explore the terrain and obtain basic information about the surrounding by its structure and internal sensors, such as encoder and inertial measurement unit. Except that control system also can recognize the relative positional relationship between robot and surrounding environment through its arms and crawlers state when robot moving. Because the control rules is simple but effective, and each part can adjust its own state automatically according to robot state and explored terrain, MRMFRs have better terrain adaptability and stability. Experimental results with a virtual reality simulator indicated that the designed control system significantly improved stability and mobility of robot in tasks, it also indicated that robot can adapt complex terrain when controlled by designed control system.

Relationship of dual task performance ability and balance ability in community-dwelling elderly

Background: In the elderly, the reduction in the posture holding ability under dual task has been reported to be related to the increased risk of falling. Moreover, interventions to improve the posture holding ability under dual task have been shown to be able to reduce risk in falls evidently. However, the tasks added to the dual task are different and therefore the association of balance ability indicator that is related to the dual task performance ability and risk of falling is unclear. Purpose:The ability to performdual task by holding a cup of water while walking, and how is it related to the balance ability is the main objective of this research. Methods: The subjects of this study are 47 communitydwelling elderly above 65 years old that have problems with motor functions and have joined a local prevention project. The subjects of this study are the ones who have been explained to inwriting and verbally the objective of this study, and those who have given written consent. The subjects were asked towalk atmaximum speedwhile holding a cup ofwater on a 7m path. At that time, 2m was a run-up interval, and the 5m after that the walking speeds was calculated. Functional Reach Test and one-footed standing duration, Timed Up and Go Test were each done twice, and the average value was used as the representative value. The dual-task cost was calculated from the walking speed as follows. DualTask costs (%) = 100× (single-task gait speed− dual-task gait speed)/single-task gait speed. To examine the test results relationship between the dual-task cost and other balance ability, spss ver.19 and Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used. The significant risk rate was considered to be less than 5%. Results:Dual-Task cost and Functional Reach Test have a significant positive correlation. In addition, therewas a significant negative correlation between Dual-Task cost and Timed Up and Go Test. Conclusion(s):Since correlation thatDual-Task costswas as positive as posture maintenance and modulatory capacity was accepted, it was suggested that dual task execution capability is subject to the influence of posture maintenance and modulatory capacity. However, since Timed up and Go Test and negative correlation were accepted, in the low person of ambulatory ability, and the high person, it was suggested that the method of distribution the cautions at the time of dual task execution has a difference. Implications: By revealing the relationship of the DualTask cost and the risk of falling, there is a contribution to the development of effective fall prevention program.

Enabling workflows in GridSolve: request sequencing and service trading

GridSolve employs a RPC-based client-agent-server model for solving computational problems. There are two deficiencies associated with GridSolve when a computational problem essentially forms a workflow consisting of a sequence of tasks with data dependencies between them. First, intermediate results are always passed through the client, resulting in unnecessary data transport. Second, since the execution of each individual task is a separate RPC session, it is difficult to enable any potential parallelism among tasks. This paper presents a request sequencing technique that addresses these deficiencies and enables workflow executions. Building on the request sequencing work, one way to generate workflows is by taking higher level service requests and decomposing them into a sequence of simpler service requests using a technique called service trading. A service trading component is added to GridSolve to take advantage of the new dynamic request sequencing. The features described here include automatic DAG construction and data dependency analysis, direct interserver data transfer, parallel task execution capabilities, and a service trading component.

Naval Mine Countermeasure Missions

Undersea operations using autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) provide a different and in some ways a more challenging problem than tasks for unmanned aerial vehicles and unmanned ground vehicles. In particular, in undersea operations, communication windows are restricted, and bandwidth is limited. Consequently, coordination among agents is correspondingly more difficult. In traditional approaches, a central planner initially assigns subtasks to a set of AUVs to achieve the team goal. However, those initial task assignments may become inefficient during real-time execution because of the real-world issues such as failures. Therefore, initial task allocations are usually subject to change if efficiency is a high concern. Reallocations are needed and should be performed in a distributed manner. To provide such flexibility, we propose a distributed auction-based cooperation framework, distributed and efficient multirobot-cooperation framework (DEMiR-CF), which is an online dynamic task allocation (reallocation) system that aims to achieve a team goal while using resources effectively. DEMiR-CF, with integrated task scheduling and execution capabilities, can also respond to and recover from real-time contingencies such as communication failures, delays, range limitations, and robot failures.

A behaviour-based architecture with attention control

In this paper we present a behaviour-based mobile robot system for task execution. The behaviour model of this system consists of a number of motion behaviours, including reflexes and voluntary motion behaviours, and knowledge acquisition modules providing supporting information. Execution of a task is regarded as a problem-solving process. A blackboard model is introduced to overcome some shortcomings of the behaviour-based architectures, especially concerning modularity and task execution capability. The concept of attention is introduced in the behaviour control, which is more advantageous than the behaviour control mechanisms presented in the literature. Its introduction results in situation-dependent behaviour coordination. For efficient task execution, environment knowledge is maintained in a memory. Task-achieving behaviour is designed to make use of the memory when available.

A behaviour-based blackboard architecture for reactive and efficient task execution of an autonomous robot

Mobile robot control architectures have matured in two major directions: hierarchical and behaviour-based. Behaviour-based architectures enable rapid response to environment changes and they feature robustness in real worlds. Earlier behaviour-based systems have suffered from difficulties in system modularity, state representation and integration of world models. In this paper we present a behaviour-based mobile robot system for task execution. The behaviour model of this system consists of a number of motion behaviours, including reflexes and voluntary motion behaviours, and knowledge acquisition modules providing supporting information. Execution of a task is regarded as a problem-solving process. A blackboard model is introduced to overcome some shortcomings of the behaviour-based architectures, especially concerning modularity and task execution capability. The concept of attention is introduced in the behaviour control, which is more advantageous than the behaviour control mechanisms presented in the literature. Its introduction results in situation-dependent behaviour coordination. For efficient task execution, environment knowledge is maintained in the memory. Task-achieving behaviour is designed to make use of the memory when available.

A prototype ground-remote telerobot control system

SummaryA local-remote telerobot control system is described which is being developed for time-delayed groundremote control of space telerobotic systems. The system includes a local site operator interface for interactive command building and sequencing for supervised autonomy and a remote site: the Modular Telerobot Task Execution System (MOTES), to provide the remote site task execution capability. The local site system also provides stereo graphics overlay on video with interactive update of the remote environmental model. The operator selects objects in the environment to interact with and skill types to specify the tasks to be performed, such as grasping a module or opening a door.