This paper presents a computer vision-based method for visually detecting the contact between an end-effector and a target surface under an optical microscope during microrobotic manipulation. Without using proximity or force/touch sensors, this method provides a submicrometer detection accuracy and possesses robustness. Fundamentally, after the establishment of contact in the world frame, furt...

Scanning probe-actuated single molecule manipulation has proven to be an exceptionally powerful tool for the systematic atomic-scale interrogation of molecular adsorbates. To date, however, the extent to which molecular conformation affects the force required to push or pull a single molecule has not been explored. Here we probe the mechanochemical response of two tetra(4-bromophenyl)porphyrin ...

Plasmonics, which allows for manipulation of light field beyond the fundamental diffraction limit, has recently attracted tremendous research efforts. The propagating surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) confined on a metal-dielectric interface provide an ideal two-dimensional (2D) platform to develop subwavelength optical circuits for on-chip information processing and communication. The surface ...

Modelica is well suited for modelling complex physical systems due to the acausal description it is using. The causalisation of the model is carried out prior to each simulation. A significant part of the causalisation process is the symbolic manipulation and optimisation of the model. Despite the growing interest in Modelica, the capabilities of symbolic manipulation and optimisation are not f...

Background and Aim. A successful endoscopic ultrasound guided rendezvous (EUS-RV) biliary drainage is dependent on accurate puncture of the bile duct and precise guide wire manipulation across the ampulla of Vater. We aim to study the feasibility of using a flexible 19-gauge fine aspiration needle in the performance of EUS-RV biliary drainage. Method. This is a retrospective case series of EUS-...

Tactile sensors are needed for effectively controlling the interaction between a robotic hand and the environment, e.g., during manipulation of objects, or for the tactile exploration of unstructured environments, especially when other sensing modalities, such as vision or audition, become ineffective. In the case of hand prostheses, mainly intended for dexterous manipulation of daily living ob...

Efficiency in data manipulation is of vital importance to ERP systems. Flexible data manipulation API helps to address a number of acute needs of end users and application developers. To be efficient the API must meet a number of requirements: (i) allow data operations at any granularity level, (ii) guarantee data integrity, (iii) be scalable, (iv) allow cross-platform invocations, (v) be conve...

Object manipulation techniques in robotics can be categorized in two major groups including manipulation with and without grasp. The aim of this paper is to develop an object manipulation method where in addition to being grasp-less, the manipulation task is done in a passive approach. In this method, linear and angular positions of the object are changed and its manipulation path is controlled...

This study aimed to anticipate fractures of fragile food during robotic manipulation. Anticipating allows a robot manipulate ingredients without irreversible failure. Food fracture models investigated in texture fields explain the properties objects well. However, they may not directly apply manipulation due variance physical even within same ingredient. To this end, we developed fracture-antic...