In this paper, we consider the general problem of guaranteeing safe interaction of humans and a group of mobile agents in an environment of interest. The way that we guarantee such a safe interaction is via proposing algorithms that prevent the agents from colliding with environmental obstacles with unknown sizes and locations, e.g. human operators. To do so, we first consider the problem of fo...

In this work, we consider dynamic frictionless contact with adhesion between a viscoelastic body of the Kelvin-Voigt type and a stationary rigid obstacle, based on the Signorini’s contact conditions. Including the adhesion processes modeled by the bonding field, a new version of energy function is defined. We use the energy function to derive a new form of energy balance which is supported by n...

Correspondence should be addressed to Hongya Gao, [email protected] Received 30 March 2012; Revised 26 April 2012; Accepted 23 May 2012 Academic Editor: Martino Bardi Copyright q 2012 Hongya Gao et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is...

A posteriori error estimates for the obstacle problem are established in the framework of the hypercircle method. To this end, we provide a general theorem of Prager– Synge type. There is now no generic constant in the main term of the estimate. Moreover, the role of edge terms is elucidated, and the analysis also applies to other types of a posteriori error estimators for obstacle problems.

Given a linear isometry A0 : Rn → Rn of finite order on Rn , a general 〈A0〉-invariant closed subset M of Rn is considered with Lipschitz boundary. Under suitable topological restrictions the existence of A0-invariant geodesics of M is proven.

The interactive manipulation of rigid objects in virtual reality environments requires an object behaviour which is at least physically plausible to be useful for applications like interactive assembly simulation or virtual training. Physically plausible behaviour implies that collisions between simulated solid objects are taken into account, and that the motion of objects with obstacle contact...

Autonomous exploration and search have important applications in robotics. One interesting application is cooperative control of mobile robotic/sensor networks to achieve uniform coverage of a domain. Ergodic coverage is one solution for this problem in which control laws for the agents are derived so that the agents uniformly cover a target area while maintaining coordination with each other. ...

According to one of the most influential principles of motor development theory, the circular-reaction hypothesis, infants perform exploratory random movements (motor babbling) to acquire efferentreafferent associations later used to perform goal directed behavior. The models proposed so far to specify this principle learn to accomplish reaching tasks by using exploratory movements to associate...

The electric arc furnace (EAF) is one of the popular methods of steel production from steel scraps. The plasma arc is used in EAF to generate heat for melting scarp or direct reduced iron (DRI). The liquid metal is drained from the EAF through the tap hole. Nowadays, it is critical to use Automated/robotic tools for opening the tap hole with oxygen lancing. Because many workers have been blinde...