Due to their high kinematic characteristics, six-bar tensegrities have great potential application value in the field of robotics, especially deep space exploration robots. In this paper, an ultralight tensegrity robot is designed, and a gait planning method for continuous motion proposed. First, equilibrium matrix structure constructed, singular decomposition (SVD) performed find node coordina...

Advancing technologies have enabled simple mobile robots that collaborate to perform complex tasks. Understanding how to achieve such collaboration with simpler robots leverages these advances, potentially allowing more robots for a given cost and/or decreasing the cost of deploying a fixed number of robots. This paper is a step toward understanding the algorithmic strengths and weaknesses of r...

Abstract Typically, for pick-and-place robots operating at high speeds, an enormous amount of energy is lost during the robot braking phase. This due to fact that, such operational phase, most dissipated as heat on resistances motor drivers. To increase efficiency high-speed cycles, this article investigates use variable stiffness springs (VSS) in parallel configuration with motors. These store...

This paper proposes a method to extract on-line stable visual landmarks from sensory data obtained by stereo vision so as to adapt to changes of environment. Given a two-dimensional obstacle map, the robot Ž rst extracts vertical line segments which are distinct and inside planar surfaces not near boundary edges as they are expected to be observed reliably from various viewpoints. However, the ...

The design of a knee joint is a key issue in robotics to improve the locomotion and the performances of the bipedal robots. We study a design for the knee joints of a planar bipedal robot, based on a four-bar linkage. We design walking reference trajectories composed of double support phases, single support phases and impacts. The single support phases are divided in two sub-phases. During the ...

This paper proposes a method to autonomously select stable visual landmarks from observed features by stereo vision and a given 2D obstacle map. The robot selects as stable landmarks vertical line segments which are distinct and on a vertical plane, because they are expected to be observed reliably from various viewpoints. Due to the vision and motion error of the robot, the observed feature po...

Recognizing the intention of others is important in all social interactions, especially in the service domain. Enabling a bartending robot to serve customers is particularly challenging as the system has to recognize the social signals produced by customers and respond appropriately. Detecting whether a customer would like to order is essential for the service encounter to succeed. This detecti...

The electric arc furnace (EAF) is used to produce high quality steel from steel scraps. The EAF uses plasma arc to generate heat for melting scarp or direct reduced iron (DRI). The liquid metal should be drained from the tap hole. Manual tapping operation of the EAF in the hot environment around the furnace is a potentially dangerous and time consuming task for the workers. Therefore, it is ess...