This paper discusses the steering kinematics for a center-articulated mobile robot. Several models have been recently proposed in the literature and we use experimental data to compare and validate these models. The vehicle heading response to steering command is shown to include a dominant zero due a nonholonomic constraint, and this is verified by experiments conducted using a 30-t mobile veh...

This paper examines the liquid segments in Czech (/r/ and /l/) using articulography. The mid-sagittal and parasagittal contours of the liquids were compared. 5 speakers of Czech produced nonsense words in three environments: word-initial, intervocalic, and word-final position. The results indicated that /l/ is articulated further forward in the mouth and has a larger preconstriction vocal tract...

The motion of a multi-body autonomous robot as well as of a train-like multiarticulated transportation vehicle is characterized by the deviation of the path of each intermediate vehicle from that of the leading one (off-tracking). In this paper, we make use of an innovative junction technique, which allows the kingpin to slide along the axis of the leading vehicle, something that proved to be v...

Dangerous goods vehicles, in particular those carrying fluid loads, have been identified as needing to meet stringent performance requirements within the Performance Based Standards (PBS) developed by the National Roads and Transport Commission in Australia. The opportunity to control the lateral dynamics of these multiply-articulated vehicles with active steering systems deployed on the traile...

A direct-drive robotic manipulator (CMU DD Arm) is being developed at Carnegie-Mellon University. This paper describes the design concept and theory of this new mechanical arm based on the direct-drive method using rare-earth DC torque motors. Because these motors have high torque, light weight and compact size, we can construct robots with far better performance than those presently available....

One of the main vibration problems of aerospace vehicles with liquid fuel propulsion system is fuel sloshing. This phenomenon is a low frequency vibrational challenge which can affect the motion of the vehicle and degrade the stability of the main control system. In this regards, the motion of the liquid will be very critical when the frequency of the sloshing is very close to the frequencies o...