Field responsive materials: photo-, electro-, magnetic- and ultrasound-sensitive polymers

A new ELECTRE-III method is proposed handling hierarchical structure of criteria.ELECTRE-III-H generates a partial pre-order of alternatives in each node of the hierarchy.Concordance and discordance indices are adapted to aggregation of partial pre-orders.The pseudo-criteria concept is extended on intermediate criteria of the hierarchy.A real-case study about the evaluation of the quality of websites is presented. This paper proposes a method for ranking a set of alternatives evaluated using multiple and conflicting criteria that are organised in a hierarchical structure. The hierarchy permits the decision maker to identify different intermediate sub-problems of interest. In that way, the analysis of the criteria is done according to the subsets defined in the hierarchy, and following the precedence relations in a bottom-up approach. To deal with this type of hierarchical structures, an extension of the ELECTRE-III method, called ELECTRE-III-H, is presented. As all methods of ELECTRE family, this one also relies on building a binary outranking relation on the set of alternatives on the basis of concordance and discordance tests. The exploitation of this outranking relation generates a partial pre-order, establishing an indifference, preference or incomparability relation for each pair of alternatives. The idea of a bottom-up application of the classical ELECTRE-III method to sub-problems involving subsets of criteria at the intermediate levels of the hierarchy is infeasible because the evaluations of alternatives by criteria aggregating some sub-criteria have the form of partial pre-orders, and not complete pre-orders. Thus, we propose a new procedure for building outranking relations from a set of partial pre-orders, as well as a mechanism for propagating these pre-orders upwards in the hierarchy. With this method, the decision maker is able to analyse the problem in a decomposed way and gain information from the outputs obtained at intermediate levels. In addition, ELECTRE-III-H gives the decision maker the possibility to define a local preference model at each node of the hierarchy, according to his objectives and sub-problem characteristics. We show an application of this method to rank websites of tourist destination brands evaluated using a hierarchy with 4 levels.

Electre-iii-h

In the era of multi-dimensional digital printing technology, engineering by multilayered ‘top-down’ methodologies are redefining manufacturing processes at multi-scale levels with atomic precision permitting unprecedented freedom to design complex structures at will. This challenges the current perception of conventional machining processes for unconventional materials (e.g. smart-stimuli responsive materials) that pose limitations in closing the gap between manufacturing processes and the increasing demand for rapid assembly procedures, miniaturized and cost-effective products predicted for emerging industries supplying innovative products to a rising population of end users. Driven by a growing need for customization, printing technologies are dynamically changing to meet the demands of a global market. Here, the conceptualization of 4D printing (4DP) platform and its impact on manufacturing scales and processes are discussed. Further, a ‘new’ conceptual insight into 4DP, high precision material design and the ‘envisioned’ roadmap for 4DP manufacturing is proposed.

From 3D to 4D printing – design, material and fabrication for multi-functional multi-materials

This paper documents near-autonomous negotiation of synthetic and natural climbing terrain by a rugged legged robot, achieved through sequential composition of appropriate perceptually triggered locomotion primitives. The first, simple composition achieves autonomous uphill climbs in unstructured outdoor terrain while avoiding surrounding obstacles such as trees and bushes. The second, slightly more complex composition achieves autonomous stairwell climbing in a variety of different buildings. In both cases, the intrinsic motor competence of the legged platform requires only small amounts of sensory information to yield near-complete autonomy. Both of these behaviors were developed using X-RHex, a new revision of RHex that is a laboratory on legs, allowing a style of rapid development of sensorimotor tasks with a convenience near to that of conducting experiments on a lab bench. Applications of this work include urban search and rescue as well as reconnaissance operations in which robust yet simple-to-implement autonomy allows a robot access to difficult environments with little burden to a human operator.

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Autonomous legged hill and stairwell ascent

Application of the artificial neural network method to detect defective assembling processes by using a wearable technology

Over the past few decades, the Electro Active Polymer (EAPs) has become quite useful for vast applications in the field of robotic and bio-mimetic. Ionic Polymer Metal Composite (IPMC) is one of the EAPs which holds an excellent bending property at low actuation voltage resulting high force output; thus, it is capable of doing work as good as human finger tip when the same is employed as an actuator for micromanipulation. In the present investigation, a four-fingered micro gripper under the actuation of IPMC has been addressed. The microgripper consists of four fingers made of Polydimethyl Siloxane and each finger has three notches. The novelty of this gripping device is in its multifunction operation. It can manipulate microobject less than 1 mm diameter as well as macro object within the diameter of 10 mm. This finger design is compliant in nature. The development of micropart handling devices and allied research is a highly challenging task. The principle on which the gripper operates and its fabricati...

IPMC-Actuated Compliant Mechanism-Based Multifunctional Multifinger Microgripper

Ionic Polymer Metal Composite (IPMC) exhibits artificial muscle behavior while subjected to change in voltage, frequency and doping solutions. Here, an attempt has been made to actuate a miniscule compliant gripper by a pair of IPMC strips. To obtain substantial displacement and force to actuate the compliant gripper, a full factorial experimental layout was laid by considering three levels of voltage (1.5 V-3 V-4.5 V), frequencies (0.1 Hz-0.01 Hz-0.001 Hz) and doping solutions (KCl, NaCl and Distilled Water). Grey Relational Analysis was adopted to turn multi-objectives (force and displacement) into a single objective and the best parametric combination was found as ds-1-f+1-v+1 [KCl 1.5 (N)-0.001 Hz-4.5 V]. Response Surface Modeling (RSM) and ANOVA was adopted to correlate the force and displacement in terms of the process parameters (Voltage and Frequency). At the optimized parametric condition, IPMC strips provided actuating force and displacement of 4.8 mN and 3.24 mm respectively. A small compliant two-jaw gripper was modeled in CATIA V5-R20 and through ANSYS 14.0, it was observed that, at 1.5 mm gripper thickness, each jaw-tip flexed by 1.56 mm. Afterwards, the gripper was fabricated with PDMS material and IMPCs were able to flex each jaw by 0.87 mm. The gripper was observed to grip objects with maximum of 1.247 gms of weight.

Simultaneous parametric optimization of IPMC actuator for compliant gripper

During past two decades many efforts have been made by different researchers in developing robotic grippers. Some of these grippers are robust and used for handling large objects. On the contrary, certain grippers are adroit enough even to handle biological cells. Wide varieties of grippers are now-a-days available featuring different kinematic ability, dexterity, mode of actuation, usage of sensors, maximum weight carrying capabilities and many more attributes. But they all accord to a single issue, i.e. inspiration. Essentially the goal of developing grippers focuses mainly on the manipulation ability of the human hand. Subsequently the designs have continuously become more and more complicated, which in turn have increased the programming complexity to keep abreast with the advances. Cognition in the field of robotics refers to sensing, generation and interpretation. To inculcate kinesthetic cognition to a robot hand unequivocally implies mapping. In this paper a hybrid methodology based on the existing grasp mapping algorithm has been proposed to increase the efficacy of the robotic hand. Keywords—Grasp mapping, forward kinematics, fuzzy clustering.

Grasp mapping for Dexterous Robot Hand: A hybrid approach

Feasibility study of recycled polypropylene through multi response optimization of injection moulding parameters using grey relational analysis

The present chapter focuses on the study of different features of stair-climbing mechanisms for transporting materials autonomously. The authors finally concentrate on arm wheel-based design for stair climbing. An attempt is made to design, develop and construct a mobile robotic vehicle for stair navigation with the following functional attributes: (i) motion on plane surface, (ii) navigation on stair- case, i.e., ascending and descending stairs keeping payload carrier platform parallel to the ground, (iii) autonomous navigation and control including obstacle avoidance and stair detection. The authors attempt to design a skid steer model incorporating the slip-friction for motion on plane surface and sensor-based navigation on stair-case and plane surface. It encompasses necessary controls including vision-assisted controller for stair-case detection and sonar data-based two layered fuzzy logic technique for obstacle avoidance.

Bikash Bepari

Papers

IPMC-Actuated Compliant Mechanism-Based Multifunctional Multifinger Microgripper

Simultaneous parametric optimization of IPMC actuator for compliant gripper

Grasp mapping for Dexterous Robot Hand: A hybrid approach

Feasibility study of recycled polypropylene through multi response optimization of injection moulding parameters using grey relational analysis

On Design and Development of an Intelligent Mobile Robotic Vehicle for Stair-Case Navigation