This unique book provides an introduction to a subject whose use has steadily increased over the past 40 years. An update of Ramon Moore s previous books on the topic, it provides broad coverage of the subject as well as the historical perspective of one of the originators of modern interval analysis. The authors provide a hands-on introduction to INTLAB, a high-quality, comprehensive MATLAB toolbox for interval computations, making this the first interval analysis book that does with INTLAB what general numerical analysis texts do with MATLAB. Readers will find the following features of interest: elementary motivating examples and notes that help maximize the reader s chance of success in applying the techniques; exercises and hands-on MATLAB-based examples woven into the text; INTLAB-based examples and explanations integrated into the text, along with a comprehensive set of exercises and solutions, and an appendix with INTLAB commands; an extensive bibliography and appendices that will continue to be valuable resources once the reader is familiar with the subject; and a Web page with links to computational tools and other resources of interest. Audience: Introduction to Interval Analysis will be valuable to engineers and scientists interested in scientific computation, especially in reliability, effects of roundoff error, and automatic verification of results. The introductory material is particularly important for experts in global optimization and constraint solution algorithms. This book is suitable for introducing the subject to students in these areas. Contents: Preface; Chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2: The Interval Number System; Chapter 3: First Applications of Interval Arithmetic; Chapter 4: Further Properties of Interval Arithmetic; Chapter 5: Introduction to Interval Functions; Chapter 6: Interval Sequences; Chapter 7: Interval Matrices; Chapter 8: Interval Newton Methods; Chapter 9: Integration of Interval Functions; Chapter 10: Integral and Differential Equations; Chapter 11: Applications; Appendix A: Sets and Functions; Appendix B: Formulary; Appendix C: Hints for Selected Exercises; Appendix D: Internet Resources; Appendix E: INTLAB Commands and Functions; References; Index.

Introduction to Interval Analysis

Constraint programming is a powerful paradigm for solving combinatorial search problems that draws on a wide range of techniques from artificial intelligence, computer science, databases, programming languages, and operations research. Constraint programming is currently applied with success to many domains, such as scheduling, planning, vehicle routing, configuration, networks, and bioinformatics.

The aim of this handbook is to capture the full breadth and depth of the constraint programming field and to be encyclopedic in its scope and coverage. While there are several excellent books on constraint programming, such books necessarily focus on the main notions and techniques and cannot cover also extensions, applications, and languages. The handbook gives a reasonably complete coverage of all these lines of work, based on constraint programming, so that a reader can have a rather precise idea of the whole field and its potential. Of course each line of work is dealt with in a survey-like style, where some details may be neglected in favor of coverage. However, the extensive bibliography of each chapter will help the interested readers to find suitable sources for the missing details. Each chapter of the handbook is intended to be a self-contained survey of a topic, and is written by one or more authors who are leading researchers in the area.

The intended audience of the handbook is researchers, graduate students, higher-year undergraduates and practitioners who wish to learn about the state-of-the-art in constraint programming. No prior knowledge about the field is necessary to be able to read the chapters and gather useful knowledge. Researchers from other fields should find in this handbook an effective way to learn about constraint programming and to possibly use some of the constraint programming concepts and techniques in their work, thus providing a means for a fruitful cross-fertilization among different research areas.

The handbook is organized in two parts. The first part covers the basic foundations of constraint programming, including the history, the notion of constraint propagation, basic search methods, global constraints, tractability and computational complexity, and important issues in modeling a problem as a constraint problem. The second part covers constraint languages and solver, several useful extensions to the basic framework (such as interval constraints, structured domains, and distributed CSPs), and successful application areas for constraint programming.

- Covers the whole field of constraint programming
- Survey-style chapters
- Five chapters on applications

Table of Contents

Foreword (Ugo Montanari) 
Part I : Foundations
Chapter 1. Introduction (Francesca Rossi, Peter van Beek, Toby Walsh) 
Chapter 2. Constraint Satisfaction: An Emerging Paradigm (Eugene C. Freuder, Alan K. Mackworth) 
Chapter 3. Constraint Propagation (Christian Bessiere) 
Chapter 4. Backtracking Search Algorithms (Peter van Beek) 
Chapter 5. Local Search Methods (Holger H. Hoos, Edward Tsang) 
Chapter 6. Global Constraints (Willem-Jan van Hoeve, Irit Katriel)
Chapter 7. Tractable Structures for CSPs (Rina Dechter)
Chapter 8. The Complexity of Constraint Languages
(David Cohen, Peter Jeavons) 
Chapter 9. Soft Constraints (Pedro Meseguer, Francesca Rossi, Thomas Schiex) 
Chapter 10. Symmetry in Constraint Programming
(Ian P. Gent, Karen E. Petrie, Jean-Francois Puget)
Chapter 11. Modelling (Barbara M. Smith) 
Part II : Extensions, Languages, and Applications

Chapter 12. Constraint Logic Programming (Kim Marriott, Peter J. Stuckey, Mark Wallace) 
Chapter 13. Constraints in Procedural and Concurrent Languages (Thom Fruehwirth, Laurent Michel, Christian Schulte)
Chapter 14. Finite Domain Constraint Programming Systems (Christian Schulte, Mats Carlsson) 
Chapter 15. Operations Research Methods in Constraint Programming (John Hooker) 
Chapter 16. Continuous and Interval Constraints(Frederic Benhamou, Laurent Granvilliers) 
Chapter 17. Constraints over Structured Domains
(Carmen Gervet) 
Chapter 18. Randomness and Structure (Carla Gomes, Toby Walsh)
Chapter 19. Temporal CSPs (Manolis Koubarakis)
Chapter 20. Distributed Constraint Programming
(Boi Faltings) 
Chapter 21. Uncertainty and Change (Kenneth N. Brown, Ian Miguel)
Chapter 22. Constraint-Based Scheduling and Planning
(Philippe Baptiste, Philippe Laborie, Claude Le Pape, Wim Nuijten)
Chapter 23. Vehicle Routing (Philip Kilby, Paul Shaw) 
Chapter 24. Configuration (Ulrich Junker)
Chapter 25. Constraint Applications in Networks
(Helmut Simonis)
Chapter 26. Bioinformatics and Constraints (Rolf Backofen, David Gilbert)

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Handbook of Constraint Programming

해외산업간호정보 - 미국 산업안전보건연구원(National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) 소개

Although the concepts of Jacobian matrix, manipulability, and condition number have existed since the very early beginning of robotics their real significance is not always well understood. In this paper we revisit these concepts for parallel robots as accuracy indices in view of optimal design. We first show that the usual Jacobian matrix derived from the input-output velocities equations may not be sufficient to analyze the positioning errors of the platform. We then examine the concept of manipulability and show that its classical interpretation is erroneous. We then consider various common local dexterity indices, most of which are based on the condition number of the Jacobian matrix. It is emphasized that even for a given robot in a particular pose there are a variety of condition numbers and that their values are not coherent between themselves but also with what we may expect from an accuracy index. Global conditioning indices are then examined. Apart from the problem of being based on the local accuracy indices that are questionable, there is a computational problem in their calculation that is neglected most of the time. Finally, we examine what other indices may be used for optimal design and show that their calculation is most challenging.

/pdf/jacobian-manipulability-condition-number-and-accuracy-of-5ecm213mgd.pdf

Jacobian, Manipulability, Condition Number, and Accuracy of Parallel Robots

Parallel robots are nowadays leaving academic laboratories and are finding their way in an increasingly larger number of application fields such as telescopes, fine positioning devices, fast packaging, machine-tool, medical application. A key issue for such use is optimal design as performances of parallel robots are very sensitive to their dimensioning. Optimal design methodologies have to rely on kinetostatic performance indices and accuracy is clearly a key-issue for many applications. It has also be a key-issue for serial robots and consequently this problem has been extensively studied and various accuracy indices have been defined. The results have been in general directly transposed to parallel robots. We will now review how well these indices are appropriate for parallel robots.

/pdf/jacobian-manipulability-condition-number-and-accuracy-of-3enayjm37o.pdf

Jacobian, manipulability, condition number and accuracy of parallel robots

This paper demonstrates that any general 3-DOF three-legged planar parallel robot with extensible legs ca n change assembly modes without passing through parallel sin gu- larities (configurations where the mobile platform loses it s stiff- ness). While the results are purely theoretical, this paperques- tions the very definition of parallel singularities.

Changing Assembly Modes without Passing Parallel Singularities in Non-Cuspidal 3-RPR Planar Parallel Robots

Biomechanical motion simulation and kinetic analysis of human joints and muscles provide insights into Musculoskeletal disorders. OpenSim is an open-source platform that give easy access to biomechanical analysis, especially of muscles. The biomechanical analysis in OpenSim is based on pre-defined human models. Among the dozens of models available right now, none covers the muscles and joints of all the body parts. In view of the fact that most human motions are systemic, the lack of a comprehensive model prohibits synthesized and systematical biomechanical analysis. The aim of this research is to develop an OpenSim model which enables the full-chain dynamic analysis of tasks involving multi-bodies. The model is developed based on two existing models. It consists of 45 body segments, 424 muscles and 39 degrees of freedom. The model was then used to simulate an overhead drilling task. Six drilling postures are analyzed, and the estimated joint moments and muscle activations are compared .

/pdf/a-full-chain-opensim-model-and-its-application-on-posture-2yuy4206a2.pdf

A Full-Chain OpenSim Model and Its Application on Posture Analysis of an Overhead Drilling Task

In this paper, a new methodology for the optimal design of the secondary geometric parameters (shape of links, size of the platform, etc.) of parallel kinematic machine tools is proposed. This approach aims at minimizing the total mass of the robot under position accuracy constraints. This methodology is applied to two translational parallel robots with three degrees-of-freedom (DOF): the Y-STAR and the UraneSX. The proposed approach is able to speed up the design process and to help the designer to find more quickly a set of design parameters.Copyright © 2010 by ASME

/pdf/technology-oriented-optimization-of-the-secondary-design-3l33d9nypd.pdf

Technology-Oriented Optimization of the Secondary Design Parameters of Robots for High-Speed Machining Applications

This paper presents an algorithm for detecting and computing the cusp points in the joint space of 3-RPR planar parallel manipulators. In manipulator kinematics, cusp points are special points, which appear on the singular curves of the manipulators. The nonsingular change of assembly mode of 3-RPR parallel manipulators was shown to be associated with the existence of cusp points. At each of these points, three direct kinematic solutions coincide. In the literature, a condition for the existence of three coincident direct kinematic solutions was established, but has never been exploited, because the algebra involved was too complicated to be solved. The algorithm presented in this paper solves this equation and detects all the cusp points in the joint space of these manipulators.

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00145468/document

An Algorithm for Computing Cusp Points in the Joint Space of 3-RPR Parallel Manipulators

The work presented here is aimed at introducing a virtual human controller in a virtual prototyping framework. After a brief introduction describing the problem solved in the paper, we describe the interest as for digital humans in the context of concurrent engineering. This leads us to draw a control architecture enabling to drive virtual humans in a real-time immersed way, and to interact with the product, through motion capture. Unfortunately, we show this control scheme can lead to unfeasible movements because of the lack of balance control. Introducing such a controller is a problem that was never addressed in the context of real-time. We propose an implementation of a balance controller, that we insert into the previously described control scheme. Next section is dedicated to show the results we obtained. Finally, we propose a virtual reality platform into which the digital character controller is integrated.

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00165075/document

Damien Chablat

Papers

Changing Assembly Modes without Passing Parallel Singularities in Non-Cuspidal 3-RPR Planar Parallel Robots

A Full-Chain OpenSim Model and Its Application on Posture Analysis of an Overhead Drilling Task

Technology-Oriented Optimization of the Secondary Design Parameters of Robots for High-Speed Machining Applications

An Algorithm for Computing Cusp Points in the Joint Space of 3-RPR Parallel Manipulators

Integration of a Balanced Virtual Manikin in a Virtual Reality Platform aimed at Virtual Prototyping