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 article presents a new hand architecture with three under-actuated fingers. Each finger performs spatial movements to achieve more complex and varied grasping than the existing planar-movement fingers. The purpose of this hand is to grasp complex-shaped workpieces as they leave the machining centres. Among the taxonomy of grips, cylindrical and spherical grips are often used to grasp heavy objects. A combination of these two modes makes it possible to capture most of the workpieces machined with 5-axis machines. However, the change in grasping mode requires the fingers to reconfigure themselves to perform spatial movements. This solution requires the addition of two or three actuators to change the position of the fingers and requires sensors to recognize the shape of the workpiece and determine the type of grasp to be used. This article proposes to extend the notion of under-actuated fingers to spatial movements. After a presentation of the kinematics of the fingers, the problem of stability is discussed as well as the transmission of forces in this mechanism. The complete approach for calculating the stability conditions is presented from the study of Jacobian force transmission matrices. CAD representations of the hand and its behavior in spherical and cylindrical grips are presented.

A new robotic hand based on the design of fingers with spatial motions

In this paper, a robot with parallel architecture is pro-posed for charging an electric vehicle having the charging socket on its front side. Kinematic models are developed to design the robot for a given workspace that corresponds to the car’s plug placements. A demonstrator composed by commercial components is shown.

Design of a robot for the automatic charging of an electric car

The paper discusses the kinematics of manipulators builts of planar closed kinematic chains. A special kinematic scheme is extracted from the array of these mechanisms that looks the most promising for the creation of different types of robotic manipulators. The structural features of this manipulator determine a number of its original properties that essentially simplify its control. These features allow the main control problems to be effectively overcome by application of the simple kinematic problems. The workspace and singular configurations of a basic planar manipulator are studied. By using a graphic simulation method, motions of the designed mechanism are examined. A prototype of this mechanism was implemented to verify the proposed approach.

The Kinematics of Manipulators Built From Closed Planar Mechanisms

The paper deals with the analysis of the manipulator actuation mode on the manipulator stiffness behavior. The main scientific contribution of the paper related to advancement of Matrix Structural Analysis (MSA) technique for the case of complex open-loop and closed-loop manipulators. The proposed approach presents the manipulator stiffness model as a homogeneous set of matrix equations describing the link properties that are complemented by a set of constraints describing connections between links that are presented in a similar way as link models. The proposed approach straightforwardly aggregates the stiffness model equations avoiding merging of columns and rows usually used in conventional MSA approach. The efficiency of this approach is illustrated by comparison analysis of NaVaRo manipulator for different actuation modes.

Variable Actuation Modes in Parallel Manipulators: Impact on the Stiffness Behavior

The paper proposes a novel approach for the geometrical model calibration of quasi-isotropic parallel kinematic mechanisms of the Orthoglide family. It is based on the observations of the manipulator leg parallelism during motions between the specific test postures and employs a low-cost measuring system composed of standard comparator indicators attached to the universal magnetic stands. They are sequentially used for measuring the deviation of the relevant leg location while the manipulator moves the TCP along the Cartesian axes. Using the measured differences, the developed algorithm estimates the joint offsets and the leg lengths that are treated as the most essential parameters. Validity of the proposed calibration technique is confirmed by the experimental results.

/pdf/calibration-of-3-d-o-f-translational-parallel-manipulators-2rf3n7lllc.pdf

Damien Chablat

Papers

A new robotic hand based on the design of fingers with spatial motions

Design of a robot for the automatic charging of an electric car

The Kinematics of Manipulators Built From Closed Planar Mechanisms

Variable Actuation Modes in Parallel Manipulators: Impact on the Stiffness Behavior

Calibration of 3-d.o.f. Translational Parallel Manipulators Using Leg Observations