Planning algorithms are impacting technical disciplines and industries around the world, including robotics, computer-aided design, manufacturing, computer graphics, aerospace applications, drug design, and protein folding. This coherent and comprehensive book unifies material from several sources, including robotics, control theory, artificial intelligence, and algorithms. The treatment is centered on robot motion planning but integrates material on planning in discrete spaces. A major part of the book is devoted to planning under uncertainty, including decision theory, Markov decision processes, and information spaces, which are the “configuration spaces” of all sensor-based planning problems. The last part of the book delves into planning under differential constraints that arise when automating the motions of virtually any mechanical system. Developed from courses taught by the author, the book is intended for students, engineers, and researchers in robotics, artificial intelligence, and control theory as well as computer graphics, algorithms, and computational biology.

Planning Algorithms: Introductory Material

http://ee.sharif.edu/~miap/Files/A%20Survey%20of%20Medical%20Image%20Registration.pdf

A survey of medical image registration.

A survey of models, analysis tools and compensation methods for the control of machines with friction

Skin plays an important role in mediating our interactions with the world. Recreating the properties of skin using electronic devices could have profound implications for prosthetics and medicine. The pursuit of artificial skin has inspired innovations in materials to imitate skin's unique characteristics, including mechanical durability and stretchability, biodegradability, and the ability to measure a diversity of complex sensations over large areas. New materials and fabrication strategies are being developed to make mechanically compliant and multifunctional skin-like electronics, and improve brain/machine interfaces that enable transmission of the skin's signals into the body. This Review will cover materials and devices designed for mimicking the skin's ability to sense and generate biomimetic signals.

Pursuing prosthetic electronic skin.

Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) has recently received considerable attention in the academic community, in labs, in technology companies, and through the media. Because of this attention, it is desirable to present a survey of HRI to serve as a tutorial to people outside the field and to promote discussion of a unified vision of HRI within the field. The goal of this review is to present a unified treatment of HRI-related problems, to identify key themes, and discuss challenge problems that are likely to shape the field in the near future. Although the review follows a survey structure, the goal of presenting a coherent "story" of HRI means that there are necessarily some well-written, intriguing, and influential papers that are not referenced. Instead of trying to survey every paper, we describe the HRI story from multiple perspectives with an eye toward identifying themes that cross applications. The survey attempts to include papers that represent a fair cross section of the universities, government efforts, industry labs, and countries that contribute to HRI, and a cross section of the disciplines that contribute to the field, such as human, factors, robotics, cognitive psychology, and design.

/pdf/human-robot-interaction-a-survey-4q8yi606a9.pdf

Human-Robot Interaction: A Survey

T15.1 Draft Standard for Trial Use for Intelligent Assist Devices - Personnel Safety Requirement

The physics of motion of a sliding object can be used to plan sensorless robot manipulation strategies. Prediction of a sliding object's motion is difficult because the object's distribution of support on the surface, and the resulting frictional forces, are in general unknown. This paper describes a new approach to the analysis of sliding motion, which finds the set of object motions for all distributions of support. The analysis results in the definition of discrete regions of guaranteed sticking and slipping behavior which lend themselves to use in planning. Unlike previous work our approach produces quantitative bounds on the rate at which predicted motions can occur. To illustrate a manipulation plan which requires quantitative information for its construction, we consider a strategy based on "herding" a sliding disk toward a central goal by moving a robot finger in a decreasing spiral about the goal. The optimal spiral is constructed, and its performance discussed.

/pdf/planning-sensorless-robot-manipulation-of-sliding-objects-1m0lefmwjr.pdf

Planning sensorless robot manipulation of sliding objects

An apparatus and method are provided for coordinating two fluoroscope images (62, 86), which permit accurate computer-based planning of the insertion point and angle of approach of a needle, drill, screw, nail, wire or other surgical instrumentation into the body of a patient, and subsequently guide the surgeon in performing the insertion in accordance with the plan.

Stereotactic surgical procedure apparatus and method

Controlling the Apparent Inertia of Passive Human-Interactive

Revolute-jointed cobots depend on continuously variable transmissions (CVTs). CVTs constrain the speed ratio between two shafts to a particular value within a continuous range. The spherical CVT is well suited to cobots, but like other point contact transmissions, achieving good performance is challenging. We have studied the contact mechanics of the spherical CVT under certain simplifying assumptions. Results of the calculations are compared to experimental measurements of an instrumented CVT. Improved CVT performance may require better control of compliance and contact forces in the CVT. Results for the contact forces under load conditions are shown. We conclude with a discussion of design implications for improved CVTs.Copyright © 2002 by ASME

/pdf/toward-improved-cvts-theoretical-and-experimental-results-155j1pdrt0.pdf

Michael A. Peshkin

Papers

T15.1 Draft Standard for Trial Use for Intelligent Assist Devices - Personnel Safety Requirement

Planning sensorless robot manipulation of sliding objects

Stereotactic surgical procedure apparatus and method

Controlling the Apparent Inertia of Passive Human-Interactive

Toward improved CVTs: theoretical and experimental results