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

The impedance matrices of independent point fingers of a multifingered gripper map to the impedance matrix of a grasped workpart. We find that in a planar geometry, three fingers are enough to allow an unrestricted range of workpart impedances, if finger impedances are selectable. In a spatial geometry however, five fingers are necessary for the broadest range of workpart impedances, and even so there is one impedance matrix that a workpart cannot attain regardless of the number of fingers that grasp it. We find this "unattainable" impedance matrix. We also characterize the impedance restrictions on workparts grasped with fewer than five spatial or three planar fingers.

/pdf/impedance-restrictions-on-independent-finger-grippers-4geu8lh7eh.pdf

Impedance restrictions on independent finger grippers

There are many roles for electromechanical devices in image guided surgery. One is to help a surgeon accurately follow a preoperative plan. Devices for this purpose may be localizers, robots1, or recently, synergistic systems in which surgeon and mechanism physically share control of the surgical tool. This paper discusses available technologies, and some emerging technologies, for guiding a surgical tool. Characteristics of each technology are discussed, and related to the needs which arise in surgical procedures. Three different approaches to synergistic systems, under study by the authors (PADyC, ACROBOT, and Cobots), are highlighted.

Synergistic mechanical devices: a new generation of medical robots

We examine the motion control bandwidth and stable impedance range of the Cobotic Hand Controller, a novel, six-degree-of-freedom, admittance controlled haptic display. A highly geared admittance architecture is often used to render high impedances with reasonable sized actuators for a haptic display. The Cobotic Hand Controller is perhaps the ultimate realization of an admittance display, since it is capable of obtaining an infinite gear ratio and can render infinite impedances (up to its own structural stiffness). The incorporation of continuously variable transmissions in the Cobotic Hand Controller provides for an extremely wide, sta ble z-width, since the transmission ratio can be adjusted quickly to vary the backdrivability. However, finite preloads in the transmissions limit the display’s acceleration capabilities. We examine the control challenges and performance characteristics of the Cobotic Hand Controller for free motion and unilateral impact virtual environment scenarios.

/pdf/control-and-performance-of-the-rotational-to-linear-cobotic-wrxwp021d9.pdf

Control and Performance of the Rotational-to-Linear Cobotic Transmission

This paper presents an initial study of a soft wearable tactile device that stimulates the finger pad via lateral forces. The device is wrapped around the finger and consists of a 4 × 4 array of pucks with a 2.6 mm pitch. Users interact with a magnet that achieves displacements of ± 56 µm. Two psychophysical experiments were conducted to explore the utility of the device. They showed that the lateral forces obtained were sufficient for the perception of angled lines, and the array-based system provided repeatable edge detection.

A Soft Wearable Tactile Device Using Lateral Skin Stretch

This paper presents enhanced remote manipulation of tools for D&D tasks by extending teleoperation with teleautonomy and tele-collaboration. This work builds on a reactive, agent-based control architecture, which is well suited to unstructured and unpredictable environments, and cobot control technology, which implements a virtual fixture that can be used to guide the application of tools with passive force-feedback control. Developed methodologies are tested using simulation, and then planned to be implemented using a structured light sensor and cobot hand controller on a dual-arm system to measure the enhanced performance of key tool operations that are tedious and difficult to perform purely by teleoperation. This work significantly leverages some 2000 hours of operational experience gained during the D&D of the CP-5 reactor at ANL using a dual-arm remote manipulator system, as well as DOE's investment in the dual-arm system itself, which will serve as a test bed for the proposed investigations.

/pdf/enhanced-teleoperation-exhibiting-tele-autonomy-and-tele-39qxie8y2m.pdf

Michael A. Peshkin

Papers

Impedance restrictions on independent finger grippers

Synergistic mechanical devices: a new generation of medical robots

Control and Performance of the Rotational-to-Linear Cobotic Transmission

A Soft Wearable Tactile Device Using Lateral Skin Stretch

Enhanced teleoperation exhibiting tele-autonomy and tele-collaboration.