Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology

About: Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology is a education organization based out in New York, New York, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Gravitational microlensing & Planetary system. The organization has 727 authors who have published 708 publications receiving 14082 citations. The organization is also known as: College of Aeronautics.

A Human-assistive Robotic Platform with Quadrupedal Locomotion *

Abstract: Mobility impairment is becoming a challenging issue around the world with a rapid increase on aging population. Existing tools of walking assistance for mobility-impaired people include passive canes or wheeled rollators which increase energy consumption on the users and disturb the users’ walking rhythm, and powered wheeled chairs which could preclude the muscle activities and accelerate the degeneration of the lower limbs. The research in this paper aiming at helping mobility-impaired people proposes a novel robotic platform with quadrupedal locomotion. With motorized actuation, the quadruped robotic platform could accompany the user at the center and provide protection and possible walking assistance if needed. As the robotic platform is equipped with a leg locomotion, it can enlarge the user’s activity environments, such as both indoor flat floor and outdoor uneven terrain. It can even assist the user to involve in some mobility challenging activities, such as climbing stairs. In this paper, we illustrate the mechanical design of the robotic platform. A continuous gait planning is proposed to create a smooth locomotion for the robot. To quantify the performance, a system-level walking experimentation was conducted, and the results showed that quadruped robotic platform can maintain a statically stability which demonstrate the feasibility and capability of the robotic application for walking assistance.

Characteristics of Fatigue-activated Creep in an Aluminium-Magnesium Alloy

Abstract: EXPERIMENTS have been conducted on thin-walled tubes of an aluminium–magnesium alloy (3.08 per cent magnesium, 0.3 iron, 0.44 manganese, 0.18 silicon) under conditions of simple shear. Two tubes aligned on a common axis are used for each test, the torque being applied through a disk connected to both tubes. The assembly is mounted in a thermostatically controlled enclosure, and to avoid any possible errors due to inertial effects associated with the dynamic stress component, the torque is applied through a spring system. A simple electrical device is used to maintain a constancy of torque (within 1 part in 5 × 103) as the disk rotates during creep. The creep curves are recorded continuously by a photoelectric follower and associated recorder (a ‘Graphi-spot’) which traces the movement of a spot of light reflected from a mirror mounted on the shaft of the torque disk.