Journal of Bionic Engineering

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An Active Stereo Vision System Based on Neural Pathways of Human Binocular Motor System

Yu-zhang Gu; Makoto Sato;Xiao-lin Zhang

J4. 2007 (4): 185-192. DOI:

摘要 ( 1585 )

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An active stereo vision system based on a model of neural pathways of human binocular motor system is proposed. With this model, it is guaranteed that the two cameras of the active stereo vision system can keep their lines of sight fixed on the same target object during smooth pursuit. This feature is very important for active stereo vision systems, since not only 3D reconstruction needs the two cameras have an overlapping field of vision, but also it can facilitate the 3D reconstruction algorithm. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method, some software simulations are done to demonstrate the same target tracking characteristic in a virtual environment apt to mistracking easily. Here, mistracking means two eyes track two different objects separately. Then the proposed method is implemented in our active stereo vision system to perform real tracking task in a laboratory scene where several persons walk self-determining. Before the proposed model is implemented in the system, mistracking occurred frequently. After it is enabled, mistracking never occurred. The result shows that the vision system based on neural pathways of human binocular motor system can reliably avoid mistracking.

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Development of a Biomimetic Quadruped Robot

Thanhtam Ho;Sunghac Choi; Sangyoon Lee

J4. 2007 (4): 193-199. DOI:

摘要 ( 1581 )

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This paper presents the design and prototype of a small quadruped robot whose walking motion is realized by two piezocomposite actuators. In the design, biomimetic ideas are employed to obtain the agility of motions and sustainability of a heavy load. The design of the robot legs is inspired by the leg configuration of insects, two joints (hip and knee) of the leg enable two basic motions, lifting and stepping. The robot frame is designed to have a slope relative to the horizontal plane, which makes the robot move forward. In addition, the bounding locomotion of quadruped animals is implemented in the robot. Experiments show that the robot can carry an additional load of about 100 g and run with a fairly high velocity. The quadruped prototype can be an important step towards the goal of building an autonomous mobile robot actuated by piezocomposite actuators

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CFD Based Determination of Dynamic Stability Derivatives in Yaw for a Bird

M. A. Moelyadi;G. Sachs

J4. 2007 (4): 201-208. DOI:

摘要 ( 1666 )

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Dynamic yaw stability derivatives of a gull bird are determined using Computational Fluid Dynamics(CFD) method. Two kinds of motions are applied for calculating the dynamic yaw stability derivatives CNr and CN?. The first one relates to a lateral translation and, separately, to a yaw rotation. The second one consists of a combined translational and rotational motion. To determine dynamic yaw stability derivatives, the simulation of an unsteady flow with a bird model showing a harmonic motion is performed. The flow solution for each time step is obtained by solving unsteady Euler equations based on a finite volume approach for a small reduced frequency. Then, an evaluation of unsteady forces and moments for one cycle is conducted using harmonic Fourier analysis. The results of the dynamic yaw stability derivatives for both simulations of the model show a good agreement.

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Optimal Control of a Mackerel-Mimicking Robot for Energy Efficient Trajectory Tracking

Seunghee Lee;Jounghyun Park;Cheolheui Han

J4. 2007 (4): 209-215. DOI:

摘要 ( 1710 )

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A robotic fish, BASEMACK1, is designed and fabricated by mimicking the shape of a live mackerel. Three DC servo-motors are serially linked together and actuated to mimic the mackerel’s Carangiform motion. Hydrodynamic charac-teristics of a fish-mimetic test model are experimentally identified and utilized in order to numerically simulate fish swimming. The discrete set of kinematic and dynamic parameters are obtained by considering required horizontal and lateral forces and minimum energy consumption. Using the optimized parameter set, optimal control of the robot is studied.

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Concept of Intelligent Mechanical Design for Autonomous Mobile Robots

Amir A. F. Nassiraei; Kazuo Ishii

J4. 2007 (4): 217-226. DOI:

摘要 ( 1486 )

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The concept of Intelligent Mechanical Design (IMD) is presented to show how a mechanical structure can be designed to affect robot controllability, simplification and task performance. Exploring this concept produces landmarks in the territory of mechanical robot design in the form of seven design principles. The design principles, which we call the Mecha-Telligence Principles (MTP), provide guidance on how to design mechanics for autonomous mobile robots. These principles guide us to ask the right questions when investigating issues concerning self-controllable, reliable, feasible, and compatible mechanics for autonomous mobile robots. To show how MTP can be applied in the design process we propose a novel methodology, named as Mecha-Telligence Methodology (MTM). Mechanical design by the proposed methodology is based on preference classification of the robot specification described by interaction of the robot with its environment and the physical parameters of the robot mechatronics. After defining new terms, we investigate the feasibility of the proposed methodology to the mechanical design of an autonomous mobile sewer inspection robot. In this industrial project we show how a passive-active intelligent moving mechanism can be designed using the MTM and employed in the field.

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Model Identification of a Micro Air Vehicle

Jorge Niño;Flavius Mitrache;Peter Cosyn;Robin De Keyser

J4. 2007 (4): 227-236. DOI:

摘要 ( 1408 )

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Automated Flight Test and System Identification for Rotary Wing Small Aerial Platform Using Frequency Responses Analysis

Widyawardana Adiprawita;Adang Suwandi Ahmad;Jaka Sembiring

J4. 2007 (4): 237-244. DOI:

摘要 ( 1310 )

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Artificial Pheromone System Using RFID for Navigation of Autonomous Robots

Herianto;Toshiki Sakakibara;Daisuke Kurabayashi

J4. 2007 (4): 245-253. DOI:

摘要 ( 1527 )

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Navigation system based on the animal behavior has received a growing attention in the past few years. The navigation systems using artificial pheromone are still few so far. For this reason, this paper presents our research that aim to implement autonomous navigation with artificial pheromone system. By introducing artificial pheromone system composed of data carriers and autonomous robots, the robotic system creates a potential field to navigate their group. We have developed a pheromone density model to realize the function of pheromones with the help of data carriers. We intend to show the effectiveness of the proposed system by performing simulations and realization using modified mobile robot. The pheromone potential field system can be used for navigation of autonomous robots.

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Extended Evolutionary Fast Learn-to-Walk Approach for Four-Legged Robots

Muh. Anshar;Mary-Anne Williams

J4. 2007 (4): 255-263. DOI:

摘要 ( 1339 )

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Robot locomotion is an active research area. In this paper we focus on the locomotion of quadruped robots. An effective walking gait of quadruped robots is mainly concerned with two key aspects, namely speed and stability. The large search space of potential parameter settings for leg joints means that hand tuning is not feasible in general. As a result walking parameters are typically determined using machine learning techniques. A major shortcoming of using machine learning techniques is the significant wear and tear of robots since many parameter combinations need to be evaluated before an optimal solution is found. This paper proposes a direct walking gait learning approach, which is specifically designed to reduce wear and tear of robot motors, joints and other hardware. In essence we provide an effective learning mechanism that leads to a solution in a faster convergence time than previous algorithms. The results demonstrate that the new learning algorithm obtains a faster conver-gence to the best solutions in a short run. This approach is significant in obtaining faster walking gaits which will be useful for a wide range of applications where speed and stability are important. Future work will extend our methods so that the faster convergence algorithm can be applied to a two legged humanoid and lead to less wear and tear whilst still developing a fast and stable gait.

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Application of Wavelets Transform to Fault Detection in Rotorcraft UAV Sensor Failure

Jun-tong Qi^1,2; Jian-da Han

J4. 2007 (4): 265-270. DOI:

摘要 ( 1449 )

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This paper describes a novel wavelet-based approach to the detection of abrupt fault of Rotorcraft Unmanned Aerial Ve-hicle (RUAV) sensor system. By use of wavelet transforms that accurately localize the characteristics of a signal both in the time and frequency domains, the occurring instants of abnormal status of a sensor in the output signal can be identified by the multi-scale representation of the signal. Once the instants are detected, the distribution differences of the signal energy on all decomposed wavelet scales of the signal before and after the instants are used to claim and classify the sensor faults.

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Optimal Tracking Controller Design for a Small Scale Helicopter

Agus Budiyono；Singgih S. Wibowo

J4. 2007 (4): 271-280. DOI:

摘要 ( 1704 )

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A model helicopter is more difficult to control than its full scale counterpart. This is due to its greater sensitivity to control inputs and disturbances as well as higher bandwidth of dynamics. This work is focused on designing practical tracking controller for a small scale helicopter following predefined trajectories. A tracking controller based on optimal control theory is synthe-sized as a part of the development of an autonomous helicopter. Some issues with regards to control constraints are addressed. The weighting between state tracking performance and control power expenditure is analyzed. Overall performance of the control design is evaluated based on its time domain histories of trajectories as well as control inputs.

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A Switching Controller System for a Wheeled Mobile Robot

Masanori Sato;Atushi Kanda;Kazuo Ishii

J4. 2007 (4): 281-289. DOI:

摘要 ( 1333 )

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A wheeled mobile mechanism with a passive and/or active linkage mechanism for rough terrain environment is developed and evaluated. The wheeled mobile mechanism which has high mobility in rough terrain needs sophisticated system to adapt various environments.
We focus on the development of a switching controller system for wheeled mobile robots in rough terrain. This system consists of two sub-systems: an environment recognition system using link angles and an adaptive control system. In the en-vironment recognition system, we introduce a Self-Organizing Map (SOM) for clustering link angles. In the adaptive control-lers, we introduce neural networks to calculate the inverse model of the wheeled mobile robot.
The environment recognition system can recognize the environment in which the robot travels, and the adjustable con-trollers are tuned by experimental results for each environment. The dual sub-system switching controller system is experi-mentally evaluated. The system recognizes its environment and adapts by switching the adjustable controllers. This system demonstrates superior performance to a well-tuned single PID controller.

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Development of Architectures for Internet Telerobotics Systems

Riyanto T. Bambang

J4. 2007 (4): 291-297. DOI:

摘要 ( 1349 )

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This paper presents our experience in developing and implementing Internet telerobotics system. Internet telerobotics system refers to a robot system controlled and monitored remotely through the Internet. A robot manipulator with five degrees of freedom, called Mentor, is employed. Client-server architecture is chosen as a platform for our Internet telerobotics system. Three generations of telerobotics systems have evolved in this research. The first generation was based on CGI and two tiered architectures, where a client presents a Graphical User Interface to the user, and utilizes the user's data entry and actions to perform requests to robot server running on a different machine. The second generation was developed using Java. We also employ Java 3D for creating and manipulating 3D geometry of manipulator links, and for constructing the structures used in rendering that geometry, resulting in 3D robot movement simulation presented to the users (clients) through their web browser. Recent development in our Internet telerobotics includes object recognition through image captured by a camera, which poses challenging problem, giving the undeterministic latency of the Internet. The third generation is centered around the use of CORBA for development platform of distributed internet telerobotics system, aimed at distributing task of telerobotics system.

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