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.

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

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.