1,720,973 research outputs found
SullyVRStereo
No full textSullyVRStereo is an innovative virtual reality application designed to provide an immersive and collaborative experience in robot manipulation. The application, installed directly on the VR visor, projects real-time images captured by cameras mounted on a follower robot. This allows the leader, through a master device, to control the robot intuitively and naturally, as if it were physically present in the work environment
Towards online myoelectric control based on muscle synergies-to-force mapping for robotic applications
No full textThe development of a functional myoelectric control represents a big challenge within the researchers community, due to the complexity of mapping the user’s movement intention onto the control signals. It is continuously gaining attention since it could be useful for building natural, intuitive and tailored human–machine interfaces. In this context, muscle synergies-based approaches are playing an important role since they may be useful to exploit the modular organization of the musculoskeletal system.
Muscle synergies-based myo-control schemes have shown promising results when they are trained and validated at the same limb pose. However, dealing with a muscle-to-force mapping variability across multiple limb poses remains an open challenge, thus keeping these techniques unusable in several real application scenarios, e.g. rehabilitation contexts.
In this paper, the authors propose a method able to compute the synergies-to-force mapping of a new limb pose by interpolation, with the knowledge of the synergies-to-force mapping related to a limited set of limb poses. The proposed interpolation-based approach has been evaluated on three different kind of mappings: muscle-to-force, “Pose-Shared” synergies-to-force and “Pose-Related” synergies-to-force. The muscle-to-force mapping considers a direct map between muscles and hand force. Both synergies-to-force approaches consider a map between muscle synergies and hand force, but, the “Pose-Shared” mapping assumes that the muscle patterns can be factorized using data coming from different limb poses, whereas the “Pose-Related” one assumes that each pose has its own set of muscle primitives that can be clustered together. The generalization capability of the proposed approach has been evaluated by comparing performances obtained in untrained conditions with the ones obtained in trained upper limb poses. Results showed that synergies-based approach substantially reduce the performance loss when tested on untrained upper-limb’s poses, demonstrating that muscle synergies may be suitable to be shared across different working conditions. Moreover, the feasibility of the proposed approach has been preliminary tested in an online condition, demonstrating that the subject was able to accomplish the force task by controlling a virtual cursor with his muscular activations
Evaluation of a Haptic-Actuated Glove for Remote Human Robot-Interaction (HRI): A Proof of Concept Poster
No full textTraditional teleoperation systems rely primarily on visual feedback, often via virtual reality (VR) head-mounted displays, which may be insufficient
in complex or dynamic environments, increasing the risk of collisions. Thus, haptic feedback was investigated to enhance Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV) teleoperation by improving obstacle detection. The haptic feedback was provided to the operator using a glove equipped with two motors that gave tactile cues based on obstacle proximity. Thus, the glove applied low torques to the operator’s hand. Therefore, an experiment was conducted on 30 participants to observe the effect of the haptic-actuated glove. So, a dataset was gathered, and different metrics were computed from the data to evaluate participants’ awareness, control precision, and responsiveness. Hence, the results proved the advantages of controlling mobile robots in complex environments for high-precision applications, such as hazardous material handling, exploration, search, and rescue.
Poster presented at the Event named European Robotic Forum 2025 (ERF2025)
Virtual Dashboard Design for Grasping Operations in Teleoperation Systems
No full textA known issue in teleoperation concerns dexterity in grasping objects, which can be severely limited if not properly coupled with perfect stereoscopic vision and force/tactile feedback.
This work presents the development and testing of a subsystem used for a virtual dashboard within the Sully teleoperation system, with hardware and software components. It is used to capture images, gather object information, and display a virtual dashboard that provides the operator with information about the distance and reachability of objects, to support stereoscopic vision visualized through a virtual reality headset.
The hardware consists of two front cameras, used as eyes for the teleoperated robot, and two Time-of-Flight (ToF) sensors to estimate the distance between the teleoperated robot and the Object of Interest (OoI).
The software processes images captured by cameras to identify the objects, detects the OoI, and estimates its distance from the robot using the measurements of ToF sensors.
Performance results showed an optimal trade-off between image quality, frame rate, and use experience.
Indeed, a mean accuracy of 88% was achieved in identifying and detecting OoIs, and an average mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 1.40% to estimate the distance from the robot to the OoI at 120 cm
Evaluating Generalization Capability of Bio-inspired Models for a Myoelectric Control: A Pilot Study
No full textThe rapid growing interest in the field of wearable robots opens the challenge for the development of intuitive and natural control strategies for establishing an effective human-robot interaction. The myoelectric control could be a valid solution for achieving this goal, since it is a strategy based on decoding the human motor intentions from surface electromyographic signals (sEMG) and mapping them into the control output.
In this work we propose a bio-inspired myocontrol approach able to generalize the hand force estimation in the central point of a rectangle shaped workspace, after being trained and interpolated using data acquired on the vertexes only.
We compared performance of the proposed approach (featuring factorization and clustering techniques for building muscles patterns valid in the whole workspace) versus the ones obtained using the classical muscle synergies extraction strategy and without the use of muscle synergies.
Obtained results show that all the three tested approaches were able to generalize. Moreover, with the proposed approach, we were able to closely estimate the muscle patterns in the testing point, suggesting the possibility of a better generalization capability (compared to other approaches) when increasing the size of the workspace
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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