1,721,020 research outputs found
Approaching Human Performance - The Functionality-Driven Awiwi Robot Hand
No full textHumanoid robotics have made remarkable progress since the dawn of robotics. So why don't we have humanoid robot assistants in day-to-day life yet? This book analyzes the keys to building a successful humanoid robot for field robotics, where collisions become an unavoidable part of the game. The
author argues that the design goal should be real anthropomorphism, as opposed to mere human-like appearance. He deduces three major characteristics to aim for when designing a humanoid robot, particularly robot hands:
_ Robustness against impacts
_ Fast dynamics
_ Human-like grasping and manipulation performance
Instead of blindly copying human anatomy, this book opts for a holistic design me-tho-do-lo-gy. It analyzes human hands and existing robot hands to elucidate the important functionalities that are the building blocks toward these necessary characteristics.They are the keys to designing an anthropomorphic robot hand, as illustrated in the high performance anthropomorphic Awiwi Hand presented in this book.
This is not only a handbook for robot hand designers. It gives a comprehensive survey and analysis of the state of the art in robot hands as well as the human anatomy. It is also aimed at researchers and roboticists interested in the underlying functionalities of hands, grasping and manipulation.
The methodology of functional abstraction is not limited to robot hands, it can also help realize a new generation of humanoid robots to accommodate a broader spectrum of the needs of human society
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
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Why the State of the Art Matters: The Importance of Functional Abstraction in Robot Hand Design
No full textDespite 40 years of research in the field of robotic hands, the reproduction of human capabilities for dexterous manipulation still seems far to be achieved by state-of-the-art technologies. From a design perspective, even defining what are the “optimal functionalities” of a robotic hand is a very challenging task due to the number of different requirements in terms of degrees of freedom, force, speed, compactness, robustness and so on.
In the specific fields of humanoid robotics and prosthetics, the robotic hand is expected to provide high flexibility and adaptability, ideally replicating the overall functionality of the human hand. The general perception, however, is that current robotic hands able to provide (even limited) human-like dexterity and functionalities are either too complex and expensive or too bulky and unreliable to truly represent effective solutions for the market, limiting their usage to research labs.
A closer look to the specific aspects involved in the development of a robotic hand shows that, even if the mechanical structure of the device is somehow inspired by the biological counterpart, a large range of solutions can be found for the implementation of joints, actuators and sensors, but none of those represents “the” solution to the specific problem.
Also from the point of view of control algorithms and user interfaces, the actual scenario is quite controversial, since the use of current robotic hands is in some way largely limited by the difficulties in task planning, problem that is sometimes amplified by the limited portability of the solutions developed for a specific hand to the others. The result is that only very specialized and well-trained experts can effectively use a specific robotic hand exploiting its full potential, while the generalization and the standardization of the robotic hand control problem is still a serious issue
Approaching human performance: The functionality driven Awiwi robot hand
No full textHumanoid robotics have achieved a remarkable state in recent years. Nowadays humanoids can walk stairs, serve coffee, throw and catch balls and interact with human beings. However, most of these demonstrations and applications take place in well known environments or even in surroundings that have been adapted to the robots capabilities and needs. However, in order to assist the human in every day tasks, the robot has to operate in (partially) unknown environments in most cases. In these unknown environments and in interaction with moving obstacles as well as human beings, collision avoidance is vague notion. Consequently, this dissertation hypothesizes that the operation of humanoid robots outside of environments dedicated to operate the robots implies that robots have to be able to complete tasks even in case of collision.
This especially applies to robot hands, since they are the most exposed and fragile part of a humanoid robot. Humanoid robots have to be anthropomorphic in sense of providing not only human-like appearance but also human characteristics. In particular they have to provide: Robustness against impacts, fast dynamics, human-like grasping and manipulation performance
To achieve this robustness and fast dynamics, from the author's point of view, a paradigm change has to be done
. Future robots have to be able to store energy
as suggested by T. Morita [Morita et al. 1999]. In this thesis the anthropomorphic Awiwi Hand is developed, which provides human-like robustness and dynamics as well as grasping performance. To achieve these characteristics, the human anatomy as well as existing robot hands are analyzed. The goal of this analysis is to derive the functionalities needed to achieve real anthropomorphism rather than to blindly copy the human being. These abstract functionalities are then implemented to a robotic hand. The achieved anthropomorphic characteristics of the Awiwi Hand are demonstrated in several experiments. The Awiwi Hand is able to withstand the impact of a 500 g hammer at high velocity without any damage. It can still keep objects firmly grasped even when struck by an 750 g object at a speed of approximately 4 m/s. The energy stored in the elastic elements of its antagonistic drive train allows the fingers of the hand to achieve a maximum finger speed of approximately 3500 grad/s which is more than five times the speed provided by the drives alone. The Awiwi Hand is, to the author’s knowledge, the first robot hand able to perform all grasps of M. Cutkoskys grasp taxonomy [Cutkosky 1989].
The robustness, fast dynamics and grasping performance of the Awiwi Hand is thought to enable future humanoid robots to operate in "field robotics" rather than in laboratories built for the robots. It will speed up the development of robotic applications since developers will no longer have to bother to avoid possibly costly collisions of the robot. Methods such as reinforcement learning, which need failed task execution attempts to succeed, can be used without fears of severely damaging the robot. The method underlying this development is not limited to robot hands. The proposed methodology will help realize a new generation of humanoid robots that can assist the human being even in harsh environments without damage and for example might fall over without damage. They will hopefully accommodate the demand of the human society for robot assistants that is well documented by the public interest in humanoid robotics
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