Three-dimensional Construction and Omni-directional Rolling Analysis of a Novel Frame-like Lattice Modular Robot

Lattice modular robots possess diversity actuation methods, such as electric telescopic rod, gear rack, magnet, robot arm, etc. The researches on lattice modular robots mainly focus on their hardware descriptions and reconfiguration algorithms. Meanwhile, their design architectures and actuation methods perform slow telescopic and moving speeds, relative low actuation force verse weight ratio, and without internal space to carry objects. To improve the mechanical performance and reveal the locomotion and reconfiguration binary essences of the lattice modular robots, a novel cube-shaped, frame-like, pneumatic-based reconfigurable robot module called pneumatic expandable cube（PE-Cube） is proposed. The three-dimensional（3D） expanding construction and omni-directional rolling analysis of the constructed robots are the main focuses. The PE-Cube with three degrees of freedom（Do Fs） is assembled by replacing the twelve edges of a cube with pneumatic cylinders. The proposed symmetric construction condition makes the constructed robots possess the same properties in each supporting state, and a binary control strategy cooperated with binary actuator（pneumatic cylinder） is directly adopted to control the PE-Cube. Taking an eight PE-Cube modules＇ construction as example, its dynamic rolling simulation, static rolling condition, and turning gait are illustrated and discussed. To testify telescopic synchronization, respond speed, locomotion feasibility, and repeatability and reliability of hardware system, an experimental pneumatic-based robotic system is built and the rolling and turning experiments of the eight PE-Cube modules＇ construction are carried out. As an extension, the locomotion feasibility of a thirty-two PE-Cube modules＇ construction is analyzed and proved, including dynamic rolling simulation, static rolling condition, and dynamic analysis in free tipping process. The proposed PE-Cube module, construction method, and locomotion analysis enrich the family of the lattice modular robot and provide the instruction to design the lattice modular robot.

AlGaInP thin-film LED with omni-directionally reflector and ITO transparent conducting n-type contact

In this paper a novel A1GalnP thin-film light-emitting diode （LED） with omni-directionally reflector （ODR） and transparent conducting indium tin oxide （ITO） n-type contact structure is proposed, and fabrication process is developed. This reflector is realized with the combination of a low-refractive-index dielectric layer and a high reflectivity metal layer. This allows the light emitted or internally reflected downwardly towards the GaAs substrate at any angle of incidence to be reflected towards the top surface of the chip. ITO n-type contact is used for anti-reflection and current spreading layers on the ODR-LED with ITO. The sheet resistance of the ITO films （95 nm） deposited on n- ohmic contact of ODR-LED is of the order 23.5Ω/△ with up to 90% transmittance （above 92% for 590-770 nm） in the visible region of the spectrum. The optical and electrical characteristics of the ODR-LED with ITO are presented and compared to conventional AS-LED and ODR-LED without ITO. It is shown that the light output from the ODR-LED with ITO at forward current 20mA exceeds that of AS-LED and ODR-LED without ITO by about a factor of 1.63 and 0.16, respectively. A favourable luminous intensity of 218.3 mcd from the ODR-LED with ITO （peak wavelength 620 nm） could be obtained under 20 mA injection, which is 2.63 times and 1.21 times higher than that of AS-LED and ODR-LED without ITO, respectively.

A New Compact Omni-Directional Quasi-Self-Complementary Antenna for Wireless Communication Systems

This article describes a new miniaturized omni-directional antenna with quasi-self-complementary structure for wireless communication applications. A novel ground structure composed of five rectangular plates is proposed to enhance the impedance bandwidth and reduce the antenna size. The proposed antenna is comprised of two patches surrounded by the ground structure. Two metal patches of the antenna are located on two opposite sides of the dielectric substrate. The feed patch is used to excite the radiation patch. This unique design is realized by properly choosing the suitable feed patch shape, selecting similar slot shape on the radiation patch, and tuning their dimensions. The proposed antenna with an extremely small size of 6 mm × 9 mm has an operating impedance bandwidth ranging from 4.5 to 6.1 GHz for S11 < -10 dB, which also covers the two IEEE 802.11a wireless local area network bands (5.15 - 5.35 GHz and 5.725 - 5.825 GHz). In addition to be very small in size, the antenna exhibits omni-directional radiation patterns in the entire operating bandwidth and low cross polarization. The distortionless time domain performance of the antenna is confirmed by investigation of the phase response and group delay. The obtained results in both frequency and time domain show that the proposed antenna is suitable for use in wireless communication systems.

Omni-directional mirror for visible light based on one-dimensional photonic crystal

The omni-directional reflection characteristics of one-dimensional photonic crystals composed of Ta2O5/MgF2 multi-quantum well （MQW） are studied using the transfer matrix method. An omnidirectional reflector consisting of three and four Ta2O5/MgF2 MQWs is investigated. Results show that the photonic band gap of the photonic crystal composed of three and four Ta2O5/MgF2 MQWs, which are within the wavelength ranges of 402-712 and 412-1,023 nm, respectively, could cover the entire visible region. The relationship among the width of the band gap, its location, reflectivity rate, and incident angle of the incident light is analyzed. The optimal structural parameters of the MQW of the omni-directional reflector in the visible region are also calculated. The calculations provide a guide for the design of omni- directional reflection devices in the visible region.

Development of an Omni-Directional Shear Horizontal Wave Transducer Based on a Radially Poled Piezoelec trie Ring

For the inspection of large plate-like structures,the omni-directional guided wave transducer-based system has been regarded as an effective tool since only a few transducers are required to cover the entire inspection area without blind zones.In comparison with Lamb waves,the shear horizontal(SH)wave is more promising because its fundamental mode is non-dispersive.In this work,we proposed an omni-directional SH wave piezoelec trie t ransducer(OSH-PT)based on a radially poled d24-mode PZT ring.Eoth the finite element simulations and experiments were carried out to demonstrate its performance in generating and receiving SH°wave.Results showed that the radially poled OSH-PT could generate single-mode SHo wave and receive SHo wave only over a wide frequency range from 70 to 200 kHz.The obtained signal-to-noise ratio can reach up to 26 dB in generation and 24 dB in reception.The omni-directivity of this OSH-PT is also very good with the deviation only about 6%in both generation and reception of SHo wave.Considering its easy fabrication,low cost and superior performances,this proposed OSH-PT may promote the applications of SHo wave-based inspection in structural health monitoring and nondestructive testing.

V-Shaped Monopole Antenna with Chichena Itzia Inspired Defected Ground Structure for UWB Applications

Due to rapid growth in wireless communication technology,higher bandwidth requirement for advance telecommunication systems,capable of operating on two or higher bands with higher channel capacities and minimum distortion losses is desired.In this paper,a compact Ultra-Wideband(UWB)V-shaped monopole antenna is presented.UWB response is achieved by modifying the ground plane with Chichen Itzia inspired rectangular staircase shape.The proposed V-shaped is designed by incorporating a rectangle,and an inverted isosceles triangle using FR4 substrate.The size of the antenna is 25 mm×26 mm×1.6 mm.The proposed V-shaped monopole antenna produces bandwidth response of 3 GHz Industrial,Scientific,and Medical(ISM),Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access(WiMAX),(IEEE 802.11/HIPERLAN band,5G sub 6 GHz)which with an additional square cut amplified the bandwidth response up to 8 GHz ranging from 3.1 GHz to 10.6 GHz attaining UWB defined by Federal Communications Commission(FCC)with a maximum gain of 3.83 dB.The antenna is designed in Ansys HFSS.Results for key performance parameters of the antenna are presented.The measured results are in good agreement with the simulated results.Due to flat gain,uniform group delay,omni directional radiation pattern characteristics and well-matched impedance,the proposed antenna is suitable for WiMAX,ISM and heterogeneous wireless systems.

Antenna and Anti-antenna

One of today’s actual problems in the field of antennas is the possibility of developing a small wideband antenna,which can work without grounding.Absence of these antennas can lead to serious problems for example in case of designing small transceivers for cellular systems.In this article we show a proposed version of these antennas.Today there do not exist theoretical investigations of connections between electromagnetic fields and currents in flat metallic plates.Therefore,the basis of this work is optimization of proposed antenna construction by simulations.

Development of Nanostructured Antireflection Coatings for EO/IR Sensor and Solar Cell Applications

Electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) sensors and photovoltaic power sources are being developed for a variety of defense and commercial applications. One of the critical technologies that will enhance both EO/IR sensor and photovoltaic module performance is the development of high quality nanostructure-based antireflection coatings. In this paper, we review our work on advanced antireflection structures that have been designed by using a genetic algorithm and fabricated by using oblique angle deposition. The antireflection coatings are designed for the wavelength range of 250 nm to 2500 nm and an incidence angle between 00 and 400. These nanostructured antireflection coatings are shown to enhance the optical transmission through transparent windows over a wide band of interest and minimize broadband reflection losses to less than one percent, a substantial improvement over conventional thin-film antireflection coating technologies.

Wave Transmission in Dispersive Si-Based One Dimensional Photonic Crystal

Transmission of electromagnetic waves through a Si-based one dimensional photonic crystal has been investigated. The proposed structure works as an omni-directional reflector for a certain range of wavelength for an angle of incidence up to 55?. The structure works as a narrow band TM-polarization filter for an angle of incidence more than 55?, i.e. a filter which completely blocks TE-polarized waves but allows certain wavelengths of TM-polarized waves. But at an angle of incidence of 89?, the structure works as a multiple narrow band TM-polarization filter even though no defect layer is introduced inside the structure. It is also found that this multiple narrow pass-bands of TM-polarized waves can be tuned to a desired range of wavelength by changing the temperature of the structure.

Monitoring a Wide Manufacture Field Automatically by Multiple Sensors

This research is dedicated to develop a safety measurement for human-machine cooperative system, in which the machine region and the human region cannot be separated due to the overlap and the movement both from human and from machines. Our proposal here is to automatically monitor the moving objects by image sensing/recognition method, such that the machine system can get enough information about the environment situation and about the production progress at any time, and therefore the machines can accordingly take some corresponding actions automatically to avoid hazard. For this purpose, two types of monitor systems are proposed. The first type is based on the omni directional vision sensor, and the second is based on the stereo vision sensor. Each type may be used alone or together with another type, depending on the safety system's requirements and the specific situation of the manufacture field to be monitored. In this paper, the description about these two types are given, and as for the special application of these image sensors into safety control, the construction of a hierarchy safety system is proposed.

Residuals-Based Deep Least Square Support Vector Machine with Redundancy Test Based Model Selection to Predict Time Series

In this paper, we propose a novel Residuals-Based Deep Least Squares Support Vector Machine(RBDLSSVM). In the RBD-LSSVM, multiple LSSVMs are sequentially connected. The second LSSVM uses the fitting residuals of the first LSSVM as input time series, and the third LSSVM trains the residuals of the second, and so on. The original time series is the input of the first LSSVM. Additionally, to obtain the best hyper-parameters for the RBD-LSSVM, we propose a model validation method based on redundancy test using Omni-Directional Correlation Function(ODCF). This method is based on the fact when a model is appropriate for a given time series, there should be no information or correlation in the residuals. We propose the use of ODCF as a statistic to detect nonlinear correlation between two random variables. Thus, we can select hyper-parameters without encountering overfitting,which cannot be avoided by only cross validation using the validation set. We conducted experiments on two time series: annual sunspot number series and monthly Total Column Ozone(TCO) series in New Delhi. Analysis of the prediction results and comparisons with recent and past studies demonstrate the promising performance of the proposed RBD-LSSVM approach with redundancy test based model selection method for modeling and predicting nonlinear time series.

Design of hexagon microstrip antenna for vehicle-to-vehicle communication

Considering the shortcomings of the existing vehicle-to-vehicle（V2V） communication antennas, this paper proposes a regular hexagon broadband microstrip antenna. By loading shorting pins and etching V-shape slots with different size at each angle of the regular hexagon patch, it realizes impedance matching and obtains better impedance bandwidth. The simulated results show that the relative bandwidth of this antenna reaches 35.55%, covers the frequency band of 4.74 GHz to 6.79 GHz. The antenna acquires an omni-directional radiation pattern in the horizontal plane whose out of roundness is less than 0.5 d B. In addition, the antenna is manufactured and tested, whose tested results are basically consistent with simulated results. Because the height of antenna is 3 mm, it is easy to be hidden on roof of a vehicle for V2 V communication.