Inquiring Natural Language Processing Capabilities on Robotic Systems through Virtual Assistants:A Systemic Approach

This paper attempts to approach the interface of a robot from the perspective of virtual assistants.Virtual assistants can also be characterized as the mind of a robot,since they manage communication and action with the rest of the world they exist in.Therefore,virtual assistants can also be described as the brain of a robot and they include a Natural Language Processing(NLP)module for conducting communication in their human-robot interface.This work is focused on inquiring and enhancing the capabilities of this module.The problem is that nothing much is revealed about the nature of the human-robot interface of commercial virtual assistants.Therefore,any new attempt of developing such a capability has to start from scratch.Accordingly,to include corresponding capabilities to a developing NLP system of a virtual assistant,a method of systemic semantic modelling is proposed and applied.For this purpose,the paper briefly reviews the evolution of virtual assistants from the first assistant,in the form of a game,to the latest assistant that has significantly elevated their standards.Then there is a reference to the evolution of their services and their continued offerings,as well as future expectations.The paper presents their structure and the technologies used,according to the data provided by the development companies to the public,while an attempt is made to classify virtual assistants,based on their characteristics and capabilities.Consequently,a robotic NLP interface is being developed,based on the communicative power of a proposed systemic conceptual model that may enhance the NLP capabilities of virtual assistants,being tested through a small natural language dictionary in Greek.

Robust Adaptive Control for Robotic Systems With Input Time-Varying Delay Using Hamiltonian Method

This paper addresses the problem of robust adaptive control for robotic systems with model uncertainty and input time-varying delay. The Hamiltonian method is applied to develop the stabilization results of the robotic systems. Firstly, with the idea of shaping potential energy and the pre-feedback skill, the n degree-of-freedom(DOF) uncertain robotic systems are realized as an augmented dissipative Hamiltonian formulation with delay.Secondly, based on the obtained Hamiltonian system formulation and by using of the Lyapunov-Krasovskii(L-K) functional method, an adaptive controller is designed to show that the robotic systems can be asymptotically stabilized depending on the input delay. Meanwhile, some sufficient conditions are spelt out to guarantee the rationality and validity of the proposed control law. Finally, study of an illustrative example with simulations shows that the controller obtained in this paper works very well in handling uncertainties and input delay in the robotic systems.

Flexible robotic endoscopy for treating gastrointestinal neoplasms

Therapeutic flexible endoscopic robotic systems have been developed primarily as a platform for endoscopic submucosal dissection(ESD)in the treatment of earlystage gastrointestinal cancer.Since ESD can only be performed by highly skilled endoscopists,the goal is to lower the technical hurdles to ESD by introducing a robot.In some cases,such robots have already been used clinically,but they are still in the research and development stage.This paper outlined the current status of development,including a system by the author’s group,and discussed future challenges.

Advanced Design of Soft Robots with Artificial Intelligence

In recent years,breakthrough has been made in the field of artificial intelligence(AI),which has also revolutionized the industry of robotics.Soft robots featured with high-level safety,less weight,lower power consumption have always been one of the research hotspots.Recently,multifunctional sensors for perception of soft robotics have been rapidly developed,while more algorithms and models of machine learning with high accuracy have been optimized and proposed.Designs of soft robots with AI have also been advanced ranging from multimodal sensing,human-machine interaction to effective actuation in robotic systems.Nonethe-less,comprehensive reviews concerning the new developments and strategies for the ingenious design of the soft robotic systems equipped with AI are rare.Here,the new development is systematically reviewed in the field of soft robots with AI.First,background and mechanisms of soft robotic systems are briefed,after which development focused on how to endow the soft robots with AI,including the aspects of feeling,thought and reaction,is illustrated.Next,applications of soft robots with AI are systematically summarized and discussed together with advanced strategies proposed for performance enhancement.Design thoughts for future intelligent soft robotics are pointed out.Finally,some perspectives are put forward.

Post-Processing Time-Aware Optimal Scheduling of Single Robotic Cluster Tools

Integrated circuit chips are produced on silicon wafers.Robotic cluster tools are widely used since they provide a reconfigurable and efficient environment for most wafer fabrication processes.Recent advances in new semiconductor materials bring about new functionality for integrated circuits.After a wafer is processed in a processing chamber,the wafer should be removed from there as fast as possible to guarantee its high-quality integrated circuits.Meanwhile,maximization of the throughput of robotic cluster tools is desired.This work aims to perform post-processing time-aware scheduling for such tools subject to wafer residencytime constraints.To do so,closed-form expression algorithms are derived to compute robot waiting time accurately upon the analysis of particular events of robot waiting for singlearm cluster tools.Examples are given to show the application and effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.

DESIGN OF RECONFIGURABLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS WITH STRONGLY COUPLED NATURE

Today＇s manufacturing cnvironmem forces manufacturing companies to make as many product variations as possible at affordable costs within a short time. Mass customisation is one of most important technologies for companies to achieve their objectives. Efforts to mass customisation should be made on two aspects： （1） To modularize products and make them as less differences as possible; （2） To design manufacturing resources and make them provide as many processes variations as possible. This paper reports our recent work on aspect （2）, i.e. how to design a reconfignrable manufacturing system （RMS） so that it can be competent to accomplish various processes optimally; Reconfignrable robot system （RRS） is taken as an example. RMS design involves architecture design and configuration design, and configuration design is further divided in design analysis and design synthesis. Axiomatic design theory （ADT） is applied to architecture design, the features and issues of RRS configuration design are discussed, automatic modelling method is developed for design analysis, and concurrent design methodology is presented for design synthesis.

Adaptive learning tracking control of robotic manipulators with uncertainties

An adaptive learning tracking control scheme is developed for robotic manipulators by a synthesis of adaptive control and learning control approaches. The proposed controller possesses both adaptive and learning properties and thereby is able to handle robotic systems with both time-varying periodic uncertainties and time invariant parameters. Theoretical proofs are established to show that proposed controllers ensure asymptotical tracking performance. The effectiveness of the proposed approaches is validated through extensive numerical simulation results.

3D Software Technology, Applicable in Elaboration of the Spatial Face Gear Drives for Incorporation into Robot Systems

The study treats a specific technological approach for the elaboration of small manufacturing series of highly precise hyperboloid gears with small module of the teeth and with not big dimensions of the gear mechanism. It is based on the application of the elaborated by authors mathematical models, algorithms and computer programs for synthesis upon a pitch contact point and upon a mesh region. A special feature of the established approach is the application of 3D software prototyping and 3D printing of the designed transmissions. The presented here models of the transmissions with crossed axes and face mated gears are indented for implementation into the driving of two type robots: bio-robot hand and walking robot with four insect-type legs.

Mobile Robot Indoor Autonomous Navigation with Position Estimation Using RF Signal Triangulation

In the mobile robotic systems a precise estimate of the robot pose (Cartesian [x y] position plus orientation angle theta) with the intention of the path planning optimization is essential for the correct performance, on the part of the robots, for tasks that are destined to it, especially when intention is for mobile robot autonomous navigation. This work uses a ToF (Time-of-Flight) of the RF digital signal interacting with beacons for computational triangulation in the way to provide a pose estimative at bi-dimensional indoor environment, where GPS system is out of range. It’s a new technology utilization making good use of old ultrasonic ToF methodology that takes advantage of high performance multicore DSP processors to calculate ToF of the order about ns. Sensors data like odometry, compass and the result of triangulation Cartesian estimative, are fused in a Kalman filter in the way to perform optimal estimation and correct robot pose. A mobile robot platform with differential drive and nonholonomic constraints is used as base for state space, plants and measurements models that are used in the simulations and for validation the experiments.

TML:a language to specify aerial robotic missions for the framework Aerostack

Purpose–The purpose of this paper is to describe the specification language TML for adaptive mission plans that the authors designed and implemented for the open-source framework Aerostack for aerial robotics.Design/methodology/approach–The TML language combines a task-based hierarchical approach together with a more flexible representation,rule-based reactive planning,to facilitate adaptability.This approach includes additional notions that abstract programming details.The authors built an interpreter integrated in the software framework Aerostack.The interpreter was validated with flight experiments for multi-robot missions in dynamic environments.Findings–The experiments proved that the TML language is easy to use and expressive enough to formulate adaptive missions in dynamic environments.The experiments also showed that the TML interpreter is efficient to execute multi-robot aerial missions and reusable for different platforms.The TML interpreter is able to verify the mission plan before its execution,which increases robustness and safety,avoiding the execution of certain plans that are not feasible.Originality/value–One of the main contributions of this work is the availability of a reliable solution to specify aerial mission plans,integrated in an active open-source project with periodic releases.To the best knowledge of the authors,there are not solutions similar to this in other active open-source projects.As additional contributions,TML uses an original combination of representations for adaptive mission plans(i.e.task trees with original abstract notions and rule-based reactive planning)together with the demonstration of its adequacy for aerial robotics.

Adaptive robust simultaneous stabilization of multiple nn-degree-of-freedom robot systems

In this paper,the adaptive robust simultaneous stabilization problem of uncertain multiple n-degree-of-freedom(n-DOF)robot systems is studied using the Hamiltonian function method,and the corresponding adaptive L2 controller is designed.First,we investigate the adaptive simultaneous stabilization problem of uncertain multiple n-DOF robot systems without external disturbance.Namely,the single uncertain n-DOF robot system is transformed into an equivalent Hamiltonian form using the unified partial derivative operator(UP-DO)and potential energy shaping method,and then a high dimensional Hamiltonian system for multiple uncertain robot systems is obtained by applying augmented dimension technology,and a single output feedback controller is designed to ensure the simultaneous stabilization for the higher dimensional Hamiltonian system.On this basis,we further study the adaptive robust simultaneous stabilization control problem for the uncertain multiple n-DOF robot systems with external disturbances,and design an adaptive robust simultaneous stabilization controller.Finally,the simulation results show that the adaptive robust simultaneous stabilization controller designed in this paper is very effective in stabilizing multi-robot systems at the same time.

Artificial moment method for swarm robot formation control

The purpose of this paper is to develop a general control method for swarm robot formation control. Firstly, an attraction-segment leader-follower formation graph is presented for formation representations. The model of swarm robot systems is described. According to the results and two kinds of artificial moments defined as leader-attraction moment and follower-attraction moment, a novel artificial moment method is proposed for swarm robot formation control. The principle of the method is introduced and the motion controller of robots is designed. Finally, the stability of the formation control system is proved. The simulations show that both the formation representation graph and the formation control method are valid and feasible.

Visual Person Identification Using a Distance-dependent Appearance Model for a Person Following Robot

This paper describes a person identifcation method for a mobile robot which performs specifc person following under dynamic complicated environments like a school canteen where many persons exist.We propose a distance-dependent appearance model which is based on scale-invariant feature transform（SIFT） feature.SIFT is a powerful image feature that is invariant to scale and rotation in the image plane and also robust to changes of lighting condition.However,the feature is weak against afne transformations and the identifcation power will thus be degraded when the pose of a person changes largely.We therefore use a set of images taken from various directions to cope with pose changes.Moreover,the number of SIFT feature matches between the model and an input image will decrease as the person becomes farther away from the camera.Therefore,we also use a distance-dependent threshold.The person following experiment was conducted using an actual mobile robot,and the quality assessment of person identifcation was performed.

Development of Wheel-less Snake Robot with Two Distinct Gaits and Gait Transition Capability

Snake robots are mostly designed based on single mode locomotion. However, single mode gait most likely could not work effectively when the robot is subject to an unstructured working environment with different measures of terrain complexity. As a solution, mixed mode locomotion is proposed in this paper by synchronizing two types of gaits known as serpentine and wriggler gaits used for non-constricted and narrow space environments, respectively, but for straight line locomotion only. A gait transition algorithm is developed to efficiently change the gait from one to another. This study includes the investigation on kinematics analysis followed by dynamics analysis while considering related structural constraints for both gaits. The approach utilizes the speed of the serpentine gait for open area locomotion and exploits the narrow space access capability of the wriggler gait. Hence, it can increase motion flexibility in view of the fact that the robot is able to change its mode of locomotion according to the working environment.