This study presents a generic TITOP (Two-Input Two-Output Port) model of a substructure actuated with embedded piezoelectric materials as actuators (PEAs), previously modeled with the FE technique. This allows intuitive assembly of actuated flexible substructures in large flexible multi-body systems. The modeling technique is applied to an illustrative example of a flexible beam with bonded pie...

OROBORO is a novel collaborative controller which focuses on musical performance as social experience by exploring synchronized actions of two musicians operating a single instrument. Each performer uses two paddle mechanisms – one for hand orientation sensing and one for servo-motor actuated feedback. We introduce a haptic mirror in which the movement of one performer’s sensed hand is used to ...

In this paper we present a proof of concept for saving and restoring mechanisms for Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs). We describe our actuated Tangible Active Objects (TAOs) and explain the design which allows equal user access to a dial-based fully tangible actuated menu metaphor. We present a new application extending an existing TUI for interactive sonification of process data with saving and...

In this paper we present Recompose, a new system for manipulation of an actuated surface. By collectively utilizing the body as a tool for direct manipulation alongside gestural input for functional manipulation, we show how a user is afforded unprecedented control over an actuated surface. We describe a number of interaction techniques exploring the shared space of direct and gestural input, d...

This paper presents a new 3-D design of a discretely-actuated robot manipulator powered by binary actuators. Binary actuators have two stable states, which are, for example, closed (0) and open (1). Major benefits of this kind of discretely-actuated manipulator are repeatability, relatively low cost, and no need for feedback control. In addition, hyper-redundancy allows tasks to be performed ev...

Abstract: This paper presents a comprehensive comparative study of several nonlinear controllers for stabilisation of the under actuated unstable nonlinear object known as the Acrobot in the literature. The object is a two DOF robot arm only actuated at the elbow. The study compares several control algorithms from the literature and a new algorithm developed during the study. The comparison is ...

A parallel manipulator of STEWART GOUGH (SG) type consists of a platform and a base, which are connected via six spherical-prismatic-spherical legs, where all prismatic joint are active (actuated) and all spherical joints are passive (non-actuated). If we fix the prismatic joints, the SG platform is generically rigid, but under particular geometric conditions the manipulator can perform a n-dim...

Orbital stabilization of an underactuated cart-pendulum system is under study. The quasihomogeneous control synthesis is utilized to design a second order sliding mode controller that drives the actuated cart to a periodic reference orbit in finite time, while the non-actuated pendulum produces bounded oscillations. A modified Van der Pol oscillator is introduced into the synthesis as an asympt...

The main focus of this paper is on the motion planning problem for an under-actuated, submerged, omni-directional autonomous vehicle. Underactuation is extremely important to consider in ocean research and exploration. Battery failure, actuator malfunction and electronic shorts are a few reasons that may cause the vehicle to loose direct control of one or more degrees-of-freedom. Underactuation...