During recent years there has been growing interest in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Moreover, the necessity to control and navigate these vehicles has attracted much attention from researchers in this field. This is mostly due to the fact that the interactions between turbulent airflows apply complex aerodynamic forces to the system. Since the dynamics of a quadrotor are non-linear and the ...

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can be a very effective imaging modality for live guidance during surgical procedures. The rationale of MRI-guided surgery with robot-assistance is to perform surgical interventions utilizing “realtime” image feedback while minimize operation time and improves the surgical outcomes. However, challenges arise from electromagnetic compatibility within the high-fie...

This chapter focuses on the mobility analysis of spatial parallel manipulators. It first develops an analytical methodology to investigate the instantaneous degree of freedom (DOF) of the end-effector of a parallel manipulator. And then, the instantaneous controllability of the end-effector is discussed from the viewpoint of the possible actuation schemes which will be especially useful for the...

During robotic assembly of flexible payloads, gravity and inertial forces acting on these payloads may induce both static shape deformation and vibration of the thin-walled payloads. Static deformations, which arise from deformation of the part due to its own weight under the influence of gravity, lead to misalignment of mating points of the part. Unwanted vibrations, arising from inertial forc...

Clear needle visualisation is recognised as an unmet need for ultrasound guided percutaneous needle procedures including regional anaesthesia and tissue biopsy. With inadequate needle visibility, these procedures may result in serious complications or a failed operation. This paper reports analysis of the modal behaviour of a previously proposed ultrasound-actuated needle configuration, which m...

Micropumps have promising applications in biomedical devices andmicro total analysis systems. Conjugated polymer actuators provide an important potential mechanism for realizing micropumps because of their amenability to miniaturization and low actuation voltages. In this paper we present a novel, conjugated polymer petal-actuated diaphragm micropump, which is in contrast to the typical diaphra...

In this paper, hysteretic behavior modeling, system identification and control of a mechanism that is actuated by shape memory alloy (SMA) wires are presented. The mechanism consists of two airfoil plates and the rotation angle between these plates can be changed by SMA wire actuators. This mechanism is used to identify the unknown parameters of a hysteresis model. Prandtl–Ishlinskii method is ...

Today, robots and unmanned aerial vehicles are being used extensively in modern societies. Due to a wide range of applications, it has attracted much attention among scientists over the past decades. This paper deals with the problem of the stability of a four-rotor flying robot called quadrotor, which is an under-actuated system, in the presence of operator or sensor failures. The dynamica...