Four centuries after René Descartes watched a fly walk across his ceiling and wondered how to capture its position (Gribbin 2002), we use Cartesian coordinates routinely to describe locations. We identify the positions of entities in the real world, transform their GIS representations from one coordinate system to another, and integrate spatially referenced data across multiple coordinate syste...

The paper compares various approaches to implementing a compliant Cartesian behavior for robotic manipulators: impedance, admittance and stiffness control. A new controller structure is proposed, which consists of an impedance controller enhanced by local stiffness control. This structure consistently takes into account the two time scale property of the joint and Cartesian control loops. The D...

We consider a class of nonconvex functionals of the gradient in one dimension, which we regularize with a second order derivative term. After a proper rescaling, suggested by the associated dynamical problems, we show that the sequence {Fν} of regularized functionals Γ-converges, as ν → 0+, to a particular class of free-discontinuity functionals F , concentrated on SBV functions with finite ene...

Learning Bayesian networks from data has been studied extensively in the evolutionary algorithm communities [Larranaga96, Wong99]. We have previously explored extending some of these search methods to temporal Bayesian networks [Tucker01]. A characteristic of many datasets from medical to geographical data is the spatial arrangement of variables. In this paper we investigate a set of operators ...

In this paper we describe a general passivity based framework for the control of flexible joint robots. Herein the recent DLR results on torque-, position-, as well as impedance control of flexible joint robots are summarized, and the relations between the individual contributions are highlighted. It is shown that an inner torque feedback loop can be incorporated into a passivity based analysis...

The strand-adaptive Cartesian approach is an innovative mesh generation approach for external aerodynamics that presents signi cant advantages over established methods in terms of grid automation, accuracy, and scalability. In this work, the approach is evaluated for complex geometries and ow elds. Speci cally, strand length and strand vector smoothing are studied at a fundamental level in orde...

This paper presents an impedance controller for five-finger dexterous robot hand DLR-HIT II, which is derived in Cartesian space. By considering flexibility in finger joints and strong mechanical couplings in differential gear-box, modeling and control of the robot hand are described in this paper. The model-based friction estimation and velocity observer are carried out with an extended Kalman...

| this paper outlines the 2nd generation of multisensory hand design at DLR. The results of the use of DLR's Hand I were analyzed and enabled in addition to the big e orts made in grasping technology to design the next generation of dextrous robot hands. An open skeleton structure for better maintenance with semi shell housings and the new automatically recon gurable palm have been equipped wit...

This thesis deals with the kinematic analysis, dynamic analysis and static balancing of planar and spatial parallel mechanisms or manipulators with revolute actuators. The inverse kinematics of each mechanism is first computed and a nengeneral algorithm is used to locate the boundaries of the workspace of the mechanism. Two approaches. narnely. the algebraic formulation and the vector formulati...