This research describes the development of compact and efficient tools which can be used by a 4-DOF robot during an automated process aimed at the building of heating coils. Resistive wires must be cut and crimped into small connectors at a fast pace, with extreme repeatability and reliability. We designed two special tools for the end effector of a parallel-kinematic robotic device, exploiting...

Soil loss from dryland farms on the Columbia Plateau in Oregon and Washington (USA) results primarily from rain falling on frozen, cultivated soil. Soils are most susceptible to erosion when moldboard plowed, summer-fallowed, repeatedly rodweeded or cultivated, and fall planted to winter-wheat. These tillage practices are used because they help control weed and disease infestations and consiste...

The EVA Robotic Assistant is a prototype for an autonomous rover designed to assist human astronauts. The primary focus of the research is to explore the interaction between humans and robots, particularly in extreme environments, and to develop a software infrastructure that could be applied to any type of assistant robot, whether for planetary exploration or orbital missions. This paper descr...

People are striving for easy, natural interfaces. Robotic user interfaces aim at providing this kind of interface by using human like interaction modalities. However, many applications fail, not because of fundamental problems of addressing social interaction but due to an unbalanced design. In this paper we derive a balancing framework for designing robotic user interfaces that balances four k...

As robotic systems are moved out of factory work cells into human-facing environments questions of choreography become central to their design, placement, and application. With a human viewer or counterpart present, a system will automatically be interpreted within context, style of movement, and form factor by human beings as animate elements of their environment. The interpretation by this hu...

The field of robotic surgery has developed rapidly, and its use for gynecologic conditions has grown exponentially. Surgeons should be skilled at abdominal and laparoscopic approaches for a specific procedure before undertaking robotic approaches. Surgeon training, competency guidelines, and quality metrics should be developed at the institutional level. Robot-assisted cases should be appropria...

The capacity for shared attention is a cornerstone of human social intelligence. Recent accounts attribute the emergence of shared attention to multiple cognitive mechanisms. Current behavioral data support an alternative dynamic systems model, but many questions remain. To answer these questions and test alternative theories, robotic models will play a critical role. Robotic models reduce the ...

Robotic workcell simulation is a modeling-based problem solving approach developed for the design, analysis, and offline programming of robotic workcells. Current industrial practices show that commercial robotic simulation software packages are able to provide designers with an interactive and virtual environment in which credible solutions for robotic workcell designs can be obtained. However...

In the extreme environments posed by war fighting, fire fighting, and nuclear accident response, the cost of direct human exposure is levied in terms of injury and death. Robotic alternatives must address effective operations while removing humans from danger. This is profoundly challenging, as extreme environments inflict cumulative performance damage on exposed robotic agents. Sensing and per...