The ability of manipulating flexible objects, such as rubber belts and paper sheets, is important in automated manufacturing systems. This paper describes a novel approach to vision-guided assembly of flexible objects. The operation dealt with in this paper is to assemble a rubber belt with fixed pulleys. By analyzing possible states of the belt based on the empirical knowledge of the belt, we ...

This paper describes the virtual assembly automation systems, as decision support systems, for the better knowledge of assembly operation. The study of this procedure is described as well as the necessity for assembly systems design. The work draws on research into product and manufacturing knowledge models. In this paper, the authors have proposed a virtual prototype model for assembly system ...

The success of capsule endoscopy has promoted the development of the next generation of endoluminal surgical devices, and many research groups have proposed robotic capsules with novel functionalities, such as active locomotion and surgical intervention capabilities. Yet, these capsules are still single robotic units with a limited number of components and degrees of freedom. This paper address...

Impedance control provides a convenient framework for designing control algorithms for robotic applications that involve interaction with the environment. Passive impedance control was utilized in the early days of robotic applications, when the peg-in-hole type of tasks were performed using remote center compliance. Active impedance control using digital measurements of contact forces for debu...

The NIST Construction Metrology and Automation Group, in cooperation with the NIST Intelligent Systems Division, is researching robotic structural steel placement as part of a project to develop an Automated Steel Construction Testbed. The initial phase of this project centers on tracking a six degree-of-freedom robotic crane with a laser-based site measurement system to provide position feedba...

Presented in this paper is an interactive approach of assembly planning. It provides a virtual reality interface for production engineers to program the virtual representation of robotic manipulators in a three-dimensional operation space. The direct human involvement creates a user-defined assembly sequence, which contains the human knowledge of mechanical assembly. By extracting the precedenc...