We consider the problem of cooperative manipulation to improve positioning and path following abilities of humans. Using a specially designed actuated manipulator and “steady hand” manipulation we report on compliant path following strategies and their experimental evaluation. Detecting lines and simple curve by processing images from an endoscope mounted on the robot, we traverse these curves ...

To deal with the swinging up and balancing control for an under-actuated robot, Pendubot, a new fuzzy logical control method is proposed in this paper. Two separate fuzzy reasoning control laws are employed for the tasks of swinging up and balance control. The proposed control scheme is tested by both simulations and hardware experiments. Hardware experimental results show the applicability of ...

In this paper we study image based visual servo (IBVS) control of a four rotor vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) craft known as an X4-fEyer. The approach taken is tailored to planar visual targets and is based on a reformulation and extension of 2 2 0 image-based visual servo design [14, 11 to the control of dynamic under-actuated systems. Exponential stability of the closed loop system is pr...

Substitution of a metallic diaphragm for the power piston of a Stirling engine is shown to be a promising approach to transmitting power for a heat-actuated heat pump through a hermetic seal. Hydraulic fluid under high pressure transfers the power from the diaphragu to the compressor plunger, which is balanced by a counterweight. The discussion is divided into three parts which deal with the in...

We are interested in blimps. A blimp is a small airship that has no metal framework and collapses when deflated. In this paper, dynamic modeling of autonomous blimps is presented, using the Newton-Euler approach. This study discusses the motion in 6 degrees of freedom since 6 independent coordinates are necessary to determine the position and orientation of this vehicle. Key-words : Autonomous ...

We consider under-actuated, drift-free, invariant systems on matrix Lie groups and show how motion control results for nilpotent systems can be extended to invariant systems on non-nilpotent Lie groups by applying the technique of nilpotentization. A constructive procedure is presented to compute the required transformations for local representations of systems on three-dimensional Lie groups. ...

The nonholonomic motion planning problem is considered for a novel class of modular mobile manipulators, where each module is implemented as a planar parallel manipulator with idler wheels. This assembly is actuated by shape changes of its modules, which, under the in uence of the nonholonomic constraints on the wheels, induce a global snake{like motion of the assembly. The kinematics for a 2{ ...