A methodology for the mobility evaluation and mission oriented performance assessment of an autonomous mobile robot is developed. The evaluation strategy uses both time and energy based measures resulting in the development of isochronal/isoenergy contours which characterize the expected mobility of the robot over novel terrain using sample trials on patches of land prior to the mission. This w...

A rigid (micro) robot mounted serially to the tip of a long, flexible (macro) manipulator is often used to increase reach capability, but flexibility in the macromanipulator can make it susceptible to vibration. A rigid manipulator attached to a flexible but unactuated base was used to study a scheme to achieve positioning of the micromanipulator combined with enhanced vibration damping of the ...

trajectories generally used to describe the space and time required to perform a desired motion task for a mobile robot or manipulator system. in this paper, we considered a cubic polynomial trajectory for the problem of moving a mobile robot from its initial position to a goal position in over a continuous set of time. along the path, the robot requires to observe a certain acceleration profil...

This paper focuses on parameter identification of a target tracker robot possessing flexible joints using particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. Since, belt and pulley mechanisms are known as flexible joints in robotic systems, their elastic behavior affecting a tracker robot is investigated in this work. First, dynamic equations governing the robot behavior are extracted taking into acco...

This paper presents the dynamic analysis and speed control of a novel micro-robotic platform that is able to move with sub-micrometer positioning accuracy at velocities up to 1.5 mm/s. The platform actuation system employs vibration micro-motors. The motion principle is discussed. The dynamic model of the platform and of its actuation system is developed and its operating constraints are analyt...

Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) based actuators have become ideal candidates for use in compact and lightweight applications. These smart materials often been referred to as artificial muscles due their high work volume density. In this paper, a flexure-based SMA powered mechanical oscillator is developed create an inchworm robot. Here, novel magnetic latch system used mechanically-intelligent that al...

8 A miniature smart robotic foot (SRF), equipped with an integrated vacuum pump, a suction cup, a pressure sensor and a micro-valve, was designed, fabricated and tested. A mock-up robot equipped with the SRF was used to study the load-carrying potential of the system. The SRF weighs 35 g and it can, with a 40 mm suction cup, support weights in the range of 1.2–3.5 kg under various test conditio...

This paper describes the experimental design, implementation, and testing of a network for tele-command, control, and communications of micro robots over long distances. The system utilizes commercial low bandwidth satellites to transmit near real-time video and leverages micro-robot platform synergies for commandcommunications relays. The system is capable of controlling micro ground vehicles ...

This paper reviews the state of the art of untethered, wirelessly actuated and controlled micro-robots. Research for such tools is being increasingly pursued to provide solutions for medical, biological and industrial applications. Indeed, due to their small size they offer both high velocity, and accessibility to tiny and clustered environments. These systems could be used for in vitro tasks o...

dimensional synthesis of a parallel robot may be the initial stage of its design process, which is usually carried out based on a required workspace. since optimization of the links lengths of the robot for the workspace is usually done, the workspace computation process must be run numerous times. hence, importance of the efficiency of the algorithm and the cpu time of the workspace computatio...