Wardi, Gabriel; Shashikumar, Supreeth; Allen, Thomas; Nemati, Shamim Author Information

An end effector system is disclosed for a robotic system that includes a primary acquisition system that includes a primary end effector, and a secondary retention system that substantially surrounds at least a portion of the primary acquisition system, wherein at least a portion of the primary acquisition system may be drawn up within at least a portion of the secondary retention system such that the primary end effector system may be used to select an object from a plurality of objects, and the secondary retention system may be used to secure the object for rapid transport to an output destination.

A processing system including a singulation system is disclosed. The singulation system includes a conveying system for moving objects to be sorted from a source area along a first direction, a detection system for detecting objects at the conveying system, and for selecting certain selected objects for removal from the conveying system, and a removal system for removing the certain selected objects from the conveying system for providing a singulated stream of objects.

A processing system is disclosed for processing objects. The processing system includes a perception system for providing perception data regarding an object, and a primary transport system for providing transport of the object along a primary direction toward a processing location that is identified based on the perception data.

A system including a programmable motion device and an end effector for grasping objects to be moved by the programmable motion device is disclosed. The system includes a vacuum source that provides a high flow vacuum such that an object may be grasped at an end effector opening while permitting a substantial flow of air through the opening, and a dead-head limitation system for limiting any effects of dead-heading on the vacuum source in the event that a flow of air to the vacuum source is interrupted.

Continuum manipulators describe robotic arms which achieve motion by bending continuously along their length. This paper presents a kinematic parameterization of such arms, which avoids a problematic singularity common to previous approaches. It provides a closed-form and computationally efficient description of the kinematics of joint sections that are assumed to make circular arcs. This approach applies to a broad class of manipulator designs and does not depend on the number or position of actuators (e.g. tendons or artificial muscles). This parameterization has enabled realtime dynamics modeling of robotic manipulators composed of continuum joints.

What can one learn from newspaper advertising in the Civil War period? Author David Dodge, writing in the Atlantic Monthly in 1886, argued that these “notices held a ‘peculiar value’ because, amid the sales pitch, they offered a ‘true, because unconscious, presentation of the condition and attitude of the people’” (139). This is the underlying theme of Marketing the Blue and Gray: Newspaper Advertising and the American Civil War, by Lawrence A. Kreiser Jr., and the author proves his point in a hundred different ways. Kreiser shows how the Civil War influenced advertisers with wartime headlines, appeals, images, and political messages. Examining southern newspapers, he shows how the buying, selling, and capturing of slaves continued and how advertising reflected southerners’ attitudes toward race. He also provides case after case of how newspaper advertisements affected readers’ lives. But his primary focus, like that of David Dodge, is on “how advertisements provide an understanding of mid-nineteenth-century Americans as a people and a nation modernizing even while they passed through a period of great peril and suffering” (16).

We present a novel activity to demonstrate the Doppler shift of a sound wave, incident at an angle, upon a moving reflector. This activity is intended for use in an introductory physics laboratory focused on preparing students for the health and medical fields. The activity is designed to simulate Doppler velocity measurements from ultrasound imaging. While there have been previous qualitative discussions of blood flow measurements in the physics education literature, they were without associated laboratory activities. The lab can be part of a life science physics curriculum that has been identified in need of reforms to meet the needs of students and the medical and biology community.

An object processing system is disclosed that includes a plurality of track sections, and a plurality of remotely actuatable carriers for controlled movement along at least portions of the plurality of track sections, wherein each of the remotely controllable carriers is adapted to support and transport an object processing bin.

The labs presented here build on a simple speed of sound activity and models medical ultrasound imaging by demonstrating how multiple reflections propagate in a closed system. A short sound pulse is emitted into a pipe that is closed at one end and contains one or more partially reflecting surfaces within the pipe. The variety of reflections and transmissions that occur can be measured with a microphone at the pipe entrance.

In this work we present a novel, inductance-based system to measure and control the motion of bellows-driven continuum joints in soft robots. The sensing system relies on coils of wire wrapped around the minor diameters of each bellows on the joint. As the bellows extend, these coils of wire become more distant, decreasing their mutual inductance. Measuring this change in mutual inductance allows us to measure the motion of the joint. By dividing the sensing of the joint into two sections and measuring the motion of each section independently, we are able to measure the overall deformation of the joint with a piece-wise constant-curvature approximation. This technique allows us to measure lateral displacements that would be otherwise unobservable. When measuring bending, the inductance sensors measured the joint orientation with an RMS error of \(1.1^\circ \). The inductance sensors were also successfully used as feedback to control the orientation of the joint. The sensors proposed and tested in this work provided accurate motion feedback that would be difficult to achieve robustly with other sensors. This sensing system enables the creation of robust, self-sensing soft robots based on bellows-driven continuum joints.

Multifinger caging offers a robust object grasping approach. However, while efficient computation of two-finger caging grasps is well developed, the computation of three-finger caging grasps has remained a challenge. This paper considers the caging of polygonal objects with three-finger hands which maintain an equilateral triangle formation during the grasping process. While the c-space of such hands is 4-D, their contact space that represents all two and three finger contacts along the grasped object's boundary forms a 2-D stratified manifold. The paper describes a caging graph that can be constructed in the hand's relatively simple contact space. Starting from a desired immobilizing grasp of the polygonal object, the caging graph can be readily searched for the largest finger opening that maintains a three-finger cage about the object to be grasped. Any equilateral finger placement within the corresponding caging regions guarantees robust object grasping.

A novel algorithm for planning robotic manipulation tasks is presented in which the base position and joint motions of a robot are simultaneously optimized to follow a smooth desired end-effector trajectory. During the optimization routine, the manipulator's base position and joint motions are planned simultaneously by strategically moving a set of virtual robot arms (each representing a single configuration in a sequence) branching from a common base to a number of assigned target poses associated with a task. Additional goals (e.g. collision avoidance) and hard constraints, including joint limits are also incorporated. The optimization problem at the core of this method is a quadratic program, allowing constrained high-dimensional problems to be solved in very little time. This method has successfully planned motions allowing an 8-DOF manipulator to paint walls, and has proven to be highly efficient and scalable in practice.

We present a method for the design optimization of a soft, inflatable robot. The method described utilizes a multi-objective fitness function together with custom, platform-specific metrics related to the dexterity and load-bearing capacity of inflatable manipulators. Candidate designs are scored by computing these metrics at many randomly generated configurations and then by appropriately combining these scores within the multi-objective optimization framework. High performing designs are propagated through a genetic algorithm. The final result is a set of diverse, optimal designs lying along a Pareto front spanning the design space. By examining variations and trade-offs within this set, a designer can more appropriately choose design parameters for a target application. This is especially relevant for robots with many design parameters that can quickly be manufactured as is the case with emerging, soft robot technologies.

As pipeliners, we take a long-term view of the transformative opportunities facing the Australian gas industry. We believe a market-driven approach will overcome the current challenges around gas price volatility and supply constraints by further developing the missing links that will enable genuine connectedness, greater flexibility and operating synergies across a national gas transportation grid – one that can deliver gas where it is needed most and at the right price. Looking at mature gas trading environments like the USA provides some aspirational direction in terms of the fluidity of the gas trading environment, where pricing is more dynamic. However, the past and present development opportunities within our own backyard also provide valuable insight. Building the Eastern Gas Pipeline transformed the east coast gas market by introducing a competitive alternative for gas transportation into Sydney and upstream competition between basins. A similar market-led opportunity exists today to build infrastructure connecting Northern Territory gas producers to east coast markets – introducing a competitive alternative for gas transportation and upstream competition between the Beetaloo/McArthur basins and the Surat/Bowen basins. Winning the right to build the Northern Gas Pipeline was an important first step in Jemena realising this vision. Current regulatory discussions would not be relevant if the industry can shape its own market. Jemena’s northern Australia growth strategy could be the catalyst to resolving these challenges and avoiding further gas constraints or Australian Competition and Consumer Commission interventions seeking to address theoretical issues, rather than solving actual market challenges.

L'invention concerne un systeme robotique qui comprend un bras articule et un premier systeme de perception permettant l'inspection d'un objet ainsi qu'une pluralite de systemes de perception supplementaires, dont chacun est agence pour etre dirige vers une zone commune dans laquelle un objet peut etre positionne par le bras robotique de sorte qu'une pluralite de vues a l'interieur de la zone commune puisse etre obtenue par la pluralite de systemes de perception supplementaires.

Est divulguee une trieuse automatique a navette comprenant un chariot qui est mobile depuis une position de chargement dans laquelle le chariot peut etre charge, et au moins deux emplacements de destination dans lesquels le contenu du chariot, quel qu'il soit, peut etre fourni depuis le chariot.

L'invention concerne un effecteur terminal pour un bras articule dans un systeme robotise. L'effecteur terminal comprend une membrane flexible interne generalement sous la forme d'un espace annulaire qui contient un fluide a l'interieur de la membrane.