Social Robotics Lab

Breathing Life into Machines

Category: Seminars (page 2 of 2)

Human Manipulation

TOPIC Human Manipulation
SPEAKER Professor Benoni B. Edin

Department of Integrative Medical Biology

Umeå University, Sweden

DATE 27 July 2010, Tuesday
TIME 2:00 – 3:00 pm
VENUE Level 2, Social Robotics Lab, I3 Building, Interactive Digital Media Institute, 21 Heng Mui Keng Terrace, NUS.
FEES No Charge
ABSTRACT
Humans excel in their ability to dexterously manipulate objects. Current views on the basis for the sensory control of manipulation in humans are described with an emphasis on discrete sensory event policies.
BIOGRAPHY
Professor Benoni B. Edin is a Professor at the Department Integrative Medical Biology at Umeå University,
Sweden, where he received his M.D. in 1983 and his Ph.D. in Neurophysiology in 1988. He spent two years of his Post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA prior to joining the Umeå University. He was a recipient of the Eric K. Fernströms prize in 1996 and was appointed as vice-dean of Medical Faculty at the Umeå University from 1999 to 2005. His research efforts focus on neuroscience & neurophysiology, biological cybernetics, and brain research. According to ISI Web of Knowledge, Professor Edin has 37 publications that have been cited 1102 times and an h-index of 19.
REMARKS
Jointly Organized By:
Edutainment Robotics Lab, ECE,
Social Robotics Lab, IDMI and
IEEE Singapore SMC Chapter
HOW TO BE THERE
The map to the SRL can be found on the link at http://www.idmi.nus.edu.sg/contactus/ Within NUS, one can take the internal shuttle bus A1, A2 or BTC and stop at the Hon Sui Sen Memorial Library. The building where the seminar is located is on the hill just next to the Hon Sui Sen Library.

Lecture with Demonstration on Seal-type Therapeutic Robot “PARO”

TOPIC Life Innovation with Therapeutic Robot, Paro
SPEAKER DR TAKANORI SHIBATA

National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology

Japan

DATE Friday, 1 Oct 2010
TIME 3:00 – 5:00 pm
VENUE Engineering Auditorium, National University of Singapore

9 Engineering Drive 1, S (117575)

FEES No Charge
ABSTRACT
Modelled after a baby harp seal, Robot Paro was created in 1993 by Dr Takanori Shibata to serve as a companion at home (pet) and a therapy aid at hospitals, elderly institutions and schools. A recent study was conducted to investigate how Paro is perceived by caregivers and patients in seven countries. It was found that cultural differences contributed to the degree to which Paro is perceived as a pet and a therapy tool.

In this lecture, Dr Shibata will share the findings of this study, describe the functions and benefits of Paro and elaborate on how it has been implemented in therapy programmes around the world.

BIOGRAPHY
DR TAKANORI SHIBATA
Senior Research Scientist
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan

Born in ’67, Dr Takanori Shibata received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in Electronic and Mechanical Engineering from Nagoya University in ’89, ’91 and ’92 respectively. He works at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) where he studies human-robot interaction, robot therapy and humanitarian de-mining. He did a brief stint as a research scientist in the Artificial Intelligence Lab in both MIT and University of Zurich. He is also currently the Deputy Director for Information and Communication Technology Police, Bureau of Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan.

In 2002, Paro was recognised as the World’s Most Therapeutic Robot by the Guinness World Records. For his achievements, Dr Shibata has received numerous awards such as the Robot of the Year Award (2006) by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Japan, the Outstanding Young Person Of The World Award (2004) by the Junior Chamber International and the Japanese Prime Minister ‘s Award (2003).

Approximate Dynamic Programming Based Control

TOPIC Approximate Dynamic Programming Based Control
SPEAKER Professor S. N. Balakrishnan 

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Missouri University of Science and Technology

DATE 31 Jan 2011 (Monday)
TIME 02:30 pm to 03:30 pm
VENUE Level 2, Social Robotics Lab, I3 Building,

Interactive Digital Media Institute, 21 Heng Mui Keng Terrace, NUS.

FEES No Charge
ABSTRACT
Approximate dynamic programming formulation implemented with an Adaptive Critic (AC) based neural network (NN) structure has evolved as a powerful alternative technique that eliminates the need for excessive computations and storage requirements needed for solving the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equations. A typical AC structure consists of two interacting NNs. In this paper, a novel architecture, called the  Single Network Adaptive Critic (SNAC) is used to solve control-constrained optimal control problems. Only one network is used that captures the mapping between states and the cost function. This approach is applicable to a wide class of nonlinear systems where the optimal control (stationary) equation can be explicitly expressed in terms of the state and costate variables. A non-quadratic cost function is used that incorporates the control constraints. Necessary equations for optimal control are derived and an algorithm to solve the constrained-control problem with SNAC is developed. Convergence of the network training is discussed. Benchmark nonlinear systems are used to illustrate the working of the proposed technique. Extensions to optimal control-constrained problems in the presence of uncertainties are also considered. Two aerospace tracking applications —-an aircraft and a space vehicle with model and parametric uncertainties will be shown.

The last part of the presentation deals with implementation of the intelligent controllers in a distributed parameter system. Distributed parameter systems are driven by partial differential equations and there are very few implementable solutions in the literature. We show that the adaptive critic based neurocontroller can successfully be implemented in a heat diffusion system to result in desired temperature profiles.

BIOGRAPHY
Professor S. N. Balakrishnan received the Ph.D. degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, Austin.

He has been with the University of Missouri—Rolla, Rolla, since 1985. Currently, he is a professor with the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. His nonteaching experience includes work as a lead engineer in the Space Shuttle program, Fellow, Center for Space Research at the University of Texas at Austin, summer Faculty Fellow at Air Force Research Laboratory, Eglin, FL, and engineer, Indian Space Program. His research interests include areas of system theory and applications. His current research uses neural networks and classical methods in the identification and robust control of missiles, airplanes, rockets, and other “interesting” systems. His research has been sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Air Force, the Naval Surface Warfare Center, the Army Space and Missile Defense Command, and NASA.

Dr. Balakrishnan is a member of Sigma Gamma Tau. He is an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)

A New Nonlinear Control Technique for Ascent Phase of Reusable Launch Vehicles

TOPIC Approximate Dynamic Programming Based Control
SPEAKER Professor S. N. Balakrishnan 

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Missouri University of Science and Technology

DATE 1 Feb 2011 (Tuesday)
TIME 10:30 am to 11:30 am
VENUE Level 2, Social Robotics Lab, I3 Building,

Interactive Digital Media Institute, 21 Heng Mui Keng Terrace, NUS.

FEES No Charge
ABSTRACT
Current flight control of reusable launch vehicles is based on table look-up values for specific flight conditions.  A new suboptimal nonlinear control technique for the ascent phase of reusable launch vehicles is presented in this paper.  This technique, called the Theta-D method, is synthesized by adding perturbations to a typical optimal control formulation with a quadratic cost function.  The controller expressions are obtained by getting an approximate closed-form solution to the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation. The Theta-D method avoids iterative online solutions.  A controller using this new method has been designed for the ascent phase of a reusable launch vehicle and implemented in a six degrees-of-freedom high fidelity simulator being run at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.  Simulation results show that the Theta-D controller achieves accurate tracking for the ascent phase of the RLV while being robust to external disturbances and plant uncertainties.
BIOGRAPHY
Professor S. N. Balakrishnan received the Ph.D. degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, Austin.

He has been with the University of Missouri—Rolla, Rolla, since 1985. Currently, he is a professor with the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. His nonteaching experience includes work as a lead engineer in the Space Shuttle program, Fellow, Center for Space Research at the University of Texas at Austin, summer Faculty Fellow at Air Force Research Laboratory, Eglin, FL, and engineer, Indian Space Program. His research interests include areas of system theory and applications. His current research uses neural networks and classical methods in the identification and robust control of missiles, airplanes, rockets, and other “interesting” systems. His research has been sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Air Force, the Naval Surface Warfare Center, the Army Space and Missile Defense Command, and NASA.

Dr. Balakrishnan is a member of Sigma Gamma Tau. He is an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)

Damage Modeling, Simulation and Identification in Aircraft Structural Health Mornitoring

TOPIC Damage Modeling, Simulation and Identification in Aircraft Structural Health Mornitoring
SPEAKER Associate Professor Mei YUAN

Beihang University, China

DATE 17 Feb 2011 (Thursday)
TIME 10:30 am to 11:30 am
VENUE E4A-04-03, ACT Lab Seminar Room,Engineering block E4A, NUS
FEES No Charge
ABSTRACT
Aircraft Structural Health Monitoring (A-SHM) is the technology to detect parameters (such as load, stress, strike and damage of aircraft) online by using distributed sensor networks which constructed from various state-of-the-art sensors. SHM can identify and locate the damage, evaluate and prognosticate the structure state through analyzing and processing the signal acquired by the sensors, or through Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods. Researches of the technology of damage modeling, simulation and identification are helpful for promoting airborne SHM level, and are also very important for the safety of aircraft.
Consider the typical structure of aircraft -aircraft wing, much works have been done focus on the key technologies of A-SHM, including structure and damage modeling & simulating, damage identification based on Artificial Intelligence, damage identification based on signal processing, etc. Simulation and experiment results are introduced.
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Yuan Mei was born in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China in September, 1967. She received B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degree from Zhejiang University, China in 1990, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (BUAA), China in 1998 and 2010, respectively. After a two-year R&D work at Hangzhou from 1990 to 1992, she joined School of Automation Science and Electric Engineering, Beihang University  (BUAA)  in 1992. Presently, as an associate professor, her research concerns measurement and instrumentation, structural health monitoring technology, intelligent signal processing. She has published about forty papers and three books, three patents and two software copyrights have been authorized.
REMARKS
 Jointly Organized By Edutainment Robotics Lab, ECE, Social Robotics Lab, IDMI, and Singapore IEEE SMC/R&A Chapter

Flying robot for Polar Research in China

TOPIC Flying robot for Polar Research in China
SPEAKER Dr. Jianhong Liang

Robotics Institute,  Beihang University, China

DATE 1 March 2011 (Tuesday)
TIME 10:30 am to 11:30 am
VENUE E4A-04-03, ACT Lab Seminar Room,Engineering block E4A, NUS
FEES No Charge
ABSTRACT
The team iFLY founded in 2004 has developed a set of autopilot system which integrates the key technologies of the embedded computer, MEMS sensors based strapdown navigation and the intelligent flight control algorithm. The autopilot system can be applied in both fixed-wing and helicopter UAV. In China’s 24th(2007) and 26th(2009) Antarctic scientific expedition ,the Polar low-altitude flying robots equipped with the iFLY autopilot participated in these activities, and attained a widespread images of the  sea ice and the temperature data near the Zhongshan Station. However, with the further exploration of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, it requires that the flight robots should have the capacities of larger payload so that the precise instruments such as ice radar and laser range finder can be carried, what is more, the modified flying robot need to be able to fly in the low altitude of 100 meters with long-time duration. This report contains the summary of the above work and the future development.
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Jianhong Liang  obtained his B.S from aircraft manufacturing and PhD from Mechatronic engineering, respectively in Beihang University. Owing to his outstanding research on the Automatic Control of Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, he was awarded the New Talent of Blue Sky Science and Technology Scholarship of the Beihang University. His research team had took part in Chinese 24th and 26th Antarctic scientific expedition, and had brought us beautiful images and snapshots of Antarctic.
REMARKS
 Jointly Organized By Edutainment Robotics Lab, ECE, Social Robotics Lab, IDMI, and Singapore IEEE SMC/R&A and Control Chapters

Suppression of Vibration Caused By Resident Unbalance of Rotor for Magnetically Suspended Flywheel

TOPIC Suppression of Vibration Caused By Resident Unbalance of Rotor for Magnetically Suspended Flywheel
SPEAKER TANG Jiqiang

School of Instrument Science and Opto-Electronics, Beihang University

DATE 31 January 2012 (Thursday)
TIME 4:00pm-5.00pm
VENUE Level 2, Social Robotics Lab, I3 Building,

Interactive Digital Media Institute, 21 Heng Mui Keng Terrace, NUS.

FEES No Charge
ABSTRACT
For magnetically suspended flywheel (MSFW), the resident unbalance of rotor can cause synchronous vibration and reduce the attitude control precision of spacecrafts. To eliminate the vibration caused by the resident unbalance of rotor suspended by magnetic bearing, the theorem of unbalance vibration is researched, and point out that the vibration can be successfully suppressed through the elimination of synchronous component in magnetic suspension forces by magnetic suspension force compensation method. Based on the general notch filter, this method is proposed to be closed-loop style when rotor rotates beyond its critical stable speed and to be open-loop style when the speed of rotor is less than the critical stable speed by additional displacement stiffness compensation segment, open and closed-loop control method. The stability of this method is analysized and the ability to eliminate n octave synchronous is verified during the whole speed range of rotor. Experimental results demonstrate that this method can suppress the unbalance vibration significantly during the operation speeds of MSFW and is suitable for MSFW in that the rotor traverses its critical stable speed frequently.
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. TANG Jiqiang was born in March 1977. He obtained the doctor’s degree of Precision Instrument and mechanism in Harbin Engineering University in 2005. His major research interest is on novel inertial actuators such as magnetically suspended flywheel and magnetically suspended control momentum gyroscope, high-Tc Superconducting magnetic suspension technology and its application. He is the Principle Investigator of research projects supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Jan., 2012-Dec., 2015), ‘WEISHI’ Foundation of Beihang University (Jan., 2011-Dec., 2011), Postdoctor Foundation of China (Jan., 2007-Dec., 2008) and Foundation of The sub-subject item of the National Basic Research Program (973 Program) of China (Jan., 2009-Dec., 2011).

He has published about 10 journal and conference papers, and 3 patents.

REMARKS
 Jointly Organized By Edutainment Robotics Lab, ECE, Social Robotics Lab, IDMI, and Singapore IEEE SMC/R&A and Control Chapters

The Kinetics Modeling and Design of Dithered RLG Position and Orientation System (POS)

TOPIC The Kinetics Modeling and Design of Dithered RLG Position and Orientation System (POS)
SPEAKER Dr. Jianli Li

Science and Technology on Inertial Laboratory, Beijing University of Aeronautics and AstronauticsChina

DATE 4 February 2012 (Saturday)
TIME 2:30pm-3.30pm
VENUE Level 2, Social Robotics Lab, I3 Building,

Interactive Digital Media Institute, 21 Heng Mui Keng Terrace, NUS.

FEES No Charge
ABSTRACT
The Position and Orientation System (POS) is a strapdown inertial navigation system (SINS)/GPS integrated measurement equipment, which can provide position, attitude and others movement information of a rigid body. It has been a key technology to improve the image resolution such as SAR, InSAR, Imaging spectroscope, LiDAR, Camera. To decrease mechanically dithered effect of RLG and improve aseismatic capability of POS, the kinetics model of ISA was established based on the vibration responding mechanism. An optimized design rule of RLG POS was proposed to reduce the measurement error. Moreover, the size effect and the compensation method of RLG POS were analyzed. Based on the finite element analysis software, a high precision RLG POS was design and developed successfully.
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Jianli Li (1979) obtained his PhD degree from School of Instrument Science and Opto-electronic Engineering in Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (BUAA) in 2008. He is a Lecturer of BUAA, and mainly researching the SINS/GPS integrated system. He was the Principle Investigator of several projects supported by the National Natural Science Foundation, National 973 Sub Program of China. In addition, he has participated in a few projects supported by National High-tech Research and Development Program of China. His research team had developed a series of the high-precision Position and Orientation System (POS) applied in airborne SAR motion compensation.
REMARKS
 Jointly Organized By Edutainment Robotics Lab, ECE, Social Robotics Lab, IDMI, and Singapore IEEE SMC/R&A and Control Chapters

An Online Compensation Method Based on GP and GA for Movement Error of SINS/CNS Integrated Navigation

TOPIC An Online Compensation Method Based on GP and GA for Movement Error of SINS/CNS Integrated Navigation
SPEAKER Quan Wei

School of Instrument Science and Opto-Electronics, Beihang University

DATE 4 February 2012 (Saturday)
TIME 3:30pm-4.30pm
VENUE Level 2, Social Robotics Lab, I3 Building,

Interactive Digital Media Institute, 21 Heng Mui Keng Terrace, NUS.

FEES No Charge
ABSTRACT
Strapdown Inertial Navigation System (SINS)/Celestial Navigation System (CNS) integrated navigation system, owing to good autonomy and high accuracy and high reliability, is an important development trend of ballistic missile integrated navigation. However, large velocity, position and attitude errors can be caused by initial misalignments, gyro drifts and accelerometer bias during the course of the SINS/CNS integrated navigation because of environmental disturbance, model nonlinearity and uncertainty. The integrated system can estimate online attitude errors and calibrate gyro drifts with CNS after the ballistic missile flies out the atmosphere, and then can compensate the velocity and position errors caused by initial misalignments and gyro drifts, but no estimating the accelerometer bias and compensating its velocity and position errors. To this shortage, an online compensation method based on genetic programming (GP) and Genetic Algorithms (GA) for movement error of SINS/CNS integrated navigation is presented. This method adopts a compensating model based on the system’s state transition matrix built and optimized by GP and GA to deal with the environmental disturbance and model uncertainty, and use the Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) to solve the nonlinearity of system model and the observation model. The method will be valid and can be used to effectively compensate the velocity and position errors caused by accelerometer bias of SINS/CNS integrated navigation system.
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Quan Wei was born in March 1977. He obtained the doctor’s degree of Precision Instrument and mechanism in Beihang university. His major research interest is on the Celestial Navigation, Integrated Navigation and Attitude Determination of Satellite. He is/was the Principle Investigator of research projects supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Jan., 2011-Dec., 2013), the National Level Science Foundation of China (Jan., 2010-Dec., 2012) and the Ministerial Level Science Foundation of China (Jan., 2010-Dec., 2012). He has published about 20 journal and conference papers, and 10 patents.
REMARKS
 Jointly Organized By Edutainment Robotics Lab, ECE, Social Robotics Lab, IDMI, and Singapore IEEE SMC/R&A and Control Chapters
Newer posts

© 2024 Social Robotics Lab

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑

Skip to toolbar