Jesús Manuel Gómez-de-Gabriel

The autonomous mobile robot AURORA for greenhouse operation

AURORA has been conceived in order to substitute hard and unhealthy human work inside greenhouses by means of an autonomous mobile robot outfitted with appropriate sensors and operation devices. Emphasis has been put in the development of a new robotic platform specifically designed for greenhouse tasks, governed by a control architecture that supports both autonomous navigation and shared human control.

Using LEGO NXT Mobile Robots With LabVIEW for Undergraduate Courses on Mechatronics

The paper proposes lab work and student competitions based on the LEGO NXT Mindstorms kits and standard LabVIEW. The goal of this combination is to stimulate design and experimentation with real hardware and representative software in courses where mobile robotics is adopted as a motivating platform to introduce mechatronics competencies. Basic LabVIEW examples are proposed for three case-study laboratory practices. These are implemented with the NXT Toolkit and the NXT Direct Command programming libraries for standalone and remote execution, respectively. The application of this instructional material has been tested in two different experiences with senior undergraduate engineering students. A description of the courses as well as an assessment of student results are also included.

Development of ALACRANE: A Mobile Robotic Assistance for Exploration and Rescue Missions

The paper presents ALACRANE, a new mobile robot assistant for exploration and rescue missions with dexterous load manipulation capability. ALACRANE consists of a tracked vehicle with a 4-DOF articulated arm, whose end-effector is an independent pair of 3-DOF manipulators (LR-Arms) plus a common rotation on the main arm wrist. All actuators are hydraulic in order to provide a high power-to-size ratio for both traction and manipulation. The system is equipped with CCD and IR cameras and a 3D-laser scanner for victim detection and environment perception. Three operation modes have been envisaged for the robot: navigation, main arm positioning, and LR-Arms operation. The control architecture provides different levels of autonomy and tele-operation for each mode. Preliminary tests with the actual system are presented.

Adaptive cartesian motion control approach for a surgical robotic cameraman

This paper presents an adaptive trajectory planning method concerning to the robotic assistant ERM (endoscopic robotic manipulator), designed and developed by the authors for handling the camera in laparoscopic surgery. In order to emulate the human assistant, camera movements must be defined relative to the fulcrum point, where the optic passes through the patient skin and enters inside the abdominal cavity. Since the robot has a passive wrist, and it is not fixed to the operating table, the relative position between the robot camera holder and the insertion point is unknown. In this way, the proposed approach keeps the camera orientation according to the motion references in spite of this uncertainty, and compensates other unexpected disturbances about the relative robot-patient position. This motion planner is based on a schema of a cartesian motion controller with inner joint position-velocity loop, and has been tested by means of experimentation with alive animals.

Pivoting motion control for a laparoscopic assistant robot and human clinical trials

This paper presents a compliant motion control method for the robotic assistant ERM (Endoscopic Robotic Manipulator), designed and developed by the authors for handling the camera in laparoscopic surgery. Since the robot has a passive wrist and it is not fixed to the operating table, the relative position between the robot camera holder and the insertion point is unknown. In this way, the proposed approach keeps the camera orientation according to the motion references in spite of this uncertainty and compensates for other unexpected disturbances about the relative robot–patient position. This system has been tested with live animals as well as in clinical trials on humans.

Mobile Robot Lab Project to Introduce Engineering Students to Fault Diagnosis in Mechatronic Systems

This paper proposes lab work for learning fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) in mechatronic systems. These skills are important for engineering education because FDD is a key capability of competitive processes and products. The intended outcome of the lab work is that students become aware of the importance of faulty conditions and learn to design FDD strategies for a real system. To this end, the paper proposes a lab project where students are requested to develop a discrete event dynamic system (DEDS) diagnosis to cope with two faulty conditions in an autonomous mobile robot task. A sample solution is discussed for LEGO Mindstorms NXT robots with LabVIEW. This innovative practice is relevant to higher education engineering courses related to mechatronics, robotics, or DEDS. Results are also given of the application of this strategy as part of a postgraduate course on fault-tolerant mechatronic systems.

Control movement scheme based on manipulability concept for a surgical robotic assistant

This paper proposes a Cartesian control scheme applied to a robotic assistant for laparoscopic surgery. This systems main characteristic is that it emulates the movements of a human assistant, guiding the laparoscopic camera with precision to focus on the area in question inside the patient. Furthermore this control scheme requires adjustment of certain parameters in order to prevent saturation of the manipulators actuators, and therefore the robot has been studied in terms of manipulability. The proposed movement control scheme has been implanted in the ERM robot used to carry out trials on thirty two patients

Autonomous and Teleoperated Control of the AURORA Mobile Robot

Abstract This paper presents the main components of a control architecture that allows both autonomous and teleoperated navigation in agricultural and industrial environments with high obstacle density. They support user interaction, task execution, navigation, and feedback control. The architecture combines parallel behavior control concepts with hierarchical organization. Moreover, the architecture allows multilevel remote operator intervention for monitoring and control. The paper emphasizes the components (sensors and controllers) to implement motion and feedback control, as well as the teleoperation station integration. The control architecture has been implemented to control the AURORA mobile robot. The efficiency and robustness of the components have been tested in the experiments with this mobile robot. The paper includes a description of an autonomous navigation experiment.

Evaluation of Sensor Configurations for Robotic Surgical Instruments

Designing surgical instruments for robotic-assisted minimally-invasive surgery (RAMIS) is challenging due to constraints on the number and type of sensors imposed by considerations such as space or the need for sterilization. A new method for evaluating the usability of virtual teleoperated surgical instruments based on virtual sensors is presented. This method uses virtual prototyping of the surgical instrument with a dual physical interaction, which allows testing of different sensor configurations in a real environment. Moreover, the proposed approach has been applied to the evaluation of prototypes of a two-finger grasper for lump detection by remote pinching. In this example, the usability of a set of five different sensor configurations, with a different number of force sensors, is evaluated in terms of quantitative and qualitative measures in clinical experiments with 23 volunteers. As a result, the smallest number of force sensors needed in the surgical instrument that ensures the usability of the device can be determined. The details of the experimental setup are also included.

DEVELOPMENT OF A TELEROBOTIC CAMERA MANIPULATOR FOR LAPAROSCOPIC SURGERY

Abstract This paper presents a robotic assistant to help surgeons in minimally invasive surgery. The system provides the direct control of the camera positioning inside the abdominal cavity, by both surgeon voice co mmands and remote teleoperation. This prototype does not require any modification of a standard operating room (furniture or surgery tools) for its installation and it s application in operations. The system has been tested by using patient simulators, and in vitro tissues.