Riccardo Adamini

On the Number and Placement of Accelerometers for Angular Velocity and Acceleration Determination

This paper identifies the minimum number of accelerometers nec-essary to measure rigid body acceleration. Notwithstanding thatonly 9 scalar unknowns must be identified, 12 devices compose aminimum set of transducers. This redundancy is necessary toavoid singularities in the equations. Conditions for the sensorplacement are given. It is also shown that when the determinationof the angular velocity is not required, a reduced set of 9 sensorscan be adopted. @DOI: 10.1115/1.1386649#

Automatic and manual devices for cardiopulmonary resuscitation: A review:

Rate of survival without any neurological consequence after cardiac arrest is driven not only by early recognition but also by high-quality cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Because the effectiveness of the manual cardiopulmonary resuscitation is usually impaired by rescuers’ fatigue, devices have been devised to improve it by appliances or ergonomic solutions. However, some devices are thought to replace the manual resuscitation altogether, either mimicking its action or generating hemodynamic effects with working principles which are entirely different. This article reviews such devices, both manual and automatic. They are mainly classified by actuation method, applied force, working space, and positioning time. Most of the trials and meta-analyses have not demonstrated that chest compressions given with automatic devices are more effective than those given manually. However, advances in clinical research and technology, with an improved understanding of the organizational implications of their use, are constantly improving the effectiveness of such devices.

Adaptive friction compensation for industrial robot control

We deal with the friction compensation in the model-based trajectory tracking control of an industrial robot manipulator. First it is shown that the variations of the friction term might significantly affect the control performances during the robot operations. Then, a simple adaptive scheme is proposed to solve the problem, allowing us to keep the trajectory tracking errors at a constant low level. Experimental results, obtained in a typical industrial environment, show the effectiveness of the method and how it is comparable with known neural-network-based techniques.

A contribution to the dynamics of free-flying space manipulators

This paper deals with the analysis of the motion of free flying space manipulators. One of the problems of this class of robots is that any movement of the joints produces a rotation of its base. This should be avoided. Approximate solutions to this problem have been proposed using the concept of the disturbance map. The paper presents an exact solution showing how a proper design of the robot introduces some dynamic singularities which allow us to plan sequences of movements that do not affect the orientation of the robot base.

Hybrid force/velocity robot contour tracking: an experimental analysis of friction compensation strategies

In this paper we experimentally analyze the performances of an hybrid force/velocity controller for the automatic edge following of 2D unknown planar contours performed by a robot manipulator. In this work we show that joint friction effects have to be taken into account in the controller design in order to achieve reasonable performances in terms of normal force and tangential velocities errors. For this reason we compare two model-based methods for coping with friction: a static one based on a previously identified model and an adaptive one recursively updating joint friction parameters. The proposed controllers are compared through an extensive experimental activity on a 2-DOF SCARA robot tracking an high stiffness aluminium-bar over a wide range of operative conditions.

Calibration of Parallel Kinematic Machines: Theory and Applications

As already stated in the chapter addressing the calibration of serial manipulators, kinematic calibration is a procedure for the identification and the consequent compensation of the geometrical pose errors of a robot. This chapter extends the discussion to Parallel Manipulators (also called PKM Parallel Kinematic Machines). As described in the following (Section 2) this extension is not obvious but requires special care. Although for serial manipulators some procedures for the calibration based on automatic generation of a MCPC (Minimum Complete Parametrically Continuos) model exist, for PKMs only methodologies for individual manipulators have been proposed but a general strategy has not been presented since now. A few examples of the numerous approaches for the calibration of individual PKMs are proposed in (Parenti-Castelli & Di Gregorio, 1995), (Jokiel et al., 2000) for direct calibration and (Neugebauer et al., 1999), (Smollett, 1996) for indirect or self calibration techniques.

Functional Design in Rehabilitation: Modular Mechanisms for Ankle Complex

This paper is aimed at presenting an innovative ankle rehabilitation device based on a parallel mechanism. A functional analysis and design are described to obtain a device able to guarantee ankle movement while patients body remains stationary. Human ankle is a challenging context where a series of joints are highly integrated. The proposed rehabilitation device permits a patient with walking defects to improve his or her gait. The research focuses on plantar-flexion-dorsiflexion movement. The robust design starts from an accurate modelling of ankle movements during walking, assessing motion data from healthy individuals and patients. The kinematics analysis and functional evaluations lead the study and development of the articulated system. In particular, results of simulations support the effectiveness of the current design. A 3D prototype is presented highlighting that the ankle motion is successfully demonstrated.

A Hardware-In-the-Loop setup for rapid control prototyping of mechatronic systems

In this paper we present a Hardware-In-the-Loop setup for the simulation of complex mechatronic systems. The setup consists of two coupled brushless motors. One of them is the motor under test, which is used to design the control algorithm and to test the control software, while the other one simulates the device to be controlled. Libraries of mechanical and hydraulic components have been implemented in an IEC61131-3 language so that a complex system can be simulated in a relatively easy way and this allows for a rapid control prototyping. Practical issues are discussed and an illustrative example is shown to confirm the effectiveness of the setup.

A Fuzzy Logic to Solve the Robotic Inverse Kinematic Problem

This study aims at introducing a numerical algorithm based on fuzzy logic to solve the robotic inverse kinematic problem. The increase of robot complexity requires fast and robust algorithms able to improve the convergence problem in the whole workspace. Classical numerical methods are usually difficult and computationally expensive and they do not always converge. The proposed approach is based on a fuzzy scheme, it converges in all the tested simulations on a serial manipulator.

Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Devices: Preliminary Analysis

This work is devoted to monitor and trace a preliminary representation of the set of devices designed to take part to resuscitation process for patients subjected to a cardiac arrest. The resuscitation procedure is well defined and reviewed by the scientific community and different devices are present in literature and are adopted on patients. A standard definition of the characteristics for these device is not present and their efficacy is controversial in literature.