This document provides a description about how the problem of the detection of thecenter of a defined geometry object was solved.This named object has been placed in an experimental environment surrounded bywater to be explored using microwaves under the water, to try to find a possibletumor. The receiver antenna is fixed in the tip of the tool of an ABB robot.Due to this working method, it was necessary to locate the center of this object tomake correctly the microwave scanning turning always around the actual center. Thiswork not only consist in give a hypothetic solution to the people who gave us theresponsibility of solve their problem, it is also to actually develop a system whichcarries out the function explained before.For the task of measuring the distance between the tip of the tool where themicrowave antenna is, ultrasonic sensors has been used, as a complement of acomplete system of communication between the sensor and finally the robot handler,using Matlab as the main controller of the whole system.One of these sensors will work out of water, measuring the zone of the object which isout of the water. In the other hand, as the researching side of the thesis, a completeultrasonic sensor will be developed to work under water, and the results obtained willbe shown as the conclusion of our investigation.The document provides a description about how the hardware and software necessaryto implement the system mentioned and some equipment more which were essentialto the final implementation was developed step by step.

Semi-autonomous control schemes can address the limitations of both teleoperation and fully autonomous robotic control of rescue robots in disaster environments by allowing cooperation and task sharing between a human operator and a robot with respect to tasks such as navigation, exploration and victim identification. Herein, a unique hierarchical reinforcement learning (HRL) -based semi-autonomous control architecture is presented for rescue robots operating in unknown and cluttered urban search and rescue (USAR) environments. The aim of the controller is to allow a rescue robot to continuously learn from its own experiences in an environment in order to improve its overall performance in exploration of unknown disaster scenes. A new direction-based exploration technique and a rubble pile categorization technique are integrated into the control architecture for exploration of unknown rubble filled environments. Both simulations and physical experiments in USAR-like environments verify the robustness of the proposed control architecture.

ITT Water & Wastewater ställer höga krav på kostnadseffektiv produktion vilket är en starkt bidragande orsak till att företaget är världsledande på sin marknad. För att erhålla kostnadseffektiv produktion har kombinationen människa robot visat sig vara framgångsrik. Examensarbetets syfte var att ta fram underlag åt ITT Water & Wastewater för att ta beslut om frigörande av indirekt personal vid line 15:s isoleringsstation på Elmotorverkstaden. Syftets uppfyllande stöttades av de underbyggande syftena att försöka höja robotens utnyttjandegrad samt reducera isoleringsmaskinens omställningstid. Arbetet bygger på kvalitativa och kvantitativa data i form av mätningar, intervjuer och egna observationer. Med stöd av erhållen data lyftes fyra olika förslag fram. Förslagen understryktes bland annat av integrering av arbetsmoment, förhöjd automatiseringsgrad och outsourcing. / ITT Water & Wastewater place high demands on cost-effective production which is a major contributing factor to the company enact as a world leader in its market. In order to obtain cost-effective production, the combination man robot proved to be successful. The thesis purpose was to provide data for ITT Water & Wastewater to take decisions concerning the release of indirect staff in line 15´s isolation station at the electric motor workshop. The purpose of the implement supported by the reinforced purposes to increase the utilization of the robot and reduce the adaptation time at the isolation machine. The work builds on qualitative and quantitative data in the shape of measurements, interviews and own observations. On the reliance of data four different suggestions were presented. The suggestions emphasized among integration of working moment, increased automation level and outsourcing.

Ett nytt produktionskoncept på Saab Automobile AB – Lean Automation – är under implementering och utveckling. Inriktningen är att utveckla automationslösningar som stödjer principer och arbetsätt inom Lean Produktion. En gemensam nämnare är automation som byggs upp av enkel, standardiserad och modulariserad utrustning och som kan omkonfigureras av egen personal. Två pilotinstallationer har gjorts under 2010: Transport med enkel AGV (Lean AGV) samt Lean Automation Robot Cell (LARC). Dessa komponenter ingår i denna studie som inriktar sig på förändringar i det totala produktionssystemet med sikte på en konstant hög produktivitetsnivå även vid frekventa förändringar i volym och produktinnehåll. Studien pekar på vikten av att samla produktionspersonalen för att underlätta balansering, men även för att skapa en visuell process där fel snabbt kan upptäckas och åtgärdas. En effektiv balansering av robotar kräver en något annorlunda inriktning där fokus istället ligger på att distribuera arbetselementen på ett lämpligt sätt samt att utnyttja de sammanlagringseffekter som ett gemensamt flöde ger. Ett verktyg för att mer ändamålsenligt balansera det värdeskapande arbetet introduceras. Verktyget är avsett för såväl manuellt som robotiserat arbete En flödesorienterad metod att knyta samman delsammanbyggnader med huvudflöde presenteras. Metoden bygger på att ersätta gaffeltruckar och manuellt laddade magasin med ett enkelt AGV-flöde. Systemet förmedlar information om produktionsläget till personalen genom att lastbärarna utgör visuella "Kanban-kort". Genom detta visuella system, samt genom att lagkonceptet utnyttjas till att upprätthålla en billig och ändamålsenlig buffert, förebyggs materialbrister. Generella riktlinjer för konceptval av interna materialflöden presenteras och exemplifieras. Slutligen beskrivs hur flexibilitetslösningarna kan anpassas till nivån i förädlingskedjan och hur detta är kopplat till ett parallellt respektive seriellt flöde. / A new concept of production – Lean Automation – is being developed and implemented at Saab Automobile AB. The aim is to develop solutions for automation that supports the Lean Production principals and way of work. A basic idea is that automation should be build from simple, standardized and modular equipment and that it can be reconfigured by in house personnel. During 2010, two pilots have been installed: Transport using a simple AGV (Lean AGV) and Lean Automation Robot Cell (LARC). Those components are parts of this study that is aiming for a production system with an unchanged high level of productivity also during periods of frequent changes in volume and product scope. The study underlines the importance of gathering the production personnel to enable work balancing, but also to achieve a visual process where errors urgently can be discovered and resolved. The robots work balancing requires a somewhat different approach focusing on the distribution of work elements and taking advantage of the equalizing effect in a common production flow. A tool for an expedient balancing of value added work is introduced. The tool is intended for the balancing of both manual and robotized work. Further, a method to connect the sub assembly level to the main flow is presented. Fork lift trucks and manually loaded feeders is replaced by a simple flow of AGV’s. The system is conveying information about the state of production through the presence of empty carriers. Through this visual system, plus the use of the team concept to achieve a cheap and efficient buffer, shortage of material is prevented. For the selection of internal material flow systems, a set of general guidelines is proposed and exemplified. Finally, the adoption of different solutions for flexibility is linked to the level of assembly and this is also linked to the aspects of parallel versus serial production flow.

The aim of this thesis was to investigate if the robotized welding method FSW (Friction Stir Welding) could be applied for joining a rotating structure in an aero engine at Volvo Aero Corporation. FSW is expected to introduce less defects than today’s welding methods and could therefore be suitable for critical aero components. The material is the nickel based alloy Inconel 718, however a material experimentation is outside the scope of this report.The main goal of this study is to verify if the ESAB ROSIO robot based FSW-system has a suitable work space to be able to weld the rotating structure, and if the welding tool has accessibility to the joints. The FSW-process needs a rigid fixture, and a number of fix-ture concepts are presented based on a proposed weld sequence. A final fixture design is proposed, which requires a new design of the structure.The accessibility studies were performed in the robot simulations software Robot Stu-dio. This showed that the robot was unable to weld the proposed model in all areas in the original design. If the robot and the rotating structure can be redesigned the access will be achieved as shown in Robot Studio simulations.In order to be implemented in real production a number of further actions need to be taken and the result of this study can be a basis for these.

In the field of mobile robotics, many applications require feedback control laws that provide perfect path following. Previous work has shown that transverse feedback linearization is an effective approach to designing path following controllers that achieve perfect path following and path invariance. This thesis uses transverse feedback linearization and augments it with dynamic extension to present a framework for designing path following controllers for certain kinematic models of mobile robots. This approach can be used to design path following controllers for a large class of paths. While transverse feedback linearization makes the desired path attractive and invariant, dynamic extension allows the closed-loop system to achieve the desired motion along the path. In particular, dynamic extension can be used to make the mobile robot track a desired velocity or acceleration profile while moving along a path.

After developing for a century, science fictions and movies are becoming huge culture enterprises in Europe and America. But in Taiwan, the audiences and readers are only interested in special effect Hollywood movies or comics, science fictions are still considered deduction novels and being put aside. Writers don¡¦t want to invest their time to initiate a science fiction, but Hwang-Hai does. Hwang-Hai had TB since he was young. He dropped out from school at grade 8 to fight the disease. Beyond his sickness, he kept learning and practicing writing, and making a profit from payment of written to improve his family finance. He started his science fiction writing when he was 26 years old, and kept on writing until now, for 40 years. His creation list is just like an epitome of Taiwan science fiction literature history. He was an ascetic monk of science fiction writing, walking haltingly, alone on his way, kept standing on and became evergreen of science literature among Taiwan writers. TB like the shadow following Hwang-Hai during his adolescent, but he kept on learning and writing. At age 31, he passed high school educational authenticate exam and joint college entrance examination, accomplished his dream on college study. After age 40, he won a lot award on literature and his achievement is approved by literary circles. Hwang-Hai¡¦s writing includes literary novels, prose, columns, science articles, and adult and children science fictions. The author wants to build up the interaction between science evolutions and the developing history of science fictions by historical analysis, and tries to establish the relationship among scientific hermeneutics, sociology, arts, psychology and philology by theoretical research, and studies the details of his creations one by one on literature text, to posit his role in science literature history of Taiwan. Keywords: Science fiction, Hwang-Hai, Robot, UFO, time machine, Scientific Hermeneutics.

In the thesis study, it is intended to design and manufacture an anthropomorphic robot head that can resemble human head/neck and eye movements. The designed robot head consists of a 4-DOF neck and a 4-DOF head. The head is composed of 3-DOF eyes and 1-DOF jaw. This work focuses on the head/neck and eyes therefore / the other free to move parts such as eyebrows, eyelids, ears etc. are not implemented. The general kinematic human modeling technique can be applied to facilitate the humanoid robotics design process since human anatomy can be represented as a sequence of rigid bodies connected by joints. In this study, we refer to the anthropometric data in determining the dimensions of all parts in order to have a robot head as human-like as possible. In addition, motion types, motion ranges and their velocities are considered. These factors are of great importance in imitating the human head movements as close as possible. It is intended that the developed humanoid robot head will be used as a research platform in studying fields such as / social interaction between human and robots, artificial intelligence and virtual reality. It will also be an experimental setup to conduct experiments for studying active vision systems.

In this thesis study, a two-fingered gripper and a four-fingered multipurpose gripper are developed and manufactured. In addition to development of robotic hands, computer control hardware and software are also developed for computer control of both hands. The two-fingered gripper is designed for a specially defined pick and place operation. Its task is to pick a cylindrical work piece and place it in the appropriate position in a flexible manufacturing cell. Pneumatic actuator is used for power generation and mechanical links are used for power transmission. Fourfingered gripper is designed as a multipurpose gripper. The task is not predefined for this gripper, so, human hand and previous dexterous hands are taken as model during design. It consists of 3 fingers and a thumb. It has 1 degree of freedom for every finger and thumb. Pneumatic actuators are also used for this gripper. Rope and pulley system is used for the power transmission mechanism. Structures of both hands are manufactured from 5083 series aluminum. Gripping force can be controlled by the pressure regulator of the pneumatic system for both hands. Computer software is developed for the control of open and close motion of the fingers. Also, a motion control card is designed and manufactured for control of the pneumatic valves.

Semi-autonomous control schemes can address the limitations of both teleoperation and fully autonomous robotic control of rescue robots in disaster environments by allowing cooperation and task sharing between a human operator and a robot with respect to tasks such as navigation, exploration and victim identification. Herein, a unique hierarchical reinforcement learning (HRL) -based semi-autonomous control architecture is presented for rescue robots operating in unknown and cluttered urban search and rescue (USAR) environments. The aim of the controller is to allow a rescue robot to continuously learn from its own experiences in an environment in order to improve its overall performance in exploration of unknown disaster scenes. A new direction-based exploration technique and a rubble pile categorization technique are integrated into the control architecture for exploration of unknown rubble filled environments. Both simulations and physical experiments in USAR-like environments verify the robustness of the proposed control architecture.