A modular miniature underwater robot design scheme for swarm operations

This paper introduces the modular design and manufacturing method, mechanical model, and test verification of a new type of soft actuator driven by fluid. First, the modular design scheme and driving principle of omnidirectional bending and elongation of the soft actuator are described. Three print-based elastic air cavities constrained by fire lines are distributed radially inside the actuator. The actuator can complete the 3 DOF motions of omnidirectional bending and elongation. From the basic principle of material mechanics, a novel mechanical model of the soft elastomer actuator is established. By numerically solving the nonlinear model, the relationship between actuator elongation/bending angle and driving pressure is obtained. The theoretical prediction and test results show that the deformation of the actuator exhibits a linear relationship with pressure when the chambers are charged. Additionally, the maximum allowable load force on the actuator terminal also exhibits good linearity when the driving pressure increases. Furthermore, the established mechanical model, which considers gravity effects can more accurately describe the features of bend and elongation of the actuator. The results shows that the proposed model is more convenient than the FEM models. This study provides theoretical support for accurate control of a soft actuator.

Modular (re-configurable) robots have been studied and developed over two decades. Compared to common industrial robot manipulators, modular robots usually end up showing relatively poorer performance. This is mainly because most of modular robots' designs typically concentrate on mechatronic interfaces, packaging and re-configurable features, leaving little space for dynamics and considerations. In our current research frame, we are looking at virtual decomposition control (VDC) to significantly improve modular robots dynamics and performance. A key element to successful implementation of the related algorithms has to do with the inter-modules communication link capabilities. Presented here is the first 2 DOF prototype built to demonstrate the feasibility of implementing VDC on a real system, including the Spacewire Bus based communication protocol used.

Purpose This paper describes the development and implementation of a modular school building design prototype to support “build back better” after the disaster. The purpose of this paper is to bridge the gap between the two standard practices of post-disaster reconstruction: the quickly temporary construction and the permanent solution with longer time to complete. Design/methodology/approach The modular school design prototype was developed based on three design criteria established to achieve a relatively quick construction with good quality as a post-disaster permanent solution. The prototype was implemented in Kerandangan Village, Lombok and evaluated to review its compliance with the design criteria. Findings Three design strategies were proposed to respond to the main design criteria: the use of modular units and components, the material durability and availability, and the “plug-and-play” configuration system. Through these strategies, the prototype demonstrated the ability to perform as a permanent solution to be implemented in a short time. The prototype evaluation suggests some possible improvement to ensure a more efficient process and further replicability. Originality/value The development of the modular design bridges the gap between temporary and permanent approach for post-disaster school reconstruction. The highlighted criteria and the proposed design strategies contribute to the “build back better” attempt by providing better learning experiences for children through a replicable modular design that could be flexibly adapted to various local contexts.

Emergency rescue equipment vehicles (EREV), with the ability that carry a variety of rescue equipment in different rescue scenes, play an important role in emergency rescue field. However, there still exists some issues in existing EREV products, such as small types and quantity, large volume, small loading capacity, low design efficiency and so on, which can not meet the increasingly complex rescue needs. Because of its low cost, high efficiency, strong interchangeability and reliable product performance, the modular design technology is widely used in machine tool manufacturing, toy production, electronic products, aerospace, automobile manufacturing, building construction and other fields. In this paper, a process model of the generalized modular design method for EREV is designed in order to solve the above issues. All structures and functions of modules in a product genealogy are expressed in a matrix form. This generalized modular design method proposed in this paper gives theoretical references to the design issues of other similar construction machinery devices.

Password authentication has always been a natural choice for remote access in network applications. Although there have been many protocols of this kind exists today, few have seriously taken into account and exploited the duplex nature of modern communication networks. Given the capability to send and receive messages at the same time, it would be inefficient in terms of communication and computation resources for participants to wait for responses while doing nothing. There have also been a number of researches focus on parallelization of computations in step-oriented protocols. However, these protocols are often highly integrated and no modification is considered secure without rigorously analyzing them again. Thus, system designers who have restrictions and policies set for by their institutions may find that incorporating these protocols a dreadful task. In this paper, we seek to identify the functional modules in password authentication schemes and give a general procedure for generating protocols with these modules. We also give a proof of security for the generalized protocol produced from the procedure. With modular and round-oriented design, we show that flexible infrastructure can be built to provide sound solutions to password authentication in a wide range of hardware/software implementations and computing capabilities.

Currently available industrial robots are mainly of monolithic structure. Hence, the geometrical dimensions and the configuration of robotic arms are immutable. A modular design of serial manipulators allows to vary the structure of serial kinematic chains, for example, to adapt the system to a specific handling task. In this work we present the concept of a modular robot which has general kinematic structure by means of curved link elements. We show how to describe intuitively the assemblage of modular manipulators with curved links (referred to as Cuma-arms) by a parameter set. A Cuma-type arm and a dedicated path which can be followed by the end effector with 16 different postures is presented. For computation of the inverse kinematics of general serial 6R manipulators the algorithm of Husty and Pfurner is used and implemented on a real system.

This paper proposes a motor control scheme, based on Texas Instruments' (TI) C2000 family of Digital Signal Controllers (DSC). The solution is generic in nature and can be used to control motors of various types and ratings. Unlike existing solutions, which integrate the entire drive system including sensing, control and power electronics on to a single board, the proposed system modularizes the motor control solution. In the modularized scheme, the sensing subsystem and the power electronic drive subsystem are taken offboard, to extend the operational limits of the system. The modular scheme allows for the complete use of the available set of features and capabilities of the DSC. Further, the system is equipped with extensive debug capabilities that facilitate the monitoring of various system parameters. The system is low cost, and can be seamlessly integrated with existing hardware such as inverters and sensors.

Modular design process for a micro motion actuator

Metal corrosion leads to severe economic losses and safety hazards to human society. As an energy-efficient and sustainable anticorrosion technique, photocathodic protection (PCP) systems have received growing attention in the past two decades. However, the existing PCP devices barely meet the requirements of adequate metal protection in real-world scenarios. This perspective aims to provide some constructive insights into the rational design of PCP devices and propose “functional module integration” as a new concept for future PCP systems. Similarly to multi-layered solar cells, PCP systems may incorporate multiple modules based on the corresponding functions. These include photoabsorber module (PAM), electron transfer module (ETM), hole transfer module (HTM), hole consumption module (HCM), and electron storage module (ESM). With such a modular design, improved capture of sunlight and fast charge separation, directional transportation, and effective utilization of the photogenerated carriers might be attained. Consequently, the solar-to-electric energy conversion efficiency and operation consistency of PCP devices can be significantly boosted, paving the way for practical application of solar-powered metal protection technology.Graphical This perspective analyses the key issues of current photocathodic protection systems and proposes a unified design composed of functional modules for the next generation systems inspired by the architecture of solar cells. This modular design allows the breaking-down of all reaction steps of the solar-to-electric conversion process onto various modules, which may bring about breakthroughs for green cathodic metal protection.

OFDM is the key technique in the next generation communication. In this paper, we describe the design and implementation scheme of the baseband part of multimedia transmitting system carried by automobile. It is developed with the COFDM technique and MPEG-4 standard. The baseband system is composed of source encoder, channel encoder, OFDM modulator and pre-distortion set. The equipment designed can transmit audio/video signal at a wireless mobile channel and build an exclusive wideband LAN for some special users. It supplies a convenient user interface and modular function design process, which are implemented by the universal high performance chips-DSP, FPGA and EPLD. Based on the theory of software defined radio, the software embedded in the chips can be programmed to different functions. So it is easy to debug and modify for designers with a much lower cost.

This study explores the intelligent design method of customized furniture based on modular theory and artificial intelligence technology, aiming to improve design efficiency and customer satisfaction. The research focuses on how to optimize the customized furniture design process through modular design and artificial intelligence technology, achieving a balance between personalization and cost-effectiveness. The research methods involve building modular design processes, utilizing artificial intelligence to assist in module selection and combination optimization, and applying augmented reality technology in design. The results showed that the proposed model performed the best on the training set, with an accuracy of 92%, a precision of 88%, a recall of 90%, an F1 score of 89%, an area under the curve ratio of 95%, and a logarithmic loss of 0.21. The corresponding values on the validation set decreased to 89%, 85%, 86%, 85%, and 93%, while the logarithmic loss increased to 0.28. In addition, in the performance comparison, the structural similarity index value of the model increased from 0.350 to 0.912, and the peak signal-to-noise ratio increased from 13.542 decibels to 22.759 decibels, demonstrating good performance. These evaluation metrics (accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score) were used to assess the classification performance of the AI model in selecting optimal module combinations and generating rendered design schemes that best match user preferences. The proposed approach, named Modular Customized Furniture Intelligent Design System (MoCFIDS), integrates modular theory with AI-assisted module optimization and augmented reality for design validation. Comparative experiments with state-of-the-art models such as CycleGAN and MUNIT showed that MoCFIDS significantly outperformed them in terms of SSIM, PSNR, and computational efficiency, highlighting its superior capability in producing high-quality, user-preferred furniture designs. The research significance lies in the fact that the modular intelligent design method for customized furniture has improved the efficiency and quality of customized furniture design, delivering more personalized and cost-effective design outcomes.

Miniature robots have many advantages over their larger counterparts, such as low cost, low power, and easy to build a large scale team for complex tasks. Heterogeneous multi miniature robots could provide powerful situation awareness capability due to different locomotion capabilities and sensor information. However, it would be expensive and time consuming to develop specific embedded system for different type of robots. In this paper, we propose a generic modular embedded system architecture called SMARbot (Stevens modular autonomous robot), which consists of a set of hardware and software modules that can be configured to construct various types of robot systems. These modules include a high performance microprocessor, a reconfigurable hardware component, wireless communication, and diverse sensor and actuator interfaces. The design of all the modules in electrical subsystem, the selection criteria for module components, and the real-time operating system are described. Some preliminary experimental results are also presented.

Modular robot is an approach to build the robot for various complex tasks with the promise of great versatility, robustness and lower cost. It can be used extensively to meet the demands of different tasks or different working environments by changing its shapes. Therefore, they can travel over or through obstacles, and go though small pipe. Even they can walk somewhat like a person on crutches. It is a key technology that how modular robot with vision to capture exact image information, as well as to extract the feature parameters of components real-timely, to recognize the component types, and to judge the position and posture of component. The quantity of the motion pattern will decide the adjustable ability of modular robot. So, dynamic vision control system is very important for modular robot, which can improve its moving ability and intelligent degree. With the help of the dynamic vision control system, the robot can accomplish different tasks in different working environments by itself, such as deciding routes and avoiding obstacles. In this paper, in order to improve the vision of modular robot, a kind of dynamic vision control system is analyzed and researched roundly, and two kinds of motion patterns for the modular robot are put forward.

The sustainable development of high-performance micro-batteries, characterized by miniaturized size, portability, enhanced safety, and cost-effectiveness, is crucial for the advancement of wearable and smart electronics. Zinc-ion micro-batteries (ZIMBs) have attracted widespread attention for their high energy density, environmental friendliness, excellent safety, and low cost. The key to designing high-performance ZIMBs lies in improving their volumetric capacity and cycle stability. This review focuses on material design, electrode fabrication, and the structural configuration of micro-batteries, providing a comprehensive analysis of the challenges and strategies associated with cathodes in ZIMBs. Additionally, the application of ZIMBs, which provide energy for electronics such as wearable devices, tiny robots, and sensors, is introduced. Finally, future perspectives on cathodes for ZIMBs are discussed, offering key insights into their design and fabrication in order to facilitate the successful integration of ZIMBs into practical applications.

On the basis of analyzing the necessary, such as the bridge monitoring data management, safety state evaluation, evaluation opinions and etc , this paper designs a remote monitoring and assessment system (BRMAS)with the parametric, intelligent and modular design thought, and applicates object-oriented software Microsoft VC++ to developt BRMAS system, which gives a system structure, function module and evaluation model. Through applying the design scheme and developed software into a highway bridge management, applications indicated that BRMAS system is very maneuverable, and realize the modern information management of bridges.