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Cable robots form a class of parallel architecture robots with significant benefits including simplicity of construction, large workspace, significant payload capacity and end effector stiffness. While conventional cable robots have fixed bases, we seek to explore inclusion of mobility into the bases (in the form of gantries, and/or vehicle bases) which can significantly further enhance the capabilities of cable robots. However, this also introduces redundancy and complexity into the system which needs to be carefully analyzed and resolved. To this end, we propose a generalized modeling framework for systematic design and analysis of cooperative mobile cable robots, building upon knowledge base of multi-fingered grasping, and illustrate it with a case study of four cooperating gantry mounted cable robots transporting a planar payload.

Objectives More than one-third of hospitalized patients have hyperglycemia. Despite evidence that improving glycemic control leads to better outcomes, achieving recognized targets remains a challenge. The objective of this study was to evaluate the implementation of a computerized insulin order set and titration algorithm on rates of hypoglycemia and overall inpatient glycemic control. Methods A prospective observational study evaluating the impact of a glycemic order set and titration algorithm in an academic medical center in non-critical care medical and surgical inpatients. The initial intervention was hospital-wide implementation of a comprehensive insulin order set. The secondary intervention was initiation of an insulin titration algorithm in two pilot medicine inpatient units. Point of care testing blood glucose reports were analyzed. These reports included rates of hypoglycemia (BG < 70 mg/dL) and hyperglycemia (BG >200 mg/dL in phase 1, BG > 180 mg/dL in phase 2). Results In the first phase of the study, implementation of the insulin order set was associated with decreased rates of hypoglycemia (1.92% vs 1.61%; p <0.001) and increased rates of hyperglycemia (24.02% vs 27.27%; p <0.001) from 2010 to 2011. In the second phase, addition of a titration algorithm was associated with decreased rates of hypoglycemia (2.57% vs 1.82%; p = 0.039) and increased rates of hyperglycemia (31.76% vs 41.33%; p<0.001) from 2012 to 2013. Conclusions A comprehensive computerized insulin order set and titration algorithm significantly decreased rates of hypoglycemia. This significant reduction in hypoglycemia was associated with increased rates of hyperglycemia. Hardwiring the algorithm into the electronic medical record may foster adoption.

In this paper, we examine the development of a kinematically compatible control framework for a modular system of wheeled mobile manipulators that can team up to cooperatively transport a common payload. Each individually autonomous mobile manipulator consists of a differentially-driven Wheeled Mobile Robot (WMR) with a mounted two degree-of-freedom (d.o.f) revolute-jointed, planar and passive manipulator arm. The composite wheeled vehicle, formed by placing a payload at the end-effectors of two (or more) such mobile manipulators, has the capability to accommodate, detect and correct both instantaneous and finite relative configuration errors.The kinematically-compatible motion-planning/control framework developed here is intended to facilitate maintenance of all kinematic (holonomic and nonholonomic) constraints within such systems. Given an arbitrary endeffector trajectory, each individual mobile-manipulator's bilevel hierarchical controller first generates a kinematicallyfeasible desired trajectory for the WMR base, which is then tracked by a suitable lower-level posture stabilizing controller. Two variants of system-level cooperative control schemes-leader-follower and decentralized controlare then created based on the individual mobile-manipulator control scheme. Both methods are evaluated within an implementation framework that emphasizes both virtual prototyping (VP) and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) experimentation. Simulation and experimental results of an example of a twomodule system are used to highlight the capabilities of a real-time local sensor-based controller for accommodation, detection and corection of relative formation errors.