-For biogroups and groups of self-driven agents, making decisions often depends on interactions among group members. In this paper, we seek to understand the fundamental predictive mechanisms used by group members in order to perform such coordinated behaviors. In particular, we show that the future dynamics of each node in the network can be predicted solely using local information provided by its neighbors. Using this predicted future dynamics information, we propose a decentralized predictive consensus protocol, which yields drastic improvements in terms of both consensus speed and internal communication cost. In natural science, this study provides an evidence for the idea that some decentralized predictive mechanisms may exist in widely-spread biological swarms/flocks. From the industrial point of view, incorporation of a decentralized predictive mechanism allows for not only a significant increase in the speed of convergence towards consensus but also a reduction in the communication energy required to achieve a predefined consensus performance.
Shape memory polymer (SMP) is a type of functional materials that changes Young's modulus when heated above glass transition temperature (T g ). In this work, this property of SMP has been explored for the design and fabrication of a modular omni-directional joint with variable stiffness. When cascading a number of such joints, a variable stiffness hyper-redundant robotic arm can be built. The basic design of the variable stiffness joint is based on a ball joint where the ball is made of two materials: acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and SMP, and the socket is made of only ABS material. When heated, the ball joint shows different resistive torques below and above the SMP's glass transition temperature T g . Moreover, shape recovery property of SMP material above T g guarantees the design with high repeatability. Both the ball and the socket are made by a 3D printing process fused deposition modeling (FDM). The FDM fabrication of SMP is made possible by a novel process control method in the FDM process. The ball joint's variable stiffness is tested by a number of experiments. Experimental results indicate distinct changes in resistive torques at different test temperatures. Using the proposed modular omni-directional ball joints, a variable stiffness hyper-redundant robotic arm is built.
The chronicle of surgical robots is short but remarkable. Within 20 years since the regulatory approval of the irst surgical robot, more than 3,000 units were installed worldwide, and more than half a million robotic surgical procedures were carried out in the past year alone. The exceptionally high speeds of market penetration and expansion to new surgical areas had raised technical, clinical, and ethical concerns. However, from a technological perspective, surgical robots today are far from perfect, with a list of improvements expected for the next-generation systems. On the other hand, robotic technologies are lourishing at ever-faster paces. Without the inherent conservation and safety requirements in medicine, general robotic research could be substantially more agile and explorative. As a result, various technical innovations in robotics developed in recent years could potentially be grafted into surgical applications and ignite the next major advancement in robotic surgery. In this article, the current generation of surgical robots is reviewed from a technological point of view, including three of possibly the most debated technical topics in surgical robotics: vision, haptics, and accessibility. Further to that, several emerging robotic technologies are highlighted for their potential applications in next-generation robotic surgery.
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