scholarly journals Development of a vision-based target exploration system for snake-like robots in structured environments

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 172988142093614
Author(s):  
Guoyuan Li ◽  
Håkon Bjerkgaard Waldum ◽  
Marcus Olai Grindvik ◽  
Ruben Svedal Jørundl ◽  
Houxiang Zhang

Applying snake-like robots to environmental exploration has been a hot topic for years. How to achieve free navigation for target search in a complex environment in a safe and efficient manner is one of the main tasks that researchers in the field of robotics currently face. This article presents a target exploration system that takes advantages of visual sensing to navigate the snake-like robot in structured environments. Two cameras are utilized in the system. The first one is mounted on the head of the snake-like robot for target recognition and the other is an overhead camera which is responsible for locating the robot and identifying surrounding obstacles. All dead ends in the environment can thus be recognized using a template-based method. A search strategy for traversal of the dead ends is employed for generating exploration paths. Several gaits are developed for the snake-like robot. By switching between these gaits, the snake-like robot is able to follow the paths to search for the target. Two experiments are conducted in a maze environment. The experimental results validate the effectiveness of the proposed system for snake-like robots exploring in structured environments.

1994 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 127-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi Rea ◽  
George G. Ganf

Experimental results demonstrate bow small differences in depth and water regime have a significant affect on the accumulation and allocation of nutrients and biomass. Because the performance of aquatic plants depends on these factors, an understanding of their influence is essential to ensure that systems function at their full potential. The responses differed for two emergent species, indicating that within this morphological category, optimal performance will fall at different locations across a depth or water regime gradient. The performance of one species was unaffected by growth in mixture, whereas the other performed better in deep water and worse in shallow.


Author(s):  
Christine M. Korsgaard

According to the marginal cases argument, there is no property that might justify making a moral difference between human beings and the other animals that is both uniquely and universally human. It is therefore “speciesist” to treat human beings differently just because we are human beings. While not challenging the conclusion, this chapter argues that the marginal cases argument is metaphysically misguided. It ignores the differences between a life stage and a kind, and between lacking a property and having it in a defective form. The chapter then argues for a view of moral standing that attributes it to the subject of a life conceived as an atemporal being, and shows how this view can resolve some familiar puzzles such as how death can be a loss to the person who has died, how we can wrong the dead, the “procreation asymmetry,” and the “non-identity problem.”


2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 551-563
Author(s):  
Liqiong Lu ◽  
Dong Wu ◽  
Ziwei Tang ◽  
Yaohua Yi ◽  
Faliang Huang

This paper focuses on script identification in natural scene images. Traditional CNNs (Convolution Neural Networks) cannot solve this problem perfectly for two reasons: one is the arbitrary aspect ratios of scene images which bring much difficulty to traditional CNNs with a fixed size image as the input. And the other is that some scripts with minor differences are easily confused because they share a subset of characters with the same shapes. We propose a novel approach combing Score CNN, Attention CNN and patches. Attention CNN is utilized to determine whether a patch is a discriminative patch and calculate the contribution weight of the discriminative patch to script identification of the whole image. Score CNN uses a discriminative patch as input and predict the score of each script type. Firstly patches with the same size are extracted from the scene images. Secondly these patches are used as inputs to Score CNN and Attention CNN to train two patch-level classifiers. Finally, the results of multiple discriminative patches extracted from the same image via the above two classifiers are fused to obtain the script type of this image. Using patches with the same size as inputs to CNN can avoid the problems caused by arbitrary aspect ratios of scene images. The trained classifiers can mine discriminative patches to accurately identify some confusing scripts. The experimental results show the good performance of our approach on four public datasets.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hossein Ahmadvand ◽  
Fouzhan Foroutan ◽  
Mahmood Fathy

AbstractData variety is one of the most important features of Big Data. Data variety is the result of aggregating data from multiple sources and uneven distribution of data. This feature of Big Data causes high variation in the consumption of processing resources such as CPU consumption. This issue has been overlooked in previous works. To overcome the mentioned problem, in the present work, we used Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) to reduce the energy consumption of computation. To this goal, we consider two types of deadlines as our constraint. Before applying the DVFS technique to computer nodes, we estimate the processing time and the frequency needed to meet the deadline. In the evaluation phase, we have used a set of data sets and applications. The experimental results show that our proposed approach surpasses the other scenarios in processing real datasets. Based on the experimental results in this paper, DV-DVFS can achieve up to 15% improvement in energy consumption.


2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-58
Author(s):  
Jeffrey S. Galko ◽  

The ontological question of what there is, from the perspective of common sense, is intricately bound to what can be perceived. The above observation, when combined with the fact that nouns within language can be divided between nouns that admit counting, such as ‘pen’ or ‘human’, and those that do not, such as ‘water’ or ‘gold’, provides the starting point for the following investigation into the foundations of our linguistic and conceptual phenomena. The purpose of this paper is to claim that such phenomena are facilitated by, on the one hand, an intricate cognitive capacity, and on the other by the complex environment within which we live. We are, in a sense, cognitively equipped to perceive discrete instances of matter such as bodies of water. This equipment is related to, but also differs from, that devoted to the perception of objects such as this computer. Behind this difference in cognitive equipment underlies a rich ontology, the beginnings of which lies in the distinction between matter and objects. The following paper is an attempt to make explicit the relationship between matter and objects and also provide a window to our cognition of such entities.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
George Pattison

AbstractNoting Heidegger’s critique of Kierkegaard’s way of relating time and eternity, the paper offers an alternative reading of Kierkegaard that suggests Heidegger has overlooked crucial elements in the Kierkegaardian account. Gabriel Marcel and Sharon Krishek are used to counter Heidegger’s minimizing of the deaths of others and to show how the deaths of others may become integral to our sense of self. This prepares the way for revisiting Kierkegaard’s discourse on the work of love in remembering the dead. Against the criticism that this reveals the absence of the other in Kierkegaardian love, the paper argues that, on the contrary, it shows how Kierkegaard conceives the self as inseparable from the core relationships of love that, despite of death, constitute it as the self that it is.


1993 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 2344-2353 ◽  
Author(s):  
J-M. Berthelot ◽  
Souda M. Ben ◽  
J.L. Robert

The experimental study of wave attenuation in concrete has been achieved in the case of the propagation of plane waves in concrete rods. Different mortars and concretes have been investigated. A transmitter transducer coupled to one of the ends of the concrete rod generates the propagation of a plane wave in the rod. The receiver transducer, similar to the previous one, is coupled to the other end of the rod. The experimental results lead to an analytical expression for wave attenuation as function of the concrete composition, the propagation distance, and the wave frequency.


Robotics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 68
Author(s):  
Lei Shi ◽  
Cosmin Copot ◽  
Steve Vanlanduit

In gaze-based Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), it is important to determine human visual intention for interacting with robots. One typical HRI interaction scenario is that a human selects an object by gaze and a robotic manipulator will pick up the object. In this work, we propose an approach, GazeEMD, that can be used to detect whether a human is looking at an object for HRI application. We use Earth Mover’s Distance (EMD) to measure the similarity between the hypothetical gazes at objects and the actual gazes. Then, the similarity score is used to determine if the human visual intention is on the object. We compare our approach with a fixation-based method and HitScan with a run length in the scenario of selecting daily objects by gaze. Our experimental results indicate that the GazeEMD approach has higher accuracy and is more robust to noises than the other approaches. Hence, the users can lessen cognitive load by using our approach in the real-world HRI scenario.


1948 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 853-859
Author(s):  
R. F. A. Altman

Abstract As numerous investigators have shown, some of the nonrubber components of Hevea latex have a decided accelerating action on the process of vulcanization. A survey of the literature on this subject points to the validity of certain general facts. 1. Among the nonrubber components of latex which have been investigated, certain nitrogenous bases appear to be most important for accelerating the rate of vulcanization. 2. These nitrogen bases apparently occur partly naturally in fresh latex, and partly as the result of putrefaction, heating, and other decomposition processes. 3. The nitrogen bases naturally present in fresh latex at later stages have been identified by Altman to be trigonelline, stachhydrine, betonicine, choline, methylamine, trimethylamine, and ammonia. These bases are markedly active in vulcanization, as will be seen in the section on experimental results. 4. The nitrogenous substances formed by the decomposition processes have only partly been identified, on the one hand as tetra- and pentamethylene diamine and some amino acids, on the other hand as alkaloids, proline, diamino acids, etc. 5. It has been generally accepted that these nitrogenous substances are derived from the proteins of the latex. 6. Decomposition appears to be connected with the formation of a considerable amount of acids. 7. The production of volatile nitrogen bases as a rule accompanies the decomposition processes. These volatile products have not been identified. 8. The active nitrogen bases, either already formed or derived from complex nitrogenous substances, seem to be soluble in water but only slightly soluble in acetone.


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