Efficient Commercial Classification of Agricultural Products using Convolutional Neural Networks

<p>Agricultural products, as essential commodities, are among the most sought-for items in superstores. Barcode is usually utilized to classify and regulate the price of products such as ornamental flowers in such stores. However, the use of barcodes on some fragile agricultural products such as ornamental flowers can be damaged and lessen their life length. Moreover, it is time-consuming and costly<em><strong> </strong></em>and may lead to the production of massive waste and damage to the environment and the admittance of chemical materials into food products that can affect human health. Consequently, we aimed to design a classifier robot to recognize ornamental flowers based on the related product image at different times and surrounding conditions. Besides, it can increase the speed and accuracy of distinguishing and classifying the products, lower the pricing time, and increase the lifetime due to the absence of the need for movement and changing the position of the products. According to the datasheets provided by the robot that is stored in its database, we provide the possibility of identifying and introducing the product in different colors and shapes. Also, due to the preparation of a standard and small database tailored to the needs of the robot, the robot will be trained in a short time (less than five minutes) without the need for an Internet connection or a large hard drive for storage the data. On the other hand, by dividing each input photo into ten different sections, the system can, without the need for a detection system, simultaneously in several different images, decorative flowers in different conditions, angles and environments, even with other objects such as vases, detects very fast with a high accuracy of 97%.</p>

Formation shape transition of multiple mobile robots in leader-follower method

<p>This paper presents a formation shape transition technique of multiple mobile robots in the leader-follower method as a new function that gives flexibility to the formation control of mobile robots with multiple sonars. First, we propose basic shape transition methods for the case of two mobile robots under formation control by the leader-follower method, and then extend the methods to the shape transition of three mobile robots. Since the multiple sonars attached to the mobile robot are located forward, including the left and right sides, there is a constraint on the formation shape feasible by the leader - follower method. In the case of two mobile robots, the follower must be positioned behind the leader. Therefore, there are three shapes of the follower relative to the leader: line, right-back, left-back. In the case of three mobile robots, t hree types of line, zigzag, triangle shapes are considered. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is demonstrated by experiments using real mobile robots.</p>

Internet of robotic things: Design and develop the quality of service framework for the healthcare sector using CoAP

<p>The number of robotics used globally is gradually growing, according to a variety of research. They are becoming more and more popular in different workplaces, like manufacturing, distribution, medical conditions, military, inaccessible areas, etc. The internet of things (IoT) and robotics groups have until now been guided by a set of, but somewhat compatible, goals, which are mainly to help knowledge systems in the field of general sensing, tracking, and monitoring. Therefore, the development of an internet of robotic things (IoRT), which incorporates the outcome from both cultures, is progressively said to have a significant added benefit. Internet of robotic things, the intersection of the Internet of Things and robotics, is where self-sufficient machines will assemble information from various sensors and speak with one another to perform errands including basic reasoning. As the name suggests, IoRT is the combination of two front-line innovations, the internet of things and robotics. People can manage any electronic device in homes with IoT and can also be used in contactless applications in healthcare. The constrained application protocol (CoAP), for the management and control of a community of homogeneous sensor modules, has recently endorsed multicast communications in IoRT. It will boost connectivity performance, less power consumption due to data aggregation, and enhanced security features with DTLS security features for various applications for the internet of things. This paper presents an implementation of the CoAP framework on IoRT sky motes using the Contiki Cooja Simulator that will be a useful healthcare sector that will confirm their potential and therefore, new research directions are outlined</p>

Realtime autonomous navigation in V-Rep based static and dynamic environment using EKF-SLAM

<p>Localization in an autonomous mobile robot allows it to operate autonomously in an unknown and unpredictable environment with the ability to determine its position and heading. Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) are introduced to solve the problem where no prior information about the environment is available either static or dynamic to achieve standard map-based localization. The primary focus of this research is autonomous mobile robot navigation using the extended Kalman filter (EKF)-SLAM environment modeling technique which provides higher accuracy and reliability in mobile robot localization and mapping results. In this paper, EKF-SLAM performance is verified by simulations performed in a static and dynamic environment designed in V-REP i.e., 3D Robot simulation environment. In this work SLAM problem of two-wheeled differential drive robot i.e., Pioneer 3-DX in indoor static and dynamic environment integrated with Laser range finder i.e., Hokuyo URG-04LX- UG01, LIDAR, and Ultrasonic sensors is solved. EKF-SLAM scripts are developed using MATLAB that is linked to V-REP via remote API feature to evaluate EKF-SLAM performance. The reached results confirm the EKF- SLAM is a reliable approach for real-time autonomous navigation for mobile robots in comparison to other techniques.</p>

Adjustment mechanism with sliding mode for adaptive PD controller applied to unmanned fixed-wing MAV altitude

<p>This work presents an adjustment mechanism with the sliding modes technique to design a proportional derivative (PD) controller with adaptive gains. The objective and contribution are to design a robust adjustment mechanism in the presence of unknown and not modeled perturbations in the system; this perturbation can be considered wind gusts. The robust adjustment mechanism is designed with the MIT rule and the gradient method with the sliding mode theory. The adaptive PD obtained is applied to regulate unmanned fixed-wing miniature aerial vehicle (MAV’s) altitude.</p>

Adaptive Language Processing Unit for Malaysian Sign Language Synthesizer

Language Processing Unit (LPU) is a system built to process text-based data to comply with the rules of sign language grammar. This system was developed as an important part of the sign language synthesizer system. Sign language (SL) uses different grammatical rules from the spoken/verbal language, which only involves the important words that Hearing/Impaired Speech people can understand. Therefore, it needs word classification by LPU to determine grammatically processed sentences for the sign language synthesizer. However, the existing language processing unit in SL synthesizers suffers time lagging and complexity problems, resulting in high processing time. The two features, i.e., the computational time and success rate, become trade-offs which means the processing time becomes longer to achieve a higher success rate. This paper proposes an adaptive Language Processing Unit (LPU) that allows processing the words from spoken words to Malaysian SL grammatical rule that results in relatively fast processing time and a good success rate. It involves n-grams, NLP, and Hidden Markov Models (HMM)/Bayesian Networks as the classifier to process the text-based input. As a result, the proposed LPU system has successfully provided an efficient (fast) processing time and a good success rate compared to LPU with other edit distances (Mahalanobis, Levensthein, and Soundex). The system has been tested on 130 text-input sentences with several words ranging from 3 to 10 words. Results showed that the proposed LPU could achieve around 1.497ms processing time with an average success rate of 84.23% for a maximum of ten-word sentences.

The taxi function

<p>This paper investigates the lane keeping control and the lateral control of autonomous ground vehicles, robots or the like considering the road agency formation unit (RAFU) functions. A strategy based knowing the real position of several points of the trajectory is proposed to achieve the lateral control purpose and maintain the lane keeping errors within the prescribed performance boundaries. The RAFU functions are applied to achieve these goals. The stability of these functions, their applicability to approach any arbitrary trajectory and the easy control of the possible error made on the approximation are useful advantages in practice.</p>

Low-cost SARS-CoV-2 vaccine homogenization system for Pfizer-BioNTech covid-19 vials

<p>The current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has been affecting all sectors worldwide, and efforts have been targeting the enhancement of people’s health and labour conditions of collaborators belonging to healthcare institutions. The recent vaccines emerging against covid-19 are seen as a solution to address the problem that has already killed up to two million people. The preparation of the Pfizer-BioNTech covid-19 vaccine requires a specific manipulation before its administration. A correct homogenization with saline solution is needed and, therefore, a manual process with a predefined protocol should be accomplished. This action can endanger the operators’ ergonomics due to the repetitive movement of the process. This paper proposes a low-cost prototype incorporating an arduino based embedded system actuating a servomotor to perform an autonomous vials’ homogenization allowing to redirect these healthcare workers to other tasks. Moreover, a contactless start order process was implemented to avoid contact with the operator and, consequently, the contamination. The prototype was successfully tested and recognised, and is being applied during the preparation of the covid-19 vaccines at the hospital pharmacy of <em>Centro Hospitalar de Vila Nova de Gaia/Espinho</em>, <em>E.P.E.</em>, Portugal. It can be easily replicated since the source files to assemble it are provided by the authors.</p>

Technical study of the effect of laser engraving using uArm swift pro robot

<p>Laser engraving is the most non - traditional and efficient working method in the machining of materials of different geometry as compared to conventional methods. The main objective of this study is to determine the impact of uArm swift pro robot operated laser engraving process on a wooden pitch board piece. However, the robot was connected with uArm Studio 1.1.22 software to perform laser engraving operation. For this purpose the effect of process parameters like spot diameter and depth of penetration were investigated with different working length of the robot end effector, measured from wooden pitch board base. Experimental observation method was used to investigate the formation of deep and light engraving pattern on the pitch board surface by measuring penetration depth and spot diameter in suitable condition. The result obtained from the experiment and statistical parameters showed a new dimension to find a suitable working length of the robot assisted laser nozzle where the laser penetration effect was clearly perceptible for the wooden material.</p>

New time delay estimation-based virtual decomposition control for n-DoF robot manipulator

<p>One of the most efficient approaches to control a multiple degree-of-freedom robot manipulator is the virtual decomposition control (VDC). However, the use of the re- gressor technique in the conventionnal VDC to estimate the unknown and uncertaities parameters present some limitations. In this paper, a new control strategy of n-DoF robot manipulator, refering to reorganizing the equation of the VDC using the time delay estimation (TDE) have been investigated. In the proposed controller, the VDC equations are rearranged using the TDE for unknown dynamic estimations. Hence, the decoupling dynamic model for the manipulator is established. The stability of the overall system is proved based on Lyapunov theory. The effectiveness of the proposed controller is proved via case study performed on 7-DoF robot manipulator and com- pared to the conventionnal Regressor-based VDC according to some evalution criteria. The results carry out the validity and efficiency of the proposed time delay estimation- based virtual decomposition controller (TD-VDC) approach.</p>