Browsing by Subject "Robots"
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Item Children’s psychological and moral attributions to a humanoid robot(2015-08) Lopez-Mobilia, Gabriel; Woolley, Jacqueline D.; Echols, Catherine H; Markman, Arthur B; Reeves, Lauretta; Stone, Peter HIn the near future, sophisticated social robots will become increasingly interwoven into our lives. Researchers have recently begun to examine people’s anthropomorphic conceptions of such robots, and a few have stressed the unique consequences that these technological agents may have for the psychological development of children developing around them. In the current set of studies, children were introduced to a humanoid robot, “Robbie the Robot.” Across the two studies, participants witnessed Robbie perform a harmful action, destroying a block tower that a child had purportedly built and was saving for later. Of primary interest in these two studies was whether children would hold Robbie the Robot morally accountable for the destructive act. It was predicted that judgments of moral accountability would depend on several different factors: whether the robot appeared to initiate its own actions, the age of the participant, and whether children attributed psychological properties, specifically intentional agency, to the robot. In Study 1, children were assigned to one of two experimental conditions: a controlled condition in which a confederate appeared to control the robot’s actions with a device that was tethered to the robot, and an autonomous condition in which the robot appeared to move of its own accord. Results revealed that children were significantly more likely to attribute psychological properties to the robot in the autonomous condition compared to the controlled condition. Compared to 7-year-olds, 5-year-olds were more likely to attribute psychological properties to the robot overall. In addition, results indicated that increasing cues to the robot’s autonomy indirectly affected moral accountability judgments through an increase in children’s attributions of intentions. Study 2 tested the hypothesis that children’s attributions of psychological agency, but not psychological experience, would increase after watching the robot commit a moral act. Overall, Study 2 results did not support this prediction, but key results from the first study were replicated and elucidated by the inclusion of a wider array of psychological properties as well as a measure of children’s judgments of the robot’s cuteness. Implications are discussed for human interaction with social robots and other rapidly evolving technologies, such as autonomous vehicles.Item Design and analysis of a coding and classification system for a systematic interactive computer-aided robot selection procedure (CARSP)(Texas Tech University, 1984-08) Offodile, Onyebuchi FelixA coding and classification system (ROBOCODE) was developed for robots, and used to model a computer based robot selection algorithm. Forty attributes were used to design a taxonomic system for robots and provided a fast and easy standard basis for comparing robots. The system is semi-polycode structure and was readily computerized for easy storage and retrieval of information on robots. The goal of the ROBOCODE system was a user oriented computer-aided robot selection procedure (CARSP). The CARS system software is interactive, and its design showed that the ease with which the vast amount of data on robots, and the number of robots, could be handled was limited primarily by the disc storage space of the computer rather than the computer memory. Coding and classification was found to augment this storage space by a factor of about ten. The same coding system was used to code the tasks the robot was to perform in order to establish an effective matching procedure between the task and the robot. For some task variables that could not be matched directly, a indirect matching procedure was developed. A set of cost equations was developed and used to measure the performance of the robots under shop conditions The necessary condition for selecting a robot was that the codes for the robot be as good as or superior to the corresponding task codes, and the sufficient condition was that the robot had a total minimum operating cost. The robot selection model was evaluated using a statistical procedure to investigate the stability of the model selecting the cost effective robot. Experimental result; showed that the model was fairly stable in selecting this cost effective robot based on the robots' first period total operating cost. For a robot selection problem in which one machine was used to perform one type of task on one type of product (1/1/1), the cost effective robot was selected 67' of the time, and 54% of the time for the robot selection problem in which one machine was used to perform one type of task on four different types of products (1/1/4).Item Determination of Repeatability of a Limited Sequence Control Industrial Robot(Texas Tech University, 1983-08) Kajila, SadanandaNot Available.Item Mechatronic system development and control of an elastic robot testbed(Texas Tech University, 1999-12) Bunaes, Per ChristianRobots and their applications have an ever-increasing importance in our modern society. Areas such as manufacturing and the space industry have been dependent on robots for a number of years. The automotive industry has used robots for repetitive tasks such as spot welding and painting since the 1970's. These applications require relatively little precision but have increased the production and eased the strain on the human body, as robots never get tired of doing the same task over and over again. As little precision was needed in most of the early and still many of the current manufacturing applications, relatively simple control of the robots motion is needed. As our computer technology has evolved exponentially in both speed and memory over the last few decades, we are able to implement more sophisticated control laws for the robots. Hence better accuracy can be achieved. Now, robots are used for detailed applications such as soldering on computer boards. Since better control makes the robots safer for human/robot interaction, the entertainment industry have started to utilize robots in simulators and other devices found in amusement parks.Item Modeling, simulation and experimental verification of contact/impact dynamics in flexible articulated structures(Texas Tech University, 1998-05) Hariharesan, SeralaathanRobots are used in diverse applications, ranging from entertainment to manufacturing to space applications. Each application has its own requirements in terms of performance, design and operating environment. Based on these requirements, a designer/researcher will have to design a robot that performs its designated task with maximum possible efficiency. Robots are widely used in manufacturing for machining, assembly line operations, welding, painting, inspection, etc. They are also used in a host of other areas like laboratories to place and remove test tubes in centrifuges and to handle hazardous chemicals. In the nuclear industry, they are used to handle radioactive fuel as well as radioactive waste. Robots are also used in remote or highly contaminated areas to measure radiation or toxic levels. Robots have also found their way into the field of agriculture. An interesting application is their use as a sheepshearing machine, where it is used to shear wool off sheep. There are submersible robotic vehicles used for deep sea exploration. These submersible vehicles are used for mining the ocean floor. Last, but not least, there is the space industry which uses robots in various forms. Robots in space applications usually face environments that are hostile to human survival. Planetary rovers with manipulator arms, satellite maintenance robots, manipulator arms for space manufacturing and construction of space stations and space ships and unmanned exploration vehicles are some of the applications of robots in space.Item On optimizing assembly plans for a robotized printed circuit board assembly center(Texas Tech University, 1986-12) Chang, Chi-mingThe purpose of this research was threefold. First, a set of parameters was defined for use in analyzing the assembly planning problem in robotized printed circuit board (PCB) assembly centers. Second, a number of mathematical models were developed to optimize assembly plans for a robotized PCB assembly center. Third, an integrated heuristic method was developed to obtain near-optimal assembly plans. The robotized PCB assembly center of interest consists of a moving X-Y table, a moving feeder carrier and a traveling pick-and-place robot. The assembly planning problem is one of determining the assembly sequence and assignment of feeders to optimize two prioritized objectives: minimizing assembly cycle time and minimizing total X-Y table travel time. Three groups of parameters were defined through analysis of the problem. These are: (1) non-timing parameters, (2) timing parameters and (3) priority parameter. Based on the parameters, 10 different assembly environment classes were identified. A number of mathematical models were developed. Among them, four models were of traveling salesman problem nature but with modification on the associated cost matrices. The remaining models were more complicated and were non-linear. These models were linearized to obtain 3 modules. An integrated heuristic method of five stages was developed to quickly reach a near-optimal assembly plan. A set of experiments was performed to evaluate the performance of this integrated heuristic method. When the number of feeders is no less than the number of components total delay can always be zero while total X-Y table travel is less than 1% above the best known solutions. When the number of components is greater than the number of feeders and total X-Y table travel time receives higher priority, the resultant assembly plan can have both performance measurers less than 1% above the best known solutions. For the remaining classes, the resultant assembly plans always have zero delay while total X-Y table travel time is no more than 3% above the best known solutions if Stage III and Stage V are used.Item Real time Markov localization for mobile robots using pre-computation of sensor model(Texas Tech University, 2002-05) Kona, SrividyaLocalization, that is the estimation of a robot's location from sensor data, is a fundamental problem in mobile robotics. This thesis presents a version of Markov Localization that provides accurate position estimates of the Mobile Robot in Real Time. The key idea of Markov Localization is to maintain a probability density over the space of all locations of a robot in its environment. The approach in this thesis represents this space metrically, using a fine-grained grid to approximate densities. It is able to globally localize the robot from scratch and to recover from localization failures. It is robust to approximate models of the environment (such as occupancy grid maps) and noisy sensors(such as ultrasound sensors). The main extension of the existing algorithm in this thesis is the Pre-Computation of Sensor Model, which takes off a lot of computational burden on the algorithm and makes it work well in Real Time.Item Standardization for intelligent detection and autonomous operation of non-structured hardware, and its application on railcar brake release operation(2015-05) Hammel, Christopher Scott; Tesar, Delbert; Ashok, PradeepkumarThis thesis introduces a standard framework for evaluating and planning for desired autonomous (or semi-autonomous) operations, then applies the framework, in detail, to the task of automating emergency brake release before rail-car decoupling. A significant hurdle to be accounted for is the lack of standardization of much of the hardware of interest in industry. Non-standardized rail car components must be formally structured as fully as possible to improve the reliability of the robotic automation. This brake release task requires either pushing or pulling a “bleed rod” that protrudes from the side of each rail car. The requirements for each step of the evaluation and planning process will be laid out in this thesis, as an example of how it should be applied to future automation tasks.