Estimations of world population growth urgently require improving the efficiency of agricultural ... more Estimations of world population growth urgently require improving the efficiency of agricultural processes, as well as improving safety for people and environmental sustainability, which can be opposing characteristics. Industry is pursuing these objectives by developing the concept of the “intelligent factory” (also referred to as the “smart factory”) and, by studying the similarities between industry and agriculture, we can exploit the achievements attained in industry for agriculture. This article focuses on studying those similarities regarding robotics to advance agriculture toward the concept of “intelligent farms” (smart farms). Thus, this article presents some characteristics that agricultural robots should gain from industrial robots to attain the intelligent farm concept regarding robot morphologies and features as well as communication, computing, and data management techniques. The study, restricted to robotics for outdoor farms due to the fact that robotics for greenhou...
Smart and precise agriculture has increasingly been developed in the last decade, and with that, ... more Smart and precise agriculture has increasingly been developed in the last decade, and with that, the idea of optimizing the tools commonly used in this field. One way to improve these devices, particularly cutting tools conceived for harvesting purposes, is to measure the shear energy consumption required for a particular plant. The aim of this research is to establish both a design criterion for cutting grippers and a quantifiable way to evaluate and classify a harvesting tool for a specific crop. This design criterion could help to minimize energy consumption in future harvesting robots, making them more energy-efficient.
Purpose The aim of this paper is to introduce a hexapod walking robot specifically designed for a... more Purpose The aim of this paper is to introduce a hexapod walking robot specifically designed for applications in humanitarian demining, intended to operate autonomously for several hours. To this end, the paper presents an experimental study for the evaluation of its energy efficiency. Design/methodology/approach First, the interest of using a walking robot for detection and localization of anti-personnel landmines is described, followed by the description of the mechanical system and the control architecture of the hexapod robot. Second, the energy efficiency of the hexapod robot is assessed to demonstrate its autonomy for performing humanitarian demining tasks. To achieve this, the power consumed by the robot is measured and logged, with a number of different payloads placed on-board (always including the scanning manipulator arm assembled on the robot front end), during the execution of a discontinuous gait on flat terrain. Findings The hexapod walking robot has demonstrated low e...
The international journal of medical robotics + computer assisted surgery : MRCAS, Jan 20, 2017
Nowadays robots play an important role in society, mainly due to the significant benefits they pr... more Nowadays robots play an important role in society, mainly due to the significant benefits they provide when utilized for assisting human beings in the execution of dangerous or repetitive tasks. Medicine is one of the fields in which robots are gaining greater use and development, especially those employed in minimally invasive surgery (MIS). However, due to the particular conditions of the human body where robots have to act, the design of these systems is complex, not only from a technical point of view, but also because the clinical needs and the normativity aspects are important considerations that have to be taken into account in order to achieve better performances and more secure systems for patients and surgeons. Thus, this paper explores the clinical needs and the technical requirements that will trace the roadmap for the next scientific and technological advances in the field of robotic surgery, the metrics that should be defined for safe technology development and the sta...
The hydrosphere contains large amounts of suspended particulate material, including living and no... more The hydrosphere contains large amounts of suspended particulate material, including living and non-living material that can be found in different compositions and concentrations, and that can be composed of particles of different sizes. The study of this particulate material along water columns plays a key role in understanding a great variety of biological, chemical, and physical processes. This paper presents the conceptual design of two patented robotic platforms that have been conceived for carrying out studies of water properties at desired depths with very high accuracy in the vertical positioning. One platform has been specially designed for operating near to a reservoir bottom, while the other is intended to be used near the surface. Several experimental tests have been conducted in order to validate the proposed approaches.
Traditionally, building construction has been performed mainly by hand with a little help from el... more Traditionally, building construction has been performed mainly by hand with a little help from electromechanical-manual devices. However, this industry possesses a great potential for automation and robotic systems are being introduced step by step because of many technical hitches. Apart from these technical shortcomings, builders are being pushed in many countries to provide automatic tools to improve both productivity and operator's safety. This paper presents some technical aspects of a tool developed to help out operators in handling and installing pre-manufactured plaster panels for indoor-wall construction. It consists in a lightweight six-DOF manipulator, which is fixed between floor and ceiling so that it can carry heavy payloads without tipping over. The robot is easily assembled and disassembled to make possible transportation by operators. This paper presents the basic guidelines to configure a system for the mentioned activity. It includes the system's main features and functions and some design aspects that makes this manipulator an example of how to configure a lightweight manipulators to handle heavy payloads
ABSTRACT This work presents the development of the automatic control of an articulated bus. It is... more ABSTRACT This work presents the development of the automatic control of an articulated bus. It is describes the most relevant concepts of the architecture of perception and actuation implemented on a large wheeled vehicle, Volvo B10M articulated bus of 18.75m in length. In this work, some experimental results of strategies for lateral and longitudinal control of the bus are shown, when it travels on a guide rail through a guiding mechatronics box. Additionally, this article presents the concepts of the guiding rail detection and obstacle detection by means of two Lidar systems for the test lane detection in advance, and for the pedestrians’ safety, respectively. Several experimental results are presented in this manuscript.
Estimations of world population growth urgently require improving the efficiency of agricultural ... more Estimations of world population growth urgently require improving the efficiency of agricultural processes, as well as improving safety for people and environmental sustainability, which can be opposing characteristics. Industry is pursuing these objectives by developing the concept of the “intelligent factory” (also referred to as the “smart factory”) and, by studying the similarities between industry and agriculture, we can exploit the achievements attained in industry for agriculture. This article focuses on studying those similarities regarding robotics to advance agriculture toward the concept of “intelligent farms” (smart farms). Thus, this article presents some characteristics that agricultural robots should gain from industrial robots to attain the intelligent farm concept regarding robot morphologies and features as well as communication, computing, and data management techniques. The study, restricted to robotics for outdoor farms due to the fact that robotics for greenhou...
Smart and precise agriculture has increasingly been developed in the last decade, and with that, ... more Smart and precise agriculture has increasingly been developed in the last decade, and with that, the idea of optimizing the tools commonly used in this field. One way to improve these devices, particularly cutting tools conceived for harvesting purposes, is to measure the shear energy consumption required for a particular plant. The aim of this research is to establish both a design criterion for cutting grippers and a quantifiable way to evaluate and classify a harvesting tool for a specific crop. This design criterion could help to minimize energy consumption in future harvesting robots, making them more energy-efficient.
Purpose The aim of this paper is to introduce a hexapod walking robot specifically designed for a... more Purpose The aim of this paper is to introduce a hexapod walking robot specifically designed for applications in humanitarian demining, intended to operate autonomously for several hours. To this end, the paper presents an experimental study for the evaluation of its energy efficiency. Design/methodology/approach First, the interest of using a walking robot for detection and localization of anti-personnel landmines is described, followed by the description of the mechanical system and the control architecture of the hexapod robot. Second, the energy efficiency of the hexapod robot is assessed to demonstrate its autonomy for performing humanitarian demining tasks. To achieve this, the power consumed by the robot is measured and logged, with a number of different payloads placed on-board (always including the scanning manipulator arm assembled on the robot front end), during the execution of a discontinuous gait on flat terrain. Findings The hexapod walking robot has demonstrated low e...
The international journal of medical robotics + computer assisted surgery : MRCAS, Jan 20, 2017
Nowadays robots play an important role in society, mainly due to the significant benefits they pr... more Nowadays robots play an important role in society, mainly due to the significant benefits they provide when utilized for assisting human beings in the execution of dangerous or repetitive tasks. Medicine is one of the fields in which robots are gaining greater use and development, especially those employed in minimally invasive surgery (MIS). However, due to the particular conditions of the human body where robots have to act, the design of these systems is complex, not only from a technical point of view, but also because the clinical needs and the normativity aspects are important considerations that have to be taken into account in order to achieve better performances and more secure systems for patients and surgeons. Thus, this paper explores the clinical needs and the technical requirements that will trace the roadmap for the next scientific and technological advances in the field of robotic surgery, the metrics that should be defined for safe technology development and the sta...
The hydrosphere contains large amounts of suspended particulate material, including living and no... more The hydrosphere contains large amounts of suspended particulate material, including living and non-living material that can be found in different compositions and concentrations, and that can be composed of particles of different sizes. The study of this particulate material along water columns plays a key role in understanding a great variety of biological, chemical, and physical processes. This paper presents the conceptual design of two patented robotic platforms that have been conceived for carrying out studies of water properties at desired depths with very high accuracy in the vertical positioning. One platform has been specially designed for operating near to a reservoir bottom, while the other is intended to be used near the surface. Several experimental tests have been conducted in order to validate the proposed approaches.
Traditionally, building construction has been performed mainly by hand with a little help from el... more Traditionally, building construction has been performed mainly by hand with a little help from electromechanical-manual devices. However, this industry possesses a great potential for automation and robotic systems are being introduced step by step because of many technical hitches. Apart from these technical shortcomings, builders are being pushed in many countries to provide automatic tools to improve both productivity and operator's safety. This paper presents some technical aspects of a tool developed to help out operators in handling and installing pre-manufactured plaster panels for indoor-wall construction. It consists in a lightweight six-DOF manipulator, which is fixed between floor and ceiling so that it can carry heavy payloads without tipping over. The robot is easily assembled and disassembled to make possible transportation by operators. This paper presents the basic guidelines to configure a system for the mentioned activity. It includes the system's main features and functions and some design aspects that makes this manipulator an example of how to configure a lightweight manipulators to handle heavy payloads
ABSTRACT This work presents the development of the automatic control of an articulated bus. It is... more ABSTRACT This work presents the development of the automatic control of an articulated bus. It is describes the most relevant concepts of the architecture of perception and actuation implemented on a large wheeled vehicle, Volvo B10M articulated bus of 18.75m in length. In this work, some experimental results of strategies for lateral and longitudinal control of the bus are shown, when it travels on a guide rail through a guiding mechatronics box. Additionally, this article presents the concepts of the guiding rail detection and obstacle detection by means of two Lidar systems for the test lane detection in advance, and for the pedestrians’ safety, respectively. Several experimental results are presented in this manuscript.
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Papers by Manuel Armada