July 8th, 2008
An history of bilateral teleoperation
In case you’re not familiar with the concept of bilateral teleoperation, this is just a way to remotely control robots. Two researchers have written a technical paper which covers more than 50 years of history of bilateral teleoperation. This paper has just received the ‘Automatica Best Paper’ in the survey/tutorial category. The award will be given at the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) Triennial World Congress held in Seoul, South Korea (July 6-11, 2008). But read more…
You can see above a diagram illustrating the concept of bilateral teleoperation (Credit: Peter Hokayem and Mark Spong) “The prefix tele from Greek origin means at a distance and teleoperation naturally indicates operating at a distance. Thus teleoperation extends the human capability to manipulating objects remotely by providing the operator with similar conditions as those at the remote location. This is achieved via installing a similar manipulator or joystick, called the master, at the human’s end to the slave which is performing the actual task. In a general setting, the human imposes a force upon the master manipulator which in turn results in a displacement that is transmitted to the slave that mimics that movement.”
This research work was done in 2006 by Mark Spong, incoming dean of the UT Dallas Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, and his former Ph.D. student, Peter Hokayem, now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Würzburg, Germany. Back in 2006, both were members of the Coordinated Science Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The two researchers will receive their award at the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) Triennial World Congress (IFAC’08) which is held in Seoul, South Korea (July 6-11, 2008).
Let’s go back to the UT Dallas news release for some more details.
July 7th, 2008
Lemon-filled odorless socks?
According to the latest American Chemical Society (ACS) Weekly PressPac, Portuguese researchers have developed a new type of microcapsule filled with perfume and embedded in fabric for production of scented suits, socks, undergarments and other clothing. Here is a link to this PressPac, from which you’ll be able to read a very short note titled ‘Toward perfumed-clothing: Fabric-friendly microcapsules hide unpleasant body odors.’ This has been done before with microcapsules made with formaldehyde, which is toxic and known as a carcinogen. The Portuguese team is instead using polyurethane-urea, an environmentally friendly plastic and compatible with fabric to make their microcapsules which will be filled with limonene, a scent found in lemons. But read more…
You can see above several scanning electron microscopy (SEM) photos of these lemon-filled microcapsules. (Credit: Alirio E. Rodrigues and his colleagues) Here is a comment from the research team about these SEM photos. “SEM micrographs confirmed that the adhesion between textile fibber and microcapsules was effective, as can be observed in [the figure above.] Also in this figure, surface morphologies of the microcapsules can be of two types: (i) microcapsules with a soft and smooth surface and (ii) microcapsules with rough surface. These differences on surface morphology of the microcapsules wall are favorable to the release of fragrance on the textile substrate, thus increasing the durability of fragrant textiles.”
The research work has been done by Alirio E. Rodrigues and his colleagues at the Laboratory of Separation and Reaction Engineering (LSRE) which belongs to Department of Chemical Engineering of the University of Porto.
Here are some details provided by the ACS.
July 6th, 2008
Giant rubber snakes to capture wave power?
UK researchers have developed a prototype of a future giant rubber tube which could catch energy from sea waves. The device, dubbed Anaconda, uses ‘long sea waves to excite bulge waves which travel along the wall of a submersed rubber tube. These are then converted into flows of water passing through a turbine to generate electricity.’ So far, the experiments have been done with tubes with diameters of 0.25 and 0.5 meters. But if the experiments are successful, future full-scale Anaconda devices would be 200 meters long and 7 meters in diameter, and deployed in water depths of between 40 and 100 meters. An Anaconda would deliver an output power of 1MW (enough to power 2,000 houses). These devices would be deployed in groups of 20 or even more providing cheap electricity without harming our environment. But read more…
You can see above how the Anaconda captures wave power. (Credit: unknown; diagram found on this page at This is London, July 2, 2008) “Because it is made of rubber, the Anaconda is much lighter than other wave energy devices (which are primarily made of metal) and dispenses with the need for hydraulic rams, hinges and articulated joints. This reduces capital and maintenance costs and scope for breakdowns.”
The Anaconda was invented by Francis Farley, an experimental physicist, and Rod Rainey, of Atkins Oil and Gas. You’ll find more details on their web site. For example, several technical papers are available from this page.
July 5th, 2008
Your computer as your singing coach
Israeli researchers have developed an electronic ear to coach vibrato technique. Until now, the quality of a vibrato — the pulsating change of pitch in a singer’s voice — could only be judged by voice experts. Now, a Tel Aviv University research team ‘has successfully managed to train a computer to rate vibrato quality, and has created an application based on biofeedback to help singers improve their technique.’ Interestingly, this research could be used for other applications, such as improving automated help centers, where computers could be trained ‘to recognize a range of different emotions, such as anger and nervousness.’ But read more…
The three researchers work at the Department of Communication Disorders of the Sackler Faculty of Medicine of Tel Aviv University. Noam Amir and Ofer Amir are lecturers in this department, while the third scientist, Orit Michaeli, seems to only have a web page on Facebook — but I might be wrong.
Before going further, what is vibrato? It is “a musical effect than can be used when a musician sings or plays an instrument. It adds expression to a song and is created by a steady pulsating change of pitch, characterized by the amount of variation and the speed at which the pitch is varied. TAU’s application can teach singers how to mimic the vibrato qualities most attractive to the human ear.”
And here are some quotes from Noam Amir. “‘Vibrato is just one aspect of a singer’s impact,’ says Amir, an expert in the ways that emotions impact speech. ‘Singers need to arouse an emotional response, and that is a complicated task.’ […] New vocal students usually don’t have good control of their vibrato, explains Amir. ‘Their vibrato is erratic and hard to judge subjectively, and it’s hard to find to a precise measure for this. We wanted to find a way to emulate a human expert in a computer program.’”
So what did Amir and his colleagues do?
July 4th, 2008
Smart HCCI cars talk to the pump
Researchers from the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) are developing more efficient engines for cars. They are specifically working on Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignited (HCCI) engines. An HCCI engine ‘combines the efficiency and versatility of diesel engines with the cleanliness of spark-ignition engines.’ For example, an HCCI engine uses 15% less fuel than gas engines and emit only 30% of the NOx of a typical diesel engine. The big problem with HCCI engines is that they are very sensitive to temperature variations. CITRIS researchers are developing ’sensors and controllers that will keep temperatures constant throughout the engine or compensate for temperature differentials by modifying pressure ratios within the cylinders.’ They also want to use wireless communication connections between cars and fuel pumps. But read more…
You can see above a diagram showing how diesel, petrol and HCCI engines work. As the caption is part of the diagram, I’m including it here for clarity. “In HCCI and petrol engines, the fuel and air are mixed before combustion, preventing the soot emissions of diesel engines. Only HCCI engines have multiple ignition points throughout the chamber. This plus their lean burn keeps temperature low, preventing formation of nitrogen oxides (NOx).” (Credit: UC Berkeley) Here is a link to a larger version of this diagram. And here are two other links at UC Berkeley and at Wikipedia about HCCI engines.
Below are some quotes from CITRIS researchers, which all belong to UC Berkeley, California.
July 2nd, 2008
Laser-aided software for tunnel construction
If you ever have cruised on California’s Highway 1, you know it offers spectacular views of the Pacific ocean. But several areas of this road are potentially dangerous because they can be affected by landslides. This is why the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is helping the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) to build a kilometer-long tunnel under Devil’s Slide located South of San Francisco. The project engineers will be helped by a software dubbed gVT (for ‘geotechnical Visualization Tool’) developed at Virginia Tech. This tool, based on ultra-precise laser scans, will improve both safety and construction progress. But read more…
Before going further, you can see above a map of the Caltrans’s Devil’s Slide Project. “The project calls for construction of two tunnels beneath San Pedro Mountain, each 30-feet wide and 4,200-feet long. At the northern end, a 1,000-feet bridge will span the valley at Shamrock Ranch. A re-alignment of Route 1 at the southern end will provide safe transition into and out of the tunnel. […] The bypassed section of Route 1, together with 70 acres of State right of way, will be available for public access and recreational use following the planned tunnel opening in 2011.” (Credit: Caltrans) From the above link, you’ll have access to many photos and videos.
Now, let’s go back to the NSF news release about the gVT software. You can see on the left a “close-up image of the tunnel roof showing a gVT measurement location. The arrow is a vector perpendicular to a surface that marks a discontinuity between rock layers. The orientation of the arrow in space gives the azimuth and slope of the surface.” Credit: Jeramy Decker, Kiewit Corp.) Here is a link to a slightly larger version.
Here are some additional details from NSF.
July 1st, 2008
Towards eco-friendly fireworks?
Many fireworks will be launched in July, at least in the U.S. and in France. A recent American Chemical Society’s Weekly PressPac briefly describes how chemists are developing environmentally friendlier compounds for fireworks (scroll to article #5 in the PressPac). Current ‘fireworks, flares and other so-called pyrotechnics commonly include potassium perchlorate to speed up the fuel-burning process.’ But perchlorate has been identified as a potential human health hazard causing thyroid damage.
June 30th, 2008
People lived in Paris 10,000 years ago!
The theme of this post is slightly off focus of this blog. But it’s not often that archeologists make an exciting discovery in my own town, Paris, France. In fact, these archeologists have found that human groups of hunter-gatherers were living in Paris around 7600 BC during the Mesolithic period. They’ve found thousands of flint arrowheads and fragments of animal bones near the Seine river in the 15th arrondissement just one mile from the Eiffel Tower — and half a mile from where I live. I visited the dig site last Saturday, and it was quite impressive. But read more…
You can see above a general view of the excavation site where this discovery has been done. (Credit: Laurent Petit, INRAP) Here is a link to additional information (in French) and to a larger version of this picture.
And you can see above some of the Mesolithic flint arrows discovered by the French archeologists. (Credit: D. Gliksman, INRAP) In case you want to know, INRAP is an acronym for “Institut National de Recherches Archéologiques Préventives,” the French government agency for preventive archaeology. It always intervenes on sites where new buildings are scheduled.
So what did the archeologists find?
June 29th, 2008
Cell phones tracking nightlife activity
A Columbia University computer science professor has co-founded a New York-based company named Sense Networks to sell tracking software to other companies. It is also distributing a free version of this software named Citysense, which shows on your cell phone where the wild things are happening in your own town. Citysense ‘uses advanced machine learning techniques to number crunch vast amounts of data emanating from thousands of cell-phones, GPS-equipped cabs and other data devices to paint live pictures of where people are gathering.’ Citysense is available today in San Francisco before being soon deployed in Chicago and five other U.S. cities. But read more…
You can see on the left how “Citysense shows the overall activity level of the city, top activity hotspots, and places with unexpectedly high activity, all in real-time.” (Credit: Sense Networks) Here is a link to additional information and a larger version of this picture. As you can see, the application is available on Blackberry devices. But an iPhone version is in the works.
This software has been developed by Tony Jebara, an Associate Professor in Computer Science at Columbia University and director of the Machine Learning lab. Jebara founded Sense Networks with several partners including MIT’s Alex Pentland. Here is a link to the Citysense web site.
And here are some quotes from Jebara about this project. “‘We are providing consumers with free applications on their mobile phones for visualizing several cities: ‘where is everyone?,’ ‘where should I go eat?,’ ‘which jazz bar would I like?,’ ‘where would I like to go shopping?’ and so on,’ Jebara says.
June 28th, 2008
Biometric IDs for African penguins?
University of Bristol researchers have developed a non-intrusive visual surveillance system for wildlife habitats. They’ve used their system to monitor the behavior of 20,000 African penguins on Robben Island in South Africa. By definition, conventional tagging techniques can only monitor animals which have been tagged. On the contrary, the ‘Penguin Recognition Project’ relies on visual recognition software. The scientists claim that they can correctly identify an individual penguin ‘with around 98 per cent reliability’ — how can they measure this? They also claim that their approach could be used to monitor other endangered species, such as zebras or sharks. But read more…
You can see above this “computer vision system in action identifying African penguins on their way from the colony to the beach. Green boxes indicate the penguins detected as species members in near-frontal poses, a yellow bounding box shows that a penguin has been identified as an individual.” (Credit: Spot the Penguin Project)
The researchers have taken advantage of a specific characteristic of these African penguins. “African penguins carry a pattern of black spots on their chests that does not change from season to season during their adult life. As far as scientists can tell, no two penguins have exactly the same pattern. The researchers have developed a real-time system that can locate African penguins whose chests are visible within video sequences or still images. An extraction of the chest spot pattern allows the generation of a unique biometrical identifier for each penguin. These biometric data can then be used to identify individual, African penguins from video or photographic images by comparison with a population database.”
They also claim that their recognition system works very well and could be used to monitor other endangered species.
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