Course page for ME393

Fall/Winter/Spring, 1-unit (pass/no-credit).
Times and locations: Wednesdays 10:00-11:00, in Bldg. 560 lobby
Content: Review and discuss collections of papers (classic and recent) that relate to a topic under the broad heading of "bio-inspired approaches to robotics and manipulation." A different theme is chosen each quarter, based on the interests of the attendees. Consequently a student can sign up for multiple quarters. Recent quarters have focused on climbing robots, neuro-inspired control, haptic feedback and sensing.
Procedure: Participants are expected to read the papers and lead a prepared discussion on at least one paper. Dicussion leaders will meet with an instructor ahead of time and will be responsible for obtaining and uploading an electronic copy of the paper several days in advance of its discussion.
Instructors: MarkCutkosky, Ken Waldron and Gunter Niemeyer rotate who oversees this regular seminar each quarter.
Class mailing list: me393seminar@lists.stanford.edu (only list members can post)

For 2006 and later we have been using the Stanford Course Work system for posting materials.

For Oct 24:

• http://asl.epfl.ch/index.html?content=research/systems/Shrimp/shrimp.php
• Siegwart et al, Innovative design for wheeled locomotion in rough terrain
• Dollar and Howe, Towards grasping in unstructured environments..." IEEE/RSJ 2003
• Dollar and How, SDM hand as a prosthetic termninal device

• http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/288/5463/100.pdf
• Full and Farley
• Brown and Loeb

• http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/reprint/202/23/3325.pdf -- templates and anchors
• http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/reprint/202/23/3415.pdf -- MECHANICAL TUNING AND COUPLED SYSTEMS
• http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~cga/legs/alexander2.pdf -- Alexander uses for springs in loc.

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ME393 materials from previous quarters

Fall 2005-2006 Theme: Bio-inspired Climbing

Papers and schedule

28Sep

Class introduction. Set up mailing list and announce the first paper for discussion on 5 Oct.

05Oct

• Kumar and Waldron 1988: Kumar, V., and Waldron, K. "Force Distribution in Closed Kinematic Chains," IEEE Journal of Robotics and Automation, Vol. 4 No. 6, Dec. 1988.
  • Presenter: MarkCutkosky
  • Notes: This is the classic paper on force distribution in walking robots. Probably more important for climbing than for walking. For background, Waldron 1986 is an earlier, related paper that shows the giant 6-legged machine that was the basis for this work.

12Oct

• Autumn, K. and Peattie, A.M., Mechanisms of Adhesion in Geckos, Integr. Comp. Biol. 42:1081-1090 (2002). If link above doesn't work: PDF version
  • Presenter: Noe Esparza
  • Notes: The paper examines previous studies of the mechanisms of adhesion in geckos and combines that with their current study to support the van der Waals hypothesis of gecko adhesion. This paper also begins discussion about how the dynamics of the adhesion process my play a role in our understanding of the mechanism.
• Autmn, K. et al., Evidence for van der Waals adhesion in gecko setae, PNAS, Sept. 17, 2002, vol. 99, no. 19, p. 12252-12256. [ http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/99/19/12252 ] -- This paper is the journal version of Liang et al. 2000 in the attachments list below. -mrc
• Mahendra CB. 1941. Contributions to the bionomics, anatomy, reproduction and development of the Indian house-gecko, Hemidactylus flaviviridis Ruppel. The Proceedings of the Indian Academy of Science, 13, No. 5, Sec. B: 288–306 PDF Link
  • Presenter: Sanjay Dastoor
  • Notes: Mahendra examines previous theories on gecko locomotion and comments on them while explaining his own. Observations are made based on both live and dead geckos as well as geckos that have been de-clawed. Particular attention is paid to the anatomy of the gecko foot and claw and how this is suited for attachment.

19Oct

Cutkosky out of town, Ken Waldron will preside...

• Kerr, J. and Roth, B., "Analysis of Multifingered Hands," International Journal of Robotics Research, Vol. 4, No. 4, Winter 1986.
  • Presenter: Chrissy Tate
  • Notes: This paper discusses static equlibrium of multi-fingered grasping. It then examines and formulates an optimization on the internal body forces to maximize distance from violating friction and other constraints. This is similar to what was discussed on October 5th. We will only be covering Section 1, up to page 8.
• Bretl, T., Latombe, J.C., and Rock, S., "Toward Autonomous Free-Climbing Robots," International Symposium on Robotics Research, Sienna, Italy, 2003.
  • Presenter: Chrissy Tate
  • Notes:
• Madhani, A. and Dubowsky, S., "The Force Workspace: A Tool for the Design and Motion Planning of Multi-Limb Robotic Systems," ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, Vol. 119, No. 2, June 1997.
  • Presenter: Dan Santos
  • Notes: This paper presents a unified framework for motion planning of robotic manipulators. A method called the Force-Workspace is used to generate a graph/tree of feasible configurations of the manipulator from which graph-searching techniques can be used to generate a path. Different constraints (friction, actuator, kinematic) are brought together into the same framework via the Force-Workspace approach. For some of the background information in this paper see the following paper by the same authors:
    • Madhani, A. and Dubowsky, S., "Motion Planning of Mobile Multi-Limb Robotic Systems Subject to Force and Friction Constraints," Proceedings of the 1992 IEEE, International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Nice, France, 1992.

26Oct

• Dai, Z., Gorb S., Schwarz, U., "Roughness-dependent friction force of the tarsal claw system in the beetle Pachnoda marginata (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae)" The Journal of Experimental Biology, Vol 205, pgs 2479-2488.
  • See ClawGeometry#DaiGorbClawsPaper for a short synopsis of this paper.
• Watson, J.T, Ritzmann, R.E., and Pollack, A.J. (2002) Control of Obstacle Climbing in the Cockroach, Blaberus discoidalis II. Motor Activities Associated with Joint Movement. J.Comp. Physiol. A. 188:55-69.
  • Ritzman's web site: http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/biol/ritzmann/ritzmann.htm
• For those who are interested, BioClimbing has other general stuff about biological approaches to climbing.

2Nov

• H. Gao and H. Yao, Shape insensitive optimal adhesion of nanoscale fibrillar structures PNAS, May 25, 2004, vol. 101, no. 21, p. 7851-7856.
• E. Arzt, S. Gorb and R. Spolenak, From micro to nano contacts in biological attachment devices, PNAS, September 16, 2003, vol. 100, no. 19, p. 10603-10606.
• Asbeck, A., et al., “Scaling Hard Surfaces With Microspine Arrays,” Robotics: Science and Systems, MIT, June 8-10, 2005.

9Nov

• M. Cartmill chapter about climbing vertebrates, in book on vertebrate locomotion
• Bock,W., Winkler,H. "Mechanical Analysis of the External Forces on Climbing Mammals" Zoomorphologie, 1978, v.91, no.1, p.49-61. http://www.springerlink.com/media/3aa8ywvxtk5vca0vtrw6/contributions/w/6/0/7/w607632347286228.pdf
• Jenkins, Farish A.; Krause, David W.; "Adaptations for Climbing in North American Multituberculates (Mammalia)". Science, Vol. 220, No. 4598 (May 13, 1983), Pgs. 712-715.http://dart.stanford.edu:88/Get/File-4740/MultituberculatesClimbing.pdf

16Nov

• RoboSnail.pdf: Looking at wet adhesion: A forthcoming paper from Annette Hosoi's fluids lab at MIT.
• ICRA02_Mangan_Endoscope.pdf: Managan et al. endoscope ICRA02 - a very flexible endoscopic system

30Nov

• Modeling and controlling a climbing snake-like robot: Greenfield, Rizzi, and Choset, 2005 - Dynamic Ambiguities in Frictional Rigid-Body Systems with Application to Climbing via Bracing
• Ants climbing using wet adhesive: Federle, W., Riehle, M., Curtis, A. and Full, R.J. 2002. An Integrative Study of Insect Adhesion: Mechanics and Wet Adhesion of Pretarsal Pads in Ants. Int. and Comp. Biology. 42, 1100-1106.

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for later...

• Cartmill on climbing vertebrates
• Gecko adhesion papers (Autumn, Siti)
• Latombe et al
• ?

Irschick, D.J., et al A comparative analysis of clinging ability among pad-bearing lizards Biological Journal of the Linnean Society(1996), 59: 21–35 http://bioweb.ad.uc.edu/faculty/jayne/djipub04.pdf -- MarkCutkosky - 28 Sep 2005

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