This thesis explores the use of human kinesthetic input to advance robotic grasp planning. It specifically focuses on identification of human heuristics of grasp similarity by extensive human-subject experiments. This heuristic is then utilized to develop a robust metric for identifying similar robotic grasps. The central hypothesis of this work...
As robots are becoming more relevant to our lives, they are still having hard time accomplishing simple tasks such as picking and lifting. Problems that include environmental constraints, pose uncertainties and hardware noises restrain robots for grasping an object successfully from a perceivable environment. Many have looked into finding best...
Deburring of machined parts is a crucial task in the aerospace and automotive industry. This process is still performed manually to a large extent due to the unpredictability of burr formation as well as the complex interactions between the human arm and the workpiece. Poor ergonomics, repetitive stress and strain...
There is a strong interest in the robotics community in learning how humans grasp and manipulate objects, partly because robots need to operate in human environments and partly because humans are currently much better in physical interaction tasks than robots. This thesis seeks to identify the human heuristics for grasping...
Multiagent approaches are well suited to designing autonomous solutions for systems that feature complex interactions between many individuals such as in autonomous traffic systems and multi-robot exploration systems. However, creating autonomous agents that function effectively in these systems is a challenging task. In these complex environments, agents need informative reward...
The overall goal of this study was to utilize apple pomace, the byproduct from juice processing, as a renewable source of fiber to create sustainable packaging using molded pulp technology. The goal was accomplished through two studies: 1) to modify apple pomace fibers for increasing relative cellulose composition and improving...
How can software practitioners assess whether their software supports diverse users? Although there are empirical processes that can be used to find “inclusivity bugs” piecemeal, what is often needed is a systematic inspection method to assess software’s support for diverse populations. To help fill this gap, this thesis introduces InclusiveMag,...
This research focuses on receiver architectures which enable better spectral eciency
by handling blockers in the same spectral range as the signal. The presence of
such blockers, without the use of blocker cancelling/ltering techniques leads to gain
compression and hence, consequent performance degradation of receivers leading to
reduced spectrum...