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Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI)
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ItemAn Overview of Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Systems and Sensors at Georgia Tech(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2011-03-16) West, Michael E. ; Collins, Thomas R. ; Bogle, John R. ; Melim, Andrew ; Novitzky, MichaelAs the ocean attracts great attention on environmental issues and resources as well as scientific and military tasks, the need for the use of underwater vehicle systems has become more apparent. Underwater vehicles represent a fast-growing research area and promising industry as advanced technologies in various subsystems develop and potential application areas are explored. Great efforts have been made in developing autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to overcome challenging scientific and engineering problems caused by the unstructured and hazardous ocean environment. With the development of new materials, advanced computing and sensory technology, as well as theoretical advancements, research and development activities in the AUV community have increased. The Georgia Institute of Technology (GIT) is actively involved in three major research efforts: underwater vehicle sensing, underwater communications, and underwater vehicle autonomy including heterogeneous multi-vehicle collaboration. In order to test and experimentally validate the research, GIT has developed a new small man-portable Autonomous Underwater Vehicle called the Yellowfin. This new AUV provides a testbed for real world testing and experimentation of the advanced algorithm development. This paper will show the GIT development in this area.
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ItemThe Yellowfin Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Acoustic Communication Design and Testing(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2011) Bogle, John R. ; Melim, Andrew ; West, Michael E.Over the past two years, the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) has developed a new Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) called the Yellowfin. The purpose of the vehicle is to provide a platform for research and development of autonomous, multivehicle underwater technology. This paper documents the design of the vehicle with an emphasis on the acoustic communication system, including the hardware and software. The testing of the ACOMMS hardware and software system is also discussed.
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ItemDesign and Development of the Yellowfin UUV for Homogenous Collaborative Missions(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010) West, Michael E. ; Novitzky, Michael ; Varnell, Jesse P. ; Melim, Andrew ; Sequin, Evan ; Toler, Tedd C. ; Collins, Tomas R. ; Bogle, John R.Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) has developed the Yellowfin, a small man-portable Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV). The mission for Yellowfin is to conduct autonomous collaborative operations. The multi-UUV design allows for a much wider swath of the ocean to be observed and monitored, while collaborative operations allow multiple aspects of a mission to be tackled with distributed systems. Both oceanographic and military missions are aided tremendously by the use of such a UUV network. This paper introduces the modular and flexible design of the Yellowfin system and describes some of the technologies integrated within the system construct. The system and software architectures of Yellowfin leverage COTS technologies, including software whose foundation is MOOS-IvP, expanded to include several aspects of autonomy, communication with the WHOI acoustics modem utilizing the JAUS message standard, mission planning using MissionLab, mission execution via Falcon- ViewTM , front seat control with a microcontroller, and visualization with the Blender open-source, cross-platform suite of tools for 3D graphics.
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ItemIntelligent Cutting of the Bird Shoulder Joint(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009) Hu, Ai-Ping ; Grullon, Sergio ; Zhou, Debao ; Holmes, Jonathan ; Holcombe, Wiley ; Daley, Wayne ; McMurray, GaryDeboning operations are one of the largest users of on-line labor in today’s poultry plants. Efforts have been made over the years to automate this function, but to date have achieved only limited success. The main difficulty in this task is its unstructured nature due to the natural variability in the sizes of birds and their deformable bodies. To increase product safety and quality, the industry is looking to robotics to help solve these problems. This research has focused on developing a new method of automating the deboning of bird front halves. If this task can be automated, the technology would naturally be extended to other cuts and trimming operations in poultry and red meat. To accomplish this goal, the project team has been working for the past four years on the development of a sensor-based intelligent cutting system. This work is based on the development of a model for the cutting of bio-materials that can be extended to the cutting of meat, tendon, ligaments, and bone. When this model is combined with data from the tendon prediction system, the nominal cutting trajectory can be established and adjusted based on the cutting model in conjunction with knowledge of the bird's anatomy. The value in accomplishing this work would be to not only reduce labor costs but also to increase the yield of breast meat and reduce/eliminate bone chips. It is estimated that an increase in yield of a single percentage point could represent several millions of dollars of additional revenue for each and every plant. Current attempts at automation of the shoulder cut impose several percentage points of yield loss in return for lower labor costs. In the manual process, while generally providing a higher yield of breast meat, the quality of the product varies dramatically based on the skill of the worker, and the labor costs are significantly higher. It is the goal of this work to develop a system that eliminates labor and consistently provides a yield similar to the best manual worker. The overall vision for this project requires the development of various technology components that will be unified into a single operational system. This includes a system to identify the initial cutting point, a system to specify the nominal cutting trajectory based on the size of that specific bird, a model to predict the location of the joint and shoulder tendons given the position/orientation of the wing tip, a mathematical model of the cutting process that allows the control system to interpret force/torque data and make intelligent motion commands to avoid cutting through the bone, and a robotic platform capable of executing these commands in real-time.
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ItemUncalibrated Dynamic Visual Servoing(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2004-02) Piepmeier, Jenelle Armstrong ; McMurray, Gary V. ; Lipkin, HarveyA dynamic quasi-Newton method for uncalibrated, vision-guided robotic tracking control with fixed imaging is developed and demonstrated. This method does not require calibrated kinematic and camera models. Robotic control is achieved at each step through minimizing a nonlinear objective function by taking quasi-Newton steps and estimating the composite Jacobian at each step. The Jacobian is estimated using a dynamic recursive least squares algorithm. Experimental results demonstrate the validity of this approach.
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ItemModeling of the Natural Product Deboning Process Using Biological and Human Models(Georgia Institute of Technology, 1999-09) Daley, Wayne ; He, Tian ; Lee, Kok-Meng ; Sandlin, MelissaOne critical area in automation for commercial deboning systems for meat processing, is the inability of existing equipment to adapt to varying sizes and shapes of products. This usually results in less than desirable outcomes when measured in terms of yield of the operations. In poultry processing for example, the initial cut of wing-shoulder joints is the most critical step in the deboning process. Two approaches for determining a trajectory for the cut is presented. The first is a technique using x-ray and visual images to obtain a 2-D model that locates the shoulder joint with respect to the surface features of the product. The second approach is obtained by determining a 3-D cutting trajectory and the associated forces/torques using a motion analysis system and a force/torque sensor incorporated with a knife. We then discuss the potential application of these results in the design of an automated cutting system that uses the obtained trajectory as a nominal cutting path. The system would make'adjustments during the cut using force feedback so as to emulate the manual cutting process.