California Institute of Technology

The United States of America as Represented by the Administrator of the

United States of America as Represented by the Administrator of Nasa

The United States of America as Represented by the Administrator

Paul G Backes

Yoseph Bar-Cohen

Benjamin Joffe

Youngsam Bae

Mircea Badescu

Harish M Manohara

Scott J Moreland

Christopher McQuin

Jesse A Grimes-York

Jeffery S Norris

Risaku Toda

Kam S Tso

Nicholas Wiltsie

Russell G Smith

Mark K Long

A BiBlade sampler may include a first blade and a second blade in a retracted position. The BiBlade sampler may also include a gripper, which is driven by an actuator. The gripper may include a plurality of fingers to force the first blade and the second blade to remain in a retracted position. When the fingers are unhooked, the first blade and the second blade penetrate a surface of an object.

Biblade sampler

The description relates to securely and autonomously synchronizing data on geographically distributed computers. Data is distributed from a central server to geographically distributed clients. In another embodiment, data is encrypted and securely transmitted over a computer network. It uses the Secure Sockets Layer protocol to secure transmitted data. The data is transmitted via the Internet. Data is distributed in real-time. Data is provided to a user as the data updates without the user making a specific request for updated data. Portions of data are made available to only authorized users. An administrator sets permissions to control which data is transmitted to a user. The transmission of data is secure in both directions. Data transmitted to a user from a central location is secure and data transmitted to a central location from a user is secure. Data is securely transmitted to a user independent of the platform on the user's machine. In this embodiment, the software that controls the data delivery system is written in a platform independent programming language, such as Java.

Securely and autonomously synchronizing data in a distributed computing environment

The present invention is an automated crawling robot system including a platform, a first leg assembly, a second leg assembly, first and second rails attached to the platform, and an onboard electronic computer controller. The first leg assembly has an intermittent coupling device and the second leg assembly has an intermittent coupling device for intermittently coupling the respective first and second leg assemblies to a particular object. The first and second leg assemblies are slidably coupled to the rail assembly and are slidably driven by motors to thereby allow linear movement. In addition, the first leg assembly is rotary driven by a rotary motor to thereby provide rotary motion relative to the platform. To effectuate motion, the intermittent coupling devices of the first and second leg assemblies alternately couple the respective first and second leg assemblies to an object. This motion is done while simultaneously moving one of the leg assemblies linearly in the desired direction and preparing the next step. This arrangement allows the crawler of the present invention to traverse an object in a range of motion covering 360 degrees.

Multifunction automated crawling system

The invention is a method of operating a robot in successive sampling intervals to perform a task, the robot having joints and joint actuators with actuator control loops, by decomposing the task into behavior forces, accelerations, velocities and positions of plural behaviors to be exhibited by the robot simultaneously, computing actuator accelerations of the joint actuators for the current sampling interval from both behavior forces, accelerations velocities and positions of the current sampling interval and actuator velocities and positions of the previous sampling interval, computing actuator velocities and positions of the joint actuators for the current sampling interval from the actuator velocities and positions of the previous sampling interval, and, finally, controlling the actuators in accordance with the actuator accelerations, velocities and positions of the current sampling interval. The actuator accelerations, velocities and positions of the current sampling interval are stored for use during the next sampling interval.

Extended task space control for robotic manipulators

A generalized compliant motion with sensor fusion primitive uses a set of input parameters provided from a local control site to a remote execution site to control a telerobot with a combination of a priori trajectory motion and real and virtual local and remote sensor inputs. The set of input parameters specify the desired telerobot behavior based on a combination of local and remote information. This general motion primitive requires less computer memory size, and provides more capabilities, than the task specific primitives it replaces because redundancies are eliminated while permutations of capabilities are available. Trajectory motion occurs during a nominal motion time segment while termination conditions are monitored during an ending time segment to stop motion when a termination condition occurs. Force and compliant motion, teleoperation, dither, virtual springs restoration and joint limit control are combined with the trajectory motion at the remote site.

Generalized compliant motion primitive

A multiple arm generalized compliant motion robot control system governs dual multi-joint robot arms handling an object with both of the arms in accordance with input parameters governing plural respective behaviors to be exhibited by the robot in respective behavior spaces simultaneously. A move-squeeze decomposition processor computes actual move and squeeze decomposition forces based upon current robot force sensor outputs. A compliant motion processor transforms plural object position perturbations of the plural behaviors from the respective behavior spaces to a common space, and computes a relative transformation to a behavior-commanded object position in accordance with the object position perturbations of the plural behaviors. A kinematics processor updates a transformation to a current commanded object position based upon the relative transformation to the behavior-commanded object position. A multiple arm squeeze control processor computes, from appropriate squeeze force input parameters and from actual squeeze forces for each of the arms, a squeeze control position perturbation for each of the arms, to provide squeeze control. An inverse kinematics processor computes, from the commanded object position transformation and from the squeeze control position perturbation, new robot joint angles, and controls respective joints of the robot arms in accordance with the new robot joint angles.

Dual-arm generalized compliant motion with shared control

A telerobot system including an operator interface for developing and controlling complex tasks for execution on a remote robot manipulator by developing sequences of parameterized tasks primitives for execution and testing on a local simulator. The task sequences, and their parameterization, may be interactively modified by teleoperation and/or editing during sequence development and task execution. Adjustable time delays are provided for execution simulation including delays expected to occur between task command and execution at the remote robot manipulator.

Growing community of inventors

La Crescenta, CA, United States of America

Paul G Backes