Friday, August 20, 2010

2010 ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Conference

The 3rd Annual Dynamic Systems and Control (DSC) conference sponsored by the Dynamic Systems and Control Division (DSCD) of ASME International will be held September 13-15, 2010 in Cambridge, Massachusetts (link).

Our lab will present a paper title "Role of Automated Symbolic Generation of Plant Models in Control Education" at this conference.

Stay tuned for more details!

6th annual IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (IEEE CASE)

The 6th annual IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (IEEE CASE), sponsored by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS), will be held on August 21-24, 2010 in Marriott Eaton Centre Hotel, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Hrishi will present a paper titled "CAD-Enhanced Workspace Optimization for Parallel Manipulators: A Case Study” at this conference. His poster with this paper was also selected as one of the finalist for "Best Poster Award" - wish him luck!

In addition to paper presentation, working with Quanser Inc. & MapleSoft, Dr, Krovi will present our work in the "Advancing Mechatronics Research and Innovation and Efficient High-fidelity Modeling of Physical Systems" workshop (link).

Since the conference is only 2 hrs drive away, Leng-Feng, Madu, Xiao Bo, Priyanshu and Hrishi are also volunteers for this conference!

More info will be available after the conference!

ASME 2010 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences (IDETC 2010)

The ASME 2010 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences (IDETC) and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (CIE) took place from August 15-18, 2010 at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montréal.

Our lab presented 3 papers in this conference:
-Madu presented a paper titled "Kinematic- Static- and Workspace Analysis of a 6- P-U-S Parallel Manipulator";
-Hrishi presented a paper titled "Role of Automated Symbolic Generation of Equations of Motion in Mechanism and Robotics Education"; and
-Priyanshu presented the paper titled "Simulation-based Design of Exoskeletal Using Musculoskeletal Analysis" (which is also the CIE 2010 Best Paper).

You can download the papers from:
[1] P. Agarwal, M. S. Narayanan, L-F. Lee, F. Mendel and V. N. Krovi, "Simulation-based Design of Exoskeletal Using Musculoskeletal Analysis", proceeding of ASME 2010 International Design Engineering Technical Conference, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, August 15-18, 2010. [PDF]
[2] M.S. Narayanan, Sourish Chakravarty, Hrishi Shah, and V.N. Krovi, "Kinematic- Static- and Workspace Analysis of a 6- P-U-S Parallel Manipulator", Proceedings of ASME 2010 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, August 15-18, 2010. [PDF]
[3] H. Shah, S. Tripathi, L-F. Lee, and V. Krovi, "Role of Automated Symbolic Generation of Equations of Motion in Mechanism and Robotics Education," proceeding of ASME 2010 International Design Engineering Technical Conference, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, August 15-18, 2010. [PDF]

Best Paper Award - ASME 2010 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences (IDETC 2010)

The ASME 2010 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences (IDETC) and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (CIE) took place during August 15-18, 2010 at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montréal.

Congratulations to Priyanshu, Madu, Leng-Feng, Dr. Mendel and Dr. Krovi, for the paper titled "Simulation-Based Design of Exoskeletons Using Musculoskeletal Analysis" was selected as this year CIE 2010 Best Paper Award! Dr. Frederick Proctor, Chair of the ASME Computers and Information in Engineering Division wrote in the letter: "We went through a thorough review process that included vetting of the papers through our Technical Committee chairs with a second round of reviews at the Executive Committee level, and your paper stood out as an example of excellent technical results on a difficult problem with cross-disciplinary relevance to computers and information in engineering."

Priyanshu, Madu, Hrishi and Dr. Krovi went to the conference and Priyanshu presented the paper.

You can download the paper from:
P. Agarwal, M. S. Narayanan, L-F. Lee, F. Mendel and V. N. Krovi, "Simulation-based Design of Exoskeletal Using Musculoskeletal Analysis", proceeding of ASME 2010 International Design Engineering Technical Conference, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, August 15-18, 2010. (CIE 2010 Best Student Paper Award) [PDF]

IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM 2010)

The 2010 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics held on July 6-9, 2010 in Montreal, Canada. The purpose of the IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM), following the footsteps of the previous eight editions, is to promote activities in various areas of mechatronics by providing a forum for exchange of ideas, presentation of technical achievements, and discussion of future directions. The AIM brings together an international community of experts to discuss the state-of-the-art, new research results, perspectives of future developments, and innovative applications relevant to mechatronics, robotics, control, automation, and related areas.

Leng-Feng presented a paper titled "Kinematics Analysis of In-Parallel 5 DOF Haptic Device" at the conference. Xiao Bo and Dr. Krovi attended the conference as well.

You can download the paper from:
L-F Lee, M.S. Narayanan, F. Mendel, P. Karam and V.N. Krovi, "Kinematics Analysis of In-Parallel 5 DOF Haptic Device", Proceeding of 2010 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics, Montreal, Canada, July 6-9, 2010. [PDF]

ASEE Computers in Education Journal Special Issue

Our paper titled "Role of Automated Symbolic Generation of Equations of Motion to Enhance Robotics Education" was accepted to ASEE Computers in Education Journal Special Issue: Novel Approaches in Robotics Education!

Abstract of the paper: "In recent years there has been a significant increase in the variety and complexity of Articulated-Multi-Body-Systems (AMBS) used for various applications. There is also increased interest in the model-based design-refinement and controller-development, which is critically dependent upon availability of underlying plant-models.
Kinematic and dynamic plant-models for AMBSs can be formulated by systematic application of physics postulates. This process, in its various variants, forms the basis of various mechanisms/robotics courses. However, the type and complexity of the example systems is often limited by the tractability of first generating and subsequently analyzing system equations of motion. Nonetheless, it should be noted that using simpler examples alone may sometimes fail to capture important physical phenomena (e.g. gyroscopic, coriolis). Hence, we examine the use of some contemporary symbolic- and numeric-computation tools to assist with the automated symbolic equation generation, sensitivity analysis and development of model based controllers to enhance various robotics courses..."



Download the paper from:
Hrishi Shah, Sumit Tripathi, Leng-Feng Lee, and Venkat Krovi, "Role of Automated Symbolic Generation of Equations of Motion to Enhance Engineering Education", ASEE Computers in Education Journal Special Issue: Novel Approaches in Robotics Education, Vol 1, No.3, pp. 2-20, July-September 2010. [PDF]

First Workshop on Undergraduate Engineering Education with MapleSim


On August 10, 2010, our lab attended "First Workshop on Undergraduate Engineering Education with MapleSim" at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

This workshop host by Tom Lee and Heather Zunic (from MapleSoft) aims to develop concrete ideas and directions for the revitalization of undergraduate dynamics, mechanical design, and related courses. The target result of this workshop will be to compose a community providing practical guidance to faculty at large as to the pedagogical opportunities and deployment guidelines for new technology-based initiatives in the relevant engineering education streams.

Dr. Krovi presented some of the efforts in our lab with the use of MapleSim:


Workshop Schedule and topics:
8:30 Coffee and networking
9:00 Welcome and introductions and comments from co-chairs
9:30 Session 1: Overview of current activities
9:45 Overview presentations from active institutes
10:00 Binghamton, Buffalo, McMaster, Lawrence Tech, Waterloo
10:30 Session 2: MapleSim.
10:45 Product strategy, key demonstrations, Q&A
11:15 Coffee break
11:30 Session 3: Problem statement
11:45 Brainstorming: What are the principal educational challenges?
12:00 Session 4: Working lunch
12:15 Brainstorming: Freshman courses, dynamics
13:15 Session 5:
13:30 Brainstorming: Senior undergrad control, mechatronics, capstone design
14:30 Coffee Break
14:45 Session 4: Synthesis
15:00 Pulling it all together
15:15 Summarize recommended steps for faculty and Maplesoft
16:30 Closing

ICRA Conference


The 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA2010) was held in Anchorage, Alaska, May 3 - 8, 2010. The theme of the conference was ”50 Years of Robotics,” reflecting on the amazing achievements of the field and the broad impact of robotics and automation research, development and education. The conference was attended by over 1575 attendees and featured 857 papers, 8 keynotes celebrating 50 Years of Robotics, 3 plenary lectures and 42 workshops.


Dr. Krovi presented paper title "Enhanced Trajectory Tracking Control with Active Lower Bounded Stiffness Control for Cable Robot" at the conference.

You can download the paper here:
Kun Yu, L-F Lee, C.P. Tang and V. N. Krovi, "Enhanced Trajectory Tracking Control with Active Lower Bounded Stiffness Control for Cable Robot," Proceeding of 2010 International Conference Robotics and Automation, Anchorage, Alaska, May 3-8, 2010. [PDF]