Gelatin Nanoparticles can Improve Pesticide Delivery Performance to Plants.

Nanomaterials associated with plant growth and crop cultivation revolutionize traditional concepts of agriculture. However, the poor reiterability of these materials in agricultural applications necessitates the development of environmentally-friendly approaches. To address this, biocompatible gelatin nanoparticles (GNPs) as nanofertilizers with a small size (≈150 nm) and a positively charged surface (≈30 mV) that serve as a versatile tool in agricultural practices is designed.

A Hybrid Systems-Based Hierarchical Control Architecture for Heterogeneous Field Robot Teams.

Field robot systems have recently been applied in a wide range of research fields. Further automation, development, and activation of such systems require cooperation among heterogeneous robots. Classical control theory is inefficient in managing large-scale complex dynamic systems.

Human-Centered Design and Evaluation of Haptic Cueing for Teleoperation of Multiple Mobile Robots.

In this paper, we investigate the effect of haptic cueing on a human operator's performance in the field of bilateral teleoperation of multiple mobile robots, particularly multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Two aspects of human performance are deemed important in this area, namely, the maneuverability of mobile robots and the perceptual sensitivity of the remote environment. We introduce metrics that allow us to address these aspects in two psychophysical studies, which are reported here.

Estimation of environmental force for the haptic interface of robotic surgery.

Background: The success of a telerobotic surgery system with haptic feedback requires accurate force-tracking and position-tracking capacity of the slave robot. The two-channel force-position control architecture is widely used in teleoperation systems with haptic feedback for its better force-tracking characteristics and superior position-tracking capacity for the maximum stability margin. This control architecture, however, requires force sensors at the end-effector of the slave robot to measure the environment force.

Haptic control with environment force estimation for telesurgery.

Success of telesurgical operations depends on better position tracking ability of the slave device. Improved position tracking of the slave device can lead to safer and less strenuous telesurgical operations. The two-channel force-position control architecture is widely used for better position tracking ability.

Enhancement of kinesthetic perception for microsurgical teleoperation using impedance-shaping.

A new control scheme is developed in this paper for a bilateral teleoperation system for microsurgical applications. The main objective of the proposed control scheme is to enhance the kinesthetic perception of the operator. First, the kinesthetic perception, based on psychophysics, is classified into three metrics of detection, sensitivity of detection, and discrimination.