@article {3224, title = {A Quantitative Evaluation of Drive Pattern Selection for Optimizing EIT-Based Stretchable Sensors}, journal = {SENSORS}, volume = {17}, year = {2017}, abstract = {

Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) is a medical imaging technique that has been recently used to realize stretchable pressure sensors. In this method, voltage measurements are taken at electrodes placed at the boundary of the sensor and are used to reconstruct an image of the applied touch pressure points. The drawback with EIT-based sensors, however, is their low spatial resolution due to the ill-posed nature of the EIT reconstruction. In this paper, we show our performance evaluation of different EIT drive patterns, specifically strategies for electrode selection when performing current injection and voltage measurements. We compare voltage data with Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) and Boundary Voltage Changes (BVC), and study image quality with Size Error (SE), Position Error (PE) and Ringing (RNG) parameters, in the case of one-point and two-point simultaneous contact locations. The study shows that, in order to improve the performance of EIT based sensors, the electrode selection strategies should dynamically change correspondingly to the location of the input stimuli. In fact, the selection of one drive pattern over another can improve the target size detection and position accuracy up to 0.04. and 0.18, respectively.

}, keywords = {conductive fabric, inverse problem, performance parameters, stretchable sensor}, doi = {10.3390/s17091999}, url = {http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/17/9/1999/htm}, author = {S. Russo and S. Nefti-meziani and N. Carbonaro and A. Tognetti} } @article {2875, title = {The Quest for Natural Machine Motion: An Open Platform to Fast-Prototyping Articulated Soft Robots}, journal = {IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine }, volume = {24}, year = {2017}, note = {

Open access

e wish to thank Samuele Batazzi, Fabio Bonomo, Alberto
Brando, Andrea Di Basco, Tommaso Pardi, Riccardo Persichi-
ni, and Alessandro Raugi for their valuable support in the
development of the hardware prototype. This work was sup-
ported by SOFTPRO (grant 688857) and SOMA (grant
645599){\textemdash}projects of the European Commission{\textquoteright}s Horizon
2020 research program{\textemdash}and by Walk-Man grant 611832.
Support also came from the European Research Council
under an Advanced Grant for {\textquotedblleft}SoftHands: A Theory of Soft
Synergies for a New Generation of Artificial Hands{\textquotedblright} (grant
ERC-291166).
}, pages = {48 - 56}, abstract = {
Soft robots are one of the most significant recent evolutions in robotics. They rely on compliant physical structures purposefully designed to embody desired characteristics. Since their introduction, they have shown remarkable applicability in overcoming their rigid counterparts in such areas as interaction with humans, adaptability, energy efficiency, and maximization of peak performance. Nonetheless, we believe
that research on novel soft robot applications is still slowed by the difficulty in obtaining or developing a working soft robot structure to explore novel applications.
In this article, we present the Natural Machine Motion Initiative (NMMI), a modular open platform that aims to provide the scientific community with tools for fast and easy prototyping of articulated soft robots. Such a platform is composed of three main open hardware modules: the Qbmoves variable-stiffness actuators (VSAs) to build the main robotic structure, soft end effectors (EEs) to interact with the world, and a pool of application-specific add-ons. We also discuss many novel uses of the platform to rapidly prototype (RP) and test new robotic structures with original soft capabilities, and we propose NMMI- based experiments.
}, keywords = {Robotics}, issn = {1070-9932 }, doi = {10.1109/MRA.2016.2636366}, url = {http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=7857692}, author = {C. Della Santina and C. Piazza and Gasparri, G. M. and M. Bonilla and M. G. Catalano and G. Grioli and M. Garabini and A. Bicchi} } @conference {3230, title = {A Quantitative Evaluation of Drive Patterns in Electrical Impedance Tomography}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 6th EAI International Conference on Wireless Mobile Communication and Healthcare}, year = {2016}, pages = {337{\textendash}344}, keywords = {drive patterns, EIT, Electrical impedance tomography, stretchable sensors}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-58877-3}, author = {S. Russo and N. Carbonaro and A. Tognetti and S. Nefti-meziani} } @inbook {2888, title = {Quasi-Static Analysis of Synergistically Underactuated Robotic Hands in Grasping and Manipulation Tasks}, booktitle = {Human and Robot Hands}, volume = {Springer Series on Touch and Haptic Systems}, year = {2016}, note = {

This work was supported by the European Commission under the CP-IP grant
no. 248587 {\textquotedblleft}THE Hand Embodied{\textquotedblright}, within the FP7-2007-2013 program, by the
grant no. 600918 {\textquotedblleft}PaCMan{\textquotedblright} - Probabilistic and Compositional Representations of
Objects for Robotic Manipulation - within the FP7-ICT-2011-9 program, the grant
no. 611832 {\textquotedblleft}Walk-Man{\textquotedblright} within the FP7-ICT-2013-10 program, and the grant no.
645599 {\textquotedblleft}SOMA: Soft-bodied Intelligence for Manipulation{\textquotedblright}, funded under H2020-
EU-2115.

}, pages = {211-233}, publisher = {Springer}, organization = {Springer}, abstract = {

As described in Chaps.\ 2{\textendash}5, neuroscientific studies showed that the control of the human hand is mainly realized in a synergistic way. Recently, taking inspiration from this observation, with the aim of facing the complications consequent to the high number of degrees of freedom, similar approaches have been used for the control of robotic hands. As Chap.\ 12 describes SynGrasp, a useful technical tool for grasp analysis of synergy-inspired hands, in this chapter recently developed analysis tools for studying robotic hands equipped with soft synergy underactuation (see Chap.\ 8) are exhaustively described under a theoretical point of view. After a review of the quasi-static model of the system, the Fundamental Grasp Matrix (FGM) and its canonical form (cFGM) are presented, from which it is possible to extract relevant information as, for example, the subspaces of the controllable internal forces, of the controllable object displacements and the grasp compliance. The definitions of some relevant types of manipulation tasks (e.g. the pure squeeze, realized maintaining the object configuration fixed but changing contact forces, or the kinematic grasp displacements, in which the grasped object can be moved without modifying contact forces) are provided in terms of nullity or non-nullity of the variables describing the system. The feasibility of such predefined tasks can be verified thanks to a decomposition method, based on the search of the row reduced echelon form (RREF) of suitable portions of the solution space. Moreover, a geometric interpretation of the FGM and the possibility to extend the above mentioned methods to the study of robotic hands with different types of underactuation are discussed. Finally, numerical results are presented for a power grasp example, the analysis of which is initially performed for the case of fully-actuated hand, and later verifying, after the introduction of a synergistic underactuation, which capacities of the system are lost, and which other are still present.

}, issn = {978-3-319-26705-0}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-26706-7_13}, author = {E. Farnioli and M Gabiccini and A. Bicchi} } @conference {2140, title = {Quantitative EEG analysis in minimally conscious state patients during postural changes}, booktitle = {Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2013 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE}, year = {2013}, pages = {6313{\textendash}6316}, publisher = {IEEE}, organization = {IEEE}, author = {A. Greco and Carboncini, MC and Virgillito, A and A Lanata and G. Valenza and E. P. Scilingo} } @conference {1645, title = {Quantitative assesment of nerve reneration by electromyographical and electroneurographical signals}, year = {2008}, author = {C. De Maria and D. S. POGGI and S. Burchielli and G. Vozzi} } @conference {BJPP, title = {Quantised Control in Distributed Embedded Systems.}, booktitle = {Proc. 16th Int. Symp. on Mathematical Theory of Networks and Systems}, year = {2004}, abstract = {

Traditional control design is based on ideal assumptions concerning the amount, type and accuracy of the information flow that can be circulated across the controller. Unfortunately, real implementation platforms exhibit non-idealities that may substantially invalidate such assumptions. As a result, the system’s closed-loop performance can be severely affected and sometimes stability itself is jeopardised. These problems show up with particular strength when multiple feedback loops share a limited pool of computation and communication resources. In this case the designer is confronted with the challenging task of choosing at the same time the control law and the optimal allocation policy for the shared resources (control algortihm/system architecture co-design).

}, keywords = {Embedded Control, Robotics}, author = {A. Bicchi and K. H. Johansson and L. Palopoli and B. Picasso} } @conference {PCB03, title = {Quality of service control in soft real-time applications}, booktitle = {Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Decision and Control}, year = {2003}, pages = {664-669}, abstract = {

In this paper we present results obtained in the context of Quality of Service (QoS) control for soft real-time applications. The discussion addresses the issue of dynamically adjusting the bandwidth for a set of periodic tasks, when a reservation-based (RB) CPU scheduling policy is used. RB techniques are particularly suitable for this kind of applications since they allow an accurate mathematical modelling of the dynamic evolution of the QoS experienced by tasks. Based on this model, a control policy guaranteeing specified QoS levels for different tasks is illustrated, along with necessary and sufficient conditions for its existence. Moreover, the problem of steering a task QoS back into its nominal level is tackled, in response to deviations due to temporary overload conditions. Simulation results are reported, for the purpose of validating the approach.

}, keywords = {Embedded Control, Robotics}, author = {L. Palopoli and T. Cucinotta and A. Bicchi} } @conference {BMP00, title = {Quantized Control Systems and Discrete Nonholonomy}, booktitle = {Proc. IFAC Workshop on Lagrangian and Hamiltonian Methods for Nonlinear Control}, year = {2000}, publisher = {Elsevier}, organization = {Elsevier}, address = {Princeton, NJ, USA}, keywords = {Hybrid and Embedded Control Systems, Nonlinear Control Systems, Quantized Control Systems}, author = {A. Bicchi and A. Marigo and B. Piccoli} } @conference {BBB95, title = {Quasi-Block Diagonal Dominance Condition for Robust Decentralized Tracking Control}, booktitle = {Proc. European Control Conference}, year = {1995}, address = {Rome}, keywords = {Embedded Control, Nonlinear Control Systems}, author = {A. Balluchi and A. Bicchi and A. Balestrino} } @inbook {BM92, title = {Quasi-Static Compensation of Force Errors for Flexible Manipulators}, booktitle = {Selected papers from the Third IFAC/IFIS/IMAC Symposium on Robot Control}, year = {1992}, pages = {381-385}, publisher = {Pergamon Press Books}, organization = {Pergamon Press Books}, address = {Oxford, U.K.}, keywords = {Robotics}, author = {A. Bicchi and C. Melchiorri}, editor = {I. Troch and K. Desoer and P. Kopacek} }