An ultra-precision integrated robotic system is developed, which integrates a passive robotic measurement system (shadow system) with an industrial robot. The shadow system is built almost ideal. In a working process, when the end-effecter of integrated robot is driven to a target with errors which are caused by degrading factors associated with the robot, the shadow system will independently detect the end-effecter frame instantly with ultra-precision kinematic accuracy. A scheme of approach control is then established to drive the end-effecter of the integrated robot to compensate the error step by step until the desired target is achieved with ultra-precision positioning accuracy.

Photonics is a field that straddles both the macro and micro worlds. It largely deals with macro-scale devices, but many of these require sub-micron-scale precision in assembly. This makes it a very interesting application domain. We describe a microgripper for microassembly of photonic devices and micro-exploration of the properties of sub-micron attachment means (such as solder and UV epoxy). The microgripper has multi-degree-of-freedom actuation and a unique micro/macro actuator on the gripping axis to facilitate human loading and unloading and also very precise accommodation. We demonstrate the force sensitivity and stiffness of approximately 20 mN and 70 mN/um, respectively to be sufficient for the intended tasks. Finally, we demonstrate the gripper accommodating forces of a large solder ball freezing and cooling as a prelude to our intended study of sub-millimeter solder balls in sub-second heating regimes.

This paper discusses the techniques and their applications in the development of a path planning system composed of three modules, namely: global vision (GVM), trajectory planning (TPM) and navigation control (NCM). The GVM captures and processes the workspace image to identify the obstacle and the robot configurations. These configurations are used by the TPM to generate the Voronoi roadmap, to compute the maximal clearance shortest feasible path and the visibility pathway between two configurations. The NCM controls the robot functionalities and navigation. To validate the path planning system, three sets of experiments have been conducted using the Lab robot Khepera, which have shown very good results.

Special micromanipulators are needed to manipulate very small objects. Most micromanipulators are specialized to perform a task they are designed for, but are too inflexible to adapt to other problems. Therefore, flexible newly developed mobile microrobots are presented with precision in the sub-micrometer range while offering a macroscopic workspace. The main parts of each mobile microrobot, the mobile platform, the manipulator and end effectors, are explained in detail, with some experimental data given.

The new driving principle of the mobile platform allows high resolution, low energy consumption, which makes an on-board power supply feasible and a maximum velocity of several mm/s.

Useful human interfaces are needed for a successful teleoperation. The most important interface next to the vision feedback is a haptic interface. The paper presents a newly developed haptic interface for a micromanipulation station. The mechanical design and the design of the control system of the haptic interface are discussed in details. The control architecture of the micromanipulation station and the integration of the haptic device into the micromanipulation station are presented.

Autonomous mobile robot navigation systems are based on three principal kinds of techniques: map-based navigation, map-building-based navigation and mapless navigation. We propose a mapless method for trajectory description in unknown indoor environments. The method uses distance measurements from a 2D laser range finder, digitises the robot's visibility area, eliminates superfluous data and reorients their presentation with laws similar to those used in cellular automata. The landmarks are extracted and organised in a panoramic description called fresco. The frescoes which are validated by means of neighbourhood rules. The most informative frescoes are detected by means of two criteria and stored. The stored frescoes are considered as a human-like descritption of the robot's route and could be used by the robot to retrieve its route to its starting point.

This special issue on Micro/Nano Robotic Perception, Control and Manipulation describes several complementary research efforts from Asia, the United States, and Europe. The topic is timely and the work published in this special issue shows how traditional robotics research is contributing to the emerging micro and nano technologies that are already beginning to demonstrate a strong impact on our society. At milli to microscales, three research efforts in inspection and microassembly are presented. From the University of Minnesota, a force controlled microgripper for photonics microassembly applications is presented. Another important aspect of microassembly is the tracking and alignment of microparts using vision feedback. Work by Dr. Yesin at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology-Zurich (ETHZ) is directed towards using CAD model-based full 3DOF tracking for closed-loop control of automated microassembly. Moving towards submicron and nano scales, work from the University of Oldenburg in Germany in developing a novel platform for nanohandling using mobile microrobots has given rise to interesting concepts in how systems that perform future nanomanipulation tasks may be configured. A paper co-authored by researchers at the University of California-Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon University considers the use of optical tweezers integrated with chemical linkages for manufacturing 2D and 3D structures at micro and nanoscales. A microbial separation system at the University of Nagoya uses a novel touch sensor and a micropipette, and demonstrates the interesting research problems that exist in the rapidly emerging field of BioMicroRobotics. It is clear that micro/nano robotics research efforts, like those presented in this special issue, represent a key component of robotics studies, and illustrate one direction where robotics must head in order to ensure that the field of robotics remains relevant to science, engineering and society as a whole.

This paper describes a micro-optical three-axis tactile sensor capable of sensing not only normal force, but also shearing force. The normal force was detected from the integrated gray-scale values of bright pixels emitted from the contact area of conical feelers. The conical feelers were formed on a rubber sheet surface that maintains contact with an optical waveguide plate. The shearing force was detected from horizontal displacement of the conical feeler. In the experiments, a precise multi-axial loading machine was developed to measure sensing characteristics of the present sensor. Results show that the normal force was specified uniquely under combined force conditions and that the shearing force was specified by modifying the relationship between the shearing force and the horizontal displacement on the basis of normal force. We formulated a set of expressions to derive the normal force and the shearing force by taking into account this modification. Furthermore, calibration coefficients were identified for transforming the integration of gray-scale values into the normal force and for transforming the horizontal displacement into the shearing force. This result suggests that the expressions can estimate the normal force and the shearing force in wide-load regions.

Control systems of robot manipulators offer many challenges in education where the students must learn robot dynamics and control structures, and understand relations between the control parameters and the systems performance. Interactive simulation is aimed at improving the understanding of and intuition for the abstract parts of the control of robot courses. This paper presents an application of interactive simulation to teach control systems of robots. The application considers a nonlinear robot arm and two control modules: position control and motion control. Students can directly manipulate graphical representation of the systems such as a choice among seven control structures, controller gains, and desired trajectories, and obtain instant feedback on the effects. These features make the interactive learning tool stimulating and of high pedagogical value.

Optical tweezers have been used as versatile tools for non-contact manipulation of micrometer-sized entities. This paper proposes a hybrid micro/nanoscale manufacturing system using optical tweezers and chemical linkages for fabricating 2D and 3D micro/nanostructures. A holographic multiple trap optical tweezers system is first used to trap particles in a desired pattern. The particles are then connected to form rigid units using suitable chemistry. Connection schemes based on gold seeding, complementary-DNA linkage and streptavidin-biotin chemistry are presented and possible applications of this technique are explored. This method combines the advantages of top-down and bottom-up approaches and is compatible with organic and inorganic materials.

Most nonlinear control concepts used in robotics are based on a more or less accurate inverse model of the robot. In contrast to this, the design and properties of a general $n$-loop control structure based on a divided forward model of the robot, the so-called multi-loop Model Following Control Structure ($n$-MFC), is presented in this paper. Its theoretical basics and its concept are explained. The stability and robustness of the proposed control structure is analyzed. The theoretical assumptions are verified in many experiments with a two-joint robot manipulator. Qualitative as well as quantitative results of the experiments are presented and discussed.

Researchers from the Japanese company Toyota have designed and patented a motor car that, they claim, expresses emotions. They say that the car is able to laugh, cry or show anger and is also capable of singing to its occupants.

We introduce a quantitative approach to the analysis of distributed systems which relies on a linear operator based network semantics. A typical problem in a distributed setting is how information propagates through a network, and a typical qualitative analysis is concerned with establishing whether some information will eventually be transmitted from one node to another node in the network. The quantitative approach we present allows us to obtain additional information such as an estimation of the probability that some data is transmitted within a given interval of time. We formalise situations like this using a probabilistic version of a process calculus which is the core of KLAIM, a language for distributed and mobile computing based on interactions through distributed tuple spaces. The analysis we present exploits techniques based on Probabilistic Abstract Interpretation and is characterised by compositional aspects which greatly simplify the inspection of the nodes interaction and the detection of the information propagation through a computer network.

This paper presents SKRIBE, a functional programming language for authoring documents, especially technical documents such as web pages, technical reports, and API documentation. Executing Skribe programs can produce documents in various formats, such as PostScript, PDF, HTML, Texinfo, or Unix man pages. That is, the very same Skribe program can be used to produce documents in different formats. Skribe is a full featured programming language whose syntax makes it look like a markup language à la HTML.

For the sake of the example, here is the whole SKRIBE source code for the paragraph above:

(p [This paper presents ,(Skribe), a functional programming language for authoring documents, especially technical documents such as web pages, technical reports, and API documentation. Executing Skribe programs can produce documents in various formats, such as PostScript, PDF, HTML, Texinfo, or Unix man pages. That is, the very same Skribe program can be used to produce documents in different formats. Skribe is a full featured programming language whose syntax makes it look like a markup language à la HTML.])

SKRIBE can be downloaded at: http://www.inria.fr/mimosa/fp/Skribe.

Type theory was invented at the beginning of the twentieth century with the aim of avoiding the paradoxes which result from the self-application of functions. $\lambda$-calculus was developed in the early 1930s as a theory of functions. In 1940, Church added type theory to his $\lambda$-calculus giving us the influential simply typed $\lambda$-calculus where types were simple and never created by binders (or abstractors). However, realising the limitations of the simply typed $\lambda$-calculus, in the second half of the twentieth century we saw the birth of new more powerful typed $\lambda$-calculi where types are indeed created by abstraction. Most of these calculi use two binders $\lambda$ and $\Pi$ to distinguish between functions (created by $\lambda$-abstraction) and types (created by $\Pi$-abstraction). Moreover, these calculi allow $\beta$-reduction but not $\Pi$-reduction. That is, $(\pi_{x:A}.B)C \rightarrow B[x:=C]$ is only allowed when $\pi$ is $\lambda$ but not when it is $\Pi$. This means that, modern systems do not allow types to have the same instantiation right as functions. In particular, when $b$ has type $B$, the type of $(\lambda_{x:A}.b)C$ is taken immediately to be $B[x:=C]$ instead of $(\Pi_{x:A}.B)C$. Extensions of modern type systems with both $\Pi$-reduction and type instantiation have appeared in (Kamareddine, Bloo and Nederpelt, 1999; Kamareddine and Nederpelt, 1996; Peyton-Jones and Meijer, 1997). This makes the $\lambda$ and $\Pi$ very similar and hence leads to the obvious question: why not use a unique binder instead of the $\lambda$ and $\Pi$? This makes more sense since already, versions of de Bruijn's Automath unified $\lambda$ and $\Pi$ giving more elegant systems. This paper studies the main properties of type systems with unified $\lambda$ and $\Pi$.

A compiler structured as a small number of monolithic passes is difficult to understand and difficult to maintain. The steep learning curve is daunting, and even experienced developers find that modifying existing passes is difficult and often introduces subtle and tenacious bugs. These problems are especially frustrating when the developer is a student in a compiler class. An attractive alternative is to structure a compiler as a collection of many fine-grained passes, each of which performs a single task. This structure aligns the implementation of a compiler with its logical organization, simplifying development, testing, and debugging. This paper describes the methodology and tools comprising a framework for constructing such compilers.

In this paper, a model of collective learning in design is developed in the context of team design. It explains that a team design activity uses input knowledge, environmental information, and design goals to produce output knowledge. A collective learning activity uses input knowledge from different agents and produces learned knowledge with the process of knowledge acquisition and transformation between different agents, which may be triggered by learning goals and rationale triggers. Different forms of collective learning were observed with respect to agent interactions, goal(s) of learning, and involvement of an agent. Three types of links between team design and collective learning were identified, namely teleological, rationale, and epistemic. Hypotheses of collective learning are made based upon existing theories and models in design and learning, which were tested using a protocol analysis approach. The model of collective learning in design is derived from the test results. The proposed model can be used as a basis to develop agent-based learning systems in design. In the future, collective learning between design teams, the links between collective learning and creativity, and computational support for collective learning can be investigated.

This paper describes an approach to the analysis of design concepts (DCs) using the rough set theory. The proposed approach attempts to extract design knowledge from past designs, and used the knowledge obtained to perform DC–capability mapping in a dynamic design evolution environment. The mapping enables designers to estimate the feasibility of a DC to meet stipulated design specifications. The proposed approach encompasses two algorithms, namely, the dissimilar objects algorithm and the attribute decomposition algorithm, to deal with an information system with unavailable information and multidecision attributes, respectively. The details of these algorithms are presented. A case study on the design of vacuum cleaners is used to illustrate the capability of the proposed approach.

Special Issue Part 1 (Issue 3) and Part 2 (Issue 4) of AIEDAM are based on a workshop on Learning and Creativity held at the 2002 conference on Artificial Intelligence in Design, AID '02 (www.cad.strath.ac.uk/AID02_workshop/Workshop_webpage.html; Gero, 2002), the sixth of similar workshops, with the previous five focusing on Machine Learning in Design and being held at AIDs '92, '94, '96, '98, and '00 (Gero, 1992, 2000; Gero & Sudweeks, 1994, 1996, 1998). The first three workshops also resulted in special issues of AIEDAM (Maher et al., 1994; Duffy et al., 1996, 1998).

This paper describes how a computational system for designing can learn useful, reusable, generalized search strategy rules from its own experience of designing. It can then apply this experience to transform the design process from search based (knowledge lean) to knowledge based (knowledge rich). The domain of application is the design of spatial layouts for architectural design. The processes of designing and learning are tightly coupled.