Sharif Digital Repository

Effective prevention and treatment management of spinal disorders can only be based on accurate estimation of muscle forces and spinal loads during various activities such as lifting. The infeasibility of experimental methods to measure muscle and spinal loads has prompted the use of biomechanical modeling techniques. A major shortcoming in many previous and current models is the consideration of equilibrium conditions only at a single cross section, rather than along the entire length of the spine, when attempting to compute muscle forces and spinal loads. The assumption of extensor global muscles with straight rather than curved paths and of the spinal segments as joints with no... 

We present the study of a large sample of early-type dwarf galaxies in the Coma cluster observed with DEIMOS on the Keck II to determine their internal velocity dispersion. We focus on a subsample of 41 member dwarf elliptical galaxies for which the velocity dispersion can be reliably measured, 26 of which were studied for the first time. The magnitude range of our sample is -21 < M R < -15mag. This paper (Paper I) focuses on the measurement of the velocity dispersion and their error estimates. The measurements were performed using penalized pixel fitting (ppxf) and using the calcium triplet absorption lines. We use Monte Carlo bootstrapping to study various sources of uncertainty in our... 

We present a study of the Fundamental Plane (FP) for a sample of 71 dwarf galaxies in the core of the Coma cluster in the magnitude range -21 < M I < -15. Taking advantage of the high-resolution DEIMOS spectrograph on Keck II for measuring the internal velocity dispersion of galaxies and high-resolution imaging of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)/ACS, which allows an accurate surface brightness modelling, we extend the FP of galaxies to luminosities of ~1 mag fainter than all the previous studies of the FP in the Coma cluster. We find that the scatter about the FP depends on the faint-end luminosity cut-off, such that the scatter increases for fainter galaxies. The residual from the FP... 

A new approach for tracking targets in TWS systems is introduced which is based on Hough transform. The main idea is to take target's velocity and course of motion as the main tracking quantities and calculate other kinematic parameters of the target from these two main parameters. The main criteria for associating targets to tracks in Data Association (DA) step is co linearity of targets with the history of track and Hough transform is the main tool in this step. Computer simulation results are presented to compare the performance of the suggested algorithm with the conventional tracking systems  

The kinematics information from imaging, if combined with optimization-based biomechanical models, may provide a unique platform for personalized assessment of trunk muscle forces (TMFs). Such a method, however, is feasible only if differences in lumbar spine kinematics due to differences in TMFs can be captured by the current imaging techniques. A finite element model of the spine within an optimization procedure was used to estimate segmental kinematics of lumbar spine associated with five different sets of TMFs. Each set of TMFs was associated with a hypothetical trunk neuromuscular strategy that optimized one aspect of lower back biomechanics. For each set of TMFs, the segmental... 

Discussing the particularly long gravitational microlensing event OGLE-2014-BLG-1186 with a time-scale tE ∼ 300 d, we present a methodology for identifying the nature of localised deviations from single-lens point-source light curves, which ensures that (1) the claimed signal is substantially above the noise floor, (2) the inferred properties are robustly determined and their estimation is not subject to confusion with systematic noise in the photometry, (3) alternative viable solutions within the model framework are not missed. Annual parallax and binarity could be separated and robustly measured from the wing and the peak data, respectively. We find matching model light curves that involve... 

Nonlinear dynamic model of a flying manipulator with two revolute joints and two highly flexible links is obtained using Hamilton's principle. Flying base of the manipulator is a rigid body. Stress is treated three dimensionally in the isotropic linearly-elastic links, but the in-plane and out-of-plane warpings of the links' cross-sections are neglected. Although the links' cross-sections undergo negligible elastic orientation, their models are more accurate than a nonlinear 3D Euler-Bernoulli beam. Tension, compression, twisting and spatial deflections of each link are coupled to each other by some nonlinear terms including two new ones. In the issue of flying flexible-link manipulators new... 

In this paper, a three-invariant cap model is developed for the isotropic-kinematic hardening and associated plasticity of granular materials. The model is based on the concepts of elasticity and plasticity theories together with an associated flow rule and a work hardening law for plastic deformations of granulars. The hardening rule is defined by its decomposition into the isotropic and kinematic material functions. The constitutive elasto-plastic matrix and its components are derived by using the definition of yield surface, material functions and non-linear elastic behavior, as function of hardening parameters. The model assessment and procedure for determination of material parameters... 

In this paper, we introduce a new method and new motion variables to study kinematics and dynamics of a 6 d.o.f cable-driven robot. Using these new variables and Lagrange equations, we achieve new equations of motion which are different in appearance and several aspects from conventional equations usually used to study 6 d.o.f cable robots. Then, we introduce a new Jacobian matrix which expresses kinematical relations of the robot via a new approach and is basically different from the conventional Jacobian matrix. One of the important characteristics of the new method is computational efficiency in comparison with the conventional method. It is demonstrated that using the new method instead... 

In this paper, we propose a new 6-DOF parallel mechanism. Due to the fact that degrees of freedom in this robot outnumber the number of kinematic chains, it is not a fully parallel mechanism. This results in a weight and inertia reduction and better dynamic performance, making it ideal for haptic and pole climbing applications. The fact that the mechanism is open on one side enable it to wrap around a pole from one side minimizing the center of gravity distance from the pole and the resulting gripping moments. Both inverse and forward Kinematic and dynamic analysis of the proposed mechanism is addressed. Workspace of the mechanism is compared to that of the Stewart's mechanism and the... 

In this paper, a new approach for online reactive path generation and control of multi-agent systems is proposed. This method is based on local optimization techniques used for solving the inverse kinematic problem of redundant manipulators. Convergence of the agents' velocities to the desired values in the null-space of the primary task is guaranteed by introducing a new control law. The efficacy of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated through simulation experiments. © 2006 IEEE  

In this study the effects of using different musculoskeletal models on load-displacement behavior of FE models of the human lumbar spine under external loads and moments have been analyzed in terms of equilibrium and clinical stability. A simplified and a complex architecture of muscles have been integrated to FE based models of lumbar spine and were loaded to simulate the load carrying behavior of human lumbar spine in flexion, extension and lateral bending. The displacement values as well as muscle forces have been computed and compared in both cases using optimization methods with different cost functions. The models showed similar kinematics in pure flexion but the simplified model... 

In this paper a model for analyzing elastic-plastic kinematic hardening materials is introduced, based on the additive decomposition of the corotational rate of an Eulerian strain tensor In this model, the elastic constitutive equation as well as the flow rule and the hardening equation is expressed in terms of the elastic and plastic parts of the corotational rate of the mentioned Eulerian strain tensor and its conjugate stress tensor. In the flow rule, the plastic part of the corotational rate of the Eulerian strain tensor is related to the difference of the deviatoric part of the conjugate stress and the back stress tensors. A proportionality factor is used in this flow rule which must be... 

In this paper, a new approach for optimal control of robot manipulators is presented. For this purpose, the system is considered as a two-level large-scale system where a gradient based coordination strategy is used to coordinate the overall system. This is achieved within a decomposition-coordination framework, where the robot manipulator is first decomposed into several sub-systems in such a way that each sub-system consists of several consecutive links and joints. With the aim of optimization, the control problem is first decomposed into m sub-problems, at the first level, where each sub-problem is solved using a gradient optimization method. Then, by using a new methodology which is... 

In this paper an effective approach for kinematic and dynamic modeling of high mobility wheeled mobile robots (WMR) has been presented. As an example of these robots, the method has been applied on CEDRA rescue robot which is a complex, multibody mechanism. The model is derived for 6-DOF motions enabling movement in x, y, z directions, as well as pitch, roll and yaw rotations. Forward kinematics equations are derived using Denavit-Hartenberg method and the wheels Jacobian matrices. Moreover the inverse kinematics of the robot is obtained and solved for the wheel velocities and steering commands in terms of desired velocity, heading and measured link angles. Finally dynamical analysis of the... 

In this work a double step algorithm is presented for the integration of equations governing the behavior of von Mises material in plastic limit. The isotropic and kinematic hardenings employed are of general type and the evolution of back stress follows the Armstrong-Frederick rule. Theoretical and numerical aspects are discussed in detail and a comparison is made with the classical backward Euler method  

In this paper, the evolution of ductile damage and the failure is investigated in the cyclic loading of ductile metals based on the rate-dependent elasto-viscoplastic damage model with the linear and nonlinear isotropic-kinematic hardening rules. The constitutive model is derived by introducing the damage variable, based on the plastic strain behavior, in both the elasto-plasticity and visco-plasticity frameworks. The cyclic behavior is modeled by using the visco-plasticity model since the rate-dependent behavior is observed experimentally for various metal alloys. In order to obtain a more realistic response in the compression zone, the crack closure effect is employed in the stress-strain... 

Rehabilitation is the best approach for patients who suffer physical disability of their upper-limbs. Maintaining the intensity of exercise during treatment is the main factor that makes the robots suitable for rehabilitation since robots do not get tired and do the exercises with constant intensity under supervision of the doctor. Two main categories of rehabilitation robots are End-Effector based robots and wearable robots. According to the fact that most problems occur in need of rehabilitation for hand wrist area, in this paper a wearable rehabilitation robot has been developed for the wrist. Nowadays, wearable robots attract more attention than the other group. Wearable robots are... 

This paper initially deals with the design of a new customized reconfigurable mobile parallel mechanism. This mechanism is called "Taar Reconfigurable ParaMobile (TRPM)", consisting of three mobile robots as the main actuators. Then, the kinematics and path planning for this mechanism are represented. The newly proposed mechanism is expected to circumvent some shortcomings of inspection operation in unknown environments with unexpected changes in their workspace, e.g., in a water pipe with non-uniform section area. In this paper, "Artificial Potential Field (APF)" has been assumed to be the path planning algorithm and its resulting attractive and repulsive forces are only applied to the...