Annual Report 2002 - Örebro universitet

34 AASS – Center for Applied Autonomous Sensor Systems
2. Research Labs
At the present time AASS consists of four research laboratories that have joined their
expertise to cover and integrate the broad spectrum of scientific disciplines needed for the
design and implementation of industrially relevant autonomous systems.
This would be practically impossible for any individual laboratory, but is achievable by a
joint effort, which is organized in the form of AASS. This joint effort is aimed not only at
expanding the frontiers of the science of autonomous sensor systems, but also gradually
incorporating it in the graduate and undergraduate curriculum, and producing physical
demonstrators of autonomous sensor systems with industrial and educational relevance.
The common scientific denominator for the four research laboratories is the subject of
"perception and autonomy in diverse un- and/or semi-structured environments''. We
pursue this subject using a common research methodology, which is strictly applied: all
technologies that we investigate should answer actual needs that emerge from an application,
and their effectiveness is always validated on the application.
2.1 Biologically inspired systems lab
The lab’s research addresses the development of human-like (or more generally biological
systems like) sensors/actuators and biologically inspired methods for sensori-motoric
information processing, fusion and perception. With respect to perception, the objective is to
incorporate in the design of intelligent sensors biologically inspired features (human-like) of
perception (granularity, uncertainty, imprecision and vagueness), and make a reference to
anatomical localization and biological functions. Regarding sensori-motoric motion control,
our concern is the investigation and development of totally neurobiologically inspired,
adaptive and intelligent control schemes for visually guided reach, grasp and dexterous
manipulation by means of an anthropomorphic hand actuated by artificial muscles. This
research direction takes also into account the study of arm-hand coordinated movements,
which could be driven by a combination of different types of artificial muscles and/or muscle
like actuators.
Achieving the above objectives would provide on one hand more reliable, robust and accurate
quality testing and assessment devices for purely industrial applications including the food
industry and intelligent rescue systems; on the other hand, it contributes to the improvement
of our current understanding about the behavior and functioning of biological control systems
namely the central nervous system. This is essential for designing artifacts that help humans
to avoid repeated unskillful and dangerous tasks.