The development of a mobile robot to assist people in their home is a long term goal of Fraunhofer IPA. In order to meet this goal, three generations of a robotic home assistant "Care-O-bot ®" have been developed so far. As a vision of a future household product, Care-O-bot ® 3 is equipped with the latest industrial state-of-the art hardware components. It offers all modern multimedia and interaction equipment as well as most advanced sensors and control. It is able to navigate among humans, detect and grasp objects and pass them safely to human users using its tray. Care-O-bot ® 3 has been presented to the public on several occasions where it distributed drinks to the visitors of trade fairs and events.
The objective of this paper is to study the effect of magnetic field strength on spoke behaviour in a high power impulse magnetron sputtering discharge. In three magnetic field configurations, a broad range of experimental conditions was investigated by high-speed camera imaging. The dual image feature of the employed camera enabled us to determine the shape and spoke mode number, as well as the velocity of the spokes. Five distinct spoke shapes were detected. For each magnetic field, a map was created relating the occurrence of the spoke shape with the discharge conditions. Similarly, the spoke mode number, as well as the spoke velocity, was found to be strongly dependent on the discharge conditions. Based on the optical emission results, it was proposed that the trailing edge of the triangular spoke is related to the production of secondary electrons created by argon ions on the spoke edges, while in the case of a round spoke shape, the secondary electrons are mainly created by multiple charged titanium ions in the centre of the spoke.
A detailed experimental study of high power impulse magnetron sputtering processes is performed by time-resolved imaging of the ground state sputtered particles. New details related to the behavior of both neutral and singly ionized atoms are shown, as a result of separate treatment of the plasma-on and plasma-off time phases. In Paper I, the ion/neutral density redistribution in the ionization zone during sputtering is analyzed; the role of main discharge parameters, such as pulse repetition rate, pulse energy, etc., is discussed systematically. The time-resolved evolution of the ground state levels population for both sputtered neutrals and ions is also considered. In addition, propagation of the sputtered particles is analyzed using 2D density gradient diagrams calculated based on the measured particle density distributions. The results of this work are compared, when possible, to the data obtained previously [Britun et al., J. Appl. Phys. 117, 163302 (2015)].
Life events, such as retirement or being widowed, can change the social circle of older people considerably. It may be difficult to find new social contacts when one has never got used to, or perhaps even never learnt, to seek and maintain those contacts. Loneliness has many negative effects for well-being, including depression and even cardiovascular disease. The Ambient Assisted Living Joint Programme (AAL-JP) research project V2me seeks to find a solution for alleviating loneliness by means of easy-to-use technology including touch screen devices. The idea is to use a virtual coach for encouraging users to take an active role in contacting people and teaching them how to initiate and maintain meaningful and enduring relations. The first step, in the process of creating the complete virtual coach-assisted system for preventing loneliness, is to create a prototype and use the feedback from older users for developing the system. In this paper we discuss the results of the first pilot and what steps need to be taken next.
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