2007). A uniform biped gait generator with ofine optimization and online adjustable parameters. Robotica, 25, pp 549-565 SUMMARY This paper presents the Genetic Algorithm Optimized Fourier Series Formulation (GAOFSF) method for stable gait generation in bipedal locomotion. It uses a Truncated Fourier Series (TFS) formulation with its coefficients determined and optimized by Genetic Algorithm. The GAOFSF method can generate human-like stable gaits for walking on flat terrains as well as on slopes in a uniform way. Through the adjustment of only a single or two parameters, the step length and stride-frequency can easily be adjusted online, and slopes of different gradients are accommodated. Dynamic simulations show the robustness of the GAOFSF, with stable gaits achieved even if the step length and stride frequency are adjusted by significant amounts. With its ease of adjustments to accommodate different gait requirements, the approach lends itself readily for control of walking on a rough terrain and in the presence of external perturbations.

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Anticipating human intentional actions is essential for many applications involving service robots and social robots. Nowadays assisting robots must do reasoning beyond the present with predicting future actions. It is difficult due to its non-Markovian property and the rich contextual information. This task requires the subtle details inherent in human movements that may imply a future action. This paper presents a probabilistic method for action prediction in human-object interactions.The key idea of our approach is the description of the so-called object affordance, the concept which allows us to deliver a trajectory visualizing a possible future action. Extensive experiments were conducted to show the effectiveness of our method in action prediction. For evaluation we applied a new RGB-D activity video dataset recorded by the Sez3D depth sensors. The dataset contains several human activities composed out of different actions.

This paper presents a method of designing variable structure control systems for robots. As the on-board robot computational resources are limited, but in some cases the demands imposed on the robot by the user are virtually limitless, the solution is to produce a variable structure system. The task dependent part has to be exchanged, however the task governs the activities of the robot. Thus not only exchange of some task-dependent modules is required, but also supervisory responsibilities have to be switched. Such control systems are necessary in the case of robot companions, where the owner of the robot may demand from it to

The gait of current two-legged walking machines differs from that of humans, although the kinematic structures of these machines' legs frequently imitate human limbs. This paper presents a method of generating the trajectories of hip and knee joint angles resulting in a gait pattern similar to that of a human. For this purpose the solutions of coupled van der Pol oscillator equations are utilised. There is much evidence that these equations can be treated as a good model of the central pattern generator generating functional (also locomotional) rhythms in living creatures. The oscillator equations are solved by numerical integration. The method of changing the type of gait by changing appropriate parameter values in the oscillator equations is presented (change of velocity and trajectory of leg-ends). The results obtained enable enhanced control of two-legged walking systems by including gait pattern generators which will assume a similar role to that of biological generators.

For the first time, the 31P nuclear magnetic resonance technique has been used to study the properties of isolated vacuoles of plant cells, namely the vacuolar pH and the inorganic phosphate content. Catharanthus roseus cells incubated for 15 hours on a culture medium enriched with 10 millimolar inorganic phosphate accumulated large amounts of inorganic phosphate in their vacuoles. Vacuolar phosphate ions were largely retained in the vacuoles when protoplasts were prepared from the cells and vacuoles isolated from the protoplasts. Vacuolar inorganic phosphate concentrations up to 150 millimolar were routinely obtained. Suspensions prepared with 2 to 3 x 106 vacuoles per milliliter from the enriched C. roseus cells have an intemal pH value of 5.50 ± 0.06 and a mean trans-tonoplast ApH of 1.56 ± 0.07. Reliable determinations of vacuolar and extemal pH could be made by using accumulation times as low as 2 minutes. These conditions are suitable to follow the kinetics of H exchanges at the tonoplast. The 31P nuclear magnetic resonance technique also offered the possibility of monitoring simultaneously the stability of the trans-tonoplast pH and phosphate gradients. Both appeared to be reasonably stable over several hours. The buffering capacity of the vacuolar sap around pH 5.5 has been estimated by several procedures to be 36 ± 2 microequivalents per milliliter per pH unit. The increase of the buffering capacity due to the accumulation of phosphate in the vacuoles is, in large part, compensated by a decrease of the intravacuolar malate content.

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