Contents
27 March 2019
Vol 4, Issue 28
Vol 4, Issue 28
Special Section on Autonomous Vehicles
Editorial
- Autonomous vehicles: An imperfect path to saving millions of lives
Autonomous vehicles will eventually save millions of lives, underscoring the importance of accelerating research, development, engineering, and testing.
Focus
- Parallel testing of vehicle intelligence via virtual-real interaction
A closed-loop parallel testing system implements more challenging tests to accelerate evaluation and development of autonomous vehicles.
- Self-driving cars: A city perspective
The future of self-driving lies in the technologies embedded in the fabric of cities.
Research Articles
- Neural network vehicle models for high-performance automated driving
A neural network improved performance over a simple model when implemented in feedforward-feedback control on an experimental vehicle.
- AADS: Augmented autonomous driving simulation using data-driven algorithms
A scalable simulation system combines augmented images with synthesized traffic to enable training and testing of autonomous driving.
Research Articles
- Reconfigurable magnetic microrobot swarm: Multimode transformation, locomotion, and manipulation
Magnetic microrobot swarms collectively perform tasks in a confined environment through multimode transformation and locomotion.
- Robots mediating interactions between animals for interspecies collective behaviors
Robots socially integrated into groups of honeybees and zebrafish located in different cities, allowing the species to share decisions.
- Perching and resting—A paradigm for UAV maneuvering with modularized landing gears
A modularized and actuated landing gear framework allows a UAV to stably perch and rest on a wide range of different structures.
- Intracellular manipulation and measurement with multipole magnetic tweezers
A platform technology for magnetic manipulation and measurement substantially improves intracellular navigation and characterization.
Review
- A review of collective robotic construction
Collective robotic construction concerns multirobot systems that modify their environment according to high-level user-specified goals.
About The Cover
ONLINE COVER Stable Approaches to Landing. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are affordable tools for many tasks, such as surveillance and delivery, but constant motion quickly drains their batteries. Flying animals are able to attach to or perch on top of structures, conserving energy between tasks. Hang et al. designed modular, actuating landing gear that attached to a commercial, off-the-shelf quadrotor UAV. The UAV was able to approach objects without collisions and actuate the landing modules to perch on and/or grasp objects without damage. It also maintained its position once stabilized, allowing continued surveillance with low energy use. [CREDIT: KAIYU HANG/YALE UNIVERSITY]