Traffic accidents are a major public safety challenge around the world and are often influenced by the cognitive and physiological states of drivers. Among the multiple in-vehicle factors, listening to music has shown complex effects on driver behavior, particularly in relation to music tempo. This study proposes TransBiNet, a novel deep learning architecture that integrates Transformer-based attention mechanisms with Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory layers to classify driver states under different auditory conditions using internal biometric signals. Data were collected from 26 participants driving in a simulated environment, where each subject completed scenarios involving fast-tempo music, slow-tempo music, and no music. Physiological signals (heart rate, breathing rate, galvanic skin response, and skin temperature) and head motion data (gyroscope and accelerometer) were gathered via wearable sensors and used as input to the model. The architecture was optimized through Hyperband-based hyperparameter tuning and showed a test accuracy of 97.62% as well as strong precision and recall across all classes. The results showed that internal physiological and motion-based signals are sufficient for robust classification of music-induced driver states, supporting the potential for real-time, sensor-driven driver monitoring systems in intelligent transportation.

Autonomous vehicles, commonly known as self-driving cars, are rapidly gaining popularity due to their numerous advantages, such as reducing traffic, pollution, and emissions while increasing safety, convenience, and transportation connectivity. In order to accurately track the motion signal, these vehicles are now utilising advanced control techniques, such as model predictive control (MPC). However, the efficiency of MPCs heavily relies on properly tuning their weights. The primary function of the MPC is to recalculate the optimal values for the vehicle control commands, such as desired speed, steering angle, etc., while considering the dynamic model of the autonomous vehicle. The existing linear MPC models cannot reach higher efficiency because of using fixed weights without considering the error. This paper introduces a novel approach for developing an MPC model with a time-varying weights algorithm for autonomous vehicles. The study aims to minimise motion tracking errors such as lateral position and yaw angle errors. Relevant MPC weights are calculated online using fuzzy logic-based units considering the lateral position and yaw angle errors. The proposed linear time-varying MPC was designed and developed using MATLAB software, resulting in improved motion tracking performance with 31.62% and 20.89% reduction of the root means square error of lateral position and yaw angle.

Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging provides two-dimensional (2-D) real-time luminal and transmural cross-sectional images of intravascular vessels with detailed pathological information. It has offered significant advantages in terms of diagnosis and guidance and has been increasingly introduced from coronary interventions into more generalized endovascular surgery. However, IVUS itself does not provide spatial pose information for its generated images, making it difficult to construct a 3-D intravascular visualization. To address this limitation, IVUS imaging-driven 3-D intravascular reconstruction techniques have been developed. These techniques enable accurate diagnosis and quantitative measurements of intravascular diseases to facilitate optimal treatment determination. Such reconstruction extends the IVUS imaging modality from pure diagnostic assistance to intraoperative navigation and guidance and supports both therapeutic options and interventional operations. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of technological advances and recent progress on IVUS imaging-based 3-D intravascular reconstruction and its state-of-the-art applications. Limitations of existing technologies and prospects of new technologies are also discussed.

Transparency and stability issues have been a major concern for haptic tele-operation. Researchers in this area have already shown that a minimum refresh rate of 1 kHz is required to achieve smoothness for human perception in force-feedback experiments. This rate requires the highest priority for real-time applications to achieve transparent haptic tele-presence. As a result, this rate leads to a round-trip time delay requirement of less than 1ms, which consequently constrain the transmission delay to less than 500us for sample packets in each direction. On the other hand, emerging haptic cooperative and collaborative applications, such as network gaming are typically implemented on loosely-coupled packet-switched networks. However, the transmission delay of UDP packets in such network lower-bounded to 1.5ms, which is higher than haptic applications constraint. This research proposes a new method of event-based haptic data sample transmission, which significantly reduces the number of sample packets required for transparent haptic tele-presence. Prioritizing the events, an event synchronization scheme, and utilization of a haptic-specific PID controller for smooth position adjustment within slave side are the major techniques elaborating this method. Furthermore, an experimental study with a virtual impedance device has been set up, and the results have analyzed. A compression ratio of 94% in the master device, and 97% in slave device has been achieved by the proposed technique.

This paper presents the dimensional design methodology for a hexarot-based simulator with high-G centrifugal motions. The dimensional synthesis of the mechanism is performed, and the optimal kinematic parameters of the manipulator for the translational and rotational motions are obtained. The maximum forces and moments exerted to each joint of the mechanism are calculated based on the dynamics of the mechanism which has been recently developed based on the Newton-Euler approach. Finally, dimensional parameters for the application of this research are presented.

Weber's law has been widely used by researchers for perceptual analysis in data reduction algorithms proposed for haptic applications. The law in its basic definition suggests a constant coefficient k or Just Noticeable Difference (JND). This constant is the percentage of actual stimulus around which the human sensory system cannot notice a change. Moreover, research studies have been conducted to modify the rule to be more efficient and appropriate for haptic applications. Among these studies, the effect of the master operator's velocity on the force-JND used in the slave device's transmission method has been previously discussed for constant velocity within the trajectory. The aim of this research is to overcome some of the limitations within existing research on velocity-adaptive JND, and to investigate the effects of the master operator's acceleration on the force-feedback dead-band threshold. Further, user studies were completed, and the results were investigated to clarify the influence of involving dynamic factors to the JND calculation.

CHAI3D is a widely accepted haptic SDK in the society because it is open-source and provides support to devices from different vendors. In many cases, CHAI3D and its related demos are used for benchmarking various haptic collision and rendering algorithms. However, CHAI3D is designed for off-the-shelf single-point haptic devices only, and it does not provide native support to customised multi-point haptic devices. In this paper, we aim to extend the existing CHAI3D framework and provide a standardized routine to support customised, single/multi-point haptic devices. Our extension aims at two issues: Intra-device communication and Inter-device communication. Therefore, our extension includes an HIP wrapper layer to concurrently handle multiple HIPs of a single device, and a communication layer to concurrently handle multiple position, orientation and force calculations of multiple haptic devices. Our extension runs on top of a custom-built 8-channel device controller, although other off-the shelf controllers can also be integrated easily. Our extension complies with the CHAI3D design framework and advanced provide inter-device communication capabilities for multi-device operations. With straightforward conversion routines, existing CHAI3D demos can be adapted to multi-point demos, supporting real-time parallel collision detection and force rendering.

The introduction of robotics technology within endovascular surgical procedures has realised accurate catheter navigation and reduced surgeon irradiation. Insufficient force information from the catheter remains a limitation for significant improvement in the performance of these procedures. While recent developments of catheter tip-force measurement sensors have witnessed a notable outcome, packaging complexities and sensor size constraints limit their application. This work presents an approach to catheter tip-force measurement during endovascular surgery simulation. Image processing and photoelasticity are utilized to measure arterial stress and morphological deformation in a carotid artery segment model. Deformation is measured in real-time and conveyed to the user as haptic feedback during tele-operation of a robotic catheter insertion system. A preliminary single user study was completed to realise the potential of force feedback as it is correlated to the level of deformation and stress in the artery model. The results of this haptic feedback are compared with experimental results of the same operator manually inserting the catheter, and also using a computer graphical-user-interface to control the catheter insertion system.

This paper presents a new in-vitro simulator that can simulate the new technology of three-dimensional digital subtraction angiography (DSA) to perform a cerebral aneurysm surgery. Then, propose a new technique for the numerical evaluation of the surgical tools applied within this interventional surgery to aid in the design and selection of surgical instruments. Initially, the in-vitro intravascular simulator was constructed, followed by cerebral aneurysm models that were fabricated with highly sensitive photoelastic materials of epoxy resin. Then reconstruct virtual reality modeling of the blood vessel and catheter to record the position information and realize virtual guidance for training. Meanwhile, conduct image processing of photoelastic effects for numerical evaluations of surgical instruments such as catheter insertion and stent expansion. During the stent expansion experiment, the average stress in the selected region of interest caused by the expansion was calculated and compared with the corresponding value obtained before the expansion. The presented simulator and measurement technique can assist in improving a surgeons skills, quantifying the performance of medical mechanisms, and contribute to 3D analysis of stress distribution. This approach can also provide feedback control for robot assisted endovascular systems.

Training of optometrists is traditionally achieved under close supervision of peers and superiors. With the rapid advancement in technology, medical procedures are performed more efficiently and effectively, resulting in faster recovery times and less trauma to the patient. However, application of this technology has made it difficult to effectively demonstrate and teach these manual skills as the education is now a combination of not only the medical procedure but also the use of the technology. In this paper we propose to increase the training capabilities of optometry students through haptically-enabled single-point and multi-point training tools as well as augmented reality techniques. Haptics technology allows a human to touch and feel virtual computer models as though they are real. Through physical connection to the operator, haptic devices are considered to be personal robots that are capable of improving the human-computer interaction with a virtual environment. These devices have played an increasing role in developing expertise, reducing instances of medical error and reducing training costs. A haptically-enabled virtual training environment, integrated with an optometry slit lamp instrument can be used to teach cognitive and manual skills while the system tracks the performance of each individual. These interactions would ideally replicate every aspect of the real procedure, consequently preparing the trainee for every possible scenario, without risking the health of a real patient.

Firstly, this paper introduces the OzTug mobile robot developed to autonomously manoeuvre large loads within a manufacturing environment. The mobile robot utilises differential drive and necessary design criteria includes low-cost, mechanical robustness, and the abPility to manoeuvre loads ranging up to 2000kg. The robot is configured to follow a predefined trajectory while maintaining the forward velocity of a user-specified velocity profile. A vision-based fuzzy logic line following controller enables the robot to track the paths on the floor of the manufacturing environment. Secondly, in order to tow large loads along predefined paths three different robot-load configurations are proposed. Simulation within the Webots environment was performed in order to empirically evaluate the three different robot-load configurations. The simulation results demonstrate the cost-performance trade-off of two of the approaches.

The majority of commercially available haptic devices offer a single point of haptic interaction. These devices are limited when it is desirable to grasp with multiple fingers in applications including virtual training, telesurgery and telemanipulation. Multipoint haptic devices serve to facilitate a greater range of interactions. This paper presents a gripper attachment to enable multi-point haptic grasping in virtual environments. The approach employs two Phantom Omni haptic devices to independently render forces to the user's thumb and other fingers. Compared with more complex approaches to multi-point haptics, this approach provides a number of advantages including low-cost, reliability and ease of programming. The ability of the integrated multi-point haptic platform to interact within a CHAI 3D virtual environment is also presented.

This paper introduces a novel approach to multi-point multi-hand haptic teleoperation of a mobile robot. The work extends upon existing approaches to provide the teleoperator with the ability to utilise one hand to achieve intuitive haptic control of the mobile robot while utilising the other hand to intuitively control the orientation (and corresponding visual information) of the robot's onboard camera. This work begins with the introduction of the intuitive haptic conical control surface which extends upon existing approaches to provide the teleoperator with an intuitive method for issuing robot motion commands whilst simultaneously displaying real-time task-dependent haptic augmentation. A novel multi-point haptic gripper prototype is then introduced providing the basis for the teleoperator to haptically utilise the camera-in-hand metaphor for intuitive control of the visual information provided by the robot's onboard camera. The distinct advantages justifying the individual approaches are discussed and it is suggested that using dual haptic modalities the teleoperator can utilise both approaches simultaneously for intuitive haptic mobile robotic teleoperation. This work represents the first stage of a continuing research project and provides innovative contributions facilitating the presented approach to mobile robotic teleoperation. The realisation of this capability enables future research to fully investigate the human factors and efficacy of the approach.

This paper investigates the capacity of a light-weight haptic grasping interface to convey event-based high-frequency transient forces within a virtual environment. The addition of vibrations based on contact with real-world objects over traditional position-based feedback has shown to significantly enhance the feel of hard surfaces. We describe the design of our prototype grasping system, and experimentally demonstrate the utility of this type of haptic interface. The frequency response of the device was obtained to demonstrate its ability to display high-frequency signals which meet realistic contact requirements. To determine the ability of the proposed device to display the required high frequency vibrations, empirical waveforms were measured by tapping on real surfaces with a high-bandwidth instrumented version of the two finger grasping interface. Empirical models, based on decaying sinusoids were fit to the measured acceleration waveforms to understand the required bandwidth of the proposed device for the particular material properties.

Haptic technology provides the ability for a system to recreate the sense of touch to a human operator, and as such offers wide reaching advantages. The ability to interact with the human's tactual modality introduces haptic human-machine interaction to replace or augment existing mediums such as visual and audible information. A distinct advantage of haptic human-machine interaction is the intrinsic bilateral nature, where information can be communicated in both directions simultaneously. This paper investigates the bilateral nature of the haptic interface in controlling the motion of a remote (or virtual) vehicle and presents the ability to provide an additional dimension of haptic information to the user over existing approaches (Park et al., 2006; Lee et al., 2002; and Horan et al., 2007). The 3D virtual haptic cone offers the ability to not only provide the user with relevant haptic augmentation pertaining to the task at hand, as do existing approaches, however, to also simultaneously provide an intuitive indication of the current velocities being commanded.