An eccentric paddle locomotion mechanism (ePaddle) was proposed to enhance the mobility of amphibious robots for multi-terrains tasks. There are several feasible terrestrial and aquatic gaits for an ePaddle-based robot. In this paper, we present the method for modelling thrust in one of the aquatic gaits, namely the oscillating-paddling gait, for an ePaddle mechanism. The conception of the oscillating-paddling gait is introduced firstly and followed by the thrust model. In order to verify the proposed model, a thrust measuring facility is built. A series of experiments are carried out with this facility. From the results, we verify the thrust model for the oscillating-paddling gait. Furthermore, we characterize how the amplitude and direction of the generated net thrust force relate with the amplitude, period and oscillation ratio of the oscillating-paddling gait.

A novel control strategy of pan-tilt-zoom camera is described. Because the active camera is mounted on a moving autonomous helicopter in visual tracking system, and the tracked object is moving at same time, and there exists the vibration influence of the helicopter, image stabilization becomes poor, and all pixels are running. Therefore, a biomimetic control strategy of on-board pan-tilt-zoom camera is presented. In this paper, the biomimetic oculomotor control model is obtained based on physiological neural path of eye movement control. In order to validate the functions of the biomimetic control model, simulation experiments were done under the same condition as the physiological experiments in physiological researches. Then the biomimetic controller of onboard pan-tilt-zoom camera is developed. The results of flight tracking experiments show that the biomimetic controller can compensate the deflection caused by the flight platform, and enhance the visual tracking system performance.

Generally the scene of the visual surveillance using one camera is confined within certain limits. If you want to extend the surveillance area, you need multiple cameras. It attempts to detect, recognize and track certain objects from image sequences. This paper presents a simple and effective approach segmenting and tracking a moving object from a moving platform in the air such as UAV or ballonet airship, etc. The moving platform can follow the tracked object during a long distance. It can be used to track the doubtful vehicle and strengthen the visual surveillance more. The proposed approach is efficient and robust. The object is searched only in a subwindow of the current frame. The position of sub-window is estimated by its position in the last two frames. The features of the object are updated in each frame. The approach produces good tracking results at a frame rate of 25 fps. It is available in tracking a moving object in various scenes