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For the optimal robot-arm multi-point manufacturing sequence (RAMMS) problem, the best sequence needs to be explored to efficiently visit each task point just once and return back to the start one finally. It is the known travel salesman problem (TSP). Furthermore, in each task point, the optimal joint configuration is also a difficult problem because it involves an inverse kinematics (IK) computation and may contain multiple configurations in the solution space. To conquer the difficult problem, this paper developed an inherence-based time-vary acceleration coefficient (IHTVAC) particle swarm optimization (PSO) and designed a two-phase evolutionary approach for the solution explorer. In the first phase, the joint configurations of robots in task points are evolutionary explored. The second phase then includes both task sequences and joint configurations into discrete-type evolutionary loop to explore the global solutions. The experimental result shows the advantage of the proposed two-phase approach.

This study reports a CMOS-MEMS condenser microphone implemented using the standard thin film stacking of 0.35 μm UMC CMOS 3.3/5.0 V logic process, and followed by post-CMOS micromachining steps without introducing any special materials. The corrugated diaphragm for the microphone is designed and implemented using the metal layer to reduce the influence of thin film residual stresses. Moreover, a silicon substrate is employed to increase the stiffness of the back-plate. Measurements show the sensitivity of microphone is −42 ± 3 dBV/Pa at 1 kHz (the reference sound-level is 94 dB) under 6 V pumping voltage, the frequency response is 100 Hz–10 kHz, and the S/N ratio >55 dB. It also has low power consumption of less than 200 μA, and low distortion of less than 1% (referred to 100 dB).

Associating genes with diseases is an active area of research because it is useful for helping human health with applications to clinical diagnosis and therapy. This paper proposes two methods to guide the associations between genes and diseases: (1) making use of the proximity relationship between genes and diseases and (2) utilizing GO terms shared by genes and diseases for similarity comparison. The experiments show that associations utilizing GO terms perform better than using word proximity. The results reveal that the GO terms act as a good gene-disease association feature.

This study reports a CMOS-MEMS condenser microphone implemented using the standard thin films stacking of 0.35µm UMC CMOS 3.3/5.0V logic process, and followed by post-CMOS micromachining steps without introducing any special materials. The corrugated diaphragm for microphone is designed and implemented using the metal layer to reduce the influence of thin film residual stresses. Moreover, silicon substrate is employed to increase the stiffness of back-plate. Measurements show the sensitivity of microphone is −42±3dBV/Pa at 1kHz under 6V pumping voltage, the frequency response is 100Hz–10kHz, and the S/N ratio >55dB. Table1 summarizes detail specifications.

We develop a task allocation approach using k-means algorithm and Steiner tree properties to dispatch a platoon of mobile robots in a constrained environment. Our approach increases task-execution efficiency of multiple robots by reducing the response time to each task. It clusters the request points based on the k-means algorithm, then pre-positions the robots at standby locations obtained by considering Steiner trees in their designated clusters. Robots travel along shortest paths to serve requests and have collision avoidance ability. A switching strategy for robots is also presented. By switching designated clusters, robots further shorten the total response time and balance their workloads implicitly. Thus, the total task execution time is reduced. The performance of our approach is evaluated through simulations.

The purpose of this paper is to design an image-based platform for real-time dispatching of multi-robots, in the context of, for example, supporting a courier transportation system. With this integration platform, we are able to compare efficiencies with different dispatching policies. With the global information regarding the robots and pick-up points available from the image process, this real-time dispatching platform is capable of detecting current positions of robots and their relative positions of destination of transportation, of planning online motion trajectories for each robot to reach its destination smoothly, and of maintaining collision avoidance while robots are moving. Different dispatching strategies, as a combination of pre-positioning of robots and swapping strategies of responsible zones for individual robots in transportation operation, are conducted on a miniature implementation platform to simulate corresponding performance of response time.