Marcello Bonfé

• Professor (Assistant) at University of Ferrara

Despite the resolution of pathology at admission, many hospitalized patients are discharged in a worse functional state, particularly in terms of walking capabilities, due to hospitalization inactivity. Early interventions to maintain the functional state through exercise such as passive mobilization, executed during hospitalization, have been prov...

Echo-doppler examination of the jugular vessel is a powerful tool for the early diagnosis of cardiovascular disorders that can be further related to central nervous system diseases. Unfortunately, the ultrasound technique is strongly operator-dependent, so the quality of the scan, the accuracy of the measurement, and therefore the rapidity and robu...

Percutaneous nephrolithotomy is the gold standard for the treatment of renal stones larger than 20 mm in diameter. The treatment outcomes of PCNL are highly dependent on the accuracy of the puncture step, in order to achieve a suitable renal access and reach the stone with a precise and direct path. Thus, performing the puncturing to get the renal...

This article aims at presenting an introductory overview of the theoretical framework of control barrier functions (CBFs) and of their application to the design of safety-related controllers for robotic systems. The article starts by describing the basic concepts of CBFs and how they can be used to build optimization problems embedding CBF-based co...

The paper describes a method for planning collision-free motions of an industrial manipulator that shares the workspace with human operators during a human–robot collaborative application with strict safety requirements. The proposed workflow exploits the advantages of mixed reality to insert real entities into a virtual scene, wherein the robot co...

The paper proposes a procedure to provide a complete and physically-consistent estimation of mass, center of mass and inertia tensor of the payload attached to the end-effector of an industrial manipulator equipped with a force/torque sensor. The procedure involves the generation of an artificial potential field that allows the proper excitation of...

The next stage for robotics development is to introduce autonomy and cooperation with human agents in tasks that require high levels of precision and/or that exert considerable physical strain. To guarantee the highest possible safety standards, the best approach is to devise a deterministic automaton that performs identically for each operation. C...

This paper presents a mobile manipulation platform designed for autonomous depalletizing tasks. The proposed solution integrates machine vision, control and mechanical components to increase flexibility and ease of deployment in industrial environments such as warehouses. A collaborative robot mounted on a mobile base is proposed, equipped with a s...

A common approach for stabilizing the delayed communication channel in a bilateral teleoperation architecture is using wave variables to make the exchange of information equivalent to a passive physical dynamics. However, such a dynamics is felt by the user and it affects the transparency of the system. In this paper, we exploit the wave variables...

ISO/TS 15066 is globally recognized as the guideline for designing safe collaborative robotic cells, where human and robot collaborate in order to fulfill a common job. Current approaches for implementing the ISO/TS 15066 guidelines lead to a conservative behavior (e.g. low velocity) of the robot and, consequently, to poor performance of the collab...

Percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL) is considered the gold standard for the treatment of patients with renal stones larger than 20 mm in diameter. The success and treatment outcomes of the surgery are very well known to be highly dependent on the precision and accuracy of the puncture step, since it must allow to reach the stone with a precise and...

Nowadays Robotic assisted Minimally Invasive Surgeries (R-MIS) are the elective procedures for treating highly accurate and scarcely invasive pathologies, thanks to their ability to empower surgeons dexterity and skills. In the international research panorama of new prototypes for surgical tele-operated systems, a new master-slave robotic platform...

This book covers a wide range of topics related to human–robot interaction, both physical and cognitive, including theories, methodologies, technologies, and empirical and experimental studies. The International Workshop on Human-Friendly Robotics (HFR) is an annual meeting that brings together academic scientists, researchers and research scholars...

A new vision in human–robot collaboration has allowed to place robots nearby human operators, working close to each other in industrial environments. As a consequence, human safety has become a dominant issue, together with production efficiency. In this paper we propose an optimization-based control algorithm that allows robots to avoid obstacles...

The paper presents a procedure for the identification of the inertial parameters of the payload mounted on the end-effector of a robotic manipulator operating in a collaborative setup. The procedure is therefore designed considering as a primary objective the safe execution of the payload estimation process, in terms of avoidance of physical object...

The paper addresses the problem of the generation of collision-free trajectories for a robotic manipulator, operating in a scenario in which obstacles may be moving at non-negligible velocities. In particular, the paper aims to present a trajectory generation solution that is fully executable in real-time and that can reactively adapt to both dynam...

Admittance control allows a desired dynamic behavior to be reproduced on a non-backdrivable manipulator and it has been widely used for interaction control and, in particular, for human–robot collaboration. Nevertheless, stability problems arise when the environment (e.g. the human) the robot is interacting with becomes too stiff. In this paper, we...

The paper describes the design and application of a low-cost haptic device with five degrees of freedom (5-DOF), all of which are fully actuated for force/torque haptic display. The device is realized using two Novint Falcons, commercially available haptic devices with only translational DOF. The paper focus on the practical issues related to the u...

The introduction of robotic surgery within the operating rooms has significantly improved the quality of many surgical procedures. Recently, the research on medical robotic systems focused on increasing the level of autonomy in order to give them the possibility to carry out simple surgical actions autonomously. This paper reports on the developmen...

Point of care ultrasonography and the related focused assessment with sonography for trauma protocol, if performed by experienced physicians, is a highly sensitive examination, and specific for the detection of free fluids. Different systems and methods have been proposed for training, including simulation as one of the most efficient. This paper p...

Point of Care Ultrasonography (PoCUS) and the related Focused Assessment with Sonography for Trauma (FAST) protocol, if performed by experienced physicians, is a highly sensitive examination and specific for the detection of free fluids. Different systems and methods have been proposed for training, including simulation as one of the most efficient...

The paper describes a control architecture for industrial robotic applications allowing human/robot interactions, using an Admittance Control scheme and direct sensing of the human inputs. The aim of the proposed scheme is to support the operator of an industrial robot, equipped with a force/torque (F/T) sensor on the end-effector, during human/rob...

The authors developed a versatile ultrasound simulator. The proposed system achieves the main features of a high-fidelity device exploiting low-cost rapid prototyping hardware. The hand-guided ultrasound simulator probe includes a RFID reader, a 9-DOF inertial sensor unit, consisting of an accelerometer, a magnetometer and a gyroscope, and a microc...

In order to improve the availability of offshore wind farms, thus avoiding unplanned operation and maintenance costs, which can be high for offshore installations, the accommodation of faults in their earlier occurrence is fundamental. Therefore, this paper addresses the design of an active fault tolerant control scheme that is applied to a small w...

The research on medical robotics is starting to address the autonomous execution of surgical tasks, without effective intervention of humans apart from supervision and task configuration. This paper addresses the complete automation of a surgical robot by combining advanced sensing, cognition and control capabilities, developed according to rigorou...

A high-fidelity, low-cost ultrasound simulator has been developed in order to improve the efficiency of ultrasound training, particularly in Focus Assessment by Sonography in Trauma (FAST). This examination is rapidly increasing its diffusion in Emergency Medicine, as it represents a quick tool for the detection of free fluids. The probe is the mai...

We present our Abstraction Layer Object-Oriented Architecture (ALOOA) and its application to Motion Control. This layer provides a higher level of abstraction than that provided by the well-known PLCOpen library. In fact, the proposed approach uses OO features (i.e. methods, inheritance, and polymorphism) which allow us to define a generic device o...

Introducing some form of autonomy in robotic surgery is being considered by the medical community to better exploit the potential of robots in the operating room. However, significant technological steps have to occur before even the smallest autonomous task is ready to be presented to the regulatory authorities. In this paper, we address the initi...

In autonomous robotic surgery, the supervision of the surgeon cannot be avoided due to the unforeseenable emergencies and complications that can take place during an operation. When necessary, the surgeon has to take over the surgical system switching it from an autonomous mode to a teleoperation mode. In this paper we propose a two-layer bilateral...

Symbolic reasoners generate plans which are often not exploiting the robot capabilities and are sensitive to runtime disturbances. This work proposes a scheduler as an interface between a discrete, symbolic plan and a motion control based on constraint optimization. Acting as a local reasoner, the scheduler valuates a set of predicates to decide wh...

Combining tasks, melding their activities in sequence and in parallel, in order to achieve the desired goal is a challenging research topic. In many practical applications, tasks could be fulfilled even though the robot does not achieve a perfect matching with a given quantitative objective. Thus, it could be possible to carry out other activities,...

This contribution describes the application of differential geometry and nonlinear systems analysis to the estimation of friction effects in a class of mechanical systems. The proposed methodology, that has been developed for the more general problem of fault detection and diagnosis, relies on adaptive filters designed with a nonlinear geometric ap...

We developed an UML-State-charts Object Oriented Design Pattern for PLCs IEC61131-3. This PLC UML-State-chart Design Pattern aims to explore the advantage of Object Oriented Programming by IEC61131-3 in PLCs, and to provide a direct map of UML State-chart to PLC code. We illustrates the design pattern and its use through UML Class diagrams and an a...

The paper describes a robot control and coordination framework for the automation of surgical tasks. In the proposed framework, surgeons are supported by autonomous robotic assistants and do not teleoperate robots, unless in case of exceptions in the tasks of the robots. Such robots perform basic surgical actions by combining sensing, dexterity and...

The paper describes a robot control and coordination framework for the automation of surgical tasks. In the proposed framework, surgeons are supported by autonomous robotic assistants and do not teleoperate robots, unless in case of exceptions in the tasks of the robots. Such robots perform basic surgical actions by combining sensing, dexterity and...

Task specification models define the activities to be executed by a robot in order to achieve its goal. Classical examples are the sequences involved in assembly or pick and place tasks. This work introduces the preview coordination execution model, an extension to the traditional way in which the execution of such task specifications is coordinate...

The paper presents the application of object-oriented modeling techniques to control software development for complex manufacturing systems, with particular focus on case studies taken from the packaging industry and design patterns that can be abstracted from such case studies. The proposed methodology for control software modeling and implementat...

The paper describes a software architecture for control and simulation of a generic robotic manipulator. The algorithmic part of the system is implemented using the Orocos component-based framework and its related library for robotic applications, while the graphical animation of the robot is developed with Blender. The proposed control and simulat...

A low-cost motorisation of the Leica DNA03 digital level was designed to enable the automatic monitoring of deformations without compromising its manual use in levelling. The upgrade of the instrument and its electronic control system are described together with laboratory tests carried out to study the effects of ambient temperature on the level....

This paper describes the application of differential geometry and nonlinear systems analysis to the estimation of friction effects in a class of mechanical systems. The proposed methodology relies on adaptive filters, designed with a nonlinear geometric approach to obtain the disturbance de-coupling property, for the estimation of the friction forc...

The paper describes trajectory generation and tracking control algorithms, respectively based on nonlinear filtering and dynamic feedback linearization, for mobile robots. A main feature of proposed algorithms is that they are suitable for the implementation on embedded systems with limited computational resources. The trajectory generator is based...

The paper describes a design specification process for the development of novel and intelligent surgical robots. Nowadays, surgical robots are usually controlled by the surgeons manually by using teleoperation. The possibility to carry out simple surgical actions automatically has been the subject of academical research, but very few real-world app...

The paper by G. Pouly et al [”State feedback fuzzy adaptive control for active shimmy damping”, Eur. J. Control 17, No. 4, 370-393 (2011; Zbl 1237.93062)] addresses modeling and control design for a classical physical system, an elastic rotating wheel with a vertical steering axis, which can be found in many vehicles characterized by critical safet...

This paper describes a modeling methodology to sup- port the design process of complex systems. The main challenge in modern industrial applications is the sheer volume of data in- volved in the design process. While using high-level abstraction is necessary to manage this data and analyze the system "as a whole," designers need also to retain all...

Active fault tolerant control of nonlinear systems: The cart-pole example This paper describes the design of fault diagnosis and active fault tolerant control schemes that can be developed for nonlinear systems. The methodology is based on a fault detection and diagnosis procedure relying on adaptive filters designed via the nonlinear geometric app...

In order to improve reliability of wind turbines, it is important to detect faults in their very early occurrence, and to handle them in an optimal way. This paper focuses on the pitch sensors of the turbine blade system, as they are mainly used for wind turbine control, in order to maximise the power production, and the efficiency of the whole pro...

The paper presents a nonlinear filtering technique that can be adopted to generate smooth trajectories for mobile robotic applications. The proposed trajectory planner can be fully executed online by the robot control system, thanks to its inherently discrete-time behavior and to its limited computational requirement. The outputs of the nonlinear f...

The paper presents the architecture of an experimental mobile robotic platform, which has been designed specifying interoperability between multiple robots as a main objective. In particular, novel software technologies based on Web services have been exploited in order to support mobile robots with efficient and extensible messaging, data-sharing...

This paper deals with the development process of an industrial application for the manufacturing of artefacts and products. In particular, a new engineering process tackling the whole machine life-cycle, from the user requirements capture, the project conceptual development to the final machine delivery and acceptance tests, is presented. The proce...

The main contribution of this paper is the description and application of a comprehensive set of methodologies for fault detection and isolation (FDI) of aircraft sensors. In particular, a new nonlinear geometric approach (NLGA) and an efficient linear polynomial method (PM) are presented and compared, together with simulation results obtained from...

The paper presents the results of the application of object-oriented modeling techniques to the control software design of complex manufacturing systems, with particular focus on automatic machineries for production and packaging of food stuff, as milk, snacks, etc. In this application fields there are some peculiar problems to tackle in order to d...

The paper addresses the problem of the design and the application of nonlinear filtering techniques for the fault detection and isolation of aircraft model actuators. In particular, a nonlinear geometric approach is presented for both the design of nonlinear residual generators and the implementation of particle filters. The simulation results are...

This paper addresses the development of a novel active fault tolerant control scheme. The methodology is based on a fault detection and diagnosis procedure relying on adaptive filters designed via the nonlinear geometric approach. The controller reconfiguration exploits a further control loop, depending on the on-line estimate of the fault signal....

The paper describes the design and implementation of a robot control system on a hardware platform based on a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC). The controlled robot is a 4 degrees of freedom (DOF) manipulator with a closed kinematic chain, designed for high-performance pick and place applications in a packaging workcell. The control software is...

Fieldbuses are traditionally used in the Industrial Automation context to interconnect different devices like PLC (Programmable Logic Controller), sensors, actuators and any other intelligent node at the field level, providing a powerful data communication tool with definite characteristics (e.g. transfer rate, frame length, media access method, se...

This paper proposes a fuzzy modelling approach oriented to the design of a fuzzy controller for regulating the fresh airflow of a real diesel engine. This strategy has been suggested for enhancing the regulator design that could represent an alternative to the standard embedded BOSCH controller, already implemented in the Engine Control Unit (ECU),...

[RELAZIONE] Homepage:http://safeprocess09.upc.es/ The paper was scheduled for presentation during the INVITED SESSION "European research in aerospace FDI, FTC and HMS" (ThA2), Thursday, July 2, 2009, 11:40-12:00. Fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) has developed into a major area of research, at the intersection of systems and control engineering,...

[RELAZIONE] The paper is an INVITED PLENARY PAPER (12 pages) Homepage: http://www.ssc.smr.ru/agnfcs09.html After the Conference the Proceedings will bе published online оn IFAC dedicated website - PapersOnLine.net - an on-line archive with free access to аll. Аll papers actually presented at the Workshop are going to bе posted on the site in PDF fo...

Power line communication is a valid technique that allows the exchange of data by means of the powerline cables that are present in every dwelling and in every building. Even if there

The paper describes the electronic design of a brushless motor drive powering a hydraulic Motor-Pump-Unit (MPU) for automotive applications. The full MPU consists of a Permanent Magnet (PM) brushless motor, a three-phase MOSFET inverter with digital control and a gear pump for the hydraulic circuit. The MPU designed in this project is characterized...

The paper presents a review of all the design choices made during the realization of a novel hydraulic motor-pump-unit (MPU) for automotive applications, driven by a permanent magnet (PM) brushless motor with sensorless control. The MPU designed in this project is characterized by low voltage supply and high hydraulic output power, so that the choi...

The Object-Oriented (O-O) approach have been recently used in the industrial automation to design logic control systems, thanks to the features of specification languages (e.g. UML) that can help to describe event-based behavioral requirements. In this paper, we aim to formalise an O-O framework for the design of modular logic controllers, in which...

Several procedures for sensor fault detection and isolation (FDI) applied to a simulated model of a commercial aircraft are presented. The main contributions of the paper are related to the design and the optimisation of two FDI schemes based on a linear polynomial method (PM) and the nonlinear geometric approach (NLGA). The FDI strategies are appl...

[RELAZIONE] the article is in the workshop proceedings pdf file downloadable from http://www.coventry.ac.uk/researchnet/d/683/a/5901 The proceedings file size is 36 MB

The Object-Oriented (O-O) approach have been recently used in the industrial automation to design logic control systems, thanks to the features of specification languages (e.g. UML) that can help to describe event-based behavioral requirements. In this paper, we aim to formalise an O-O framework for the design of modular logic controllers, in which...

The advantages of object-oriented modeling, as modularity and reusability of components, are very important not only for software development but also for modeling manufacturing systems. Recently, a unified object-oriented approach for modeling both the logical and the physical part of a manufacturing machine has been proposed. In this paper, we sh...

In this work, a model-based procedure exploiting analytical redundancy for the FDI of faults on a multivariable dynamic process is presented. The main point of the paper consists of exploiting a disturbance decoupling scheme in connection with a dynamic filter design procedure for diagnostic purpose. It is shown that the suggested approach to fault...

This paper describes the realization of an air transportation bottling plant controller, designed with fuzzy rules and implemented with a PLC and a PC. The plant was previously controlled by a semiautomatic system which was only able to accept pressure set-points from human operators and to maintain them constant, using pressure sensors. The settin...

In this work, a model-based procedure exploiting analytical redundancy for the detection and isolation of faults on a multivariable linear dynamic process is presented. The main point of the paper consists of exploiting a disturbance decoupling scheme in connection with dynamic filter design procedure for diagnostic purpose. It is shown that the su...

In this work, several procedures for the fault detection and isolation (FDI) on general aviation aircraft sensors are presented. In order to provide a comprehensive wide-spectrum treatment, both linear and nonlinear, model-based and data-driven methodologies are considered. The main contributions of the paper are related to the development of both...

This paper describes a modeling language that aims to provide a unified framework for representing control systems, namely, physical plants coupled with computer-based control devices. The proposed modeling methodology is based on the cardinal principle of object orientation, which allows describing both control software and physical components usi...

The paper introduces a formal definition of inheritance, which is a cardinal concept in object-oriented software, for dynamical systems. The proposed definition exploits the coalgebraic description of software artifacts to provide a connection between the behavioral approach for modeling dynamical systems and the object-oriented approach for softwa...

This paper addresses the problem of detection and isolation of actuator faults for a general aviation aircraft, where the nonlinear simulation aircraft model embeds the effects of wind gusts, atmospheric turbulence and measurement errors. The approach is based on the recently introduced NonLinear Geometric Approach (NLGA) to the Fault Detection and...

This paper describes a methodology to support the design process of complex systems. The main challenge in modern industrial applications is the sheer volume of data involved in the design process. While using high-level abstraction is necessary to manage this data and analyze the system "as a whole", designers need also to retain all the low-level...

This paper addresses the problem of the detection and isolation of the input and output sensor faults on a general aviation aircraft, which is characterized by a non-linear model, in the presence of wind gusts, atmospheric turbulence and measurement errors. In particular, this work proposes a polynomial approach for the design of residual generator...

The paper describes a framework for the development of a diagnosis methodology for industrial manufacturing systems. The aim of the project is to support technicians that supervise the manufacturing plant to identify the causes of faults and failures on the machine and, in particular, to indicate a procedure for the recovery of its working conditio...

The paper describes a framework for the development of a diagnosis methodology for industrial manufacturing systems. The aim of the project is to support technicians that supervise the manufacturing plant to identify the causes of faults and failures on the machine and, in particular, to indicate a procedure for the recovery of its working conditio...

The paper describes a modeling approach that aims to provide a unified framework for the specification and verification of logic controllers for multi-domain physical systems. The proposed modeling methodology is based on the cardinal principle of object orientation, which allows to describe both control software and physical components using the s...

This paper describes a formal framework for Object-Oriented (O-O) modelling of mechatronic systems, whose main contribution is, on the one hand, to unify the modelling approaches for dynamical systems and for industrial control software and, on the other hand, to provide a definition of inheritance, a cardinal concept in object-orientation, which e...

This paper addresses the problem of the detection and isolation of input sensor faults on a general aviation aircraft, characterised by a nonlinear model, in the presence of wind gust disturbance and measurement errors. In particular, this work studies and compares different residual generator designs in order to realise complete diagnosis schemes,...