Abstract: The lecture deals with the theoretical and experimental research in a domain that is the result of two complex scientific subdomains interconnection: tentacular robotic structures on one hand and, computer vision systems on the other hand.

An ideal tentacle manipulator is a non-conventional robotic arm with an infinite mobility. It has the capability to take sophisticated shapes and to achieve any position and orientation in a 3D space. These systems are also known as hyperredundant manipulators and, over the past several years, there has been a rapidly expanding interest in the study and construction of them. The difficulty of the dynamic control is determined by integral-partial-differential models with high nonliniarities that characterise the dynamic of these systems.

The subjects of the lecture are set out after the following directions: cinematic and dynamic model design for tentacular robots, visual servoing techniques, methods and algorithms design for tentacular robots, computer vision techniques, methods and algorithms design for tentacular robots control, interactive graphical environment design and implementation for application development, experimental models, results scientific validation and use.
 

Brief Biography of the Speaker:
Dorian Cojocaru graduated from University of Craiova in 1983, receiving the 5 years Engineering Diploma in Automation, specialization Computer Engineering; He received the Ph.D. in Automation from the Romanian Ministry of Education in 1997. He is active as a full university professor to the Automation and Robotics Department. He serves as the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Automation, Computers and Electronics and member of the Senate of University of Craiova Romania. He is a fellow of IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, IEEE Computer Society, Romanian Society for Automation and Technical Informatics SRAIT, Romanian Society for Robotics SRR, Romanian Association for Electronics Industry and Software ARIES. He is acting as expert for Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education ARACIS, Romanian National University Research Council CNCSIS, Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research ANCS, Romanian Ministry of Education, Research and Youth MECT and EU Seventh Framework Programme. Dorian Cojocaru has served as Chairman and member of the Scientific/Program Committees of numerous scientific national and international conferences. His present areas of research activity are: Computer Vision, Visual servoing, Robotics and Applied Informatics. He has published five books, more than 100 papers in various scientific journals and international conference proceedings and he coordinated more than 10 research national and international programs.