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To realize a three-dimensional (3D) visual display and evaluate the internal defects of a ceramic hollow plate membrane, a method for creating a 3D reconstruction of the internal defects based on an ultrasound imaging technique applying triangular matrix–synthetic aperture focusing is proposed. First, a phased array detector is used to scan the surface of the ceramic membrane, and ultrasound imaging is achieved based on the triangular matrix–synthetic aperture focusing technology. The acquired B-scan images are pre-processed and a 3D reconstruction is achieved based on the contours of the internal defects. Finally, a 3D visualization of the internal defects of a hollow plate ceramic membrane is realized. The use of a triangular matrix focusing method can improve the detection efficiency because the amount of data acquired and the number of calculations are reduced by nearly half. In addition, the synthetic aperture focusing method can ensure a high imaging resolution, which leads to an improved recognition accuracy of the defect size. As a result, the error of the diameter measurements of the inner hole defects ranges between 2% and 3%, and the error of the diameter and length measurements of the crack line defects ranges between 2% and 4%. Experimental results with real datasets are presented to demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of our method as compared with traditional methods.

In order to improve the bearing capacity of soft actuators, this article presents the development of the rigid-hoop-reinforced (spring or steel hoop) multi-DOF soft actuator. The actuator is composed of a rotary module with spring reinforcement on the silicone rubber-based body and a bending module with steel hoop reinforcement on the body. Compared with fiber-reinforced actuators, the bearing capacities of rigid-hoop-reinforced actuators made of 65Mn spring steel are improved. The radial and the axial bearing capacity for the bending module and the rotary module is raised by 29.6%, 28.2%, 30.6%, 49.6% respectively; under the same pressure, the spring-reinforced interval increases the maximum rotary angle of the rotary module, the steel hoop-reinforced interval increases the maximum bending angle of the bending module; with the same reinforcement type, the bending module with reinforcement interval of 10 mm has good bending characteristics that the bending angle changes with the pressure gently; the lower the hardness of silicone rubber base body, the better the adaptability and flexibility of the actuator, and the higher the hardness, the greater the bearing capacity of the actuator. Due to the above advantages, the rigid-hoop-reinforced multi-DOF soft actuator can be applied to medical devices which need high load-carrying capacity.

The trajectory tracking system of particle motion on sieve surface was designed by the combination of the analysis of image sequences based on binocular stereo vision and three-dimensional position reconstruction based on artificial neural network. Firstly, the calibration plane with uniformly distributed solid circles was placed in multiple positions within the effective field of view. The images of the calibration plane in each position can be captured by the binocular stereo vision system. Then, after image processing, the two-dimensional coordinates of the center of the circles were used as the input sample set for training. The artificial neural network was used to establish an implicit vision model. By this model, the three-dimensional position of the materials can be acquired without any complex camera calibration operation. Lastly, experiments showed that the proposed scheme is feasible, which will provide a good basis for further research.

The purpose of this article is to describe a deformation corrected workflow for maxillofacial prosthesis modelling based on the improved Laplace and iterative closest point–based iterative algorithms. For incomplete maxillofacial data with local deformed symmetrical features, the Laplace algorithm with rotation invariants was demonstrated that the operations can recover the local deformation while preserving the surface geometric detail; the M-estimation iterative closest point–based iterative algorithm integrated with the extended Gaussian image ensures the precision of the symmetry plane, making the outer point having almost no effect on the minimum process. The additional experiments also verified the ability of deformation corrected maxillofacial prosthesis modelling. Case study confirmed that this workflow is attractive and has potential to design the desired maxillofacial prosthesis for correcting the deformed oral soft tissue. The results of this study improve the quality of maxillofacial prostheses modelling. This technique will facilitate modelling of maxillofacial prostheses while helping the patients predict the effect before the prosthesis is manufactured. In addition, this deformation corrected workflow has great potential for improving the development of maxillofacial prosthesis modelling software.

This paper proposes an intelligent control framework for biomass drying process with flue gases based on FLC (fuzzy logic controller) and CAN (Controller Area Network) bus. In the operation of a biomass drying process, in order to get the biomass with the set-point low moisture content dried by waste high temperature flue gases, it is necessary to intelligent control for the biomass flow rate. Use of an experiment with varied materials at different initial moisture contents enables acquisition of the biomass flow rates as initial setting values. Set the error between actual straw moisture content and set-point, and rate of change of error as two inputs. the biomass flow rate can be acquired by the fuzzy logic computing as the output. Since the length of dryer is more than twenty meters, the integration by the CAN bus can ensure real-time reliable data acquisition and processing. The control framework for biomass drying process can be applied to a variety of biomass, such as, cotton stalk, corn stalk, rice straw, wheat straw, sugar cane. It has strong potential for practical applications because of its advantages on intelligent providing the set-point low moisture content of biomass feedstock for power generation equipment.