arXiv subjects

Yuelin Deng

Publications and source records attributed to Yuelin Deng.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

SCOUT: Closed-Loop in-vivo System for Continuous Methane Concentration Monitoring in Cattle

Enteric methane measurement from ruminant livestock faces fundamental trade-offs between accuracy and operational feasibility. Existing methods quantify methane after eructation and atmospheric dilution, limiting temporal resolution and confounding biological signals with environmental variables. We present SCOUT (Smart Cannula-mounted Optical Unit for Trace-methane), the first autonomous system for continuous in-vivo monitoring of ruminal headspace methane concentrations. The system addresses a critical engineering barrier through closed-loop gas recirculation that maintains anaerobic ruminal conditions during persistent headspace sampling. SCOUT was deployed on cannulated Simmental heifers under contrasting dietary treatments. Headspace concentrations were 100 to 1000 times higher than concurrent ambient sniffer readings, providing substantially greater signal resolution for characterizing methane dynamics. High-frequency monitoring revealed behavior-production coupling previously inaccessible, including rapid concentration changes ($14.5 \pm 11.3k$ ppm) associated with postural transitions within 15-minute intervals. Cross-platform comparison with ambient sniffers showed scale-dependent correspondence between production and release measurements, with an optimal correlation (r = -0.564) at 40-minute averaging windows consistent with eructation cycles. These results demonstrate that the rumen headspace contains continuous, biologically interpretable methane signals that SCOUT can reliably access, establishing the measurement infrastructure necessary for developing concentration-to-flux models that would support precision phenotyping, emission proxy calibration, and mitigation strategy evaluation.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2025

The Omega Turn: A General Turning Template for Elongate Robots

Elongate limbless robots have the potential to locomote through tightly packed spaces for applications such as search-and-rescue and industrial inspections. The capability to effectively and robustly maneuver elongate limbless robots is crucial to realize such potential. However, there has been limited research on turning strategies for such systems. To achieve effective and robust turning performance in cluttered spaces, we take inspiration from a microscopic nematode, C. elegans, which exhibits remarkable maneuverability in rheologically complex environments partially because of its ability to perform omega turns. Despite recent efforts to analyze omega turn kinematics, it remains unknown if there exists a wave equation sufficient to prescribe an omega turn, let alone its reconstruction on robot platforms. Here, using a comparative theory-biology approach, we prescribe the omega turn as a superposition of two traveling waves. With wave equations as a guideline, we design a controller for limbless robots enabling robust and effective turning behaviors in lab and cluttered field environments. Finally, we show that such omega turn controllers can also generalize to elongate multi-legged robots, demonstrating an alternative effective body-driven turning strategy for elongate robots, with and without limbs.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2022

Generalized Omega Turn Gait Enables Agile Limbless Robot Turning in Complex Environments

Reorientation (turning in plane) plays a critical role for all robots in any field application, especially those that in confined spaces. While important, reorientation remains a relatively unstudied problem for robots, including limbless mechanisms, often called snake robots. Instead of looking at snakes, we take inspiration from observations of the turning behavior of tiny nematode worms C. elegans. Our previous work presented an in-place and in-plane turning gait for limbless robots, called an omega turn, and prescribed it using a novel two-wave template. In this work, we advance omega turn-inspired controllers in three aspects: 1) we use geometric methods to vary joint angle amplitudes and forward wave spatial frequency in our turning equation to establish a wide and precise amplitude modulation and frequency modulation on omega turn; 2) we use this new relationship to enable robots with fewer internal degrees of freedom (i.e., fewer joints in the body) to achieve desirable performance, and 3) we apply compliant control methods to this relationship to handle unmodelled effects in the environment. We experimentally validate our approach on a limbless robot that the omega turn can produce effective and robust turning motion in various types of environments, such as granular media and rock pile.

cs.RO↗