Engineering Commons^™

Intelligent Therapeutic Robot: Design, Development, And Control, Asif Al Zubayer Swapnil

Theses and Dissertations

This research contributes to developing an Intelligent Therapeutic Robot (iTbot) designed to provide therapy to patients with upper limb impairment due to stroke, injury, and other trauma. This robot aims to implement robotic rehabilitation based on principles of motor rehabilitation and Neuroplasticity. The iTbot, as developed in this research, can provide end-effector type rehabilitation exercises in various configurations, including motion in the vertical and horizontal plane. It can provide passive, active, and active-assisted rehabilitation therapies to patients with limited upper limb mobility.

The iTbot has been designed with simplicity in mind with a minimum viability approach. With a minimum amount …

Telescope Parallel Actuator Mount: Control And Testing, Samuel S. Artho-Bentz

Master's Theses

This thesis approaches the task of designing a control system for the Parallel Actuator Mount developed by Dr. John Ridgely and Mr. Garrett Gudgel. It aims to create a base framework that directly controls the telescope and can be expanded to accept external command. It incorporates lower priced components and develops more easily approachable software with great functionality. An open-loop method for velocity control is established. Developing repeatable tests is a major focus. Testing finds the control methods developed result in velocity error of less than 5% and position error of less than 1.5% despite several mechanical issues and inaccuracies. …

Robust Real-Time Model Predictive Control For High Degree Of Freedom Soft Robots, Phillip Edmond Hyatt

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is focused on the modeling and robust model-based control of high degree-of-freedom (DoF) systems. While most of the contributions are applicable to any difficult-to-model system, this dissertation focuses specifically on applications to large-scale soft robots because their many joints and pressures constitute a high-DoF system and their inherit softness makes them difficult to model accurately. First a joint-angle estimation and kinematic calibration method for soft robots is developed which is shown to decrease the pose prediction error at the end of a 1.5 m robot arm by about 85\%. A novel dynamic modelling approach which can be evaluated …

Lawn Buddy, Jayson Johnston, Andrew Brown, Jacob Maljian

Electrical Engineering

Grass lawns are a common hallmark of the American home. In 2019, a survey from the National Association of Landscape Professionals found that 81% of all Americans owned a lawn [1]. Mowing is a time consuming and costly chore that is part of maintaining a grass lawn. The manual labor in mowing a lawn can exceed 40 hours per year [2]. People commonly incur weekly costs on mowing services to save time. Traditional gas powered mowers are physically demanding and use engines that need routine maintenance. They operate loudly enough that users should be wearing hearing protection and the noise …

Study Of A Symmetrical Llc Dual-Active Bridge Resonant Converter Topology For Battery Storage Systems, John K. George

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A symmetrical LLC resonant converter topology with a fixed-frequency quasi-triple phase-shift modulation method is proposed for battery-powered electric traction systems with extensions to other battery storage systems. Operation of the converter with these methods yields two unique transfer characteristics and is dependent on the switching frequency. The converter exhibits several desirable features: 1) load-independent buck-boost voltage conversion when operated at the low-impedance resonant frequency, allowing for dc-link voltage regulation, zero-voltage switching across a wide load range, and intrinsic load transient resilience; 2) power flow control when operated outside the low-impedance resonance for integrated battery charging; 3) and simple operational mode …

Target Control Of Networked Systems, Isaac S. Klickstein

Mechanical Engineering ETDs

The control of complex networks is an emerging field yet it has already garnered interest from across the scientific disciplines, from robotics to sociology. It has quickly been noticed that many of the classical techniques from controls engineering, while applicable, are not as illuminating as they were for single systems of relatively small dimension. Instead, properties borrowed from graph theory provide equivalent but more practical conditions to guarantee controllability, reachability, observability, and other typical properties of interest to the controls engineer when dealing with large networked systems. This manuscript covers three topics investigated in detail by the author: (i) the …

An Analytic Study Of Pursuit Strategies, Mark E. Vlassakis

Theses and Dissertations

The Two-on-One pursuit-evasion differential game is revisited where the holonomic players have equal speed, and the two pursuers are endowed with a circular capture range ℓ > 0. Then, the case where the pursuers' capture ranges are unequal, ℓ₁ > ℓ₂ ≥ 0, is analyzed. In both cases, the state space region where capture is guaranteed is delineated and the optimal feedback strategies are synthesized. Next, pure pursuit is considered whereupon the terminal separation between a pursuer and an equal-speed evader less than the pursuer's capture range ℓ > 0. The case with two pursuers employing pure pursuit is considered, and …

Brian Valdez - Dynamics And Control Of A 3-Dof Manipulator With Deep Learning Feedback, Brian Orlando Valdez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

With the ever-increasing demands in the space domain and accessibility to low-cost small satellite platforms for educational and scientific projects, efforts are being made in various technology capacities including robotics and artificial intelligence in microgravity. The MIRO Center for Space Exploration and Technology Research (cSETR) prepares the development of their second nanosatellite to launch to space and it is with that opportunity that a 3-DOF robotic arm is in development to be one of the payloads in the nanosatellite. Analyses, hardware implementation, and testing demonstrate a potential positive outcome from including the payload in the nanosatellite and a deep learning …

Desarrollo De Un Controlador Para Un Motor Asíncrono Con Aplicación En Automóviles Eléctricos De Tracción De Carga En Entornos Semiestructurados, Daniel Esteban Cruz López, Juan José Gómez Fierro

Ingeniería Eléctrica

Como alternativa para el problema de transporte y tracción de carga surgen los vehículos eléctricos. Estos requieren de controles particulares, específicamente diseñados para su aplicación. En este sentido se plantean las características de diseño de controladores que, según el tipo de motor, deben garantizar el funcionamiento a partir de parámetros dependientes de la máquina de inducción y su entorno. Se plantea el diseño de un controlador para un motor de inducción asíncrono, adaptable a un vehículo eléctrico que desempeñe sus funciones en un entorno semiestructurado, determinado por las características del sector rural colombiano. Por esta razón, se aborda el proyecto …

Optimal Mission Planning Of Autonomous Mobile Agents For Applications In Microgrids, Sensor Networks, And Military Reconnaissance, Casey D. Majhor

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

As technology advances, the use of collaborative autonomous mobile systems for various applications will become evermore prevalent. One interesting application of these multi-agent systems is for autonomous mobile microgrids. These systems will play an increasingly important role in applications such as military special operations for mobile ad-hoc power infrastructures and for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions. In performing these operations with these autonomous energy assets, there is a crucial need to optimize their functionality according to their specific application and mission. Challenges arise in determining mission characteristics such as how each resource should operate, when, where, and for how long. …

A Comparative Analysis Of Reinforcement Learning Applied To Task-Space Reaching With A Robotic Manipulator With And Without Gravity Compensation, Jonathan Fugal

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Advances in computing power in recent years have facilitated developments in autonomous robotic systems. These robotic systems can be used in prosthetic limbs, wearhouse packaging and sorting, assembly line production, as well as many other applications. Designing these autonomous systems typically requires robotic system and world models (for classical control based strategies) or time consuming and computationally expensive training (for learning based strategies). Often these requirements are difficult to fulfill. There are ways to combine classical control and learning based strategies that can mitigate both requirements. One of these ways is to use a gravity compensated torque control with reinforcement …