Engineering Commons^™

Design, Manufacturing And Control Of An Advanced High-Precision Robotic System For Microsurgery, Arezoo Ebrahimi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Microsurgeries like ophthalmic surgery confront many challenges like limited workspace and hand motion, steady hand movements, manipulating delicate thin tissues, and holding the instrument in place for a long time. New developments in robotically-assisted surgery can highly benefits this field and facilitate those complicated surgeries. Robotic eye surgery can save time, reduce surgical complications and inspire more delicate surgical procedures that cannot be done currently by surgeon’s hands. In this thesis work, the requirements for ophthalmic surgeries were studied and based on that a robotic system with 6 DOF is proposed and designed. This robotic

system is capable of handling …

Cyber-Physical Co-Design Of Wireless Control Systems, Bo Li

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Wireless sensor-actuator network (WSAN) technology is gaining rapid adoption in process industries because of its advantages in lowering deployment and maintenance cost in challenging environments. While early success of industrial WSANs has been recognized, significant potential remains in exploring WSANs as unified networks for industrial plants.

This thesis research explores a cyber-physical co-design approach to design wireless control systems. To enable holistic studies of wireless control systems, we have developed the Wireless Cyber-Physical Simulator (WCPS), an integrated co-simulation environment that integrates Simulink and our implementation of WSANs based on the industrial WirelessHART standard. We further develop novel WSAN protocols tailored …

Novel Control Techniques For Co2 Shielded Gas Metal Arc Welding, Dominic Cuiuri, John Norrish, Christopher Cook

Dominic Cuiuri

The control strategies that have been developed over the past four decades to control the inherently unstable metal transfer in the CO2-shielded GMAW process are described. The fundamental reasons for poor arc stability with CO2 as a shielding gas are discussed. From an understanding of the process behaviour, a new process control technique is proposed, and the future direction of research in this area is discussed.

An Alternative Current Control Approach For Dip Transfer Gmaw, Gary Dean, Dominic Cuiuri, John Norrish, Christopher Cook

Dominic Cuiuri

No abstract provided.

A Flexible Control Program For Research And Development In Tandem Gma Welding, Ruham Reis, John Norrish, Dominic Cuiuri, Alexander Nicholson

Dominic Cuiuri

No abstract provided.

Implementation Of A Novel Hydraulic Hybrid Powertrain In A Sports Utility Vehicle, Michael Sprengel, Tyler Bleazard, Hiral Haria, Monika Ivantysynova

School of Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Hydraulic hybrid transmissions offer an efficient and high performance alternative to electric hybrid transmission in on-road vehicles. One of the principle benefits of hydraulic over electric hybrids is the higher power density offered by their energy storage media. This enables hydraulic hybrids to capture virtually all of the available kinetic energy from braking. In contrast electric hybrids are often forced to dissipate part of this energy through friction brakes due to the lower power density inherent in their energy storage media. To date various hydraulic hybrid architectures have been investigated and put into production. However as is typically true there …

Simulation, Control And Testing Of Advanced Hydraulic Hybrid Transmissions, Italo M. Ramos, Monika Ivantysynova, Michael Sprengel

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Hydraulic hybrids transmissions have the potentially to substantially improve the fuel efficiency of on road vehicles. In fact recent studies have demonstrated that this technology can improve fuel economy by upwards of 30% over competing electric hybrids. To further improve the fuel economy and performance of this technology a novel blended hydraulic hybrid transmission has been constructed at the Maha Fluid Power Research Center. While this novel hybrid architecture created by the Maha lab has many benefits over conventional systems, there are a number of control challenges present due to several discrete modes of operation. And though improving fuel economy …

Design And Analysis Of Automatic Car Park System With Capacity Control, Musa Mohammed Gujja, Umar Abubakar Wakta

Innovative Research Publications IRP India

The need for an automatic car park gate system has been in increase in recent times following the economic situation in present days. The circuit is aimed at eliminating manual operation of a car park. It incorporate the use of LM741 op-amp and CD4017 decade counter for controlling the number of vehicle that can have access to the parking premises and the circuit is fixed close to the gate with the sensor tragically located where it can sense the presence of a car. The light dependent resistor (LDR) senses both entrance and exit of the cars and this followed the …

Investigations And Management Of Epizootic Plague At Ice House Reservoir, Eldorado National Forest, California, 1994 And 1995, Kenneth R. Townzen, Malcolm A. Thompson, Charles R. Smith

Charles Kay Smith

The occurrence of plague (Yersinia pestic) at Ice House Reservoir in 1994 and 1995 was characteristic of widespread epizootics in high use recreational areas of California. Staff of the Vector-Borne Disease Section investigated these epizootics and found dense populations of plague susceptible California ground squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi) with high numbers of fleas, primarily Diamanus montanus, the most important plague vector. This combination indicated a high risk of plague exposure to campground users. A non-fatal human case of plague, contracted at Mountain Camp II, was reported after the initial epizootic investigation. The patient's exposure occurred prior to the reporting of the …

Design And Implementation Of An Interactive Animatronic System For Guest Response Analysis, Brian Burns

Phi Kappa Phi Research Symposium (2012-2016)

In theme park based entertainment applications, there is a need for interactive, autonomous animatronic systems to create engaging and compelling experiences for the guests. The animatronic figures must identify the guests and recognize their status in dynamic interactions for enhanced acceptance and effectiveness as socially interactive agents, in the general framework of human-robot interactions. The design and implementation of an interactive, autonomous animatronic system in form of a tabletop dragon, Kronos, and the comparisons of guest responses in its passive and interactive modes are presented in this work. The dragon capabilities include a four degrees-of-freedom head, moving wings, tail, jaw, …

Dcpp/Polygait Inventory Control System, Logan Pace, Robert Garlinghouse

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This report discusses a proposed system to improve upon inventory management issues experienced in the M&TE Tool room for the PG&E Diablo Canyon Power plant. Effective inventory tracking and management is an important characteristic of any organization handling physical assets, and without the proper system in place, companies may lose expensive items and waste time by not having equipment available when needed. The tool room is experiencing inventory shrinkage of M&TE equipment nearing $100,000 per year largely because of an inefficient checkout system that fails to keep employees accountable for the tools they check out. Even more costly than the …

Using A Social-Ethical Framework To Evaluate Location-Based Services In An Internet Of Things World, Roba Abbas, Katina Michael, Mg Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

The idea for an Internet of Things has matured since its inception as a concept in 1999. People today speak openly of a Web of Things and People, and even more broadly of an Internet of Everything. As our relationships become more and more complex and enmeshed, through the use of advanced technologies, we have pondered on ways to simplify flows of communications, to collect meaningful data, and use them to make timely decisions with respect to optimisation and efficiency. At their core, these flows of communications are pathways to registers of interaction, and tell the intricate story of outputs …

Using A Social-Ethical Framework To Evaluate Location-Based Services In An Internet Of Things World, Roba Abbas, Katina Michael, Mg Michael

Dr Roba Abbas

The idea for an Internet of Things has matured since its inception as a concept in 1999. People today speak openly of a Web of Things and People, and even more broadly of an Internet of Everything. As our relationships become more and more complex and enmeshed, through the use of advanced technologies, we have pondered on ways to simplify flows of communications, to collect meaningful data, and use them to make timely decisions with respect to optimisation and efficiency. At their core, these flows of communications are pathways to registers of interaction, and tell the intricate story of outputs …

Scalable Control Architecture For Variable-Rate Turn Compensation, Michael P. Sama, Joe D. Luck, Timothy S. Stombaugh

Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications

The objective of this study was to determine if a CAN bus could be used to implement variable-rate turn compensation in a manner that is scalable by encoding application rates for an entire implement into a single data message. A variable-rate turn compensation test fixture was developed that used a CAN bus to communicate application rates to 16 individual nodes using a 2-byte data message (80-bit extended identifier CAN messages). The system assumed that the physical structure of an implement was linear and that the control nodes were equally spaced. Application rates for the outer-most nodes were broadcasted and the …

Investigation Of Distributed Model Predictive Control For Economic Load Shifting In Building Hvac Systems, Peter Kinsella

Theses and Dissertations

One of the major challenges that building owners and operators face is maintaining a low cost of operation. In certain markets within the U.S., electrical cost varies throughout the day; it is higher during times of peak demand. This leaves the customer the incentive to cut back electrical use during peak demand periods. Since 40% of the peak electrical demand is due to the operation of the building HVAC system alone, the opportunity exists for shifting the building cooling load to off-peak hours. This can be done by pre-cooling the space, thereby using the building mass as a sort of …

Optimization And Control Of Lumped Transmitting Coil-Based In-Motion Wireless Power Transfer Systems, Nazmul Hasan

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis explores optimization and control aspects of in-motion electric vehicle charging. The vision is of an electrified roadway, where the vehicles can move and charge at the same time. The present systems have long tracks embedded in the roadway which transfer energy. This thesis explores smaller coils in the road, which has the promise of higher efficiency and lower volt ampere ratings. The promise can only be realized through optimized design and synchronized control of charging with respect to vehicle position. The existing design procedures lack comprehensiveness, require designer experience and use computationally costly 3D FEM algorithms. The proposed …

An Elaborate Data Set On Human Gait And The Effect Of Mechanical Perturbations, Jason K. Moore, Sandra K. Hnat, Antonie J. Van Den Bogert

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Here we share a rich gait data set collected from fifteen subjects walking at three speeds on an instrumented treadmill. Each trial consists of 120 s of normal walking and 480 s of walking while being longitudinally perturbed during each stance phase with pseudo-random fluctuations in the speed of the treadmill belt. A total of approximately 1.5 h of normal walking (>5000 gait cycles) and 6 h of perturbed walking (>20,000 gait cycles) is included in the data set. We provide full body marker trajectories and ground reaction loads in addition to a presentation of processed data that …

Autonomous Navigation And Control Of Unmanned Aerial Systems In The National Airspace, Michael Hlas, Jeremy Straub, Eunjin Kim

Jeremy Straub

Pilotless aircraft known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been used extensively for military and intelligence purposes. This includes situations where the mission area is too dangerous for a pilot to fly, the length of the mission is longer than a pilot could stay awake or aircraft are used as cruise missiles that crash into their target. With the decreasing cost and miniaturization of computers, it has become possible to build UAVs that are small and inexpensive making them accessible to businesses, law enforcement, hobbyists and the general public.

Novel Modulation And Control Strategy For Five-Level Anpc Converter With Unbalanced Dc Voltage Applied To A Single-Phase Grid Connected Pv System, Hamid R. Teymour, Danny Sutanto, Kashem M. Muttaqi, Phil Ciufo

Dr Philip Ciufo

This paper proposes a new control strategy and a novel modulation technique for a grid-connected photo-voltaic (PV) system using a single-phase five-level flying capacitor (FC) based active-neutral-point-clamped (ANPC) converter. The proposed modulator can control the FC voltage to follow the requested reference value and simultaneously generate the required ac output voltage regardless of the values of the dc capacitor voltages of the converter. By implementing this method, smaller values of dc-link and flying capacitors can be used even in applications that could experience ripple or transient in the capacitors voltage. In the grid-connected single-phase five-level ANPC, where the capacitors can …

Solar Pv And Battery Storage Integration Using A New Configuration Of A Three-Level Npc Inverter With Advanced Control Strategy, Hamid Teymour Ghasemabadi, Danny Soetanto, Kashem M. Muttaqi, Philip Ciufo

Dr Philip Ciufo

In this paper, a novel configuration of a three-level neutral-point-clamped (NPC) inverter that can integrate solar photovoltaic (PV) with battery storage in a grid-connected system is proposed. The strength of the proposed topology lies in a novel, extended unbalance three-level vector modulation technique that can generate the correct ac voltage under unbalanced dc voltage conditions. This paper presents the design philosophy of the proposed configuration and the theoretical framework of the proposed modulation technique. A new control algorithm for the proposed system is also presented in order to control the power delivery between the solar PV, battery, and grid, which …

Point Of Common Coupling (Pcc) Voltage Control Of A Grid-Connected Solar Photovoltaic (Pv) System, Brian K. Perera, Philip Ciufo, Sarath Perera

Dr Philip Ciufo

In future low voltage grids, with multiple inverter interfaced sources connected, voltage regulation may become a necessary task. The potential exists for inverter interfaced sources to be deployed to regulate the voltage at the point of common coupling (PCC) of each inverter interfaced sources. The PCC voltage regulation is attainable with inverter interfaced sources by dynamically controlling the amount of reactive power injected to the power distribution grid by individual systems. In the current research, a closed-loop controller is proposed to regulate the PCC voltage of a solar photovoltaic (PV) system that is connected to a single-phase power distribution feeder …

Control Of Photovoltaic Water Pumping System, Chafia Serir Jr, Djamila Rekioua Pr

REKIOUA Djamila Dr

Due to the continuous decrease of the solar cells cost, photovoltaic energy is used in different applications. The most important one is the water pumping system powered by photovoltaic generators. These systems can work with or without storage battery. With the increased use of this application, more attention has been paid to their optimum utilization. Many methods have been developed to determine the maximum power point (MPP). In this paper, to control the DC bus voltage, we apply field oriented control (FOC) strategy to induction motor (IM) supply by a photovoltaic (PV) system. And to maximize the efficiency of the …

Applications Of Magnetorheological Technology To Semiactive Vibration Control Systems, Miao Yu, Seung-Bok Choi, Norman M. Wereley, Weihua Li, Jeong-Hoi Koo, Xinchun Guan

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Semiactive vibration control systems possess both the simplicity and inherent reliability of passive systems while maintaining the adaptability of active vibration control systems integrated with an appropriate control algorithm. One of the recent and promising technologies in semiactive vibration control is to utilize magnetorheological (MR) fluids (MRFs) and MR elastomers (MREs). The well-known remarkable feature of MR materials is the continuous controllability of stiffness and damping properties under external magnetic field. The unique controllable characteristic of MR materials has catalyzed comprehensive research and development focusing on vibration control systems including vehicle dampers, engine mounts, adaptive tuned vibration absorber, and seismic …

A New Approach To Reduce The Non-Linear Characteristics Of A Stressed Power System By Using The Normal Form Technique In The Control Design Of The Excitation System, Hadi Lomei, Danny Sutanto, Kashem M. Muttaqi, Mohsen Assili

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

In this paper, a new approach is presented to reduce the nonlinear characteristics of a stressed power system by reducing its second-order modal interaction through retuning some parameters of the generator excitation system. In order to determine the second-order modal interaction of the system, a new index on nonlinearity is developed using normal form theory. Using the proposed index of nonlinearity, a sensitivity function is formed to indicate the most effective excitation system parameters in the nonlinear behavior of the system. These dominant parameters are tuned to reduce the second-order modal interaction of the system and to reduce the index …

Modeling And Current Control Strategy For A Medium-Voltage Cascaded Multilevel Statcom With Lcl Filter, Xuehua Zhao, Liping Shi, Libing Chen, Zhenglong Xia, A R. Bendre

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

The Static Synchronous Compensator (STATCOM a.k.a. SVG) is widely used to regulate dynamic reactive power and to solve dynamic voltage stability problems. Modeling shows that a cascaded STATCOM, which is composed of several cascaded H-bridges, not only has strong coupling characteristics when an LCL filter is added but it is also a non-linear, multivariable system. Therefore, its practical design and application are difficult to mplement. In this paper an internal decoupling control algorithm is introduced to provide independent control of the active and reactive currents. Decoupling control algorithms are proposed, and models and simulation of the decoupling are provided. We …

Optimal Distribution Control Of Non‐Linear Tire Force Of Electric Vehicles With In‐Wheel Motors, Boyuan Li, Haiping Du, Weihua Li

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

An over-actuated control system has the advantage of being able to use redundant actuators to reconfigure the control system and it can realize fault tolerant control. In order to achieve improved vehicle stability and handling performance for electric vehicles with in-wheel steering and driving motors, the control of the vehicle body slip angle and yaw rate is actually an over-actuated control problem. To obtain the optimal solution for this control problem, this study proposes a two-level tire force distribution control method, where the upper level controller calculates the desired lateral and longitudinal forces generated by friction on the tire of …

A Decentralized Multiagent-Based Voltage Control For Catastrophic Disturbances In A Power System, Sk. Razibul Islam, Kashem M. Muttaqi, Danny Sutanto

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

In this paper, a multiagent-based voltage and reactive power control in the case of a multiple contingency is presented. Incorporating the agent-based autonomous feature to the intelligence of the remote terminal units, the present power system control structure can be used to help in preventing system voltage collapse during catastrophic disturbances. The control algorithm is based on a decentralized architecture of intelligent agents and the determination of a local zone that can carry out quick countermeasures in a decentralized manner as a multiagent system (MAS) during an emergency situation. An adaptive determination of the local zones undergoing voltage collapse has …

Direct Power Control Of Dfig Based Wind Turbine Based On Wind Speed Estimation And Particle Swarm Optimization, Mehrdad Tarafdar Hagh, S Roozbehani, F Najaty, S Ghaemi, Yingjie Tan, Kashem M. Muttaqi

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

This paper presents a direct power control (DPC) design of a grid connected doubly fed induction generator (DFIG) based wind turbine system in order to track maximum absorbable power in different wind speeds. A generalized regression neural network (GRNN) is used to estimate wind speed and thereby the maximum absorbable power is determined online as a function of wind speed. Finally the proposed DPC strategy employs a nonlinear robust sliding mode control (SMC) scheme to calculate the required rotor control voltage directly. The concept of sliding mode control is incorporated into particle swarm optimization (PSO) to determine inertial weights. The …

Simple Structure For Reactive Power Control Of Ac Photovoltaic Modules, Viet Thang Tran, Danny Sutanto, Kashem M. Muttaqi

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

The objective of this paper is to propose a simple structure for reactive power control (RPC) of AC Photovoltaic (AC PV) modules. With the proposed structure, a cost-effective microcontroller can be adopted to achieve an effective reactive power control in order to support the grid voltage within acceptable bounds by absorbing or supplying reactive power. Moreover, the sliding mode control (SMC) is adopted to enhance the current control's dynamic response and reduce the current harmonic distortion. Comprehensive simulation of an AC PV module connected to grid using PSIM software with different operation modes are used to demonstrate the control strategy. …

Modeling, Dynamics And Control Of Spacecraft Relative Motion In A Perturbed Keplerian Orbit, Mohamed Okasha, Brett Newman

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

The dynamics of relative motion in a perturbed orbital environment are exploited based on Gauss' and Cowell's variational equations. The inertial coordinate frame and relative coordinate frame (Hill frame) are used, and a linear high fidelity model is developed to describe the relative motion. This model takes into account the primary gravitational and atmospheric drag perturbations. Then, this model is used in the design of a navigation, guidance, and control system of a chaser vehicle to approach towards and to depart from a target vehicle in proximity operations. Relative navigation uses an extended Kalman filter based on this relative model …