Computer Engineering Commons^™

Modeling, Simulation And Control Of Microrobots For The Microfactory., Zhong Yang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Future assembly technologies will involve higher levels of automation in order to satisfy increased microscale or nanoscale precision requirements. Traditionally, assembly using a top-down robotic approach has been well-studied and applied to the microelectronics and MEMS industries, but less so in nanotechnology. With the boom of nanotechnology since the 1990s, newly designed products with new materials, coatings, and nanoparticles are gradually entering everyone’s lives, while the industry has grown into a billion-dollar volume worldwide. Traditionally, nanotechnology products are assembled using bottom-up methods, such as self-assembly, rather than top-down robotic assembly. This is due to considerations of volume handling of large …

Design And Control Of Next-Generation Uavs For Effectively Interacting With Environments, Caiwu Ding

Dissertations

In this dissertation, the design and control of a novel multirotor for aerial manipulation is studied, with the aim of endowing the aerial vehicle with more degrees of freedom of motion and stability when interacting with the environments. Firstly, it presents an energy-efficient adaptive robust tracking control method for a class of fully actuated, thrust vectoring unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with parametric uncertainties including unknown moment of inertia, mass and center of mass, which would occur in aerial maneuvering and manipulation. The effectiveness of this method is demonstrated through simulation. Secondly, a humanoid robot arm is adopted to serve as …

Live Access Control Policy Error Detection Through Hardware, Bryce Mendenhall

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Access Control (AC) is a widely used security measure designed to protect resources and infrastructure in an information system. The integrity of the AC policy is crucial to the protection of the system. Errors within an AC policy may cause many vulnerabilities such as information leaks, information loss, and malicious activities. Thus, such errors must be detected and promptly fixed. However, current AC error detection models do not allow for real-time error detection, nor do they provide the source of errors. This thesis presents a live error detection model called LogicDetect which utilizes emulated Boolean digital logic circuits to provide …

A Machine Learning Approach To Intended Motion Prediction For Upper Extremity Exoskeletons, Justin Berdell

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

A fully solid-state, software-defined, one-handed, handle-type control device built around a machine-learning (ML) model that provides intuitive and simultaneous control in position and orientation each in a full three degrees-of-freedom (DOF) is proposed in this paper. The device, referred to as the “Smart Handle”, and it is compact, lightweight, and only reliant on low-cost and readily available sensors and materials for construction. Mobility chairs for persons with motor difficulties could make use of a control device that can learn to recognize arbitrary inputs as control commands. Upper-extremity exoskeletons used in occupational settings and rehabilitation require a natural control device like …

Data-Driven Learning For Robot Physical Intelligence, Leidi Zhao

Dissertations

The physical intelligence, which emphasizes physical capabilities such as dexterous manipulation and dynamic mobility, is essential for robots to physically coexist with humans. Much research on robot physical intelligence has achieved success on hyper robot motor capabilities, but mostly through heavily case-specific engineering. Meanwhile, in terms of robot acquiring skills in a ubiquitous manner, robot learning from human demonstration (LfD) has achieved great progress, but still has limitations handling dynamic skills and compound actions. In this dissertation, a composite learning scheme which goes beyond LfD and integrates robot learning from human definition, demonstration, and evaluation is proposed. This method tackles …

Analyzing And Improving Calculation And Tuning Process For A Uav, Laurel Wardell

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The nature of this project is confidential and cannot be disclosed in detail. Generally, this project deals with the analysis of a control system of a UAV with several electric motors and gimbals. The goal of this analysis is to improve control calculations for increased stability. In addition, development has been started on an application to streamline the tuning of gains for this particular controller, allowing for more efficient use of precious flight time.

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 …

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. …

Implementación Sistema De Supervisión Y Control Para Los Módulos De Procesos, Miguel Angel Rojas Mahecha

Ingeniería en Automatización

En este trabajo se atiende a la necesidad de implementar un sistema de supervisión y control para las dos unidades de entrenamiento de procesos industriales de la Universidad de La Salle, las cuales están dotadas de sensores industriales de alta precisión y son utilizados en diferentes espacios académicos. Por lo tanto, se ofrece una herramienta educativa que permite llevar a cabo un cabo el diseño de diferentes técnicas de control que interactúan con las variables físicas de estos módulos. Para este fin, se empleó la sala de control y supervisión de procesos, junto con los dos módulos de entrenamiento, donde …

An Application Of Sliding Mode Control To Model-Based Reinforcement Learning, Aaron Thomas Parisi

Master's Theses

The state-of-art model-free reinforcement learning algorithms can generate admissible controls for complicated systems with no prior knowledge of the system dynamics, so long as sufficient (oftentimes millions) of samples are available from the environ- ment. On the other hand, model-based reinforcement learning approaches seek to leverage known optimal or robust control to reinforcement learning tasks by mod- elling the system dynamics and applying well established control algorithms to the system model. Sliding-mode controllers are robust to system disturbance and modelling errors, and have been widely used for high-order nonlinear system control. This thesis studies the application of sliding mode control …

Comparison Of Lqr And Lqr-Mrac For Linear Tractor-Trailer Model, Kevin Richard Gasik

Master's Theses

The United States trucking industry is immense. Employing over three million drivers and traveling to every city in the country. Semi-Trucks travel millions of miles each week and encompass roads that civilians travel on. These vehicles should be safe and allow efficient travel for all. Autonomous vehicles have been discussed in controls for many decades. Now fleets of autonomous vehicles are beginning their integration into society. The ability to create an autonomous system requires domain and system specific knowledge. Approaches to implement a fully autonomous vehicle have been developed using different techniques in control systems such as Kalman Filters, Neural …

Desarrollo De Una Estrategia De Control Predictivo Aplicado A Un Péndulo Invertido, Que Permita La Estabilización De Imágenes En Robots Para Exploración Agrícola, David Mateo Rojas Vallejo

Ingeniería en Automatización

La robótica es un campo de estudio tan amplio, que se puede extender prácticamente a cualquiera de las labores humanas; una de estas actividades es la agricultura, aunque para que esto se logre, primero se deben considerar factores mas específicos de un sistema robótico como: visión artificial, estructuras robóticas, control de sistemas, entre otros. En este proyecto se desarrolla una estrategia de control para una plataforma de péndulo invertido, que emula el sistema mecánico en donde se posicionaría la cámara de un robot agrícola. El sistema consiste en un péndulo invertido rotativo, y la estrategia de control que se implementó …

Cyber-Physical Embedded Systems With Transient Supervisory Command And Control: A Framework For Validating Safety Response In Automated Collision Avoidance Systems, Daniel K. Trembley

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

The ability to design and engineer complex and dynamical Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) requires a systematic view that requires a definition of level of automation intent for the system. Since CPS covers a diverse range of systemized implementations of smart and intelligent technologies networked within a system of systems (SoS), the terms “smart” and “intelligent” is frequently used in describing systems that perform complex operations with a reduced need of a human-agent. The difference between this research and most papers in publication on CPS is that most other research focuses on the performance of the CPS rather than on the correctness …

Ground Vehicle Platooning Control And Sensing In An Adversarial Environment, Samuel A. Mitchell

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In the past few years, automated cars have ceased to be part of science fiction, and have instead become a technology that has been implemented, with partially automated systems currently available to customers.

One benefit of automated vehicle technology is the consistent driving patterns due to automation, instead of the inconsistency of distractible humans. Passengers of automated vehicles will be exposed to much less danger than the passengers of human-driven vehicles.

These statements will only be true as automated vehicle systems are scrutinized by experts to find flaws in the system. Security enthusiasts have already hijacked control of an automated …

A Closed Loop Research Platform That Enables Dynamic Control Of Wing Gait Patterns In A Vertically Constrained Flapping Wing - Micro Air Vehicle, Hermanus Van Botha

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Research in Flapping Wing - Micro Air Vehicles(FW-MAVs) has been growing in recent years. Work ranging from mechanical designs to adaptive control algorithms are being developed in pursuit of mimicking natural flight. FW-MAV technology can be applied in a variety of use cases such a military application and surveillance, studying natural ecological systems, and hobbyist commercialization. Recent work has produced small scale FW-MAVs that are capable of hovering and maneuvering. Researchers control maneuvering in various ways, some of which involve making small adjustments to the core wing motion patterns (wing gaits) which determine how the wings flap. Adaptive control algorithms …

Ubot-7: The Design Of A Compliant Dexterous Mobile Manipulator, Jonathan Cummings

Masters Theses

This thesis presents the design of uBot-7, the latest version of a dexterous mobile manipulator. This platform has been iteratively developed to realize a high performance-to-cost dexterous whole body manipulator with respect to mobile manipulation. The semi-anthropomorphic design of the uBot is a demonstrated and functional research platform for developing advanced autonomous perception, manipulation, and mobility tasks. The goal of this work is to improve the uBot’s ability to sense and interact with its environment in order to increase the platforms capability to operate dexterously, through the incorporation of joint torque feedback, and safely, through the implementation of passive and …

Joint Architecture For Reusable Vehicle-Integrated Software (J.A.R.V.I.S), Anthony Mark Kane

Open Access Theses

An integrated software architecture for development of unmanned research vehicles is developed. It has been created under the premise that all unmanned vehicles require a core set of functionality that is common across platforms and that priority should be to the readability and reusability of the code base. The architecture defines the top-level system interfaces allowing internal algorithms to be manipulated without affecting the rest of the system. A robust aerospace toolbox has been developed that provides a means to rapidly prototype algorithms without the need of recreating commonly used functions or the use of expensive, proprietary software.

Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent

Doctoral Dissertations

What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …

Modeling, Analysis, And Control Of A Mobile Robot For In Vivo Fluoroscopy Of Human Joints During Natural Movements, Matthew A. Young

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, the modeling, analysis and control of a multi-degree of freedom (mdof) robotic fluoroscope was investigated. A prototype robotic fluoroscope exists, and consists of a 3 dof mobile platform with two 2 dof Cartesian manipulators mounted symmetrically on opposite sides of the platform. One Cartesian manipulator positions the x-ray generator and the other Cartesian manipulator positions the x-ray imaging device. The robotic fluoroscope is used to x-ray skeletal joints of interest of human subjects performing natural movement activities. In order to collect the data, the Cartesian manipulators must keep the x-ray generation and imaging devices accurately aligned while …

Adaptive Nonlinear Control For Autonomous Ground Vehicles, William Spencer Black

Open Access Theses

We present the background and motivation for ground vehicle autonomy, and focus on uses for space-exploration. Using a simple design example of an autonomous ground vehicle we derive the equations of motion. After providing the mathematical background for nonlinear systems and control we present two common methods for exactly linearizing nonlinear systems, feedback linearization and backstepping. We use these in combination with three adaptive control methods: model reference adaptive control, adaptive sliding mode control, and extremum-seeking model reference adaptive control. We show the performances of each combination through several simulation results. We then consider disturbances in the system, and design …

Real Time Control Framework Using Android, Aaron Pittenger

Master's Theses (2009 -)

One potential application for a smartphone-type device is a flight management and control computer for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The hardware employed in most smartphones and tablets has the capabilities necessary to fly an air vehicle without user interaction. The user can pre-program in a flight plan and the smartphone will do the rest. In the past, this real time control application has been done using many separate sensor packages and processors, but never on a single, stand-alone device. Also, capabilities such as the high definition camera present on most smartphones can take photographs and store them on the …

Kreative Outlets, Travis Crist, Steve Clark, Jason Peressini

Computer Engineering

With the widespread use of smart phones and the advancement of WiFi technologies, people now have the Internet at their fingertips at all times. Home automation and control has the possibility of becoming the next big technology that can utilize the abundant availability of the Internet. This paper documents the findings and results of a project aimed at developing the infrastructure needed for a home automation system that is accessible anywhere. We implemented a system that utilized a web enabled ethernet connection and RF wireless technology to control AC outlets and provide the user with feedback information about the status …

Congestion Avoidance And Fairness In Wireless Sensor Networks, Mohammad Ahmad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sensor network congestion avoidance and control primarily aims to reduce packet drops while maintaining fair bandwidth allocation to existing network flows. The design of a congestion control algorithm suited for all types of applications in sensor networks is a challenging task due to the application-specific nature of these networks. With numerous sensors transmitting data simultaneously to one or more base stations (also called sinks), sensor nodes located near the base station will most likely experience congestion and packet loss. In this thesis, we propose a novel distributed congestion avoidance algorithm which calculates the ratio of the number of downstream and …