Controls and Control Theory Commons^™

Controlled Manipulation And Transport By Microswimmers In Stokes Flows, Jake Buzhardt

All Dissertations

Remotely actuated microscale swimming robots have the potential to revolutionize many aspects of biomedicine. However, for the longterm goals of this field of research to be achievable, it is necessary to develop modelling, simulation, and control strategies which effectively and efficiently account for not only the motion of individual swimmers, but also the complex interactions of such swimmers with their environment including other nearby swimmers, boundaries, other cargo and passive particles, and the fluid medium itself. The aim of this thesis is to study these problems in simulation from the perspective of controls and dynamical systems, with a particular focus …

Improved Vehicle-Bridge Interaction Modeling And Automation Of Bridge System Identification Techniques, Omar Abuodeh

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The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) recognizes the necessity for cost-effective and practical system identification (SI) techniques within structural health monitoring (SHM) frameworks for asset management applications. Indirect health monitoring (IHM), a promising SHM approach, utilizes accelerometer-equipped vehicles to measure bridge modal properties (e.g., natural frequencies, damping ratios, mode shapes) through bridge vibration data to assess the bridge's condition. However, engineers and researchers often encounter noise from road roughness, environmental factors, and vehicular components in collected vehicle signals. This noise contaminates the vehicle signal with spurious modes corresponding to stochastic frequencies, impacting damage monitoring assessments. Thus, an efficient and reliable SI …

Deep Reinforcement Learning And Game Theoretic Monte Carlo Decision Process For Safe And Efficient Lane Change Maneuver And Speed Management, Shahab Karimi

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Predicting the states of the surrounding traffic is one of the major problems in automated driving. Maneuvers such as lane change, merge, and exit management could pose challenges in the absence of intervehicular communication and can benefit from driver behavior prediction. Predicting the motion of surrounding vehicles and trajectory planning need to be computationally efficient for real-time implementation. This dissertation presents a decision process model for real-time automated lane change and speed management in highway and urban traffic. In lane change and merge maneuvers, it is important to know how neighboring vehicles will act in the imminent future. Human driver …

Multi-Criteria Performance Evaluation And Control In Power And Energy Systems, Payam Ramezani Badr

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The role of intuition and human preferences are often overlooked in autonomous control of power and energy systems. However, the growing operational diversity of many systems such as microgrids, electric/hybrid-electric vehicles and maritime vessels has created a need for more flexible control and optimization methods. In order to develop such flexible control methods, the role of human decision makers and their desired performance metrics must be studied in power and energy systems. This dissertation investigates the concept of multi-criteria decision making as a gateway to integrate human decision makers and their opinions into complex mathematical control laws. There are two …

Modeling, Control And Estimation Of Reconfigurable Cable Driven Parallel Robots, Adhiti Raman Thothathri

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The motivation for this thesis was to develop a cable-driven parallel robot (CDPR) as part of a two-part robotic device for concrete 3D printing. This research addresses specific research questions in this domain, chiefly, to present advantages offered by the addition of kinematic redundancies to CDPRs. Due to the natural actuation redundancy present in a fully constrained CDPR, the addition of internal mobility offers complex challenges in modeling and control that are not often encountered in literature.

This work presents a systematic analysis of modeling such kinematic redundancies through the application of reciprocal screw theory (RST) and Lie algebra while …

Multi-Robot Symbolic Task And Motion Planning Leveraging Human Trust Models: Theory And Applications, Huanfei Zheng

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Multi-robot systems (MRS) can accomplish more complex tasks with two or more robots and have produced a broad set of applications. The presence of a human operator in an MRS can guarantee the safety of the task performing, but the human operators can be subject to heavier stress and cognitive workload in collaboration with the MRS than the single robot. It is significant for the MRS to have the provable correct task and motion planning solution for a complex task. That can reduce the human workload during supervising the task and improve the reliability of human-MRS collaboration. This dissertation relies …

Hybrid Smart Transformer For Enhanced Power System Protection Against Dc With Advanced Grid Support, Moazzam Nazir

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The traditional grid is rapidly transforming into smart substations and grid assets incorporating advanced control equipment with enhanced functionalities and rapid self-healing features. The most important and strategic equipment in the substation is the transformer and is expected to perform a variety of functions beyond mere voltage conversion and isolation. While the concept of smart solid-state transformers (SSTs) is being widely recognized, their respective lifetime and reliability raise concerns, thus hampering the complete replacement of traditional transformers with SSTs. Under this scenario, introducing smart features in conventional transformers utilizing simple, cost-effective, and easy to install modules is a highly desired …

Protection Of Microgrids: A Scalable And Topology Agnostic Scheme With Self-Healing Dynamic Reconfiguration, Phani Harsha Gadde

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Momentum towards realizing the smart grid will continue to result in high penetration of renewable fed Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) in the Electric Power System (EPS). These DERs will most likely be Inverter Based Resources(IBRs) and will be an integral part of the distribution system in the near future. The drive towards resiliency with these IBRs will enable a modular topology where several microgrids are tied together, operating synchronously to form the future EPS at the distribution level.

Since the microgrids can evolve from existing distribution feeders, they will be unbalanced in load, phases, and feeder impedances. A typical control …

Control, Decision-Making, And Learning Approaches For Connected And Autonomous Driving Systems With Humans-In-The-Loop, Fangjian Li

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By virtue of vehicular connectivity and automation, the vehicle becomes increasingly intelligent and self-driving capable. However, no matter what automation level the vehicle can achieve, humans will still be in the loop despite their roles. First, considering the manual driving car as a disturbance to the connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs), a novel string stability is proposed for mixed traffic platoons consisting of both autonomous and manual driving cars to guarantee acceptable motion fluctuation and platoon safety. Furthermore, humans are naturally considered as the rider in the passenger vehicle. A human-centered cooperative adaptive cruise control (CACC) is designed to improve …

Pulse-Coupled Oscillator Networks: Achieving Phase Continuity And Learning Optimal Control In Physical Systems, Timothy Anglea

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In this dissertation, we consider the application of pulse-coupled oscillator theory to real-world, physical networks. When the phase of an oscillator is associated with a physical measure, such as clock timing or robotic heading, discontinuous adjustments of the oscillator's phase is undesirable and potentially disadvantageous. Rather, continuous adjustment of the oscillator phase value is needed over a certain amount of time. To ensure that both synchronization and desynchronization can still be achieved under the constraint of continuous phase value changes, we pursue a novel approach to analyze the generalization of a pulse-coupled oscillator network with a time-varying coupling strength. We …

Environmental Exploration With Long, Thin Tendril Robots, Or Building Plant Based Robots And Teaching Them How To Feel, Michael Benjamin Wooten

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Continuum robots offer unique potential benefits for environmental exploration, notably in using their maneuverability to navigate congested environments. In this dissertation, we show how circumnutation, a motion strategy, commonly employed by plants, can be implemented, and usefully exploited, with continuum robots. We discuss how the kinematics of circumnutation, which combines local backbone growth with periodic backbone bending, can be created using extensible continuum robot hardware. The underlying kinematics are generated by adapting kinematic models of plant growth. We illustrate the effectiveness of that approach with experimental results with a tendril robot exploring a congested environment. However, significant challenges remain in …