Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Cam-Based Pose-Independent Counterweighting For Partial Body-Weight Support In Rehabilitation, Ashish Shinde

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis presents the design and testing of a body weight support system for gait training in a two-dimensional workspace. Extension of the system to a three-dimensional workspace is not within the scope of this thesis.

Gait dysfunctions are changes in normal walking patterns, often related to a disease or abnormality in different areas of the body. There are numerous body weight support (BWS) systems present in the market which are applied to rehabilitation scenarios in mobility recovery like in gait training. But most of these BWE systems are costly and generally are stationary devices. A major drawback of such …

Detecting Structural Defects Using Novel Smart Sensory And Sensor-Less Approaches, Amin Baghalian

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Monitoring the mechanical integrity of critical structures is extremely important, as mechanical defects can potentially have adverse impacts on their safe operability throughout their service life. Structural defects can be detected by using active structural health monitoring (SHM) approaches, in which a given structure is excited with harmonic mechanical waves generated by actuators. The response of the structure is then collected using sensor(s) and is analyzed for possible defects, with various active SHM approaches available for analyzing the response of a structure to single- or multi-frequency harmonic excitations. In order to identify the appropriate excitation frequency, however, the majority of …

Cyber-Physical System Characterization And Co-Regulation Of A Quadrotor Uas, Seth E. Doebbeling

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

An Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) is a Cyber-Physical System (CPS) in which a host of real-time computational tasks contending for shared resources must be cooperatively managed to obtain mission objectives. Traditionally, control of the UAS is designed assuming a fixed, high sampling rate in order to maintain reliable performance and margins of stability. But emerging methods challenge this design by dynamically allocating resources to computational tasks, thereby affecting control and mission performance. To apply these emerging strategies, a characterization and understanding of the effects of timing on control and trajectory following performance is required. Going beyond traditional control evaluation techniques, …

Passive Bottom Reflection-Loss Estimation Using Ship Noise And A Vertical Line Array, Lanfranco Muzi, Martin Siderius, Christopher M. Verlinden

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

An existing technique for passive bottom-loss estimation from natural marine surface noise (generated by waves and wind) is adapted to use noise generated by ships. The original approach—based on beamforming of the noise field recorded by a vertical line array of hydrophones—is retained; however, additional processing is needed in order for the field generated by a passing ship to show features that are similar to those of the natural surface-noise field. A necessary requisite is that the ship position, relative to the array, varies over as wide a range of steering angles as possible, ideally passing directly over the array …

Robot Control For Remote Ophthalmology And Pediatric Physical Rehabilitation, Melissa Morris

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The development of a robotic slit-lamp for remote ophthalmology is the primary purpose of this work. In addition to novel mechanical designs and implementation, it was also a goal to develop a control system that was flexible enough to be adapted with minimal user adjustment to various styles and configurations of slit-lamps. The system was developed with intentions of commercialization, so common hardware was used for all components to minimize the costs. In order to improve performance using this low-cost hardware, investigations were made to attempt to achieve better performance by applying control theory algorithms in the system software. Ultimately, …

On A Time Domain Boundary Integral Equation Formulation For Acoustic Scattering By Rigid Bodies In Uniform Mean Flow, Fang Q. Hu, Michelle E. Pizzo, Douglas M. Nark

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

It has been well-known that under the assumption of a uniform mean flow, the acoustic wave propagation equation can be formulated as a boundary integral equation. However, the constant mean flow assumption, while convenient for formulating the integral equation, does not satisfy the solid wall boundary condition wherever the body surface is not aligned with the assumed uniform flow. A customary boundary condition for rigid surfaces is that the normal acoustic velocity be zero. In this paper, a careful study of the acoustic energy conservation equation is presented that shows such a boundary condition would in fact lead to source …

Development And Validation Of A Tractor Drawbar Force Measurement And Data Acquisition System (Daq), James Roeber, Santosh Pitla, Roger M. Hoy, Joe D. Luck, Michael F. Kocher

Department of Biological Systems Engineering: Papers and Publications

Matching agricultural tractors to implements towed by the drawbar is one of the important aspects of machinery management for ensuring optimum performance and fuel cost savings. A field deployable tractor draft force measurement and data acquisition system was developed and evaluated as part of this research project. A drawbar instrumented to measure draft force in field operating conditions was developed and statically calibrated. The drawbar was calibrated by applying loads from 4.45 to 134 kN using a hydraulic cylinder connected to a 444.8 kN load cell. Testing was conducted with the drawbar installed on a tractor on a concrete track. …