Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Optimized Endpoint Delivery Via Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Fuad Gazal

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are remotely piloted aircraft with a range of varying applications. Though early adoption of UAVs focused on military applications, surveillance, photography, and agricultural applications are presently on the rise. This work aims to ascertain how UAVs may be employed to elicit deceased transportation times, increased power efficiency, and improved safety. Resulting in optimized end point delivery. A combination of tools and techniques, involving a mathematical model, UAV simulations, redundant control systems, and custom designed electrical and mechanical components were used towards reaching the goal of a 10-kilogram maximum payload delivered 10 miles under 30 minutes. Two …

Water Jet Cutting Head Actuator, Jacob D. Augustynovich

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In an effort to increase efficiency and productivity, WARDJet was seeking a better actuation method for the cutting head on their waterjets. Current actuation methods were, for the most part, purely mechanical, relying on compressed air, springs, and water pressure to open and close the valve to 60,000 psi of water. Increasing the speed of the on/off cycle times of the waterjet would allow for faster movements of the cutting head from one cut to the next, increasing the overall amount of products cut in a day, week, and year. This obviously points to increased sales, increased profit, and increased …

Investigation Of The Use Of 3-D Printer Platform As Building Block For Rapid Design Of Research And Manufacturing Tool, Handy Chandra

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This thesis attempts to show how an open source 3-D printer platform, the self replicating rapid prototype (RepRap), could be used to accelerate the development of research and manufacturing tools. Two projects are shown as examples, both utilizing components of the 3-D printer platform.

The first project is to develop an instrument capable of performing automated large-area four-point probe measurements. A modified RepRap 3-D Printer with a four-point probe in place of the 3-D printer head is utilized as a precision positioning platform. The printer together with custom designed measurement circuit and software performs automated measurement on multiple points on …

Simulation Of Human Ankle Trajectory During Stance Phase Of Gait, Leslie Castelino

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

A simulation was developed which mimics the human gait characteristics based on the input of an individual’s gait trajectory. This simulation also estimates the impedance of the human ankle based on the ground reaction forces measured by the force plate. This simulation will accept alterations of the following parameters: total body weight, weight of the shank, weight of the foot, trajectories of the shank and foot of the individual and orientation of the force plate, which would generate a new gait trajectory for the ankle during the stance phase of gait. The goal of this simulation was to validate the …

Target Read Operation Of Passive Ultra High Frequency Rfid Tag In A Multiple Tags Environment, Zi Qin Phua

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical Engineering

Passive ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio frequency Identification (RFID) has emerged as a promising solution for many industrial applications. Passive UHF systems are relatively inexpensive to implement and monitor, as no line of sight is required for the communication. There are several advantages to using a passive RFID system. For example, no internal power source is required to activate the tags, and lower labor costs and efficient multitasking operations are expected in a long term scenario. However, due to factors such as tag-to-tag interference and inaccurate localization, RFID tags that are closely spaced together are difficult to detect and program accurately …