Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Evaluating Eeg–Emg Fusion-Based Classification As A Method For Improving Control Of Wearable Robotic Devices For Upper-Limb Rehabilitation, Jacob G. Tryon

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Musculoskeletal disorders are the biggest cause of disability worldwide, and wearable mechatronic rehabilitation devices have been proposed for treatment. However, before widespread adoption, improvements in user control and system adaptability are required. User intention should be detected intuitively, and user-induced changes in system dynamics should be unobtrusively identified and corrected. Developments often focus on model-dependent nonlinear control theory, which is challenging to implement for wearable devices.

One alternative is to incorporate bioelectrical signal-based machine learning into the system, allowing for simpler controller designs to be augmented by supplemental brain (electroencephalography/EEG) and muscle (electromyography/EMG) information. To extract user intention better, sensor …

Sustainable Smouldering For Waste-To-Energy: Scale, Heat Losses, And Energy Efficiency, Tarek L. Rashwan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Applied smouldering combustion is emerging as a highly energy efficient approach towards waste-to-energy. This thesis aims to better understand this potential by addressing a critical knowledge gap between laboratory scale smouldering research and large-scale applications. Altogether, new understanding in provided on the complex and dynamic interactions between the reaction zone (smouldering front) and the cooling zone (treated inert porous media) by integrating theory, experiments, analytical modelling, and global energy balance calculations. The experiments spanned a range of reactor sizes and smouldering conditions (from weak to robust) with dry (carbon) and wet (sludge) fuels mixed in sand. This work revealed that …

Surface Topography Formation And Thermographic Analysis In Laser Polishing Of H13 Tool Steel, Joshua D. Miller

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Laser polishing, in its simplest form, is the melting of a small layer of material via laser radiation. This creates a small molten pool which is re-distrusted across the surface, resulting in a much smoother finished surface. Although this process has been around for decades now, there has been a recent insurgence into industrial applications. Despite this, the phenomena that occur during the process are still not fully understood. Therefore, increasing the knowledge surrounding the process would be ideal.

To accomplish this, various input parameters of the process are altered to analyze the effect on the finished polished surface. Through …

Development Of An Autonomous Robotic Mushroom Harvester, Nikita Alexeevich Kuchinskiy

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The process of development of a new robot is one of the modern technological arts. This process involves multiple complex steps and recursive approach. In this project, a solution for automatic harvesting of mushrooms is developed. In order to design an effective solution, it is necessary to explore and take into consideration the limitations of grasping very soft and fragile objects (particularly mushrooms). We will elaborate several strategies of picking and analyze each strategy to formulate the design requirements, develop a solution, and finally, evaluate the efficiency of the proposed solution in actual farm conditions for real mushrooms. The mushroom …

Improved Non-Linear Solution Of Dip Coating Flow, Omar Bin Yusuf

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

A thin layer of film is developed on the surface of a substrate in the dip coating process where the substrate is initially immersed into the coating fluid and then withdrawn continuously from the coating fluid bath. In this study a two dimensional flow of the thin film for a Newtonian fluid is examined theoretically by dividing the film into three separate regions. A general formulation is developed for a thin film flow, which then simplifies for each region upon considering appropriate assumptions to each region. The influence of inertia and surface tension in the presence of gravity is investigated …