Engineering Commons^™

An Open Architecture For Versatile Machine And Actuator Control, Michael Scott Baxter

Theses and Dissertations

Automatic control technology increases usability, reliability and productivity in manufacturing, transportation, and climate control. There are many additional areas of modern life that could benefit through automatic control; however, current automation components are too expensive or aren't sufficiently flexible. For example, the cost of current commercial motion control components precludes their use in an average home. This thesis describes an automatic control methodology that is low cost and is flexible enough for a wide variety of control applications. Typical applications could include:

- Home lighting, security and appliances

- Commercial building heating, ventilation and air conditioning

- Industrial machine tool …

Coordinated Regional And City Planning Using A Genetic Algorithm, Michael B. Lowry

Theses and Dissertations

Improved methods of planning are needed to deal with today's issues of traffic congestion, sprawl, and loss of greenspace. Past research and recent legislation call for new methods that will consider a regional perspective. Regional planning is challenged with two difficult questions:

1.Is it possible to achieve regional goals without infringing upon the local autonomy of city planners?

2.Is it possible to objectively analyze the thousands, even millions, of land use and transportation plans to find the best design?

Metropolitan regions across the country have made great efforts to answer the first question. Unfortunately, effective methods for harmonizing the goals …

Autonomous Robotic Automation Systemwith Vision Feedback, Jeffery Rosino

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, a full design, development and application of an autonomous robotic automation system using vision feedback is performed. To realize this system, a cylindrical manipulator configuration is implemented, using a personal computer (PC) based PID controller from National Instruments. Full autonomous control will be achieved via a programmable human machine interface (HMI) developed on a PC using Borland C++ Builder. The vision feedback position control is accomplished using an ordinary "off-the-shelf" web camera. The manuscript is organized as follows; After Chapter 1, an introduction to automation history and its role in the manufacturing industry, Chapter 2 discusses and …