Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons^™

Automatic Pet Feeder Network, Daniel J. Herttna, David A. Bechtel, Alexander Deskovich

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project will describe the design process and research behind the Automatic Pet Feeder Network, otherwise known as The Petwork. The system consists of a tank to hold the food, a latching system to drop the food at the desired time, a weight sensor to verify that the proper amount of food has been dispensed, a power supply unit that steps down 120V AC standard wall outlet power, & a microcontroller that will interpret the user's input from a mobile phone application. The networking portion is covered by having a primary and a secondary feeder. The mobile application will communicate …

Safe Real-Time Obstacle Detection And Navigation Using Cbf–Clf And Cbf–Pid Control, Nicolas M. Hernandez

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Traditional robotic navigation pipelines typically follow a three stage architecture: obstacle detection, path planning, and low-level control for trajectory tracking. While effective in static environments, these methods often introduce latency and lack formal guarantees of safety in dynamic or unplanned for scenarios. Our work addresses these limitations by developing a real-time controller grounded in Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) and Control Lyapunov Functions (CLFs), unified through a Quadratic Program (QP). We first investigate a hybrid CBF-PID-QP controller on a 1/10 scale car, where the CBF serves as a real-time safety filter, modifying the PID output to prevent constraint violations. While this …

An Advanced Hexacopter For Autonomous Exploration Of Mars: Attitude Control And Navigation Strategies, Laura Sopegno

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Mars exploration has recently witnessed major interest within the scientific community. Unmanned robotic platforms offer reliable solutions to acquire and collect data and information from the Red Planet. Particularly, rovers, landers, and orbiters have significantly shaped planetary exploration on the Moon and Mars, contributing significantly to past missions while also highlighting limitations in their capacity to cover diverse terrains over wide ranges. Given current advances in Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UASs), Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) offer promising alternatives for future scientific missions.

It is argued that hexacopters, with their relatively compact design and redundancy, present a promising …

Zips Racing Electric - Vehicle Control Unit, Ryan Stoller, Brian Glen, John Wozencraft, Tetra Engdahl

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Zips Racing Electric is a design team at the university that builds and races electric cars. The racing team wants to design a four-wheel drive system to increase performance, but the current computer on the vehicle cannot control the more complex power train. The goal of the project will be to build a hardware device that can read sensor inputs and control the torque output to each motor individually. The control device being designed will need to interface with the existing systems on the car and control regenerative breaking, torque vectoring, and other auxilliary systems on the car.

Safety And Optimality Monitors For Learning-Enabled Systems Using Conformal Prediction, Jackson Cox

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

The use of machine learning to create data-driven plant models and controllers has led to an increased need for safety and optimality monitors for model-based systems. System plant models are subject to uncertainty due to learning constraints such as unseen data and overfitting or physical constraints such as unknown dynamics and noise. This uncertainty is detrimental to safety-critical systems and must be properly regulated. To curb this uncertainty, we create prediction sets using the guarantees provided by Conformal Prediction. With a user-specified high probability, these prediction sets contain the true plant system states for an entire prediction horizon, which we …

Model Reference Adaptive Control For Mobile Manipulators And Beyond, Srivatsan Srinivasan

All Dissertations

In recent years, robotics has expanded into various sectors, including manufacturing, transportation, and household services, making the integration of autonomy a critical area of research. This shift aims to ensure safety and enhance the utility of autonomous systems. Traditionally, robotic applications focused separately on mobility, like automated guided vehicles, and manipulation, such as serial-chain arms in manufacturing. Today, however, we see a merging of these capabilities in the growing field of mobile manipulator robots that combine movement with purposeful interactive functionalities.

A typical mobile manipulator is a robotic arm mounted on a wheeled base. This thesis focuses on advancing control …

Strategy For Predictive Control Of The Rectification Process Based On A Model Controller With A Given Forecast, Ildar Rafkatovich Sultanov

Chemical Technology, Control and Management

A method is being developed to optimize the generated controls for the multicomponent distillation process with prediction, based on predictive data with a moving horizon. The difference between this method and the classical modeling approach, in which the percentage of the degree of opening of valves installed on the output streams of the column is used as control actions, is that control occurs on the feedback principle. The proposed method is based on the use of a dynamic process model to optimize control actions in real time in order to achieve certain production targets. The essence of the MPC approach …

Life Cycle Management Of A Technological Complex For Separating Multicomponent Mixtures Under Conditions Of Uncertainty Of Parameters, Yusuf Shodievich Avazov

Chemical Technology, Control and Management

The issue of control the lifecycle of technological complexes of multicomponent mixtures is considered, taking into account the uncertainty of parameters. Among uncertainties such as parameter uncertainty, model uncertainty, choice uncertainty under variability, spatial variability uncertainty, temporal variability uncertainty, inter-site variability uncertainty, more attention is paid to input parameter uncertainty and action uncertainty. The rectification technology is schematically presented, the influence of parameter uncertainty on the technological functions of the rectification complex. The scheme analyzes the control and assessment of “uncertainty” to repeat the lifecycle of the rectification complex and make changes to the components of the rectification complex technology. …

Study Of Technological Multi-Stage Modes Of Refining Vegetable Oils, Elyor Erkinovich Samadov

Chemical Technology, Control and Management

The work reflects the current state of the technology for obtaining refined vegetable oils and identifies trends in their improvement and further development in the environment of industrial automation using modern methods of distributed monitoring, building control, and management systems for technological processes of refining vegetable oils. The influence of technological modes of refining vegetable oils on the efficiency of diffusion extraction of free fatty acids (FFA) has been studied and the indirect pH-metric measurement of FFA concentration has been substantiated.

Computer Training Systems For Training Engineering Personnel For Control Industrial Enterprises, Yusuf Shodiyevich Avazov, Kamola Rustamovna Abdullaeva

Chemical Technology, Control and Management

A principle has been proposed for constructing computer simulators for improving the qualifications of process control operators at industrial enterprises and for training students of higher educational institutions. The capabilities of a computer simulator that can be used as a digital assistant are revealed. Their architecture for building digital simulators is proposed. From the architecture it is clear that the computer simulator consists of two systems. The training process management system and the server of the computerized simulator are combined into a digital simulator. Simulators in this category provide student operators with the opportunity to develop skills in self-control of …

Co-Simulation Of Electric Power Distribution Systems And Buildings Including Ultra-Fast Hvac Models And Optimal Der Control, Evan S. Jones, Rosemary E. Alden, Huangjie Gong, Dan M. Ionel

Electrical and Computer Engineering Graduate Research

Smart homes and virtual power plant (VPP) controls are growing fields of research with potential for improved electric power grid operation. A novel testbed for co-simulation of electric power distribution systems and distributed energy resources (DERs), is employed to evaluate VPP scenarios and propose an optimization procedure. DERs of specific interest include behind-the-meter (BTM) solar photovoltaic (PV) systems as well as heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems. Simulation of HVAC systems is enabled by a machine learning procedure that produces ultra-fast models for electric power and indoor temperature of associated buildings that are up to 133 times faster than typical …

Modeling, Simulation And Control Of Microrobots For The Microfactory., Zhong Yang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Future assembly technologies will involve higher levels of automation in order to satisfy increased microscale or nanoscale precision requirements. Traditionally, assembly using a top-down robotic approach has been well-studied and applied to the microelectronics and MEMS industries, but less so in nanotechnology. With the boom of nanotechnology since the 1990s, newly designed products with new materials, coatings, and nanoparticles are gradually entering everyone’s lives, while the industry has grown into a billion-dollar volume worldwide. Traditionally, nanotechnology products are assembled using bottom-up methods, such as self-assembly, rather than top-down robotic assembly. This is due to considerations of volume handling of large …

Effective Utilization Of Battery-Supercapacitor Hybrid Energy Storage Systems In Dc Nano-Grids, Seyyed Ali Ghorashi Khalil Abadi

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

This PhD dissertation proposes novel control strategies to improve the flexibility and reliability of DC nanogrids by utilizing battery-supercapacitor hybrid energy storage systems (HESSs). The dissertation is divided into five sections, each addressing a specific challenge in DC nanogrids and proposing unique control strategies to overcome them. The proposed strategies include an adaptive control system for multiple nanogrids, a distributed power management strategy for a grid-connected DC nano-grid, a model predictive control strategy to improve voltage quality and stability in islanded DC nanogrids, a cloud HESS technology to improve voltage stability in clustered DC nanogrids, and a method of electric …

Quality-Of-Service Provisioning For Smart City Applications Using Software-Defined Networking, Basima Kurungadan

Theses

In the current world, most cities have WiFi Access Points (AP) in every nook and corner. Hence upraising these cities to the status of a smart city is a more easily achievable task than before. Internet-of-Things (IoT) connections primarily use WiFi standards to form the veins of a smart city. Unfortunately, this vast potential of WiFi technology in the genesis of smart cities is somehow compromised due to its failure in meeting unique Quality-of-Service (QoS) demands of smart city applications. Out of the following QoS factors; transmission link bandwidth, packet transmission delay, jitter, and packet loss rate, not all applications …

Quantum Computing And Resilient Design Perspectives For Cybersecurity Of Feedback Systems, Keshav Kasturi Rangan, Jihan Abou Halloun, Henrique Oyama, Samantha Cherney, Ilham Azali Assoumani, Nazir Jairazbhoy, Helen Durand, Simon Ka Ng

Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Faculty Research Publications

Cybersecurity of control systems is an important issue in next-generation manufac- turing that can impact both operational objectives (safety and performance) as well as process designs (via hazard analysis). Cyberattacks differ from faults in that they can be coordinated efforts to exploit system vulnerabilities to create otherwise unlikely hazard scenarios. Because coordination and targeted process manipulation can be characteristics of attacks, some of the tactics previously analyzed in our group from a control system cybersecurity perspective have incorporated randomness to attempt to thwart attacks. The underlying assumption for the generation of this randomness has been that it can be achieved …

Quantum Computing And Resilient Design Perspectives For Cybersecurity Of Feedback Systems, Keshav Kasturi Rangan, Jihan Abou Halloun, Henrique Oyama, Samantha Cherney, Ilham Azali Assoumani, Nazir Jairazbhoy, Helen Durand, Simon Ka Ng

Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Faculty Research Publications

Cybersecurity of control systems is an important issue in next-generation manufac- turing that can impact both operational objectives (safety and performance) as well as process designs (via hazard analysis). Cyberattacks differ from faults in that they can be coordinated efforts to exploit system vulnerabilities to create otherwise unlikely hazard scenarios. Because coordination and targeted process manipulation can be characteristics of attacks, some of the tactics previously analyzed in our group from a control system cybersecurity perspective have incorporated randomness to attempt to thwart attacks. The underlying assumption for the generation of this randomness has been that it can be achieved …

Live Access Control Policy Error Detection Through Hardware, Bryce Mendenhall

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Access Control (AC) is a widely used security measure designed to protect resources and infrastructure in an information system. The integrity of the AC policy is crucial to the protection of the system. Errors within an AC policy may cause many vulnerabilities such as information leaks, information loss, and malicious activities. Thus, such errors must be detected and promptly fixed. However, current AC error detection models do not allow for real-time error detection, nor do they provide the source of errors. This thesis presents a live error detection model called LogicDetect which utilizes emulated Boolean digital logic circuits to provide …

High Latency Unmanned Ground Vehicle Teleoperation Enhancement By Presentation Of Estimated Future Through Video Transformation, Md Moniruzzaman, Alexander Rassau, Douglas Chai, Syed Mohammed Shamsul Islam

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Long-distance, high latency teleoperation tasks are difficult, highly stressful for teleoperators, and prone to over-corrections, which can lead to loss of control. At higher latencies, or when teleoperating at higher vehicle speed, the situation becomes progressively worse. To explore potential solutions, this research work investigates two 2D visual feedback-based assistive interfaces (sliding-only and sliding-and-zooming windows) that apply simple but effective video transformations to enhance teleoperation. A teleoperation simulator that can replicate teleoperation scenarios affected by high and adjustable latency has been developed to explore the effectiveness of the proposed assistive interfaces. Three image comparison metrics have been used to fine-tune …

A Machine Learning Approach To Intended Motion Prediction For Upper Extremity Exoskeletons, Justin Berdell

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

A fully solid-state, software-defined, one-handed, handle-type control device built around a machine-learning (ML) model that provides intuitive and simultaneous control in position and orientation each in a full three degrees-of-freedom (DOF) is proposed in this paper. The device, referred to as the “Smart Handle”, and it is compact, lightweight, and only reliant on low-cost and readily available sensors and materials for construction. Mobility chairs for persons with motor difficulties could make use of a control device that can learn to recognize arbitrary inputs as control commands. Upper-extremity exoskeletons used in occupational settings and rehabilitation require a natural control device like …

Modeling, Simulation, And Hardware-In-The-Loop Implementation Of Distributed Voltage Control In Power Systems With Renewable Energy Sources, Ali Dehghan Banadaki

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation develops and analyzes distributed controllers for power systems with renewable energy sources. A comprehensive state space modeling of voltage source inverters (VSIs) is developed specifically to address the secondary voltage control. This model can be used for simulation and control design. Unlike frequency, voltage is a local phenomenon, meaning that it cannot be controlled from a far distance. Therefore, a voltage zoning matrix that relates the sensitivity of the loads to the sources is proposed. The secondary voltage control is designed by applying the eigenvalue decomposition of the voltage zoning matrix to obtain the reference generators voltages. The …

Uncertainty Of The Ultrasonic Method For Determining The Strength Of Concrete, Ortagoli Sharipovich Hakimov, Zamira Khudoyberdiyevna Ernazarova

Chemical Technology, Control and Management

The issues of measuring the strength of concrete by the method of surface sounding by ultrasound are considered. A measurement model and formulas for estimating the total standard measurement uncertainty, information about the standards used, measurement tools and methods, and environmental parameters are given. Information about the estimation of uncertainty in the form of "eight steps", such as: measurement task; mathematical model of measurement; analysis of input values; observation results; correlations; uncertainty budget; expanded uncertainty; measurement result. It has been established that the uncertainty of type B of the ultrasonic method for determining the strength of concrete is much less …

Problems Of Modeling And Control Of The Technological Process Of Ore Grinding, Djalolitdin Pakhritdinovich Mukhitdinov, Sanjar Boybutayev

Chemical Technology, Control and Management

The article analyzes the methods of mathematical modeling of the closed-loop process of fine grinding of ore in order to predict the composition of the crushed raw material. Analyzed modeling methods that consider the control of classification of crushed raw materials and finished products by the size of the recirculating load, simulation modeling methods, methods that use neuro-phase netthe research apparatus, in which the fuzzy logic apparatus serves as a fundamental component for the formation of conclusions. The materials presented in the article reflect the theoretical substantiation and generalization of the accumulated practical experience in modeling and control of the …

Active Stability Monitoring And Stability Control Of Dc Microgrids Using Incremental Continuous Injection, Rohail Hassan

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Electrified transportation and integration of renewable energy in the electric power grid requires the use of power electronic converters for integrating different forms of power; from ac to dc, dc to ac, dc to dc, etc. Recent trend towards electrifying automobiles, aircraft and ships, and increasing penetration of renewable energy has increased the required power levels and number of the power electronics converters connected together in a dc microgrid system. Stable operation of these interfacing converters for all operating conditions has been a topic of renewed interest in the last couple of decades. Traditionally, dc microgrids have been designed conservatively …

Control Of Series Connected Battery Powered Modules, Joshua K. Wooten

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Batteries are a very common type of power source used for all sorts of applications. However, these batteries do not last forever. The purpose of this thesis is to explain and implement a strategy which allows batteries to have a second life; to be able to be re-charged and re-used for another set period of time once they no longer meet a system’s requirements. The preferable way to do this is to make each cell have the same state of charge (SOC) which will lead to a longer lasting battery pack. These batteries will be hooked up to a battery …

Direct Torque Control For Silicon Carbide Motor Drives, Mohammad Hazzaz Mahmud

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Direct torque control (DTC) is an extensively used control method for motor drives due to its unique advantages, e.g., the fast dynamic response and the robustness against motor parameters variations, uncertainties, and external disturbances. Using higher switching frequency is generally required by DTC to reduce the torque ripples and decrease stator current total harmonic distortion (THD), which however can lower the drive efficiency. Through the use of the emerging silicon carbide (SiC) devices, which have lower switching losses compared to their silicon counterparts, it is feasible to achieve high efficiency and low torque ripple simultaneously for DTC drives.

To overcome …

Data-Driven Decision Making And Control Of Rational Agents, Patrik Kolaric

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

This dissertation studies the problem of data-driven optimal decision making. The 4main contributions of this work are listed here. First, we develop a model-based and data-driven techniques for learning the cost of an Ex-pert agent. This ties fields of Inverse Optimal Control and Inverse Reinforcement Learning and represents a first data-driven algorithm of this kind in the control community. Next, we have developed optimally adaptive dynamic control allocation mechanism that optimally re-configures redundant actuators in a model-free fashion, that is, based on collected data. This work pushed the multiple frontiers of control allocation research, since state-of-the-art control allocation was Next, …

Adaptive Control And Parameter-Dependent Anti-Windup Compensation For Inertia Varying Quadcopters., Benjamin Edwards Farber

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A novel parameter-dependent anti-windup compensator is developed to improve the performance of a saturation constrained model reference adaptive controller. The combined control structure solves the input saturation and stability problem for inertia varying quadcopters. The control synthesis follows the conventional two-step anti-windup design paradigm where a nominal controller is designed without consideration of the input saturation, and the anti-windup compensator is designed to minimize deviations from nominal performance caused by saturated inputs. To account for varying inertia of the quadcopter during package retrieval/delivery routines, the inertia parameters of the vehicle/package are estimated with an online recursive system identification technique, and …

On The Impact Of Gravity Compensation On Reinforcement Learning In Goal-Reaching Tasks For Robotic Manipulators, Jonathan Fugal, Hasan A. Poonawala, Jihye Bae

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Advances in machine learning technologies in recent years have facilitated developments in autonomous robotic systems. Designing these autonomous systems typically requires manually specified models of the robotic system and world when using classical control-based strategies, or time consuming and computationally expensive data-driven training when using learning-based strategies. Combination of classical control and learning-based strategies may mitigate both requirements. However, the performance of the combined control system is not obvious given that there are two separate controllers. This paper focuses on one such combination, which uses gravity-compensation together with reinforcement learning (RL). We present a study of the effects of gravity …

Control Synthesis For Parametric Timed Automata Under Reachability, Ebru Aydin Göl

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Timed automata is a fundamental modeling formalism for real-time systems. During the design of such real-time systems, often the system information is incomplete, and design choices can vary. These uncertainties can be integrated to the model via parameters and labelled transitions. Then, the design can be completed by tuning the parameters and restricting the transitions via controller synthesis. These problems, namely parameter synthesis and controller synthesis, are studied separately in the literature. Herein, these are combined to generate an automaton satisfying the given specification by both parameter tuning and controller synthesis, thus exploring all design choices. First, it is shown …

Analysis Of Three-Phase Rectifier Via Three Different Control Methods And Switch Power Loss Comparison, Yichao Wang

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Traditional uncontrolled or phase-controlled rectifiers have the defects of lower power factor and nontrivial higher harmonics which causes the low efficiency of power, bad power quality, and so on. However, PWM rectifiers overcome the drawbacks mentioned above. They reduce the higher harmonics yielding better sinusoidal current on the grid side, achieve unity power factor and bidirectional power flow, and have better dynamic performance. So, it is favored more by academia and widely applied in high-performance power electronics devices. In this paper, the PWM rectifier is analyzed and a comparison of the switch loss on three-phase rectifier using three different control …