7,264 research outputs found
A new meta-module for efficient reconfiguration of hinged-units modular robots
We present a robust and compact meta-module for edge-hinged modular robot units such as M-TRAN,
SuperBot, SMORES, UBot, PolyBot and CKBot, as well as for central-point-hinged ones such as Molecubes and
Roombots. Thanks to the rotational degrees of freedom of these units, the novel meta-module is able to expand
and contract, as to double/halve its length in each dimension. Moreover, for a large class of edge-hinged robots the
proposed meta-module also performs the scrunch/relax and transfer operations required by any tunneling-based
reconfiguration strategy, such as those designed for Crystalline and Telecube robots. These results make it possible to
apply efficient geometric reconfiguration algorithms to this type of robots. We prove the size of this new meta-module to
be optimal. Its robustness and performance substantially improve over previous results.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft
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Design of generic modular reconfigurable platforms (GMRPS) for a product-oriented micro manufacturing system
With the proposition of the concept of product-service systems, many manufacturers are focusing on selling services or functionality rather than products. Industrial production is shifting production models from mass production to mass customization and highly personalized needs. As a result, there is a tendency for manufacturing system suppliers to develop product-oriented systems to responsively cope with the dynamic fast moving competitive market. The key features of such a manufacturing system are the reconfigurability and adaptability, which can enable the system respond to the changeable needs of customers quickly and adaptively. Therefore, one of the challenges for the micro manufacturing system provider has been the design of a reconfigurable machine platform which will provide the functionalities and flexibility required by the product-oriented systems.
In this paper, a new micro manufacturing platform, i.e. a generic modular reconfigurable platform (GMRP) is proposed in order to provide an effective means for fabrication of high quality micro products at low cost in a responsive manner. The GMRP-based system aims to be a product-oriented reconfigurable, highly responsive manufacturing system particularly for high value nano/micro manufacturing purposes. To reuse components and decrease material consumption, GMRP is characterized by hybrid micro manufacturing processes, modularity of key components, and reconfigurability of machine platforms and key components. Furthermore, a practical methodology for the design of reconfigurable machine platforms is discussed against the requirements from product-driven micro manufacturing and its extension for adaptive production
A framework for FPGA functional units in high performance computing
FPGAs make it practical to speed up a program by defining
hardware functional units that perform calculations faster than can be achieved in software. Specialised digital circuits avoid the overhead of executing sequences of instructions, and they make available the massive parallelism of the components. The FPGA operates as a coprocessor controlled by a conventional computer. An application that combines software with hardware in
this way needs an interface between a communications port to the processor and the signals connected to the functional units. We present a framework that supports the design of such systems. The framework consists of a generic controller circuit defined in VHDL that can be configured by the user according to the needs of the functional units and the I/O channel. The controller
contains a register file and a pipelined programmable register transfer machine, and it supports the design of both stateless and stateful functional units. Two examples are described: the implementation of a set of basic stateless arithmetic functional units, and the implementation of a stateful algorithm that exploits circuit parallelism
Implementing a protected zone in a reconfigurable processor for isolated execution of cryptographic algorithms
We design and realize a protected zone inside a reconfigurable and extensible embedded RISC processor for isolated execution of cryptographic algorithms. The protected zone is a collection of processor subsystems such as functional units optimized for high-speed execution of integer operations, a small amount of local memory, and general and special-purpose registers. We outline the principles for secure software implementation of cryptographic algorithms
in a processor equipped with the protected zone. We also demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of the protected zone by implementing major cryptographic algorithms, namely RSA, elliptic curve cryptography, and AES in the protected zone. In terms of time efficiency, software implementations
of these three cryptographic algorithms outperform equivalent software implementations on similar processors reported in the literature. The protected zone is designed in such a modular fashion that it can easily be integrated into any RISC processor; its area overhead is considerably moderate in the sense that
it can be used in vast majority of embedded processors. The protected zone can also provide the necessary support to implement TPM functionality within the boundary of a processor
Realising the open virtual commissioning of modular automation systems
To address the challenges in the automotive industry posed by the need to rapidly manufacture more
product variants, and the resultant need for more adaptable production systems, radical changes are
now required in the way in which such systems are developed and implemented. In this context, two
enabling approaches for achieving more agile manufacturing, namely modular automation systems
and virtual commissioning, are briefly reviewed in this contribution. Ongoing research conducted at
Loughborough University which aims to provide a modular approach to automation systems design
coupled with a virtual engineering toolset for the (re)configuration of such manufacturing
automation systems is reported. The problems faced in the virtual commissioning of modular
automation systems are outlined. AutomationML - an emerging neutral data format which has
potential to address integration problems is discussed. The paper proposes and illustrates a
collaborative framework in which AutomationML is adopted for the data exchange and data
representation of related models to enable efficient open virtual prototype construction and virtual
commissioning of modular automation systems. A case study is provided to show how to create the
data model based on AutomationML for describing a modular automation system
A versatile and reconfigurable microassembly workstation
In this paper, a versatile and reconfigurable
microassembly workstation designed and realized as a research
tool for investigation of the problems in microassembly and
micromanipulation processes and recent developments on
mechanical and control structure of the system with respect to
the previous workstation are presented. These developments
include: (i) addition of a manipulator system to realize more
complicated assembly and manipulation tasks, (ii) addition of
extra DOF for the vision system and sample holder stages in
order to make the system more versatile (iii) a new optical
microscope as the vision system in order to visualize the
microworld and determine the position and orientation of micro
components to be assembled or manipulated, (iv) a modular
control system hardware which allows handling more DOF. In
addition several experiments using the workstation are presented
in different modes of operation like tele-operated, semiautomated
and fully automated by means of visual based
schemes
On cost-effective reuse of components in the design of complex reconfigurable systems
Design strategies that benefit from the reuse of system components can reduce costs while maintaining or increasing dependabilityâwe use the term dependability to tie together reliability and availability. D3H2 (aDaptive Dependable Design for systems with Homogeneous and Heterogeneous redundancies) is a methodology that supports the design of complex systems with a focus on reconfiguration and component reuse. D3H2 systematizes the identification of heterogeneous redundancies and optimizes the design of fault detection and reconfiguration mechanisms, by enabling the analysis of design alternatives with respect to dependability and cost. In this paper, we extend D3H2 for application to repairable systems. The method is extended with analysis capabilities allowing dependability assessment of complex reconfigurable systems. Analysed scenarios include time-dependencies between failure events and the corresponding reconfiguration actions. We demonstrate how D3H2 can support decisions about fault detection and reconfiguration that seek to improve dependability while reducing costs via application to a realistic railway case study
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