Development of a Novel Handheld Device for Active Compensation of Physiological Tremor

In microsurgery, the human hand imposes certain limitations in accurately positioning the tip of a device such as scalpel. Any errors in the motion of the hand make microsurgical procedures difficult and involuntary motions such as hand tremors can make some procedures significantly difficult to perform. This is particularly true in the case of vitreoretinal microsurgery. The most familiar source of involuntary motion is physiological tremor. Real-time compensation of tremor is, therefore, necessary to assist surgeons to precisely position and manipulate the tool-tip to accurately perform a microsurgery. In this thesis, a novel handheld device (AID) is described for compensation of physiological tremor in the hand. MEMS-based accelerometers and gyroscopes have been used for sensing the motion of the hand in six degrees of freedom (DOF). An augmented state complementary Kalman filter is used to calculate 2 DOF orientation. An adaptive filtering algorithm, band-limited Multiple Fourier linear combiner (BMFLC), is used to calculate the tremor component in the hand in real-time. Ionic Polymer Metallic Composites (IPMCs) have been used as actuators for deflecting the tool-tip to compensate for the tremor

OBSERVABILITY-BASED SAMPLING AND ESTIMATION OF FLOWFIELDS USING MULTI-SENSOR SYSTEMS

The long-term goal of this research is to optimize estimation of an unknown flowfield using an autonomous multi-vehicle or multi-sensor system. The specific research objective is to provide theoretically justified, nonlinear control, estimation, and optimization techniques enabling a group of sensors to coordinate their motion to target measurements that improve observability of the surrounding environment, even when the environment is unknown. Measures of observability provide an optimization metric for multi-agent control algorithms that avoid spatial regions of the domain prone to degraded or ill-conditioned estimation performance, thereby improving closed-loop control performance when estimated quantities are used in feedback control. The control, estimation, and optimization framework is applied to three applications of multi-agent flowfield sensing including (1) environmental sampling of strong flowfields using multiple autonomous unmanned vehicles, (2) wake sensing and observability-based optimal control for two-aircraft formation flight, and (3) bio-inspired flow sensing and control of an autonomous unmanned underwater vehicle. For environmental sampling, this dissertation presents an adaptive sampling algorithm steering a multi-vehicle system to sampling formations that improve flowfield observability while simultaneously estimating the flow for use in feedback control, even in strong flows where vehicle motion is hindered. The resulting closed-loop trajectories provide more informative measurements, improving estimation performance. For formation flight, this dissertation uses lifting-line theory to represent a two-aircraft formation and derives optimal control strategies steering the follower aircraft to a desired position relative to the leader while simultaneously optimizing the observability of the leader's relative position. The control algorithms guide the follower aircraft to a desired final position along trajectories that maintain adequate observability and avoid areas prone to estimator divergence. Toward bio-inspired flow sensing, this dissertation presents an observability-based sensor placement strategy optimizing measures of flowfield observability and derives dynamic output-feedback control algorithms autonomously steering an underwater vehicle to bio-inspired behavior using a multi-modal artificial lateral line. Beyond these applications, the broader impact of this research is a general framework for using observability to assess and optimize experimental design and nonlinear control and estimation performance

ESTCube-1 nanosatelliidi alams usteemide ja tarkvara disain ja karakteriseerimine

Väitekirja elektrooniline versioon ei sisalda publikatsiooneElektrilise päikesepurje tehnoloogia võimaldaks kosmosesondidel navigeerida planeetidevahelises ruumis ilma kütuseta, kasutades vaid päikesetuult ja elektrienergiat. Küll aga on tehnoloogiliselt keerukas päikesepurje purjetraadi väljakerimine, mis eeldab kosmosesondi pöörlemapanekut. 2013. aasta 7. mail maalähedasele orbiidile läkitatud tudengisatelliit ESTCube-1 oli esimene satelliit elektrilise päikesepurje katsetusmooduliga. Satelliit seati edukalt vajaliku pöörlemiskiirusega pöörlema, kuid purje väljakerimine ebaõnnestus mehaanilise tõrke tõttu katsetusmooduli motoriseeritud purjepoolis. ESTCube-1 pöörlemapanekut ja päikesepurje katsetusmooduli juhtimist võimaldasid satelliidi pardaarvuti ja seda ümbritsevad liidesed, mille arendamise ja valideerimise tulemustele keskendub antud väitekiri. Pardaarvuti kogus mõõdiseid satelliidi asendi anduritelt, juhtis magnetmähiseid ning lülitas missioonilasti purjepooli mootorit, purjepooli kõrgepinge toiteplokki ja elektronkiirgureid. Lisaks vahendas pardaarvuti pilte pardakaamerast ning salvestas mõõtmistulemusi satelliidi alamsüsteemidelt et need hiljem maajaamale edastada. Satelliidi kaheaastase eluea jooksul ei täheldatud missioonikriitilisi tõrkeid pardaarvuti ega selle liideste töös. ESTCube-1 missioon aitas edukalt tõsta elektrilise päikesepurje tehnoloogia komponentide valmidusastet tulevasteks missioonideks.Electrical solar wind sail (E-sail) technology would enable propellantless interplanetary navigation of space probes, using just solar wind and electricity. One of the main challenges of the technology is E-sail tether deployment, for which the space probe would be spun to a high angular rate. Launched on May 7th, 2013, the Estonian student satellite ESTCube-1 was the first spacecraft with an E-sail experiment payload. While the satellite was successfully spun to the spin rate necessary for the experiment, the motorised reel technology used on the payload proved immature for tether deployment. ESTCube-1 spin-up and payload control were enabled by the spacecraft on-board computer. This thesis is focused on the results of the development and in-orbit validation of the on-board computer and its interfaces to other related systems on the satellite. The on-board computer collected measurements from spacecraft attitude sensors, controlled its magnetic torquers, mediated camera images and stored telemetry from various subsystems for later transmission. The on-board computer also toggled the tether reel motor, electron emitters and controlled the high voltage supply for the E-sail tether. Throughout the two-year lifetime of the spacecraft, no mission-critical issues were encountered in the operation of the on-board computer or its interfaces. The ESTCube-1 mission successfully improved the technological readiness of E-sail components for future missions.https://www.ester.ee/record=b524281

Available Technologies and Commercial Devices to Harvest Energy by Human Trampling in Smart Flooring Systems: a Review

Technological innovation has increased the global demand for electrical power and energy. Accordingly, energy harvesting has become a research area of primary interest for the scientific community and companies because it constitutes a sustainable way to collect energy from various sources. In particular, kinetic energy generated from human walking or vehicle movements on smart energy floors represents a promising research topic. This paper aims to analyze the state-of-art of smart energy harvesting floors to determine the best solution to feed a lighting system and charging columns. In particular, the fundamentals of the main harvesting mechanisms applicable in this field (i.e., piezoelectric, electromagnetic, triboelectric, and relative hybrids) are discussed. Moreover, an overview of scientific works related to energy harvesting floors is presented, focusing on the architectures of the developed tiles, the transduction mechanism, and the output performances. Finally, a survey of the commercial energy harvesting floors proposed by companies and startups is reported. From the carried-out analysis, we concluded that the piezoelectric transduction mechanism represents the optimal solution for designing smart energy floors, given their compactness, high efficiency, and absence of moving parts

Bio-Inspired Robotics

Modern robotic technologies have enabled robots to operate in a variety of unstructured and dynamically-changing environments, in addition to traditional structured environments. Robots have, thus, become an important element in our everyday lives. One key approach to develop such intelligent and autonomous robots is to draw inspiration from biological systems. Biological structure, mechanisms, and underlying principles have the potential to provide new ideas to support the improvement of conventional robotic designs and control. Such biological principles usually originate from animal or even plant models, for robots, which can sense, think, walk, swim, crawl, jump or even fly. Thus, it is believed that these bio-inspired methods are becoming increasingly important in the face of complex applications. Bio-inspired robotics is leading to the study of innovative structures and computing with sensory–motor coordination and learning to achieve intelligence, flexibility, stability, and adaptation for emergent robotic applications, such as manipulation, learning, and control. This Special Issue invites original papers of innovative ideas and concepts, new discoveries and improvements, and novel applications and business models relevant to the selected topics of ``Bio-Inspired Robotics''. Bio-Inspired Robotics is a broad topic and an ongoing expanding field. This Special Issue collates 30 papers that address some of the important challenges and opportunities in this broad and expanding field