Bridges Structural Health Monitoring and Deterioration Detection Synthesis of Knowledge and Technology

INE/AUTC 10.0

A multisensing setup for the intelligent tire monitoring

The present paper offers the chance to experimentally measure, for the first time, the internal tire strain by optical fiber sensors during the tire rolling in real operating conditions. The phenomena that take place during the tire rolling are in fact far from being completely understood. Despite several models available in the technical literature, there is not a correspondently large set of experimental observations. The paper includes the detailed description of the new multi-sensing technology for an ongoing vehicle measurement, which the research group has developed in the context of the project OPTYRE. The experimental apparatus is mainly based on the use of optical fibers with embedded Fiber Bragg Gratings sensors for the acquisition of the circumferential tire strain. Other sensors are also installed on the tire, such as a phonic wheel, a uniaxial accelerometer, and a dynamic temperature sensor. The acquired information is used as input variables in dedicated algorithms that allow the identification of key parameters, such as the dynamic contact patch, instantaneous dissipation and instantaneous grip. The OPTYRE project brings a contribution into the field of experimental grip monitoring of wheeled vehicles, with implications both on passive and active safety characteristics of cars and motorbikes

Development of an Emergency Radio Beacon for Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Emergency locator transmitters (ELTs) used to locate manned aircrafts are not well suited to find and recover small crashed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). ELTs utilize an international satellite system for search and rescue (Cospas-Sarsat System), which should leverage its expensive resources to save lives as a priority. Besides, ELTs are too big and heavy to be used within small UAVs. Some of the existing solutions for this problem are based on receivers that detect signal strength, which may be a long and tedious process not suitable for user needs. Others do not have enough range or require radio license and expensive amateur radio receivers. This paper presents an emergency radio beacon specifically designed to locate small UAVs. It is triggered automatically in the event of a crash and allows finding and recovering a crashed UAV in a fast and simple way. It meets not only the required specifications of user-friendliness, size and weight of this kind of application, but also it is a high precision and low cost device. Besides, it has enough range and endurance. The experiments carried out show the operation of the proposed system

Underwater Robot

Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) are remote controlled drones operated by a non-local user. The ROV we plan to build is connected by a tethering wire to a floating buoy that contains an antenna which will send signals between the base station and the ROV. The ROV is equipped with a video camera, ballast system, propulsion system, lights, and a depth sensor. The ROV will transmit a live video feed to the user, while receiving input signals to control its movement from the base station

Real-time control architecture for a multi UAV test bed

The purpose of this thesis is to develop a control architecture running at real-time for a multi unmanned aerial vehicle test bed formed by three AscTec Hummingbird mini quadrotors. The reliable and reconfigurable architecture presented here has a FPGA-based embedded system as main controller. Under the implemented control system, different practical applications have been performed in the MARHES Lab at the University of New Mexico as part of its research in cooperative control of mobile aerial agents. This thesis also covers the quadrotor modeling, the design of a position controller, the real-time architecture implementation and the experimental flight tests. A hybrid approach combining first-principles with system identification techniques is used for modeling the quadrotor due to the lack of information around the structure of the onboard controller designed by AscTec. The complete quadrotor model structure is formed by a black-box subsystem and a point-mass submodel. Experimental data have been gathered for system identification and black-box submodel validation purposes; while the point-mass submodel is found applying rigid-body dynamics. Using the dynamical model, a position control block based in lead-lag and PI compensators is developed and simulated. Improvements in trajectory tracking performance are achieved estimating the linear velocity of the aerial robot and incorporating velocity lead-lag compensators to the control approach. The velocity of the aerial robot is computed by numerical differentiation of position data. Simulation results to a variety of input signals of the control block in cascade with the complete dynamic model of the quadrotor are included. The control block together with the velocity estimation is fully programmed in the embedded controller. A graphical user interface, GUI, as part of the architecture is designed to display real-time data of position and orientation streamed from the motion tracking system as well as to contain useful user controllers. This GUI facilitates that a single operator conducts and oversees all aspects of the different applications where one or multiple quadrotors are used. Experimental tests have helped to tune the control parameters determined by simulation. The performance of the whole architecture has been validated through a variety of practical applications. Autonomous take off, hovering and landing, target surveillance, trajectory tracking and suspended payload transportation are just some of the applications carried out employing the real-time control architecture proposed in this thesis

E-transportation: the role of embedded systems in electric energy transfer from grid to vehicle

Electric vehicles (EVs) are a promising solution to reduce the transportation dependency on oil, as well as the environmental concerns. Realization of E-transportation relies on providing electrical energy to the EVs in an effective way. Energy storage system (ESS) technologies, including batteries and ultra-capacitors, have been significantly improved in terms of stored energy and power. Beside technology advancements, a battery management system is necessary to enhance safety, reliability and efficiency of the battery. Moreover, charging infrastructure is crucial to transfer electrical energy from the grid to the EV in an effective and reliable way. Every aspect of E-transportation is permeated by the presence of an intelligent hardware platform, which is embedded in the vehicle components, provided with the proper interfaces to address the communication, control and sensing needs. This embedded system controls the power electronics devices, negotiates with the partners in multi-agent scenarios, and performs fundamental tasks such as power flow control and battery management. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the open challenges in E-transportation and to show the fundamental role played by embedded systems. The conclusion is that transportation electrification cannot fully be realized without the inclusion of the recent advancements in embedded systems