1,123 research outputs found

    HydroDog: A Quadruped Robot Actuated by Soft Fluidic Muscles

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    This report presents the very first effort aimed to develop a legged terrestrial robot actuated by Hydro Muscles, which are elastic tubes actuated by fluid, constrained by fabric that extend and contract emulating life-like performance of biological muscles. The team designed and manufactured a 30-pound quadruped “dog” using versatile aluminum extrusions and minimally machined components. The team tested and observed a variety of bounding gaits that resulted from different skeletal/muscular geometries and actuation times. These tests yielded varying jump heights and robot forward velocities. Future projects should extensively research optimal leg kinematics to maximize the mechanical power the muscles apply on the robot

    HydroDog: A Quadruped Robot Actuated by Soft Fluidic Muscles

    Get PDF
    This report presents the very first effort aimed to develop a legged terrestrial robot actuated by Hydro Muscles, which are elastic tubes actuated by fluid, constrained by fabric that extend and contract emulating life-like performance of biological muscles. The team designed and manufactured a 30-pound quadruped “dog” using versatile aluminum extrusions and minimally machined components. The team tested and observed a variety of bounding gaits that resulted from different skeletal/muscular geometries and actuation times. These tests yielded varying jump heights and robot forward velocities. Future projects should extensively research optimal leg kinematics to maximize the mechanical power the muscles apply on the robot

    HydroDog: A Quadruped Robot Actuated by Soft, Fluidic Muscles

    Get PDF
    This report presents the very first effort aimed to develop a legged terrestrial robot actuated by Hydro Muscles, which are elastic tubes actuated by fluid, constrained by fabric that extend and contract emulating life-like performance of biological muscles. The team designed and manufactured a 30-pound quadruped “dog” using versatile aluminum extrusions and minimally machined components. The team tested and observed a variety of bounding gaits that resulted from different skeletal/muscular geometries and actuation times. These tests yielded varying jump heights and robot forward velocities. Future projects should extensively research optimal leg kinematics to maximize the mechanical power the muscles apply on the robot

    Optimization and Energy Maximizing Control Systems for Wave Energy Converters

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    In recent years, we have been witnessing great interest and activity in the field of wave energy converters’ (WECs) development, striving for competitiveness and economic viability via increasing power conversion while decreasing costs and ensuring survivability [...

    serial and parallel robotics: energy saving systems and rehabilitation devices

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    This thesis focuses on the design and discussion of robotic devices and their applications. Robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation, and application of robots as well as computer systems for their control, sensory feedback, and information processing [1]. Nowadays, robotics has been an unprecedented increase in applications of industry, military, health, domestic service, exploration, commerce, etc. Different applications require robots with different structures and different functions. Robotics normally includes serial and parallel structures. To have contribution to two kinds of structures, this thesis consisting of two sections is devoted to the design and development of serial and parallel robotic structures, focused on applications in the two different fields: industry and health

    Provision of Flexibility Services by Industrial Energy Systems

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    Optimal Control of Wave Energy Converters

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    In this dissertation, we address the optimal control of the Wave Energy Converters. The Wave Energy Converters introduced in this study can be categorized as the single body heaving device, the single body pitching device, the single body three degrees of freedoms device, and the Wave Energy Converters array. Different types of Wave Energy Converters are modeled mathematically, and different optimal controls are developed for them. The objective of the optimal controllers is to maximize the energy extraction with and without the motion and control constraints. The development of the unconstrained control is first introduced which includes the implementation of the Singular Arc control and the Simple Model Control. The constrained optimal control is then introduced which contains the Shape-based approach, Pseudospectral control, the Linear Quadratic Gaussian optimal control, and the Collective Control. The wave estimation is also discussed since it is required by the controllers. Several estimators are implemented, such as the Kalman Filter, the Extended Kalman Filter, and the Kalman-Consensus Filter. They can be applied for estimating the system states and the wave excitation force/wave excitation force field. Last, the controllers are validated with the Discrete Displacement Hydraulic system which is the Power Take-off unit of the Wave Energy Converter. The simulation results show that the proposed optimal controllers can maximize the energy absorption when the wave estimation is accurate. The performance of the unconstrained controllers is close to the theoretical maximum (Complex Conjugate Control). Furthermore, the energy extraction is optimized and the constraints are satisfied by applying the constrained controllers. However, when the proposed controllers are further validated with the hydraulic system, they extract less energy than a simple Proportional-derivative control. This indicates the dynamics of the Power take-off unit needs to be considered in designing the control to obtain the robustness

    Optimization and Energy Maximizing Control Systems for Wave Energy Converters

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    The book, “Optimization and Energy Maximizing Control Systems for Wave Energy Converters”, presents eleven contributions on the latest scientific advancements of 2020-2021 in wave energy technology optimization and control, including holistic techno-economic optimization, inclusion of nonlinear effects, and real-time implementations of estimation and control algorithms

    CFD-based Design Optimization of Ducted Hydrokinetic Turbines

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    Hydrokinetic turbines extract kinetic energy from moving water to generate renewable electricity, thus contributing to sustainable energy production and reducing reliance on fossil fuels. It has been hypothesized that a duct can accelerate and condition the fluid flow passing the turbine blades, improving the overall energy extraction efficiency. However, no substantial evidence has been provided so far for hydrokinetic turbines. To investigate this problem, we perform a CFD-based optimization study with a blade-resolved Reynolds-averaged Navier--Stokes (RANS) solver to explore the design of a ducted hydrokinetic turbine that maximizes the efficiency of energy extraction. To handle the high-dimensional design space of the blade and duct geometry, we use a gradient-based optimization approach where the gradients are computed using the adjoint method. The final design is re-evaluated through higher-fidelity unsteady RANS (URANS) simulations. Our optimized ducted turbine achieves an efficiency of about 54% over a range of operating conditions, higher than the typical 46% efficiency of unducted turbines such as the well-known Bahaj model
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