Air vehicle simulator: an application for a cable array robot

The development of autonomous air vehicles can be an expensive research pursuit. To alleviate some of the financial burden of this process, we have constructed a system consisting of four winches each attached to a central pod (the simulated air vehicle) via cables - a cable-array robot. The system is capable of precisely controlling the three dimensional position of the pod allowing effective testing of sensing and control strategies before experimentation on a free-flying vehicle. In this paper, we present a brief overview of the system and provide a practical control strategy for such a system. ©2005 IEEE

Multi-physics phenomena influencing the performance of the car horn

Usually cars are equipped with disk horns. In these devices electromagnetic energy is converted into mechanical energy of two nuclei that vibrate and impact each other \u2013 the impacts excite the disk that radiates sound. This paper aims at understanding the results of acoustic tests carried out on horns with different excitation voltages and different mounting brackets. Since many non-linear phenomena are inherent in the vibrations of the nuclei, a detailed model of the electromechanical system is developed. Results show the dependence of operating frequency on the input voltage and the role played by the various mechanical and electrical parameters on the dynamics of the horn. Particular nonlinear effects, like sub-harmonic excitation, are presented and discussed. A general agreement between experimental results and numerical simulations is found

Development of a digital electronic rebalance loop for a dry tuned-rotor two degree-of-freedom gyroscope

Digital electronic rebalance loops were designed and implemented in brassboard form to capture both X and Y axes of the Kearfott Gyroflex. The loops were width-modulated binary types using a 614.4 kHz keying signal and a 2.4 kHz sample frequency. The loops were designed for a torquing rate of 2 deg/sec (70.6 mA torquing current) and a data resolution of 23.4 milli-arc-sec per data pulse. Design considerations, implementation details, and preliminary experimental results are presented

Space station stabilization and control study Final engineering report

Simulation of stabilization and control for spinning, manned space station to provide artificial gravity station environmen

The walking robot project

A walking robot was designed, analyzed, and tested as an intelligent, mobile, and a terrain adaptive system. The robot's design was an application of existing technologies. The design of the six legs modified and combines well understood mechanisms and was optimized for performance, flexibility, and simplicity. The body design incorporated two tripods for walking stability and ease of turning. The electrical hardware design used modularity and distributed processing to drive the motors. The software design used feedback to coordinate the system and simple keystrokes to give commands. The walking machine can be easily adapted to hostile environments such as high radiation zones and alien terrain. The primary goal of the leg design was to create a leg capable of supporting a robot's body and electrical hardware while walking or performing desired tasks, namely those required for planetary exploration. The leg designers intent was to study the maximum amount of flexibility and maneuverability achievable by the simplest and lightest leg design. The main constraints for the leg design were leg kinematics, ease of assembly, degrees of freedom, number of motors, overall size, and weight

Multiphase induction motor drives - a technology status review

The area of multiphase variable-speed motor drives in general and multiphase induction motor drives in particular has experienced a substantial growth since the beginning of this century. Research has been conducted worldwide and numerous interesting developments have been reported in the literature. An attempt is made to provide a detailed overview of the current state-of-the-art in this area. The elaborated aspects include advantages of multiphase induction machines, modelling of multiphase induction machines, basic vector control and direct torque control schemes and PWM control of multiphase voltage source inverters. The authors also provide a detailed survey of the control strategies for five-phase and asymmetrical six-phase induction motor drives, as well as an overview of the approaches to the design of fault tolerant strategies for post-fault drive operation, and a discussion of multiphase multi-motor drives with single inverter supply. Experimental results, collected from various multiphase induction motor drive laboratory rigs, are also included to facilitate the understanding of the drive operatio