Design and Control of a Dynamic and Autonomous Trackless Vehicle Using Onboard and Environmental Sensors

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the current state of automated guided vehicles (AGVs), sensors available for the vehicles to be equipped with, control systems for the vehicles to run on, and wireless technology to connect the whole system together. With a technological push towards increasing automation and maximizing the possible throughput of systems, automated technology needs to improve for trackless and wireless systems such as vehicles that can be used to move loads in a vast array of applications. The goal of this research is to develop and propose improvements in both vehicle and control system design that allows for improved safety and efficiency. Right now the main issues are maneuverability of vehicles and control systems being adaptive enough to deal with connection issues between systems. While prolonged connection issues will result in a stoppage of operation of any system that relies on wireless communication, intermittent issues can also cause systems to have an emergency stop. I have looked into ways to offload tasks from the central system and allow the vehicles themselves to have more computational privileges such that they can operate in a semi-independent manner. The result is a proposed system that remedies or limits negative effects that currently cause issues with trackless vehicles and control systems working with remote systems that communicate via wireless means

Stiffness Control of Multi-DOF Joint

Abstract-This paper deals with mechanical stiffness control of multi-DOF joint. It fundamentally mimics the skeleto-muscular system of human articulation, in which at least two muscles handle one rotary axis under their antagonistic (counteractive) action. In the first part of the paper one introduces basic formula for controlling the multi-DOF rotary joint that is assumed to be driven by a couple of novel actuators called ANLES (Actuator with Non-Linear Elastic System). It mimics a skeletal muscle in the sense of having a non-linear elasticity. Next the paper describes the structure of the ANLES that is designed and constructed for controlling the wrist joint of an anthropomorphic robot. The experimental results using three DOF joint controlled by four ANLES reveal that the joint angle and the joint stiffness can be independently controlled by the proposed formula