Development of a vehicle robotic driver with intelligent control system modelling for automated standard driving-cycle tests

New road vehicles are required to undergo several specific tests to meet the requirement set by governing bodies in various markets. These tests are often carried out over specific driving-cycles. To carry out lab-based driving-cycle tests, a typical vehicle manufacturer will employ a trained driver to follow driving profiles on a chassis dynamometer. This project involves development of a robotic driver controller for the automation of dynamometer-based vehicle testing according to industry standard driving cycle tests and produce repeatable results by replacing the traditional method of employing a human driver with a robot driver. The throttle and brake pedals control systems modelling and design for automatic transmission vehicle are implemented, with Fuzzy model reference adaptive control (Fuzzy MRAC) as the main controller. The vehicle model was developed using black-box modelling approach where simulations are performed based on real-time data and processed using Matlab System Identification tool. The Fuzzy MRAC was then designed within the simulations to attain the driving performance. The vehicle model response was sent as feedback to the robotic DC linear actuator motor which was modelled based on DC linear actuator motor design specification. The results obtained from simulation and modelling experiment were discussed and compared. The performed work concludes that system identification modelling with best fit accuracy of 79.93% can be applied in Fuzzy MRAC to ensure smooth and accurate vehicle driving pattern behavior even when the leading vehicle exhibits highly dynamic speed behavior during driving-cycle test. The performance of the vehicle model has shown an average 0.07 MSE for the throttle system and 0.008 MSE for the brake system of the vehicle model

Space shuttle flying qualities and criteria assessment

Work accomplished under a series of study tasks for the Flying Qualities and Flight Control Systems Design Criteria Experiment (OFQ) of the Shuttle Orbiter Experiments Program (OEX) is summarized. The tasks involved review of applicability of existing flying quality and flight control system specification and criteria for the Shuttle; identification of potentially crucial flying quality deficiencies; dynamic modeling of the Shuttle Orbiter pilot/vehicle system in the terminal flight phases; devising a nonintrusive experimental program for extraction and identification of vehicle dynamics, pilot control strategy, and approach and landing performance metrics, and preparation of an OEX approach to produce a data archive and optimize use of the data to develop flying qualities for future space shuttle craft in general. Analytic modeling of the Orbiter's unconventional closed-loop dynamics in landing, modeling pilot control strategies, verification of vehicle dynamics and pilot control strategy from flight data, review of various existent or proposed aircraft flying quality parameters and criteria in comparison with the unique dynamic characteristics and control aspects of the Shuttle in landing; and finally a summary of conclusions and recommendations for developing flying quality criteria and design guides for future Shuttle craft

On the Selection of Calculable Residual Generators for UAV Fault Diagnosis

Structural Analysis is an established method for Fault Detection and Identification (FDI) in large-scale systems, enabling the discovery of Analytical Redundancy Relations (ARRs) which serve as residual generators. However, most techniques used to enumerate ARRs do not specify the matching used to calculate each of those ARRs. This can result in non-implementable or unusable residual generators, in the presence of non-invertibilities in the equations involved or in lack of computational tools. In this paper, we propose a methodology which combines a priori and a posteriori information in order to reduce the time required to find implementable, usable residual generators of minimum cost. The method is applied to a fixed-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) model

Autonomous Mobile Vehicle based on RFID Technology using an ARM7 Microcontroller

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system is looked upon as one of the top ten important technologies in the 20th century. Industrial automation application is one of the key issues in developing RFID. Therefore, this paper designs and implements a RFID-based autonomous mobile vehicle for more extensively application of RFID systems. The microcontroller LPC2148 is used to control the autonomous mobile vehicle and to communicate with RFID reader. By storing the moving control commands such as turn right, turn left, speed up and speed down etc. into the RFID tags beforehand and sticking the tags on the tracks, the autonomous mobile vehicle can then read the moving control commands from the tags and accomplish the proper actions. Due to the convenience and non-contact characteristic of RFID systems, the proposed mobile vehicle has great potential to be used for industrial automation, goods transportation, data transmission, and unmanned medical nursing etc. in the future. Experimental results demonstrate the validity of the proposed mobile vehicle

Characterizing the Dynamic Response of a Chassis Frame in a Heavy-Duty Dump Vehicle based on an Improved Stochastic System Identification

This paper presents an online method for the assessment of the dynamic performance of the chassis frame in a heavy-duty dump truck based on a novel stochastic subspace identification (SSI) method. It introduces the use of an average correlation signal as the input data to conventional SSI methods in order to reduce the noisy and nonstationary contents in the vibration signals from the frame, allowing accurate modal properties to be attained for realistically assessing the dynamic behaviour of the frame when the vehicle travels on both bumped and unpaved roads under different operating conditions. The modal results show that the modal properties obtained online are significantly different from the offline ones in that the identifiable modes are less because of the integration of different vehicle systems onto the frame. Moreover, the modal shapes between 7Hz and 40Hz clearly indicate the weak section of the structure where earlier fatigues and unsafe operations may occur due to the high relative changes in the modal shapes. In addition, the loaded operations show more modes which cause high deformation on the weak section. These results have verified the performance of the proposed SSI method and provide reliable references for optimizing the construction of the frame

Simulation verification techniques study. Subsystem simulation validation techniques

Techniques for validation of software modules which simulate spacecraft onboard systems are discussed. An overview of the simulation software hierarchy for a shuttle mission simulator is provided. A set of guidelines for the identification of subsystem/module performance parameters and critical performance parameters are presented. Various sources of reference data to serve as standards of performance for simulation validation are identified. Environment, crew station, vehicle configuration, and vehicle dynamics simulation software are briefly discussed from the point of view of their interfaces with subsystem simulation modules. A detailed presentation of results in the area of vehicle subsystems simulation modules is included. A list of references, conclusions and recommendations are also given