Analysis and Control of Nonlinear Attitude Motion of Gravity-Gradient Stabilized Spacecraft via Lyapunov-Floquet Transformation and Normal Forms

This chapter demonstrates analysis and control of the attitude motion of a gravity-gradient stabilized spacecraft in eccentric orbit. The attitude motion is modeled by nonlinear planar pitch dynamics with periodic coefficients and additionally subjected to external periodic excitation. Consequently, using system state augmentation, Lyapunov-Floquet (L-F) transformation, and normal form simplification, we convert the unwieldy attitude dynamics into relatively more amenable schemes for motion analysis and control law development. We analyze the dynamical system’s periodicity, stability, resonance, and chaos via numerous nonlinear dynamic theory techniques facilitated by intuitive system state augmentation and Lyapunov-Floquet transformation. Versal deformation of the normal forms is constructed to investigate the bifurcation behavior of the dynamical system. Outcome from the analysis indicates that the motion is quasi-periodic, chaotic, librational, and undergoing a Hopf bifurcation in the small neighborhood of the critical point-engendering locally stable limit cycles. Consequently, we demonstrate the implementation of linear and nonlinear control laws (i.e., bifurcation and sliding mode control laws) on the relatively acquiescent transformed attitude dynamics. By employing a two-pronged approach, the quasiperiodic planar motion is independently shown to be stabilizable via the nonlinear control approaches

Dynamics and Control of a Stop Rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

The objective of this work was to develop a variety of control systems for a Stop-Rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in hover flight. The Stop-Rotor UAV has capabilities of Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL) like a helicopter and can convert from a helicopter mode to an airplane mode in mid-flight. Thus, this UAV can hover as a helicopter and achieve high mission range of an airplane. The stop-rotor concept implies that in mid-flight the thrust generating helicopter rotor stops and rotates the blades into airplane wings. The thrust in airplane mode is then provided by a pusher propeller. The aircraft configuration presents unique challenges in flight dynamics, modeling and control. In this paper a mathematical model is derived, and then the model is simulated with non-zero initial conditions. Various control systems are then implemented. The control techniques utilized are a linear control, optimal linear control and a nonlinear control with the objective of stabilizing the UAV in hover flight. Settling time and control effort are then compared across the different control systems.DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/ijece.v2i5.158

Characterization of Capacitive Comb-finger MEMS Accelerometers

This paper discusses various methods for testing the performance of MEMS capacitive comb-finger accelerometers manufactured by Sandia National Laboratories. The use of Capacitive MEMS devices requires complex circuits for measurement of capacitance. Sandia MEMS accelerometer’s capacitance changes in a very small femto-farad (fF) range. The performance of accelerometer is tested using Analog Devices AD7747 sigma-delta capacitance to digital converter. The response of a MEMS capacitive accelerometer to various tests is useful for testing and characterization and investigate it’s suitability for various application

Characterization of Capacitive Comb-finger MEMS Accelerometers

This paper discusses various methods for testing the performance of MEMS capacitive comb-finger accelerometers manufactured by Sandia National Laboratories. The use of Capacitive MEMS devices requires complex circuits for measurement of capacitance. Sandia MEMS accelerometer\u27s capacitance changes in a very small femto-farad (fF) range. The performance of accelerometer is tested using Analog Devices AD7747 sigma-delta capacitance to digital converter. The response of a MEMS capacitive accelerometer to various tests is useful for testing and characterization and investigate it\u27s suitability for various application

Guided Navigation Control of an Unmanned Ground Vehicle using Global Positioning Systems and Inertial Navigation Systems

This paper demonstrates the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) and Inertial Navigation System (INS) in order to develop an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) devised to perform a wide variety of outdoor tasks. There are many applications for autonomous UGVs such as tactical and surveillance applications, exploration of areas inaccessible by humans. Capable to navigate to a specific location, and control their motion depending on their surroundings without human intervention. The inertial navigation system makes use of Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) to measure the change to the UGV's positional parameters, orientation and speed which are continuously monitored and updated. With the advent of GPS, and the positional data from the inertial system the positional information is computed leading to a more accurate control of the UGV; which otherwise suffers from integration drift that occurs with the implementation of inertial systems alone. Autonomous control of the UGV is implemented by coupling GPS sensor and Mission Planner, a tool to map waypoints from Google Maps. Furthermore, system stability and ideal PID (Proportional, Integral and Derivative) values are determined using bicycle modeling analysis to achieve better estimates and control of the UGV.DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/ijece.v4i3.518

Lyapunov Stability of Quasiperiodic Systems

We present some observations on the stability and reducibility of quasiperiodic systems. In a quasiperiodic system, the periodicity of parametric excitation is incommensurate with the periodicity of certain terms multiplying the state vector. We present a Lyapunov-type approach and the Lyapunov-Floquet (L-F) transformation to derive the stability conditions. This approach can be utilized to investigate the robustness, stability margin, and design controller for the system

Reduced-Order Modeling of Parametrically Excited Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS)

Reduced-order modeling is a systematic way of constructing models with smaller number of states that can capture the “essential dynamics” of the large-scale systems, accurately. In this paper, reduced-order modeling and control techniques for parametrically excited MEMS are presented. The techniques proposed here use the Lyapunov-Floquet (L-F) transformation that makes the linear part of transformed equations time invariant. In this work, three model reduction techniques for MEMS are suggested. First method is simply an application of the well-known Guyan-like reduction method to nonlinear systems. The second technique is based on singular perturbation, where the transformed system dynamics is partitioned as fast and slow dynamics and the system of differential equations is converted into a differential algebraic (DAE) system. In the third technique, the concept of invariant manifold for time-periodic systems is used. The “time periodic invariant manifold” based technique yields “reducibility conditions” . This is an important result because it helps us to understand the various types of resonances present in the system. These resonances indicate a tight coupling between the system states, and in order to retain the dynamic characteristics, one has to preserve all these “resonant” states in the reduced-order model. Thus, if the “reducibility conditions” are satisfied, only then a nonlinear order reduction based on invariant manifold approach is possible. It is found that the invariant manifold approach yields the most accurate results followed by the nonlinear projection and linear technique. These methodologies are general, free from small parameter assumptions, and can be applied to a variety of MEM systems like resonators, sensors and filters. The reduced-order models can be used for parametric study, sensitivity analysis and/or controller design. The controller design is based on the reduced-order system. Thus, first the reduced-order model of the large-scale system is constructed that captures the essential dynamics. If a controller is designed to stabilize this reduced-order system, then it guarantees that the large-scale system is controlled. The theoretical framework to design linear and nonlinear controllers is also presented

Analysis and simulation of Wiseman hypocycloid engine

This research studies an alternative to the slider-crank mechanism for internal combustion engines, which was proposed by the Wiseman Technologies Inc. Their design involved replacing the crankshaft with a hypocycloid gear assembly. The unique hypocycloid gear arrangement allowed the piston and connecting rod to move in a straight line creating a perfect sinusoidal motion, without any side loads. In this work, the Wiseman hypocycloid engine was modeled in a commercial engine simulation software and compared to slider-crank engine of the same size. The engine’s performance was studied, while operating on diesel, ethanol, and gasoline fuel. Furthermore, a scaling analysis on the Wiseman engine prototypes was carried out to understand how the performance of the engine is affected by increasing the output power and cylinder displacement. It was found that the existing 30cc Wiseman engine produced about 7% less power at peak speeds than the slider-crank engine of the same size. These results were concurrent with the dynamometer tests performed in the past. It also produced lower torque and was about 6% less fuel efficient than the slider-crank engine. The four-stroke diesel variant of the same Wiseman engine performed better than the two-stroke gasoline version. The Wiseman engine with a contra piston (that allowed to vary the compression ratio) showed poor fuel efficiency but produced higher torque when operating on E85 fuel. It also produced about 1.4% more power than while running on gasoline. While analyzing effects of the engine size on the Wiseman hypocycloid engine prototypes, it was found that the engines performed better in terms of power, torque, fuel efficiency, and cylinder brake mean effective pressure as the displacement increased. The 30 horsepower (HP) conceptual Wiseman prototype, while operating on E85, produced the most optimum results in all aspects, and the diesel test for the same engine proved to be the most fuel efficient

Failure Analysis and Reliability Study of NAND Flash-Based Solid State Drives

The research focuses on conducting failure analysis and reliability study to understand and analyze the root cause of Quality, Endurance component Reliability Demonstration Test (RDT) failures and determine SSD performance capability. It addresses essential challenges in developing techniques that utilize solid-state memory technologies (with emphasis on NAND flash memory) from device, circuit, architecture, and system perspectives. These challenges include not only the performance degradation arising from the physical nature of NAND flash memory, e.g., the inability to modify data in-place read/write performance asymmetry, and slow and constrained erase functionality, but also the reliability drawbacks that limits Solid State Drives (SSDs) performance.  In order to understand the nature of failures, a Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) was performed that identified the potential causes of component failures. In the course of this research, significant data gathering and analysis effort was carried out that led to a systematic evaluation of the components under consideration.