Modeling and Control of Piezoelectric Actuators

Piezoelectric actuators (PEAs) utilize the inverse piezoelectric effect to generate fine displacement with a resolution down to sub-nanometers and as such, they have been widely used in various micro- and nanopositioning applications. However, the modeling and control of PEAs have proven to be challenging tasks. The main difficulties lie in the existence of various nonlinear or difficult-to-model effects in PEAs, such as hysteresis, creep, and distributive vibration dynamics. Such effects can seriously degrade the PEA tracking control performances or even lead to instability. This raises a great need to model and control PEAs for improved performance. This research is aimed at developing novel models for PEAs and on this basis, developing model-based control schemes for the PEA tracking control taking into account the aforementioned nonlinear effects. In the first part of this research, a model of a PEA for the effects of hysteresis, creep, and vibration dynamics was developed. Notably, the widely-used Preisach hysteresis model cannot represent the one-sided hysteresis of PEAs. To overcome this shortcoming, a rate-independent hysteresis model based on a novel hysteresis operator modified from the Preisach hysteresis operator was developed, which was then integrated with the models of creep and vibration dynamics to form a comprehensive model for PEAs. For its validation, experiments were carried out on a commercially-available PEA and the results obtained agreed with those from model simulations. By taking into account the linear dynamics and hysteretic behavior of the PEA as well as the presliding friction between the moveable platform and the end-effector, a model of the piezoelectric-driven stick-slip (PDSS) actuator was also developed in the first part of the research. The effectiveness of the developed model was illustrated by the experiments on the PDSS actuator prototyped in the author's lab. In the second part of the research, control schemes were developed based on the aforementioned PEA models for tracking control of PEAs. Firstly, a novel PID-based sliding mode (PIDSM) controller was developed. The rational behind the use of a sliding mode (SM) control is that the SM control can effectively suppress the effects of matched uncertainties, while the PEA hysteresis, creep, and external load can be represented by a lumped matched uncertainty based on the developed model. To solve the chattering and steady-state problems, associated with the ideal SM control and the SM control with boundary layer (SMCBL), the novel PIDSM control developed in the present study replaces the switching control term in the ideal SM control schemes with a PID regulator. Experiments were carried out on a commercially-available PEA and the results obtained illustrate the effectiveness of the PIDSM controller, and its superiorities over other schemes of PID control, ideal SM control, and the SMCBL in terms of steady state error elimination, chattering suppression, and tracking error suppression. Secondly, a PIDSM observer was also developed based on the model of PEAs to provide the PIDSM controller with state estimates of the PEA. And the PIDSM controller and the PIDSM observer were combined to form an integrated control scheme (PIDSM observer-controller or PIDSMOC) for PEAs. The effectiveness of the PIDSM observer and the PIDSMOC were also validated experimentally. The superiority of the PIDSMOC over the PIDSM controller with σ-β filter control scheme was also analyzed and demonstrated experimentally. The significance of this research lies in the development of novel models for PEAs and PDSS actuators, which can be of great help in the design and control of such actuators. Also, the development of the PIDSM controller, the PIDSM observer, and their integrated form, i.e., PIDSMOC, enables the improved performance of tracking control of PEAs with the presence of various nonlinear or difficult-to-model effects

Role of Nanolaminated Crystal Structure on the Radiation Damage Tolerance of Ti 3

Nanolaminated Ti3SiC2, a representative MAX phase, shows excellent tolerance to radiation damage. In this paper, first-principles calculations were used to investigate the mechanism of intrinsic point defects in order to explain this outstanding property. Formation energies of intrinsic point defects are calculated and compared; and the results establish a low-energy disorder mechanism in Ti3SiC2. In addition, the migration energy barriers of Si vacancy, Si interstitial, and TiSi antisite yield very low values: 0.9, 0.6, and 0.3 eV, respectively. The intercalation of Si atomic plane between Ti3C2 nanotwinning structures dominates the formation and migration of intrinsic native point defects in Ti3SiC2. The present study also highlights a novel method to improve radiation damage tolerance by developing nanoscale-layered structure which can serve as a sink or rapid recovery channel for point defects

Rule-Guided Compositional Representation Learning on Knowledge Graphs

Representation learning on a knowledge graph (KG) is to embed entities and relations of a KG into low-dimensional continuous vector spaces. Early KG embedding methods only pay attention to structured information encoded in triples, which would cause limited performance due to the structure sparseness of KGs. Some recent attempts consider paths information to expand the structure of KGs but lack explainability in the process of obtaining the path representations. In this paper, we propose a novel Rule and Path-based Joint Embedding (RPJE) scheme, which takes full advantage of the explainability and accuracy of logic rules, the generalization of KG embedding as well as the supplementary semantic structure of paths. Specifically, logic rules of different lengths (the number of relations in rule body) in the form of Horn clauses are first mined from the KG and elaborately encoded for representation learning. Then, the rules of length 2 are applied to compose paths accurately while the rules of length 1 are explicitly employed to create semantic associations among relations and constrain relation embeddings. Besides, the confidence level of each rule is also considered in optimization to guarantee the availability of applying the rule to representation learning. Extensive experimental results illustrate that RPJE outperforms other state-of-the-art baselines on KG completion task, which also demonstrate the superiority of utilizing logic rules as well as paths for improving the accuracy and explainability of representation learning.Comment: The full version of a paper accepted to AAAI 202

Fabrication of nanowire network AAO and its application in SERS

In this paper, nanowire network anodized aluminum oxide (AAO) was fabricated by just adding a simple film-eroding process after the production of porous AAO. After depositing 50 nm of Au onto the surface, nanowire network AAO can be used as ultrasensitive and high reproducibility surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate. The average Raman enhancement factor of the nanowire network AAO SERS substrate can reach 5.93 × 10(6), which is about 14% larger than that of commercial Klarite® substrates. Simultaneously, the relative standard deviations in the SERS intensities are limited to approximately 7%. All of the results indicate that our large-area low-cost high-performance nanowire structure AAO SERS substrates have a great advantage in chemical/biological sensing applications

Examining the generalizability of research findings from archival data

This initiative examined systematically the extent to which a large set of archival research findings generalizes across contexts. We repeated the key analyses for 29 original strategic management effects in the same context (direct reproduction) as well as in 52 novel time periods and geographies; 45% of the reproductions returned results matching the original reports together with 55% of tests in different spans of years and 40% of tests in novel geographies. Some original findings were associated with multiple new tests. Reproducibility was the best predictor of generalizability—for the findings that proved directly reproducible, 84% emerged in other available time periods and 57% emerged in other geographies. Overall, only limited empirical evidence emerged for context sensitivity. In a forecasting survey, independent scientists were able to anticipate which effects would find support in tests in new samples

Intrinsic graphene plasmon supported by graphene nanomesh

This image originally appeared in the 2015 Research student photography and image competition held to celebrate National Science Week (Aug 15-23). Blurb: Graphene, a single sheet of carbon atoms arranged in hexagonal structure, has emerged as an intriguing material for optoelectronics due to its remarkable electrical and optical properties since it was successfully exfoliated. Two rich and vibrant fields - graphene physics and plasmonics - strongly overlap. Hence, graphene plasmon will be the next research hotspot and will revolutionize the development of electronics and optoelectronics

A Universal Model for Grid-Connected Converters Reflecting Power-Internal Voltage Characteristics

With the still increasing penetration of renewable energy, the power system is being more power electronics based and digital. The diversity of grid-connected power converters with various control strategies complicates the analysis of system dynamics, when various and detailed converter models are adopted. This paper thus proposes a universal model of grid-connected converters that can reflect the essential power-internal voltage characteristics. With that, the diversity of converter outer controllers may be discarded, as their dynamics can be represented by the deviation of active and reactive power. In the proposed model, the transfer functions from the converter output power to the internal voltage and to the Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) output frequency are obtained, enabling the exploration of the stability of the internal voltage and the PLL performance. An example system is adopted to demonstrate the proposed model and simulated in PSCAD/EMTDC. The results show that the model is accurate to reflect the impact of controller parameters on the power-internal voltage stability of the entire system.Accepted versio