DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING OF SOIL IMPURITIES REMOVING APPARATUS FOR POTATO

Aiming at the problem that contain more soil impurities of potato post-harvest, which affects subsequent deep processing, an apparatus for removing soil impurities from potato was developed. The whole structure is mainly composed of frame, feeding port, flexible rubber finger conveying mechanism, slender filament rotary brushing mechanism, discharging port and the like. The research and analysis determined that the main parameters influencing the soil impurities removal performance were the movement speed of conveying mechanism, the movement speed of brushing mechanism and the clearance between conveying mechanism and brushing mechanism (hereinafter referred to as the mechanism clearance). Taking the main influencing parameters as test factors, and the soil impurities removal rate and potato damage rate as indexes, the orthogonal test with three factors and three levels was carried out. The optimal parameter combination was obtained as follows: the movement speed of conveying mechanism was 0.35m/s, the movement speed of brushing mechanism was 0.40m/s, and the mechanism clearance was 55mm. At this time, the average soil impurities removal rate was 87.18%, and the potato average damage rate was 1.95%, which met the requirements of potato cleaning operation.

Scheduling of Single-Arm Cluster Tools with Residency Time Constraints and Chamber Cleaning Operations

To ensure wafer quality, engineers have to impose wafer residency time constraints and chamber cleaning operations on cluster tools; this has been widely used in semiconductor manufacturing. Wafer residency time constraints and chamber cleaning operations make the scheduling problem of cluster tools more challenging. This work aims to solve such a scheduling problem for single-arm cluster tools and presents a novel method based on the use of virtual wafers. Under a one-cyclic schedule obtained for single-arm cluster tools without chamber cleaning requirements, virtual wafers are loaded into the tool such that when a process module (PM) processes virtual wafers, a chamber cleaning operation is performed in practice. The key to solve this scheduling problem is to find a wafer loading sequence with the highest performance in terms of cycle time. With this idea, this work constructs a genetic algorithm to search for such a solution. Since the obtained solution is a periodical wafer loading sequence based on a one-wafer cyclic schedule, it can be easily implemented. Therefore, this work has high practical value to numerous semiconductor manufacturers. Experiments were performed to show the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed method.

Spider Robot for Façade Cleaning

Most skyscrapers require their glass windows to be cleaned not only on the inside but on the outside as well since dust, rains, birds, etc. can cause stains on them. This cleaning process is often carried out by people who dangle from the top of the building using a rope and carry liquid soap and other cleaning equipment required to manually clean all the windows. Not only is this operation extremely time consuming, but it is also highly dangerous. The proposed work aims at automating this cleaning operation using a spider-like robot. The body of the robot is made of two octagonal plates with six legs at six vertices, each having a degree of freedom of three and a suction cup at its end. The remaining two vertices can have cleaning arms and the bottom of the robot consists of a rotating cleaner. Cleaning resources like water and soap are placed in-between the two plates. The robot climbs the wall due to the suction provided by the hydraulic force of steam at high pressure which is controlled and programmed using the Robotic Operating System. Six legs of the robot which comprise of eighteen double shaft NEMA-17 motors are controlled using Arduino Mega and are synchronized using ROS. The tripod gait mechanism is used to move forward and pressurized steam is used to provide the suction required to hold on to the wall. This robot can be extended to perform other applications like painting a wall, or can be used in an industry to detect any gas leak or perform any assembly and transport operations

Automatic Table Cleaning Robot

In cities mostly husband and wife are working to leads their day to day life. Generally they are having irregular and long working times. Due to long working time they may not able to do their house works properly. So in this paper, to reduce part of the work of couples at home, an autonomous robot is proposed to clean the table automatically. Nowadays robots are involved in most of the activities in which human cannot be involved and also involved in activities which human can perform. An autonomous device which performs cleaning operation based on the commands received from the controller. It can do sucking and mopping tasks and obstacle detection duties on the table. Sensors are used to avoid the robot dropping down from the table. Sensors and motors are connected to the input/output ports of the controller. Robot roams around the table, if any obstacles available on the table it sucks and spray water to clean the surface. Wiper based wheels are attached with the robot to remove dust on the surface.

Restaurarea unei piese de podoaba capului din patrimoniul Muzeului Etnografic al Transilvaniei

The workpiece approached in this paper is part of the category of port textiles (head adornment), with the purpose of emphasizing the social and economic status, but it also has a decorative role. The bonnet comes from the Odorheiul Secuiesc area and can be dated between 1880-1910. When the bonnet first entered the restoration laboratory it was investigated and the following degradations were found: functional wear, dust and dirt deposits, aging and brittleness of the fabric thread, dehydration and stiffening of the embroidery thread, stains of unknown origin, not very visible, improper interventions. The restoration work started with the dry mechanical cleaning of the workpiece, which was performed using the Minivacuum cleaner. Before the wet cleaning operation, the ribbons, bottoms and all the decorative elements of the piece, paper flowers, were disassembled, each component being cleaned and consolidated independently. The drying was controlled, the silk ribbons were dried on a glass support, and for the rest of the workpiece was made a drying support, which imitates the shape of the head. Together with the museologist, it was decided to coat the entire piece with transparent material (creplină) for the exterior, and a cotton cloth was used for the interior.

Energy Harvesting from Rotating Motion of In-Pipe Robot Cleaning Device

In-pipe robot (IPR) needs a continuous and constant power supply for its operation. This research is a continuation from the previous IPR: D200 for cleaning operation. The objective of this research is to study the possibility of harvesting electrical energy from IPR and how much electrical output can be generated from the proposed solution. The concept is to re-use kinetic energy from high speed rotation of the IPR cleaning device to be converted into electrical energy which can be used to recharge the main battery. Two types of circuits have been developed namely unregulated charging circuit and regulated charging circuit. Both developed circuits are simulated using Livewire software. The developed circuits are then validated using experiment to measure the output voltage. Simulation results show that the unregulated charging circuit can produce output voltage of 10.90V while regulated charging circuit produces an output voltage of 5.47V. Experiments have confirmed that unregulated charging is able to produce higher voltage of 6.93V as compared to regulated charging circuit. The experimental results are lower than simulation results due to power loss during power transmission of the actual circuits. In the meantime, the unregulated charging circuit produced inconsistent output compared to the regulated charging circuit. Therefore, the regulated charging circuit will be considered for the IPR: D200 applications as well as other similar applications.

Productivity Enhancement by Implementing Automatic Burr Cleaning Machine in Lathes

In the era of modernization and complete automation, industries employ manual cleaning operation which is highly time-consuming and man power requirements are high. To overcome this situation an automatic cleaning machine which can be employed to overcome the above stated obstacles by means of a completely automated cleaning system universally for different categories of machines based on the duties and classes of performance respectively.The main objective of this project is to develop a universal cleaning system which is used to completely clean the wastes which falls in between the machinery and at its collection spots such as hoppers, beds, plates, floors etc., where it cleans in all places where human hands cannot reach and cleaning operation considered not possible. The major advantage of machines are that they much more precise in doing the work than considered to a human or manual labor