An Elitist Ants-Search Based Method for Optimum Synthesis of Rigid-Linkage Mechanisms

Mechanical linkages are widely used in the industry and the synthesis of such mechanisms may require optimization depending on the number of precision positions required. Many intelligent optimization techniques (Genetic, Tabu, Simulated Annealing, etc) have been proposed in the literature, one of them being the Ant-Search which was first proposed by the authors in 2007. In this paper, a Modified Ant-Search (MAS) technique is proposed to optimize the synthesis of a four-bar mechanism with a path generation task. Two major improvements are applied over the previous algorithm: ants pheromone update and exploration/exploitation techniques are both modified. Unlike the previous work where a constant quantity of pheromones was added during each iteration, in this paper, the pheromone deposit rate is proportional to the error of the objective function. Such a modification in the pheromone update rule is expected to differentiate between the behaviors of different ants and better govern their motion in the subsequent iterations. Moreover, the second major improvement targets the exploration/exploitation techniques followed by the ants. Unlike the previous work where exploration dominates during the early iteration stages and exploitation during the late ones, this work implements a more dynamic strategy where ants enter and leave the exploration/exploitation processes as governed by parameters related to the objective function error and pheromone deposit levels. Such modifications applied to the Ant-Search (AS) technique are expected to ensure a better chance of converging to a global minimum. The MAS technique is applied for a few path generation tasks with prescribed timing along with a set of linear constraints. Results are compared with previous work in the literature where the newly proposed technique showed appreciable improvement as evaluated by the structural error objective function. Future work possibilities are also introduced.

Finite-Time-Disturbance-Observer-Based Tracking Control of DC Motors With Velocity Constraint

The integration design of high tracking performance and velocity constraint for dc motors is present in this paper. When designing advanced controllers for dc motors, it would be best to take the constraint of output velocity into consideration due to performance and/or physical limitations. A barrier Lyapunov function, which grows to infinity when its arguments approach some pre-set limits, is utilized to prevent constraint violation. By ensuring the stabilization of the barrier Lyapunov function, and imposing a hard-bound on associated error signals through the steps of the backstepping design procedure, the system output velocity constraint is guaranteed to be not transgressed. However, potential disturbances, including unmodelled dynamic effects, parametric uncertainties and external disturbances may destroy above theoretical results and degrade the tracking performance. In this paper, a finite time disturbance observer is employed and integrated with the barrier Lyapunov function based backstepping design to achieve the asymptotic tracking without the violation of the velocity constraint meanwhile overcoming the disturbances. Extensive simulation results are provided to illustrate the performance of the proposed control strategy.

Vehicle Pose Estimation and SONAR Sensor Based Mapping

In carrying out simultaneous localization and mapping, a mobile vehicle is used to simultaneously estimate its position and build a map of the environment. The long-term goal of this work is to build an autonomous inspection mobile vehicle for oil storage tanks and pipelines. The harsh environmental conditions in storage tanks and pipelines limit the types of feature extraction sensors and vehicle pose estimation sensors that one can use. Here, a SOund Navigation And Ranging (SONAR) sensor will be used for feature extraction, and a gyroscope and an encoder will be used for vehicle pose estimation. The integration of these sensors (SONAR, encoder, and gyroscope) will be discussed in this paper, along with the use of a recently developed algorithm fusion for SONAR sensors. The integration of the sensors represents a step towards implementation of concurrent localization and mapping progress in harsh environments.

Control for Robots With Braking Actuators in a Uniform Force Field

This paper concerns the control strategy of a robot with controllable brakes placed in a uniform force field. Without loss of generality this force field is assumed to be gravity, and the robot to be an object resting on an inclined plane. The controller’s objective is then to use the brakes to lead the robot into a desired position and orientation. The system’s dynamics were derived from Newton’s second law with a Coulomb friction model. The controller was derived from geometric properties and the energy equation. The controller was then tested using Matlab and Simulink on the dynamics that were derived. The results of the simulation shows high accuracy even with some disturbances, and uncalibrated parameters.

Macro-Micro Dual-Drive Stages Based on Dual Switching Condition and Local Closed Loop

This paper presents macro-micro dual-drive stages using the hybrid actuators composed of voice coil motor (VCM) and piezoelectric actuator (PZT actuator). The macro stage driven by voice coil motor can achieve large travel range and coarse positioning. The micro stage with an embedded flexure hinges mechanism, actuated by the PZT actuator, can realize short range but high precision positioning. To gain precise performance, the dynamic modes of macro stage and micro stage are equivalent to mass-damping-spring system in this research. According to theoretical analysis, the output displacement of micro stage is proportional to the extension of the PZT Actuator. The linear relationship will be used to the motion control of micro stage. To realize perfect performance, the variable gain PID controller is designed to control the macro stage. In order to prevent saturation and damage of PZT actuator, dual switching control, positioning error threshold and small vibration displacement, are applied to the switching control. Beyond the micro stage range, the micro stage must be kept in its equilibrium position while the VCM instead reaches a long travel. The PZT actuator controller is used to compensate for position error after switching control. When the error is less than a set thres hold value, the error signal is added into the micro control loop. So the macro-micro dual-drive stages are working together to reduce the positioning error. The relationship between PZT actuator of closed loop and input voltage is linear by theoretical analysis and experiment test. So the micro stage uses an open servo loop structure, but the PZT actuator is controlled with PI controller in local closed loop in order to eliminate the nonlinear of PZT. The experimental system used in this study is single-axis dual-driving stages. Turbo PMAC PCI-Lite is the core of the whole system and executes PLC programs with motion programs. Experiments show that the steady state error of dual-drive stage is nano level. The steady state error of dual-drive stage can be improved. So dual-drive stages can increase the positioning accuracy of the whole system and the performance is superior to the single VCM stage.

Performance Analysis of Gas-Expanded Lubricants in a Hybrid Bearing Using Computational Fluid Dynamics

Gas-expanded lubricants (GELs), tunable mixtures of synthetic oil and dissolved carbon dioxide, have been previously shown to potentially increase bearing efficiency, rotordynamic control, and long-term reliability in flooded journal bearings by controlling the properties of the lubricant in real time. Previous experimental work has established the properties of these mixtures and multiple numerical studies have predicted that GELs stand to increase the performance of flooded bearings by reducing bearing power losses and operating temperatures while also providing control over bearing stiffness and damping properties. However, to date all previous analytical studies have utilized Reynolds equation-based approaches while assuming a single-phase mixture under high-ambient pressure conditions. The potential implications of multi-phase behavior could be significant to bearing performance, therefore a more detailed study of alternative operating conditions that may include multi-phase behavior is necessary to better understanding the full potential of GELs and their effects on bearing performance. In this work, the performance of GELs in a fixed geometry journal bearing were evaluated to examine the effects of these lubricants on the fluid and bearing dynamics of the system under varying operating conditions. The bearing considered for this study was a hybrid hydrodynamic-hydrostatic bearing to allow for the study of various lubricant supply and operating conditions. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-based approach allowed for a detailed evaluation of the lubricant injection pathway, the flow of fluid throughout the bearing geometry, thermal behavior, and the collection of the lubricant as it exits the bearing. This also allowed for the study of the effects of the lubricant behavior on overall bearing performance.

System Uncertainty Propagation Using Automatic Differentiation

In general, the behavior of science and engineering is predicted based on nonlinear math models. Imprecise knowledge of the model parameters alters the system response from the assumed nominal model data. We propose an algorithm for generating insights into the range of variability that can be the expected due to model uncertainty. An Automatic differentiation tool builds exact partial derivative models to develop State Transition Tensor Series-based (STTS) solution for mapping initial uncertainty models into instantaneous uncertainty models. Development of nonlinear transformations for mapping an initial probability distribution function into a current probability distribution function for computing fully nonlinear statistical system properties. This also demands the inverse mapping of the series. The resulting nonlinear probability distribution function (pdf) represents a Liouiville approximation for the stochastic Fokker Planck equation. Numerical examples are presented that demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.

Investigation of the Blade Tip Clearance Effects on Performance and Stability of a Mixed-Flow Pump: High Speed Camera Recordings of the Flow Structures, Local Measurements and Numerical Simulation

The tip leakage flow affects turbomachines performance generating losses and reducing the effective blading; in addition, unsteady phenomena arise, negatively influencing the machine stability. In this paper, an overview of the existing models is presented. Local measurements of the pressure pulsations, visual flow observations and high quality video recordings from a high speed camera are performed in a novel pump laboratory, which provides the desired visualization of the rotating channels, and allows to study the fluctuating and intermittent nature of this phenomenon, and detect any asymmetry among the channels. A detailed comparison of the vortex tip structure for various tip clearances and with a whole set of numerical simulations finally completes the analysis. The three main focus areas are: tip vortex location, structure and evolution, performance comparison between shrouded and open impeller, at different tip clearance sizes, and study of the rotating instabilities.

Application of Speed Transform to Diagnosis of Rotating Machinery With Varying Speeds

The rotor startup vibration signals carry abundant dynamic information of the machinery and are very useful for feature extraction and potential early fault diagnosis. Due to the non-stationary and transient nature of the signals in speed up process, the traditional diagnostic methods that have been put forward based on stationary assumption are no longer satisfactory. This paper proposes a new Speed Transform based method for the fault diagnosis of rotating machinery in variable speed. Speed Transform decomposes a complicated signal over a basis of elementary oscillatory functions, whose frequencies follow the speed variation. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by both simulated signal and startup vibration signal collected from a rotor system with early rub-impact fault. Analyzed results showed that the proposed method could effectively extract fault features of the rotor under varying speed condition.

Application of Anytime Control to an Inherently Unstable Physical System

This paper extends the use of closed-loop anytime control to systems that are inherently unstable in the open-loop. Previous work has shown that anytime control is very effective in compensating for occasional missed deadlines in the computer processor. When misses occur, the control law is truncated or partially executed. However, the previous work assumed that the open-loop system was stable. In this paper, the anytime strategy is applied to an inverted pendulum system. An LQR controller with estimated state feedback is designed and decomposed into two stages. Both stages are implemented most of the time, but in a small percentage of time, only the first stage is applied, with the resulting closed-loop system being unstable for short periods of time. The statistical performance of the closed-loop system is studied using Monte-Carlo simulations. It is seen that, on average, the closed-loop performance is very close to that of the full-order controller as long as the miss rate is relatively small. However, the variance of the response shows much higher dependence on the miss rate, suggesting that the response becomes more unpredictable. At a critical value of miss rate, the closed-loop system is unstable. The critical miss rate found through simulation is seen to correlate well with the results of a deterministic stability analysis. The statistics on the settling time are also studied, and shown to grow longer as the miss rate increases. The transient behavior of the system is studied for a range of initial conditions.