Wide-band fiber optic signal processor

Operation of a 16-tap fiber-optic delay line configured as a bandpass filter with a fundamental frequency of 2.0 GHz over the frequency range from 0 to 12.5 GHz is discussed. Equal tap weights and spacings were used to facilitate comparison of experimental and predicted results. More than 10¹¹ analog multiplications per second are performed in this relatively simple signal processing system. Other processors for performing functions such as matched filtering and correlation can be implemented by appropriate choice of the mirror reflectances and fiber lengths     

A Novel Bonding Method of Pure Aluminum and SUS304 Stainless Steel Using Barrel Nitriding

A great deal of research is being carried out on welding or bonding methods between iron and aluminum. However, it is not so easy to make Fe-Al bonding materials with both high strength and light weight. Recently, a new nitriding process has been proposed to produce aluminum nitride on an aluminum surface using a barrel. This study proposes a new concept in the production of a multilayer which has an AlN and Fe-Al intermetallic compound layer between the aluminum and steel using a barrel nitriding process. The bonding process was carried out from 893 K to 913 K (620 °C to 640 °C) for 18, 25.2, and 36 ks with Al₂O₃ powder and Al-Mg alloy powder. After the process, an aluminum nitride (AlN) layer and a Fe-Al intermetallic compound (Fe₂Al_5.4) layer were formed at the interface between the pure aluminum and SUS304 austenitic stainless steel. The thicknesses of the AlN layer and the intermetallic compound layer increased with increasing treatment temperature and time. The maximum hardnesses of the AlN layer and Fe₂Al_5.4 layers were found to be 377HV and 910HV, respectively, after barrel nitriding at 893 K (620 °C) for 18 ks.     

Optimal design of a flexure hinge based XYφ wafer stage

Optimal design o1 a XYφ micromotion stage is presented. The stage consists of a monolithic flexure hinge mechanism with three piezoelectric actuators. This paper describes the procedures of selecting parameters for the optimal design. In particular, it presents a mathematical formulation of the optimization problem. Based on the solution of the optimiiation problem, the final design of the stage is also presented. Experimental results indicate that the design procedure is effective, and the designated stage has the total range of 41.5 μm mid 47.8 μm along the X- and Y-axes, respectively, and the maximum yaw motion range of 322.8 aresec (1.565 mrad).     

A high-speed miniature screening gaschromatograph with flame ionization detector

The combination of Gas chromatography (GC) for separation and Flame Ionization Detection (FID) for detection and identification of the components of a mixture of compounds is a fast and strongly proved method of analytic chemistry. The objective of this research was to design a combined High-speed miniature screening Gas chromatograph along with a Flame Ionization Detector for quick, quantitative and qualitative analysis of gas components. This combined GC-FID system is suitable to detect the volatile and semi-volatile hydrocarbons present in a gas mixture. The construction made it less expensive, easy to use and movable. The complete gas path was developed. On/off valves, temperature and flow sensors and their interface electronics were used for controlling purpose. A Microcontroller was programmed to measure the temperature and gas flow using the sensors and to control and regulate them using the electronics and valves. A pocket PC with its touch screen served as a user interface for the system. Software was developed for the pocket PC, which makes the communication possible with the Microcontroller. The system parameters can be indicated in the Pocket PC as simple text and also the analysis result can be displayed.     

A novel damping scheduling scheme for proximate time optimal servomechanisms in hard disk drives

The proximate time-optimal servomechanism (PTOS) is widely used in hard disk drives because of its simplicity and good performance. There have been many studies to improve PTOSs, though they are complex or need a time-consuming tuning process. Here, we propose a novel damping scheduling PTOS (DSPTOS) for hard disk drives. The proposed algorithm keeps the closed-loop damping coefficient at a predetermined value. Compared to the original PTOS, smaller damping in deceleration will boost the rising speed, and larger damping in the settling phase reduces the overshoot and residual vibrations. Moreover, the DSPTOS maintains the simplicity of the PTOS by introducing just a predetermined damping coefficient. We applied the proposed DSPTOS algorithm to a voice coil motor in a hard disk drive. Through simulations and real-time experiments, we verified the effectiveness of the DSPTOS. In particular, with respect to long stroke seeks, the DSPTOS performs better than the PTOS.     

An experimental study on time delay control of actuation system of tilt rotor unmanned aerial vehicle

This paper presents an actuation control system for the Smart Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (SUAV), a tilt rotor aircraft that is being developed by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute. The actuation system, which consists of flaperon, rotor, and nacelle tilt, should be controlled to track the position command sent from the flight controller. However, substantial variations in the aerodynamic load on the actuation system make it difficult to achieve the desired level of control performance. In this study, the actuation system was controlled using the Time Delay Control (TDC) law. The experimental results show that the following control performance specifications are completely satisfied under load variation from 0 to 455 kgf: bandwidth of 4 Hz, overshoot of 2.5%, and steady state error of 1% for flaperon and rotor actuation system. Especially, the accuracy was within the noise level of the steady state position error over broad ranges of the load. In addition, the command filter was applied to the TDC command to mitigate the effects of the phase delay that occurs when a sinusoidal command is applied. Furthermore, an actual flight test was performed, which clearly showed the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme. This promising control performance shows that TDC is an effective alternative for controlling the actuation system of the SUAV with substantial load variation.     

A new nano-accuracy AFM system for minimizing Abbe errors and the evaluation of its measuring uncertainty

A new AFM system was designed for the establishment of a standard technique of nano-length measurement in a 2D plane. In a long range (about several tens of micrometers), measurement uncertainty is dominantly affected by the Abbe error of the XY scanning stage. No linear stage is perfectly straight; in other words, every scanning stage is subject to tilting, pitch and yaw motions. In this paper, an AFM system with minimum offsets of XY sensing is designed. Moreover, the XY scanning stage is designed to minimize the rotation angle, as Abbe errors occur through multiple combination of the offset and the rotation angle. To minimize the rotation angle, an optimal design is performed by maximizing the ratio of the stiffness of the parasitic direction to the motion direction of each stage. This paper describes a design scheme of a full AFM system, in particular, the XY scanner. The full range of a fabricated XY scanner is 100 microm x 100 microm. The tilting, pitch and yaw motions are measured by an autocollimator to evaluate the performance of the XY stage. The results show that the XY scanner have a 0.75 arcsec parasitic rotation about the maximum range, thus the uncertainty in terms of the Abbe errors are very small relative to other standard equipment. Using this AFM system, a 3mum pitch specimen was measured. The measurement uncertainty of the total system was evaluated especially about pitch length. For a 1D evaluation, Abbe errors are the most dominant factor, and the expanded combined uncertainty (k = 2) of system was square root (4.13)(2)+(5.07 x 10(-5)xp)(2)(nm). For a 2D evaluation, mirror non-orthogonality and Abbe errors are dominant factors, and expanded combined uncertainty (k = 2) of the system was square root (4.13)(2)+(1.228 x 10(-4)xp)(2) in the X direction, and square root (6.28)(2)+(1.266 x 10(-4)xp)(2) in the Y direction (the unit is nanometers), where p is the measured length in nm.     

Design and analysis of multi-color confocal microscopy with a wavelength scanning detector

Spectral (or multi-color) microscopy has the ability to detect the fluorescent light of biological specimens with a broad range of wavelengths. Currently, the acousto-optic tunable filter (AOTF) is widely used in spectral microscopy as a substitute for a multiple-dichroic mirror to divide excitation and emission signals while maintaining sufficient light efficiency. In addition, systems which utilize an AOTF have a very fast switching speed and high resolution for wavelength selection. In this paper, confocal-spectral microscopy is proposed with a particular spectrometer design with a wavelength-scanning galvano-mirror. This enables the detection of broadband (480-700 nm) fluorescence signals by a single point detector (photomultiplier tube) instead of a CCD pixel array. For this purpose, a number of optical elements were applicably designed. A prism is used to amplify the dispersion angle, and the design of the relay optics matches the signals to the diameter of the wavelength-scanning galvano-mirror. Also, a birefringent material known as calcite is used to offset the displacement error at the image plane depending on the polarization states. The proposed multi-color confocal microscopy with the unique detection body has many advantages in comparison with commercial devices. In terms of the detection method, it can be easily applied to other imaging modalities.     

Modeling of the armature slotting effect in the magnetic field distribution of a linear permanent magnet motor

A method for modeling the armature slotting effect of the magnetic field distribution in the air-gap region of a linear, permanent-magnet motor with armature slots is proposed. By using the concept of permeance, and using the 2-D finite element analysis and curve-fitting method, the relative permeance function of the armature slotting effect is expressed as a function of the motor's geometric parameters. The feasibility of the proposed model is verified by comparing finite element analysis and experimental results for a prototype motor. By using this proposed model, we can perform iterative work such as optimal design with quicker prediction of motor performance. Received: 23 October 2001/Accepted: 24 October 2001