Mechatronic design of open-structure multi-robot controllers

The paper proposes a structure for open, hierarchical, multi-device controllers. The proposed structure takes into account that the system may contain several robots of different types, a certain number of cooperating devices, diverse sensors and also the fact that the task, the system has to execute, and the number and type of its components may vary considerably over time. The concept has been verified by designing a controller for a prototype Robot of a New Type (RNT) robot. The flexibility of the system is due to the software, so the programming aspect is treated comprehensively in the paper.     

Mechatronic design of a ball-on-plate balancing system

This paper discusses the conception and development of a ball-on-plate balancing system based on mechatronic design principles. Realization of the design is achieved with the simultaneous consideration towards constraints like cost, performance, functionality, extendibility, and educational merit. A complete dynamic system investigation for the ball-on-plate system is presented in this paper. This includes hardware design, sensor and actuator selection, system modeling, parameter identification, controller design and experimental testing. The system was designed and built by students as part of the course Mechatronics System Design at Rensselaer.     

Mechatronic design of a leather spray system

Leather skins require a variety of processing steps. Many leather products require coatings such as paints and lacquer to enhance appearance, protect the surface and mask minor visual defects. The coatings are often applied by spraying. For large production volumes, automated machinery is readily available. For small factories finishing leathers in Hong Kong, large production lines are too costly and bulky. Most small leather processors spray coatings manually, requiring skilled workers to produce high quality products. Such skilled workers are in short supply due to the potential health risks of the job. A system to automate the spraying of coatings on leathers has been designed and a prototype system implemented to assess the feasibility. A safe, compact machine, adaptable to the factory environment and space available giving good spraying quality, having low maintenance requirements, capable of manual control as well as automatic spraying was required. The following design features were achieved in the prototype system: selectable automatic and manual operation; remote control; explosion safe; paint conservation; adjustable spray nozzle height; fast spraying operation; high quality spraying; compact size; safety; low cost; reliability; and energy conservation.     

Mechatronic design approach for engine management systems

Internal combustion engines with electronic management systems have developed to mechatronic systems. They basically consist of a thermodynamic process, electromechanic, hydraulic or pneumatic actuators, electronic sensors and one ore more digital control units with their specific software. In order to meet rising demands concerning drivability, emissions and consumption under the restriction of shorter development cycles, there is a rising need for modern identification methods (neural networks) and software/hardware tools (Rapid Control Prototyping (RCP), Hardware-in-the-Loop-Simulation) for the design of engine control units. In this contribution, a software/hardware environment for a mechatronic design approach for engine control systems is discussed. A dynamic engine test stand equipped with a RCP system is described which allows fast and comfortable design and testing of new control functions. Enlarged with an on-line indication system, a cylinder pressure based engine management system can be established, where the desired control settings are calculated by an upper level engine optimization. Time-variant optimization strategies for an improved exhaust-, consumption- and drivability performance were developed by means of adequate models of the engine behavior with fast neural networks.     

Mechatronic design and control of hybrid electric vehicles

The work in this paper presents techniques for design, development, and control of hybrid electric vehicles (HEV). Toward these ends, four issues are explored. First, the development of HEV is presented. This synopsis includes a novel definition of degree of hybridization for automotive vehicles. Second, a load-leveling vehicle operation strategy is developed. In order to accomplish the strategy, a fuzzy logic controller is proposed. Fuzzy logic control is chosen because of the need for a controller for a nonlinear, multidomain, and time-varying plant with multiple uncertainties. Third, a novel technique for system integration and component sizing is presented. Fourth, the system design and control strategy is both simulated and then implemented in an actual vehicle. The controller examined in this study increased the fuel economy of a conventional full-sized vehicle from 40 to 55.7 mi/h and increased the average efficiency over the Federal Urban Driving Schedule from 23% to 35.4%. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of intelligent control and mechatronic systems as they apply to automobiles     

Mechatronic design of a self-balancing three-dimensional inertia wheel pendulum

In this paper a three-dimensional self-balancing cube is introduced. For stabilization and swing-up, reaction wheels are placed within the cube along with the actuation, electronics and sensors. This allows the cube to swing up from a rest position and to balance around the unstable steady-state positions. We conducted a design assessment to review different design approaches. For the most promising design, we formulated a parameter optimization to calculate the most suitable dimensions for the cube and the inertia elements. These results were used in the mechanical design stage to obtain the optimal design parameters for the cube in an iterative process. To show the effectiveness of the test bench we considered a proportional control law for swing-up and stabilization at the various steady state positions.     

Mechatronic design of a class of planar cable-driven parallel robots

In this paper, a novel class of planar cable-driven parallel robots is discussed. The design allows an arbitrary rotation of the end effector by wrapping the cables around a cylindrical fixture on the end-effector platform. In contrast to the state of the art, this results in a simple and robust design without additional moving parts attached to the end effector. The inverse kinematics and dynamical equations of motion for this class of robot are derived and analyzed. Furthermore, the motor redundancy is resolved by enforcing a required tension in the cables. Classical manipulability measures known from the literature are found to be inappropriate for the analysis of cable-driven robots. In order to capture the minimum tension in the cables and the directional dependence of the achievable forces, which are the determining factors for the workspace, a new force manipulability measure is employed. The mechanical design of an experimental setup is presented and the main design choices are elaborated. The experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach and validate the theoretical investigations.     

Mechatronic design and control of singly and doubly curvedcomposite mesoscale actuator systems

Recently, the design of curved mesoscale actuators (deflections from 1 to 15 mm) has been a topic of study for many researchers. The work in this paper deals with the development of a comprehensive modeling technique for dealing with curved actuators. First, the formulation begins with the equations of motion for a general shell surface. Second, relationships for reducing the equations to those for known actuators are given. The technique can be applied to a broad array of curved actuators. These actuators include but are not limited to rainbow actuators, thunder actuators, and basic C-block actuators. Next, the technique is then experimentally verified on a stack of rainbow actuators. Finally, the system is controlled using both classical and intelligent control techniques. In addition, hardware and circuitry issues are explored     

Mechatronic design of an active printhead alignment mechanism for wide format printing systems

In this paper, the mechatronic design of an active printhead alignment mechanism for multi-printhead inkjet printers is presented. The position of each printhead can be independently controlled for the purpose of printhead alignment, by which print quality is improved without tightening the manufacturing tolerances. The design of a short stroke movable printhead mechanism with an actuator is discussed, aiming at a positioning accuracy within 10 μm. A dynamic finite element model is developed to determine the eigenfrequencies, mode shapes and transfer functions of the printhead guidance mechanism. The principle is validated in closed loop by various tests with a realized prototype. The experimental results show that static as well as dynamic alignment errors are compensated for within the requirement whereas the manufacturing tolerances can even be lowered.     

Mechatronic design and injection speed control of an ultra high-speed plastic injection molding machine

This paper presents pragmatic techniques for mechatronic design and injection speed control of an ultra high-speed plastic injection molding machine. Practical rules are proposed to select specifications of key mechatronic components in the hydraulic servo system, in order to efficiently construct an industry-level machine. With reasonable assumptions, a mathematical model of the injection speed control system is established and open-loop experimental data are then employed to validate the system model. By the model, a gain-scheduling PI controller and a fuzzy PI controller are presented, compared and then implemented into a digital signal processor (DSP) using standard C programming techniques. Experimental results are conducted to show that the two proposed controllers are capable of achieving satisfactory speed tracking performance. These developed techniques may provide useful references for engineers and practitioners attempting to design pragmatic, low-cost but high-performance ultra high-injection speed controllers.     

Mechatronic Design Quotient as the Basis of a New Multicriteria Mechatronic Design Methodology

A concurrent, integrated, and multicriteria methodology is presented for the conceptual design of mechatronic systems. It uses an evaluation model called mechatronic design quotient (MDQ) to facilitate decision-making in the design process. A nonlinear fuzzy integral is used for the aggregation of criteria in MDQ, thereby accommodating possible correlations among them. The performance of the developed methodology is validated by applying it to an industrial fish cutting machine called Iron Butcher-an electromechanical system that falls into the class of mixed or multidomain systems     

Biomimetic Liquid Metal Mechatronic Devices

Perceiving mechanical stimuli and converting them into bioelectric signals to complete sensing information transmission and computation is a fundamental mechanism for survival and evolution of natural animals. This leads to a variety of intelligent behaviors, such as processing, learning, judgment, feedback, and so on when tackling complex and changeable environmental challenges. Until now, the realization of a bionic system to mimic the above activities has long been an important goal which is mainly based on the integration of distributed functional units, lacking the coordination between functional units and the whole systems. Herein, based on the mechano-electronic coupling effect of liquid metals and by following the basic principle of perception and transduction of piezo proteins, a biomimetic functional liquid metal mechatronic device is proposed with the switching behavior via establishing the reversible charge gradient. Owing to flexible features of liquid metals, this all-soft mechatronic device exhibits excellent compliance with the whole system. Based on electrochemical characteristics of liquid metals, the passive intelligent device demonstrates versatile behaviors, such as self-energy supply, encoding, computation, sensing, information identification, communicating, and controlling functions etc. which can only possibly be achieved by living animals. This work opens a new strategy for developing intelligent mechatronic systems.     

Mechatronic means for machine accuracy improvement

The paper deals with the mechatronic means for the accuracy improvement of metal cutting machines, co-ordinate measuring machines, robots, etc. The mechatronic correction means of raster scales, encoders errors and final 3-D position correction of a cutting instrument or touch probe are presented. The technical solutions are given with the application of active materials for smart probes and piezoactuators. A case of calculations for piezoactive raster plates is described together with volumetric control diagrams and the examples of practical implementation.     

Mechatronic design and implementation of a two axes sun tracking photovoltaic system driven by a robotic sensor

In the study presented in this paper , the problem of the design and implementation of a two-axis sun tracking system was addressed by applying a set of two robotic systems, one for the automatic orientation of the photovoltaic modules and the second for providing the reference trajectory (robotic sensor). The design methodology was based on mechatronic concepts, in particular the VDI 2206 standard, according to which the system is divided into interconnected modules to be designed, validated, and integrated. This approach provides an efficient energy collection system in terms of the mechanism, instrumentation system, energy supply, and automatic trajectory tracking control. Experimental results illustrate the behavior of the proposed system, which achieves a better performance than fixed systems, as well as one-axis tracking mechanisms.     

Mechatronic solutions of microactuators and positioners

The need for microactuation both previously and nowadays is discussed. The possibilities and limitations of the pure mechanical solution are given. The variant of mixed type systems is discussed and evaluated. The appearance of mechatronics in microactuation is presented. The change of design philosophy in view of new possibilities is considered and some demonstrative examples are given to show the above-mentioned principles.     

汽车本地网络的机电一体化解决方案

汽车功能机电一体化模块和LIN总线基础设施相连接,在可靠性、整合速度和成本上显示出明显的优势.要实现一个可满足性能和热设计限制的最佳机电一体化解决方案,需要从几种候选技术中做出明智的选择.     

Force-based cooperative handling and lay-up of deformable materials: Mechatronic design,modeling, and control of a demonstrator

This work presents a cooperative, force-based handling approach for the lay-up of highly deformable materials on a mold, a scenario, e. g., encountered during the manufacturing of fiber reinforced plastics. A two-dimensional preforming demonstrator is designed which reflects the basic functionality of the process under consideration. Suitable mathematical models of the demonstrator and the deformable material provide a basis for the controller design and a force-based motion planning framework for the lay-up process. The framework proves to be most flexible as it does not rely on preplanned position trajectories but calculates the movements of all manipulators on-line and can promptly react to external disturbances. Experimental results on the demonstrator underline the feasibility and performance of the presented approach for the lay-up of a deformable fabric on a double-curvature mold.     

Mechatronic Development of Self-Actuating In-Flight Deicing Structures

A proof of the concept of utilizing smart structures for in-flight deicing with minimal power requirements is proposed. Lightweight piezoelectric actuators with positive feedback control are utilized to excite the underlying structures to their natural frequencies. This induces shear stresses on the surface of the structures with a low power requirement. The shear stresses generated are sufficient to break the adhesive bond between the ice layer and the wing surface, which is weak in shear. A laminated composite cantilever plate and a prototype leading-edge wing structure are investigated. Analytical studies are performed to determine the critical modes in which high amount of shear stresses can be generated on the surface of the structures and to evaluate the debonding requirement of the ice patches from the surface. Experimental verification of the proposed inexpensive deicing method is carried out by forming ice patches on both the composite plate and the curved leading-edge wing structures, then actuating the structures to the targeted natural frequencies. Testing is conducted at five different cold temperatures ranging from 258.15 to 269.26 K. The implementation proves that the proposed smart structural deicing method is effective and energy- and weight-efficient, which is most desirable for aircraft applications. The method is superior in that there is a reduction in power consumption by two orders of magnitude for aircraft deicing setups over the existing ones.     

System-Based and Concurrent Design of a Smart Mechatronic System Using the Concept of Mechatronic Design Quotient (MDQ)

A mechatronic system needs an integrated, concurrent, and system-based design approach due to the existence of interactions among its subsystems, and also the existence of interactions between the criteria involved in a realistic evaluation of a mechatronic product. This paper presents a systematic methodology for a detailed mechatronic design based on a mechatronic design quotient (MDQ). MDQ is a multicriteria index, reflecting a system-based evaluation of a mechatronic design, which is calculated using soft computing techniques, thereby accommodating interactions between criteria and human experience. A niching genetic algorithm is utilized to explore the huge search space raised due to concurrent and integrated design approach, with the aim to find the elite representatives of different possible configurations. To demonstrate the method, it is applied to an industrial fish cutting machine called the Iron Butcher-an electromechanical system that falls into the class of mixed or multidomain systems.     

Mechatronic model of continuous miner cutting drum driveline

The continuous miner's boom with cutting drum is a mechatronic system involving electromechanical driveline which interacts with rocks. The forces needed for the rock-cutting process are dependent on many factors. However, in each case the value of these loads has a significant influence on the mechanical structure and electrical system. The paper presents a new concept of a power train system where the electronically controlled PM electric motors are directly connected with the mechanical transmission system in the cutter head. A mathematical and numerical model was developed to determine the electrical parameters during the cutting process and interactions between the electrical and mechanical subsystems. The results of a simulated rock cutting process are presented in time-dependent charts showing the cutting drum's operation.