Theory and characteristics of novel variable reluctance 1X resolver

Although brushless resolvers have been used widely as angular position transducers, they are expensive due to their intricate construction, involving a rotary transformer to supply the exciting coils wound on the rotor poles with the current. It is shown theoretically in this paper that the resolver without rotary transformer or brushes can be realized by simple construction, which consists of the stator core with both 4-poles exciting windings and 2-poles output ones and the rotor core carrying no windings. In this resolver the rotor core has minimum gap at one side and a maximum gap at another side of the diameter. It is characterized by an outer surface form that makes the fluctuation part of gap permeance very in proportion to cos θ, where θ represents the angular position of a point in the air gap with respect to the origin on the rotor, the point of minimum air gap. The method determining the rotor form to embody the aforementioned gap permeance variation is also shown. It has been confirmed not only by simulation but also experiment that the 2-phase output voltages of a model designed based on the theory have sinusoidal waveforms with very small harmonic contents. Moreover, the rotor position detected by processing the output voltages through the conventional resolver/digital converter was within acceptable engineering accuracy.     

Thermal Behavior of BaTiO3 Particles Synthesized by Plasma Chemical Vapor Deposition

The thermal behavior of nanoparticles BaTiO₃, prepared by a radio-frequency plasma chemical vapor deposition (RF-plasma CVD) method, was characterized by various analysis methods. The BaCO₃ phase was included in the powder as byproducts, which is also observed in hydrothermal BaTiO₃ powder. The BaCO₃ phase decomposed and disappeared by annealing at 873 K for 30 min. H₂O, N₂, CO₂ and H₂, were detected by a thermal desorption spectra measurement from BaTiO₃ powder. The annealed powder became well-crystallized particles without grain growth, although as-prepared powder included polycrystalline particles. We successfully observed in-situ grain growth for BaTiO₃ nanoparticles by thermal transmission electron microscope. At the initial step of normal grain growth, very fine particles with 40–60 nm diameters started to merge into the larger grains around 1083 K. The migration rate was measured by video images and a grain boundary diffusion coefficient D_gb was calculated.     

Surface Chemistry of Lead Titanate and Its Impact on Binder Removal

Carbon residue after binder burnout was characterized for several nonstoichiometric lead titanate powders. Thermal decomposition of the poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) binder was performed in nitrogen at 600°C. A drastic decrease in carbon retention was obtained in the case of the titanium-rich samples. The amount of carbon retention varies from 0.2 mg/m² to 1.2 mg/m² by changing the Pb/Ti molar ratio from 0.92 to 1.08. The surface reaction between PMMA and lead titanate particles was studied by diffuse reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (DRIFTS). Surface hydroxyls reacted with ester groups in the PMMA or the methylmethacrylate monomer produced upon pyrolysis. The DRIFTS results showed that titaniumrich samples are less reactive and produce less surfacebound organic groups. Interestingly, titanium-rich samples contained more surface hydroxyls. Isoelectric point measurements, however, show that titanium-rich samples are more acidic. Thus, the reactivity of the surface hydroxyls is determined primarily by their acid-base characteristics rather than their concentration. Lead titanate powder was exposed to MMA vapor in a tube furnace at the indicated temperatures using nitrogen carrier gas as a model experiment. DRIFTS difference spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy were performed on these samples after the exposure. MMA reacts with lead titanate powder in manner similar to PMMA. Analysis for sp ² and sp ³ absorbance of Raman spectra of these exposed powders at 400°–600°C showed pyrolysis behavior of surface-reacted species. The relative amount of sp ² bonded carbon decreases with increasing exposure temperature.     

Stick-slip motion control based on cutter location data for an orthogonal-type robot

In this article, a new desktop orthogonal-type robot, which has the capacity of stick-slip motion control based on cutter location data, is presented for lapping small metallic molds with a curved surface. The robot consists of three single-axis devices with a high position resolution of 1 μm. A thin wooden stick tool with a ball-end shape is attached to the tip of the z-axis. In order to improve the lapping performance, a novel stick-slip motion control method is developed in the control system. The small stick-slip motion is orthogonally generated in the direction of the tool’s movement. The effectiveness of stick-slip motion control is examined through an actual lapping test of an LED lens cavity.     

iOS application for quadrotor remote control

With the progress of electronics technology, the development of civilian UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) applications becomes possible. In addition, smartphones have rapidly gained popularity and become very important due to the simple operability and mobility. Hence, there is a need to have an easy and flexible way to control a UAV using such technology. In this study, a remote controller using an iOS device is developed for a quadrotor to enable remote control with easy operations. Four basic programs for obtaining compass information, controlling a gimbal, autopilot function for return, and video preview function are developed and implemented for an iOS device. The basic functionalities of the programs are evaluated and confirmed through experiments using a quadrotor and an iOS device.     

Control of three-link underactuated manipulators using a switching method of fuzzy energy regions

In general, manipulators used for industry and in academic laboratories have actuators to drive each joint. On the other hand, underactuated manipulators handled by our research have some passive or free joints without actuators and brakes. We recently developed a switching method of fuzzy energy regions to control such manipulators. In such a method, it is necessary to design parameters related to energy regions and the gains of some partly stable controllers based on the computed torque method. Here, the switching method is applied for a three-link underactuated manipulator. We optimize such design parameters related to fuzzy energy regions by a genetic algorithm. The effectiveness of the present method is illustrated with some simulations. This work was presented in part at the 12th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, January 25–27, 2007     

Evolutionary Learning of a Fuzzy Behavior Based Controller for a Nonholonomic Mobile Robot in a Class of Dynamic Environments

This paper presents an approach for evolving optimum behaviors for a nonholonomic mobile robot in a class of dynamic environments. A new evolutionary algorithm reflecting some powerful features in the natural evolutionary process to have flexibility to deal with changes in the environment is used to evolve optimum behaviors. Furthermore, a fuzzy set based multi-objective fitness evaluation function is adopted in the evolutionary algorithm. The multi-objective evaluation function is designed so that it allows incorporating complex linguistic features that a human observer would desire in the behaviors of the mobile robot movements. To illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, simulation results are compared using a conventional evolutionary algorithm.     

Are lebed’s magic angles truly magic?

We report high-resolution angle-dependent measurements of the Periodic Orbit Resonance (POR) effect in (TMTSF)₂ClO₄. We observe additional harmonic resonances that were not observed in previous studies. By measuring over a broad range of frequency, field, and field orientation, we find that all of the POR evolve from the Lebed magic angles observed in dc (ω=0) AMRO measurements. However, we find that the resonance angles vary with frequency in a manner that can easily be explained using a semiclassical model. This indicates that these angles are not ‘magic’ at frequencies on the order of the cyclotron frequency.