In modern world sensors play important role where they help to acquire information about the procecess, such as temperature, velocity,distance, etc. Based on this information acquired from the sensorsdecisions can be made, for example to increase heating in the buildingor accelerate the car.In many cases, a single sensor type cannot provide enough information for complex decision making, for example, when the physicalproperties of the process are outside of the measurement range of thesensor. As a result, in order to achieve desired performance levels, acombination of sensors should be used in an integrated manner.Sensor generated data need to be processed into information throughthe use of appropriate decision making models in order to improveoverall performance. Here we compare two sensors which are shortrange and long-range sensor. We use a short-range and long-rangesensor, and calculates the distance from both sensors to the same object by using Arduino UNO microcontroller. The sensors that we usein our work have overlapping or common interval in their measurementranges. Therefore we investigated how we can make a decision aboutthe distance to an object when the acquired data from both sensors isin that common range.

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Today’s society is facing a large increase of automation and smart devices. Everything from coffee machines to fridges include some kind of electronics and embedded systems. The focus of this Bachelor’s thesis was to dive deeper into how these automated devices can be controlled and more specifically a robot arm. The main purpose revolved around constructing a robotic arm that could be controlled through three different methods using MATLAB. These three were manual control, numerical analysis control and with a neural network based control. The prototype was created by assembling six servo motors onto 3D-printed parts. The arm consisted of three main parts which were a base, an arm and a gripper. The system was controlled by an Arduino micro-controller connected to a computer. The results show that the manual control method was easy to implement, fast and reliable. It allows control of all the angels for each servo motor, which also means controlling each individual degree of freedom. The numerical way, using Newton-Raphson’s method, broadened the abilities to control the arm but was slower. The third and final solution was to use fuzzy-logic. This ended up being a powerful method allowing for great control with low latency. While unreliable, the method showed great potential and with refinement could surpass the others. The conclusion was that the neural network method was the overall best method for controlling and manoeuvring the robot arm using MATLAB. / Dagens samhälle står inför en stor ökning av automatisering och smarta produkter. Allt från kaffemaskiner till kyl och frys innehåller någon form av elektronik och inbäddade system. Det huvudsakliga syftet med detta kanditatexamensarbete var att gräva djupare i hur dessa automatiserade produkter kan kontrolleras och mer specifikt i detta fall, en robotarm. Projektet handlade om att konstruera en robotarm som kunde styras och kontrolleras genom tre olika metoder i programmet MATLAB. Dessa tre har vi valt att kalla manuell kontroll, numerisk kontroll och neuralt nätverksbaserad kontroll. Prototypen tillverkades genom att montera sexservomotorer på 3D-utskrivna delar. Armen bestod av tre huvuddelar, en bas, en arm och en gripklo. Systemet styrdes av en Arduino mikrokontroll ansluten till en dator. Resultaten visar att den manuella kontrollmetoden var enkel att implementera, snabb samt var tillförlitlig. Den gav precis styrning av alla vinklar för varje servomotor, vilket också innebar att den gav god styrning av varje frihetsgrad. Den numeriska metoden, mer bestämt Newton Raphson’s metod, vidgade möjligheterna att kontrollera armen men var långsammare. Den tredje och sista lösningen var att använda ett neuralt nätverk, fuzzy logic. Detta visade sig vara ett kraftfullt sätt att styra roboten med låg latens. Det neurala nätverket visade sig dock vara opålitligt, men metoden visade stor potential för vidare utveckling och kan då prestera mycket bättre än de andra två metoderna. Slutsatsen var att det neurala nätverket var den generellt bästa metoden för att kontrollera och manövrera robotarmen via programmeringsprogrammet MATLAB.

The purpose of this project was to examine the possibilities of automating pharmacies by developing a vendingmachine-like device. As a result, a prototype was designed, constructed and programmed. The main focus of this prototype is to inspect whether it is possible to minimize the need for staff in pharmacies. In order for the prototype to archive it’s purpose, a various amount of components were used. Those components were connected and controlled using the Arduino Mega. A screen and a keypad were used to facilitate the user interaction with the prototype. Furthermore, three different types of motors were needed to deliver medicine to the user. The final prototype was able to deliver medicine to the user from four different boxes. Various experiments were carried out to ensure that the machine could perform the required tasks and automate medicine delivery process in an effective way. / Syftet med detta projekt ör att studera möjligheten till apoteksautomation genom att utveckla en enhet som liknar en varuautomat. Genom att designa, konstruera och programmera uppförs en prototyp. Huvudfokus för denna prototyp är att kontrollera om det är möjligt att minimera personalbehovet på apoteket. För att prototypen ska uppnå sitt syfte används ett stort antal komponenter. En skärm och ett tangentbord används för att låta användare interagera med prototypen. Dessutom krävs tre olika typer av motorer för att tillhandahålla läkemedel till användarna. Den slutliga prototypen kan förse användare med läkemedel från fyra olika rutor. Olika experiment genomfördes för att säkerställa att maskinen kan utföra de önskade uppgifterna och att den kan effektivt automatisera leveransen av olika mediciner.

<p dir="ltr"><b>Abstract</b></p><p dir="ltr"><b>Background</b> Previous research has indicated that it is difficult to maintain student motivation in gateway courses when students from multiple majors are taking the same course. Providing students with a choice in assignment is important because it creates a feeling that the students are in charge of their education, that they can tailor their education to their own needs, and it can improve their motivation in a course along with their satisfaction and overall learning. This study looks at the impact of giving students enrolled in an introductory microcontroller gateway course a choice in which assignments they complete in the laboratory portion of the course. The course is comprised of students from various majors such as electrical engineering technology, computer engineering technology, mechanical engineering technology, mechatronics, and robotics to mention a few. Allowing the students to pick their laboratory activities allows the students to take control of their educational experience and make it personal to them.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Purpose</b> This study examines the impact of providing students with a choice in assignments based on the self-determination framework to determine how choice effects the students’ interest/enjoyment in their education, their perceived value/usefulness of the educational experience, their perceived competence, and their perceived level of effort/importance.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Design/Methods</b> Students enrolled in an introductory microcontroller gateway course were given a choice of laboratory assignments that they complete during the last third of the semester. Survey data was collected using the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) before and after the students were given a choice based on a single case pretest/posttest experimental design. A comparative study was then performed to determine the impact of giving the students a choice on the key traits of this study (perceived value/usefulness of the educational experience, perceived competence, and perceived level of effort/importance).</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Results</b> The results of the analysis indicated that there was not a significant change in the key values of interest in education, value of the education, and perceived effort between the pretest and posttest values when the class was analyzed as a whole. However, when the students were analyzed based on their perception of choice: a high level of perceived choice, a neutral level of perceived choice, and a low level of perceived choice, significant changes were detected. The results of this analysis indicated that students with a higher level of perceived choice reported significantly higher levels of interest, value, effort, and perceived competence when compared to students that reported a lower level of perceived choice.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Conclusions</b> Simply providing or giving students a choice is not enough to change the students’ overall interest/enjoyment in the education, their perception of the value/usefulness of the education, and the importance/effort level the students place on the educational experience. The way the students perceive the option of having a choice has a direct impact on these traits. Generally speaking, students with higher perceptions of choice reported: higher levels of interest in the education, higher value of the educational experience, placed more importance and effort into the educational experience, and showed higher levels of perceived competence when compared to students with lower levels of perception. The results also indicate that students with higher perceptions of choice select activities that they view as interesting and/or fun to do, while students with low perceptions of choice seem to select activities that they perceive to be easier to complete. The results of this research inquiry are important for informing future research and shaping instructional design in the microcontroller space.</p>

In order to develop more economical and ecologically friendly transformers it is necessary to know the losses throughout the product development process. There are several losses related to transformers, but in this particular case the focus will be on the resistive loss of the transformer. In order to measure this loss first the resonant frequency of the transformer is determined. Since at resonance the secondary side of the transformer is considered to be purely resistive. The aim of this paper is to design and build a closed loop measurement system that is able to perform this task.

Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) microcontrollers can be useful for non-critical processing on spaceborne platforms. Many of these microprocessors are inexpensive and consume little power. However, the software running on these processors is vulnerable to radiation upsets, which can cause unpredictable program execution or corrupt data. Space missions cannot allow these errors to interrupt functionality or destroy gathered data. As a result, several techniques have been developed to reduce the effect of these upsets. Some proposed techniques involve altering the processor hardware, which is impossible for a COTS device. Alternately, the software running on the microcontroller can be modified to detect or correct data corruption. There have been several proposed approaches for software mitigation. Some take advantage of advanced architectural features, others modify software by hand, and still others focus their techniques on specific microarchitectures. However, these approaches do not consider the limited resources of microcontrollers and are difficult to use across multiple platforms. This thesis explores fully automated software-based mitigation to improve the reliability of microcontrollers and microcontroller software in a high radiation environment. Several difficulties associated with automating software protection in the compilation step are also discussed. Previous mitigation techniques are examined, resulting in the creation of COAST (COmpiler-Assisted Software fault Tolerance), a tool that automatically applies software protection techniques to user code. Hardened code has been verified by a fault injection campaign; the mean work to failure increased, on average, by 21.6x. When tested in a neutron beam, the neutron cross sections of programs decreased by an average of 23x, and the average mean work to failure increased by 5.7x.