Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1981. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 186-189).

A novel gate driver design is proposed to improve the conversion efficiency of DC-DC converters. Conventional gate drivers provide a fixed gate driving strength (capability) over the entire output load range. However, it is demonstrated that to optimize the overall conversion efficiency, the driving capability of the gate driver circuit should be adjusted according to the loading condition. The proposed segmented gate driver consists of 8 parallel driver segments that can be turned on/off allowing the power consumption of the gate driver circuit to be dynamically adjusted. The post layout simulation results in high voltage TSMC 0.25µm CMOS process shows that up to 7% improvement in the efficiency can be achieved. Furthermore, in addition to efficiency improvements, a 60% reduction in the ringing and overshoot/undershoot was observed. An integrated segmented gate driver IC designed for AMSP35HV process was submitted for fabrication with the support from CMC.

A novel gate driver design is proposed to improve the conversion efficiency of DC-DC converters. Conventional gate drivers provide a fixed gate driving strength (capability) over the entire output load range. However, it is demonstrated that to optimize the overall conversion efficiency, the driving capability of the gate driver circuit should be adjusted according to the loading condition. The proposed segmented gate driver consists of 8 parallel driver segments that can be turned on/off allowing the power consumption of the gate driver circuit to be dynamically adjusted. The post layout simulation results in high voltage TSMC 0.25µm CMOS process shows that up to 7% improvement in the efficiency can be achieved. Furthermore, in addition to efficiency improvements, a 60% reduction in the ringing and overshoot/undershoot was observed. An integrated segmented gate driver IC designed for AMSP35HV process was submitted for fabrication with the support from CMC.

Impact at each leg transition is one of the main causes of energy dissipation in most of the current bipedal walking robots. Minimizing impact can reduce the energy loss. Instead of controlling the joint angle profiles to reduce the impact which requires significant amount of energy, installing elastic mechanisms on the robots structure is proposed in this research, enabling the robot to reduce the impact, and to store part of the energy in the elastic form which returns the energy to the robot. Practically, this motivates the development of the bipedal walking robots with adjustable stiffness elasticity which itself creates new challenging problems. This thesis addresses some of the challenges through five consecutive stages. Firstly, an adjustable compliant series elastic actuator (named ACSEA in this thesis) is developed. The velocity control mode of the electric motor is used to accurately control the output force of the ACSEA. Secondly, three different conceptual designs of the adjustable stiffness artificial tendons (ASAT) are proposed each of which is added at the ankle joint of a bipedal walking robot model. Simulation results of the collision phase (part of the gait between the heel-strike and the foot-touch-down in bipedal walking) demonstrate significant improvements in the energetics of the bipedal walking robot by proper stiffness adjustment of ASAT. In the third stage, in order to study the effects of ASATs on reducing the energy loss during the stance phase, a simplified model of bipedal walking is introduced consisting of a foot, a leg and an ASAT which is installed parallel to the ankle joint. A linear spring, with adjustable stiffness, is included in the model to simulate the generated force by the trailing leg during the double support phase. The concept of impulsive constraints is used to establish the mathematical model of impacts in the collision phase which includes the heel-strike and the foot-touch-down. For the fourth stage, an energy-feedback-based controller is designed to automatically adjust the stiffness of the ASAT which reduces the energy loss during the foot-touch-down. In the final stage, a speed tracking (ST) controller is developed to regulate the velocity of the biped at the midstance. The ST controller is an event-based time-independent controller, based on geometric progression with exponential decay in the kinetic energy error, which adjusts the stiffness of the trailing-leg spring to control the injected energy to the biped in tracking a desired speed at the midstance. Another controller is also integrated with the ST controller to tune the stiffness of the ASAT when reduction in the speed is desired. Then, the local stability of the system (biped and the combination of the above three controllers) is analyzed by calculating the eigenvalues of the linear approximation of the return map. Simulation results show that the combination of the three controllers is successful in tracking a desired speed of the bipedal walking even in the presence of the uncertainties in the leg’s initial angles. The outcomes of this research show the significant effects of adjustable stiffness artificial tendons on reducing the energy loss during bipedal walking. It also demonstrates the advantages of adding elastic elements in the bipedal walking model which benefits the efficiency and simplicity in regulating the speed. This research paves the way toward developing the dynamic walking robots with adjustable stiffness ability which minimize the shortcomings of the two major types of bipedal walking robots, i.e., passive dynamic walking robots (which are energy efficient but need extensive parameters tuning for gait stability) and actively controlled walking robots (which are significantly energy inefficient). / May 2008

Adjustable-speed drives (ASDs) are often used in commercial and industrial facilities to improve process control and save energy. However, ASDs are the sensitive load equipment as regards to voltage sag. During the sag, the dc-bus capacitor of a typical ASD will discharge depending on the loading condition. The voltage of the dc bus decreases and could lead to a trip of the device. In order to understand the voltage sag tolerance capability of ASDs. Based on IEC 61800-3 and IEC 61000-4-11, this research presents the test results of ASD subjected to voltage sags under different operating conditions. The tests focus on different types of voltage sags, operating situations and designs of ASDs.

Impact at each leg transition is one of the main causes of energy dissipation in most of the current bipedal walking robots. Minimizing impact can reduce the energy loss. Instead of controlling the joint angle profiles to reduce the impact which requires significant amount of energy, installing elastic mechanisms on the robots structure is proposed in this research, enabling the robot to reduce the impact, and to store part of the energy in the elastic form which returns the energy to the robot. Practically, this motivates the development of the bipedal walking robots with adjustable stiffness elasticity which itself creates new challenging problems. This thesis addresses some of the challenges through five consecutive stages. Firstly, an adjustable compliant series elastic actuator (named ACSEA in this thesis) is developed. The velocity control mode of the electric motor is used to accurately control the output force of the ACSEA. Secondly, three different conceptual designs of the adjustable stiffness artificial tendons (ASAT) are proposed each of which is added at the ankle joint of a bipedal walking robot model. Simulation results of the collision phase (part of the gait between the heel-strike and the foot-touch-down in bipedal walking) demonstrate significant improvements in the energetics of the bipedal walking robot by proper stiffness adjustment of ASAT. In the third stage, in order to study the effects of ASATs on reducing the energy loss during the stance phase, a simplified model of bipedal walking is introduced consisting of a foot, a leg and an ASAT which is installed parallel to the ankle joint. A linear spring, with adjustable stiffness, is included in the model to simulate the generated force by the trailing leg during the double support phase. The concept of impulsive constraints is used to establish the mathematical model of impacts in the collision phase which includes the heel-strike and the foot-touch-down. For the fourth stage, an energy-feedback-based controller is designed to automatically adjust the stiffness of the ASAT which reduces the energy loss during the foot-touch-down. In the final stage, a speed tracking (ST) controller is developed to regulate the velocity of the biped at the midstance. The ST controller is an event-based time-independent controller, based on geometric progression with exponential decay in the kinetic energy error, which adjusts the stiffness of the trailing-leg spring to control the injected energy to the biped in tracking a desired speed at the midstance. Another controller is also integrated with the ST controller to tune the stiffness of the ASAT when reduction in the speed is desired. Then, the local stability of the system (biped and the combination of the above three controllers) is analyzed by calculating the eigenvalues of the linear approximation of the return map. Simulation results show that the combination of the three controllers is successful in tracking a desired speed of the bipedal walking even in the presence of the uncertainties in the leg’s initial angles. The outcomes of this research show the significant effects of adjustable stiffness artificial tendons on reducing the energy loss during bipedal walking. It also demonstrates the advantages of adding elastic elements in the bipedal walking model which benefits the efficiency and simplicity in regulating the speed. This research paves the way toward developing the dynamic walking robots with adjustable stiffness ability which minimize the shortcomings of the two major types of bipedal walking robots, i.e., passive dynamic walking robots (which are energy efficient but need extensive parameters tuning for gait stability) and actively controlled walking robots (which are significantly energy inefficient).

Impact at each leg transition is one of the main causes of energy dissipation in most of the current bipedal walking robots. Minimizing impact can reduce the energy loss. Instead of controlling the joint angle profiles to reduce the impact which requires significant amount of energy, installing elastic mechanisms on the robots structure is proposed in this research, enabling the robot to reduce the impact, and to store part of the energy in the elastic form which returns the energy to the robot. Practically, this motivates the development of the bipedal walking robots with adjustable stiffness elasticity which itself creates new challenging problems. This thesis addresses some of the challenges through five consecutive stages. Firstly, an adjustable compliant series elastic actuator (named ACSEA in this thesis) is developed. The velocity control mode of the electric motor is used to accurately control the output force of the ACSEA. Secondly, three different conceptual designs of the adjustable stiffness artificial tendons (ASAT) are proposed each of which is added at the ankle joint of a bipedal walking robot model. Simulation results of the collision phase (part of the gait between the heel-strike and the foot-touch-down in bipedal walking) demonstrate significant improvements in the energetics of the bipedal walking robot by proper stiffness adjustment of ASAT. In the third stage, in order to study the effects of ASATs on reducing the energy loss during the stance phase, a simplified model of bipedal walking is introduced consisting of a foot, a leg and an ASAT which is installed parallel to the ankle joint. A linear spring, with adjustable stiffness, is included in the model to simulate the generated force by the trailing leg during the double support phase. The concept of impulsive constraints is used to establish the mathematical model of impacts in the collision phase which includes the heel-strike and the foot-touch-down. For the fourth stage, an energy-feedback-based controller is designed to automatically adjust the stiffness of the ASAT which reduces the energy loss during the foot-touch-down. In the final stage, a speed tracking (ST) controller is developed to regulate the velocity of the biped at the midstance. The ST controller is an event-based time-independent controller, based on geometric progression with exponential decay in the kinetic energy error, which adjusts the stiffness of the trailing-leg spring to control the injected energy to the biped in tracking a desired speed at the midstance. Another controller is also integrated with the ST controller to tune the stiffness of the ASAT when reduction in the speed is desired. Then, the local stability of the system (biped and the combination of the above three controllers) is analyzed by calculating the eigenvalues of the linear approximation of the return map. Simulation results show that the combination of the three controllers is successful in tracking a desired speed of the bipedal walking even in the presence of the uncertainties in the leg’s initial angles. The outcomes of this research show the significant effects of adjustable stiffness artificial tendons on reducing the energy loss during bipedal walking. It also demonstrates the advantages of adding elastic elements in the bipedal walking model which benefits the efficiency and simplicity in regulating the speed. This research paves the way toward developing the dynamic walking robots with adjustable stiffness ability which minimize the shortcomings of the two major types of bipedal walking robots, i.e., passive dynamic walking robots (which are energy efficient but need extensive parameters tuning for gait stability) and actively controlled walking robots (which are significantly energy inefficient).

This article aims to design an innovative polishing method that can do polishing job to a complicated axial symmetric free surface. The main task of the system is to increase the precision of a middle size (diameter range from 50mm to 150mm) free surface with low precision (form error is larger than 10£gm, even reach few hundred £gm. By using the developed polishing system, the precision is expected to reach and order of sub-micron. It is a machining method which able to outcome a precise free surface, and also a high efficient free surface machining method compared to machining technique nowadays. At the beginning of this article, a logical thinking method will be used to set up a number of sub-targets from the task of the article. From those sub-targets, the keys of the polishing method would come out to accomplish the task. They are: 1.The machining tool is deformable and able to match up the shape of the surface of the tool to enlarge the polishing area. This will increase the efficiency of the machining method; 2.The pressure distribution between the tool and work piece is controllable to let the surface area with larger error form has larger machining rate. By accomplish the sub-targets above, a set of form error compensate strategy can be use to remove the error profile of the free surface with high efficiency. To increase the efficiency of the polishing system, the analysis of the force guide by ANSYS (a finite element analysis software) will be done to create a relation between the force applied and the pressure distribution. This will make the pressure distribution construction task easy and the efficiency of polishing will be increased. According to the machining method designed above, a prototype polishing machine will be designed, and a series of experiments will be done on the designed prototype polishing machine to test the workability of the polishing method. The outcome of the experiments shows that the machine not only has good repeatability, but also has a very high machining efficiency. Besides, the machining distribution experiment shows that the machining method has ability to remove the error distribution from the free surface. It means that is able to do precision machining job to the free surface.

Acquisition of bio-signals is an important feature in advanced medical applications. In order to record bio-signals such as electrocardiogram (ECG) or electromyogram (EMG), a switched-capacitor amplifier with variable linear gain and low noise front-end is discussed in this thesis. The circuit is designed and implemented as an Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC). This ASIC consists of transconductance stage with custom-designed lateral bipolar transistors in the input stage, switched-capacitor integrating stage, sample-and-hold circuit and buffer output stage. Lateral bipolar transistors were chosen with the intention of reducing flicker noise compared to using MOS input devices. Using a switched-capacitor (SC) stage the gain is adjustable to accommodate input signals of different amplitude making it useful for the recording of different biomedical signals. Adjustable gain is achieved by varying the clock phase delay between two digital control signals which were generated by a microcontroller. Also, small size and low supply voltage operation (¡Ó0.9 V) are achieved. Therefore, this ASIC may be used in wearable or even with implantable medical applications. Measured results for test chips realized in TSMC 0.35 £gm CMOS technology are reported confirming the correct operation of the circuit.

This study aims to develop an oscillatory wave-energy acquisition system with adjustable system characteristics. The system is designed to efficiently acquire energy from the sea waves with a wide frequency band. Based on the past studies, the oscillatory wave-energy acquisition system, designed previously, can only acquire energy from the sea waves with a narrow frequency band. Such a limit causes the system to have a low efficiency in acquiring power if the wave has a large frequency band. The main goal of this novel design to allow the system adjusting its system characteristics, based on the dynamic characteristics of sea wave, to attain the optimal power acquisition. In the study, different types of oscillatory systems are first examined whether they are effective to transform their dynamic characteristics when the system parameters are varied. The effectiveness of such transformation is evaluated through an optimization procedure. This procedure is to evaluate whether the frequency response of system can acquire the highest power from a given property of sea wave. Through a detailed analysis, the system structure of a three degree-of-freedom oscillatory wave-energy system is chosen for current purpose. A careful study about the effectiveness of dynamic transformation, via the adjustment of different system parameters, is then studied. The study shows that the selected system with adjustable capability can effectively acquire energy from a sea wave with large frequency band. The acquired efficiency can increase up to 70% compared to the earlier system.