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Electric Vehicles (EVs) are regarded as promising vehicles for the future, and has been greatly focused on by automotive manufacturers across the world to solve the massive greenhouse gas emission from the transportation sector. Unfortunately, because of the challenges of limited batteries capacity, high purchase cost, lack of charging infrastructure and lack of supporting government policies in developing countries, the technology uptake has been limited. Hence, the scope of this thesis work is focused on the infrastructure of the electromobile to dictate its available options, sustainability and future. This research study adopts the review of related studies to evaluate the significance of the infrastructure as well as statistical analysis via review of respondents to administered questionnaires and chi-square test of association between one or two variables to draw inferences and conclusion. The study identifies and gives a thorough description of the available electro mobility infrastructure, options such as static charging system (charging at stationary) and charging while the electro mobile is in motion as a results of contact charging and inductive charging, respectively. Further review identifies Plug-in hybrid technology and alternative electro mobility low carbon fuels such as Hydrogen, Biogas, Biodiesel etc. to battery powered electric vehicles (BEVs) in order to reduce or eliminate the need for enhancing battery capacity. Considering the analysis of the results obtained from the responses to questionnaire, it is observed that the main goals of countries to permanently eliminate environmental impact from fossil fuel as energy source are focusing on adopting electro mobility vehicles in private, commercial passenger and commercial heavy goods vehicles, etc. Assessing the economic viability of the proposed infrastructure scheme, it is observed that the electro mobile infrastructure investment only requires not more than $ 1,000,000, and maximum year of investment recovery is within 6 – 10 years.As a policy, the available options, sustainability and the future of electromobility depends on infrastructure investors, employees, as well as operators. From the Chi-square test of association, it is observed that respondents reveal that there is a significant relationship between (1) charging system and effectiveness of Infrastructure, (2)feasible technology and cost to develop public infrastructure, (3)battery swap recommendation and cost to develop public infrastructure, and (4) charging station and infrastructure to put in place.Hence, from the results obtained from the respondents, there is feasibility and futuristic opportunity in electromobile infrastructure.

This thesis developed a domain independent “shell system for routine mechanical design”. This shell is used to produce domain specific design systems by simply placing domain- related knowledge into it. A general “design model”, which is an informal description of the mechanisms behind the design process, has been implemented. The design model is established based on the “characteristics and mechanisms common in routine mechanical design activities”. By examining particular design examples, it is concluded that the routine design activities have: 1) a “common design procedure” from specification recognition to detailed design; 2) “common mechanisms” to determine parameters and the like; and 3) “common knowledge formats” to express design knowledge. Only “detailed design knowledge” is specific to each domain, but can be represented in common knowledge formats. The “model” and its implementation, the shell system, describe the design process in four stages: specification development, synthesis, analysis and non-functional considerations. The synthesis achieves rough structural configurations by following the “configuration decomposition approach” which is derived from the well-developed configuration decomposition patterns in the routine design, and which uses function-to-configuration, configuration decomposition and function-checking relations. In the analysis stage, configuration parameters are determined by design relations which are represented by “design slices” written in the form of “basic description elements”. The analysis knowledge is organized in a multilevel structure from lower levels of basic description elements, design slices, to upper levels of “design procedures” and “knowledgeable configuration units”. Design slices are classified as “solving slices” and “checking slices” responsible respectively for determining parameters and ensuring that checking criteria among parameters are met. A design procedure is a pile of design slices and determines a set of parameters since design relations are used in groups. The uppermost level consists of knowledgeable configuration units. They organize design procedures, parameter sets and configuration decomposition patterns under a configuration. The reasoning process in analysis is decentralized through a number of “interpreters” which handle various tasks such as choosing a design procedure. The non-functional design aspects are considered in the design relations and are incorporated into the analysis. The shell system provides general design knowledge representation formats and general reasoning mechanisms. It is implemented on a SUN workstation using KEE which provides object-oriented programming and rule reasoning facilities. Connection between design components is dealt with using partial configurations and constraints which define the relationships between configurations and partial configurations involved in a connection. The iteration process caused by dependency among parameters is handled using the failure design procedures, that is, if a checking relation is not satisfied, a failure design procedure is called to modify some parameters at the early design stage. The geometry aspect is implemented parametrically based on an existing feature-based modelling system (IPDM). Two specific design systems: a cam system and a bolted flange system, have been developed based on the shell. Both accept given specifications, and output configurations with parameters and graphic display. The development process of these two systems is simple and efficient; and design results are satisfactory. These examples illustrated the versatility and effectiveness of the developed approach to routine mechanical engineering design activities. The major feature of this work is the explicit descriptive style in representing the design knowledge. The domain independent shell approach enhanced by this feature greatly simplifies the development of domain specific knowledge bases. / Thesis / Master of Engineering (ME)

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The total cost of ownership of a naval ship is largely influenced by decisions made during concept design. In recent years the US Navy has undertaken numerous initiatives to reduce total ownership cost. This has prompted particular interest in reducing manning, as this is the largest single expenditure in total ownership cost. Normally ships are designed and then a study is performed to determine their required manning, but manning has a significant design impact and designs can either be too small to accommodate necessary manning or too large and costly if manning is overestimated. Manpower analysis implemented early in the design process and included in design synthesis could significantly minimize total ownership cost while optimizing ship design performance. The Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering at Virginia Tech has developed a Multi-Objective Genetic Optimization process to aid in ship concept exploration. This thesis describes a manning model created to be incorporated into this ship synthesis and optimization. DDG-51 guided missile destroyer manning is used as a baseline for a guided missile destroyer (DDGx) concept exploration. ISMAT (Integrated Simulation Manning Analysis Tool) discrete event manning tool is used to decompose complex ship operations into functions and tasks to build scenarios and assign crewmembers to accomplish maintenance and ship operations and ultimately calculate manning requirements as a function of ship mission, system, size, automation and maintenance strategy. The manning model results are then linked to the ship synthesis model and design optimization to determine an estimated crew number for a particular ship design. This thesis demonstrates that a manning estimation tool can effectively be linked to a naval ship concept exploration process and have a significant impact on selected designs. / Master of Science

The manning of a ship is a major driver of life cycle cost. The U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) has determined that manpower is the single most influential component in the life cycle cost of a ship. Life cycle cost is largely determined by decisions made during concept design. Consequently, reliable manpower estimates need to be included early in the design process, preferably in concept design. The ship concept exploration process developed at Virginia Tech uses a Multi-Objective Genetic Optimization to search the design space for feasible and non-dominated ship concepts based on cost, risk and effectiveness. This requires assessment of thousands of designs without human intervention. The total ship design problem must be set up before actually running the optimization. If manning is to be included in this process, manning estimate tools must be run seamlessly as part of the overall ship synthesis and optimization. This thesis provides a method of implementing a manning task network analysis tool (ISMAT, Integrated Simulation Manning Analysis Tool, Micro Analysis and Design) in an overall ship synthesis program and design optimization. The inputs to the analysis are ship systems (propulsion, combat systems, communication, etc), maintenance strategy, and level of automation. The output of the manning model is the number of crew required to accomplish a given mission for a particular selection of systems, maintenance and automation. Task network analysis programs are ideal for this problem. They can manage the probabilistic nature of a military mission and equipment maintenance, and can be used to simplify the problem by breaking down the complex functions and tasks of a ship's crew. The program builds large and complex functions from small related tasks. This simplifies the calculation of personnel and time utilization, and allows a more flexible scheme for building complex mission scenarios. In this thesis, ISMAT is run in a pre-optimization step to build a response surface model (RSM) for calculating required manning as a function of systems, maintenance and automation. The RSM is added to the ship synthesis model to calculate required manning, and a concept exploration case study is performed for an Air Superiority Cruiser (CGX) using this model. The performance of the manning model in this case study is assessed and recommendations are made for future work. This research shows that there is a difference between minimum manning and optimal manning on US Navy Ships. / Master of Science

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Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is often used to locate utilities like pipes and cables in the subsurface. In many GPR surveys, a full grid pattern is performed even if the goal is to locate just a few utilities. This approach results in extended operational time. The aim of this project was to develop an adaptive search pattern for utility mapping that uses as short a path as possible, and that could be applied to an autonomous single-channel GPR system in the future. The search pattern was developed and simulated with Python. Animation and static plots were generated to demonstrate and evaluate its performance. A few pipe configurations were created for testing and performance evaluation. The result of the project is a search pattern that can traverse and map a network of utilities. It is able to find and map most pipes in test configurations but there are corner cases that need more attention. It can be used as a guide for a human operator, which means that a computer tells the operator how to move the system. The efficiency of the search pattern was evaluated. On a fairly sparse network of pipes, it can reduce the time consumption by at least 50% compared to the corresponding grid search.

Industrial robot technology plays a vital role in modern production processes. The tools that this technology provides, excels at performing repetitive tasks and does so with precision, speed and strength far beyond human capability. This can both cut cost and ensure a higher quality standard. This thesis report presents a solution for automatic installation of rotor plates for a BLDC PM-motor. The motor design is under development at Uppsala University and is continually worked on during some of the University's courses within electricity.  In addition to potential industry applications, findings in this study are of interest in the development of laborations for robotics courses at Uppsala University. The production process developed within this study was carried out with an ABB robot arm, which is a flexible machine commonly used for industrial applications. A specialized tool was manufactured and mounted on the robot, in order to properly grab and install the rotor plates. Different types of mechanisms were evaluated when designing this tool. It was decided that a mechanical gripping tool would be most suitable for the task as it would be able to lift multiple plates simultaneously, thus saving large amounts of time. To make this tool an already existing gripper was used and then specialized fingers were constructed and installed on the gripper. The gripper was then paired with a collaborative robot.  A test rig was made to closely resemble the actual assembly situation. There, the tool proved to be able to lift the rotor plates without much of an issue. However due to the very narrow margin between the holes in the plates and the guiding rods they were supposed to be mounted onto, installing the plates proved to be very challenging. Many methods were tested in order to make the installation possible, but none were successful until the margin between the rods and the holes were increased. After this, the robot was able to grab, lift and install the plates in a smooth continuous motion.   An overall concept for the assembly process was created, this involved the plates traveling on a conveyor belt, then picked up by a robot, installed onto the rotor which was mounted in a rotary table. Photoelectric sensors were utilized in order to determine the position of the plates on the conveyor. Later this assembly solution was simulated using ABB Robotstudio. It was estimated that, with this assembly solution, it would take roughly 170 seconds to install all the plates for one rotor. This result was seen as promising and it is plausible that further development of this concept could lead to an efficient assembly process.

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