This thesis presents the design, construction, control and evaluation of a novel force controlled actuator. Traditional force controlled actuators are designed from the premise that "Stiffer is better''. This approach gives a high bandwidth system, prone to problems of contact instability, noise, and low power density. The actuator presented in this thesis is designed from the premise that "Stiffness isn't everything". The actuator, which incorporates a series elastic element, trades off achievable bandwidth for gains in stable, low noise force control, and protection against shock loads. This thesis reviews related work in robot force control, presents theoretical descriptions of the control and expected performance from a series elastic actuator, and describes the design of a test actuator constructed to gather performance data. Finally the performance of the system is evaluated by comparing the performance data to theoretical predictions.

Previous research in force control has focused on the choice of appropriate servo implementation without corresponding regard to the choice of mechanical hardware. This report analyzes the effect of mechanical properties such as contact compliance, actuator-to-joint compliance, torque ripple, and highly nonlinear dry friction in the transmission mechanisms of a manipulator. A set of requisites for high performance then guides the development of mechanical-design and servo strategies for improved performance. A single-degree-of-freedom transmission testbed was constructed that confirms the predicted effect of Coulomb friction on robustness; design and construction of a cable-driven, four-degree-of- freedom, "whole-arm" manipulator illustrates the recommended design strategies.

Most designs for wave energy converters include a hydraulic (or pneumatic) interface between the wave device and the generator to smooth electricity production, but a direct drive power take-off system is a possible way of increasing the power transfer efficiency and the reliability, which was first adopted by Archimedes Wave Swing. Direct drive wave energy systems normally include a low speed linear generator directly coupled with the wave device. With no mechanical interface, the mechanical energy loss and maintenance requirements can, in theory, be significantly reduced. To maximize the energy capture, the motion of the wave energy converter must be controlled to achieve mechanical resonance so that the velocity is in phase with the incoming waves. So far, a number of control methods have been proposed, but few of them have been tested experimentally. For direct drive linear generators in real sea conditions, reaction force control is shown to be an effective way to achieve control where knowledge of future wave could not be required. Different reaction force control methodologies are suggested where the force is provided directly from the linear generator. Among these methodologies, complex conjugate control is regarded as the optimal control and can be used to achieve mechanical resonance. When resonance occurs, some system parameters such as the system excursion and required power take-off force become extremely large, and may exceed the design parameters. In this thesis, the system is modelled under reaction force control taking into account practical considerations which are based on design parameters. A novel control scheme for a direct drive linear generator to achieve such reaction force control in irregular waves is proposed, where a voltage-source rectifier is employed as the bridge between the linear generator and the dc bus. The application of linear generator in real wave conditions not only has inherent advantages, but also present a big challenge for controller design in order to obtain maximum power production. For a linear generator in real sea states, reaction force control idea can be implemented to adjust the velocity of motion, hence to maximize the power production, where the required currents in the generator coils to provide the desired force are constantly varying in frequency and amplitude. The control strategy of the active rectifier is developed based on the derived three-phase currents and the dynamic response of the system to determine varying modulation indices. The unknown situations and some unmeasurable parameters in the system degrade the performance of the control system, hence the current feedback and PI controller are both adopted to reject the effect of the disturbance. Simulation verifications are included for the proposed control idea.

While the robots gradually become a part of our daily lives, they already play vital roles in many critical operations. Some of these critical tasks include surgeries, battlefield operations, and tasks that take place in hazardous environments or distant locations such as space missions. In most of these tasks, remotely controlled robots are used instead of autonomous robots. This special area of robotics is called teleoperation. Teleoperation systems must be reliable when used in critical tasks; hence, all of the subsystems must be dependable even under a subsystem or communication line failure. These systems are categorized as unilateral or bilateral teleoperation. A special type of bilateral teleoperation is described as force-reflecting teleoperation, which is further investigated as limited- and unlimited-workspace teleoperation. Teleoperation systems configured in this study are tested both in numerical simulations and experiments. A new method, Virtual Rapid Robot Prototyping, is introduced to create system models rapidly and accurately. This method is then extended to configure experimental setups with actual master systems working with system models of the slave robots accompanied with virtual reality screens as well as the actual slaves. Fault-tolerant design and modeling of the master and slave systems are also addressed at different levels to prevent subsystem failure. Teleoperation controllers are designed to compensate for instabilities due to communication time delays. Modifications to the existing controllers are proposed to configure a controller that is reliable in communication line failures. Position/force controllers are also introduced for master and/or slave robots. Later, controller architecture changes are discussed in order to make these controllers dependable even in systems experiencing communication problems. The customary and proposed controllers for teleoperation systems are tested in numerical simulations on single- and multi-DOF teleoperation systems. Experimental studies are then conducted on seven different systems that included limited- and unlimited-workspace teleoperation to verify and improve simulation studies. Experiments of the proposed controllers were successful relative to the customary controllers. Overall, by employing the fault-tolerance features and the proposed controllers, a more reliable teleoperation system is possible to design and configure which allows these systems to be used in a wider range of critical missions.

In this research, the integration of the servomechanism control and process control for machining processes has been studied. As enabling strategies for next generation quality control, process monitoring and open architecture machine tools will be implemented on production floor. This trend brings a new method to implement control algorithm in machining processes. Instead of using separate modules for servomechanism control and process control individually, the integrated controller is proposed in this research to simultaneously achieve goals in servomechanism level and the process level. This research is motivated by the benefits brought by the integration of servomechanism control and process control. Firstly, the integration simplifies the control system design. Secondly, the integration promotes the adoption of process control on production floor. Thirdly, the integration facilitates portability between machine tools. Finally, the integration provides convenience for both the servomechanism and process simulation in virtual machine tool environment. The servomechanism control proposed in this research is based on error space approach. This approach is suitable for motion control for complex contour. When implement the integration of servomechanism control and process control, two kinds of processes may be encountered. One is the process whose model parameters can be aggregated with the servomechanism states and the tool path does not need real time offset. The other is the process which does not have direct relationship with the servomechanism states and tool path may need to be modified real time during machining. The integration strategies applied in error space are proposed for each case. Different integration strategies would propagate the process control goal into the motion control scheme such that the integrated control can simultaneously achieve goals of both the servomechanism and the process levels. Integrated force-contour-position control in turning is used as one example in which the process parameters can be aggregated with the servomechanism states. In this case, the process level aims to minimize cutting force variation while the servomechanism level is to achieve zero contour error. Both force variation and contour error can be represented by the servomechanism states. Then, the integrated control design is formulated as a linear quadratic regulator (LQR) problem in error space. Force variation and contour error are treated as part of performance index to be minimized in the LQR problem. On the other hand, the controller designed by LQR in error space can guarantee the asymptotic tracking stability of the servomechanism for complex contour. Therefore, the integrated controller can implement the process control and the servomechanism control simultaneously. Cutter deflection compensation for helical end milling processes is used as one example in which the process cannot be directly associated with the servomechanism states. Cutter deflection compensation requires real-time tool path offset to reduce the surface error due to cutter deflection. Therefore, real time interpolation is required to provide reference trajectory for the servomechanism controller. With the real time information about surface error, the servomechanism controller can not only implement motion control for contour requirement, but also compensation for the dimensional error caused by cutter deflection. In other words, the real time interpolator along with the servomechanism controller can achieve the goals of both the servomechanism and process level. In this study, the cutter deflection in helical end milling processes is analyzed first to illustrate the indirect relationship between cutter deflection and surface accuracy. Cutter deflection is examined for three kinds of surfaces including straight surface, circular surface, and curved surface. The simulation-based deflection analysis will be used to emulate measurement from sensors and update the real-time interpolator to offset tool path. The controller designed through pole placement in error space can guarantee the robust tracking performance of the updated reference trajectory combining both contour and tool path offset required for deflection compensation. A variety of cutting conditions are simulated to demonstrate the compensation results. In summary, the process control is integrated with the servomechanism control through either direct servomechanism controller design without tool path modification or servomechanism control with real time interpolation responding to process variation. Therefore, the process control can be implemented as a module within machine tools. Such integration will enhance the penetration of process control on production floor to increase machining productivity and product quality.

When controlling the real-time system that is a robotic joint, reliability is the chief concern. Implementing controllers via embedded software imposes several limitations on the controller frequency, such as algorithm latency and supplemental processes (like networking) competing for execution time. If these obstacles prevent a controller from finishing a cycle before its period expires, stability cannot be guaranteed. A developer of embedded software controls ought to be able to prove the timeliness of the controller based on analysis and validation. Otherwise, the choice of controller frequency is arbitrary, without any guarantee of stability in worst-case scenarios. This work realized a truly distributed control system for a humanoid robot by migrating a portion of the joint controller to the low-level. While the central computer is still responsible for determining a joint torque to properly realize whole-body objectives, the low-level processor executes force control locally to produce that torque via a linear actuator. Decoupling the force controller from networking reduced its latency and variability, allowing it to execute several times between receiving desired forces. Furthermore, a real-time operating system was added on top of the existing firmware to enforce and verify timing constraints. Preemptive threading modules within the real-time kernel allow the processor to prioritize controller execution above all other activities, aiding its routine completion. The chosen RTOS provides powerful instrumentation and debugging tools to efficiently verify proper execution and quickly resolve errors. These changes allowed the controller to demonstratively operate at a greater frequency with a full guarantee that timeliness is enforced under all possible circumstances. Verification was performed on a robotic joint test stand to prepare for deployment on a full-scale humanoid robot. / Master of Science / A "control algorithm", or simply "controller", can be made to balance a humanoid robot by taking a snapshot of the robot's pose and motion to calculate how to manipulate each motor to maintain stability. This process repeats many times per second. The precise rate is a design choice termed as the controller's "frequency". While a higher frequency generally yields better performance, too great a frequency means the algorithm cannot finish before it is time to repeat, resulting in malfunction. This work implements tools for developers to observe exactly how long a controller algorithm takes to run. This helps the developer choose a frequency fast enough to maintain robot balance within the computer's capabilities.

This thesis aims at presenting the Discrete Vortex Method (DVM) as a tool to determine the flow field and associated wind loads over structures. Two structures are considered: the first is a surface-mounted prism and is used to simulate wind loads over low-rise structures. The second is a bridge section with attached flaps that can be oriented to vary the moment coefficient. Advantages and disadvantages of using DVM for these applications are discussed. For the surface-mounted prism, the results show that the developed code correctly predicts the flow separation around the corners. As for the surface pressures, it is concluded that parallel processing, which could be easily implemented for DVM, should be used to correctly predict surface pressures and their variations. This is due to the required slow time advancement of the computations. The results on attaching flaps to bridge sections yield required orientations to minimize moments under different angles of attack. / Master of Science

Most commercial vehicles currently on the market are still equipped with a passive suspension system, while some luxury brands may already use an adaptive suspension. Active suspension systems on the other hand are rarely found, however, they offer great opportunities to close the gap of the well-known trade-off between ride comfort and handling. Besides that, they can also be used to mitigate single event disturbances, an objective of the USA army as announced in a solicitation which initiated and motivated this research. In addition to that, several studies were found stating the impact and danger of potholes and their impact on the vehicle and passenger. Reviewing the literature, several control strategies for controlling active suspension systems were found. However, most of these approaches used feedback control and did not try to mitigate single event disturbances. Since literature also suggested making use of look ahead preview, research at the Performance Engineering Research Lab at Virginia Tech was started in 2015 combining look ahead preview and an adaptive system to generate optimal force profiles. This introductory research succeeded and proved the used approach to be very promising. However, the used adaptive system was not designed to operate in real-time and did not show any correlation between different road profiles. Therefore, the main objective of this research project is to evaluate and analyze each of the adaptive systems by searching for correlations in their solutions. The results then should be used in order to design a control law which emulates the adaptive system and can be used in a real-time environment. First, an overall research methodology was derived. According to this a software application was developed which extracts ideal force profiles from single event disturbance signals in order to mitigate their impact to the vehicle. The application uses a quarter car model with a partially loaded active suspension system, a set of predefined road profiles, a road profile preprocessor, and an adaptive algorithm. The preprocessing includes geometric filtering using a Tandem-Cam Model and the adaptive processor used an iterative version of the Filtered-X Last-Mean-Square algorithm. During evaluation and analysis of several generated data sets, high correlations in the generated and adjusted adaptive systems were discovered. From these an empirical and theoretical universal filter model was derived, which was then used to design an open-loop control law named Optimal Force Control. The original control law and an adjusted version designed for a real-time environment were tested for all predefined road profiles over all considered vehicle velocities and prove to perform much better than the offline solution using the adaptive system. In summary, a control law named Optimal Force Control was designed which can be used and implemented in a vehicle to extract an analytical and ideal force profile given a road profile input. Implementing an active suspension system with tracking controller, this approach can be used in order to mitigate single event disturbance signals by reducing the vertical vehicle acceleration. / Master of Science

The automation of hydraulic mobile machinery, such as excavators, requires high performance control solutions. In hydraulics, this means fast and accurate force, velocity and position control of hydraulic cylinder. Especially the force control is known to be difficult with traditional servo valves. Fast digital hydraulic valves together with modern control solutions can overcome this problem. This paper uses a new force control solution, which is based on the fast digital hydraulic valves and model based control principle. The control solution is applied in a heavy axis mimicking dynamics of mobile machine booms. Experimental results show good force, velocity and position tracking performance with varying load masses. The slow velocity performance is also much improved when compared to the earlier results.

The da Vinci Surgical System is one of the most established robot-assisted surgery device commended for its dexterity and ergonomics in minimally invasive surgery. Conversely, it inherits disadvantages which are lack of autonomy and haptic feedback. In order to address these issues, this work proposes an industry-inspired solution to the field of force control in medical robotics. This approach contributes to shared autonomy by developing a controller for cooperative object manipulation with force tracking utilizing available manipulators and force feedback. To achieve simultaneous position and force tracking of the object, master and slave manipulators were assigned then controlled with Cartesian position control and impedance control respectively. Because impedance control requires a model-based feedforward compensation, we identified the lumped base parameters of mass, inertias, and frictions of a three degree-of-freedom double four-bar linkage mechanism with least squares and weighted least squares regression methods. Additionally, semidefinite programming was used to constrain the parameters to a feasible physical solution in standard parameter space. Robust stick-slip static friction compensation was applied where linear Viscous and Coulomb friction was inadequate in modeling the prismatic third joint. The Robot Operating System based controller was tested in RViz to check the cooperative kinematics of up to three manipulators. Additionally, simulation with the dynamic engine Gazebo verified the cooperative controller applying a constant tension force on a massless spring-damper virtual object. With adequate model feedback linearization, the cooperative impedance controller tested on the da Vinci Research Kit yielded stable tension force tracking while simultaneously moving in Cartesian space. The maximum force tracking error was +/- 0.5 N for both a compliant and stiff manipulated object.