The aim of the diploma thesis was to design a complete controller device with six degrees of freedom for use in computer simulators. After the analysis of current available devices, a model of mechanism was created for production using a 3D printer. Subsequently, electronics and utility software were designed to process received sensor readings. Finally, the finished device was tested in several applications.

L'objectif de cette thèse est d'évaluer l'intérêt d'une nouvelle interface de commande pour fauteuil roulant électrique, un joystick à retour d'effort, destinée à des personnes handicapés moteurs ayant des difficultés à contrôler classiquement leur fauteuil. Ce joystick devra être implémenté sur un fauteuil « intelligent » muni de capteurs télémétriques. Le retour d'effort est calculé en fonction de la proximité des obstacles et aide l'utilisateur sans le contraindre à se diriger vers la direction libre. Le premier chapitre du mémoire est une étude bibliographique portant sur les fauteuils « intelligents », sur les modes de commande en téléopération, sur les interfaces haptiques en robotique et sur la modélisation des tâches de pilotage. Le second chapitre décrit la conception d'un simulateur de pilotage de fauteuil destiné à tester des fonctionnalités nouvelles. Le troisième et dernier chapitre porte sur un ensemble de résultats expérimentaux visant à conclure sur l'intérêt du retour d'effort pour le pilotage de fauteuils électriques et sur le choix de son algorithme de calcul. Les paramètres testés sont notamment la configuration de l'environnement (couloir, passage de porte, espace libre, …) et la cinématique du fauteuil (traction avant, traction arrière) / The objective of this thesis is to evaluate the interest of a new control interface for powered wheelchairs, a force feedback joystick, intended for people with severe motor disabilities which have difficulties to pilot their wheelchair in an usual way. This joystick will have to be implemented on a "smart" wheelchair provided with telemetric sensors. The force feedback is calculated according to the proximity of the obstacles and assists the user, without forcing him, to move towards the free direction. The first chapter of the report is a state of the art on the smart wheelchairs, on the control modes in teleoperation, on the haptic interfaces in robotics and on the modelling of piloting tasks. The second chapter describes the design of a simulator of wheelchair piloting intended to test new functionalities. The third and final chapter relates to a set of experimental results aiming at concluding on the interest of the force feedback for wheelchair piloting and on the choice of its calculation algorithm. The parameters tested are in particular the configuration of the environment (corridor, doors passages, free space …) and the kinematics of the wheelchair (front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive)

Finger gesture recognition using glove-like interfaces are very accurate for sensing individual finger positions by employing a gamut of sensors. However, for the same reason, they are also very costly, cumbersome and unaesthetic for use in artistic scenarios such as gesture based music composition platforms like Virginia Tech's Linux Laptop Orchestra. Wearable computing has shown promising results in increasing portability as well as enhancing proprioceptive perception of the wearers' body. In this thesis, we present the proof-of-concept for designing a novel muscle-machine interface for interpreting human thumb motion as a 2-dimensional joystick employing mechanomyographic signals. Infrared camera based systems such as Microsoft Digits and ultrasound sensor based systems such as Chirp Microsystems' Chirp gesture recognizers are elegant solutions, but have line-of-sight sensing limitations. Here, we present a low-cost and wearable joystick designed as a wristband which captures muscle sounds, also called mechanomyographic signals. The interface learns from user's thumb gestures and finally interprets these motions as one of the four kinds of thumb movements. We obtained an overall classification accuracy of 81.5% for all motions and 90.5% on a modified metric. Results obtained from the user study indicate that mechanomyography based wearable thumb-joystick is a feasible design idea worthy of further study. / Master of Science

Este trabalho visa o desenvolvimento de um sistema de controle, para permitir a dirigibilidade de um veículo automotor, por meio do acionamento de um joystick por um usuário, que substitui o volante e os pedais do acelerador e do freio. Foi construída uma placa de controle, que recebe os sinais de controle tais como esterçamento, aceleração e frenagem vindos do joystick operado pelo usuário, processa esses sinais e aciona eletronicamente os atuadores mecânicos no volante da direção, no servo freio e no acelerador, permitindo o controle dinâmico do veículo. Para testar esse sistema de controle foi desenvolvido um simulador de dinâmica veicular, que fornece em tempo real, as respostas dinâmicas de um veículo quando solicitado pelo usuário, por meio de comandos de direção, aceleração e frenagem. Associada ao referido simulador foi desenvolvida uma bancada de testes, que inclui os atuadores mecânicos, sensores, placa de controle e o joystick, que são testados em tempo real por um usuário, dirigindo um veículo com o auxílio do simulador em uma estrada virtual, realizando manobras como curvas, acelerações e frenagens variadas. Durante os testes mencionados foi encontrada uma série de falhas, que comprometiam a segurança e a dirigibilidade do veículo. Com base nessas falhas foi construída uma árvore de falhas, para o sistema proposto, cuja falha principal era a perda da dirigibilidade do veículo. Partindo da análise qualitativa da árvore de falhas foi proposta uma série de ações corretivas, visando manter o sistema no âmbito da dirigibilidade segura, para o usuário. Finalmente, uma proposta de um protocolo de segurança, para desenvolvimento de sistemas drive-by-wire é sugerida tendo como base o desenvolvimento deste trabalho. / This work aims the development of a control system, to allow the handling of a automotive vehicle, by moving a joystick, which replaces the steering wheel, accelerator and braking pedals and is operated by a user. An electronic control board was built to receive control signals, such as steering, acceleration and braking signals, using a joystick handled by a user. It converts those signals and activates the mechanical actuators in the steering wheel, brake booster and accelerator, to allow the dynamic control of the vehicle. To test that control system, it was developed a vehicle dynamics simulator, which provides, in real time, the dynamics responses of a vehicle when driven by a user, by steering, braking and accelerating commands. Together with the simulator it was developed a test bench, with mechanical actuators, sensors, a control board and a joystick, which were tested in real time, by a user driving a vehicle with the assistance of the simulator, on a virtual road, performing maneuvers like curves, accelerations and varied braking. During the test it was found a series of faults, which affected the safety and driveability of the vehicle. Based on these faults, it was built a fault tree, to the proposed system, whose main fault was the loss of driveability of the vehicle. Based on the qualitative analysis of the fault tree, it was proposed a series of corrective actions, in order to keep the system on scope of the safe driveability. Finally, a proposal for a safety protocol for drive-by-wire systems was made, based on the development of this work.

Este trabalho visa o desenvolvimento de um sistema de controle, para permitir a dirigibilidade de um veículo automotor, por meio do acionamento de um joystick por um usuário, que substitui o volante e os pedais do acelerador e do freio. Foi construída uma placa de controle, que recebe os sinais de controle tais como esterçamento, aceleração e frenagem vindos do joystick operado pelo usuário, processa esses sinais e aciona eletronicamente os atuadores mecânicos no volante da direção, no servo freio e no acelerador, permitindo o controle dinâmico do veículo. Para testar esse sistema de controle foi desenvolvido um simulador de dinâmica veicular, que fornece em tempo real, as respostas dinâmicas de um veículo quando solicitado pelo usuário, por meio de comandos de direção, aceleração e frenagem. Associada ao referido simulador foi desenvolvida uma bancada de testes, que inclui os atuadores mecânicos, sensores, placa de controle e o joystick, que são testados em tempo real por um usuário, dirigindo um veículo com o auxílio do simulador em uma estrada virtual, realizando manobras como curvas, acelerações e frenagens variadas. Durante os testes mencionados foi encontrada uma série de falhas, que comprometiam a segurança e a dirigibilidade do veículo. Com base nessas falhas foi construída uma árvore de falhas, para o sistema proposto, cuja falha principal era a perda da dirigibilidade do veículo. Partindo da análise qualitativa da árvore de falhas foi proposta uma série de ações corretivas, visando manter o sistema no âmbito da dirigibilidade segura, para o usuário. Finalmente, uma proposta de um protocolo de segurança, para desenvolvimento de sistemas drive-by-wire é sugerida tendo como base o desenvolvimento deste trabalho. / This work aims the development of a control system, to allow the handling of a automotive vehicle, by moving a joystick, which replaces the steering wheel, accelerator and braking pedals and is operated by a user. An electronic control board was built to receive control signals, such as steering, acceleration and braking signals, using a joystick handled by a user. It converts those signals and activates the mechanical actuators in the steering wheel, brake booster and accelerator, to allow the dynamic control of the vehicle. To test that control system, it was developed a vehicle dynamics simulator, which provides, in real time, the dynamics responses of a vehicle when driven by a user, by steering, braking and accelerating commands. Together with the simulator it was developed a test bench, with mechanical actuators, sensors, a control board and a joystick, which were tested in real time, by a user driving a vehicle with the assistance of the simulator, on a virtual road, performing maneuvers like curves, accelerations and varied braking. During the test it was found a series of faults, which affected the safety and driveability of the vehicle. Based on these faults, it was built a fault tree, to the proposed system, whose main fault was the loss of driveability of the vehicle. Based on the qualitative analysis of the fault tree, it was proposed a series of corrective actions, in order to keep the system on scope of the safe driveability. Finally, a proposal for a safety protocol for drive-by-wire systems was made, based on the development of this work.

No description available.

Claw machines have been around for about a century spreading joy and entertainment to people of all ages. They are usually seen in amusement parks and malls. In this Bachelors Thesis, one version of a claw machine will be constructed. Different constructing solutions and motors will be discussed for an easy and optimal claw machine that meet all the requirements given in the project. This report is divided into four parts, consisting of introduction, theory, construction of the machine and results. The first part is an introduction where some background information and delimitations of the project are presented. The second part of the report deals with the theory behind various selectable motors for this project as well as solutions for the design itself. The third part of the dissertation gives a detailed overview of how this particular Claw Machine was designed. Selection of materials, motors and how everything is connected and how the various parts harmonize with each other are also presented in this part. In the fourth and final part, the results are presented and a discussion of future improvements is provided. / Tivoliautomater har snart funnits i ett århundrade och har under flera årtionden varit en stor nöjesattraktion för såväl gammal som ung. De är vanligt förekommande i nöjesparker och köpcentrum.  I detta kandidatexamensarbete kommer en sådan tivoliautomat att konstrueras. Diskussioner kring olika motorer och konstruktionslösningar kommer att föras, för att slutligen uppnå en konstruktion som uppfyller de givna direktiven för projektet. Denna rapport är uppdelad i fyra delar, bestående av introduktion, teori, byggandet av maskinen och resultat. Första delen är en introduktion där grundläggande fakta samt avgränsningar för projektet presenteras. Andra delen av rapporten behandlar teorin bakom olika valbara motorer för detta projekt samt lösningar för själva konstruktionen. I avhandlingens tredje del ges en detaljerad genomgång av hur just denna tivoliautomat konstruerats. Val av material, motorer samt hur allt är sammankopplat och hur de olika delarna harmoniserar med varandra presenteras även i denna del. I den fjärde och sista delen presenteras resultatet och en diskussion kring framtida förbättringar tillhandahålls.

No description available.

Thesis (MScEng)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis describes the process of developing a user interface for a seven degree of freedom (DOF), minimally invasive surgical robot. For the first two main stages of the overall project, completed by previous students, a primary slave manipulator (PSM) and a secondary slave manipulator (SSM) were developed. The stage in this thesis concentrates on creating a joystick that can control the combined movement of the PSM and SSM. Background information on the field of robotic surgery, with specific reference to current systems’ user interfaces, is given and the technical aspects of the PSM and SSM are determined. This is followed by the motivation and main objectives of the thesis. Objectives were divided into the main categories of mechanical design, electronic design, control system design and testing. The mechanical design of the joystick progresses through a concept development stage, before a final seven DOF articulated arm design is presented and evaluated based on engineering specifications. Aluminium is used as the construction material; electromagnetic brakes are specified for each joint, leading to the final assembly, which is a constructed joystick fulfilling all requirements. The electronic design implements magnetic rotary encoders for the joystick’s position and orientation tracking as well as designs of the necessary power and control circuitry to enable correct joystick functioning. The interfacing of the PSM and SSM had to enable successful communication capabilities between the master and the slave. Several necessary adjustments were therefore made to the slave system, after which the joystick and robot were electronically interfaced to provide a direct serial communication line. For control system design, the joystick and robot were modelled according to the Denavit-Hartenberg principle, which allows direct relation between the position and orientation of the respective end effectors on the joystick and robot sides. Forward kinematic equations were then applied to the joystick; the desired position and orientation of the robot end effector were determined, and inverse kinematic equations were applied to these data to establish the robot’s joint variables. This stage ended with the development of two operational modes: one where only the SSM motors are controlled in order for the slave to follow the master’s movements, and the other where the PSM’s motors are controlled separately. The simultaneous control of all robot motors could not be demonstrated due to fundamental mechanical flaws in the PSM and SSM designs. Finally, testing was undertaken to demonstrate movement control of the robot by the joystick. The intuitiveness of the product was also tested successfully. The study ends with the presentation of the conclusions, the main conclusions being the successful development and testing of a joystick that controls the movement of a surgical robot, as well as the achievement of all main thesis objectives. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis beskryf die proses vir die ontwikkeling van ’n gebruikerskoppelvlak vir ’n sewevryheidsgraad-, minimaal indringende chirurgiese robot. In die eerste twee hoofstadia van die algehele projek, voltooi deur ander studente, is ’n primêre slaafmanipuleerder (PSM) en ’n sekondêre slaafmanipuleerder (SSM) ontwikkel. Die stadium in hierdie tesis konsentreer op die skep van ’n stuurstok waarmee die gekombineerde beweging van die PSM en SSM beheer kan word. Agtergrondinligting oor die gebied van robotiese chirurgie word verskaf, met spesifieke verwysing na die gebruikerskoppelvlakke van huidige stelsels, en die spesifikasies van die PSM en SSM word vasgestel. Daarna volg die beweegrede sowel as die belangrikste oogmerke van die projek. Die oogmerke is in die hoofafdelings van meganiese ontwerp, elektroniese ontwerp, beheerstelselontwerp en toetsing verdeel. Die meganiese ontwerp van die stuurstok behels ’n konsepontwikkelingstadium, wat uitloop op ’n finale sewevryheidsgraad-ontwerp, wat dan op grond van ingenieurspesifikasies aangebied en beoordeel word. Aluminium word as boumateriaal gebruik; elektromagnetiese remme word vir elke koppeling gespesifiseer, en die finale samestel is ’n gekonstrueerde stuurstok wat aan alle vereistes voldoen. Die elektroniese ontwerp behels die gebruik van magnetiese draaikodeerders om die stuurstok se posisie en oriëntasie te bepaal, sowel as meganismes met die nodige krag- en beheerstroombaanwerk om die stuurstok reg te laat funksioneer. ’n Koppelvlak tussen die PSM en die SSM moes suksesvolle kommunikasie tussen die meester en die slaaf bewerkstellig. Verskeie nodige aanpassings is dus aan die slaafstelsel aangebring, waarna die stuurstok en robot elektronies gekoppel is om ’n direkte reekskommunikasielyn te skep. Vir beheerstelselontwerp is die stuurstok en robot volgens die Denavit- Hartenberg-beginsel gemodelleer, wat ’n direkte verhouding tussen die posisie en oriëntasie van die onderskeie eindpunt-effektors aan die stuurstok- en robotkant daarstel. Voorwaartse kinematiese vergelykings is daarna op die stuurstok toegepas; die gewenste posisie en oriëntasie van die robotiese eindpunt-effektor is bepaal, waarna terugwaartse kinematiese vergelykings op hierdie data toegepas is om die robot se koppelingveranderlikes te bepaal. Hierdie afdeling word afgesluit met die ontwikkeling van twee bedryfsmodusse: een waar slegs die SSM-motore beheer word sodat die slaaf die meester se bewegings kan navolg, en die ander waar die PSM se motore afsonderlik beheer word. Die gelyktydige beheer van al die robotmotore kon nie getoon word nie weens fundamentele meganiese tekortkominge in die PSM- en SSM-ontwerp. Laastens is ’n toets uitgevoer om die bewegingsbeheer van die robot deur die stuurstok te toon. Die intuïtiwiteit van die produk is ook suksesvol getoets. Die studie sluit af met die projekgevolgtrekkings, waarvan die belangrikste die suksesvolle ontwikkeling en toetsing van ’n stuurstok is wat daarin slaag om die beweging van ’n chirurgiese robot te beheer, sowel as die verwesenliking van alle hoofprojekoogmerke.

Cars have become necessities of our daily life and are especially important to people with disability because they extend their range of activity and allow participation in a social life. Sometimes driving a normal car is impossible for individuals with severe disability and they require additional driving aide. However, it is dangerous to send these individuals on the road without giving them special training on driving vehicles using an adaptive aide. Nowadays there are a number of driving simulators that train disabled persons but none of them have joystick-enabled training that controls both steering, gas and break pedal. This necessitates the design of a method and a system which helps a person with disabilities learn how to operate a joystick-enabled vehicle, by using a combination of an advanced vehicle interface system, which is a driving aide known as Advanced Electronic Vehicle Interface Technology (AVEIT) and virtual reality driving simulator known as Simulator Systems International (SSI). This thesis focuses on the mechanism that synchronizes both AVEIT and SSI systems. This was achieved by designing a mechanical and electrical system that serves as a means of transferring the action between the AVEIT and SSI system. The mechanical system used for this purpose consists of two coupler units attached to AVEIT and SSI each combined together by the electrical system. As the user operates the joystick, the action of AVEIT is transferred to the SSI system by the help of the electromechanical system. The design provides compatibility between the AVEIT and SSI system which makes them convenient for training persons with disability.