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The purpose of this research is to develop a conception of a transportation system called AVCS maglev which is the synergistic combination of two promising concepts, AVCS and Maglev, and to assess its potential as a transportation strategy to cope with the forthcoming challenge of the mobility, safety, environmental protection, and economic growth of the United States. The emphases are put on investigating suitable technological aspects, selecting suitable operational control concepts, assessing economic viability, and determining socioeconomic impacts of the system. Also, the National Development Model (NDM) is developed and analyzed to obtain a deeper understanding of the rational policy formation about the U.S. SOCioeconomic development of the next century, based on the premise that development means improving both quantity of life and quality of life. NDM is organized into six sectors: (1) Industrial Sector, (2) Environmental Sector, (3) Infrastructure Sector, (4) Social Development Sector, (5) Demographic Sector, and (6) Employment Sector. Four policy alternatives are identified, based on the key issues relevant to the future development patterns, and analyzed by computer simulation: (1) Social Development Policy, (2) Industrial Development Policy, (3) Infrastructure Development Policy, and (4) Environmental Protection Policy. / Ph. D.

New technological advances and the requirements to increasingly abide by new safety laws in engineering design projects highly affects industrial products in areas such as automotive, aerospace and railway industries. The necessity arises to design reduced-cost hi-tech products with minimal complexity, optimal performance, effective parameter robustness properties, and high reliability with fault tolerance. In this context the control system design plays an important role and the impact is crucial relative to the level of cost efficiency of a product. Measurement of required information for the operation of the design control system in any product is a vital issue, and in such cases a number of sensors can be available to select from in order to achieve the desired system properties. However, for a complex engineering system a manual procedure to select the best sensor set subject to the desired system properties can be very complicated, time consuming or even impossible to achieve. This is more evident in the case of large number of sensors and the requirement to comply with optimum performance. The thesis describes a comprehensive study of sensor selection for control and fault tolerance with the particular application of an ElectroMagnetic Levitation system (being an unstable, nonlinear, safety-critical system with non-trivial control performance requirements). The particular aim of the presented work is to identify effective sensor selection frameworks subject to given system properties for controlling (with a level of fault tolerance) the MagLev suspension system. A particular objective of the work is to identify the minimum possible sensors that can be used to cover multiple sensor faults, while maintaining optimum performance with the remaining sensors. The tools employed combine modern control strategies and multiobjective constraint optimisation (for tuning purposes) methods. An important part of the work is the design and construction of a 25kg MagLev suspension to be used for experimental verification of the proposed sensor selection frameworks.

Thesis. 1978. M.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND AERONAUTICS. / Bibliography: leaf 86. / M.S.

Thesis. 1977. B.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ENGINEERING. / Includes bibliographical references. / B.S.

<p>The subject of this thesis is the design of a control law for a magnetic levitation system, which in this case is the system 33-210. The method used is backstepping technique and specifically adaptive observer backstepping due to parameter uncertainties and lack of access to all the states of the system. The second state of the system, the speed of the steel ball, was estimated by a reduced order observer. The model used gave us the opportunity to estimate a parameter which in the literature is denoted virtual control coefficient. Backstepping method gives us a rather straight forward way to design the controlling unit for a system with these properties. Stabilization of the closed-loop system is achieved by incorporating a Lypapunov function, which were chose a quadratic one in this thesis. If thederivative of this function is rendered negative definite by the control law, then we achieve stability. The results of the design were evaluated in simulations and real-time measurements by testing the tracking performance of the system. The simulation results were very promising and the validations in real-time were satisfying. Note that this has been done in previous studies; the new aspect here is the limitation of the voltage input. The real-time results showed that the parameter estimation converges only locally.</p>

Precise manipulation of micro objects became great interest in engineering and science with the advancements in microengineering and microfabrication. In this thesis, a magnetically levitated microgripper is presented for microhandling tasks. The use of magnetic levitation for positioning reveals the problems associated with modeling of complex surface forces and the use of jointed parts or wires. The power required for the levitation of the microgripper is generated by an external drive unit that makes further minimization of the gripper possible. The gripper is made of a biocompatible material and can be activated remotely. These key features make the microgripper a great candidate for manipulation of micro components and biomanipulation. In order to achieve magnetic levitation of microrobots, the magnetic field generated by the magnetic levitation setup is simulated. The magnetic flux density in the air gap region is improved by the integration of permanent magnets and an additional electromagnet to the magnetic loop assembly. The levitation performance is evaluated with millimeter size permanent magnets. An eddy current damping method is implemented and the levitation accuracy is doubled by reducing the positioning error to 20.3 µm. For a MEMS-compatible microrobot design, the electrodeposition of Co-Ni-Mn-P magnetic thin films is demonstrated. Magnetic films are deposited on silicon substrate to form the magnetic portion of the microrobot. The electrodeposited films are extensively characterized. The relationship between the deposition parameters and structural properties is discussed leading to an understanding of the effect of deposition parameters on the magnetic properties. It is shown that both in-plane and out-of-plane magnetized films can be obtained using electrodeposition with slightly differentiated deposition parameters. The levitation of the electrodeposited magnetic samples shows a great promise toward the fabrication of levitating MEMS devices. The end-effector tool of the levitating microrobot is selected as a microgripper that can achieve various manipulation operations such as pulling, pushing, tapping, grasping and repositioning. The microgripper is designed based on a bent-beam actuation technique. The motion of the gripper fingers is achieved by thermal expansion through laser heat absorption. This technique provided non-contact actuation for the levitating microgripper. The analytical model of the displacement of the bent-beam actuator is developed. Different designs of microgripper are fabricated and thoroughly characterized experimentally and numerically. The two microgripper designs that lead to the maximum gripper deflection are adapted for the levitating microrobot. The experimental results show that the levitating microrobot can be positioned in a volume of 3 x 3 x 2 cm^3. The positioning error is measured as 34.3 µm and 13.2 µm when electrodeposited magnets and commercial permanent magnets are used, respectively. The gripper fingers are successfully operated on-the-fly by aligning a visible wavelength laser beam on the gripper. Micromanipulation of 100 µm diameter electrical wire, 125 µm diameter optical fiber and 1 mm diameter cable strip is demonstrated. The microgripper is also positioned in a closed chamber without sacrificing the positioning accuracy.

The subject of this thesis is the design of a control law for a magnetic levitation system, which in this case is the system 33-210. The method used is backstepping technique and specifically adaptive observer backstepping due to parameter uncertainties and lack of access to all the states of the system. The second state of the system, the speed of the steel ball, was estimated by a reduced order observer. The model used gave us the opportunity to estimate a parameter which in the literature is denoted virtual control coefficient. Backstepping method gives us a rather straight forward way to design the controlling unit for a system with these properties. Stabilization of the closed-loop system is achieved by incorporating a Lypapunov function, which were chose a quadratic one in this thesis. If thederivative of this function is rendered negative definite by the control law, then we achieve stability. The results of the design were evaluated in simulations and real-time measurements by testing the tracking performance of the system. The simulation results were very promising and the validations in real-time were satisfying. Note that this has been done in previous studies; the new aspect here is the limitation of the voltage input. The real-time results showed that the parameter estimation converges only locally.

Precise manipulation of micro objects became great interest in engineering and science with the advancements in microengineering and microfabrication. In this thesis, a magnetically levitated microgripper is presented for microhandling tasks. The use of magnetic levitation for positioning reveals the problems associated with modeling of complex surface forces and the use of jointed parts or wires. The power required for the levitation of the microgripper is generated by an external drive unit that makes further minimization of the gripper possible. The gripper is made of a biocompatible material and can be activated remotely. These key features make the microgripper a great candidate for manipulation of micro components and biomanipulation. In order to achieve magnetic levitation of microrobots, the magnetic field generated by the magnetic levitation setup is simulated. The magnetic flux density in the air gap region is improved by the integration of permanent magnets and an additional electromagnet to the magnetic loop assembly. The levitation performance is evaluated with millimeter size permanent magnets. An eddy current damping method is implemented and the levitation accuracy is doubled by reducing the positioning error to 20.3 µm. For a MEMS-compatible microrobot design, the electrodeposition of Co-Ni-Mn-P magnetic thin films is demonstrated. Magnetic films are deposited on silicon substrate to form the magnetic portion of the microrobot. The electrodeposited films are extensively characterized. The relationship between the deposition parameters and structural properties is discussed leading to an understanding of the effect of deposition parameters on the magnetic properties. It is shown that both in-plane and out-of-plane magnetized films can be obtained using electrodeposition with slightly differentiated deposition parameters. The levitation of the electrodeposited magnetic samples shows a great promise toward the fabrication of levitating MEMS devices. The end-effector tool of the levitating microrobot is selected as a microgripper that can achieve various manipulation operations such as pulling, pushing, tapping, grasping and repositioning. The microgripper is designed based on a bent-beam actuation technique. The motion of the gripper fingers is achieved by thermal expansion through laser heat absorption. This technique provided non-contact actuation for the levitating microgripper. The analytical model of the displacement of the bent-beam actuator is developed. Different designs of microgripper are fabricated and thoroughly characterized experimentally and numerically. The two microgripper designs that lead to the maximum gripper deflection are adapted for the levitating microrobot. The experimental results show that the levitating microrobot can be positioned in a volume of 3 x 3 x 2 cm^3. The positioning error is measured as 34.3 µm and 13.2 µm when electrodeposited magnets and commercial permanent magnets are used, respectively. The gripper fingers are successfully operated on-the-fly by aligning a visible wavelength laser beam on the gripper. Micromanipulation of 100 µm diameter electrical wire, 125 µm diameter optical fiber and 1 mm diameter cable strip is demonstrated. The microgripper is also positioned in a closed chamber without sacrificing the positioning accuracy.