Measuring acoustic pressure gradients is critical in many applications such as directional microphones for hearing aids and sound intensity probes. This measurement is especially challenging with decreasing microphone size, which reduces the sensitivity due to small spacing between the pressure ports. Novel, micromachined biomimetic microphone diaphragms are shown to provide high sensitivity to pressure gradients on one side of the diaphragm with low thermal mechanical noise. These structures have a dominant mode shape with see-saw like motion in the audio band, responding to pressure gradients as well as spurious higher order modes sensitive to pressure. In this dissertation, integration of a diffraction based optical detection method with these novel diaphragm structures to implement a low noise optical pressure gradient microphone is described and experimental characterization results are presented, showing 36 dBA noise level with 1mm port spacing, nearly an order of magnitude better than the current gradient microphones. The optical detection scheme also provides electrostatic actuation capability from both sides of the diaphragm separately which can be used for active force feedback. A 4-port electromechanical equivalent circuit model of this microphone with optical readout is developed to predict the overall response of the device to different acoustic and electrostatic excitations. The model includes the damping due to complex motion of air around the microphone diaphragm, and it calculates the detected optical signal on each side of the diaphragm as a combination of two separate dominant vibration modes. This equivalent circuit model is verified by experiments and used to predict the microphone response with different force feedback schemes. Single sided force feedback is used for active damping to improve the linearity and the frequency response of the microphone. Furthermore, it is shown that using two sided force feedback one can significantly suppress or enhance the desired vibration modes of the diaphragm. This approach provides an electronic means to tailor the directional response of the microphones, with significant implications in device performance for various applications. As an example, the use of this device as a particle velocity sensor for sound intensity and sound power measurements is investigated. Without force feedback, the gradient microphone provides accurate particle velocity measurement for frequencies below 2 kHz, after which the pressure response of the second order mode becomes significant. With two-sided force feedback, the calculations show that this upper frequency limit may be increased to 10 kHz. This improves the pressure residual intensity index by more than 15 dB in the 50 Hz-10 kHz range, matching the Class I requirements of IEC 1043 standards for intensity probes without any need for multiple spacers.

In this study, a robotic software, which controls the robot, is developed. The robot considered is a six degree of freedom robot and it is designed and manufactured in METU. User can send the robot anywhere in space within its workspace, in any orientation. Forward and inverse kinamatics can be executed according to the needs. Simulation framework is embedded into the software for the 3D visualisation of the robot. Any movements can be simulated on the screen. Software also generates the path for the given points. Then generated path is simulated on the screen. All position, velocity and acceleration graphics of joints can be examined for the generated path.

This research work covers the design, manufacture and testing of an unmanned aerial vehicle for the purpose of testing various control systems by undergraduate students in the laboratory environment. The aerial vehicle under consideration is a four-rotor propeller powered. Aluminum rod based mechanical structure is preferred. The stabilization of the hovering vehicle in its rotational axes in the air and navigation about the yaw axis are the accomplished goals of this study. The aerial vehicle is run in real time by using Matlab 6.5 Software&rsquo / s xPc module. The linear quadratic regulator and PD controllers are utilized to stabilize the aerial vehicle in its rotation axes. To eliminate the measurement noise generated by the sensors, low-pass second order transfer function is designed and its implementation to real time experiments is discussed.

The use of robotic systems in consumer goods industry has increased over recent years. However, food industry has not taken to the robotics technology with the same desire as in other industries due to technical and commercial reasons. Difficulties in matching human speed and flexibility, variable nature of food products, high production volume rates, lack of appropriate end-effectors, high initial investment rate of the so-called systems and low margins in food products are still blocking the range of use of robotics in food industry. In this thesis study, as a contribution to the use of robotic systems in food industry, a secondary packaging robotic system is designed. The system is composed of two basic subsystems: a dual-axis controlled robotic arm and a special-purpose gripper. Mechanical and control systems design of basic subsystems are performed within the scope of the study. During the designing process, instead of using classical design methods, modern computer-aided design and engineering tools are utilized.

ABSTRACT Haptic devices are used to provide multi-modal data transfer between haptic users and computers in virtual reality applications. They enable humans to take force and tactile feedback from any virtual or remote objects. Haptic devices also facilitate the use of data collected from a real object in the virtual environment. Usage of the haptic devices increase more and more in industrial, educational and medical applications in parallel with development of virtual reality technology. As virtual reality technology requires interdisciplinary study with related to its application areas, it creates a lot of different specific working areas (Haptic interface design, freeform model, surgical operations in virtual environment etc.). Especially, some complex modifications which require hand-working can be performed with the system having great potential in medical applications (Brain surgery without error and operations which require great skill etc.). This is only one of the implementations of haptic devices in digital environment. Aim of this study is to design and manufacture a 7 DOF (degrees of freedom) haptic device which serves the mentioned application areas. All different haptic devices in literature have maximum 6 DOF. The designed 7 DOF haptic device has about 20% extra working space and more flexible working capability compared to the other haptic devices with the similar link lengths and joint limitations. This study is important in terms of the development of haptic devices in the world as well as spreading of haptic devices and its applications in Turkey.

This thesis proposes SPECS: a Standardised Procedure for Evaluating Creative Systems. No methodology has been accepted as standard for evaluating the creativity of a system in the field of computational creativity and the multi-faceted and subjective nature of creativity generates substantial definitional issues. Evaluative practice has developed a general lack of rigour and systematicity, hindering research progress. SPECS is a standardised and systematic methodology for evaluating computational creativity. It is flexible enough to be applied to a variety of different types of creative system and adaptable to specific demands in different types of creativity. In the three-stage process of evaluation, researchers are required to be specific about what creativity entails in the domain they work in and what standards they test a system's creativity by. To assist researchers, definitional issues are investigated and a set of components representing aspects of creativity is presented, which was empirically derived using computational linguistics analysis. These components are recommended for use within SPECS, being offered as a general definition of creativity that can be customised to account for any specific priorities for creativity in a given domain. SPECS is applied in a case study for detailed comparisons of the creativity of three musical improvisation systems, identifying which systems are more creative than others and why. In a second case study, SPECS is used to capture initial impressions on the creativity of systems presented at a 2011 computational creativity research event. Five systems performing different creative tasks are compared and contrasted. These case studies exemplify the valuable information that can be obtained on a system's strengths and weaknesses. SPECS gives researchers vital feedback for improving their systems' creativity, informing further progress in computational creativity research.

Robot manipulators are considered as the key element in flexible manufacturing systems. Nonetheless, for a successful accomplishment of robot integration, the robots need to be accurate. The leading source of inaccuracy is the mismatch between the prediction made by the robot controller and the actual system. This work presents techniques for identification of actual kinematic parameters and pose accuracy compensation using a laser-based 3-D measurement system. In identification stage, both direct search and gradient methods are utilized. A computer simulation of the identification is performed using virtual position measurements. Moreover, experimentation is performed on industrial robot FANUC Robot R-2000iB/210F to test full pose and relative position accuracy improvements. In addition, accuracy obtained by classical parametric methodology is improved by the implementation of artificial neural networks. Neuro-parametric method proves an enhanced improvement in simulation results. The whole proposed theory is reflected by developed simulation software throughout this work while achieving accuracy nine times better when comparing before and after implementation.

The aim of this thesis is to write a multisensor navigation algorithm and to design a test setup. After doing these, test the algorithm by using the test setup. In navigation, dead reckoning is a procedure to calculate the position from initial position with some measured inputs. These measurements do not include absolute position data. Using only an inertial measurement unit is an example for dead reckoning navigation. Calculating position and velocity with the inertial measurement unit is highly erroneous because, this calculation requires integration of acceleration data. Integration means accumulation of errors as time goes. For example, a constant acceleration error of 0.1 m/s^2 on 1 m/s^2 of acceleration will lead to 10% of position error in only 5 seconds. In addition to this, wrong calculation of attitude is going to blow the accumulated position errors. However, solving the navigation equations while knowing the initial position and the IMU readings is possible, the IMU is not used solely in practice. In literature, there are studies about this topic and in these studies / some other sensors aid the navigation calculations. The aiding or fusion of sensors is accomplished via Kalman filter. In this thesis, a navigation algorithm and a sensor fusion algorithm were written. The sensor fusion algorithm is based on estimation of IMU errors by use of a Kalman filter. The design of Kalman filter is possible after deriving the mathematical model of error propagation of mechanization equations. For the sensor fusion, an IMU, two incremental encoders and a digital compass were utilized. The digital compass outputs the orientation data directly (without integration). In order to find the position, encoder data is calculated in dead reckoning sense. The sensor triplet aids the IMU which calculates position data by integrations. In order to mount these four sensors, an unmanned tracked vehicle prototype was manufactured. For data acquisition, an xPC&ndash / Target system was set. After planning the test procedure, the tests were performed. In the tests, different paths for different sensor fusion algorithms were experimented. The results were recorded in a computer and a number of figures were plotted in order to analyze the results. The results illustrate the benefit of sensor fusion and how much feedback sensor fusion is better than feed forward sensor fusion.

In this thesis, dynamic modeling and nonlinear control of autonomous underwater vehicle manipulator systems are presented. Mainly, two types of systems consisting of a 6-DOF AUV equipped with a 6-DOF manipulator subsystem (UVMS) and with an 8-DOF redundant manipulator subsystem (UVRMS) are modeled considering hydrostatic forces and hydrodynamic effects such as added mass, lift, drag and side forces. The shadowing effects of the bodies on each other are introduced when computing the hydrodynamic forces. The system equations of motion are derived recursively using Newton&ndash / Euler formulation. The inverse dynamics control algorithms are formulated and trajectory tracking control of the systems is achieved by assigning separate tasks for the end effector of the manipulator and for the underwater vehicle. The proposed inverse dynamics controller utilizes the full nonlinear model of the system and consists of a linearizing control law that uses the feedback of positions and velocities of the joints and the underwater vehicle in order to cancel off the nonlinearities of the system. The PD control is applied after this complicated feedback linearization process yielding second order error dynamics. The thruster dynamics is also incorporated into the control system design. The stability analysis is performed in the presence of parametric uncertainty and disturbing ocean current. The effectiveness of the control methods are demonstrated by simulations for typical underwater missions.

In this thesis, dynamic modeling and nonlinear control of autonomous underwater vehicle manipulator systems are presented. Mainly, two types of systems consisting of a 6-DOF AUV equipped with a 6-DOF manipulator subsystem (UVMS) and with an 8-DOF redundant manipulator subsystem (UVRMS) are modeled considering hydrostatic forces and hydrodynamic effects such as added mass, lift, drag and side forces. The shadowing effects of the bodies on each other are introduced when computing the hydrodynamic forces. The system equations of motion are derived recursively using Newton&ndash / Euler formulation. The inverse dynamics control algorithms are formulated and trajectory tracking control of the systems is achieved by assigning separate tasks for the end effector of the manipulator and for the underwater vehicle. The proposed inverse dynamics controller utilizes the full nonlinear model of the system and consists of a linearizing control law that uses the feedback of positions and velocities of the joints and the underwater vehicle in order to cancel off the nonlinearities of the system. The PD control is applied after this complicated feedback linearization process yielding second order error dynamics. The thruster dynamics is also incorporated into the control system design. The stability analysis is performed in the presence of parametric uncertainty and disturbing ocean current. The effectiveness of the control methods are demonstrated by simulations for typical underwater missions.