This thesis presents a geometry design method to generate the surfaces of the globoidal cam with the conical roller follower. Based on the trace of the rigid body and the theory of differential geometry, the conjugate surfaces can be the offset surfaces of the ruled surface. With different roller¡¦s axial height, its radius and the meshing vector also be changed. For this reason, the contact points on the outward roller are hard to find. To overcome this problem, we propose the triangular graph with meshing angle, it can present the vector quantity caused from the motion angle. We replace it into the procedures of the rigid body transformation method to derive the cam surfaces with the conical roller follower. Furthermore, two models with modified sine and constant velocity motion curves are generated and analyzed.

Due to the kinematic limitation of slider-crank mechanisms used in traditional internal combustion engines, such devices driven by their piston motions have a difficulty to reach the better fuel efficiency. In order to make the fuel efficiency better, many engine mechanisms that can be tuned to obtain desired piston motions have been proposed. Since most of the proposed engine mechanisms have complex linkages and bulky size, they become impractical for real applications. The design of a conjugate cam engine mechanism containing a conjugate cam with a slider crank mechanism can be conveniently tuned to produce a desired piston motion in consideration of a limited space, weight, and the number of linkages. The aim of this research is to set up a systematic design and analysis procedure for conjugate cam engine mechanisms. First of all, the kinematic analysis of conjugate cam engine mechanisms is performed based on the rigid body transformation method to determinate the conjugate cam profiles. Then, the geometric properties including the pressure angle and radius of curvature are investigated. Also, in order to characterize the rigid body dynamic behavior of the mechanism, the Newton¡¦s Law is used to derive equations of motion. Finally, it is conducted to design and analyze a real system, and observe the real condition from the experiment to prove the theory is correct.

The aim of the research is the analysis and motion curve synthesis for cam-gear intermittent mechanisms. Based on the grooved-cam-controlled motion of rocker planet gear and motion superposition of the planet gear trains, cam-gear intermittent mechanisms transfer continuous rotation to intermittent rotation. Interpolation of non-parametric rational B-splines motion curve is first introduced in this thesis, and it provides better motion characteristics. Based on rigid body transformation, the analytical grooved cam profile can be determined, and the pressure angle and radius of curvature can be calculated. By applying vector operation, rigid body dynamic analysis is also performed. An application example for cam-gear intermittent mechanisms used in the paper delivery system of the die cutting and creasing machine is served to support the content of this research and to improve the kinematic and dynamic characteristics of the paper delivery system.

Intermittent Mechanisms are widely used in automation equipment, including delivery, assembly, and indexing systems. The aim of this research is to set up a systematic design and analysis procedure of a conjugate intermittent gear cam mechanism. The output of a conjugate intermittent gear cam mechanism is the intermittent motion of sun gear, which has a dwell function in a working period. The intermittent of sun gear is the combination of carrier constant rotation and planet gear variable rotation that is influenced by the conjugate cam profiles. This research first is to set up the design and analysis procedure including applications of rational B-splines to synthesis of output intermittent motion curve and the ALM optimization method for motion tuning to meet specific demands. Secondly, for kinematic analysis, the rigid body transformation methos is used to determinate the conjugate cam profiles so that the geometric analysis can be performed. Then, the rigid body dynamic behavior of the mechanism is analyzed. Finally, to verify the usefulness and effectiveness of the developed procedure, it is conducted to design and analyze a real paper conveyor system of a die cutting and creasing machine. The research results obtained in this study have been applied in the industry due to its validation.

Estimating human motion is the topic of this thesis. We are interested in accurately estimating the motion of a human body using only video images capturing the subject in motion. Video images from up to two cameras are considered. The first main topic of the thesis is to investigate a new type of input data. This data consists of some sort of texture. This texture can be added to the human body segment under study or it can be the actual texture of the skin. In paper I we investigate if added texture together with the use of a two camera system can provide enough information to make it possible to estimate the knee joint center location. Evaluation is made using a marker based system that is run in parallel to the two camera video system. The results from this investigation show promise for the use of texture. The marker and texture based estimates differ in absolute values but the variations are similar indicating that texture is in fact usable for this purpose. In paper II and III we investigate further the usability in images of skin texture as input for motion estimation. Paper II approaches the problem of estimating human limb motion in the image plane. An image histogram based mutual information criterion is used to decide if an extracted image patch from frame k is a good match to some location in frame k+1. Eval- uation is again performed using a marker based system synchronized to the video stream. The results are very promising for the application of skin texture based motion estimation in 2D. In paper III, basically the same approach is taken as in paper II with the substantial difference that here estimation of three dimensional motion is addressed. Two video cameras are used and the image patch matching is performed both between cameras (inter-camera) in frame k and also in each cameras images (intra-camera) for frame k to k+1. The inter-camera matches yield triangulated three dimensional estimates on the approximate surface of the skin. The intra-camera matches provide a way to connect the three dimensional points between frame k and k+1 The resulting one step three dimensional trajectories are then used to estimate rigid body motion using least squares methods. The results show that there is still some work to be done before this texture based method can be an alternative to the marker based methods. In paper IV the second main topic of the thesis is discussed. Here we present an investigation in using model based techniques for the purpose of estimating human motion. A kinematic model of the thigh and shank segments are built with an anatomic model of the knee. Using this model, the popular particle filter and typical simulated data from the triangulation in paper III, an estimate of the motion variables in the thigh and shank segment can be achieved. This also includes one static model parameter used to describe the knee model. The results from this investigation show good promise for the use of triangulated skin texture as input to such a model based approach.