This thesis presents the design, construction, and control of a two-wheeled inverted pendulum (TWIP) robotic walker prototype for assisting mobility-impaired users with balance and fall prevention. A conceptual model of the robotic walker is developed and used to illustrate the purpose of this study. A linearized mathematical model of the two-wheeled system is derived using Newtonian mechanics. A control strategy consisting of a decoupled LQR controller and three state variable controllers is developed to stabilize the platform and regulate its behavior with robust disturbance rejection performance. Simulation results reveal that the LQR controller is capable of stabilizing the platform and rejecting external disturbances while the state variable controllers simultaneously regulate the system’s position with smooth and minimum jerk control. A prototype for the two-wheeled system is fabricated and assembled followed by the implementation and tuning of the control algorithms responsible for stabilizing the prototype and regulating its position with optimal performance. Several experiments are conducted, confirming the ability of the decoupled LQR controller to robustly balance the platform while the state variable controllers regulate the platform’s position with smooth and minimum jerk control.

This thesis presents the design for a novel haptic interface for large-format touchscreens. Techniques such as electrovibration, ultrasonic vibration, and external braked devices have been developed by other researchers to deliver haptic feedback to touchscreen users. However, these methods do not address the need for spatial constraints that only restrict user motion in the direction of the constraint. This technology gap contributes to the lack of haptic technology available for touchscreen-based upper-limb rehabilitation, despite the prevalent use of haptics in other forms of robotic rehabilitation. The goal of this thesis is to display kinesthetic haptic constraints to the touchscreen user in the form of boundaries and paths, which assist or challenge the user in interacting with the touchscreen. The presented prototype accomplishes this by steering a single wheel in contact with the display while remaining driven by the user. It employs a novel embedded force sensor, which it uses to measure the interaction force between the user and the touchscreen. The haptic response of the device is controlled using this force data to characterize user intent. The prototype can operate in a simulated free mode as well as simulate rigid and compliant obstacles and path constraints. A data architecture has been created to allow the prototype to be used as a peripheral add-on device which reacts to haptic environments created and modified on the touchscreen. The long-term goal of this work is to create a haptic system that enables a touchscreen-based rehabilitation platform for people with upper limb impairments.

The dissertation thesis is focused on research and development of modern emission MEMS sensors. The emission sensor based on the field emission from nanostructured materials represents innovative approach to pressure sensing. The nanostructures serve as electron emitter in an electric field between the cathode and anode in the pressure sensor. This electric field is constant and the change in ambient pressure causes the change of distance between electrodes, thereby the electric field is increasing. This intensity is proportional to the emission from the cathode made of nanostructured material. Changing the distance between the electrodes is caused by the deflection of the deformation element - the membrane, which operates the measured pressure. In the current state of the art an extensive research is carried out to find new nanostructured materials with good emission properties. Four nanostructured materials have been chosen and then experimentally prepared and characterized inside the vacuum chamber. For the simulation of diaphragm bending, the chamber is equipped with linear nano-motion drive SmarAct that enables precise changes of the distance between two electrodes inside the vacuum chamber. The computer model to predict the deformation of diaphragm was prepared in the simulation program CoventorWare. The behavior of diaphragm in a wide range of dimensions of the membrane, its thickness and the applied pressure are possible to predict. The dependencies of the current density on the electric field are plotted from the measured emission characteristics of nanostructured materials and thus characterized nanostructured materials can be compared. The dependencies are further converted by Fowler-Nordheimovy theory on the curve (ln(J/E2) vs. 1/E), whose advantage is linear shape. Basic parameters describing the emission properties of characterized nanostructured materials are deducted. Two methods for vacuum packaging of the sensor electrodes are designed. Anodic bonding technology and encapsulating using glass frit bonding are tested. To evaluate the bonding strength, the bonded substrates are tested for tensile strength.

Modern lower limb prostheses are devices that replace missing limbs, making it possible for lower limb amputees to walk again. Most commercially available prosthetic limbs lack intelligence and passive adaptive capabilities, and none available can adapt on a step by step basis. Often, amputees experience a loss of terrain adaptability as well as stability, leaving the amputee with a severely altered gait. This work is focused on the development of a semi-active damping system for use in intelligent terrain adaptive ankle prostheses. The system designed consists of an optimized hydraulic cylinder with an electronic servo valve which throttles the hydraulic fluid flowing between the cylinder’s chambers, acting on the prosthesis joint with a moment arm in series with a carbon spring foot. This provides the capability to absorb energy during the amputees gait cycle in a controlled manner, effectively allowing the passive dynamic response to be greatly altered continuously by leveraging a small energy source. A virtual simulation of an amputee gait cycle with the adaptive semi-active ankle design revealed the potential to replicate adaptive abilities of the human ankle. The results showed very similarly that irregularities in amputee biomechanics can be greatly compensated for using semi-active damping.

This thesis presents an activity mode intent recognition approach for safe, robust and reliable control of powered backbone exoskeleton. The thesis presents the background and a concept for a powered backbone exoskeleton that would work in parallel with a user. The necessary prerequisites for the thesis are presented, including the collection and processing of surface electromyography signals and inertial sensor data to recognize the user’s activity. The development of activity mode intent recognizer was described based on decision tree classification in order to leverage its computational efficiency. The intent recognizer is a high-level supervisory controller that belongs to a three-level control structure for a powered backbone exoskeleton. The recognizer uses surface electromyography and inertial signals as the input and CART (classification and regression tree) as the classifier. The experimental results indicate that the recognizer can extract the user’s intent with minimal delay. The approach achieves a low recognition error rate and a user-unperceived latency by using sliding overlapped analysis window. The approach shows great potential for future implementation on a prototype backbone exoskeleton.

Small electric uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAV) represent a rapidly expanding market requiring optimization in both efficiency and weight; efficiency is critical during cruise or loiter where the vehicle operates at part power for up to 99% of the mission time. Of the four components (battery, motor, propeller, and electronic speed controller (ESC)) of the electric propulsion system used in small UAVs, the ESC has no accepted performance model and almost no published performance data. To collect performance data, instrumentation was developed to measure electrical power in and out of the ESC using the two wattmeter method and current sense resistors; data was collected with a differential simultaneous data acquisition system. Performance of the ESC was measured under different load, commanded throttle, bus voltage, and switching frequency, and it was found that ESC efficiency decreases with increasing torque and decreasing bus voltage and does not vary much with speed and switching frequency. The final instrumentation was limited to low-voltage systems and error propagation calculations indicate a great deal of error at low power measurements; despite these limitations, an understanding of ESC performance appropriate for conceptual design of these systems was obtained. MODELING AND TEST OF THE EFFICIENCY OF ELECTRONIC SPEED CONTROLLERS FOR BRUSHLESS DC MOTORS

ABSTRACT Fabrication and Characterization of Torsional Micro-Hinge Structures Mike Marrujo There are many electronic devices that operate on the micrometer-scale such as Digital Micro-Mirror Devices (DMD). Micro actuators are a common type of DMD that employ a diaphragm supported by torsional hinges, which deform during actuation and are critical for the devices to have high stability and reliability. The stress developed within the hinge during actuation controls how the actuator will respond to the actuating force. Electrostatically driven micro actuators observe to have a fully recoverable non-linear viscoelastic response. The device consists of a micro-hinge which is suspended by two hinges that sits inside a micro machined well. To achieve a specific angle of rotation when actuated, the mechanical forces need to be characterized with a range of different forces applied to the edge of the micro-hinge. This research investigates the mechanical properties and the amount of force needed to rotate to specific angles by comparing theoretical performance to experimentally measured values. Characterizing the mechanical forces on the micro-hinge will further the understanding of how the device operates under a specific applied force. The material response to the amount of stress within the hinges will control the amount of actuation that is achieved by that force. The test devices were fabricated using common semiconductor fabrication techniques. The micro-hinge device was created on a 500µm, double-sided polished, single crystal (100) silicon wafer. In order to create this device, both wet etching and dry etching techniques were employed to produce an 8µm thick plate structure. The bulk etching of 480µm was achieved by wet etching down into the silicon (Si) to create the wells. Dry etching was used for its high precision to release the micro-hinge structure. Once fabricated, the micro-hinge actuators were tested using a Technics turntable arm with a built in micrometer that applied a constant force while measuring the displacement of the actuator. The rotation of the hinge was measured by reflecting a Helium-Neon (HeNe) laser beam off a mirror, which is attached to the pivot of the arm that’s applying the force, and any type of displacement was recorded with a Photo Sensitive Device (PSD). The test stand applied a small force which replicated the amount of electrostatic forces needed to achieve a specific degree of rotation. Results indicate that the micro-hinge achieved a repeatable amount of rotation when forces were applied to it. The micro-hinge would endure deformation when too much force would be applied and yield a maximum amount of force allowed.

<p>Microdroplets have large and varied areas of application ranging from document printing to complex lab-on-chip devices. Lab-on-chip systems often require precise volume control as well as high throughput operations. Microdroplets fulfill these requirements and have become a staple in these devices. The work presented in this thesis involves the design and characterization of two individual devices capable of droplet generation utilizing flow focusing and electrogeneration methods.</p> <p>The first design involved the generation of gel microdroplets utilizing the flow focusing technique. This device proved to be robust and reliable producing large volumes of uniformly mixed droplets. Long term operation of this device was analyzed and determined to be a feasible route for the manufacture of large quantities of droplets. The device was operated for over 30 hours creating gel droplets ranging from 40-200 μm in diameter with acceptable polydispersities for use in drug release studies.</p> <p>The second device involved the design and characterization of a system for the electrogeneration of microdroplets. This novel device involved the injection of droplets via high voltage and high frequency signals into a cross-flow of oil. The droplet generation was characterized and different droplet generation modes were observed. With the careful selection of parameters ideal conditions were obtained to generate monodisperse droplets of sizes ranging from under 5 to over 100 μm in a highly repeatable manner.</p> <p>To conclude, two separate microfluidic droplet generation devices operating in distinct modes were designed and analyzed. These devices are robust, reliable, and flexible with some applications being tested.</p> / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

There is an increasing interest in automated mobile equipment in the construction, agriculture and mining industries to improve productivity, efficiency and operator safety. In general, these machines belong to a class of mobile vehicles with a tool for manipulating its environment to accomplish a repetitive task. Forces and motions are inherently coupled between the tool (<em>e.g.</em> bucket or blade) and the means of vehicle propulsion (<em>e.g</em>. wheels or tracks). Furthermore, they are often operated within uncertain and unstructured environments. A particularly challenging case involves the use of a bulldozer for the removal of excavated material. Modeling and control of mobile robots that interact forcibly with their environment, such as robotic excavation machinery, is a challenging problem that has not been adequately addressed in prior research. This thesis investigates the low-level modeling and control of a 3-DOF robotic bulldozing operation. Motivated by a bulldozing process in an underground mining application, a theoretical nonlinear hybrid dynamic model was developed. The model includes discrete operation modes contained within a hybrid dynamic model framework. The dynamics of the individual modes are represented by a set of linear and nonlinear differential equations. An instrumented scaled-down bulldozer and environment were developed to emulate the full scale operation. Model parameter estimation and validation was completed using experimental data from this system. The model was refined based on a global sensitivity analysis. The refined model was found to be suitable for simulation and design of robotic bulldozing control laws. Optimal blade position control laws were designed based on the hybrid dynamic model to maximize the predicted material removal rate of the bulldozing process. A stability analysis of the underlying deterministic closed-loop process dynamics was performed using Lyapunov’s second method. Monte Carlo simulation was used for further performance and stability analysis of the closed-loop process dynamics including stochastic state disturbances and input constraints. Results of the Monte Carlo simulation were also used for tuning the blade position control laws. Experiments were conducted with the scaled-down robotic bulldozing system. The control laws were implemented with various tuning values. As a comparison, a rule-based blade control algorithm was also designed and implemented. The experimental results with the optimal control laws demonstrated a 33% increase in the average material removal rate compared to the rule-based controller. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Microdispositivos piezelétricos tem uma vasta aplicação em mecânica de precisão, como, por exemplo, manipulação de células, microcirurgias, equipamentos de nanotecnologia e principalmente em microeletromecanismos (MEMS). Os microdispositivos piezelétricos considerados nesta tese essencialmente consistem de uma estrutura multi-flexível atuada por duas ou mais piezocerâmicas, que geram deslocamentos e forças em direções e regiões pré-determinadas do domínio, ou seja, a estrutura multi-flexível atua como um transformador mecânico amplificando e alterando os deslocamentos gerados pelas piezocerâmicas nos movimentos de atuação. O desenvolvimento destes microdispositivos piezelétricos em sua grande maioria não utiliza ferramentas sistemáticas e genéricas. A complexidade dos movimentos de atuação torna o desenvolvimento dos microdispositivos piezelétricos complexo, principalmente devido ao surgimento de movimentos indesejados ou acoplados durante a sua atuação. Portanto, é necessário um método sistemático e eficiente como o método de otimização topológica (MOT), que incorpore na sua formulação as principais exigências de projeto dos microdispositivos, como apresentado nesse trabalho. O MOT implementado é baseado na abordagem CAMD (Distribuição Contínua da Distribuição de Material), onde as pseudo-densidades são interpoladas nos nós de cada elemento finito, resultando numa distribuição contínua de material no domínio. Um método adjunto foi implementado para o cálculo das sensibilidades. São consideradas três formulações. A primeira denominada de MAPs (Multi-Atuadores Piezelétricos) considera as regiões piezocerâmicas fixas, otimizando apenas a estrutura multi-flexível no domínio de projeto. Nesta formulação materiais não-piezelétricos (como, por exemplo, Alumínio) e vazio são distribuídos no domínio de projeto, mantendo as regiões piezocerâmicas fixas e homogêneas. Para validar os resultados obtidos com essa formulação foram fabricados protótipos de nanoposicionadores $XY$, que foram caracterizados experimentalmente utilizando técnicas de interferometria laser, considerando excitação quasi-estática. No entanto, essa primeira formulação impõe restrições no problema, limitando a optimalidade da solução obtida pela otimização topológica. Assim, surgiu a necessidade de desenvolver uma segunda formulação, que permite distribuir simultaneamente material não-piezelétrico, piezelétrico e vazio no domínio de projeto, denominada de LOMPs (Localização Ótima do Material Piezelétrico). A formulação dos LOMPs obtém simultaneamente a localização do material piezelétrico na estrutura flexível otimizada pela OT, e inclui também uma variável de projeto para determinar o ângulo ótimo entre as direções de polarização e do campo elétrico. Nesta formulação como as posições dos eletrodos não são conhecidas, ``a priori\'\', é utilizado como abordagem aplicar um campo elétrico constante para determinar a localização do material piezelétrico e conseqüentemente dos eletrodos. Finalmente, foi explorado o conceito de materiais com gradação funcional (MGFs) no projeto dos MAPs. Os MGFs apresentam uma distribuição contínua de materiais na sua microestrutura, não possuindo interface entre os materiais distribuídos, o que possibilita aumentar a vida útil do dispositivo piezelétrico. Assim, foi implementado uma terceira formulação denominada de MAPs MGFs, que permite obter a gradação ótima de materiais piezelétricos e não-piezelétricos no domínio piezocerâmico dos MAPs, conjuntamente com a topologia da estrutura multi-flexível. Essa formulação foi estendida para projetar atuadores bilaminares MGFs. Todas as formulações desenvolvidas utilizam uma função multi-objetivo, que permite controlar a rigidez e a flexibilidade minimizando o movimento acoplado, de cada movimento de atuação. Os exemplos numéricos são limitados a modelos bi-dimensionais, utilizando o estado plano de tensões e deformações mecânicas e elétricas, uma vez que a grande maioria das aplicações dos microdispositivos piezelétricos são bi-dimensionais. / Microtools offer significant promise in a wide range of applications such as cell manipulation, microsurgery, nanotechnology processes, and many other fields. The microtools considered in this doctoral thesis essentially consist of a multi-flexible structure actuated by two or more piezoceramic devices that when each piezoceramic is actuated, it generates an output displacement and force at a specified point of the domain and direction. The multi-flexible structure acts as a mechanical transformer by amplifying and changing the direction of the piezoceramic output displacements. Thus, the development of microtools requires the design of actuated flexible structures that can perform complex movements. The development of these microtools is still in the beginning and it can be strongly enhanced by using design tools. In addition, when multiple piezoceramic devices are involved, coupling effects in their movements become critical, especially the appearance of undesired movements, which makes the design task very complex. One way to avoid such undesirable effects is the use of a systematic design method, such as topology optimization, with appropriate formulation of the optimization problem. The topology optimization method implemented is based on the CAMD (Continuous Approximation of Material Distribution) approach where fictitious densities are interpolated at each finite element, providing a continuum material distribution in the domain. The corresponding sensitivity analysis is presented using the adjoint method. Three formulations are considered. The first formulation, called Piezoelectric Multi-Actuators (PMAs), keeps fixed piezoceramic positions in the design domain and only the flexible structure is designed by distributing some non-piezoelectric material (Aluminum, for example). $XY$ Piezoelectric Nanopositioner are manufactured and experimentally analyzed to validate the results of the topology optimization obtained using this formulation. Experimental analyses are conducted using laser interferometry to measure displacement, while considering a quasi-static excitation. However, this first formulation imposes a constraint to the position of piezoelectric material in the optimization problem limiting the optimality of the solution. Thus, the second formulation presented, called LOMPs, allows the simultaneous distribution of non-piezoelectric and piezoelectric material in the design domain, to achieve certain specified actuation movements. The optimization problem is posed as the simultaneous search for an optimal topology of a flexible structure as well as the optimal position of piezoceramics in the design domain and optimal rotation angle of piezoceramic material axes that maximize output displacements or output forces at a specified point of the domain and direction. When the distribution of a non-piezoelectric conductor material and a piezoceramic material is considered in the design domain, the electrode positions are not known ``a priori\'\'. To circumvent this problem, an electric field is applied as electrical excitation. Finally, the concept of functionally graded materials (FGM) is applied to PMAs design. FGMs are special materials that possess continuously graded properties without interfaces which can increase lifetime of piezoelectric devices. Thus, a third formulation is implemented to find the optimum gradation and polarization sign variation of piezoceramic FGMs, while simultaneously optimizing the multi-flexible structural configuration. This formulation is extended to design bimorph type FGM actuators. For all developed formulations, a multi-objective function is defined that controls the stiffness and flexibility, minimizing the coupling movement of each actuated movement. The present examples are limited to two-dimensional models because most part of the applications for such micro-tools are planar devices.