É apresentado um sistema para redução do tempo de calibração e compensação de sensores piezoresistivos de pressão para aplicações de automação e controle com características de alto desempenho, com compensação de diversas fontes de erro, especialmente, compensação de não-linearidade e influência da temperatura na medição, baseado em uma concepção que privilegia a precisão e exatidão da medida, a qualidade e a confiabilidade. O sistema projetado permite a automação do processo de calibração e compensação térmica de transmissores de pressão por meio de um sistema de medição e programação múltiplo, que possibilita a aquisição dos sinais em um único computador para até 16 transmissores simultâneos, aperfeiçoando o tempo total do processo, permitindo efetuar essa operação para uma produção a nível industrial. O tempo total do processo de compensação e calibração de mais de um transmissor foi reduzido em aproximadamente 6 horas por cada transmissor adicional. No caso de 16 transmissores o sistema sem multiplexação demoraria 114 horas enquanto o sistema com multiplexação demora 24 horas para efetuar o processo completo, representando uma diminuição de 78,9% no tempo total do processo. Os transmissores calibrados e compensados usando o sistema de multiplexação apresentam TEB menor que 0,1% FS, mostrando que o sistema projetado permite que os transmissores de pressão produzidos cumpram com características de desempenho iguais às atingidas pelo sistema de compensação e calibração simples. / Is presented a system for time optimization of the calibration and compensation process of piezoresistive pressure sensors for automation and control applications with high performance characteristics, with compensation of several error sources, specially, compensation of temperature dependencies and nonlinearity, based in an approach that privileges accuracy and precision in the measurements, quality and reliability. The designed system enables the automation of the calibration process and temperature compensation of pressure transmitters through a measuring and multiple programming system that enables the acquisition of signals on a single computer for up to 16 simultaneous transmitters, improving the overall process time, allowing to perform this operation for a production of industrial level. The total process time of compensation and calibration of more than one transmitter has been reduced by about 6 hours for each additional transmitter. In the case of 16 transmitters, the system without multiplexing would take 114 hours while the system with multiplexing takes 24 hours to make the entire process, representing a decrease of 78.9% in the total process time. The transmitters calibrated and compensated using the multiplexing system have TEB less than 0.1% FS, showing that the designed system allows pressure transmitters produced comply with performance characteristics equal to those achieved by the original compensation and calibration system.

É apresentado um sistema para redução do tempo de calibração e compensação de sensores piezoresistivos de pressão para aplicações de automação e controle com características de alto desempenho, com compensação de diversas fontes de erro, especialmente, compensação de não-linearidade e influência da temperatura na medição, baseado em uma concepção que privilegia a precisão e exatidão da medida, a qualidade e a confiabilidade. O sistema projetado permite a automação do processo de calibração e compensação térmica de transmissores de pressão por meio de um sistema de medição e programação múltiplo, que possibilita a aquisição dos sinais em um único computador para até 16 transmissores simultâneos, aperfeiçoando o tempo total do processo, permitindo efetuar essa operação para uma produção a nível industrial. O tempo total do processo de compensação e calibração de mais de um transmissor foi reduzido em aproximadamente 6 horas por cada transmissor adicional. No caso de 16 transmissores o sistema sem multiplexação demoraria 114 horas enquanto o sistema com multiplexação demora 24 horas para efetuar o processo completo, representando uma diminuição de 78,9% no tempo total do processo. Os transmissores calibrados e compensados usando o sistema de multiplexação apresentam TEB menor que 0,1% FS, mostrando que o sistema projetado permite que os transmissores de pressão produzidos cumpram com características de desempenho iguais às atingidas pelo sistema de compensação e calibração simples. / Is presented a system for time optimization of the calibration and compensation process of piezoresistive pressure sensors for automation and control applications with high performance characteristics, with compensation of several error sources, specially, compensation of temperature dependencies and nonlinearity, based in an approach that privileges accuracy and precision in the measurements, quality and reliability. The designed system enables the automation of the calibration process and temperature compensation of pressure transmitters through a measuring and multiple programming system that enables the acquisition of signals on a single computer for up to 16 simultaneous transmitters, improving the overall process time, allowing to perform this operation for a production of industrial level. The total process time of compensation and calibration of more than one transmitter has been reduced by about 6 hours for each additional transmitter. In the case of 16 transmitters, the system without multiplexing would take 114 hours while the system with multiplexing takes 24 hours to make the entire process, representing a decrease of 78.9% in the total process time. The transmitters calibrated and compensated using the multiplexing system have TEB less than 0.1% FS, showing that the designed system allows pressure transmitters produced comply with performance characteristics equal to those achieved by the original compensation and calibration system.

Abstract The aim of this work was to improve the performance and usability of a digital time-to-digital converter (TDC) in CMOS technology. The characteristics of the TDC were improved especially for the needs of pulsed laser time-of-flight (TOF) distance measurement, where picosecond-level precision with a long µs-level measurement range is needed in order to approach mm-level measurement accuracy. Stability in the face of process, voltage and temperature variations, multiple measurement channels, alternative measurement modes, a high integration level, standard interfaces and simple usage were the main features for development. The measurement architecture is based on counter and timing signal interpolation on two levels. The counter counts the full reference clock cycles between the timing signals, while a new recycling delay line developed in this thesis interpolates within the reference clock cycle. This technique utilizes a short delay line several times per reference clock cycle, which minimizes the interpolation nonlinearity. The same structure also makes the use of a low, MHz-level reference frequency possible, and thus only a crystal is needed as an external oscillator component. The parallel load capacitor-scaled delay line structure acts as the second, sub-gate-delay interpolation level. The INL does not accumulate in elements connected in parallel, and the load capacitance differences enable high, ps-level resolution to be achieved. Four TDC circuits in 0.35 µm CMOS technology were designed and tested in the course of this work, of which the latest, a 7-channel TDC, is able to measure the time intervals between the start pulse and three separate stop pulses in one measurement and to resolve the pulse widths or rise times at the same time. In laser TOF distance measurement this functionality can be used when several echoes arrive at the receiver, and also to compensate for the detection threshold problem known as timing walk error. The TDC achieves 8.9 ps interpolation resolution within the cycle time of a 20 MHz reference clock using only 8 delay elements on the first interpolation level and 14 delay elements on the second. A measurement precision better than 9 ps was achieved without using result post-processing or look-up tables. This work shows that versatile, high performance TDCs can be created in standard CMOS technology. / Tiivistelmä Väitöskirjatyön tavoitteena oli parantaa CMOS-aika-digitaalimuuntimien suorituskykyä ja käytettävyyttä. Muuntimen ominaisuuksia kehitettiin erityisesti laseretäisyysmittauksen tarpeita ajatellen, missä millimetritason mittaustarkkuus laajalla mittausaluella edellyttää aika-digitaalimuuntimelta pikosekuntitason tarkkuutta mikrosekuntien mittausalueella. Stabiilius prosessiparametri-, jännite- ja lämpötilavaihteluita vastaan, useat mittauskanavat, useat mittausmoodit, korkea integraatioaste, standardoidut liitäntäväylät ja helppo käytettävyys olivat erityisesti kehityksen kohteina. Suunniteltu mittausarkkitehtuuri koostuu laskurista ja kaksitasoisesta ajoitussignaali-interpolaattorista. Laskuri laskee kokonaiset referenssikellojaksot ajoitussignaalien välillä ja työssä kehitetty referenssiä kierrättävä viivelinjarakenne rekistereineen interpoloi ajoitussignaalien paikat referenssikellojaksojen sisältä. Referenssinkierrätystekniikka hyödyntää lyhyttä viivelinjaa useampaan kertaan kellojakson aikana, mikä minimoi epälineaarisuuden interpoloinnissa. Sama rakenne mahdollistaa myös MHz-tason referenssitaajuuden, jolloin matalataajuista kidettä voidaan käyttää referenssilähteenä. Toinen interpolointitaso koostuu rinnakkaisista kapasitanssiskaalatuista viive-elementeistä, mitkä mahdollistavat alle porttiviiveen mittausresoluution. Rinnakkaisessa rakenteessa elementtien epälineaarisuudet eivät summaudu, mikä mahdollistaa pikosekuntitason mittaustarkkuuden. Väitöskirjatyössä suunniteltiin ja toteutettiin neljä aikavälinmittauspiiriä käyttäen 0,35 µm CMOS-teknologiaa, joista viimeisin, 7-kanavainen muunnin kykenee mittaamaan aikavälin useampaan pulssiin yhdellä kertaa sekä voi selvittää samalla pulssien leveydet tai nousuajat. Laseretäisyysmittauksessa monikanavaisuutta voidaan käyttää kun useita kaikuja lähetetystä pulssista saapuu vastaanottimeen sekä kompensoimaan mittauksessa esiintyviä muita virhelähteitä. Käytettäessä 20 MHz:n kidettä referenssilähteenä muunnin saavuttaa alle 9 ps:n interpolointiresoluution ja tarkkuuden ilman epälineaarisuudenkorjaustaulukoita. Työ osoittaa, että edullisella CMOS-teknologialla voidaan toteuttaa monipuolinen ja erittäin suorituskykyinen aika-digitaalimuunnin.

<p>Our ability to control unstable objects highlights the sophistication of voluntary motor behaviour. In this thesis, we used an inverted pendulum (i.e., stick) balancing paradigm to investigate the task, learning and context-dependent attributes of unstable object control. We hypothesized that learning would mediate the functional integration of posture and upper limb dynamics and expected changes in the task demand and context to be reflected in the control of posture and the upper limb. We found that training increased the average length of balancing trials and applied this result to further investigate the circumstantial properties of unstable object control.</p> <p>We investigated the temporal structure of posture and upper limb dynamics using statistical and nonlinear time series analysis. We demonstrated that subjects used an intermittent strategy to control the inverted pendulum (Chapters 3 and 5) and found that motor learning modulated the statistical and spatiotemporal attributes of posture (Chapter 5) and upper limb displacements (Chapters 2, 3 and 5). We confirmed the balance control strategy was intermittent by showing that posture and upper limb time series are composed of two independent timescale components: a fast component linked to small stochastic displacements and a slow component related to feedback control (Chapters 3, 4 and 5). The interplay between timescale components was affected by the balancing context (Chapter 3) and task demand (Chapter 4).</p> <p>Chapter 5 investigated the acquisition of individual and coupled posture-upper limb control mechanisms. We found that motor learning involved two independent adaptation processes. The first process modified the timescale composition of posture and upper limb displacements and was followed by incremental changes in the occurrence and duration of correlated posture-upper limb trajectories. In Chapter 6, we investigated learning-mediated changes in multijoint coordination and control. Motor learning led to the flexible, error-compensating recruitment of individual joints and we showed that the preferential constraint of destabilizing joint angle variance was the putative mechanism underlying performance.</p> <p>This thesis performed a detailed examination of unstable object control mechanisms. The undertaken studies have provided knowledge about the acquisition and adaptation of control mechanisms at multiple levels of the motor system. Our data provide convergent evidence that the control mechanisms governing complex human balancing tasks are intermittent and modulated by the task and context.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Quad-rotor helicopters are agile aircraft which are lifted and propelled by four rotors. Unlike traditional helicopters, they do not require a tail-rotor to control yaw, but can use four smaller fixed-pitch rotors. However, without an intelligent control system it is very difficult for a human to successfully fly and manoeuvre such a vehicle. Thus, most of recent research has focused on small unmanned aerial vehicles, such that advanced embedded control systems could be developed to control these aircrafts. Vehicles of this nature are very useful when it comes to situations that require unmanned operations, for instance performing tasks in dangerous and/or inaccessible environments that could put human lives at risk. This research demonstrates a consistent way of developing a robust adaptive controller for quad-rotor helicopters, using fuzzy-neural networks; creating an intelligent system that is able to monitor and control the non-linear multi-variable flying states of the quad-rotor, enabling it to adapt to the changing environmental situations and learn from past missions. Firstly, an analytical dynamic model of the quad-rotor helicopter was developed and simulated using Matlab/Simulink software, where the behaviour of the quad-rotor helicopter was assessed due to voltage excitation. Secondly, a 3-D model with the same parameter values as that of the analytical dynamic model was developed using Solidworks software. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) was then used to simulate and analyse the effects of the external disturbance on the control and performance of the quad-rotor helicopter. Verification and validation of the two models were carried out by comparing the simulation results with real flight experiment results. The need for more reliable and accurate simulation data led to the development of a neural network error compensation system, which was embedded in the simulation system to correct the minor discrepancies found between the simulation and experiment results. Data obtained from the simulations were then used to train a fuzzy-neural system, made up of a hierarchy of controllers to control the attitude and position of the quad-rotor helicopter. The success of the project was measured against the quad-rotor’s ability to adapt to wind speeds of different magnitudes and directions by re-arranging the speeds of the rotors to compensate for any disturbance. From the simulation results, the fuzzy-neural controller is sufficient to achieve attitude and position control of the quad-rotor helicopter in different weather conditions, paving way for future real time applications.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Some problems of complex systems are internal to the system whereas other problems exist peripherally; two such problems will be explored in this thesis. First, is the issue of excessive jerk from instantaneous velocity demand changes produced by an adaptive cruise control system. Calculations will be demonstrated and an example control solution will be proposed in Chapter 3. Second, is the issue of a non-perfect plant, called an uncertain or corrupted plant. In initial control analysis, the adaptive cruise control systems are assumed to have a perfect plant; that is to say, the plant always behaves as commanded. In reality, this is seldom the case. Plant corruption may come from a variation in performance through use or misuse, or from noise or imperfections in the sensor signal data. A model for plant corruption is introduced and methods for analysis and compensation are explored in Chapter 4. To facilitate analysis, Chapter 2 discusses the concept of system identification, an order reduction tool which is employed herein. Adaptive cruise control systems are also discussed with special emphasis on the situations most likely to employ jerk limitation.