A student-focused course was created that provides students with a fundamental knowledge of cobot use and capabilities. Students learn to use a Universal Robots UR3e cobot, first with an exisiting free online training simulator. After completing the online training, students…
A student-focused course was created that provides students with a fundamental knowledge of cobot use and capabilities. Students learn to use a Universal Robots UR3e cobot, first with an exisiting free online training simulator. After completing the online training, students gain hands-on experience completing tasks with a cobot on a custom-built workstation. Two of these workstations were created. Two students trialed the program, and both reported enjoying the program and feeling significantly more confident in their cobot programming abilities.
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Visual odometry (VO) plays a crucial role in determining the position and orientation of an autonomous vehicle as it navigates through its environment. However, the performance of visual odometry can be significantly affected by errors in disparity estimation and LIDAR…
Visual odometry (VO) plays a crucial role in determining the position and orientation of an autonomous vehicle as it navigates through its environment. However, the performance of visual odometry can be significantly affected by errors in disparity estimation and LIDAR depth measurements. This thesis investigates the use of LIDAR depth correction and Stereo disparity matching, combined with stronger match filtering, to improve the accuracy and reliability of VO estimations. The study utilizes a dataset consisting of a sequence of image frames, ground truth position data, and a range of feature detection, description, and matching techniques. Results indicate that the proposed approach significantly improves the accuracy of VO estimations, providing a valuable contribution to the development of reliable and safe autonomous navigation systems. The proposed method consists of two main components: (1) an advanced disparity matching algorithm to obtain more accurate and robust disparity estimations, and (2) a LIDAR depth correction module that employs a sensor fusion approach to refine the depth information generated by LIDAR sensors. The LIDAR depth correction module combines data from multiple sensors, including LIDAR, camera, and inertial measurement unit (IMU), to produce a more accurate depth estimation. The performance of the proposed approach is evaluated using real-world datasets and benchmark visual odometry challenges. Results demonstrate that the proposed method significantly improves the accuracy and robustness of visual odometry, leading to better localization and navigation performance for autonomous vehicles. This research contributes to the ongoing development of autonomous vehicle technology by addressing critical challenges in visual odometry and offering a practical solution for more accurate and reliable self-localization
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Cornhole, traditionally seen as tailgate entertainment, has rapidly risen in popularity since the launching of the American Cornhole League in 2016. However, it lacks robust quality control over large tournaments, since many of the matches are scored and refereed by…
Cornhole, traditionally seen as tailgate entertainment, has rapidly risen in popularity since the launching of the American Cornhole League in 2016. However, it lacks robust quality control over large tournaments, since many of the matches are scored and refereed by the players themselves. In the past, there have been issues where entire competition brackets have had to be scrapped and replayed because scores were not handled correctly. The sport is in need of a supplementary scoring solution that can provide quality control and accuracy over large matches where there aren’t enough referees present to score games. Drawing from the ACL regulations as well as personal experience and testimony from ACL Pro players, a list of requirements was generated for a potential automatic scoring system. Then, a market analysis of existing scoring solutions was done, and it found that there are no solutions on the market that can automatically score a cornhole game. Using the problem requirements and previous attempts to solve the scoring problem, a list of concepts was generated and evaluated against each other to determine which scoring system design should be developed. After determining that the chosen concept was the best way to approach the problem, the problem requirements and cornhole rules were further refined into a set of physical assumptions and constraints about the game itself. This informed the choice, structure, and implementation of the algorithms that score the bags. The prototype concept was tested on their own, and areas of improvement were found. Lastly, based on the results of the tests and what was learned from the engineering process, a roadmap was set out for the future development of the automatic scoring system into a full, market-ready product.
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The exploration of building self-awareness through entrepreneurship strategies through the design of a 14-week course incorporating practical perspectives and frameworks from multiple CEOs.
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Fine control of standing postural balance is essential for completing various tasks in daily activities, which might be compromised when interacting with dynamically challenging environments (e.g., moving ground). Among various biofeedback to improve postural balance control, vibrotactile feedback has an…
Fine control of standing postural balance is essential for completing various tasks in daily activities, which might be compromised when interacting with dynamically challenging environments (e.g., moving ground). Among various biofeedback to improve postural balance control, vibrotactile feedback has an advantage of providing supplementary information about balance control without disturbing other core functions (e.g., seeing and hearing). This paper investigated the effectiveness of a waist vibrotactile feedback device to improve postural control during standing balance on a dynamically moving ground simulated by a robotic balance platform. Four vibration motors of the waist device applied vibration feedback in the anterior-posterior and medio-lateral direction based on the 2-dimensional sway angle, measured by an inertia measurement unit. Experimental results with 15 healthy participants demonstrated that the waist vibrotactile feedback is effective in improving postural control, evidenced by improvements in center-of-mass and center-of-pressure stability measures. In addition, this study confirmed the effectiveness of the waist vibrotactile feedback in improving standing balance control even under muscle fatigue induced by lower body exercise. The study further confirmed that the waist feedback is more effective in people with lower baseline balance performance in both normal and fatigue conditions.
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This document is the culmination of research into small unmanned Powered Parachute aerial vehicles. This dissertation serves to provide designers of small systems with an approach to developing a Powered Parachute Unmanned Aerial Vehicle system, guiding them through the basic…
This document is the culmination of research into small unmanned Powered Parachute aerial vehicles. This dissertation serves to provide designers of small systems with an approach to developing a Powered Parachute Unmanned Aerial Vehicle system, guiding them through the basic assumptions, dynamics, and control method. In addition, this dissertation aims to generate a reliable and generalized framework of dynamic design and control methods for autonomous Powered Parachute aircraft. The simulation methods in this paper assist in developing a consistent and robust unmanned system for applying Powered Parachutes as an alternative to multirotor or fixed-wing aircraft.The first chapter serves as a primer on the historical applications of small Unmanned Systems and Powered Parachutes and gives an overview of the requirements for building an autonomous Powered Parachutes; the information within this chapter provides justification background for the second chapter on Powered Parachute dynamics. In the dynamics chapter, equations of motion are derived using engineering first principles. This chapter also discusses alternative methods of improving the control and robustness of the Powered Parachute airframe. The dynamics model is used in all further chapters to develop a generalized control system to operate such a model autonomously. Chapter three of this document focuses on developing simulations from the dynamics described in the previous chapter, laying the groundwork for guidance, navigation, and control algorithms ahead. Chapters four and onwards refine the autonomous control of the Powered Parachute aircraft for real-world scenarios, discussing correction factors and minimizing the errors present in current sensor systems. Chapter five covers the development of an additional adaptive controller which uses a Sigma-Pi Neural network integrated into the final control loop. Chapter six develops advanced control methods for the Powered Parachute airframe, including simulations on a novel proposed thrust vectoring method. Finally, chapter seven discusses results accumulated from testing an experimental prototype.
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There has been a decrease in the fertility rate over the years due to today’s younger generation facing more pressure in the workplace and their personal lives. With an aging population, more and more older people with limited mobility will…
There has been a decrease in the fertility rate over the years due to today’s younger generation facing more pressure in the workplace and their personal lives. With an aging population, more and more older people with limited mobility will require nursing care for their daily activities. There are several applications for wearable sensor networks presented in this paper. The study will also present a motion capture system using inertial measurement units (IMUs) and a pressure-sensing insole with a control system for gait assistance using wearable sensors. This presentation will provide details on the implementation and calibration of the pressure-sensitive insole, the IMU-based motion capture system, as well as the hip exoskeleton robot. Furthermore, the estimation of the Ground Reaction Force (GRF) from the insole design and implementation of the motion tracking using quaternion will be discussed in this document.
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While pulse oximeter technology is not necessarily an area of new technology, advancements in performance and package of pulse sensors have been opening up the opportunities to use these sensors in locations other than the traditional finger monitoring location. …
While pulse oximeter technology is not necessarily an area of new technology, advancements in performance and package of pulse sensors have been opening up the opportunities to use these sensors in locations other than the traditional finger monitoring location. This research report examines the full potential of creating a minimally invasive physiological and environmental observance method from the ear location. With the use of a pulse oximeter and accelerometer located within the ear, there is the opportunity to provide a more in-depth means to monitor a pilot for a Gravity-Induced Loss of Consciousness (GLOC) scenario while not adding any new restriction to the pilot's movement while in flight. Additionally, building from the GLOC scenario system, other safety monitoring systems for military and first responders are explored by alternating the physiological and environmental sensors. This work presents the design and development of hardware, signal processing algorithms, prototype development, and testing results of an in-ear wearable physiological sensor.
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With the extensive technological progress made in the areas of drives, sensors and processing, exoskeletons and other wearable devices have become more feasible. However, the stringent requirements in regards to size and weight continue to exert a strong influence on…
With the extensive technological progress made in the areas of drives, sensors and processing, exoskeletons and other wearable devices have become more feasible. However, the stringent requirements in regards to size and weight continue to exert a strong influence on the system-wide design of these devices and present many obstacles to a successful solution. On the other hand, while the area of controls has seen a significant amount of progress, there also remains a large potential for improvements. This dissertation approaches the design and control of wearable devices from a systems perspective and provides a framework to successfully overcome the often-encountered obstacles with optimal solutions. The electronics, drive and control system design for the HeSA hip exoskeleton project and APEx hip exoskeleton project are presented as examples of how this framework is used to design wearable devices. In the area of control algorithms, a real-time implementation of the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) is presented as an alternative approach to extracting amplitude and frequency information of a time varying signal. In comparison to the peak search method (PSM), the FFT allows extracting basic gait signal information at a faster rate because time windows can be chosen to be less than the fundamental gait frequency. The FFT is implemented on a 16-bit processor and the results show the real-time detection of amplitude and frequency coefficients at an update rate of 50Hz. Finally, a novel neural networks based approach to detecting human gait activities is presented. Existing neural networks often require vast amounts of data along with significant computer resources. Using Neural Ordinary Differential Equations (Neural ODEs) it is possible to distinguish between seven different daily activities using a significantly smaller data set, lower system resources and a time window of only 0.1 seconds.
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As the world moves towards faster production times, quicker shipping, and overall, more demanding schedules, the humans caught in the loop are subject to physical duress causing them to physically break down and have muscular skeletal injuries. Surprisingly, with more…
As the world moves towards faster production times, quicker shipping, and overall, more demanding schedules, the humans caught in the loop are subject to physical duress causing them to physically break down and have muscular skeletal injuries. Surprisingly, with more automation in logistics houses, the remaining workers must be quicker and do more, again resulting in muscular-skeletal injuries. To help alleviate this strain, a class of robotics and wearables has arisen wherein the human is assisted by a worn mechanical device. These devices, traditionally called exoskeletons, fall into two general categories: passive and active. Passive exoskeletons employ no electronics to activate their assistance and instead typically rely on the spring-like qualities of many materials. These are generally lighter weight than their active counterparts, but also lack the assistive power and can even interfere in other routine operations. Active exoskeletons, on the other hand, aim to avoid as much interference as possible by using electronics and power to assist the wearer. Properly executed, this can deliver power at the most opportune time and disengage from interference when not needed. However, if the tuning is mismatched from the human, it can unintentionally increase loads and possibly lead to other future injuries or harm. This dissertation investigates exoskeleton technology from two vantage points: the designer and the consumer. In the first, the creation of the Aerial Porter Exoskeleton (APEx) for the US Air Force (USAF). Testing of this first of its kind exoskeleton revealed a peak metabolic savings of 8.13% as it delivers 30 N-m of torque about each hip. It was tested extensively in live field conditions over 8 weeks to great success. The second section is an exploration of different commercially available exoskeletons and the development of a common set of standards/testing protocols is described. The results show a starting point for a set of standards to be used in a rapidly growing sector.
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