Controlling grip force by maintaining a constant frictional safety margin to improve robotic grasping

Manipulating soft and fragile objects is a challenging task in robotic grasping. The key challenge for robotic grasping is to exert enough grip force to prevent slipping while being gentle enough to prevent damage to an object. Existing grippers used for processes like automatic harvesting of fruits, either apply excessive grip force leading to...

Target-oriented predator and prey swarm control in obstacle-filled environments

In this paper, we explore the creation of control algorithms for swarms of robots playing the role of either predator or prey in an environment filled with static obstacles. The paper devel- ops on a famous flock simulation model proposed by Craig Reynolds called boids. The paper analyzes a zero-sum game situation, in which one swarm of robots,...

Modelling, Control, and Handling Quality Analysis of the Flying-V

Over the last five decades, the majority of commercial aircraft consisted of the traditional tube-and-wing configuration. This traditional configuration is approaching a fuel efficiency asymptote. Besides that, with the increasing number of passengers and cargo transported by air every year, and environmental impact as an important factor in...

Large-scale online ridesharing: the effect of assignment optimality on system performance

Mobility-on-demand (MoD) systems consist of a fleet of shared vehicles that can be hailed for one-way point-to-point trips. The total distance driven by the vehicles and the fleet size can be reduced by employing ridesharing, i.e., by assigning multiple passengers to one vehicle. However, finding the optimal passenger-vehicle assignment in an...

Never landing drone: Autonomous soaring of a unmanned aerial vehicle in front of a moving obstacle

Increasing endurance is a major challenge for battery-powered aerial vehicles. A method is presented which makes use of an updraft around obstacles to decrease the power consumption of a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle. A soaring flight controller has been developed that can autonomously soar while the unmanned aerial vehicle keeps its...

Never Landing Drone

Increasing endurance is a major challenge for battery-powered aerial vehicles. A method is presented which makes use of an updraft around obstacles to decrease the power consumption of a fixed-wing, unmanned aerial vehicle. Simulatory results have shown the conditions that the flight controller can fly in.<br/>The effect of a change in wind...

Effects of Simulator Motion on Driver Steering Performance with Various Visual Degradations

This paper investigates the effects of simulator motion on driver steering performance, and how this depends on the available visual information and external disturbances such as wind gusts. A human-in-the-loop driving experiment was performed in which twelve participants steered a fixedvelocity car to follow a winding road (target tracking, TT)...

Heave reduction of the crane tip of a J-class vessel by inducing a roll moment using active ballast systems

To compensate the heaving motion of a payload during deep water offshore installations, hanging from an on-board crane on a monohull vessel, a new concept is being investigated. By actively rolling the vessel using ballasting systems, the coupled heave motion of the crane tip can be reduced significantly. This is investigated by building a...

Cost Effective Attitude Control Validation Test Methods for CubeSats Applied to PolarCube

The problem of testing the performance of an attitude control system presents new challenges and opportunities when conducted on a CubeSat scale. This is the result of drastic reduction in physical properties (size, mass, torques) as well as project resources (funds, manpower, time) when compared to traditional satellite programs. This thesis...

Metering with Traffic Signal Control: Development and Evaluation of an Algorithm

For some on-ramps, which cause congestion on the motorway, it is not possible to install a ramp metering system for geometric or other reasons. But sometimes it is possible to meter traffic with the traffic lights of nearby intersections in such a way that the situation on the motorway improves and on the urban network the situation does not get...

Design of a Sustainable Electric Vehicle Charging Station

Electric vehicles only become useful in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, if the electricity used to charge their batteries comes from renewable energy sources. This thesis was conducted within the electric mobility framework of the Green Village, the project put forward to test the Green Campus Concept. The objective was to design a Station...

Maximum Likelihood Estimation of Linear Time-Varying Pilot-Vehicle System Parameters

Pilot's perception and control of aircraft motions

Dynamics modelling, simulation, and control of a spacecraft/manipulator system

Four well-known formalisms for mathematical modelling of the dynamics of a spacecraft/manipulator system are derived from the unifying d'Alembert principle. The Newton-Euler formalism is discussed in more detail, as it allows efficient numerical simulation. An algorithm is defined for the control of the manipulator end-effector motion in...

Dynamics of flexible spacecraft: the internal balancing approach towards mathematical model order reduction

Mathematical models of the dynamics of spacecraft are needed to carry out numerical simulations, to gain insight into the characteristics of the spacecraft dynamics, and to synthesize control algorithms suitable for online system Identification, estimation, and control. Increases in size and mechanical complexity of spacecraft result in...

Reliability aspects of software for digital avionics

Modern commercial transport aircraft contain digital avionics systems for more and more safety critical functions. The reliability and safety of those new systems depend on the hardware reliability and on the reliability of the embedded software. In this report, an overview is given of available methods and techniques to develop reliable...