APPLICATION OF FEA TO THE COLLOCATION OF ACTUATOR/SENSOR IN THE INTELLIGENT STRUCTURES

The piezothermoelectric actuator/sensor collocation for advanced intelligent structure is studied. The quasi-static equations of piezothermoelasticity are used to analyze the coupling effects between the displacement, temperature and electric fields of piezothermoelasticity continua and the governing equations for piezothermoelasticity continua are derived to discuss the effects of coupling factors on the control/sensing performance in intelligent structure. Based on those analyses, a finite element analysis model of distributed piezothertnoelectric continua is developed later. The thermal stress and deformation of a beam are calculated by FEA method so as to determine the optimal actuator/sensor placement. Based on the results of the optimal analysis procedure of actuator/sensor placement, some conclusions of actuator/sensor placement are obtained. Thus, the optimal actuator/sensor placement for piezothermoelectric intelligent structure can be found from the actuator/sensor placements available so that intelligent system will have the best controllability and observability.

Piezoelectric Actuator/Sensor Wave Propagation Based Nondestructive Active Monitoring Method of Concrete Structures

In order to monitor the basic mechanical properties and interior damage of concrete structures,the piezoelectric actuator/sensor based wave propagation method was investigated experimentally in the laboratory using a specifically designed test setup.The energy attenuation of stress waves was measured by the relative index between the output voltage of sensors and the excitation voltage at the actuator.Based on the experimental results of concrete cube and cylinder specimens,the effect of excitation frequencies,excitation amplitude,wave propagation paths and the curing age on the output signals of sensors are evaluated.The results show that the relative voltage attenuation coefficient RVAC is an effective indicator for measuring the attenuation of stress waves through the interior of concrete.

Optimization of actuator/sensor position of multi-body system with quick startup and brake

A new method was put forward to optimize the position of actuator/sensor of multi-body system with quick startup and brake. Dynamical equation was established for the system with intelligent structure of piezoelectric actuators. According to the property of the modes varying with time, the performance index function was developed based on the optimal configuration principle of energy maximal dissipation, and the relevant optimal model was obtained. According to its characteristic, a float-encoding genetic algorithm, which is efficient, simple and excellent for solving the global-optimal solution of this problem, was adopted. Taking the plane manipulator as an example, the result of numerical calculation shows that, after the actuator/sensor position being optimized, the vibration amplitude of the multi-body system is reduced by 35% compared with that without optimization.

Observer-based dynamic event-triggered control for distributed parameter systems over mobile sensor-plus-actuator networks

We develop a policy of observer-based dynamic event-triggered state feedback control for distributed parameter systems over a mobile sensor-plus-actuator network.It is assumed that the mobile sensing devices that provide spatially averaged state measurements can be used to improve state estimation in the network.For the purpose of decreasing the update frequency of controller and unnecessary sampled data transmission, an efficient dynamic event-triggered control policy is constructed.In an event-triggered system, when an error signal exceeds a specified time-varying threshold, it indicates the occurrence of a typical event.The global asymptotic stability of the event-triggered closed-loop system and the boundedness of the minimum inter-event time can be guaranteed.Based on the linear quadratic optimal regulator, the actuator selects the optimal displacement only when an event occurs.A simulation example is finally used to verify that the effectiveness of such a control strategy can enhance the system performance.

Distributed fault diagnosis observer for multi-agent system against actuator and sensor faults

Component failures can cause multi-agent system(MAS)performance degradation and even disasters,which provokes the demand of the fault diagnosis method.A distributed sliding mode observer-based fault diagnosis method for MAS is developed in presence of actuator and sensor faults.Firstly,the actuator and sensor faults are extended to the system state,and the system is transformed into a descriptor system form.Then,a sliding mode-based distributed unknown input observer is proposed to estimate the extended state.Furthermore,adaptive laws are introduced to adjust the observer parameters.Finally,the effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated with numerical simulations.

Airfoil friction drag reduction based on grid-type and super-dense array plasma actuators

To improve the cruise flight performance of aircraft, two new configurations of plasma actuators(grid-type and super-dense array) were investigated to reduce the turbulent skin friction drag of a low-speed airfoil. The induced jet characteristics of the two actuators in quiescent air were diagnosed with high-speed particle image velocimetry(PIV), and their drag reduction efficiencies were examined under different operating conditions in a wind tunnel. The results showed that the grid-type plasma actuator was capable of producing a wall-normal jet array(peak magnitude: 1.07 m/s) similar to that generated in a micro-blowing technique, while the superdense array plasma actuator created a wavy wall-parallel jet(magnitude: 0.94 m/s) due to the discrete spanwise electrostatic forces. Under a comparable electrical power consumption level,the super-dense array plasma actuator array significantly outperformed the grid-type configuration,reducing the total airfoil friction drag by approximately 22% at a free-stream velocity of 20 m/s.The magnitude of drag reduction was proportional to the dimensionless jet velocity ratio(r), and a threshold r = 0.014 existed under which little impact on airfoil drag could be discerned.

A framework for dynamic modelling of railway track switches considering the switch blades,actuators and control systems

The main contribution of this paper is the development and demonstration of a novel methodology that can be followed to develop a simulation twin of a railway track switch system to test the functionality in a digital environment.This is important because,globally,railway track switches are used to allow trains to change routes;they are a key part of all railway networks.However,because track switches are single points of failure and safety-critical,their inability to operate correctly can cause significant delays and concomitant costs.In order to better understand the dynamic behaviour of switches during operation,this paper has developed a full simulation twin of a complete track switch system.The approach fuses finite element for the rail bending and motion,with physics-based models of the electromechanical actuator system and the control system.Hence,it provides researchers and engineers the opportunity to explore and understand the design space around the dynamic operation of new switches and switch machines before they are built.This is useful for looking at the modification or monitoring of existing switches,and it becomes even more important when new switch concepts are being considered and evaluated.The simulation is capable of running in real time or faster meaning designs can be iterated and checked interactively.The paper describes the modelling approach,demonstrates the methodology by developing the system model for a novel“REPOINT”switch system,and evaluates the system level performance against the dynamic performance requirements for the switch.In the context of that case study,it is found that the proposed new actuation system as designed can meet(and exceed)the system performance requirements,and that the fault tolerance built into the actuation ensures continued operation after a single actuator failure.

Path-Following Control With Obstacle Avoidance of Autonomous Surface Vehicles Subject to Actuator Faults

This paper investigates the path-following control problem with obstacle avoidance of autonomous surface vehicles in the presence of actuator faults,uncertainty and external disturbances.Autonomous surface vehicles inevitably suffer from actuator faults in complex sea environments,which may cause existing obstacle avoidance strategies to fail.To reduce the influence of actuator faults,an improved artificial potential function is constructed by introducing the lower bound of actuator efficiency factors.The nonlinear state observer,which only depends on measurable position information of the autonomous surface vehicle,is used to address uncertainties and external disturbances.By using a backstepping technique and adaptive mechanism,a path-following control strategy with obstacle avoidance and fault tolerance is designed which can ensure that the tracking errors converge to a small neighborhood of zero.Compared with existing results,the proposed control strategy has the capability of obstacle avoidance and fault tolerance simultaneously.Finally,the comparison results through simulations are given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Practical prescribed-time fuzzy tracking control for uncertain nonlinear systems with time-varying actuators faults

The paper investigates the practical prescribed-time fuzzy tracking control problem for a category of nonlinear system subject to time-varying actuator faults.The presence of unknown nonlinear dynamics and actuator faults makes achieving tracking control within a prescribed-time challenging.To tackle this issue,we propose a novel practical prescribed-time fuzzy tracking control strategy,which is independent of the initial state of the system and does not rely on precise modeling of the system and actuators.We apply the approximation capabilities of fuzzy logic systems to handle the unknown nonlinear functions and unidentified actuator faults in the system.The piecewise controller and adaptive law constructed based on piecewise prescribed time-varying function and backstepping technique method establish the theoretical framework of practical prescribed-time tracking control,and extend the range of prescribed-time tracking control to infinity.Regardless of the initial conditions,the proposed control strategy can guarantee that all signals remain uniformly bounded within the practical prescribed time in the presence of unknown nonlinear item and time-varying actuator faults.Simulation example is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.

Fully Distributed Nash Equilibrium Seeking for High-Order Players With Actuator Limitations

This paper explores the problem of distributed Nash equilibrium seeking in games, where players have limited knowledge on other players' actions. In particular, the involved players are considered to be high-order integrators with their control inputs constrained within a pre-specified region. A linear transformation for players' dynamics is firstly utilized to facilitate the design of bounded control inputs incorporating multiple saturation functions. By introducing consensus protocols with adaptive and time-varying gains, the unknown actions for players are distributively estimated. Then, a fully distributed Nash equilibrium seeking strategy is exploited, showcasing its remarkable properties: (1) ensuring the boundedness of control inputs;(2) avoiding any global information/parameters;and (3) allowing the graph to be directed. Based on Lyapunov stability analysis, it is theoretically proved that the proposed distributed control strategy can lead all the players' actions to the Nash equilibrium. Finally, an illustrative example is given to validate effectiveness of the proposed method.

Adaptive Fixed-Time Control of Nonlinear MASs With Actuator Faults

The adaptive fixed-time consensus problem for a class of nonlinear multi-agent systems(MASs)with actuator faults is considered in this paper.To approximate the unknown nonlinear functions in MASs,radial basis function neural networks are used.In addition,the first order sliding mode differentiator is utilized to solve the“explosion of complexity”problem,and a filter error compensation method is proposed to ensure the convergence of filter error in fixed time.With the help of the Nussbaum function,the actuator failure compensation mechanism is constructed.By designing the adaptive fixed-time controller,all signals in MASs are bounded,and the consensus errors between the leader and all followers converge to a small area of origin.Finally,the effectiveness of the proposed control method is verified by simulation examples.

Improved control of distributed parameter systems using wireless sensor and actuator networks:An observer-based method

In this paper,the control problem of distributed parameter systems is investigated by using wireless sensor and actuator networks with the observer-based method.Firstly,a centralized observer which makes use of the measurement information provided by the fixed sensors is designed to estimate the distributed parameter systems.The mobile agents,each of which is affixed with a controller and an actuator,can provide the observer-based control for the target systems.By using Lyapunov stability arguments,the stability for the estimation error system and distributed parameter control system is proved,meanwhile a guidance scheme for each mobile actuator is provided to improve the control performance.A numerical example is finally used to demonstrate the effectiveness and the advantages of the proposed approaches.

Iterative Learning Control for Distributed Parameter Systems Based on Non-Collocated Sensors and Actuators

In this paper, an open-loop PD-type iterative learning control(ILC) scheme is first proposed for two kinds of distributed parameter systems(DPSs) which are described by parabolic partial differential equations using non-collocated sensors and actuators. Then, a closed-loop PD-type ILC algorithm is extended to a class of distributed parameter systems with a non-collocated single sensor and m actuators when the initial states of the system exist some errors. Under some given assumptions, the convergence conditions of output errors for the systems can be obtained. Finally, one numerical example for a distributed parameter system with a single sensor and two actuators is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed ILC schemes.

A Review of Smart Materials for the Boost of Soft Actuators,Soft Sensors,and Robotics Applications

With the advance of smart material science,robotics is evolving from rigid robots to soft robots.Compared to rigid robots,soft robots can safely interact with the environment,easily navigate in unstructured fields,and be minimized to operate in narrow spaces,owning to the new actuation and sensing technologies developed by the smart materials.In the review,different actuation and sensing technologies based on different smart materials are analyzed and summarized.According to the driving or feedback signals,actuators are categorized into electrically responsive actuators,thermally responsive actuators,magnetically responsive actuators,and photoresponsive actuators;sensors are categorized into resistive sensors,capacitive sensors,magnetic sensors,and optical waveguide sensors.After introducing the principle and several robotic prototypes of some typical materials in each category of the actuators and sensors.The advantages and disadvantages of the actuators and sensors are compared based on the categories,and their potential applications in robotics are also presented.

SVD Approach for Actuator and Sensor Placement in Active Vibration Control of Large Cable Net Structures

The actuator and sensor placement problem for active vibration control of large cable net structures is investigated in this paper.Since the structures exhibit closely spaced modes in the range of low frequencies,the number of modes to be considered is quite large after modal truncation,while only a limited number of actuators and sensors are to be placed.This makes it hard to determine the actuator and sensor locations with the existing placement methods in the literature such as the methods based on the controllability/observability grammian.To deal with this issue,an actuator and sensor placement method based on singular value decompositions(SVD)of the input and output matrices is proposed,which guarantees the modal controllability and observability of the system.The effectiveness of the SVD based method is verified through numerical simulations in which comparisons are conducted between randomly-chosen locations and the optimal ones obtained by a genetic algorithm.

Ultralong Stretchable Soft Actuator(US2A):Design,Modeling and Application

Actuator plays a significant role in soft robotics.This paper proposed an ultralong stretchable soft actuator(US2A)with a variable and sizeable maximum elongation.The US2A is composed of a silicone rubber tube and a bellows woven sleeve.The maximal extension can be conveniently regulated by just adjusting the wrinkles’initial angle of the bellows woven sleeve.The kinematics of US2A could be obtained by geometrically analyzing the structure of the bellows woven sleeve when the silicone rubber tube is inflated.Based on the principle of virtual work,the actuating models have been established:the pressure-elongation model and the pressure-force model.These models reflect the influence of the silicone tube’s shell thickness and material properties on the pneumatic muscle’s performance,which facilitates the optimal design of US2A for various working conditions.The experimental results showed that the maximum elongation of the US2A prototype is 257%,and the effective elongation could be variably regulated in the range of 0 and 257%.The proposed models were also verified by pressure-elongation and pressure-force experiments,with an average error of 5%and 2.5%,respectively.Finally,based on the US2A,we designed a pneumatic rehabilitation glove,soft arm robot,and rigid-soft coupling continuous robot,which further verified the feasibility of US2A as a soft driving component.

Zigbee Based Wireless Sensor and Actuator Network for Service Robot Intelligent Space

Wireless sensor and actuator network is the key technology of service robot intelligent space. This paper is concerned with design and implementation of a ZigBee based wireless sensor and actuator network (hereinafter referred to as ZWSAN), which has been applied in our service robot intelligent space successfully. Firstly, a simplified ZigBee stack applied to ZWSAN is proposed and the primitives of the stack are illustrated after a short overview of ZigBee protocols. Then the implementation of hardware module and software stack is introduced in detail as well as several representative devices integrated into ZWSAN, including environmental sensors for environmental perception, home devices controllers for device control, embedded speech recognition module for speech control, IMU module for abnormal behaviors detection and laser robot control for service robot navigation. An application example is described to demonstrate how the devices in ZWSAN to provide service cooperatively. Finally, we conclude this paper and discuss the future directions.

A study of a slim compact piezo inertia actuator

Most previously reported inertia actuators suffer from the problems of low speed and large size.To overcome these shortcomings,this study proposes a slim compact piezo inertia actuator based on the principle of stick–slip drive.Actuated by the transverse motion of a cantilever beam forming part of a monolithic elastomer,this actuator achieves a high velocity.The construction and basic operating principle of the actuator are discussed in detail.Commercial finite element analysis software is employed to determine the appropriate geometry for the monolithic elastomer.To study the actuator’s mechanical characteristics,a prototype is fabricated and a series of experimental tests are performed.According to the results of these tests,the maximum velocity and maximum load force are about 24.03 mm/s and 1.96 N,respectively,and the minimum step size is about 0.47μm.It is shown that the inertia actuator based on a monolithic elastomer with a cantilever beam not only has a slim compact structure,but also exhibits good output characteristics.

Fuzzy Feedback Control for Electro-Hydraulic Actuators

Electro-hydraulic actuators(EHA)have recently played a significant role in modern industrial applications,especially in systems requiring extremely high precision.This can be explained by EHA’s ability to precisely control the position and force through advanced sensors and innovative control algorithms.One of the promising approaches to improve control accuracy for EHA systems is applying classical to modern control algorithms,in which the proportional–inte-gral–derivative(PID)algorithm,fuzzy logic controller,and a hybrid of these methods are popular options.In this paper,we developed a novel version of the fuzzy control algorithm and linear feedback control method,namely fuzzy lin-ear feedback control,to improve the control performance.To achieve the highest performance,wefirst designed a mathematical EHA model based on the Matlab/Simulink software packages thanks to the selected parameters,which are similar to a real EHA system.Then,we respectively applied PID,fuzzy PID(FPID),and fuzzy linear feedback control(FLFC)before comparing them to have a full view of the outstanding advantages of the proposed algorithm.The simulation results showed that the proposed FLFC algorithm is approximately 99%and 77%super-ior in performance to the PID and feedback control algorithms,respectively.

Adaptive Leader-Follower Consensus Control of Multiple Flexible Manipulators With Actuator Failures and Parameter Uncertainties

In this paper,the leader-follower consensus problem for a multiple flexible manipulator network with actuator failures,parameter uncertainties,and unknown time-varying boundary disturbances is addressed.The purpose of this study is to develop distributed controllers utilizing local interactive protocols that not only suppress the vibration of each flexible manipulator but also achieve consensus on joint angle position between actual followers and the virtual leader.Following the accomplishment of the reconstruction of the fault terms and parameter uncertainties,the adaptive neural network method and parameter estimation technique are employed to compensate for unknown items and bounded disturbances.Furthermore,the Lyapunov stability theory is used to demonstrate that followers’angle consensus errors and vibration deflections in closed-loop systems are uniformly ultimately bounded.Finally,the numerical simulation results confirm the efficacy of the proposed controllers.