Sharif Digital Repository

Access to a prototype during R&D can play a crucial role in early identification of the weaknesses in the design. Under circumstances that a particular commercial subsystem with the exact required specific features is unavailable, the realization of such a prototype can be delayed. In this paper, an example of rapid prototyping for a dual-channel biosignal data acquisition system based on the open-source concept is described. The selected biosignal is the finger photoplethysmogram. Except for Matlab, all other software components are open-source. The hardware design of the optical sensor utilized to record the signals is also open-source, making the system extremely affordable with the... 

The currently available laparoscopic instruments are unable to manipulate and grasp the large intra-abdominal organs, such as spleen and kidney, with sufficient stability and safety. This paper describes a novel three-fingered endoscopic instrument, based on parallelogram mechanism, which can fully constrain the large organs and provide an effective grasping function. We first evaluated the efficacy of the design using a 3D model and finite element analysis. Then, a fully functional prototype was fabricated for experimental evaluations, including force propagation and pull force limitation characteristics. Finally, the instrument's capability for effective grasping was investigated on animal... 

Context: It is well-known that the use of formal methods in the software development process results in high-quality software products. Having specified the software requirements in a formal notation, the question is how they can be transformed into an implementation. There is typically a mismatch between the specification and the implementation, known as the specification-implementation gap. Objective: This paper introduces a set of translation functions to fill the specification-implementation gap in the domain of database applications. We only present the formal definition, not the implementation, of the translation functions. Method: We chose Z, SQL and Delphi languages to illustrate our... 

Continuity of service of wind energy conversion systems as well as their reliability and performances are some of the major concerns in this power generation area. Six-legs AC/DC/AC converters are normally used in modern wind energy systems like as in the system with a doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG). A sudden failure of the converter can lead to the total or partial loss of the control of the phase currents and can cause serious system malfunction or shutdown. Therefore, to prevent the spread of the fault to the other system components and to ensure continuity of service, fault tolerant converter topologies associated to quick and effective fault detection and compensation methods... 

In this paper, an FPGA-based fault-tolerant back-to-back converter without redundancy is studied. Before fault occurrence, the fault-tolerant converter operates like a conventional back-to-back six-leg converter, and after the fault, it becomes a five-leg converter. Design, implementation, and experimental verification of an FPGA-based reconfigurable control strategy for this converter are discussed. This reconfigurable control strategy allows the continuous operation of the converter with minimum affection from a fault in one of the semiconductor switches. A very fast detection scheme is used to detect and locate the fault. Implementation of the fault detection and of the fully digital... 

In this paper, a new zero-voltage-switching, high power-factor, bridgeless rectifier is introduced. In this topology, an auxiliary circuit provides soft switching for all of the power semiconductor devices. Thus the switching losses are reduced and the highest efficiency can be achieved. The proposed converter has been analyzed and a design procedure has been introduced. The control circuit for the converter has also been developed. Based on the given approach, a 250 W, 400 Vdc prototype converters has been designed at 100 kHz for universal input voltage (90-264 Vrms) applications. A maximum efficiency of 94.6% and a power factor correction over 0.99 has been achieved. The simulation and... 

The performance of cellular solids in biomedical applications relies strongly on a detailed understanding of the effects of pore topology on mechanical properties. This study aims at characterizing the failure mechanism of scaffolds based on nodal connectivity (number of struts that meet in joints) and geometry of the pores. Plastic models of scaffolds having the same relative density but different cubic and trigonal unit cells were designed and then fabricated via three dimensional (3-D) printing. Unit cells were repeated in different arrangements in 3-D space. An in-situ imaging technique was utilized to study the progressive deformation of the scaffold models. Different nodal... 

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to present an improved methodology for design of custom-made hip prostheses, through integration of advanced image processing, computer aided design (CAD) and additive manufacturing (AM) technologies. Design/methodology/approach - The proposed methodology for design of custom-made hip prostheses is based on an independent design criterion for each of the intra-medullary and extra-medullary portions of the prosthesis. The intra-medullar part of the prosthesis is designed using a more accurate and detailed description of the 3D geometry of the femoral intra-medullary cavity, including the septum calcar ridge, so that an improved fill and fit performance... 

Rapid prototyping is a promising technique for producing tissue engineering scaffolds due to its capacity to generate predetermined forms and structures featuring distinct pore architectures. The objective of this study is to investigate the influences of different pore geometries and their orientation with respect to the compressive loading direction on mechanical responses of scaffolds. Plastic models of scaffolds with cubic and hexagonal unit cells were fabricated by three-dimensional (3-D) printing. An in situ imaging technique was utilized to study the progressive compressive deformation of the scaffold models. In both cubic and hexagonal geometries, organized buckling patterns relevant... 

This research presents virtual prototyping and performance evaluation of a series elastic torque actuator developed for augmenting lower extremity exoskeletal systems employing biomechanical framework. For this purpose, experimental kinematical data of the lower extremity were collected for walking and backpack load carrying. Forward dynamics simulation of the movements under investigation is performed in a biomechanical framework consisting of a musculoskeletal model with ten degrees-of-freedom actuated by eighteen Hill-type musculotendon actuators per leg to perform the muscle functional analysis. Muscle torque analysis results employed for optimal design and selection of components in the... 

Botnets (networks of compromised computers) are often used for malicious activities such as spam, click fraud, identity theft, phishing, and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Most of previous researches have introduced fully or partially signature-based botnet detection approaches. In this paper, we propose a fully anomaly-based approach that requires no a priori knowledge of bot signatures, botnet C&C protocols, and C&C server addresses. We start from inherent characteristics of botnets. Bots connect to the C&C channel and execute the received commands. Bots belonging to the same botnet receive the same commands that causes them having similar netflows characteristics and... 

LLC-LC resonant converter is a suitable circuit topology to design switched-mode power supplies for wide-output-voltage and wide-output-load applications. In this paper, a design procedure is introduced to optimize this converter. Unlike soft switching techniques for pulse width modulated converters, which usually apply an active auxiliary circuit to reduce switching losses and EMI, in the proposed converter, not only such circuits are not used, but also all of the parasitic elements are merged to the converters main components. Zero-voltage switching (ZVS) operation is realized for all power devices under all operating conditions. Thus, this converter is a suitable choice for... 

The most prevalent musculoskeletal condition and one of the most disabilities are caused by low back pain. In the low back pain, a large variety of evaluation tools is presented to assess the results of the treatment; therefore, it is important to measure the trunk angle in order to determine the progress during patient's treatment. In this project, we developed a low cost prototype system for flexion-extension movement to measure the angle of the trunk in sagital plane. The system consists of clothing that is stretchable; a Rubbery Ruler sensor (RRs) attached on clothing, data acquisition system. Inertial Magnetic Unit (IMU) sensor installed on spine is used to calibrate the orientation for... 

This paper presents the prototype design and fabrication of a magnetically actuated miniature pump that utilizes self-sealing capability of ferrofluid-covered permanent magnets in both pumping and valving mechanisms. The valving action is performed by employing one active valve along with two nozzle/diffuser elements. Two cylindrical permanent magnets are placed inside the flat-wall channels: One magnet acts as the active valve and the other one serves as a reciprocating piston actuating the working fluid. In order to seal the gaps between the channel walls and the permanent magnet of the valve/piston, ferrofluid is used to cover the surfaces of both magnets. The valve and the piston are... 

A two-channel time analyser data acquisition system is developed for analysis of stochastic processes of random time interval pulses. The system is implemented on a typical low cost FPGA device. Two stochastic processes of nuclear interactions can be recorded by the system independently without any inter-channel dead time behaviour. The experimental results without any hardware based data reduction are transferred to the computer to perform arbitrary post analysis of the data using powerful software engineering tools to estimate the statistical properties of the processes. The performance of the system is verified experimentally. The maximum time digitization period and the minimum channel... 

Different types of visual features provide multi-modal representation for images in the annotation task. Conventional graph-based image annotation methods integrate various features into a single descriptor and consider one node for each descriptor on the learning graph. However, this graph does not capture the information of individual features, making it unsuitable for propagating the labels of annotated images. In this paper, we address this issue by proposing an approach for fusing the visual features such that a specific subgraph is constructed for each visual modality and then subgraphs are connected to form a supergraph. As the size of supergraph grows linearly with the number of... 

Medical applications of rapid prototyping have an increasing trend, making the future of RP more and more promising. These applications may include design, development, and manufacture of medical devices and instrumentation, as well as implant design, anatomical modeling, surgical planning, surgical implants, and prosthesis fabrication. This paper provides a new methodology for customized hip prosthesis that could provide high accuracy of femoral canal reconstruction via 3D modeling of prosthesis stem, 3D modeling of prosthesis neck, and facilitating the communication between the designer and surgeon. Combining RP technologies and rapid tooling with this novel custom-made hip prosthesis,... 

In the shoulder disease, a large various tools is employed to assess the results of the treatment. In this work, a new system is proposed to record abduction-adduction movement of human shoulder. The system consists of a cloth that is stretchable, two Rubbery Ruler sensors (RRs) that attached on humerus of both arms and a data acquisition system. Two Xsens sensors attached on humerus of both arms are used to calibrate the orientation for the RRs output. Moreover, we developed a low cost prototype system to measure the rotation of Yaw from 30 to 90 degrees  

This paper presents a prototype of a high-throughput 4x4 64-QAM MIMO receiver consisting of a channel matrix QR decomposition, a soft-output K-Best MIMO detector and a Convolutional Turbo Code decoder. The proposed MIMO receiver provides low processing latency and a pipelined architecture scalable to a larger number of antennas and constellation order. Therefore, it is suitable for LTE-Advanced and IEEE 802.16m broadband wireless standards. A rapid prototyping platform interfacing MATLAB with Xilinx ISE was used in the development of the 4x4 64-QAM MIMO receiver. The receiver utilizes 96% of the slice LUTs and 78% of slice registers on Virtex-5 FX130T FPGA, operating at a maximum frequency...