Sharif Digital Repository

Many workers and soldiers suffer from musculoskeletal problems due to carrying heavy loads. Using exoskeleton robots which are designed for power augmentation can be effective in preventing these disorders. Due to the interaction of these robots with human, it is necessary to design an appropriate control system for these robots, therefore, the aim of this research is to design a predictive nonlinear control system for a three degrees of freedom lower-limb Exoskeleton robot, in order to improve the performance of the robot, follow trajectory of human joints and reduce the interaction forces between human and the robot during the squatting activity. Multi-stage model predictive controller... 

The hand is an important part of the human body, the loss of all or part of it greatly reduces a person's ability to perform daily tasks. For people who have lost this significant organ, replacing it with an artificial limb that can meet some of their needs is essential. Today, all robotic prostheses use electromyographic (EMG) signals from the remaining muscles of the disabled limb as input signals. Classifying the EMG signal and converting it to a control signal faces serious challenges. Variation of signal properties over time, electrode slippage, muscle fatigue, changes in muscle contraction intensity, and changes in limb position and direction are some of these challenges. Therefore, a... 

Hybrid Exoskeletons refer to simultaneous use of wearable robots and functional electrical stimulation technology. Hybrid exoskeletons have many advantages compared to the separate application of each of these technologies, such as reducing the robot’s energy consumption and the need for lighter and cheaper actuators for the robot, using humans muscle power, and reducing muscle fatigue. As a result, these robots have recently attracted a lot of interest in rehabilitation applications for patients suffering from mobility impairment.Control in hybrid exoskeletons is more complicated than control in traditional exoskeletons. Because in addition to robot and functional electrical stimulation... 

Low back pain (LBP), the leading cause of disability worldwide, remains one of the most common and challenging occupational musculoskeletal disorders. The effective assessment of LBP injury risk, and the design of appropriate treatment modalities and rehabilitation protocols, require accurate estimation of the mechanical spinal loads during different activities. This study aimed to: 1) develop a novel 2D beam-column finite element control-based model of the lumbar spine and compare its predictions for muscle forces and spinal loads to those resulting from a geometrically-matched equilibrium-based model; 2) test, using the foregoing control-based finite element model, the validity of the... 

Drill strings are subjected to complex coupled dynamics. Therefore, accurate dynamic modeling, which can represent the physical behavior of real drill strings, is of great importance for system analysis and control. The most widely used dynamic models for such systems are the lumped element models which neglect the system distributed feature. In this thesis, an infinite-dimensional model for the vibrational dynamics of the drill-string, called neutral-type time delay model, is modified to investigate the coupled axial-torsional vibrations in drill strings. This model is derived directly from the distributed parameter model by employing the d’Alembert method. Coupling of axial and torsional... 

Inspired by the behavior of creatures in nature, including fish, generating propulsive forces under water has attracted great interest in recent years. Various tools such as computer software and experimental laboratory observations can be used to study the movements for different types of fishes. In this research, two thin fins, the shape of which is inspired by fish tail, will be investigated as a simplified model under non-viscous and incompressible fluid conditions using the experimental results and Ansys CFX software. For this purpose, the fin is considered once as a unforked rigid cantilever and again as a rigid forked cantilever with a constant water inlet speed of 10 cm per second.... 

In recent years, the seat suspension system in commercial vehicles, industry, agriculture, transportation and … have been focused by researchers. Designing the spring-damper isolators for vehicle’s seat can be an achievable and suitable strategy to increase the comfort and decrease the risk of injuries in vehicles. In this research, the effect of vibrations due to road roughness has been examined by dynamic modeling of a vehicle in combination with the human body model. Thus by using spring-damper isolators and genetic algorithm, we try to optimize the performance of the system. Designing parameters includes the stiffness and viscosity of seat isolator and our target functions include the... 

Providing energy for small but out-of-access devices has led industries to harvest energy from the environment, especially environmental vibrations. The problem of vibrational energy harvesters with linear behavior, is their small bandwidth and consequently, their high sensitivity to frequency content and excitation spectra. Particularly in random excitations with vibrational energy spreading over a frequency range, linear harvesters do not seem appropriate. Under these conditions, harvesters with nonlinear stiffness are possible substitutes for linear systems. However, prediction and estimation of the behavior of systems with nonlinear stiffness under random excitation has been complicated,... 

The main goal of this thesis is to develop and implement a variable Impedance control method with the ability to refine the desired gait in an online manner. For this purpose, a dataset consisting of 89 healthy gaits was utilized. Then, “Basic shapes” were driven using principal component analysis and their meaningfulness was investigated. Regarding the meaningfulness of coefficients of basic shapes, a normality metric was defined to evaluate the human gaits. Furthermore, as a reference gait refinement in Impedance control, an outer loop was added to change the desired gait, according to traversed gait. Kalman filter was used to estimate the coefficients of basic shapes in this loop. In... 

The purpose of this study is to develop model predictive control approach to control a turbocompressor. The turbocompressor which is consisted of a gas turbine and a centrifugal compressor is manufactured for providing the necessary pressure for gas transport via the gas transmission network. The turbocompressor control system regulates the compressor outlet pressure by controlling the rotational speed of the gas turbine, while preventing the surge phenomenon in the compressor. Surge is a serious instability in the compressor that is associated with periodic fluctuations in system variables and can cause heavy damage to expensive machine parts.In this research, model predictive control has... 

Nowadays, Automation and Robots have many industrial and non-industrial applications. One of the most important of Robotic applications in industries for speed increasing, is utilizing them for packing procedures on production lines. Speed and accuracy enhancement, low-error repeatability, and cost reduction are benefits if using robots. Delta robot, is one of the parallel robots which is consists of three arms each connected to universal joints at the base and can reach high speeds.Delta robot can be optimized in 1. Performance speed, 2.accuracy, 3. Maximum payload, 4. Workspace and dexterious workspace and 5. Costs reduction. Since it’s not possible to fully optimize all goals... 

The Delta parallel robot is used extensively in many industries, including packaging, because of its superior speed and precision. In this project a Delta robot was designed and then controlled specifically for use in the production line of a plastic container factory. In order to optimally design the robot, a number of desirable fitness functions were defined thus: minimizing the dimensions of the robot for a specific desired workspace, minimzing the effect of the robot’s weight on its actuators and satisfying the demands of the “Design for Control” approach. Design for control means considering the complexity of controlling a system while designinig it. Therefore the remaining fitness... 

Performing a safe and effective endoscopic sinus and skull based surgery (ESSS), requires special training programs to gain sufficient hand-eye coordination and instrument manipulation skills. In this regard, virtual-based haptic surgical training systems have been considered among the medical students and residents as an effective approach for training practices. Therefore, in this study, the development of a haptic training system for ESSS, based on an animal model has been addressed. By conducting various indentation and relaxation experiments, mechanical properties of the specific sino-nasal regions of sheep head, as a function of force, displacement and tool insertion rate, for three... 

An essential requirement for performing robotic assisted surgery on a freely beating heart is a prediction algorithm which can estimate the future heart trajectory with a high accuracy in a long horizon. The main objective of this research was measurement and prediction of the heart motion for robotic assisted beating heart surgery. In this study, first the feasibility of a stereo infrared tracking system for measuring the free beating heart motion was investigated by experiments on a heart motion simulator. Simulator experiments revealed a high tracking accuracy when the capturing times were synchronized and the tracker pointed at the target from an appropriate distance.Then, the heart... 

Oil and natural gas today are one of the most important sources of human energy supply, so that crude oil Percentage and natural gas provide 25% of the world's energy. Until now, vertical drilling methods have been used to extract oil and gas. In recent years, due to vertical drilling constraints, for extraction and access to places that can not be achieved by vertical drilling, Horizontal drilling has been increased. In horizontal drilling, a variety of vibrations including longitudinal, torsional, and lateral take place. These vibrations, if not controlled, can damage the equipment and the drilling field, as well as reduce the efficiency of the drilling process and increase the process... 

Over the years, The robots have entered the human community in addition to the factories and industrial centers, and a new branch in the field of robotics called social robots has been created. Such robots can become a personal companion for children and elderly people who accompany that person at home or outside. Social robots can even be used as a platform for health services or as a vendor in stores. The interaction of humans and robots in social robots and communicating with the audience is the main part of this series of robots. Human-robot interaction can be divided into three parts: visual, auditory and facial or body movements. Also, the behavior of a social robot must be as natural... 

The human body has more than 600 muscles that cause movement. Disability and motor disorders are some of the problems that people may face due to some factors such as accident, spinal cord injuries, disorders and brain damage, and the presence of a problem in neurological commands due to stroke. One of the proposed methods for solving the problems of people with motor disorder is the use of exoskeletons to generate stimulus. Exoskeletones are electromechanical devices designed to assist human movement, and patients are used to correct their movements using specific motor patterns. Exoskeletones can also be used as an auxiliary device for carrying heavy loads. Many studies have been conducted... 

Todays, the exoskeleton is known as a practical device for use in robotic rehabilitation and elderly assistance and has attracted the attention of many researchers. Impedance control is the most widely recognized control strategy in research on exoskeletons. Impedance control can properly handle soft interaction of robots with the environment. Optimal target impedance selection can increase the performance of the overall system and guarantee the stability. The main objective of this research was to introduce a variable impedance control system and verifying the presented control system on an exoskeleton. In this research, an exoskeleton with 4 active DoF and 8 semi-passive DoF is designed... 

The main goal of this project is to design and implement an Endoscopic Sinus Surgery Simulator using a nonlinear model relating the force and displacement of the surgery tool interacting with the virtual sinus tissue. This model approximately matches the force-displacement data attained from the experiments conducted on the real sinus tissues. To simulate the behavior of the sinus tissue in a virtual environment, a haptic device is utilized which imitates the behavior of the surgery tool interacting with the tissue model. The haptic device in this project is a Falcon Robot. Because of the uncertainties in the parameters of the robot and the operator’s hand model (which is considered in the... 

No one bears thinking about undergoing a surgery by an unexpirienced surgeon, the consideration of which implies the prominence of effective surgical trainings. The advent of utilizing haptic interfaces as a novelty in this field has led to a more promising surgery education. These haptic interfaces consist of three communicating parts namely: operator’s hand, haptic robot, and tissue virtual environment. Design and implementation of a proper controller in order to stabilize the haptic interface during surgery simulation, with acceptable transparency, is still novel an otherwise challenging research field. In this thesis we consider an appropriate nonlinear model for both virtual tissue as...