Sharif Digital Repository

The idea of using groups of simple autonomous robots instead of one or limited number of very sophisticated robots is inspired by flocking behaviors of animals. Distributed control structures and artificial swarming have attracted lots of studies in robotics. There are many applications for robotic swarms in which members are very simple robots with low communication capabilities. These robots communicate only within very limited distances. In this thesis, a homogenous robotic swarm with at least two robots is assumed. Swarm robots are considered to be dimensionless with no time delay, which is a normal assumption in this field of studies. Robots move in planar space and their behaviors are... 

Even though a considerable amount of research has been conducted on composite wall system during past years, very limited research has been reported on shear walls strengthened by steel plates. In 2008, the composite shear wall, which consisted of reinforced concrete wall, retrofitted by steel plates, attached to both sides of RC walls using mechanical connectors in form of shear studs, bolts or lateral ties tested under axial load and lateral force. In this research, seismic behavior of RC shear walls strengthened by vertical strips of steel plates is going to be studied. The result will be compared with RC shear wall which fully covered by steel plates. The behavior of RC shear wall will... 

Nowadays, the usage of beam-shaped structures has widely spread in micro- and nano-electromechanical systems; consequently, scholars are extremely interested in precise modeling of static and dynamic behaviors of them. As the beams utilized in MEMS and NEMS structures have thicknesses in the order of microns and sub-microns, the experimentally validated small scale effects would be considerable in their behavior. In fact, experiments manifest that the size-dependent behavior is an intrinsic feature of materials when they are used in small-scale structures. In the classical continuum mechanics, there exists no material length scale parameter. Thus, the classical theory is unable to capture... 

Nowadays, continuous systems such as strings, bars, beams and plates have become widespread in science and engineering applications. To achieve the control purposes of continuous systems, most of engineers use discretization techniques to reduce the governing partial differential equation (PDE) into a set of ordinary differential equations (ODEs). From practical point of view, this model reduction can cause many problems such as in-domain measurement and actuation and control spillover. This thesis attempts to investigate the problem of vibration control of nonclassical microscale beams using the partial differential equation control theory which eliminates spillover instabilities. To this... 

The aim of the proposed thesis is to devise a method of passage-way identification and crossing control of an experimental swarm robot. In the previous works done in the Sharif University of Technology, The main focus was on the collective behaviours than can be emeged from a swarm robot. Collective behaviours are such a primitive behaviours that are combined in order to lead to a real mission. In this investigation, the main focus is on the design of a mission. In this way, by combining the aggregation-divegance, chain formation, leader following and wall following collective behaviours, the desired is fulfilled. The algorithms is so that in the first stage, the agents of the swarm... 

Nowadays, micro systems in many area of science and technology have special importance and status. The main function of these systems is based on the deformation of a beam at micro scale. Therefore study of behavior and control of micro-beams will have a great importance. Among micro-beams, clamped-free and clamped-clamped micro beams that actuated by piezoelectric and electrostatic actuators have wider applications. For example, clamped-free micro-beams are used in atomic force microscopy (AFM), micro switches, mass sensors and micro-accelerometers and clamped-clamped micro-beams are used in micro mirrors and Grating Light Valves (GLV). In this thesis, the studied system is clamped-free... 

Nowadays, separation and filtration of particles has many industrial applications in biology and medicine. In this thesis, passive microfluidics are designed and simulated which are able to separate and filter particles. Although particles aer generally expected to follow laminar flow streamlines in the absence of external forces, inertial forxes van cause particles to migrate across mictochannels in an accurate and predictable manner. The effect of these forces is invedtigated, and by using previous research, a model is developed to predict these forces. First design is a microchannel with Archimedean spiral which utilizes both inertial forces and Dean flow to separate particles in the... 

Many spacecrafts and satellites have long flexible components, the most common ones are the satellites with flexible solar panels, which are used to provide the satellite energy. The governing equations of the satellite rigid motion along with the solar panels vibrations are the combination of the coupled partial and ordinary differential equations. Various reasons, such as the satellite maneuvers and the external disturbances, cause the vibration of panels. Due to the dependence between the governing equations of the satellite rigid motion and the flexible components vibrations, these vibrations affect the satellite rigid dynamics and the control aims; therefore, in addition to the... 

In this thesis, the formulation of beams and plates in the micro- and nano scales is presented based on the second strain gradient theory (SSGT) introduced by Mindlin. The SSGT is a non-classical continuum theory that includes the second-order gradients of strain tensor in its formulation and this leads to more accurate modeling for mechanical behavior of materials than the strain gradient theory. On the other hand, due to the ever-increasing use of micro- and nano-electromechanical systems, analysis of the mechanical behavior of their deformable components for design and construction is of particular importance. For this purpose, analysis of Timoshenko beams and Euler-bernoulli beams made...