2010 IEEE International Conference on Automation, Quality and Testing, Robotics (AQTR)

Ocean and air going autonomous vehicles are capable of performing “dirty, dull and dangerous” (3D) missions and have already proved invaluable in the field. 3D missions arise not only in defense operations, but also in civilian operations, such as those concerned with oceanographic and environmental protection or harbor protection missions. These current trends set new requirements f... View full abstract»

Embedded electronics are subjected to harsh environmental aggressions of thermal, mechanical and electrical nature. The mechanical stresses are aggravated by the important differences between the thermal and mechanical properties of different components and by the boundary conditions. In order to establish failure scenarios and optimizing these structures, it is essential to obtain accurate assess... View full abstract»

This paper intend to introduce a new concept of federative SCADA systems based on cooperative systems, which assure not only the functionally augmentation of individual system by integration, but ensure the global tasks of the federation as required by the envelope model. It presents the concept, the structure of the federation, the services offered and their analysis. The federation addresses dif... View full abstract»

Rapid changes on the goods market take place today. These changes require an increased flexibility of the production systems in order to quickly adapt the manufacturing system to a new model of product. However, increasing the flexibility usually also increases the complexity of the system, and therefore the costs per part produced. The challenge is to develop control strategies capable to increas... View full abstract»

An improved pulse width modulation (PWM) method for three-phase inverters using the Walsh function harmonic elimination method with harmonic injection technique is presented, together with a noniterative algorithm that produces a set of linear equations that relates switching angles with the output phase voltage fundamental. The approach used gives a set of solutions with a near-linear trajectory ... View full abstract»

This paper describes the design and development of a system, the Environmental Monitoring Services (EMS), for observing micro-scale environmental phenomena based on a wireless sensor network. Motivation for the development was a real need coming from architects designing outdoor spaces that want to be able to measure the comfort of the resulting space. This comfort is affected not only by the surr... View full abstract»

The project XPRESS introduces a completely new scalable concept of an expertonic networked factory, which is composed by a co-ordinated team of specialized autonomous objects (expertons), each knowing how to do a certain process optimally. This paper looks in particular to the transport experton implementation, which is an experton responsible to carry material at the shop-floor. It is suggested a... View full abstract»

Electrical machines and drives used in diverse critical fields like advanced factory automation systems, automotive and aerospace applications, military, energy and medical equipment, etc. require both special motor and converter topologies to achieve high level fault tolerance. In the paper a novel modular fault tolerant switched reluctance machine is proposed. Its stator is built up of simply to... View full abstract»

The paper deals with the characterization of a permanent magnet synchronous machine (PMSM) used in electric traction applications. First of all, the main data (the output power and desired speed) of the electric traction application are defined. Starting from these elements, the PMSM is characterized by means of analytical, numerical and test obtained results. Thus, several design elements are sta... View full abstract»

Application of a natural gas distribution system, using distributed control and management methods, layered on 2 management levels, each applying closed loop control methods on the batch available for control. Local controlled processes include gas quality determinations, gas flow and pressure measurement and regulation, filtering and overcompensation. Central controlled processes include data gat... View full abstract»

For modeling the steady-state characteristic of the photovoltaic panels or cells, particularly the external characteristic current-voltage, I(V), two types of mathematical models can be used: conceptual semi-empirical models, based on electric diagrams, and empirical models, based on pure mathematical reasoning. Each of these models is individualized by a number of parameters that can be obtained ... View full abstract»