Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3
Filtering by
- Creators: Berman, Spring
- Creators: School of International Letters and Cultures
Description
This thesis presents a process by which a controller used for collective transport tasks is qualitatively studied and probed for presence of undesirable equilibrium states that could entrap the system and prevent it from converging to a target state. Fields of study relevant to this project include dynamic system modeling, modern control theory, script-based system simulation, and autonomous systems design. Simulation and computational software MATLAB and Simulink® were used in this thesis.
To achieve this goal, a model of a swarm performing a collective transport task in a bounded domain featuring convex obstacles was simulated in MATLAB/ Simulink®. The closed-loop dynamic equations of this model were linearized about an equilibrium state with angular acceleration and linear acceleration set to zero. The simulation was run over 30 times to confirm system ability to successfully transport the payload to a goal point without colliding with obstacles and determine ideal operating conditions by testing various orientations of objects in the bounded domain. An additional purely MATLAB simulation was run to identify local minima of the Hessian of the navigation-like potential function. By calculating this Hessian periodically throughout the system’s progress and determining the signs of its eigenvalues, a system could check whether it is trapped in a local minimum, and potentially dislodge itself through implementation of a stochastic term in the robot controllers. The eigenvalues of the Hessian calculated in this research suggested the model local minima were degenerate, indicating an error in the mathematical model for this system, which likely incurred during linearization of this highly nonlinear system.
To achieve this goal, a model of a swarm performing a collective transport task in a bounded domain featuring convex obstacles was simulated in MATLAB/ Simulink®. The closed-loop dynamic equations of this model were linearized about an equilibrium state with angular acceleration and linear acceleration set to zero. The simulation was run over 30 times to confirm system ability to successfully transport the payload to a goal point without colliding with obstacles and determine ideal operating conditions by testing various orientations of objects in the bounded domain. An additional purely MATLAB simulation was run to identify local minima of the Hessian of the navigation-like potential function. By calculating this Hessian periodically throughout the system’s progress and determining the signs of its eigenvalues, a system could check whether it is trapped in a local minimum, and potentially dislodge itself through implementation of a stochastic term in the robot controllers. The eigenvalues of the Hessian calculated in this research suggested the model local minima were degenerate, indicating an error in the mathematical model for this system, which likely incurred during linearization of this highly nonlinear system.
ContributorsBaye-Wallace, Lily Catherine (Author) / Berman, Spring (Thesis director) / Marvi, Hamidreza (Committee member) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor) / School of Music, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / School for Engineering of Matter,Transport & Enrgy (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-12
Description
Chemoreception is an important method for an octopus to sense and react to its surroundings. However, the density of chemoreceptors within different areas of the skin of the octopus arm is poorly documented. In order to assess the relative sensitivity of various regions and the degree to which chemoreception is locally controlled, octopus arms were amputated and exposed to acetic acid, a noxious chemical stimulus that has previously been shown to elicit movement responses in amputated arms (Hague et al., 2013). To test this, 11 wild-caught Octopus bimaculoides (6 females, 5 males) were obtained. Acetic acid vapor was introduced in the distal oral, distal aboral, proximal oral, and proximal aboral regions of amputated arms. The frequency of the occurrence of movement was first analyzed. For those trials in which movement occurred, the latency (delay between the stimulus and the onset of movement) and the duration of movement were analyzed. The distal aboral and distal oral regions were both more likely to move than either the proximal oral or proximal aboral regions (p < 0.0001), and when they did move, were more likely to move for longer periods of time (p < 0.05). In addition, the proximal oral region was more likely to exhibit a delay in the onset of movement compared to the distal oral or distal aboral regions (p < 0.0001). These findings provide evidence that the distal arm is most sensitive to noxious chemical stimuli. However, there were no significant differences between the distal oral and distal aboral regions, or between the proximal oral and proximal aboral regions. This suggests that there may not be a significant difference in the density of chemoreceptors in the aboral versus oral regions of the arm, contrary to claims in the literature. The other independent variables analyzed, including sex, body mass, arm length, anterior versus posterior arm identity, and left versus right arm identity, did not have a significant effect on any of the three dependent variables analyzed. Further analysis of the relative density of chemoreceptors in different regions of the octopus arm is merited.
ContributorsCasleton, Rachel Marie (Author) / Fisher, Rebecca (Thesis director) / Marvi, Hamidreza (Committee member) / Gire, David (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
The goal of this thesis is designing controllers for swarm robots transport a payload over inclines. Several fields of study are related to this study, including control theory, dynamic modeling and programming. MATLAB, a tool of design controller and simulation, is used in this thesis.
To achieve this goal, a model of swarm robots transportation should be designed, which is cruise control for this scenario. Secondly, based on free body diagram, force equilibrium equation can be deduced. Then, the function of plant can be deduced based on cruise control and force equilibrium equations. Thirdly, list potential controllers, which may implement desired controls of swarm robots, and test their performance. Modify value of gains and do simulations of these controller. After analyzing results of simulation, the best controller can be selected.
In the last section, there is conclusion of entire thesis project and pointing out future work. The section of future work will mention potential difficulties of building entire control system, which allow swarm robots transport over inclines in real environment.
To achieve this goal, a model of swarm robots transportation should be designed, which is cruise control for this scenario. Secondly, based on free body diagram, force equilibrium equation can be deduced. Then, the function of plant can be deduced based on cruise control and force equilibrium equations. Thirdly, list potential controllers, which may implement desired controls of swarm robots, and test their performance. Modify value of gains and do simulations of these controller. After analyzing results of simulation, the best controller can be selected.
In the last section, there is conclusion of entire thesis project and pointing out future work. The section of future work will mention potential difficulties of building entire control system, which allow swarm robots transport over inclines in real environment.
ContributorsShe, Hanyu (Author) / Berman, Spring (Thesis director) / Marvi, Hamidreza (Committee member) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor, Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05