Filtering by
- All Subjects: engineering
- Creators: Schoepf, Jared
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
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.
Although these commercial and research systems are still in testing, it is important to understand how AVs are being marketed to the general public and how they are perceived, so that one day they may be effectively adopted into everyday life. People do not want to see a car they do not trust on the same roads as them, so the questions are: why don’t people trust them, and how can companies and researchers improve the trustworthiness of the vehicles?
As a result of the increase of pollution related to industrialization in Vietnam, acid rain has become a prevalent issue for Vietnamese farmers who are forced to rinse their crops – risking damage due to overwatering and poor harvest. Thus, the team was motivated to develop a solution to harmful impacts of acidic rainwater by creating a system with the ability to capture rainwater and determine its level of acidity in order to optimize the crop watering process, and promote productive crops. By conducting preliminary research on rainfall and tropical climate in Vietnam, existing products on the market, and pH sensors for monitoring and device material, the team was able to design a number of devices to collect, store, and measure the pH of rainwater. After developing a number of initial design requirements based on the needs of the farmers, a final prototype was developed using the best aspects of each initial design. Tests were conducted with varying structural and aqueous materials to represent a broad range of environmental conditions. While the scope of the project was ultimately limited to prototyping purposes, the principles explored throughout this thesis project can successfully be applied to a fully-functioning production model available for commercial use on Vietnamese farms. Given more time for development, improvements would be made in the extent of materials tested, and the configuration of electronics and data acquisition, in order to further optimize the process of determining rainwater acidity.
As a result of the increase of pollution related to industrialization in Vietnam, acid rain has become a prevalent issue for Vietnamese farmers who are forced to rinse their crops – risking damage due to overwatering and poor harvest. Thus, the team was motivated to develop a solution to harmful impacts of acidic rainwater by creating a system with the ability to capture rainwater and determine its level of acidity in order to optimize the crop watering process, and promote productive crops. By conducting preliminary research on rainfall and tropical climate in Vietnam, existing products on the market, and pH sensors for monitoring and device material, the team was able to design a number of devices to collect, store, and measure the pH of rainwater. After developing a number of initial design requirements based on the needs of the farmers, a final prototype was developed using the best aspects of each initial design. Tests were conducted with varying structural and aqueous materials to represent a broad range of environmental conditions. While the scope of the project was ultimately limited to prototyping purposes, the principles explored throughout this thesis project can successfully be applied to a fully-functioning production model available for commercial use on Vietnamese farms. Given more time for development, improvements would be made in the extent of materials tested, and the configuration of electronics and data acquisition, in order to further optimize the process of determining rainwater acidity.
As a result of the increase of pollution related to industrialization in Vietnam, acid rain has become a prevalent issue for Vietnamese farmers who are forced to rinse their crops – risking damage due to overwatering and poor harvest. Thus, the team was motivated to develop a solution to harmful impacts of acidic rainwater by creating a system with the ability to capture rainwater and determine its level of acidity in order to optimize the crop watering process, and promote productive crops. By conducting preliminary research on rainfall and tropical climate in Vietnam, existing products on the market, and pH sensors for monitoring and device material, the team was able to design a number of devices to collect, store, and measure the pH of rainwater. After developing a number of initial design requirements based on the needs of the farmers, a final prototype was developed using the best aspects of each initial design. Tests were conducted with varying structural and aqueous materials to represent a broad range of environmental conditions. While the scope of the project was ultimately limited to prototyping purposes, the principles explored throughout this thesis project can successfully be applied to a fully-functioning production model available for commercial use on Vietnamese farms. Given more time for development, improvements would be made in the extent of materials tested, and the configuration of electronics and data acquisition, in order to further optimize the process of determining rainwater acidity.