Welcome to our project archives!
Showing: 22 results
Seeking Students
Flight Control Design for Next-generation Quadcopter
Advisor:
Daniel Zelazo 
We are considering new actuation and power delivery approaches to quadcopters. In this project we explore the control laws for a quadcopter equiped with a micro-gas turbine that can be used for power delivery and thrust. The first phase of the project is to design stabilizing controllers, with the goal of building a quad with an MGT.
Seeking Students
Path Following using low-fidelity camera on a quadcopter
Advisor:
Daniel Zelazo
Design and code control algorithms for a quadcopter with a downward facing camera to follow a path marked on the ground. The project will involve basic image processing and C-coding, along with famiiliarity with MATLAB/Simulink.
Seeking Students
Interception of a Ballistic Target with an Agile Robot
Advisor:
Tal Shima
Gleb Merkulov
Design, implement, and test the guidance, navigation and control system for a constant-speed agile ground robot to catch a target flying a ballistic trajectory before it hits the floor.
Seeking Students
Graph Connectivity for Multi-Agent Systems
Advisor:
Daniel Zelazo
Graphs are a mathematical tool commonly used for studying multi-agent systems. One issue of importance is to quantify how "connected" a multi-agent system is, and this is done by studying the eigenvalues associated to special matrices describing the network interconnection. This project will explore how certain eigenvalues change with the addition and removal of connections in the network with the goal of finding optimal structures that balance the number of connections with given values of these eigenvalues.
Seeking Students
Quadrotor Trajectory Following
Advisor:
Tal Shima
Jha Bhargav
Investigate different methodologies for trajectory following by a quadcopter using the hardware-in-loop abilities of matlab (Simulation and Experiments).
Seeking Students
Cyclic Pursuit
Advisor:
Tal Shima
Jha Bhargav
Implement and investigate cyclic pursuit of multiple robots. Implementation to be performed on the CASY infrastructure using Simulink.
Seeking Students
Large Swarm Control
Advisor:
Daniel Zelazo
Explore control laws for large swarms. This project considers a single agent (perhaps a human) that can direct the motion of a large swarm of robots.
Seeking Students
Formation control strategies for TurtleBotII Robots
Advisor:
Daniel Zelazo
This project focuses on implementation challenges for a multi-robot system. We are working with the TurtleBotII robots, and aim to implement various formation control algortihms for testing and validation.
Seeking Students
Pose estimation of quadcopter
Advisor:
Ruslan Archipov
Daniel Zelazo
Vadim Indelman
The advanced control lab currently uses a quadcopter as its experimental testbed. In order to compare various control and estimation algorithms, it is important to have knowledge of the true state of the system. One way to obtain partial knowledge is via pose estimation using a camera. The project will focus on the design and implementaiton of the estimator.
Seeking Students
Production of Rolling Spider Quadcopter Replacements
Advisor:
Ruslan Archipov
Building, integration, and testing of replacement parts for the Rolling Spider quadcopter airframe.
Seeking Students
Control of an Airfoil on Rotary Pendulum
Advisor:
Ruslan Archipov
Design and build a control system for an airfoil attached to the rotary pendulum testbed in the lab. The lab focuses on control algorithms to stabilize the airfoil by controlling its angle of attack.
Seeking Students
Gimbal for Quadcopter Lab
Advisor:
Ruslan Archipov
Design and build a robust testing gimbal for control and estimation of a quadcopter. Includes mechanical design, sensor selection, and control design.
Seeking Students
Control of a 3-Axis Gimbal
Advisor:
Ruslan Archipov
Design of controllers for a 3-axis gimbal using an IMU (similar to IMU used on smart phones, such as VectorNav). Study option to add additional sensors to the gimbal system (speed sensor, IMU, voltmeters, etc).
Seeking Students
Sensor Suites for DC Motor Lab
Advisor:
Ruslan Archipov
The DC Motor testbed in the control lab is used to study different strategies for the control of a motor and inverted pendulum. New sensors can lead to different control architectures. This project will explore different sensor options to add to the testbed, including IMUs and tachometers. The project will involve sensor selection, integration, and testing.
Seeking Students
Simulation of Urban Environment
By:
Anna Clarke
Advisor:
Anna Clarke
The idea is to create a virtual city district with streets, traffic lights, pedestrians, vehicles, obstacles, and other attributes of urban environment. The moving objects (cars, pedestrians, etc.) should have a reasonable non-identical dynamic behaviour, such that in total a traffic scenario of a common city is reconstructed in simulation. This simulation can then be used to test/develop algorithms concerned with autonomous driving, optimization of fuel consumption, planning of taxis operation, and etc. Work on one of these topics can become a subject for master's research.
Seeking Students
Unscented Transform Controller (UTC) Applications
By:
Anna Clarke
Advisor:
Anna Clarke
This new control algorithm, based on an Unscented Transform and model prediction, needs to be tested in various applications. It is interesting to try using it to control simple systems (but with non trivial dynamics), which can be analytically linearized. Then, the UTC performance can be compared to performance of other methods, in particular optimal control. UTC robustness should also be investigated: sensitivity to model uncertainty and measurement noise, as well operation with only partial state feedback. This project can be continued to master's research, with major focus on formulating and proving conditions for the global/local stability of UTC.
Seeking Students
Skydiver Model Trim Conditions
By:
Anna Clarke
Advisor:
Anna Clarke
The dynamic model of a skydiver is highly non-linear and has multiple control variables: joints rotational degrees-of-freedom, muscle forces applied via different limbs, and muscle stiffness. The skydiver's body in free-fall can be in many different unsymmetrical postures in dynamic equilibrium. Therefore, it is important to find an efficient numerical/analytical way to compute fixed points of the skydiver model. Additionally, for each equilibrium point it is required to compute numerically or analytically the system Jacobian. This project can be continued to master's research, focusing on bifurcation analysis of this system.
Seeking Students
Dynamic Model of a RAM Air Parachute
By:
Anna Clarke
Advisor:
Anna Clarke
The model will receive user steering inputs and configuration parameters defining canopy size, type, wing loading, etc. A simulation of its flight can be designed in Matlab to test the physical fidelity of the model. This project can be continued to master's research focusing on autonomous control of flight and landing of RAM air parachutes.
Seeking Students
Tracking Human Movements via Opti-Track
By:
Anna Clarke
Advisor:
Anna Clarke
The goal is to collect Opti-Track measurements of a sequence of human postures during some physical activity (in the lab) and construct from these measurements a model of human body composed of rigid segments connected by joints. This project can be developed into a master's research devoted to investigating human motor equivalence.
Seeking Students
VR Simulator of Human Movement
By:
Anna Clarke
Advisor:
Anna Clarke
Creating a Virtual Reality world in Unity 3D, which will include an animated model of human body moving in inertial space. To test the resulting VR world a Matlab simulation can be designed, producing a sequence of postures, and body inertial position and orientation, and sending these inputs to Unity via a UDP protocol. This project can be developed into a master's research focusing on VR simulators for training motor skills.
Seeking Students
VR Simulator of Parachute Flight
By:
Anna Clarke
Advisor:
Anna Clarke
Creating a Virtual Reality world in Unity 3D, which will include a model of a RAM air parachute system viewed from the perspective of its pilot, during the flight towards the landing area and during landing. The model will receive (via a UDP protocol) continuous user inputs of the steering toggles position and must update the canopy's orientation and position relative to the inertial world. This project can be developed into a master's research focusing on VR training of canopy control.
Seeking Students
AR Display of Ego-Motion and Posture
By:
Anna Clarke
Advisor:
Anna Clarke
Given an animated human model in Unity 3D it is desired to build a wearable setup including Augmented Reality goggles (Vuzix) and an X-Sens movement tracking suit and/or Opti-Track system for displaying in real time the body posture of the user. This project can be developed into a master's research focusing on AR training of kinesthetic skills.