Abhijit Nagchaudhuri

Introduction of mechatronics concepts in a robotics course using an industrial SCARA robot equipped with a vision sensor

Abstract In the new millennium the disciplinary boundaries within engineering education will be diffused as engineering education responds to growing number of innovations and product development at the interfaces of traditional disciplinary boundaries. Industrial robots provide an excellent teaching tool for introducing students to the burgeoning field of “Mechatronics” which integrates mechanism design and analysis, soft computing, sensing and electronics from a holistic perspective. A team-based student project in a senior level interdisciplinary “Robotics” course is discussed in this paper. The project is designed to demonstrate flexible and agile manufacturing concepts to students by integrating imaging and motion using an industrial selective compliance articulated robot arm (SCARA) robot.

Sustainability in BioEnergy Academy for Teachers (BEAT): Changing Perspectives and Practices Toward “Greening” the Curricula

A holistic approach of sustainability grounded in environmental concerns, also incorporates the dimensions of culture, economy, and social justice. It can be an added attraction bringing together various disciplines to explore pathways through which sustainability can be addressed in a practical manner. A one-week summer institute on Bioenergy and Bioproducts for educators from middle and high schools, and university faculty across STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, and Mathematics) disciplines was hosted by the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES). This program is geared towards helping reform educational infrastructure by promoting multidisciplinary activities and content in the areas of sustainability, bioenergy, and bioproducts. The objectives of the Bioenergy Academy are: (1) to provide a systems-perspective in sustainability, bioenergy, and bioproducts education to STEAM educators and researchers; and (2) to develop and provide curricular materials and a set of teaching tools to educators for enhancing instruction in the areas of sustainable bioenergy and bioproducts. The Academy focuses on lessons and activities pertaining to sustainability, systems thinking, renewable energy with particular emphasis on bioenergy, bioproducts, and environment and policies related to energy issues. The participants got the opportunity to acquire concrete experiences involving teamwork, time management, and project execution skills; reflected on their learning experiences through presentations at the end of the institute; developed concepts related to organic chemistry, physics, engineering design, instrumentation, mathematics, biological, and environmental sciences; and actively experimented with feedstocks to generate biodiesel and environmentally-friendly soaps using the glycerin produced from the biodiesel. The BITES (Buildings, Industry, Transportation, Electricity, Scenarios) simulation tool developed by National Renewable Laboratory (NREL) of the United States Department of Energy (DOE) and made freely available over the internet allowed participants to play out scenarios to reduce carbon foot print based on those situations that can be realized through policy decisions leading to building improvements, reduction of industrial pollution, use of alternative fuels, electric cars, and other design modifications in the transportation sector, and cleaner and more efficient conversion technologies for electricity generation and conservation. A total of forty one educators have been trained through this program over a period of four years. The evaluation surveys (pre- and post) revealed that the educators gained substantial knowledge in the fields of sustainability, bioenergy, and bioproducts, and felt comfortable in implementing the content in their courses and laboratories.

Design Experience Using Software Tools in Undergraduate Engineering Mechanics Courses

Statics, Dynamics, and Mechanics of Materials form the basic sequence of engineering mechanics courses in engineering curricula. Traditionally, these courses have been designated as “engineering science” courses with significantly more emphasis in analysis to reinforce engineering fundamentals, and little to no importance to “engineering design”. With the outcome based approach to undergraduate engineering education adopted by Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology and the framework laid out by Engineering Criteria (EC 2000) significant reform efforts are underway to incorporate design experience throughout the engineering curricula. Most engineering programs across the nation have developed and implemented a freshman design course to introduce engineering design at the beginning of the college experience for engineering majors. To sustain the momentum, it therefore follows that subsequent courses should sustain the design emphasis in the freshman and sophomore years. Design, however, is a time consuming complex iterative process somewhat different from the convergent nature of engineering science. Modern software tools provide a time efficient and pedagogically effective way of integrating engineering design project with the engineering mechanics sequence without compromising the engineering science fundamentals. In this paper design projects that have been integrated in Statics, Dynamics, and Mechanics of Material courses offered by the author using software tools such as Working Model, MD-Solids, Pro-Engineer, Solid-works etc. supplemented by computational tools such as MATLAB and EXCEL are outlined. Discussion based on student feedback and relevance to ABET outcomes is also forwarded.Copyright

AIRSPACES: Air-propelled Instrumented Robotic Sensory Platform(s) for Assateague Coastline Environmental Studies - A multidisciplinary experiential learning and research project at a minority serving land grant institution

AIRSPACES (Air-propelled Instrumented Robotic Sensory Platform(s) for Assateague Coastline Environmental Studies) project funded by the Maryland Space Grant Consortium (MDSGC) provides a model platform to involve a multidisciplinary team of Science, Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, and Mathematics (STEAM) students in a challenging experiential learning and research endeavor that promotes active learning in field and laboratory settings. The overarching goal of the project is to develop an autonomous surface vessel to collect and map selected water quality variables, geo-located with GPS sensors in lakes and ponds on campus, as well as Assateague and other nearby coastal bays for further scientific analysis. The project has been adapted for undergraduate students; however, outreach efforts by engineers and scientists at NASA Wallops Flight Facility have provided an overview of expanded scope of the goals and objectives that may be addressed in a professional setting.

Experience With Introducing Robotics Toolbox for MATLAB in a Senior Level Undergraduate Course

While most K-12 students associate the field of “Robotics” with mobile robots, undergraduate and basic graduate level courses in the subject tend to focus on serial link manipulator arms on fixed bases. Senior level “Robotics” course discussed in this paper, emphasize the latter. In the study of serial link manipulator arms, linear algebra, fundamentals of kinematics and dynamics, control systems, trajectory planning, programming languages, robotic sensors (particularly vision) play a dominant role. The abstract mathematical concepts are often difficult for the undergraduate students to fathom. Laboratory demonstration using industrial robotic arms provides some physical insight; however, it is seldom practical to let undergraduate students work on these machines on their own without appropriate supervision. Time constraints associated with credit/contact hours is also a deterrent and a practical reality. A combination of laboratory demonstration and use of software environment such as MATLAB and in particular the “Robotics Toolbox” integrated with the course lectures help convey important ideas related to spatial transformations, forward and inverse kinematics, forward and inverse dynamics, control, robotic vision and programming concepts related to the field of robotics to the undergraduate students in a meaningful framework. The “Robotics Toolbox” allow students to work on simulations of different manipulator arms, as well as create their own. The schematic visualization of the simulations reinforces important concepts covered in course lectures, as well as laboratory demonstration.Copyright

Performance of Air Conditioners With Commercial Desuperheaters: A Green Energy Project as an Undergraduate Research

The goal of the design project titled “Domestic Hot Water Heater Using Air Conditioner Waste Heat” was to introduce students to designing mechanical systems in the “ETME475-Mechanical Systems Design” course. Two students completed the design project in spring 2007. Some test runs were conducted with a commercial desuperheater to measure the efficiency of the unit and its effect on the Coefficient of Performance (COP) of the Heat Pump when the heat pump is operated in air conditioning (A/C) mode. Contrary to author’s expectations, results indicated that, COP values were reduced by about 22%. Measured efficiency of the desuperheater was about 18% [1]. The current project is an extension of the original project with the new National Instruments data acquisition board, a newly developed LabVIEW data acquisition program, and with a more realistic heat transfer loop. The study covers performance of the heat pump operating in A/C mode as well as in heating mode. Results indicate, depending on the water temperature in the desuperheater, heat pump COP dropped 6–17% in A/C mode and 8–38% in heating mode. Again depending on the average water temperature in the ECU, the ECU efficiencies ranged from 12% to 27% for cooling and 11% to 39% for heating.Copyright

Winning the ASEE 2006 Robotics Design Competition: Guiding Students to Success

Robotics Model Design Competition sponsored by the Two Year College Division (TYCD) of American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) provides an avenue for freshman and sophomore student teams in two year as well as four year colleges and universities to participate in a creative engineering design project. Historically Black Colleges and University - Undergraduate Program (HBCU-UP) at National Science Foundation (NSF) have provided support for development of ACTION (Advanced Curriculum and Technology-based Instructional Opportunities Network) at UMES. The ACTION program promotes inquiry based active learning and research projects among undergraduate STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) majors. Engineering, Technology, and Mathematics students responded enthusiastically when the authors proposed the idea of participating in the (ASEE) 2006 Robotic Model Design Competition at one of the American Society for Mechanical Engineers (ASME) student section meetings at UMES in the fall of 2005. (The authors serve as the advisors for ASME student section chapter at UMES). The student leader of the section quickly put together a team of five freshman and sophomore engineering, engineering technology and mathematics students to develop a proposal to UMES ACTION program. The authors supported the proposal development efforts. The proposal got funded and provided the resources for project execution and travel. A team of eleven freshmen and sophomore students from Engineering, Engineering Technology and Mathematics departments of University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES) participated in the American Society for Engineering Education’s (ASEE) 2006 Robotics Model Design Competition project. The event was sponsored by the Two-year College Division (TYCD) of ASEE and was open to freshman and sophomore student teams from two year as well as four year colleges and universities. The competition required teams to design and build an autonomous robot capable of delivering ping pong balls to each of four corner pockets located on an 8ft×8ft plywood track in a sequence. Each team was evaluated on the basis of a written report, an oral presentation, and scores obtained from the best two runs out of four runs on the racing track. Sixteen student teams across the nation participated in the event. UMES entered two teams in the competition who called themselves “Hawks 1” and “Hawks 4”. The student team “Hawks 1” won the competition. Video clips of both design projects as they executed the specified task at the 2006 ASEE Robotics Model Design Competition can be viewed at: http://www.umes.edu/asme/robots.htm . This paper describes the design projects “Hawks 1” and “Hawks 4” and its relevance to ABET learning outcomes.© 2007 ASME

Real-Time Implementation of Intelligent Control and Internet Based Remote Activation of Simple Mechatronic Devices in the UMESMAL

In this paper digital control solutions for speed control of direct current motor and level control of dual water tank system are described using conventional control algorithms such as (PID (Proportional + Integral + Derivative) and PI (Proportional + Integral)) as well as intelligent control algorithms based on fuzzy logic. Appropriate software tools are used to allow remote activation of the systems. Observation of the system behavior from remote terminals is made possible using novel tele-reality capability. This capability allows realistic CAD (Computer Aided Design) drawings that accurately represent the physical systems on the remote terminals to exhibit appropriate motion corresponding to the actual movement of the physical system in the University of Maryland Eastern Shore Mechatronics and Automation Laboratory (UMESMAL).Copyright

Integration of Modern Software Tools for Virtual Prototyping and Intelligent Control of Mechanical Systems

Modern software tools have enhanced modeling, analysis and simulation capabilities pertaining to control of dynamic systems. In this regard MSC. Software’s Working Model and Mathwork’s MATLAB software environments have been extensively utilized in recent years in the industry as well as in academia. In this paper simulation studies involving PID (Proportional + Integral + Derivative) control and fuzzy logic control of simple mechanical devices are reported. The simulations are performed by integrating virtual prototyping capability of Working Model and the computational engine of MATLAB. The integration of the two software tools provide a powerful platform for studying different control algorithms for a variety of mechanical and mechatronic devices.Copyright

Mechatronics Laboratory at UMES: A Platform to Promote Synergy in Education and Research Across Disciplinary Boundaries

Mechatronics is the synergistic integration of mechanics, instrumentation and control, software engineering and information technology. As such it integrates well with not only the modern evolution of mechanical engineering curricula but has wide and growing manifestation in the new generation of industrial products as well as children’s toys. The present set-up of the laboratory consists of an industrial SCARA (Selective Compliance Articulated Robot Arm) robot equipped with machine vision capability for guidance, inspection and recognition associated with robotic manipulation of parts. An open loop stable vibration control platform, an open loop unstable inverted pendulum and a dual water tank system interfaced with appropriate sensors and actuators provide capabilities for learning both analog and digital control of systems belonging to the solid mechanics and fluid mechanics fields. Modern software tools that include graphical programming capability using Simulink and compilation via Real time Windows Target, Real time Workshop (all from Mathworks) and Visual C++ (Microsoft) allow for developing and executing variety of control algorithms on these systems. Capabilities for remote operation of these systems over the internet have also been implemented. The laboratory facilities provide education and research capability at the interfaces of traditional disciplinary boundaries. The laboratory is also equipped with LEGO MINDSTORM and LEGO DACTA products as well as the MIT Handyboard for exploration of mechatronics and robotics activities for prospective engineers and K-12 students.Copyright