Michel Osee

Enhancing the Cooperative Transport of Multiple Objects

In this paper we present an approach to the cooperative transport of multiple objects in swarm robotics. The approach is motivated by the observation that the performance of cooperative transport in insect colonies as well as in groups of robots grows in a super linear way with the number of individuals participating in the transport. The transport relies on a cart in which multiple objects are collected and stored before being moved to destination. The cart is carried by a group of robot that would be otherwise allocated to the transport of single objects. The cart is endowed with computational and communication abilities that allow it to cooperate with the transporting robots. This research is carried out within the framework of the Swarmanoid project and aims at enhancing the transport capabilities of the robot swarms developed in this project.

A fast, state-graph-based diode switching algorithm for real-time power converter emulators

In the last decade, digital real-time emulators of power converters have replaced their analog counterparts, paving the way to the rapid prototyping of the controller. One of the main challenges with these emulators is the methodology employed to correctly simulate the abrupt changes in circuit behavior. In this paper we propose a diode control algorithm that improves on the previous concepts by a careful study of the circuit before its final implementation, allowing very short computation time, constant latency and high accuracy. The design has been ported to a FPGA showing excellent results, even for high switching frequency (>; 50kHz).

Multi-segments sliding mode control of a boost converter

This paper presents a new sliding mode controller for the boost converter called Multi-Segments Sliding Mode Controller. This controller combines several switching functions. During transients, only one switching function is active, at any time, depending on the state of the converter. Hence, the transient is divided in several phases, with different system dynamics (each imposed by a different switching function). Each phase can be designed separately to obtain the desired global transient. The system dynamics is improved compared to a classical sliding mode. The proposed controller was implemented on a FPGA platform for experimental validation.