Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering News

Mechanical Engineering – Engineering Mechanics Graduate Seminar: Professor Venkat Krovi from the Automation Robotics & Mechatronics Lab in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at SUNY- Buffalo will be the ME-EM graduate seminar guest for Thurs. Feb. 14 at 4:00 in 112 MEEM. His presentation is entitled, ‘Cooperative Payload Transport by Robot Collectives’.

Prof. Venkat Krovi is currently an Associate Professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at the State University of New York at Buffalo where he directs the Automation Robotics and Mechatronics (ARM) Lab. He received his Bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and his Masters and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests are in the lifecycle treatment (design, modeling, analysis, control, implementation and verification) of novel robotic and mechatronic systems, with emphasis on both theoretical formulation and experimental validation. The underlying research theme has been to take advantage of the “power of the many” to unlock new opportunities in various plant-automation, automobile, defense and healthcare/surgical applications. The principal opportunities lie in building upon heterogeneous loosely-interconnected physical- and information-systems and architecting high-confidence and reconfigurable operational capabilities in the presence of uncertainties. His work has been funded by NSF, DARPA, ARO as well as numerous state and industrial grants and has received multiple awards, including the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award, Petro-Canada Young Innovator Award, several best poster, conference and journal paper awards. His work has been published in more than 90 journal/conference articles, book chapters and patents. Within ASME he was past Chair of the Robotics Technical Committee (Dynamic Systems and Control Division) and is Chair-Elect for the Mechanisms and Robotics Technical Committee (Design Engineering Division). He has served as the Conference Chair of the 2010 ASME Mechanisms and Robotics Conference and is slated to serve as General Chair of the 2014 ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences. Within IEEE, he has served as Finance Chair for CASE 2010, ICRA 2012, IROS 2014 and is a member of the Conference Activities Board and the Industrial Activities Board of the Robotics and Automation Society. He has previously served as an Associate Editor of ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control, and the IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics – he currently serves an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transaction on Robotics.

Abstract: COOPERATIVE PAYLOAD TRANSPORT BY ROBOT COLLECTIVES

Cooperative material-handling by a fleet of decentralized manipulation agents has many applications ranging from hazardous waste removal, material handling on the shop floor, to robot work crews for planetary colonization. Our long-term goal is the development of a theoretical and operational framework to model, analyze, implement and validate cooperative payload transport capabilities in such distributed robot collectives.

Our particular focus is on creation, control and active reconfiguration of marching formations of wheeled mobile robots for cooperative payload transportation tasks. The selection of the underlying physical/informational infrastructure, system architecture, and mechanisms of cooperation creates many alternatives. A systematic framework is therefore critical for evaluation/selection of suitable implementations with quantifiable cooperative-performance benefits and forms the focus of our research activities. In particular, we will present our efforts to develop methodologies for design and optimization of formations for apriori known tasks, adaptation of formations for changing tasks and scalable schemes for control under the common theoretical but computationally tractable framework.

Time permitting, I will also provide a brief overview of the many other related research initiatives ranging from: (a) uneven terrain locomotion systems; (b) human-computer interfaces for mediated teleoperation; (c) haptic user-interface design and (d) quantitative surgical skill assessment.

Mechanical Engineering – Engineering Mechanics Graduate Seminar: January 31, 2013; 4:00 – 5:00 p.m., Room 112, ME-EM Building

Hugh Blaxill. Managing Director MAHLE Powertrain LLC. Novi, Michigan

Hugh Blaxill is currently Managing Director of MAHLE Powertrain LLC based in Novi, Michigan. MAHLE Powertrain is an engineering consultancy working in the automotive and aerospace fields under the ownership of MAHLE, the well known tier 1 component supplier. Hugh leads a team of specialized engineers in design, development, calibration, controls and diagnostic tools. Hugh was previously Chief Engineer for Research and Development at MAHLE Powertrain (and previously Cosworth) in the UK working on many IC engine research topics such as; downsizing, range extenders, advanced combustion concepts and hardware solutions. Prior to that he worked on a number of production engine development projects for many of the major OEM’s globally. Hugh joined MAHLE from Ricardo where he worked on production diesel engine development. He completed his two degrees at The University of Bath, in the UK.

Topic: Turbulent Jet Ignition: An efficient, clean combustion concept for the future?

In order to meet future global emissions goals, in the short to medium term it will be necessary to continue to improve the fuel consumption of the spark ignited gasoline engine. Gasoline engine downsizing is the dominant technology being implemented in the US and globally. In addition technologies such as variable valvetrains and stratified lean combustion have been implemented by some manufacturers. This presentation considers the application of a homogenous ultra lean combustion system to current and future engine technologies. The ultra lean combustion system is achieved via a high energy Turbulent Jet Ignition system. Turbulent Jet Ignition is an advanced spark initiated prechamber combustion system. The ultra lean combustion system has been shown to achieve high thermal efficiencies and low NOx emissions. Furthermore the improved knock resistance of the system allows, due to the distributed ignition sites, improvements in the compression ratio or a synergy with boosted applications.

PDF Flyer for Jan 31, 2013 Seminar

Mechanical Engineering – Engineering Mechanics Graduate Seminar: January 24, 2013; 4:00 – 5:00 p.m., Room 112, ME-EM Building

Mark R. Vaugh, Research Professor, Mechanical Engineering – Engineering Mechanics Michigan Technological University

Mark Vaughn holds a PhD in mechanical engineering and an MS in biomedical engineering from The University of Texas at Austin as well as a BS in biomedical engineering from the University of New Mexico. He began his career at the
Center for Electromechanics in Austin designing and building pulsed power flywheel inertial energy storage systems and railguns for SDI. This work required him to invent new hydrostatic bearing technology. Mark worked for over 26 years at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque New Mexico. He spent four years working in advanced nuclear weapon use control systems. He then worked building one-of-a-kind missile payloads for the next ten years, primarily for SDI. During this time he began work in medical devices including prosthetics, wound healing, and wheelchair assistive devices. A robot project took him to the robotics department for four years, where he worked on a variety of DARPA projects. After doing design and development work for earth penetrators, he worked for several years in the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) gimbal group on heat removal and bearing tasks while also starting up a UAV payload effort. Finally, he followed a DARPA drilling project to the geothermal group, where he also collaborated on a study of energy storage for microgrids. He holds ten US patents.

Topic: Energy Storage for Power Grid Integration of Renewables

Renewable energy sources, solar, wind, etc, are becoming a larger proportion of overall electrical energy production. In order to improve the utilization efficiency of these new sources in the existing power grid, energy storage will be needed. Numerous energy storage modalities are examined, with commentary on advantages and disadvantages of each. Selection strategies will be discussed.

PDF Flyer

Mechanical Engineering – Engineering Mechanics Graduate Seminar: January 17, 2013; 4:00 – 5:00 p.m., Room 112, ME-EM Building

Brett Chouinard, Chief Operating Officer. Altair Inc.

Brett Chouinard has been with Altair Engineering for 19 years in
various positions in management, engineering, consulting, sales and technical support. In his current role as Chief Operating Officer he is responsible for sales, marketing and technical support for the Altair’s global field operations. Prior to joining Altair, Mr. Chouinard was a structural engineer for GE Aircraft engines specializing in the design and analysis of metallic and composite structures. He holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan Technological University and an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Cincinnati with emphasis in simulation of structures and human tissue engineering.

Topic: Altair Engineering – In pursuit of Lightweight Design

PDF Flyer