Search results for: vehicle acting

Authors: Maximilian Richter

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Implementing shared autonomous electric vehicles (SAEVs) has many advantages. The main advantages are achieved when SAEVs are offered as on-demand services by a fleet operator. However, autonomous mobility on demand (AMoD) will be distributed nationwide only if a fleet operation is economically profitable for the operator. This paper proposes a microscopic approach to modeling two implementation scenarios of an AMoD fleet. The city of Zurich is used as a case study, with the results and findings being generalizable to other similar European and North American cities. The data are based on the traffic model of the canton of Zurich (Gesamtverkehrsmodell des Kantons Zürich (GVM-ZH)). To determine financial profitability, demand is based on the simulation results and combined with analyzing the costs of a SAEV per kilometer. The results demonstrate that depending on the scenario; journeys can be offered profitably to customers for CHF 0.3 up to CHF 0.4 per kilometer. While larger fleets allowed for lower price levels and increased profits in the long term, smaller fleets exhibit elevated efficiency levels and profit opportunities per day. The paper concludes with recommendations for how fleet operators can prepare themselves to maximize profit in the autonomous future.

Keywords: autonomous vehicle, mobility on demand, traffic simulation, fleet provider

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Authors: Markus Remm, Sebastian Dienert

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Vehicle interiors are not only changing in terms of design and functionality but also due to new driving situations in which, for example, autonomous operating modes are possible. Flexible seating positions are changing the requirements for passive safety system behavior and location in the interior of a vehicle. With fully autonomous driving, the driver can, for example, leave the position behind the steering wheel and take a seated position facing backward. Since autonomous and non-autonomous vehicles will share the same road network for the foreseeable future, accidents cannot be avoided, which makes the use of passive safety systems indispensable. With JENOPTIK-VOTAN® A technology, the trend towards flexible predetermined airbag weakening lines is enabled. With the help of laser beams, the predetermined weakening lines are introduced from the backside of the components so that they are absolutely invisible. This machining process is sensor-controlled and guarantees that a small residual wall thickness remains for the best quality and reliability for airbag weakening lines. Due to the wide processing range of the laser, the processing of almost all materials is possible. A CO₂ laser is used for many plastics, natural fiber materials, foams, foils and material composites. A femtosecond laser is used for natural materials and textiles that are very heat-sensitive. This laser type has extremely short laser pulses with very high energy densities. Supported by a high-precision and fast movement of the laser beam by a laser scanner system, the so-called cold ablation is enabled to predetermine weakening lines layer by layer until the desired residual wall thickness remains. In that way, for example, genuine leather can be processed in a material-friendly and process-reliable manner without design implications to the components A-Side. Passive safety in the vehicle is increased through the interaction of modern airbag technology and high-precision laser airbag weakening. The JENOPTIK-VOTAN® A product family has been representing this for more than 25 years and is pointing the way to the future with new and innovative technologies.

Keywords: design freedom, interior material processing, laser technology, passive safety

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Authors: Amritpal Singh Nafria, Rohit Sharma, Md. Shami Ansari

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Up to now only five different equations of motion can be derived from velocity time graph without needing to know the normal and frictional forces acting at the point of contact. In this paper we obtained all possible requisite conditions to be considering an equation as an equation of motion. After that we classified equations of motion by considering two equations as fundamental kinematical equations of motion and other three as additional kinematical equations of motion. After deriving these five equations of motion, we examine the easiest way of solving a wide variety of useful numerical problems. At the end of the paper, we discussed the importance and educational benefits of classification of equations of motion.

Keywords: velocity-time graph, fundamental equations, additional equations, requisite conditions, importance and educational benefits

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Authors: Saleh Gareh, B. C. Kok, H. H. Goh

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Piezoelectric energy harvesting has advantages over other alternative sources due to its large power density, ease of applications, and capability to be fabricated at different scales: macro, micro, and nano. This paper presents an electromechanical-traffic model for roadway compression-based piezoelectric energy harvesting system. A two-degree-of-freedom (2-DOF) electromechanical model has been developed for the piezoelectric energy harvesting unit to define its performance in power generation under a number of external excitations on road surface. Lead Zirconate Titanate (PZT-5H) is selected as the piezoelectric material to be used in this paper due to its high Piezoelectric Charge Constant (d) and Piezoelectric Voltage Constant (g) values. The main source of vibration energy that has been considered in this paper is the moving vehicle on the road. The effect of various frequencies on possible generated power caused by different vibration characteristics of moving vehicle has been studied. A single unit of circle-shape Piezoelectric Cymbal Transducer (PCT) with diameter of 32 mm and thickness of 0.3 mm be able to generate about 0.8 mW and 3 mW of electric power under 4 Hz and 20 Hz of excitation, respectively. The estimated power to be generated for multiple arrays of PCT is approximately 150 kW/ km. Thus, the developed electromechanical-traffic model has enormous potential to be used in estimating the macro scale of roadway power generation system.

Keywords: piezoelectric energy harvesting, cymbal transducer, PZT (lead zirconate titanate), 2-DOF

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Authors: Kamal Bahrin Jaafar

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The study area is located at Bukit Kukus, Penang where the construction of twin road project in ongoing. A landslide event has occurred on 19th October 2018, which causes fatal deaths. The purpose of this study is to figure out the causes of failure, the estimated volume of failure, and its balance. The study comprises of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) sensing and resistivity survey. The resistivity method includes spreading three lines of 200m length resistivity survey with the depth of penetration in the subsurface not exceeding 35m. The result of UAV shows the current view of the site condition. Based on resistivity result, the dominant layer in the study area consists of residual soil/filling material with a thickness of more than 35m. Three selected cross sections from construction drawing are overlain with the current cross sections to understand more on the condition of the subsurface profile. By comparison, there is a difference between past and present topography. The combination of result from the previous data and current condition shows the calculated volume of failure is 85,000 m³, and its balance is 50,000 m³. In conclusion, the failure occurs since the contractor has conducted the construction works without following the construction drawing supplied by the consultant. Besides, the cause of failure is triggered by the geology condition, such as a fault that should be considered prior to the commencement of work.

Keywords: UAV, landslide, resistivity survey, cause of failure

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Authors: Cetin Balanuye

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The present study aims to accomplish two tasks: First, it critically reinterprets the actual relationship between democracy and the modern state in order to show that it is responsible for most of our current political problems and dilemmas. Second, it is argued that this relationship can be reimagined for better, and Spinozistic notions such as ‘conatus’, ‘power’ and ‘virtue’ are crucial in this pursuit. The significance of the present study lies in several interrelated observations: The world has never been a more heterogeneous place than today. People from different religious, cultural and historical backgrounds do equally have 'good reasons' to hold that their world views are the best ones. We have almost no authority to be respected equally by all these different world views. We no longer have gods at once we had in our ancient times. We have three big monotheistic religions, yet the God of which is significantly different from each other. The worse is that the believers of these religions do not seem eager to perform a duet, but rather tend to fight a duel with each other. Thanks to post-modernism, neither reason nor science is any longer seen as universally value-neutral guide to be employed in our search for a common ground. In sum, the question 'how should I live?' has never generated this much diversity before in terms of answers and the answers have never been this much away from a fairly objective evaluation. Our so-called liberal democracies are supposed to perform against this heterogenous, antagonistic and self-sustained web of discursive background. It is argued that our conception of 'State' with a weak emphasis on democracy is not a solution, if not itself the source of this topsy-turvy. Weak emphasis on democracy should be understood here as a kind of liberal democracy which operates in a partisan State, one which takes sides among rivals either for this or against that world view. This conception of State rests on a misleading understanding of the concept of power, and it is argued that it can only be corrected by means of a Spinoza-informed ontology of politics. The role of State in such an ontology is no longer a partisanship of any kind, nor is it representative of all-encompassing authority to favor any world view. State in this Spinozistic ontology equally encourages world views and their discursive practices to let them increase the power of acting and have more power to affect rules and regulations. World views can enhance every medium -in the sense of nonviolence ethology- to increase their power of acting. The more active a world view is, the more powerful and the more virtuous it is in terms of its effective power on the State. Though Spinoza has provided us with a limited guideline to understand what kind of democracy, he actually had in his mind, his ontology developed in Ethics is rich enough to imagine and inspire a better democratic practice to help us sustain the modern State in our extremely pluralistic contemporary societies.

Keywords: democracy, Islam, power, Spinoza

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Authors: Weiming Hu, Xu Li, Xiaonan Li, Zhong Xu, Li Yuan, Xuan Dong

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Maneuver decision-making plays a critical role in high-performance intelligent driving. This paper proposes a risk assessment-based decision-making network (RADMN) to address the problem of driving strategy for the commercial vehicle. RADMN integrates two networks, aiming at identifying the risk degree of collision and rollover and providing decisions to ensure the effectiveness and reliability of driving strategy. In the risk assessment module, risk degrees of the backward collision, forward collision and rollover are quantified for hazard recognition. In the decision module, a deep reinforcement learning based on multi-objective optimization (DRL-MOO) algorithm is designed, which comprehensively considers the risk degree and motion states of each traffic participant. To evaluate the performance of the proposed framework, Prescan/Simulink joint simulation was conducted in highway scenarios. Experimental results validate the effectiveness and reliability of the proposed RADMN. The output driving strategy can guarantee the safety and provide key technical support for the realization of autonomous driving of commercial vehicles.

Keywords: decision-making strategy, risk assessment, multi-objective optimization, commercial vehicle

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Authors: Andrea S. Badillo-Perez, Alexis D. Mitchell, Sara M. Levens

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Overeating, and obesity have been associated with addictive behavior, primarily due to behaviors like reward-based eating, the tendency to overeat due to factors such as lack of control, preoccupation over food, and lack of satiation. Temporal discounting (TD), the ability to select future rewards over short term gains, and mindfulness, the process of maintaining present moment awareness, have been suggested to have significant, differential impacts on health-related behaviors. An individual’s health locus of control, the degree to which they feel that they have control over their health is also known to have an impact on health outcomes. The goal of this study was to investigate the relationship between health locus of control and reward-based eating, as well as the relation between TD and mindfulness in a sample (N = 126) of overweight or obese participants from larger health-focused study. Through the use of questionnaires (including the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), Reward-Based Eating Drive (RED), and Multidimensional Health Locus of Control (MHLOC)), anthropometric measurements, and a computerized TD task, a series of regressions tested the association between subscales of these measures. Results revealed differences in how the mindfulness subscales are associated with TD measures. Specifically the ‘Observing’ (beta =-.203) and ‘Describing’ (beta =.26) subscales were associated with lower TD rates and a longer subjective devaluation time-frame respectively. In contrast, the ‘Acting with Awareness’ subscale was associated with a shorter subjective devaluation timeframe (beta =-.23). These findings suggest that the reflective perspective initiated through the observing and describing components of mindfulness may facilitate delay of gratification, whereas the acting with awareness component of mindfulness, which focuses on the present moment, may make delay of gratification more challenging. Results also indicated that a higher degree of reward-based eating was associated with a higher degree of an external health locus of control based on the power of chance (beta =.10). However, an external locus of control based on the power of others had no significant association with reward-based eating. This finding implies that the belief that health is due to chance is associated with greater reward-based eating behavior, suggesting that interventions that focus on locus of control may be helpful. Overall, findings demonstrate that weight loss interventions may benefit from health locus of control and mindfulness exercises, but caution should be taken as the components of mindfulness appear to have different effects on increasing or decreasing delay of gratification.

Keywords: health locus of control, mindfulness, obesity, reward-based eating, temporal discounting

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Authors: Felipe J. Costa, João F. A. Martos, Ronaldo L. Cardoso, Israel S. Rêgo, Marco A. S. Minucci, Antonio C. Oliveira, Paulo G. P. Toro

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The Prof. Henry T. Nagamatsu Laboratory of Aerothermodynamics and Hypersonics, at the Institute for Advanced Studies designed the Brazilian 14-X Hypersonic Aerospace Vehicle, which is a technological demonstrator endowed with two innovative technologies: waverider technology, to obtain lift from conical shockwave during the hypersonic flight; and uses hypersonic airbreathing propulsion system called scramjet that is based on supersonic combustion, to perform flights on Earth's atmosphere at 30 km altitude at Mach numbers 7 and 10. The scramjet is an aeronautical engine without moving parts that promote compression and deceleration of freestream atmospheric air at the inlet through the conical/oblique shockwaves generated during the hypersonic flight. During high speed flight, the shock waves and the viscous forces yield the phenomenon called aerodynamic heating, where this physical meaning is the friction between the fluid filaments and the body or compression at the stagnation regions of the leading edge that converts the kinetic energy into heat within a thin layer of air which blankets the body. The temperature of this layer increases with the square of the speed. This high temperature is concentrated in the boundary-layer, where heat will flow readily from the boundary-layer to the hypersonic aerospace vehicle structure. Fay and Riddell and Eckert methods are applied to the stagnation point and to the flat plate segments in order to calculate the aerodynamic heating. On the understanding of the aerodynamic heating it is important to analyze the heat conduction transfer to the 14-X waverider internal structure. ANSYS Workbench software provides the Thermal Numerical Analysis, using Finite Element Method of the 14-X waverider unpowered scramjet at 30 km altitude at Mach number 7 and 10 in terms of temperature and heat flux. Finally, it is possible to verify if the internal temperature complies with the requirements for embedded systems, and, if is necessary to do modifications on the structure in terms of wall thickness and materials.

Keywords: aerodynamic heating, hypersonic, scramjet, thermal analysis

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Authors: Hyun-Seok Hong, Tae-Chul Jeong, Huai-Cong Liu, Ju Lee

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In this paper, proposes to replace the three-phase SPM for tilting by a single-phase torque actuator of the hybrid multi-DOF system. If a three-phase motor for tilting SPM as acting as instantaneous, low electricity use efficiency, controllability is bad disadvantages. It uses a single-phase torque actuator has a high electrical efficiency compared, good controllability. Thus this will have a great influence on the development and practical use of the system. This study designed a single phase torque actuator in consideration of the magnetic saturation. And compared the SPM and FEM analysis and validation through testing of the production model.

Keywords: hybrid multi-DOF system, SPM, torque actuator, UAV, drone

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Authors: Ghulam Mustafa Halepota, Zaib Dahar

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Background: Low acceptance of FP services, particularly in hard to reach areas where geographic, economic, or social barriers limit-service uptake. Moreover, limited resources appeared to be a reflection of dismal contraceptive use in Pakistan. People’s Primary Health Care Initiative (PPHI) is a Public Private Partnership Program of Government of Sindh which aims to improve maternal child health through accessible family planning services in far flung areas. In 2015 PPHI launched special family planning camps to have achieved a rapid improvement in CPR. On quarterly basis, these camps focus on Long Acting Reversible Contraceptives (LARC). These camps are arranged at 250 BHU Plus (24/7 MCHCs). The Organization manages 1140 primary health care facilities all over Sindh province and focuses on maternal, newborn and child health which includes antenatal care, labor/delivery, postnatal care, family planning, immunization, nutrition, BEmONC, CEmONC, diagnostic laboratories, ambulance services. Under the FPRH program, the organization launched special family planning camps in far flung areas to achieve a rapid improvement in CPR-committed to FP 2020 goal. Objective: To assess the performance of special FP camps for the improvement of long acting reversible contraceptive in hard to reach areas. Methodology: Outreach camps are organized on quarterly basis in 250 BHUs and maternal and child health centers (available-24/7). Using observational study design, the study reports 2 years data of special FP camps conducted in 23 various districts of Sindh during April 2015-April 2017. These special camps served a range of modern contraceptive methods including IUCDs, implants, condoms, pills, and injections. Moreover, 125 male medical officers are trained across Sindh in LARC and 554 female have been trained in implants and IUCD insertions. MSI Impact calculator was used to determine health and demographic impact of services. Results: This intervention has brought exceptional results, and the response has been overwhelming in time. Total 2048 special camps during 2015 till April 2017 have been carried out. 231796 MWRAs visited camps 91% opted modern FP, of which 45% opted Implants, 6% selected IUCDs from LARC (long term reversible contraceptive) from short term, 17% opted injectable 18% choose pills, and 12% used condoms. This intervention created a high contraceptive impact in rural Sindh an estimated 125048 FP users have been created, of this 111846 LARC users and 13498 are SARC users, through this intervention an estimated 55774 unintended pregnancies, 36299 live births, 9394, 80 maternal deaths, 926 and 6077 unsafe abortion have been averted. Moreover, the intervention created an economic impact and saved 2,409,563 direct health expenditure on each woman with reproductive age. Conclusion: Special FP Camps along with routine services is an effective and acceptable model for increase in provision of long-acting and permanent methods in hard to reach areas. This innovative approach by PHHI-Sindh has also been adopted in other provinces of Pakistan.

Keywords: inequalities, special camps, family planning services, hard to reach areas

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Authors: Adriana De Serio, Adrian Korek

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Aims: This experiential research work presents a Group-MusicTherapy-Theatre-Plan (MusThePlan) the authors have carried out to support the actors. The MusicTherapy gives rise to individual psychophysical feedback and influences the emotional centres of the brain and the subconsciousness. Therefore, the authors underline the effectiveness of the preventive, educational, and training goals of the MusThePlan to lead theatre students and actors to deal with anxiety and to overcome psychophysical weaknesses, shyness, emotional stress in stage performances, to increase flexibility, awareness of one's identity and resources for a positive self-development and psychophysical health, to develop and strengthen social bonds, increasing a network of subjects working for social inclusion and reduction of stigma. Materials-Methods: Thirty students from the University Theatre Faculty participated in weekly music therapy sessions for two months; each session lasted 120 minutes. MusThePlan: Each session began with a free group rhythmic-sonorous-musical-production by body-percussion, voice-canto, instruments, to stimulate communication. Then, a synchronized-structured bodily-rhythmic-sonorous-musical production also involved acting, dances, movements of hands and arms, hearing, and more sensorial perceptions and speech to balance motor skills and the muscular tone. Each student could be the director-leader of the group indicating a story to inspire the group's musical production. The third step involved the students in rhythmic speech and singing drills and in vocal exercises focusing on the musical pitch to improve the intonation and on the diction to improve the articulation and lead up it to an increased intelligibility. At the end of each musictherapy session and of the two months, the Musictherapy Assessment Document was drawn up by analysis of observation protocols and two Indices by the authors: Patient-Environment-Music-Index (time to - tn) to estimate the behavior evolution, Somatic Pattern Index to monitor subject’s eye and mouth and limb motility, perspiration, before, during and after musictherapy sessions. Results: After the first month, the students (non musicians) learned to play percussion instruments and formed a musical band that played classical/modern music on the percussion instruments with the musictherapist/pianist/conductor in a public concert. At the end of the second month, the students performed a public musical theatre show, acting, dancing, singing, and playing percussion instruments. The students highlighted the importance of the playful aspects of the group musical production in order to achieve emotional contact and harmony within the group. The students said they had improved kinetic and vocal and all the skills useful for acting activity and the nourishment of the bodily and emotional balance. Conclusions: The MusThePlan makes use of some specific MusicTherapy methodological models, techniques, and strategies useful for the actors. The MusThePlan can destroy the individual "mask" and can be useful when the verbal language is unable to undermine the defense mechanisms of the subject. The MusThePlan improves actor’s psychophysical activation, motivation, gratification, knowledge of one's own possibilities, and the quality of life. Therefore, the MusThePlan could be useful to carry out targeted interventions for the actors with characteristics of repeatability, objectivity, and predictability of results. Furthermore, it would be useful to plan a University course/master in “MusicTherapy for the Theatre”.

Keywords: musictherapy, sonorous-musical energy, quality of life, theatre

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Authors: Man Chul Jeong, Hyoung Jin Lee, Sang Yoon Lee, Ji Hyun Park, Min Wook Chang, In-Seuck Jeung

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This study focus on the drag reduction effect of the base bleed at supersonic flow. Base bleed is the method which bleeds the gas on the tail of the flight vehicle and reduces the base drag, which occupies over 50% of the total drag in any flight speed. Thus base bleed can reduce the total drag significantly, and enhance the total flight range. Drag reduction ratio of the base bleed is strongly related to the mass flow rate of the bleeding gas. Thus selecting appropriate mass flow rate is important. However, since the flight vehicle has various flight speed, same mass flow rate of the base bleed can have different drag reduction effect during the flight. Thus, this study investigates the effect of the drag reduction depending on the flight speed by numerical analysis using STAR-CCM+. The analysis model is 155mm diameter projectile with boat-tailed shape base. Angle of the boat-tail is chosen previously for minimum drag coefficient. Numerical analysis is conducted for Mach 2 and Mach 3, with various mass flow rate, or the injection parameter I, of the bleeding gas and the temperature of the bleeding gas, is fixed to 300K. The results showed that I=0.025 has the minimum drag at Mach 2, and I=0.014 has the minimum drag at Mach 3. Thus as the Mach number is higher, the lower mass flow rate of the base bleed has more effect on drag reduction.

Keywords: base bleed, supersonic, drag reduction, recirculation

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Authors: Malcolm Dinovitzer, Calvin Miller, Adam Hacker, Gabriel Wong, Zach Annen, Padmassun Rajakareyar, Jordan Mulvihill, Mostafa S.A. ElSayed

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The research work presented in this paper is developed by the Blended Wing Body (BWB) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) team, a fourth-year capstone project at Carleton University Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Here, a clean sheet UAV with BWB configuration is designed and optimized using Multiscale Design Optimization (MSDO) approach employing lattice materials taking into consideration design for additive manufacturing constraints. The BWB-UAV is being developed with a mission profile designed for surveillance purposes with a minimum payload of 1000 grams. To demonstrate the design methodology, a single design loop of a sample rib from the airframe is shown in details. This includes presentation of the conceptual design, materials selection, experimental characterization and residual thermal stress distribution analysis of additively manufactured materials, manufacturing constraint identification, critical loads computations, stress analysis and design optimization. A dynamic turbulent critical load case was identified composed of a 1-g static maneuver with an incremental Power Spectral Density (PSD) gust which was used as a deterministic design load case for the design optimization. 2D flat plate Doublet Lattice Method (DLM) was used to simulate aerodynamics in the aeroelastic analysis. The aerodynamic results were verified versus a 3D CFD analysis applying Spalart-Allmaras and SST k-omega turbulence to the rigid UAV and vortex lattice method applied in the OpenVSP environment. Design optimization of a single rib was conducted using topology optimization as well as MSDO. Compared to a solid rib, weight savings of 36.44% and 59.65% were obtained for the topology optimization and the MSDO, respectively. These results suggest that MSDO is an acceptable alternative to topology optimization in weight critical applications while preserving the functional requirements.

Keywords: blended wing body, multiscale design optimization, additive manufacturing, unmanned aerial vehicle

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Authors: Judith Mwakalonge, Geophrey Mbatta, Cuthbert Ruseruka, Gurcan Comert, Saidi Siuhi

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Recent advancements in technology have fostered the development of Electric Vehicles (EVs) that provides relief from transportation dependence on natural fossil fuels as sources of energy. It is estimated that more than 50% of petroleum is used for transportation, which accounts for 28% of annual energy use. Vehicles make up about 82% of all transportation energy use. It is also estimated that about 22% of global Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are produced by the transportation sector, therefore, it raises environmental concerns. Governments worldwide, including the United States, are investing in developing EVs to resolve the issues related to the use of natural fossil fuels, such as air pollution due to emissions. For instance, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) that was signed by President Biden on November 15th, 2021, sets aside about $5 billion to be apportioned to all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico for the development of EV chargers. These chargers should be placed in a way that maximizes their utility. This study aims at studying the charging behaviors of Electric Vehicle (EV) users to establish factors to be considered in the selection of charging locations. The study will focus on social-economic and land use data by studying the relationship between charging time and charging locations. Local factors affecting the charging time and the chargers’ utility will be investigated.

Keywords: electric vehicles, EV charging stations, social economic factors, charging networks

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Authors: J. F. Gonzalez-Rojo, Federico Lluesma-Rodriguez, Temoatzin Gonzalez

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Hyperloop, a new mode of transport, is gaining significance. It consists of the use of a ground-based transport system which includes a levitation system, that avoids rolling friction forces, and which has been covered with a tube, controlling the inner atmosphere lowering the aerodynamic drag forces. Thus, hyperloop is proposed as a solution to the current limitation on ground transportation. Rolling and aerodynamic problems, that limit large speeds for traditional high-speed rail or even maglev systems, are overcome using a hyperloop solution. Zeleros is one of the companies developing technology for hyperloop application worldwide. It is working on a concept that reduces the infrastructure cost and minimizes the power consumption as well as the losses associated with magnetic drag forces. For this purpose, Zeleros proposes a Hybrid ElectroMagnetic Suspension (EMS) for its prototype. In the present manuscript an active and optimal electromagnetic suspension levitation method based on nearly zero power consumption individual modules is presented. This system consists of several hybrid permanent magnet-coil levitation units that can be arranged along the vehicle. The proposed unit manages to redirect the magnetic field along a defined direction forming a magnetic circuit and minimizing the loses due to field dispersion. This is achieved using an electrical steel core. Each module can stabilize the gap distance using the coil current and either linear or non-linear control methods. The ratio between weight and levitation force for each unit is 1/10. In addition, the quotient between the lifted weight and power consumption at the target gap distance is 1/3 [kg/W]. One degree of freedom (DoF) (along the gap direction) is controlled by a single unit. However, when several units are present, a 5 DoF control (2 translational and 3 rotational) can be achieved, leading to the full attitude control of the vehicle. The proposed system has been successfully tested reaching TRL-4 in a laboratory test bench and is currently in TRL-5 state development if the module association in order to control 5 DoF is considered.

Keywords: active optimal control, electromagnetic levitation, HEMS, high-speed transport, hyperloop

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Authors: Cita Ayeni

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Following countless violations of Human Rights in Nigeria by the various arms and agencies of government; from the Military to the Federal Police and other law enforcement agencies, Nigeria has been riddled with several reports of acts by these agencies against the citizens, ranging from illegal arrest and imprisonment, torture, disappearing, and extrajudicial killings, just to mention a few. This paper, focuses on SARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad), a division of the Nigeria Police Force, and its reported threats to the people’s security, particularly the Nigerian youths, with continuous violence, extortion, illegal arrest and imprisonment, terror, and extrajudicial activities resulting in maiming and in most cases death, thus infringing on the human rights of the people it’s sworn to protect. This research further analyses how the activities of SARS has over the years instigated fear on the average Nigerian youth, preventing the free participation in daily life, education, job, and individual development, in turn impeding the realization of their full potentials for growth and participation in collective national development. This research analyzes the executive order by the then Acting President (Vice-President) of Nigeria, directing the overhauling of SARS, and its implementation by the Federal Police Force in determining if it’s enough to prevent or put a stop to the continuous Human Rights abuse and threat to the security of the individual citizen. Concluding that although the order by the Acting President was given with an intent to halt the various violations by SARS, and the Inspector General of Police’s (IGP) subsequent action by releasing a statement following the order, the bureaucracy in Nigeria, with a history of incompetency and a return to 'business as usual' after a reduced public outcry, it’s most likely that there will not be adequate follow up put in place and these violations would be slowly 'swept under the rug' with SARS officials not held accountable. It is recommended therefore that the Federal Government through the NPF, following the reforms made, in collaboration with the mentioned Independent Human Rights and civil societies organizations should periodically produce unbiased and publicly accessible reports on the implementation of these reforms and progress made. This will go a long way in assuring the public of actual fulfillment of the restructuring, reduce fear by the youths and restore some public faith in the government.

Keywords: special anti-robbery squad, youths in Nigeria, overhaul, insecurities, human rights violations

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Authors: Turker Yardan, Bahattin Avci, S. Sirri Bilge, Ayhan Bozkurt

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Sinapic acid (SA) is a phenylpropanoid compound with anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and neuroprotective activities. The purpose of this study was to characterize the possible protective effect of sinapic acid on chlorpyrifos (CPF), a common organophosphorus pesticide used worldwide, induced toxicity in rats. Forty male and female rats (240-270 g) were used in this study. Each group was composed of 5 male and 5 female rats. Sinapic acid (20 mg/kg or 40 mg/kg) or vehicle (olive oil, 1 ml ⁄ rat) were given orally for 5 days. CPF (279 mg/kg) or vehicle (peanut oil, 2 ml ⁄ kg, s.c.) was administered on the sixth day, immediately after the recording of the body weight of the animals. Twenty four hours following CPF administration body weight, body temperature and locomotor activity values were recorded before decapitation of the animals. Trunk blood, brain, and liver samples were collected for biochemical examinations. Chlorpyrifos administration decreased butyrylcholinesterase activity in blood, brain, and liver, while it increased malondialdehyde (MDA) levels and advanced oxidation protein products (AOPPs) (p < 0.01 - 0.001). Additionally, CPF administration reduced the body weight, body temperature, and locomotor activity values of the animals (p < 0.01 - 0.001). All these physiological and biochemical changes induced by CPF were reduced with the 40 mg/kg dose of SA (p < 0.05 - 0.001). Our results suggest that SA administration ameliorates CPF induced toxicity in rats, possibly by supporting the antioxidant mechanism.

Keywords: antioxidant, Chlorpyrifos, poisoning, sinapic acid

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Authors: Ji Young Lee, Jong Woon Kim

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It is essential to secure high availability of railway vehicles to realize high quality and efficiency of railway service. Once the availability decreased, planned railway service could not be provided or more cars need to be reserved. additional cars need to be purchased or the frequency of railway service could be decreased. Such situation would be a big loss in terms of quality and cost related to railway service. Therefore, we make various efforts to get high availability of railway vehicles. Because it is a big loss to operators, we make various efforts to get high availability of railway vehicles. To secure high availability, the idle time of the vehicle needs to be reduced and the following methods are applied to railway vehicles. First, through modularization design, exchange time for line replaceable units is reduced which makes railway vehicles could be put into the service quickly. Second, to reduce periodic preventive maintenance time, preventive maintenance with short period would be proceeded test oriented to minimize the maintenance time, and reliability is secured through overhauls for each main component. With such design changes for railway vehicles, modularized components are exchanged first at the time of vehicle failure or overhaul so that vehicles could be put into the service quickly and exchanged components are repaired or overhauled. Therefore, spare components are required for any future failures or overhauls. And, as components are modularized and costs for components are high, it is considerably important to get reasonable quantities of spare components. Especially, when a number of railway vehicles were put into the service simultaneously, the time of overhauls come almost at the same time. Thus, for some vehicles, components need to be exchanged and overhauled before appointed overhaul period so that these components could be secured as spare parts for the next vehicle’s component overhaul. For this reason, components overhaul time and spare parts quantities should be decided at the same time. This study deals with the time of overhauls for repairable components of railway vehicles and the calculation of spare parts quantities in consideration of future failure/overhauls. However, as railway vehicles are used according to the service schedule, maintenance work cannot be proceeded after the service was closed thus it is quite difficult to resolve this situation mathematically. In this study, Simulation software system is used in this study for analyzing the time of overhauls for repairable components of railway vehicles and the spare parts for the railway systems.

Keywords: overhaul time, rolling stocks, simulation, spare parts

Procedia PDF Downloads 330

Authors: Mahdiye Khorasani, Arjun Vijay, Ali Mashayekh, Christian Trapp

Abstract:

The performance of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) is highly dependent on the pressure and mass flow of media (Hydrogen and air) throughout the cells and the stack. Higher pressure, on the one hand, results in higher output power of the stack but, on the other hand, increases the electrical power demand of the compressor. In this work, a simulation model of a PEMFC system for vehicle and airplane applications is developed. With this new model, the effect of different pressures and air mass flow rates are investigated to discover the optimum operating point in a PEMFC system, and innovative operation strategies are implemented to optimize reactants flow while minimizing electrical power demand of the compressor for optimum performance. Additionally, a fuel cell system test bench is set up, which contains not only all the auxiliary components for conditioning the gases, reactants, and flows but also a dynamic titling table for testing different orientations of the stack to simulate the flight conditions during take-off and landing and off-road-vehicle scenarios. The results of simulation will be tested and validated on the test bench for future works.

Keywords: air mass flow effect, optimization of operation, pressure effect, PEMFC system, PEMFC system simulation

Procedia PDF Downloads 171

Authors: Xinhuang Wu, Yousef Sardahi

Abstract:

A hybrid and optimal multi-loop control structure combining linear and nonlinear control algorithms are introduced in this paper to regulate the position of a quadcopter unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) driven by four brushless DC motors. To this end, a nonlinear mathematical model of the UAV is derived and then linearized around one of its operating points. Using the nonlinear version of the model, a sliding mode control is used to derive the control laws of the motor thrust forces required to drive the UAV to a certain position. The linear model is used to design two controllers, XG-controller and YG-controller, responsible for calculating the required roll and pitch to maneuver the vehicle to the desired X and Y position. Three attitude controllers are designed to calculate the desired angular rates of rotors, assuming that the Euler angles are minimal. After that, a many-objective optimization problem involving 20 design parameters and ten objective functions is formulated and solved by HypE (Hypervolume estimation algorithm), one of the widely used many-objective optimization algorithms approaches. Both stability and performance constraints are imposed on the optimization problem. The optimization results in terms of Pareto sets and fronts are obtained and show that some of the design objectives are competing. That is, when one objective goes down, the other goes up. Also, Numerical simulations conducted on the nonlinear UAV model show that the proposed optimization method is quite effective.

Keywords: optimal control, many-objective optimization, sliding mode control, linear control, cascade controllers, UAV, drones

Procedia PDF Downloads 67

Authors: Gaurav Bisht, Rahul Rathnakumar, Ravikumar Duggirala

Abstract:

Predictive simulations are one of the key focus areas in safety-critical industries such as aerospace and high-performance automotive engineering. The stone-chipping study is one such effort taken up by the industry to predict and evaluate the damage caused due to gravel impact on vehicles. This paper describes a finite elements based method that can simulate the ejection of gravel chips from a vehicle tire. The FE simulations were used to obtain the initial ejection velocity of the stones for various driving conditions using a computational contact mechanics approach. To verify the accuracy of the tire model, several parametric studies were conducted. The FE simulations resulted in stone loft velocities ranging from 0–8 m/s, regardless of tire speed. The stress on the tire at the instant of initial contact with the stone increased linearly with vehicle speed. Mesh convergence studies indicated that a highly resolved tire mesh tends to result in better momentum transfer between the tire and the stone. A fine tire mesh also showed a linearly increasing relationship between the tire forward speed and stone lofting speed, which was not observed in coarser meshes. However, it also highlighted a potential challenge, in that the ejection velocity vector of the stone seemed to be sensitive to the mesh, owing to the FE-based contact mechanical formulation of the problem.

Keywords: abaqus, contact mechanics, foreign object debris, stone chipping

Procedia PDF Downloads 259

Authors: F. Tang, S. Boskovich, A. Raheja, Z. Aliyazicioglu, S. Bhandari, N. Tsuchiya

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Calpoly Autonomous Transportation Experience (CATE) is a driverless vehicle that we are developing to provide safe, accessible, and efficient transportation of passengers throughout the Cal Poly Pomona campus for events such as orientation tours. Unlike the other self-driving vehicles that are usually developed to operate with other vehicles and reside only on the road networks, CATE will operate exclusively on walk-paths of the campus (potentially narrow passages) with pedestrians traveling from multiple locations. Safety becomes paramount as CATE operates within the same environment as pedestrians. As driverless vehicles assume greater roles in today’s transportation, this project will contribute to autonomous driving with pedestrian traffic in a highly dynamic environment. The CATE project requires significant interdisciplinary work. Researchers from mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and computer science are working together to attack the problem from different perspectives (hardware, software and system). In this abstract, we describe the software aspects of the project, with a focus on the requirements and the major components. CATE shall provide a GUI interface for the average user to interact with the car and access its available functionalities, such as selecting a destination from any origin on campus. We have developed an interface that provides an aerial view of the campus map, the current car location, routes, and the goal location. Users can interact with CATE through audio or manual inputs. CATE shall plan routes from the origin to the selected destination for the vehicle to travel. We will use an existing aerial map for the campus and convert it to a spatial graph configuration where the vertices represent the landmarks and edges represent paths that the car should follow with some designated behaviors (such as stay on the right side of the lane or follow an edge). Graph search algorithms such as A* will be implemented as the default path planning algorithm. D* Lite will be explored to efficiently recompute the path when there are any changes to the map. CATE shall avoid any static obstacles and walking pedestrians within some safe distance. Unlike traveling along traditional roadways, CATE’s route directly coexists with pedestrians. To ensure the safety of the pedestrians, we will use sensor fusion techniques that combine data from both lidar and stereo vision for obstacle avoidance while also allowing CATE to operate along its intended route. We will also build prediction models for pedestrian traffic patterns. CATE shall improve its location and work under a GPS-denied situation. CATE relies on its GPS to give its current location, which has a precision of a few meters. We have implemented an Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) that allows the fusion of data from multiple sensors (such as GPS, IMU, odometry) in order to increase the confidence of localization. We also noticed that GPS signals can easily get degraded or blocked on campus due to high-rise buildings or trees. UKF can also help here to generate a better state estimate. In summary, CATE will provide on-campus transportation experience that coexists with dynamic pedestrian traffic. In future work, we will extend it to multi-vehicle scenarios.

Keywords: driverless vehicle, path planning, sensor fusion, state estimate

Procedia PDF Downloads 139

Authors: Iqra Yaseen

Abstract:

One of the well-known areas of computer science and engineering, image processing in the context of computer vision has been essential to automation. In remote sensing, medical science, and many other fields, it has made it easier to uncover previously undiscovered facts. Grading of diverse items is now possible because of neural network algorithms, categorization, and digital image processing. Its use in the classification of agricultural products, particularly in the grading of seeds or grains and their cultivars, is widely recognized. A grading and sorting system enables the preservation of time, consistency, and uniformity. Global population growth has led to an increase in demand for food staples, biofuel, and other agricultural products. To meet this demand, available resources must be used and managed more effectively. Image processing is rapidly growing in the field of agriculture. Many applications have been developed using this approach for crop identification and classification, land and disease detection and for measuring other parameters of crop. Vegetation localization is the base of performing these task. Vegetation helps to identify the area where the crop is present. The productivity of the agriculture industry can be increased via image processing that is based upon Unmanned Aerial Vehicle photography and satellite. In this paper we use the machine learning techniques like Convolutional Neural Network, deep learning, image processing, classification, You Only Live Once to UAV imaging dataset to divide the crop into distinct groups and choose the best way to use it.

Keywords: image processing, UAV, YOLO, CNN, deep learning, classification

Procedia PDF Downloads 100

Authors: Pawel Magryta, Mateusz Paszko

Abstract:

In today's world, a big problem of individual mobility, especially in large urban areas, occurs. Commonly used grand way of transport such as buses, trains or cars do not fulfill their tasks, i.e. they are not able to meet the increasing mobility needs of the growing urban population. Additional to that, the limitations of civil infrastructure construction in the cities exist. Nowadays the most common idea is to transfer the part of urban transport on the level of air transport. However to do this, there is a need to develop an individual flying transport vehicle. The biggest problem occurring in this concept is the type of the propulsion system from which the vehicle will obtain a lifting force. Standard propeller drives appear to be too noisy. One of the ideas is to provide the required take-off and flight power by the machine using the innovative ejector system. This kind of the system will be designed through a suitable choice of the three-dimensional geometric structure with special shape of nozzle in order to generate overpressure. The authors idea is to make a device that would allow to cumulate the overpressure using the a five-sided geometrical structure that will be limited on the one side by the blowing flow of air jet. In order to test this hypothesis a computer simulation study of aerodynamic drag of such 3D structures have been made. Based on the results of these studies, the tests on real model were also performed. The final stage of work was a comparative analysis of the results of simulation and real tests. The CFD simulation studies of air flow was conducted using the Star CD - Star Pro 3.2 software. The design of virtual model was made using the Catia v5 software. Apart from the objective to obtain advanced aviation propulsion system, all of the tests and modifications of 3D structures were also aimed at achieving high efficiency of this device while maintaining the ability to generate high value of overpressures. This was possible only in case of a large mass flow rate of air. All these aspects have been possible to verify using CFD methods for observing the flow of the working medium in the tested model. During the simulation tests, the distribution and size of pressure and velocity vectors were analyzed. Simulations were made with different boundary conditions (supply air pressure), but with a fixed external conditions (ambient temp., ambient pressure, etc.). The maximum value of obtained overpressure is 2 kPa. This value is too low to exploit the power of this device for the individual transport vehicle. Both the simulation model and real object shows a linear dependence of the overpressure values obtained from the different geometrical parameters of three-dimensional structures. Application of computational software greatly simplifies and streamlines the design and simulation capabilities. This work has been financed by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

Keywords: aviation propulsion, CFD, 3d structure, aerodynamic drag

Procedia PDF Downloads 303

Authors: M. Kosacka, I. Kudelska

Abstract:

Vehicle is one of the most influential and complex product worldwide, which affects people’s life, state of the environment and condition of the economy (all aspects of sustainable development concept) during each stage of lifecycle. With the increase of vehicles’ number, there is growing potential for management of End of Life Vehicle (ELV), which is hazardous waste. From one point of view, the ELV should be managed to ensure risk elimination, but from another point, it should be treated as a source of valuable materials and spare parts. In order to obtain materials and spare parts, there are established recycling networks, which are an example of sustainable policy realization at the national level. The basic object in the polish recycling network is dismantling facility. The output material streams in dismantling stations include waste, which very often generate costs and spare parts, that have the biggest potential for revenues creation. Both outputs are stored into warehouses, according to the law. In accordance to the revenue creation and sustainability potential, it has been placed a strong emphasis on storage process. We present the concept of storage method, which takes into account the specific of the dismantling facility in order to support decision-making process with regard to the principles of sustainable development. The method was developed on the basis of case study of one of the greatest dismantling facility in Poland.

Keywords: dismantling, end of life vehicles, sustainability, storage

Procedia PDF Downloads 267

Authors: Raj Nandkeolyar, Precious Sibanda

Abstract:

The flow of a viscous, incompressible, and electrically conducting fluid under the influence of aligned magnetic field acting along the direction of fluid flow over an exponentially stretching sheet is investigated numerically. The nonlinear partial differential equations governing the flow model is transformed to a set of nonlinear ordinary differential equations using suitable similarity transformation and the solution is obtained using a local linearization method followed by the Chebyshev spectral collocation method. The effects of various parameters affecting the flow and heat transfer as well as the induced magnetic field are discussed using suitable graphs and tables.

Keywords: aligned magnetic field, exponentially stretching sheet, induced magnetic field, magnetohydrodynamic flow

Procedia PDF Downloads 446

Authors: Aaron Huber, Manoj Karwa

Abstract:

Floods, heat waves, drought, wildfires, tornadoes and other environmental disasters are a snapshot of looming national problems that can create increasing demands on the national grid. With nearly 500,000 school buses on the road and the environmental protection agency (EPA) providing nearly $1B for electric school buses, there is a solution for this national issue. Bidirectional batteries in electric school buses enable a future proof solution to sustain the power grid during adverse environmental conditions and other periods of high demand. School buses have larger batteries than standard electric vehicles. When they are not transporting students, these buses can spend peak solar hours parked and plugged into bi-directional direct current fast chargers (DCFC). A partnership with Highland Electric, Proterra and Rhombus enabled over 7 MWh of energy servicing Massachusetts and Vermont grids. The buses were part of a vehicle to grid (V2G) program with National Grid and Green Mountain Power that can charge an average American home for one month with a single bus. V2G infrastructure enables school systems to future proof their charging strategies, strengthen their local grids and can create additional revenue streams with their EV fleets. A bidirectional ecosystem with Highland, Proterra and Rhombus can enable grid resiliency or the ability to withstand power outages caused by excessive demands, natural disasters or rogue nation's attacks with no loss of service. A fleet of school buses is a standalone resilient asset that can be accessed across a city to keep its citizens safe without having any toxic fumes. Nearly 95% of all school buses across USA are powered by diesel internal combustion engines. Diesel exhaust has been classified as a human carcinogen, and it can lead to and exacerbate respiratory conditions. Bidirectional school buses and chargers enable energy justice by providing backup power in case of emergencies or high demand for marginalized communities and aim to make energy more accessible, affordable, clean, and democratically managed.

Keywords: V2G, vehicle to grid, electric buses, eBuses, DC fast chargers, DCFC

Procedia PDF Downloads 73

Authors: Y. Sarı Nayim, B. N. Nayim

Abstract:

This research proposal includes the defining and evaluation of the semi-natural and cultural ecosystems at Bartın University main campus in Turkey in terms of landscape mosaics. The ecosystem mosaic of the main campus was divided into zones based on ecological classification technique. Based on the results from the study, it was found that 6 different ecosystem mosaics should be used as a base in the planning and design of the existing and future landscape planning of Kutlubeyyazıcılar campus. The first landscape zone involves the 'social areas'. These areas include yards, dining areas, recreational areas and lawn areas. The second landscape zone is 'main vehicle and pedestrian areas'. These areas include vehicle access to the campus landscape, moving in the campus with vehicles, parking and pedestrian walk ways. The third zone is 'landscape areas with high visual landscape quality'. These areas will be the places where attractive structural and plant landscape elements will be used. Fourth zone will be 'landscapes of building borders and their surroundings.' The fifth and important zone that should be survived in the future is 'Actual semi-natural forest and bush areas'. And the last zone is 'water landscape' which brings ecological value to landscape areas. While determining the most convenient areas in the planning and design of the campus, these landscape mosaics should be taken into consideration. This zoning will ensure that the campus landscape is protected and living spaces in the campus apart from the areas where human activities are carried out will be used properly.

Keywords: campus landscape planning and design, landscape ecology, landscape mosaics, Bartın

Procedia PDF Downloads 362

Authors: Yahoel Van Essen, Gordon Ho, Brett Russell, Hans-Georg Worms, Xiao Lin Long, Edward David Cooper, Avner Bachar

Abstract:

Weeds reduce farm and forest productivity, invade crops, smother pastures and some can harm livestock. Farmers need to spend a significant amount of money to control weeds by means of biological, chemical, cultural, and physical methods. To solve the global agricultural labor shortage and remove poisonous chemicals, a fully autonomous, eco-friendly, and sustainable weeding technology is developed. This takes the form of a weeding robot, ‘Roboweeder’. Roboweeder includes a four-wheel-drive self-driving vehicle, a 4-DOF robotic arm which is mounted on top of the vehicle, an electromagnetic wave generator (magnetron) which is mounted on the “wrist” of the robotic arm, 48V battery packs, and a control/communication system. Cameras are mounted on the front and two sides of the vehicle. Using image processing and recognition, distinguish types of weeds are detected before being eliminated. The electromagnetic wave technology is applied to heat the individual weeds and clusters dielectrically causing them to wilt and die. The 4-DOF robotic arm was modeled mathematically based on its structure/mechanics, each joint’s load, brushless DC motor and worm gear’ characteristics, forward kinematics, and inverse kinematics. The Proportional-Integral-Differential control algorithm is used to control the robotic arm’s motion to ensure the waveguide aperture pointing to the detected weeds. GPS and machine vision are used to traverse the farm and avoid obstacles without the need of supervision. A Roboweeder prototype has been built. Multiple test trials show that Roboweeder is able to detect, point, and kill the pre-defined weeds successfully although further improvements are needed, such as reducing the “weeds killing” time and developing a new waveguide with a smaller waveguide aperture to avoid killing crops surrounded. This technology changes the tedious, time consuming and expensive weeding processes, and allows farmers to grow more, go organic, and eliminate operational headaches. A patent of this technology is pending.

Keywords: autonomous navigation, machine vision, precision heating, sustainable and eco-friendly

Procedia PDF Downloads 240