Control Systems Lab (CSL)
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This Wiki concerns the activities of the research team of Prof. E.G. Papadopoulos. The CSLab belongs to the Mechanical Engineering School (ME) of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), at the Zografou campus. The CSLab is a part of the Department of Mechanical Design and Control Systems (MD&CS) of ME. For the Control Systems Lab general website click here.
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School of Mechanical Engineering (ME)
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The School of Mechanical Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens excels both in Greece and internationally, thanks to its advanced level of studies and to its internationally acclaimed research.
Mechanical engineering covers a broad range of areas such as energy, the environment, transportation, machine design and the automatic control of technological systems. The activities of today's Mechanical Engineers require capabilities in research and development, design, testing and the manufacturing of products and systems, production organization and management. Our department ensures that young engineers will be able to contribute to the rapidly advancing technological development and distinguish themselves both in Greece and abroad.
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National Technical University of Athens (NTUA)
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The National Technical University (NTUA) is the oldest and most prestigious educational institution of Greece in the field of technology, and has contributed unceasingly to the country's scientific, technical and economic development since its foundation in 1836. It is closely linked with Greece's struggle for independence, democracy and social progress. In Greek, NTUA is called the "Ethnicon Metsovion Polytechnion" which stands for National Metsovion Polytechnic. It was named "Metsovion" to honor the donors and benefactors Nikolaos Stournaris, Eleni Tositsa, Michail Tositsas and Georgios Averof, all from Metsovo, a small town in the region of Epirus, who made substantial donations in the last half of the 19th century.
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Info/FAQ
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Research Teams
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| The Research Areas of our lab include ....
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The development of legged robots with capabilities close to those of animals opens new and valuable possibilities, such as reaching distant points through rough or slopped terrains, detecting survivors in earthquake ruins or workers in mine tunnels, helping in fire-fighting or de-mining tasks, or even exploring planets. This research program aims at advancing the state of the art in legged locomotion and more specifically in efficient and agile quadruped locomotion through the development of novel designs and control methods. The goal of achieving efficiency, high-speed, robustness and versatility in quadruped robots is today feasible and will be pursued vigorously within the framework of this program.
On Orbit Servicing (OOS) is a relatively new concept that aims at two important goals: (a) at an investment risk reduction through the reuse and maintenance of serviced orbital systems (e.g. damaged or run-out of fuel satellites) and (b) at an astronaut personal risk reduction, by partially relieving them from highly risky Extra Vehicular Activities. To this end, OOS must be able to achieve, mostly without human interference, missions such as: re- and de-orbiting, salvage, inspection, maintenance, repair and retrofit of orbiting space structures. The study and analysis of various systems towards the realization of Space Robotics and Robotic OOS is a major area of interest of our laboratory. The theoretical research on Space Robotics conducted at the lab aims at various goals, including:
The scientific research focuses on biomimetic underwater robotic vehicles. The thrust of these underwater vehicles is caused due to oscillating fins (in contrast with today underwater vehicles which are propeller-based). Robotic fish are proved to be more efficient and easier to be controlled in low velocities. In our lab a prototype biomimetic robotic fish has been designed and coded. The fish moves with the help of a small maxon dc motor. A close-loop position control is implemented with the help of a microcontroller. It carries a small camera and has the ability to transmit video-streaming. The range of the angle and the oscillation frequency of the tail fin, as well as the direction of the fish can be controlled with the help of a GUI (graphical interface) and a transceiver.
A novel five degrees of freedom (dof) haptic device is designed and developed as part of a medical training simulator. It consists of a 2-dof, 5-bar linkage and a 3-dof spherical joint. All dof are active. To reduce mechanism moving mass and inertia, all actuators are placed at the base. The transmission system is implemented using tendon drives with capstans. A great effort was placed in developing an optimum haptic mechanism, i.e. one with the best mechanical design under given kinematical. operational and constructional constraints. The device is suitable for the accurate application of small forces and moments. The above described haptic device is part of a medical training simulator for urological minimal invasive operations. The haptic mechanism is responsible for the haptic information exchange between the user and the virtual environment. The training simulator includes also a virtual reality tissue model that presents graphically the virtual human tissue and its deformation and calculates according to a fast and simple mathematical model the forces and torques applied to the user. The third part of the simulator is the control system, which controls and coordinates the other two. Simulators employing haptic devices are being used for the training in various medical operations. To be able to represent interaction between endoscopes and tissues, these simulators require relatively accurate models of tissue behavior. One way to obtain these models is to rely upon the experience of specialist surgeons. Therefore, the question that arises is whether we can use this experience to produce reliable force models for simulators. The study is implemented using a haptic mechanism with a single degree of freedom. The aim is to experimentally evaluate the extent to which the experience of a specialist can justifiably be used as a guide for defining the force model in a simulator.
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 A novel micro-robotic platform is designed and developed. The micro-robot motion is induced by centrifugal forces generated by two DC vibration motors, installed inside the platform body. When the micro-motors are driven in a controlled manner, then the resulting vibrations cause the platform to perform controlled x, y, θ planar motion with micrometer resolution and speeds greater than 1 mm/s. This is a novel motion principle, and radically different form all previous techniques used for micromotion. The great advantage of this type of actuation is the low power consumption, the simple driving electronics and the low cost and readily available mechanical parts used for the construction.
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