Servo control loops are a core part in the control architecture of machine tools. Servo control loops manage acceleration, velocity and position of all the axes in a machine tool based on commands. The performance of servo control loops sets the basis for quality of production parts and cycle time reduction. First, this paper presents a general control architecture of machine tools and several control schemes in literature, which can be applicable to machine tools control; including Zero Phase Error Tracking Control (ZPETC) and Cross Coupling Control (CCC). After that, modern control strategies to mitigate the problem of high speed machining are reviewed. In high speed machining, high accelerations excite the machine structure up to high frequencies, thereby exciting the structure’s modes of vibration. These structural vibrations need to be damped if accurate positioning or trajectory following is required. Input shaping is an attractive option in dealing with structural vibrations. The advantages and drawbacks of using input shaping technique for machine tools are discussed in detail.

Liquid sloshing occurs when a partially filled liquid tank is subjected to undesirable external forces or acceleration/deceleration for positioning control. Installation of baffles is still the most popular way to suppress the sloshing, but recent successes of input shaping in reducing structural vibrations may give a possible alternative. We aim at investigating the applicability of input shaping to sloshing suppression by numerically solving fluid motions in a rectangular tank. The tank is partially filled with water and it is suddenly put into a sequence of horizontal motions of acceleration and constant speed. The flow is assumed to be two-dimensional, incompressible, and inviscid, and a VOF two-phase model is used to capture the free surface. Results show that the sloshing can be successfully suppressed by shaping the input, i.e., the velocity or acceleration profile of tank. Three different input shapers (ZV, ZVD, and two-mode convolved ZV shapers) are tested and compared in this study. Among them, the convolved ZV shaper shows a best performance to eliminate the sloshing almost completely.

Take-out robots used for handling of the plastic parts manufactured with the injection mold are usually the gantry type that consists of long and thin links. The performance of the take-out robot is determined by the speed of the motion and the positioning accuracy to grab the part out of the mold. As the speed of the robot increases the flexure in the links of the take-out robot becomes more significant and it results in more residual vibration. The residual vibration deteriorates the positioning accuracy and compels the operator to slow down the motion of the robot. The typical method to reduce the vibration in the robot requires stiffening the links and/or slowing down the robot. Vibration control could achieve the desired performance without increasing the manufacturing cost or the operation cost that would be incurred otherwise. Considering the pointto-point nature of the task to be performed by the take-out robot the time-delay command (or input) shaping filter approach would be the most effective control method to be adopted among a few available control schemes. In this paper a direct adaptive command shaping filter (ACSF) algorithm has been modified and applied to design the optimal command shaping filters for various configuration of the take-out robot. Optimal filters designed by ACSF algorithm have been implemented on a take-out robot and the effectiveness of the designed filters in terms of vibration suppression has been verified for multiple positions of the robot.

This paper presents results of input shaping to industrial cranes. A brief theoretical background for input shaping is described. Several examples of input shaping application to sway regulation for industrial cranes are presented. The presented results show that input shaping is very useful for industrial cranes.

This paper proposes a novel method based on error back propagation neural networks to fuse laser sensor data and ultrasonic sensor data for enhancing the accuracy of mapping. For navigation of single robot, the robot has to know its initial position and accurate environment information around it. However, due to the inherent properties of sensors, each sensor has its own advantages and drawbacks. In our system, the robot equipped with seven ultrasonic sensors and a laser sensor navigates to map two different corridor environments. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the heterogeneous sensor fusion using an error backpropagation algorithm for mapping.

Recently, robots have been used in surgical area. Robotic surgery in Minimally Invasive Surgery gives many advantages to surgeons and patients both. This study introduce a robotic assistant to improve the safety of telerobotic Minimally Invasive Surgical procedures. The master-slave system is applied to the telerobotic surgical system with the master arm, which control the system, and slave robot which operates the surgery on the patient body. By using a 3-DOF master arm, the surgeon can control the 6-DOF surgical robot under the constraint of fulcrum point. This paper explains the telerobotic surgical system and confirms the system with the precision of the robot control related to the fulcrum point to enhance the safety.

GMA welding process is a production process to improve productivity for the provision of higher quality of material. These includs numerous process variables that could affect welding quality, productivity and cost savings. Recently, the welding part of construction equipment had frequent failure of major components in the welding part of each subsidiary material due to shock which is very poor according to the welding part. Therefore, the implementation of sound welding procedure is the most decisive factor for the reliability of construction machinery. The data generated through experimens conducted in this study has validated its effectiveness for the optimization of bead geometry and process variables is presented. The criteria to control the process parameters, to achieve a healthy bead geometry. This study has developed mathematical models and algorithms to predict or control the bead geometry in GMA fillet welding process.

In electro-galvanizing line to manufacture the electro-galvanized steel sheet, polishing system is required to maintain clean surface of conductor roll and to secure the quality of the steel sheet. At the same time, prediction and decision of the replacement cycle for felt material and its brush installed in the polishing system is also important because the brush is directly contacted on the conductor roll surface. In this study, the polishing system has been designed which the brush is repetitive translating according to the longitudinal direction of the conductor roll. Furthermore, the prediction on the wear-life of the felt material used for the brush is performed using the contact pressure extracted by finite element analysis. And to verify the predicted wear-life of the felt material, the experimental study is also carried out. From the comparison result between the predicted and the measured wear-life of the felt material, it is presented that the wear-life and the replacement cycle of the felt material are well predicted by considering a wear compensation factor, and the wear compensation factor is useful and reasonable.

This study intends to assess the defect in the weld zone of titanium grade 2 plate in terms of acoustical anisotropy based on the angle beam method. Depending on the rolling direction, the ratio of wave velocity was found to be 1.08 and the difference in the angle of refraction was more than seven degrees, confirming the presence of acoustical anisotropy. Thus for measuring the length of defect in the weld zone of the titanium plate (thickness of 10㎜), the distance amplitude characteristics curves of titanium, TDACC-R and TDACC-T were constructed for the measurements in consideration of the acoustical anisotropy on CRT of the ultrasonic testing equipment. As a result, when the distance amplitude characteristics curve corresponds to the rolling direction, the length of defect was close to the actual measurement within 1mm and when different, the difference was found to be over 4mm. It was affirmed that the acoustical anisotropy should be taken into consideration when measuring the length of defects in the weld zone of the titanium plate with the presence of acoustical anisotropy.

Prediction of a minimum crack size for growth, which is defined as a crack size that grows fast enough to keep ahead of its removal by contact wear and periodic grinding, is the most demanding work to prevent rail from fatigue failure and develop cost effective railway maintenance strategy. In this study, we investigated the wheel load increment due to a rail defect during a train ran over it, and its effect on the minimum crack size for growth. For this purpose, we developed simulation software based on the Fletcher and Kapoor’s “2.5D” model and measured wheel load increment during a train passed over a defect. A maximum contact pressure and contact patch size were calculated by 3D FEM and crack growth analyses were performed by varying two of dominant contact contributors; surface friction coefficient(0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4) and crack aspect ratio. The minimum crack sizes for growth were calculated from 0.29 to 1.44㎜ depending on the contact conditions. They were decreasing with increasing surface friction coefficient and decreasing with crack aspect ratio(a/b).

To fabricate the aluminum alloys with good drawability, the textures evolution of the AA5182 sheets due to the change of l/d parameter after rolling and subsequent annealing was studied. The measurement of the deformation textures was carried out for the sheets with high reduction ratio and the change of the recrystallization texture was investigated after heat-treatments of the rolled sheets in various l/d parameters. Rolling without lubrication and subsequent annealing led to the formation of favorable rot-CND {001}〈110〉 and γ-fiber ND//〈111〉 textures in AA5182 sheets. From the results, the γ-fiber ND//〈111〉 component well evolved during rolling at high l/d parameter of 6.77. The initial shear deformation texture, especially, γ-fiber ND//〈111〉 was not rotated during heat treatment in holding time of 180~7,200 seconds on AA5182 with l/d parameter of 6.77. Therefore, the AA5182 sheets were fabricated by controlling l/d parameter having well evolved γ-fiber ND//〈111〉 which was advantageous in good drawability of the sheets.

Recent trends for the miniaturization and weight reduction of portable electronic parts is the use of subminiature components. Assembly of the miniaturized components requires subminiature screws of which pitch sizes are in a micrometer scale. To produce such a subminiature screw with high precision threads, not only a precision forming technology but also high-precision measurement technique is required. In the present work, a vision inspection system is developed to measure the thread profile of a subminiature screw. Optical simulation based on a ray tracing method is used to design and analyze the optical system of the vision inspection apparatus. Through this simulation, optical performance of the developed vision inspection system is optimized. The image processing algorithm for the precision screw inspection is also discussed.

This research quantitatively confirmed an acoustical anisotropy that exists in a pure titanium plate from the signal of ultrasonic flow detection and suggested a new way to evaluate the acoustical anisotropy by inputting acquired characteristic of ultrasound signal into the neutral network. Using the fact with the suggested method that the characteristic of ultrasound signal is shown differently depending on the pure titanium plate's rolling direction, the neural network was constructed by extracting the characteristic that can decide each direction of 0°, 45°, and 90° with waveform analysis program. As a result of inputting the characteristic of ultrasound signal acquired from a random rolling direction into the neural network that was built like this, it showed a pattern recognition rate higher than 95% on directions of 0°, 45°, 90°.

The recent power add-on drive wheelchairs (PADWs) provide greater physical activity and easier transportability and may be an excellent alternative for the typical manual and powered wheelchairs. The driving system consists of a motor and a motor driver is the most important component of the PADW. In this paper, design, implementation, and testing of a driving system for a PADW are presented. To design the output power and torque for the driving system, the equation of motion has been investigated. The motor and driver were fabricated with precise machining and assembled to implement our prototype driving system. The dynamometer test has been carried out using the prototype in order to examine the torque of the system. The experimental results demonstrates that the designed driving system can provide enough output power and efficiency for utilization in a PADW.