Search results for " Macchi"
showing 10 items of 975 documents
Energy Policies and Sustainable Management of Energy Sources
2017
Sustainability of current energy policies and known mid-term policies are analised in their multiple facets. First an overview is given about the trend of global energy demand and energy production, analysing the share of energy sources and the geographic distribution of demand, on the basis of statistics and projections published by major agencies. The issue of sustainability of the energy cycle is finally addressed, with specific reference to systems with high share of renewable energy and storage capability, highlighting some promising energy sources and storage approaches.
Sea water desalination and energy consumption: A case study of wave energy converters (WEC) to desalination applications in sicily
2016
Recent studies about interactions among energy and water are considered as a new field of research. As almost all energy generation processes require significant amounts of water, and water requires energy for treatment and transport, so these two resources are inextricably linked. The main aim of this work is a presentation of the use of renewable energy for desalination plants in Sicily: in particular exploitation of wave energy into electrical energy necessary for water treatment. Desalination is the most energy intensive water treatment technology but it could be solution for many problems in water supply for areas with chronic debt of water. The aim of this work is a description of a s…
Analysis of hybrid vehicle transmissions with any number of modes and planetary gearing: kinematics, power flows, mechanical power losses
2021
Abstract This paper is focused on upgrading a unified parametric model, available in the literature, that can perform both the analysis and the design of Power-Split Continuously Variable Transmissions (PS-CVTs), which are particularly promising to deploy in the hybrid electric powertrain. In particular, this work is focused on the analysis of PS-CVTs and proposes a new matrix approach for identifying the basic functional parameters underlying the model from the constructive layout of the transmission. This new method does not rely on a case-specific formulation, thus befits any power-split transmission, regardless of the number of planetary and ordinary gear sets and their constructive arr…
Smart sensing and adaptive reasoning for enabling industrial robots with interactive human-robot capabilities in dynamic environments — a case study
2019
Traditional industry is seeing an increasing demand for more autonomous and flexible manufacturing in unstructured settings, a shift away from the fixed, isolated workspaces where robots perform predefined actions repetitively. This work presents a case study in which a robotic manipulator, namely a KUKA KR90 R3100, is provided with smart sensing capabilities such as vision and adaptive reasoning for real-time collision avoidance and online path planning in dynamically-changing environments. A machine vision module based on low-cost cameras and color detection in the hue, saturation, value (HSV) space is developed to make the robot aware of its changing environment. Therefore, this vision a…
Autonomous ultrasonic inspection using Bayesian optimisation and robust outlier analysis
2020
The use of robotics is beginning to play a key role in automating the data collection process in Non Destructive Testing (NDT). Increasing the use of automation quickly leads to the gathering of large quantities of data, which makes it inefficient, perhaps even infeasible, for a human to parse the information contained in them. This paper presents a solution to this problem by making the process of NDT data acquisition an autonomous one as opposed to an automatic one. In order to achieve this, the robotic data acquisition task is treated as an optimisation problem, where one seeks to find locations with the highest indication of damage. The resulting algorithm combines damage detection tech…
A unified observer for robust sensorless control of DC–DC converters
2017
Abstract Due to the large variety of converters' configurations, many different sensorless controllers are available in the literature, each one suited for a particular converter. The need for different configurations, especially on the same power supply, make it clear the advantage of having a shared control algorithm. This paper presents a unified nonlinear robust current observer for buck, boost and buck–boost converters in synchronous and asynchronous configurations. The unified observer speeds up the design, tuning and the implementation, and requires a memory cheaper code, easier to certify. Simulation and experimental results are presented to validate the approach in different scenar…
Direct analysis of power-split CVTs: A unified method
2018
Abstract This paper provides a fast kinematic analysis method for compound power-split CVTs, which consents to identify their functional parameters. Such parameters permit the assessment of power flows, torques and efficiency, and the design of equivalent transmissions by the use of a recently published mathematical model. The same method can easily address either simpler or more complex transmissions by mean of kinematic equivalent parameters, without the need to arrange separate systems of equations. As a case study, we performed the kinematic analysis of the “Voltec” multi-mode GM transmission.
Flexible integration of robotics, ultrasonics and metrology for the inspection of aerospace components
2016
The performance of modern robotic manipulators has allowed research in recent years, for the development of fast automated non-destructive testing (NDT) of complex geometries. Contemporary robots are well suited for their accuracy and flexibility when adapting to new tasks. Several robotic inspection prototype systems and a number of commercial products have been created around the world. This paper describes the latest progress of a new phase of the research applied to a composite aerospace component of size 1 by 3 metres. A multi robot flexible inspection cell was used to take the fundamental research and the feasibility studies to higher technology readiness levels, all set for future in…
Power losses in power-split CVTs: A fast black-box approximate method
2018
Abstract This paper addresses the mechanical losses of planetary transmissions, with particular attention to power-split CVTs in their hybrid electric versions. It provides unified layout-independent analytical relationships, which can be used for both analysis, design and control purposes, and a simplified approach; the latter overcomes the necessity to segment the operating range of the power-split CVT in order to keep its loss model physically consistent. An example of application to a real hybrid electric PS-CVT is performed to show the simplicity, accuracy and generality of the proposed method.
Ultrasonic phased array inspection of a Wire + Arc Additive Manufactured (WAAM) sample with intentionally embedded defects
2019
In this study, Wire + Arc Additive Manufacture (WAAM) was employed to manufacture a steel specimen with intentionally embedded defects which were subsequently used for calibration of an ultrasonic phased array system and defect sizing. An ABB robot was combined with the Cold Metal Transfer (CMT) Gas Metal Arc (GMA) process to deposit 20 layers of mild steel. Tungsten-carbide balls (ø1-3 mm) were intentionally embedded inside the additive structure after the 4th, 8th, 12th and 18th layers to serve as ultrasonic reflectors, simulating defects within the WAAM sample. An ultrasonic phased array system, consisting of a 5 MHz 64 Element phased array transducer, was used to inspect the WAAM sample…