Our team leaded by Enrico Bertolazzi ranked 11th at the GTOC04 competition. GTOC s the Global Trajectory Optimisation Competition, patronized by ESA and organized by CNES Toulouse (winner of GTOC03).

Our group is particularly proud of this result, since we didn’t have any previous experience in field of trajectory optimization for space missions, and nonetheless we ranked ahead of research groups that are specialized in aerospace and space operations.

On the CNES site you’ll find all the details about the GTOC, together with the PDFs of the presentations.

A new thesis argument is available for students of mechatronics engineering: setup and programming of a lathe with open CNC. The thesis will be performed on a CoolTool Metaline CNC lathe:

Three new thesis arguments for degree in Mechatronics Engineering are available in the the thesis section (in collaboration with PAMA SpA).

For their thesis, Fabiano Giuliani and Alberto Paludet are working - under my supervision - on the development of a robotic manipulator with 4 degrees of freedom and revolute joints only. Thats what someone calls the Puma 560 architecture.

They are developing and studying the kinematics and dynamics by means of LMS, using a pair of arduino microcontrollers as motor drivers, and Ruby as language for high level controller.

I'll post more details on this matter in the next month. For now, the code developed in the project is available on GitHub

Automation relies on autonomous evaluation of data. Someone would probably call it “data mining”. Today I discuss a simple data mining problem related with machining.

Let imagine that you would monitor the frequencies of vibration generated by a cutting process (say a turning operation). You are more interested in frequency than in amplitude, because process changes are more easily correlated to frequencies than to amplitudes.

Now you’re probably saying: “that’s a piece of cake: let’s attach a couple of accelerometers to the lathe, acquire the signal and compute its FFT!”.

Well, that’s actually only the first part of the problem.

Francesco Biral recently prepared a new poster for the SAFERIDER project, to be used for an interview with a local TV broadcasting network.

Here it is (click on the picture for the full poster).

San Servolo is a small island of the lagoon, just in front of “Piazza S. Marco”. I have been there from Feb 19 to 20, and aganin from Feb 23 to 26.

Days 19-20 were for the SAFERIDER progress meeting. We are approaching the preparation of the demonstrator vehicles, and in the meeting the system architecture and specifications have been consolidated. If everything goes fine, in in September (next two progress meeting) we will have the system running on the motorcycle driving simulator in Padova (perfectly in schedule). In the meanwhile another progress meeting is planned in Greece for June.

Days 23-26 were for the preparation of four different proposals for the next EC call with deadlines March 31, April 1. These meetings go more or less according to the same scheme: first the coordinator welcomes partners. Then partners presents themselves, e.g.: “I am from SuperProtonic Inc. and we do warp engines”… Then the coordinator illustrates the targeted calla and how the idea fits the objectives. Most of the morning is then spent to analyze the WPs (which means Work Packages, i.e. the chapters in which the project is made). A WP which never miss is “2 Uses cases and scenarios”. People try to fit each other skills into an harmonic design. This is key for the success of the project. You may have a genius in one team and loose the game. On the other hand a good team wins (even if it miss the “genius”). A research project in the EU is not only evaluated on the basis of how “smart” the idea looks. This is only one aspect. Other important aspects are that the team is well composed and overall encompasses all the needed skills and that the team looks credible and able to actually achieve the results. The last aspect, of paramount importance, is the impact the results are expected to have. Gone is the time (at least for EU funded projects) when the only thing that matters is how difficult and smart the project looks like. A very interesting research, with no impact on the society, is useless and will not be funded.

But which were the four proposals? Two ere in ICT for environment and two in ICT for energy… more after the submission.

The Ohnishi Lab is a center of excellence that is a branch of the Department of System Design Engineering, Keio University. Their main research activity is focused on humanoid robots, bilateral robots and flywheels. The proposed activity that we had in mind to do in the Ohnishi Lab was to establish a communication, via TCP/IP or UDP, between their linear actuators and our virtual worlds, and to use these actuators as haptic interfaces to interact with our virtual environments.

Laboratory hardware updates:

1. Thanks to Mirko “Captain Sensible” Paoletto the rapid prototyping unit is again up and running after a few months out of service.
2. Our the 5 axes machining center (Deckel Maho DMU60T) has moved to the new, largest laboratory we have in Pergine Valsugana (5 mins by car from the faculty). It will be sided soon by a CNC lathe, hopefully by the spring 2009. The move of the DMU60T has been a quite thrilling event… just imagine 7 tons, 200k€+ bunch of steel, cast iron and electronics hanging like this…
   
3. A modular production system (FESTO MPS) is now installed at the Pergine Laboratory, and will be used within various courses, starting with the course of Design of Production Systems.
   

The state of the Union

Yesterday we had a design review of the RUMBy project. I will post here the links to PDF versions of the presentation. Until now, the first two presentations are available, but keep an eye on this post, because more will follow on.

• Introduction by F. Biral
• Architecture by P. Bosetti