Roth, Zvi S.

In this dissertation a computer-aided automation design methodology for biotechnology
applications is proposed that leads to several design guidelines. Because of the biological nature of the samples that propagate in the automation line, a very specific set of environmental and maximum allowed shelf time conditions have to be followed to obtain good yield. In addition all biotechnology protocols require precise sequence of steps, the samples are scarce and the reagents are costly, so no waste can be afforded.

Analog CMOS amplifiers are the building blocks for many analog circuit
applications such as Operational Amplifiers, Comparators, Analog to Digital converters
and others. This dissertation presents empirical design methodologies that are both
intuitive and easy to follow on how to design these basic building blocks. The design
method involves two main phases. In the first phase NMOS and PMOS transistor design
kits, provided by a semiconductor foundry, are fully characterized using a set of
simulation experiments. In the second phase the user is capable of modifying all the
relevant circuit design parameters while directly observing the tradeoffs in the circuit
performance specifications. The final design is a circuit that very closely meets a set of
desired design specifications for the design parameters selected. That second phase of the
proposed design methodology utilizes a graphical user interface in which the designer
moves a series of sliders allowing assessment of various design tradeoffs. The theoretical basis for this design methodology involves the transconductance efficiency and inversion
coefficient parameters. In this dissertation there are no restrictive assumptions about the
MOS transistor models. The design methodology can be used with any submicron model
supported by the foundry process and in this sense the methods included within are
general and non-dependent on any specific MOSFET model (e.g. EKV or BSIM3). As
part of the design tradeoffs assessment process variations are included during the design
process rather than as part of some post-nominal-design analysis. One of the central design parameters of each transistor in the circuit is the MOSFET inversion coefficient. The calculation of the inversion coefficient necessitates the determination of an important process parameter known as the Technology Current. In this dissertation a new method to determine the technology current is developed. Y Parameters are used to characterize the CMOS process and this also helps in improving the technology current determination method. A study of the properties of the technology current proves that indeed a single long channel saturated MOS transistor can be used to determine a fixed technology current value that is used in subsequent submicron CMOS
design. Process corners and the variability of the technology current are also studied and
the universality of the transconductance efficiency versus inversion coefficient response
is shown to be true even in the presence of process variability.

In order to facilitate the implementation of RAC-based camera calibration technique, several issues are addressed in this thesis. First, a straightforward extension of the RAC-based camera calibration technique to the case of unknown camera specifications is given. Second, to speed up the calibration process and reduce numerical difficulties, a simplified RAC-based method is presented. The simplified RAC-based method provides a closed-form solution to the camera calibration problem. Third, the PTM-based camera calibration technique is presented to give an example of pre-1985 camera calibration technique. Fourth, a method is devised to compute the ratio of scale factors. Finally, an optimization scheme is suggested to estimate image center. These modifications preserve all the advantages possessed by the original RAC-based calibration technique. The experiment results are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the present methods.

This thesis outlines the design philosophy and implementation aspects of a new interactive CAD tool implemented in BASIC language on an IBM PC/AT computer for single input single output (SISO) digital control systems. The direct Digital Control design method presented is classical in nature. The program main features are: (1) The use of Modified z-transform to model the effects of transport delay due to control computation time. (2) The use of windows on a split screen to allow the designer observation of the closed-loop step response while systematically shaping a root locus or synthesizing closed-loop pole/zero patterns. (3) Display of system response in between sampling instants.

Central to many manipulator positional control schemes is a requirement to invert the forward kinematic equations which model the given manipulator. It is shown in this thesis that for manipulator types where a common wrist center exists, a simplified Jacobian form is feasible and its inversion can be used in place of inverse kinematic solutions for positional control. The Jacobian simplification is obtained by decoupling of the wrist member from the positional member, resulting in a Jacobian inversion involving the solution of two sets of three equations with three unknowns. Within the development of the alternate Jacobian form, a technique for substituting incremental rotations with incremental translations is introduced yielding better insight into the Jacobian structure. A requirement for small moves is validated with a discussion of a proposed positional control strategy and a comprehensive example is presented as a summary of the results.

When small perturbations in the kinematic parameters of a robot are taken into consideration, the model of a robot no longer contains perfect parallelism and perpendicularity that makes the nominal inverse kinematics so simple. In particular, the effect of joint axis misalignments and small perturbations in the kinematic parameters on the robot singularities is of interest. This aspect is particularly important when planning the workspace of a robot that must undergo calibration. To utilize the work volume most efficiently, one must know exactly what points are permissible as taught points. In other words, reachable workspace must be clearly defined to avoid the robot from entering the singularity zones not only of the nominal robot but also of all future actual robots. Once singularity zones for the actual robot are correctly identified, workspace planning becomes a simple task. In this thesis the relationship between small perturbations in kinematic parameters and singularities of a simple three-revolute articulated arm are studied. It is shown that singularities in such a robot do shift to new locations.

This thesis focuses on the performance of the Kalman filters for scalar time-invariant systems when modeling errors are present. A complete classification of errors according to their effect on the filter performance is carried. Certain errors may drive the Kalman filter into instability. Other errors affect only certain statistical properties of the innovations process. Some of the results have been extended to the scalar time-varying and vector time invariant filtering problems.

This thesis deals with a study of using the stereo vision technique in the robot calibration. Three cameras are used in measurement to extract the position information of a target point attached onto each of the robot manipulator links for the purpose of identifying the actual kinematic parameters of every link of the robot manipulator under testing. The robot kinematic model used in this study is the S-Model which is an extension of the well-known Denavit-Hartenberg model. The calibration has been done on the wrist of the IBM 7565 robot. The experiment set-up and results and the necessary software are all presented in this thesis.

This thesis is concerned with the use of calibration techniques to
increase robot accuracy. It is mainly an overview of some of the
problems involved in the identification phase of calibration. A robot
error model is developed and Kalman filtering algorithm is used in the
identification of robot kinematic error parameters. Computer
simulations and examples are used to study the behavior of the Kalman
filter and its theoretical advantages in robot calibration.

The concept of "generalized manipulator" is introduced, and
the closed form and recursive form dynamical models of the
generalized manipulator are presented in Newton-Euler
formulation. The physical meaning of each term in the
dynamical model is explained.
The dynamical models formulated by the Newton-Euler method
and the Lagrangian-Euler method are proved equivalent. The
dynamical model of the generalized manipulator is reduced to
ordinary manipulators. The reduced dynamical model is shown
identical to existing models. Furthermore, the reduced
dynamical model of the generalized manipulator can be used
to compute forces and torques components along any
direction.
Application of the model to problems of mobile robots and
flexible manipulators is shown.