This award is to support a US-Tunisia research project to study the fundamental issues in modeling, analysis, and real-time implementation of nonlinear control laws for electromechanical systems with Harmonic Drives (H-D). The Principal Investigator is Dr. Fathi Ghorbel, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas. The Tunisian collaborator is Dr. Rached Dhaouadi, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at Ecole Polytechnique de Tunisie, La Marsa, Tunisia. They plan to develop methodologies to quantify the hysteresis effect in the dynamic torque-displacement relationship, exhibited in experimental work on a harmonic drive system. They first will formulate mathematical models for the H-D system. These models must lead to mathematically well posed differential equations when coupled with the equations of motion of the overall system. The second phase will investigate the integration of these models into a complete drive system and the development of nonlinear control strategies to compensate for the nonlinear effects on the overall system performance. The singular perturbation technique will be investigated to elaborate a control methodology for the model reduction, the control design and the stability analysis. Numerical simulation and experiments will be used to test these drive control concepts.
Scope: This project deals with an important topic in high performance industrial and instrumentation servo systems. The two scientists plan to collaborate in the development of the mathematical model to be carried out at Rice University. They will also collaborate in the following phases of model parameter identification, numerical simulation, and the experimental investigation and model validation. This proposal meets the INT objective of supporting joint research in areas of mutual interest. This project is co-funded by the Division of International Programs and by the Division of Civil and Mechanical Systems.
