AY 2019-2020
Model-Based Systems Engineering using SysML with Application to a Self-Climbing Autonomous Robotic Motion Platform Design – Otis
UConn Advisors: Amy Thompson, Horea Illies, Ashwin Dani
Students: Alex Ghajar, Matthew Zujewski, Alex Samegulin, Glenn Thierfeldt, Edward Han
Otis has piloted SysML in a few projects that have illuminated and demonstrated it’s potential, connecting requirements, behavior, structure, and parametrics. The next step in this progression will be to develop a more formal process and associated toolset to archive SysML objects into a reusable library to promote effective “catalogue shopping” of existing Otis-developed components to reduce our product development time while supporting design innovations. It is envisioned that some of the steps towards realizing the SysML archival process follow the system engineering approach including: (1) customer identification and use cases, such as the self-climbing autonomous robotic motion platform , (2) survey of approaches and offerings from industry, academia, and commercial CAD software vendors, (3) development of key selection metrics, (4) down-selection of a recommended approach including process and tools, (5) piloting the approach on the robotic motion platform design, and (6) documentation and delivery of the process. The desired outcome is a defined and documented SysML archival process to facilitate effective product design and demonstration of this MBSE process to the robotic motion platform design to verify its application.
Evaluation of Alternative Lightning Protection Design Solutions for an Airborne Embedded Controller – Collins Aerospace
UConn Advisor: Lei Wang
Students: Xuanan Yue, Meet Patel, Andrew Louis
Lightning protection circuitry must reliably perform its primary function; however, when it does fail, it must not have a detrimental effect upon the continued safe operation of the airborne system in which it is deployed. No matter how reliable any device is, it will have a finite failure rate so introduction of any feature must be done with careful consideration.
A commonly-used lightning suppression approach is to employ Transient Voltage Suppressor (TVS) devices to clamp induced lightning voltages. These devices are costly, due to the large number of devices required in a typical application, and have had a field history of lower than expected reliability.
Predictive Maintenance for Computer Controlled Machines – Gerber Scientific
UConn Advisor: George Bollas
Students: Taylor Welsh, William Rooney, Annie Gao, David Carelli
Analyze acoustic, vibration, current and/or temperature data for the purpose of identifying a need for servicing components of a computer controlled machine. Components of interest include a reciprocating mechanism for driving a cutting tool, an integrated sharpening system, a large vacuum generating blower and multiple servo axes. Anticipated wear of the 5000 RPM reciprocating mechanism includes increased backlash, ball bearing failure and loss of balance. The sound of the sharpening system is known to change as grinding abrasive nears end of life. Bearing failures are the primary concern for blower and may be characterized by temperature and vibration data. For the servo axes, motor failure, linear bearing failure and improper transmission belt tension are service concerns. Healthy and faulty data should be collected where possible for these components.
Model Based System Design, Optimization, and Prototyping of Inductive Coil Based Oil Debris Monitoring System with Multiple Flow Passages – Pratt & Whitney
UConn Advisors: Julian Norato, Necmi Biyikli
Students: Gursimran Kainth, Elizabeth Soha, Ryan Pyrch, Timothy Beacham, XuDong Lu
The general approach of this project is to implement model based system design. The design team will develop magnetic field models to predict the behavior of a dual bore ODM system and model the interactions. These models will be validated through experimentation, building the coil assemblies and designing the necessary software to monitor the interactions of the fields. Finally, the prototype system will be leveraged to define the cross channel interaction when a particle is pulled through the system. The project will include all of the following learning targets
I. (1) Technology or process research
- Learn how the current, state of the art, inductive coil based oil debris monitoring technologies work
- Develop understanding of magnetic field interactions
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II. (2) System concept development, (3) System design, (4) System analysis, (5) System optimization
- Determine how to best configure multiple magnetic field sources in close proximity to minimize or leverage interference
III. (6) System testing and assessment of alternatives, (7) system design or test methodology development, (8) Prototype development, (9) Simulation to analyze a system
- Build a “prototype” of the dual bore ODM coil assemblies
- Model magnetic field interactions with a particle passing through the system
- Develop and execute test plan to pull particles through the coil assemblies and understand interactions on both coil assemblies
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IV. (10) Synthesis of know-how.
- Upon successful completion, the team members will become some of very few experts in oil debris sensing technology.
Verification Strategy and Tools for IoT Systems – UTC CCS
UConn Advisor: Shalabh Gupta
Students: Balsha Maric, Wissam Razouki, Long Phan
Carrier has developed advanced verification methods for their traditional products, leveraging test automation and model-based methods (MIL/SIL/HIL testing). By using these methods, Carrier can increase the quality of its products while reducing time and effort spent in testing.
These methods must be extended or complemented with new approaches to cover the new generation of products that include IoT services.
The project team is expected to identify key verification goals for IoT systems and explore the state-of-art in IoT system verification, both from a methodology (how to approach testing) and toolchain perspective (available tools), synthesize a workflow and demonstrate its application.
Model-Based Design HDF5 Results Interpretation and Visualization – UTC CCS
UConn Advisor: Dong Shin
Students: Jeremy Reiser, Keshav Patel, Noah Pacik-Nelson, Reed Kroll, Niels Peschel
Carrier has been actively engaged in model based design effort with the state-of-art technologies. Some of the MBD toolset we use, for example Sandia Dakota, uses HDF5 to output analysis results. Previously, the results are stored in text files which is not easy to interpret and understand from the user’s point of view. We need to develop capabilities to take any HDF5 file generated by a MBD toolset and interpret and visualize the results data in a more user friendly manner.
Fluidized Bed Cell Plate Design – Cabot
UConn Advisor: George Bollas
Students: Patrick Adamcyzk, Cole French, Daniel Fisher, Imran Husain
Building upon the baseline work from last year’s UConn Senior Design Project, develop a cell plate design that minimizes pellet damage for a fluidized bed whose residence time is 45 min, operating temperature is 1000 C, and fluidized by ambient-temperature nitrogen.
Software Defined Radio-Based Secure Wireless Networking – UTRC
UConn Advisor: Shengli Zhou
Students: John Kaminski, Amit Potdar, Bowen Liang
Physics-based approaches can be implemented to secure IoT devices. This project investigates some of these methodologies.
Chilled Water System Modeling, Optimization, and Design – Collins Aerospace
UConn Advisor: George Bollas
Students: Joseph Mortimer, Kyle Lacson, Eugene Cho, Michael D. Jones, Sam Wieczorek
Review, update and verify existing chilled water fluid flow model using “Pipe-Flo Professional” from Engineered Software, Inc for Collins Aerospace Windsor Locks, CT facility. Add heat transfer modeling capabilities to the chilled water model. Identify and simulate various operating scenarios and make recommendations on how to optimize our system (from a physical infrastructure, controls, and operations perspective). For each recommendation identified, develop the business case to justify the implementation expenses.