RESEARCH

Automated Whole House Construction using Contour Crafting (Co-PI: Dr. Yan Xiao) Source: NSF This project aims at construction of whole houses using the CC technology. The proposed project includes materials and equipment development, analytical and experimental research for systematic identification of various system design and process variables, creation of full scale specimens and civil engineering testing and analysis of the specimens. Link to related page
Selective Inhibition of Sintering – SIS Source: NSF SIS is a solid free form fabrication process which has been invented at USC. SIS builds 3D objects in a layer wise fashion using powder sintering. Addition of an inhibitor liquid to part section profiles on each powder layer inhibits the sintering of affected powder particles under a radiative heat. An Alpha machine has been designed and developed and numerous experiments have been performed under this grant and various parts have been built out of various polymeric as well as metallic materials. The PhD dissertation by Dr. Bahram Asiabanpour contains the details of the study. Link to related page
Docking System for Self Reconfigurable Robots (PIs: Dr. Peter Will & Dr. Wei-Min Shen) Source: DARPA A new docking system called Compliant-And-Self-Tightening (CAST) is developed as an effective and efficient connector for joining and releasing modules of self-reconfigurable or metamorphic robotic systems. CAST has been successfully implemented in CONRO (see www.isi.conro) where its highly compliant and passive features have allowed a considerable ease of execution of a variety of docking algorithms, while using no additional energy for docking and negligible amount of energy for undocking. Development of CAST was motivated by observing the difficulty of implementation of an earlier less compliant docking system.
Fabrication of Piezo Electric Actuators using Contour Crafting Source: ONR The CC technology has been customized using new machine design and experimental optimization procedures for a set of carefully selected geometries which are specific for piezo electric actuators. Piezo ceramic material is formed into filament using polymer binder (filaments developed at Rutgers University) and fed into the CC nozzle shown. Several piezo actuators have been fabricated with unsurpassed surface quality and fabrication speed (in the RP field).
Contour Crafting – Application in Ceramics Parts Fabrication (Co-PI: Dr. Steve Nutt)(Co-PI: Dr. Source: NSF A new Contour Crafting system for processing various ceramic materials has been developed. We have conducted extensive experiments to optimize the CC process to produce a variety of 2.5 D and 3D geometries including convex, concave and sharp corners have been successfully fabricated with layer heights of up to 5 mm and surface quality of 2.5 microns. Various reinforcement approaches such as steel coil imbedding have been implemented. Furthermore, inner cavity fillings using materials such as concrete have been tried for examination of the CC process for application potential in construction industry. The PhD dissertation by Dr. Hongkyu Kwon contains the details of the related studies.
Contour Crafting – Application in Polymer Parts Fabrication (Co-PI: Dr. Steve Nutt) Source: NSF Contour Crafting is a solid free form fabrication process which has been invented at USC. The chief advantages of Contour Crafting over existing technologies are the superior surface finish that is realized and the greatly enhanced speed of fabrication. The success of the technology stems from the automated use of age-old tools normally wielded by hand, combined with conventional robotics and an innovative approach to building three-dimensional objects that allows rapid fabrication times. In this research polymeric materials (primarily polystyrene) have been successfully fabricated using the CC technology. The PhD dissertation by Dr. Rick Russell contains the details of the study.
Multiple Mobile Robots in Manufacturing Assembly (Co-PI: Dr. George Bekey) Source: NSF In this project the development of a new system of supervision, sensing, control, and intelligence, for a colony of robots, organized for the performance of specific tasks have been investigated. As compared to local sensing and control the new approach could offer many advantages. Various hardware systems as well as planning and control software have been developed for this project. Low precision manufacturing assembly has been the focus of the experimentations involved in the prototype research setting.
CAD/CAM in Restorative Dentistry Source: A private biomedical company This project aims at improving the art of dentistry using modern engineering techniques. Today, state of the art dental restorations (i.e., crowns, inlays, onlays, and bridges) require at least two dental visits separated by several weeks, the arduous process of making dental impressions, and considerable manual trimming and fitting of the temporary and final restorations. In the future, impressions and temporary restorations will be eliminated, enabling - in many cases - one short dental visit , concluding with the easier installation of a near perfect restoration. In this project a new computer numerical control system has been developed using linear servo technology. The system is capable of building all dental restorations out of various ceramics as well as titanium.
Automation of Material Handling and Storage at Marine Terminals (Co-PI: Dr. Ardavan Asef-Vaziri) Source: METRANS This project concerns systematic analysis and design of port terminals, and evaluation of automated material handling and storage systems for timely handling of containers at ports. Virtual and physical models of AGV and AS/RS systems are built to evaluate various effects and identify certain parameters for efficient and effective modern port systems. Download: Animation of Port Automation (20 MB WMA file)