• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.169-174
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• 2002

This paper presents a high-resolution capactive microaccelerometer using branched finger electrodes with high-amplitude sense voltage. From the fabricated microacceleromcter, the total noise is obtained as 9 $\mu\textrm{g}$/√Hz at the sense voltage of 16.5V, while the conventional microaccelerometers have shown the noire level of 25~800 $\mu\textrm{g}$/√Hz. We reduce the mechanical noise level of the microaccelerometer by increasing the proof-class based on deep RIE process of an SOI wafer. We reduce the electrical noise level by increasing the amplitude of AC sense voltage. The nonlinearity problem caused by the high-amplitude sense volage has been solved by a new electrode design of branched finger type, resulting in self force-balancing effects for the enhanced linearity and bandwidth. The fabricated microaccelerometer shows the electrical noise of 2.4 $\mu\textrm{g}$/√Hz at the sense voltage of 16.5V, which is an order of magnitude reduction of the electrical noise of 24.3 $\mu\textrm{g}$/√Hz measured at 0.9V. For the sense voltage higher than 2V, the electrical noise of the microaccelerometer is lower than the voltage-independent mechanical noise of 11 $\mu\textrm{g}$/√Hz. Total noise, composed of the electrical noise and the mechanical noire, has been measured as 9 $\mu\textrm{g}$/√Hz at the sense voltage of 16.5V, which is 31% of the total noise of 28.6 $\mu\textrm{g}$/√Hz at the sense voltage 0.9V. The self force-balancing effect in the blanched finger electrodes increases the stiffness of the microaccelerometer from 1.1N/m to 1.61N/m as the sense voltage increases from 0V to 17.8V, thereby generating additional stiffness at the rate of 0.0016$\pm$0.0008 N/m/V$^2$.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.20 no.9
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• pp.942-949
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• 2014

In this paper, a new steering system for a self-balancing electric scooter is proposed with an intuitive steering command input method, where the steering command is generated from the rider's motion of shifting body to move the center of gravity toward the rotational direction. For the purpose, weight distributions on the rider's feet are measured using force sensors placed beneath the rider's feet, and the difference is applied to a steering control system. Stability of the steering system and resultant radius of gyration is investigated by modeling the steering system in consideration of the rider's motion and centrifugal force. The proposed steering system is applied to experiments, and the results are presented to prove the validity of the proposed method.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06c
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• pp.53-58
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• 2001

This paper presents a high resolution capacitive microaccelerometer for applications to personal information systems. We reduce the mechanical noise level of the microaccelerometer by increasing the proof-mass based on deep RIE process. We reduce the electrical noise level by increasing the amplitude of an AC sense voltage. The high sense voltage is obtained by DC-to-DC voltage multiplier. In order to solve the nonlinearity problem caused by the high sense voltage, we modify the conventional comb electrode of straight finger type into that of branched finger type, resulting in self force-balancing effects for enhanced detection linearity. The proposed branched finger capacitive microaccelerometer was fabricated by the deep RIE process of an SOI wafer. The fabricated microaccelerometer reduces the electrical noise at the level of $2.4{\mu}g/\sqrt{Hz}$ for the sense voltage of l6.5V, which is 10.1 times smaller than the electrical noise level of $24.3{\mu}g/\sqrt{Hz}$ at 0.9V. For the sense voltage higher than 2V, the electrical noise level of the microaccelerometer became smaller than the constant mechanical noise level of $11{\mu}g/\sqrt{Hz}$. Total noise level, including the electrical noise and the mechanical noise, has been measured as $9{\mu}g/\sqrt{Hz}$ for the sense voltage of 16.5V, which is 3.2 times smaller than the total noise of $28.6{\mu}g/\sqrt{Hz}$ for the sense voltage of 0.9V. The self force-balancing effect results in the increased stiffness of 1.98 N/m at the sense voltage of 17.8V, compared to the stiffness of 1.35 N/m at 0V, thereby generating the additional stiffness at the rate of $0.002N/m/V^{2}$.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2004

This paper presents a navigation garde capacitive microaccelerometer, whose low-noise high-resolution detection capability is achieved by a new electrode design based on a high-amplitude anti-phase sense voltage. We reduce the mechanical noise of the microaccelerometer to the level of 5.5$\mu\textrm{g}$/(equation omitted) by increasing the proof-mass based on deep RIE process of an SOI wafer. We reduce the electrical noise as low as 0.6$\mu\textrm{g}$/(equation omitted) by using an anti-phase high-amplitude square-wave sense voltage of 19V. The nonlinearity problem caused by the high-amplitude sense voltage is solved by a new electrode design of branched finger type. Combined use of the branched finger electrode and high-amplitude sense voltage generates self force-balancing effects, resulting in an 140％ increase of the bandwidth from 726㎐ to 1,734㎐. For a fixed sense voltage of 10V, the total noise is measured as 2.6$\mu\textrm{g}$/(equation omitted) at the air pressure of 3.9torr, which is the 51％ of the total noise of 5.1$\mu\textrm{g}$/(equation omitted) at the atmospheric pressure. From the excitation test using 1g, 10㎐ sinusoidal acceleration, the signal-to-noise ratio of the fabricated microaccelerometer is measured as 105㏈, which is equivalent to the noise level of 5.7$\mu\textrm{g}$/(equation omitted). The sensitivity and linearity of the branched finger capacitive microaccelerometer are measured as 0.638V/g and 0.044％, respectively.

• Journal of Ship and Ocean Technology
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.1-11
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• 2006

The finite volume based multi-block RANS code, WAVIS developed at MOERI is applied to the numerical self-propulsion test. WAVIS uses the cell-centered finite volume method for discretization of the governing equations. The realizable $k-{\epsilon}$ turbulence model with a wall function is employed for the turbulence closure. The free surface is captured with the two-phase level set method and body forces are used to model the effects of a propeller without resolving the detail blade flow. The propeller forces are obtained using an unsteady lifting surface method based on potential flow theory. The numerical procedure followed the self-propulsion model experiment based on the 1978 ITTC performance prediction method. The self-propulsion point is obtained iteratively through balancing the propeller thrust, the ship hull resistance and towing force that is correction for Reynolds number difference between the model and full scale. The unsteady lifting surface code is also iterated until the propeller induced velocity is converged in order to obtain the propeller force. The self-propulsion characteristics such as thrust deduction, wake fraction, propeller efficiency, and hull efficiency are compared with the experimental data of the practical container ship. The present paper shows that hybrid RANS and potential flow based numerical method is promising to predict the self-propulsion parameters of practical ships as a useful tool for the hull form and propeller design.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.139-150
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• 2022

In most self-center braces, decreasing residual deformation is possible only by increasing pretension force, which results in lower energy dissipation capacity. On the other hand, increasing energy dissipation capacity means higher values of residual deformation. The goal of this research was to find the best design for a self-centering buckling restrained brace (SC-BRB) system by balancing self-centering capability and energy dissipation. Three, six, and nine-story structures were investigated using OpenSees software and the TCL programming language to achieve this goal. For each height, 62 different SC-BRBs were considered using different values for the pretension force of cables, the area of the buckling restrained brace (BRB) core plate, and the yield stress of the core plate. The residual deformation and dissipated energy of all the models were calculated using nonlinear analyses after cyclic loading was applied. The optimum design for each height was determined among all the models and was compared to the structure equipped with the usual BRB. The residual deformation of the framed buildings was significantly reduced, according to the findings. Also the reduction of the energy dissipation was acceptable. The optimum design of SC-BRB in 6-story building has the most reduction percent in residual deformation, it can reduce residual deformation of building 83% while causing only a 57% of reduction in dissipated energy. The greatest reduction in residual deformation versus dissipated energy reduction was for the optimum SC-BRB design of 9-story building, results indicated that it can reduce residual deformation of building 69% while causing only a 42% of reduction in dissipated energy.