Research

My research interests!

Final Year Project: Design of an Unmanned Vehicle System for Remote Detection in an Indoor Environment

The objective of the task was to develop a robot to observe the indoor of a burnt building. The robot will navgiate with in the given parameter and scan areas with high temperature to prevent reignition of fire.

The prototype is made with 4 inhub brushless DC motors that is connected to an arduino and controlled through ROS. A custom suspension system was made with a double wishbone design to allow movement through bumps.

Navigation is done with ROS melodic in the jetson nano with sensors such as thermal cameras, rplidar A1M8-R5 and ultrasonic sensors. It uses an AMCL localization method with Hector SLAM. The first mapping was done with the keyboard through twist and then navigation through 2D nav goal on rviz.

Robotics and Machine Intelligence Laboratory

The objective of the task was the develop a robot to peform salt harvesting autonomously in a harsh enviroment. The prototype can be divided into two different sections.

The first prototype utilizes remote bluetooth control with a track for its movement to overcome muddy enviroments. The sprockets have a suspension system for it to easily overcome obstacles with the motor enclosed within the body of the robot to prevent any water from being in contact with the control systems.

The second prototype benchmarks an already made product to improve the suspension system for it to be able easily overcome obstacles. The suspension arms are manufactured with sheetmetal with a damper spring component enclosed within the two arms.

Development of a Hybrid De-Icing System using Aerogels for Aircraft Application

The formation of ice on aircraft surfaces is a severe concern in aviation safety and meteorology, as this phenomenon could result in issues such as excess weight, increased drag, early boundary layer separation, and reduced stall angle. At present, commercial solutions are being employed regularly which incorporate a de-icing process using hot bleed air from the aircraft engines. However, this approach is not environmentally friendly, as utilizing bleed air leads to heavier reliance on aircraft fuel combustion.

In order to remove ice with less time and energy, the team proposes to develop a multifunctional aircraft composite, consisting of carbon-based aerogel and carbon fibre reinforced polymer composites as the structural component of the aircraft with an additional de-icing function. The presence of highly porous aerogel on the top layer of CFRP composite supports absorbing sunlight during daytime flight. Through photothermal conversion, the sunlight will be converted into heat and raise the surface temperature of aircraft to deter ice formation. Carbon-based aerogels are also known for their high electrical conductivity, and hence, during night-time flights, Joule heating, which is a heat generation process by applying a voltage to an electrically conductive material, can be adopted to remove the ice.

Contributors: LUA Adrian Shalom Sy, KIM JaeYoun, ANG Jershon Ainsleigh Entote, FERNANDO Nivain Devnith, WEERASINGHE Kasuntha Gimshan