[]What happens when cutting-edge robotics meets the demands of a rapidly evolving energy, healthcare, and manufacturing landscapes? Join us for an evening of insight, conversation, and community at Stanford University as we bring together industry leaders to explore how collaborative robots and intelligent automation are transforming the way we build, power, and sustain our world. Speaker(s): Eric, Allen, Ashwinram, Pannag Agenda: 🕕 6:00 – 6:30 PM — Mingling & Pizza 🎤 6:30 – 7:30 PM — Panel Discussion 🤝 7:30 – 8:00 PM — Networking Room: 101, Bldg: David Packard Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, 350 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, California, United States, 94305, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/559679

Abstract: Active Magnetic Bearings (AMBs) are actuators for robotics systems that offer near-frictionless operation of spinning rotors. As is often the case with actuators used with feedback, magnetic bearings are driven with a high gain inner loop to linearize their input-output response for the stabilizing rotor position outer loop control development. The primary benefit of the high gain actuator is that the need for the outer loop to have an internal model of the magnetic bearings is mitigated. However, driving the magnetic bearings with high gain presents issues including increased noise, reduced stability margin, and sensitivity to rotor imbalance, motivating the inclusion of an internal model of the magnetic bearings. H_inf synthesis will be employed to demonstrate potential benefits of a low gain amplifier. And since magnetic bearings show temperature sensitivity, mu-synthesis will be leveraged to show that the benefits of a low gain amplifier can still be realized despite significant process noise and strict requirements. Models of AMB rotor systems will be shown to demonstrate their inherent issues and how a holistic control approach can solve them. Speaker(s): Jordan McCrone, Agenda: 6:00 - 6:30 - Networking and light dinner (for in person attendees) 6:30 - 7:30 - Talk and Q & A 7:30 - 8:00 - Wrap up and Networking Room: 116, Bldg: Bergin Hall, Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, California, United States, 95053, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/558058

Operating rotorcraft in the thin Martian atmosphere presents unique aerodynamic and flight dynamics challenges—first addressed during NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter mission in 2021. This seminar reviews these challenges for both current and future Mars rotorcraft. Topics include the characteristics of the Martian aerodynamic regime, Earth-based testing approaches, and Ingenuity’s flight dynamics validation on Mars. Future rotorcraft concepts will be significantly larger and more complex than Ingenuity’s coaxial design. Multi-rotor configurations introduce additional modeling difficulties, particularly in accurately capturing rotor wake interactions without resorting to computationally expensive blade-resolved CFD. To address this, the seminar will also discuss the application of the Viscous Vortex Particle Method (VVPM) as a mid-fidelity tool for simulating rotor wakes in Mars rotorcraft. Speaker(s): Tove Agren, Tove Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/536989