Theses and Dissertations from UMD

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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    Miniature Fiber Optic Pressure Sensors for Intervertebral Disc Pressure Measurements in Rodents
    (2007-08-13) Nesson, Silas Carl; Yu, Miao; Mechanical Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Mechanical stress due to interstitial fluid pressures can play a major role in the development of disc degeneration, a common cause of lower back pain. Pressures generated in the intervertebral disc have previously been measured in humans and animals. However, due to their small size, thus far it has been difficult to experimentally measure pressures in rodents. With the prevalent use of rodent disc models in mechanobiology, it is important to characterize the intradiscal pressures under externally applied stresses. In this thesis research, two different optical systems with novel miniature fiber optic pressure sensors have been developed. These systems are an intensity based solid-tip sensor system and a low coherence Fabry-Perot sensor system. Pressure sensors, which have diameters of only 363 µm, were designed to measure pressures in rat discs without disrupting the structure and altering the intradiscal pressures. For the first time, in vitro intradiscal pressure measurements of rodents have been successfully demonstrated by using these sensors.
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    Hardware Design of a Wearable System for Gesture-Based Teleoperation of a Robotic Manipulator
    (2007-06-05) Buchholz, Brooke Teresa; Akin, David; Aerospace Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    To overcome some of the difficulties of robotic teleoperation using hand controllers, a new approach is necessary, namely gesture-based control. A review of sensors currently in use for human joint angle measurement is presented. Based on this review, a method was chosen that uses a variable-length fiber optic sensor. Several different types of optical fibers, along with a variety of test configurations, were initially evaluated, and the most promising of these were selected for further testing. This thesis describes these methods of evaluation and the final system design and testing of a wearable system for gesture-based control of a robotic manipulator, including a discussion of sensor placement to obtain improved results. The final system presented requires improvements and continued research to become usable for robotic control. However, the basic concept and design are shown to provide reliable information regarding relative human joint motion.