Control Research Group
Group members:
Diarmuid Rush, John Byrne, Andrew Donnellan, Paul Dillon and Derek Troute
The Control Research Group, which has partners in the Dept of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Electronic Engineering, has research interests in a number of areas. Members have worked in applying a Genetic Algorithm Tuned Fuzzy Control, to processes such as heat exchange as well as an electro mechanical positioning system. Staff members are also working at modeling multi domain systems.
This process is energy based, allowing the combination of different physical systems (mechanical, electrical, electronic and others), within the one modeling environment. Applications have involved electro mechanical systems, electro magnetic systems and heat transfer systems.
New areas of research involve investigation of other multi domain analysis tools, and their application to suitable areas such as energy harvesting, low scale energy sourcing and active load switching control. The group has access to a wide range of test equipment to support these initiatives.
Thus the work of the group is very much aligned with the institute’s strategic plan in that the control group provides projects at honors degree level, for training undergraduates in methods of research thus providing highly skilled research focused candidates for further postgraduate work.
Members of the group have had a range of publications in recent years, at conferences nationally and in journals, and have had collaborations within EU projects on e-learning in the areas of Modeling and Control. Projects have been carried out with partners in The CTU, Prague, Czech Republic; The University of the Ruhr, Bochum, Germany; The University of Sussex, Brighton England and The Fraunhofer Institute Dresden, Germany.
Since the foundation of the institute, both departments have had excellent industrial contacts, involving the training of company staff in electro pneumatics and electro hydraulics, and the application of PLCs to control such systems. Through these activities, research topics have been identified for investigation.
The group is active in recruiting post graduates and currently has one masters student working in the area of multi domain modeling of heat exchangers, while perusing sources of funding in order to recruit other candidates. Apart from the groups own work, they provide support for other research areas within the two departments, most notably the Integrated Product and Process Design group within the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Bioengineering Technology Centre and Medical Devices groups which span the two departments.
