Design of Innovative Machines Lab
Design Novel Machines and Mechanisms
The Design of Innovative Machines Lab (the DIMLab) is home to the design team led by Dr. Drew Murray and Dr. Dave Myszka of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. The primary goals of the team are to create, design, build and test novel machines and mechanisms for a variety of applications while generating the theory that supports these innovations. The DIMLab is in Fitz Hall, Room 537, on the University of Dayton campus.

Many design problems are defined by a curve that changes shape. Consider the profile of a wing during a flight where lift may be reduced as fuel burns off, or a spoiler where the downward force should be increased during cornering. As the spoiler and the wing should always have a shape that is spoiler-like or wing-like as it is changing, all of the interim shapes achievable by the mechanism should still define a usable spoiler or wing. The research on this project is identifying the underlying theory that allows these systems to be designed, and developing application specific technologies. Other applications include shape-changing parabolic light reflectors and extrusion dies. Early research in this area generated a Best Paper Award for Murray and Dr. Jim Schmiedeler, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Notre Dame.

Morphometry is the quantitative comparison of shapes, primarily curves. As an alternate to classical methods of spatial morphometry, this work investigates a kinematic synthesis methodology for designing a spatial chain of rigid-bodies to match arbitrary spatial curves. The goal is to find a single set of spatial bodies that can be moved to approximately align with any given set of spatial curves. Previous rigid-body shape-change morphometry work focused on mechanisms composed of rigid planar links connected by prismatic and revolute joints to approximate planar curves. Open space curves are the current focus of the research. The primary advantage of this method is its capacity to describe the difference in space curves with a limited number of parameters.

This project seeks to validate the use of a statically equivalent serial chain (SESC) in locating and tracking a human’s center of mass (CoM). The statically equivalent serial chain used in this project is comprised of 13 parameters, each roughly corresponding to a portion of the human body. Given these 13 parameters, the SESC points directly at a person’s CoM. Every individual has a unique set parameters to calculate their SESC. These parameters are determined by capturing poses and using the body segment length and position information, as well as the center of pressure reading, acquired from the different poses.