This work represents our first step at forming the concept of a measuring system of blast effects on humans inside armored vehicles.We present our initial attempts at developing a custom anthropometric test device (ATD) for measuring blast effects on human occupants in armored vehicles. It was designed to mimic the body of a 50th percentile human male in shape, weight and size. A drop tower was specifically built to simulate dynamic loads resulting from the explosion of improvised explosive devices under vehicle structures. The custom ATD was dropped from a 10 m height and the results were used to verify its design using published data. The ATD was then used to validate the effectiveness of the design of an armored vehicle that was equipped with passive blast protection devices. Useful information was derived from test results and design improvements were suggested. Future experiments are planned to improve the design of the next version of the custom ATD.
Torque saturation of DC motors of the wheels of mobile robots is one of the main difficulties during climbing hills. A two-DC motor-driven wheels mobile robot is used in the present work to attempt crossing a ditch-like hindrance using predictive control. The proposed predictive control algorithm is compared with the PID control and the open-loop control. Experimental examination of energy optimization algorithm for mobile robots is presented. The experimental results showed a good agreement with the simulation results confirming the capability of the predictive control to avoid torque saturation and indicating a noticeable reduction in the energy consumption. Additionally, a theoretical parametric study of the predictive control is presented. The effects of the road slope and the prediction horizon length on the consumed energy are evaluated. The analytical study showed that the energy consumption is reduced by increasing the prediction horizon until it reaches a limit at which no more energy reduction is obtained. This limit is proportional to the width of the ditch in front of the mobile robot.
The use of improvised explosive devices against moving vehicles has been on the rise recently. Their explosions induce devastating effects on vehicle occupants. Blast mitigation seats are used as a counter measure to reduce such harmful effects. This paper presents the scientific work for evaluating the efficacy of blast mitigation seats. The work involves designing and building a custom anthropometric test device (ATD) and a drop tower test facility that is used to simulate the drop of a vehicle from heights up to 10 m. The ATD was equipped with two accelerometers; at the neck and at the pelvis. For validation, a multibody dynamics model was developed to simulate the drop test and the results were compared with ones from experiments. An overall root mean square error of 1.28 g was achieved. The test facility was then used to measure the performance of a blast mitigation seat. The results showed that blast mitigation seats reduced peak accelerations on the pelvis and neck areas by 92% and 87% respectively and this translates into moving predicted injuries from fatal to moderate.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.