Research at IEL
Research Programs
Research Areas
Our interdisciplinary research is focused on information technology and its applications in engineering. It includes extending C/C++ for ubiquitous computing and embedded scripting, mobile agent based computing, grid computing, script computing, engineering software design, agile manufacturing, intelligent mechatronic and embedded systems, robotics, real-time sensor fusion, sensor network, factory automation, creative design, Web technology and its applications in design and manufacturing, Web-based computational kinematics and mechanical design, distance learning, information infrastructure systems for intelligent transportation systems.

Selected Recent Research and Teaching Projects

  1. Mobile Agent Based Computing and Its Applications.
  2. Laser-Based Non-Intrusive Detection of Delineations of Vehicles for Measurement of True Travel Time on the Highway, Primary Sponsor: California PATH Program, California Department of Transportation.
  3. Task-Level Programming for Manipulation of Multiple Robots, Primary Sponsor: National Science Foundation.
  4. Open-Architecture Integration for Agile Manufacturing, Primary Sponsor: National Science Foundation
  5. Mobile Platform for Overhead Detectors of Road Vehicles, Primary Sponsor: California PATH Program, California Department of Transportation.
  6. Interactive Motion Control, Primary Sponsor: Delta Tau Data Systems Inc.
  7. Hypercollaborative Human-Machine Interaction and Applications, Primary Sponsor: Faculty Research Grant Program, UCD.
  8. Web-Based Interactive Distance Learning Tools for Design and Manufacturing, Primary Sponsor: Undergraduate Instructional Improvement Program, UCD.
  9. Integration of Portable XML Data and Portable C/C++ Code.
  10. Computer-Adied Mechanism Design and Analysis Using ChExcel.
  11. Computer-Aided Design and Analysis of Quick Return Mechanisms.

Sponsors of Research Programs
The Integration Engineering Laboratory is undergoing active development. The sponsors of the laboratory include

Research Facilities
The laboratory is currently equipped with two industrial robot manipulators Puma 560 which can be remotely manipulated through the network and IBM 7575, fully networked two Sun workstations, one HP workstation, one Mac workstation, one Itanium machine, a dozen of Intel Pentium workstations with Linux, RTLinux, and various Windows operating systems, two 12-slots VME chassis-based computing systems using a Motorola MVME167 single board computer based on MC68040 microcprocessor with 1GB disk and tape drive for data acquisition, various actuators, and a laser printer. The end-effector of the Puma 560 robot manipulator is equipped with a JR3 six-axis force and torque sensor. The PC's and workstations are supported with various CAD/CAM software packages. The VMEbus-based real-time distributed computing systems with MVME167, Delta Tau programmable multi-axis controllers, I/O, and A/D boards, JR3 force and torque receiver, two Datacube MaxScans and one Datacube MaxVideo 200 high performance pipelined image processor connected to two Panasonic black/white stereo video cameras and one color video camera with two video monitors, Barret hand, Z-World's Wi-Fi Application Kit for wireless communication, running the Ch language environment under a real-time operating system are used for real-time remote control, data acquisition, and performance monitoring of mechatronic systems. All computers and mechatronic systems at the IEL are fully networked with other computers and manufacturing facilities within the Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering and College of Engineering.