Silvano Balemi

Scientific interests
Projects at SUPSI
Publications

Scientific interests

· Control of high precision mechatronic systems

· Rapid control prototyping used both during development processes but also for end products

· Control of discrete event systems with applications to tool machines

Projects at SUPSI (selection)

High precision systems

Surface Inspection System for industrial applications
CTI 5697.3 TOPnano21
Development of a portable surface inspection system based on flexible structures, voice coil actuators, capacitive and optical sensors. The system is able to scan a 1mmX1mm surface with nanometer resolution.

Generic control system for high precision applications
CTI 6792.1
Development of a rapid control prototyping platform (both for the PC104 and the CompactPCI standard) with automatic generation of real-time executable code from either Matlab/Simulink or Scicos/Scilab. Dedicated boards for the actuation of voice coil motors and for sensing with optical linear encoders and capacitive sensors have also been developed.

Driver for Piezoelectric actuator
Mandate
Development of a driver for piezoelectric stick-slip motors with sub-nanometer positioning resolution. Customizable voltage curves with variable frequency up to 25kHz can be defined in software. Wireworm Mandate Development of a driver for an inchworm piezoelectric motor The driver is used to control the precise forward movement of a thin wire for feeding an electro-discharge tool machine.

Adaptive optics for solar telescope
SNF 20-064 945
Development of an adaptive optics system for the IRSOL solar telescope. The final system has been installed at IRSOL in Locarno and is undergoing characterization tests.

SEMINA (A strong Europe with Micro & Nanotechnologies)
SNF IB7320 – 110691.

Integration of methods for the structural analysis of mechanisms based on flexural hinges with optimization algorithms, with the aims of improving the mechanism characteristics (linearity, lifetime, dimension, ...).

Navigation System based on an inertial unit coupled with a GPS receiver
CTI 7858.2 NMPP-NM
The project intends to provide a very small, lightweight, fast and accurate inertial platform useful for navigation and vehicle monitoring, including activation of surveillance, emergency systems and networking. The system can be easily installed in race cars, light airplanes, gliders, production cars and boats also thanks to its low power consumption.

Rapid Controller prototyping for Electro-Discharge Tool Machining
Mandate
Modification of standard Electro Discharge Tool Machine control code for the purpose of controlling a precision flexible structure. Control code can be generated from Matlab/Simulink; Tasks from Identification to Control implementation can take place within the same environment

Control of the discharge gap for precision Electro-Discharge Tool Machining
CTI 8824.1 NMPP-NM
The project aims at devising new control strategies and methods which allow a quantum step in controlling the gap at a new sensitivity level. From this improvement in micromachining a better process behavior in standard EDM is expected, specifically in difficult conditions.

Fieldbus communication systems

Modular single-channel bus system
CTI 4815.1 FHS
Development of a bus system with miniaturised I/O-modules and with interface to the major field bus standards

Time-Triggered Systems
Soft[net] EdiSoN_TTS
Development of a demonstration high speed, fault-tolerant communication system for automotive control systems based on the time-triggered systems concept. Meslin Mandate Development of a test system for automotive peripherals (head-light level adjustment) communicating via the LIN bus. Preparation of a demonstration system.

Solid State Power Switch
CTI 7656.2 NMPP-NM
Feasibility study and development of a 3 kW Solid-State Power Switch with Network Connectivity for Naval Applications. The switch functionality as well as the device connectivity feature will be tested in a real high-requirement environment.

Other Mechatronic and Measurement Systems

DAVID.
Mandate
Automatic generation of code for a multiple channel control board based on the Sharc processor of Analog Devices.

INTFOT
Mandate
Electronic interface to sensors for a living cell inspection system.

BELIMO
Mandate
Method for protection against unwanted oscillations in control loops in building heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems.

Control of a Hovercraft
CTI 4482.1 FHS
Development of a high-speed hovercraft with auto-stabilizing properties Exploitation of rapid controller prototyping concepts

ACCU
Mandate
Development of a compact 3-phase, unit power factor battery charger for the automotive sector

Publications

-- Journal Articles and Books

[1] R. Bucher and S. Balemi. Rapid controller prototyping with matlab/ simulink and linux. Control Engineering Practice. 2006, 14(2): 185-192. (pdf)

[2] S. Balemi. Input/Output processes and communication delays. Discrete Event Dynamic Systems: Theory and Applications, 4:41--85, 1994. (ps, pdf)

[3] S. Balemi, G.J. Hoffmann, P. Gyugyi, H. Wong-Toi, and G.F. Franklin. Supervisory control of a rapid thermal multiprocessor. IEEE Trans. Autom. Control, 38(7):1040--1059, July 1993. (ps, pdf)

[4] Charles D. Schaper, Young M. Cho, Poogyeon Park, Stephen A. Norman, Paul Gyugyi, Gerard. Hoffmann, Silvano Balemi, Stephen P. Boyd, Gregory Franklin, Thomas Kailath, and Krishna C Saraswat. Modeling and control of rapid thermal processing. Proceedings of SPIE, 1595:2--17, February 1992. (pdf)

[5] V. Balakrishnan, S. Boyd and S. Balemi. Branch and bound Algorithm for computing the Minimum Stability Degree of Parameter-dependent Linear Systems. Int. J. of Robust and Nonlinear Control, 1:295--317, Oct.--Dec. 1991. (ps, pdf)

[6] M. Mansour, S. Balemi, and W. Truöl, editors. Robustness of Dynamic Systems with Parameter Uncertainties. Birkhauser Verlag, Basel, Switzerland, 1992.

[7] S. Balemi, P. Kozak, and R. Smedinga, editors. Discrete Event Systems: Modeling and Control, volume 13 of Progress in Systems and Control Theory. Birkhauser Verlag, Basel, Switzerland, 1993. (Proc. of the Joint Workshop on Discrete Event Systems (WODES'92), August 26--28, 1992, Prague, Czechoslovakia).

[8] S. Balemi. Control of Discrete Event Systems: Theory and Application. PhD thesis, Automatic Control Lab., Swiss Federal Inst. of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland, May 1992 (ask for a copy by email).

-- Conference articles

[1] S. Balemi and I. Furlan. Identification of the Electro-Discharge Machining Process Model. In Proc. of 9th EUSPEN International Conference, San Sebastian, Spain, June 2009. (pdf)

[2] S. Balemi. Partial-order reduction of observers for linear systems. In Proc. of 18th IFAC World Congress, Seoul, Korea, July 2008. (pdf)

[3] R. Bucher and S. Balemi. CAN-bus based rapid control prototyping system for education laboratories. In Proc. of 18th IFAC World (pdf) Congress, Seoul, Korea, July 2008.

[4] G. Montu', G.C. Dozio, R. Ben Mrad, and S. Balemi. High-performance amplifier for stick-slip piezoelectric motors. In Proc. of 8th EUSPEN International Conference, Zurich, Switzerland, May 2008. (pdf)

[5] S. Balemi. Calibration and reconstruction of a precision positioning stage. In Proc. of 8th EUSPEN International Conference, Zurich, Switzerland, May 2008. (pdf)

[6] S. Zelenika, S. Balemi, B. Roncevic. An Integrated Mechatronics Approach to UltraPrecision. In Recent Advances in Mechatronics, Springer Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-540-73955-5 (pdf)

[7] S. Balemi. Rapid Controller Prototyping Platform for Precision Applications, In Proc. of 6th EUSPEN International Conference, Baden bei Wien, May 2006. (pdf).

[8] S. Balemi. Automatic calibration of sinusoidal encoder signals. In Proc. of 16th IFAC World Congress, Prague, July 2005. (ps, pdf).

[9] R. Bucher, S. Balemi. Scicos/Scilab: a unified approach. In Proc. of Conference on Control Applications, Toronto, August 2005. (pdf)

[10] S. Balemi, J. Moerschell, J-M. Breguet, D. Brändlin, S. Bottinelli, and I. Beltrami. Surface inspection system for industrial applications. In Proc. of Conf. on Robotics and Mechatronics, Aachen, Germany, September 2004. (ps, pdf)

[11] R. Bucher and S. Balemi. Rapid control prototyping using linux real-time. In Proc. of Conf. in Control Education, Olulu, Finland, June 2003. (pdf)

[12] S. Balemi. Rapid control prototyping of a hovercraft. In Proceedings of MSy'02, Embedded Systems in Mechatronics, Winterthur, Switzerland, October 2002. 1 (pdf)

[13] S. Balemi. Communication delays in connections of input/output discrete event processes. In Proc. of 31st IEEE Conf. Decision and Control, pages 3374--3379, Tucson, AZ, USA, December 1992. (ps, pdf)

[14] S. Balemi and V. Balakrishnan. Branch and bound algorithm for global optimization in control theory. In Proc. of IFAC Workshop on Mutual Impact of Computing Power and Control Theory, pages 169--179, Prague, CS, September 1992. Plenum Publishing Corporation. (ps, pdf)

[15] S. Balemi. Input/output discrete event processes and system modeling. In Balemi et al. [9], pages 15--27. (Proc. of the Joint Workshop on Discrete Event Systems (WODES'92), August 26--28, 1992, Prague, Czechoslovakia). (ps, pdf)

[16] S. Balemi and U.A. Brunner. Supervision of discrete event systems with communication delays. In American Control Conf., pages 2794--2798, Chicago, IL, USA, June 1992. (ps, pdf)

[17] U. Brunner and S. Balemi. A plausible approximation method for linear systems and its application for the design of low-order controllers. In Proc. of American Control Conf. 1992, pages 800--801, Chicago, IL, USA, June 1992. (ps, pdf)

[18] S. Balemi. Discrete-event systems control of a rapid thermal multiprocessor. In Proc. of 7th IFAC/IFIP/IFORS/IMACS/ISPE Symp. on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing Technology (INCOM), pages 53--58, Toronto, Canada, May 1992. (ps, pdf)

[19] S. Balemi, S. Boyd, and V. Balakrishnan. Computation of the Maximum Hinf-norm of Parameter-dependent Linear Systems by a Branch and Bound Algorithm. In Proceedings of MTNS-91, pages 305--310, Kobe, Japan, July 1991. (ps, pdf)

[20] V. Balakrishnan, S. Boyd, and S. Balemi. Computing the minimum stability degree of parameter-dependent linear systems. In S. P. Bhattacharyya and L. H. Keel, editors, Control of Uncertain Dynamic Systems, pages 359--378. CRC Press, 1991. (ps, pdf)

[21] V. Balakrishnan, S. Balemi, and S. Boyd. Computation of the Minimum Stability Degree of Parameter-dependent Linear Systems by a Branch and Bound Algorithm. In Proceedings of 1st IFAC Symposium on Design Methods of Control Systems, pages 133--138, Zurich, Switzerland, September 1991. (ps, pdf)

[22] G. Hoffmann, S. Balemi, and U. Brunner. Design of a discrete event controller for a model railway. In D. Franke and F. Kraus, editors, Proc. of 1st IFAC Symp. on Design Methods of Control Systems, pages 451--56, Zurich, Switzerland, September 1991. Pergamon Press, Oxford, UK. (ps, pdf)