Stefan Ulbrich

Lea Steffen, Tobias Weyer, Katharina Glueck et al.

Motion planning in the configuration space (C-space) induces benefits, such as smooth trajectories. It becomes more complex as the degrees of freedom (DOF) increase. This is due to the direct relation between the dimensionality of the search space and the DOF. Self-organizing neural networks (SONN) and their famous candidate, the Self-Organizing Map, have been proven to be useful tools for C-space reduction while preserving its underlying topology, as presented in [29]. In this work, we extend our previous study with additional models and adapt the approach from human motion data towards robots' kinematics. The evaluation includes the best performant models from [29] and three additional SONN architectures, representing the consequent continuation of this previous work. Generated Trajectories, planned with the different SONN models, were successfully tested in a robot simulation.

Theodor Komann, Michael Wiesheu, Stefan Ulbrich et al.

The multiobjective optimization of electric machines always involves a trade-off caused by various competing objectives such as performance and cost. A suitable design is usually determined by comparing variants from the Pareto front, which has been generated by a large number of simulation runs. This paper addresses the efficient generation of the Pareto front using a continuation method based on a homotopy method that exploits second-order derivative information to achieve superlinear convergence, enabling the fast generation of new Pareto-optimal points within only a few iterations. A key contribution is the derivation of formulas to compute the Hessian with respect to geometry parameters and shape, thus enabling direct modifications of the motor geometry in the context of Isogeometric Analysis. We apply our method to nonlinear 2D magnetostatic simulations of a permanent magnet synchronous motor and demonstrate its effectiveness by optimizing the cost, mean torque and torque ripple of the motor. Compared to a first-order optimization method, this approach reduces the number of iterations and function evaluations needed, making the pareto optimization fast and efficient.