Automatic Setups Research Articles

Repeatable Perovskite Solar Cells through Fully Automated Spin-Coating and Quenching.

Enhancing reproducibility, repeatability, as well as facilitating transferability between laboratories will accelerate the progress in many material domains, wherein perovskite-based optoelectronics are a prime use case. This study presents fully automated perovskite thin film processing using a commercial spin-coating robot in an inert atmosphere. We successfully apply this novel processing method to antisolvent quenching. This process is typically difficult to reproduce and transfer and is now enhanced to exceptional repeatability in comparison to manual processing. Champion perovskite solar cells demonstrate power conversion efficiencies as high as 19.9%, proving the transferability of established manual spin-coating processes to automatic setups. Comparison with human experts reveals that the performance is already on par, while automated processing yields improved homogeneity across the substrate surface. This work demonstrates that fully automated perovskite thin film processing improves repeatability. Such systems bear the potential to become a foundation for autonomous optimization and greatly improve transferability between laboratories.

Small Zoom Mismatch Adjustment Method for Dual-Band Fusion Imaging System Based on Edge-Gradient Normalized Mutual Information.

Currently, automatic optical zoom setups are being extensively explored for their applications in search, detection, recognition, and tracking. In visible and infrared fusion imaging systems with continuous zoom, dual-channel multi-sensor field-of-view matching control in the process of synchronous continuous zoom can be achieved by pre-calibration. However, mechanical and transmission errors of the zoom mechanism produce a small mismatch in the field of view after co-zooming, degrading the sharpness of the fusion image. Therefore, a dynamic small-mismatch detection method is necessary. This paper presents the use of edge-gradient normalized mutual information as an evaluation function of multi-sensor field-of-view matching similarity to guide the small zoom of the visible lens after continuous co-zoom and ultimately reduce the field-of-view mismatch. In addition, we demonstrate the use of the improved hill-climbing search algorithm for autozoom to obtain the maximum value of the evaluation function. Consequently, the results validate the correctness and effectiveness of the proposed method under small changes in the field of view. Therefore, this study is expected to contribute to the improvement of visible and infrared fusion imaging systems with continuous zoom, thereby enhancing the overall working of helicopter electro-optical pods, and early warning equipment.

Inkjet Printing: A Cheap and Easy‐to‐Use Alternative to Wire Bonding for Academics

AbstractMany groups in academia are having problems patterning interconnections to small electrodes using wire bonding, including metal melting and detachment of previously bonded wires. It is a fact that the industry makes reliable wire bonding using automatic setups and expert personnel, and also that many groups in academia can do wire bonding reliably. However, it is also true that wire bonding is much more problematic than other techniques often employed to pattern interconnections, such as lithography or inkjet printing. In this article, the contact resistance and maximum currents driven by metallic interconnections patterned via wire bonding, lithography, and inkjet printing are compared. It is concluded that interconnections patterned via inkjet printing meet the requirements of many types of experiments, and that inkjet printing is a very cheap and easy‐to‐use alternative to wire bonding, especially attractive for academics.

Improvement of the Fmask algorithm for Sentinel-2 images: Separating clouds from bright surfaces based on parallax effects

Reliable identification of clouds is necessary for any type of optical remote sensing image analysis, especially in operational and fully automatic setups. One of the most elaborated and widespread algorithms, namely Fmask, was initially developed for the Landsat suite of satellites. Despite their similarity, application to Sentinel-2 imagery is currently hampered by the unavailability of a thermal band, and although results can be improved when taking the cirrus band into account, Sentinel-2 cloud detections are unsatisfactory in two points. (1) Low altitude clouds can be undetectable in the cirrus band, and (2) bright land surfaces – especially built-up structures – are often misclassified as clouds when only considering spectral information. In this paper, we present the Cloud Displacement Index (CDI), which makes use of the three highly correlated near infrared bands that are observed with different view angles. Hence, elevated objects like clouds are observed under a parallax and can be reliably separated from bright ground objects. We compare CDI with the currently used cloud probabilities, and propose how to integrate this new functionality into the Fmask algorithm. We validate the approach using test images over metropolitan areas covering a wide variety of global environments and climates, indicating the successful separation of clouds and built-up structures (overall accuracy 95%, i.e. an improvement in overall accuracy of 0.29–0.39 compared to the previous Fmask versions over the 20 test sites), and hence a full compensation for a missing thermal band.

Automatic patient positioning and gating window settings in respiratory-gated stereotactic body radiation therapy for pancreatic cancer using fluoroscopic imaging.

Before treatment delivery of respiratory‐gated radiation therapy (RT) in patients with implanted fiducials, both the patient position and the gating window thresholds must be set. In linac‐based RT, this is currently done manually and setup accuracy will therefore be dependent on the skill of the user. In this study, we present an automatic method for finding the patient position and the gating window thresholds. Our method uses sequentially acquired anterior–posterior (AP) and lateral fluoroscopic imaging with simultaneous breathing amplitude monitoring and intends to reach 100% gating accuracy while keeping the duty cycle as high as possible. We retrospectively compared clinically used setups to the automatic setups by our method in five pancreatic cancer patients treated with hypofractionated RT. In 15 investigated fractions, the average (±standard deviation) differences between the clinical and automatic setups were −0.4 ± 0.8 mm, −1.0 ± 1.1 mm, and 1.8 ± 1.3 mm in the left–right (LR), the AP, and the superior–inferior (SI) direction, respectively. For the clinical setups, typical interfractional setup variations were 1–2 mm in the LR and AP directions, and 2–3 mm in the SI direction. Using the automatic method, the duty cycle could be improved in six fractions, in four fractions the duty cycle had to be lowered to improve gating accuracy, and in five fractions both duty cycle and gating accuracy could be improved. Our automatic method has the potential to increase accuracy and decrease user dependence of setup for patients with implanted fiducials treated with respiratory‐gated RT. After fluoroscopic image acquisition, the calculated patient shifts and gating window thresholds are calculated in 1–2 s. The method gives the user the possibility to evaluate the effect of different patient positions and gating window thresholds on gating accuracy and duty cycle. If deemed necessary, it can be used at any time during treatment delivery.

Time interval generator with 8 ps resolution and wide range for large TDC array characterization

Accurate generation of picosecond-resolution wide---range time intervals gives rise to a new time-efficient method for the characterization of large arrays of time-to-digital converters involved in time resolved imaging. This paper presents the design and measurement of a time interval generator based on FPGA technology. Although it can be employed in different automatic test setups, it has been designed to characterize an array of time-to-digital converters. It can work as periodic pulse/frequency generator but also as a digital-to-time converter. The accuracy of periodic pulse generator is around 20 ps RMS jitter for a pulse width ranging from 600 ps to 33 µs. The incremental time resolution is 8 ps and the repetition rate is up to 2 MHz. The accuracy of the digital-to-time converter is less than 0.8LSB DNL and 2LSB INL, whilst the time resolution is 27 ps. Full characterization of the module is reported including a comparison with state-of-the-art instruments in this field. The measurement results of the time-to-digital converter array driven by the designed digital-to-time converter module are presented as well. The effectiveness of the proposed method is evaluated by comparing it with the statistical code density test.

Identification of the chemical constituents of Chinese medicine Yi-Xin-Shu capsule by molecular feature orientated precursor ion selection and tandem mass spectrometry structure elucidation.

The incomplete identification of the chemical components of traditional Chinese medicinal formula has been one of the bottlenecks in the modernization of traditional Chinese medicine. Tandem mass spectrometry has been widely used for the identification of chemical substances. Current automatic tandem mass spectrometry acquisition, where precursor ions were selected according to their signal intensity, encounters a drawback in chemical substances identification when samples contain many overlapping signals. Compounds in minor or trace amounts could not be identified because most tandem mass spectrometry information was lost. Herein, a molecular feature orientated precursor ion selection and tandem mass spectrometry structure elucidation method for complex Chinese medicine chemical constituent analysis was developed. The precursor ions were selected according to their two-dimensional characteristics of retention times and mass-to-charge ratio ranges from herbal compounds, so that all precursor ions from herbal compounds were included and more minor chemical constituents in Chinese medicine were identified. Compared to the conventional automatic tandem mass spectrometry setups, the approach is novel and can overcome the drawback for chemical substances identification. As an example, 276 compounds from the Chinese Medicine of Yi-Xin-Shu capsule were identified.

Determination of methane yield of cellulose using different experimental setups.

In this work, biochemical methane potential (BMP) tests with cellulose as a model substrate were performed with the aid of three manually operated or conventional experimental setups (based on manometer, water column and gas bag) and one automated apparatus specially designed for analysis of BMP. The methane yields were 340 ± 18, 354 ± 13, 345 ± 15 and 366 ± 5 ml CH4/g VS obtained from experimental setups with manometer, water column, gas bag, and automatic methane potential test system, which corresponded to a biodegradability of 82, 85, 83 and 88% respectively. The results demonstrated that the methane yields of cellulose obtained from conventional and automatic experimental setups were comparable; however, the methane yield obtained from the automated apparatus showed greater precision. Moreover, conventional setups for the BMP test were more time- and labour-intensive compared with the automated apparatus.

Process automation for engine coolant chambers with CFD

Over the last four years, it has become possible to reduce the project processing time of a single calculation for a coolant chamber of an internal-combustion engine by 75 %. Synergetic effects in variable calculations made it possible to raise the amount of calculations per year six-fold. Tecosim uses wrapping methods, efficient meshing technologies and automatic model set-ups in its CFD simulation.

Machine capability and fixturing constraints-imposed automatic machining set-ups generation

An aspect of process planning that has not received a good deal of attention is set-up planning. Machine tool configuration and fixture constrain operations in process planning. The paper presents a set-up planning module as part of a feature-based process planning system with an access of a manufacturing database. Data on component geometry, dimensions and tolerances are used to extract constraint-imposed precedence relations between features. The geometric relationship between the fixture and the machine tool is represented in an object-oriented format. Taking machine capabilities and fixturing strategies into account, the set-up planning module automatically generates multiple machining set-ups via a procedure. A case study is given to demonstrate how the procedure works. The presented module helps facilitate automation of set-up planning implementations for machining of near net shape prismatic parts on shop floor.