02.04.2024
AdLaS – Adaptive mounting system with powerless gravity compensation for mirror segments in large telescopes

Project Focus

• Active suppression of floor vibrations by acceleration feedback control
• Zero-power gravity compensation at an arbitrary operating point using electropermanent magnets
• Position control for six degrees of freedom

Description

Vibration isolation is indispensable in many high-precision applications, both in industry and research. Prominent examples are wafer scanners, atomic force microscopes and large-scale reflecting telescopes. The stringent requirements cannot be met by purely passive systems and require active control strategies. Motivated by the high relevance, a suspension system for heavy loads with a levitating platform, active vibration suppression and integrated gravity compensation was designed, implemented and evaluated in this project.

The levitating platform has six degrees of freedom (DoF), which are actuated by Lorentz actuators due to their linearity and quasi-zero stiffness. In order to avoid heat dissipation, which may have a negative effect on sensitive equipment, zero-power gravity compensation is integrated. This is achieved by using electropermanent magnets (EPM) which, compared to other approaches, enable the adaption to a variable payload mass while keeping the operating point of the platform constant.

Particular attention has to be paid to the control design due to the conflicting goals of position control and vibration suppression. For the positioning of the platform, decentralised control is used with a suitable decoupling of the six DoFs. The displacement is measured with six eddy current sensors. Moreover, the platform is equipped with an accelerometer, which is used to apply acceleration feedback. This increases the effective mass and reduces the transmission of floor vibrations. To achieve a lower position control bandwidth, which reduces the transmission of low-frequency disturbances, the negative stiffness of the EPMs is compensated by a positive virtual stiffness.

The decentralised position control achieves a bandwidth of 60 Hz in the out-of-plane DoFs and 20 Hz in the in-plane DoFs with a resolution of less than 100 nm. For vibration isolation, the crossover frequency of the position control in the vertical direction is reduced to 6 Hz, resulting in an attenuation of floor vibrations with -40 dB/decade starting at around 8 Hz. With the additional acceleration feedback, the transmissibility was further reduced by almost 10 dB. The evaluation of the gravity compensation showed that it can support a total load of 6.34 kg while reducing the power consumption by 99 %.

Video Prototype of the vibration isolation system with a mounted mirror segment.

Applications

• Mounting of mirror segments in large reflecting telescopes
• Vibration isolation for sensitive measuring equipment (e.g. atomic force microscope)

Videos and Publications

• Vibration Isolation and Positioning System With Zero-power Gravity Compensation
• Master’s thesis

Funding

Austria Wirtschaftsservice (AWS) prototype funding (project name: AdLaS – Adaptive mounting system with powerless gravity compensation for mirror segments in large telescopes, project number: P2389218)

  05.10.2023
Research and Flight Test of Advanced Turbulence Cancelling Technologies for Sustainable Urban and Regional Air Mobility (SmartWings2)

Project focus

• High resolution remote turbulence measurement by wind lidar
• High resolution turbulence measurement by distributed MEMS sensors
• High capacity of turbulence suppression by Enhanced flaplets design
• Integration and evaluation of turbulence load suppression in test flights

Description

Inflight turbulence is still an unsolved problem for aviation, impairing economy, safety and comfort of aircraft operation. Especially for light aircraft, such as for the emerging advanced air mobility (AAM) sector, low-level turbulence significantly impacts resource efficiency, quality of service and user acceptance. Measures taken by CS25 flight operators to avoid turbulence for comfort and safety reasons, such as re-routing to suboptimal flight levels and flight routes as well as suboptimal logistics, increase CO2 emissions, thus increasing the negative impact on the climate. Turbulence reduces comfort, safety and availability of service especially for light aircraft and AAM, which aims to provide a sustainable mobility alternative, where ground transportation capacities are limited.

The SmartWings2 project aims enhanced turbulence load suppression (TLS) via new sensor technologies of wind lidar and distributed MEMS turbulence sensing, as well as a novel flaplet. The predecessor project SmartWings successfully demonstrated TLS in light aircraft by means of turbulence probes in front of the wing and actuation of predefleced flaps for direct lift control. Two new sensor technologies are developed to increase the turbulence anticipation time and resolution, and the high performance novel flaplet allows a better suppression of the strong turbulence at a high speed cruise. Last the developed sensors and flaplet are integrated and tested in a test flight, verifying the benefits of the developed technologies.

Applications

• Advanced air mobility (AMM)
• Electrical aircraft and sustainable air mobility
• Extension of TLS solution for mid-scale aircraft

Related Publications and Patents

News

• The plane tech that could make turbulence a thing of the past, Cathy Adams,
  Friday October 20 2023, The Times
• Sturmfrei-im-Flugzeug, Mayrs Magazin – Wissen für alle, 15. Sep. 2023, ORF

Project partners

• Turbulence Solutions
• Infineon Technologies
• T.I.P.S. Messtechnik GmbH

Funding

This project (activity) has received funding from the Takeoff programme. Takeoff is a research, technology and innovation funding programme of the Republic of Austria, Ministry of Climate Action. The Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) has been authorised for the programme management.
• FFG Takeoff Program

  22.08.2023
Precision Measurements on Moving Objects (mEMO)

Project focus

• Analysis of measurement disturbances due to sample motion and environmental influences
• Development of motion compensation methods for optical measurement systems
• Development of correction methods for motion-induced image blur
• Implementation of integrated control methods for system operation
• Design of assessment methods for measurement system performance

Description

The performance of optical measurement systems for 3D imaging of moving targets suffers from motion-induced blur caused by the relative lateral movement between target and measurement system during the finite measurement time (exposure time). This motion blur introduces additional measurement uncertainties, what results in a trade-off between measurement accuracy and acceptable relative velocity of the target. This project aims to eliminate this trade-off by introducing advanced motion compensation and blur correction strategies.

In inline metrology applications, efficient end-of-line quality assurance is achieved by inspecting items on a conveyor belt. However, to attain accurate measurements, the speed of the conveyor belt must be decreased during inspection, which directly results in reduced throughput, becoming a bottleneck in the production line. Motion blur is caused by both process-induced motion (e.g., linear motion of conveyor belt) and disturbance-induced motion (e.g., vibrations). The reduction of the measurement uncertainties requires detailed understanding of these contributors and their effect on the measurement. This enables the development of tailored methods for motion compensation and blur correction. Compensation by means of an optical or opto-mechanical de-scanning strategy together with a suited controller design allows to track the moving target and reduce the relative movement between target and measurement system. Correction allows to further decrease the measurement uncertainties under consideration of additional synchronized measurements, e.g., the residual relative velocity between target and measurement system during the acquisition period. The project investigates various measurement systems for 3D imaging, including triangulation sensors, scanning confocal chromatic sensors, as well as structured light sensor systems.

Related publications

Zeitschriftenbeiträge

2024

• T. Kern, M. Laimer, G. Schitter, and E. Csencsics, Laser Triangulation Measurements on Moving Samples With Reduced Lateral Feature Uncertainty, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, vol. 73, pp. 1-8, 2024.
  [BibTex] [Download]

  @ARTICLE{2024_kern_tim,
  author={Kern, Thomas and Laimer, Matthias and Schitter, Georg and Csencsics, Ernst},
  journal={IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement},
  title={Laser Triangulation Measurements on Moving Samples With Reduced Lateral Feature Uncertainty},
  year={2024},
  volume={73},
  number={},
  pages={1-8},
  keywords={Measurement by laser beam;Detectors;Surface emitting lasers;Laser modes;Measurement uncertainty;Uncertainty;Optical variables measurement;Motion measurement;Image edge detection;Displacement measurement;Intensity distribution model;measurement correction;measurement uncertainty;triangulation sensor},
  doi={10.1109/TIM.2024.3480193},
  ,project = {cdl_ernstl},
  topic = {mEMO},
  }

• D. Pechgraber, J. Wiesböck, E. Csencsics, and G. Schitter, Switched Amplifier-Driven Nanopositioning: Integrating System Modeling and Control Tuning, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, pp. 1-11, 2024.
  [BibTex] [Download]

  @Article{2024_pechgraber_tie,
  author={Pechgraber, Daniel and Wiesböck, Johannes and Csencsics, Ernst and Schitter, Georg},
  journal={IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics},
  title={Switched Amplifier-Driven Nanopositioning: Integrating System Modeling and Control Tuning},
  year={2024},
  volume={},
  number={},
  pages={1-11},
  keywords={Magnetic domains;Actuators;Inductance;Switches;Uncertainty;Current measurement;Tuning;Controller tuning;dynamic error budgeting;nanometer positioning;precision;switched amplifier},
  doi={10.1109/TIE.2024.3429628},
  topic = {mEMO}
  }

Konferenzbeiträge

2024

• B. Friedl, A. Pechhacker, E. Csencsics, and G. Schitter, Design and Control of a Table-top Vibration Isolation System With Zero-power Gravity Compensation, in 2024 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM), 2024.
  [BibTex] [Download]

  @inproceedings{2024_friedl_aim,
  title = {Design and {Control} of a {Table}-top {Vibration} {Isolation} {System} {With} {Zero}-power {Gravity} {Compensation}},
  booktitle = {2024 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM)},
  language = {en},
  author = {Friedl, Benjamin and Pechhacker, Alexander and Csencsics, Ernst and Schitter, Georg},
  year = {2024},
  keywords = {active vibration isolation, gravity compensation, magnetic levitation, 6-DoF platform, mechatronics},
  topic = {mEMO},
  }

• S. Hager, E. Csencsics, H. W. Yoo, and G. Schitter, Reducing the uncertainty of laser straightness measurements via local saturation of imaging sensors, in 2024 IEEE International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM), 2024, pp. 1567-1572.
  [BibTex] [Download]

  @INPROCEEDINGS{2024_hager_aim,
  author={Hager, Stefan and Csencsics, Ernst and Yoo, Han Woong and Schitter, Georg},
  booktitle={2024 IEEE International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM)},
  title={Reducing the uncertainty of laser straightness measurements via local saturation of imaging sensors},
  year={2024},
  volume={},
  number={},
  pages={1567-1572},
  keywords={Uncertainty;Systematics;Shape;Measurement uncertainty;Measurement by laser beam;Imaging;Pollution measurement;machine calibration;straightness measurement;spot center detection},
  doi={10.1109/AIM55361.2024.10637144},
  topic = {mEMO},
  }

• D. Pechgraber, E. Csencsics, and G. Schitter, Reducing the uncertainty in a switched amplifier-driven positioning system to the sub-nanometer level, in 2024 IEEE International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM), 2024, pp. 44-50.
  [BibTex] [Download]

  @InProceedings{2024_pechgraber_aim,
  author={Pechgraber, Daniel and Csencsics, Ernst and Schitter, Georg},
  booktitle={2024 IEEE International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM)},
  title={Reducing the uncertainty in a switched amplifier-driven positioning system to the sub-nanometer level},
  year={2024},
  volume={},
  number={},
  pages={44-50},
  keywords={Couplings;Uncertainty;Quantization (signal);Mechatronics;Prototypes;Switches;Control systems},
  doi={10.1109/AIM55361.2024.10637163},
  topic = {mEMO}
  }

Project partners

• Micro-Epsilon Messtechnik GmbH & Co. KG
• ATENSOR Engineering and Technology Systems GmbH

Funding

• Christian Doppler Research Association

  17.08.2023
BioBuzz

Description

Decades of research have shown that the great diversity of flowering plants has evolved in interaction with different pollinators. For this purpose, mainly closely related plant species have been compared that are pollinated by different animals (e.g., one species by bees, the other by hummingbirds) and thus differ very strikingly in their flowers. In many plant groups, however, hundreds of species have evolved that are all pollinated by the same group of animals (e.g., bees). A great diversity of flowers can also occur in such plant groups, but how this floral diversity arises in adaptation to the same pollinator group has not yet been studied.

Vibration pollination by bees represents such a pollination system in which thousands of plant species are pollinated by bees. Pollen contained in flowers, which serves both for plant reproduction and as food for bees, can only be released when bees vibrate the flowers with a certain frequency and amplitude of movement. Many vibration-pollinated plants have a very similar flower type with petals folded back and stamens arranged in a cone shape (in which the pollen is located), such as tomatoes, potatoes, or kiwi. However, in the large tropical plant family Melastomataceae, an enormous variety of vibration-pollinated flowers has emerged, with both cone-shaped stamens and complexly arranged stamens with conspicuous stamen appendages. However, the extent to which this floral diversity represents adaptations to different bee species, and which floral traits (e.g., floral scent, floral colors, pollen quantity, floral size, biomechanical vibration properties of flowers) are relevant for specialization to different bee species, is unclear.

 

 

In our project we combine approaches of pollination biology and flower evolution with methods of mechatronics to investigate how Melastomataceae flowers have adapted to vibration-pollinating bees. To this end, we will document flower-pollinator interactions directly in natural habitats in Latin America in collaboration with Latin American colleagues and conduct artificial flower vibration experiments using a vibration system we designed. Furthermore, we will structurally study flowers using computed tomography, and model and recreate the biomechanical properties of flowers using computer simulations and 3D printing. The combination of pollination biology and mechatronics approaches will allow us to study both ecological interactions and biological structures according to mechanistic principles. Since vibration pollination occurs in about 10% of flowering plants, including important crops, we expect both essential insights for basic research and directly application-relevant results for the agricultural industry.

Project partner

• Universität Wien, Department für Botanik und Biodiversitätsforschung, Abteilung für Strukturelle und Funktionelle Botanik

Funding

• Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF)

  25.07.2023
Advanced Robotic Measurements In Line (aRMIN)

Project focus

• Enabling inline measurement systems for fast roll-to-roll production
• Achieving precision measurement systems for reflective surfaces in motion
• Developing flexible measurement systems for moving freeform surfaces
• Enabling high throughput measurements on large moving objects

Description

Modern production systems, particularly for the high-tech sector, have a continuously growing demand for precision and throughput. The permanent monitoring and control of the manufacturing process by means of sensors, as well as inline 3D measurement systems for quality inspection are prerequisites to achieve a high yield and high quality of the produced goods. Besides novel production plants and automated assembly techniques, advanced robotic measurement systems for inline applications are considered as the most important enabler for future production.

Current inline measurement systems suffice for many of today’s applications requiring moderate precision or permitting a throughput reduction by stopping the sample. They are, however, neither suited for the increasing speed and precision demands of future production systems, due to the increasing motion-induced measurement uncertainty, nor able to provide the required flexibility for handling product variations or measuring at various locations on spatially extended freeform samples. Due to high acquisition speeds, minimal physical interaction with the sample, and simultaneous measurements in more than one dimension, optical sensors are the preferred choice for inline applications. Robotic systems, or more generally speaking kinetic automats and manipulators, designed for moving material, parts, or tools, can alleviate limitations of today’s inline measurement systems and provide the required versatility. They can provide either continuous or non-continuous motion in one or more degrees of freedom to dynamically position the measurement system with respect to a moving sample and maintain a constant alignment throughout the measurement process. The primary focus will be on the development of a systematic approach for the system integration and design of high precision inline systems for 3D measurements on moving objects that ensures an overall system performance not limited by the relative motion of the sample and as close as possible to the optimal performance of the respective 3D sensor system.

 

 

Applications

In-line metrology

Related publications

Zeitschriftenbeiträge

2024

• M. Laimer, D. Wertjanz, P. Gsellmann, G. Schitter, and E. Csencsics, High-Precision 3-D Measurements on Moving Objects, IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, pp. 1-9, 2024.
  [BibTex] [Download]

  @Article{2024_laimer_tmech,
  author={Laimer, Matthias and Wertjanz, Daniel and Gsellmann, Peter and Schitter, Georg and Csencsics, Ernst},
  journal={IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics},
  title={High-Precision 3-D Measurements on Moving Objects},
  year={2024},
  volume={},
  number={},
  pages={1-9},
  keywords={Position measurement;Production;Force measurement;Mechatronics;Service robots;Robot kinematics;Particle measurements;3-D imaging;inline measurement systems;mechatronics},
  doi={10.1109/TMECH.2024.3435999},
  topic = {aRMIN},
  }

Konferenzbeiträge

2024

• M. Laimer, D. Wertjanz, P. Gsellmann, G. Schitter, and E. Csencsics, Enabling feedback position control of an industrial robot based on external sensor signals for dual-stage actuation, in 2024 IEEE International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM), 2024, pp. 1252-1257.
  [BibTex] [Download]

  @INPROCEEDINGS{2024_laimer_aim,
  author={Laimer, Matthias and Wertjanz, Daniel and Gsellmann, Peter and Schitter, Georg and Csencsics, Ernst},
  booktitle={2024 IEEE International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM)},
  title={Enabling feedback position control of an industrial robot based on external sensor signals for dual-stage actuation},
  year={2024},
  volume={},
  number={},
  pages={1252-1257},
  keywords={Vibrations;Three-dimensional displays;Tracking;Process control;Position control;Position measurement;Robot sensing systems;Mechatronics;inline tracking systems;dual stage-actuation},
  doi={10.1109/AIM55361.2024.10637010},
  topic = {aRMIN},
  }

Project partners

• Micro-Epsilon Messtechnik GmbH & Co. KG
• ATENSOR Engineering and Technology Systems GmbH

Funding

• Christian Doppler Research Association

  25.07.2023
Principles for In-Plane Motion Sensing and Tracking (iTRACK)

Project focus

• Development of correlation-based in-plane sensing principles
• Development of interferometric in-plane sensing principles
• Implementation of real-time capable measurement algorithms and hardware
• Integration of multi-sensor systems for in-plane displacement

Description

Distance and displacement are important physical quantities for positioning, sensing of object motion, vibration and deformations in various scientific and industrial areas such as non-destructive testing, as well as inline measurement systems. While there are various optical principles available for measuring out-of-plane (axial) displacement, the fast, robust and precise measurement of in-plane (lateral) displacement of arbitrary, non-structured technical surfaces on the sub-micrometer scale remains a largely unsolved challenge.

One of the stated goals of future high-tech manufacturing is to ensure 100% quality control of every good produced in order to meet global trends, such as resource efficient production. In this context, concepts for inline measurement systems are seen as key enabler for achieving the appointed targets.  Still, one of the main challenges of future inline measuring systems is to perform measurments on the single to sub-micrometer scale in vibration-prone environments. Environmental disturbances are causing relative motion between the measurement tool and the sample, leading to corrupted measurements due to motion blur. One approach, to compensate for such motion is to actively track the sample surface, requiring sensing principles to measure out-of-plane as well as in-plane motion with bandwidths of several tens of kilohertz. However, the markerless sensing of in-plane motion on arbitrary technical surfaces with nanometer precision is still a largely unsolved challenge. A promising approach to markerless in-plane motion detection is to exploit the speckle effect of coherent light sources, such as lasers. The speckle effect is an optical interference phenomenon that forms a granular pattern on optically rough surfaces, such as metals or ceramics and is widely used for surface characterization, e.g., stress and strain analysis. Digital image correlation (DIC) techniques can be used to measure the in-plane motion of a sample as the speckle pattern or the speckle intensity shifts accordingly. The project will investigate the feasibility to measure in-plane motion with bandwidths of up to several tens of kiloherz aiming precision on the single nanometer scale.

 

 

 

 

 

Applications

In-line metrology

Related publications

Zeitschriftenbeiträge

Konferenzbeiträge

Project partners

• Micro-Epsilon Messtechnik GmbH & Co. KG
• ATENSOR Engineering and Technology Systems GmbH

Funding

• Christian Doppler Research Association

 

  14.03.2023
ERC NatDyReL (Utilizing Natural Dynamics for Reliable Legged Locomotion)

The NatDyReL (Utilizing Natural Dynamics for Reliable Legged Locomotion) project aims at a fundamental paradigm shift in the design and control of humanoid robots. This paves the way for a new generation of intrinsically compliant robots that are capable of adjusting their open loop actuator impedance in real-time to the task. Most importantly, the developed methods will allow for their use and adaptation in other morphologies, including multi-limbed walking or climbing robots.

Concept

In contrast to the now mature technology of torque-controlled drives, the robot developed in NatDyReL will be based on highly compliant actuators. This technology has the strong potential to enable physical robustness against external impacts and allows for periodic energy storage and release during highly dynamic motions. The robot will be able to adapt its dynamic behaviour at runtime to the current ground conditions and to the desired walking speed. In addition, part of the kinetic energy can be temporarily stored in the elastic drives at each step, thus enabling robust and energy-efficient execution of dynamic walking movements. In order to successfully implement these concepts in practice, it is necessary to take the actuator dynamics fully into account in the planning of the overall body movement as well as in the real-time control. Considerable effort thus will be spent on the fusion of whole-body locomotion algorithms with novel concepts for the control of elastic actuators. The project requires close interdisciplinary cooperation between experts from different disciplines, especially from robotics, control engineering and mechatronics.

Intermediate Results

The simulation of the NatDyReL robot running at a speed of 4 m/s. The running motions were generated based on a passivity-based whole-body controller which integrates the desired contact forces according to the Biologically inspired dead-beat (BID) running control framework.

In this simulation, the robot is running at 3 m/s. The gait is optimized for minimal motor power consumption

The resulting motor speeds and torques of the joints at the leg are optimized within the feasible area (light green colored zone).

Key Research Questions

With the research performed in the four work-packages we aim to answer the following fundamental scientific questions:

• How to design energy efficient gaits and high performant whole body motions for highly compliant legged robots? [WP2]
• How to realize dynamic contact transitions in multi-contact locomotion? [WP3]
• How to stabilize all these motions by feedback control in a robust way? [WP2-3]
• How to adapt the intrinsic impedance characteristics to uncertainties or variability in the body dynamics and the environment? [WP2]
• How to design the body structure and actuation system of humanoid robots in order to balance the requirements on energy efficiency, robustness, and performance in terms of speed? [WP4]

Project structure

WP1: Fundamentals for robot control with variable impedance actuators

• Development of a generic framework to control a large family of elastic actuators
• Preservation of the intrinsic elastic dynamics in the feedback control
• Control of elastic actuators under strong joint couplings

WP2: Efficient Legged Locomotion

• Generation of dynamic trajectories for locomotion by utilization of the intrinsic elastic robot dynamics
• Optimization and adaptation for energy efficiency in cyclic locomotion
• Generation of high-performance acyclic motions
• Versatile locomotion in uncertain terrain
• Enforcing a tight interaction between the whole-body locomotion framework and the actuator control

WP3: Multi-Contact Control

• Multi-contact planning with impacts and variable contact timing
• Reactive control for Loco-Manipulation

WP4: Prototype development

• Design of an elastic biped as the main demonstrator
• Benchmarking

Partners

• TU Wien (Coordinator)
• Institut of Robotics and Mechatronics, German Aerospace Center (DLR e.V.)

Funding

Consolidator Research Grant of the European Research Council (ERC).

  10.03.2023
Control of Motional Quantum States for Levitated Particles

Project focus

• Feedback cooling of levitated nanoparticles into its quantum ground state
• Generation of more evolved motional quantum states, e.g., quantum squeezed states and non-gaussian states
• High-performance real-time control using FPGAs
• Shaping of optical trapping potentials
• Quantum-enhanced sensing applications

Description

Over the past decade, great progress in the engineering of optomechanical platforms has pushed nano- and micro-meter-sized objects into the realm where quantum effects start to manifest themselves. Recently, platforms based on the optical levitation of particles have emerged that offer superior isolation from their environment while benefitting from the flexibility and tunability of all-optical manipulation. These experiments combine established methods from optomechanics with strategies from atomic physics, matterwave interferometry, and control theory to explore macroscopic quantum physics. Along with their unrivaled sensitivity, levitated nanoparticles hold promises ranging from commercial sensing applications to the search for new physics.

In this research project, we aim to utilize methods from control theory to develop real-time-capable control algorithms in order to generate motional quantum states of the levitated particle. To this end, cooling the center-of-mass of the particle through measurement feedback is a crucial first step, which is possible by combining Heisenberg-limited measurements with optimal stochastic control concepts. This opens the door to more envolved quantum states such as squeezed states, which provide opportunities with respect to quantum-enhanced sensing applications as well as coherent state expansion, and ultimately non-gaussian states by letting the particle evolve in a nonlinear potential.

Selected publications

• L. Magrini, P. Rosenzweig, C. Bach, A. Deutschmann-Olek, S. G. Hofer, S. Hong, N. Kiesel, A. Kugi, and M. Aspelmeyer, Real-time optimal quantum control of mechanical motion at room temperature, Nature, vol. 595, p. 373–377, 2021.
  [BibTex] [Download]

  @Article{magrini2021,
  author = {L. Magrini and P. Rosenzweig and C. Bach and A. {Deutschmann-Olek} and S. G. Hofer and S. Hong and N. Kiesel and A. Kugi and M. Aspelmeyer},
  title = {Real-time optimal quantum control of mechanical motion at room temperature},
  doi = {10.1038/s41586-021-03602-3},
  pages = {373--377},
  volume = {595},
  journal = {Nature},
  year = {2021},
  }

Partners

Aspelmeyer Group

Funding

This project is funded by the Austrian Science Fund [PAT 9140723] and the European Union – NextGenerationEU.

  10.03.2023
Control strategies for quantum fields

Project focus

• precise optical potentials for ultra-cold clouds of atoms through iterative control algorithms
• optimal (quantum) thermodynamic operations of the quantum gas
• controlled splitting of atom clouds to generate spin-squeezed or entangled states

Description

Some of the most intriguing problems in physics, ranging from the early universe to quantum materials, are linked to the dynamics of large ensembles of interacting particles exhibiting genuine quantum behavior. These quantum many-body problems and their description in terms of quantum field theory are often hard or impossible to simulate in their full complexity on even the fastest classical computers. To circumvent this problem, so-called quantum simulators became a very active field of research over the last decade. Similar to analog computers, quantum simulation aims at building highly configurable experiments to reproduce the desired physics behind quantum many-body systems with these model systems. One central aspect when utilizing such model systems as quantum simulators is how to control the model system to perform the desired simulation, i.e., how to prepare the initial states and how to mirror the desired simulation target with the experimentally available model. Thereby, trapped clouds of ultra-cold atoms are ideal model systems that are flexible and sufficiently mature to be routinely generated in labs around the world.

The key motivation of this project is to develop control algorithms that enable such operations with sufficient precision for ultra-cold atom experiments. As such we aim at developing tools for two distinct physical situations: First, to control the quantum fields in small thermal machines that can be generated by splitting the atom cloud into several compartments. Such experiments would help to investigate thermodynamic properties of many-body systems in the quantum regime. At the heart of this newly developing field of quantum thermodynamics lies the question on whether or how excitations of an isolated quantum many-body system relax such as classical many-body systems eventually do. These questions ultimately continue the long-standing discussion on the relation between the microscopic and the macroscopic world. Second, we aim at exploring and developing algorithms to optimize the splitting of a single atomic cloud into two. Describing this splitting process in full detail is beyond computational capabilities. Thus, pre-calculated protocols to achieve splitting of the cloud typically yield unsatisfying results. However, we conjecture that the combination of existing simplified models and measurement information is sufficient to iteratively learn and refine control trajectories. This would allow us to prepare desired quantum states of the split cloud that are essential for many quantum field and quantum metrology experiments.

Partners

Research group “Atom physics and quantum optics” (Jörg Schmiedmayer)

Selected Publications

• M. Calzavara, Y. Kuriatnikov, A. Deutschmann-Olek, F. Motzoi, S. Erne, A. Kugi, T. Calarco, J. Schmiedmayer, and M. Prüfer, Optimizing Optical Potentials With Physics-Inspired Learning Algorithms, Physical Review Applied, vol. 19, iss. 4, p. 44090, 2023.
  [BibTex]

  @Article{Calzavara2023,
  author = {Calzavara, M. and Kuriatnikov, Y. and Deutschmann-Olek, A. and Motzoi, F. and Erne, S. and Kugi, A. and Calarco, T. and Schmiedmayer, J. and Pr\"ufer, M.},
  title = {Optimizing Optical Potentials With Physics-Inspired Learning Algorithms},
  doi = {10.1103/physrevapplied.19.044090},
  number = {4},
  pages = {044090},
  volume = {19},
  journal = {Physical Review Applied},
  publisher = {American Physical Society (APS)},
  year = {2023},
  }

• A. Deutschmann-Olek, K. Schrom, N. Würkner, J. Schmiedmayer, S. Erne, and A. Kugi, Optimal control of quasi-1D Bose gases in optical box potentials, in Proceedings of the 22nd IFAC World Congress, Yokohama, Japan, 2023 2023, pp. 1339-1344.
  [BibTex]

  @InProceedings{DeutschmannOlek2023a,
  author = {Deutschmann-Olek, A. and Schrom, K. and W\"urkner, N. and Schmiedmayer, J. and Erne, S. and A. Kugi},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 22nd IFAC World Congress},
  date = {2023},
  title = {Optimal control of quasi-1D Bose gases in optical box potentials},
  doi = {10.1016/j.ifacol.2023.10.1781},
  number = {2},
  pages = {1339-1344},
  volume = {56},
  address = {Yokohama, Japan},
  issue = {2},
  journaltitle = {IFAC-PapersOnLine},
  month = {7},
  year = {2023},
  }

• A. Deutschmann-Olek, M. Tajik, M. Calzavara, J. Schmiedmayer, T. Calarco, and A. Kugi, Iterative shaping of optical potentials for one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates, in Proceedings of the 61st Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), Cancun, Mexico, 2022, p. 5801–5806.
  [BibTex]

  @InProceedings{DeutschmannOlek2022,
  author = {Deutschmann-Olek, Andreas and Tajik, Mohammadamin and Calzavara, Martino and Schmiedmayer, J\"org and Calarco, Tommaso and Kugi, Andreas},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 61st Conference on Decision and Control (CDC)},
  title = {Iterative shaping of optical potentials for one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates},
  doi = {10.1109/CDC51059.2022.9993271},
  pages = {5801--5806},
  address = {Cancun, Mexico},
  month = {12},
  year = {2022},
  }

Funding

This project is funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [P36236] and the European Union – NextGenerationEU.

  21.10.2022
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