TABLE OF CONTENTS The optimization methods described above are tested on a mechanical system and an artificial taster that is described below and the performances of these optimization methods are compared.
In this section the procedure proposed is experimentally validated. The experiment is performed on a population of cylinders, which are supported by inserting a sponge rested on a bubble-wrap, to simulate a 'free-free' environment (see Figure 10.1) and the details of this may be found in Marwala (2000). The sponge is inserted inside the cylinders to control boundary conditions. This will be further discussed below.
Conventionally, a 'free-free' environment is achieved by suspending a structure usually with light elastic bands. A 'free-free' environment is implemented so that rigid body modes, which do not exhibit bending or flexing, can be identified. These modes occur at frequency of 0 Hz and they can be used to calculate the mass and inertia properties. The present chapter does not consider the rigid body modes. Here, a'free-free' environment is approximated using a bubble-wrap. Testing the cylinders suspended is approximately the same as testing it while resting on a bubble-wrap, because the frequency of cylinder-on-wrap is below 100 Hz. The first natural frequency of cylinders being analyzed is over 300 Hz and this value is several orders of magnitudes above the natural frequency of a cylinder on a bubble-wrap. Therefore, the cylinder on the...
