Design of a robotic arm with force control for fluid mechanics experiments

In the field of fluid mechanics, experimental investigations aimed at analyzing the behaviour of bodies submitted to a flow have been performed for a long time. However, none of the existing apparatus is able to perform force control of those bodies both in the six degrees of freedom and in real-time. Indeed, Captive Trajectory Systems (CTS) are constrained by a steady-state assumption and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), that overcome this inconvenience, are not able to control more than three degrees of freedom. The present thesis positions itself as a first step in the development of an advanced CPS. Such a system is requested as an experimental support for ongoing numerical studies performed at the UCLouvain including bio-inspired stabilization control schemes applied to wake-impacted devices, such as aircraft and wind turbines. The designed system must be able to control the six DOF of a body either in force or in trajectory. It also has to comply to different types of facilities, ranging from towing tanks to wind tunnels. In this document, a literature review of existing CPS is first performed. The system requirements are then drawn-up based on the applications investigated at the UCLouvain. A conceptual design stage is performed, leading to a complete conceptual solution for building an advanced CPS.