Professional Documents
Culture Documents
As you will note below, I came away generally favorably impressed with what the people at SDD
are attempting to do to improve the combat skills of Army units. Soldiers and officers employed
within SDD are the technicians, mechanics and fabricators that consistently inspect, repair, modify
and maintain the large array of equipment. As technologies advance and equipment becomes more
complex, they have to be up to the challenges of training and keeping up to date with modern
engineering. Despite the fact that I was only there for one week and brought very little in the way
of experience, I was treated as one of their own. There was never lack of people ready and willing
to help or guide me. No one felt inconvenienced with questions or in taking time out of their day
to come and assist me with an issue. Also they were genuinely interested and excited about the
work they were involved which is a great atmosphere to be surrounded by. The lab was diverse in
ways of ethnicity and technology as people from different regions of the country specializing in
various technical disciplines worked in interdisciplinary projects under a common guide (Unity in
diversity!!).
SDD conducts exercises which fall under the category of intensive pre-training before dealing with
real-life operations involving high risks and damage. Firing simulators for tanks and small arms
are representative of combat operations. According to one of the technicians, each freshman who
wants to learn how to fire a canon requires on an average four shots before he is able to develop a
fair idea of the trajectory. Four canon shots would cost around two lakh rupees, which indeed is a
large amount. The firing simulators are indispensable to a developing country like India let alone
they do not cause any environmental damage. Similar is the case with the vehicle simulators which
allow amateur drivers to drive on treacherous terrains and hone their skills. To the extent I was
able to observe and judge, the training is conducted to high professional standards, expertly
administered, and constructively received by the units being trained.
Since SDD is a research facility for the Army, photography is strictly prohibited within the
premises. However, I was able to capture some photographs of the items which were kept for
public display.
Leakages can occur to cause loss in performance, and general contamination of the work
area. There is also higher fire risk
The power pack can be noisy, typically about 70 decibel (dBA) or louder if not protected
by an acoustic muffler. Electric actuators are relatively quiet and clean, and hence they are
very acceptable environmentally.
Changes in temperature alter the viscosity of the hydraulic fluid. Thus, at low temperatures
fluid viscosity will increase, possibly, causing sluggish movement of the robot
Servo control of hydraulic systems is complex and is not as widely understood as electric
servo control.
However, hydraulic robots are more capable of withstanding shock loads than electric robots, and
vehicle simulators have to deal with shock loads. Earlier in the electric Stewart platform that we
had designed, smooth interpolation of trajectory data input was done to do away with jerks. The
motion driving simulation software generated trajectory with jerks and interfacing issues with our
platform cropped up. So, we were faced with the major challenge of shock load data input. During
my stay at SDD, I tried to develop a Simulink model of the 6-dof Stewart platform and compute
the motor torque requirements for the sample trajectory data supplied to us.
The torques from simulation reveal that the actuator forces and torques are well within the specifications. Currently, I am trying to
develop a trajectory tracking scheme where the manipulator can be made to pass through singular configurations.