The intake air filter monitor is a diagnostics/prognostics feature that aims to determine the condition of the intake air filter in the internal combustion engine. This feature is required to indicate the need for maintenance whenever the filter is clogged to the point where the engine performance may be impacted. The prognostics of the air filter helps in saving on operational costs, maintaining the optimal fuel economy, and planning for service/maintenance before failure. In this paper, one diagnostics/prognostics method is reviewed and a generic statistics based process is proposed to convert the percent life remaining of the air filter into time and distance indicators. The estimated indicators are determined based on the vehicle driving statistics together with the degradation rate of the filter. These indicators provide more meaningful real time information to the driver or fleet owner than a percentage of the remaining life. The proposed method was validated based on driving data of a production vehicle obtained from Ford big data drive (BDD), combined with simulated degradation profile of the air filter.

Prototyping and fabrication of nanodevices require subnanometer tolerances and highly accurate sensing and actuation. Improved control on manipulating matter at the nanoscale is of relevance in different fields such as the automotive industry, biotechnology and communication. Limitations of existing nanomanipulation systems include constrained motion of manipulator end-effectors. In the present paper, a new AFM probe design suitable for nanomanipulation is proposed. The design includes a nanomanipulation piezotube that allows actuation and sensing of the tip motion in three directions. In addition, a piezopatch is attached to the cantilever holder for in-situ stiffness tuning needed for manipulating large and sticky nanosamples. Design considerations and path tracking performance of the proposed manipulator are analyzed.

Bottom-up fabrication presents the potential applications of improved materials and highly effective devices. Matter at the microscale can be manipulated using micro-placing techniques that rely solely on surface forces. These techniques can be used on rough substrates and allow for fast manipulation. In the present paper, we will investigate generalizing these techniques to manipulate nanoscale samples. The use of dynamic oscillations of the manipulator is proposed to allow for controlled release at the nanoscale. The effects of the adhesion and sample mass on the manipulation outcome are investigated. Simulations are conducted to help select the amplitude and the frequency of the vibrations and to improve the accuracy of the manipulation.

AFM-based nanomanipulation is very challenging because of the complex mechanics in tip-sample interactions and the limitations in AFM visual sensing capabilities. In the present paper, we investigate the modeling of AFM-based nanomanipulation emphasizing the effects of the relevant interactions at the nanoscale. The major contribution of the present work is the use of a combined DMT-JKR interaction model in order to describe the complete collision process between the AFM tip and the sample. The coupling between the interactions and the friction at the nanoscale is emphasized. The efficacy of the proposed model to reproduce experimental data is demonstrated via numerical simulations.

A new AFM-based nanomanipulation model describing the relevant physics and dynamics at the nanoscale is presented. The nanomanipulation scheme consists of integrated subsystems that are identified in a modular approach. The model subsystems define the AFM cantilever-sample dynamics, the AFM tip-sample interactions, the contact mechanics and the friction between the sample and the substrate. The coupling between these different subsystems is emphasized. The main contribution of the proposed nanomanipulation model is the use of a new 2D dynamic friction model based on a generalized bristle interpretation of one asperity contact. The efficacy of the proposed model to reproduce experimental data is demonstrated via numerical simulations. In fact, the model is shown to describe the 2D stick-slip behavior with the substrate lattice periodicity. The proposed nanomanipulation model facilitates the improvement and extension of each subsystem to further take into account the complex interactions at the nanoscale.