Congratulations to Tom Milthorp who successfully attained his PhD in the study of nonlinear control. "GDS helped thoughout the process, first of all creating the opportunity to do a KTP (knowledge Transfer Partnership) together with The University of Reading and then continuing to provide guidance and support throughout the research. The KTP was seeking to study the control methods used within GDS equipment, providing improved equipment performance for GDS and research opportunities for the University of Reading. GDS Instruments is eager to support the academic community and encouraged this research to be used in the publishing of papers and to contribute towards a PhD thesis which I completed over the course of four years, finally graduating in July 2013." says Tom
Tom’s Phd proposes a new adaptive control method to improve the performance of cyclic triaxial testing systems. The new method, implemented within the test system firmware, removes a previous requirement for specimen-specific tuning, instead adapting to variations in the soil stiffness as the dynamic test progresses. This ultimately allows a more accurate and consistent cyclic load to be applied to the test soil, while also reducing the input required from the user. It is hoped that this new feature will be shipped with GDS dynamic systems by the end of 2013.