The paper outlines the problems of energy supply and waste utilization of the forest industries. As a solution, it proposes to use gasification to utilize wood leftovers, which is followed by electric power generation from combustion of producer gas. The plant was expected to have a power of 150 kW. The proposed power technology plant comprises a line for pre-treatment of wood chips, a gas generator (gasifier) and a gas turbine unit.

The paper justifies a need for preliminary preparation of wood waste, particularly chipping and drying. Various drying schemes have been analyzed. A line for pre-treatment of wood chips comprises a drum chipper, a receiving raw material wood container and a drum dryer using fume gases.

A co-current gasifier is chosen because of the high content of tar in the original fuel. In the co-current gasifier, most of the tar, passing through the high temperature area, is burned. The paper offers high temperature dry cleaning of producer gas in the cyclone separator. Such a scheme of cleaning provides high efficiency of the plant and simplifies its design, but suspended particles still remain in the producer gas. When analyzing the schemes of power converters this is taken into account.

A choice of the gas turbine as a power converter is justified. To reduce the erosion damage of the turbine blades there is a proposal to use an unconventional gas turbine scheme with air turbine and a combustion chamber located downstream of the turbine. In this plant the air rather than the combustion gas passes through the turbine. The air from turbine goes into the combustion chamber, the combustion gas passes through the air heater, where it transfers heat to the air. Such scheme allows reducing power costs for the fuel gas compression before the combustion chamber.

Optimization of the gas turbine cycle is performed. The optimum compressor pressure ratio is 3,7. The plant efficiency for this pressure ratio is 25,7%. Calculation results of the main elements are reported.

Thus, the power technology plant, which allows us to solve problems of energy supply and waste utilization of the forest industries, is proposed.

Titanium alloys due to their properties are of great interest for use as a structural material for the parts of friction units, pump plungers, shaft-bush parts operating in harsh environments. But high tendency of titanium alloys to the contact seizure under friction restricts wider application of titanium and its alloys.

One of the main ways to improve the anti-friction properties of titanium alloys is a chemical heat treatment. The most common type is nitrogen hardening that allows us to achieve high values of micro-hardness on the surface. However, the biggest drawback of the method is small depth of the hardened layer that is up to 0.16 mm.

To increase a depth of the hardened layer the paper proposes the preprocessing of the part surface by deformational cutting, which allows creating a macro-relief of different shape as the alternate vertical or inclined layers of the part material of a specified thickness and height with a gap or no gap between the layers. Doping of this structure, when nitriding, is provided over the entire macro-pattern surface, thereby enabling to obtain a thickness of the hardened layer, which depends on the processing parameters in deformational cutting.

The paper presents the results of the microstructure study and the micro-hardness measurements of the VT1-0 titanium alloy sample after deformational cutting process followed by nitriding. The influence of the deformational cutting parameters on the total thickness of the hardened surface layer is analyzed. It is found that the entire surface of macro-pattern has been azotized. The total thickness of the nitrogen hardened modified surface structure became 4 times larger as compared to the flat surface that was azotized.

The results can be used as a theoretical basis to design the titanium alloy parts operating in conditions of friction.

The paper considers a number of current developments in the field of anthropomorphic robotics, namely robotic exoskeletons, android platform with copying control systems, android platform with autonomous control systems, avatars, and androids. Highlights the key subsystems of the robotic platform such as sensitization tools, tools of self-diagnostics, security and prioritization, a power subsystem, and computer system. Identifies the most important subsystem of a “future soldier” to represent an equipage as a multifunctional active exoskeleton, completed with the necessary equipment.

The paper shows the main problems the developers of anthropomorphic robotics face. For example, many degrees of the human body freedom curb a creation of the actuating mechanisms of robots, which fit the human anatomy as much as possible. For the human sizes the specific characteristics of traditional types of actuators, such as electromechanical, electro-hydraulic and electro-pneumatic are worse than those of the human muscles. Clearly, the greatest prospects in this area are associated with artificial muscles. There is also no so far a solution for the problem of creating the feedbacks in all kinds of senses to ensure that an operator has a feeling that he is in the place of the robot. There is much tension around the issue of creating a perfect remote control system that allows the operator to obtain unambiguous signals to control the robot. There is currently no completely autonomous control system with elements of artificial intelligence. Particular attention is paid to the problems of creating power sources that can provide affordable autonomy for mobile robotic systems. The most, presently, promising power sources are mentioned.

The paper considers some development aspects of the control system, which is capable to run in a copier, supervisory, combined and offline modes. Presents the most important functions of the robot sensory system. Shows some aspects of building control systems for advanced facility of anthropomorphic robotics, including systems with elements of artificial intelligence.

Taken as a whole, the analysis conducted shows that a revolutionary development of a number of key areas of the anthropomorphic robotics is possible.

The milling process inherently is on/off, and therefore inevitably there is vibration excitation in the Machine/Fixture/Tool/Part (MFTP) system, which results in a different quality of the treated surface, depending on the machining conditions. The objective is to identify effective operation conditions to cut a part on the 3-way easy class machines when there is no unwanted regenerative self-oscillation, leading to a significant deterioration in the quality of the surface machined. The paper describes vibrations arising during a milling process and their effect on the surface shape and the working tool. To solve this problem we apply a numerical simulation method of cutting dynamics, which consist of 4 modules. The main module is an algorithm of the geometric simulation. The second module is a phenomenological model of the cutting forces. Two remaining modules are responsible for dynamics simulation of the part machined and the cutting tool under time-varying cutting forces. The calculated values are transferred back to the geometric modelling algorithm at each step in time. Thus, the model is closed and allows us to take into account an effect of delay in a dynamic system. A finite element machine model to perform calculation in 3DCUT software has been a selected and compiled. The paper presents geometrical mapping of the machining process and natural frequencies and shapes found for the finite element model. Conducting multivariate calculations allowed us to analyse the dependences of a dynamic behaviour of the system on changing spindle speed. The multivariate modelling results are presented as the Poincare maps for a moving free end of the tool. These Poincare maps allow us to select the operation conditions domains coming both with forced vibration and with self-excited oscillations. On the Poincaré map for two operation conditions of different domains there are graphics of the cutting forces, a thickness of the cutting layer, tool movements, and a shape of the machined surface to demonstrate differences in the dynamic behaviour of the system. A milling process modelling technique considered in the paper, taking into account a dynamics of the cutting 3-way machine of easy class allows us to estimate the nature and the level of vibration in the processing system, depending on the operation conditions selected for machining through building the Poincaré maps based on the results of multivariate modelling. These results can be used to select the effective milling operation conditions that enhance the quality and processing performance.