Abstract

The adaptive sliding mode control technique relaxes the assumption of known bound of the disturbance in discrete-time systems. However, the existing technique of gain adaptation in discrete-time sliding mode control has issues of gain overestimation and underestimation. Therefore, this paper proposes a technique to adapt the switching gain such that the adaptive gain can tackle the uncertainty without any knowledge of the bound of uncertainty while overcoming the over- and under-estimation problems of switching gain.

Abstract

The actual performance of model-based path-following methods for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) shows considerable dependence on the wind knowledge and on the fidelity of the dynamic model used for design. This study analyzes and demonstrates the performance of an adaptive vector field (VF) control law which can compensate for the lack of knowledge of the wind vector and for the presence of unmodeled course angle dynamics. Extensive simulation experiments, calibrated on a commercial fixed-wing UAV and proven to be realistic, show that the new VF method can better cope with uncertainties than its standard version. In fact, while the standard VF approach works perfectly for ideal first-order course angle dynamics (and perfect knowledge of the wind vector), its performance degrades in the presence of unknown wind or unmodeled course angle dynamics. On the other hand, the estimation mechanism of the proposed adaptive VF effectively compensates for wind uncertainty and unmodeled dynamics, sensibly reducing the path-following error as compared to the standard VF.

Abstract

Underestimation and overestimation problems are commonly observed in conventional adaptive sliding mode control (ASMC). These problems refer to the fact that the adaptive controller gain unnecessarily increases when the states are approaching the sliding surface (overestimation) or improperly decreases when the states are getting far from it (underestimation). In this paper, we propose a novel ASMC strategy that overcomes such issues. In contrast to the state of the art, the proposed strategy is effective even when an a priori constant bound on the uncertainty cannot be imposed. Comparative results using a two-link manipulator demonstrate improved performance as compared to the conventional ASMC. Experimental results on a biped robot confirm the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method under various practical uncertainties.

Abstract

A consideration of actuator saturation is an important aspect to study the effectiveness of a designed controller in practice. However, the conventional Lyapunov theory-based design is not always suitable to analyze the quantitative behavior of closed-loop system. This article presents a time-scale redesign-based saturated tracking controller for a class of feedback linearizable multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) nonlinear systems. The proposed controller is built upon the frameworks of contraction and partial contraction theories which ensures that bounded tracking performance as well as quantify the steady-state error bounds in terms of the various control design parameters. Notably, in contrast to the existing Lyapunov-method-based designs, the proposed approach allows to tune the controller performance without arbitrary reduction of singular perturbation parameters. Therefore, the vulnerability of the controller toward actuator saturation and noise, due to the ill-effects of high-gains stemming from the conventional high-gain controllers, are reduced. The extensive experimental results using a wheeled mobile robot are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller.

Abstract

State-of-the-art adaptive or robust adaptive techniques for several classes of uncertain switched systems demand structural knowledge of the system dynamics in order to appropriately select the regressor terms in the adaptive law. As a result, the number of unknown parameters to be adapted increases with system complexity, which can lead to very complex adaptive laws. In this work we propose, for the relevant class of Euler-Lagrange systems subject to time-dependent slow switching, a switched robust adaptive control framework with reduced complexity: the number of unknown parameter to be adapted is independent on the system complexity, whereas the regressor terms in the adaptive laws do not require any structural knowledge of the system dynamics. Stability analysis is provided to illustrate the benefit of the proposed design, and the performance of the controller is verified using a switched system stemming from the combination of mooring and free-hanging operations in dynamic positioning of offshore ships

Abstract

This work presents a Lyapunov-based approach to adaptive control of uncertain Euler-Lagrange (EL) systems in a slow switching scenario. Fundamental trade-offs arising from considering uncertain dynamics with unknown uncertainty bounds are presented and discussed. Contrary to the nonswitched scenario, the use of acceleration feedback seems to be unavoidable in the switched scenario: this is due to the fact that an acceleration feedback and an appropriate Lyapunov function must be adopted to make the switching law independent from the unknown uncertainty bounds. In the absence of such feedback or using different Lyapunov functions, a stabilizing switching law would exist but could not be determined as it would depend on an unknown uncertainty bound.

Abstract

Periodic-frequent pattern mining is an important model in data mining. The popular adoption and successful industrial application of this model has been hindered by the following two limitations: (i) The periodic-frequent pattern model implicitly assumes that all transactions within the data occur at a uniform time interval. This assumption limits the model’s applicability as the transactions in many real-world databases occur at irregular time intervals. (ii) Finding periodic-frequent patterns in very large databases is a memory intensive process because its mining algorithm has to maintain a list structure to record all timestamps at which an itemset has appeared in the whole data. This paper makes an effort to address these two limitations. A flexible model of periodic-frequent pattern in temporal databases has been described to address the former issue. In order to address the latter issue, a novel concept known as period summary has been introduced to effectively capture the temporal occurrence information of an itemset in a database. A new tree structure, called Periodic Summary-tree (PS-tree), has be introduced to record the temporal occurrence information of an itemset in a temporal database. A patterngrowth algorithm has also been described to find all periodic-frequent patterns from PStree. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is efficient.

Abstract

The coffee white stem borer (CWSB), Xylotrechus quadripes (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae), is a major pest of arabica coffee causing considerable losses to the growers and its control has been an issue of significance in the pest management. Among the integrated management strategies, spraying of Chlorpyrifos 20EC at appropriate time will prevent the development of pest. This study was aimed to find out the alternative chemical for Chlorpyrifos 20EC which is being used for more than a decade. The laboratory experiments indicated that insecticides like Phenthoate 50EC, Fipronil 5SC, Thiamethoxam 12.6 + Lambda-Cyhalothrin 9.5 ZC, Chlorpyrifos 50EC + Cypermethrin 5EC and Chlorpyrifos 20EC caused 100% mortality of eggs and it is significantly on par with Ethioprole + Imidacloprid 80WG (98%). In case of neonate larvae, 100 percent mortality was observed in the treatments viz., Phenthoate 50EC, Imidacloprid 17.8SL, Fipronil 5SC, Thiamethoxam 12.6 + Lambda-Cyhalothrin 9.5% ZC, Ethioprole + Imidacloprid 80 WG, Chlorpyrifos 50EC + Cypermethrin 5EC and Chlorpyrifos 20EC. The least mortality was observed in Indoxacarb 14.5 SC among the insecticides tested. The field experiment data revealed that maximum ovicidal and larvicidal action was observed to Chlorpyrifos 50EC + Cypermethrin 5EC and Chlorpyrifos 20EC followed by Phenthoate 50EC and Fipronil 5SC. The least mortality of eggs and neonate larvae was recorded to Novaluron 10 EC and Indoxacarb 14.5 SC. It is, therefore, Chlorpyrifos 50EC + Cypermethrin 5EC, can be utilized as a valuable alternate for Chlorpyrifos 20EC in integrated management of coffee white stem borer.

Abstract

The studys objective was to measure the somatic state response (skin conductance and heart rate) and understand the decision making processes in a two-player Centipede game, an extensive form game, with a modified payoff. The experiment included fixed and random termination for analyzing the effect of players mutual trust on risk-taking behavior. The behavioral results reveal that trust controls the game rounds (that is, the number of pass decisions) in known or random termination game conditions, though the exit points were higher in the former compared to the latter condition. Higher skin conductance and heart rate during the game-play is noticed as compared to the baseline data showing anxiety during the gameplay and interestingly opponents action induced higher skin conductance amplitude than during self-play for the same decision. The data provides strong preliminary evidence of trust influencing cooperative gameplay.

Abstract

Analytic reasoning differences, as gauged from intelligence metrics, in students engaged in streams requiring a predominantly divergent (arts) or convergent thinking (science and engineering) is a topic of interest. In this paper we have examined this difference by a modified sequence of two sections (D & E) of the Standard Ravens Progressive matrices (RPM). The scan path gaze behavior was analyzed with an eye tracker. The 30 engineering students (half of them are also trained in fine arts) scored higher than the 15 fine arts students. In the former cohort, the artistic and the non-artistic set show no difference in performance but the scan path, fixation count and time taken indicate possible differences in visual strategies for pattern identification. From the detailed analysis, we argue that intelligence as measured by RPM is enhanced by training in reasoning and logic as in engineering streams and might not reflect an innate ability