Beyond 5G Networks: Integration of Communication, Computing, Caching, and Control

In recent years,the exponential proliferation of smart devices with their intelligent applications poses severe challenges on conventional cellular networks.Such challenges can be potentially overcome by integrating communication,computing,caching,and control(i4C)technologies.In this survey,we first give a snapshot of different aspects of the i4C,comprising background,motivation,leading technological enablers,potential applications,and use cases.Next,we describe different models of communication,computing,caching,and control(4C)to lay the foundation of the integration approach.We review current stateof-the-art research efforts related to the i4C,focusing on recent trends of both conventional and artificial intelligence(AI)-based integration approaches.We also highlight the need for intelligence in resources integration.Then,we discuss the integration of sensing and communication(ISAC)and classify the integration approaches into various classes.Finally,we propose open challenges and present future research directions for beyond 5G networks,such as 6G.

The DAO to MetaControl for MetaSystems in Metaverses:The System of Parallel Control Systems for Knowledge Automation and Control Intelligence in CPSS

An investigation and outline of MetaControl and DeControl in Metaverses for control intelligence and knowledge automation are presented.Prescriptive control with prescriptive knowledge and parallel philosophy is proposed as the starting point for the new control philosophy and technology,especially for computational control of metasystems in cyberphysical-social systems.We argue that circular causality,the generalized feedback mechanism for complex and purposive systems,should be adapted as the fundamental principle for control and management of metasystems with metacomplexity in metaverses.Particularly,an interdisciplinary approach is suggested for MetaControl and DeControl as a new form of intelligent control based on five control metaverses:MetaVerses,MultiVerses,InterVerses,TransVerse,and DeepVerses.

Modeling and Control of Hybrid Machine Systems—a Five-bar Mechanism Case

A hybrid machine （HM） as a typical mechatronic device, is a useful tool to generate smooth motion, and combines the motions of a large constant speed motor with a small servo motor by means of a mechnical linkage mechanism, in order to provide a powerful programmable drive system. To achieve design objectives, a control system is required. To design a better control system and analyze the performance of an HM, a dynamic model is necessary. This paper first develops a dynamic model of an HM with a five-bar mechanism using a Lagrangian formulation. Then, several important properties which are very useful in system analysis, and control system design, are presented. Based on the developed dynamic model, two control approaches, computed torque, and combined computed torque and slide mode control, are adopted to control the HM system. Simulation results demonstrate the control performance and limitations of each control approach.

Trajectory Tracking of a Planer Parallel Manipulator by Using Computed Force Control Method

Despite small workspace, parallel manipulators have some advantages over their serial counterparts in terms of higher speed, acceleration, rigidity, accuracy, manufacturing cost and payload. Accordingly, this type of manipulators can be used in many applications such as in high-speed machine tools, tuning machine for feeding, sensitive cutting, assembly and packaging. This paper presents a special type of planar parallel manipulator with three degrees of freedom. It is constructed as a variable geometry truss generally known planar Stewart platform. The reachable and orientation workspaces are obtained for this manipulator. The inverse kinematic analysis is solved for the trajectory tracking according to the redundancy and joint limit avoidance. Then, the dynamics model of the manipulator is established by using Virtual Work method. The simulations are performed to follow the given planar trajectories by using the dynamic equations of the variable geometry truss manipulator and computed force control method. In computed force control method, the feedback gain matrices for PD control are tuned with fixed matrices by trail end error and variable ones by means of optimization with genetic algorithm.

Rate of convergence for the Legendre pseudospectral optimal control of feedback linearizable systems

Pseudospectral （PS） computational methods for nonlinear constrained optimal control have been applied to many industrial-strength problems,notably,the recent zero-propellant-maneuvering of the international space station performed by NASA.In this paper,we prove a theorem on the rate of convergence for the optimal cost computed using a Legendre PS method.In addition to the high-order convergence rate,two theorems are proved for the existence and convergence of the approximate solutions.Relative to existing work on PS optimal control as well as some other direct computational methods,the proofs do not use necessary conditions of optimal control.Furthermore,we do not make coercivity type of assumptions.As a result,the theory does not require the local uniqueness of optimal solutions.In addition,a restrictive assumption on the cluster points of discrete solutions made in existing convergence theorems is removed.

Real-time hybrid simulation of structures equipped with viscoelastic-plastic dampers using a user-programmable computational platform

A user-programmable computational/control platform was developed at the University of Toronto that offers real-time hybrid simulation （RTHS） capabilities. The platform was verified previously using several linear physical substructures. The study presented in this paper is focused on further validating the RTHS platform using a nonlinear viscoelastic-plastic damper that has displacement, frequency and temperature-dependent properties. The validation study includes damper component characterization tests, as well as RTHS of a series of single-degree-of-freedom （SDOF） systems equipped with viscoelastic-plastic dampers that represent different structural designs. From the component characterization tests, it was found that for a wide range of excitation frequencies and friction slip loads, the tracking errors are comparable to the errors in RTHS of linear spring systems. The hybrid SDOF results are compared to an independently validated thermal- mechanical viscoelastic model to further validate the ability for the platform to test nonlinear systems. After the validation, as an application study, nonlinear SDOF hybrid tests were used to develop performance spectra to predict the response of structures equipped with damping systems that are more challenging to model analytically. The use of the experimental performance spectra is illustrated by comparing the predicted response to the hybrid test response of 2DOF systems equipped with viscoelastic-plastic dampers.

Implementation of a new PC based controller for a PUMA robot

This paper describes the replacement of a controller for a programmable universal machine for assembly (PUMA) 512 robot with a newly designed PC based (open architecture) controller employing a real-time direct control of six joints. The original structure of the PUMA robot is retained. The hardware of the new controller includes such in-house designed parts as pulse width modulation (PWM) amplifiers, digital and analog controllers, I/O cards, signal conditioner cards, and 16-bit A/D and D/A boards. An Intel Pentium IV industrial computer is used as the central controller. The control software is implemented using VC++ programming language. The trajectory tracking performance of all six joints is tested at varying velocities. Experimental results show that it is feasible to implement the suggested open architecture platform for PUMA 500 series robots through the software routines running on a PC. By assembling controller from off-the-shell hardware and software components, the benefits of reduced and improved robustness have been realized.

Attribute-Based Access Control Scheme with Efficient Revocation in Cloud Computing

Attribute-based encryption(ABE) supports the fine-grained sharing of encrypted data.In some common designs,attributes are managed by an attribute authority that is supposed to be fully trustworthy.This concept implies that the attribute authority can access all encrypted data,which is known as the key escrow problem.In addition,because all access privileges are defined over a single attribute universe and attributes are shared among multiple data users,the revocation of users is inefficient for the existing ABE scheme.In this paper,we propose a novel scheme that solves the key escrow problem and supports efficient user revocation.First,an access controller is introduced into the existing scheme,and then,secret keys are generated corporately by the attribute authority and access controller.Second,an efficient user revocation mechanism is achieved using a version key that supports forward and backward security.The analysis proves that our scheme is secure and efficient in user authorization and revocation.

Computational mission analysis and conceptual system design for super low altitude satellite

This paper deals with system engineering and design methodology for super low altitude satel ites in the view of the com-putational mission analysis. Due to the slight advance of imaging instruments, such as the focus of camera and the image element of charge coupled device （CCD）, it is an innovative and economical way to improve the camera’s resolution to enforce the satel ite to fly on the lower altitude orbit. DFH-3, the mature satel ite bus de-veloped by Chinese Academy of Space Technology, is employed to define the mass and power budgets for the computational mis-sion analysis and the detailed engineering design for super low altitude satel ites. An effective iterative algorithm is proposed to solve the ergodic representation of feasible mass and power bud-gets at the flight altitude under constraints. Besides, boundaries of mass or power exist for every altitude, where the upper boundary is derived from the maximum power, while the minimum thrust force holds the lower boundary before the power reaching the initial value. What’s more, an analytical algorithm is employed to numerical y investigate the coverage percentage over the altitude, so that the nominal altitude could be selected from al the feasi-ble altitudes based on both the mass and power budgets and the repetitive ground traces. The local time at the descending node is chosen for the nominal sun-synchronous orbit based on the average evaluation function. After determining the key orbital ele-ments based on the computational mission analysis, the detailed engineering design on the configuration and other subsystems, like power, telemetry telecontrol and communication （TT＆amp;C）, and attitude determination and control system （ADCS）, is performed based on the benchmark bus, besides, some improvements to the bus are also implemented to accommodate the flight at a super low altitude. Two operation strategies, drag-free closed-loop mode and on/off open-loop mode, are presented to maintain the satel-lite’s altitude. Final y, a flight planning schedule for the satel ite is demonstrated from its launch into the initial altitude at the very beginning to its decay to death in the end.

A Novel Stateful PCE-Cloud Based Control Architecture of Optical Networks for Cloud Services

The next-generation optical network is a service oriented network,which could be delivered by utilizing the generalized multiprotocol label switching(GMPLS) based control plane to realize lots of intelligent features such as rapid provisioning,automated protection and restoration(P&R),efficient resource allocation,and support for different quality of service(QoS) requirements.In this paper,we propose a novel stateful PCE-cloud(SPC)based architecture of GMPLS optical networks for cloud services.The cloud computing technologies(e.g.virtualization and parallel computing) are applied to the construction of SPC for improving the reliability and maximizing resource utilization.The functions of SPC and GMPLS based control plane are expanded according to the features of cloud services for different QoS requirements.The architecture and detailed description of the components of SPC are provided.Different potential cooperation relationships between public stateful PCE cloud(PSPC) and region stateful PCE cloud(RSPC) are investigated.Moreover,we present the policy-enabled and constraint-based routing scheme base on the cooperation of PSPC and RSPC.Simulation results for verifying the performance of routing and control plane reliability are analyzed.

3D image reconstruction with a controllable overlapping number of elemental images in computational integral imaging

In this Letter, we propose a three-dimensional （3D） image reconstruction method with a controllable overlapping number of elemental images in computational integral imaging. The proposed method can control the overlap- ping number of pixels coming from the elemental images by using the subpixel distance based on ray optics between a 3D object and an image sensor. The use of a controllable overlapping number enables us to provide an improved 3D image visualization by controlling the inter-pixel interference within the reconstructed pixels. To find the optimal overlapping number, we simulate the pickup and reconstruction processes and utilize the numerical reconstruction results using a peak signal-to-noise ratio （PSNR） metric. To demonstrate the feasibility of our work in optical experiments, we carry out the preliminary experiments and present the results.

Privacy Preserving and Delegated Access Control for Cloud Applications

In cloud computing applications, users＇ data and applications are hosted by cloud providers. This paper proposed an access control scheme that uses a combination of discretionary access control and cryptographic techniques to secure users＇ data and applications hosted by cloud providers. Many cloud applications require users to share their data and applications hosted by cloud providers. To facilitate resource sharing, the proposed scheme allows cloud users to delegate their access permissions to other users easily. Using the access control policies that guard the access to resources and the credentials submitted by users, a third party can infer information about the cloud users. The proposed scheme uses cryptographic techniques to obscure the access control policies and users＇ credentials to ensure the privacy of the cloud users. Data encryption is used to guarantee the confidentiality of data. Compared with existing schemes, the proposed scheme is more flexible and easy to use. Experiments showed that the proposed scheme is also efficient.

Modeling and Nonlinear Computed Torque Control of Ship-mounted Mobile Satellite Communication System

A mobile satellite communication system (MSCS) is a device installed on a moving carrier for mobile satellite communication. It can eliminate disturbance and maintain continuous satellite communication when the carrier is moving. Because of many advantages of mobile satellite communication, the MSCSs are becoming more and more popular in modern mobile communication. In this paper, a typical ship-mounted MSCS is studied. The dynamic model of the system is derived using the generalized Lagrange method both in the joint space and in the workspace. Based on the dynamic model, a nonlinear computed torque controller with trajectory planning is designed to track an aimed satellite with a satisfied transient response. Simulation results in two different situations are presented to show the tracking performance of the controller.

Editorial for Special Issue on Intelligent Control and Computing in Advanced Robotics

Artificial intelligence （AI）, robotics, and intelligent systems are increasingly penetrating our society. With recent advances in AI, especially in intelligent control and computing, robots are gaining the ability to learn, make decisions, and operate in ways much similar to humans.To a large extent.

Analysis of Classical Encryption Techniques in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing has become a significant computing model in the IT industry. In this emerging model,computing resources such as software, hardware, networking, and storage can be accessed anywhere in the world on a pay-per-use basis. However, storing sensitive data on un-trusted servers is a challenging issue for this model. To guarantee confidentiality and proper access control of outsourced sensitive data, classical encryption techniques are used. However, such access control schemes are not feasible in cloud computing because of their lack of flexibility, scalability, and fine-grained access control. Instead, Attribute-Based Encryption（ABE） techniques are used in the cloud. This paper extensively surveys all ABE schemes and creates a comparison table for the key criteria for these schemes in cloud applications.

Numerical investigation on jet interaction with a compression ramp

A numerical investigation on jet interaction in supersonic laminar flow with a compres- sion ramp is performed utilizing the AUSMDV scheme and a parallel solver. Several parameters dominating the interference flowfield are studied after defining the relative increment of normal force and the jet amplification factor as the evaluation criterion of jet control performance. The computational results show that most features of the interaction flowfield between the transverse jet and the ramp are similar to those between a jet and a flat plate, except that the flow structures are more complicated and the low-pressure region behind the jet is less extensive. The relative force increment and the jet amplification factor both increase with the distance between the jet and the ramp shortening till quintuple jet diameters. Inconspicuous difference is observed between the jet-before-ramp and jet-on-ramp cases. The variation of the injection angle changes the extent of the separation region, the plateau pressure, and the peak pressure near the jet. In the present computational conditions, 120 is indicated relatively optimal among all the injection angles studied. For cold gas simulations, although little influence of the jet temperature on the pressure distribution near the jet is observed under the computation model and the flow parameters studied, reducing jet temperature somehow benefits the improvement of the normal force and the jet efficiency. When the pressure ratio of jet to freestream is fixed, the relative force increment varies little when increasing the freestream Mach number, while the jet amplification factor increases.