CONSTRUCTION OF OPTIMAL BLOCKING SCHEMES FOR ROBUST PARAMETER DESIGNS

Robust parameter design （RPD） is an important issue in experimental designs. If all experimental runs cannot be performed under homogeneous conditions, blocking the units is effective. In this paper, we obtain the correspondence relation between fractional factorial RPDs and the blocking schemes for full factorial RPDs. In addition, we provide a construction of optimal blocking schemes that make all main effects and control-by-noise two-factor interactions estimable.

The Method for Optimum Design of Water Rocket Flight Stability Performance Conditions Using CAE with T Method and Robust Parameter Design

A water rocket is a rocket system that obtains thrust by injecting water with compressed air of up to about 8 atmospheres. It is usually manufactured using a pressure-resistant PET bottle. The mechanical elements and principles contained in the water rocket have much in common with the actual small rocket system, and are suitable as educational and research teaching materials in the field of mechanics. Especially in the field of disaster prevention and mitigation, the use of water rockets is being researched and developed as a rescue tool in the event of a flood or earthquake as a disaster countermeasure. However, since the water rocket is a flying object based on the mechanical principle, it is important to ensure the accuracy and stability of the flight path. In this paper, a mechanical simulator is developed with a numerical calculation program based on the mechanical consideration of water rocket flight performance. In addition, the correlation between the flight distance obtained in the simulation and the estimated flight distance is analyzed by applying a multivariate analysis method and verifying the validity of the flight distance calculated from the result. Based on the verification results, we will apply a statistical optimization method to approach the optimization of flight stability performance conditions for water rockets.

PARAMETER COORDINATION AND ROBUST OPTIMIZATION FOR MULTIDISCIPLINARY DESIGN

A new parameter coordination and robust optimization approach for multidisciplinary design is presented. Firstly, the constraints network model is established to support engineering change, coordination and optimization. In this model, interval boxes are adopted to describe the uncertainty of design parameters quantitatively to enhance the design robustness. Secondly, the parameter coordination method is presented to solve the constraints network model, monitor the potential conflicts due to engineering changes, and obtain the consistency solution space corresponding to the given product specifications. Finally, the robust parameter optimization model is established, and genetic arithmetic is used to obtain the robust optimization parameter. An example of bogie design is analyzed to show the scheme to be effective.

Modified robust finite-horizon filter for discrete-time systems with parameter uncertainties and missing measurements

A robust finite-horizon Kalman filter is designed for linear discrete-time systems subject to norm-bounded uncertainties in the modeling parameters and missing measurements.The missing measurements were described by a binary switching sequence satisfying a conditional probability distribution,the commonest cases in engineering,such that the expectation of the measurements could be utilized during the iteration process.To consider the uncertainties in the system model,an upperbound for the estimation error covariance was obtained since its real value was unaccessible.Our filter scheme is on the basis of minimizing the obtained upper bound where we refer to the deduction of a classic Kalman filter thus calculation of the derivatives are avoided.Simulations are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Robust H_∞ control for uncertain Markovian jump systems with mixed delays

We scrutinize the problem of robust H∞control for a class of Markovian jump uncertain systems with interval timevarying and distributed delays. The Markovian jumping parameters are modeled as a continuous-time finite-state Markov chain. The main aim is to design a delay-dependent robust H∞control synthesis which ensures the mean-square asymptotic stability of the equilibrium point. By constructing a suitable Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional（LKF）, sufficient conditions for delay-dependent robust H∞control criteria are obtained in terms of linear matrix inequalities（LMIs）. The advantage of the proposed method is illustrated by numerical examples. The results are also compared with the existing results to show the less conservativeness.

Outliers, inliers and the generalized least trinuned squares estimator in system identification

The least trimmed squares estimator (LTS) is a well known robust estimator in terms of protecting the estimate from the outliers. Its high computational complexity is however a problem in practice. We show that the LTS estimate can be obtained by a simple algorithm with the complexity 0( N In N) for large N, where N is the number of measurements. We also show that though the LTS is robust in terms of the outliers, it is sensitive to the inliers. The concept of the inliers is introduced. Moreover, the Generalized Least Trimmed Squares estimator (GLTS) together with its solution are presented that reduces the effect of both the outliers and the inliers. Keywords Least squares - Least trimmed squares - Outliers - System identification - Parameter estimation - Robust parameter estimation This work was supported in part by NSF ECS — 9710297 and ECS — 0098181.

Deep Reinforcement Learning Enabled Bi-level Robust Parameter Optimization of Hydropower-dominated Systems for Damping Ultra-low Frequency Oscillation

This paper proposes a robust and computationally efficient control method for damping ultra-low frequency oscillations(ULFOs) in hydropower-dominated systems. Unlike the existing robust optimization based control formulation that can only deal with a limited number of operating conditions, the proposed method reformulates the control problem into a bi-level robust parameter optimization model. This allows us to consider a wide range of system operating conditions. To speed up the bi-level optimization process, the deep deterministic policy gradient(DDPG) based deep reinforcement learning algorithm is developed to train an intelligent agent. This agent can provide very fast lower-level decision variables for the upper-level model, significantly enhancing its computational efficiency. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method can achieve much better damping control performance than other alternatives with slightly degraded dynamic response performance of the governor under various types of operating conditions.

A global solution for robust parameter design of aeronautical electrical apparatus based on interactions analysis and polynomial fitting

Robust Parameter Design(RPD) has been widely applied for improving quality and reliability of products.One of the key drawbacks of applying RPD using Taguchi method is that the stable factors may not be independent of the adjustment factors, resulting in unsatisfactory design.Moreover, the Taguchi method cannot guarantee global optimality since the levels set in the experiment are usually discrete to ensure orthogonal design.In this paper, robust solutions of the stable factors are obtained via a nonlinear model based on polynomial fitting;while the adjustment factors are obtained via interactions analysis so that they are independent of the stable factors.In particular, the values of the adjustment factors are determined by output offset compensation so as to achieve robustness of the design scheme.An example on the design of an aeronautical electrical apparatus is presented to illustrate the procedure.The results show that the proposed method can take full advantage of the nonlinearity in the response and achieve the desired outcome.

A systematic method of smooth switching LPV controllers design for a morphing aircraft

This paper is concerned with a systematic method of smooth switching linear parameter- varying （LPV） controllers design for a morphing aircraft with a variable wing sweep angle. The morphing aircraft is modeled as an LPV system, whose scheduling parameter is the variation rate of the wing sweep angle. By dividing the scheduling parameter set into subsets with overlaps, output feedback controllers which consider smooth switching are designed and the controllers in over- lapped subsets are interpolated from two adjacent subsets. A switching law without constraint on the average dwell time is obtained which makes the conclusion less conservative. Furthermore, a systematic algorithm is developed to improve the efficiency of the controllers design process. The parameter set is divided into the fewest subsets on the premise that the closed-loop system has a desired performance. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach.

Robust Optimization of the Output Voltage of Nanogenerators by Statistical Design of Experiments

Nanogenerators were first demonstrated by deflecting aligned ZnO nanowires using a conductive atomic force microscopy(AFM)tip.The output of a nanogenerator is affected by three parameters:tip normal force,tip scanning speed,and tip abrasion.In this work,systematic experimental studies have been carried out to examine the combined effects of these three parameters on the output,using statistical design of experiments.A statistical model has been built to analyze the data and predict the optimal parameter settings.For an AFM tip of cone angle 70°coated with Pt,and ZnO nanowires with a diameter of 50 nm and lengths of 600 nm to 1μm,the optimized parameters for the nanogenerator were found to be a normal force of 137 nN and scanning speed of 40μm/s,rather than the conventional settings of 120 nN for the normal force and 30μm/s for the scanning speed.A nanogenerator with the optimized settings has three times the average output voltage of one with the conventional settings.

Gain self-scheduled H_∞ control for morphing aircraft in the wing transition process based on an LPV model

This article investigates gain self-scheduled H 1 robust control system design for a tailless fold- ing-wing morphing aircraft in the wing shape varying process. During the wing morphing phase, the aircraft＇s dynamic response will be governed by time-varying aerodynamic forces and moments. Nonlinear dynamic equations of the morphing aircraft are linearized by using Jacobian linearization approach, and a linear parameter varying （LPV） model of the morphing aircraft in wing folding is obtained. A multi-loop controller for the morphing aircraft is formulated to guarantee stability for the wing shape transition process. The proposed controller uses a set of inner-loop gains to provide stability using classical techniques, whereas a gain self-scheduled H 1 outer-loop controller is devised to guarantee a specific level of robust stability and performance for the time-varying dynamics. The closed-loop simulations show that speed and altitude vary slightly during the whole wing folding process, and they converge rapidly after the process ends. This proves that the gain self-scheduled H 1 robust controller can guarantee a satisfactory dynamic performance for the morphing aircraft during the whole wing shape transition process. Finally, the flight control system＇s robustness for the wing folding process is verified according to uncertainties of the aerodynamic parameters in the nonlinear model.

Selecting baseline designs using a minimum aberration criterion when some two-factor interactions are important

This article considers the problem of selecting two-level designs under the baseline parameterisation when some two-factor interactions are important.We propose a minimum aberration criterion,which minimises the bias caused by the non-negligible effects.Using this criterion,a class of optimal designs can be further distinguished from one another,and we present an algorithm to find the minimum aberration designs among the D-optimal designs.Sixteen-run and twenty-run designs are summarised for practical use.