Design of Evolvable Hardware for Robotic Navigation

This paper presents an integrated on line learning system to evolve programmable logic array (PLA) controllers for navigating an autonomous robot in a two dimensional environment. The integrated on line learning system consists of two learning modules: one is the module of reinforcement learning based on temporal difference learning based on genetic algorithms, and the other is the module of evolutionary learning based on genetic algorithms. The control rules extracted from the module of reinforcement learning can be used as input to the module of evolutionary learning, and quickly implemented by the PLA through on line evolution. The on line evolution has shown promise as a method of learning systems in complex environment. The evolved PLA controllers can successfully navigate the robot to a target in the two dimensional environment while avoiding collisions with randomly positioned obstacles.

Dynamically Reconfigurable Encryption System of the AES

Reconfigurable computing has grown to become an important and large field of research, it offers advantages over traditional hardware and software implementations of computational algorithms. The Advanced Encryption Standard （AES） algorithm is widely applied in government department and commerce. This paper analyzed the AES algorithms with different cipher keys, adopted a novel key scheduler that generated the round key real-time, proposed a dynamically reconfigurable encryption system which supported the AES algorithm with different cipher keys, and designed the architecture of the reconfigurable system. The dynamically reconfigurable AES system had been realized on FPGA. The result proves that the reconfigurable AES system is flexible, lower cost and high security level.

Organic dyes based on triphenylamine for dye-sensitized solar cells:Structure–property relationships

Three new organic dyes based on triphenylamine with a structure of A-D-A-D-A (D1), A-D-A (D2) and D-A (D3) were designed, theoretically calculated and synthesized for dye-sensitized solar cells. Dye D1 exhibits a broader absorption than D2 and D3, due to the intramolecular charge transfer between the donor triphenylamine and the acceptor benzothiadiazole. Dye D1 exhibits a lower HOMO and a lower LUMO than D2 and D3 due to the electron-withdrawing benzothiadiazole. The number of anchoring group cyanoacrylic acid has no obvious influence on absorption and energy levels of D2 and D3. The LUMO of D1 locates on benzothiadiazole rather than cyanoacrylic acid anchoring groups, while the LUMOs of D2 and D3 are localized on cyanoacrylic acid. D2 and D3 give higher short-circuit current density than D1. D3 with one anchoring group gives the highest open-circuit voltage. Consequently, the D3-based device gives the highest efficiency. © 2016 Science Press

Graphene field effect transistor-based terahertz modulator with small operating voltage and low insertion loss

In this work, we report a broadband terahertz wave modulator based on a top-gate graphene field effect tran- sistor with polyimide as the gate dielectric on a PET substrate. The transmission of the terahertz wave is modulated by controlling the Fermi level of graphene via the polyimide as the top-gate dielectric material instead of the traditional dielectric materials. It is found that the terahertz modulator can achieve a modulation depth of ~20.9% with a small operating gate voltage of 3.5 V and a low insertion loss of 2.1 dB.

Field-programmable gate array-based large-capacity sensing network with 1642 ultra-weak fiber Bragg gratings

A field-programmable gate array （FPGA）-based large-capacity sensing network with ultra-weak fiber Bragg gratings （FBGs） is proposed and experimentally studied. The demodulation system is constructed to interrogate 1642 serial time-division-multiplexing FBGs with a peak refleetivity of about -40 dB and equal separations of 2.5 m. Two semiconductor optical amplifiers and an InGaAs linear sensor array controlled by an FPGA are introduced to the demodulation system to achieve fast, precise, and flexible interrogation. The low crosstalk and spectral distortion axe investigated through both theoretical analysis and experiments.