Prospects of Using Low-Code in the Creation of Automated Systems

Ever-changing market conditions and a rapidly changing IT landscape call for fast and cheap ways to meet software demands. In order to tackle these problems, low-code development platforms (LCDPs) have emerged. These platforms are designed with the idea to limit recurring traditional hand-coding and programming. This article provides a theoretical overview of low-code solutions. The advantages and disadvantages of using LCDP in the creation of automated systems are considered. In conclusion, a conclusion is formulated about the prospects of using low-code technology.

Application of Automated Guided Vehicles in Smart Automated Warehouse Systems:A Survey

Automated Guided Vehicles(AGVs)have been introduced into various applications,such as automated warehouse systems,flexible manufacturing systems,and container terminal systems.However,few publications have outlined problems in need of attention in AGV applications comprehensively.In this paper,several key issues and essential models are presented.First,the advantages and disadvantages of centralized and decentralized AGVs systems were compared;second,warehouse layout and operation optimization were introduced,including some omitted areas,such as AGVs fleet size and electrical energy management;third,AGVs scheduling algorithms in chessboardlike environments were analyzed;fourth,the classical route-planning algorithms for single AGV and multiple AGVs were presented,and some Artificial Intelligence(AI)-based decision-making algorithms were reviewed.Furthermore,a novel idea for accelerating route planning by combining Reinforcement Learning(RL)andDijkstra’s algorithm was presented,and a novel idea of the multi-AGV route-planning method of combining dynamic programming and Monte-Carlo tree search was proposed to reduce the energy cost of systems.

Methodical Approach to Integrate Human Movement Diversity in Real-Time into a Virtual Test Field for Highly Automated Vehicle Systems

Recently, virtual realities and simulations play important roles in the development of automated driving functionalities. By an appropriate abstraction, they help to design, investigate and communicate real traffic scenario complexity. Especially, for edge cases investigations of interactions between vulnerable road users (VRU) and highly automated driving functions, valid virtual models are essential for the quality of results. The aim of this study is to measure, process and integrate real human movement behaviour into a virtual test environment for highly automated vehicle functionalities. The overall system consists of a georeferenced virtual city model and a vehicle dynamics model, including probabilistic sensor descriptions. By motion capture hardware, real humanoid behaviour is applied to a virtual human avatar in the test environment. Through retargeting methods, which enable the independency of avatar and person under test (PuT) dimensions, the virtual avatar diversity is increased. To verify the biomechanical behaviour of the virtual avatars, a qualitative study is performed, which funds on a representative movement sequence. The results confirm the functionality of the used methodology and enable PuT independence control of the virtual avatars in real-time.

Special Issue on "Recent Advances in Power System Control" for International Journal of Control,Automation,and Systems

Today the high quality power supply is of essential in the economic development in a country. With the development of modem power systems and increasing demand for power supply, the electric power industry is facing a great challenge in meeting the increased load demand with highest reliability and security with minimum transmission expenditure. Power system stability analysis and control is one of the most important issues in power systems. The problem becomes more and more serious in power systems with the development of modem power systems. The ability of a power system

IT Asset Management of Industrial Automation Systems

1. Introduction The installation and administration of large heterogeneous IT infrastructures, for enterprises as well industrial automation systems, are becoming more and more complex and time consuming. The growing number of interconnections between networks, the development of new intelligent IT devices, and increasingly sophisticated computer hard-

Advances in Tongue Diagnosis Objectification of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Tongue diagnosis is a non-invasive,efficient,and accurate method for determining a person’s physical condition,and plays an essential role in disease diagnosis and health management.However,tongue diagnosis is easily influenced by the subjective experience of the practitioner and the light environment.In addition,tongue diagnosis lacks clear quantitative indicators and objective records.This all limits the transmission and development of tongue diagnosis.Therefore,the acquisition and analysis of tongue information using image equipment,image processing and computer vision have become a hot research topic for the objectification of tongue diagnosis.This paper reviews the research progress of tongue diagnosis objectification in Traditional Chinese medicine.The tongue image acquisition,color correction,segmentation,feature extraction and analysis,and disease prediction included in the study of tongue diagnosis objectification are reviewed.The shortcomings of current automated tongue diagnosis systems and future research ideas are also summarized to provide a reference for further development of tongue diagnosis objectification.

Engineering the Smart Factory

The fourth industrial revolution promises to create what has been called the smart factory. The vision is that within such modular structured smart factories, cyber-physical systems monitor physical processes, create a virtual copy of the physical world and make decentralised decisions. This paper provides a view of this initiative from an automation systems perspective. In this context it considers how future automation systems might be effectively configured and supported through their lifecycles and how integration, application modelling, visualisation and reuse of such systems might be best achieved. The paper briefly describes limitations in current engineering methods, and new emerging approaches including the cyber physical systems （CPS） engineering tools being developed by the automation systems group （ASG） at Warwick Manufacturing Group, University of Warwick, UK.

Computation of an Emptiable Minimal Siphon in a Subclass of Petri Nets Using Mixed-Integer Programming

Deadlock resolution strategies based on siphon control are widely investigated.Their computational efficiency largely depends on siphon computation.Mixed-integer programming(MIP)can be utilized for the computation of an emptiable siphon in a Petri net(PN).Based on it,deadlock resolution strategies can be designed without requiring complete siphon enumeration that has exponential complexity.Due to this reason,various MIP methods are proposed for various subclasses of PNs.This work proposes an innovative MIP method to compute an emptiable minimal siphon(EMS)for a subclass of PNs named S^(4)PR.In particular,many particular structural characteristics of EMS in S4 PR are formalized as constraints,which greatly reduces the solution space.Experimental results show that the proposed MIP method has higher computational efficiency.Furthermore,the proposed method allows one to determine the liveness of an ordinary S^(4)PR.

Examination of the profitability of technical analysis based on moving average strategies in BRICS

In this paper,we investigated the profitability of technical analysis as applied to the stock markets of the BRICS member nations.In addition,we searched for evidence that technical analysis and fundamental analysis can complement each other in these markets.To implement this research,we created a comprehensive portfolio containing the assets traded in the markets of each BRICS member.We developed an automated trading system that simulated transactions in this portfolio using technical analysis techniques.Our assessment updated the findings of previous research by including more recent data and adding South Africa,the latest member included in BRICS.Our results showed that the returns obtained by the automated system,on average,exceeded the value invested.There were groups of assets from each country that performed well above the portfolio average,surpassing the returns obtained using a buy and hold strategy.The returns from the sample portfolio were very strong in Russia and India.We also found that technical analysis can help fundamental analysis identify the most dynamic companies in the stock market.

Cycle Time Analysis for Wafer Revisiting Process in Scheduling of Single-arm Cluster Tools

Some wafer fabrication processes performed by cluster tools require revisiting. With wafer revisiting, a cluster tool is very difficult to be scheduled due to a large number of possible schedules for the revisiting process. Atomic layer deposition （ALD） is a typical process with wafer revisiting that should be performed by cluster tools. This paper discusses the scheduling problem of single-arm cluster tools for the ALD process. In scheduling such a system, the most difficult part is to schedule the revisiting process such that the cycle time is minimized. Thus, this paper studies the revisiting process of ALD with revisiting times k = 3, 4, and 5, and analytical expressions are obtained to calculate the cycle time for the k possible schedules. Then, the schedule with the minimal cycle time is the optimal one. In this way, the scheduling problem of such a revisiting process becomes very simple and this is a significant improvement in scheduling cluster tools with wafer revisiting. Illustrative example is presented to show the application of the proposed method.

Review of Model-Based Testing Approaches in Production Automation and Adjacent Domains—Current Challenges and Research Gaps

As production automation systems have been and are becoming more and more complex, the task of quality assurance is increasingly challenging. Model-based testing is a research field addressing this challenge and many approaches have been suggested for different applications. The goal of this paper is to review these approaches regarding their suitability for the domain of production automation in order to identify current trends and research gaps. The different approaches are classified and clustered according to their main focus which is either testing and test case generation from some form of model automatons, test case generation from models used within the development process of production automation systems, test case generation from fault models or test case selection and regression testing.

Overview of current design and analysis of potential theories for automated fibre placement mechanisms

Automated fibre placement(AFP) systems have successfully intensified the demand for high-quality composite component manufacturing in both the military and civilian fields. One of the main elements of these systems is the AFP mechanism for accomplishing individual fibre delivery,clamp/cut/restart(CCR) and the consolidation process, and it consists of several functional submechanisms presenting strong coupling relationships and motion sequences. This review aims to summarize the development of AFP mechanisms and the associated research achievements and provide insight into the research challenges in promoting innovative design in such mechanisms. The systematic development of AFP systems is reviewed in detail, and subsequently, engineering tendency and the general principle of AFP mechanisms are introduced. Focusing on the mechanism design of AFP sub-mechanisms, including the creel assembly CCR and compaction mechanisms,the mechanical schemes as well as the AFP process parameter control are discussed. To improve system reliability and fully optimise AFP mechanisms, the essential theoretical foundation for AFP mechanisms are provided. It is believed that this attempt will help to change the design and optimisation of similar complete mechanisms. Based on the reviewed research, overall remarks and perspectives are presented to serve as a guide for exploring the possibility of novel easy-to-use and cost-effective integrated AFP applications.

Application of networked discrete event system theory on intelligent transportation systems

The responses of vehicles to the changes in traffic situations inevitably have delays in observing an event and implementing a control command,which often causes fatal accidents.So far,the methods for handling delays are empirical and cannot be mathematically proven.To eliminate the accidents caused by such delays,in this paper,we develop mathematically provable methods to handle these delays.Specifically,we use networked discrete event systems to model the process of driving vehicles and present a supervisory controller for handling delay situations.The method developed in this paper could serve as a new start for modeling and controlling the responsive behaviors of self-driving vehicles in the future.

Call for Papers 2012 IEEE Multi-conference on Systems and Control （IEEE MSC 2012）

The 2012 IEEE Multi-Conference on Systems and Control （MSC 2012） will take place in Dubrovnik Palace Hotel, Dubrovnik, Croatia, on October 3 - 5, 2012. MSC 2012 includes two international con- ferences sponsored and promoted by the IEEE Control Systems Society：

A Practical Approach to Representation of Real-time Building Control Applications in Simulation

Computer based automation and control systems are becoming increasingly important in smart sustainable buildings,often referred to as automated buildings(ABs),in order to automatically control,optimize and supervise a wide range of building performance applications over a network while minimizing energy consumption and associated green house gas emission.This technology generally refers to building automation and control systems(BACS)architecture.Instead of costly and time-consuming experiments,this paper focuses on development and design of a distributed dynamic simulation environment with the capability to represent BACS architecture in simulation by run-time coupling two or more different software tools over a network.This involves using distributed dynamic simulations as means to analyze the performance and enhance networked real-time control systems in ABs and improve the functions of real BACS technology.The application and capability of this new dynamic simulation environment are demonstrated by an experimental design,in this paper.

Application of a Standard Procedure to Avoid Errors When Comparing Fingerprints with Their Reversals in Fake Documents

Laterally reversed(mirrored)fingerprints are difficult to detect by applying routine search procedures.One suggestion to avoid errors when dealing with probable reversals is to perform comparisons with both direct and reversed fingerprints.This simple procedure has been applied and led to the detection of two more cases of reversed fingerprint usage in fake documents.In one of the reported cases,experts found on the web the same fingerprints used by criminals in fake documents.This finding is important because it indicates that matched fingerprints do not necessarily link different criminal cases.