Computer Based Modeling of Vegetation Propagation across a Disturbed Space Linked to GIS

The paper is focused on computer simulation of natural vegetation propagation across two selected disturbed sites. Two sites located in the different environments, the abandoned sedimentation basin of a former pyrite ore mine and the ash deposits of a power station, were selected to illustrate the proposed spatio-temporal model. Aerial images assisted in identifying and monitoring the progress in the propagation of vegetation. Analysis of the aerial images was based on varying vegetation coverage explored by classification algorithms. A new approach is proposed entailing coupling of a local dynamic model and a spatial model for vegetation propagation. The local dynamic model describes vegetation growth using a logistic growth approach based on delayed variables. Vegetation propagation is described by rules related to seed and its dispersal phenomena on a local scale and on the scale of outlying spreading. The disturbed sites are divided into a grid of microsites. Each microsite is represented by a 5 m x 5 m square. A state variable in each microsite indicates the relative vegetation density on a scale from 0 （no vegetation） to 1 （long-term maximum of vegetation density）. Growth, local vegetation propagation and the effects of outlying vegetation propagation in each cell are described by an ordinary differential equation with delayed state variables. The grid of cells forms a set of ordinary differential equations. The abandoned sedimentation basin and the ash deposits are represented by grids of 185 x 345 and 212 x 266 cells, respectively. A few case-oriented studies are provided to show various predictions of vegetation propagation across two selected disturbed sites. The first case study simulates vegetation growing without spatial propagations and delayed variables in the spatio-temporal model. The second and the third case studies extend the previous study by including local and outlying vegetation propagation, respectively. The fourth case study explores delayed impacts in the logistic growth term and the delayed outcome by vegetation propagation across the disturbed space. The performed case-oriented studies confirm the applicability of the proposed spatio-temporal model to predict vegetation propagation in short-term successions and to estimate approximate vegetation changes in long-term development. As a result, it can be concluded that remotely sensed data are a valuable source of information for estimates of model parameters and provide an effective method for monitoring the progress of vegetation propagation across the selected sites, spaces disturbed by human activities.

Observer-based control for the platform of a tethered space robot

This paper addresses the attitude control problem of a space tethered robot platform in the presence of unknown external disturbance caused by a connecting elastic tether. The tethergenerated unknown disturbance leads to tremendous challenges for attitude control of the platform.In this work, the perturbed attitude dynamics of the platform are derived with a consideration of the libration of the elastic tether, and then with the purpose of compensating the unknown disturbance, major attention is dedicated to develop a nonlinear disturbance observer based on gyros measurements, after which, an adaptive attitude scheme is proposed by combining the disturbance observer with a sliding mode controller. Finally, benefits from the observer based on an adaptive controller are validated by series of numerical simulations.

Reaction Torque Control of Redundant Free-floating Space Robot

This paper presents the reaction torque based satellite base reactionless control or base disturbance minimization of a redundant free-floating space robot. This subject is of vital importance in the study of the free-floating space robot because the base disturbance minimization will result in less energy consumption and prolonged control application. The analytical formulation of the reaction torque is derived in this article, and the reaction torque control can achieve reactionless control and satellite base disturbance minimization. Furthermore, we derive the reaction torque based control of the space robot for base disturbance minimization from both the non-strict task priority and strict task priority control strategy. The dynamics singularity in the proposed algorithm is avoided in this paper. Besides, a real time simulation system of the space robot under Linux/real time application interface（RTAI） is developed to verify and test the feasibility and reliability of the method. The experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of online reaction torque control of the redundant free-floating space robot.