On-Chip Micro Temperature Controllers Based on Freestanding Thermoelectric Nano Films for Low-Power Electronics

Multidimensional integration and multifunctional com-ponent assembly have been greatly explored in recent years to extend Moore’s Law of modern microelectronics.However,this inevitably exac-erbates the inhomogeneity of temperature distribution in microsystems,making precise temperature control for electronic components extremely challenging.Herein,we report an on-chip micro temperature controller including a pair of thermoelectric legs with a total area of 50×50μm^(2),which are fabricated from dense and flat freestanding Bi2Te3-based ther-moelectric nano films deposited on a newly developed nano graphene oxide membrane substrate.Its tunable equivalent thermal resistance is controlled by electrical currents to achieve energy-efficient temperature control for low-power electronics.A large cooling temperature difference of 44.5 K at 380 K is achieved with a power consumption of only 445μW,resulting in an ultrahigh temperature control capability over 100 K mW^(-1).Moreover,an ultra-fast cooling rate exceeding 2000 K s^(-1) and excellent reliability of up to 1 million cycles are observed.Our proposed on-chip temperature controller is expected to enable further miniaturization and multifunctional integration on a single chip for microelectronics.

Hierarchical Control of Ride Height System for Electronically Controlled Air Suspension Based on Variable Structure and Fuzzy Control Theory

The current research of air suspension mainly focuses on the characteristics and design of the air spring. In fact, electronically controlled air suspension （ECAS） has excellent performance in flexible height adjustment during different driving conditions. However, the nonlinearity of the ride height adjusting system and the uneven distribution of payload affect the control accuracy of ride height and the body attitude. Firstly, the three-point measurement system of three height sensors is used to establish the mathematical model of the ride height adjusting system. The decentralized control of ride height and the centralized control of body attitude are presented to design the ride height control system for ECAS. The exact feedback linearization method is adopted for the nonlinear mathematical model of the ride height system. Secondly, according to the hierarchical control theory, the variable structure control （VSC） technique is used to design a controller that is able to adjust the ride height for the quarter-vehicle anywhere, and each quarter-vehicle height control system is independent. Meanwhile, the three-point height signals obtained by three height sensors are tracked to calculate the body pitch and roll attitude over time, and then by calculating the deviation of pitch and roll and its rates, the height control correction is reassigned based on the fuzzy algorithm. Finally, to verify the effectiveness and performance of the proposed combined control strategy, a validating test of ride height control system with and without road disturbance is carried out. Testing results show that the height adjusting time of both lifting and lowering is over 5 s, and the pitch angle and the roll angle of body attitude are less than 0.15°. This research proposes a hierarchical control method that can guarantee the attitude stability, as well as satisfy the ride height tracking system.

A Hybrid Approach to Modeling and Control of Vehicle Height for Electronically Controlled Air Suspension

The control problems associated with vehicle height adjustment of electronically controlled air suspension （ECAS） still pose theoretical challenges for researchers, which manifest themselves in the publications on this subject over the last years. This paper deals with modeling and control of a vehicle height adjustment system for ECAS, which is an example of a hybrid dynamical system due to the coexistence and coupling of continuous variables and discrete events. A mixed logical dynamical （MLD） modeling approach is chosen for capturing enough details of the vehicle height adjustment process. The hybrid dynamic model is constructed on the basis of some assumptions and piecewise linear approximation for components nonlinearities. Then, the on-off statuses of solenoid valves and the piecewise approximation process are described by propositional logic, and the hybrid system is transformed into the set of linear mixed-integer equalities and inequalities, denoted as MLD model, automatically by HYSDEL. Using this model, a hybrid model predictive controller （HMPC） is tuned based on online mixed-integer quadratic optimization （MIQP）. Two different scenarios are considered in the simulation, whose results verify the height adjustment effectiveness of the proposed approach. Explicit solutions of the controller are computed to control the vehicle height adjustment system in realtime using an offline multi-parametric programming technology （MPT）, thus convert the controller into an equivalent explicit piecewise affine form. Finally, bench experiments for vehicle height lifting, holding and lowering procedures are conducted, which demonstrate that the HMPC can adjust the vehicle height by controlling the on-off statuses of solenoid valves directly. This research proposes a new modeling and control method for vehicle height adjustment of ECAS, which leads to a closed-loop system with favorable dynamical properties.

Research and Development of a New Calibration Tool for Electronically Controlled Engine Based on KWP2000

Today’s vehicles use electronic control units(ECU) to control engine/transmission, body and other amenities. All the vehicle performance depends on a lot of physical values and influence factors. This leads to a large number of control and regulation parameters in the ECU software. The ultimate objective of calibration work is the optimum determination of these parameters. Qualitatively excellent results can only be achieved in a shorter time by using a highly efficient calibration system. This paper provided an overview of a new calibration tool based on KWP2000 and gave an example calibration with this tool.

A 1-bit electronically reconfigurable beam steerable metasurface reflectarray with multiple polarization manipulations

A 1-bit electronically controlled metasurface reflectarray is presented to achieve beam steering with multiple polarization manipulations. A metsurface unit cell loaded by two PIN diodes is designed. By switching the two PIN diodes between ON and OFF states, the isotropic and anisotropic reflections can be flexibly achieved. For either the isotropic reflection or the anisotropic reflection, the two operation states achieve the reflection coefficients with approximately equal magnitude and 180°out of phase, thus giving rise to the isotropic/anisotropic 1-bit metasurface unit cells. With the 1-bit unit cells, a 12-by-12 metasurface reflectarray is optimally designed and fabricated. Under either y-or x-polarized incident wave illumination, the reflectarray can achieve the co-polarized and cross-polarized beam scanning, respectively, with the peak gains of 20.08 d Bi and 17.26 d Bi within the scan range of about ±50°. With the right-handed circular polarization(RHCP) excitation, the left-handed circular polarization(LHCP) radiation with the peak gain of 16.98 d Bic can be achieved within the scan range of ±50°. Good agreement between the experimental results and the simulation results are observed for 2D beam steering and polarization manipulation capabilities.

A low-noise X-band microwave source with digital automatic frequency control for electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy

We report a new design of microwave source for X-band electron paramagnetic resonance spectrometer.The microwave source is equipped with a digital automatic frequency control circuit.The parameters of the digital automatic frequency control circuit can be flexibly configured for different experimental conditions,such as the input powers or the quality factors of the resonator.The configurability makes the microwave source universally compatible and greatly extends its application.To demonstrate the ability of adapting to various experimental conditions,the microwave source is tested by varying the input powers and the quality factors of the resonator.A satisfactory phase noise as low as-135 d Bc/Hz at 100-k Hz offset from the center frequency is achieved,due to the use of a phase-locked dielectric resonator oscillator and a direct digital synthesizer.Continuous-wave electron paramagnetic resonance experiments are conducted to examine the performance of the microwave source.The outstanding performance shows a prospect of wide applications of the microwave source in numerous fields of science.

Controllable growth of wafer-scale PdS and PdS_(2) nanofilms via chemical vapor deposition combined with an electron beam evaporation technique

Palladium(Pd)-based sulfides have triggered extensive interest due to their unique properties and potential applications in the fields of electronics and optoelectronics.However,the synthesis of large-scale uniform PdS and PdS_(2)nanofilms(NFs)remains an enormous challenge.In this work,2-inch wafer-scale PdS and PdS_(2) NFs with excellent stability can be controllably prepared via chemical vapor deposition combined with electron beam evaporation technique.The thickness of the pre-deposited Pd film and the sulfurization temperature are critical for the precise synthesis of PdS and PdS_(2) NFs.A corresponding growth mechanism has been proposed based on our experimental results and Gibbs free energy calculations.The electrical transport properties of PdS and PdS_(2) NFs were explored by conductive atomic force microscopy.Our findings have achieved the controllable growth of PdS and PdS_(2) NFs,which may provide a pathway to facilitate PdS and PdS_(2) based applications for next-generation high performance optoelectronic devices.

Research on AC Electronic Load with Energy Recovery Based on Finite Control Set Model Predictive Control

Nowadays,AC electronic loads with energy recovery are widely used in the testing of uninterruptible power supplies and power supply equipment.To tackle the problems of control difficulty,strategy complexity,and poor dynamic performance of AC electronic load with energy recovery of the conventional control strategy,a control strategy of AC electronic load with energy recovery based on Finite Control Set Model Predictive Control(FCSMPC)is developed.To further reduce the computation burden of the FCS-MPC,a simplified FCS-MPC with transforming the predicted variables and using sector to select expected state is proposed.Through simplified model and equivalent approximation analysis,the transfer function of the system is obtained,and the stability and robustness of the system are analyzed.The performance of the simplified FCS-MPC is compared with space vector control(SVPWM)and conventional FCS-MPC.The results show that the FCS-MPC method performs better dynamic response and this advantage is more obvious when simulating high power loads.The simplified FCS-MPC shows similar control performance to conventional FCS-MPC at less computation burden.The control performance of the system also shows better simulation results.

Evaluation of the Effectiveness of “Electron Go out Mosquito Small Lamp” in Disease Vector Mosquito Control Benin West Africa

In the context of mosquito control, a plethora of devices have been put on the market. The effectiveness of these devices is not always proven, but some have interesting principles that have the potential to be a good means of mosquito control. Among these interesting devices are the photonic traps. We have carried out nightly captures of mosquitoes on human baits in the presence and absence of the device. These captures were made during the rainy season in the localities of Zogbadjè and Mènontin. The captures were made under the same atmospheric conditions at the same locations at 5-day intervals. These captures were made twice per house, indoors and outdoors, with one blank capture without the device and one capture with the device. The captured mosquitoes were identified and classified by genus and their aggressiveness determined by calculating the biting rate. A total of 845 mosquitoes were captured during these captures with 296 mosquitoes captured indoors without the device and 132 mosquitoes with the device present. This represents a decrease of 55.40% in culicidae density. Furthermore, a significant decrease was observed in aggressiveness, from 49 to 22 bites per man per night (b/m/n) with the use of the device. This decrease is even more important for nocturnal species such as Anopheles spp. whose aggressiveness decreased by 90%. The present study confirms the effectiveness of the “Electron go out mosquito small lamp” in reducing Culicidae density and mosquito aggression even in the presence of chemotactic interference. However, this study was limited in time and focused only on the ability of the device to reduce mosquito numbers and did not assess its epidemiological efficacy. It is therefore important to extend the work to examine the influence of the use of this device on population health and the occurrence of mosquito-borne diseases, particularly malaria.

A Simplified Sliding Mode Controlled Electronic Differential for an Electric Vehicle with Two Independent Wheel Drives

This paper presents a simple sliding mode control strategy used for an electronic differential system for electric vehicle with two independent wheel drives. When a vehicle drives along a curved road lane, the speed of the inner wheel has to be different from that of the outer wheel in order to prevent the vehicle from vibrating and travelling an unsteady path. Because each wheel of this electrical vehicle has independent driving force, an electrical differential system is required to replace a gear differential system. However, it is difficult to analyse the nonlinear behaviour of the differential system in relation to the speed and steering angle, as well as vehicle structure. The proposed propulsion system consists of two permanent magnet synchronous machines that ensure the drive of the two back driving wheels. The proposed control structure called independent machines for speed control allows the achievement of an electronic differential which ensures the control of the vehicle behaviour on the road. It also allows to control, independently, every driving wheel to turn at different speeds in any curve. Analysis and simulation results of the proposed system are presented in this paper.

Electronically Controlling the System of Preheating Intake Air by Flame for Diesel Engine Cold-Start

In order to improve the cold start performance of heavy duty diesel engine, electronically controlling the preheating of intake air by flame was researched. According to simulation and thermodynamic analysis about the partial working processes of the diesel engine, the amount of heat energy, enough to make the fuel self ignite at the end of compression process at different temperatures of coolant and intake air, was calculated. Several HY20 preheating plugs were used to heat up the intake air. Meanwhile, an electronic control system based on 8 bit micro controller unit (MCS 8031) was designed to automatically control the process of heating intake air. According to the various temperatures of coolant and ambient air, one plug or two plugs can automatically be selected to heat intake air. The demo experiment validated that the total system could operate successfully and achieve the scheduled function.

Science Letters:Crossover randomized controlled trial of the electronic version of the Chinese SF-36

Objectives:to verify the feasibility and reliability of the electronic version of Chinese SF-36 based on the Quality-of-Life-Recorder. Design: A crossover randomized controlled trial, comparing a paper-based and an electronic version of the Chinese SF-36, was conducted. According to generated random numbers, interviewees were asked to fill out either the electronic version or the paper version first. The second version was filled in after a pause of at least 10 min. Settings and participants: One group of 100 medical students at the School of Medicine of Zhejiang University and the other group of 50 outpatients at a clinic for general practice in Hangzhou City (China) were eventually recruited in this study. Results: The acceptance of the electronic version was good (60% of medical students and 84% of outpatients preferred the electronic version). At the level of eight-scale scores, the mean-difference for each scale (except for general health) between the two versions was less than 5%. At the level of 36 questions, the percentage of "exact agreement" ranged within 64%～99%; the percentage of "global agreement" ranged within 72%～99%; 77% of the kappa coefficients demonstrated "good/excellent agreement" and 23% of the kappa coefficients demonstrated "medium agreement". Conclusion: This study, for the first time, can provide empirical basis for the confirmation of the feasibility and reliability of the electronic version of the Chinese SF-36 and may provide an impulse towards widespread deployment of the Quality-of-Life-Recorder in Chinese populations.

Speed Disturbance in the Diesel Engine Electronic Control System

In order to sample the speed signal of electronic diesel engine in real time and make the engine work reliable, the diesel engine control system's speed acquisition was studied and the problem of speed disturbance was solved. The control system was based on the 8?bit electronic control unit(ECU) system and the assembly language was used to design the software for controlling the engine fuel quantity and the turbocharger of the variable geometry turbine for the heavy duty diesel engine. By changing the timing method for speed acquisition, the problem of speed disturbance was solved and the reliability of the ECU was improved.

Aluminum-air battery with cotton substrate:Controlling the discharge capacity by electrolyte pre-deposition

Conventional Al-air battery has many disadvantages for miniwatt applications,such as the complex water management,bulky electrolyte storage and potential leakage hazard.Moreover,the self-corrosion of Al anode continues even when the electrolyte flow is stopped,leading to great Al waste.To tackle these issues,an innovative cotton-based aluminum-air battery is developed in this study.Instead of flowing alkaline solution,cotton substrate pre-deposited with solid alkaline is used,together with a small water reservoir to continuously wet the cotton and dissolve the alkaline in-situ.In this manner,the battery can be mechanically recharged by replacing the cotton substrate and refilling the water reservoir,while the thick aluminum anode can be reused for tens of times until complete consumption.The cotton substrate shows excellent ability for the storage and transportation of alkaline electrolyte,leading to a high peak power density of 73 mW cm^(-2) and a high specific energy of 930 mW h g^(-1).Moreover,the battery discharge capacity is found to be linear to the loading of pre-deposited alkaline,so that it can be precisely controlled according to the mission profile to avoid Al waste.Finally,a two-cell battery pack with common water reservoir is developed,which can provide a voltage of 2.7 V and a power output of 223.8 mW.With further scaling-up and stacking,this cotton-based Al-air battery system with low cost and high energy density is very promising for recharging miniwatt electronics in the outdoor environment.

Fuzzy Sliding Mode Control for the Vehicle Height and Leveling Adjustment System of an Electronic Air Suspension

The accurate control for the vehicle height and leveling adjustment system of an electronic air suspension(EAS) still is a challenging problem that has not been effectively solved in prior researches. This paper proposes a new adaptive controller to control the vehicle height and to adjust the roll and pitch angles of the vehicle body(leveling control) during the vehicle height adjustment procedures by an EAS system. A nonlinear mechanism model of the full?car vehicle height adjustment system is established to reflect the system dynamic behaviors and to derive the system optimal control law. To deal with the nonlinear characters in the vehicle height and leveling adjustment processes, the nonlinear system model is globally linearized through the state feedback method. On this basis, a fuzzy sliding mode controller(FSMC) is designed to improve the control accuracy of the vehicle height adjustment and to reduce the peak values of the roll and pitch angles of the vehicle body. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed control method more accurately, the full?car EAS system model programmed using AMESim is also given. Then, the co?simulation study of the FSMC performance can be conducted. Finally, actual vehicle tests are performed with a city bus, and the test results illustrate that the vehicle height adjustment performance is effectively guaranteed by the FSMC, and the peak values of the roll and pitch angles of the vehicle body during the vehicle height adjustment procedures are also reduced significantly. This research proposes an effective control methodology for the vehicle height and leveling adjustment system of an EAS, which provides a favorable control performance for the system.

Effect of powdered activated carbon on Chinese traditional medicine wastewater treatment in submerged membrane bioreactor with electronic control backwashing

Chinese traditional medicine wastewater, rich in macromolecule and easy to foam in aerobic biodegradation such as Glycosides, was treated by two identical bench-scale aerobic submerged membrane bioreactors （SMBRs） operated in parallel under the same feed, equipped with the same electronic control backwashing device. One was used as the control SMBR （CSMBR） while the other was dosed with powdered activated carbon （PAC） （PAC-amended SMBR, PSMBR）. The backwashing interval was 5 min. One suction period was about 90 min by adjusting preestablished backwashing vacuum and pump frequency. The average flux of CSMBR during a steady periodic state of 24 d （576 h） was 5.87 L/h with average hydraulic residence time （HRT） of 5.97 h and that of PSMBR during a steady periodic state of 30 d （720 h） was 5.85 L/h with average HRT of 5.99 h. The average total chemical oxygen demand （COD） removal efficiency of CSMBR was 89.29% with average organic loading rate （OLR） at 4.16 kg COD/（m^3.d） while that of PSMBR was 89.79% with average OLR at 5.50 kg COD/（m^3.d）. COD concentration in the effluent of both SMBRs achieved the second level of the general wastewater effluent standard GB8978-1996 for the raw medicine material industry （300 mg/L）. Hence, SMBR with electronic control backwashing was a viable process for medium-strength Chinese traditional medicine wastewater treatment. Moreover, the increasing rates of preestablished backwashing vacuum, pump frequency, and vacuum and flux loss caused by mixed liquor in PSMBR all lagged compared to those in CSMBR; thus the actual operating time of the PSMBR system without membrane cleaning was extended by up to 1.25 times in contrast with the CSMBR system, and the average total COD removal efficiency of PSMBR was enhanced with higher average OLR.

Adaptive Sliding-Mode Control of an Automotive Electronic Throttle in the Presence of Input Saturation Constraint

In modern vehicles, electronic throttle(ET) has been widely utilized to control the airflow into gasoline engine. To solve the control difficulties with an ET, such as strong nonlinearity,unknown model parameters and input saturation constraints,an adaptive sliding-mode tracking control strategy for an ET is presented. Compared with the existing control strategies for an ET, input saturation constraints and parameter uncertainties are adequately considered in the proposed control strategy. At first, the nonlinear dynamic model for control of an ET is described. According to the dynamical model, the nonlinear adaptive sliding-mode tracking control method is presented,where parameter adaptive laws and auxiliary design system are employed. Parameter adaptive law is given to estimate the unknown parameter with an ET. An auxiliary system is designed,and its state is utilized in the tracking control method to handle the input saturation. Stability proof and analysis of the adaptive sliding-mode control method is performed by using Lyapunov stability theory. Finally, the reliability and feasibility of the proposed control strategy are evaluated by computer simulation.Simulation research shows that the proposed sliding-mode control strategy can provide good control performance for an ET.

Electronic Brake-Force Distribution Control Methods of ABS-Equipped Vehicles During Cornering Braking

Based on the dynamics of ABS-equipped vehicles during cornering braking, the electronic brake- force distribution （EBD） control methods of ABS-equipped vehicles during cornering braking are proposed. According to the dynamics and the tire model under tire adhesion limit, the stability acceptance criteria of vehicles during cornering braking are proposed. According to the stability acceptance criteria and the ABS control, the EBD control methods of ABS-equipped vehicles during cornering braking are implemented by adjusting the threshold values of tires slip independently. The vehicle states during cornering braking at two typical initial velocities of the vehicle are analyzed by the EBD control methods, whose results indicate the EBD control methods can improve the braking performances of the vehicle during cornering braking comparing with the ABS control.

Design of speed controller for electronic fuel injection gasoline generator based on feed-forward PID control

As for the application of electronic fuel injection （EFI） system to small gasoline generator set, mechanical speed controller cannot be coupled with EFI system and has the shortcomings of lagged regulation and poor accuracy, a feed-forward control strategy based on load combined with proportional-integral-differential （PID） control strategy was proposed, and a digital speed controller applied to the electrical control system was designed. The detailed control strategy of the controller was intro- duced. The hardware design for the controller and the key circuits of motor driving, current sampling and angular signal captu- ring were given, and software architecture was discussed. Combined with a gasoline generator set mounted with EFI system, the controller parameters were tuned and optimized empirically by hardware in loop and bench test methods. Test results show that the speed deviation of generator set is low and the control system is stable in steady state; In transient state the control system responses quickly, has high stability under mutation loads especially when suddenly apply and remove 100% load, the speed deviation is within 8% of reference speed and the transient time is less than 5 s, satisfying the ISO standard.

Run by Run Control of Time-pressure Dispensing for Electronics Encapsulation

To alleviate the influence of gas compressibility on the process performance of time-pressure dispensing for electronics encapsulation,a predictive model is developed based on power-law fluid to estimate the encapsulant amount dispensed.Based on the simple and effective model,a run by run (RbR) supervisory control scheme is delivered to compensate the variation resulting from gas volume change in the syringe.Both simulation and experiment have shown that the dispensing consistency has been greatly improved with the model-based RbR control strategy developed in this paper.