A hierarchical architecture of centralized monitoring and controlling system and its high-performance and interoperability protocol

This paper describes a hierarchical architecture and a high-performance and interoperability protocol for centralized monitoring and controlling systems (CMCS) . The protocol we proposed can interoperate different monitoring and controlling systems constructed by different companies, each with different functions and communication protocols. The protocol reduces the amount of traffic and has real-time and high-perfor-mance advantages. The protocol was implemented in CMCS for telecommunication power supply and air-condi-tioner used by the Telecommunication Bureau of Zhejiang Province. This paper deals with the hierarchical architecture and function of CMCS and packet format, command ID, and SDL description of its protocol. We also discuss the properties of the interoperability and performance of the protocol in this paper.

Development of a Low-cost Hardware-in-the-loop Simulation System as a Test Bench for Anti-lock Braking System

Nowadays validation of anti-lock braking systems（ABS） relies mainly on a large amount of road tests.An alternative means with higher efficiency is employing the hardware-in-the-loop simulation（HILS） system to substitute part of road tests for designing,testing,and tuning electronic control units（ECUs） of ABS.Most HILS systems for ABS use expensive digital signal processor hardware and special purpose software,and some fail-safe functions with regard to wheel speeds cannot be evaluated since artificial wheel speed signals are usually provided.In this paper,a low-cost ABS HILS test bench is developed and used for validating the anti-lock braking performance and tuning control parameters of ABS controllers.Another important merit of the proposed test bench is that it can comprehensively evaluate the fail-safe functions with regard to wheel speed signals since real tone rings and sensors are integrated in the bench.A 5-DOF vehicle model with consideration of longitudinal load transfer is used to calculate tire forces,wheel speeds and vehicle speed.Each of the four real-time wheel speed signal generators consists of a servo motor plus a ring gear,which has sufficient dynamic response ability to emulate the rapid changes of the wheel speeds under strict braking conditions of very slippery roads.The simulation of braking tests under different road adhesion coefficients using the HILS test bench is run,and results show that it can evaluate the anti-lock braking performance of ABS and partly the fail-safe functions.This HILS system can also be used in such applications as durability test,benchmarking and comparison between different ECUs.The test bench developed not only has a relatively low cost,but also can be used to validate the wheel speed-related ECU design and all its fail-safe functions,and a rapid testing and proving platform with a high efficiency for research and development of the automotive ABS is therefore provided.

The Design of Observatory Control System of LAMOST

This paper describes the system modelling, architecture design and implementation of the observatory control system （OCS） of the LAMOST （Large Area Multi-Object Fibre Spectroscopic Telescope）. The software-reuse technique, object-oriented technique, component and framework based software-developing methodology are used in the system architecture and implementation. The architecture of OCS is established based on a component-based layered system using many patterns such as the MVC （Model/View/Controller） and proxy. For the effective and safe exchange of commands and status between OCS and the subsystem, a unified message bus is defined and three protocols, namely a command acceptance/rejection protocol, a command execution feedback protocol and a status handling protocol, are proposed. The interface protocol between all the subsystems is defined. The full utilization of advanced computer technologies including the database, distributed computing, real-time computing, standard data exchange and expert system technologies has benefited the OCS software development.

Open Architecture of Single-processor Real-time Robot Control System Based on Windows NT

This paper introduces the architecture and implementation of an industrial robot control system based on Windows NT. This robot control system, which is based on a single-processor structure, can run on general industrial computers. Owing to using Windows NT's real-time extension RTX, the control system can achieve good realtime performance and friendly user interface in one general-purpose operating system. A three layer hierarchical architecture of control software is proposed to make the system more scalable and flexible. Furthermore a communication and configuration system is implemented to enable modules to communicate with each other, which make the control system scalable and flexible.

Application of Artificial Neural Networks Based Monte Carlo Simulation in the Expert System Design and Control of Crude Oil Distillation Column of a Nigerian Refinery

This research work investigated comparative studies of expert system design and control of crude oil distillation column (CODC) using artificial neural networks based Monte Carlo (ANNBMC) simulation of random processes and artificial neural networks (ANN) model which were validated using experimental data obtained from functioning crude oil distillation column of Port-Harcourt Refinery, Nigeria by MATLAB computer program. Ninety percent (90%) of the experimental data sets were used for training while ten percent (10%) were used for testing the networks. The maximum relative errors between the experimental and calculated data obtained from the output variables of the neural network for CODC design were 1.98 error % and 0.57 error % when ANN only and ANNBMC were used respectively while their respective values for the maximum relative error were 0.346 error % and 0.124 error % when they were used for the controller prediction. Larger number of iteration steps of below 2500 and 5000 were required to achieve convergence of less than 10-7?for the training error using ANNBMC for both the design of the CODC and controller respectively while less than 400 and 700 iteration steps were needed to achieve convergence of 10-4?using ANN only. The linear regression analysis performed revealed the minimum and maximum prediction accuracies to be 80.65% and 98.79%;and 98.38% and 99.98% when ANN and ANNBMC were used for the CODC design respectively. Also, the minimum and maximum prediction accuracies were 92.83% and 99.34%;and 98.89% and 99.71% when ANN and ANNBMC were used for the CODC controller respectively as both methodologies have excellent predictions. Hence, artificial neural networks based Monte Carlo simulation is an effective and better tool for the design and control of crude oil distillation column.

Upgrade of the TR5 Experiment Terminal Control System

In order to improve the stability of TR5 experimental terminal control system,a new control system was design and realized in 2018 both in hardware and software level.PLC(Programmable Logic Controller)is used in hardware instead of assembled PC based plug-in board.In software,several sets of control software with independent functions are integrated into one software developed by C++.After the reform of the control system,the upgraded control system has been running steadily for several months.

Design of an Integrated SITL and HITL Simulation System for the Control of a Loitering Aerial Vehicle

An investigation into the aircraft flight simulation and control system is presented in this paper. The study was firstly focused on the establishment of an integrated hardware-in-the-loop（HITL） platform for aircraft flight simulation based on MATLAB/Simulink ＋ dSPACE. The platform combines the abundant software and hardware resources of dSPACE simulation platform to simulate the flight attitude of an aircraft in six-DOF （ degree of freedom） motion. Based on the platform, the study was then focused on the flight numerical simulation by taking a loitering aerial vehicle as an example. An aircraft mathematical model was created for a modular design and off-line numerical simulation based on MATLAB/Simulink. Finally, the study was focused on the control system design of the loitering aerial vehicle and conduct of an HITL simulation experiment for the vehicle pitch control. The experiment verifies the system design and control effectiveness. Research results show that the dSPACE simulation system provides a real time good experimental platform to improve the efficiency of study and development of a flight control system.

Hardware Implementation and System Control Strategy of Videoconference System Based on Rec. H. 261

The design and realization of a videoconference system based on international recommendation are introduced in this paper, and the hardware implementation of video codec based on ITU-T H. 261 is briefly discussed. Furthermore, the buffer control method and the adaptive control strategy for quantization are proposed, which are adaptive and robust. This system can be operated under the transmission rate ranging from 128kb/s to 2Mb/s. With these strategies for the videoconference system, the high quality image is obtained. The time delay of the system is about half a second.

Development of a PC-based Open Architecture Software-CNC System

As a key te..hnology in the field of advanced manufacturing, an open architecture controller is studied. In order to develop an open architecture software-CNC system on personal computer （PC） according to open modular architecture controllers （OMAC）. First, the software and hardware platform is chosen and software realization methodology for the CNC system is determined. Second, static modeling methods of an open architecture controller inclusive of object-oriented （OO） programming technology, dynamic link library （DLL） technology and system modules partition are investigated. Third, the dynamical behavioral modeling and the data flow representation of open architecture controller are discussed, which are both described in hierarchy fmite state machine （FSM） model. Fourth, a reusable software module model is established to develop software function module library. Finally, a 3-axis milling machine tool test-bed, named for HIT-CNC, is successfully designed by means of the constructed software function module library and the system configuring method. The experimental results show that, besides increasing the degree of reusability and openness, application of above-mentioned method- ology leads to significant decrease of development time as well as maintenance cost.

A Hull-Inspect ROV Control System Architecture

The control architectures of ＂SY-2＂ Remote Operated Vehicle （ROV） are introduced. Both hardware architecture and software architecture are discussed. PC/104 embedded computer is used to control equipment for collecting sensor data and sending control commands. PC/104 embedded computer is integrated with A/D, D/A, 8 serial ports card and power supply unit. The surface computer is a X86PC. They transfer data through a fiber line. For software, real-time OS VxWorks is embedded in PC/104. A/D, D/A and serial ports operation are based on VxWorks OS, which increase the real-time quality of control system. Surface computer is the center of motion control and data processing. It is communicated with underwater PC/104 by socket. The whole system has been tested both on land and in tank.

On Generality of the Data Plane and Scalability of the Control Plane in Software-Defined Networking

The control and data planes are decoupled in software-defined networking(SDN),which enables both planes to evolve independently,and brings about many advantages such as high flexibility,programmability,and rapid implementation of new network protocols.However,in order to improve the scalability of the control plane at present,some control functionalities are added to the data plane,which is probably to impact on the generality of the data plane.The key challenge of adding control functionalities to the data plane is to strike a careful balance between the generality of the data plane and the scalability of the control plane.We propose some basic principles that both control and data planes should comply with,based on the evolutionary trend of SDN.Moreover,we take two approaches for reference according to the principles,viewed from the control messages in OpenFlow-based SDN.Our evaluations demonstrate that the approaches can maintain the generality of the data plane and improve the scalability of the control plane.

Design and evaluation of a hierarchical control architecture for an autonomous underwater vehicle

This paper researches on a kind of control architecture for autonomous undelwater vehicle （AUV）. After describing the hybrid property of the AUV control system, we present the hierarchical AUV control architecture. The architecture is organized in three layers： mission layer, task layer and execution layer. State supervisor and task coordinator are two key modules handling discrete events, so we describe these two modules in detail. Finally, we carried out a series of tests to verify this architecture The test results show that the AUV can perform autonomous missions effectively and safely. We can conclude the control architecture is valid and practical.

Automatic Control System of Ion Electrostatic Accelerator and Anti-Interference Measures

An automatic control system for the electrostatic accelerator has been developed by adopting the PLC （Programmable Logic Controller） control technique, infrared and optical-fibre transmission technique and network communication with the purpose to improve the intelligence level of the accelerator and to enhance the ability of monitoring, collecting and recording parameters. In view of the control system＇ structure, some anti-interference measures have been adopted after analyzing the interference sources. The measures in hardware include controlling the position of the corona needle, using surge arresters, shielding, ground connection and stabilizing the voltage. The measures in terms of software involve inter-blocking protection, soft-spacing, time delay, and diagnostic and protective programs. The electromagnetic compatible ability of the control system has thus been effectively improved.

Audio-Text Multimodal Speech Recognition via Dual-Tower Architecture for Mandarin Air Traffic Control Communications

In air traffic control communications (ATCC), misunderstandings between pilots and controllers could result in fatal aviation accidents. Fortunately, advanced automatic speech recognition technology has emerged as a promising means of preventing miscommunications and enhancing aviation safety. However, most existing speech recognition methods merely incorporate external language models on the decoder side, leading to insufficient semantic alignment between speech and text modalities during the encoding phase. Furthermore, it is challenging to model acoustic context dependencies over long distances due to the longer speech sequences than text, especially for the extended ATCC data. To address these issues, we propose a speech-text multimodal dual-tower architecture for speech recognition. It employs cross-modal interactions to achieve close semantic alignment during the encoding stage and strengthen its capabilities in modeling auditory long-distance context dependencies. In addition, a two-stage training strategy is elaborately devised to derive semantics-aware acoustic representations effectively. The first stage focuses on pre-training the speech-text multimodal encoding module to enhance inter-modal semantic alignment and aural long-distance context dependencies. The second stage fine-tunes the entire network to bridge the input modality variation gap between the training and inference phases and boost generalization performance. Extensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed speech-text multimodal speech recognition method on the ATCC and AISHELL-1 datasets. It reduces the character error rate to 6.54% and 8.73%, respectively, and exhibits substantial performance gains of 28.76% and 23.82% compared with the best baseline model. The case studies indicate that the obtained semantics-aware acoustic representations aid in accurately recognizing terms with similar pronunciations but distinctive semantics. The research provides a novel modeling paradigm for semantics-aware speech recognition in air traffic control communications, which could contribute to the advancement of intelligent and efficient aviation safety management.

The architecture of the lower parts of submarine canyons on the western Nigerian continental margin

Multi-beam,sub-bottom and multichannel seismic data acquired from the western Nigerian continental margin are analysed and interpreted to examine the architectural characteristics of the lower parts of the submarine canyons on the margin.The presence of four canyons： Avon,Mahin,Benin,and Escravos,are confirmed from the multi-beam data map and identified as cutting across the shelf and slope areas,with morphological features ranging from axial channels,moderate to high sinuosity indices,scarps,terraces and nickpoints which are interpreted as resulting from erosional and depositional activities within and around the canyons.The Avon Canyon,in particular,is characterised by various branches and sub-branches with complex morphologies.The canyons are mostly U-shaped in these lower parts with occasional V-shapes down their courses.Their typical orientation is NE–SW.Sedimentary processes are proposed as being a major controlling factor in these canyons.Sediments appear to have been discharged directly into the canyons by rivers during the late Quaternary low sea level which allows river mouths to extend as far as the shelf edge.The current sediment supply is still primarily sourced from these rivers in the case of the Benin and Escravos Canyons,but indirectly in the case of the Avon and Mahin Canyons where the rivers discharge sediments into the lagoons and the lagoons bring the sediments on to the continental shelf before they are dispersed into the canyon heads.Ancient canyons that have long been buried underneath the Avon Canyon are identified in the multichannel seismic profile across the head of the Avon Canyon,while a number of normal faults around the walls of the Avon and Mahin Canyons are observed in the selected sub-bottom profiles.The occurrence of these faults,especially in the irregular portions of the canyon walls,suggests that they also have some effect on the canyon architecture.The formation of the canyons is attributed to the exposure of the upper marginal area to incisions from erosion during the sea level lowstand of the glacial period.The incisions are widened and lengthened by contouric currents,turbidity currents and slope failures resulting in the canyons.

A Frameless Network Architecture for the Way Forward of C-RAN

The key technologies involved in the evolution of the Cloud-based Radio Access Network(C-RAN) are discussed in this paper. Taking the Frameless Network Architecture(FNA) as a starting point, a cell-lessbased network topology for a multi-tier Heterogeneous Network(Het Net) and ultra-dense network is proposed. The FNA network topology modeling is researched with centralized processing and distributed antenna deployments. The Antenna Element(AE) is released as a new dimensional radio resource that is included in the centralized Radio Resource Management(RRM) processes. This contributes to the on-demand user-centric serving-set associations with cell-edge effect elimination. The Control Plane(CP) and User Plane(UP) separation and adaptation are introduced for energy efficiency improvements. The centralized RRM and different optimization goals are discussed for fully exploring the merits from the centralized computing of C-RAN. Considering the complexity, near-optimal approaches for specific users' Quality-of-Service(Qo S) requirements are addressed. Finally, based on the research highlighted above, the way forward of C-RAN evolution is discussed.

Design of motion control system of pipeline detection AUV

A great number of pipelines in China are in unsatisfactory condition and faced with problems of corrosion and cracking,but there are very few approaches for underwater pipeline detection.Pipeline detection autonomous underwater vehicle(PDAUV) is hereby designed to solve these problems when working with advanced optical,acoustical and electrical sensors for underwater pipeline detection.PDAUV is a test bed that not only examines the logical rationality of the program,effectiveness of the hardware architecture,accuracy of the software interface protocol as well as the reliability and stability of the control system but also verifies the effectiveness of the control system in tank experiments and sea trials.The motion control system of PDAUV,including both the hardware and software architectures,is introduced in this work.The software module and information flow of the motion control system of PDAUV and a novel neural network-based control(NNC) are also covered.Besides,a real-time identification method based on neural network is used to realize system identification.The tank experiments and sea trials are carried out to verify the feasibility and capability of PDAUV control system to complete underwater pipeline detection task.

Evolution and controlling factors of the gravity flow deposits in the Miocene sequence stratigraphic framework,the Lower Congo-Congo Fan Basin,West Africa

To understand the evolution of the Miocene gravity flow deposits in the Lower Congo-Congo Fan Basin,this paper documents the Miocene sequence stratigraphic framework,the depositional characteristics and the controlling factors of the gravity flow system.Based on the establishment of high-resolution sequence stratigraphic framework,lithofacies characteristics and sedimentary units of the gravity flow deposits in the region are identified by using seismic,well logging and core data comprehensively,and the sedimentary evolution process is revealed and the controlling factors are discussed.The Miocene can be divided into four 3 rd-order sequences(SQ1-SQ4).The gravity flow deposits mainly include siliciclastic rock and pelite.The main sedimentary units include slumping deposits,mass transport deposits(MTD),channel fills,levee-overbank deposits,and frontal lobes.In the Early Miocene(SQ1),mainly gull-wing,weakly restricted to unrestricted depositional channel-overbank complexes and lobes were formed.In the early Middle Miocene(SQ2),W-shaped and weakly restricted erosional-depositional channels(multi-phase superposition)were subsequently developed.In the late Middle Miocene(SQ3),primarily U-shaped and restricted erosional channels were developed.In the Late Miocene(SQ4),largely V-shaped and deeply erosional isolated channels were formed in the study area.Climate cooling and continuous fall of the sea level made the study area change from toe of slope-submarine plain to lower continental slope,middle continental slope and finally to upper continental slope,which in turn affected the strength of the gravity flow.The three times of tectonic uplifting and climate cooling in the West African coast provided abundant sediment supply for the development of gravity flow deposits.Multistage activities of salt structures played important roles in redirecting,restricting,blocking and destroying the gravity flow deposits.Clarifying the characteristics,evolution and controlling factors of the Miocene gravity flow deposits in the Lower Congo-Congo Fan Basin can provide reference for deep-water petroleum exploration in this basin.