Dynamics and Stable Control for a Class of Underactuated Mechanical Systems

The control of underactuated mechanical systems is very complex for the loss of its control inputs. The model of underactuated mechanical systems in a potential field is built with Lagrangian method and its structural properties are analyzed in detail. A stable control approach is proposed for the class of underactuated mechanical systems. This approach is applied to an underactuated double-pendulum-type overhead crane and the simulation results illustrate the correctness of dynamics analysis and validity of the proposed control algorithm.

Balance Properties and Stabilization of Min-Max Systems

A variety of problems in operations research, performance analysis, manufacturing, and communication networks, etc., can be modelled as discrete event systems with minimum and maximum constraints. When such systems require only maximum constraints （or dually, only minimum constraints）, they can be studied using linear methods based on max-plus algebra. Systems with mixed constraints are called min-max systems in which rain, max and addition operations appear simultaneously. A significant amount of work on such systems can be seen in literature. In this paper we provide some new results with regard to the balance problem of min-max functions; these are the structure properties of min-max systems. We use these results in the structural stabilization. Our main results are two sufficient conditions for the balance and one sufficient condition for the structural stabilization. The block technique is used to analyse the structure of the systems. The proposed methods, based on directed graph and max-plus algebra are constructive in nature. We provide several examples to demonstrate how the methods work in practice.

Mechanical design and implementation of a new biomimetic robot fish

A mechanical design method of mbet fish is introduced in this paper. Based on this method, an autonomous 3-Dimension （3D） locomotion mbet fish with two pectoral fins and a caudal fin is developed. The pectoral fin mechanism has 3 degrees of freedom （3-DOFs）, which enables the mbet fish to realize yawing and pitching motions by controlling two pectoral fins. And the eandal fin mechanism is designed based on fish body wave curve fitting. The forward velocity can be adjusted by changing the eandal mechanism＇ s oscillating frequency. Finally a physical implementation of the robot fish and experimental results are given.

Robustness analysis of control systems with disc uncertainties

For a class of control systems with disc uncertainties, robust performance anaysis is developed. On the strictly positive realness and H-infinity-norm of uncertain systems, from the geometric point of view, two new sufficient and necessary conditions are given. The largest H-infinity-norm bound, containing the coefficients of only stable polynomials and centered at a nominal stable point in the coecient space is found. The results obtained in the paper are tractable and concise, which is illustrated by some numerical examples.

H-infinity control for networked control systems (NCS) with time-varying delays

This paper discusses H-infinity state feedback control for a networked control system with time-varying delays. Based on the flee-weighing matrix method, a dehy-dependent stability criterion satisfying a prescribed H-infinity norm bound is presented for an NCS with unknown, time-varying and bounded delays. And then, the criterion is transformed into sufficient conditions based on linear matrix inequalities for H-infinity control. The conditions thus obtained are also used to design an H-infinity state feedback controller. This design method is further extended to solve the design problem of robust H-infinity state feedback control. A numerical example demonstrates the validity of the method.

Toward a Unified Mathematical and Computational Framework for Control and Mechanics

This is a brief review on the recent book: Duality System in Applied Mechanics and Optimal Control, by Zhong Wan-Xie, published by Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004. The book represents a significant effort to re-establish the historic and deep tie between control and mechanics by striving to connect and integrate concepts, methods, and algorithms in mechanics and control so that a unified framework can be established for both analytical and computational purposes. Clearly, it has demonstrated that the duality system method can be used as a mathematical and systematic foundation to deal with many important concepts and problems in both mechanics and control. This book is not only very useful for research and applications, but also extremely helpful for multidisciplinary curriculum development when students from one field are trying to learning and applying concepts and methods from the other field.

Correlation Analysis between TCM Syndromes and Physicochemical Parameters

Traditionally, differentiation of syndromes of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) mainly depends on the information obtained from four diagnosis methods. Now many physicochemical parameters are available in clinic. There exists great correlation between TCM syndromes and physicochemical parameters. The objective of the paper is to analyze the correlation between TCM syndromes and physicochemical parameters quantitatively. Correlation analysis has been widely studied and many analysis methods have been developed. Mutual information based on entropy can measure arbitrary dependence between variables. It has been applied to many kinds of fields, especially to pattern recognition. But most works are restricted to discrete variables and little work has been done to study the relation between discrete and continuous variables. A novel algorithm is proposed to calculate the mutual information between discrete and continuous variables. It is used to analyze the correlation between TCM syndromes and physicochemical parameters.

An epidemiological analysis of the Beijing 2008 Hand-Foot-Mouth epidemic

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the epidemiological data concerning the 18445 HFMD-infected cases in Beijing in 2008.The main findings are as follows.(i) Seasonal variations in incidence were observed,with a peak observed during the summer season,especially in May.Male patients outnumber female patients by 1.57:1.(ii) Most cases occurred in children 4 years old or younger.Outperforming Weibull distribution and Gamma distribution as to model fitness when analyzing patient ages,log-normal distribution indicates that the estimated mean age is 3.4 years.(iii) The age distribution seems to indicate cyclic peaks with roughly one-year intervals.(iv) Correlation analyses (ρ=0.9864) show that time of birth in different months has an impact on the chance of being infected by HFMD.Birth month seems to present a high risk factor on infants and young children.(v) The morbidity rate is 132.7/100000 during the HFMD epidemic in Beijing in 2008.The morbidity map shows that the risks of HFMD infection in areas close to the city center and suburbans are much lower than those in the urban-rural transition zones.Spatial risks inferred from the morbidity map demonstrate a clear circular pattern.(vi) The prevention and control measures taken by the public health departments seem to be effective during the summer season,resulting in the early ending of the epidemic (one month earlier than the natural season) and reduced outbreak size.

A New Pre-alignment Approach Based on Four-Quadrant-Photo-Detector for IC Mask

In this paper, a new pre-alignment approach based on Four-Quadrant-Photo-Detector （FQPD） for IC mask is presented. The voltage outputs from FQPDs are the functions of alignment mark＇s position offsets with respect to FQPDs. The functions are obtained with least squares error （LSE）-based polynomial fitting after the normalization of experimental data. As the acquired functions are not monotonic about their variables, the alignment mark＇s position offset cannot be given by direct inverse operation on the obtained functions. However, the piecewise polynomial fitting gives the inverse function, with which the alignment mark＇s position offset can be predicted according to the voltage outputs of FQPDs. On the basis of prediction, a pre-alignment control strategy is proposed. The feasibility and robustness of the pre-alignment approach is shown by experiments. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that the maximum error of mask＇s position offset in the X- and Y- directions is less than 15μm after coarse pre-alignment. Keywords： Four-Quadrant-Photo-Detector （FQPD）, pre-alignment, IC mask, polynomial fitting

Solution to the Generalized Champagne Problem on simultaneous stabilization of linear systems

The well-known Generalized Champagne Problem on simultaneous stabilization of linear systems is solved by using complex analysis and Blonders technique. We give a complete answer to the open problem proposed by Patel et al., which automatically includes the solution to the original Champagne Problem. Based on the recent development in automated inequality-type theorem proving, a new stabilizing controller design method is established. Our numerical examples significantly improve the relevant results in the literature.

Finite horizon optimal control of discrete-time nonlinear systems with unfixed initial state using adaptive dynamic programming

In this paper,we aim to solve the finite horizon optimal control problem for a class of discrete-time nonlinear systems with unfixed initial state using adaptive dynamic programming(ADP) approach.A new-optimal control algorithm based on the iterative ADP approach is proposed which makes the performance index function converge iteratively to the greatest lower bound of all performance indices within an error according to within finite time.The optimal number of control steps can also be obtained by the proposed-optimal control algorithm for the situation where the initial state of the system is unfixed.Neural networks are used to approximate the performance index function and compute the optimal control policy,respectively,for facilitating the implementation of the-optimal control algorithm.Finally,a simulation example is given to show the results of the proposed method.

Optimal design and motion control of biomimetic robotic fish

This paper is concerned with the design, optimization, and motion control of a radiocontrolled, multi-link, free-swimming biomimetic robotic fish based on an optimized kinematic and dynamic model of fish swimming. The performance of the robotic fish is determined by both the fish＇s morphological characteristics and kinematic parameters. By applying ichthyologic theories of propulsion, a design framework that takes into consideration both mechatronic constraints in physical realization and feasibility of control methods is presented, under which a multiple linked robotic fish that integrates both the carangiform and anguilliform swimming modes can be easily developed. Taking account of both theoretic hydrodynamic issues and practical problems in engineering realization, the optimal link-lengthratios are numerically calculated by an improved constrained cyclic variable method, which are successfully applied to a series of real robotic fishes. The rhythmic movements of swimming are driven by a central pattern generator （CPG） based on nonlinear oscillations, and up-and-down motion by regulating the rotating angle of pectoral fins. The experimental results verify that the presented scheme and method are effective in design and implementation.

一种鲁棒的基于两个特征点的深度估计方法

This paper presents a novel depth estimation method based on feature points. Two points are selected arbitrarily from an object and their distance in the space is assumed to be known.The proposed technique can estimate simultaneously their depths according to two images taken before and after a camera moves and the motion parameters of the camera may be unknown. In addition, this paper analyzes the ways to enhance the precision of the estimated depths and presents a feature point image coordinates search algorithm to increase the robustness of the proposed method.The search algorithm can find automatically more accurate image coordinates of the feature points based on their detected image coordinates. Experimental results demonstrate the efficiency of the presented method.

基于单应性矩阵的室内移动机器人视觉定位研究

Monocular visual positioning for indoor mobile robot is concerned in this paper. A new visual positioning method based on homography matrix in Euclidean space is proposed. It can calculate the position and pose of the mobile robot according to the intrinsic parameters of camera and two position-known points in a plane. It is very simple and low cost in computation. The experimental results show its effectiveness.

门牌识别系统中的鲁棒性分割方法

Robot navigation based on character recognition is an effective vision method for compensating the disadvantage of ultrasonic and infrared sensors. A typical example of character recognition for mobile robot navigation is the doorplate recognition system. The captured doorplate images contain unexpected noise from irregular illumination conditions, various imaging angles, different imaging distances, etc. The unexpected noise may still exist after segmentation step. In this paper, a robust segmentation method based on speculating the candidates of the characters and feeding back the classification result to the segmentation process is presented. If the candidates of doorplate characters cannot be determined at the segmentation step, a speculation according to known knowledge is executed. The threshold for character extraction from candidates is adjusted when the corresponding character is rejected after classification. The experimental results indicate that the recognition results are effectively improved with the proposed segmentation method.

一种实用的二维工业CT重建算法

Computed tomography plays an important role in industrial non-destructive testing, medical applications, astronomy and many other fields to look inside the scanned object and to analysis its inner structures. A non-destructive testing software have been developed to efficiently detect inner flaws of space industrial components. As the core of our software, reconstruction algorithms including preprocess of raw data, re-arrange algorithm and filtered back-projection algorithms have been described in detail in this article. With real raw data from CASC of China, experimental results verified the applied reconstruction algorithm in our software. Furthermore, forward algorithms simulating generation of fan-beam raw data are also presented in this article.

Spatio-temporal evolution of Beijing 2003 SARS epidemic

Studying spatio-temporal evolution of epidemics can uncover important aspects of interaction among people, infectious diseases, and the environment, providing useful insights and modeling support to facilitate public health response and possibly prevention measures. This paper presents an empirical spatio-temporal analysis of epidemiological data concerning 2321 SARS-infected patients in Beijing in 2003. We mapped the SARS morbidity data with the spatial data resolution at the level of street and township. Two smoothing methods, Bayesian adjustment and spatial smoothing, were applied to identify the spatial risks and spatial transmission trends. Furthermore, we explored various spatial patterns and spatio-temporal evolution of Beijing 2003 SARS epidemic using spatial statistics such as Moran’s I and LISA. Part of this study is targeted at evaluating the effectiveness of public health control measures implemented during the SARS epidemic. The main findings are as follows. (1) The diffusion speed of SARS in the northwest-southeast direction is weaker than that in northeast-southwest direction. (2) SARS’s spread risk is positively spatially associated and the strength of this spatial association has experienced changes from weak to strong and then back to weak during the lifetime of the Beijing SARS epidemic. (3) Two spatial clusters of disease cases are identified: one in the city center and the other in the eastern suburban area. These two clusters followed different evolutionary paths but interacted with each other as well. (4) Although the government missed the opportunity to contain the early outbreak of SARS in March 2003, the response strategies implemented after the mid of April were effective. These response measures not only controlled the growth of the disease cases, but also mitigated the spatial diffusion.

Fingerprint-Based Identity Authentication and Digital Media Protection in Network Environment

Current information security techniques based on cryptography are facing a challenge of lacking the exact connection between cryptographic key and legitimate users. Biometrics, which refers to distinctive physiological and behavioral characteristics of human beings, is a more reliable indicator of identity than traditional authentication system such as passwords-based or tokens-based. However, researches on the seamless integration biometric technologies, e.g., fingerprint recognition, with cryptosystem have not been conducted until recent years. In this paper, we provide an overview of recent advancements in fingerprint recognition algorithm with a special focus on the enhancement of low-quality fingerprints and the matching of the distorted fingerprint images, and discuss two representative methods of key release and key generation scheme based on fingerprints. We also propose two solutions for the application in identity authentication without trustworthy thirdparty in the network environment, and application in digital media protection, aiming to assure the secrecy of fingerprint template and fingerprint-based user authentication.