Data-driven modeling on anisotropic mechanical behavior of brain tissue with internal pressure

Brain tissue is one of the softest parts of the human body,composed of white matter and grey matter.The mechanical behavior of the brain tissue plays an essential role in regulating brain morphology and brain function.Besides,traumatic brain injury(TBI)and various brain diseases are also greatly influenced by the brain's mechanical properties.Whether white matter or grey matter,brain tissue contains multiscale structures composed of neurons,glial cells,fibers,blood vessels,etc.,each with different mechanical properties.As such,brain tissue exhibits complex mechanical behavior,usually with strong nonlinearity,heterogeneity,and directional dependence.Building a constitutive law for multiscale brain tissue using traditional function-based approaches can be very challenging.Instead,this paper proposes a data-driven approach to establish the desired mechanical model of brain tissue.We focus on blood vessels with internal pressure embedded in a white or grey matter matrix material to demonstrate our approach.The matrix is described by an isotropic or anisotropic nonlinear elastic model.A representative unit cell(RUC)with blood vessels is built,which is used to generate the stress-strain data under different internal blood pressure and various proportional displacement loading paths.The generated stress-strain data is then used to train a mechanical law using artificial neural networks to predict the macroscopic mechanical response of brain tissue under different internal pressures.Finally,the trained material model is implemented into finite element software to predict the mechanical behavior of a whole brain under intracranial pressure and distributed body forces.Compared with a direct numerical simulation that employs a reference material model,our proposed approach greatly reduces the computational cost and improves modeling efficiency.The predictions made by our trained model demonstrate sufficient accuracy.Specifically,we find that the level of internal blood pressure can greatly influence stress distribution and determine the possible related damage behaviors.

Development of vehicle-recognition method on water surfaces using LiDAR data:SPD^(2)(spherically stratified point projection with diameter and distance)

Swarm robot systems are an important application of autonomous unmanned surface vehicles on water surfaces.For monitoring natural environments and conducting security activities within a certain range using a surface vehicle,the swarm robot system is more efficient than the operation of a single object as the former can reduce cost and save time.It is necessary to detect adjacent surface obstacles robustly to operate a cluster of unmanned surface vehicles.For this purpose,a LiDAR(light detection and ranging)sensor is used as it can simultaneously obtain 3D information for all directions,relatively robustly and accurately,irrespective of the surrounding environmental conditions.Although the GPS(global-positioning-system)error range exists,obtaining measurements of the surface-vessel position can still ensure stability during platoon maneuvering.In this study,a three-layer convolutional neural network is applied to classify types of surface vehicles.The aim of this approach is to redefine the sparse 3D point cloud data as 2D image data with a connotative meaning and subsequently utilize this transformed data for object classification purposes.Hence,we have proposed a descriptor that converts the 3D point cloud data into 2D image data.To use this descriptor effectively,it is necessary to perform a clustering operation that separates the point clouds for each object.We developed voxel-based clustering for the point cloud clustering.Furthermore,using the descriptor,3D point cloud data can be converted into a 2D feature image,and the converted 2D image is provided as an input value to the network.We intend to verify the validity of the proposed 3D point cloud feature descriptor by using experimental data in the simulator.Furthermore,we explore the feasibility of real-time object classification within this framework.

Set Stabilization of Large-Scale Stochastic Boolean Networks:A Distributed Control Strategy

Dear Editor,This letter deals with the set stabilization of stochastic Boolean control networks(SBCNs)by the pinning control strategy,which is to realize the full control for systems by imposing control inputs on a fraction of agents.

Integral Event-Triggered Attack-Resilient Control of Aircraft-on-Ground Synergistic Turning System With Uncertain Tire Cornering Stiffness

This article proposes an integral-based event-triggered attack-resilient control method for the aircraft-on-ground(AoG) synergistic turning system with uncertain tire cornering stiffness under stochastic deception attacks. First, a novel AoG synergistic turning model is established with synergistic reverse steering of the front and main wheels to decrease the steering angle of the AoG fuselage, thus reducing the steady-state error when it follows a path with some large curvature. Considering that the tire cornering stiffness of the front and main wheels vary during steering, a dynamical observer is designed to adaptively identify them and estimate the system state at the same time.Then, an integral-based event-triggered mechanism(I-ETM) is synthesized to reduce the transmission frequency at the observerto-controller end, where stochastic deception attacks may occur at any time with a stochastic probability. Moreover, an attackresilient controller is designed to guarantee that the closed-loop system is robust L2-stable under stochastic attacks and external disturbances. A co-design method is provided to get feasible solutions for the observer, controller, and I-ETM simultaneously. An optimization program is further presented to make a tradeoff between the robustness of the control scheme and the saving of communication resources. Finally, the low-and high-probability stochastic deception attacks are considered in the simulations. The results have illustrated that the AoG synergistic turning system with the proposed control method follows a path with some large curvature well under stochastic deception attacks. Furthermore,compared with the static event-triggered mechanisms, the proposed I-ETM has demonstrated its superiority in saving communication resources.

Multiperspective Analysis of Microscale Trigeneration Systems and Their Role in the Crowd Energy Concept

The energy system of the future will transform from the current centralised fossil based to a decentralised, clean, highly efficient, and intelligent network. This transformation will require innovative technologies and ideas like trigeneration and the crowd energy concept to pave the way ahead. Even though trigeneration systems are extremely energy efficient and can play a vital role in the energy system, turning around their deployment is hindered by various barriers. These barriers are theoretically analysed in a multiperspective approach and the role decentralised trigeneration systems can play in the crowd energy concept is highlighted. It is derived from an initial literature research that a multiperspective （technological, energy-economic, and user） analysis is necessary for realising the potential of trigeneration systems in a decentralised grid. And to experimentally quantify these issues we are setting up a microseale trigeneration lab at our institute and the motivation for this lab is also briefly introduced.

Effect of Powder Particle Size on the Fabrication of Ti-6Al-4V Using Direct Laser Metal Deposition from Elemental Powder Mixture

Direct LMD （laser metal deposition） was used to fabricate thin-wall Ti-6Al-4V using the powder mixture of Ti-6 wt.%Al-4 wt.%V. SEM （scanning electron microscopy）, OM （optical microscopy） and EDS （energy dispersive spectroscopy） were employed to examine the chemical composition and microstructure of the as-deposited sections. Vickers hardness tests were then applied to characterize the mechanical properties of the deposit samples which were fabricated using pre-mixed elemental powders. The EDS line scans indicated that the chemical composition of the samples was homogenous across the deposit. After significant analysis, some differences were observed among two sets of deposit samples which varied in the particle size of the mixing Ti-6wt.%Al-4wt.%V powder. It could be found that the set with similar particle number for Ti, Al and V powder made composition much more stable and could easily get industry qualified Ti-6Al-4V components.

Autonomous Vehicle Platoons In Urban Road Networks:A Joint Distributed Reinforcement Learning and Model Predictive Control Approach

In this paper, platoons of autonomous vehicles operating in urban road networks are considered. From a methodological point of view, the problem of interest consists of formally characterizing vehicle state trajectory tubes by means of routing decisions complying with traffic congestion criteria. To this end, a novel distributed control architecture is conceived by taking advantage of two methodologies: deep reinforcement learning and model predictive control. On one hand, the routing decisions are obtained by using a distributed reinforcement learning algorithm that exploits available traffic data at each road junction. On the other hand, a bank of model predictive controllers is in charge of computing the more adequate control action for each involved vehicle. Such tasks are here combined into a single framework:the deep reinforcement learning output(action) is translated into a set-point to be tracked by the model predictive controller;conversely, the current vehicle position, resulting from the application of the control move, is exploited by the deep reinforcement learning unit for improving its reliability. The main novelty of the proposed solution lies in its hybrid nature: on one hand it fully exploits deep reinforcement learning capabilities for decisionmaking purposes;on the other hand, time-varying hard constraints are always satisfied during the dynamical platoon evolution imposed by the computed routing decisions. To efficiently evaluate the performance of the proposed control architecture, a co-design procedure, involving the SUMO and MATLAB platforms, is implemented so that complex operating environments can be used, and the information coming from road maps(links,junctions, obstacles, semaphores, etc.) and vehicle state trajectories can be shared and exchanged. Finally by considering as operating scenario a real entire city block and a platoon of eleven vehicles described by double-integrator models, several simulations have been performed with the aim to put in light the main f eatures of the proposed approach. Moreover, it is important to underline that in different operating scenarios the proposed reinforcement learning scheme is capable of significantly reducing traffic congestion phenomena when compared with well-reputed competitors.

H_∞ Consensus Control of Discrete-Time Multi-Agent Systems Under Network Imperfections and External Disturbance

This paper presents a distributed control protocol for consensus control of multi-agent systems(MASs) under external disturbances and network imperfections, including communication delay and random packet dropout. To comply with the discrete nature of networked systems, in contrast to most of the existing work for MASs under network imperfections,the agents are modeled by discrete-time dynamics. The communication network is considered to be undirected, its delay is considered to be time-varying but bounded, and its packet dropout is modeled by a Bernoulli distributed white sequence.Sufficient conditions in terms of linear matrix inequalities(LMIs)for asymptotic mean-square consensus stability are derived under network imperfections without considering external disturbances.A desired disturbance attenuation level in the presence of both external disturbances and network imperfections is also provided.A simulation example is given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach in coping with network imperfection and disturbances.

Physical Safety and Cyber Security Analysis of Multi-Agent Systems:A Survey of Recent Advances

Multi-agent systems(MASs)are typically composed of multiple smart entities with independent sensing,communication,computing,and decision-making capabilities.Nowadays,MASs have a wide range of applications in smart grids,smart manufacturing,sensor networks,and intelligent transportation systems.Control of the MASs are often coordinated through information interaction among agents,which is one of the most important factors affecting coordination and cooperation performance.However,unexpected physical faults and cyber attacks on a single agent may spread to other agents via information interaction very quickly,and thus could lead to severe degradation of the whole system performance and even destruction of MASs.This paper is concerned with the safety/security analysis and synthesis of MASs arising from physical faults and cyber attacks,and our goal is to present a comprehensive survey on recent results on fault estimation,detection,diagnosis and fault-tolerant control of MASs,and cyber attack detection and secure control of MASs subject to two typical cyber attacks.Finally,the paper concludes with some potential future research topics on the security issues of MASs.

Balance Control of a Biped Robot on a Rotating Platform Based on Efficient Reinforcement Learning

In this work,we combined the model based reinforcement learning(MBRL)and model free reinforcement learning(MFRL)to stabilize a biped robot(NAO robot)on a rotating platform,where the angular velocity of the platform is unknown for the proposed learning algorithm and treated as the external disturbance.Nonparametric Gaussian processes normally require a large number of training data points to deal with the discontinuity of the estimated model.Although some improved method such as probabilistic inference for learning control(PILCO)does not require an explicit global model as the actions are obtained by directly searching the policy space,the overfitting and lack of model complexity may still result in a large deviation between the prediction and the real system.Besides,none of these approaches consider the data error and measurement noise during the training process and test process,respectively.We propose a hierarchical Gaussian processes(GP)models,containing two layers of independent GPs,where the physically continuous probability transition model of the robot is obtained.Due to the physically continuous estimation,the algorithm overcomes the overfitting problem with a guaranteed model complexity,and the number of training data is also reduced.The policy for any given initial state is generated automatically by minimizing the expected cost according to the predefined cost function and the obtained probability distribution of the state.Furthermore,a novel Q(λ)based MFRL method scheme is employed to improve the policy.Simulation results show that the proposed RL algorithm is able to balance NAO robot on a rotating platform,and it is capable of adapting to the platform with varying angular velocity.

Geometrical-Analysis-Based Algorithm for Stereo Matching of Single-Lens Binocular and Multi-Ocular Stereovision System

A geometrical analysis based algorithm is proposed to achieve the stereo matching of a single-lens prism based stereovision system. By setting the multi- face prism in frontal position of the static CCD （CM-140MCL） camera, equivalent stereo images with different orientations are captured synchronously by virtual cameras which are defined by two boundary lines： the optical axis and CCD camera field of view boundary. Subsequently, the geometrical relationship between the 2D stereo images and corresponding 3D scene is established by employing two fundamentals： ray sketching in which all the pertinent points, lines, and planes are expressed in the 3D camera coordinates and the rule of refraction. Landing on this relationship, the epipolar geometry is thus obtained by fitting a set of corresponding candidate points and thereafter, stereo matching of the prism based stereovision system is obtained. Moreover, the unique geometrical properties of the imaging system allow the proposed method free from the complicated camera calibration procedures and to be easily generalized from binocular and tri-oeular to multi-ocular stereovision systems. The performance of the algorithm is presented through the experiments on the binocular imaging system and the comparison with a conventional projection method demonstrates the efficient assessment of our novel contributions.

Study on the Driving Style Adaptive Vehicle Longitudinal Control Strategy

This paper presents a fusion control strategy of adaptive cruise control(ACC) and collision avoidance(CA),which takes into account a driver’s behavioral style. First, a questionnaire survey was performed to identify driver type, and the corresponding driving behavioral data were collected via driving simulator experiments, which served as the template data for the online identification of driver type. Then, the driveradaptive ACC/CA fusion control strategy was designed, and its effect was verified by virtual experiments. The results indicate that the proposed control strategy could achieve the fusion control of ACC and CA successfully and improve driver adaptability and comfort.

Global Synchronization of Stochastically Disturbed Memristive Neurodynamics via Discontinuous Control Laws

This paper presents the theoretical results on the master-slave (or driving-response) synchronization of two memristive neural networks in the presence of additive noise. First, a control law with a linear time-delay feedback term and a discontinuous feedback term is introduced. By utilizing the stability theory of stochastic differential equations, sufficient conditions are derived for ascertaining global synchronization in mean square using this control law. Second, an adaptive control law consisting of a linear feedback term and a discontinuous feedback term is designed to achieve global synchronization in mean square, and it does not need prior information of network parameters or random disturbances. Finally, simulation results are presented to substantiate the theoretical results. © 2014 Chinese Association of Automation.

Virtual Epipolar Line Construction of Single-Lens Bi-Prism Stereovision System

This paper proposes a simple geometrical ray based approach to solve the stereo correspondence problem for the single-lens bi-prism stereovision system. Each image captured using this system can be divided into two sub-images on the left and right and these sub-images are generated by two virtual cameras which are produced by the bi-prism. This stereovision system is equivalent to the conventional two camera system and the two sub-images captured have disparities which can be used to reconstruct back the 3-dimensional （3D） scene. The stereo correspondence problem of this system will be solved geometrically by applying the epipolar geometry constraint on the generated virtual cameras instead of the real CCD camera. Experiments are conducted to validate the proposed method and the results are compared to the calibration based approach to confirm its accuracy and effectiveness.

Optimal Synchronization Control of Heterogeneous Asymmetric Input-Constrained Unknown Nonlinear MASs via Reinforcement Learning

The asymmetric input-constrained optimal synchronization problem of heterogeneous unknown nonlinear multiagent systems(MASs)is considered in the paper.Intuitively,a state-space transformation is performed such that satisfaction of symmetric input constraints for the transformed system guarantees satisfaction of asymmetric input constraints for the original system.Then,considering that the leader’s information is not available to every follower,a novel distributed observer is designed to estimate the leader’s state using only exchange of information among neighboring followers.After that,a network of augmented systems is constructed by combining observers and followers dynamics.A nonquadratic cost function is then leveraged for each augmented system(agent)for which its optimization satisfies input constraints and its corresponding constrained Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman(HJB)equation is solved in a data-based fashion.More specifically,a data-based off-policy reinforcement learning(RL)algorithm is presented to learn the solution to the constrained HJB equation without requiring the complete knowledge of the agents’dynamics.Convergence of the improved RL algorithm to the solution to the constrained HJB equation is also demonstrated.Finally,the correctness and validity of the theoretical results are demonstrated by a simulation example.

Adaptive Control of a Two-Link Robot Using Batch Least-Square Identifier

We design a regulation-triggered adaptive controller for robot manipulators to efficiently estimate unknown parameters and to achieve asymptotic stability in the presence of coupled uncertainties.Robot manipulators are widely used in telemanipulation systems where they are subject to model and environmental uncertainties.Using conventional control algorithms on such systems can cause not only poor control performance,but also expensive computational costs and catastrophic instabilities.Therefore,system uncertainties need to be estimated through designing a computationally efficient adaptive control law.We focus on robot manipulators as an example of a highly nonlinear system.As a case study,a 2-DOF manipulator subject to four parametric uncertainties is investigated.First,the dynamic equations of the manipulator are derived,and the corresponding regressor matrix is constructed for the unknown parameters.For a general nonlinear system,a theorem is presented to guarantee the asymptotic stability of the system and the convergence of parameters'estimations.Finally,simulation results are discussed for a two-link manipulator,and the performance of the proposed scheme is thoroughly evaluated.

Inverse Optimal Control of Evolution Systems and Its Application to Extensible and Shearable Slender Beams

An optimal(practical) stabilization problem is formulated in an inverse approach and solved for nonlinear evolution systems in Hilbert spaces. The optimal control design ensures global well-posedness and global practical K∞-exponential stability of the closed-loop system, minimizes a cost functional,which appropriately penalizes both state and control in the sense that it is positive definite(and radially unbounded) in the state and control, without having to solve a Hamilton-Jacobi-Belman equation(HJBE). The Lyapunov functional used in the control design explicitly solves a family of HJBEs. The results are applied to design inverse optimal boundary stabilization control laws for extensible and shearable slender beams governed by fully nonlinear partial differential equations.

Adaptive Consensus Quantized Control for a Class of High-Order Nonlinear Multi-Agent Systems With Input Hysteresis and Full State Constraints

For a class of high-order nonlinear multi-agent systems with input hysteresis,an adaptive consensus output-feedback quantized control scheme with full state constraints is investigated.The major properties of the proposed control scheme are:1)According to the different hysteresis input characteristics of each agent in the multi-agent system,a hysteresis quantization inverse compensator is designed to eliminate the influence of hysteresis characteristics on the system while ensuring that the quantized signal maintains the desired value.2)A barrier Lyapunov function is introduced for the first time in the hysteretic multi-agent system.By constructing state constraint control strategy for the hysteretic multi-agent system,it ensures that all the states of the system are always maintained within a predetermined range.3)The designed adaptive consensus output-feedback quantization control scheme allows the hysteretic system to have unknown parameters and unknown disturbance,and ensures that the input signal transmitted between agents is the quantization value,and the introduced quantizer is implemented under the condition that only its sector bound property is required.The stability analysis has proved that all signals of the closed-loop are semi-globally uniformly bounded.The Star Sim hardware-in-the-loop simulation certificates the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive quantized control scheme.

Enhancing Design of Visual-Servo Delayed System

A robust adaptive predictor is proposed to solve the time-varying and delay control problem of an overhead crane system with a stereo-vision servo. The predictor is based on the use of a recurrent neural network(RNN) with tapped delays, and is used to supply the real-time signal of the swing angle. There are two types of discrete-time controllers under investigation, i.e., the proportional-integral-derivative(PID) controller and the sliding controller. Firstly, a design principle of the neural predictor is developed to guarantee the convergence of its swing angle estimation. Then, an improved version of the particle swarm optimization algorithm, the parallel particle swarm optimization(PPSO) method is used to optimize the control parameters of these two types of controllers. Finally, a homemade overhead crane system equipped with the Kinect sensor for the visual servo is used to verify the proposed scheme. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach, which also show the parameter convergence in the predictor.

Concurrent Learning-based Approximate Feedback-Nash Equilibrium Solution of N-player Nonzero-sum Differential Games

This paper presents a concurrent learning-based actor-critic-identifier architecture to obtain an approximate feedback-Nash equilibrium solution to an infinite horizon Nplayer nonzero-sum differential game.The solution is obtained online for a nonlinear control-affine system with uncertain linearly parameterized drift dynamics.It is shown that under a condition milder than persistence of excitation(PE),uniformly ultimately bounded convergence of the developed control policies to the feedback-Nash equilibrium policies can be established.Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the performance of the developed technique without an added excitation signal.