Finite time control of robotic manipulators with position output feedback

This paper deals with the robust finite time tracking of desired trajectories for a wide group of robotic manipulators in spite of unknown disturbances, uncertainties, and saturations of actuators while only manipulator's positions are available and its velocities are not measurable physically. A new form of chattering‐free second order fast nonsingular terminal sliding mode control scheme is introduced to design input torques for fulfilling the determined tracking objective in the adjustable total finite settling time. The proposed control algorithm is incorporated with two nonlinear observers to estimate disturbances and velocities of joints within finite settling times. The global finite time stability of the closed‐loop manipulator is analytically proved. Finally, a numerical simulation is carried out to verify the effectiveness of the designed input torques. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evolution of fuzzy logic: from intelligent systems and computation to human mind

Inspired by human’s remarkable capability to perform a wide variety of physical and mental tasks without any measurements and computations and dissatisfied with classical logic as a tool for modeling human reasoning in an imprecise environment, Lotfi A. Zadeh developed the theory and foundation of fuzzy logic with his 1965 paper “Fuzzy sets” (Zadeh in Inf Control 8:378–53, 1965) and extended his work with his 2005 paper “Toward a generalized theory of uncertainty (GTU)—an outline” (Zadeh in Inf Control, 2005). Fuzzy logic has at least two main sources over the past century. The first of these sources was initiated by Peirce in the form what he called a logic of vagueness in 1900s, and the second source is Lotfi’s A. Zadeh work, fuzzy sets and fuzzy Logic in the 1960s and 1970s.     

PDDRA: A new pre-fetching based dynamic data replication algorithm in data grids

In recent years, grid technology has had such a fast growth that it has been used in many scientific experiments and research centers. A large number of storage elements and computational resources are combined to generate a grid which gives us shared access to extra computing power. In particular, data grid deals with data intensive applications and provides intensive resources across widely distributed communities. Data replication is an efficient way for distributing replicas among the data grids, making it possible to access similar data in different locations of the data grid. Replication reduces data access time and improves the performance of the system. In this paper, we propose a new dynamic data replication algorithm named PDDRA that optimizes the traditional algorithms. Our proposed algorithm is based on an assumption: members in a VO (Virtual Organization) have similar interests in files. Based on this assumption and also file access history, PDDRA predicts future needs of grid sites and pre-fetches a sequence of files to the requester grid site, so the next time that this site needs a file, it will be locally available. This will considerably reduce access latency, response time and bandwidth consumption. PDDRA consists of three phases: storing file access patterns, requesting a file and performing replication and pre-fetching and replacement. The algorithm was tested using a grid simulator, OptorSim developed by European Data Grid projects. The simulation results show that our proposed algorithm has better performance in comparison with other algorithms in terms of job execution time, effective network usage, total number of replications, hit ratio and percentage of storage filled.     

A Study of the Effect of Aluminium on the Mechanochemical Reduction of Hematite by Graphite

The effect of addition of small amounts of aluminium on mechano‐chemical reduction of hematite by graphite was studied. Various amounts of aluminium (0 to 10%) were added to a hematite‐graphite mixture, in which C/O ratio was 1:1. The hematite‐graphite‐aluminium mixtures were then subjected to ball milling followed by heating up reduction. The heating up reduction was carried out in Ar atmosphere, using TG‐DTA device. In TG‐DTA experiments, samples were heated by a constant heating rate of 10 °C/min from room temperature up to 1100 °C and maintained for 30 minutes at this temperature. To clarify the reactions which took place during milling and heating up reduction, the samples were subjected to XRD examinations. It was found that the heat generated during exothermic reaction of aluminothermic reduction of hematite promoted the endothermic reaction of carbothermic reduction. In the course of heating up reduction, the carbothermic reaction occurred just after aluminothermic reaction. Increasing of aluminum content from 0 to 10% in 2 hours ball milled samples decreased the temperature of carbothermic reaction from 1020 °C to about 860 °C. The further ball milling of the samples up to 5 and 10 hours, for the samples containing 10 and 5% aluminium respectively, caused the decrease of the temperature of aluminothermic and carbothermic reactions to around the melting point of aluminium.     

Introducing a proper hydrogen liquefaction concept for using wasted heat of thermal power plants-case study: Parand gas power plant

A hydrogen liquefaction concept with an innovative configuration and a capacity of 4 kg·s^-1 (345.6 t·d^-1) is developed. The concept involves an ammonia absorption refrigeration system for the pre-cooling of hydrogen and MR streams from 25 ℃ to -30 ℃. The ammonia absorption refrigeration system is fed by exhaust gases of the Parand gas power plant that are normally dissipated to the environment with a temperature of 546 ℃. The simulation is performed by Aspen HYSYS V9.0, using two separate equations of state for simulating hydrogen and MR streams to gain more accurate results especially for ortho-para conversion. Results show that conversion enthalpy estimated by Aspen HYSYS, fits very well to the experimental data. Determining the important independent variables and composition of MRs are done using trial and error procedure, a functional and straightforward method for complicated systems. The minimum temperature limit in the cooling section is lowered, and an ortho-para converter is implemented in this section. The proposed concept performs well from energy aspects and leads to COP and SEC equal to 0.271 and 4.54 kW·h·kg^-1, respectively. The main advantage of this study is in the low SEC, eliminating the losses of the distribution network, and improving the ability of the hydrogen liquefaction for energy storage in off-peak times.     

Graphene network enabled high speed electrical actuation of shape memory nanocomposite based on poly(vinyl acetate)

Here strong electroactive shape memory nanocomposites were prepared by incorporating graphene nanoplatelets into poly(vinyl acetate) (PVAc ) through the simple solvent mixing method. TEM and XRD revealed that well exfoliated graphene nanoplatelets formed a continuous network throughout the matrix with a large amount of interconnectedness. Dynamic mechanical analysis showed that the inclusion of graphene significantly improves both glassy and rubbery moduli of the matrix. Furthermore, the prepared nanocomposites demonstrated a marked electrical conductivity up to 24.7 S m^?1 and thereby surprisingly rapid electrical actuation behaviour exhibiting a 100% recovery ratio in 2.5 s. Moreover, PVAc and its nanocomposites displayed scratch self‐healing capability. This work demonstrates that the PVAc /graphene nanocomposites with high modulus and excellent electroactive shape memory performance can be a promising material in many applications such as sensors and fast deployable and actuating devices. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry     

Thermal degradation behavior and kinetic studies of polyacrylamide gel in TiO2 nanoparticles synthesis

Polyacrylamide gel (PAMG) method is a simple, fast and cheap method used for the synthesis of a wide variety of nanopowders. However, no adequate results have been reported on the thermal degradation behavior of PAMG which can be very effective on the final product properties. In this work, thermal degradation behavior of PAMG in the presence of TiCl₄ as a precursor salt for synthesis of TiO₂ nanoparticles was examined in comparison with linear polyacrylamide (LPAM) and pure PAMG by thermogravimetry/differential thermal analysis. Their thermal degradation kinetics was investigated, as well. The results showed that thermal degradation of all samples occurred in two stages at different onset temperatures. Despite the high thermal stability of pure PAMG compared to LPAM, the presence of TiCl₄ as a mineral material in PAMG structure decreases the thermal degradation onset temperature, considerably. Furthermore for LPAM and PAMG, majority of weight loss occurs in the second stage, but in PAMG with TiCl₄ the weight loss occurs mainly at the first stage. For more detailed investigation, residual materials were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques, attributing this trend to the presence of mineral materials in PAMG structure. XRD and transmission electron microscopy were also applied to confirm anatase crystalline structure and nanoscale distribution of the TiO₂ particles synthesized via PAMG method.