Non-singular terminal sliding mode control of rigid manipulators

This paper presents a global non-singular terminal sliding mode controller for rigid manipulators. A new terminal sliding mode manifold is first proposed for the second-order system to enable the elimination of the singularity problem associated with conventional terminal sliding mode control. The time taken to reach the equilibrium point from any initial state is guaranteed to be finite time. The proposed terminal sliding mode controller is then applied to the control of n-link rigid manipulators. Simulation results are presented to validate the analysis.  

Differential Evolution Algorithm With Strategy Adaptation for Global Numerical Optimization

Differential evolution (DE) is an efficient and powerful population-based stochastic search technique for solving optimization problems over continuous space, which has been widely applied in many scientific and engineering fields. However, the success of DE in solving a specific problem crucially depends on appropriately choosing trial vector generation strategies and their associated control parameter values. Employing a trial-and-error scheme to search for the most suitable strategy and its associated parameter settings requires high computational costs. Moreover, at different stages of evolution, different strategies coupled with different parameter settings may be required in order to achieve the best performance. In this paper, we propose a self-adaptive DE (SaDE) algorithm, in which both trial vector generation strategies and their associated control parameter values are gradually self-adapted by learning from their previous experiences in generating promising solutions. Consequently, a more suitable generation strategy along with its parameter settings can be determined adaptively to match different phases of the search process/evolution. The performance of the SaDE algorithm is extensively evaluated (using codes available from P. N. Suganthan) on a suite of 26 bound-constrained numerical optimization problems and compares favorably with the conventional DE and several state-of-the-art parameter adaptive DE variants.  

Face recognition with radial basis function (RBF) neural networks

A general and efficient design approach using a radial basis function (RBF) neural classifier to cope with small training sets of high dimension, which is a problem frequently encountered in face recognition, is presented. In order to avoid overfitting and reduce the computational burden, face features are first extracted by the principal component analysis (PCA) method. Then, the resulting features are further processed by the Fisher's linear discriminant (FLD) technique to acquire lower-dimensional discriminant patterns. A novel paradigm is proposed whereby data information is encapsulated in determining the structure and initial parameters of the RBF neural classifier before learning takes place. A hybrid learning algorithm is used to train the RBF neural networks so that the dimension of the search space is drastically reduced in the gradient paradigm. Simulation results conducted on the ORL database show that the system achieves excellent performance both in terms of error rates of classification and learning efficiency.  

Face recognition using the nearest feature line method

We propose a classification method, called the nearest feature line (NFL), for face recognition. Any two feature points of the same class (person) are generalized by the feature line (FL) passing through the two points. The derived FL can capture more variations of face images than the original points and thus expands the capacity of the available database. The classification is based on the nearest distance from the query feature point to each FL. With a combined face database, the NFL error rate is about 43.7-65.4% of that of the standard eigenface method. Moreover, the NFL achieves the lowest error rate reported to date for the ORL face database.  

Face recognition using line edge map

The automatic recognition of human faces presents a significant challenge to the pattern recognition research community. Typically, human faces are very similar in structure with minor differences from person to person. They are actually within one class of "human face". Furthermore, lighting conditions change, while facial expressions and pose variations further complicate the face recognition task as one of the difficult problems in pattern analysis. This paper proposes a novel concept: namely, that faces can be recognized using a line edge map (LEM). The LEM, a compact face feature, is generated for face coding and recognition. A thorough investigation of the proposed concept is conducted which covers all aspects of human face recognition, i.e. face recognition under (1) controlled/ideal conditions and size variations, (2) varying lighting conditions, (3) varying facial expressions, and (4) varying pose. The system performance is also compared with the eigenface method, one of the best face recognition techniques, and with reported experimental results of other methods. A face pre-filtering technique is proposed to speed up the search process. It is a very encouraging to find that the proposed face recognition technique has performed better than the eigenface method in most of the comparison experiments. This research demonstrates that the LEM, together with the proposed generic line-segment Hausdorff distance measure, provides a new method for face coding and recognition  

Canny edge detection enhancement by scale multiplication

The technique of scale multiplication is analyzed in the framework of Canny edge detection. A scale multiplication function is defined as the product of the responses of the detection filter at two scales. Edge maps are constructed as the local maxima by thresholding the scale multiplication results. The detection and localization criteria of the scale multiplication are derived. At a small loss in the detection criterion, the localization criterion can be much improved by scale multiplication. The product of the two criteria for scale multiplication is greater than that for a single scale, which leads to better edge detection performance. Experimental results are presented.  

An image detection technique based on morphological edge detection and background differencing for real-time traffic analysis

The real-time vehicle detection from a traffic scene is the major process in image processing based traffic data collection and analysis techniques. The most common algorithm used for real-time vehicle detection is based on background differencing and thresholding operations. The efficiency of this method of image detection is heavily dependent on the background updating and threshold selection techniques. In this paper, a new background updating and a dynamic threshold selection technique is presented. An alternative image detection technique used in image processing is based on edge detection techniques. However, an edge detector extracts the edges of the objects of a scene irrespective of whether it belongs to the background details or the objects. Therefore, to separate these two, extra information is required. We have developed a new image detection method based on background differencing and edge detection techniques, which separates the objects from their backgrounds and works well under various lighting and weather conditions. This image detection technique together with other techniques for calculating traffic parameters e.g. counting number of vehicles, works in real-time on an 80386-based microcomputer operating at a clock speed of 33 MHz.  

A rough set-based fault ranking prototype system for fault diagnosis

Fault diagnosis is a complex and difficult problem that concerns effective decision-making. Carrying out timely system diagnosis whenever a fault symptom is detected would help to reduce system down time and improve the overall productivity. Due to the knowledge and experience intensive nature of fault diagnosis, the diagnostic result very much depends on the preference of the decision makers on the hidden relations between possible faults and the presented symptom. In other words, fault diagnosis is to rank the possible faults accordingly to give the engineer a practical priority to carry out the maintenance work in an efficient and orderly manner. This paper presents a rough set-based prototype system that aims at ranking the possible faults for fault diagnosis. The novel approach engages rough theory as a knowledge extraction tool to work on the past diagnostic records, which is registered in a pair-wise comparison table. It attempts to extract a set of minimal diagnostic rules encoding the preference pattern of decision-making by domain experts. By means of the knowledge acquired, the ordering of possible faults for failure symptom can then be determined. The prototype system also incorporates a self-learning ability to accumulate the diagnostic knowledge. A case study is used to illustrate the functionality of the developed prototype. Result shows that the ranking outcome of the possible faults is reasonable and sensible.  

Performance evaluation of a sequential minimal radial basisfunction (RBF) neural network learning algorithm

Presents a detailed performance analysis of the minimal resource allocation network (M-RAN) learning algorithm, M-RAN is a sequential learning radial basis function neural network which combines the growth criterion of the resource allocating network (RAN) of Platt (1991) with a pruning strategy based on the relative contribution of each hidden unit to the overall network output. The resulting network leads toward a minimal topology for the RAN. The performance of this algorithm is compared with the multilayer feedforward networks (MFNs) trained with 1) a variant of the standard backpropagation algorithm, known as RPROP and 2) the dependence identification (DI) algorithm of Moody and Antsaklis (1996) on several benchmark problems in the function approximation and pattern classification areas. For all these problems, the M-RAN algorithm is shown to realize networks with far fewer hidden neurons with better or same approximation/classification accuracy. Further, the time taken for learning (training) is also considerably shorter as M-RAN does not require repeated presentation of the training data.  

A generalized growing and pruning RBF (GGAP-RBF) neural network for function approximation

This work presents a new sequential learning algorithm for radial basis function (RBF) networks referred to as generalized growing and pruning algorithm for RBF (GGAP-RBF). The paper first introduces the concept of significance for the hidden neurons and then uses it in the learning algorithm to realize parsimonious networks. The growing and pruning strategy of GGAP-RBF is based on linking the required learning accuracy with the significance of the nearest or intentionally added new neuron. Significance of a neuron is a measure of the average information content of that neuron. The GGAP-RBF algorithm can be used for any arbitrary sampling density for training samples and is derived from a rigorous statistical point of view. Simulation results for bench mark problems in the function approximation area show that the GGAP-RBF outperforms several other sequential learning algorithms in terms of learning speed, network size and generalization performance regardless of the sampling density function of the training data.