Topology optimization of flexure hinges with a prescribed compliance matrix based on the adaptive spring model and stress constraint

This paper focuses on the configuration design of flexure hinges with a prescribed compliance matrix and preset rotational center position. A new method for the topology optimization of flexure hinges is proposed based on the adaptive spring model and stress constraint. The hinge optimization model is formulated by maximizing the bending displacement with a spring while optimizing the compliance matrix to a prescribed value. To avoid numerical instability, an artificial spring is used as an auxiliary calculation, and a new strategy is developed for adaptively adjusting the spring stiffness according to the prescribed compliance matrix. The maximum stress of flexure hinge is limited by using a normalized P-norm of the effective von Mises stress, and a position constraint of rotational center is proposed to predetermine the position of the rotational center. In addition, to reduce the error of the stress measurement, a simple but effective filtering method is presented to obtain a complete black-and-white design. Numerical examples are used to verify the proposed method. Topology results show that the obtained flexure hinges have the prescribed compliance matrix and preset rotational center position while also meeting the stress requirements.     

Reference guided image super-resolution via efficient dense warping and adaptive fusion

Due to the limited improvement of single-image based super-resolution (SR) methods in recent years, the reference based image SR (RefSR) methods, which super-resolve the low-resolution (LR) input with the guidance of similar high-resolution (HR) reference images are emerging. There are two main challenges in RefSR, i.e. reference image warping and exploring the guidance information from the warped references. For reference warping, we propose an efficient dense warping method to deal with large displacements, which is much faster than traditional patch (or texture) matching strategy. For the SR process, since different reference images complement each other, and have different similarities with the LR image, we further propose a similarity based feature fusion strategy to take advantage of the most similar reference regions. The SR process is realized by an encoder–decoder network and trained with pixel-level reconstruction loss, degradation loss and feature-level perceptual loss. Extensive experiments on three benchmark datasets demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art SR methods in both subjective and objective measurements.     

A survey on tracking control of unmanned underwater vehicles: Experiments-based approach

This paper aims to provide a review of the conceptual design and theoretical framework of the main control schemes proposed in the literature for unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs). Additionally, the objective of the paper is not only to present an overview of the recent control architectures validated on UUVs but also to give detailed experimental-based comparative studies of the proposed control schemes. To this end, the main control schemes, including proportional–integral–derivative (PID) based, sliding mode control (SMC) based, adaptive based, observation-based, model predictive control (MPC) based, combined control techniques, are revisited in order to consolidate the principal efforts made in the last two decades by the automatic control community in the field. Besides implementing some key tracking control schemes from the classification mentioned above on Leonard UUV, several real-time experimental scenarios are tested, under different operating conditions, to evaluate and compare the efficiency of the selected tracking control schemes. Furthermore, we point out potential investigation gaps and future research trends at the end of this survey.     

An adaptive sliding mode observer based near-optimal OER tracking control approach for PEMFC under dynamic operation condition

Tracking control of oxygen excess ratio (OER) is crucial for dynamic performance and operating efficiency of the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). OER tracking errors and overshoots under dynamic load limit the PEMFC output power performance, and also could lead oxygen starvation which seriously affect the life of PEMFC. To solve this problem, an adaptive sliding mode observer based near-optimal OER tracking control approach is proposed in this paper. According to real time load demand, a dynamic OER optimization strategy is designed to obtain an optimal OER. A nonlinear system model based near-optimal controller is designed to minimize the OER tracking error under variable operation condition of PEMFC. An adaptive sliding mode observer is utilized to estimate the uncertain parameters of the PEMFC air supply system and update parameters in near-optimal controller. The proposed control approach is implemented in OER tracking experiments based on air supply system of a 5 kW PEMFC test platform. The experiment results are analyzed and demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed control approach under load changes, external disturbances and parameter uncertainties of PEFMC system.     

Grid Search for Predicting Coronary Heart Disease by Tuning Hyper-Parameters

Diagnosing the cardiovascular disease is one of the biggest medical difficulties in recent years. Coronary cardiovascular (CHD) is a kind of heart and blood vascular disease. Predicting this sort of cardiac illness leads to more precise decisions for cardiac disorders. Implementing Grid Search Optimization (GSO) machine training models is therefore a useful way to forecast the sickness as soon as possible. The state-of-the-art work is the tuning of the hyperparameter together with the selection of the feature by utilizing the model search to minimize the false-negative rate. Three models with a cross-validation approach do the required task. Feature Selection based on the use of statistical and correlation matrices for multivariate analysis. For Random Search and Grid Search models, extensive comparison findings are produced utilizing retrieval, F1 score, and precision measurements. The models are evaluated using the metrics and kappa statistics that illustrate the three models’ comparability. The study effort focuses on optimizing function selection, tweaking hyperparameters to improve model accuracy and the prediction of heart disease by examining Framingham datasets using random forestry classification. Tuning the hyperparameter in the model of grid search thus decreases the erroneous rate achieves global optimization.     

A comparative study between PVO-based framework and multi-predictor mechanism in reversible data hiding

Sorting-based reversible data hiding (RDH) methods like pixel-value-ordering (PVO) can predict pixel values accurately and achieve an extremely low distortion on the embedded image. However, the excellent performance of these methods was not well explained in previous works, and there are unexploited common points among them. In this paper, we propose a general multi-predictor (GMP) framework to summarize PVO-based RDH methods and explain their high prediction accuracy. Moreover, by utilizing the proposed GMP framework, a more efficient sorting-based RDH method is given as an example to show the generality and applicability of our framework. Comparing with other PVO-based methods, the proposed example method can achieve significant improvement in embedding performance. It is hopeful that more efficient sorting-based RDH algorithms can be designed according to our proposed framework by designing better predictors and their combination methods.     

A three-dimensional surface measurement system implemented with Gaussian process based adaptive sampling

Self-adaptive surface measurements that can reduce data redundancy and improve time efficiency are in high demand in many fields of science and technology. For this purpose, a system implemented with Gaussian process (GP) adaptive sampling is developed. The non-parametric GP model is applied to reconstruct the topography and guide the subsequent sampling position, which is determined from the inference uncertainty estimation. A criterion is proposed to terminate the GP adaptive measurement automatically without any prior model or data of the topography. Experiments on typical surfaces validate the intelligence, adaptability, and high accuracy of the GP method along with the stabilization of the automatic iteration termination. Compared with traditional raster sampling, data redundancy is reduced and the time efficiency is improved without sacrificing the surface reconstruction accuracy. The proposed method can be implemented in other systems with similar measurement principles, thus benefitting surface characterizations.     

Adaptive super-twisting fractional-order nonsingular terminal sliding mode control of cable-driven manipulators

This paper proposes a novel adaptive super-twisting fractional-order nonsingular terminal sliding mode (AST–FONTSM) control scheme using time delay estimation (TDE) for the cable-driven manipulators. The designed control scheme utilizes TDE to obtain the estimation of system dynamics, and therefore no system dynamic model information will be required. Afterwards, AST and FONTSM schemes are applied to ensure good control performance in both reaching and sliding mode phases. Due to the adoption of AST scheme, good robustness and high control precision are obtained in the reaching phase, while the boundary information of the lumped uncertainties will be no longer required. Thanks to the utilization of FONTSM error dynamics, fast convergence and accurate tracking and strong robustness can be simultaneously ensured in the sliding mode phase. Corresponding comparative simulation and experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and superiorities of our proposed method over the existing control methods.     

An analysis of adaptive planning capacity: The case of chilean water utilities

New long-term planning approaches capable of coping with uncertainties such as climate change, rapid urbanization, and changing societal values, have been put forward as a way of producing more robust and sustainable plans for the future. But is the planning practice ready for their adoption? This paper takes four key propositions from the adaptive planning literature and tests the existing capacity for adopting those propositions in the context of Chilean water utilities. We will then propose how existing capacities could be enhanced, and propose alternatives for current planning practices, highlighting the importance of implementation through experimentation.     

Electrochemical tuning induced oxygen vacancies for the photoluminescence enhancement

Oxygen vacancies(OVs) can greatly influence the properties of luminescent materials, however, finding a facile way of controlling the specific defect remains challenging. The traditional methods usually require either high temperature or long period of time. Here, we demonstrate an electrochemical strategy to implant OVs in as serious of oxides including Li₂GeZnO₄(LZGO), Li₂GeZnO₄:Mn²⁺(LZGO:Mn) and LiGa₅O₈:Cr³⁺(LGO:Cr). The photoluminescence intensity of all these oxides is increased by 43%, 36% and 38% respectively. Our electrochemical strategy not only exhibits facile advantage in tuning the OVs in the lattice of luminescent material, but also provides a method with general efficacy which should be benificial for many other correlated applications.