Looking ahead: Joint small group detection and tracking in crowd scenes

Small group detection and tracking in crowd scenes are basis for high level crowd analysis tasks. However, it suffers from the ambiguities in generating proper groups and in handling dynamic changes of group configurations. In this paper, we propose a novel delay decision-making based method for addressing the above problems, motivated by the idea that these ambiguities can be solved using rich temporal context. Specifically, given individual detections, small group hypotheses are generated. Then candidate group hypotheses across consecutive frames and their potential associations are built in a tree. By seeking for the best non-conflicting subset from the hypothesis tree, small groups are determined and simultaneously their trajectories are got. So this framework is called joint detection and tracking. This joint framework reduces the ambiguities in small group decision and tracking by looking ahead for several frames. However, it results in the unmanageable solution space because the number of track hypotheses grows exponentially over time. To solve this problem, effective pruning strategies are developed, which can keep the solution space manageable and also improve the credibility of small groups. Experiments on public datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our method. The method achieves the state-of-the-art performance even in noisy crowd scenes.     

Utilizing sensor data to model students’ creativity in a digital environment

While creativity is essential for developing students’ broad expertise in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields, many students struggle with various aspects of being creative. Digital technologies have the unique opportunity to support the creative process by (1) recognizing elements of students’ creativity, such as when creativity is lacking (modeling step), and (2) providing tailored scaffolding based on that information (intervention step). However, to date little work exists on either of these aspects. Here, we focus on the modeling step. Specifically, we explore the utility of various sensing devices, including an eye tracker, a skin conductance bracelet, and an EEG sensor, for modeling creativity during an educational activity, namely geometry proof generation. We found reliable differences in sensor features characterizing low vs. high creativity students. We then applied machine learning to build classifiers that achieved good accuracy in distinguishing these two student groups, providing evidence that sensor features are valuable for modeling creativity.     

Studying local liquid velocity in liquid–solid packed bed using the newly developed X-ray DIR technique

Combination of X-ray Digital Industrial Radiography (DIR) and Particle Tracking Velocimetry (PTV) techniques for local liquid velocity measurement (V_LL) has been newly developed and successfully applied for trickle bed reactor (TBR). The technique was validated against newly developed fiber optical probe technique. This work attempts to highlight the applicability of this newly developed technique on a liquid–solid packed bed reactor. In this work, liquid was represented by water and solids were represented by EPS beads. The EPS beads were chosen because of its low density property. Three superficial liquid velocities (V_SL) were applied to the system. The experiment was replicated four times. The digital industrial radiography (DIR) consists of a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) digital detector and X-ray source. Results of this work suggest that the technique has been successfully applied and comparable with previous work that has been done in the literature. It also suggests that there will be a maximum measurable interstitial liquid velocity when it travel inside the packed bed. The measured V_LL can have a maximum range that is between 4 and 4.7 times that of its V_SL. For V_SL=0.42±±2%, the V_LL-Max is in between 1.7 cm/s and 1.9 cm/s, V_SL=0.84±±2%, the V_LL-Max is in between 3.6 cm/s and 4.0 cm/s, and for V_SL=1.11±±2%, the V_LL-Max is in between 4.3 cm/s and 4.8 cm/s.     

小型机载激光通信系统设计与验证

针对空空宽带高速通信的需求，设计了小型化机载激光通信系统。仿真分析了300 km、2.5 Gb/s无线激光链路性能，并通过运动仿真台模拟机动环境测试了系统的跟踪与通信性能，其中粗跟踪误差为533.2 μrad(1σ)，精跟踪误差为3.6 μrad(1σ)，测试数据传输240 s，通信误码率为2.82×10-9。仿真与实验验证了该系统用于远距离空空无线激光通信的可行性。     

基于分段加权的反向稀疏跟踪算法研究

为提高稀疏表示跟踪模型性能，提出一种分段加权的反向稀疏跟踪算法，将跟踪问题转化为在贝叶斯框架下寻找概率最高的候选对象问题，构造不同的分段权重函数来分别度量候选目标与正负模板的判别特征系数。通过池化来降低跟踪结果的不确定性干扰，选择正负模板加权系数差值最大的候选表示作为跟踪结果。实验表明，在光照变化、遮挡、快速运动、运动模糊情况下，所提出的算法可以确保跟踪结果的准确性和鲁棒性。     

Adaptive compensation of persistent actuator failures of nonlinear systems

In this article, adaptive compensation designs are developed for nonlinear systems with uncertainties from the system functions and persistent actuator failures of characterizations that (i) some unknown system inputs are stuck at some unknown fixed or varying values at unknown time instants and (ii) the failure pattern always switches from one to another and the switching does not stop. Such a controlled plant is described by an uncertain time-varying nonlinear system, and some robust adaptive feedback linearization based failure compensation results are studied for closed-loop system stabilization and bounded output tracking for some specific conditions. To improve the tracking performance in the presence of persistent actuator failures, a new adaptive control scheme is developed, using the failure indicator function which contains the failure pattern and failure time in the formulation. Detailed stability and tracking performance are shown. Simulation results are shown to verify the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive actuator failure compensation method.     

Thickness dependent barrier performance of permeation barriers made from atomic layer deposited alumina for organic devices

Organic devices like organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) or organic solar cells degrade fast when exposed to ambient air. Hence, thin-films acting as permeation barriers are needed for their protection. Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is known to be one of the best technologies to reach barriers with a low defect density at gentle process conditions. As well, ALD is reported to be one of the thinnest barrier layers, with a critical thickness – defining a continuous barrier film – as low as 5–10 nm for ALD processed Al₂O₃. In this work, we investigate the barrier performance of Al₂O₃ films processed by ALD at 80 °C with trimethylaluminum and ozone as precursors. The coverage of defects in such films is investigated on a 5 nm thick Al₂O₃ film, i.e. below the critical thickness, on calcium using atomic force microscopy (AFM). We find for this sub-critical thickness regime that all spots giving raise to water ingress on the 20 × 20 μm² scan range are positioned on nearly flat surface sites without the presence of particles or large substrate features. Hence below the critical thickness, ALD leaves open or at least weakly covered spots even on feature-free surface sites. The thickness dependent performance of these barrier films is investigated for thicknesses ranging from 15 to 100 nm, i.e. above the assumed critical film thickness of this system. To measure the barrier performance, electrical calcium corrosion tests are used in order to measure the water vapor transmission rate (WVTR), electrodeposition is used in order to decorate and count defects, and dark spot growth on OLEDs is used in order to confirm the results for real devices. For 15–25 nm barrier thickness, we observe an exponential decrease in defect density with barrier thickness which explains the likewise observed exponential decrease in WVTR and OLED degradation rate. Above 25 nm, a further increase in barrier thickness leads to a further exponential decrease in defect density, but an only sub-exponential decrease in WVTR and OLED degradation rate. In conclusion, the performance of the thin Al₂O₃ permeation barrier is dominated by its defect density. This defect density is reduced exponentially with increasing barrier thickness for alumina thicknesses of up to at least 25 nm.     

Filtered adaptive constrained sampled-data control for uncertain multivariable nonlinear systems

A filtered adaptive constrained sampled-data controller for uncertain multivariable nonlinear systems in the presence of various constraints is synthesized in this paper. A piecewise constant adaptive law drives that estimation error dynamics to zero at each sampling time instant yields adaptive parameters. The filtered control scheme consists of two components. Based on an estimation/cancellation strategy, a disturbance rejection control law is designed to compensate the nonlinear uncertainties within the bandwidth of low-pass filters, whereas a constraint violation avoidance control law is designed to solve an online constrained optimization problem. Although a reduced sampling time helps to minimize the estimation error caused by the neglect of unknowns, the resulting aggressive signals put more restrictions on the control law. Greater sacrifice of tracking performance is required to satisfy the constraints. The constraints violation avoidance control law is in favor of a larger sampling time. Sufficient conditions are given to guarantee the stability of the closed-loop system with the sampled-data controller, where the input/output signals are held constant over the sampling period. Numerical examples are provided to validate the theoretical results, comparisons between the constrained sampled-data controller and unconstrained adaptive controller with the implementation of different sampling times are carried out.     

Artificial bee colony based algorithm for maximum power point tracking (MPPT) for PV systems operating under partial shaded conditions

Artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm has several characteristics that make it more attractive than other bio-inspired methods. Particularly, it is simple, it uses fewer control parameters and its convergence is independent of the initial conditions. In this paper, a novel artificial bee colony based maximum power point tracking algorithm (MPPT) is proposed. The developed algorithm, does not allow only overcoming the common drawback of the conventional MPPT methods, but it gives a simple and a robust MPPT scheme. A co-simulation methodology, combining Matlab/Simulink™ and Cadence/Pspice™, is used to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method and compare its performance, under dynamic weather conditions, with that of the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) based MPPT algorithm. Moreover, a laboratory setup has been realized and used to experimentally validate the proposed ABC-based MPPT algorithm. Simulation and experimental results have shown the satisfactory performance of the proposed approach.