Transport network design and mode choice modeling for automobile distribution: A case study

This paper describes the development and implementation of a mixed integer programming type model designed to determine the best transport mode and rail network location strategy for a leading international automobile manufacturer to supply its North American dealers. In particular, this manufacturer wished to establish a plan for its future vehicle distribution that would determine the best mix of truck, conventional rail and containerized intermodal rail to transport cars and light trucks from its North American plants and ports of entry to its dealers. Further, the manufacturer desired to evaluate the proper number, types and locations of rail terminals required for its distribution network. This paper is intended to provide a perspective on the practical application side of this study and how one can conduct such studies in a condensed time period. Thus, in addition to describing the study problem, results and benefits, we also emphasize such topics as how one can manipulate relatively “user friendly” commercial software to address potentially complex mode choice and location problems.     

A method for design of a hybrid neuro-fuzzy control system based onbehavior modeling

It is known that control signals from a fuzzy logic controller are determined by a response behavior of a controlled object rather than its analytical models. That implies that the fuzzy controller could yield a similar control result for a set of plants with a similar dynamic behavior. This idea lends to modeling of a plant with unknown structure by defining several types of dynamic behaviors. On the basis of dynamic behavior classification, a new method is presented for the design of a neuro-fuzzy control system in two steps: 1) we model a plant with unknown structure by choosing a set of simplified systems with equivalent behavior as “templates” to optimize their fuzzy controllers off-line; and 2) we use an algorithm for system identification to perceive dynamic behavior and a neural network to adapt fuzzy logic controllers by matching the “templates” online. The main advantage of this method is that convergence problem can be avoided during adaptation process. Finally, the proposed method is used to design neuro-fuzzy controllers for a two-link manipulator     

A CBR system for injection mould design based on ontology: A case study

Case-based reasoning (CBR) often shows significant promise for improving the effectiveness of design support in mould design, which is a domain strong in practice but poor in theory. However, existing CBR systems lack semantic understanding, which is important for intelligent knowledge retrieval in design support system. This hinders the application of CBR in injection mould design. In order to develop an intelligent CBR system and meet the need of design support for injection mould design, this paper integrates ontology technology into a CBR system by constructing domain ontology as case-base with a new method, in which two means of acquisition are combined, one is acquiring ontology from existing ontologies, the other from established engineering knowledge resources, and proposing a new semantic retrieval method as the first grade case retrieval. Numerical measurement is also employed as the second grade case retrieval, which adopts various methods to calculate different types of attribute values. A case is executed to illustrate the use of proposed CBR system, then a lot of experiments are organized to evaluate its performance and the result shows that the proposed approach outperforms existing CBR systems.     

Business-oriented service modeling: A case study

Based on our hand-on experiences in developing a service-based problem-solving environment for bioinformatics research, we present in this paper a particular approach called VINCA4Science to business-oriented modeling of service functionalities, to Web services virtualization and to user-centric utilization of modeled artifacts. Some practical effects regarding the improvement of domain stability, efficiency and scalability are illustrated.     

Expertise, domain-structure and expert system design: a case study in development control

Abstract: This paper outlines the approach taken and presents some early findings from a research project which aims to examine the potential of expert systems in British Development Control; it is a progress report more than an account of finished research. It follows the structure of the research project, dealing first with methodological issues, and then moving on to discuss the specific domain of application.     

Decentralized control design of interconnected chains of integrators: A case study

We develop a constructive decentralized control design procedure for a class of systems that may be loosely described as chained integrators which are dynamically coupled. The design method is inspired by nested saturation control ideas and formulated by applying the singular perturbation theory. We demonstrate that the proposed design provides a Lyapunov function for an associated closed loop system from which semi-global stability may be deduced. Using the proposed idea, we design a semi-globally stabilizing control law for a four degree of freedom spherical inverted pendulum.     

CFD模拟与流化床气体分布板的结构设计

针对流化床工业设备,简要阐述了加强气体分布板结构设计的重要性。在此基础上,结合对计算流体力学(computational fluid dynamics,CFD)理论及相关计算软件的介绍,重点阐明了FLUENT软件的计算特点及气固流化系统的流场模型,同时还列举了若干基于FLUENT、FIRE、PHOENICS、CFX等CFD软件的流化过程模拟及气体分布板结构优化的实例,并指出了该类研究的几点不足之处,以明确下一步的研发重点。     

Using simulation for facility design: A case study

A discrete event simulation model was developed and used to estimate the storage area required for a proposed overseas textile manufacturing facility. It was found that the simulation was able to achieve this because of its ability to both store attribute values and to show queuing levels at an individual product level. It was also found that the process of undertaking the simulation project initiated useful discussions regarding the operation of the facility. Discrete event simulation is shown to be much more than an exercise in quantitative analysis of results and an important task of the simulation project manager is to initiate a debate among decision makers regarding the assumptions of how the system operates.     

User-interface design for text editing: A case study

This paper describes the design of the user interface of a text editor named Occam with the goal of communicating by example the process of user-interface design. An attempt is made to induce principles; where that attempt falls, the raw details are presented. First Occam Itself Is described, and then aspects of its user Interface are used to exemplify (1) power versus ease of learning, (2) the use of prototypes and user feedback, (3) the importance of planning and (4) error detection and handling.     

Integrated architectural modeling and analysis for high-assurance command and control system design

A Real-Time Architectural Specification (RAS) approach and its application to command and control (C2) systems are presented. Our objective is to establish a formal foundation that will enable us to integrate existing rich but fragmented formal techniques for system specification and verification into a practical and scaleable formal engineering method to support the design and development of highly reliable real-time distributed systems. The contribution of RAS is twofold: First, it provides a formal system that integrates system's timing requirements and requirements propagation into the process of architectural modeling and design in such a way that allows us to systematically enforce that the requirements are met in every step of the design process. Second, it offers an incremental and more scaleable approach for design modeling. These two features together make RAS a suitable model for the design of C2 systems. We further present an incremental method for verifying timing properties of an RAS model that helps to reduce the complexity of analysis both at a given design level and across different design levels. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Software design representation: A case study

In on attempt to improve the representation used for software design, this paper describes the representation used on an actual project. Improvement through the use of case studies such as this one requires explicit analysis; this is presented in the following paper, so that the two should be read together.     

A probabilistic fuzzy logic system for modeling and control

In this paper, a probabilistic fuzzy logic system (PFLS) is proposed for the modeling and control problems. Similar to the ordinary fuzzy logic system (FLS), the PFLS consists of the fuzzification, inference engine and defuzzification operation to process the fuzzy information. Different to the FLS, it uses the probabilistic modeling method to improve the stochastic modeling capability. By using a three-dimensional membership function (MF), the PFLS is able to handle the effect of random noise and stochastic uncertainties existing in the process. A unique defuzzification method is proposed to simplify the complex operation. Finally, the proposed PFLS is applied to a function approximation problem and a robotic system. It shows a better performance than an ordinary FLS in stochastic circumstance.     

Battery modeling for energy aware system design

Advances in battery technology have not kept pace with rapidly growing energy demands. Most laptops, handheld PCs, and cell phones use batteries that take anywhere from 1.5 to 4 hours to fully charge but can run on this charge for only a few hours. The battery has thus become a key control parameter in the energy management of portables. To meet the stringent power budget of these devices, researchers have explored various architectural, hardware, software, and system-level optimizations to minimize the energy consumed per useful computation. Research in battery-aware optimization is now moving from stand-alone devices to networks of wireless devices, specifically, ad hoc and distributed sensor networks. Computationally feasible mathematical models are now available that capture battery discharge characteristics in sufficient detail to let designers develop an optimization strategy that extracts maximum charge.     

Adaptive manipulator control: A case study

The author's previous work (1986, 1987) utilized the particular structure of manipulator dynamics to develop a simple, globally convergent adaptive controller for manipulator trajectory control problems. After summarizing the basic algorithm, they demonstrate the approach on a high-speed two-degree-of-freedom semi-direct-drive robot. They show that the dynamic parameters of the manipulator, assumed to be initially unknown, can be estimated within the first half second of a typical run, and that accordingly, the manipulator trajectory can be precisely controlled. These experimental results demonstrate that the adaptive controller enjoys essentially the same level of robustness to unmodeled dynamics as a PD (proportional and differential) controller, yet achieves much better tracking accuracy than either PD or computed-torque schemes. Its superior performance for high-speed operations, in the presence of parametric and nonparametric uncertainties, and its relative computational simplicity, make it an attractive option both for addressing complex industrial tasks, and for simplifying high-level programming of more standard operations     

Multirate modeling and control design for switched-mode powerconverters

A class of pulse-width modulated (PWM) systems that includes many switched-mode power converters is considered. A new multirate low-frequency sampling PWM scheme is introduced that not only provides the possibility for new types of operation, but also unifies the switching logic corresponding to established PWM schemes. An exact nonlinear discrete-time model is used to develop multirate nonlinear controllers and observers based on map-inversion concepts. This nonlinear design methodology is widely applicable, requiring only that the continuous-time small-signal average model be controllable and observable     

Advanced process control system for a crude distillation unit. A case study

Development, implementation, and operation of an advanced control system for a crude distillation unit are described. The system is based on Honeywell Profit® Controller software. The paper outlines the CDU/VDU-4 plant of Gasprom Neftekhim Salavat JSC (Bashkortostan Republic, Russia) as a control object, discusses project implementation phases, mentions APC maintenance issues, and summarizes key success factors.     

Modeling and evaluating design alternatives for an on-lineinstrumentation system: a case study

This paper demonstrates the use of a model-based evaluation approach for instrumentation systems (ISs). The overall objective of this study is to provide early feedback to tool developers regarding IS overhead and performance; such feedback helps developers make appropriate design decisions about alternative system configurations and task scheduling policies. We consider three types of system architectures: network of workstations (NOW), symmetric multiprocessors (SMP), and massively parallel processing (MPP) systems. We develop a Resource OCCupancy (ROCC) model for an on-line IS for an existing tool and parameterize it for an IBM SP-2 platform. This model is simulated to answer several “what if” questions regarding two policies to schedule instrumentation data forwarding: collect-and-forward (CF) and batch-and-forward (BF). In addition, this study investigates two alternatives for forwarding the instrumentation data: direct and binary tree forwarding for an MPP system. Simulation results indicate that the BF policy can significantly reduce the overhead and that the tree forwarding configuration exhibits desirable scalability characteristics for MPP systems. Initial measurement-based testing results indicate more than 60 percent reduction in the direct IS overhead when the BF policy was added to Paradyn parallel performance measurement tool     

A unified design for feedback-feedforward control system to improve regulatory control performance

The PID controller is widely used in industries because of its simplicity and robustness. A simple approach to improve regulatory control performance is to combine both feedback PID and feedforward controllers. The feedforward controller enables early compensation of a measured disturbance before it can seriously affect the process. The conventionally derived non-ideal feedforward controllers are not often used in practice. The reason is that an ideal feedforward controller based on direct inversion of process model is often not physically realizable. Several non-ideal feedforward control designs have been proposed where some of them involve rather intensive tuning procedure to obtain good disturbance rejection. In this paper, we present a new systematic method for designing a combined feedback-feedforward control system. The proposed design method is easy to use and applicable to stable, unstable and integrating deadtime processes where the ideal feedforward controller is physically not realizable.     

Solid modeling and system design

This article is intended to give the reader a better understanding of solid modeling systems, with emphasis on their use in mechanical applications. It should be helpful for both users and buyers of such systems. While geometry creation and manipulation serve as the underlying foundations, we will also address functions such as weight (mass) calculation and mechanism simulation, as well as the interface to other programs (i.e. finite element analysis etc.).