Flight Mechanics Analysis of a Motorized Trike with Composite Wing

In this work, a mathematical model to study the dynamic behavior of a trike ultralight aircraft is developed. This is done because, to the best of the writers’ knowledge, no specific theories are available for powered hang gliders. To do that, in order to take into account the engine thrust, the necessary changes have been made on models developed for hang gliders. The trike, which is a particular case of powered hang glider, is modeled as a compound system made of a wing and an undercarriage. The case of rigid wing, made of composite materials, is considered in the present work. Equilibrium governing equations are written, the trim conditions are evaluated, and the fixed control dynamic stability is investigated for both longitudinal and lateral motion. After that a modified wing configuration, with two additional vertical fins, is investigated and compared. The dynamic response to pilot controls is evaluated to complete the analysis.     

Lifelike talking faces for interactive services

Lifelike talking faces for interactive services are an exciting new modality for man-machine interactions. Recent developments in speech synthesis and computer animation enable the real-time synthesis of faces that look and behave like real people, opening opportunities to make interactions with computers more like face-to-face conversations. This paper focuses on the technologies for creating lifelike talking heads, illustrating the two main approaches: model-based animations and sample-based animations. The traditional model-based approach uses three-dimensional wire-frame models, which can be animated from high-level parameters such as muscle actions, lip postures, and facial expressions. The sample-based approach, on the other hand, concatenates segments of recorded videos, instead of trying to model the dynamics of the animations in detail. Recent advances in image analysis enable the creation of large databases of mouth and eye images, suited for sample-based animations. The sample-based approach tends to generate more naturally looking animations at the expense of a larger size and less flexibility than the model-based animations. Beside lip articulation, a talking head must show appropriate head movements, in order to appear natural. We illustrate how such "visual prosody" is analyzed and added to the animations. Finally, we present four applications where the use of face animation in interactive services results in engaging user interfaces and an increased level of trust between user and machine. Using an RTP-based protocol, face animation can be driven with only 800 bits/s in addition to the rate for transmitting audio.     

A neural network accelerator for image analysis

At the heart of this image analysis system are two NET32K analog neural network chips, computing over 100 billion multiply-accumulates per second. The system simultaneously scans sixty-four 16×16-pixel templates over bi-level images, producing feature maps that mark matches between the image and the templates. When we code simple, generic shapes into the templates, the feature maps allow us to make quick, robust analyses of complex, noisy images