From Job Characteristics to Job Satisfaction of Foreign Workers in Taiwan's Construction Industry: The Mediating Role of Organizational Commitment

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among job characteristics, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction of foreign workers in Taiwan. Overall, 440 Thailand foreign workers were recruited and structural equation modeling was used to test the research hypotheses. The results of this study supported all proposed hypotheses. Job characteristics had a positive effect on job satisfaction of foreign workers. However, the results showed an indirect effect of job characteristics on job satisfaction via organizational commitment. Moreover, the findings suggested that job autonomy is better compared to other job characteristics. This study contributes to the existing literature by stressing the importance of such relationships in the cross‐cultural management enterprises, particularly those concerning foreign workers.     

Gait Generation and Stabilization for Nearly Passive Dynamic Walking Using Auto‐distributed Impulses

We propose a state feedback control design via linearization for flexible walking on flat ground. First, we generate nearly passive limit cycles, being stable or not, using impulsive toe‐off actuations. The term ‘nearly passive’ means that the dynamics is completely passive almost everywhere except at the toe‐off moment. A feature of our gait generation method is that walking gaits are characterized only by amounts of supplied energy, and we observe that other variables, including input torques, are auto‐balanced via our method. After gait generation, we design a feedback controller considering robustness and input saturation. As a result, each limit cycle can be matched with its respective controller classified only by energy levels. We have verified that walking speeds monotonically increase by adding more energy, and the ankle joint plays a significant role in compass‐gait walking. Finally, instead of applying impulsive torques, we discuss a practical issue regarding realistic control inputs that ensure stable gait transitions as energy levels are elevated.     

Robust Input Covariance Constraint Control for Uncertain Polytopic Systems

In this paper, the robust input covariance constraint (ICC) control problem with polytopic uncertainty is solved using convex optimization with linear matrix inequality (LMI) approach. The ICC control problem is an optimal control problem that optimizes the output performance subjected to multiple constraints on the input covariance matrices. This control problem has significant practical implications when hard constraints need to be satisfied on control actuators. The contribution of this paper is the characterization of the control synthesis LMIs used to solve the robust ICC control problem for polytopic uncertain systems. Both continuous‐ and discrete‐time systems are considered. Parameter‐dependent and independent Lyapunov functions have been used for robust ICC controller synthesis. Numerical design examples are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.     

Robust Adaptive Neural Control for a Class of Time‐Varying Delay Systems with Backlash‐like Hysteresis Input

This paper proposes a robust adaptive dynamic surface control (DSC) scheme for a class of time‐varying delay systems with backlash‐like hysteresis input. The main features of the proposed DSC method are that 1) by using a transformation function, the prescribed transient performance of the tracking error can be guaranteed; 2) by estimating the norm of the unknown weighted vector of the neural network, the computational burden can be greatly reduced; 3) by using the DSC method, the explosion of complexity problem is eliminated. It is proved that the proposed scheme guarantees all the closed‐loop signals being uniformly ultimately bounded. The simulation results show the validity of the proposed control scheme.     

Tracking Performance Bound with Finite Control Energy and Erasure Channel Energy Constraint

This paper studies the tracking performance of the single‐input single‐output (SISO), finite dimensional, linear and time‐invariant (LTI) system under the channel input energy constraint over the Erasure channel. A new performance index is proposed which is minimized over all two‐degree‐of‐freedom stabilizing controllers. The explicit expressions of the lower bound of the performance index and the minimum of the signal‐to‐noise ratio are obtained. The results show that the performance bound is correlated to unstable poles, non‐minimum phase zeros and the packet loss probability. Finally, examples are given to validate the conclusions derived.     

Consensus in second‐order Markovian jump multi‐agent systems via impulsive control using sampled information with heterogenous delays

This paper investigates the consensus problem of second‐order Markovian jump multi‐agent systems with delays. Both network‐induced random delay and node‐induced state delay are considered, where the network‐induced random delay, subjected to a Markov chain, exists in the switching signal and the node‐induced state delay, related to switching topologies, is heterogeneous between any two linked agents. In order to reduce communication and control energy, an impulsive protocol is proposed, where each agent only can get delayed relative positions to neighbors and the velocity of itself at impulsive instants. By performing three steps of model transformation and introducing a mapping for two independent Markov chains, the consensus problem of the original continuous‐time system is equivalent to the stability problem of a discrete‐time expand error system with two Markovian jumping parameters and a necessary and sufficient criterion is derived. A numerical example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the theoretical result.@@@@This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants 61374171, 61572210, and 51537003, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2015TS030), and the Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University (IRT1245).     

Simultaneous Design of Parallel Distributed Output Feedback and Anti‐windup Compensators for Constrained Takagi‐Sugeno Fuzzy Systems

This paper is devoted to developing a novel approach to deal with constrained continuous‐time nonlinear systems in the form of Takagi‐Sugeno fuzzy models. Here, the disturbed systems are subject to both input and state constraints. The one‐step design method is used to simultaneously synthesize the dynamic output feedback controller and its anti‐windup strategy. A parameter‐dependent version of the generalized sector condition is used together with Lyapunov stability theory to derive linear matrix inequality design conditions. Based on this result and for different design specifications, the synthesis of an anti‐windup based dynamic output feedback controller is expressed on the form of convex optimization problems. A physically motivated example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Robust H∞ Tracking Control of Uncertain Robotic Systems with Periodic Disturbances

This paper addresses the problem of designing robust tracking control for a large class of uncertain robotic systems. A more general model of the external disturbance is employed in the sense that the external disturbance can be expressed as the sum of a modeled disturbance and an unmodeled disturbance, for example, any periodic disturbance can be expressed in this general form. An adaptive neural network system is constructed to approximate the behavior of unknown robot dynamics. An adaptive control algorithm is designed to estimate the behavior of the modeled disturbance, and in turn the robust H_∞ control algorithm is required to attenuate the effects of the unmodeled disturbance only. Consequently, an intelligent adaptive/robust tracking control scheme is constructed such that an H_∞ tracking control is achieved in the sense that all the states and signals of the closed‐loop system are bounded and the effect due to the unmodeled disturbance on the tracking error can be attenuated to any preassigned level. Finally, simulations are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness and performance of the proposed control algorithm.     

A disturbance observer based practical coordinated tracking controller for uncertain heterogeneous multi‐agent systems

This paper presents a coordinated tracking controller for multi‐agent systems. We assume that agents are uncertain, nonidentical, and affected by external disturbances. The information available to the tracking controller is a weighted sum of relative measurements. A coordinated tracking controller based on the disturbance observer, which is known as a robust output feedback controller, is designed so that the disturbances acting on agents are attenuated and at the same time the weighted sum of relative measurements approximately satisfies a differential equation defined by the leader's dynamics, which results in practical coordinated tracking. Systematic design procedures of the controller as well as numerical simulations are provided. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Formation stabilization and resizing based on the control of inter‐agent distances

We propose a control strategy that could steer the group of mobile agents in the plane to achieve a specified formation. The control law could be implemented in a fully decentralized manner so that each agent moves on their own local reference frame. Under the acyclic minimally persistent graph topology, each agent measures the relative displacements of neighboring agents and then adjusts the distances between them to achieve the desired formation. As well as achieving a fixed formation, we could resize the formation only by changing the leader edge, which connects the leader with the first‐follower in acyclic minimally persistent graph, without changing the structures of the control law. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.