Formation preserving path finding in 3-D terrains

Navigation of a group of autonomous agents that are required to maintain a formation is a challenging task which has not been studied much especially in 3-D terrains. This paper presents a novel approach to collision free path finding of multiple agents preserving a predefined formation in 3-D terrains. The proposed method could be used in many areas like navigation of semi-automated forces (SAF) at unit level in military simulations and non-player characters (NPC) in computer games. The proposed path finding algorithm first computes an optimal path from an initial point to a target point after analyzing the 3-D terrain data from which it constructs a weighted graph. Then, it employs a real-time path finding algorithm specifically designed to realize the navigation of the group from one waypoint to the successive one on the optimal path generated at the previous stage, preserving the formation and avoiding collision. Software was developed to test the methods discussed here.     

Drinking water denitrification by a membrane bio-reactor

Drinking water denitrification performance of a bench scale membrane bio-reactor (MBR) was investigated as function of hydraulic and biological parameters. The reactor was a stirred tank and operated both in batch and continuous mode. The mixed denitrifying culture used in the batch mode tests was derived from the mixed liquor of a wastewater treatment plant in Erzincan province in Turkey. But the culture used in the continuous mode tests was that obtained from the batch mode tests at the end of the denitrification process. The nitrate contaminated water treated was separated from the mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS) containing active mixed denitrifying culture and other organic substances by a membrane of 0.2 microm average pore diameter. The results indicated that the use of a membrane module eliminated the need for additional post treatment processes for the removal of MLSS from the product water. Concentration of nitrite and that of MLSS in the membrane effluent was below the detectable limits. Optimum carbon to nitrogen (C/N) ratio was found to be 2.2 in batch mode tests. Depending on the process conditions, it was possible to obtain denitrification capacities based on the reactor effluent and membrane effluent up to 0.18kgm(-3)day(-1) and 2.44 kg m(-2) day2(-1) NO(3-)-N, respectively. The variation of the removal capacity with reactor dilution rate and membrane permeate flux was the same for two different degrees of [MLSS]0/[NO3-N]0 (mass) ratios of 25.15 and 49.33. The present MBR was able to produce a drinking water with NO(3-)-N concentration of less than 4 ppm from a water with NO3-N contamination level of 367 ppm equivalent to a NO(3-)-N load of 0.310 kgm(-3) day(-1). The results showed that MBR system used was able to offer NO(3-)-N removals of up to 98.5%. It was found that the membrane limiting permeate flux increased with increasing MLSS concentration.     

UV-Light Absorption Properties of Cr-Doped Polyethyleneglycol (PEG)/γ-Glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane (GPTMS)/Chelated-Titanium Coating Materials Prepared by the Sol–Gel Process

New hybrid inorganic–organic glass coating materials, which contain polyethyleneglycol/γ-glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane/titanium(IV)-n-propoxide(2-methoxyethylacetoacetate)/chromium(III)nitrate [PEG/GPTMS/Ti(OR)(2-MEAA)/Cr³⁺] have been developed for UV-light absorption by using the sol–gel process. The effect of agitation time and temperature on UV-light absorption was investigated. The titanium complex was characterized by ¹H-NMR and FTIR spectroscopies. UV–Vis spectroscopy was used to investigate the optical properties of the coating materials. The results show that the coated glass has very low transmission in the UV region (300–400 nm) compared to the uncoated glass, especially at 150, 200, 250 and 300°C treatment temperatures after 1- and 18-hour agitation times. The UV-light transmission of the coated glass was not different from the uncoated glass between 80–100°C and 350–500°C.     

Water softening in a crossflow membrane reactor

This paper presents an investigation on the removal of hardness by using a crossflow membrane reactor. Lime soda (LS) and caustic soda (CS) were added to hard water as softening chemical agents. The effect of the LS-CS dosage, specific cake resistances (α) and transmembrane pressure drop (ΔP) on steady-state rejection and flux was investigated. Also, flux declines were evaluated with respect to various flux decline models. It was found that hardness rejections decrease for LS and increase for CS with increasing LS and CS dosage, respectively. As ΔP increases, it was observed that while steady-state fluxes rise for both additives, hardness rejections were decreased for CS and remained constant for LS. A maximum of 97.5% hardness removal was achieved for 100% stochiometric dosages of CS. Obtained steady-state flux values varied between 224 to 881 L/m² h, depending on added chemical dosages and applied ΔP. It was determined that the reason for the flux decline at the beginning of the filtration (i.e., in the rapid flux decline period, RPD) was due to an intermediate pore blocking mechanism. As filtration progressed to the slow flux decline period (SDP), it was concluded that cake filtration occurred for all experiments. If solid matter concentration in the feed solution and applied ΔP are relatively low, the experiments showed that flux decline is due to the intermediate pore blocking mechanism. However, it was determined that if solid matter concentration in the feed solution and applied ΔP are relatively high, the flux decline model fits well with the cake filtration model.     

Hydropower Optimization for the Lower Seyhan Basin System in Turkey using dynamic programming

Abstract

Dynamic programming with successive approximation has been used in the past for optimizing multi-reservoir water resources systems. In this study, a State Incremental Dynamic Programming (SIDP) model is developed for energy optimization of multi-reservoir systems. A random file access method is used to generate initial and intermediate data and cope with the curse of dimensionality of dynamic programming. The conventional dynamic programming method is used for each single reservoir to find the initial trajectory of the reservoirs. Then, the computer program developed in the study is applied to the multipurpose-multi-reservoir system in lower Seyhan basin, which comprises six reservoirs, some serial and some parallel. Extended historical flows are used to first maximize firm energy in the critical period, and then total energy over the entire period of flow records. The program is run with 50-year long segments (20 flow scenarios) of the synthetic flow data generated by using the hec-4 generalized computer program to account for the stochastic nature of streamflows. A 20% approximate increase in total energy is obtained by using the developed model for the lower seyhan basin system as compared to that calculated previously by conventional methods.     

Hydropower Optimization for the Lower Seyhan System in Turkey using Dynamic Programming

Abstract

Dynamic programming with successive approximation has been used in the past for optimizing multi-reservoir water resources systems. In this study, the State Incremental Dynamic Programming (SIDP) model is developed for energy optimization of multi-reservoir systems. A random file access method is used for reaching initial and intermediate data to cope with the curse of dimensionality of dynamic programming. A conventional dynamic programming method is used for each single reservoir to find the initial trajectory of the reservoirs. Then, the computer program developed in the study is applied to the multipurpose-multi-reservoir system in Lower Seyhan Basin, which has six reservoirs, some of which are serial and some parallel. First, extended historical flows were used to maximize firm energy in the critical period, and then total energy in the total flows. The program was run with 50-year long segments (20 flow scenarios) of the synthetic flow data generated by using the HEC-4 generalized computer program to take into account the stochastic nature of stream flows. An increment of approximately 20 percent in total energy was obtained by using the model for the Lower Seyhan System, as compared to that calculated previously by conventional methods.     

Solar-energy potential in Turkey

In this study, a new formula based on meteorological and geographical data was developed to determine the solar-energy potential in Turkey using artificial neural-networks (ANNs). Scaled conjugate gradient (SCG) and Levenberg–Marquardt (LM) learning algorithms and a logistic sigmoid transfer function were used in the network. Meteorological data for the last four years (2000 → 2003) from 18 cities (Bilecik, Kırşehir, Akhisar, Bingöl, Batman, Bodrum, Uzunköprü, Şile, Bartın, Yalova, Horasan, Polatlı, Malazgirt, Köyceğiz, Manavgat, Dörtyol, Karataş and Birecik) spread over Turkey were used as data in order to train the neural network. Meteorological and geographical data (latitude, longitude, altitude, month, mean sunshine duration, and mean temperature) were used in the input layer of the network. Solar radiation is the output layer. One-month test data for each city was used, and these months data were not used for training. The results show that the maximum mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) was found to be 3.448% and the R² value 0.9987 for Polatlı. The best approach was found for Kırşehir (MAPE=1.2257, R²=0.9998). The MAPE and R² for the testing data were 3.3477 and 0.998534, respectively. The ANN models show greater accuracy for evaluating solar-resource possibilities in regions where a network of monitoring stations has not been established in Turkey. This study confirms the ability of the ANN to predict solar-radiation values precisely.     

Sequential co-design of an artifact and its controller via control proxy functions

Optimization of a ‘smart’ product requires optimizing the design of both the physical system, or artifact, and its controller. If the artifact and control optimization are coupled, then a combined approach is typically used in order to produce optimal solutions. The combined approach presents certain disadvantages, however. This combined approach obviates a natural decomposition of the problem into smaller design and control sub-problems that can be a disadvantage from a modeling and solution practicality viewpoint. In this paper, it is shown that a modified sequential approach utilizing a Control Proxy Function (CPF) can be used to produce optimal, or near-optimal, solutions while allowing this decomposition. Two physical bases for CPFs are presented, natural frequency and the controllability Grammian matrix, and their range of applicability is discussed. These concepts are demonstrated, for a positioning gantry example and on an active/passive automotive suspension, to be quite effective.     

Forecasting backwater through bridge constrictions in Mississippi River Basin

Hydraulic data collected in the 1960s during 92 distinct floods at 35 different bridge sites in the Mississippi River Basin revealed that the water surface profiles of these real‐life cases were distinctly different from those observed in laboratory models of the comprehensive experimental studies of the 1950s by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and by U.S. Bureau of Public Roads (USBPR). The laboratory‐developed methods of USGS and USBPR yielded only about half of the field backwaters when applied to the comprehensive field data. In the current work, using the same field data and accepting a profile like that observed in the field, a new regression‐based formula for estimating bridge backwater is proposed and compared with the methods of USGS and USBPR, which yields more accurate results than these two methods with the advantage of requiring a smaller load of arithmetic operations. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Performance analysis of a solar cooker in Turkey

A box‐type solar cooker is designed and its thermal performance is analysed experimentally. The cooker tracks the sun in two axes, altitude and sun azimuth, by hand control for hourly periods. The experimental results show that the tested cooker may be assumed suitable in some cooking processes for specific country conditions. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.