Novel plug-configure-play ZigBee-based smart home system

The key purpose of a smart home system is to provide people with a better indoor life experience using the technology of Internet of Things. However, there are some limitations which make the current smart home system impractical, such as high cost, complex installation, poor flexibility and maintainability. In this paper, a novel plug-configure-play ZigBee-based smart home system is proposed to provide repeatable use and improve flexibility and maintainability with the reductions of cost and complexity, which can be customized and reconfigured without redevelopment. In this system, new sensors can be flexibly added through different interfaces on the ZigBee nodes and the sensor network layer is transparent to the users. Therefore, by using our method, users can customize and use the smart home system simply by configuring the sensors information via software on the application layer.     

Investigation on full vehicle height control algorithm using feedback linearization method

Aiming to improve the control accuracy of the vehicle height for the air suspension system, deeply analyzing the processes of variable mass gas thermodynamics and vehicle dynamics, a nonlinear height control model of the air suspension vehicle was built. To deal with the nonlinear characteristic existing in the lifting and lowering processes, the nonlinear model of vehicle height control was linearized by using a feedback linearization method. Then, based on the linear full vehicle model, the sliding model controller was designed to achieve the control variables. Finally, the nonlinear control algorithm in the original coordinates can be achieved by the inverse transformation of coordinates. To validate the accuracy and effectiveness of the sliding mode controller, the height control processes were simulated in Matlab, i.e., the lifting and lowering processes of the air suspension vehicle were taken when vehicle was in stationary and driving at a constant speed. The simulation results show that, compared to other controllers, the designed sliding model controller based on the feedback linearization can effectively solve the "overshoot" problem, existing in the height control process, and force the vehicle height to reach the desired value, so as to greatly improve the speed and accuracy of the height control process. Besides, the sliding mode controller can well regulate the roll and pitch motions of the vehicle body, thereby improving the vehicle''s ride comfort.     

Shifting force control of an AMT heavy-duty truck based on manual shift test

Taking a heavy-duty truck as a research platform, the changing characteristics of shifting force, shift time, and slipping work are obtained through theoretical analysis and manual shift test of a real vehicle. Based on the analysis of the test results, a gear-shifting control strategy of the hydraulic automated shift control system is designed and experimentally verified on the bench. By optimizing the control parameters of high-speed switching valves, a control strategy and parameters are obtained, which can meet the requirements of dynamic performance and reliability.     

Second order sliding mode control with backstepping approach for moving mass spinning missiles

An attitude controller using the second order sliding mode control methodology with a backstepping approach (SOSMCB) is designed and implemented for a spinning missile with two internal moving mass blocks. The system consists of a rigid body and two radial internal moving mass blocks and its mathematical model is established based on Newtonian mechanics. The control scheme integrates a second order sliding mode control algorithm into the last step of the backstepping approach, and its stability is proved by means of a Lyapunov function. The performance of the controller is demonstrated by numerical simulations, the results show that the attitude controller is stable and effective.     

Design and implementation of path planning algorithm for vehicle parking

Parking is an important and indispensable skill for drivers. With rapid urban development, the automatic parking assistant system is one of the key components in future automobiles. Path planning is always essential for solving parking problems. In this paper, a path planning method is proposed for parking using straight lines and circular curves of different radius without collisions with obstacles. The parking process is divided into two steps in which the vehicle reaches the goal state through the intermediate state from the initial state. The intermediate state will be selected from the intermediate state set with a certain criterion in order to avoid obstacles. Similarly, an appropriate goal state will be selected based on the size of the parking lot. In addition, an automatic parking system is built, which effectively achieves the parking lot perception, path planning and performs parking processes in the environment with obstacles. The result of simulations and experiments demonstrates the feasibility and practicality of the proposed method and the automatic parking system.     

A necessary and sufficient stability criterion for networked predictive control systems

Stability of a networked predictive control system subject to network-induced delay and data dropout is investigated in this study. By modeling the closed-loop system as a switched system with an upper-triangular structure, a necessary and sufficient stability criterion is developed. From the criterion, it also can be seen that separation principle holds for networked predictive control systems. A numerical example is provided to confirm the validity and effectiveness of the obtained results.     

Analysis of stress-magnetic coupling effect in weak magnetic environment

Metal magnetic memory (MMM) signals are difficult to be analyzed due to noise interference, which limits its practical engineering application. A method of improving the magnetic signals is proposed in this paper by placing the excitation device which generates a weak external magnetic field about 100 A/m. The effect of the external magnetic field on the magnetic signals is studied using both finite element method (FEM) and uniaxial tensile tests. Comparison of the test data with the simulation ones of stress-magnetic coupling shows that the magnetic signals are strengthened and the measurement sensitivity of the detection system is greatly improved through the external magnetic excitation. Moreover, the FEM result has a good agreement with the testing results of No.20 steel plate. The proposed method has laid a foundation for further practical engineering application.     

Optimization of satellite searching strategy of the non-stationary antenna

The tiny searching step length and the satellite distribution density are the major factors to influence the efficiency of the satellite finder, so a scientific and reasonable method to calculate the tiny searching step length is proposed to optimize the satellite searching strategy. The pattern clustering and BP neural network are applied to optimize the tiny searching step length. The calculated tiny searching step length is approximately equal to the theoretic value for each satellite. In application, the satellite searching results will be dynamically added to the training samples to re-train the network to improve the generalizability and the precision. Experiments validate that the optimization of the tiny searching step length can avoid the error of locating target satellite and improve the searching efficiency.     

Multi-criteria user selection scheme for learning-based multiuser MIMO cognitive radio networks

For multiuser multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) cognitive radio (CR) networks a four-stage transmiision structure is proposed. In learning stage, the learning-based algorithm with low overhead and high flexibility is exploited to estimate the channel state information (CSI) between primary (PR) terminals and CR terminals. By using channel training in the second stage of CR frame, the channels between CR terminals can be achieved. In the third stage, a multi-criteria user selection scheme is proposed to choose the best user set for service. In data transmission stage, the total capacity maximization problem is solved with the interference constraint of PR terminals. Finally, simulation results show that the multi-criteria user selection scheme, which has the ability of changing the weights of criterions, is more flexible than the other three traditional schemes and achieves a tradeoff between user fairness and system performance.     

Extended trajectory shaping guidance law considering a first-order autopilot lag

To satisfy the terminal position and impact angel constraints, an optimal guidance problem was discussed for homing missiles. For a stationary or a slowly moving target on the ground, an extended trajectory shaping guidance law considering a first-order autopilot lag (ETSGL-CFAL) was proposed. To derive the ETSGL-CFAL, a time-to-go-nth power weighted objection function was adopted and three different derivation methods were demonstrated while the Schwartz inequality method was mainly demonstrated. The performance of the ETSGL-CFAL and the ETSGL guidance laws was compared through simulation. Simulation results show that although a first-order autopilot is introduced into the ETSGL-CFAL guidance system, the position miss distance and terminal impact angle error induced by the impact angle is zero for different guidance time.