A minimum variance distortionless response filter based on the bifrequency spectrum for single-channel noise reduction

This paper deals with the problem of single-channel noise reduction in the short-time Fourier transform (STFT) domain. Many algorithms have been developed to solve this important problem, most of which generally assume that the STFT coefficients in different frequency bands are uncorrelated, so the noise reduction is achieved by applying a gain function to the STFT of the noisy speech in each frequency band. However, this assumption is not accurate and the STFT coefficients of speech signals between neighboring frequency bands are correlated in practice due to the use of small lengths of the fast Fourier transform (FFT) and overlap add/save techniques in implementation. This paper formulates the noise reduction problem by taking into account the interband correlation using the so-called bifrequency spectrum. Based on this formulation, a single-channel minimum variance distortionless response (MVDR) filter is derived, which is shown to be able to significantly improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and meanwhile maintain the desired speech not much distorted. Simulations are presented to justify the claimed merits of the developed MVDR filter.     

Polysulphone and poly(phenylene sulphide) blends: 1. Thermal characterization and phase morphology

The phase behaviour and morphology of injection moulded specimens of polysulphone (PSF) and poly(phenylene sulphide) (PPS) blends were studied by differential scanning calorimetry (d.s.c.), dynamical mechanical thermal analysis (d.m.t.a.) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The blends are phase separated regardless of the blend composition as revealed by d.s.c., d.m.t.a. and TEM. Upon annealing at 160°C for 2 h, d.m.t.a. results indicate that the PPS phase remains in the amorphous state at compositions <10%. At compositions between 20 and 35%, the PPS appears to be dispersed in a mixed mode of amorphous and crystalline domains. Above 35% the PPS phase appears to become fully crystallized upon annealing of the blends. At 10% PPS, TEM results showed 35–200 nm size dispersion both in the as-moulded and in the annealed specimens. At 20% the PPS phase varied widely in size, from 35 nm to tens of micrometres but remained as an included phase. TEM also revealed a compound morphology of the included phase at a composition of 50 wt% of each component.     

Observer‐based H ∞ control for networked systems with bounded random delays and consecutive packet dropouts

This paper is concerned with the H _∞ control problem for a class of systems with bounded random delays and consecutive packet dropouts that exist in both sensor‐to‐controller channel and controller‐to‐actuator channel during data transmission. A new model is developed to describe possible random delays and packet dropouts by two groups of Bernoulli distributed stochastic variables. To avoid the state augmentation, a full‐order observer‐based feedback controller is designed via LMI approach. Based on the Lyapunov theory, a sufficient condition is provided to guarantee the closed‐loop networked system to be asymptotically mean‐square stable and achieve the prescribed H _∞ disturbance‐rejection‐attenuation level. The simulation examples illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Containment control of multi‐agent systems by exploiting the control inputs of neighbors

This paper studies the containment control problem for multi‐agent systems consisting of multiple leaders and followers connected as a network. The objective is to design control protocols so that the leaders will converge to a certain desired formation while the followers converge to the convex hull of the leaders. A novel protocol is proposed by exploiting the control input information of neighbors. Both continuous‐time and discrete‐time systems are considered. For continuous‐time systems, it is proved that the protocol is robust to any constant delays of the neighbors' control inputs. For discrete‐time systems, a sufficient condition on the feedback gain for the containment control is given in terms of the time delay and graph information. Some numerical examples are given to demonstrate the results. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Robust consensus for uncertain multi‐agent systems with discrete‐time dynamics

This paper investigates robust consensus for multi‐agent systems with discrete‐time dynamics affected by uncertainty. In particular, the paper considers multi‐agent systems with single and double integrators, where the weighted adjacency matrix is a polynomial function of uncertain parameters constrained into a semialgebraic set. Firstly, necessary and sufficient conditions are provided for robust consensus based on the existence of a Lyapunov function polynomially dependent on the uncertainty. In particular, an upper bound on the degree required for achieving necessity is provided. Secondly, a necessary and sufficient condition is provided for robust consensus with single integrator and nonnegative weighted adjacency matrices based on the zeros of a polynomial. Lastly, it is shown how these conditions can be investigated through convex programming by exploiting linear matrix inequalities and sums of squares of polynomials. Some numerical examples illustrate the proposed results. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Non‐fragile H ∞ control for switched stochastic delay systems with application to water quality process

In this paper, the problem of non‐fragile observer‐based H _∞ control for discrete‐time switched delay systems is investigated. Both data missing and time delays are taken into account in the links from sensors to observers and from controllers to actuators. Because data missing satisfies the Bernoulli distribution, such problem is transformed into an H _∞ control problem for stochastic switched delay systems. Average dwell time approach is used to obtain sufficient conditions on the solvability of such problems. A numerical example and a real example for water quality control are provided to illustrate the effectiveness and potential applications of the proposed techniques. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A new result on the delay‐dependent stability of discrete systems with time‐varying delays

This paper proposes an improvement to the delay‐dependent stability of discrete systems with time‐varying delays. The approach is based on the observation that the positive definiteness of a chosen Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional does not necessarily require all the involved symmetric matrices to be positive definite, which has been overlooked in the literature. The derived delay‐dependent stability conditions are in terms of linear matrix inequalities. It is theoretically proved that our results are less conservative than the corresponding ones obtained by requiring the positive definiteness of all the symmetric matrices in a chosen Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional. The importance of the present approach is that a great number of delay‐dependent analysis and synthesis results obtained by the aforementioned requirement in the literature can be improved by the present approach without introducing any new decision variables. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Decentralized output feedback stabilization for a class of large‐scale feedforward nonlinear time‐delay systems

This paper is concerned with the decentralized stabilization problem for a class of large‐scale feedforward nonlinear time‐delay systems. The uncertain nonlinearities involved in the systems are assumed to be bounded by continuous functions of the inputs and delayed inputs multiplied by unmeasured states and delayed states. An observer‐based decentralized output feedback control scheme is proposed by using the dynamic gain control design approach. On the basis of the Lyapunov–Krasovskii stability theory, the global asymptotic stability of the closed‐loop control system is proved. Contrary to many existing control designs for feedforward nonlinear systems, the celebrated forwarding design and saturation design are not utilized here. An example is finally given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design procedure. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

二聚炔醇酸性介质缓蚀剂的合成与应用

对二聚炔醇化合物ＤＭＨ的合成、分子结构及缓蚀作用机理进行了论述。因ＤＭＨ化合物具有独特的分子结构，形成了稳定的络合体系及基团的屏蔽效应，增加了缓蚀被膜厚度及缓蚀体系的化学稳定性，实验证实ＤＭＨ是酸性介质中的高效缓蚀剂。