A novel data-driven approach to support decision-making during production scale-up of assembly systems

In today's manufacturing settings, a sudden increase in the customer demand may enforce manufacturers to alter their manufacturing systems either by adding new resources or changing the layout within a restricted time frame. Without an appropriate strategy to handle this transition to higher volume, manufacturers risk losing their market competitiveness. The subjective experience-based ad-hoc procedures existing in the industrial domain are insufficient to support the transition to a higher volume, thereby necessitating a new approach where the scale-up can be realised in a timely, systematic manner. This research study aims to fulfill this gap by proposing a novel Data-Driven Scale-up Model, known as DDSM, that builds upon kinematic and Discrete-Event Simulation (DES) models. These models are further enhanced by historical production data and knowledge representation techniques. The DDSM approach identifies the near-optimal production system configurations that meet the new customer demand using an iterative design process across two distinct levels, namely the workstation and system levels. At the workstation level, a set of potential workstation configurations are identified by utilising the knowledge mapping between product, process, resource and resource attribute domains. Workstation design data of selected configurations are streamlined into a common data model that is accessed at the system level where DES software and a multi-objective Genetic Algorithm (GA) are used to support decision-making activities by identifying potential system configurations that provide optimum scale-up Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). For the optimisation study, two conflicting objectives: scale-up cost and production throughput are considered. The approach is employed in a battery module assembly pilot line that requires structural modifications to meet the surge in the demand of electric vehicle powertrains. The pilot line is located at the Warwick Manufacturing Group, University of Warwick, where the production data is captured to initiate and validate the workstation models. Conclusively, it is ascertained by experts that the approach is found useful to support the selection of suitable system configuration and design with significant savings in time, cost and effort.     

多重不确定的密码体制研究

针对现有密码体制中只有密钥不确定的特点,文章提出了多重不确定密码体制的概念,指出了可能实现的一些途径。文章分析了其优势,指出这类密码体制在大大增强安全性的同时,其可能带来的运算量的增加是可以忽略的。     

基于xPC的气压ABS调节器动态参数测控系统开发

对反映气制动ABS调节器性能的静态参数和动态参数进行分析,提出基于xPC实时内核技术的动态数据采集系统设计;针对测试系统实现的关键技术进行了研究,主要包括测试软件界面设计及参数设置、通讯接口模块设计、数据实时保存与显示系统软件设计等;通过长期测试试验表明,系统采样频率可达1kHz,完全满足行业标准要求,从而证明系统开发的有效性和可靠性。     

Gain‐scheduled dynamic output feedback control for discrete‐time LPV systems

This paper presents synthesis conditions for the design of gain‐scheduled dynamic output feedback controllers for discrete‐time linear parameter‐varying systems. The state‐space matrix representation of the plant and of the controller can have a homogeneous polynomial dependency of arbitrary degree on the scheduling parameter. As an immediate extension, conditions for the synthesis of a multiobjective ??_∞ and ??₂ gain‐scheduled dynamic feedback controller are also provided. The scheduling parameters vary inside a polytope and are assumed to be a priori unknown, but measured in real‐time. If bounds on the rate of parameter variation are known, they can be taken into account, providing less conservative results. The geometric properties of the uncertainty domain are exploited to derive finite sets of linear matrix inequalities based on the existence of a homogeneous polynomially parameter‐dependent Lyapunov function. An application of the control design to a realistic engineering problem illustrates the benefits of the proposed approach. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Robust stability and stabilization of discrete singular systems with interval time-varying delay and linear fractional uncertainty

The robust stability and robust stabilization problems for discrete singular systems with interval time-varying delay and linear fractional uncertainty are discussed. A new delay-dependent criterion is established for the nominal discrete singular delay systems to be regular, causal and stable by employing the linear matrix inequality (LMI) approach. It is shown that the newly proposed criterion can provide less conservative results than some existing ones. Then, with this criterion, the problems of robust stability and robust stabilization for uncertain discrete singular delay systems are solved, and the delay-dependent LMI conditions are obtained. Finally, numerical examples are given to illustrate the e?ectiveness of the proposed approach.     

Optimal Performance in Tracking Stochastic Signal Under Disturbance Rejection

The analysis method of optimal tracking performance is proposed for multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) linear time‐invariant (LTI) systems under disturbance rejection. An H₂ criterion of the error signal between the output of the plant and the reference signal is used as a measure for the tracking performance. Spectral factorization is applied to obtain the optimal solution of the system tracking error. The explicit expressions are derived for this minimal tracking error with respect to random reference signals under disturbance rejection. It is shown that the nonminimum phase zeros, the zero direction, the unstable poles, the pole direction of a given plant, statistical characteristics of the reference input signal, and disturbance signal have a negative effect on a feedback system's ability to reduce the system error with disturbance rejection. The results show that the optimal tracking performance will further be damaged because of disturbance rejection. Some typical examples are given to illustrate the theoretical results.     

Uncertainty modeling and robust minimax LQR control of multivariable nonlinear systems with application to hypersonic flight

For a class of multi‐input and multi‐output nonlinear uncertainty systems, a novel approach to design a nonlinear controller using minimax linear quadratic regulator (LQR) control is proposed. The proposed method combines a feedback linearization method with the robust minimax LQR approach in the presence of time‐varying uncertain parameters. The uncertainties, which are assumed to satisfy a certain integral quadratic constraint condition, do not necessarily satisfy a generalized matching condition. The procedure consists of feedback linearization of the nominal model and linearization of the remaining nonlinear uncertain terms with respect to each individual uncertainty at a local operating point. This two‐stage linearization process, followed by a robust minimax LQR control design, provides a robustly stable closed loop system. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, an application study is provided for a flight control problem of an air‐breathing hypersonic flight vehicle (AHFV), where the outputs to be controlled are the longitudinal velocity and altitude, and the control variables are the throttle setting and elevator deflection. The proposed method is used to derive a linearized uncertainty model for the longitudinal motion dynamics of the AHFV first, and then a robust minimax LQR controller is designed, which is based on this uncertainty model. The controller is synthesized considering seven uncertain aerodynamic and inertial parameters. The stability and performance of the synthesized controller is evaluated numerically via single scenario simulations for particular cruise conditions as well as a Monte‐Carlo type simulation based on numerous cases. It is observed that the control scheme proposed in this paper performs better, especially from the aspect of robustness to large ranges of uncertainties, than some controller design schemes previously published in the literature. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley and Sons Asia Pte Ltd and Chinese Automatic Control Society     

自适应的有效非局部图像滤波

研究了基于预选择的非局部均值滤波方法,并指出已有方法在提取图像子块特征方面的不足,利用梯度域奇异值分解(SVD) 提出一种自适应的有效非局部滤波方法。该方法对基于预选择的非局部滤波方法的贡献主要有:1)是一种基于图像子块结构特征的鲁棒预选择方法;2)研究了相似集大小与滤波性能的关系;3)相似子块的自动选取;4)提出一种局部自适应的滤波参数选取方法,根据图像局部内容的不同确定滤波参数。此外,利用欧氏距离的对称性进一步提高运行速度。实验结果表明:本文方法滤波后的图像在主客观方面都优于原算法和其他快速方法,且运行速度较快,是一种有效的滤波方法。     

双参数Bézier曲线的升二次扩展

本文以二次Bernstein基函数为例,首次提出了含双参数基函数的新扩展——αβQ—Bern-stein基函数,此类基函数具有新的特点,即基函数的扩展次数一次性升高两次,且包含了二次多项式和带一个参数的三次多项式基函数的所有性质。基于这组基函数定义了αβQ—Bézier曲线,该曲线也含有参数,具有形状可调性,当α与β取某些值时曲线能达到C4连续或在某个端点处C0连续。最后与含两个参数的升一次Bézier曲线进行比较,该曲线具有调节范围广、灵活性更强的优势。     

Aluminum. II. Derivation of C v0from C p and comparison to C v0 calculated from anharmonic models

The specific heat at constant pressure, C _p, of aluminum measured by Ditmars, Plint, and Shukla has been reduced to the volume V ₀ appropriate for 0 K employing the Murnaghan equation. The C _v0 thus obtained is compared with the theoretical C _v0 calculated in the harmonic and the lowest-order anharmonic approximation from three different pseudopotentials (Harrison, Ashcroft, and Dagens-Rasolt-Taylor) as well as a phenomenological Morse potential. The higher-order ( ⁴) anharmonic contributions are calculated from the same nearest-neighbor Morse potential as in the lowest-order anharmonic theory. The role of the vacancy and the higher-order anharmonic contributions to C _v0 has been examined and we conclude that the ⁴ contributions to C _v0 are much smaller than the vacancy contribution. After removal of the vacancy contribution, the reduced C _v0 is found to be in excellent agreement with the Ashcroft and Harrison pseudopotentials as well as the Morse potential including the ² and ⁴ contributions to C _v0.