对称非线性系统的无交互控制

本文讨论了具有对称性的非线性系统的无交互控制问题。通过定义对称系统的导出分布族的新概念,我们得出了问题可解的条件。我们取得的结果较不具对称性的情况要简单一些。从而说明,对称性不仅使得系统具有较好的结构,而且使得它的其它一些问题的研究得到简化。     

A prolog based expert system for the allocation of quality assurance program resources

The worldwide proliferation of fraudulent materials has brought about the need for a new approach to the control of purchased material quality. Nuclear power, defense, aerospace and many other industries are affected by the supply of poor quality clones that presume to be original replacement parts. Safety considerations abound as these highly defective materials are used in systems that are critical to the preservation of human lives. Commonly utilized quality assurance programs have not effectively stopped the influx of fraudulent materials. These programs fail to concentrate inspection efforts on materials and inspection attributes that would effectively prevent the acceptance of fraudulent materials. herein a solution is presented to this problem in the form of an expert system application. Information commonly available in industry is formulated into a knowledge based system wherein advisories are given to the user regarding key purchased material receipt inspection strategies.     

Development of alternative technical systems

This paper considers the integration of alternative technical systems (TS) belonging to a wider class of competing TS, into a supersystem. The paper introduces the notion of alternative TS, shows the peculiarities of their incorporation into a supersystem, reveals the mechanisms used for such incorporation, and shows areas of application for the suggested method.     

Frequency domain identification of Wiener models

This paper proposes a frequency domain algorithm for Wiener model identifications based on exploring the fundamental frequency and harmonics generated by the unknown nonlinearity. The convergence of the algorithm is established in the presence of white noise. No a priori knowledge of the structure of the nonlinearity is required and the linear part can be nonparametric.     

Markov analysis of qualitative dynamics1

Common sense sometimes predicts events to be likely or unlikely rather than merely possible. We extend methods of qualitative reasoning to predict the relative likelihoods of possible qualitative behaviors by viewing the dynamics of a system as a Markov chain over its transition graph. This involves adding qualitative or quantitative estimates of transition probabilities to each of the transitions and applying the standard theory of Markov chains to distinguish persistent states from transient states and to calculate recurrence times, settling times, and probabilities for ending up in each state. Much of the analysis depends solely on qualitative estimates of transition probabilities, which follow directly from theoretical considerations and which lead to qualitative predictions about entire classes of systems. Quantitative estimates for specific systems are derived empirically and lead to qualitative and quantitative conclusions, most of which are insensitive to small perturbations in the estimated transition probabilities. The algorithms are straightforward and efficient.     

Different insights for improving part and system reliability obtained from exactly same DFOM “failure numbers”

Techniques for improving the reliability and maintainability of both nonrepairable and repairable items can be suggested by failure data analysis. It is shown that a given set of failure numbers leads to very different improvement strategies when the numbers are the times-between-successive-failures of one or more repairable items, rather than the times-to-failure of nonrepairable items. Since this should have been obvious more than 50 years ago, at the onset of formal reliability engineering activities, several reasons are proffered for the widespread and protracted misinterpretation of even the most basic—and simple!—conceptual and practical differences between nonrepairable and repairable items.     

Singular Trajectories in Multi-Input Time-Optimal Problems: Application to Controlled Mechanical Systems

This paper deals with the time-optimal control problem for a class of control systems which includes controlled mechanical systems with possible dissipation terms. The Lie algebras associated with such mechanical systems have certain special properties. These properties are explored and used in conjunction with the Pontryagin maximum principle to determine the structure of singular extremals and, in particular, time-optimal trajectories. The theory is illustrated by an application to a time-optimal problem for a class of underwater vehicles.     

Real-time control of video surveillance systems with program supervision techniques

In this article, we describe a knowledge-based controlled platform using program supervision techniques. This platform eases the creation and the configuration of video surveillance systems. Several issues need to be addressed to provide a correct system configuration: (1) to choose, among a library of programs, those which are best satisfying a given user request, (2) to assign a correct value for each program parameter, (3) to evaluate performances and to guarantee a performance rate which is satisfactory regarding end-user requirements. This platform is composed of three main components: the library of programs, the knowledge base and the control component. The knowledge is either given by experts or learnt by the system. The control is generic in the sense that it is independent of any application. To validate this platform, we have built and evaluated six video surveillance systems which are featured with three properties: adaptability, reliability and real-time processing.     

Mining data from intensive care patients

In this paper we describe the application of data mining methods for predicting the evolution of patients in an intensive care unit. We discuss the importance of such methods for health care and other application domains of engineering. We argue that this problem is an important but challenging one for the current state of the art data mining methods and explain what improvements on current methods would be useful. We present a promising study on a preliminary data set that demonstrates some of the possibilities in this area.     

Frequency domain solution to delay-type Nehari problem

This paper generalizes the frequency-domain results on the delay-type Nehari problem in the stable case to the unstable case. The solvability condition of the delay-type Nehari problem is formulated in terms of the nonsingularity of three matrices. The optimal value γ_opt is the maximal γ∈(0,∞) such that one of the three matrices becomes singular. All sub-optimal compensators are parameterized in a transparent structure incorporating a modified Smith predictor.