Basic concept and decentralized autonomous control of super‐distributed energy systems

New small‐scale dispersed generation systems, such as fuel cells and micro gas turbines, have made remarkable advances lately and they will be applied practically in the near future. Although a large number of researches on the introduction of small‐scale dispersed generation systems have been carried out, only a small number of small‐scale dispersed generation systems are considered in these researches. Therefore, little is known about problems to be solved when a large number of small‐scale dispersed generation systems are introduced into electric power systems. This paper deals with a super‐distributed energy system that consists of a great number of dispersed generation systems such as fuel cells, micro gas turbines, and so on. The behavior of a customer with a dispersed generation system is simulated as the Ising model in statistical mechanics. The necessity of a distribution network in super‐distributed energy systems is discussed based on the Ising model. The feasibility of decentralized autonomous control using vicinity information is also investigated on the basis of stability analysis of the Hopfield neural network model. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 151(1): 43–55, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.10368     

Photovoltaic-integrated building facades

Photovoltaic (PV) cells, when integrated within a building facade, offer the possibility of generating electric power and heat for local use or export. This paper reports on a project to investigate the practical operational efficiencies that might be delivered from such facades. The results from laboratory experiments and computer simulations are presented: the former were used to develop an empirical relationship between cell temperature and power output; the latter were undertaken to assess operational efficiencies under a range of climate conditions representative of the UK.     

《Flash动画制作》课程教学方法探讨与实践

根据《Flash动画制作》课程在教学实践中的特点,提出构建"理实同步,实例引导,任务驱动"的教学模式,在教学内容、教学方法等方面进行教学改革,并阐述了在Flash教学中的具体实施方法,提高了学生动手能力及综合素质。     

基于地面先验的3D目标检测算法

为了提高自动驾驶汽车环境感知的性能,增强单目相机对障碍物三维和边界信息的感知能力,提出了一种基于地面先验的3D目标检测算法。基于优化的中心网络(CenterNet)模型,以DLA(deep layer aggregation)为主干网络,增加目标3D边沿框中心点冗余信息预测。根据自动驾驶场景的地面先验信息,结合针孔相机模型,获取目标3D中心深度信息,以优化深度网络学习效果。使用KITTI 3D数据集评测算法性能,结果表明:在保证2D目标检测准确性的基础上,该算法运行帧率约20 fps,满足自动驾驶感知实时性要求;同时相比于CenterNet模型,在平均方位角得分(average orientation score)和鸟视图平均准确率(bird eye view AP)上分别有4.4和4.4%的性能提升。因而,该算法可以提高自动驾驶汽车对障碍物三维和边界信息的感知能力。     

Heuristic collision-free path planning for an autonomous platform

In this paper, a heuristic and learning, algorithmic scheme for collision-free navigation is presented. This scheme determines an optimum collision-free navigation path of an autonomous platform by using a trial and error process, past navigation knowledge and current information extracted from the generated surrounding environment.     

Utility of stereoscopic displays for indirect-vision driving and robot teleoperation

The effectiveness of an active shutter-glasses stereoscopic display (SD) and a passive polarised SD was evaluated in a live robot-teleoperation task and a simulated indirect-vision driving task in various terrains. Overall, participants completed their tasks significantly faster with the SDs in three-dimensional (3D) mode than with the SDs in the baseline 2D mode. They also navigated more accurately with the SDs in 3D mode. When the effectiveness of the two types of SDs was examined separately, results showed that the active shutter-glasses SD resulted in faster responses and task completion times than the passive polarised SD, though most of the differences failed to reach statistical significance. Perceived workload when interacting with the two SD systems did not differ significantly between the active versus passive display types or between the 3D and 2D modes of operation; however, participants reported more severe discomfort after interacting with the passive polarised SD.     

Robust control of variable speed autonomous underwater vehicle

Set point tracking control of autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) via robust model predictive control (RMPC) is considered. Input-constrained RMPC with integral action, which has been developed in our previous work, is used to control the AUV in this study. In order to derive a RMPC control rule, non-linear dynamics of AUV with six degree of freedom is linearized at certain operating points. So, horizontal and vertical plane dynamics of system are represented by linear models which have polytopic uncertainties. Since the derived control rule will be used in real time, the computation time should be reduced. To overcome this computational time problem and get rid of trial–error step of Algorithm 1, a new algorithm is proposed here. The simulations are carried out using the control rule based on this algorithm and these results are presented.     

Customizable hardware design of fuzzy controllers applied to autonomous car driving

Nowadays, final products often encompass a certain intelligence therein to deal with variation or lack of precision in the sensing input data. This intelligence is usually acquired via the utilization of existing soft techniques, such as artificial neural networks, genetic algorithms and fuzzy control, among others. Thus, it is profitable to have on-the-shelf shell scalable and adaptive hardware designs that implement these soft techniques. This availability allows for an immediate embedding of any of those designs onto final products. This usually entails a reduced time-to-market of the product. Process control is one of the many applications that took advantage of the fuzzy paradigm. In general, controllers are embedded into the controlled device. This paper presents a novel design of a reconfigurable efficient parallel architecture to implement fuzzy controllers on hardware with almost no design effort for final users. The proposed architecture is herein proven suitable for embedding. It is customizable, so it allows the setup and configuration of the controller parameters, and hence its use for any problem application. Two fuzzy controllers that model autonomous car driving are implemented and their cost and performance evaluated.     

基于有限状态自动机的人眼开度PERCLOS实现算法

针对驾驶员驾驶过程中因疲劳引起的眼睛开度变化问题, 在原有PERCLOS(percentage of eyelid closure over the pupil over time)标准的基础上, 提出了一种基于有限状态自动机的人眼开度PERCLOS计算方法, 并将其应用到疲劳驾驶预警系统中。该系统首先采用红外摄像头实时获取驾驶员的脸部视频图像, 使用ASM(active shape models)算法进行人脸检测, 在定位到的人脸范围内搜索人眼区域并计算人眼开度, 为了避免人与摄像头距离变化影响计算结果, 对人眼开度进行归一化处理; 然后依据建立的有限状态自动机模型计算PERCLOS值; 最后根据制定的预警机制实现基于人眼开度的疲劳预警。实验结果表明本方法能够实时监测驾驶员疲劳状况, 具有对光照变化、脸部配饰不敏感的特点。     

基于似人特性的拟人臂机器人自主抓取动作规划

针对拟人臂机器人在家庭环境中的自主抓取任务,提出了一种强调运动姿态似人特性的拟人臂动作的规划方法.该方法分为两个部分,构型规划和运动规划,构型规划基于人体工程学中广泛使用的快速上肢评估准则评价机器人运动姿态的似人特性,并在此基础上以机器人末端传速速率最优为目标规划机器人运动过程中的关键构型.运动规划结合了Fitts定律和似人运动模型规划了机器人末端的空间轨迹.本文最后以Motoman SDA10D拟人双臂机器人和Mitsubishi PA10机器人为例,具体介绍了该方法的应用和规划的结果,规划结果证明了本方法的可行性和有效性.