An enhanced anti-disturbance attitude control law for flexible spacecrafts subject to multiple disturbances

As well-known disturbance rejection methods, active disturbance rejection control and disturbance observer-based control can effectively improve the control performances of complex systems in the presence of disturbances. However, the accurate rejection of multiple disturbances for control systems of practical engineering, for example, the attitude control system of flexible spacecraft, is still a bottleneck problem. In order to further improve the anti-disturbance capability and reduce the conservativeness, this paper proposes a novel enhanced anti-disturbance control law for the attitude control system of flexible spacecraft by combining active disturbance rejection control and disturbance observer-based control in a unified framework. More specifically, the disturbance from flexible vibration is described by an uncertain exogenous system based on the partially known information including elastic damping ratios and modal frequencies. The disturbance observer-based control is utilized to estimate and thereby reject this disturbance. On the other hand, the other disturbances such as external environmental disturbance and complex model nonlinearity are merged into a equivalent disturbance with bounded derivative, which is compensated by using the active disturbance rejection control law. Stability and robustness analysis are carried out for the disturbance observer and extended state observer. Finally, simulation results of low-earth-orbit flexible satellite are presented to verify the effectiveness of proposed methods.     

Mining fleet management systems: a review of models and algorithms

The objective of this paper is to review and document the mine fleet management systems’ models and algorithms. The purpose is to understand the algorithms behind the fleet management systems and the proposed academic solutions in this area to identify any gaps in the current literature and to open up opportunities to establish research questions that need to be addressed in an integrated simulation and optimisation operational planning research framework. In this paper, we review industrial fleet management systems and the main academic algorithms behind such systems. The fleet management systems are divided into three subsequently related problems to review: shortest path, production optimisation and real-time dispatching. Finally, the limitations of current algorithms for fleet management systems are documented in terms of mining practice feasibility and optimality of the solution on large-scale problems. The results of this literature review enable us to evaluate the logical links between major components of an integrated simulation and optimisation operational planning framework with current theory of fleet management systems.     

Sustainable supply chain management in Indian organisations: an empirical investigation

The present work is an attempt to investigate the adoption of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) practices amongst manufacturing and process based organisations in India and its impact on organisational performance encompassing all three dimensions of sustainability. SSCM practices conceived in the present study include environmental management practices (EMP), socially inclusive practices for employees (SPE), socially inclusive practices for community (SPC), operations practices (OP) and supply chain integration (SCI) which were treated as exogenous variables. Organisational performance considered in this study includes five dimensions, namely environmental performance (EPR), employee-centred social performance (ESP), community-centred social performance (CSP), operations performance (OPR) and competitiveness, which were regarded as endogenous variables. The analysis was carried out with the help of structural equation modelling considering natural logarithm of manpower as a control variable. Few major findings are mentioned. EMP does not have any significant association with OPR, nor does it result in competitiveness. However, when jointly mediated through both EPR and OPR, EMP leads to competitiveness. SPC has significant negative association with competitiveness, when only direct relationship is considered. However, indirect relationship between SPC and competitiveness shows significant positive association when mediated through CSP. The resultant total effect between SPC and competitiveness turns out to be insignificant. Further, OPR fully mediates the relationship between OP and competitiveness. Managerial implications of the findings are discussed.     

Critical state model for structured soil

Structure is an evident determinant for macroscopic behaviors of soils. However, this is not taken into account in most constitutive models, as structure is a rather complex issue in models. For this, it is important to develop and implement simple models that can reflect this important aspect of soil behavior. This paper tried to model structured soils based on well-established concepts, such as critical state and sub-loading. Critical state is the core of the classic Cam Clay model. The sub-loading concept implies adoption of an inner (sub-loading) yield surface, according to specific hardening rules for some internal strain-like state variables. Nakai and co-workers proposed such internal variables for controlling density (ρ) and structure (ω), using a modified stress space, called t_ij. Herein, similar variables are used in the context of the better-known invariants (p and q) of the Cam Clay model. This change requires explicit adoption of a non-associated flow rule for the sub-loading surface. This is accomplished by modifying the dilatancy ratio of the Cam Clay model, as a function of the new internal variables. These modifications are described and implemented under three-dimensional (3D) conditions. The model is then applied to simulating laboratory tests under different stress paths and the results are compared to experiments reported for different types of structured soils. The good agreements show the capacity and potential of the proposed model.     

Inducing sustained oscillations in feedback-linearizable single-input nonlinear systems

The present paper concerns the induction of stable sustained oscillation in feedback-linearizable single-input affine nonlinear dynamical systems via continuous-time state feedback control. The proposed application-oriented control approach is based on the conception of a state feedback controller that ensures the tracking of a limit cycle characterized in terms of the feedback-linearized system. Boundedness and convergence of the closed-loop trajectories are established following the Lyapunov theoretical framework and applying LaSalle׳s stability principle. The proposed approach is demonstrated with computer-simulated control experiments, showing that it ensures the convergence of the state trajectories of the controlled system to a designed limit cycle and that the methodology can, in principle, be applied to any single input feedback linearizable system.     

A Distribution‐freeCUSUMChart for Monitoring Variability of AutocorrelatedProcesses

We present a distribution‐free tabular cumulative sum chart for monitoring the variability of an autocorrelated process. A quantity known as the asymptotic variance parameter is employed as a measure of the variability, and a distribution‐free tabular cumulative sum chart is applied to variance estimates calculated from batches of nonoverlapping samples. The proposed chart is applicable to a stationary process with a general marginal distribution and a general autocorrelation structure. It also determines control limits analytically without trial‐and‐error simulations. The performance of the proposed chart is tested on stationary processes with both normal and nonnormal marginals with various autocorrelation structures. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An iterative method for suboptimal control of linear time-delayed systems

This article presents a new approach for solving the Optimal Control Problem (OCP) of linear time-delay systems with a quadratic cost functional. The proposed method can also be used for designing optimal control time-delay systems with disturbance. In this study, the Variational Iteration Method (VIM) is employed to convert the original Time-Delay Optimal Control Problem (TDOCP) into a sequence of nonhomogeneous linear two-point boundary value problems (TPBVPs). The optimal control law obtained consists of an accurate linear feedback term and a nonlinear compensation term which is the limit of an adjoint vector sequence. The feedback term is determined by solving Riccati matrix differential equation. By using the finite-step iteration of a nonlinear compensation sequence, we can obtain a suboptimal control law. Finally, Illustrative examples are included to demonstrate the validity and applicability of the technique.     

Adaptive fuzzy control for nontriangular form systems with time-varying full-state constraints

This article investigates an adaptive fuzzy tracking control problem for a class of nontriangular form systems with asymmetric time-varying full state constraints. Unknown functions are approximated by the fuzzy logic systems. A domination approach is employed to tackle the nontriangular form structure. Time-varying asymmetric barrier Lyapunov functions (ABLFs) are adopted to ensure full-state constraints satisfaction. Based on the backstepping technique and time-varying ABLFs, an adaptive controller is proposed and guarantees that all the signals in the closed-loop system are ultimately bounded and the time-varying full state constraints are met. Simulation examples are presented to further demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.     

基于感知评价的Internet语音终端流量控制

分析了影响因特网语音通信质量的主要因素，根据实时传输控制协议计算延迟、丢包率等网络参数，并利用RBF神经网络将参数映射为语音质量评分，根据评分值的变化动态地调整语音终端的编码速率，在保证一定语音质量的同时，缓解网络拥塞。实验证明了该方法的有效性。     

现场总线在冶炼烟气制酸系统中的应用实践

分析了冶炼烟气制酸工艺的特点，介绍了由PROFIBUS-DP现场总线构建的冶炼厂烟气制酸监控系统，详细介绍了其硬件配置及相应的软件设计。