Self-Organized Model Predictive Control for Air Traffic Management

In this paper a distributed model predictive control has been proposed for air traffic management problem in which aircraft use optimization to determine their own flight trajectories. The coordination approach of Self-organized Time Division Multiple Access is used to ensure no two aircraft re-plan their trajectories simultaneously. Unlike existing distributed predictive control, which needs a pre-organized optimizing sequence, this new approach requires no central coordination. By also terminating every trajectory with a loitering circle, recursive feasibility and constraint satisfaction, especially separation, can be guaranteed

Southern Cosmology Survey III: QSO's from Combined GALEX and Optical Photometry

We present catalogs of QSO candidates selected using photometry from GALEX combined with SDSS in the Stripe 82 region and Blanco Cosmology Survey (BCS) near declination -55 degrees. The SDSS region contains ~700 objects with magnitude i < 20 and ~3600 objects with i < 21.5 in a ~60 square degree sky region, while the BCS region contains ~280 objects with magnitude i < 20 and ~2000 objects with i < 21.5 for a 11 square degree sky region that is being observed by three current microwave Sunyaev-Zeldovich surveys. Our QSO catalog is the first one in the BCS region. Deep GALEX exposures (~2000 seconds in FUV and NUV, except in three fields) provide high signal-to-noise photometry in the GALEX bands (FUV, NUV < 24.5 mag). From this data, we select QSO candidates using only GALEX and optical r-band photometry, using the method given by Atlee and Gould (2008). In the Stripe 82 field, 60% (30%) of the GALEX selected QSO's with optical magnitude i<20 (i<21.5) also appear in the Richards et al. (2008) QSO catalog constructed using 5-band optical SDSS photometry. Comparison with the same catalog by Richards et al. shows that the completeness of the sample is approximately 40%(25%). However, for regions of the sky with very low dust extinction, like the BCS 23hr field and the Stripe 82 between 0 and 10 degrees in RA, our completeness is close to 95%, demonstrating that deep GALEX observations are almost as efficient as multi-wavelength observations at finding QSO's. GALEX observations thus provide a viable alternate route to QSO catalogs in sky regions where u-band optical photometry is not available. The full catalog is available at http://www.ice.csic.es/personal/jimenez/PHOTOZComment: Submitted to ApJ

Distributed model predictive control of linear systems with persistent disturbances

This article presents a new form of robust distributed model predictive control (MPC) for multiple dynamically decoupled subsystems, in which distributed control agents exchange plans to achieve satisfaction of coupling constraints. The new method offers greater flexibility in communications than existing robust methods, and relaxes restrictions on the order in which distributed computations are performed. The local controllers use the concept of tube MPC – in which an optimisation designs a tube for the system to follow rather than a trajectory – to achieve robust feasibility and stability despite the presence of persistent, bounded disturbances. A methodical exploration of the trades between performance and communication is provided by numerical simulations of an example scenario. It is shown that at low levels of inter-agent communication, distributed MPC can obtain a lower closed-loop cost than that obtained by a centralised implementation. A further example shows that the flexibility in communications means the new algorithm has a relatively low susceptibility to the adverse effects of delays in computation and communication

Quantification of a cardiac biomarker in human serum using extraordinary optical transmission (EOT)

10.1371/journal.pone.0120974PLoS ONE103e012097

The nature of proximate damped Lyman alpha systems

We present high resolution echelle spectra of 7 proximate damped Lyman alpha (PDLA) systems whose relative velocity separation from the background quasar is Delta V < 3000 km/s. Combining our sample with a further 9 PDLAs from the literature we compare the chemical properties of the proximate systems with a control sample of intervening DLAs. Taken at face value, the sample of 16 PDLAs exhibits a wide range of metallicities, ranging from Z ~ 1/3 Z_sun down to Z ~ 1/1000 Z_sun, including the DLA with the lowest N(SiII)/N(HI) yet reported in the literature. We find several pieces of evidence that indicate enhanced ionization and the presence of a hard ionizing spectrum in PDLAs which lead to properties that contrast with the intervening DLAs, particularly when the N(HI) is low. The abundances of Zn, Si and S in PDLAs with log N(HI) > 21, where ionization corrections are minimized, are systematically higher than the intervening population by a factor of around 3. We also find possible evidence for a higher fraction of NV absorbers amongst the PDLAs, although the statistics are still modest. 6/7 of our echelle sample show high ionization species (SiIV, CIV, OVI or NV) offset by >100 km/s from the main low ion absorption. We analyse fine-structure transitions of CII* and SiII* to constrain the PDLA distance from the QSO. Lower limits range from tens of kpc up to >160 kpc for the most stringent limit. We conclude that (at least some) PDLAs do exhibit different characteristics relative to the intervening population out to 3000 km/s (and possibly beyond). Nonetheless, the PDLAs appear distinct from lower column density associated systems and the inferred QSO-absorber separations mean they are unlikely to be associated with the QSO host. We speculate that the PDLAs preferentially sample more massive galaxies in more highly clustered regions of the high redshift universe.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Abstract abridged