A responsive framework for optimal advertising policy in the digital music market

published_or_final_versio

A hybrid framework for the specification of automated material handling systems

This paper presents a hybrid framework that specifies and characterizes the capabilities of generic components in an automated material handling system (AMHS). The framework also provides rules and mechanism for binding these capabilities together so as to facilitate the process of task planning for AMHSs. As a hybrid framework, the formal mathematics of Communicating Sequential Process (CSP) is tightly integrated to the Unified Modeling Language (UML) to provide three important entities, namely, the object structure diagram, object communication diagram and CSP-based statechart to extend the capability of a UML model in specifying the key properties of AMHSs including synchronization, parallelism and communication. The results will bring us a step closer to the generation of a fully automated task-planning executive for AMHSs.published_or_final_versio

A Jacobian-based Redundant Control Strategy for the 7-DOF WAM

The mapping between the Cartesian space and joint space of robot manipulators has long been a difficult task for redundant robots. Two main methods are used in the classical approach. One is by using direct kinematic inversion in the position regime; the other is to use Jacobian Transformation in the velocity regime. However, for a redundant robot, a non-squared Jacobian matrix is resulted when mapping between the two spaces. This results in using appropriate optimization algorithms to compute along with the Jacobian matrix. Taking the second approach, the Jacobian matrix for a redundant robot will be non-square. One approach to obtain a solution is to use pseudo inverse, this approach is however computational intensive. This paper presents a pragmatic approach by which a joint of a 7-DOF Whole Arm Manipulator (WAM) is initially fixed to facilitate the computation of the squared Jacobian matrix. Based on this approach, appropriate optimization strategies that are outlined in the paper, can then be applied to determine the optimal value of the 'fixed' joint in real time. Experiments are performed to verify the viability of this approach, and the results established that a robust and flexible, Cartesian trajectory planning framework can be achieved for general redundant manipulators.published_or_final_versio

An optimization framework for modeling and simulation of dynamic systems based on AIS

Modeling and simulation can be used in many contexts for gaining insights into the functioning, performance, and operation, of complex systems. However, this method alone often produces feasible solutions under certain operating conditions of a system in which such solutions may not be optimal. This is inevitably inadequate in circumstances where optimality is required. In this respect, an approach to effectively evaluate and optimize system performance is to couple the simulation model with operations research techniques. In this paper, an optimization framework consisting of a simulation model and an immunity-inspired algorithm is proposed for optimizing the key parameters in the domain of automatic material handling.postprintThe 18th IFAC World Congress (IFAC 2011), Milano, Italy, 28 August-2 September 2011. In Conference Proceedings, 2011, p. 11608-1161

Immunology-based control framework for multi-jointed redundant manipulators

Artificial Immune System (AIS) has recently been actively researched with a number of emerging engineering applications that has capitalized from its characteristics including self-organization, distributive control, knowledge mapping and fault tolerance. This paper reports the development of an AIS paradigm for the distributive control of a multi-jointed, redundant manipulator. Traditionally, manipulator control is achieved by analytical solutions. By adopting a multiagent-based control paradigm, a multi-jointed manipulator can be thought of as a group of separately controlled agents. In this paper, we investigate the viability of a multiagent immunology-based control framework for the trajectory control of a multi-jointed redundant manipulator.published_or_final_versio

Exergy analysis of cooling towers for optimization of HVAC systems

Conference theme: Green & Sustainable Technology Development (绿色科技与可持续发展)Exergy analysis is a useful thermodynamic technique for assessing and improving the efficiency of processes and systems. By examining the exergy destruction properties, it is possible to optimize the environmental and economic performance of the systems. This research applies exergy analysis technique to investigate and optimize the performance of evaporative cooling towers in HVAC (heating, ventilating and air conditioning) systems. The analysis is carried out in two steps. The first step considers the physical exergy of each component and process within a whole HVAC system for a typical office building. The building’s cooling load and cooling energy requirements are determined by building energy simulation software. Exergy destruction and exergy efficiency of the system are calculated from theoretical models. The result indicates that the exergy loss of cooling tower is quite significant, and the loss is affected by outdoor environment and condensing water temperature. The second step considers the chemical exergy of condensing water and outdoor air. A counter-flow wet cooling tower is investigated by experiments and theoretical models. The dry-bulb temperature and relative humidity of outdoor air are studied by an exergy approach in order to maximize the cooling tower performance. The distribution of exergy loss within the system has been shown and information to minimize exergy destruction and optimize the system efficiency can be determined.postprin

A Rolling Horizon Based Algorithm for Solving Integrated Airline Schedule Recovery Problem

Airline disruption incurred huge cost for airlines and serious inconvenience for travelers. In this paper, we study the integrated airline schedule recovery problem, which considers flight recovery, aircraft recovery and crew recovery simultaneously. First we built an integer programming model which is based on traditional set partitioning model but including flight copy decision variables. Then a rolling horizon based algorithm is proposed to efficiently solve the model. Our algorithm decomposes the whole problem into smaller sub-problems by restricting swapping opportunities within each rolling period. All the flights are considered in each sub-problem to circumvent ‘myopic’ of traditional rolling horizon algorithm. Experimental results show that our method can provide competitive recovery solution in both solution quality and computation time.published_or_final_versio

A bio-inspired object tracking algorithm for minimising power consumption

This electronic document is a 'live' template. The various components of your paper [title, text, heads, etc.] are already defined on the style sheet, as illustrated by the portions given in this document. A wireless sensor network (WSN) is a distributed information processing system with the capabilities of sensing, wireless communication and data processing. Individual sensor modules of such a network sense the environment, perform data processing locally and cooperate with other sensors via communication. One very important issue in the deployment of a wireless sensor network is the problem of optimizing energy consumption as these networks may be deployed in places where energy supply are not readily available such as in a seaport container terminal and they are required to work with a long lifespan. The main objective of our research is to develop an algorithm for controlling the power consumption of sensor modules in a wireless sensor network for mobile object tracking. The algorithm determines the actions of an individual sensor module to enter a low power state to conserve energy while maintaining its functionality to track objects and to optimize the lifespan of the entire sensor network by reducing overall power consumption. A control framework and corresponding algorithms for controlling the actions of a sensor is designed and experimentation is done to show its efficiency in controlling power consumption of a sensor network. © 2010 IEEE.published_or_final_versionThe 2010 International Conference on Green Circuits and Systems (ICGCS 2010), Shanghai, China, 21-23 June 2010. In Proceedings of ICGCS, 2010, p. 355-36

Optimal morphological filter design for fabric defect detection

This paper investigates the problem of automated defect detection for textile fabrics and proposes a new optimal morphological filter design method for solving this problem. Gabor Wavelet Network (GWN) is adopted as a major technique to extract the texture features of textile fabrics. An optimal morphological filter can be constructed based on the texture features extracted. In view of this optimal filter, a new semi-supervised segmentation algorithm is then proposed. The performance of the scheme is evaluated by using a variety of homogeneous textile images with different types of common defects. The test results exhibit accurate defect detection with low false alarm, thus confirming the robustness and effectiveness of the proposed scheme. In addition, it can be shown that the algorithm proposed in this paper is suitable for on-line applications. Indeed, the proposed algorithm is a low cost PC based solution to the problem of defect detection for textile fabrics. © 2005 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

An intelligent robotic framework for automated assembly

Recent applications of robots for industrial automation have shown significant improvement in manufacturing processes in terms of reducing labor participation, enhancing flexibility, efficiency and quality of the products. However, most applications are limited to point-to-point and noninteractive operations in which the availability of a highly structured setup is a prerequisite. This prompts the vast emergency of researches on intelligent robotics that are aimed to improve the adaptability, flexibility and dexterity so as to enhance the intelligence of industrial robots. This paper investigates the designs of intelligent robotic systems and discusses the proposed criteria required to achieve an intelligent robotic system. A proposed conceptual framework for robotic assembly is then presented that contains two main parts, namely, a robotic state recognizer and a control strategy generator. In addition to these two components, the integration of compliant motion control into the framework will be described. An example of using the proposed framework to develop a robotic assembly system is given.published_or_final_versio