The PLATO mission

PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) is ESA’s M3 mission designed to detect and characterise extrasolar planets and perform asteroseismic monitoring of a large number of stars. PLATO will detect small planets (down to <2REarth) around bright stars (<11 mag), including terrestrial planets in the habitable zone of solar-like stars. With the complement of radial velocity observations from the ground, planets will be characterised for their radius, mass, and age with high accuracy (5%, 10%, 10% for an Earth-Sun combination respectively). PLATO will provide us with a large-scale catalogue of well-characterised small planets up to intermediate orbital periods, relevant for a meaningful comparison to planet formation theories and to better understand planet evolution. It will make possible comparative exoplanetology to place our Solar System planets in a broader context. In parallel, PLATO will study (host) stars using asteroseismology, allowing us to determine the stellar properties with high accuracy, substantially enhancing our knowledge of stellar structure and evolution. The payload instrument consists of 26 cameras with 12cm aperture each. For at least four years, the mission will perform high-precision photometric measurements. Here we review the science objectives, present PLATO‘s target samples and fields, provide an overview of expected core science performance as well as a description of the instrument and the mission profile towards the end of the serial production of the flight cameras. PLATO is scheduled for a launch date end 2026. This overview therefore provides a summary of the mission to the community in preparation of the upcoming operational phases

Cloning of a DNA region of a Pseudomonas plasmid that codes for detoxification of the herbicide paraquat

A newly isolated Pseudomonas plasmid coding for detoxification of the herbicide paraquat (Pq) was characterized. An EcoR1-generated fragment derived from the plasmid carrying the Pq determinant was cloned into Escherichia coli. Subsequent subclonings, followed by exonuclease III-mediated deletion analysis, localized the Pq gene(s) to a 1.8-kb segment within a 4.2 Pst1 subfragment. The cloning and apparent expression of the Pq gene(s) in E. coli will enable its structural organization and function to be analyzed in detail

Fuzzy logic design for tele-control electrical vehicle

International audienc

Design of a Tele-Control Electrical Vehicle System Using a Fuzzy Logic Control

This paper presents a fuzzy logic design of a tele-control electrical vehicle system. We showed that the application of fuzzy logic control allows the stability of tele-vehicle system in spite of communication delays between the operator and the vehicle. A robust bilateral controller design using fuzzy logic frameworks was proposed. This approach allows a convenient means to trade off robustness and stability for a pre-specified time-delay margin. Both the performance and robustness of the proposed method were demonstrated by simulation results for a constant time delay between the operator and the electrical vehicle system