System identification and active vibration control of a flexible structure

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

NUMERICAL SIMULATION of CONVECTION-DIFFUSION PROBLEMS BY THE CONTROL-VOLUME-BASED FINITE-ELEMENT METHOD

This work presents a numerical study of the tri-dimensional convection-diffusion equation by the control-volume-based on finite-element method using quadratic hexahedral elements. Considering that the equation governing this problem in its main variable may represent several properties, including temperature, turbulent kinetic energy, viscous dissipation rate of the turbulent kinetic energy, specific dissipation rate of the turbulent kinetic energy, or even the concentration of a contaminant in a given medium, among others, the wide applicability of this problem is thus evidenced. Three cases of temperature distributions will be studied specifically in this work, in addition to one case of pollutant dispersion upon analysis of the concentration of a contaminant in a fixed flow point. Some comparisons will be carried out against works found in the open literature, while others will be done according to each phenomenon characteristics.

Postural control and automaticity in dyslexic children: The relationship between visual information and body sway

Difficulty with literacy acquisition is only one of the symptoms of developmental dyslexia. Dyslexic children also show poor motor coordination and postural control. Those problems could be associated with automaticity, i.e., difficulty in performing a task without dispending a fair amount of conscious efforts. If this is the case, dyslexic children would show difficulties in using "unperceived" sensory cues to control body sway. Therefore, the aim of the study was to examine postural control performance and the coupling between visual information and body sway in dyslexic children. Ten dyslexic children and 10 non-dyslexic children stood upright inside a moving room that remained stationary or oscillated back and forward at frequencies of 0.2 or 0.5 Hz. Body sway magnitude and the relationship between the room's movement and body sway were examined. The results indicated that dyslexic children oscillated more than non-dyslexic children in both stationary and oscillating conditions. Visual manipulation induced body sway in all children but the coupling between visual information and body sway was weaker and more variable in dyslexic children. Based upon these results, we can suggest that dyslexic children use visual information to postural control with the same underlying processes as non-dyslexic children; however, dyslexic children show poorer performance and more variability while relating visual information and motor action even in a task that does not require an active cognitive and conscious motor involvement, which may be a further evidence of automaticity problem. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Use of Response Surface Methodology in Optimization of Lactic Acid Production: Focus on Medium Supplementation, Temperature and pH Control

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

On the control of a non-ideal engineering system: A friction-driven oscillating system with limited power supply

In this work a switching feedback controller for stick-slip compensation of a 2-DOF mass-spring-belt system which interacts with an energy source of limited power supply (non-ideal case) is developed. The system presents an oscillatory behavior due to the stick-slip friction. As the system equilibrium for a conventional feedback controller is not the origin, a switching control law combining a state feedback term and a discontinuous term is proposed to regulate the position of the mass. The problem of tracking a desired periodic trajectory is also considered. The feedback system is robust with respect to the friction force that is assumed to be within known upper and lower bounds.

On homoclinic chaos and a control chaos strategy applied to a free-joint nonholonomic manipulator

In this work, the occurrence of chaos (homoclinic scene) is verified in a robotic system with two degrees of freedom by using Poincare-Mel'nikov method. The studied problem was based on experimental results of a two-joint planar manipulator-first joint actuated and the second joint free-that resides in a horizontal plane. This is the simplest model of nonholonomic free-joint manipulators. The purpose of the present study is to verify analytically those results and to suggest a control strategy.

On non-linear dynamics and control designs applied to the ideal and non-ideal variants of the Fitzhugh-Nagumo (FN) mathematical model

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Finding invariant tori in the problem of a periodically corrugated waveguide

Some dynamic properties for a light ray suffering specular reflections inside a periodically corrugated waveguide are studied. The dynamics of the model is described in terms of a two dimensional nonlinear area preserving map. We show that the phase space is mixed in the sense that there are KAM islands surrounded by a large chaotic sea that is confined by two invariant spanning curves. We have used a connection with the Standard Mapping near a transition from local to global chaos and found the position of these two invariant spanning curves limiting the size of the chaotic sea as function of the control parameter.

Development, optimization and validation of gas chromatographic fingerprinting of Brazilian commercial gasoline for quality control

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

An improved tabu-based vector optimal algorithm for design optimizations of electromagnetic devices

This paper introduces an improved tabu-based vector optimal algorithm for multiobjective optimal designs of electromagnetic devices. The improvements include a division of the entire search process, a new method for fitness assignment, a novel scheme for the generation and selection of neighborhood solutions, and so forth. Numerical results on a mathematical function and an engineering multiobjective design problem demonstrate that the proposed method can produce virtually the exact Pareto front, in both parameter and objective spaces, even though the iteration number used by it is only about 70% of that required by its ancestor.

Localization of the optimal solution and a posteriori bounds for aggregation

After an aggregated problem has been solved, it is often desirable to estimate the accuracy loss due to the fact that a simpler problem than the original one has been solved. One way of measuring this loss in accuracy is the difference in objective function values. To get the bounds for this difference, Zipkin (Operations Research 1980;28:406) has assumed, that a simple (knapsack-type) localization of an original optimal solution is known. Since then various extensions of Zipkin's bound have been proposed, but under the same assumption. A method to compute the bounds for variable aggregation for convex problems, based on general localization of the original solution is proposed. For some classes of the original problem it is shown how to construct the localization. Examples are given to illustrate the main constructions and a small numerical study is presented.

Nonlinear Dynamics and Control of an Ideal/Nonideal Load Transportation System With Periodic Coefficients

In this paper, a loads transportation system in platforms or suspended by cables is considered. It is a monorail device and is modeled as an inverted pendulum built on a car driven by a dc motor the governing equations of motion were derived via Lagrange's equations. In the mathematical model we consider the interaction between the dc motor and the dynamical system, that is, we have a so called nonideal periodic problem. The problem is analyzed, qualitatively, through the comparison of the stability diagrams, numerically obtained, for several motor torque constants. Furthermore, we also analyze the problem quantitatively using the Floquet multipliers technique. Finally, we devise a control for the studied nonideal problem. The method that was used for analysis and control of this nonideal periodic system is based on the Chebyshev polynomial exponsion, the Picard iterative method, and the Lyapunov-Floquet transformation (L-F transformation). We call it Sinha's theory.

Optimal space manoeuvres in a non-Keplerian force field

In this work the problem of a spacecraft bi-impulsive transfer between two given non coplanar elliptical orbits, with minimum fuel consumption, is solved considering a non-Keplerian force field (the perturbing forces include Earth gravity harmonics and atmospheric drag). The problem is transformed in the Two Point Boundary Value Problem. It is developed and implemented a new algorithm, that uses the analytical expressions developed here. A dynamics that considered a Keplerian force field was used to produce an initial guess to solve the Two Point Boundary Value Problem. Several simulations were performed to observe the spacecraft orbital behaviour by different kind of perturbations and constraints, on a fuel consumption optimization point of view. (C) 2002 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier B.V. Ltd. All rights reserved.

Aggregation in the generalized transportation problem

Aggregation disaggregation is used to reduce the analysis of a large generalized transportation problem to a smaller one. Bounds for the actual difference between the aggregated objective and the original optimal value are used to quantify the error due to aggregation and estimate the quality of the aggregation. The bounds can be calculated either before optimization of the aggregated problem (a priori) or after (a posteriori). Both types of the bounds are derived and numerically compared. A computational experiment was designed to (a) study the correlation between the bounds and the actual error and (b) quantify the difference of the error bounds from the actual error. The experiment shows a significant correlation between some a priori bounds, the a posteriori bounds and the actual error. These preliminary results indicate that calculating the a priori error bound is a useful strategy to select the appropriate aggregation level, since the a priori bound varies in the same way that the actual error does. After the aggregated problem has been selected and optimized, the a posteriori bound provides a good quantitative measure for the error due to aggregation.

On a control of a non-ideal mono-rail system with periodics coefficients

In this work, the problem in the loads transport (in platforms or suspended by cables) it is considered. The system in subject is composed for mono-rail system and was modeled through the system: inverted pendulum, car and motor and the movement equations were obtained through the Lagrange equations. In the model, was considered the interaction among of the motor and system dynamics for several potencies motor, that is, the case studied is denominated a non-ideal periodic problem. The non-ideal periodic problem dynamics was analyzed, qualitatively, through the comparison of the stability diagrams, numerically obtained, for several motor torque constants. Furthermore, one was made it analyzes quantitative of the problem through the analysis of the Floquet multipliers. Finally, the non-ideal problem was controlled. The method that was used for analysis and control of non-ideal periodic systems is based on the Chebyshev polynomial expansion, in the Picard iterative method and in the Lyapunov-Floquet transformation (L-F trans formation). This method was presented recently in [3-9].