A Faster 2D Technique for the design of Combinational Digital Circuits Using Genetic Algorithm

Combinational digital circuits can be evolved automatically using Genetic Algorithms (GA). Until recently this technique used linear chromosomes and and one dimensional crossover and mutation operators. In this paper, a new method for representing combinational digital circuits as 2 Dimensional (2D) chromosomes and suitable 2D crossover and mutation techniques has been proposed. By using this method, the convergence speed of GA can be increased significantly compared to the conventional methods. Moreover, the 2D representation and crossover operation provides the designer with better visualization of the evolved circuits. In addition to this, a technique to display automatically the evolved circuits has been developed with the help of MATLAB

An Improved Design of Combinational Digital Circuits with Multiplexers using Genetic Algorithm

This paper presents a new approach to the design of combinational digital circuits with multiplexers using Evolutionary techniques. Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used as the optimization tool. Several circuits are synthesized with this method and compared with two design techniques such as standard implementation of logic functions using multiplexers and implementation using Shannon’s decomposition technique using GA. With the proposed method complexity of the circuit and the associated delay can be reduced significantly

Effect of nuclear motion on the energy eigenvalues in muonic atoms

I have investigated the effect of the nuclear motion on the energy eigenvalues in muonic atoms. In addition to the usually used reduced-mass correction, I have calculated the relativistic influences including the magnetic and retardation interaction between the nucleus and the muon for the inner orbitals of muonic atoms.

Femtosecond time-resolved wave packet motion in molecular multiphoton ionization and fragmentation

The dynamics of molecular multiphoton ionization and fragmentation of a diatomic molecule (Na_2) have been studied in molecular beam experiments. Femtosecond laser pulses from an amplified colliding-pulse mode-locked (CPM) ring dye laser are employed to induce and probe the molecular transitions. The final continuum states are analyzed by photoelectron spectroscopy, by ion mass spectrometry and by measuring the kinetic energy of the formed ionic fragments. Pump-probe spectra employing 70-fs laser pulses have been measured to study the time dependence of molecular multiphoton ionization and fragmentation. The oscillatory structure of the transient spectra showing the dynamics on the femtosecond time scale can best be understood in terms of the motion of wave packets in bound molecular potentials. The transient Na_2^+ ionization and the transient Na^+ fragmentation spectra show that contributions from direct photoionization of a singly excited electronic state and from excitation and autoionization of a bound doubly excited molecular state determine the time evolution of molecular multiphoton ionization.

Die aeroelastische Stabilitätsanalyse – ein praxisnaher Ansatz zur intervalltheoretischen Betrachtung von Modellierungsunsicherheiten am Flugzeug

Die Untersuchung des dynamischen aeroelastischen Stabilitätsverhaltens von Flugzeugen erfordert sehr komplexe Rechenmodelle, welche die wesentlichen elastomechanischen und instationären aerodynamischen Eigenschaften der Konstruktion wiedergeben sollen. Bei der Modellbildung müssen einerseits Vereinfachungen und Idealisierungen im Rahmen der Anwendung der Finite Elemente Methode und der aerodynamischen Theorie vorgenommen werden, deren Auswirkungen auf das Simulationsergebnis zu bewerten sind. Andererseits können die strukturdynamischen Kenngrößen durch den Standschwingungsversuch identifiziert werden, wobei die Ergebnisse Messungenauigkeiten enthalten. Für eine robuste Flatteruntersuchung müssen die identifizierten Unwägbarkeiten in allen Prozessschritten über die Festlegung von unteren und oberen Schranken konservativ ermittelt werden, um für alle Flugzustände eine ausreichende Flatterstabilität sicherzustellen. Zu diesem Zweck wird in der vorliegenden Arbeit ein Rechenverfahren entwickelt, welches die klassische Flatteranalyse mit den Methoden der Fuzzy- und Intervallarithmetik verbindet. Dabei werden die Flatterbewegungsgleichungen als parameterabhängiges nichtlineares Eigenwertproblem formuliert. Die Änderung der komplexen Eigenlösung infolge eines veränderlichen Einflussparameters wird mit der Methode der numerischen Fortsetzung ausgehend von der nominalen Startlösung verfolgt. Ein modifizierter Newton-Iterations-Algorithmus kommt zur Anwendung. Als Ergebnis liegen die berechneten aeroelastischen Dämpfungs- und Frequenzverläufe in Abhängigkeit von der Fluggeschwindigkeit mit Unschärfebändern vor.

Vesicle motion during sustained exocytosis in chromaffin cells

Chromaffin cells release catecholamines by exocytosis, a process that includes vesicle docking, priming and fusion. Although all these steps have been intensively studied, some aspects of their mechanisms, particularly those regarding vesicle transport to the active sites situated at the membrane, are still unclear. In this work, we show that it is possible to extract information on vesicle motion in Chromaffin cells from the combination of Langevin simulations and amperometric measurements. We developed a numerical model based on Langevin simulations of vesicle motion towards the cell membrane and on the statistical analysis of vesicle arrival times. We also performed amperometric experiments in bovine-adrenal Chromaffin cells under Ba2+ stimulation to capture neurotransmitter releases during sustained exocytosis. In the sustained phase, each amperometric peak can be related to a single release from a new vesicle arriving at the active site. The amperometric signal can then be mapped into a spike-series of release events. We normalized the spike-series resulting from the current peaks using a time-rescaling transformation, thus making signals coming from different cells comparable. We discuss why the obtained spike-series may contain information about the motion of all vesicles leading to release of catecholamines. We show that the release statistics in our experiments considerably deviate from Poisson processes. Moreover, the interspike-time probability is reasonably well described by two-parameter gamma distributions. In order to interpret this result we computed the vesicles’ arrival statistics from our Langevin simulations. As expected, assuming purely diffusive vesicle motion we obtain Poisson statistics. However, if we assume that all vesicles are guided toward the membrane by an attractive harmonic potential, simulations also lead to gamma distributions of the interspike-time probability, in remarkably good agreement with experiment. We also show that including the fusion-time statistics in our model does not produce any significant changes on the results. These findings indicate that the motion of the whole ensemble of vesicles towards the membrane is directed and reflected in the amperometric signals. Our results confirm the conclusions of previous imaging studies performed on single vesicles that vesicles’ motion underneath plasma membranes is not purely random, but biased towards the membrane.

An O(N) Algorithm for Three-Dimensional N-Body Simulations

We develop an algorithm that computes the gravitational potentials and forces on N point-masses interacting in three-dimensional space. The algorithm, based on analytical techniques developed by Rokhlin and Greengard, runs in order N time. In contrast to other fast N-body methods such as tree codes, which only approximate the interaction potentials and forces, this method is exact ?? computes the potentials and forces to within any prespecified tolerance up to machine precision. We present an implementation of the algorithm for a sequential machine. We numerically verify the algorithm, and compare its speed with that of an O(N2) direct force computation. We also describe a parallel version of the algorithm that runs on the Connection Machine in order 0(logN) time. We compare experimental results with those of the sequential implementation and discuss how to minimize communication overhead on the parallel machine.

Analysis and Control of Robot Manipulators with Kinematic Redundancy

A closed-form solution formula for the kinematic control of manipulators with redundancy is derived, using the Lagrangian multiplier method. Differential relationship equivalent to the Resolved Motion Method has been also derived. The proposed method is proved to provide with the exact equilibrium state for the Resolved Motion Method. This exactness in the proposed method fixes the repeatability problem in the Resolved Motion Method, and establishes a fixed transformation from workspace to the joint space. Also the method, owing to the exactness, is demonstrated to give more accurate trajectories than the Resolved Motion Method. In addition, a new performance measure for redundancy control has been developed. This measure, if used with kinematic control methods, helps achieve dexterous movements including singularity avoidance. Compared to other measures such as the manipulability measure and the condition number, this measure tends to give superior performances in terms of preserving the repeatability property and providing with smoother joint velocity trajectories. Using the fixed transformation property, Taylor's Bounded Deviation Paths Algorithm has been extended to the redundant manipulators.

Generating Compliant Motion of Objects with an Articulated Hand

The flexibility of the robot is the key to its success as a viable aid to production. Flexibility of a robot can be explained in two directions. The first is to increase the physical generality of the robot such that it can be easily reconfigured to handle a wide variety of tasks. The second direction is to increase the ability of the robot to interact with its environment such that tasks can still be successfully completed in the presence of uncertainties. The use of articulated hands are capable of adapting to a wide variety of grasp shapes, hence reducing the need for special tooling. The availability of low mass, high bandwidth points close to the manipulated object also offers significant improvements I the control of fine motions. This thesis provides a framework for using articulated hands to perform local manipulation of objects. N particular, it addresses the issues in effecting compliant motions of objects in Cartesian space. The Stanford/JPL hand is used as an example to illustrate a number of concepts. The examples provide a unified methodology for controlling articulated hands grasping with point contacts. We also present a high-level hand programming system based on the methodologies developed in this thesis. Compliant motion of grasped objects and dexterous manipulations can be easily described in the LISP-based hand programming language.

Three-Dimensional Motion Estimation Using Shading Information in Multiple Frames

A new formulation for recovering the structure and motion parameters of a moving patch using both motion and shading information is presented. It is based on a new differential constraint equation (FICE) that links the spatiotemporal gradients of irradiance to the motion and structure parameters and the temporal variations of the surface shading. The FICE separates the contribution to the irradiance spatiotemporal gradients of the gradients due to texture from those due to shading and allows the FICE to be used for textured and textureless surface. The new approach, combining motion and shading information, leads directly to two different contributions: it can compensate for the effects of shading variations in recovering the shape and motion; and it can exploit the shading/illumination effects to recover motion and shape when they cannot be recovered without it. The FICE formulation is also extended to multiple frames.

Robot Motion Vision by Fixation

In many motion-vision scenarios, a camera (mounted on a moving vehicle) takes images of an environment to find the "motion'' and shape. We introduce a direct-method called fixation for solving this motion-vision problem in its general case. Fixation uses neither feature-correspondence nor optical-flow. Instead, spatio-temporal brightness gradients are used directly. In contrast to previous direct methods, fixation does not restrict the motion or the environment. Moreover, fixation method neither requires tracked images as its input nor uses mechanical tracking for obtaining fixated images. The experimental results on real images are presented and the implementation issues and techniques are discussed.

The Design of Shape from Motion Constraints

This report presents a set of representations methodologies and tools for the purpose of visualizing, analyzing and designing functional shapes in terms of constraints on motion. The core of the research is an interactive computational environment that provides an explicit visual representation of motion constraints produced by shape interactions, and a series of tools that allow for the manipulation of motion constraints and their underlying shapes for the purpose of design.

Virtual Model Control of a Biped Walking Robot

The transformation from high level task specification to low level motion control is a fundamental issue in sensorimotor control in animals and robots. This thesis develops a control scheme called virtual model control which addresses this issue. Virtual model control is a motion control language which uses simulations of imagined mechanical components to create forces, which are applied through joint torques, thereby creating the illusion that the components are connected to the robot. Due to the intuitive nature of this technique, designing a virtual model controller requires the same skills as designing the mechanism itself. A high level control system can be cascaded with the low level virtual model controller to modulate the parameters of the virtual mechanisms. Discrete commands from the high level controller would then result in fluid motion. An extension of Gardner's Partitioned Actuator Set Control method is developed. This method allows for the specification of constraints on the generalized forces which each serial path of a parallel mechanism can apply. Virtual model control has been applied to a bipedal walking robot. A simple algorithm utilizing a simple set of virtual components has successfully compelled the robot to walk eight consecutive steps.

Stereo-Based Head Pose Tracking Using Iterative Closest Point and Normal Flow Constraint

In this text, we present two stereo-based head tracking techniques along with a fast 3D model acquisition system. The first tracking technique is a robust implementation of stereo-based head tracking designed for interactive environments with uncontrolled lighting. We integrate fast face detection and drift reduction algorithms with a gradient-based stereo rigid motion tracking technique. Our system can automatically segment and track a user's head under large rotation and illumination variations. Precision and usability of this approach are compared with previous tracking methods for cursor control and target selection in both desktop and interactive room environments. The second tracking technique is designed to improve the robustness of head pose tracking for fast movements. Our iterative hybrid tracker combines constraints from the ICP (Iterative Closest Point) algorithm and normal flow constraint. This new technique is more precise for small movements and noisy depth than ICP alone, and more robust for large movements than the normal flow constraint alone. We present experiments which test the accuracy of our approach on sequences of real and synthetic stereo images. The 3D model acquisition system we present quickly aligns intensity and depth images, and reconstructs a textured 3D mesh. 3D views are registered with shape alignment based on our iterative hybrid tracker. We reconstruct the 3D model using a new Cubic Ray Projection merging algorithm which takes advantage of a novel data structure: the linked voxel space. We present experiments to test the accuracy of our approach on 3D face modelling using real-time stereo images.

On Convergence Properties of the EM Algorithm for Gaussian Mixtures

"Expectation-Maximization'' (EM) algorithm and gradient-based approaches for maximum likelihood learning of finite Gaussian mixtures. We show that the EM step in parameter space is obtained from the gradient via a projection matrix $P$, and we provide an explicit expression for the matrix. We then analyze the convergence of EM in terms of special properties of $P$ and provide new results analyzing the effect that $P$ has on the likelihood surface. Based on these mathematical results, we present a comparative discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of EM and other algorithms for the learning of Gaussian mixture models.