Sensor graphs for guaranteed cooperative localization performance

A group of mobile robots can localize cooperatively, using relative position and absolute orientation measurements, fused through an extended Kalman filter (ekf). The topology of the graph of relative measurements is known to affect the steady-state value of the position error covariance matrix. Classes of sensor graphs are identified, for which tight bounds for the trace of the covariance matrix can be obtained based on the algebraic properties of the underlying relative measurement graph. The string and the star graph topologies are considered, and the explicit form of the eigenvalues of error covariance matrix is given. More general sensor graph topologies are considered as combinations of the string and star topologies, when additional edges are added. It is demonstrated how the addition of edges increases the trace of the steady-state value of the position error covariance matrix, and the theoretical predictions are verified through simulation analysis.

A self-adaptive genetic algorithm applied to multi-objective optimization of an airfoil

Genetic algorithms (GAs) have been used to tackle non-linear multi-objective optimization (MOO) problems successfully, but their success is governed by key parameters which have been shown to be sensitive to the nature of the particular problem, incorporating concerns such as the numbers of objectives and variables, and the size and topology of the search space, making it hard to determine the best settings in advance. This work describes a real-encoded multi-objective optimizing GA (MOGA) that uses self-adaptive mutation and crossover, and which is applied to optimization of an airfoil, for minimization of drag and maximization of lift coefficients. The MOGA is integrated with a Free-Form Deformation tool to manage the section geometry, and XFoil which evaluates each airfoil in terms of its aerodynamic efficiency. The performance is compared with those of the heuristic MOO algorithms, the Multi-Objective Tabu Search (MOTS) and NSGA-II, showing that this GA achieves better convergence.

模糊逻辑的采用软件开发工作量估算

软件估算是有半个世纪发展历史的计算机科学领域的一个巨大挑战，因为软件估算涉及到软件项目的成本和计划。开发人员需要能够获得基于他们自己的程序得到的包含了工作量估算的实践。软件成本估算主要估算开发软件系统所需的工作量、时间、人力资源等。一种有效的方式是在项目早期确定成本时估算工作量。软件成本主要依据项目的需求规格说明书来确定。目前，实施可靠、准确的成本估算仍是软件工程领域的一个挑战。 在项目早期阶段，许多项目属性尚未确定。此时的软件估算通常是不准确的，估算 的准确程度取决于用于估算的可靠且可用的信息的数量。在后续的项目分析和设计阶段，对项目的了解更加深入，估算不确定性减少，估算准确性提高。大部分估算模型未考虑这种不确定性，只是得到了确定的估算结果。这些模型需要改进，以得到估计范围和估算结果的发生概率。 新的方法（如：模糊逻辑）可能提供了软件工作量估算的替代方案。软件开发总是可以用一组具有一定程度模糊性的参数来表征。这就需要在模型中引入一定程度的不确定性，以使模型更接近实际。模糊逻辑在这方面很合适。应用模糊逻辑可以解决目前工作量估算模型存在的许多问题。而且，模糊逻辑已经与算法的和非算法的工作量估算模型结合，用于解决固有不确定性问题。 本文提出一种基于模糊逻辑规模的软件开发工作量估算方法。软件规模不是一个单个数字，可以看作是一个三角模糊数(triangular fuzzy number, TFN)。应用本文方法，可以通过改变约束条件对任意常数中的工作量估算结果进行优化。基于对本文方法中模糊权重的平均方差解释%(Variance Accounted For, VAF%) ， 提出了一种最优化算法。应用COCOMO 公开数据集进行了验证实验。与实际工作量估算的比较结果表明，基于偏差系数，本文提出的模型提供了较好的估算结果。 最后，提出了一种改进的基于模糊案例的推理(Fuzzy Case-Based Reasoning , FCBR)方法，该方法集成了agent 技术，可以从多个组织的分布式数据库中找到相似项目。基于该方法，可以从分布式预定义的项目成本数据库中收集软件成本数据，进而建立软件成本估算模型。该模型应用FCBR 方法，在不同软件组织的历史软件项目度量数据中找到类似项目。

一种用于异步电机效率优化的混合搜索方法

针对异步电机效率优化问题,提出了一种混合搜索方法。该方法起始于模糊自适应搜索,然后切换至黄金分割法以获取确定收敛速度。这样的搜索步骤能够降低转矩波动,避免在最优点附近发生振荡。利用一个包含铁损和机械损耗的异步电机模型,对该方法进行了矢量控制下的性能验证。仿真结果验证了该方法的有效性。

基于模糊推理水下作业系统运动控制研究

水下作业系统是运动学冗余系统,本文将模糊推理方法融入基于任务优先运动学控制算法,对系统载体与机械手进行协调运动分配,同时对系统多个任务进行优化。通过带有3自由度水下机械手的水下作业系统进行算例仿真研究,说明运动控制算法的有效性。

自适应模糊PID控制在AUV控制中的应用

自治潜水器(AUV,Autonomous Underwater Vehicle)是非线性、强耦合、大惯性的多输入多输出系统,又由于受到海流、传感器、执行机构等不确定性的影响,对AUV控制器的鲁棒性能提出了更高的要求。本文针对我国正在研制开发的长航程自治潜水器的特性及其对航行控制的要求,将PID控制与模糊控制的简便性、灵活性以及鲁棒性结合起来,为AUV设计了可在线修改PID参数的自适应模糊PID控制器,仿真结果证明了该种控制方法不但提高了AUV系统的动态特性,而且可在参数摄动和外界扰动时获得较好的控制性能。

Battling Reality

In the four years that the MIT Mobile Robot Project has benn in existence, we have built ten robots that focus research in various areas concerned with building intelligent systems. Towards this end, we have embarked on trying to build useful autonomous creatures that live and work in the real world. Many of the preconceived notions entertained before we started building our robots turned out to be misguided. Some issues we thought would be hard have worked successfully from day one and subsystems we imagined to be trivial have become tremendous time sinks. Oddly enough, one of our biggest failures has led to some of our favorite successes. This paper describes the changing paths our research has taken due to the lessons learned from the practical realities of building robots.

Novelty and Habituation: the Driving Forces in Early Stage Learning for Developmental Robotics

Meng, Q., & Lee, M. (2005). Novelty and Habituation: the Driving Forces in Early Stage Learning for Developmental Robotics. Wermter, S., Palm, G., & Elshaw, M. (Eds.), In: Biomimetic Neural Learning for Intelligent Robots: Intelligent Systems, Cognitive Robotics, and Neuroscience. (pp. 315-332). (Lecture Notes in Computer Science). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Animated virtual agents to cue user attention: comparison of static and dynamic deictic cues on gaze and touch responses

This paper describes an experiment developed to study the performance of virtual agent animated cues within digital interfaces. Increasingly, agents are used in virtual environments as part of the branding process and to guide user interaction. However, the level of agent detail required to establish and enhance efficient allocation of attention remains unclear. Although complex agent motion is now possible, it is costly to implement and so should only be routinely implemented if a clear benefit can be shown. Pevious methods of assessing the effect of gaze-cueing as a solution to scene complexity have relied principally on two-dimensional static scenes and manual peripheral inputs. Two experiments were run to address the question of agent cues on human-computer interfaces. Both experiments measured the efficiency of agent cues analyzing participant responses either by gaze or by touch respectively. In the first experiment, an eye-movement recorder was used to directly assess the immediate overt allocation of attention by capturing the participant’s eyefixations following presentation of a cueing stimulus. We found that a fully animated agent could speed up user interaction with the interface. When user attention was directed using a fully animated agent cue, users responded 35% faster when compared with stepped 2-image agent cues, and 42% faster when compared with a static 1-image cue. The second experiment recorded participant responses on a touch screen using same agent cues. Analysis of touch inputs confirmed the results of gaze-experiment, where fully animated agent made shortest time response with a slight decrease on the time difference comparisons. Responses to fully animated agent were 17% and 20% faster when compared with 2-image and 1-image cue severally. These results inform techniques aimed at engaging users’ attention in complex scenes such as computer games and digital transactions within public or social interaction contexts by demonstrating the benefits of dynamic gaze and head cueing directly on the users’ eye movements and touch responses.

The 2015 Bioinformatics Open Source Conference (BOSC 2015).

The Bioinformatics Open Source Conference (BOSC) is organized by the Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF), a nonprofit group dedicated to promoting the practice and philosophy of open source software development and open science within the biological research community. Since its inception in 2000, BOSC has provided bioinformatics developers with a forum for communicating the results of their latest efforts to the wider research community. BOSC offers a focused environment for developers and users to interact and share ideas about standards; software development practices; practical techniques for solving bioinformatics problems; and approaches that promote open science and sharing of data, results, and software. BOSC is run as a two-day special interest group (SIG) before the annual Intelligent Systems in Molecular Biology (ISMB) conference. BOSC 2015 took place in Dublin, Ireland, and was attended by over 125 people, about half of whom were first-time attendees. Session topics included "Data Science;" "Standards and Interoperability;" "Open Science and Reproducibility;" "Translational Bioinformatics;" "Visualization;" and "Bioinformatics Open Source Project Updates". In addition to two keynote talks and dozens of shorter talks chosen from submitted abstracts, BOSC 2015 included a panel, titled "Open Source, Open Door: Increasing Diversity in the Bioinformatics Open Source Community," that provided an opportunity for open discussion about ways to increase the diversity of participants in BOSC in particular, and in open source bioinformatics in general. The complete program of BOSC 2015 is available online at http://www.open-bio.org/wiki/BOSC_2015_Schedule.

Case based adaptation using interpolation over nominal values

In this paper we propose a method for interpolation over a set of retrieved cases in the adaptation phase of the case-based reasoning cycle. The method has two advantages over traditional systems: the first is that it can predict “new” instances, not yet present in the case base; the second is that it can predict solutions not present in the retrieval set. The method is a generalisation of Shepard’s Interpolation method, formulated as the minimisation of an error function defined in terms of distance metrics in the solution and problem spaces. We term the retrieval algorithm the Generalised Shepard Nearest Neighbour (GSNN) method. A novel aspect of GSNN is that it provides a general method for interpolation over nominal solution domains. The method is illustrated in the paper with reference to the Irises classification problem. It is evaluated with reference to a simulated nominal value test problem, and to a benchmark case base from the travel domain. The algorithm is shown to out-perform conventional nearest neighbour methods on these problems. Finally, GSNN is shown to improve in efficiency when used in conjunction with a diverse retrieval algorithm.

Universal power quality manager with a new control scheme

A new universal power quality manager is proposed. The proposal treats a number of power quality problems simultaneously. The universal manager comprises a combined series and shunt three-phase PWM controlled converters sharing a common DC link. A control scheme based on fuzzy logic is introduced and the general features of the design and operation processes are outlined. The performance of two configurations of the proposed power quality manager are compared in terms of a recently formulated unified power quality index. The validity and integrity of the proposed system is proved through computer simulated experiments