Electro-hydraulic actuator tester for fly-by-wire aircrafts

An 8051-based microcontroller tester has been designed to reduce troubleshooting time of the Electro-Hydraulic Actuators (EHA) installed in fly-by-wire aircrafts. The tester algorithm first evaluates EHA pressure and position sensor signals to emit either a pass or fail message. The evaluation is based on predefined ranges of EHA pressure and position signals. Next, the instrument tests the EHA response capability - a way of dynamic response evaluation, again issuing a suitable response. The instrument proved to be reliable after being successfully evaluated in laboratory and in a real model test airplane. © 2007 IEEE.

Optimal Boussinesq model for shallow-water waves interacting with a microstructure

In this paper, we consider the propagation of water waves in a long-wave asymptotic regime, when the bottom topography is periodic on a short length scale. We perform a multiscale asymptotic analysis of the full potential theory model and of a family of reduced Boussinesq systems parametrized by a free parameter that is the depth at which the velocity is evaluated. We obtain explicit expressions for the coefficients of the resulting effective Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equations. We show that it is possible to choose the free parameter of the reduced model so as to match the KdV limits of the full and reduced models. Hence the reduced model is optimal regarding the embedded linear weakly dispersive and weakly nonlinear characteristics of the underlying physical problem, which has a microstructure. We also discuss the impact of the rough bottom on the effective wave propagation. In particular, nonlinearity is enhanced and we can distinguish two regimes depending on the period of the bottom where the dispersion is either enhanced or reduced compared to the flat bottom case. © 2007 The American Physical Society.

A genetic neuro-model reference adaptive controller for petroleum wells drilling operations

Motivated by rising drilling operation costs, the oil industry has shown a trend towards real-time measurements and control. In this scenario, drilling control becomes a challenging problem for the industry, especially due to the difficulty associated to parameters modeling. One of the drill-bit performance evaluators, the Rate of Penetration (ROP), has been used in the literature as a drilling control parameter. However, the relationships between the operational variables affecting the ROP are complex and not easily modeled. This work presents a neuro-genetic adaptive controller to treat this problem. It is based on the Auto-Regressive with Extra Input Signals model, or ARX model, to accomplish the system identification and on a Genetic Algorithm (GA) to provide a robust control for the ROP. Results of simulations run over a real offshore oil field data, consisted of seven wells drilled with equal diameter bits, are provided. © 2006 IEEE.

Towards forecasting and mitigating ionospheric scintillation effects on GNSS

The effect of the ionosphere on the signals of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), such as the Global Positionig System (GPS) and the proposed European Galileo, is dependent on the ionospheric electron density, given by its Total Electron Content (TEC). Ionospheric time-varying density irregularities may cause scintillations, which are fluctuations in phase and amplitude of the signals. Scintillations occur more often at equatorial and high latitudes. They can degrade navigation and positioning accuracy and may cause loss of signal tracking, disrupting safety-critical applications, such as marine navigation and civil aviation. This paper addresses the results of initial research carried out on two fronts that are relevant to GNSS users if they are to counter ionospheric scintillations, i.e. forecasting and mitigating their effects. On the forecasting front, the dynamics of scintillation occurrence were analysed during the severe ionospheric storm that took place on the evening of 30 October 2003, using data from a network of GPS Ionospheric Scintillation and TEC Monitor (GISTM) receivers set up in Northern Europe. Previous results [1] indicated that GPS scintillations in that region can originate from ionospheric plasma structures from the American sector. In this paper we describe experiments that enabled confirmation of those findings. On the mitigation front we used the variance of the output error of the GPS receiver DLL (Delay Locked Loop) to modify the least squares stochastic model applied by an ordinary receiver to compute position. This error was modelled according to [2], as a function of the S4 amplitude scintillation index measured by the GISTM receivers. An improvement of up to 21% in relative positioning accuracy was achieved with this technnique.

Analysis of numeric conditioning of Hessian matrix of Lagrangian via singular values

This paper presents an analyze of numeric conditioning of the Hessian matrix of Lagrangian of modified barrier function Lagrangian method (MBFL) and primal-dual logarithmic barrier method (PDLB), which are obtained in the process of solution of an optimal power flow problem (OPF). This analyze is done by a comparative study through the singular values decomposition (SVD) of those matrixes. In the MBLF method the inequality constraints are treated by the modified barrier and PDLB methods. The inequality constraints are transformed into equalities by introducing positive auxiliary variables and are perturbed by the barrier parameter. The first-order necessary conditions of the Lagrangian function are solved by Newton's method. The perturbation of the auxiliary variables results in an expansion of the feasible set of the original problem, allowing the limits of the inequality constraints to be reached. The electric systems IEEE 14, 162 and 300 buses were used in the comparative analysis. ©2007 IEEE.