Sharif Digital Repository

The automatic landing of a quadrotor is often associated with model uncertainties, measurement noises, and ground effect phenomenon. To mitigate these challenges, the accurate estimation of states especially the height above the ground, and its rate of change is vital. Moreover, the error of ground effect model can also be estimated and compensated during landing. In this paper, the recently developed continuous ant colony filter is implemented for integrated estimation of states and parameters. The estimated states are used in height control loop. To investigate the closed loop performance of the filter, two control strategies, a classical proportional-integral-derivative controller and a... 

In this chapter, a new class of filters based on swarm intelligence is introduced for nonlinear systems state estimation. As a subset of heuristic filters, swarm filters formulate a nonlinear system state estimation problem as a stochastic dynamic optimization problem and utilize swarm intelligence techniques such as particle swarm optimization and ant colony optimization to find and track the best estimate. As a subset of nonlinear filters, swarm filters can successfully compete with well-known nonlinear filters such as unscented Kalman filter, etc  

A new heuristic filter, called Continuous Ant Colony Filter, is proposed for non-linear systems state estimation. The new filter formulates the states estimation problem as a stochastic dynamic optimization problem and utilizes a colony of ants to find and track the best estimation. The ants search the state space dynamically in a similar scheme to the optimization algorithm, known as Continuous Ant Colony System. The performance of the new filter is evaluated for a nonlinear benchmark and the results are compared with those of Extended Kalman Filter and Particle Filter, showing improvements in terms of estimation accuracy  

A specific class of differential cryptanalytic approach, known as Related Key Boomerang Attack, has been successfully applied to several symmetric cryptographic primitives in particular encryption schemes such as Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). In this paper, we propose a new related-key boomerang attack on 8-round AES-256, a couple of ones on 9-round following the work of Gorski et al. In the first one, we attacked 8-round AES-256 with the time complexity of 279 and the data complexity of 259. The extended 8-round attack on 9-round AES-256 is more efficient than previous attacks from both time and data complexity perspectives  

In this paper, a novel algorithm for correcting the error of attitude in inertial navigation systems is introduced. Since the oftenly used differential equations of the navigation errors show the small rotation angles instead of the error of Euler angles, the nonlinear equation between the small rotation angles and the error of Euler angles, are derived. To obtain an approximative solution for the derived equations, third order multiplication of the small rotation angles are ignored and error of Euler angles are expressed explicitly as functions of the Euler angles and the small rotation angles. Based on the obtained solution, a new algorithm for attitude correction in inertial navigation is... 

A new heuristic filter, called firefly filter, is proposed for state estimation of nonlinear stochastic systems. The new filter formulates the state estimation problem as a stochastic dynamic optimization and utilizes the firefly optimization algorithm to find and track the best estimation. The fireflies search the state space dynamically and are attracted to one other based on the perceived brightness. The performance of the proposed filter is evaluated for a set of benchmarks and the results are compared with the well-known filters like extended Kalman filter and particle filter, showing improvements in terms of estimation accuracy. © 2016 IEEE  

This paper presents a new robust composite nonlinear feedback control law for accurate, smooth, and fast regulation in the presence of parameter uncertainties, external disturbances, and input saturation for a class of spacecraft rendezvous systems. The novel proposed method consists of the original composite nonlinear feedback part for good transient performance plus a nonlinear disturbance rejection part for reducing the steady-state error stemming from variable disturbances and simultaneously producing feasible control input. The nonlinear disturbance rejection relies on sliding-mode observer for disturbance estimation. Closed-loop system stability has been proved with the Lyapunov... 

In this paper, a new nonlinear heuristic filter based on the hybridization of an extended Kalman filter and an ant colony estimator is proposed to estimate the states of a nonlinear system. In this filter, a group of virtual ants searches the state space stochastically and dynamically to find and track the best state estimation while the position of each ant is updated at the measurement time using the extended Kalman filter. The performance of the proposed filter is compared with well-known heuristic filters using a nonlinear benchmark problem. The statistical results show that this algorithm is able to provide promising and competitive results. Then, the new filter is tested on a nonlinear... 

In this paper, a new nonlinear heuristic filter based on the hybridization of an extended Kalman filter and an ant colony estimator is proposed to estimate the states of a nonlinear system. In this filter, a group of virtual ants searches the state space stochastically and dynamically to find and track the best state estimation while the position of each ant is updated at the measurement time using the extended Kalman filter. The performance of the proposed filter is compared with well-known heuristic filters using a nonlinear benchmark problem. The statistical results show that this algorithm is able to provide promising and competitive results. Then, the new filter is tested on a nonlinear... 

This paper presents a new robust composite nonlinear feedback control law for accurate, smooth, and fast regulation in the presence of parameter uncertainties, external disturbances, and input saturation for a class of spacecraft rendezvous systems. The novel proposed method consists of the original composite nonlinear feedback part for good transient performance plus a nonlinear disturbance rejection part for reducing the steady-state error stemming from variable disturbances and simultaneously producing feasible control input. The nonlinear disturbance rejection relies on sliding-mode observer for disturbance estimation. Closed-loop system stability has been proved with the Lyapunov... 

In this study, a new heuristic multiple model filter, called Multiple Model Extended Continuous Ant Colony Filter, is proposed to solve a nonlinear multiple model state estimation problem. In this filter, a bank of extended continuous ant colony filters are run in parallel to solve the multiple model estimation problem. The probability of each model is continually updated and consequently both the true model and the states of the nonlinear system are updated based on the weighted sum of the filters. The new multiple model filter is tested on an engineering problem. The problem is to estimate simultaneously the states of a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle as well as the wind model, applied... 

Monte Carlo Approaches for calculating Value-at-Risk (VaR) are powerful tools widely used by financial risk managers across the globe. However, they are time consuming and sometimes inaccurate. In this paper, a fast and accurate Monte Carlo algorithm for calculating VaR and ES based on Gaussian Mixture Models is introduced. Gaussian Mixture Models are able to cluster input data with respect to market's conditions and therefore no correlation matrices are needed for risk computation. Sampling from each cluster with respect to their weights and then calculating the volatility-adjusted stock returns leads to possible scenarios for prices of assets. Our results on a sample of US stocks show that... 

The lazy bureaucrat scheduling is a new class of scheduling problems that was introduced in [1]. In these problems, there is one employee (or more) who should perform the assigned jobs. The objective of the employee is to minimize the amount of work he performs and to be as inefficient as possible. He is subject to a constraint, however, that he should be busy when there is some work to do. In this paper, we focus on the cases of this problem where all jobs have the same common deadline. We show that with this constraint, the problem is still NP-hard, and prove some hardness results. We then present a tight 2-approximation algorithm for this problem under one of the defined objective... 

In recent years axial flux permanent magnet (AFPM) machines have found industrial applications because of such characteristics as high power density, compact structure and disc-like shape. Like other electrical machines, prediction of flux density distribution in the air gap of AFPM is essential. In this paper, an analytical method for calculation of air gap flux density caused by armature reaction is presented. The solution is based on Maxwell's equations. Separation of variables method is applied to field equations and 2D distribution of magnetic flux density in the air gap calculated in term of Fourier series. The 2-D distribution of three-phase armature winding is modeled exactly.... 

Nowadays, around 70% percent of global energy usage is consumed in urban areas. Undoubtedly, this figure will increase in coming decades due to population rise. As a result, energy resiliency can be considered as an important issue in urban context. Resilience of energy supply in urban areas can be categorized in two approaches, short-term and long-term. Short-term applies to cope with threats such as earthquakes and floods, and long-term applies to deal with impacts of climate change on global warming. In this study, literature review was applied to design questionnaire for expert survey, followed by Fuzzy analytic hierarchy process method to categorize 34 sub-criteria divided under four... 

In this article, we use an efficient analytical method called homotopy analysis method (HAM) to derive an approximate solution of nonlinear ion sound waves equation. Actually, we solved Korteweg-de Vries equation arises in a one-dimensional macroscopic plasma model describing the weakly nonlinear evolution of ion sound speed by the HAM. Unlike the perturbation method, the HAM does not require the addition of a small physically parameter to the differential equation. It is applica-ble to strongly and weakly nonlinear problems. Moreover, the HAM involves an auxiliary parameter, which renders the convergence param-eter of series solutions controllable, and increases the convergence, and... 

In budding yeast, the 3′ end processing of mRNA and the coupled termination of transcription by RNAPII requires the CF IA complex. We have earlier demonstrated a role for the Clp1 subunit of this complex in termination and promoter-associated transcription of CHA1. To assess the generality of the observed function of Clp1 in transcription, we tested the effect of Clp1 on transcription on a genomewide scale using the Global Run-On-Seq (GRO-Seq) approach. GRO-Seq analysis showed the polymerase reading through the termination signal in the downstream region of highly transcribed genes in a temperature-sensitive mutant of Clp1 at elevated temperature. No such terminator readthrough was observed... 

In this research, the interaction between electroencephalogram (EEG) and, a cardiac parameter, photoplethysmogram (PPG), using connectivity measures to emphasize the importance of autonomic nervous system over the central nervous system during a deception is investigated. In this survey, connectivity analysis was applied, since it can provide information flow of brain regions; moreover, lying and truth appear to be cohered with the flow of information in the brain. Initially, a new wavelet-based approach for EEG/PPG effective connectivity fusion was introduced; then, it was validated for 41 subjects. For each subject, after extracting specific wavelet component of EEG and PPG signals, an... 

Deception is mentioned as an expression or action which hides the truth and deception detection as a concept to uncover the truth. In this research, a connectivity analysis of Electro Encephalography study is presented regarding cognitive processes of an instructed liar/truth-teller about identity during an interview. In this survey, connectivity analysis is applied because it can provide unique information about brain activity patterns of lying and interaction among brain regions. The novelty of this paper lies in applying an open-ended questions interview protocol during EEG recording. We recruited 40 healthy participants to record EEG signal during the interview. For each subject,... 

In this paper it is shown that every m × n array in which each symbol appears at most (mn - 1) / (m - 1) times has a transversal, when n ≥ 2 m3. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved