Sharif Digital Repository

In this paper, we present a novel structure of a snake-like robot. This structure enables passive locomotion in snake-like robots. Dynamic equations are obtained for motion in a horizontal plane, using Gibbs-Appell method. Kinematic model of the robot include numerous nonholonomic constraints, which can be omitted at the beginning by choosing proper coordinates to describe the model in Gibbs-Appell framework. In such a case, dynamic equations will be significantly simplified, resulting in considerable reduction of simulation time. Simulation results show that, by proper selection of initial conditions, joint angles operate in a limit cycle and robot can locomote steadily on a passive... 

In this paper we consider the issue of energy efficiency in random access networks and show that optimizing transmission probabilities of nodes can enhance network performance in terms of energy consumption and fairness. First, we propose a heuristic power control method that improves throughput, and then we model the Utility Constrained Energy Minimization (UCEM) problem in which the utility constraint takes into account single and multi node performance. UCEM is modeled as a convex optimization problem and Sequential Quadratic Programming (SQP) is used to find optimal transmission probabilities. Numerical results show that our method can achieve fairness, reduce energy consumption and... 

A communication protocol consists of a sequence of messages used by peer entities to communicate. Each entity in a network is equipped by at least one protocol stack. Due to the need for on-the-fly reconfiguration of protocol stack in future communication and computation devices, formalizing substitutability and compatibility of protocol entities are important in correctness assessment of dynamic reconfiguration. In this paper, we extend Constraint Automata and propose I/O-Constraint Automata to model behavior of protocols and propose enough formalism for substitutability and compatibility relations between protocols. We introduce input-blocking property of communication protocols, and show... 

The current methods of predictive controllers are utilized for those processes in which the rate of output variations is not high. For such processes, therefore, stability can be achieved by implementing the constrained predictive controller or applying infinite prediction horizon. When the rate of the output growth is high (e.g. for unstable nonminimum phase process) the stabilization seems to be problematic. In order to avoid this, it is suggested to change the method in the way that: first, the prediction error growth should be decreased at the early stage of the prediction horizon, and second, the rate of the error variation should be penalized. The growth of the error is decreased... 

In this paper, we show that the stability can not be achieved with current stabilizing MPC methods for some unstable processes. Hence we present a new method for stabilizing these processes. The main idea is to use a new time varying weighted cost function for traditional GPC. This stabilizes the closed loop system without adding soft or hard constraint in optimization problem. By studying different examples it is shown that using the proposed method, the closed-loop stability of unstable nonminimum phase process is achieved. COPYRIGHT © ENFORMATIKA  

In this paper a novel approach to dynamic formulation of rovers has been presented. The complexity of these multi-body systems especially on rough terrain, challenged us to use the Kane's method which has been preferred to others in these cases. As an example, symbolic equations of a six-wheeled rover, named CEDRA Rescue Robot which uses a shrimp like mechanism, have been derived and a simulation of forward and inverse dynamics has been presented. Due to the clear form of equations, each term defines a physical meaning which represents the effect of each parameter, resulting in a frame-work for performance comparison of rovers. Although the method has been described for a 2-D non-slipping... 

This paper develops a stability and performance preserving controller order reduction method for linear time-invariant continuous-time single-input, single-output systems. In this method, the error between the complementary sensitivity functions of the nominal closed-loop system and closed-loop system using the reduced-order controller is converted to a frequency-weighted error between the Youla parameters of the full-order and reduced-order controllers and then the H∞norm of this error, subject to a set of linear matrix inequality constraints, is minimized. The main ideas of order reduction and stability preservation are contained in the constraints of the optimization problem. However,... 

In this paper, we study the problem of finding the shortest path between two points inside a simple polygon such that there is at least one point on the path from which a query point is visible. We provide an algorithm which preprocesses the input in O (n2 + n K) time and space and provides logarithmic query time. The input polygon has n vertices and K is a parameter dependent on the input polygon which is O (n2) in the worst case but is much smaller for most polygons. The preprocessing algorithm sweeps an angular interval around every reflex vertex of the polygon to store the optimal contact points between the shortest paths and the windows separating the visibility polygons of the query... 

Rcent measurements suggest the possibility of sharing spectrum among different parties subject to interference-protection constraints. In order to enable access to an unused licensed spectrum, a secondary user has to monitor licensed bands and opportunistically transmit whenever no primary signal is detected. In this paper, we study spectrum-sharing between a primary licensee and a group of secondary users. The structure of an asymptotically optimum detector based on the measurements of all secondary users is derived and the effect of the quantization error in such a system is evaluated. The results show the superiority of the proposed detector to other schemes. © 2007 IEEE  

In this paper, the role and importance of the machine vision systems in the industrial applications are described. First understanding of the vision in terms of a universal concept is explained. System design methodology is discussed and a generic machine vision model is reported. Such a machine includes systems and sub-systems, which of course depend on the type of applications and required tasks. In general, expected functions from a vision machine are the exploitation and imposition of the environmental constraint of a scene, the capturing of the images, analysis of those captured images, recognition of certain objects and features within each image, and the initiation of subsequent... 

Pervasive computing environments introduce new requirements in expressiveness and flexibility of access control policies which are almost addressable leveraging contextual information. Although context-awareness augments the expressiveness of policies, it increases the probability of arising conflicts. Generally, context-aware authorizations are defined using some contextual constraints on the involved entities in an access request. Accordingly, principles like "more specific overrides", which are employed to resolve possible conflicts, are required to consider the contextual constraints. In this paper, we formalize the use of context constraints in a typical context-aware multi-authority... 

In this paper, a new approach based on hybrid Particle Swarm-Based- Simulated Annealing Optimization (PSO-B-SA) for solving thermal unit commitment (UC) problems is proposed. The PSO-B-SA presented in this paper solves the two sub-problems simultaneously and independently; unit-scheduled problem that determines on/off status of units and the economic dispatch problem for production amount of generating units. Problem formulation of UC is defined as minimization of total objective function while satisfying all the associated constraints such as minimum up and down time, production limits and the required demand and spinning reserve. Simulation results show that the proposed approach can... 

In this paper, we develop a metaheuristic procedure for solving the discrete time/resource trade-off problem in the field of project scheduling. In this problem, a project contains activities interrelated by finish-start-type precedence constraints with a time lag of zero, which require a single constrained renewable resource. Each activity has a specified work content and can be performed in different modes, i.e. with different durations and resource requirements; as long as the required work content is met. The objective is to schedule each activity in one of its modes in order to minimize the project makespan. To tackle this problem, we use a genetic algorithm in which a new method based... 

The necklace hypercube network has recently been introduced as an attractive alternative to the well-known hypercube. Previous research on this network topology has mainly focused on topological properties and VLSI aspects of this network. In this paper, we propose some adaptive routing algorithm for the necklace hypercubes. The performance of necklace hypercubes using the proposed routing algorithm is then evaluated by means of simulation experiments. Experiments are realized under different working loads and for different network factors. Moreover, a comparison between the necklace hypercube and the well-known hypercube network is conducted. The comparison has been done considering... 

This paper presents a computationally effective trajectory generation algorithm for omni-directional mobile robots. This method uses the Voronoi diagram to find a sketchy path that keeps away from obstacles and then smooths this path with a novel use of Bezier curves. This method determines velocity magnitude of a robot along the curved path to meet optimality conditions and dynamic constrains using Newton method. The proposed algorithm has been implemented on real robots, and experimental results in different environments are presented. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007  

This article presents a fuzzy location-allocation model for congested systems. In service networks, such as health and emergency services, public safety, fire fighting and so on, the location of servers and allocation of demand nodes to them have a strong impact on the congestion at each server and as such, on the quality of service. The previous efforts in this area have concentrated on enhancing the reliability and quality of service with a probabilistic orientation. In this paper we utilize fuzzy theory to develop a queuing maximal covering location-allocation model which we call the fuzzy queuing maximal covering location-allocation model. We consider fuzzified queuing parameters as well... 

In this article, impedance control of a two link flexible link manipulators is addressed. The concept of impedance control of flexible link robots is rather new and is being addressed for the first time by the authors. Impedance Control provides a universal approach to the control of flexible robots, in both constrained and unconstrained maneuvers. The initial part of the paper concerns the use of Hamilton's principle to derive the mathematical equations governing the dynamics of joint angles, vibration of the flexible links and the constraining forces. The approximate elastic deformations are then derived by means of the Assumed-Mode-Method (AMM). Using the singular perturbation method, the... 

A parallel manipulator is a closed loop mechanism in which a moving platform is connected to the base by at least two serial kinematic chains. The main problem engaged in these mechanisms, is their restricted working space as a result of singularities. In order to tackle these problems, many methods have been introduced by scholars. However, most of the mentioned methods are too much time consuming and need a great amount of computations. They also in most cases do not provide a good insight to the existence of singularity for the designer. In this paper a novel approach is introduced and utilized to identify singularities in parallel manipulators. By applying the new method, one could get a... 

In this paper, routing properties of cube-based optoelectronic OTIS networks are explored. We show emulations of various cubical network topologies on their OTIS augmented variants, including the nD grid networks, shuffle-exchange, and de Brujin networks. An analytical performance model for OTIS-cube networks is proposed. The model is validated by means of comparison with rigorously obtained simulation results. Using this model, the performance characteristics of the OTIS-hypercube network are evaluated in view of a number of different constraints. Moreover, we compare the performance characteristics of the OTIS-hypercube with that of equivalent fully-electronic networks under various... 

On pool market structure, the generating units are typically dispatched in order of lowest to highest bid as needed to meet demand requirement as well as considering network constraints. Generally, no account is taken of generating unit's reliability when scheduling them. This paper proposes a new structure for electricity market to consider generating unit's reliability in the scheduling problem. GAMS (General Algebraic Modeling System) language has been used to solve the social welfare maximization problem using CPLEX optimization software with mixed integer programming. ©2006 IEEE