Sharif Digital Repository

We study the problem of finding a target t from a start point s in street environments with the cooperation of two robots which have a minimal sensing capability; that is, robots do not know any information about the workspace including information on distances, edges, coordinates, angles etc. They just can detect the discontinuities in the visibility region of their location. The robots can detect target point t as soon as it enters their visibility region and have communication peripherals to send messages to each other. Our aim is to minimize the length of the path passed by the robots. We propose an online algorithm for robots such that they move in the workspace and find the target.... 

We consider the problem of walking a robot in an unknown polygon called “street”, starting from a point (Formula presented.) to reach a target (Formula presented.). The robot is assumed to have minimal sensing capability in a way that cannot infer any geometric properties of the environment, such as its coordinates, angles or distances; but it is equipped with a sensor that can only detect the discontinuities in the depth information (or gaps). Our robot can also locate the target point (Formula presented.) as soon as it enters in robot’s visibility region. In addition, one pebble is assumed to be available to the robot to be used as an identifiable point and to mark any position of the... 

We consider the problem of walking a simple robot in an unknown street. The robot that cannot infer any geometric properties of the street traverses the environment to reach a target t, starting from a point s. The robot has a minimal sensing capability that can only report the discontinuities in the depth information (gaps), and location of the target point once it enters in its visibility region. Also, the robot can only move towards the gaps while moving along straight lines is cheap, but rotation is expensive for the robot. We maintain the location of some gaps in a tree data structure of constant size. The tree is dynamically updated during the movement. Using the data structure, we... 

We consider the problem of walking in an unknown street, starting from a point s, to reach a target t by a robot which has a minimal sensing capability. The goal is to decrease the traversed path as short as possible. The robot cannot infer any geometric properties of the environment such as coordinates, angles or distances. The robot is equipped with a sensor that can only detect the discontinuities in the depth information (gaps) and can locate the target point as soon as it enters in its visibility region. In addition, a pebble as an identifiable point is available to the robot to mark some position of the street. We offer a data structure similar to Gap Navigation Tree to maintain the... 

In this paper the characteristic ratio assignment (CRA) method is employed to control transient response of a class of non-minimum phase fractional order systems. Since fractional order all-pass filter could not be realized, the fractional unstable zeros are converted to integer unstable zeros by multiplying complementary polynomials to numerator and denominator polynomials of system's transfer function. Doing so, the closed loop system would be an integer order all-pass filter multiple an all-pole fractional transfer function determined from CRA method. Computer simulation results are presented to illustrate the performance of the proposed method. m  

This paper focuses on robust performance analysis of a closed loop fractional order system through a sensitivity approach. The characteristic ratio assignment method is selected to attain a desired closed loop transient response. Then, we compute the sensitivity of such a desired transfer function with respect to its characteristic ratio and we explore its specifications. The relation between the coefficient diagram shape and the relative stability of the closed loop system is discussed. Also, the closed loop poles variations due to the changes in the characteristic ratios are investigated. Finally, we study a pseudo second order process to verify the robust performance of the characteristic... 

An approach is proposed to control transient response of fractional order systems with maximum permissible control signal. This goal is achieved using a newly suggested characteristic ratio assignment method. Based on the proposed method, the generalized time constant τ and the characteristic ratios including their pattern, an adjustable parameter β, and the product of two successive characteristic ratios ρ are determined such that predefined level of overshoot and time specification of closed loop step response are obtained while the control signal is confined to a pre assigned maximum magnitude. The raised issue is solved by defining an optimization problem in which the design parameters... 

This paper presents a new analytical method to design fractional-order proportional- integral-derivative (PID) controllers. The control parameters are calculated so that the closedloop system approximates a desired transfer function with transient response requirements. This function is determined based on the characteristic ratio assignment method. The control parameters are calculated by matching the first three moments of the closed-loop transfer function with the corresponding values of the desired system. Furthermore, to ensure closed-loop stability the proposed method is improved by using the shifted moments around the crossover frequency. Illustrative examples are given to show the... 

Five different approaches are presented to assign characteristic ratios for commensurate fractional order systems having order in (0,0.5]. Through the indirect methods, a closed-loop or plant transfer function is converted to a commensurate order one with an order greater than 0.5 so that the previously designed CRA method by the authors is applicable. The first method among the proposed direct ones is based on increasing the order of the desired closed-loop transfer function that allows the employment of positive characteristic ratios. In the second method the closed-loop response is sped up by augmenting an appropriate zero. The final method uses negative characteristic ratios to reach the... 

In this paper the characteristic ratios and generalized time constant are defined for all-pole commensurate fractional order systems. The sufficient condition for stability of these systems in terms of their characteristic ratios is obtained. Also an analytical approach for characteristic ratio assignment (CRA) to have a non-overshooting fast closed loop step response is introduced. The proposed CRA method is then employed to design a fractional order controller. Computer simulation results are presented to illustrate the performance of the CRA based designed fractional order controllers  

The pulsating flow in the exhaust gas of a SI engine causes an unsteady flow at the inlet to the turbocharger turbine. In a four cylinder four stroke engine, the pulse frequency varies between 20 and 200 Hz. Three dimensional pulsating flows in a vane-less turbocharger turbine of a 1.7 liters SI engine are simulated numerically and validated experimentally. Simulations are done for 720 degree engine cycle at three engine speeds. The results are shown the inlet pulsating flow has significant effects on several turbine parameters especially the inlet total pressure, the reduced mass flow rate and the efficiency. The results show a very good agreement between the three-dimensional unsteady... 

Poly (vinyl alcohol)/graphene oxide (PVA/GO) gamma irradiated nanocomposite films and hydrogels were prepared. In composite films, GO was initially irradiated by gamma ray in order to improve interactions between GO and PVA. The film containing 1 wt-% GO was very strong where tensile modulus and tensile yield strength were 45 and 115% higher than those of pure PVA. In the second set of experiments PVA/GO hydrogels were made by irradiating PVA/GO suspensions by gamma ray at various doses. It was an interesting finding that GO increased the gel portion of hydrogels through contribution of H-bonds between PVA and GO. The hydrogels prepared at 20 kGy had remarkable water swelling ratio that... 

In this paper, we investigate optimal coding strategies for a class of linear deterministic relay networks. The network under study is a relay network, with one source, one destination, and two relay nodes. Additionally, there is a disturbing source of signals that causes interference with the information signals received by the relay nodes. Our model captures the effect of the interference of message signals and disturbing signals on a single relay network, or the interference of signals from multiple relay networks with each other in the linear deterministic framework. For several ranges of the network parameters we find upper bounds on the maximum achievable source-destination rate in the... 

The main point of this paper is to present a time domain strategy for drug dosage to treat psychiatric disorders. A time domain model of emotion is obtained from an extension of a recently developed fractional nonlinear dynamic model of happiness. First, the Fractional Optimal Control law for incommensurate multi state systems is obtained. It will be then applied as an optimal drug administration procedure in the line of psychiatric disorders treatment. Results of this paper show that optimal control scheme is a proper approach to face the difficulties of analysis and control the incommensurate systems. It can be also clearly seen from the simulation results that this approach is very... 

As membrane distillation (MD) is an under-developed separation process, specific membranes for MD applications are not yet commercially available. Therefore, microporous polymeric membranes made of hydrophobic materials fabricated for microfiltration purposes are usually used for MD applications. Characterization of such kind of membranes is important in order to achieve a better in-depth understanding of their performance and to fabricate specific membranes for MD process. One of the emerging characterization methods is atomic force microscopy (AFM) analysis. AFM is a newly developed high-resolution method that is useful for studying the surface topography of various types of membranes, and... 

The main purpose of this paper is to use variational calculus and Pontryagin's minimum principle to propose a solution scheme for time optimal control problem stated on the fractional systems defined in the sense of Caputo. After deriving the necessary optimality conditions, a novel numerical solution is used to solve the problem. Afterwards, a simple case study shows the effectiveness of the proposed method. © 2017  

First principles density functional theory (DFT)-based molecular dynamics (MD) is used to study some physical and electronic properties of amorphous silicon (a-Si) samples, as-quenched and annealed containing dangling and floating bonds (pertinent to the threefold- and fivefold-coordinated defects, respectively) as well as distorted tetrahedral bonds. Surprisingly, except for the work of Pantelides (1986) who gave a rough estimate for the effective electron correlation energy, Ueff of a floating bond on the fivefold-coordinated Si, to date, there are no theoretical studies in the literature for the calculation of Ueff pertinent to this type of defect. In this work, Ueff for each type of... 

In this research, the occurrence of dynamic strain aging (DSA) phenomenon during equal channel angular extrusion (ECAE) of a commercial air cooled Al-Mg-Si-Cu alloy is investigated. In order to detect the negative strain rate sensitivity behaviour associated with DSA, samples were ECAE-ed at various temperatures and strain rates. Subsequently, the extruded billets were subjected to mechanical and physical tests and it was found that at a certain ECAE temperature range there is a critical strain rate above which DSA occurs. The implication of the results to strengthening of dilute solid solutions is discussed  

Examination of the role of strain on the quantum spin hall (QSH) effect and band inversion for the monolayer of tin, stanene, is of interest. To this end, several uniaxial and biaxial strain loadings along the armchair (AC)- and zigzag (ZZ)-directions are applied using first principles calculations based on density functional theory (DFT). We observe QSH insulator as well as semi-metallic property associated with the strained stanene. © 2017 Elsevier B.V  

This paper contains analysis and simulation of recent dynamic models, describing human emotion. The pharmacological discussions lead to a new model of drug taking, which also have a better performance for description of psychological and psychiatric phenomena. Studying the effects of the order of fractional model, obtains an advantage of the fractional order model over the integer order one