Sharif Digital Repository

In this paper, the development of a controller for autonomous lateral alignment of fixed-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) with runway centerline in landing phase is presented. Fuzzy Logic Control (FLC) is used in order to enable the vehicle to mimic the decision making procedure that a pilot follow in the same situation. Also, for longitudinal motion controller design for the UAV to follow a pre-defined trajectory, the pole-placement technique is used. It is assumed that the runway relative position and orientation are provided by a built in vision system and its associated image processing unit. The performance of the controller in the presence of the Gaussian noises is investigated by... 

This paper proposes a high performance voltage tracking and current sharing among parallel connected inverters by applying optimal control and minimizing the cost function. The control system forces the voltage of load to track the voltage reference, and the current of all inverters becomes equal. Therefore, both current sharing and voltage tracking are obtained. In addition, the smallest input energy and simplicity in control circuit are the other advantages of the suggested method. To show the performance of the proposed control scheme, the simulations with two-modular practical systems are performed and the results are provided. The results indicate that the control objectives are... 

This paper deals with the impulsive formation control of spacecraft in the presence of constraints on the position vector and time. Determining a set of path constraints can increase the safety and reliability in an impulsive relative motion of spacecraft. Specially, the feasibility problem of the position norm constraints is considered in this paper. Under assumptions, it is proved that if a position vector be reachable, then the reach time and the corresponding time of impulses are unique. The trajectory boundedness of the spacecraft between adjacent impulses are analyzed using the Gerschgorin and the Rayleigh-Ritz theorems as well as a finite form of the Jensen's inequality. Some... 

A system is called prescribed-time attractive if its solution converges at an arbitrary user-defined finite time. In this note, necessary and sufficient conditions are developed for the prescribed-time attractivity of linear time-varying (LTV) systems. It is proved that the frozen-time eigenvalues of a prescribed-time attractive LTV system have negative real parts when the time is sufficiently close to the convergence moment. This result shows that the ubiquitous singularity problem of prescribed-time attractive LTV systems can be avoided without instability effects by switching to the corresponding frozen-time system at an appropriate time. Consequently, it is proved that the time-varying... 

Recorded ground accelerations at various locations of Karun III Dam during November 20, 2007, were recorded by an array of accelerometers located on the dam. In terms of amplitude and phase, these accelerations show non-uniformities in different elevations. In this paper, the effect of these non-uniform ground motions on the seismic response of the dam taking dam-reservoir-foundation interaction into account is investigated. The EACD-3D-2008 finite element program and ABAQUS Software are used for carrying out the seismic analyses. For this purpose, time histories of the earthquake accelerations are interpolated at nodal points located on the dam foundation interface. The analysis has been... 

Thermal analysis of Roller Compacted Concrete (RCC) dams is generally carried out considering identical ambient boundary conditions at upstream and downstream faces. For the case of Shahri-Kor Dam (an RCC dam with a height of 57 m), recorded thermal data depicts a considerable difference between upstream and downstream ambient temperatures, especially during cold months. This paper investigates how taking this difference into account can affect the thermal response of the dam. For this purpose, two thermal analyses are carried out with and without consideration of these different ambient boundary conditions (DABC). Consequently, the computed temperatures at representative points are compared... 

A fault detection and isolation method for satellite rate gyros is proposed based on using the satellite-to-satellite measurements such as relative position beside orbit parameters of the primary satellite. By finding a constant of motion, it is shown that the dynamic states in a relative motion are restricted in such a way that the angular velocity vector of primary satellite lies on a quadratic surface. This constant of motion is then used to detect the gyroscope faults and estimate the corresponding scale factor or bias values of the rate gyros of the primary satellite. The proposed algorithm works even in time variant fault situations as well, and does not impose any additional... 

This article introduces a class of time-varying controllers for Euler-Lagrange systems such that the convergence occurs at an arbitrary finite time, independently of initial conditions, and free of chattering. The proposed controller is based on a mapping technique and is designed in two steps: First, a conventional (obstacle avoidance) asymptotically stable controller is specified for the nominal system; then, by a simple substitution, a prescribed-time (obstacle avoidance) controller is achievable for the perturbed system. It is proved that the proposed scheme is uniformly prescribed-time stable for unperturbed systems and prescribed-time attractive for perturbed systems as it rejects... 

This letter presents a unified framework for the design of prescribed-time controllers under time-varying input and state constraints for normal-form unknown nonlinear systems with uncertain input gain. The proposed approach is based on a time-domain mapping method by which any infinite-time system can be corresponded to a prescribed-time system and vice versa. It is shown that the design of a constrained nonasymptotic prescribed-time controller can be reduced to the asymptotic control design for an associated constrained infinite-time system. Faà di Bruno’s formula and Bell polynomials are used for a constructive representation of the associated infinite-time system. The presented results... 

This paper introduces a class of time-varying controllers for Euler-Lagrange systems such that the convergence occurs at an arbitrary finite time, independently of initial conditions, and free of chattering. The proposed controller is based on a mapping technique and is designed in two steps: First, a conventional (obstacle avoidance) asymptotically stable controller is specified for the nominal system; then, by a simple substitution, a prescribed-time (obstacle avoidance) controller is achievable for the perturbed system. It is proved that the proposed scheme is uniformly prescribed-time stable for unperturbed systems and prescribed-time attractive for perturbed systems as it rejects... 

In this letter, a new notion of stability is introduced, which is called triangular stability. A system is called triangularly stable if the norm of its state vector is bounded by a decreasing linear function of time such that its intersection point with the time axis can be arbitrarily commanded by the user. Triangular stability implies prescribed-time stability, which means that the nonlinear system is converged to zero equilibrium at an arbitrary finite time. A prescribed-time controller with guaranteed triangular stability is developed for normal form nonlinear systems with uncertain input gain, which is able to reject the disturbances and unmodeled dynamics. Numerical simulations are... 

This letter presents a unified framework for the design of prescribed-time controllers under time-varying input and state constraints for normal-form unknown nonlinear systems with uncertain input gain. The proposed approach is based on a time-domain mapping method by which any infinite-time system can be corresponded to a prescribed-time system and vice versa. It is shown that the design of a constrained nonasymptotic prescribed-time controller can be reduced to the asymptotic control design for an associated constrained infinite-time system. Faà di Bruno's formula and Bell polynomials are used for a constructive representation of the associated infinite-time system. The presented results... 

Natural frequencies and mode shapes of two joined isotropic conical shells are presented in this study. The joined conical shells can be considered as the general case for joined cylindrical-conical shells, joined cylinder-plates or cone-plates, conical and cylindrical shells with stepped thicknesses and also annular plates. Governing equations are obtained using thin-walled shallow shell theory of Donnell and Hamilton's principle. The continuity conditions at the joining section of the cones are appropriate expressions among stress resultants and deformations. The equations are solved assuming trigonometric response in circumferential and series solution in meridional directions and all... 

In this study, the buckling of two joined isotropic conical shells under axial compression and simply supported boundary conditions is investigated. The governing equations are obtained using thin-walled shallow shell theory of Donnell-type and theorem of minimum potential energy. The continuity conditions at the joining section of the cones are appropriate expressions among stress resultants and deformations. The equations are solved by assuming trigonometric response in circumferential and series solution in meridional direction. The results are validated in comparison with the available results in the literature. Effects of semi-vertex angles and meridional lengths on the buckling load... 

In the present study, a simple analytical method is introduced for determination of natural frequencies of generally laminated conical and cylindrical shells with arbitrary boundary conditions. The governing equations of motion employed are those of thin-walled shell theory of Donnell. The free-vibration equations are solved using state space method and series solution in meridional direction. The results are compared and validated with the available especial results in the literature. The effects of bending-stretching coupling, semi-vertex angle, meridional length, shell thickness, fiber directions of composite plies, and lamination sequences on the natural frequency of conical and... 

A new test specimen for a tensile test of industrial graphite is introduced using experiment and finite element results. The most influencing factors on the tensile strength of the test specimens are considered and the number of tests, which are necessary to optimize the tensile strengths are reduced based on the design of experiment using the Taguchi method and the effects of all factors on strength of test samples are studied. Comparison of the predicted strengths based on the Taguchi approach with the measured experimental results and finite element analysis shows a good correlation between them. In addition, results show that the new introduced specimen makes a 33% increase in the... 

Design and performance of a beam shaping device based on a simple flexible plastic fiber-bundle stripe and a prism duct is described in this study. Such a system offers practical means to modify and change the output beam shape and also provides quantitative information concerning the transmitted power. It is possible to measure transmitted power signal by using a precise photodetector and also analyze beam images taken by a digital camera. The photograph picture of the illuminating LED beam just at its output point shows a circular shape with a radius of about 4 mm and the fiber-bundle output beam is rectangular shape with a dimension of 22.5×2 mm. A regular duct is tested in this study and...