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Because of errors in the geometric parameters of the parallel robots, it is necessary to calibrate them to improve the positioning accuracy for accurate task performance. Traditionally, to perform system calibration, one needs to measure a number of robot poses using an external measuring device. However, this process is often time-consuming, expensive and difficult for robot on-line calibration. In this paper, a methodical way of self-calibrating of Hexaglide parallel robot is introduced. This method is performable only by measuring input joint variables and errors of positioning relative to the desired position in some sets of configurations where in each set the desired position is fixed,... 

In the application of parallel robots, it is necessary to calibrate the geometric parameters and improve the positioning accuracy for accurate task performance. Traditionally, to perform system calibration, one needs to measure a number of robot poses using an external measuring device. However, this process is often time-consuming, expensive and difficult for robot on-line calibration. In this paper, a methodical way of self-calibrating of Hexaglide parallel robot is introduced. This method is performable only by measuring input joint variables in some sets of configurations where in each set center of the end-effector is fixed, but orientations are different. Simulations give us an idea... 

In the past few years, parallel manipulators have become increasingly popular in industry, especially, in the field of machine tools. Hexaglide is a 6 DOF parallel manipulator that can be used as a high speed milling machine. In this paper, the kinematics and singularity of Hexaglide parallel manipulator are studied systematically. At first, this robot has been modeled and its inverse and forward kinematic problems have been solved. Then, formulas for solving inverse velocity are derived and Jacobian matrix is obtained. After that, three different types of singularity for this type of robot have been investigated. Finally a numerical example is presented. Copyright © 2008 by ASME  

In the application of parallel kinematic machine tools (PKM), because of errors in the geometric parameters, it is necessary to calibrate the PKM to improve the positioning accuracy. In existing self-calibration methods, either some redundant sensors on passive joints or some mobility constraints on the kinematic chains are used. However, the mobility constraints imposed on kinematic chains might apply large forces during the test on legs and passive joints. Also, these kinds of calibrating are applicable only on PKMs in which their actuated joints can be used as passive joints. To overcome weaknesses of existing methods, a novel approach to calibration based on imposing position constraints... 

Exploiting Compressive Sensing (CS) in MIMO radars, we can remove the need of the high rate A/D converters and send much less samples to the fusion center. In distributed MIMO radars, the received signal can be modeled as a block sparse signal in a basis. Thus, block CS methods can be used instead of classical CS ones to achieve more accurate target parameter estimation. In this paper a new method of energy allocation to the transmitters is proposed to improve the performance of the block CS-based distributed MIMO radars. This method is based on the minimization of an upper bound of the sensing matrix block-coherence. Simulation results show a significant increase in the accuracy of multiple... 

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radars offer higher resolution, better target detection, and more accurate target parameter estimation. Due to the sparsity of the targets in space-velocity domain, we can exploit Compressive Sensing (CS) to improve the performance of MIMO radars when the sampling rate is much less than the Nyquist rate. In distributed MIMO radars, block CS methods can be used instead of classical CS ones for more performance improvement, because the received signal in this group of MIMO radars is a block sparse signal in a basis. In this paper, two new methods are proposed to improve the performance of the block CS-based distributed MIMO radars. The first one is a new... 

This paper presents a numerical simulation approach to investigate the water effect as an auxiliary fluid in direct contact with various phase change materials (PCMs). The technique is defined as a hybrid method due to the using of an external intermediary for melting process improvement. Oleic acid (OA), coconut oil (CO), hexadecane, and heptadecane are selected as PCMs due to immiscibility in water and differences in density, melting point, and enthalpy of fusion. An auxiliary fluid is embedded above PCM in an enclosure subjected to sinusoidal wall temperature for melting rate increase through density differences improving heat transfer rate due to materials displacement during process.... 

Nonlinear dynamics of an extensible cantilevered pipe conveying pulsating flow is considered in this paper. The fluid flow fluctuates harmonically and exhausts via a nozzle attached to the end of the pipe. Taking into account the extensibility assumption, the coupled nonlinear lateral–longitudinal equations of motion are derived using Hamilton's principle and discretized via Galerkin's method. The adaptive time step Adams algorithm is applied to extract the time response, and then the bifurcation, power spectral density and phase plane maps are plotted for some case studies. Effects of some geometrical parameters such as flow mass, pulsating flow frequency, gravity, nozzle mass and nozzle... 

While pitch detection has been the focal subject of numerous research efforts for several decades, it is still a challenging task in noisy conditions. In this article, we propose a method to improve the pitch detection accuracy of conventional pitch detection methods. The proposed pitch detection process starts with using the pitch value estimated by a conventional pitch detection method. Then, it extracts pitch candidates according to the most probable types of errors in the initial estimation of high-pitch and low-pitch frames classified by a Deep Convolutional Neural Network (DCNN). Next, a restrained selection procedure is run to find the true pitch value from the set of pitch... 

Thermal energy storage (TES) occurs by changing the internal energy of materials in the form of sensible heat, latent heat, and thermo-chemical heat or a combination thereof. Latent heat storage (LHS) by phase change materials (PCMs) has many applications among these storage techniques. Despite the many advantages of LHS, the main problem of LHS systems using PCMs is their low thermal conductivity, which necessitates the combination of heat transfer enhancement techniques. Numerous diverse studies have utilized only one improvement method, while limited research has employed hybrid enhancement techniques. The typical improvement methods, such as adding nanomaterials, using fins, employing... 

A double burden of malnutrition occurs when individuals, household members or communities experience both undernutrition and overweight. Here, we show geospatial estimates of overweight and wasting prevalence among children under 5 years of age in 105 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) from 2000 to 2017 and aggregate these to policy-relevant administrative units. Wasting decreased overall across LMICs between 2000 and 2017, from 8.4% (62.3 (55.1–70.8) million) to 6.4% (58.3 (47.6–70.7) million), but is predicted to remain above the World Health Organization’s Global Nutrition Target of <5% in over half of LMICs by 2025. Prevalence of overweight increased from 5.2% (30 (22.8–38.5)... 

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper. © 2020, The Author(s)  

Anemia is a globally widespread condition in women and is associated with reduced economic productivity and increased mortality worldwide. Here we map annual 2000–2018 geospatial estimates of anemia prevalence in women of reproductive age (15–49 years) across 82 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), stratify anemia by severity and aggregate results to policy-relevant administrative and national levels. Additionally, we provide subnational disparity analyses to provide a comprehensive overview of anemia prevalence inequalities within these countries and predict progress toward the World Health Organization’s Global Nutrition Target (WHO GNT) to reduce anemia by half by 2030. Our results...