Multirate sampling and input-to-state stable receding horizon control for nonlinear systems

In this paper, a robust receding horizon control for multirate sampled-data nonlinear systems with bounded disturbances is presented. The proposed receding horizon control is based on the solution of Bolza-type optimal control problems for the approximate discrete-time model of the nominal system. “Low measurement rate” is assumed. It is shown that the multistep receding horizon controller that stabilizes the nominal approximate discrete-time model also practically input-to-state stabilizes the exact discrete-time system with disturbances.     

Computation of the invariant measure for a Lévy driven SDE: Rate of convergence

We study the rate of convergence of some recursive procedures based on some “exact” or “approximate” Euler schemes which converge to the invariant measure of an ergodic SDE driven by a Lévy process. The main interest of this work is to compare the rates induced by “exact” and “approximate” Euler schemes. In our main result, we show that replacing the small jumps by a Brownian component in the approximate case preserves the rate induced by the exact Euler scheme for a large class of Lévy processes.     

Identifier-based adaptive neural dynamic surface control for uncertain DC-DC buck converter system with input constraint

In this paper, an identifier-based adaptive neural dynamic surface control (IANDSC) is proposed for the uncertain DC-DC buck converter system with input constraint. Based on the analysis of the effect of input constraint in the buck converter, the neural network compensator is employed to ensure the controller output within the permissible range. Subsequently, the constrained adaptive control scheme combined with the neural network compensator is developed for the buck converter with uncertain load current. In this scheme, a newly presented finite-time identifier is utilized to accelerate the parameter tuning process and to heighten the accuracy of parameter estimation. By utilizing the adaptive dynamic surface control (ADSC) technique, the problem of “explosion of complexity” inherently in the traditional adaptive backstepping design can be overcome. The proposed control law can guarantee the uniformly ultimate boundedness of all signals in the closed-loop system via Lyapunov synthesis. Numerical simulations are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control method.     

Quality control of wastewater treatment: A new approach

This paper presents a new approach to quality control of wastewater treatment. The first part formulates basic principles of statistical process control (SPC) and Taguchi Method. Then it is shown that the classical SPC technique used in industry, cannot be to applied to wastewater treatment plants without adaptation and that the Taguchi Method is inapplicable in this case. This is followed by an example from literature, which demonstrates the problems of applying the SPC method to wastewater treatment. The third part of the paper presents a case study where the performance of a greywater treatment plant is examined. The performance is analyzed by means of cross-correlation between input and output parameters. A new approach to SPC of wastewater treatment, either “Dynamic SPC” or “linear regression SPC”, is presented, and a permeability coefficient is developed (the ratio of the output and input energies). Both are proposed as monitoring tools for wastewater treatment systems.     

Conservative allocation models for outbound containers in container terminals

This paper examines location assignment for outbound containers in container terminals. It is an extension to the previous modeling work of Kim et al. (2000) and Zhang et al. (2010). The previous model was an “optimistic” handling way and gave a moderate punishment for placing a lighter container onto the top of a stack already loaded with heavier containers. Considering that the original model neglected the stack height and the state-changing magnitude information when interpreting the punishment parameter and hid too much information about the specific configurations for a given stack representation, we propose two new “conservative” allocation models in this paper. One considers the stack height and the state-changing magnitude information by reinterpreting the punishment parameter and the other further considers the specific configurations for a given stack representation. Solution qualities for the “optimistic” and the two “conservative” allocation models are compared on two performance indicators. The numerical experiments indicate that both the first and second “conservative” allocation models outperform the original model in terms of the two performance indicators. In addition, to overcome computational difficulties encountered by the dynamic programming algorithm for large-scale problems, an approximate dynamic programming algorithm is presented as well.     

Bang-bang control of a plant with one positive real pole and one negative real pole

In this paper, a relay-controlled plant, possessing one positive real pole and one negative real pole, is studied. First, a regulating system is considered; we investigate the design of the controller for simultaneous reduction of error and error derivative to zero. It is seen that this can be achieved provided the initial values of error and error derivative fall inside an admissible (or controllable) region. Attention is then focused on the tracking system. It is shown that, provided the input to the system is of a form similar to the impulse response of the plant, and provided the initial values of error and error derivative of the system fall inside the same admissible region, then the controller used for regulating the system can also be used for tracking the system so as to force the output of the plant to follow the input perfectly; in both cases with at mostone switching reversal of the relay.     

Data envelopment analysis for environmental assessment: Comparison between public and private ownership in petroleum industry

Environmental assessment recently becomes a major policy issue in the world. This study discusses how to apply Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) for environmental assessment. An important feature of the DEA environmental assessment is that it needs to classify outputs into desirable (good) and undesirable (bad) outputs because private and public entities often produce not only desirable outputs but also undesirable outputs as a result of their production activities. This study proposes the three types of unification for DEA environmental assessment by using non-radial DEA models. The first unification considers both an increase and a decrease in the input vector along with a decrease in the direction vector of undesirable outputs. This type of unification measures “unified efficiency”. The second unification considers a decrease in an input vector along with a decrease in the vector of undesirable outputs. This type of unification is referred to as “natural disposability” and measures “unified efficiency under natural disposability”. The third unification considers an increase in an input vector but a decrease in the vector of undesirable outputs. This type of unification is referred to as “managerial disposability” and measures “unified efficiency under managerial disposability”. All the unifications increase the vector of desirable outputs. To document their practical implications, this study has applied the proposed approach to compare the performance of national oil firms with that of international oil firms. This study identifies two important findings on the petroleum industry. One of the two findings is that national oil companies under public ownership outperform international oil companies under private ownership in terms of unified (operational and environmental) efficiency and unified efficiency under natural disposability. However, the performance of international oil companies exhibits an increasing trend in unified efficiency. The other finding is that national oil companies need to satisfy the environmental standard of its own country while international oil companies need to satisfy the international standard that is more restricted than the national standards. As a consequence, international oil companies outperform national oil companies in terms of unified efficiency under managerial disposability.     

Strategy optimization for deductive games

This paper presents novel algorithms for strategy optimization for deductive games. First, a k-way-branching (KWB) algorithm, taking advantage of a clustering technique, can obtain approximate results effectively. Second, a computer-aided verification algorithm, called the Pigeonhole-principle-based backtracking (PPBB) algorithm, is developed to discover the lower bound of the number of guesses required for the games. These algorithms have been successfully applied to deductive games, Mastermind and “Bulls and Cows.” Experimental results show that KWB outperforms previously published approximate strategies. Furthermore, by applying the algorithms, we derive the theorem: 7 guesses are necessary and sufficient for the “Bulls and Cows” in the worst case. These results suggest strategies for other search problems.     

Generalization of Ulam stability problem for Euler-Lagrange quadratic mappings

In 1968 S.M. Ulam proposed the problem: “When is it true that by changing a little the hypotheses of a theorem one can still assert that the thesis of the theorem remains true or approximately true?” In 1978 P.M. Gruber proposed the Ulam type problem: “Suppose a mathematical object satisfies a certain property approximately. Is it then possible to approximate this object by objects, satisfying the property exactly?” In this paper we solve the generalized Ulam stability problem for non-linear Euler-Lagrange quadratic mappings satisfying approximately a mean equation and an Euler-Lagrange type functional equations in quasi-Banach spaces and p-Banach spaces.     

Positioning control for a linear actuator with nonlinear friction and input saturation using output‐feedback control

This article deals with the positioning control problem via the output feedback scheme for a linear actuator with nonlinear disturbances. In this study, the proposed controller accounts for not only the nonlinear friction, force ripple, and external disturbance but also the input saturation problem. In detail, the energy consumption for conquering friction and disturbance rejection is estimated and used as compensation based on the hybrid controller including and sliding‐mode‐based adaptive algorithms, which ensures the tracking performance and robustness of electromechanical servo system. Moreover, to confront the input saturation, a saturation observer and an anti‐windup controller are designed. The global robustness of the controller is guaranteed by an output feedback robust law. Theoretically, the designed controller can guarantee a favorable tracking performance in the presence of various disturbance forces and input saturation, which is essential for high accuracy motion plant in industrial application. The simulation results verify the robustness and effectiveness for the motion system with the proposed control strategy under various operation conditions. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 21: 191–200, 2016     

输入通道有干扰多变量MRAC系统全局稳定化控制

对具有未建模动态且输入通道存在干扰的动态不确定多输入多输出(MIMO)模型参考自适应控制(MRAC) 系统，仅应用系统的输入输出量测数据给出了一种变结构模型跟踪控制器设计机制.通过辅 助信号和带有记忆功能的正规化信号,并适当选择控制器参数, 所提出的变结构控制 (VSC)能保证闭环系统的全局稳定性,且跟踪误差可调整到任意小.     

卫星姿态跟踪的间接自适应模糊预测控制

对含模型不确定性和未知干扰的卫星姿态系统提出了具有间接自适应模糊补偿的广义预测跟踪控制方法. 首先基于卫星姿态动力学模型设计了非线性广义预测控制律, 再利用自适应模糊系统逼近预测控制律中的模型不确定项, 使得所得到的预测控制算法可实施.证明了当卫星姿态模型中不确定项满足一定条件时, 所设计的控制律可使卫星姿态跟踪误差收敛到原点的小邻域内,并仿真结果验证了所提出方法的有效性.     

Approximate receding horizon approach for Markov decision processes: average reward case

We consider an approximation scheme for solving Markov decision processes (MDPs) with countable state space, finite action space, and bounded rewards that uses an approximate solution of a fixed finite-horizon sub-MDP of a given infinite-horizon MDP to create a stationary policy, which we call “approximate receding horizon control.” We first analyze the performance of the approximate receding horizon control for infinite-horizon average reward under an ergodicity assumption, which also generalizes the result obtained by White (J. Oper. Res. Soc. 33 (1982) 253-259). We then study two examples of the approximate receding horizon control via lower bounds to the exact solution to the sub-MDP. The first control policy is based on a finite-horizon approximation of Howard's policy improvement of a single policy and the second policy is based on a generalization of the single policy improvement for multiple policies. Along the study, we also provide a simple alternative proof on the policy improvement for countable state space. We finally discuss practical implementations of these schemes via simulation.     

Stochastic mathematical programs with hybrid equilibrium constraints

This paper considers a stochastic mathematical program with hybrid equilibrium constraints (SMPHEC), which includes either “here-and-now” or “wait-and-see” type complementarity constraints. An example is given to describe the necessity to study SMPHEC. In order to solve the problem, the sampling average approximation techniques are employed to approximate the expectations and smoothing and penalty techniques are used to deal with the complementarity constraints. Limiting behaviors of the proposed approach are discussed. Preliminary numerical experiments show that the proposed approach is applicable.     

Assigning resources and targets to an organization’s activities

Each of an organization’s many activities transforms inputs into outputs. Managing these activities involves allocating input resources for some activities and assigning output targets for others. Making these decisions is especially difficult in the presence of uncertainty. In practice, many organizations address these problems by using a fairly simple “proportional allocation” heuristic (e.g., “allocate to each activity the same percentage increase (or decrease) in its resources or targets”). But proportional allocation does not consider the uncertainty inherent in the ability of each activity to make use of its resources (or meet its targets).     

Applications of bulk queues to group testing models with incomplete identification

A population of items is said to be “group-testable”, (i) if the items can be classified as “good” and “bad”, and (ii) if it is possible to carry out a simultaneous test on a batch of items with two possible outcomes: “Success” (indicating that all items in the batch are good) or “failure” (indicating a contaminated batch). In this paper, we assume that the items to be tested arrive at the group-testing centre according to a Poisson process and are served (i.e., group-tested) in batches by one server. The service time distribution is general but it depends on the batch size being tested. These assumptions give rise to the bulk queueing model M/G^(m,M)/1, where m and M(>m) are the decision variables where each batch size can be between m and M. We develop the generating function for the steady-state probabilities of the embedded Markov chain. We then consider a more realistic finite state version of the problem where the testing centre has a finite capacity and present an expected profit objective function. We compute the optimal values of the decision variables (m, M) that maximize the expected profit. For a special case of the problem, we determine the optimal decision explicitly in terms of the Lambert function.     

RBF‐based discrete sliding mode control for robust tracking of uncertain time‐delay systems with input nonlinearity

In this article, a control scheme combining radial basis function neural network and discrete sliding mode control method is proposed for robust tracking and model following of uncertain time‐delay systems with input nonlinearity. The proposed robust tracking controller guarantees the stability of overall closed‐loop system and achieves zero‐tracking error in the presence of input nonlinearity, time‐delays, time‐varying parameter uncertainties, and external disturbances. The salient features of the proposed controller include no requirement of a priori knowledge of the upper bound of uncertainties and the elimination of chattering phenomenon and reaching phase. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 21: 194–201, 2016     

Approximation of infinite dimensional fractals generated by integral equations

We present some results concerning fractals generated by an iterated function system in the infinite dimensional space of continuous functions on a compact interval. Namely, we approximate the fractal via a finite approximant set and project this approximant set in two dimensions, in order to “draw” a picture of it.     

一类死区非线性输入系统的自适应模糊控制

针对一类具有死区非线性输入的非线性系统,基于滑模控制的基本原理,利用II型模糊逻辑系统对未知函数进行在线逼近,提出了一种具有监督器的自适应模糊滑模控制方法。该方法通过监督控制器保证闭环系统所有信号有界,并通过引入最优逼近误差的自适应补偿项来消除建模误差的影响。通过理论分析,证明了跟踪误差收敛到零。     

Time-indexed formulations for scheduling chains on a single machine: An application to airborne radars

Airborne radars are widely used to perform a large variety of tasks in an aircraft (searching, tracking, identifying targets, etc.) Such tasks play a crucial role for the aircraft and they are repeated in a “more or less” cyclic fashion. This defines a scheduling problem that impacts a lot on the quality of the radar output and on the overall safety of the aircraft.