M/G/1 queue with controllable vacations and optimization of vacation policy

We introduce the control parameterN in a common queue M/G/1 with vacations; the end of a global vacation period is controlled by the parameterN. This extension for a queue with vacations is of significance in certain practical cases. In this paper, we find various transient and steady-state results for the queue size, the delay times and the waiting times for the M/G/1 queue with controllable vacations. Finally, we also discuss optimal selection of the control parameter.     

Fluid model driven by an M/G/1 queue with multiple exponential vacations

This paper studies a fluid model driven by an M/G/1 queue with multiple exponential vacations. By introducing various vacation strategies to the fluid model, we can provide greater flexibility for the design and control of input rate and output rate. The Laplace transform of the steady-state distribution of the buffer content is expressed through the minimal positive solution to a crucial equation. Then the performance measure-mean buffer content, which is independent of the vacation parameter, is obtained. Finally, with some numerical examples, the parameter effect on the mean buffer content is presented.     

L2-stabilization design for fuzzy control systems

System's stability is the most important requirement in control system designs. Fuzzy control system (FCS) should satisfy this requirement also. This paper shows that a linear plant with the formulated Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC) is a nonlinear system and its stability can be analyzed by applying the Small Gain Theorem or the Circle Criterion. By these two criteria, three FLC design procedures are introduced to guarantee the stabilization of the FCS. Finally, two examples are given to confirm the availability of the proposed design approaches.     

Robust H∞ control for linear Markovian jump systems with unknown nonlinearities

This paper studies the problem of stochastic stability and disturbance attenuation for a class of linear continuous-time uncertain systems with Markovian jumping parameters. The uncertainties are assumed to be nonlinear and state, control and external disturbance dependent. A sufficient condition is provided to solve the above problem. An H_∞ controller is designed such that the resulting closed-loop system is stochastically stable and has a disturbance attenuation γ for all admissible uncertainties. It is shown that the control law is in terms of the solutions of a set of coupled Riccati inequalities. A numerical example is included to demonstrate the potential of the proposed technique.     

H∞ control of a class of networked control systems with time delay and packet dropout

This paper studies the H-infinity control issue for a class of networked control systems (NCSs) with time delay and packet dropout. The state feedback closed-loop NCS is modeled as a discrete-time switched system. Through using a Lyapunov function, a sufficient condition is obtained, under which the system is exponential stability with a desired H-infinity disturbance attenuation level. The designed H-infinity controller is obtained by solving a set of linear matrix inequalities. An illustrative example is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

On the M/G/1 retrial queueing system with linear control policy

Summary This paper is concerned with the study of a newM/G/1 retrial queueing system in which the delays between retrials are exponentially distributed random variables with linear intensityg(n)=α+nμ, when there aren≥1 customers in the retrial group. This new retrial discipline will be calledlinear control policy. We carry out an extensive analysis of the model, including existence of stationary regime, stationary distribution of the embedded Markov chain at epochs of service completions, joint distribution of the orbit size and the server state in steady state and busy period. The results agree with known results for special cases.     

Robust H∞ control for a class of switched nonlinear cascade systems via multiple Lyapunov functions approach

This paper addresses the problem of robust H_∞ control for a class of switched nonlinear cascade systems with parameter uncertainty using the multiple Lyapunov functions (MLFs) approach. Each subsystem under consideration is composed of two cascade-connected parts. The uncertain parameters are assumed to be in a known compact set and are allowed to enter the system nonlinearly. Based on the explicit construction of Lyapunov functions, which avoids solving the Hamilton-Jacobi equations, sufficient conditions for the solvability of the robust H_∞ control problem are presented. As an application, the hybrid robust H_∞ control problem for a class of uncertain non-switched nonlinear cascade systems is solved when no single continuous controller is effective. Finally, a numerical example is provided to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method.     

Sojourn time distribution in a MAP/M/1 processor-sharing queue

This paper considers the sojourn time distribution in a processor-sharing queue with a Markovian arrival process and exponential service times. We show a recursive formula to compute the complementary distribution of the sojourn time in steady state. The formula is simple and numerically feasible, and enables us to control the absolute error in numerical results. Further, we discuss the impact of the arrival process on the sojourn time distribution through some numerical examples.     

基于行为分析的AS/RS有色赋时Petri网模型研究

为了研究如何提高AS/RS系统的性能,有必要构建其模型.提出了库所双重着色的有色赋时Petri网方法,分析了AS/RS系统活动资源的行为特点和要求,并详细阐述了使用有色赋时Petri网分别构建这些行为模型的过程,从而实现整个AS/RS系统框架模型.采用visual c++软件仿真表明,该方法在构建面向资源的离散系统模型时是有效的.     

ON/OFF strategy based minimum-time control of continuous Petri nets

This paper focuses on the target marking control problem of timed continuous Petri nets (TCPN), aiming to drive the system from an initial state to a desired final one. This problem is similar to the set-point control problem in a general continuous-state system. In a previous work, a simple and efficient ON/OFF controller was proposed for Choice-Free nets, and it was proved to be minimum-time (Wang, 2010). However, for general TCPN the ON/OFF controller may bring the system to “blocking” situations due to its “greedy” firing strategy, and the convergence to the final state is not ensured. In this work the ON/OFF controller is extended to general TCPN by adding more “fair” strategies to solve conflicts in the system: the ON/OFF+ controller is obtained by forcing proportional firings of conflicting transitions. Nevertheless, such kind of controller might highly slow down the system when transitions have flows of different orders of magnitude, therefore a balancing process is introduced, leading to the B-ON/OFF controller. A third approach introduced here is the MPC-ON/OFF controller, a combination of Model Predictive Control (MPC) and the ON/OFF strategy; it may achieve a smaller number of time steps for reaching the final states, but usually requires more CPU time for computing the control laws. All the proposed extensions are heuristic methods for the minimum-time control and their convergences are proved. Finally, an application example of a manufacturing cell is considered to illustrate the methods. It is shown that by using the proposed controllers, reasonable numbers of time steps for reaching the final state can be obtained with low computational complexity.     

Constructive Solution of Inverse Parametric Linear/Quadratic Programming Problems

Parametric convex programming has received a lot of attention, since it has many applications in chemical engineering, control engineering, signal processing, etc. Further, inverse optimality plays an important role in many contexts, e.g., image processing, motion planning. This paper introduces a constructive solution of the inverse optimality problem for the class of continuous piecewise affine functions. The main idea is based on the convex lifting concept. Accordingly, an algorithm to construct convex liftings of a given convexly liftable partition will be put forward. Following this idea, an important result will be presented in this article: Any continuous piecewise affine function defined over a polytopic partition is the solution of a parametric linear/quadratic programming problem. Regarding linear optimal control, it will be shown that any continuous piecewise affine control law can be obtained via a linear optimal control problem with the control horizon at most equal to 2 prediction steps.     

Event-triggered dual-mode predictive control for constrained nonlinear systems with continuous/intermittent detection

This paper investigates the problem of event-triggered model predictive control for constrained nonlinear systems. A dual-mode control strategy combined with two different event-triggered mechanisms are introduced to reduce computational and communication loads. For the event-triggered mechanisms, two cases, continuous detection and intermittent detection, are considered, respectively. In order to avoid the transmission of continuous predicted control input trajectories, the actual control signals are generated under a sample-and-hold manner. A decreasing prediction horizon is introduced to reduce the complexity of optimization problems and a tightened state constraint is designed to achieve robust constraint satisfaction. The sufficient conditions are derived to guarantee the feasibility and stability of the closed-loop system. The performance of the proposed strategy is illustrated by a simulation example.     

Optimal control of heat-pump/heat-storage systems with time-of-day energy price incentive

The maximum principle of optimal control theory is applied to the problem of optimizing the operation of a heat pump, when a storage capability is available and the electrical utility offers time-of-day price incentives in order to help level its diurnal load profile. The cost functional for optimal control is the monetary cost of purchased electrical energy. A bilinear model for the heat pump is assumed. When the ambient temperature is cyclic over the 24-hour period of the price pattern, periodic boundary conditions apply and the closed extremal trajectories are found to be unique and easily determined with a one-dimensional numerical search. These extremals have simple characteristics and reveal plausible strategies for minimizing the cost of purchased energy. They are potentially implementable with a simple, micro-processor-based controller.This work was supported in part by Energy, Mines, and Resources, Canada, Research Agreement No. 89.     

ESTIMATING ERROR BOUNDS FOR TERNARY SUBDIVISION CURVES/SURFACES

We estimate error bounds between ternary subdivision curves/surfaces and their control polygons after k-fold subdivision in terms of the maximal differences of the initial control point sequences and constants that depend on the subdivision mask. The bound is independent of the process of subdivision and can be evaluated without recursive subdivision. Our technique is independent of parametrization therefore it can be easily and efficiently implemented. This is useful and important for pre-computing the error bounds of subdivision curves/surfaces in advance in many engineering applications such as surface/surface intersection, mesh generation, NC machining, surface rendering and so on.     

具有两类失效模式的D-策略M/G/1可修排队系统分析

研究具有两类失效模式的D策略M/G/1可修排队系统,其中第一类失效是服务台在服务顾客期间发生的失效,第二类失效是服务台在空闲期间发生的失效,且两类失效模式的失效率不同.使用全概率分解技术和利用拉普拉斯变换与母函数等工具,从任意初始状态出发,讨论了系统队长的瞬时分布和稳态分布,获得了系统稳态队长分布的递推表达式与稳态队长的随机分解结果.进一步,在建立费用模型的基础上,通过数值计算实例讨论了使得系统在长期单位时间内达到最小值的最优控制策略D^*,并在同一组参数取值下与服务台不发生故障时的最优控制策略进行了比较.     

Estimating error bounds for binary subdivision curves/surfaces

We estimate error bounds between binary subdivision curves/surfaces and their control polygons after k-fold subdivision in terms of the maximal differences of the initial control point sequences and constants that depend on the subdivision mask. The bound is independent of the process of subdivision and can be evaluated without recursive subdivision. Our technique is independent of parameterizations therefore it can be easily and efficiently implemented. This is useful and important for pre-computing the error bounds of subdivision curves/surfaces in advance in many engineering applications such as curve/surface intersection, mesh generation, NC machining, surface rendering and so on.     

A recursive method for the F-policy G/M/1/K queueing system with an exponential startup time

This paper deals with the optimal control of a finite capacity G/M/1 queueing system combined the F-policy and an exponential startup time before start allowing customers in the system. The F-policy queueing problem investigates the most common issue of controlling arrival to a queueing system. We provide a recursive method, using the supplementary variable technique and treating the supplementary variable as the remaining interarrival time, to develop the steady-state probability distribution of the number of customers in the system. We illustrate a recursive method by presenting three simple examples for exponential, 3-stage Erlang, and deterministic interarrival time distributions, respectively. A cost model is developed to determine the optimal management F-policy at minimum cost. We use an efficient Maple computer program to determine the optimal operating F-policy and some system performance measures. Sensitivity analysis is also studied.     

Asymptotically optimal idling in the GI/GI/N+GI queue

We formulate a control problem for a GI/GI/N+GI queue, whose objective is to trade off the long-run average operational costs with server utilization costs. To solve the control problem, we consider an asymptotic regime in which the arrival rate and the number of servers grow large. The solution to an associated fluid control problem motivates that non-idling service disciplines are not in general optimal, unless some arrivals are turned away. We propose an admission control policy designed to ensure that servers have sufficient idle time, which we show is asymptotically optimal.     

Uniform controllability properties for space/time-discretized parabolic equations

This article is concerned with the analysis of semi-discrete-in-space and fully-discrete approximations of the null controllability (and controllability to the trajectories) for parabolic equations. We propose an abstract setting for space discretizations that potentially encompasses various numerical methods and we study how the controllability problems depend on the discretization parameters. For time discretization we use θ-schemes with \({\theta \in [\frac{1}2,1]}\) . For the proofs of controllability we rely on the strategy introduced by Lebeau and Robbiano (Comm Partial Differ Equ 20:335–356, 1995) for the null-controllability of the heat equation, which is based on a spectral inequality. We obtain relaxed uniform observability estimates in both the semi-discrete and fully-discrete frameworks, and associated uniform controllability properties. For the practical computation of the control functions we follow J.-L. Lions’ Hilbert Uniqueness Method strategy, exploiting the relaxed uniform observability estimate. Algorithms for the computation of the controls are proposed and analysed in the semi-discrete and fully-discrete cases. Additionally, we prove an error bound between the fully discrete and the semi-discrete control functions. This bound is however not uniform with respect to the space discretization. The theoretical results are illustrated through numerical experimentations.     

两类具有N-策略和单重休假的M/G/1排队系统的最优控制策略

本文考虑两类具有N-策略和服务员单重休假的M/G/1排队系统,其中一类是休假不可中断,另一类是休假可中断。利用系统稳态队长的随机分解特性导出稳态队长的概率母函数,并讨论了系统空闲率与附加平均队长对系统一些参数的敏感性。进一步,在建立费用结构的基础上,应用更新报酬过程理论导出了系统长期运行单位时间内所产生的成本期望费用的显示表达式,同时通过数值计算实例确定了使得系统在长期运行单位时间内所产生的成本期望费用最小的控制策略N^*,以及当休假时间为定长T时的二维最优控制策略（N^*,T^*）。