Autonomous system for data collection: Location and mapping issues in post-disaster environment

Disaster relief requires many resources. Depending on the circumstances of each event, it is important to rapidly choose the suitable means to respond to the emergency intervention. A brief review of the conditions and means demonstrated the usefulness of an autonomous stand-alone machine for these missions. If many techniques and technologies exist, their relevant combination to achieve such a system presents several challenges. This communication tries to outline the possible achievement of an autonomous vehicle under these particular circumstances. This paper focuses on the specific working conditions and welcomes future contributions from robotics and artificial intelligence.In the necessarily limited scope of this article, the authors focus on a particularly critical aspect: location. Indeed, this machine is intended to evolve in heterogeneous and dangerous environment and without any outside contacts that could last up to several days. This blackout, due to the propagation difficulties of electromagnetic waves in the ground, induces an independence of the localisation process and makes the use of any radio navigation support system (GNSS), most of the time, impossible. The knowledge of the position of the system, both for navigation of the autonomous system (Rover) and location of targets (victims buried under debris) must be able to be estimated without contributions from external systems. Inertial classical techniques, odometer, etc., have to be adapted to these conditions during a long period without external support. These techniques also have to take into account that energy optimisation requests the use of low-power processors. Consequently, only poor computing capacity is available on-board.The article starts with a presentation of the context of a post-disaster situation as well as the main missions of Search and Rescue (SaR). It is followed by the analysis of autonomous navigation located in a post-earthquake situation. We will then discuss means to determine the attitude of the autonomous system and its position. The interest of hybridisation with external systems – whenever possible –, will be evaluated with a view to correcting deviations suffered by the system during its mission. Finally, prospects and future work are presented.     

Ground state pressure and energy density of an interacting homogeneous Bose gas in two dimensions

We consider an interacting homogeneous Bose gas at zero temperature in two spatial dimensions. The properties of the system can be calculated as an expansion in powers of g, where g is the coupling constant. We calculate the ground state pressure and the ground state energy density to second order in the quantum loop expansion. The renormalization group is used to sum up leading and subleading logarithms from all orders in perturbation theory. In the dilute limit, the renormalization group improved pressure and energy density are expansions in powers of the T ^2B and T ^2Bln(T ^2B), respectively, where T ^2B is the two-body T-matrix. Received 19 April 2002 Published online 13 August 2002     

Preparation of Nanoelectrode Ensembles by Assembly of Nano—Silver Colloid on Gold Surface

A novel method for preparing silver nanoelectrode ensembles(SNEEs) and gold nanoelectrode ensembles (GNEEs) has been developed. Silver colloid particles were first absorbed to the gold electrode surface to form a monolayer silver colloid. N-hexadecyl nercaptan was then assembled on the electrode to form a thoil monolayer on which hydrophilic ions cannot be transfered. The SNEEs was prepared by removing thiol from silver colloid surface through applying and AC voltage with increasing frequency at 0.20V(vs.SCE). Finally,GNEEs was obtained by immersing a SNEEs into 6 mol/L HNO3 to remove the silver colloid particles. By comparison with other methods such as template method ect., this method enjoys some advantages of lower resistance, same diameter,easy preparation,controllable size and density.     

Evolution of the structural stability of large Cu,Ni, Pd,and Ag clusters with size: An analysis within the embedded atom method

A study of the structural stability of clusters made up of a single component has been carried out within the Embedded Atom Method. Perfect icosahedral and cuboctahedral Cu, Ni, Pd, and Ag clusters with up to 5083 atoms have been compared. The icosahedron is found to be the stable structure for small clusters, and a change of structure from icosahedral to cuboctahedral is found as the cluster size increases. A contraction of the interatomic distances results when the cluster size decreases.     

金属Cu低指数表面熔化行为的分子动力学模

采用Mishin镶嵌原子势, 通过分子动力学方法模拟了金属Cu的低指数表面在不同温度的表面熔化行为, 分析了熔化过程中系统结构组态的变化以及固-液界面迁移情况. 金属Cu的(100)和(110)表面在低于熔点发生预熔化, 而(111)表面存在明显的过热现象. 准液体层的厚度随温度升高而增加, 热稳定性与表面的密排顺序一致, 按(111)、(100)、(110)顺序增大. 当温度高于热力学熔点时, 固液界面的移动速度与温度成正比, 外推得到热力学熔点约为1360～1380 K, 与实验结果1358 K吻合良好. 动力学系数定义为界面移动速度与过热程度的比值, 表现为明显的各向异性: k100=39 cm•s−1•K−1, k110=29 cm•s−1•K−1, k111=20 cm•s−1•K−1. k100与k110之间的比例符合collision-limited理论, (111)密排面有与其它低指数表面不同的熔化方式.     

Embedded polymerization driven asymmetric PEM for direct methanol fuel cells

This work reports the fabrication of proton exchange membranes (PEM) with stronger resistance to methanol penetration than Nafion^®117. A three-component acrylic polymer blend (TCPB) consisting of a copolymer of 4-vinylphenol-methyl methacrylate, poly(butyl methacrylate) (PBMA) and a copolymer of methyl methacrylate-ethyl acrylate is used as the methanol barrier. In order to implant a proton source phase within the membrane as homogeneously as possible, the hydrophilic monomers, 2-acrylamido-2-methyl propanesulfonic acid (AMPS), 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) and poly(ethylene glycol) dimethylacrylate (PEGDMA), are polymerized only after they have been embedded in the TCPB matrix. The embedded polymerization has resulted in an asymmetric membrane structure, in which the hydrophilic network is sandwiched by two layers of matrixes with high percentages of TCPB. As expected, this asymmetric membrane structure exhibits lower methanol uptake than Nafion^®117; and a proton conductivity in the range of 10⁻³–10⁻⁴ S/cm, which is dependent on the concentration of the sulfonic acid content. It is suggested that the two external layers in this asymmetric membrane provide primarily methanol-blocking and supporting proton-conducting properties; while the middle layer supplies protons and conserves water. This unique sandwiched PEM structure from embedded polymerization is confirmed by microstructure characterizations and by physical property measurements.     

Design and Sensing Properties of a Self‐Assembled Supramolecular Oligomer

Supramolecular polymers are a class of macromolecules stabilized by weak non‐covalent interactions. These self‐assembled aggregates typically undergo stimuli‐induced reversible assembly and disassembly. They thus hold great promise as so‐called functional materials. In this work, we present the design, synthesis, and responsive behavior of a short supramolecular oligomeric system based on two hetero‐complementary subunits. These “monomers” consist of a tetrathiafulvalene‐functionalized calix[4]pyrrole (TTF‐C[4]P) and a glycol diester‐linked bis‐2,5,7‐trinitrodicyanomethylenefluorene‐4‐carboxylate (TNDCF), respectively. We show that when mixed in organic solvents, such as CHCl₃, CH₂ClCH₂Cl, and methylcyclohexane, supramolecular aggregation takes place to produce short oligomers stabilized by hydrogen bonding and donor–acceptor charge‐transfer (CT) interactions. The self‐associated materials were characterized by ¹H NMR and UV/Vis/NIR absorption spectroscopy, as well as by concentration‐ and temperature‐dependent absorption spectroscopy and dynamic light scattering (DLS) analyses of both the monomeric and oligomerized species. The self‐associated system produced from TTF‐C[4]P and TNDCF exhibits a concentration‐dependent aggregation behavior typical of supramolecular polymers. Further support for the proposed self‐assembly came from theoretical calculations. The fluorescence emitting properties of TNDCF are quenched under conditions that promote the formation of supramolecular aggregates containing TTF‐C[4]P and TNDCF. This quenching effect has been utilized as a probe for the detection of substrates in the form of anions (i.e., chloride) and nitroaromatic explosives (i.e., 1,3,5‐trinitrobenzene). Specifically, the addition of these substrates to mixtures of TTF‐C[4]P and TNDCF produced a fluorescence “turn‐on” response.     

Kinematics of layered reinforced-concrete planar beam finite elements with embedded transversal cracking

In this work crack formation and development is addressed and implemented in a planar layered reinforced-concrete beam element. The crack initiation and growth is described using the strength criterion in conjunction with exact kinematics of the interlayer connection. In this way a novel embedded-discontinuity beam finite element is derived in which the tensile stresses in concrete at the crack position reaching the tensile strength will trigger a crack to open. Since the element is multi-layered, in this way the crack is allowed to propagate through the depth of the beam. The cracked layer(s) will involve discontinuity in the cross-sectional rotation equal to the crack-profile angle, as well as a discontinuity in the position vector of the layer’s reference line. A bond–slip relationship is superimposed onto this model in a kinematically consistent manner with reinforcement being treated as an additional layer of zero thickness with its own material parameters and a constitutive law implemented in the multi-layered beam element.     

An operator splitting strategy for fluid–structure interaction problems with thin elastic structures in an incompressible Newtonian flow

We present a computational framework based on the use of the Newton and level set methods to model fluid–structure interaction problems involving elastic membranes freely suspended in an incompressible Newtonian flow. The Mooney–Rivlin constitutive model is used to model the structure. We consider an extension to a more general case of the method described in Laadhari (2017) to model the elasticity of the membrane. We develop a predictor–corrector finite element method where an operator splitting scheme separates different physical phenomena. The method features an affordable computational burden with respect to the fully implicit methods. An exact Newton method is described to solve the problem, and the quadratic convergence is numerically achieved. Sample numerical examples are reported and illustrate the accuracy and robustness of the method.     

Random matrix theory for transition strength densities in finite quantum systems: Results from embedded unitary ensembles

Embedded random matrix ensembles are generic models for describing statistical properties of finite isolated interacting quantum many-particle systems. For the simplest spinless fermion (or boson) systems, with say m$m$ fermions (or bosons) in N$N$ single particle states and interacting via k$k$-body interactions, we have EGUE(k$k$) [embedded GUE of k$k$-body interactions] with GUE embedding and the embedding algebra is U(N)$U\left(N\right)$. A finite quantum system, induced by a transition operator, makes transitions from its states to the states of the same system or to those of another system. Examples are electromagnetic transitions (then the initial and final systems are same), nuclear beta and double beta decay (then the initial and final systems are different), particle addition to or removal from a given system and so on. Towards developing a complete statistical theory for transition strength densities (transition strengths multiplied by the density of states at the initial and final energies), we have derived formulas for the lower order bivariate moments of the strength densities generated by a variety of transition operators. Firstly, for a spinless fermion system, using EGUE(k$k$) representation for a Hamiltonian that is k$k$-body and an independent EGUE(t$t$) representation for a transition operator that is t$t$-body and employing the embedding U(N)$U\left(N\right)$ algebra, finite-N$N$ formulas for moments up to order four are derived, for the first time, for the transition strength densities. Secondly, formulas for the moments up to order four are also derived for systems with two types of spinless fermions and a transition operator similar to beta decay and neutrinoless beta decay operators. In addition, moments formulas are also derived for a transition operator that removes k₀$k_0$ number of particles from a system of m$m$ spinless fermions. In the dilute limit, these formulas are shown to reduce to those for the EGOE version derived using the asymptotic limit theory of Mon and French (1975). Numerical results obtained using the exact formulas for two-body (k=2$k=2$) Hamiltonians (in some examples for k=3$k=3$ and 4$4$) and the asymptotic formulas clearly establish that in general the smoothed (with respect to energy) form of the bivariate transition strength densities take bivariate Gaussian form for isolated finite quantum systems. Extensions of these results to bosonic systems and EGUE ensembles with further symmetries are discussed.