1,890 research outputs found

    A Review on the Application of Natural Computing in Environmental Informatics

    Get PDF
    Natural computing offers new opportunities to understand, model and analyze the complexity of the physical and human-created environment. This paper examines the application of natural computing in environmental informatics, by investigating related work in this research field. Various nature-inspired techniques are presented, which have been employed to solve different relevant problems. Advantages and disadvantages of these techniques are discussed, together with analysis of how natural computing is generally used in environmental research.Comment: Proc. of EnviroInfo 201

    Aerodynamic imaging by mosquitoes inspires a surface detector for autonomous flying vehicles

    Get PDF
    Some flying animals use active sensing to perceive and avoid obstacles. Nocturnal mosquitoes exhibit a behavioral response to divert away from surfaces when vision is unavailable, indicating a short-range, mechanosensory collision-avoidance mechanism. We suggest that this behavior is mediated by perceiving modulations of their self-induced airflow patterns as they enter a ground or wall effect. We used computational fluid dynamics simulations of low-altitude and near-wall flights based on in vivo high-speed kinematic measurements to quantify changes in the self-generated pressure and velocity cues at the sensitive mechanosensory antennae. We validated the principle that encoding aerodynamic information can enable collision avoidance by developing a quadcopter with a sensory system inspired by the mosquito. Such low-power sensing systems have major potential for future use in safer rotorcraft control systems

    Optimization-Based Evolutionary Data Mining Techniques for Structural Health Monitoring

    Get PDF
    In recent years, data mining technology has been employed to solve various Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) problems as a comprehensive strategy because of its computational capability. Optimization is one the most important functions in Data mining. In an engineering optimization problem, it is not easy to find an exact solution. In this regard, evolutionary techniques have been applied as a part of procedure of achieving the exact solution. Therefore, various metaheuristic algorithms have been developed to solve a variety of engineering optimization problems in SHM. This study presents the most applicable as well as effective evolutionary techniques used in structural damage identification. To this end, a brief overview of metaheuristic techniques is discussed in this paper. Then the most applicable optimization-based algorithms in structural damage identification are presented, i.e. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Genetic Algorithm (GA), Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA) and Ant Colony Optimization (ACO). Some related examples are also detailed in order to indicate the efficiency of these algorithms

    Active hearing mechanisms inspire adaptive amplification in an acoustic sensor system

    Get PDF
    Over many millions of years of evolution, nature has developed some of the most adaptable sensors and sensory systems possible, capable of sensing, conditioning and processing signals in a very power- and size-effective manner. By looking into biological sensors and systems as a source of inspiration, this paper presents the study of a bio-inspired concept of signal processing at the sensor level. By exploiting a feedback control mechanism between a front-end acoustic receiver and back-end neuronal based computation, a nonlinear amplification with hysteretic behavior is created. Moreover, the transient response of the front-end acoustic receiver can also be controlled and enhanced. A theoretical model is proposed and the concept is prototyped experimentally through an embedded system setup that can provide dynamic adaptations of a sensory system comprising a MEMS microphone placed in a closed-loop feedback system. It faithfully mimics the mosquito’s active hearing response as a function of the input sound intensity. This is an adaptive acoustic sensor system concept that can be exploit by sensor and system designers within acoustics and ultrasonic engineering fields

    生物にヒントを得た計算アルゴリズムとその最適化問題への応用

    Get PDF
    富山大学・富理工博甲第108号・徐哲・2016/09/28富山大学201

    Visual control of flight speed in Drosophila melanogaster

    Get PDF
    Flight control in insects depends on self-induced image motion (optic flow), which the visual system must process to generate appropriate corrective steering maneuvers. Classic experiments in tethered insects applied rigorous system identification techniques for the analysis of turning reactions in the presence of rotating pattern stimuli delivered in open-loop. However, the functional relevance of these measurements for visual free-flight control remains equivocal due to the largely unknown effects of the highly constrained experimental conditions. To perform a systems analysis of the visual flight speed response under free-flight conditions, we implemented a `one-parameter open-loop' paradigm using `TrackFly' in a wind tunnel equipped with real-time tracking and virtual reality display technology. Upwind flying flies were stimulated with sine gratings of varying temporal and spatial frequencies, and the resulting speed responses were measured from the resulting flight speed reactions. To control flight speed, the visual system of the fruit fly extracts linear pattern velocity robustly over a broad range of spatio–temporal frequencies. The speed signal is used for a proportional control of flight speed within locomotor limits. The extraction of pattern velocity over a broad spatio–temporal frequency range may require more sophisticated motion processing mechanisms than those identified in flies so far. In Drosophila, the neuromotor pathways underlying flight speed control may be suitably explored by applying advanced genetic techniques, for which our data can serve as a baseline. Finally, the high-level control principles identified in the fly can be meaningfully transferred into a robotic context, such as for the robust and efficient control of autonomous flying micro air vehicles

    Insect inspired visual motion sensing and flying robots

    Get PDF
    International audienceFlying insects excellently master visual motion sensing techniques. They use dedicated motion processing circuits at a low energy and computational costs. Thanks to observations obtained on insect visual guidance, we developed visual motion sensors and bio-inspired autopilots dedicated to flying robots. Optic flow-based visuomotor control systems have been implemented on an increasingly large number of sighted autonomous robots. In this chapter, we present how we designed and constructed local motion sensors and how we implemented bio-inspired visual guidance scheme on-board several micro-aerial vehicles. An hyperacurate sensor in which retinal micro-scanning movements are performed via a small piezo-bender actuator was mounted onto a miniature aerial robot. The OSCAR II robot is able to track a moving target accurately by exploiting the microscan-ning movement imposed to its eye's retina. We also present two interdependent control schemes driving the eye in robot angular position and the robot's body angular position with respect to a visual target but without any knowledge of the robot's orientation in the global frame. This "steering-by-gazing" control strategy, which is implemented on this lightweight (100 g) miniature sighted aerial robot, demonstrates the effectiveness of this biomimetic visual/inertial heading control strategy

    Mosquito-inspired Swarming and Pursuit for Autonomous Rotorcraft

    Get PDF
    The long-term goal of this research is to design cooperative-control algorithms for autonomous vehicles inspired by the collective behaviors in animal groups. The specific research objectives of this dissertation are twofold: (1) to analyze and model the swarming and pursuit behaviors observed in the mating swarms of mosquitoes, and (2) to design mosquito-inspired control algorithms to perform swarming and pursuit with autonomous rotorcraft. The first part of this dissertation analyzes the reconstructed flight data of the malarial mosquito Anopheles gambiae to characterize the velocity-alignment interaction between male mosquitoes, who aggregate to form mating swarms and subsequently pursue a female mosquito. Both swarming and pursuit behaviors are represented using self-propelled particle models. The model is used together with tools from control theory to investigate the connection between velocity-alignment behavior and success in pursuit. The results of this research have a potential impact on vector-control methods for malaria, and are also utilized in the second part of this dissertation. The second part of this dissertation studies two types of pursuit problems inspired by the collective behavior in mosquito swarms. The first problem considers the strategy for a single pursuer chasing a single target. This problem has been studied extensively for the application to missile guidance and navigation. Here, we tailor the assumptions on the dynamics of the agents as well as the design criteria for the application to small and agile rotorcraft. The second pursuit problem incorporates the swarming behavior by considering a scenario in which multiple guardian vehicles are deployed to protect an area against fast intruders. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for capturing the intruder. We also present swarming strategies to maximize the performance of the guardians, inspired by the random-oscillatory motion and the velocity-alignment behavior of male mosquitoes
    corecore