Performance Measurement Under Increasing Environmental Uncertainty In The Context of Interval Type-2 Fuzzy Logic Based Robotic Sailing

Performance measurement of robotic controllers based on fuzzy logic, operating under uncertainty, is a subject area which has been somewhat ignored in the current literature. In this paper standard measures such as RMSE are shown to be inappropriate for use under conditions where the environmental uncertainty changes significantly between experiments. An overview of current methods which have been applied by other authors is presented, followed by a design of a more sophisticated method of comparison. This method is then applied to a robotic control problem to observe its outcome compared with a single measure. Results show that the technique described provides a more robust method of performance comparison than less complex methods allowing better comparisons to be drawn.Comment: International Conference on Fuzzy Systems 2013 (Fuzz-IEEE 2013

Performance measurement under increasing environmental uncertainty in the context of interval type-2 fuzzy logic based robotic sailing

Performance measurement of robotic controllers based on fuzzy logic, operating under uncertainty, is a subject area which has been somewhat ignored in the current literature. In this paper standard measures such as RMSE are shown to be inappropriate for use under conditions where the environmental uncertainty changes significantly between experiments. An overview of current methods which have been applied by other authors is presented, followed by a design of a more sophisticated method of comparison. This method is then applied to a robotic control problem to observe its outcome compared with a single measure. Results show that the technique described provides a more robust method of performance comparison than less complex methods allowing better comparisons to be drawn

An investigation into the factors affecting performance of fuzzy logic systems

Fuzzy logic is a frequently used solution to control problems, especially when there are elements of human knowledge that may be incorporated into the system. Fuzzy logic comes in several varieties with the most common being based on either type-1 or type-2 fuzzy logic. Modifications to these standard varieties, termed Non-Stationary (NS) and Dual Surface (DS) are also investigated. Each variety allows a certain amount of flexibility in its expression. However, with this increased flexibility (and potentially performance) comes additional resource requirements: either during run time with higher processing and memory requirements; or at design time, with additional parameters requiring selection and optimisation. There have been several comparisons into the performance obtained from type-1 and type-2 investigating such factors as their internal configuration (such as membership functions as defined by their Footprint of Uncertainty), task difficulty and the environment in which the experiments are performed. However, no studies have been performed incorporating each of these factors with the goal of determining how they impact upon performance. The end goal of this work is the development of a methodology to understand which combination of conditions will cause type-2 control to consistently outperform type-1 based systems. This would enable the rationalisation of moving from a type-1 to a type-2 system, which is currently done without understanding if and how performance will increase with such a move. This thesis introduces a novel scheme by which several methods of comparing performance are employed to observe how the output and resulting performance levels change as factors including: controller configuration, task difficulty and environmental variability are varied. These methods are performed over three applications which gradually increase in complexity: a simple tipping example, a more developed simulation based on an autonomous sailing robots application and subsequent real-world experiments, which also involve the autonomous sailing problem. The first method of comparison studies how the rules which fire for a given input set change as the configuration of the fuzzy logic controller is increased. The second comparative technique investigates the control surfaces produced by a selection of fuzzy logic controllers to observe how they change as the internal configuration is changed. Observations such as the smoothing of the transitions between surfaces suggest that controllers with a larger FOU may give a better response. The third method for comparison is developed in which outputs from a controller operating in a simulated environment are compared to an ideal value, giving a single numeric output with which comparisons can be made. It was found that there are situations in which type-2 based fuzzy control outperforms type-1. However, these are found to be less common than expected. It is determined that this may be due to the simplicity of some of our case studies environments (especially the tipping example), where there may not be enough scope for large improvements to become apparent. These findings lay ground for future work in which (i) more developed and complex applications and (ii) a more tuned fuzzy system should be investigated to find if this will result in more obvious differences between configurations

An investigation into the factors affecting performance of fuzzy logic systems

Fuzzy logic is a frequently used solution to control problems, especially when there are elements of human knowledge that may be incorporated into the system. Fuzzy logic comes in several varieties with the most common being based on either type-1 or type-2 fuzzy logic. Modifications to these standard varieties, termed Non-Stationary (NS) and Dual Surface (DS) are also investigated. Each variety allows a certain amount of flexibility in its expression. However, with this increased flexibility (and potentially performance) comes additional resource requirements: either during run time with higher processing and memory requirements; or at design time, with additional parameters requiring selection and optimisation. There have been several comparisons into the performance obtained from type-1 and type-2 investigating such factors as their internal configuration (such as membership functions as defined by their Footprint of Uncertainty), task difficulty and the environment in which the experiments are performed. However, no studies have been performed incorporating each of these factors with the goal of determining how they impact upon performance. The end goal of this work is the development of a methodology to understand which combination of conditions will cause type-2 control to consistently outperform type-1 based systems. This would enable the rationalisation of moving from a type-1 to a type-2 system, which is currently done without understanding if and how performance will increase with such a move. This thesis introduces a novel scheme by which several methods of comparing performance are employed to observe how the output and resulting performance levels change as factors including: controller configuration, task difficulty and environmental variability are varied. These methods are performed over three applications which gradually increase in complexity: a simple tipping example, a more developed simulation based on an autonomous sailing robots application and subsequent real-world experiments, which also involve the autonomous sailing problem. The first method of comparison studies how the rules which fire for a given input set change as the configuration of the fuzzy logic controller is increased. The second comparative technique investigates the control surfaces produced by a selection of fuzzy logic controllers to observe how they change as the internal configuration is changed. Observations such as the smoothing of the transitions between surfaces suggest that controllers with a larger FOU may give a better response. The third method for comparison is developed in which outputs from a controller operating in a simulated environment are compared to an ideal value, giving a single numeric output with which comparisons can be made. It was found that there are situations in which type-2 based fuzzy control outperforms type-1. However, these are found to be less common than expected. It is determined that this may be due to the simplicity of some of our case studies environments (especially the tipping example), where there may not be enough scope for large improvements to become apparent. These findings lay ground for future work in which (i) more developed and complex applications and (ii) a more tuned fuzzy system should be investigated to find if this will result in more obvious differences between configurations

Analysis and Control of Mobile Robots in Various Environmental Conditions

The world sees new inventions each day, made to make the lifestyle of humans more easy and luxurious. In such global scenario, the robots have proved themselves to be an invention of great importance. The robots are being used in almost each and every field of the human world. Continuous studies are being done on them to make them simpler and easier to work with. All fields are being unraveled to make them work better in the human world without human interference. We focus on the navigation field of these mobile robots. The aim of this thesis is to find the controller that produces the most optimal path for the robot to reach its destination without colliding or damaging itself or the environment. The techniques like Fuzzy logic, Type 2 fuzzy logic, Neural networks and Artificial bee colony have been discussed and experimented to find the best controller that could find the most optimal path for the robot to reach its goal position. Simulation and Experiments have been done alike to find out the optimal path for the robot

Design and analysis of Intelligent Navigational controller for Mobile Robot

Since last several years requirement graph for autonomous mobile robots according to its virtual application has always been an upward one. Smother and faster mobile robots navigation with multiple function are the necessity of the day. This research is based on navigation system as well as kinematics model analysis for autonomous mobile robot in known environments. To execute and attain introductory robotic behaviour inside environments(e.g. obstacle avoidance, wall or edge following and target seeking) robot uses method of perception, sensor integration and fusion. With the help of these sensors robot creates its collision free path and analyse an environmental map time to time. Mobile robot navigation in an unfamiliar environment can be successfully studied here using online sensor fusion and integration. Various AI algorithm are used to describe overall procedure of mobilerobot navigation and its path planning problem. To design suitable controller that create collision free path are achieved by the combined study of kinematics analysis of motion as well as an artificial intelligent technique. In fuzzy logic approach, a set of linguistic fuzzy rules are generated for navigation of mobile robot. An expert controller has been developed for the navigation in various condition of environment using these fuzzy rules. Further, type-2 fuzzy is employed to simplify and clarify the developed control algorithm more accurately due to fuzzy logic limitations. In addition, recurrent neural network (RNN) methodology has been analysed for robot navigation. Which helps the model at the time of learning stage. The robustness of controller has been checked on Webots simulation platform. Simulation results and performance of the controller using Webots platform show that, the mobile robot is capable for avoiding obstacles and reaching the termination point in efficient manner

A novel dual surface type-2 fuzzy logic controller for a micro robot

Over the last few years there has been an increasing interest in the area of type-2 fuzzy logic sets and systems in academic and industrial circles. Within robotic research the majority of type-2 fuzzy logic investigations has been centred on large autonomous mobile robots, where resource availability (memory and computing power) is not an issue. These large robots usually have a variation of a Unix operating system on board. This allows the implementation of complex fuzzy logic systems to control the motors. Specifically the implementation of interval and geometric type-2 fuzzy logic controllers is of interest as they are shown to outperform type-1 fuzzy logic controllers in uncertain environments. However when it comes to using micro robots it is not practical to use type-1 and type-2 fuzzy logic controllers, due to the lack of memory and the processor time needed to calculate a control output value. The choice of motor controller is usually either fixed pre-set values, a variable scaled value or a PID controller to generate wheel velocities. In this research novel ways of implementing type-1 and interval type-2 fuzzy logic controllers on micro robots with limited resources are investigated. The solution thatis being proposed is the use of pre-calculated 3D surfaces generated by an off-line Fuzzy Logic System covering the expected ranges of the input and output variables. The surfaces are then loaded into the memory of the micro robots and can be accessed by the motor controller. The aim of the research is to test if there is an advantage of using type-2 fuzzy logic controllers implemented as surfaces over type-1 and PID controllers on a micro robot with limited resources. Control surfaces were generated for both type-1 and average interval type-2 fuzzy logic controllers. Each control surface was then accessed using bilinear interpolation to provide the crisp output value that was used to control the motor. Previously when this method has been used a single surface was employed to hold the information. This thesis presents the novel approach of the dual surface type-2 fuzzy logic controller on micro robots. The lower and upper values that are averaged for the classic interval type-2 controller are generated as surfaces and installed on the micro robots. The advantage is that nuances and features of both the lower and upper surfaces are available to be exploited, rather than being lost due to the averaging process. Having conducted the experiments it is concluded that the best approach to controlling micro robots is to use fuzzy logic controllers over the classical PID controllers where ever possible. When fuzzy controllers are used then type-2 fuzzy controllers (dual or single surface) should be used over type-1 fuzzy controllers when applied as surfaces on micro robots. When a type-2 fuzzy controller is used then the novel dual surface type-2 fuzzy logic controller should be used over the classic average surface. The novel dual surface controller offers a dynamic, weighted, adaptive and superior response over all the other fuzzy controllers examined

Type-2 Takagi-Sugeno-Kang Fuzzy Logic System and Uncertainty in Machining

RÉSUMÉ: Plusieurs méthodes permettent aujourd’hui d’analyser le comportement des écoulements qui régissent le fonctionnement de systèmes rencontrés dans l’industrie (véhicules aériens, marins et terrestres, génération d’énergie, etc.). Pour les écoulements transitoires ou turbulents, les méthodes expérimentales sont utilisées conjointement avec les simulations numériques (simulation directe ou faisant appel à des modèles) afin d’extraire le plus d’information possible. Dans les deux cas, les méthodes génèrent des quantités de données importantes qui doivent ensuite être traitées et analysées. Ce projet de recherche vise à améliorer notre capacité d’analyse pour l’étude des écoulements simulés numériquement et les écoulements obtenus à l’aide de méthodes de mesure (par exemple la vélocimétrie par image de particules PIV ). L’absence, jusqu’à aujourd’hui, d’une définition objective d’une structure tourbillonnaire a conduit à l’utilisation de plusieurs méthodes eulériennes (vorticité, critère Q, Lambda-2, etc.), souvent inadaptées, pour extraire les structures cohérentes des écoulements. L’exposant de Lyapunov, calculé sur un temps fini (appelé le FTLE), s’est révélé comme une alternative lagrangienne efficace à ces méthodes classiques. Cependant, la méthodologie de calcul actuelle du FTLE exige l’évaluation numérique d’un grand nombre de trajectoires sur une grille cartésienne qui est superposée aux champs de vitesse simulés ou mesurés. Le nombre de noeuds nécessaire pour représenter un champ FTLE d’un écoulement 3D instationnaire atteint facilement plusieurs millions, ce qui nécessite des ressources informatiques importantes pour une analyse adéquate. Dans ce projet, nous visons à améliorer l’efficacité du calcul du champ FTLE en proposant une méthode alternative au calcul classique des composantes du tenseur de déformation de Cauchy-Green. Un ensemble d’équations différentielles ordinaires (EDOs) est utilisé pour calculer simultanément les trajectoires des particules et les dérivées premières et secondes du champ de déplacement, ce qui se traduit par une amélioration de la précision nodale des composantes du tenseur. Les dérivées premières sont utilisées pour le calcul de l’exposant de Lyapunov et les dérivées secondes pour l’estimation de l’erreur d’interpolation. Les matrices hessiennes du champ de déplacement (deux matrices en 2D et trois matrices en 3D) nous permettent de construire une métrique optimale multi-échelle et de générer un maillage anisotrope non structuré de façon à distribuer efficacement les noeuds et à minimiser l’erreur d’interpolation.----------ABSTRACT: Several methods can help us to analyse the behavior of flows that govern the operation of fluid flow systems encountered in the industry (aerospace, marine and terrestrial transportation, power generation, etc..). For transient or turbulent flows, experimental methods are used in conjunction with numerical simulations ( direct simulation or based on models) to extract as much information as possible. In both cases, these methods generate massive amounts of data which must then be processed and analyzed. This research project aims to improve the post-processing algorithms to facilitate the study of numerically simulated flows and those obtained using measurement techniques (e.g. particle image velocimetry PIV ). The absence, even until today, of an objective definition of a vortex has led to the use of several Eulerian methods (vorticity, the Q and the Lambda-2 criteria, etc..), often unsuitable to extract the flow characteristics. The Lyapunov exponent, calculated on a finite time (the so-called FTLE), is an effective Lagrangian alternative to these standard methods. However, the computation methodology currently used to obtain the FTLE requires numerical evaluation of a large number of fluid particle trajectories on a Cartesian grid that is superimposed on the simulated or measured velocity fields. The number of nodes required to visualize a FTLE field of an unsteady 3D flow can easily reach several millions, which requires significant computing resources for an adequate analysis. In this project, we aim to improve the computational efficiency of the FTLE field by providing an alternative to the conventional calculation of the components of the Cauchy-Green deformation tensor. A set of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) is used to calculate the particle trajectories and simultaneously the first and the second derivatives of the displacement field, resulting in a highly improved accuracy of nodal tensor components. The first derivatives are used to calculate the Lyapunov exponent and the second derivatives to estimate the interpolation error. Hessian matrices of the displacement field (two matrices in 2D and three matrices in 3D) allow us to build a multi-scale optimal metric and generate an unstructured anisotropic mesh to efficiently distribute nodes and to minimize the interpolation error. The flexibility of anisotropic meshes allows to add and align nodes near the structures of the flow and to remove those in areas of low interest. The mesh adaptation is based on the intersection of the Hessian matrices of the displacement field and not on the FTLE field

1992 NASA/ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship Program

For the 28th consecutive year, a NASA/ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship Program was conducted at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). The program was conducted by the University of Alabama and MSFC during the period June 1, 1992 through August 7, 1992. Operated under the auspices of the American Society for Engineering Education, the MSFC program, was well as those at other centers, was sponsored by the Office of Educational Affairs, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. The basic objectives of the programs, which are the 29th year of operation nationally, are (1) to further the professional knowledge of qualified engineering and science faculty members; (2) to stimulate and exchange ideas between participants and NASA; (3) to enrich and refresh the research and teaching activities of the participants' institutions; and (4) to contribute to the research objectives of the NASA centers

Development of Self-Learning Type-2 Fuzzy Systems for System Identification and Control of Autonomous Systems

Modelling and control of dynamic systems are faced by multiple technical challenges, mainly due to the nature of uncertain complex, nonlinear, and time-varying systems. Traditional modelling techniques require a complete understanding of system dynamics and obtaining comprehensive mathematical models is not always achievable due to limited knowledge of the systems as well as the presence of multiple uncertainties in the environment. As universal approximators, fuzzy logic systems (FLSs), neural networks (NNs) and neuro-fuzzy systems have proved to be successful computational tools for representing the behaviour of complex dynamical systems. Moreover, FLSs, NNs and learning-based techniques have been gaining popularity for controlling complex, ill-defined, nonlinear, and time-varying systems in the face of uncertainties. However, fuzzy rules derived by experts can be too ad-hoc, and the performance is less than optimum. In other words, generating fuzzy rules and membership functions in fuzzy systems is a potential challenge especially for systems with many variables. Moreover, under the umbrella of FLSs, although type-1 fuzzy logic control systems (T1-FLCs) have been applied to control various complex nonlinear systems, they have limited capability to handle uncertainties. Aiming to accommodate uncertainties, type-2 fuzzy logic control systems (T2-FLCs) were established. This thesis aims to address the shortcomings of existing fuzzy techniques by utilisation of type-2 FLCs with novel adaptive capabilities. The first contribution of this thesis is a novel online system identification technique by means of a recursive interval type-2 Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy C-means clustering technique (IT2-TS-FC) to accommodate the footprint-of-uncertainties (FoUs). This development is meant to specifically address the shortcomings of type-1 fuzzy systems in capturing the footprint-of-uncertainties such as mechanical wear, rotor damage, battery drain and sensor and actuator faults. Unlike previous type-2 TS fuzzy models, the proposed method constructs two fuzzifiers (upper and lower) and two regression coefficients in the consequent part to handle uncertainties. The weighted least square method is employed to compute the regression coefficients. The proposed method is validated using two benchmarks, namely, real flight test data of a quadcopter drone and Mackey-Glass time series data. The algorithm has the capability to model uncertainties (e.g., noisy dataset). The second contribution of this thesis is the development of a novel self-adaptive interval type-2 fuzzy controller named the SAF2C for controlling multi-input multi-output (MIMO) nonlinear systems. The adaptation law is derived using sliding mode control (SMC) theory to reduce the computation time so that the learning process can be expedited by 80% compared to separate single-input single-output (SISO) controllers. The system employs the `Enhanced Iterative Algorithm with Stop Condition' (EIASC) type-reduction method, which is more computationally efficient than the `Karnik-Mendel' type-reduction algorithm. The stability of the SAF2C is proven using the Lyapunov technique. To ensure the applicability of the proposed control scheme, SAF2C is implemented to control several dynamical systems, including a simulated MIMO hexacopter unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in the face of external disturbance and parameter variations. The ability of SAF2C to filter the measurement noise is demonstrated, where significant improvement is obtained using the proposed controller in the face of measurement noise. Also, the proposed closed-loop control system is applied to control other benchmark dynamic systems (e.g., a simulated autonomous underwater vehicle and inverted pendulum on a cart system) demonstrating high accuracy and robustness to variations in system parameters and external disturbance. Another contribution of this thesis is a novel stand-alone enhanced self-adaptive interval type-2 fuzzy controller named the ESAF2C algorithm, whose type-2 fuzzy parameters are tuned online using the SMC theory. This way, we expect to design a computationally efficient adaptive Type-2 fuzzy system, suitable for real-time applications by introducing the EIASC type-reducer. The proposed technique is applied on a quadcopter UAV (QUAV), where extensive simulations and real-time flight tests for a hovering QUAV under wind disturbances are also conducted to validate the efficacy of the ESAF2C. Specifically, the control performance is investigated in the face of external wind gust disturbances, generated using an industrial fan. Stability analysis of the ESAF2C control system is investigated using the Lyapunov theory. Yet another contribution of this thesis is the development of a type-2 evolving fuzzy control system (T2-EFCS) to facilitate self-learning (either from scratch or from a certain predefined rule). T2-EFCS has two phases, namely, the structure learning and the parameters learning. The structure of T2-EFCS does not require previous information about the fuzzy structure, and it can start the construction of its rules from scratch with only one rule. The rules are then added and pruned in an online fashion to achieve the desired set-point. The proposed technique is applied to control an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) in the presence of multiple external disturbances demonstrating the robustness of the proposed control systems. The proposed approach turns out to be computationally efficient as the system employs fewer fuzzy parameters while maintaining superior control performance