Internationales Kolloquium über Anwendungen der Informatik und Mathematik in Architektur und Bauwesen : 20. bis 22.7. 2015, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar

The 20th International Conference on the Applications of Computer Science and Mathematics in Architecture and Civil Engineering will be held at the Bauhaus University Weimar from 20th till 22nd July 2015. Architects, computer scientists, mathematicians, and engineers from all over the world will meet in Weimar for an interdisciplinary exchange of experiences, to report on their results in research, development and practice and to discuss. The conference covers a broad range of research areas: numerical analysis, function theoretic methods, partial differential equations, continuum mechanics, engineering applications, coupled problems, computer sciences, and related topics. Several plenary lectures in aforementioned areas will take place during the conference. We invite architects, engineers, designers, computer scientists, mathematicians, planners, project managers, and software developers from business, science and research to participate in the conference

Mathematical Imaging and Surface Processing

Within the last decade image and geometry processing have become increasingly rigorous with solid foundations in mathematics. Both areas are research fields at the intersection of different mathematical disciplines, ranging from geometry and calculus of variations to PDE analysis and numerical analysis. The workshop brought together scientists from all these areas and a fruitful interplay took place. There was a lively exchange of ideas between geometry and image processing applications areas, characterized in a number of ways in this workshop. For example, optimal transport, first applied in computer vision is now used to define a distance measure between 3d shapes, spectral analysis as a tool in image processing can be applied in surface classification and matching, and so on. We have also seen the use of Riemannian geometry as a powerful tool to improve the analysis of multivalued images. This volume collects the abstracts for all the presentations covering this wide spectrum of tools and application domains

Robust hybrid control for autonomous vehicle motion planning

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2001.Includes bibliographical references (p. 141-150).This dissertation focuses on the problem of motion planning for agile autonomous vehicles. In realistic situations, the motion planning problem must be solved in real-time, in a dynamic and uncertain environment. The fulfillment of the mission objectives might also require the exploitation of the full maneuvering capabilities of the vehicle. The main contribution of the dissertation is the development of a new computational and modelling framework (the Maneuver Automaton), and related algorithms, for steering underactuated, nonholonomic mechanical systems. The proposed approach is based on a quantization of the system's dynamics, by which the feasible nominal system trajectories are restricted to the family of curves that can be obtained by the interconnection of suitably defined primitives. This can be seen as a formalization of the concept of "maneuver", allowing for the construction of a framework amenable to mathematical programming. This motion planning framework is applicable to all time-invariant dynamical systems which admit dynamic symmetries and relative equilibria. No other assumptions are made on the dynamics, thus resulting in exact motion planning techniques of general applicability. Building on a relatively expensive off-line computation phase, we provide algorithms viable for real-time applications. A fundamental advantage of this approach is the ability to provide a mathematical foundation for generating a provably stable and consistent hierarchical system, and for developing the tools to analyze the robustness of the system in the presence of uncertainty and/or disturbances.(cont.) In the second part of the dissertation, a randomized algorithm is proposed for real-time motion planning in a dynamic environment. By employing the optimal control solution in a free space developed for the maneuver automaton (or for any other general system), we present a motion planning algorithm with probabilistic convergence and performance guarantees, and hard safety guarantees, even in the face of finite computation times. The proposed methodologies are applicable to a very large class of autonomous vehicles: throughout the dissertation, examples, simulation and experimental results are presented and discussed, involving a variety of mechanical systems, ranging from simple academic examples and laboratory setups, to detailed models of small autonomous helicopters.by Emilio Frazzoli.Ph.D

Fast methods for modelling fluid flow and characterising petroleum reservoirs

This thesis tackles three kinds of computationally efficient methods widely applicable in the fields of engineering, simulation and numerical modelling. First, the Non-Intrusive Reduced Order Modelling (NIROM) is discussed, reframed, generalised and tested. While NIROM is a general methodology, the main focus of this work is to evaluate its potential in the field of reservoir modelling. For this purpose a new method for constructing parameterised NIROMs is proposed and the POD-RBF approach is investigated on a number of representative test cases. A detailed analysis concludes with NIROM not being a viable practical solution at this stage; the underlying issues, their causes and future development the method are discussed in detail. Second, a method for classifying well log data is given. The method is an alternative to typical machine learning (ML) approaches, which up to date have been the only tools utilised for the purpose. Our approach is motivated by (and mitigates a number of) issues with applying ML in practical applications, in particular the lack of explainability. Instead of being a complex surrogate with a large number of degrees of freedom (cf ML), our model consists of the automatically re-scaled training set and a single additional number extracted during the training procedure. The technique proposed is characterised by a case-independent design, very high computational efficiency and relies on an intuitively meaningful operating principle; it also provides additional functionality in comparison with alternatives. It is demonstrated that (out of the box) the method outperforms the vast majority of alternatives on a realistic data set in terms of efficiency and accuracy, even when implemented in serial in an interpreted programming language. Finally, the last part of the thesis addresses the issue of efficient semi-analytical modelling of solid boundaries in Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations. More precisely, this work focuses on the purely technical aspect of efficient evaluation of correction factors governing the boundary effects; the framework utilising their values is already well established. Mathematically, the problem is described as efficiently integrating a spherically symmetric function over its compact spherical support truncated by a surface (or a collection of surfaces) representing a solid boundary (wall). Three types of boundary geometries are considered, namely piecewise-planar, spherical and super-ellipsoid/super-toroid surfaces, with the latter two categories addressed for the first time in the literature. All methods provided are characterised by an arbitrary degree of accuracy and simplicity of implementation, especially in comparison with all to up to date alternatives. A number of representative test cases is studied.Open Acces

Control for Localization and Visibility Maintenance of an Independent Agent using Robotic Teams

Given a non-cooperative agent, we seek to formulate a control strategy to enable a team of robots to localize and track the agent in a complex but known environment while maintaining a continuously optimized line-of-sight communication chain to a fixed base station. We focus on two aspects of the problem. First, we investigate the estimation of the agent\u27s location by using nonlinear sensing modalities, in particular that of range-only sensing, and formulate a control strategy based on improving this estimation using one or more robots working to independently gather information. Second, we develop methods to plan and sequence robot deployments that will establish and maintain line-of-sight chains for communication between the independent agent and the fixed base station using a minimum number of robots. These methods will lead to feedback control laws that can realize this plan and ensure proper navigation and collision avoidance

Efficient Many-Light Rendering of Scenes with Participating Media

We present several approaches based on virtual lights that aim at capturing the light transport without compromising quality, and while preserving the elegance and efficiency of many-light rendering. By reformulating the integration scheme, we obtain two numerically efficient techniques; one tailored specifically for interactive, high-quality lighting on surfaces, and one for handling scenes with participating media