A mathematical model for breath gas analysis of volatile organic compounds with special emphasis on acetone

Recommended standardized procedures for determining exhaled lower respiratory nitric oxide and nasal nitric oxide have been developed by task forces of the European Respiratory Society and the American Thoracic Society. These recommendations have paved the way for the measurement of nitric oxide to become a diagnostic tool for specific clinical applications. It would be desirable to develop similar guidelines for the sampling of other trace gases in exhaled breath, especially volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which reflect ongoing metabolism. The concentrations of water-soluble, blood-borne substances in exhaled breath are influenced by: (i) breathing patterns affecting gas exchange in the conducting airways; (ii) the concentrations in the tracheo-bronchial lining fluid; (iii) the alveolar and systemic concentrations of the compound. The classical Farhi equation takes only the alveolar concentrations into account. Real-time measurements of acetone in end-tidal breath under an ergometer challenge show characteristics which cannot be explained within the Farhi setting. Here we develop a compartment model that reliably captures these profiles and is capable of relating breath to the systemic concentrations of acetone. By comparison with experimental data it is inferred that the major part of variability in breath acetone concentrations (e.g., in response to moderate exercise or altered breathing patterns) can be attributed to airway gas exchange, with minimal changes of the underlying blood and tissue concentrations. Moreover, it is deduced that measured end-tidal breath concentrations of acetone determined during resting conditions and free breathing will be rather poor indicators for endogenous levels. Particularly, the current formulation includes the classical Farhi and the Scheid series inhomogeneity model as special limiting cases.Comment: 38 page

Quantum feedback control and classical control theory

We introduce and discuss the problem of quantum feedback control in the context of established formulations of classical control theory, examining conceptual analogies and essential differences. We describe the application of state-observer-based control laws, familiar in classical control theory, to quantum systems and apply our methods to the particular case of switching the state of a particle in a double-well potential

Design of Fault Tolerant Control systems

This research designs a Fault Tolerant Control (FTC) approach that compensates for both actuator and sensor faults by using multiple observers. This method is shown to work for both linear time-variant and linear time-invariant systems. This work takes advantage of sensor redundancy to compensate for sensor faults. A method to calculate the rank of available sensor redundancy is developed to determine how many independent sensors can fail without losing observability. This rank is the upper bound on the number of simultaneous sensor failures that the system can tolerate. Based on this rank, a series of reduced order Kalman observers are created to remove sensors presumed faulty from the internal feedback of the estimators. Actuator redundancy is examined as a potential way to compensate for actuator faults. A method to calculate the available actuator redundancy is designed. This redundancy would allow for the correction of partial and full actuator failures, but few systems exhibit sufficient actuator redundancy. Actuator faults are instead tolerated by replacing the Kalman estimators with Augmented State Observers (ASO). The ASO adds estimates of the actuator faults as additional states of the system in order to isolate and estimate the actuator faults. Then a supervisor is designed to select the observer that correctly identifies the sensor fault set. From that observer, the supervisor collects state estimates and calculates estimates of the sensors and faults. These estimates are then used in feedback with a controller that performs pole placement on the original system

Identification and Optimal Linear Tracking Control of ODU Autonomous Surface Vehicle

Autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs) are being used for diverse applications of civilian and military importance such as: military reconnaissance, sea patrol, bathymetry, environmental monitoring, and oceanographic research. Currently, these unmanned tasks can accurately be accomplished by ASVs due to recent advancements in computing, sensing, and actuating systems. For this reason, researchers around the world have been taking interest in ASVs for the last decade. Due to the ever-changing surface of water and stochastic disturbances such as wind and tidal currents that greatly affect the path-following ability of ASVs, identification of an accurate model of inherently nonlinear and stochastic ASV system and then designing a viable control using that model for its planar motion is a challenging task. For planar motion control of ASV, the work done by researchers is mainly based on the theoretical modeling in which the nonlinear hydrodynamic terms are determined, while some work suggested the nonlinear control techniques and adhered to simulation results. Also, the majority of work is related to the mono- or twin-hull ASVs with a single rudder. The ODU-ASV used in present research is a twin-hull design having two DC trolling motors for path-following motion. A novel approach of time-domain open-loop observer Kalman filter identifications (OKID) and state-feedback optimal linear tracking control of ODU-ASV is presented, in which a linear state-space model of ODU-ASV is obtained from the measured input and output data. The accuracy of the identified model for ODU-ASV is confirmed by validation results of model output data reconstruction and benchmark residual analysis. Then, the OKID-identified model of the ODU-ASV is utilized to design the proposed controller for its planar motion such that a predefined cost function is minimized using state and control weighting matrices, which are determined by a multi-objective optimization genetic algorithm technique. The validation results of proposed controller using step inputs as well as sinusoidal and arc-like trajectories are presented to confirm the controller performance. Moreover, real-time water-trials were performed and their results confirm the validity of proposed controller in path-following motion of ODU-ASV