25,432 research outputs found
The failure tolerance of mechatronic software systems to random and targeted attacks
This paper describes a complex networks approach to study the failure
tolerance of mechatronic software systems under various types of hardware
and/or software failures. We produce synthetic system architectures based on
evidence of modular and hierarchical modular product architectures and known
motifs for the interconnection of physical components to software. The system
architectures are then subject to various forms of attack. The attacks simulate
failure of critical hardware or software. Four types of attack are
investigated: degree centrality, betweenness centrality, closeness centrality
and random attack. Failure tolerance of the system is measured by a 'robustness
coefficient', a topological 'size' metric of the connectedness of the attacked
network. We find that the betweenness centrality attack results in the most
significant reduction in the robustness coefficient, confirming betweenness
centrality, rather than the number of connections (i.e. degree), as the most
conservative metric of component importance. A counter-intuitive finding is
that "designed" system architectures, including a bus, ring, and star
architecture, are not significantly more failure-tolerant than interconnections
with no prescribed architecture, that is, a random architecture. Our research
provides a data-driven approach to engineer the architecture of mechatronic
software systems for failure tolerance.Comment: Proceedings of the 2013 ASME International Design Engineering
Technical Conferences & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference
IDETC/CIE 2013 August 4-7, 2013, Portland, Oregon, USA (In Print
Sampling-Based Methods for Factored Task and Motion Planning
This paper presents a general-purpose formulation of a large class of
discrete-time planning problems, with hybrid state and control-spaces, as
factored transition systems. Factoring allows state transitions to be described
as the intersection of several constraints each affecting a subset of the state
and control variables. Robotic manipulation problems with many movable objects
involve constraints that only affect several variables at a time and therefore
exhibit large amounts of factoring. We develop a theoretical framework for
solving factored transition systems with sampling-based algorithms. The
framework characterizes conditions on the submanifold in which solutions lie,
leading to a characterization of robust feasibility that incorporates
dimensionality-reducing constraints. It then connects those conditions to
corresponding conditional samplers that can be composed to produce values on
this submanifold. We present two domain-independent, probabilistically complete
planning algorithms that take, as input, a set of conditional samplers. We
demonstrate the empirical efficiency of these algorithms on a set of
challenging task and motion planning problems involving picking, placing, and
pushing
Fast shape reconstruction of perfectly conducting cracks by using a multi-frequency topological derivative strategy
This paper concerns a fast, one-step iterative technique of imaging extended
perfectly conducting cracks with Dirichlet boundary condition. In order to
reconstruct the shape of cracks from scattered field data measured at the
boundary, we introduce a topological derivative-based electromagnetic imaging
function operated at several nonzero frequencies. The properties of the imaging
function are carefully analyzed for the configurations of both symmetric and
non-symmetric incident field directions. This analysis explains why the
application of incident fields with symmetric direction operated at multiple
frequencies guarantees a successful reconstruction. Various numerical
simulations with noise-corrupted data are conducted to assess the performance,
effectiveness, robustness, and limitations of the proposed technique.Comment: 17 pages, 27 figure
Topological phase transitions in small mesoscopic chiral p-wave superconductors
Spin-triplet chiral p-wave superconductivity is typically described by a
two-component order parameter, and as such is prone to unique emergent effects
when compared to the standard single-component superconductors. Here we present
the equilibrium phase diagram for small mesoscopic chiral p-wave
superconducting disks in the presence of magnetic field, obtained by solving
the microscopic Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations self-consistently. In the
ultra-small limit, the cylindrically-symmetric giant-vortex states are the
ground state of the system. However, with increasing sample size, the
cylindrical symmetry is broken as the two components of the order parameter
segregate into domains, and the number of fragmented domain walls between them
characterizes the resulting states. Such domain walls are topological defects
unique for the p-wave order, and constitute a dominant phase in the mesoscopic
regime. Moreover, we find two possible types of domain walls, identified by
their chirality-dependent interaction with the edge states
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