Application of Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping in Livelihood Vulnerability Analysis

Feedback mechanisms are important in the analysis of vulnerability and resilience of social-ecological systems, as well as in the analysis of livelihoods, but how to evaluate systems with direct feedbacks has been a great challenge. We applied fuzzy cognitive mapping, a tool that allows analysis of both direct and indirect feedbacks and can be used to explore the vulnerabilities of livelihoods to identified hazards. We studied characteristics and drivers of rural livelihoods in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area in southern Africa to assess the vulnerability of inhabitants to the different hazards they face. The process involved four steps: (1) surveys and interviews to identify the major livelihood types; (2) description of specific livelihood types in a system format using fuzzy cognitive maps (FCMs), a semi-quantitative tool that models systems based on people’s knowledge; (3) linking variables and drivers in FCMs by attaching weights; and (4) defining and applying scenarios to visualize the effects of drought and changing park boundaries on cash and household food security. FCMs successfully gave information concerning the nature (increase or decrease) and magnitude by which a livelihood system changed under different scenarios. However, they did not explain the recovery path in relation to time and pattern (e.g., how long it takes for cattle to return to desired numbers after a drought). Using FCMs revealed that issues of policy, such as changing situations at borders, can strongly aggravate effects of climate change such as drought. FCMs revealed hidden knowledge and gave insights that improved the understanding of the complexity of livelihood systems in a way that is better appreciated by stakeholders

Nonlinear Analysis and Control of Interleaved Boost Converter Using Real-Time Cycle to Cycle Variable Slope Compensation

Switched-mode power converters are inherently nonlinear and piecewise smooth systems that may exhibit a series of undesirable operations that can greatly reduce the converter's efficiency and lifetime. This paper presents a nonlinear analysis technique to investigate the influence of system parameters on the stability of interleaved boost converters. In this approach, Monodromy matrix that contains all the comprehensive information of converter parameters and control loop can be employed to fully reveal and understand the inherent nonlinear dynamics of interleaved boost converters, including the interaction effect of switching operation. Thereby not only the boundary conditions but also the relationship between stability margin and the parameters given can be intuitively studied by the eigenvalues of this matrix. Furthermore, by employing the knowledge gained from this analysis, a real-Time cycle to cycle variable slope compensation method is proposed to guarantee a satisfactory performance of the converter with an extended range of stable operation. Outcomes show that systems can regain stability by applying the proposed method within a few time periods of switching cycles. The numerical and analytical results validate the theoretical analysis, and experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach

Stochastic stability and stabilization of discrete-time singular Markovian jump systems with partially unknown transition probabilities

This paper considers the stochastic stability and stabilization of discrete-time singular Markovian jump systems with partially unknown transition probabilities. Firstly, a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for the stochastic stability is proposed in terms of LMIs, then a set of sufficient conditions is proposed for the design of a state feedback controller to guarantee that the corresponding closed-loop systems are regular, causal, and stochastically stable by employing the LMI technique. Finally, some examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approaches

A survey on gain-scheduled control and filtering for parameter-varying systems

Copyright © 2014 Guoliang Wei et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.This paper presents an overview of the recent developments in the gain-scheduled control and filtering problems for the parameter-varying systems. First of all, we recall several important algorithms suitable for gain-scheduling method including gain-scheduled proportional-integral derivative (PID) control, H 2, H ∞ and mixed H 2 / H ∞ gain-scheduling methods as well as fuzzy gain-scheduling techniques. Secondly, various important parameter-varying system models are reviewed, for which gain-scheduled control and filtering issues are usually dealt with. In particular, in view of the randomly occurring phenomena with time-varying probability distributions, some results of our recent work based on the probability-dependent gain-scheduling methods are reviewed. Furthermore, some latest progress in this area is discussed. Finally, conclusions are drawn and several potential future research directions are outlined.The National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants 61074016, 61374039, 61304010, and 61329301; the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province of China under Grant BK20130766; the Program for Professor of Special Appointment (Eastern Scholar) at Shanghai Institutions of Higher Learning; the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University under Grant NCET-11-1051, the Leverhulme Trust of the U.K., the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany

Nonlinear modelling and optimal control via Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy techniques: A quadrotor stabilization

Using the principles of Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy modelling allows the integration of flexible fuzzy approaches and rigorous mathematical tools of linear system theory into one common framework. The rule-based T-S fuzzy model splits a nonlinear system into several linear subsystems. Parallel Distributed Compensation (PDC) controller synthesis uses these T-S fuzzy model rules. The resulting fuzzy controller is nonlinear, based on fuzzy aggregation of state controllers of individual linear subsystems. The system is optimized by the linear quadratic control (LQC) method, its stability is analysed using the Lyapunov method. Stability conditions are guaranteed by a system of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) formulated and solved for the closed loop system with the proposed PDC controller. The additional GA optimization procedure is introduced, and a new type of its fitness function is proposed to improve the closed-loop system performance.Web of Science71110

Robust H∞ filtering for markovian jump systems with randomly occurring nonlinearities and sensor saturation: The finite-horizon case

This article is posted with the permission of IEEE - Copyright @ 2011 IEEEThis paper addresses the robust H∞ filtering problem for a class of discrete time-varying Markovian jump systems with randomly occurring nonlinearities and sensor saturation. Two kinds of transition probability matrices for the Markovian process are considered, namely, the one with polytopic uncertainties and the one with partially unknown entries. The nonlinear disturbances are assumed to occur randomly according to stochastic variables satisfying the Bernoulli distributions. The main purpose of this paper is to design a robust filter, over a given finite-horizon, such that the H∞ disturbance attenuation level is guaranteed for the time-varying Markovian jump systems in the presence of both the randomly occurring nonlinearities and the sensor saturation. Sufficient conditions are established for the existence of the desired filter satisfying the H∞ performance constraint in terms of a set of recursive linear matrix inequalities. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed filter design scheme.This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants 61028008, 60825303, and 61004067, National 973 Project under Grant 2009CB320600, the Key Laboratory of Integrated Automation for the Process Industry (Northeastern University) from the Ministry of Education of China, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) of the U.K., under Grant GR/S27658/01, the Royal Society of the U.K., and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany

Measurements, Models, Systems and Design

531 s.

Non-linear predictive control for manufacturing and robotic applications

The paper discusses predictive control algorithms in the context of applications to robotics and manufacturing systems. Special features of such systems, as compared to traditional process control applications, require that the algorithms are capable of dealing with faster dynamics, more significant unstabilities and more significant contribution of non-linearities to the system performance. The paper presents the general framework for state-space design of predictive algorithms. Linear algorithms are introduced first, then, the attention moves to non-linear systems. Methods of predictive control are presented which are based on the state-dependent state space system description. Those are illustrated on examples of rather difficult mechanical systems