Quadratic and nonlinear programming problems solving and analysis in fully fuzzy environment

AbstractThis paper presents a comprehensive methodology for solving and analyzing quadratic and nonlinear programming problems in fully fuzzy environment. The solution approach is based on the Arithmetic Fuzzy Logic-based Representations, previously founded on normalized fuzzy matrices. The suggested approach is generalized for the fully fuzzy case of the general forms of quadratic and nonlinear modeling and optimization problems of both the unconstrained and constrained fuzzy optimization problems. The constrained problems are extended by incorporating the suggested fuzzy logic-based representations assuming complete fuzziness of all the optimization formulation parameters. The robustness of the optimal fuzzy solutions is then analyzed using the recently newly developed system consolidity index. Four examples of quadratic and nonlinear programming optimization problems are investigated to illustrate the efficacy of the developed formulations. Moreover, consolidity patterns for the illustrative examples are sketched to show the ability of the optimal solution to withstand any system and input parameters changes effects. It is demonstrated that the geometric analysis of the consolidity charts of each region can be carried out based on specifying the type of consolidity region shape (such as elliptical or circular), slope or angle in degrees of the centerline of the geometric, the location of the centroid of the geometric shape, area of the geometric shape, lengths of principals diagonals of the shape, and the diversity ratio of consolidity points. The overall results demonstrate the consistency and effectiveness of the developed approach for incorporation and implementation for fuzzy quadratic and nonlinear optimization problems. Finally, it is concluded that the presented concept could provide a comprehensive methodology for various quadratic and nonlinear systems’ modeling and optimization in fully fuzzy environments

Consolidity: Mystery of inner property of systems uncovered

AbstractThis paper uncovers the mystery of consolidity, an inner property of systems that was amazingly hidden. Consolidity also reveals the secrecy of why strong stable and highly controllable systems are not invulnerable of falling and collapsing. Consolidity is measured by its Consolidity Index, defined as the ratio of overall changes of output parameters over combined changes of input and system parameters, all operating in fully fuzzy environment. Under this notion, systems are classified into consolidated, quasi-consolidated, neutrally consolidated, unconsolidated, quasi-unconsolidated and mixed types. The strategy for the implementation of consolidity is elaborated for both natural and man-made existing systems as well as the new developed ones. An important critique arises that the by-product consolidity of natural or built-as-usual system could lead to trapping such systems into a completely undesired unconsolidity. This suggests that the ample number of conventional techniques that do not take system consolidity into account should gradually be changed, and adjusted with improved consolidity-based techniques. Four Golden Rules are highlighted for handling system consolidity, and applied to several illustrative case studies. These case studies cover the consolidity analysis of the Drug Concentration problem, Predator-Prey Population problem, Spread of Infectious Disease problem, AIDS Epidemic problem and Arm Race model. It is demonstrated that consolidity changes are contrary (opposite in sign) to changes of both stability and controllability. This is a very significant result showing that our present practice of stressing on building strong stable and highly controllable systems could have already jeopardized the consolidity behavior of an ample family of existing real life systems. It is strongly recommended that the four Golden Rules of consolidity should be enforced as future strict regulations of systems modeling, analysis, design and building of different disciplines of sciences. It can be stated that with the mystery of consolidity uncovered, the door is now wide open towards the launching of a new generation of systems with superior consolidity in various sciences and disciplines. Examples of these disciplines are basic sciences, evolutionary systems, engineering, astronautics, astronomy, biology, ecology, medicine, pharmacology, economics, finance, commerce, political and management sciences, humanities, social sciences, literature, psychology, philosophy, mass communication, and education

Overview of some Command Modes for Human-Robot Interaction Systems

Interaction and command modes as well as their combination are essential features of modern and futuristic robotic systems interacting with human beings in various dynamical environments. This paper presents a synthetic overview concerning the most command modes used in Human-Robot Interaction Systems (HRIS). It includes the first historical command modes which are namely tele-manipulation, off-line robot programming, and traditional elementary teaching by demonstration. It then introduces the most recent command modes which have been fostered later on by the use of artificial intelligence techniques implemented on more powerful computers. In this context, we will consider specifically the following modes: interactive programming based on the graphical-user-interfaces, voice-based, pointing-on-image-based, gesture-based, and finally brain-based commands.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

SUAS: A Novel Soft Underwater Artificial Skin with Capacitive Transducers and Hyperelastic Membrane

The paper presents physical modeling, design, simulations, and experimentation on a novel Soft Underwater Artificial Skin (SUAS) used as tactile sensor. The SUAS functions as an electrostatic capacitive sensor, and it is composed of a hyperelastic membrane used as external cover and oil inside it used to compensate the marine pressure. Simulation has been performed studying and modeling the behavior of the external interface of the SUAS in contact with external concentrated loads in marine environment. Experiments on the external and internal components of the SUAS have been done using two different conductive layers in oil. A first prototype has been realized using a 3D printer. The results of the paper underline how the soft materials permit better adhesion of the conductive layer to the transducers of the SUAS obtaining higher capacitance. The results here presented confirmed the first hypotheses presented in a last work and opened new ways in the large-scale underwater tactile sensor design and development. The investigations are performed in collaboration with a national Italian project named MARIS, regarding the possible extension to the underwater field of the technologies developed within the European project ROBOSKIN

Coopération de réseaux de caméras ambiantes et de vision embarquée sur robot mobile pour la surveillance de lieux publics

Actuellement, il y a une demande croissante pour le déploiement de robots mobile dans des lieux publics. Pour alimenter cette demande, plusieurs chercheurs ont déployé des systèmes robotiques de prototypes dans des lieux publics comme les hôpitaux, les supermarchés, les musées, et les environnements de bureau. Une principale préoccupation qui ne doit pas être négligé, comme des robots sortent de leur milieu industriel isolé et commencent à interagir avec les humains dans un espace de travail partagé, est une interaction sécuritaire. Pour un robot mobile à avoir un comportement interactif sécuritaire et acceptable - il a besoin de connaître la présence, la localisation et les mouvements de population à mieux comprendre et anticiper leurs intentions et leurs actions. Cette thèse vise à apporter une contribution dans ce sens en mettant l'accent sur les modalités de perception pour détecter et suivre les personnes à proximité d'un robot mobile. Comme une première contribution, cette thèse présente un système automatisé de détection des personnes visuel optimisé qui prend explicitement la demande de calcul prévue sur le robot en considération. Différentes expériences comparatives sont menées pour mettre clairement en évidence les améliorations de ce détecteur apporte à la table, y compris ses effets sur la réactivité du robot lors de missions en ligne. Dans un deuxiè contribution, la thèse propose et valide un cadre de coopération pour fusionner des informations depuis des caméras ambiant affixé au mur et de capteurs montés sur le robot mobile afin de mieux suivre les personnes dans le voisinage. La même structure est également validée par des données de fusion à partir des différents capteurs sur le robot mobile au cours de l'absence de perception externe. Enfin, nous démontrons les améliorations apportées par les modalités perceptives développés en les déployant sur notre plate-forme robotique et illustrant la capacité du robot à percevoir les gens dans les lieux publics supposés et respecter leur espace personnel pendant la navigation.This thesis deals with detection and tracking of people in a surveilled public place. It proposes to include a mobile robot in classical surveillance systems that are based on environment fixed sensors. The mobile robot brings about two important benefits: (1) it acts as a mobile sensor with perception capabilities, and (2) it can be used as means of action for service provision. In this context, as a first contribution, it presents an optimized visual people detector based on Binary Integer Programming that explicitly takes the computational demand stipulated into consideration. A set of homogeneous and heterogeneous pool of features are investigated under this framework, thoroughly tested and compared with the state-of-the-art detectors. The experimental results clearly highlight the improvements the different detectors learned with this framework bring to the table including its effect on the robot's reactivity during on-line missions. As a second contribution, the thesis proposes and validates a cooperative framework to fuse information from wall mounted cameras and sensors on the mobile robot to better track people in the vicinity. Finally, we demonstrate the improvements brought by the developed perceptual modalities by deploying them on our robotic platform and illustrating the robot's ability to perceive people in supposed public areas and respect their personal space during navigation

General Concepts for Human Supervision of Autonomous Robot Teams

For many dangerous, dirty or dull tasks like in search and rescue missions, deployment of autonomous teams of robots can be beneficial due to several reasons. First, robots can replace humans in the workspace. Second, autonomous robots reduce the workload of a human compared to teleoperated robots, and therefore multiple robots can in principle be supervised by a single human. Third, teams of robots allow distributed operation in time and space. This thesis investigates concepts of how to efficiently enable a human to supervise and support an autonomous robot team, as common concepts for teleoperation of robots do not apply because of the high mental workload. The goal is to find a way in between the two extremes of full autonomy and pure teleoperation, by allowing to adapt the robots’ level of autonomy to the current situation and the needs of the human supervisor. The methods presented in this thesis make use of the complementary strengths of humans and robots, by letting the robots do what they are good at, while the human should support the robots in situations that correspond to the human strengths. To enable this type of collaboration between a human and a robot team, the human needs to have an adequate knowledge about the current state of the robots, the environment, and the mission. For this purpose, the concept of situation overview (SO) has been developed in this thesis, which is composed of the two components robot SO and mission SO. Robot SO includes information about the state and activities of each single robot in the team, while mission SO deals with the progress of the mission and the cooperation between the robots. For obtaining SO a new event-based communication concept is presented in this thesis, that allows the robots to aggregate information into discrete events using methods from complex event processing. The quality and quantity of the events that are actually sent to the supervisor can be adapted during runtime by defining positive and negative policies for (not) sending events that fulfill specific criteria. This reduces the required communication bandwidth compared to sending all available data. Based on SO, the supervisor is enabled to efficiently interact with the robot team. Interactions can be initiated either by the human or by the robots. The developed concept for robot-initiated interactions is based on queries, that allow the robots to transfer decisions to another process or the supervisor. Various modes for answering the queries, ranging from fully autonomous to pure human decisions, allow to adapt the robots’ level of autonomy during runtime. Human-initiated interactions are limited to high-level commands, whereas interactions on the action level (e. g., teleoperation) are avoided, to account for the specific strengths of humans and robots. These commands can in principle be applied to quite general classes of task allocation methods for autonomous robot teams, e. g., in terms of specific restrictions, which are introduced into the system as constraints. In that way, the desired allocations emerge implicitly because of the introduced constraints, and the task allocation method does not need to be aware of the human supervisor in the loop. This method is applicable to different task allocation approaches, e. g., instantaneous or time-extended task assignments, and centralized or distributed algorithms. The presented methods are evaluated by a number of different experiments with physical and simulated scenarios from urban search and rescue as well as robot soccer, and during robot competitions. The results show that with these methods a human supervisor can significantly improve the robot team performance

Recent Advances in Indoor Localization Systems and Technologies

Despite the enormous technical progress seen in the past few years, the maturity of indoor localization technologies has not yet reached the level of GNSS solutions. The 23 selected papers in this book present the recent advances and new developments in indoor localization systems and technologies, propose novel or improved methods with increased performance, provide insight into various aspects of quality control, and also introduce some unorthodox positioning methods