26,400 research outputs found
Forcing neurocontrollers to exploit sensory symmetry through hard-wired modularity in the game of Cellz
Several attempts have been made in the past to construct encoding schemes that allow modularity to emerge in evolving systems, but success is limited. We believe that in order to create successful and scalable encodings for emerging modularity, we first need to explore the benefits of different types of modularity by hard-wiring these into evolvable systems. In this paper we explore different ways of exploiting sensory symmetry inherent in the agent in the simple game Cellz by evolving symmetrically identical modules. It is concluded that significant increases in both speed of evolution and final fitness can be achieved relative to monolithic controllers. Furthermore, we show that a simple function approximation task that exhibits sensory symmetry can be used as a quick approximate measure of the utility of an encoding scheme for the more complex game-playing task
CUSTARD (Cranfield University Space Technology Advanced Research Demonstrator) - A Micro-System Technology Demonstrator Nanosatellite. Summary of the Group Design Project MSc in Astronautics and Space Engineering. 1999-2000, Cranfield University
CUSTARD (Cranfield University Space Technology And Research Demonstrator) was
the group design project for students of the MSc in Astronautics and Space
Engineering for the Academic Year 1999/2000 at Cranfield University. The project
involved the initial design of a nanosatellite to be used as a technology
demonstrator for microsystem technology (MST) in space. The students worked
together as one group (organised into several subgroups, e.g. system,
mechanical), with each student responsible for a set of work packages. The
nanosatellite designed had a mass of 4 kg, lifetime of 3 months in low Earth
orbit, coarse 3-axis attitude control (no orbit control), and was capable of
carrying up to 1 kg of payload. The electrical power available was 18 W (peak).
Assuming a single X-band ground station at RAL (UK), a data rate of up to 1 M
bit s-1 for about 3000 s per day is possible. The payloads proposed are a
microgravity laboratory and a formation flying experiment.
The report summarises the results of the project and includes executive
summaries from all team members. Further information and summaries of the full
reports are available from the College of Aeronautics, Cranfield University
Realising the open virtual commissioning of modular automation systems
To address the challenges in the automotive industry posed by the need to rapidly manufacture more
product variants, and the resultant need for more adaptable production systems, radical changes are
now required in the way in which such systems are developed and implemented. In this context, two
enabling approaches for achieving more agile manufacturing, namely modular automation systems
and virtual commissioning, are briefly reviewed in this contribution. Ongoing research conducted at
Loughborough University which aims to provide a modular approach to automation systems design
coupled with a virtual engineering toolset for the (re)configuration of such manufacturing
automation systems is reported. The problems faced in the virtual commissioning of modular
automation systems are outlined. AutomationML - an emerging neutral data format which has
potential to address integration problems is discussed. The paper proposes and illustrates a
collaborative framework in which AutomationML is adopted for the data exchange and data
representation of related models to enable efficient open virtual prototype construction and virtual
commissioning of modular automation systems. A case study is provided to show how to create the
data model based on AutomationML for describing a modular automation system
Early aspects: aspect-oriented requirements engineering and architecture design
This paper reports on the third Early Aspects: Aspect-Oriented Requirements Engineering and Architecture Design Workshop, which has been held in Lancaster, UK, on March 21, 2004. The workshop included a presentation session and working sessions in which the particular topics on early aspects were discussed. The primary goal of the workshop was to focus on challenges to defining methodical software development processes for aspects from early on in the software life cycle and explore the potential of proposed methods and techniques to scale up to industrial applications
Space Generic Open Avionics Architecture (SGOAA) reference model technical guide
This report presents a full description of the Space Generic Open Avionics Architecture (SGOAA). The SGOAA consists of a generic system architecture for the entities in spacecraft avionics, a generic processing architecture, and a six class model of interfaces in a hardware/software system. The purpose of the SGOAA is to provide an umbrella set of requirements for applying the generic architecture interface model to the design of specific avionics hardware/software systems. The SGOAA defines a generic set of system interface points to facilitate identification of critical interfaces and establishes the requirements for applying appropriate low level detailed implementation standards to those interface points. The generic core avionics system and processing architecture models provided herein are robustly tailorable to specific system applications and provide a platform upon which the interface model is to be applied
Third Conference on Artificial Intelligence for Space Applications, part 2
Topics relative to the application of artificial intelligence to space operations are discussed. New technologies for space station automation, design data capture, computer vision, neural nets, automatic programming, and real time applications are discussed
Technical Design Report for the PANDA Micro Vertex Detector
This document illustrates the technical layout and the expected performance of the Micro Vertex Detector (MVD) of the PANDA experiment. The MVD will detect charged particles as close as possible to the interaction zone. Design criteria and the optimisation process as well as the technical solutions chosen are discussed and the results of this process are subjected to extensive Monte Carlo physics studies. The route towards realisation of the detector is
outlined
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