Time-Optimal Path Tracking via Reachability Analysis

Given a geometric path, the Time-Optimal Path Tracking problem consists in finding the control strategy to traverse the path time-optimally while regulating tracking errors. A simple yet effective approach to this problem is to decompose the controller into two components: (i)~a path controller, which modulates the parameterization of the desired path in an online manner, yielding a reference trajectory; and (ii)~a tracking controller, which takes the reference trajectory and outputs joint torques for tracking. However, there is one major difficulty: the path controller might not find any feasible reference trajectory that can be tracked by the tracking controller because of torque bounds. In turn, this results in degraded tracking performances. Here, we propose a new path controller that is guaranteed to find feasible reference trajectories by accounting for possible future perturbations. The main technical tool underlying the proposed controller is Reachability Analysis, a new method for analyzing path parameterization problems. Simulations show that the proposed controller outperforms existing methods.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, ICRA 201

Individual differences in human path integration abilities correlate with gray matter volume in retrosplenial cortex, hippocampus, and medial prefrontal cortex

Humans differ in their individual navigational abilities. These individual differences may exist in part because successful navigation relies on several disparate abilities, which rely on different brain structures. One such navigational capability is path integration, the updating of position and orientation, in which navigators track distances, directions, and locations in space during movement. Although structural differences related to landmark-based navigation have been examined, gray matter volume related to path integration ability has not yet been tested. Here, we examined individual differences in two path integration paradigms: (1) a location tracking task and (2) a task tracking translational and rotational self-motion. Using voxel-based morphometry, we related differences in performance in these path integration tasks to variation in brain morphology in 26 healthy young adults. Performance in the location tracking task positively correlated with individual differences in gray matter volume in three areas critical for path integration: the hippocampus, the retrosplenial cortex, and the medial prefrontal cortex. These regions are consistent with the path integration system known from computational and animal models and provide novel evidence that morphological variability in retrosplenial and medial prefrontal cortices underlies individual differences in human path integration ability. The results for tracking rotational self-motion-but not translation or location-demonstrated that cerebellum gray matter volume correlated with individual performance. Our findings also suggest that these three aspects of path integration are largely independent. Together, the results of this study provide a link between individual abilities and the functional correlates, computational models, and animal models of path integration

Ranger VII Flight Path and Its Determination from Tracking Data

Flight path and tracking study of Ranger VII LUNAR prob

Path planning algorithm for a car like robot based on Coronoi Diagram Method

The purpose of this study is to develop an efficient offline path planning algorithm that is capable of finding optimal collision-free paths from a starting point to a goal point. The algorithm is based on Voronoi diagram method for the environment representation combined with Dijkstra’s algorithm to find the shortest path. Since Voronoi diagram path exhibits sharp corners and redundant turns, path tracking was applied considering the robot’s kinematic constraints. The results has shown that the Voronoi diagram path planning method recorded fast computational time as it provides simpler, faster and efficient path finding. The final path, after considering robot’s kinematic constraints, provides shorter path length and smoother compared to the original one. The final path can be tuned to the desired path by tuning the parameter setting; velocity, v and minimum turning radius, Rmin. In comparison with the Cell Decomposition method, it shows that Voronoi diagram has a faster computation time. This leads to the reduced cost in terms of time. The findings of this research have shown that Voronoi Diagram and Dijkstra’s Algorithm are a good combination in the path planning problem in terms of finding a safe and shortest path

Fuzzy Predictive Controller for Mobile Robot Path Tracking

IFAC Intelligent Components and Instruments for Control Applications, Annecy, France 1997This paper presents a way of implementing a Model Based Predictive Controller (MBPC) for mobile robot path-tracking. The method uses a non-linear model of mobile robot dynamics and thus allows an accurate prediction of the future trajectories. Constraints on the maximum attainable angular velocity is also considered by the algorithm. A fuzzy approach is used to implement the MBPC. The fuzzy controller has been trained using a lookup-table scheme, where the database of fuzzy-rules has been obtained automatically from a set of input-output training patterns, computed with the predictive controller. Experimental results obtained when applying the fuzzy controller to a TRC labmate mobile platform are given in the paper.Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TAP95-0307Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TAP96-884C

Tracking Angles of Departure and Arrival in a Mobile Millimeter Wave Channel

Millimeter wave provides a very promising approach for meeting the ever-growing traffic demand in next generation wireless networks. To utilize this band, it is crucial to obtain the channel state information in order to perform beamforming and combining to compensate for severe path loss. In contrast to lower frequencies, a typical millimeter wave channel consists of a few dominant paths. Thus it is generally sufficient to estimate the path gains, angles of departure (AoDs), and angles of arrival (AoAs) of those paths. Proposed in this paper is a dual timescale model to characterize abrupt channel changes (e.g., blockage) and slow variations of AoDs and AoAs. This work focuses on tracking the slow variations and detecting abrupt changes. A Kalman filter based tracking algorithm and an abrupt change detection method are proposed. The tracking algorithm is compared with the adaptive algorithm due to Alkhateeb, Ayach, Leus and Heath (2014) in the case with single radio frequency chain. Simulation results show that to achieve the same tracking performance, the proposed algorithm requires much lower signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) and much fewer pilots than the other algorithm. Moreover, the change detection method can always detect abrupt changes with moderate number of pilots and SNR.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, submitted to ICC 201