Kinematic State Estimation using Multiple DGPS/MEMS-IMU Sensors

Animals have evolved over billions of years and understanding these complex and intertwined systems have potential to advance the technology in the field of sports science, robotics and more. As such, a gait analysis using Motion Capture (MOCAP) technology is the subject of a number of research and development projects aimed at obtaining quantitative measurements. Existing MOCAP technology has limited the majority of studies to the analysis of the steady-state locomotion in a controlled (indoor) laboratory environment. MOCAP systems such as the optical, non-optical acoustic and non-optical magnetic MOCAP systems require predefined capture volume and controlled environmental conditions whilst the non-optical mechanical MOCAP system impedes the motion of the subject. Although the non-optical inertial MOCAP system allows MOCAP in an outdoor environment, it suffers from measurement noise and drift and lacks global trajectory information. The accuracy of these MOCAP systems are known to decrease during the tracking of the transient locomotion. Quantifying the manoeuvrability of animals in their natural habitat to answer the question “Why are animals so manoeuvrable?” remains a challenge. This research aims to develop an outdoor MOCAP system that will allow tracking of the steady-state as well as the transient locomotion of an animal in its natural habitat outside a controlled laboratory condition. A number of researchers have developed novel MOCAP systems with the same aim of creating an outdoor MOCAP system that is aimed at tracking the motion outside a controlled laboratory (indoor) environment with unlimited capture volume. These novel MOCAP systems are either not validated against the commercial MOCAP systems or do not have comparable sub-millimetre accuracy as the commercial MOCAP systems. The developed DGPS/MEMS-IMU multi-receiver fusion MOCAP system was assessed to have global trajectory accuracy of _0:0394m, relative limb position accuracy of _0:006497m. To conclude the research, several recommendations are made to improve the developed MOCAP system and to prepare for a field-testing with a wild animal from a family of a terrestrial megafauna

Fundamental limits in Gaussian channels with feedback: confluence of communication, estimation, and control

The emerging study of integrating information theory and control systems theory has attracted tremendous attention, mainly motivated by the problems of control under communication constraints, feedback information theory, and networked systems. An often overlooked element is the estimation aspect; however, estimation cannot be studied isolatedly in those problems. Therefore, it is natural to investigate systems from the perspective of unifying communication, estimation, and control;This thesis is the first work to advocate such a perspective. To make Matters concrete, we focus on communication systems over Gaussian channels with feedback. For some of these channels, their fundamental limits for communication have been studied using information theoretic methods and control-oriented methods but remain open. In this thesis, we address the problems of characterizing and achieving the fundamental limits for these Gaussian channels with feedback by applying the unifying perspective;We establish a general equivalence among feedback communication, estimation, and feedback stabilization over the same Gaussian channels. As a consequence, we see that the information transmission (communication), information processing (estimation), and information utilization (control), seemingly different and usually separately treated, are in fact three sides of the same entity. We then reveal that the fundamental limitations in feedback communication, estimation, and control coincide: The achievable communication rates in the feedback communication problems can be alternatively given by the decay rates of the Cramer-Rao bounds (CRB) in the associated estimation problems or by the Bode sensitivity integrals in the associated control problems. Utilizing the general equivalence, we design optimal feedback communication schemes based on the celebrated Kalman filtering algorithm; these are the first deterministic, optimal communication schemes for these channels with feedback (except for the degenerated AWGN case). These schemes also extend the Schalkwijk-Kailath (SK) coding scheme and inherit its useful features, such as reduced coding complexity and improved performance. Hence, this thesis demonstrates that the new perspective plays a significant role in gaining new insights and new results in studying Gaussian feedback communication systems. We anticipate that the perspective could be extended to more general problems and helpful in building a theoretically and practically sound paradigm that unifies information, estimation, and control

Joint University Program for Air Transportation Research, 1988-1989

The research conducted during 1988 to 1989 under the NASA/FAA-sponsored Joint University Program for Air Transportation Research is summarized. The Joint University Program is a coordinated set of three grants sponsored by NASA Langley Research Center and the Federal Aviation Administration, one each with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ohio University, and Princeton University. Completed works, status reports, and annotated bibliographies are presented for research topics, which include computer science, guidance and control theory and practice, aircraft performance, flight dynamics, and applied experimental psychology. An overview of the year's activities for each university is also presented

Benelux meeting on systems and control, 23rd, March 17-19, 2004, Helvoirt, The Netherlands

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