The design of periodic excitations for dynamic system identification

System identification techniques are developed for modelling linear and nonlinear systems. The main results of the work are concerned with the design and utilisation of periodic perturbation signals in general areas of time- and frequency-domain system identification. A design strategy is given for a new class of perturbation signals, together with examples of their use in system identification applications. Signal processing procedures are developed for the practical treatment of drift disturbances and transient effects, and also for the detection of nonlinear contributions to the measurement data. The techniques rely completely on the periodicity of the excitation, and so the advantageous properties of periodic input signals are considered in detail. The use of periodic excitations in discrete- and continuous-time nonlinear system identification is also reported, with the identification methods illustrating the worth of frequency-domain measurements in this area. An automatic tuning procedure for PID controllers is also developed, which illustrates an application of system identification techniques to control problems

Power Quality

Electrical power is becoming one of the most dominant factors in our society. Power generation, transmission, distribution and usage are undergoing signifi cant changes that will aff ect the electrical quality and performance needs of our 21st century industry. One major aspect of electrical power is its quality and stability – or so called Power Quality. The view on Power Quality did change over the past few years. It seems that Power Quality is becoming a more important term in the academic world dealing with electrical power, and it is becoming more visible in all areas of commerce and industry, because of the ever increasing industry automation using sensitive electrical equipment on one hand and due to the dramatic change of our global electrical infrastructure on the other. For the past century, grid stability was maintained with a limited amount of major generators that have a large amount of rotational inertia. And the rate of change of phase angle is slow. Unfortunately, this does not work anymore with renewable energy sources adding their share to the grid like wind turbines or PV modules. Although the basic idea to use renewable energies is great and will be our path into the next century, it comes with a curse for the power grid as power fl ow stability will suff er. It is not only the source side that is about to change. We have also seen signifi cant changes on the load side as well. Industry is using machines and electrical products such as AC drives or PLCs that are sensitive to the slightest change of power quality, and we at home use more and more electrical products with switching power supplies or starting to plug in our electric cars to charge batt eries. In addition, many of us have begun installing our own distributed generation systems on our rooft ops using the latest solar panels. So we did look for a way to address this severe impact on our distribution network. To match supply and demand, we are about to create a new, intelligent and self-healing electric power infrastructure. The Smart Grid. The basic idea is to maintain the necessary balance between generators and loads on a grid. In other words, to make sure we have a good grid balance at all times. But the key question that you should ask yourself is: Does it also improve Power Quality? Probably not! Further on, the way how Power Quality is measured is going to be changed. Traditionally, each country had its own Power Quality standards and defi ned its own power quality instrument requirements. But more and more international harmonization efforts can be seen. Such as IEC 61000-4-30, which is an excellent standard that ensures that all compliant power quality instruments, regardless of manufacturer, will produce of measurement instruments so that they can also be used in volume applications and even directly embedded into sensitive loads. But work still has to be done. We still use Power Quality standards that have been writt en decades ago and don’t match today’s technology any more, such as fl icker standards that use parameters that have been defi ned by the behavior of 60-watt incandescent light bulbs, which are becoming extinct. Almost all experts are in agreement - although we will see an improvement in metering and control of the power fl ow, Power Quality will suff er. This book will give an overview of how power quality might impact our lives today and tomorrow, introduce new ways to monitor power quality and inform us about interesting possibilities to mitigate power quality problems. Regardless of any enhancements of the power grid, “Power Quality is just compatibility” like my good old friend and teacher Alex McEachern used to say. Power Quality will always remain an economic compromise between supply and load. The power available on the grid must be suffi ciently clean for the loads to operate correctly, and the loads must be suffi ciently strong to tolerate normal disturbances on the grid

Power Quality Issues in Distributed Generation

This book deals with several selected aspects of electric power quality issues typically faced during grid integration processes of contemporary renewable energy sources. In subsequent chapters of this book the reader will be familiarized with the issues related to voltage and current harmonics and inter-harmonics generation and elimination, harmonic emission of switch-mode rectifiers, reactive power flow control in power system with non-linear loads, modeling and simulation of power quality issues in power grid, advanced algorithms used for estimating harmonic components, and new methods of measurement and analysis of real time accessible power quality related data

Adaptive Estimation Techniques for Hidden Markov Models

• ML techniques for extracting Markov signals imbedded in a mixture of white Gaussian noise and deterministic disturbances of known functional form with unknown parameters. Two such disturbances are considered: periodic disturbances and polynomial drift in the Markov states. • Adaptive on-line schemes for estimating time-varying HMMs and Hidden semi Markov models. We also propose on-line schemes for adaptively extracting Markov signals with time varying statistics imbedded in a mixture of white Gaussian noise and deterministic disturbances with time-varying parameters. In contrast to the off-line estimation techniques mentioned above, the on-line schemes can adaptively learn time-varying models. Also the memory and computational requirements are significantly reduced compared to off-line processing. The discrete-state techniques have applications which we have explored in neurobiological signal processing; in particular, for the extraction of channel currents from noisy measurements in the ionic channels of cell membranes. Extensive simulation studies have been carried out to confirm the robustness of the proposed algorithms. The HFM processing schemes and extraction schemes in the presence of deterministic interferences have also been applied to experimental data obtained from noisy measurements of channel currents in cell membranes

Contrast Mechanisms & Wavefront Control in Coherent Nonlinear Microscopy

This Thesis deals with theoretical and experimental aspects of coherent nonlinear microscopy, with a special attention given to contrast mechanisms in Third Harmonic Generation (THG) microscopy.Ce travail de thèse présente une étude théorique et expérimentale de la microscopie non-linéaire cohérente pour l’étude de systèmes biologiques.Dans un premier temps, nous avons étudié l’origine des signaux et les mécanismes de contrastes en microscopie non-linéaire cohérente. En particulier, nous avons analysé l’influence de la microstructure de l’échantillon sur le signal de troisième harmonique rayonné. Nous illustrons cette discussion par une étude sur les contrastes endogènes de la cornée humaine. Dans un second temps, nous nous sommes intéressés à diverses méthodes de contrôle de front d’onde afin de moduler le contraste des images. Nous avons effectué par une étude théorique du signal obtenus à l’aide de modes d’excitation spatiale non-Gaussiens, puis avons implémenté deux systèmes de modulation du front d’onde : un modulateur acousto-optique permettant d’obtenir une profondeur de champ étendue en microscopie par fluorescence excitée à deux photons, et un miroir déformable permettant d’effectuer une correction dynamique des aberrations en microscope par génération de troisième harmonique. Enfin, nous nous sommes intéressés à l’application de la microscopie non-linéaire cohérente pour l’observation du développement précoce d’organismes modèles en embryologie: la drosophile et le poisson zèbre

Measurement techniques for the characterization of radio frequency gallium nitride devices and power amplifiers

The rapid growth of mobile telecommunications has fueled the development of the fifth generation (5G) of standards, aiming to achieve high data rates and low latency. These capabilities make use of new regions of spectrum, wider bandwidths and spectrally efficient modulations. The deployment of 5G relies on the development of radio-frequency (RF) technology with increased performance. The broadband operation at high-power and high-frequency conditions is particularly challenging for power amplifiers (PA) in transmission stages, which seek to concurrently maximize linearity and energy efficiency. The properties of Gallium Nitride (GaN) allow the realization of active devices with favorable characteristics in these applications. However, GaN high-electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) suffer from spurious effects such as trapping due to physical defects introduced during the HEMT growth process. Traps dynamically capture and release mobile charges depending on the applied voltages and temperature, negatively affecting the RF PA performance. This work focuses on the development of novel measurement techniques and setups to investigate trapping behavior of GaN HEMTs and PAs. At low-frequency (LF), charge dynamics is analyzed using pulsed current transient characterizations, identifying relevant time constants in state-of-the-art GaN technologies for 5G. Instead, at high-frequency, tailored methods and setups are used in order to measure trapping effects during the operation of HEMTs and PAs in RF modulated conditions. These RF characterizations emulate application-like regimes, possibly involving the control of the device’s output load termination. Therefore, an innovative wideband active load pull (WALP) setup is developed, using the acquisition capabilities of standard vector-network-analyzers. Moreover, the implications of performing error-vector-magnitude characterizations under wideband load pull conditions are studied. Finally, an efficient implementation of a modified-Volterra model for RF PAs is presented, making use of a custom vector-fitting algorithm to simplify the nonlinear memory operators and enable their realization in simulation environments

Digital generator protection

Imperial Users onl

Piezoelectric servo-flap actuation system for helicopter rotor individual blade control

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2000.Includes bibliographical references (p. 177-186).A novel new actuator for helicopter rotor control, the X-Frame Actuator, was developed, demonstrating superior performance for applications requiring compact, fast acting, large stroke actuation. The detailed experimental characterization of this actuator is described, including bench-top output energy measurements and transverse shake test performance. A Mach scaled rotor blade utilizing the X-Frame actuator to power a trailing edge servo-flap near the tip was also designed, manufactured and tested. A description of the design and composite manufacturing of the rotor blade and servo-flap is presented. Preliminary bench tests of the active blade actuation system are also presented. The hover tests of the active blade provided transfer function identification of the performance of the actuator in producing flap deflections, and the response of the rotor from deflections of the servo-flap. At the highest field level of 60 V/mil P-P the actuation system produces 7.75 degrees of quasi-static peak-to-peak flap deflection in hover. The servo-flap produces significant control authority, especially near the 3/rev frequency that would be important for the CH-47. Scaled to a full-sized CH-47, the rotor can produce over 16,000 lb peak-to-peak thrust variation at 3/rev, which is 32% of the aircraft's gross weight. Closed-loop feedback control was experimentally applied to the model rotor system. Both single frequency and combined frequency controllers were successfully implemented on the rotor. Most significantly, simultaneous control of 1/rev, 3/rev, 4/rev, 5/rev, and 6/rev harmonic vibration has been successfully demonstrated. The peak vibrations were eliminated at each frequency, as well as the vibrations over a small bandwidth surrounding each peak. Experimental comparison of continuous time versus discrete time control has shown the former to be a more effective approach for vibration reduction.by Eric Blade Prechtl.Ph.D