Feasible, Robust and Reliable Automation and Control for Autonomous Systems

The Special Issue book focuses on highlighting current research and developments in the automation and control field for autonomous systems as well as showcasing state-of-the-art control strategy approaches for autonomous platforms. The book is co-edited by distinguished international control system experts currently based in Sweden, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom, with contributions from reputable researchers from China, Austria, France, the United States of America, Poland, and Hungary, among many others. The editors believe the ten articles published within this Special Issue will be highly appealing to control-systems-related researchers in applications typified in the fields of ground, aerial, maritime vehicles, and robotics as well as industrial audiences

A practical implementation of Robust Evolving Cloud-based Controller with normalized data space for heat-exchanger plant

The RECCo control algorithm, presented in this article, is based on the fuzzy rule-based (FRB) system named ANYA which has non-parametric antecedent part. It starts with zero fuzzy rules (clouds) in the rule base and evolves its structure while performing the control of the plant. For the consequent part of RECCo PID-type controller is used and the parameters are adapted in an online manner. The RECCo does not require any off-line training or any type of model of the controlled process (e.g. differential equations). Moreover, in this article we propose a normalization of the cloud (data) space and an improved adaptation law of the controller. Due to the normalization some of the evolving parameters can be fixed while the new adaptation law improves the performance of the controller in the starting phase of the process control. To assess the performance of the RECCo algorithm, firstly a comparison study with classical PID controller was performed on a model of a plate heat-exchanger (PHE). Tuning the PID parameters was done using three different techniques (Ziegler–Nichols, Cohen–Coon and pole placement). Furthermore, a practical implementation of the RECCo controller for a real PHE plant is presented. The PHE system has nonlinear static characteristic and a time delay. Additionally, the real sensor's and actuator's limitations represent a serious problem from the control point of view. Besides this, the RECCo control algorithm autonomously learns and evolves the structure and adapts its parameters in an online unsupervised manner

Climbing and Walking Robots

Nowadays robotics is one of the most dynamic fields of scientific researches. The shift of robotics researches from manufacturing to services applications is clear. During the last decades interest in studying climbing and walking robots has been increased. This increasing interest has been in many areas that most important ones of them are: mechanics, electronics, medical engineering, cybernetics, controls, and computers. Today’s climbing and walking robots are a combination of manipulative, perceptive, communicative, and cognitive abilities and they are capable of performing many tasks in industrial and non- industrial environments. Surveillance, planetary exploration, emergence rescue operations, reconnaissance, petrochemical applications, construction, entertainment, personal services, intervention in severe environments, transportation, medical and etc are some applications from a very diverse application fields of climbing and walking robots. By great progress in this area of robotics it is anticipated that next generation climbing and walking robots will enhance lives and will change the way the human works, thinks and makes decisions. This book presents the state of the art achievments, recent developments, applications and future challenges of climbing and walking robots. These are presented in 24 chapters by authors throughtot the world The book serves as a reference especially for the researchers who are interested in mobile robots. It also is useful for industrial engineers and graduate students in advanced study