4,722 research outputs found
Trajectory Synthesis for Fisher Information Maximization
Estimation of model parameters in a dynamic system can be significantly
improved with the choice of experimental trajectory. For general, nonlinear
dynamic systems, finding globally "best" trajectories is typically not
feasible; however, given an initial estimate of the model parameters and an
initial trajectory, we present a continuous-time optimization method that
produces a locally optimal trajectory for parameter estimation in the presence
of measurement noise. The optimization algorithm is formulated to find system
trajectories that improve a norm on the Fisher information matrix. A
double-pendulum cart apparatus is used to numerically and experimentally
validate this technique. In simulation, the optimized trajectory increases the
minimum eigenvalue of the Fisher information matrix by three orders of
magnitude compared to the initial trajectory. Experimental results show that
this optimized trajectory translates to an order of magnitude improvement in
the parameter estimate error in practice.Comment: 12 page
Ethics, politics, and Nonsatiation in Consumption: A Synthesis
In contrast with the production of goods and services by firms, where the production costs are minimized under appropriate behavioral assumptions, consumer-producers in neoclassical theory maximize consumption expenditure, i.e., production costs of their outputs. According to Kenneth Boulding, were the impact upon the limited resources available on planet Earth taken into account, consumption expenditure should be minimized. We propose that we keep consumer theory as a reasonable description of reality.However,we should evaluate the long run consequences of such postulated behavior in a larger context,which, as a consequence of larger population with increasing per capita consumption, comprises the overburdening of natural resources. By decomposing the time horizon of cultural evolution into shorter periods of adjustment, we may then distinguish several types of institutional determination of how societies take decisions, as a group and individually. The consumer theory simply reflects the predominant ethical values, of which ideologies, political platforms, and demand patterns are shorter run adjustments.Consumption, Natural Resources, Political Process, Ethics
Recommended from our members
Motion Planning for Optimal Information Gathering in Opportunistic Navigation Systems
Motion planning for optimal information gathering in an opportunistic navigation (OpNav)
environment is considered. An OpNav environment can be thought of as a radio
frequency signal landscape within which a receiver locates itself in space and time by extracting
information from ambient signals of opportunity (SOPs). The receiver is assumed
to draw only pseudorange-type observations from the SOPs, and such observations are
fused through an estimator to produce an estimate of the receiverās own states. Since
not all SOP states in the OpNav environment may be known a priori, the receiver must
estimate the unknown SOP states of interest simultaneously with its own states. In this
work, the following problem is studied. A receiver with no a priori knowledge about its
own states is dropped in an unknown, yet observable, OpNav environment. Assuming that
the receiver can prescribe its own trajectory, what motion planning strategy should the
receiver adopt in order to build a high-fidelity map of the OpNav signal landscape, while
simultaneously localizing itself within this map in space and time? To answer this question,
first, the minimum conditions under which the OpNav environment is fully observable are
established, and the need for receiver maneuvering to achieve full observability is highlighted.
Then, motivated by the fact that not all trajectories a receiver may take in the
environment are equally beneficial from an information gathering point of view, a strategy
for planning the motion of the receiver is proposed. The strategy is formulated in a
coupled estimation and optimal control framework of a gradually identified system, where
optimality is defined through various information-theoretic measures. Simulation results
are presented to illustrate the improvements gained from adopting the proposed strategy
over random and pre-defined receiver trajectories.Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanic
- ā¦