Analysis of Various Adaptive Cruise Controllers via Experimental Implementation

Adaptive cruise control (ACC) testing requires minimum of two cars and a platform where the two cars can be tested for a continuous time. Here a custom-built platform and software are presented for testing various ACC algorithms on scaled model cars. There are multiple techniques being studied for driver convenience and safety automation systems for production vehicles: electronic stability control, adaptive cruise control, lane keeping, and obstacle avoidance. Presented here are some novel control framework that gives formal guarantees of correctness that go beyond traditional PID-based controllers for ACC that do not, inherently, have proofs that satisfy. In the first approach, safety constraints – maintaining a valid following distance from a lead car are represented by control barrier functions (CBFs), and control objectives – achieve a desired speed – are encoded through control Lyapunov functions (CLFs). While the same safety constraints are formulated using Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) for synthesizing the control software module using abstraction based controllers in the second approach. In the longer run, each interacting software module is endowed with specifications, under certain environment assumptions, the module is guaranteed to meet its specifications. For the CBF-CLF approach, the different objectives can be unified through a quadratic program (QP), with constraints dictated by CBFs and CLFs that balance safety and control objectives in an optimal fashion. Similarly for the abstraction controllers, PESSOA and Polyhedral Control Invariant Set approaches are correct-by-construction. The end result was the experimental demonstration of these methodologies on scale-model cars, for which the CBF-CLF and abstraction based controllers were implemented in real-time

Summon and Select: Rapid Interaction with Interface Controls in Mid-air

International audienceCurrent freehand interactions with large displays rely on point & select as the dominant paradigm. However, constant hand movement in air for pointer navigation leads to hand fatigue quickly. We introduce summon & select, a new model for freehand interaction where, instead of navigating to the control , the user summons it into focus and then manipulates it. Summon & select solves the problems of constant pointer navigation, need for precise selection, and out-of-bounds gestures that plague point & select. We describe the design and conduct two studies to evaluate the design and compare it against point & select in a multi-button selection study. The results show that summon & select is significantly faster and has less physical and mental demand than point & select

Intangible resources of competitive advantage: Analysis of 49 Asian airlines across three business models

Without sustainable competitive advantage firms have limited economic reasons to exist and will decline. Competitive advantage concerns the factors which provide competitive strength. This paper is based upon the resource-based view which considers firm resources to be heterogeneous and which believes that firms only have a small bundle of core resources irrespective of their overall performance. This research establishes the role of 36 intangible resources for 49 Asian airlines across three business models: network airlines; low-cost subsidiaries from network airlines; and low-cost carriers. It uses the VRIN framework which examines whether resources are valuable, rare, inimitable, and non-substitutable. Research participants distribute points between their chosen seven resources according to their perceived role in firm performance. Resources which meet all four requirements of VRIN are considered core competences and sources of sustained advantage. Across all 49 Asian airlines, the top-three most important resources of advantage are slots, brand, and product/service reputation. While these core resources are predictable, they have not previously been proven within the context of airlines, let alone geographically and by airline model. Results show that the core bundle of resources vary for each model, which helps to explain the difference in performance across models, and that some resources which were expected to be high-ranking, such as organisational culture and customer focus, were not.Full Tex

Extended Hand Attributes for Touch Input, Touch Output and Touchless Interaction

As newer computing devices vary in their screen size and proximity to the user, they limit old and enable new affordances. However, our interactions still rely on a limited set of our anatomical capabilities which do not take advantage of these new affordances and usage scenarios. This thesis investigates how to use three different hand attributes, distinct fingers, the hand tactile sense, and hand dexterity, for novel interactions. We investigate these three attributes for three different device scenarios respectively - touch input for small touchscreen devices, touch output for wrist wearables, and touchless interactions for distant, large displays. With distinct fingers, we investigate how it can be used to solve the problem of limited input space in small touchscreens interactions and enable novel interfaces. With the hand tactile sense, we investigate how the persistent skin contact of wearable devices can be utilized to move the use of haptics beyond simple vibrations and make them a more central component of interaction. With hand dexterity, we investigate how it can solve the problems inherent in semaphoric and manipulative in-air gestures. Overall, we describe six investigations pertaining to these areas which show how the extended hand attributes can make existing tasks more efficient, make existing devices more expressive, and make novel interfaces possible.Ph.D

A New Haptic Interaction Paradigm

International audienceExisting tactile experiences are limited to providing feed- back or conveying pattern information to the user. In this position paper, we discuss how mid-air haptics are uniquely suited to explore wholly independent haptic interaction paradigms which allow the user to interact with a computer completely using her tactile and kinaesthetic sense without the presence of a visual interface

Assessing the Impact of Public Infrastructure Investment on Economic Performance: the Case of India

The objective of this paper is to analyze the effects of Public Infrastructure Investment on the economic performance of the Indian economy. We have employed a Structural Vector Autoregressive (SVAR) approach for estimation of linear interdependencies of India’s output. For this study, we have categorized four composite infrastructure sectors which encompass ten major sub sectors of infrastructure. The analysis emphasized that special focus should be paid on Infrastructure Investment in transport sub sector of infrastructure because of its maximum positive returns on output. The policy implications of the results will aid the government to counter the economic and budgetary dilemma