813 research outputs found
Facilitating the driver detection of road surface type by selective manipulation of the steering-wheel acceleration signal
Copyright @ 2012 by Institution of Mechanical Engineers.Previous research has investigated the possibility of facilitating the driver detection of road surface type by means of selective manipulation of the steering-wheel acceleration signal. In previous studies a selective increase in acceleration amplitude has been found to facilitate road-surface-type detection, as has selective manipulation of the individual transient events which are present in the signal. The previous research results have been collected into a first guideline for the optimization of the steering-wheel acceleration signal, and the guideline has been tested in the current study. The test stimuli used in the current study were ten steering-wheel acceleration-time histories which were selected from an extensive database of road test measurements performed by the research group. The time histories, which were all from midsized European automobiles and European roads, were selected such that the widest possible operating envelope could be achieved in terms of the r.m.s. value of the steering acceleration, the kurtosis, the power spectral density function, and the number of transient events present in the signal. The time histories were manipulated by means of the mildly non-stationary mission synthesis algorithm in order to increase, by a factor of 2, both the number and the size of the transient events contained within the frequency interval from 20 Hz to 60Hz. The ensemble, composed of both the unmanipulated and the manipulated time histories, was used to perform a laboratory-based detection task with 15 participants, who were presented the individual stimuli in random order. The participants were asked to state, by answering 'yes' or 'no', whether each stimulus was considered to be from the road surface that was displayed in front of them by means of a large photograph on a board. The results suggest that the selectively manipulated steering-wheel acceleration stimuli produced improved detection for eight of the ten road surface types which were tested, with a maximum improvement of 14 per cent in the case of the broken road surface. The selective manipulation did lead, however, to some degradation in detection for the motorway road stimulus and for the noise road stimulus, thus suggesting that the current guideline is not universally optimal for all road surfaces
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On the need for bump event correction in vibration test profiles representing road excitations in automobiles
This paper presents an approach to the synthesis of compressed vibration test profiles
representing much longer time histories obtained in road testing of ground vehicles. Vibration test
profiles are defined as those related directly to operational testing on specific road surfaces and
which summarise the input to the vehicle in the given conditions. The method extends classical
Fourier transform technique by means of bump event correction in the background Fourier signal
where the bump event term implies a high-amplitude transient event of the shock type. The
orthogonal wavelet decomposition was used as a specific filtering tool facilitating bump event
identification. Examples of seat guide vertical acceleration have been considered. Calculated
probability density functions suggest the ability of the bump correction method to improve the
statistical accuracy of the final vibration test profile with respect to the original road data. Test
profiles obtained by means of Fourier transform synthesis with subsequent reinsertion of bump
events from separated frequency bands were more accurate than those obtained by Fourier synthesis
alone. Further developments led to advanced bump reinsertion with synchronisation of events
occurring in different frequency bands at the same moment of time. Test profiles generated in this
way have provided better accuracy compared to the non-synchronised algorithm
Human emotional response to steering wheel vibration in automobiles
This is the post-print (final draft post-refereeing) version of the final published paper that is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2013 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.This study investigates what form of correlation may exist between measures of the valence and the arousal dimensions of the human emotional response to steering wheel vibration and the vibration intensity metrics obtained by means of the unweighted and the frequency weighted root mean square (rms). A laboratory experiment was performed with 30 participants who were presented 17 acceleration time histories in random order and asked to rate their emotional feelings of valence and arousal using a self-assessment manikin (SAM) scale. The results suggest a highly linear correlation between the unweighted, Wh weighted and Ws weighted vibration intensity metrics and the arousal measures of the human emotional response. The results also suggest that while vibration intensity plays a significant role in eliciting emotional feelings, there are other factors which influence the human emotional response to steering wheel vibration such as the presence of high peaks or high frequency band amplitudes
A first approach to understanding and measuring naturalness in driver-car interaction
With technology changing the nature of the driving task, qualitative methods can help designers understand and measure driver-car interaction naturalness. Fifteen drivers were interviewed at length in their own parked cars using ethnographically-inspired questions probing issues of interaction salience, expectation, feelings, desires and meanings. Thematic analysis and content analysis found five distinct components relating to 'rich physical' aspects of natural feeling interaction typified by richer physical, analogue, tactile styles of interaction and control. Further components relate to humanlike, intelligent, assistive, socially-aware 'perceived behaviours' of the car. The advantages and challenges of a naturalness-based approach are discussed and ten cognitive component constructs of driver-car naturalness are proposed. These may eventually be applied as a checklist in automotive interaction design.This research was fully funded by a research grant from Jaguar Land Rover, and partially funded by project
n.220050/F11 granted by Research Council of Norway
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Dynamic behavior and damping capacity of auxetic foam pads
A novel set of auxetic (negative Poisson's ratio) open cell polyurethane foam has been developed and tested under dynamic
loading conditions to assess the viscoelastic response under white noise random excitation and compressive cycling. Foam pads
normalized to standard ISO 13753 have been tested at room temperature and frequency bandwidth 10-500 Hz to assess
transmissibility characteristics for possible antivibration glove applications. The results show that the ISO 13753 normalized
transmissibility for these foams falls below 0.6 above 100 Hz, with lower peak maximum stresses under indentation compared to
conventional open cell solids. These results suggest possible use of the auxetic foam for pads or linens against « white fingers«
vibration applications. Further tests have been conducted on cyclic compressive loading up to 3 Hz and loading ratios of 0.95 for
loading histories up to 100000 cycles. The damping capacity of the auxetic foams showed and increase by a factor 10 compared
to the conventional foams used to manufacture the negative Poisson's ratio ones, and stiffness degradation stabilized after few tens on cycles
Copolymer with pinning: variational characterization of the phase diagram
This paper studies a polymer chain in the vicinity of a linear interface
separating two immiscible solvents. The polymer consists of random monomer
types, while the interface carries random charges. Both the monomer types and
the charges are given by i.i.d. sequences of random variables. The
configurations of the polymer are directed paths that can make i.i.d.
excursions of finite length above and below the interface. The Hamiltonian has
two parts: a monomer-solvent interaction ("copolymer") and a monomer-interface
interaction ("pinning"). The quenched and the annealed version of the model
each undergo a transition from a localized phase (where the polymer stays close
to the interface) to a delocalized phase (where the polymer wanders away from
the interface). We exploit the approach developed in [5] and [3] to derive
variational formulas for the quenched and the annealed free energy per monomer.
These variational formulas are analyzed to obtain detailed information on the
critical curves separating the two phases and on the typical behavior of the
polymer in each of the two phases. Our main results settle a number of open
questions.Comment: 46 pages, 9 figure
Fractional moment bounds and disorder relevance for pinning models
We study the critical point of directed pinning/wetting models with quenched
disorder. The distribution K(.) of the location of the first contact of the
(free) polymer with the defect line is assumed to be of the form
K(n)=n^{-\alpha-1}L(n), with L(.) slowly varying. The model undergoes a
(de)-localization phase transition: the free energy (per unit length) is zero
in the delocalized phase and positive in the localized phase. For \alpha<1/2 it
is known that disorder is irrelevant: quenched and annealed critical points
coincide for small disorder, as well as quenched and annealed critical
exponents. The same has been proven also for \alpha=1/2, but under the
assumption that L(.) diverges sufficiently fast at infinity, an hypothesis that
is not satisfied in the (1+1)-dimensional wetting model considered by Forgacs
et al. (1986) and Derrida et al. (1992), where L(.) is asymptotically constant.
Here we prove that, if 1/21, then quenched and annealed
critical points differ whenever disorder is present, and we give the scaling
form of their difference for small disorder. In agreement with the so-called
Harris criterion, disorder is therefore relevant in this case. In the marginal
case \alpha=1/2, under the assumption that L(.) vanishes sufficiently fast at
infinity, we prove that the difference between quenched and annealed critical
points, which is known to be smaller than any power of the disorder strength,
is positive: disorder is marginally relevant. Again, the case considered by
Forgacs et al. (1986) and Derrida et al. (1992) is out of our analysis and
remains open.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figure; v2: few typos corrected, references revised. To
appear on Commun. Math. Phy
Two new species from the brevantherum clade of solanum (solanaceae) from eastern Brazil
pre-printTwo new species of Solanum (Solanaceae) from eastern Brazil are described. Solanum anisocladum Giacomin & Stehmann is similar to S. megalochiton Mart., but differs by the indument of the adaxial leaf surface, which is composed of long porrect-stellate and unbranched trichomes. It also has a more robust habit and a unique branching pattern of the flowering stems. It is restricted to the Atlantic Rainforest of northeastern Brazil and was previously misidentified as S. megalochiton. The other species, Solanum caelicolum Giacomin & Stehmann, is endemic to EspĂrito Santo state and is most similar to S. hirtellum (Spreng.) Hassl., but differs mainly by its adaxial leaf indument, with porrect-stellate trichomes with a central ray smaller than the lateral ones, by its comparatively larger fruiting calyx that can reach up to three times the diameter of the mature berry and by its sessile to subsessile unbranched congested inflorescence. Both species belong to the Brevantherum clade, one of the main lineages identified in the genus Solanum, and are placed together in a clade which contains species from S. sects. Extensum D'Arcy and Stellatigeminatum Child. Complete descriptions, distributions, and preliminary conservation assessments of the new species are given
Phase Segregation Dynamics in Particle Systems with Long Range Interactions I: Macroscopic Limits
We present and discuss the derivation of a nonlinear non-local
integro-differential equation for the macroscopic time evolution of the
conserved order parameter of a binary alloy undergoing phase segregation. Our
model is a d-dimensional lattice gas evolving via Kawasaki exchange dynamics,
i.e. a (Poisson) nearest-neighbor exchange process, reversible with respect to
the Gibbs measure for a Hamiltonian which includes both short range (local) and
long range (nonlocal) interactions. A rigorous derivation is presented in the
case in which there is no local interaction. In a subsequent paper (part II),
we discuss the phase segregation phenomena in the model. In particular we argue
that the phase boundary evolutions, arising as sharp interface limits of the
family of equations derived in this paper, are the same as the ones obtained
from the corresponding limits for the Cahn-Hilliard equation.Comment: amstex with macros (included in the file), tex twice, 20 page
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