Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Navigation Using Wide-Field Optical Flow and Intertial Sensors

This paper offers a set of novel navigation techniques that rely on the use of inertial sensors and wide-field optical flow information. The aircraft ground velocity and attitude states are estimated with an Unscented Information Filter (UIF) and are evaluated with respect to two sets of experimental flight data collected from an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). Two different formulations are proposed, a full state formulation including velocity and attitude and a simplified formulation which assumes that the lateral and vertical velocity of the aircraft are negligible. An additional state is also considered within each formulation to recover the image distance which can be measured using a laser rangefinder. The results demonstrate that the full state formulation is able to estimate the aircraft ground velocity to within 1.3 m/s of a GPS receiver solution used as reference "truth" and regulate attitude angles within 1.4 degrees standard deviation of error for both sets of flight data

A Fault-Tolerant Multiple Sensor Fusion Approach Applied to UAV Attitude Estimation

A novel sensor fusion design framework is presented with the objective of improving the overall multisensor measurement system performance and achieving graceful degradation following individual sensor failures. The Unscented Information Filter (UIF) is used to provide a useful tool for combining information from multiple sources. A two-step off-line and on-line calibration procedure refines sensor error models and improves the measurement performance. A Fault Detection and Identification (FDI) scheme crosschecks sensor measurements and simultaneously monitors sensor biases. Low-quality or faulty sensor readings are then rejected from the final sensor fusion process. The attitude estimation problem is used as a case study for the multiple sensor fusion algorithm design, with information provided by a set of low-cost rate gyroscopes, accelerometers, magnetometers, and a single-frequency GPS receiver’s position and velocity solution. Flight data collected with an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) research test bed verifies the sensor fusion, adaptation, and fault-tolerance capabilities of the designed sensor fusion algorithm

Trabecular bone structure correlates with hand posture and use in hominoids

Bone is capable of adapting during life in response to stress. Therefore, variation in locomotor and manipulative behaviours across extant hominoids may be reflected in differences in trabecular bone structure. The hand is a promising region for trabecular analysis, as it is the direct contact between the individual and the environment and joint positions at peak loading vary amongst extant hominoids. Building upon traditional volume of interest-based analyses, we apply a whole-epiphysis analytical approach using high-resolution microtomographic scans of the hominoid third metacarpal to investigate whether trabecular structure reflects differences in hand posture and loading in knuckle-walking (Gorilla, Pan), suspensory (Pongo, Hylobates and Symphalangus) and manipulative (Homo) taxa. Additionally, a comparative phylogenetic method was used to analyse rates of evolutionary changes in trabecular parameters. Results demonstrate that trabecular bone volume distribution and regions of greatest stiffness (i.e., Young's modulus) correspond with predicted loading of the hand in each behavioural category. In suspensory and manipulative taxa, regions of high bone volume and greatest stiffness are concentrated on the palmar or distopalmar regions of the metacarpal head, whereas knuckle-walking taxa show greater bone volume and stiffness throughout the head, and particularly in the dorsal region; patterns that correspond with the highest predicted joint reaction forces. Trabecular structure in knuckle-walking taxa is characterised by high bone volume fraction and a high degree of anisotropy in contrast to the suspensory brachiators. Humans, in which the hand is used primarily for manipulation, have a low bone volume fraction and a variable degree of anisotropy. Finally, when trabecular parameters are mapped onto a molecular-based phylogeny, we show that the rates of change in trabecular structure vary across the hominoid clade. Our results support a link between inferred behaviour and trabecular structure in extant hominoids that can be informative for reconstructing behaviour in fossil primates

Institutional Merit-Based Aid and Student Departure: A Longitudinal Analysis

The use of merit criteria in awarding institutional aid has grown considerably and, some argue, is supplanting need as the central factor in awarding aid. Concurrently, the accountability movement in higher education has placed greater emphasis on retention and graduation as indicators of institutional success and quality. In this context, this study explores the relationship between institutional merit aid and student departure from a statewide system of higher education. We found that, once we account for self-selection to the extent possible, there was no significant relationship. By contrast, need-based aid was consistently related to decreased odds of departure

Effects of Electricity and Altered Conductivity on Rainbow Trout Embryos: A Study to Determine Efficacy of Electricity for Eradication of Invasive Salmonids

Electricity has been an applied means of facilitating capture and removal of invasive fishes for many years. Current methods involve use of electrodes to establish a current through which passing fish will be susceptible to a brief shock to stun. This method, however, only affects free swimming individuals and is not inclusive of early life history stages such as embryos within spawning substrate. This study evaluates the susceptibility of embryonic and larval stage rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) to direct DC current between 2-20v/cm in varying conductive waters to determine lethality for invasive salmonid eradication efforts. Rainbow trout embryos (n = 10 embryos/exposure) were initially exposed to homogeneous electric fields for 5 sec with a water conductivity of 220uS/cm from 1 day post fertilization (DPF)/ 27 temperature units (TU) to 15 DPF/405TU. Mortality was assessed 24 hours post exposure and the LV50 (lethal voltage) at 220uS/cm was determined for each TU. Embryos from six periods of development were then exposed to their respective LV50 voltages in varying conductive waters (20-600uS/cm). Susceptibility to direct DC voltages increased with voltage but overall susceptibility decreased with development. Susceptibility to a constant voltage increased with increasing conductivity and was consistent throughout early development (81TU-292TU), but the effects of increased conductivity were not enhanced in eyed embryos after 364TU. Results indicate that direct DC current applied prior to eyed embryonic stages, the period of greatest trout embryo susceptibility, is an effective means of eradicating invasive and nuisance salmonids

Stabilizer notation for Spekkens' toy theory

Spekkens has introduced a toy theory [Phys. Rev. A, 75, 032110 (2007)] in order to argue for an epistemic view of quantum states. I describe a notation for the theory (excluding certain joint measurements) which makes its similarities and differences with the quantum mechanics of stabilizer states clear. Given an application of the qubit stabilizer formalism, it is often entirely straightforward to construct an analogous application of the notation to the toy theory. This assists calculations within the toy theory, for example of the number of possible states and transformations, and enables superpositions to be defined for composite systems.Comment: 7+4 pages, 5 tables. v2: Clarifications added and typos fixed in response to referee comment

Precursors, black holes, and a locality bound

We revisit the problem of precursors in the AdS/CFT correspondence. Identification of the precursors is expected to improve our understanding of the tension between holography and bulk locality and of the resolution of the black hole information paradox. Previous arguments that the precursors are large, undecorated Wilson loops are found to be flawed. We argue that the role of precursors should become evident when one saturates a certain locality bound. The spacetime uncertainty principle is a direct consequence of this bound.Comment: 26 pages, 8 figs; reference added, minor clarification in sec. 2; incorrect draft mistakenly used in version

Bose-Fermi duality and entanglement entropies

Entanglement (Renyi) entropies of spatial regions are a useful tool for characterizing the ground states of quantum field theories. In this paper we investigate the extent to which these are universal quantities for a given theory, and to which they distinguish different theories, by comparing the entanglement spectra of the massless Dirac fermion and the compact free boson in two dimensions. We show that the calculation of Renyi entropies via the replica trick for any orbifold theory includes a sum over orbifold twists on all cycles. In a modular-invariant theory of fermions, this amounts to a sum over spin structures. The result is that the Renyi entropies respect the standard Bose-Fermi duality. Next, we investigate the entanglement spectrum for the Dirac fermion without a sum over spin structures, and for the compact boson at the self-dual radius. These are not equivalent theories; nonetheless, we find that (1) their second Renyi entropies agree for any number of intervals, (2) their full entanglement spectra agree for two intervals, and (3) the spectrum generically disagrees otherwise. These results follow from the equality of the partition functions of the two theories on any Riemann surface with imaginary period matrix. We also exhibit a map between the operators of the theories that preserves scaling dimensions (but not spins), as well as OPEs and correlators of operators placed on the real line. All of these coincidences can be traced to the fact that the momentum lattice for the bosonized fermion is related to that of the self-dual boson by a 45 degree rotation that mixes left- and right-movers.Comment: 40 pages; v3: improvements to presentation, new section discussing entanglement negativit

Hard Scattering and Gauge/String Duality

We consider high-energy fixed-angle scattering of glueballs in confining gauge theories that have supergravity duals. Although the effective description is in terms of the scattering of strings, we find that the amplitudes are hard (power law). This is a consequence of the warped geometry of the dual theory, which has the effect that in an inertial frame the string process is never in the soft regime. At small angle we find hard and Regge behaviors in different kinematic regions.Comment: 4 page

Simulation of Cloud-aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) attenuated backscatter profiles using the Global Model of Aerosol Processes (GLOMAP)

To permit the calculation of the radiative effects of atmospheric aerosols, we have linked our aerosol-chemical transport model (CTMGLOMAP) to a new radiation module (UKCARADAER). In order to help assess and improve the accuracy of the radiation code, in particular the height dependence of the predicted scattering, we have developed a module that simulates attenuated backscatter (ABS) profiles that would be measured by the satellite-borne Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) if it were to sample an atmosphere with the same aerosol loading as predicted by the CTM. Initial results of our comparisons of the predicted ABS profiles with actual CALIOP data are encouraging but some differences are noted, particularly in marine boundary layers where the scattering is currently under-predicted and in dust layers where it is often over-predicted. The sources of these differences are being investigated