Extended reality technologies in small and medium-sized European industrial companies: level of awareness, diffusion and enablers of adoption

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), collectively referred to as “extended reality” (XR), have begun to diffuse in industry. However, the current levels of awareness, perceived limitations, and use of AR and VR, as well as the potential differences on these aspects between these technologies are still not well known. Moreover, it is unknown whether small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) differ from large companies on these issues. This research employed a mixed methods research design to address this gap by carrying out a cross-sectional survey (n = 208) to gauge European industrial companies’ level of AR and VR awareness and adoption, and by interviewing 45 companies in nine European countries in order to identify critical enabling factors in the adoption of XR for SMEs. Results show no statistical difference between the respondents’ perceptions toward AR and VR or in their use levels. Thus, examining AR and VR under the umbrella term XR seems justified, especially in the context of their organizational use. However, larger companies were found to be using XR more than SMEs. Analysis of interviews based on the technology–organization–environment framework also yielded several enabling factors affecting XR adoption and specified whether they are particularly highlighted in the SME context. Overall, this paper contributes to XR research by providing a holistic multi-country overview that highlights key issues for managers aiming to invest in these technologies, as well as critical organizational perspectives to be considered by scholars

Incorporation of fractional-order dynamics into an existing PI/PID DC motor control loop

The problem of changing the dynamics of an existing DC motor control system without the need of making internal changes is considered in the paper. In particular, this paper presents a method for incorporating fractional-order dynamics in an existing DC motor control system with internal PI or PID controller, through the addition of an external controller into the system and by tapping its original input and output signals. Experimental results based on the control of a real test plant from MATLAB/Simulink environment are presented, indicating the validity of the proposed approach.This work was partially supported by the following grants under the Slovak Grant Agency, the Slovak Research and Development Agency: VEGA 1/0552/14, VEGA 1/0729/12, VEGA 1/0497/11, VEGA 1/2578/12, and APVV-0482-11, and the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund, and the Estonian Doctoral School in Information and Communication Technology through the interdisciplinary project FOMCON

Measurement and control of emergent phenomena emulated by resistive-capacitive networks, using fractionalorder internal model control and external adaptive control

A fractional-order internal model control technique is applied to a three-dimensional resistive-capacitive network to enforce desired closed loop dynamics of first order. In order to handle model mismatch issues resulting from the random allocation of the components within the network, the control law is augmented with a model-reference adaptive strategy in an external loop. By imposing a control law on the system to obey first order dynamics, a calibrated transient response is ensured. The methodology enables feedback control of complex systems with emergent responses and is robust in the presence of measurement noise or under conditions of poor model identification. Furthermore, it is also applicable to systems that exhibit higher order fractional dynamics. Examples of feedback-controlled transduction include cantilever positioning in atomic force microscopy or the control of complex de-excitation lifetimes encountered in many types of spectroscopies, e.g., nuclear magnetic, electron-spin, microwave, multiphoton fluorescence, Förster resonance, etc. The proposed solution should also find important applications in more complex electronic, microwave, and photonic lock-in problems. Finally, there are further applications across the broader measurement science and instrumentation community when designing complex feedback systems at the system level, e.g., ensuring the adaptive control of distributed physiological processes through the use of biomedical implants

Application of Newton's Method to Analog and Digital Realization of Fractional-order Controllers

In this paper, a method for approximating a first-order implicit fractional transfer function, that corresponds to a frequency-bounded fractional differentiator or integrator, is presented. The proposed method is based on a modification of the well-known Newton's method for iterative root approximation. First-order implicit fractional transfer functions have several applications in modeling and control. This type of transfer function is the basis for the fractional lead-lag compensator. In the following, we provide the description of our algorithm, that enhances the existing technique, and illustrate its use in analog and digital implementations of fractional-order systems and controllers with relevant examples and comments

FOMCOM: a MATLAB toolbox for fractional-order system identification and control

FOMCON is a new fractional-order modeling and control toolbox for MATLAB. It offers a set of tools for researchers in the field of fractional-order control. In this paper, we present an overview of the toolbox, motivation for its development and relation to other toolboxes devoted to fractional calculus. We discuss all of the major modules of the FOMCON toolbox as well as relevant mathematical concepts. Three modules are presented. The main module is used for fractional-order system analysis. The identification module allows identifying a fractional system from either time or frequency domain data. The control module focuses on fractional-order FID controller design, tuning and optimization, but also has basic support for design of fractional lead-lag compensators and TID controllers. Finally, a Simulink blockset is presented. It allows more sophisticated modeling tasks to be carried out

Tuning and digital implementation of a fractional-order PD controller for a position servo

Fractional-order calculus offers flexible computational possibilities that can be applied to control design thereby improving industrial control loop performance. However, before theoretical results can be carried over to an industrial setting it is important to study the effects of fractional-order control by means of laboratory experiments. In this paper, we study the practical aspects of tuning and implementing a fractional-order PD controller for position control of a laboratory modular servo system using FOMCON (“Fractional-order Modeling and Control”) toolbox for MATLAB. We provide an overview of the tools used to model, analyze, and design the control system. The procedure of tuning and implementation of a suitable digital fractional-order controller is described. The results of the real-time experiments confirm the effectiveness of used methods