TERRORIST THREATS AND PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION

Public transportation is an activity facing various problems. One of them, very complex and dangerous, is terrorism which together with criminal activities and vandalism, is making the top of the threats affecting public transportation and therefore urban life quality. Public transportation has several characteristics which make it vulnerable to terroris attacks and a main target for them. To compensate for these weeknesses, certain solutions are necessary to prevent the attack or in case it already took place, to reduce the human and material losses.urban area, urban transportation, vandalism, criminal activity.

Improving Activated Sludge Wastewater Treatment Process Efficiency Using Predictive Control

This paper investigates the performance of a new predictive control approach used to improve the energy efficiency and effluent quality of a conventional Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP). A modified variant of the well-known Generalized Predictive Control (GPC) method has been applied to control the dissolved oxygen concentration in the aerobic bioreactor of a WWTP. The quadratic cost function was modified to a positional implementation that considers control signal weighting and not its increments, in order to minimize the control energy. The Activated Sludge Process (ASP) optimization using the proposed variant of the GPC algorithm provides an improved aeration system efficiency to reduce energy costs. The control strategy is investigated and evaluated by performing simulations and analyzing the results. Both the set point tracking and the regulatory performances have been tested. Moreover, the effects of some tuning parameters are also investigated. The results show that this control strategy can be efficiently used for dissolved oxygen control in WWTP

Predictive Adaptive Control of an Activated Sludge Wastewater Treatment Process

This paper presents an application regarding a model based predictive adaptive controller used to improve the effluent quality of a conventionalactivated sludge wastewater treatment process. The adaptive control scheme consists of two modules: a robust parameter estimator and a predictive controller. The controller design is based on the process model obtained by recursive estimation. The performances of the adaptive control algorithm are investigated and compared tothenon-adaptive one. Both the set point tracking and the regulatory performances have been tested. The results show that this control strategy will help overcome the challenge for maintaining the discharged water quality to meet the regulations

Online weight estimation in a robotic gripper arm

This paper presents a novel methodology for online, fast and accurate weight estimation technique in a robotic gripper arm. The laboratory setup is inspired from several real life applications of weight estimation in moving cranes, e.g. loading containers in a shipyard, iron scrapping in steel industry, etc. The weight needs to be estimated within a specified time interval and within a tolerance interval for accuracy. The results indicate that the proposed method is suitable for this kind of application and an improvement of 30% has been achieved compared to the current state of work

Design and practical implementation of a fractional order proportional integral controller (FOPI) for a poorly damped fractional order process with time delay

One of the most popular tuning procedures for the development of fractional order controllers is by imposing frequency domain constraints such as gain crossover frequency, phase margin and iso-damping properties. The present study extends the frequency domain tuning methodology to a generalized range of fractional order processes based on second order plus time delay (SOPDT) models. A fractional order PI controller is tuned for a real process that exhibits poorly damped dynamics characterized in terms of a fractional order transfer function with time delay. The obtained controller is validated on the experimental platform by analyzing staircase reference tracking, input disturbance rejection and robustness to process uncertainties. The paper focuses around the tuning methodology as well as the fractional order modeling of the process' dynamics

EPSAC for wastewater treatment process (BSM1)

Predictive control is one of the most spread advanced control algorithms in industrial application field. Extended Prediction Self-Adaptive Control (EPSAC) is a part of this family of algorithms and is suitable for wastewater treatment plants control. The main goal of those industrial processes is to fulfil effluent water quality legal provisions with minimal energy consumption. In order to achieve this goal EPSAC control methodology has been applied to the wastewater treatment process. Benchmark Simulation Model No. 1 (BSM1) has been used to simulate the process dynamics. Two types of control strategies were implemented and tested: predictive control without taking into account measured disturbances and predictive control with feedforward. Feedforward control with two measured disturbances (the influent flow rate and ammonium concentration) has been tested

Predictive control of anaerobic digestion of wastewater sludge: a feasibility study

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Identification and path following control of an AR.drone quadrotor

This paper describes the process of identification and closed-loop control of an Parrot AR. Drone Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) as well as a path following application based on IMC position controllers. The research issue is to achieve position control of the AR.Drone quadrotor movement via its on-board sensory equipment and external webcam video stream. Firstly, transfer functions are detailed for pitch and altitude movements and a comparison is made between implemented PID and IMC controller performance for both simulation and practice. Furthermore, using IMC controllers, a path following application exhibits controller behavior from a practical point of view. It is concluded that the dynamic model and the controllers implemented on the quadrotor can serve as a reliable basis for more advanced applications