μ-Dependent model reduction for uncertain discrete-time switched linear systems with average dwell time

In this article, the model reduction problem for a class of discrete-time polytopic uncertain switched linear systems with average dwell time switching is investigated. The stability criterion for general discrete-time switched systems is first explored, and a μ-dependent approach is then introduced for the considered systems to the model reduction solution. A reduced-order model is constructed and its corresponding existence conditions are derived via LMI formulation. The admissible switching signals and the desired reduced model matrices are accordingly obtained from such conditions such that the resulting model error system is robustly exponentially stable and has an exponential H∞ performance. A numerical example is presented to demonstrate the potential and effectiveness of the developed theoretical results

Actor-Critic Reinforcement Learning for Control with Stability Guarantee

Reinforcement Learning (RL) and its integration with deep learning have achieved impressive performance in various robotic control tasks, ranging from motion planning and navigation to end-to-end visual manipulation. However, stability is not guaranteed in model-free RL by solely using data. From a control-theoretic perspective, stability is the most important property for any control system, since it is closely related to safety, robustness, and reliability of robotic systems. In this paper, we propose an actor-critic RL framework for control which can guarantee closed-loop stability by employing the classic Lyapunov's method in control theory. First of all, a data-based stability theorem is proposed for stochastic nonlinear systems modeled by Markov decision process. Then we show that the stability condition could be exploited as the critic in the actor-critic RL to learn a controller/policy. At last, the effectiveness of our approach is evaluated on several well-known 3-dimensional robot control tasks and a synthetic biology gene network tracking task in three different popular physics simulation platforms. As an empirical evaluation on the advantage of stability, we show that the learned policies can enable the systems to recover to the equilibrium or way-points when interfered by uncertainties such as system parametric variations and external disturbances to a certain extent.Comment: IEEE RA-L + IROS 202

Experimental Study of Tendon Failure Analysis for a TLP Floating Offshore Wind Turbine

This paper describes an experimental study conducted on a multi-column tension leg platform (TLP) floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT). A prototype model of the TLP FOWT supporting the NREL 5-MW wind turbine with a scale ratio of 1:50 is tested under various wind and wave conditions at the State Key Laboratory of Coastal and Offshore Engineering at Dalian University of Technology, China. This work has particularly focused on the tendon failure and its impact on the dynamic response of the FOWT. Free decay tests, regular wave tests, wind-wave combined tests and tendon failure tests are conducted using different environmental parameters.The results suggest that natural periods, dynamic responses of the platform, and forces in the tendons satisfy the design requirements. The analysis indicates that the impact of tendon failure on the platform surge, heave and pitch responses are found to be insignificant. When one of the tendons is broken, the adjacent tendons experience a significant increase in tensile force; and, the maximum tensile force in the remaining tendon is found to increase by about 130%. The overstepping of the minimum breaking load as recommended by the design standard DNV GL is not reached, and this indicates that the safety of the system is ensured even during the harshest failure condition

Chat-PM: A Class of Composite Hybrid Aerial/Terrestrial Precise Manipulator

This paper concentrates on the development of Chat-PM, a class of composite hybrid aerial/terrestrial manipulator, in concern with composite configuration design, dynamics modeling, motion control and force estimation. Compared with existing aerial or terrestrial mobile manipulators, Chat-PM demonstrates advantages in terms of reachability, energy efficiency and manipulation precision. To achieve precise manipulation in terrestrial mode, the dynamics is analyzed with consideration of surface contact, based on which a cascaded controller is designed with compensation for the interference force and torque from the arm. Benefiting from the kinematic constraints caused by the surface contact, the position deviation and the vehicle vibration are effectively decreased, resulting in higher control precision of the end gripper. For manipulation on surfaces with unknown inclination angles, the moving horizon estimation (MHE) is exploited to obtain the precise estimations of force and inclination angle, which are used in the control loop to compensate for the effect of the unknown surface. Real-world experiments are performed to evaluate the superiority of the developed manipulator and the proposed controllers

Demonstration and evaluation of an optimized RFS comb for terabit flexible optical networks

We experimentally demonstrate and evaluate an optimization strategy of a recirculating frequency shifting (RFS) optical comb for terabit flexible optical networks. We achieve an increased optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) with good stability (no system outage) by reducing erbium-doped-fiber amplifier gain in the shifting loop and deploying an in-loop noise suppression filter. We demonstrate that this source can support 20×200  Gb/s dual polarization Nyquist-16QAM transmission. With optimization, the RFS comb has greater and more uniform OSNR per channel. Flexible optical networks with software-defined networking are particularly suited to this enhanced RFS due to 1) programmable frequency spacing, 2) dense, stable spacing enabling very high spectral efficiency, 3) uniform performance across channels, and 4) sufficient OSNR for high-order modulation. The RFS can be used in short links when using low overhead forward error correction (FEC). Distances as great as 1150 km are achieved when using a 20% FEC overhead. Long-distance tests at 4 Tb/s result in a post-FEC net rate of 3.3 Tb/s and 6.3 bit/s/Hz of spectral efficiency

Intrinsic Defects in LiMn2_{2}O4_{4}: First-Principles Calculations

Spinel LiMn$_{2}$O$_{4}$ has attracted wide attention due to its advantages of a high-voltage plateau, good capacity, environmental friendliness, and low cost. Due to different experimental synthesis methods and conditions, there are many intrinsic point defects in LiMn$_{2}$O$_{4}$. By means of first-principles calculations based on a reasonable magnetic configuration, we studied the formation energies, local structures, and charge compensation mechanism of intrinsic point defects in LiMn$_{2}$O$_{4}$. The formation energies of defects under the assumed O-rich equilibrium conditions were examined. It was found that O, Li, and Mn vacancies, Mn and Li antisites, and Li interstitial could appear in the lattice at some equilibrium conditions, but Mn interstitial is hard to form. The charge was compensated mainly by adjusting the oxidation state of Mn around the defect, except for the defects at the 8a Wyckoff site. The binding energies between point defects were calculated to shed light on the clustering of point defects. Furthermore, the diffusion of Li ions around the defects was discussed. Cation antisites led to a decrease of the Li diffusion barrier but O vacancy caused an increase of the barrier. This study provides theoretical support for understanding point defects in spinel LiMn$_{2}$O$_{4}$