Navigating an auto guided vehicle using rotary encoders and proportional controller

Auto Guided Vehicle (AGV) is commonly used in industry to reduce labour cost and to improve the productivity. A few programmable devices are combined in an AGV to optimize the usage of time and energy. AGV is widely used to transport goods and materials from one place to another place. For the first generation of AGV was used the track to guide the AGV but it was not flexible enough. This study investigates an alternative to control an AGV using two rotary encoders and proportional controller. Arduino Mega 2560 was used as a microcontroller to receive and process the signals from the rotary encoders. Logic controller and proportional controller were implemented to control the AGV, respectively. The coefficient of proportional controller was optimized to improve the performance of the AGV during navigation process. Findings show that AGV with the proportional controller with coefficient 1.5 achieved the best performance during the navigation process

Virtual Path Navigation using Two Rotary Encoders

The aim of this project is to evaluate the feasibility of the use of two rotary encoders in navigating an automated guided vehicle (AGV) in more complex virtual paths that include 90 and 180 degree turning from one to another desired positions. The proposed AGV was remotely controlled using a Bluetooth in a smart phone. The proposed AGV consisted of a microcontroller,two rotary encoders, an ultrasonic sensor, and a Bluetooth. The overshoot and systematic error was minimized using experiment data when the AGV was turning. The readings of the rotary encoders were mapped to the actual travel distance via calibration experiments so that the AGV can be redesigned to travel in different desired path without repeating the calibration experiments.Findings indicate that the proposed navigation method can navigate the AGV from one location to another location without installing any physical path or track

Novel Packet Switching for Green IP Networks

A green technology for reducing energy consumption has become a critical factor in ICT industries. However, for the telecommunications sector in particular, most network elements are not usually optimized for power efficiency. Here, we propose a novel energy-efficient packet switching method for use in an IP network for reducing unnecessary energy consumption. As a green networking approach, we first classify the network nodes into either header or member nodes. The member nodes then put the routing-related module at layer 3 to sleep under the assumption that the layer in the OSI model can operate independently. The entire set of network nodes is then partitioned into clusters consisting of one header node and multiple member nodes. Then, only the header node in a cluster conducts IP routing and its member nodes conduct packet switching using a specially designed identifier, a tag. To investigate the impact of the proposed scheme, we conducted a number of simulations using wellknown real network topologies and achieved a more energy-efficient performance than that achieved in previous studies.Peer reviewe

S-band five-port ring reflectometer-probe system for in vitro breast tumor detection

A five-port ring reflectometer-probe system was developed to measure relative permittivity of normal and tumorous breast tissues in frequency range from 1.6 to 2.75 GHz. The calibration procedures of the study reflectometer and the coaxial probe were described in detail. In this study, the synthetic breast tissues have been used, which are the Triton TX-100-water mixture at different ratios that mimic dielectric properties of normal and tumor breast tissue samples. The comparative studies of reflection coefficient and dielectric properties of the synthetic mixture samples were conducted using study reflectometer-probe system and commercial vector network analyzer with Keysight (formerly Agilent) 85070E dielectric probe. Maximum mean errors of the linear magnitude, phase, dielectric, and loss factor measurements were recorded to be 0.02, 6.1°, 2.21, and 1.60, respectively. These measurements were significantly distinguishable for normal and tumorous breast tissues

Monitoring moisture content for various kind of tea leaves in drying processes using rf reflectometer-sensor system

This paper presents tea leaves moisture monitoring system based on RF reflectometry techniques. The system was divided into two parts which are the sensor and reflectometer parts. The large coaxial probe was used as a sensor for the system. The reflectometer part plays a role as signal generator and also data acquisition. The reflectometer-sensor system was operated with a graphical user interface at 1.529 GHz at room temperature. The system was able to measure the moisture content of tea leaves ranging 0% m.c to 50% m.c on a wet basis. In this study, up to five kinds of tea leaves bulk were tested. The mean of absolute errors in the moisture measurement for tea leaves was ±2

Low-threshold optically pumped lasing in highly strained Ge nanowires

The integration of efficient, miniaturized group IV lasers into CMOS architecture holds the key to the realization of fully functional photonic-integrated circuits. Despite several years of progress, however, all group IV lasers reported to date exhibit impractically high thresholds owing to their unfavorable bandstructures. Highly strained germanium with its fundamentally altered bandstructure has emerged as a potential low-threshold gain medium, but there has yet to be any successful demonstration of lasing from this seemingly promising material system. Here, we demonstrate a low-threshold, compact group IV laser that employs germanium nanowire under a 1.6% uniaxial tensile strain as the gain medium. The amplified material gain in strained germanium can sufficiently surmount optical losses at 83 K, thus allowing the first observation of multimode lasing with an optical pumping threshold density of ~3.0 kW cm^-^2. Our demonstration opens up a new horizon of group IV lasers for photonic-integrated circuits.Comment: 31 pages, 9 figure

Production of monoclonal antibodies against serum immunoglobulins of black rockfish (Sebastes schlegeli Higendorf)

The present study was undertaken to produce monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) against immunoglobulin (Ig) purified from black rockfish (Sebastes schlegeli Higendorf) serum using protein A, mannan binding protein, and goat IgG affinity columns. These three different ligands were found to possess high affinity for black rockfish serum Ig. All of the Igs purified eluted at only 0.46 M NaCl concentration in anion exchange column chromatography and consisted of two bands at 70 kDa and 25 kDa in SDS-PAGE; they also had similar antigenicity for MAbs to Ig heavy chain in immunoblot assays. Therefore, black rockfish Ig is believed to exist as a single isotype within serum. The MAbs produced against Ig heavy chain reacted specifically with spots distributed over the pI range from 4.8 to 5.6 with a molecular weight of 70 kDa on two dimensional gel electrophoresis immunoblot profiles

Explaining Myanmar's Regime Transition: The Periphery is Central

In 2010, Myanmar (Burma) held its first elections after 22 years of direct military rule. Few compelling explanations for this regime transition have emerged. This article critiques popular accounts and potential explanations generated by theories of authoritarian ‘regime breakdown’ and ‘regime maintenance’. It returns instead to the classical literature on military intervention and withdrawal. Military regimes, when not terminated by internal factionalism or external unrest, typically liberalise once they feel they have sufficiently addressed the crises that prompted their seizure of power. This was the case in Myanmar. The military intervened for fear that political unrest and ethnic-minority separatist insurgencies would destroy Myanmar’s always-fragile territorial integrity and sovereignty. Far from suddenly liberalising in 2010, the regime sought to create a ‘disciplined democracy’ to safeguard its preferred social and political order twice before, but was thwarted by societal opposition. Its success in 2010 stemmed from a strategy of coercive state-building and economic incorporation via ‘ceasefire capitalism’, which weakened and co-opted much of the opposition. Having altered the balance of forces in its favour, the regime felt sufficiently confident to impose its preferred settlement. However, the transition neither reflected total ‘victory’ for the military nor secured a genuine or lasting peace

Atomic-scale combination of germanium-zinc nanofibers for structural and electrochemical evolution

Alloys are recently receiving considerable attention in the community of rechargeable batteries as possible alternatives to carbonaceous negative electrodes; however, challenges remain for the practical utilization of these materials. Herein, we report the synthesis of germanium-zinc alloy nanofibers through electrospinning and a subsequent calcination step. Evidenced by in situ transmission electron microscopy and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy characterizations, this one-dimensional design possesses unique structures. Both germanium and zinc atoms are homogenously distributed allowing for outstanding electronic conductivity and high available capacity for lithium storage. The as-prepared materials present high rate capability (capacity of similar to 50% at 20 C compared to that at 0.2 C-rate) and cycle retention (73% at 3.0 C-rate) with a retaining capacity of 546 mAh g(-1) even after 1000 cycles. When assembled in a full cell, high energy density can be maintained during 400 cycles, which indicates that the current material has the potential to be used in a large-scale energy storage system

The human face of security: Asia-Pacific perspectives

This is an edited collection of papers about the meanings of human security in an Asian-Pacific context, stemming from a conference held in New Zealand in 2001