Local Self-Governance and State Power in the Russian Federation: In the Search for a Way Out of the Institutional Trap

The subject of the study is the causes of the contradiction that have arisen in the legal and political field of modern Russia, related to the status of the institution of local self-government. On the one hand, local self-government, in fact, acts as a lower level of public administration, both in political practice and in mass consciousness. But legally, its bodies are not part of the system of state power. The author explains this situation by the institutional trap into which the state power has fallen. The author sees the reasons for the emergence of this collision between the needs of political practice and legislative requirements in the coincidence of circumstances caused by the struggle of actors during the political confrontation between the legislative and executive powers in October 1993. The lack of socio-economic support, necessary for the full functioning of the institution, made it inevi that in the future that institution would turn into a "lower floor" of the system of state administration, with the simultaneous camouflaging municipal bodies as a non-governmental organization. It is shown that throughout the entire subsequent history of local self-government existence attempts were made to resolve this contradiction. The latest attempt was made in the latest version of the Constitution of the Russian Federation by including state and local self-government bodies into the system of unified public power. It is noted that the functioning of nominally self-governing, but basically - state bodies at the local level has a number of negative consequences. Organizational and legal ways out of the "institutional trap" are suggested

MorphoGear: An UAV with Multi-Limb Morphogenetic Gear for Rough-Terrain Locomotion

Robots able to run, fly, and grasp have a high potential to solve a wide scope of tasks and navigate in complex environments. Several mechatronic designs of such robots with adaptive morphologies are emerging. However, the task of landing on an uneven surface, traversing rough terrain, and manipulating objects still presents high challenges. This paper introduces the design of a novel rotor UAV MorphoGear with morphogenetic gear and includes a description of the robot's mechanics, electronics, and control architecture, as well as walking behavior and an analysis of experimental results. MorphoGear is able to fly, walk on surfaces with several gaits, and grasp objects with four compatible robotic limbs. Robotic limbs with three degrees of freedom (DoFs) are used by this UAV as pedipulators when walking or flying and as manipulators when performing actions in the environment. We performed a locomotion analysis of the landing gear of the robot. Three types of robot gaits have been developed. The experimental results revealed low crosstrack error of the most accurate gait (mean of 1.9 cm and max of 5.5 cm) and the ability of the drone to move with a 210 mm step length. Another type of robot gait also showed low crosstrack error (mean of 2.3 cm and max of 6.9 cm). The proposed MorphoGear system can potentially achieve a high scope of tasks in environmental surveying, delivery, and high-altitude operations.Comment: Published in: 2023 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM

Investigation of the ignition of wood structural materials (with and without fire retardant treatment) under the influence of a model fire of irregular intensity

In this paper the effect of fire front on the surface of wood samples (plywood and oriented strand board) was considered to estimate the effect of different wood-fire retardants. Infrared thermography was used as a diagnostic method. The ignition probability was estimated for the chosen experimental parameters for each kind of wood The fire hazard characteristics of wood after fire retardant treatment showed a significant reduction in the surface temperature and the resistance to fire for the chosen parameters of the experiment compared to the same untreated samples. The charring depth of the wood samples was determined depending on the type of wood, as well as on the type of the fire retardant used

MorphoArms: Morphogenetic Teleoperation of Multimanual Robot

Nowadays, there are few unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) capable of flying, walking and grasping. A drone with all these functionalities can significantly improve its performance in complex tasks such as monitoring and exploring different types of terrain, and rescue operations. This paper presents MorphoArms, a novel system that consists of a morphogenetic chassis and a hand gesture recognition teleoperation system. The mechanics, electronics, control architecture, and walking behavior of the morphogenetic chassis are described. This robot is capable of walking and grasping objects using four robotic limbs. Robotic limbs with four degrees-of-freedom are used as pedipulators when walking and as manipulators when performing actions in the environment. The robot control system is implemented using teleoperation, where commands are given by hand gestures. A motion capture system is used to track the user's hands and to recognize their gestures. The method of controlling the robot was experimentally tested in a study involving 10 users. The evaluation included three questionnaires (NASA TLX, SUS, and UEQ). The results showed that the proposed system was more user-friendly than 56% of the systems, and it was rated above average in terms of attractiveness, stimulation, and novelty.Comment: IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE 2023), Cordis, New Zeland, 26-30 August, 2023, in prin

MorphoLander: Reinforcement Learning Based Landing of a Group of Drones on the Adaptive Morphogenetic UAV

This paper focuses on a novel robotic system MorphoLander representing heterogeneous swarm of drones for exploring rough terrain environments. The morphogenetic leader drone is capable of landing on uneven terrain, traversing it, and maintaining horizontal position to deploy smaller drones for extensive area exploration. After completing their tasks, these drones return and land back on the landing pads of MorphoGear. The reinforcement learning algorithm was developed for a precise landing of drones on the leader robot that either remains static during their mission or relocates to the new position. Several experiments were conducted to evaluate the performance of the developed landing algorithm under both even and uneven terrain conditions. The experiments revealed that the proposed system results in high landing accuracy of 0.5 cm when landing on the leader drone under even terrain conditions and 2.35 cm under uneven terrain conditions. MorphoLander has the potential to significantly enhance the efficiency of the industrial inspections, seismic surveys, and rescue missions in highly cluttered and unstructured environments.Comment: Accepted paper at the 2023 IEEE Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetic

Optimal configuration algorithm of a satellite transponder

This paper describes the algorithm of determining the optimal transponder configuration of the communication satellite while in service. This method uses a mathematical model of the pay load scheme based on the finite-state machine. The repeater scheme is shown as a weighted oriented graph that is represented as plexus in the program view. This paper considers an algorithm example for application with a typical transparent repeater scheme. In addition, the complexity of the current algorithm has been calculated. The main peculiarity of this algorithm is that it takes into account the functionality and state of devices, reserved equipment and input-output ports ranged in accordance with their priority. All described limitations allow a significant decrease in possible payload commutation variants and enable a satellite operator to make reconfiguration solutions operatively

Effect of wood structure geometry during firebrand generation in laboratory scale and semi-field experiments

As the set of experiments result, statistically substantiated data were obtained on the laws of ignition of a model angular structure under conditions of a point source of heat exposure. The use of IR diagnostics made it possible to control the thermal picture in the experimental area, as well as to capture areas of the highest and lowest heating. In the Large Aerosol Chamber of IAO SB RAS, preliminary experiments were carried out on a “firebrand shower” model exposure, which is naturally occurring firebrands (flaming or glowing embers) with some types of construction materials (chipboards). The exposure of the samples to firebrands stream was provided using a firebrand generator of own original design. It was experimentally confirmed that particle size plays a significant role in the ignition of a building structure. If the characteristic particle size, which can be defined as the ratio of its volume to the surface area in contact with the wood, is less than a certain characteristic value, then the ignition mode with a sharp temperature maximum near the phase interface is not fulfilled. This can be explained by the prevailing heat removal into the external environment in comparison with the amount of heat coming from a heat gun and resulting from chemical reactions

Improvement of firebrand tracking and detection software

Burning and glowing firebrands generated by wildland and urban fires may lead to the initiation of spot fnes and the ignition of structures. One of the ways to obtain this infonnation is to process tliennal video files. Earlier, a number of algorithms were developed for the analysis of the characteristics of fu'ebrands under field conditions. However, they had certain disadvantages. In this regard, this work is devoted to the development of new algorithms and their testing