A journal of IEEE and CAA , publishes high-quality papers in English on original theoretical/experimental research and development in all areas of automation

Vol. 8,  No. 6, 2021

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PAPERS
An Ellipsoidal Set-Membership Approach to Distributed Joint State and Sensor Fault Estimation of Autonomous Ground Vehicles
Eman Mousavinejad, Xiaohua Ge, Qing-Long Han, Teng Joon Lim, Ljubo Vlacic
2021, 8(6): 1107-1118. doi: 10.1109/JAS.2021.1004015
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Abstract:
This paper is concerned with the problem of distributed joint state and sensor fault estimation for autonomous ground vehicles subject to unknown-but-bounded (UBB) external disturbance and measurement noise. In order to improve the estimation reliability and performance in cases of poor data collection and potential communication interruption, a multi-sensor network configuration is presented to cooperatively measure the vehicular yaw rate, and further compute local state and fault estimates. Toward this aim, an augmented descriptor vehicle model is first established, where the unknown sensor fault is modeled as an auxiliary state of the system model. Then, a new distributed ellipsoidal set-membership estimation approach is developed so as to construct an optimized bounding ellipsoidal set which guarantees to contain the vehicle’s true state and the sensor fault at each time step despite the existence of UBB disturbance and measurement noises. Furthermore, a convex optimization algorithm is put forward such that the gain matrix of each distributed estimator can be recursively obtained. Finally, simulation results are provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Output-Feedback Based Simplified Optimized Backstepping Control for Strict-Feedback Systems with Input and State Constraints
Jiaxin Zhang, Kewen Li, Yongming Li
2021, 8(6): 1119-1132. doi: 10.1109/JAS.2021.1004018
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Abstract:
In this paper, an adaptive neural-network (NN) output feedback optimal control problem is studied for a class of strict-feedback nonlinear systems with unknown internal dynamics, input saturation and state constraints. Neural networks are used to approximate unknown internal dynamics and an adaptive NN state observer is developed to estimate immeasurable states. Under the framework of the backstepping design, by employing the actor-critic architecture and constructing the tan-type Barrier Lyapunov function (BLF), the virtual and actual optimal controllers are developed. In order to accomplish optimal control effectively, a simplified reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm is designed by deriving the updating laws from the negative gradient of a simple positive function, instead of employing existing optimal control methods. In addition, to ensure that all the signals in the closed-loop system are bounded and the output can follow the reference signal within a bounded error, all state variables are confined within their compact sets all times. Finally, a simulation example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.
Distributed Asymptotic Consensus in Directed Networks of Nonaffine Systems With Nonvanishing Disturbance
Qingling Wang, Changyin Sun
2021, 8(6): 1133-1140. doi: 10.1109/JAS.2021.1004021
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Abstract:
In this paper the distributed asymptotic consensus problem is addressed for a group of high-order nonaffine agents with uncertain dynamics, nonvanishing disturbances and unknown control directions under directed networks. A class of auxiliary variables are first introduced which forms second-order filters and induces all measurable signals of agents’ states. In view of this property, a distributed robust integral of the sign of the error (DRISE) design combined with the Nussbaum-type function is presented that guarantees not only the desired asymptotic consensus, but also the uniform boundedness of all closed-loop variables. Compared with the traditional sliding mode control (SMC) technique, the main feature of our approach is that the integral operation in the proposed control algorithm is designed to be adopted in a continuous manner and ensures less chattering behavior. Simulation results for a group of Duffing-Holmes chaotic systems are employed to verify our theoretical analysis.
Finite-Time Fuzzy Sliding Mode Control for Nonlinear Descriptor Systems
Zhixiong Zhong, Xingyi Wang, Hak-Keung Lam
2021, 8(6): 1141-1152. doi: 10.1109/JAS.2021.1004024
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Abstract:
This article addresses the finite-time boundedness (FTB) problem for nonlinear descriptor systems. Firstly, the nonlinear descriptor system is represented by the Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) model, where fuzzy representation is assumed to be appearing not only in both the state and input matrices but also in the derivative matrix. By using a descriptor redundancy approach, the fuzzy representation in the derivative matrix is reformulated into a linear one. Then, we introduce a fuzzy sliding mode control (FSMC) law, which ensures the finite-time boundedness (FTB) of closed-loop fuzzy control systems over the reaching phase and sliding motion phase. Moreover, by further employing the descriptor redundancy representation, the sufficient condition for designing FSMC law, which ensures the FTB of the closed-loop control systems over the entire finite-time interval, is derived in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Finally, a simulation study with control of a photovoltaic (PV) nonlinear system is given to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Empirical Research on the Application of a Structure-Based Software Reliability Model
Jie Zhang, Yang Lu, Ke Shi, Chong Xu
2021, 8(6): 1153-1162. doi: 10.1109/JAS.2020.1003309
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Reliability engineering implemented early in the development process has a significant impact on improving software quality. It can assist in the design of architecture and guide later testing, which is beyond the scope of traditional reliability analysis methods. Structural reliability models work for this, but most of them remain tested in only simulation case studies due to lack of actual data. Here we use software metrics for reliability modeling which are collected from source codes of post versions. Through the proposed strategy, redundant metric elements are filtered out and the rest are aggregated to represent the module reliability. We further propose a framework to automatically apply the module value and calculate overall reliability by introducing formal methods. The experimental results from an actual project show that reliability analysis at the design and development stage can be close to the validity of analysis at the test stage through reasonable application of metric data. The study also demonstrates that the proposed methods have good applicability.
Zoning Search With Adaptive Resource Allocating Method for Balanced and Imbalanced Multimodal Multi-Objective Optimization
Qinqin Fan, Okan K. Ersoy
2021, 8(6): 1163-1176. doi: 10.1109/JAS.2021.1004027
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Maintaining population diversity is an important task in the multimodal multi-objective optimization. Although the zoning search (ZS) can improve the diversity in the decision space, assigning the same computational costs to each search subspace may be wasteful when computational resources are limited, especially on imbalanced problems. To alleviate the above-mentioned issue, a zoning search with adaptive resource allocating (ZS-ARA) method is proposed in the current study. In the proposed ZS-ARA, the entire search space is divided into many subspaces to preserve the diversity in the decision space and to reduce the problem complexity. Moreover, the computational resources can be automatically allocated among all the subspaces. The ZS-ARA is compared with seven algorithms on two different types of multimodal multi-objective problems (MMOPs), namely, balanced and imbalanced MMOPs. The results indicate that, similarly to the ZS, the ZS-ARA achieves high performance with the balanced MMOPs. Also, it can greatly assist a “regular” algorithm in improving its performance on the imbalanced MMOPs, and is capable of allocating the limited computational resources dynamically.
CurveNet: Curvature-Based Multitask Learning Deep Networks for 3D Object Recognition
A. A. M. Muzahid, Wanggen Wan, Ferdous Sohel, Lianyao Wu, Li Hou
2021, 8(6): 1177-1187. doi: 10.1109/JAS.2020.1003324
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In computer vision fields, 3D object recognition is one of the most important tasks for many real-world applications. Three-dimensional convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have demonstrated their advantages in 3D object recognition. In this paper, we propose to use the principal curvature directions of 3D objects (using a CAD model) to represent the geometric features as inputs for the 3D CNN. Our framework, namely CurveNet, learns perceptually relevant salient features and predicts object class labels. Curvature directions incorporate complex surface information of a 3D object, which helps our framework to produce more precise and discriminative features for object recognition. Multitask learning is inspired by sharing features between two related tasks, where we consider pose classification as an auxiliary task to enable our CurveNet to better generalize object label classification. Experimental results show that our proposed framework using curvature vectors performs better than voxels as an input for 3D object classification. We further improved the performance of CurveNet by combining two networks with both curvature direction and voxels of a 3D object as the inputs. A Cross-Stitch module was adopted to learn effective shared features across multiple representations. We evaluated our methods using three publicly available datasets and achieved competitive performance in the 3D object recognition task.
A Novel Rolling Bearing Vibration Impulsive Signals Detection Approach Based on Dictionary Learning
Chuan Sun, Hongpeng Yin, Yanxia Li, Yi Chai
2021, 8(6): 1188-1198. doi: 10.1109/JAS.2020.1003438
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The localized faults of rolling bearings can be diagnosed by its vibration impulsive signals. However, it is always a challenge to extract the impulsive feature under background noise and non-stationary conditions. This paper investigates impulsive signals detection of a single-point defect rolling bearing and presents a novel data-driven detection approach based on dictionary learning. To overcome the effects harmonic and noise components, we propose an autoregressive-minimum entropy deconvolution model to separate harmonic and deconvolve the effect of the transmission path. To address the shortcomings of conventional sparse representation under the changeable operation environment, we propose an approach that combines K-clustering with singular value decomposition (K-SVD) and split-Bregman to extract impulsive components precisely. Via experiments on synthetic signals and real run-to-failure signals, the excellent performance for different impulsive signals detection verifies the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed approach. Meanwhile, a comparison with the state-of-the-art methods is illustrated, which shows that the proposed approach can provide more accurate detected impulsive signals.
Dual-Objective Mixed Integer Linear Program and Memetic Algorithm for an Industrial Group Scheduling Problem
Ziyan Zhao, Shixin Liu, MengChu Zhou, Abdullah Abusorrah
2021, 8(6): 1199-1209. doi: 10.1109/JAS.2020.1003539
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Group scheduling problems have attracted much attention owing to their many practical applications. This work proposes a new bi-objective serial-batch group scheduling problem considering the constraints of sequence-dependent setup time, release time, and due time. It is originated from an important industrial process, i.e., wire rod and bar rolling process in steel production systems. Two objective functions, i.e., the number of late jobs and total setup time, are minimized. A mixed integer linear program is established to describe the problem. To obtain its Pareto solutions, we present a memetic algorithm that integrates a population-based nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II and two single-solution-based improvement methods, i.e., an insertion-based local search and an iterated greedy algorithm. The computational results on extensive industrial data with the scale of a one-week schedule show that the proposed algorithm has great performance in solving the concerned problem and outperforms its peers. Its high accuracy and efficiency imply its great potential to be applied to solve industrial-size group scheduling problems.
Speed and Accuracy Tradeoff for LiDAR Data Based Road Boundary Detection
Guojun Wang, Jian Wu, Rui He, Bin Tian
2021, 8(6): 1210-1220. doi: 10.1109/JAS.2020.1003414
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Road boundary detection is essential for autonomous vehicle localization and decision-making, especially under GPS signal loss and lane discontinuities. For road boundary detection in structural environments, obstacle occlusions and large road curvature are two significant challenges. However, an effective and fast solution for these problems has remained elusive. To solve these problems, a speed and accuracy tradeoff method for LiDAR-based road boundary detection in structured environments is proposed. The proposed method consists of three main stages: 1) a multi-feature based method is applied to extract feature points; 2) a road-segmentation-line-based method is proposed for classifying left and right feature points; 3) an iterative Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) is employed for filtering out false points and extracting boundary points. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, KITTI datasets is used for comprehensive experiments, and the performance of our approach is tested under different road conditions. Comprehensive experiments show the road-segmentation-line-based method can classify left, and right feature points on structured curved roads, and the proposed iterative Gaussian Process Regression can extract road boundary points on varied road shapes and traffic conditions. Meanwhile, the proposed road boundary detection method can achieve real-time performance with an average of 70.5 ms per frame.