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Boundary detection is an essential first-step for many computer vision applications. In practice, boundary detection is difficult because most images contain texture. Normally, texture-boundary detectors are complex, and so cannot run in real-time. On the other hand, the few texture boundary detectors that do run in real-time leave much to be desired in terms of quality. This thesis proposes two real-time texture-boundary detectors – the Variance Ridge Detector and the Texton Ridge Detector – both of which can detect high-quality texture-boundaries in real-time. The Variance Ridge Detector is able to run at 47 frames per second on 320 by 240 images, while scoring an F-measure of 0.62 (out of a theoretical maximum of 0.79) on the Berkeley segmentation dataset. The Texton Ridge Detector runs at 10 frames per second but produces slightly better results, with an F-measure score of 0.63. These objective measurements show that the two proposed texture-boundary detectors outperform all other texture-boundary detectors on either quality or speed. As boundary detection is so widely-used, this development could induce improvements to many real-time computer vision applications.

The Group Research department in Tait Electronics has a reconfigurable platform for MIMO research. In particular, the platform has an adaptive multivariate DFE with the LMS algorithm currently implemented. The LMS algorithm has been simulated and optimised for implementation on the FPGA. The main objective of the research is to investigate an alternative, the RLS algorithm by comparing its performance to the LMS algorithm. The RLS algorithm is known to be more complex than the LMS algorithm but offers the potential for improved performance due to its fast-converging nature. This thesis provides a performance investigation of these adaptive filter algorithms on the MIMO system for the purpose of real-time implementation on the Tait platform. In addition to performance investigation, stability analysis and a feasibility study is shown for the RLS algorithm on the FPGA. The research is industry based and is supported by FRST.

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is a means of identifying damage from the structural response to environmental loads. Real-time SHM offers rapid assessment of structural safety by owners and civil defense authorities enabling more optimal response to major events. This research presents an real-time, convex, integral-based SHM methods for seismic events that use only acceleration measurements and infrequently measured displacements, and a non-linear baseline model including hysteretic dynamics and permanent deformation. The method thus identifies time-varying pre-yield and post-yield stiffness, elastic and plastic components of displacement and final residual displacement. For a linear baseline model it identifies only timevarying stiffness. Thus, the algorithm identifies all key measures of structural damage affecting the immediate safety or use of the structure, and the long-term cost of repair and retrofit. The algorithm is tested with simulated and measured El Centro earthquake response data from a four storey non-linear steel frame structure and simulated data from a two storey non-linear hybrid rocking structure. The steel frame and rocking structures exhibit contrasting dynamic response and are thus used to highlight the impact of baseline model selection in SHM. In simulation, the algorithm identifies stiffness to within 3.5% with 90% confidence, and permanent displacement to within 7.5% with 90% confidence. Using measured data for the frame structure, the algorithm identifies final residual deformation to within 1.5% and identifies realistic stiffness values in comparison to values predicted from pushover analysis. For the rocking structure, the algorithm accurately identifies the different regimes of motion and linear stiffness comparable to estimates from previous research. Overall, the method is seen to be accurate, effective and realtime capable, with the non-linear baseline model more accurately identifying damage in both of the disparate structures examined.

The focus of this dissertation is adaptive CPU-budget allocation for periodic soft-real-time applications. The presented algorithms are developed in the context of a power-management framework. First, the prediction-based bandwidth scheduler (PBS) is developed. This algorithm is designed to adapt CPU-budget allocations at a faster rate than previous adaptive algorithms. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate that this approach allows for a faster response to under allocations than previous algorithms. A second algorithm is presented called Two-Stage Prediction (TSP) that improves on the PBS algorithm. Specifically, a more sophisticated algorithm is used to predict execution times and a stronger guarantee is provided on the timeliness of jobs. Implementation details and experimental results are presented for both the PBS and TSP algorithms. An abstraction is presented called virtual instruction count (VIC) to allow for more efficient budget allocation in power-managed systems. Power management decisions affect job-execution times. VIC is an abstract measure of computation that allows budget allocations to be made independent of power-management decisions. Implementation details and experimental results are presented for a VIC-based budget mechanism. Finally, a power-management framework is presented called the linear adaptive models based system (LAMbS). LAMbS is designed to minimize power consumption while honoring budget allocations specified in terms of VIC.

5th IFAC Symposium on Mechatronic Systems, Marriott Boston Cambridge, Cambridge, MA, USA, Sept 13-15, 2010

There has been an increase in demand for the wafer-level test techniques that evaluates the functionality and performance of the wafer chips before packaging them, since the trend of integrated circuits are getting more sophisticated and smaller in size. Throughout the wafer-level test, the semiconductor manufacturers are able to avoid the unnecessary packing cost and to provide early feedback on the overall status of the chip fabrication process. A probe card is a module of wafer-level tester, and can detect the defects of the chip by evaluating the electric characteristics of the integrated circuits(IC's). A probe card analyzer is popularly utilized to detect such a potential probe card failure which leads to increase in the unnecessary manufacture expense in the packing process. In this paper, a new probe card analysis strategy has been proposed. The main idea in conducting probe card analysis is to operate the vision-based inspection on-the- y while the camera is continuously moving. In doing so, the position measurement from the encoder is rstly synchronized with the image data that is captured by a controlled trigger signal under the real-time setting. Because capturing images from a moving camera creates blurring in the image, a simple deblurring technique has been employed to restore the original still images from blurred ones. The main ideas are demonstrated using an experimental test bed and a commercial probe card. The experimental test bed has been designed that comprises a micro machine vision system and a real-time controller, the con guration of the low cost experimental test bed is proposed. Compared to the existing stop-and-go approach, the proposed technique can substantially enhance the inspection speed without additional cost for major hardware change.

The world, especially the business world, has changed from consisting of different countries and markets to one global market. This can be attributed to better transportation, communication and information systems. This new development has changed the rules of the business game. No more do companies compete with local players only but increasingly with foreign based entities. Many experts argue that top companies in the world today are those that have embraced new technologies to improve their entire operations. New information technology allows them to integrate their operations upstream with their suppliers, downstream with their clients as well as in-house to improve their efficiencies. This includes mining companies who have to introduce new information, communication and transportation systems to compete with their global counterparts. This study investigates the operation of South African underground mines operation. This is done with a focus on the integration of tracking technology into the horizontal transportation system. The objective is to improve productivity due to better process control. In order to achieve this objective the entire operational process had to be divided into key elements that had to be investigated. The following key elements were identified and investigated: Information and communication strategy, Organisation structure, Departmental integration, Organisational processes, Management information, Information management, Management information system, Solution selection criteria, Causes of low productivity, Problems with logistics system, Technology implementation methods, Outsourcing, Reasons for technology failure and Future challenges facing industry. The investigation was done in four phases. The first phase provided a framework for a literature study. The second phase comprised a literature study that would set the foundation for the empirical study. The third phase consisted of the empirical study, research methodology and data gathering. The fourth and final phase consisted of data grouping and analysis, conclusions and recommendations. Among the conclusions drawn, the following stand out: There is a general problem in the industry that can be attributed to logistics. There is also a problem of information quality and information flow among the different departments that lead to poor integration. Another problem that was highlighted is the non-involvement of end-users in technology selection and implementation. In terms of future challenges facing the industry, poor education levels, productivity and commodity prices were identified. In terms of solutions for the future, integrating technology, with the involvement of end users, were mentioned. All these findings were uniform across the different mining houses, which show the similarity of the industry culture. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2009.

The world, especially the business world, has changed from consisting of different countries and markets to one global market. This can be attributed to better transportation, communication and information systems. This new development has changed the rules of the business game. No more do companies compete with local players only but increasingly with foreign based entities. Many experts argue that top companies in the world today are those that have embraced new technologies to improve their entire operations. New information technology allows them to integrate their operations upstream with their suppliers, downstream with their clients as well as in-house to improve their efficiencies. This includes mining companies who have to introduce new information, communication and transportation systems to compete with their global counterparts. This study investigates the operation of South African underground mines operation. This is done with a focus on the integration of tracking technology into the horizontal transportation system. The objective is to improve productivity due to better process control. In order to achieve this objective the entire operational process had to be divided into key elements that had to be investigated. The following key elements were identified and investigated: Information and communication strategy, Organisation structure, Departmental integration, Organisational processes, Management information, Information management, Management information system, Solution selection criteria, Causes of low productivity, Problems with logistics system, Technology implementation methods, Outsourcing, Reasons for technology failure and Future challenges facing industry. The investigation was done in four phases. The first phase provided a framework for a literature study. The second phase comprised a literature study that would set the foundation for the empirical study. The third phase consisted of the empirical study, research methodology and data gathering. The fourth and final phase consisted of data grouping and analysis, conclusions and recommendations. Among the conclusions drawn, the following stand out: There is a general problem in the industry that can be attributed to logistics. There is also a problem of information quality and information flow among the different departments that lead to poor integration. Another problem that was highlighted is the non-involvement of end-users in technology selection and implementation. In terms of future challenges facing the industry, poor education levels, productivity and commodity prices were identified. In terms of solutions for the future, integrating technology, with the involvement of end users, were mentioned. All these findings were uniform across the different mining houses, which show the similarity of the industry culture. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2009.