With the widespread use of the Internet, the popularity of web applications has significantly increased. Such applications are subject to unpredictable workload conditions that vary from time to time. For example, an e-commerce website may face higher workloads than normal during festivals or promotional schemes. Such applications are critical and performance related issues, or service disruption can result in financial losses. Cloud computing with its attractive feature of dynamic resource provisioning (elasticity) is a perfect match to host such applications. The rapid growth in the usage of cloud computing model, as well as the rise in complexity of the web applications poses new challenges regarding the effective monitoring and management of the underlying cloud computational resources. This thesis investigates the state-of-the-art elastic methods including the models and techniques for the dynamic management and provisioning of cloud resources from a service provider perspective. An elastic controller is responsible to determine the optimal number of cloud resources, required at a particular time to achieve the desired performance demands. Researchers and practitioners have proposed many elastic controllers using versatile techniques ranging from simple if-then-else based rules to sophisticated optimisation, control theory and machine learning based methods. However, despite an extensive range of existing elasticity research, the aim of implementing an efficient scaling technique that satisfies the actual demands is still a challenge to achieve. There exist many issues that have not received much attention from a holistic point of view. Some of these issues include: 1) the lack of adaptability and static scaling behaviour whilst considering completely fixed approaches; 2) the burden of additional computational overhead, the inability to cope with the sudden changes in the workload behaviour and the preference of adaptability over reliability at runtime whilst considering the fully dynamic approaches; and 3) the lack of considering uncertainty aspects while designing auto-scaling solutions. This thesis seeks solutions to address these issues altogether using an integrated approach. Moreover, this thesis aims at the provision of qualitative elasticity rules. This thesis proposes a novel biologically-inspired switched feedback control methodology to address the horizontal elasticity problem. The switched methodology utilises multiple controllers simultaneously, whereas the selection of a suitable controller is realised using an intelligent switching mechanism. Each controller itself depicts a different elasticity policy that can be designed using the principles of fixed gain feedback controller approach. The switching mechanism is implemented using a fuzzy system that determines a suitable controller/- policy at runtime based on the current behaviour of the system. Furthermore, to improve the possibility of bumpless transitions and to avoid the oscillatory behaviour, which is a problem commonly associated with switching based control methodologies, this thesis proposes an alternative soft switching approach. This soft switching approach incorporates a biologically-inspired Basal Ganglia based computational model of action selection. In addition, this thesis formulates the problem of designing the membership functions of the switching mechanism as a multi-objective optimisation problem. The key purpose behind this formulation is to obtain the near optimal (or to fine tune) parameter settings for the membership functions of the fuzzy control system in the absence of domain experts’ knowledge. This problem is addressed by using two different techniques including the commonly used Genetic Algorithm and an alternative less known economic approach called the Taguchi method. Lastly, we identify seven different kinds of real workload patterns, each of which reflects a different set of applications. Six real and one synthetic HTTP traces, one for each pattern, are further identified and utilised to evaluate the performance of the proposed methods against the state-of-the-art approaches.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-12T17:38:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 CLAUDIO EDUARDO SOARES.pdf: 20046362 bytes, checksum: 135e6d7d3a6f98bef9152afe645904c4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-04-28 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The controllers based on the internal model principle have found emphasis on control systems due to its ability to perform robust tracking of signals whose generator models are embedded in their internal structures. Controllers with integral, resonant and repetitive terms are examples of this principle. However, the control systems are subject to physical limitations that restrict their operation under certain conditions. The amplitude saturation of the control action is the most common type of restriction found in real systems. The impacts of the saturation of control action are known as windup and its consequences for systems with integral action have already been exhaustive examined. However, the impacts of saturation of control action are not restricted to this type of controller. Other controllers based on the internal model principle are also affected by the windup phenomenon due to saturation of the action control. The impacts of the windup phenomenon for resonant, multi-resonant and repetitive controllers are investigated in this dissertation and an anti-windup technique is suggested to mitigate the impacts of the control saturation on these controllers. The proposed anti-windup technique is based on the conditional integration technique, originally developed for the controllers with integral action, and it is named conditional update. Simulation results are presented to validate the proposed technique. / Os controladores baseados no princípio do modelo interno têm encontrado destaque no controle de sistemas devido a sua capacidade de realizar o rastreamento robusto dos sinais cujos modelos geradores estejam embutidos nas suas estruturas internas. Os controladores com ação integral, ressonantes e repetitivos são exemplos da aplicação deste princípio. Contudo, os sistemas de controle estão sujeitos a limitações físicas que restringem suas condições de operação. A saturação da amplitude da ação de controle é o tipo de limitação mais comum encontrada nos sistemas reais. Os impactos da saturação da ação de controle são conhecidos como windup e suas consequências para os sistemas com ação integral já foram exaustivamente analisadas. Porém, os impactos da saturação da ação de controle não se restringem a este tipo de controlador. Outros controladores baseados no princípio do modelo interno também são afetados pelo fenômeno windup decorrente da saturação da ação de controle. Os impactos do fenômeno windup sobre os controladores ressonantes, multiressonantes e repetitivos são investigados nesta dissertação e uma técnica anti-windup é sugerida para atenuar os impactos da saturação da ação de controle sobre estes controladores. A técnica anti-windup proposta é baseada na técnica da integração condicional, originalmente desenvolvida para os controladores com ação integral e, por isso, denominada de atualização condicional. Resultados de simulação são apresentados para validação da técnica proposta.

The interest in autonomous vehicles has never been higher and there are several components that need to function for a vehicle to be fully autonomous; one of which is the ability to perform a parking at the end of a mission. The objective of this thesis work is to develop and implement an automatic parking system (APS) for a heavy-duty vehicle (HDV). A delimitation in this thesis work is that the parking lot has a known structure and the HDV is a truck without any trailer and access to more computational power and sensors than today's commercial trucks. An automatic system for searching the parking lot has been developed which updates an occupancy grid map (OGM) based on measurements from GPS and LIDAR sensors mounted on the truck. Based on the OGM and the known structure of the parking lot, the state of the parking spots is determined and a path can be computed between the current and desired position. Based on a kinematic model of the HDV, a gain-scheduled linear quadratic (LQ) controller with feedforward action is developed. The controller's objective is to stabilize the lateral error dynamics of the system around a precomputed path. The LQ controller explicitly takes into account that there exist an input delay in the system. Due to minor complications with the precomputed path the LQ controller causes the steering wheel turn too rapidly which makes the backup driver nervous. To limit these rapid changes of the steering wheel a controller based on model predictive control (MPC) is developed with the goal of making the steering wheel behave more human-like. A constraint for maximum allowed changes of the controller output is added to the MPC formulation as well as physical restrictions and the resulting MPC controller is smoother and more human-like, but due to computational limitations the controller turns out less effective than desired. Development and testing of the two controllers are evaluated in three different environments of varying complexity; the simplest simulation environment contains a basic vehicle model and serves as a proof of concept environment, the second simulation environment uses a more realistic vehicle model and finally the controllers are evaluated on a full-scale HDV. Finally, system tests of the APS are performed and the HDV successfully parks with the LQ controller as well as the MPC controller. The concept of a self-parking HDV has been demonstrated even though more tuning and development needs to be done before the proposed APS can be used in a commercial HDV.

This master's thesis considers adaptive optimal controllers. It shows principles of optimal controllers, recursive identification using least-mean squares method and identification based on neural network.

This presenting master’s thesis deals with a problem of digitaly controled room temperature using the software PLC. The result of this work was creating of an algorithm to control temperature on the requested leve ofl setpoint, minimizing operating costs of the building. The PLC softwares from different manufacturers were analyzed and compared with conventional PLC. The testing facility was disigned and used to control the temperature in the room and data visualization. Room temperature was regulated by PS controller or two point regulator.

With the rising popularity of ROVs and other UV solutions, more robust and high performance controllers have become a necessity. A model of the ROV or UV can be a valuable tool during control synthesis. The main objective of this thesis was to use a model in design and development of controllers for an ROV. In this thesis, an ROV from Blue Robotics was used. The ROV was equipped with 6 thrusters placed such that the ROV was capable of moving in 6-DOFs. The ROV was further equipped with an IMU, two pressure sensors and a magnetometer. The ROV platform was further developed with EKF-based sensor fusion, a control system and manual control capabilities. To model the ROV, the framework of Fossen (2011) was used. The model was estimated using two different methods, the prediction-error method and an EKF-based method. Using the prediction-error method, it was found that the initial states of the quaternions had a large impact on the estimated parameters and the overall fit to validation data. A Kalman smoother was used to estimate the initial states. To circumvent the problems with the initial quaternions, an \abbrEKF was implemented to estimate the model parameters. The EKF estimator was less sensitive to deviations in the initial states and produced a better result than the prediction-error method. The resulting model was compared to validation data and described the angular velocities well with around 70 % fit. The estimated model was used to implement feedback linearisation which was used in conjunction with an attitude controller and an angular velocity controller. Furthermore, a depth controller was developed and tuned without the use of the model. Performance of the controllers was tested both in real tests and simulations. The angular velocity controller using feedback linearisation achieved good reference tracking. However, the attitude controller could not stabilise the system while using feedback linearisation. Both controllers' performance could be improved further by tuning the controllers' parameters during tests. The fact that the feedback linearisation made the ROV unstable, indicates that the attitude model is not good enough for use in feedback linearisation. To achieve stability, the magnitude of the parameters in the feedback linearisation were scaled down. The assumption that the ROV's center of rotation coincides with the placement of the ROV's center of gravity was presented as a possible source of error. In conclusion, good performance was achieved using the angular velocity controller. The ROV was easier to control with the angular velocity controller engaged compared to controlling it in open loop. More work is needed with the model to get acceptable performance from the attitude controller. Experiments to estimate the center of rotation and the center of gravity of the ROV may be helpful when further improving the model.

Baigiamojo magistro darbo tiriamasis objektas – intelektinė tiesiaeigė elektros pavara. Tyrimo tikslas – ištirti tiesiaeigę elektros pavarą, valdoma neraiškiuoju reguliatoriumi. Uždaviniai – sudaryti intelektinės tiesiaeigės pavaros kompiuterinį modelį gauti ir ištirti imitacijos rezultatus, juos palyginti su tokia pačia PI reguliatoriumi valdoma pavara. Literatūros analizės dalyje išnagrinėtas neraiškiosios logikos panaudojimas valdant elektros pavaras. Pateikiami straipsniai, kuriose aprašomos elektros pavarų valdymo galimybės panaudojant neraiškiosios logikos reguliatorius. Teorinėje dalyje išnagrinėjamos tiesiaeigės pavaros, pateikiamos jų taikymo apžvalga ir panaudojimo galimybės. Taip pat išanalizuojamos neraiškiosios valdymo sistemos, jų sudarymo principai ir panaudojimas reguliatoriuose. Aptariami tiesiaeigių elektros pavarų valdymo būdai. Tiriamojoje dalyje sukurtas tiesiaeigės pavaros kompiuterinis modelis, suprojektuotas neraiškusis reguliatorius, gauti imitacijos rezultatai. Rezultatams palyginti sudarytas pavaros modelis naudojant PI reguliatorių. Gauti rezultatai ištirti ir palyginti. Išnagrinėjus tiesiaeigės asinchroninės pavaros imitavimo rezultatus pateikiamos išvados ir pasiūlymai. Darbą sudaro 7-ios dalys: įvadas, literatūros analizė, tyrimo tikslas ir uždaviniai, teorinė dalis, tiriamoji dalis, apibendrinančioji dalis, naudotos literatūros šaltinių sąrašas. Darbo apimtis – 65 psl. teksto be priedų, 43 iliustr., 2 lent., 37 bibliografiniai šaltiniai, iš jų... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Research subject of master thesis is intelligent linear electric drive. Objective of the study - to investigate linear electric actuator, controlled with Fuzzy controller. Tasks - create computer model of intellectual linear drive, to investigate the simulation results and compare them with the same drive which controlled with PI controller. In the literary analysis part usage of Fuzzy logic in the electric drives control has been examined. Articles with description of the electric drive control features using Fuzzy logic controller have been given. In the theoretical part the linear actuators are analyzed, the review of the application and their usability was given. Also are analyzed Fuzzy control systems, their creation principles and usage in the regulators. The linear electric drive control methods are discussed. In the research part computer model of the linear drive has developed, designed Fuzzy controller, analyzed simulation results. For results comparing the model with PI controller has designed. The results obtained are examined and compared. After examination results of the linear induction drive simulation the conclusions and recommendations are given. The work consists of seven parts: introduction, literature review, the study aims and objectives, the theoretical part, research, generalization and used references. Thesis volume - 65 pages text without appendixes, 43 pictures, 2 tables, 37 bibliographical sources, including internet links 10. Appendixes are... [to full text]

Thesis (M. Tech.) (Engineering: Electrical, Dept.: Electronic Engineering))--Vaal University of Technology, 2008. / The demand for higher efficiency, sustainability and cleaner power sources increases daily. A Direct Methanol Fuel Cell is a power source that can be applied for small to medium household appliances and office equipment. It can ideally be used for operating appliances like notebook computers on remote sites where no electrical power is available. One of the problems in methanol fuel cells is methanol crossover. Methanol crossover occurs when methanol is not completely used in the process of generating electrons, and a certain percentage of the methanol is wasted. Crossover may damage the proton exchange membrane of the fuel cell and reduce the efficiency of a DMFC. Literature reviews were done and suggestions from other writers are discussed on how to reduce methanol crossover. This research focuses primarily on the fact that crossover can be controlled by controlling the methanol / water concentration. A prototype methanol controller was built with an ultrasonic sensor for detecting the density of the methanol/water mixture and a sensor for the temperature of the mixture; this was done because the density of the mixture is dependant on the temperature and the concentration. The controller was calibrated to determine the amount per volume of water and methanol which enables the controller to control the percentage of methanol in the water. The prototype also had the feature built in to adjust the mixture in order to enable the study on the effects of crossover. A data logger function was added to store collected data on a personal computer for the study on methanol and water. It was observed that the sensor was sensitive enough and was able to produce 1% increments of the level of methanol concentration in the water provided the temperature was stable. A methanol controller was successfully built to ensure the correct volume of methanol. / Telkom Centre of Excellence

Este trabalho tem base na demanda de pesquisas e desenvolvimento de tecnologias de redes de comunicação (fieldbus) que visam à integração de sistemas de automação e controle para aplicações em sistemas agrícolas. Sistemas agrícolas relacionados com as práticas da agricultura de precisão, com sistemas embarcados em máquinas e implementos agrícolas e com sistemas de controle de estufas e criadouros. É fundamentado também pelos esforços conjuntos no sentido de promover padronização e implementação da norma ISO11783, baseada no CAN, que dê suporte às práticas agrícolas relacionadas com a aquisição e transmissão de grande quantidade de dados. Um dos principais desafios associados ao projeto e utilização de redes de comunicação como o CAN, está relacionado à dificuldade de definição dos parâmetros de configuração para um bom desempenho da rede. O dimensionamento desses parâmetros exerce forte influência no desempenho da rede analisada. Sob o contexto destas necessidades relacionadas, este trabalho apresenta a pesquisa e o desenvolvimento de uma ferramenta de análise de desempenho de redes fieldbus baseada no protocolo CAN para integração de dispositivos em aplicações em sistemas agrícolas. As etapas desse desenvolvimento consistem na sistematização e validação de um modelo matemático do enlace de dados da rede, na proposta de uma metodologia de análise de parâmetros de configurações relacionados com a rede e na implementação computacional dessa metodologia. Espera-se que a metodologia implementada seja uma ferramenta que facilite tarefas de análise e obtenção de dados referentes às aplicações. O resultado deste trabalho busca auxiliar no dimensionamento de parâmetros de configuração e na otimização de redes CAN, além de fornecer dados que ajudam no desenvolvimento de soluções baseadas no protocolo CAN e na norma ISO11783. / This work has base in the demand of research and development of data communication networks (fieldbus) to support the integration of control and automation devices for applications in agricultural systems. Agricultural systems related with the precision agriculture practices, with the embedded systems in agricultural machinery and with the greenhouses control and livestock systems. It is also guided by the efforts on the implementation of ISO11783 standard. The ISO11783 (also called ISOBUS) standard communication link is a common tendency to integrated different devices on agricultural machinery through an embedded control network. The ISOBUS use the controller area network (CAN) as a data link protocol to perform the data communication. The correct definition of the data link configuration parameters represents one of the main challenges related to the design of CAN-based networks. The definition of these parameters has influence in the performance of the analyzed network. This work presents the research and the development of a performance analysis tool of CAN-based networks for applications in agricultural systems. This development consists of the systematization and validation of a CAN mathematical model. An analysis methodology is proposed to use the mathematical model. A simulation software was built and implements the methodology. It is expected that the implemented methodology facilitates the analysis tasks of the configuration parameters of the applications. The result obtained may assist in the performance evaluation and in the definition of an optimized configuration for the network based on CAN protocol and ISO11783 standard.

Esse trabalho apresenta uma contribuição para o projeto de um controlador MPC robusto quanto à estabilidade baseado na realimentação da saída e admitindo restrições nas entradas e incertezas no modelo da planta. Ele estende a abordagem existente para o projeto de um MPC considerando o caso particular de um modelo em espaço de estados, onde o estado é lido diretamente da planta, sendo aplicado para a situação em que o sistema escolhido de entradas possa ficar saturado ou que o processo seja representado por um modelo diferente do modelo considerado na função objetivo do controlador. Para isso, o MPC se propõe a resolver o problema de otimização em dois estágios: No estágio off-line, vários controladores sem restrição são obtidos a partir de um problema de otimização onde inequações de Lyapunov são acrescentadas ao problema como restrições de forma a garantir a contração do estado (estabilidade). Esses controladores, representados por uma matriz de ganhos, correspondem a todas configurações possíveis de saturação das variáveis manipuladas para um dado conjunto possível de variáveis controladas. Nessas combinações, incluídas como restrições no controlador, todos os modelos previstos para o processo são considerados. Dessa forma, perdendo-se uma entrada, o subconjunto de saídas controladas pode ser alterado.Na versão anterior do método proposto por Rodrigues & Odloak (2005), esse estágio off-line envolve um observador de estados o que dificulta a solução do problema de otimização do MPC robusto, consumindo grande tempo computacional. Além disso, requer uma solução inicial viável que nem sempre é trivial. Com a versão proposta do sistema de modelo espaço estado, o estimador de estado torna-se desnecessário pois o estado passa a ser medido. Na etapa on-line do projeto do controlador, uma lei ótima de controle é obtida a partir da combinação convexa das configurações de controle que correspondem ao conjunto de variáveis manipuladas disponíveis (não saturadas). Também nessa etapa é considerada a incerteza do modelo utilizado pelo controlador. O controlador proposto é testado com alguns exemplos simulados a partir de modelos obtidos na indústria de processo. / In this work, it is presented a contribution to the design of a robust MPC with output feedback, input constraints and uncertain model. This work extends existing approaches by considering a particular non-minimal state space model, which transforms the output feedback strategy into a state feedback strategy. The controller is developed to the case in which the system inputs may become saturated and the model is uncertain. We follow a two stages approach: In the off-line stage, a series of unconstrained robust MPCs is obtained by including in the control optimization problem, inequality constraints that force the state of the closed-loop system to contract along the time. Each of these controllers, represented by a gain matrix, is associated to particular sets of manipulated inputs and controlled outputs. When one manipulated input becomes saturated, we may need to reduce the set of controlled variables. In the existing version of the method, the closed loop system involves a state observer that makes the solution to the robust MPC optimization problem a time consuming step. The problem also requires an initial solution that may not be trivial to find. With the adopted version of the system state space model, the state filter becomes trivial and the state can be considered measured. In the on-line step of the proposed controller design, a sub optimal control law is obtained by combining control configurations that correspond to particular subsets of available manipulated inputs. The method is illustrated with simulation examples of the process industry.