D.Phil. / A modern day N-P complete problem is the assigning of frequencies to transmitters in a cellular network in such a manner that, ideally, no two transmitters in the same cell or neighbouring cells use the same frequency. Considering that an average cellular network provider has over 29 000 transmitters and only 55 frequencies, choosing these frequencies in an optimal way is a very difficult computational problem. Swarm intelligence allows the acceptable minimization and optimization of the frequency assignment problem (FAP). Swarm intelligence is a concept modelling the processes in natural systems such as ant colonies, beehives, human immune systems and the human brain. These systems are selforganizational and display high efficiency in the execution of their tasks. A number of simple automated agents interacting with each other and the environment form a collective. Specifically, there is no "central agent" directing the others. A collective can display surprising intelligence which emerges out of the interaction of the individual agents. This collective intelligence, referred to as swarm intelligence, is displayed in ant colonies when ants build elaborate nests, regulate nest temperature and efficiently search for food in very complex environments. In this thesis a proposal is made to utilize swarm intelligence to build a swarm automatic frequency planner (swarm AFP). The swarm AFP produces frequency plans that are better, or on par with existing frequency planning tools, and in a fraction of the time. A swarm AFP is presented through an in-depth investigation into complex adaptive systems, agent architectures and emergence. Based on an understanding of these concepts, a swarm intelligence model called ACEUS is constructed. ACEUS forms the platform of the swarm AFP. It is a contribution to multi-agent technology as it is a new multi-agent framework that exhibits swarm intelligence and complex distributed computation. What differentiates ACEUS from other multi-agent technologies is that ACEUS works on the basis that the tasks or constructions that have been created by the agents actually guide the agents in their endeavours. There is no centralised agent controlling or guiding the process. The agents in ACEUS receive information and stimulation from their tasks or constructions in the environment. As these constructions or tasks alter the environment, the agents receive stimulus from the changing environment and then react to the changing environment. The changing environment acts as an emergent guiding force to the agents. This is the important contribution that stigmergy contributes to ACEUS. Utilizing this concept, ACEUS is used to create a swarm AFP. The swarm AFP is benchmarked against the COST 259 Siemens benchmarks. In all the COST 259 Siemens scenarios the swarm AFP produced the best results in the shortest time. The swarm AFP was also tested in a real cellular network and the resulting statistics before and after the swarm AFP implementation are presented.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, .Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Engineering. / As industrial plants become more complex. there is a growing need for new approaches to control and supervision. This research investigates the issues involved in applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques in the real-world engineering problem of process control supervision. Current AI theory is examined and some techniques modified to design a general-purpose, reactive planner. The planner forms the basis of a supervisory control system. The system is implemented and interfaced with an existing Laboratory plant, so that its performance can he tested and evaluated by comparing with a conventional feedback controller This real life testing necessitates explicit treatment of issues such as data: sampling. situation assessment and CPU scheduling. The case study shows that by combining AI techniques with conventional control, a system can be built which displays superior performance under normal operating conditions and which can deal with abnormal conditions such as equipment failures. / Andrew Chakane 2018

Orientador: Carlos Roberto Minussi / Banca: Anna Diva Plasencia Lotufo / Banca: Maria do Carmo Gomes da Silveira / Banca: Edivaldo Romanini / Banca: Fernando Nogueira de Lima / Resumo: A evasão escolar é um dos problemas mais complexos e cruciais no âmbito da educação. Está presente e é motivo de preocupação nos vários níveis e modalidades de ensino, além de ferir o princípio da dignidade humana. No que tange ao ensino superior, internacionalmente, o fenômeno é objeto de atenção e de cuidado, no intuito de aumentar os índices de permanência e conclusão dos estudantes de graduação e minimizar os prejuízos sociais, econômicos, políticos, acadêmicos e financeiros causados a todos os envolvidos no processo educacional. Nesse contexto, é imprescindível o desenvolvimento de métodos e instrumentos eficientes e eficazes para predição, avaliação e acompanhamento de estudantes em risco de evasão, possibilitando o planejamento e a adoção de medidas proativas no intuito de minimizar a situação. Assim sendo, esta pesquisa tem por objetivo apresentar as potencialidades de um sistema inteligente capaz de identificar, de maneira proativa, continuada e acurada, o grupo de risco de evasão discente, da educação clássica-presencial, no ensino de nível superior. No desenvolvimento deste sistema foi utilizada uma das técnicas da inteligência artificial, as Redes Neurais Artificiais, mais especificamente, a Rede Neural ARTMAP-Fuzzy, uma rede neural da família ART (Adaptive Resonance Theory) que possibilita o aprendizado continuado do sistema. Para o treinamento e teste da Rede Neural e, posteriormente, a validação do sistema proposto foram utilizados os dados socioeconômicos e acadêmicos dos estudantes matriculados nos cursos superiores de tecnologia do Instituto Federal de Mato Grosso - IFMT. Os dados que compuseram os vetores de entrada do sistema foram coletados a partir de dois bancos de dados do sistema de informação do IFMT, respectivamente, o Q-seleção e o Q-Acadêmico. Este sistema faz a classificação dos padrões de entrada em propensos ... / Abstract: School dropout is one of the most complex and crucial problems in the field of education. It permeates and afflicts the several levels and teaching modalities, besides hurting the principle of human dignity. In relation to higher education, internationally, the phenomenon is an object of attention and care, aiming to increase the indexes of permanence and completion rate of the undergraduate students and minimize social, economic, political and financial damage caused to all involved in the educational process. In this context, it is fundamental to develop efficient and effective methods and instruments for prediction, assessment and monitoring of the students at risk of dropping out, making the planning and the adoption of proactive actions possible for the improvement of the situation. Thus, this study aims to present the potentialities of an intelligent system able to identify, in a proactive, continued and accurate way, the student dropout risk group in higher education classroom courses. In the development of this system one of the artificial intelligence techniques was used, the Artificial Neural Networks, more specifically, the Fuzzy-ARTMAP Neural network, a neural network of the ART (Adaptive Resonance Theory) family which makes the continued learning of the system possible. For the training and test of the Neural Network and, later, the validation of the system proposed the socio-economic and academic records of the students enrolled in the technology courses of the Federal Institute of Mato Grosso - IFMT were used. The data that constituted the input vectors of the system were extracted from two database of the IFMT information system, respectively, the Q-selection and the Q-Academic. This system classifies the input patterns in school dropout propensity. The consistence of the results, showing a success rate of the dropout group around 95% and 100% and the overall mean accuracy around ... / Doutor

novel approach to extend the decision-making capabilities of unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) is presented in this work. A multi-objective framework is described where separate controllers command different behaviors according to a desired trajectory. Three behaviors are examined – transiting, station-keeping and reversing. Given the desired trajectory, the vehicle is able to autonomously recognize which behavior best suits a portion of the trajectory. The USV uses a combination of a supervisory switching control structure and a reinforcement learning algorithm to create a hybrid deliberative and reactive approach to switch between controllers and actions. Reinforcement learning provides a deliberative method to create a controller switching policy, while supervisory switching control acts reactively to instantaneous changes in the environment. Each action is restricted to one controller. Due to the nonlinear effects in these behaviors, two underactuated backstepping controllers and a fully-actuated backstepping controller are proposed for each transiting, reversing and station-keeping behavior, respectively, restricted to three degrees of freedom. Field experiments are presented to validate this system on the water with a physical USV platform under Sea State 1 conditions. Main outcomes of this work are that the proposed system provides better performance than a comparable gain-scheduled nonlinear controller in terms of an Integral of Absolute Error metric. Additionally, the deliberative component allows the system to identify dynamically infeasible trajectories and properly accommodate them. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

In this research, a wind feedforward (FF) controller has been developed to augment closed loop feedback controllers for the position and heading station keeping control of Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs). The performance of the controllers was experimentally tested using a 16 foot USV in an outdoor marine environment. The FF controller was combined with three nonlinear feedback controllers, a Proportional–Derivative (PD) controller, a Backstepping (BS) controller, and a Sliding mode (SM) controller, to improve the station-keeping performance of the USV. To address the problem of wind model uncertainties, adaptive wind feedforward (AFF) control schemes are also applied to the FF controller, and implemented together with the BS and SM feedback controllers. The adaptive law is derived using Lyapunov Theory to ensure stability. On-water station keeping tests of each combination of FF and feedback controllers were conducted in the U.S. Intracoastal Waterway in Dania Beach, FL USA. Five runs of each test condition were performed; each run lasted at least 10 minutes. The experiments were conducted in Sea State 1 with an average wind speed of between 1 to 4 meters per second and significant wave heights of less than 0.2 meters. When the performance of the controllers is compared using the Integral of the Absolute Error (IAE) of position criterion, the experimental results indicate that the BS and SM feedback controllers significantly outperform the PD feedback controller (e.g. a 33% and a 44% decreases in the IAE, respectively). It is also found that FF is beneficial for all three feedback controllers and that AFF can further improve the station keeping performance. For example, a BS feedback control combined with AFF control reduces the IAE by 25% when compared with a BS feedback controller combined with a non-adaptive FF controller. Among the eight combinations of controllers tested, SM feedback control combined with AFF control gives the best station keeping performance with an average position and heading error of 0.32 meters and 4.76 degrees, respectively. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

No description available.

Current robot manipulation and control paradigms have largely been developed for static or highly structured environments such as those common in factories. For most techniques in robot trajectory generation, such as heuristic-based geometric planning, this has led to putting a high cost on contact with the world. This approach and methodology can be prohibitive to robots operating in many unmodeled and dynamic environments. This dissertation presents work on using haptic based feedback (torque and tactile sensing) to formulate a controller for robot manipulation in clutter. We define “clutter” as any environment in which we expect the robot to make both incidental and purposeful contact while maneuvering and manipulating. The controllers developed in this dissertation take the form of single or multi-time step Model Predictive Control (a form of optimal control which incorporates feedback) which attempts to regulate contact forces at multiple locations on a robot arm while reaching to a goal. The results and conclusions in this dissertation are based on extensive testing in simulation (tens of thousands of trials) and testing in realistic scenarios with real robots incorporating tactile sensing. The approach is novel in the sense that it allows contact and explicitly incorporate the contact and predictive model of the robot arm in calculating control effort at every time step. The expected broader impact of this research is progress towards a new foundation of reactive feedback controllers that will include a higher likelihood of success in many constrained and dynamic scenarios such as reaching into containers without line of sight, maneuvering in cluttered search and rescue situations or working with unpredictable human co-workers.

Knowing the semantic category of a robot's current position not only facilitates the robot's navigation, but also greatly improves its ability to serve human needs and to interpret the scene. Visual Place Categorization (VPC) is addressed in this dissertation, which refers to the problem of predicting the semantic category of a place using visual information collected from an autonomous robot platform. Census Transform (CT) histogram and Histogram Intersection Kernel (HIK) based visual codebooks are proposed to represent an image. CT histogram encodes the stable spatial structure of an image that reflects the functionality of a location. It is suitable for categorizing places and has shown better performance than commonly used descriptors such as SIFT or Gist in the VPC task. HIK has been shown to work better than the Euclidean distance in classifying histograms. We extend it in an unsupervised manner to generate visual codebooks for the CT histogram descriptor. HIK codebooks help CT histogram to deal with the huge variations in VPC and improve system accuracy. A computational method is also proposed to generate HIK codebooks in an efficient way. The first significant VPC dataset in home environments is collected and is made publicly available, which is also used to evaluate the VPC system based on the proposed techniques. The VPC system achieves promising results for this challenging problem, especially for important categories such as bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen. The proposed techniques achieved higher accuracies than competing descriptors and visual codebook generation methods.

Mainly based on Li Li's Ph. D. dissertation: University of Arizona, Tucson, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references and index.

Thesis (M.S.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 91-93).