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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
41

Investigation of the dynamic motions and operability of a ship towed by kite / Evaluation des limites d’utilisation des navires tractés par kite par l’étude des mouvements de tenue à la mer et de manoeuvrabilité

Bigi, Nedeleg 15 December 2017 (has links)
Afin de réduire les émissions de gaz à effet de serre et le coût du transport maritime, l'utilisation des cerfs-volants comme système de propulsion auxiliaire des navires est prometteuse. Pour estimer les performances et l’opérabilité d’un navire tracté par cerf-volant, une modélisation dynamique du système est alors mise en oeuvre. Une modélisation analytique de cerf-volant est utilisée. Ce modèle néglige la masse du cerf-volant et suppose que les lignes sont droites et indéformables. Ces hypothèses conduisent à un modèle cinématique dépendant du coefficient de portance et de la finesse aérodynamique. Une évolution linéaire des coefficients aérodynamiques en fonction de la courbure de la trajectoire de vol est proposée. Par ailleurs, en développant un modèle quasi analytique de ligne, il est montré qu’à partir de 2 m.s-1 de vent relatif que l’hypothèse de ligne droite est raisonnable. En se basant sur un modèle de ligne, un critère analytique de vitesse de vent minimum permettant un vol quasi-statique est présenté. Dans le but de résoudre l’ensemble des termes d’interaction entre le cerf-volant et le navire, un modèle linéarisé de tenue à la mer temporelle est développé. Le produit de convolution de la réponse impulsionnelle du navire est calculé avec des systèmes d’états. Cependant comme celle-ci représente mal les mouvements horizontaux des navires, le modèle développé est alors couplé à un modèle de manoeuvrabilité. Pour étudier les interactions entre le cerf-volant et le navire un couplage monolithique et un couplage dissocié sont comparés. Le couplage dissocié néglige l’influence des mouvements du navire sur le vol du cerf-volant. En cas de mer calme, les résultats obtenus par les deux types de couplage sont très proches. En cas de houle régulière les mouvements du navire sont principalement causés par la houle. Le couplage monolithique montre qu’un réseau de sous-harmoniques basse fréquence apparait alors dans le spectre d’excitation du navire. La fréquence fondamentale des sous-harmoniques est donnée par la différence entre la fréquence de vague et la fréquence de l’harmonique la plus proche de l’excitation du kite. Quand cette différence est suffisamment petite, un phénomène d’accrochage apparait. Ce phénomène est bénéfique pour le cerf-volant et le navire quand le décalage des harmoniques d'excitation correspond à une augmentation. Par ailleurs, une étude de la stabilité de route montre qu'il est nécessaire de contrôler activement le safran. / In order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and shipping costs, the use of kites as an auxiliary propulsion device for ships is promising. In order to estimate the performance and the operability of a kite-towed vessel, a dynamic modeling of the system is implemented. A classical kite modeling is used. This model neglects the mass of the kite and assumes straight and inelastic tethers. These assumptions lead to a kinematic model depending on the lift coefficient and the aerodynamic lift to drag ration angle. A linear evolution of these aerodynamic coefficients as a function of the curvature of the flight path is proposed. In addition, by developing a quasi-analytical line model, it is shown that from 2 m.s-1 of relative wind the straight tether assumption is reasonable. Based on the tether model, an analytical criterion assessing the minimum wind speed to enable a quasi-static kite flight is developed. To solve all the interaction terms between the kite and the ship, a time domain seakeeping model based on the linearized ship equation of motion assuming a potential flow is developed. The convolution product of the impulse response of the ship is computed with state-space systems. However, since horizontal ship motions are not well represented by such theories, a coupling with a maneuvering model is presented.Comparisons to experimental data tests show good agreements. To study the interactions between the kite and the ship, a monolithic coupling and a dissociated coupling are compared. The dissociated coupling neglects the influence of ship motions on the kite flight. In a calm water case, results obtained by the two types of coupling are very close. In regular waves, ship motions are dominated by the wave influence. Thus, with the monolithic coupling, a network of low frequency subharmonic appears in the kite excitation spectrum. The fundamental frequency of the subharmonic is given by the difference between the wave frequency and the frequency of the nearest kite excitation harmonic. When this difference is small enough, a lock-in phenomenon appears. This phenomenon is a benefit for the kite and the ship when the shift of the excitation harmonics corresponds to an increase. Furthermore, a course keeping stability study shows that the rudder needs to be actively controlled.
42

Simulation and Visualization of Environments with Multidimensional Time

Tychonievich, Luther A. 21 January 2008 (has links) (PDF)
This work introduces the notion of computational hypertime, or the simulation and visualization of hypothetical environments possessing multidimensional time. An overview of hypertime is provided,including an intuitive visualization paradigm and a discussion of the failure of common simulation techniques when extended to include multidimensional time. A condition for differential equations describing hypertime motion to be amenable to standard time-iterative simulation techniques is provided,but is not satisfied by any known model of physics. An alternate simulation algorithm involving iterative refinement of entire equations of motion is presented,with an example implementation to solve elastic collisions in hypertime. An artificial intelligence algorithm for navigating crowds in any arbitrary nD/mT environment is discussed,and an implementation is provided using collision cones and stochastic global optimization techniques. Possible models of hypertime energy and other open questions are discussed. Both algorithms are described and show favorable results, meeting all design criteria and running at interactive speeds on common desktop computer systems.
43

Development of Star Tracker Attitude and Position Determination System for Spacecraft Maneuvering and Docking Facility

Dikmen, Serkan January 2016 (has links)
Attitude and position determination systems in satellites are absolutely necessary to keep the desired trajectory. A very accurate, reliable and most used sensor for attitude determination is the star tracker, which orient itself in space by observing and comparing star constellations with known star patterns. For on earth tests of movements and docking maneuvers of spacecrafts, the new Spacecraft Maneuvering and Docking (SMD) facility at the chair of Aerospace Information Technology at the University of Würzburg has been built. Air bearing systems on the space ve- hicles help to create micro gravity environment on a smooth surface and simulate an artificial space-like surrounding. A new star tracker based optical sensor for indoor application need to be developed in order to get the attitude and position of the vehicles. The main objective of this thesis is to research on feasible star tracking algorithms for the SMD facility first and later to implement a star detection software framework with new developed voting methods to give the star tracker system its fully autonomous function of attitude determination and position tracking. Furthermore, together with image processing techniques, the software framework is embedded into a controller board. This thesis proposes also a wireless network system for the facility, where all the devices on the vehicles can uniquely communicate within the same network and a devel- opment of a ground station to monitor the star tracker process has also been introduced. Multiple test results with different scenarios on position tracking and attitude determination, discussions and suggestions on improvements complete the entire thesis work.
44

Time-Optimal Guidance for Impact Angle Constrained Interception of Moving Targets

Akhil, G January 2017 (has links) (PDF)
Various unmanned missions deploy vehicles such as missiles, torpedoes, ground robots, and unmanned aerial vehicles. Guidance strategies for these vehicles aim to intercept a target point and satisfy additional objectives such as specifications on impact angle and interception time. Certain impact angles are crucial for a greater warhead effectiveness, and minimizing the interception time is important for vehicles with limited endurance time and for reducing the probability of detection. This thesis considers the time-optimal impact angle constrained guidance problem for interception of moving targets. In the first part of the thesis, a Dubins paths–based guidance methodology for minimum-time lateral interception of a moving and non-maneuvering target is designed. The existence and the time-optimality of the paths are established for impact angle constrained interception of moving targets. The capture regions are analyzed and a classification of the initial geometries is developed for deducing the time-optimal path type. The corresponding guidance command for optimal interception can be generated from the information of initial engagement geometry and target’s speed. In the next part of the thesis, the concept of equivalent virtual target is introduced to address the problem of impact along a general direction. An algorithm is developed to obtain the optimal interception point for generalized interception scenarios. A proof of convergence is presented for the proposed algorithm. Achieving different impact angles, the interceptor often takes sharp turns. Following such curved trajectories, the interceptor may fail to keep the target inside the seeker field-of-view. In the next part of the thesis, the field-of-view characteristics of the proposed optimal guidance strategies are analyzed. Closed-form expressions are derived for the interceptor’s look-angle to the target. Satisfying field-of-view condition at endpoints of the path segments that constitute the optimal path is proven to guarantee target motion inside the field-of-view throughout the engagement. The stationary target case is also analyzed as a specific scenario. The last part of the thesis presents a method to extend the proposed guidance strategies to maneuvering target scenarios.
45

Differential Games Guidance Laws for Aerospace Applications

Bardhan, Rajarshi January 2015 (has links) (PDF)
This thesis addresses several aerospace guidance and decision making problems using both no cooperative and cooperative game theoretical solution concepts in the differential games framework. In the first part of the thesis, state dependent Riccati equation (SDRE) method has been extended to a zero-sum nonlinear differential games setting. This framework is used to study problems of intercepting a manoeuvring target, with and without terminal impact angle constraints, in the zero-sum differential games theory perspective. The guidance laws derived according to the proposed method are in closed from and online implementable. In the second part of the thesis, cooperative game theoretic concepts are applied to make a group of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) achieve rendezvous, in a given finite time horizon. An algorithm has been proposed that enables the UAVs to realize Nash bargaining solution. In this context, criteria for time consistency of a cooperative solution of nonzero-sum linear quadratic differential games have been studied. The problems where the UAVs try to achieve rendezvous by implementing cooperative game theoretic strategies, based on local information structure only, is also addressed.
46

B-Spline Based Multitarget Tracking

Sithiravel, Rajiv January 2014 (has links)
Multitarget tracking in the presence of false alarm is a difficult problem to consider. The objective of multitarget tracking is to estimate the number of targets and their states recursively from available observations. At any given time, targets can be born, die and spawn from already existing targets. Sensors can detect these targets with a defined threshold, where normally the observation is influenced by false alarm. Also if the targets are with low signal to noise ratio (SNR) then the targets may not be detected. The Random Finite Set (RFS) filters can be used to solve such multitarget problem efficiently. Specially, one of the best and most widely used RFS based filter is the Probability Hypothesis Density (PHD) filter. The PHD filter approximates the posterior probability density function (PDF) by the first order moment only, where the targets SNR assumed to be much higher. The PHD filter supports targets die, born, spawn and missed-detection by using the well known implementations including Sequential Monte Carlo Probability Hypothesis Density (SMC-PHD) and Gaussian Mixture Probability Hypothesis Density (GM-PHD) methods. The SMC-PHD filter suffers from the well known degeneracy problems while GM-PHD filter may not be suitable for nonlinear and non-Gaussian target tracking problems. It is desirable to have a filter that can provide continuous estimates for any distribution. This is the motivation for the use of B-Splines in this thesis. One of the main focus of the thesis is the B-Spline based PHD (SPHD) filters. The Spline is a well developed theory and been used in academia and industry for more than five decades. The B-Spline can represent any numerical, geometrical and statistical functions and models including the PDF and PHD. The SPHD filter can be applied to linear, nonlinear, Gaussian and non-Gaussian multitarget tracking applications. The SPHD continuity can be maintained by selecting splines with order of three or more, which avoids the degeneracy-related problem. Another important characteristic of the SPHD filter is that the SPHD can be locally controlled, which allow the manipulations of the SPHD and its natural tendency for handling the nonlinear problems. The SPHD filter can be further extended to support maneuvering multitarget tracking, where it can be an alternative to any available PHD filter implementations. The PHD filter does not work well for very low observable (VLO) target tracking problems, where the targets SNR is normally very low. For very low SNR scenarios the PDF must be approximated by higher order moments. Therefore the PHD implementations may not be suitable for the problem considered in this thesis. One of the best estimator to use in VLO target tracking problem is the Maximum-Likelihood Probability Data Association (ML-PDA) algorithm. The standard ML-PDA algorithm is widely used in single target initialization or geolocation problems with high false alarm. The B-Spline is also used in the ML-PDA (SML-PDA) implementations. The SML-PDA algorithm has the capability to determine the global maximum of ML-PDA log-likelihood ratio with high efficiency in terms of state estimates and low computational complexity. For fast passive track initialization, search and rescue operations the SML-PDA algorithm can be used more efficiently compared to the standard ML-PDA algorithm. Also the SML-PDA algorithm with the extension supports the multitarget tracking. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
47

Analysis of Proportional Navigation Class of Guidance Law against Agile Targets

Ghosh, Satadal January 2014 (has links) (PDF)
Guidance is defined as the determination of a strategy for following a nominal path in the presence of o-nominal conditions, disturbances and uncertainties, and the strategy employed is called a guidance law. Variants of Proportional Navigation (PN), such as True Proportional Navigation (TPN) and Pure Proportional Navigation (PPN), have been studied extensively in the literature on tactical missile guidance. In the absence of target maneuvers, in a linear interceptor guidance problem, TPN was shown to be optimal. However, the standard PN class of guidance laws per se does not show good performance against maneuvering targets, and was found to be eective in intercepting a maneuvering target only from a restrictive set of initial geometries. Also, since these guidance laws were eectively designed for lower speed targets, they show a degraded performance when applied against higher speed targets. However, in the current defense scenario, two classes of agile targets, which are capable of continuous maneuver, and/or of much higher speed than the interceptor, are a reality. This thesis presents analysis of several variants of PN class of guidance laws against these two classes of agile targets. In the literature, an augmentation of the TPN guidance law, termed as Augmented Proportional Navigation (APN), was shown to be optimal in linearized engagement framework. The present work proposes an augmentation of the PPN guidance law, which is more realistic than TPN for an aerodynamically controlled interceptor, and an-alyzes its capturability in fully nonlinear framework, and develops sauciest conditions on speed ratio, navigation gain and augmentation parameter to ensure that all possible initial engagement geometries are included in the capture zone when applied against a target executing piecewise continuous maneuver. The thesis also obtains the capture zone in the relative velocity space for augmented PPN guidance law. In the literature, a novel guidance law was proposed for the interception of higher speed targets in planar engagement by using a negative navigation gain instead of the standard positive one, and was termed as Retro-PN. It was shown that even though the Retro-PN guided interceptor takes more time than PN guided one in achieving successful interception, Retro-PN performs significantly better than the classical PN law, in terms of capturability, lateral acceleration demand, and closing velocity, when used against higher speed targets. The thesis analyzes Retro-PN guidance law in 3-D engagement geometries to yield the complete capture zone of interceptors guided by Retro-PN guidance philosophy, and derives necessary and sucient conditions for the capture of higher speed non-maneuvering targets with and without a constraint on finiteness of lateral acceleration. Terminal impact angle control is crucial for enhancement of warhead eectiveness. In the literature, this problem has been addressed mostly in the context of targets with lower speeds than the interceptor. The thesis analyzes the performance of a composite PN guidance law, that uses standard PPN and the Retro-PN guidance laws based on initial engagement geometry and requirement of impact angle, against higher speed non-maneuvering targets. Then, to expand the set of achievable impact angles, it proposes a modified composite PN guidance scheme, and analyzes the same. For implementation of many modern guidance laws, a good estimate of time-to-go is essential. This requirement is especially severe in case of impact time constrained en-gagement scenarios. To this end, an ecient and fast time-to-go estimation algorithm for generic 3-D engagement is required. Two time-to-go estimation algorithms are presented and analyzed in this work for the engagement of a PPN or Retro-PN guided interceptor and a higher speed target. The first one is a closed form approximation of time-to-go in terms of range, nominal closing speed and an indicator of heading error, and the second one is a numerical recursive time-to-go estimation algorithm. To improve the odds of intercepting an intelligent target and destroying it, a salvo attack of two or more interceptors could be considered as a viable option. Moreover, this simultaneous salvo attack can also be further improved in eciency by incorporating the shoot-look-shoot approach in making a decision about launching interceptors. This can be considered as the first step towards a layered defense system, which has been described in the literature as a potentially eective strategy against short range or long range ballistic threat. To this end, the present work proposes two PPN and Retro-PN based guidance strategies for achieving simultaneous salvo attack on a higher speed non-maneuvering target. For the implementation of the same the numerical recursive time-to-go estimation technique proposed in this work is utilized
48

Socialtjänstens arbete för barn till föräldrar med substansmissbruk och beroende / The social services work for children who have parents with substance use- disorders

Österström, Isabelle, Berghällen, Julia January 2021 (has links)
Authors: Julia Berghällen och Isabelle Österström. Title: The social services work for children who have parents with substance use- disorders. Supervisor: Johan Billsten. Assessor: Torbjörn Forkby. The purpose of this study was to provide an increased knowledge and understanding of how social workers work with children whose parents have a substance use disorder. The background to this study is that a large number of children live with parents who don't have the ability to care for them because of their disorder. Despite the parents lack of abilities to nurture and protect the child, the family or the individuals in the family don't always get the help and support that they are in need for by their surroundings. There is a perception that the social workers ability to help the children is affected by laws and regulations as well as by the structures of the system. The study was conducted by using a qualitative method, where six interviews were made with social workers from two different departments children, and adults. The interviewees were from two different municipalities. The interviewees were selected through a strategic selection where we only selected the profession area to social workers. The study was analyzed on the basis of three theoretical points, thematic analysis, hermeneutics and system theory. The results of the study are for the most part consistent with previous research. The most prominent results from the study are the importance of the social workers competence to utilize their abilities regarding interacting and cooperating. But also, being able to work within the structures regarding laws and regulations, and being able to see individuals as individuals in different systems.
49

New modelling and simulation methods to support clean marine propulsion

Grant, Michael 24 August 2021 (has links)
The marine industry has increased its adoption of pure-electric, diesel-electric, and other non-traditional propulsion architectures to reduce ship emissions and fuel consumption. While these technologies can improve performance, the design of a propulsion system becomes challenging, given that no single technology is superior across all vessel types. Furthermore, even identical ships with different operating patterns may be better suited to different propulsion technologies. Addressing this problem, previous research has shown that if key elements of a vessel's operational pro file are known, simulation and optimization techniques can be employed to evaluate multiple propulsion architectures and result in a better propulsion system design and energy management strategy for a given vessel. While these studies have demonstrated the performance improvements that can be achieved from optimizing clean marine propulsion systems, they rely on vessel operational profiles obtained through physical measurement from existing ships. From a practical point of view, the optimization of a vessel's propulsion system needs to occur prior to a vessel's construction and thus precludes physical measurement. To this end, this thesis introduces a marine simulation platform for producing vessel operational profiles which enable propulsion system optimization during the ship design process. Core subsystem modules are constructed for simulating ship motions in 3 degrees of freedom and result in operational profile time-series, including propulsion power. Data is acquired from a benchmark vessel to validate the simulation. Results show the proposed approach strikes a balance between speed, accuracy, and complexity compared with other available tools. / Graduate
50

Evaluation of Target Tracking Using Multiple Sensors and Non-Causal Algorithms

Vestin, Albin, Strandberg, Gustav January 2019 (has links)
Today, the main research field for the automotive industry is to find solutions for active safety. In order to perceive the surrounding environment, tracking nearby traffic objects plays an important role. Validation of the tracking performance is often done in staged traffic scenarios, where additional sensors, mounted on the vehicles, are used to obtain their true positions and velocities. The difficulty of evaluating the tracking performance complicates its development. An alternative approach studied in this thesis, is to record sequences and use non-causal algorithms, such as smoothing, instead of filtering to estimate the true target states. With this method, validation data for online, causal, target tracking algorithms can be obtained for all traffic scenarios without the need of extra sensors. We investigate how non-causal algorithms affects the target tracking performance using multiple sensors and dynamic models of different complexity. This is done to evaluate real-time methods against estimates obtained from non-causal filtering. Two different measurement units, a monocular camera and a LIDAR sensor, and two dynamic models are evaluated and compared using both causal and non-causal methods. The system is tested in two single object scenarios where ground truth is available and in three multi object scenarios without ground truth. Results from the two single object scenarios shows that tracking using only a monocular camera performs poorly since it is unable to measure the distance to objects. Here, a complementary LIDAR sensor improves the tracking performance significantly. The dynamic models are shown to have a small impact on the tracking performance, while the non-causal application gives a distinct improvement when tracking objects at large distances. Since the sequence can be reversed, the non-causal estimates are propagated from more certain states when the target is closer to the ego vehicle. For multiple object tracking, we find that correct associations between measurements and tracks are crucial for improving the tracking performance with non-causal algorithms.

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