No description available.

No description available.

The drive for autonomy in manufacturing is making increasing demands on control systems, both for improved performance and for extra flexibility. This is reflected in the research and development of autonomously guided vehicles which must operate safely in ill-defined, complex and time-varying environments. Traditional control systems generally make infeasible assumptions which limit their application within this domain, and therefore current research has concentrated on Intelligent Control techniques in order to make the control systems flexible and robust. An integral part of intelligence is the ability to learn from a systems interaction with its environment, and this thesis provides a unified description of several adaptive neural and fuzzy networks. The recent resurgence of interest in these two anthropomorphic techniques has seen these algorithms widely applied within learning control systems, although a firm theoretical framework which can compare different networks and establish convergence and stability conditions has not evolved. Such results are essential if these adaptive algorithms are to be used in real-world applications where safety and correctness are prime concerns. The work described in this thesis addresses these questions by introducing a class of systems called associative memory networks, which is used to describe the similarities and differences which exist between certain fuzzy and neural algorithms. All of the networks can be implemented within a 3-layer structure, where the output is linearly dependent on a set of adjustable parameters. This allows parameter convergence to be established when a gradient descent training rule is used, and the rate of convergence can be directly related to the condition of the network's basis functions. The size, shape and position of these basis functions gives each network its own specific modelling attributes, since the learning rules are identical. Therefore it is important to study the network's internal representation as this provides information about how each network generalises (both interpolation and extrapolation), the rate of parameter convergence and the type of nonlinear functions which can be successfully modelled. Three networks are described in detail: the Albus CMAC, the is given of the Albus CMAC which illustrates its desirable features for on-line, nonlinear adaptive modelling and control: local learning and a computational cost which depends linearly on the input space dimension. The modelling capabilities of the algorithm are rigorously analysed and it is shown that they are strongly dependent on the generalisation parameter, and a set of consistency equations is derived which specify how the network generalises. The adaptive B-spline network, which embodies a piecewise polynomial representation, is also described and used for nonlinear modelling and constructing a static rule base which guides and autonomous vehicle into a parking slot. B-splines are also used for on-line, constrained trajectory generation where they approximate a set of velocity or positional subgoals. Fuzzy systems are typically ill-defined, although the approach taken in this thesis is to use algebraic rather than truncation operators and smooth fuzzy sets which means that the modelling capabilities of the fuzzy network can be determined exactly, and convergence and stability results can be derived for these algorithms. These results focus research on the learning, modelling and representational abilities of the networks by providing a common framework for their analysis. The desirable features of the networks (local learning, linearly dependent on the parameter set, fuzzy interpretation) are emphasised, and the algorithms are all evaluated on a common time series prediciton problem.

No description available.

The friction surfacing process is a derivative of friction welding and retains all the benefits of that welding process - solid phase, forged microstructures and excellent metallurgical bonds. This work is aimed at the development of mathematical and statistical models for the optimisation of the significant process parameters in order to allow rapid development of new applications using standard CNC equipment. Also the possibility of implementing real-time control systems have been investigated and developed. A friction surfacing database has been configured to allow continuos recording and storage of the useful machine outputs. Later, an infrared pyrometer and thermocouples have also been connected to the data acquisition set-up establishing fully automated information flow from the process. A conversion procedure has been developed to ensure that the experimental results are applicable in industrial environments. Response surface map and the method of visual optimisation have been developed. They are an essential part of the methodology for experimental optimisation of the friction surfacing process. The problem of modelling and optimisation has also been approached using accurate statistical methods. Artificial intelligence in the form of neural networks has been used to improve the accuracy of the derived friction surfacing analytical relationships. For the first time dynamic study of the process has been carried out and CARIMA models have been derived using a modified version of the recursive least squares, to ensure high sensitivity and stability of the identification procedure. New conversion technique has been developed, allowing the use of existing models for materials that have not been used for friction surfacing before, reducing significantly the number of experiments. The idea of using indicator parameters has been introduced for the first time in this research. Such parameters are the force, the torque and the interface temperature and they can be measured on-line. It has been shown that variations of these parameters reflect in the quality of the coating characteristics that cannot be measured on-line. Real-time control has also been considered. An algorithm involving fuzzy logic and self-tuning extremum controller has been developed to continuously monitor and compensate in real-time against the variations in the coating characteristics, and respectively in the indicator parameters. The proposed methodology has been used to design a control system that is capable of maintaining optimal process characteristics. The value of this work is also in reducing the lead-time and hence the cost for determining the optimum parameters for a given coating material on a given substrate geometry. This is an important feature when developing new applications for the friction surfacing process. On the basis of this research a range of new commercial applications have emerged including the manufacture of machine knives for the food, pharmaceutical and packaging industries, repair of car engine valve seats, turbine blades, reclamation of shafts, etc.

No description available.

This thesis is focused on learning center customer satisfaction. The object of research is surveys filled by courses' participants. Artificial intelligence methods are used for data processing. The courses' quality measurement is achieved by fuzzy logic. Customer clustering is achieved by neural networks. At the end of document is data evaluation and proposals for economics effectives increase.

In the modern automotive industry, more and more manufacturers recognise that vehicle paint appearance makes an important contribution to customer satisfaction. Attractive appearance has become one of the important factors for customers in making a decision to purchase a car. Objective measurement of the quality of autobody paint appearance, as perceived by the customer, in a repeatable, reproducible, continuous scale manner is an important requirement for improving the paint appearance. It can provide car manufacturers a standard reference to evaluate the quality of the paint appearance. This thesis mainly deals with the measurement of paint appearance quality in the automotive industry by investigating, identifying and developing measurement methods in this area. First of all, the 'state of the art' in the area of paint appearance measurement was presented, which summarised the concept of appearance, models, attributes and definitions. To further identify the parameters and instruments used in the automotive industry, a round robin test was launched to perform visual assessment and instrument measurements on a set of panels in some European car manufacturers. A summary of the correlation found between measurable parameters and visual assessment provided the basis of the further work. Based on the literature survey and round robin test results, the next work is mainly concentrated on the two most important parameters, 'orange peel' and 'metal texture effect', how to separate and evaluate them. Digital signal processing technique, FFT and Filtering, have been employed to separate them and a set of measures have been provided for evaluation. At the same time, the technique for texture pattern recognition was introduced to evaluate the texture effect when a fine texture comparison was needed. A set of computable textural parameters based on grey-tone spatial-dependence matrices gives good correlation directly corresponding to visual perception. To resolve the overall appearance modelling problem, two novel and more powerful modelling tools, artificial neural networks and fuzzy logic, are introduced to model the overall appearance. The test results showed that both of them are able to reflect the correlation between overall appearance and the major parameters measured from a painted surface. Finally, an integrated measurement system, 'Smart Appearance', was developed using the image processing techniques and the artificial neural network model. The implement results show that this system can measure the major attributes of paint appearance and provide an overall appearance index corresponding to human visual perception. This system is helpful to product quality control on car body paint. It also could be used on the paint production line for dynamic measurement.

Quad-rotor helicopters are agile aircraft which are lifted and propelled by four rotors. Unlike traditional helicopters, they do not require a tail-rotor to control yaw, but can use four smaller fixed-pitch rotors. However, without an intelligent control system it is very difficult for a human to successfully fly and manoeuvre such a vehicle. Thus, most of recent research has focused on small unmanned aerial vehicles, such that advanced embedded control systems could be developed to control these aircrafts. Vehicles of this nature are very useful when it comes to situations that require unmanned operations, for instance performing tasks in dangerous and/or inaccessible environments that could put human lives at risk. This research demonstrates a consistent way of developing a robust adaptive controller for quad-rotor helicopters, using fuzzy-neural networks; creating an intelligent system that is able to monitor and control the non-linear multi-variable flying states of the quad-rotor, enabling it to adapt to the changing environmental situations and learn from past missions. Firstly, an analytical dynamic model of the quad-rotor helicopter was developed and simulated using Matlab/Simulink software, where the behaviour of the quad-rotor helicopter was assessed due to voltage excitation. Secondly, a 3-D model with the same parameter values as that of the analytical dynamic model was developed using Solidworks software. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) was then used to simulate and analyse the effects of the external disturbance on the control and performance of the quad-rotor helicopter. Verification and validation of the two models were carried out by comparing the simulation results with real flight experiment results. The need for more reliable and accurate simulation data led to the development of a neural network error compensation system, which was embedded in the simulation system to correct the minor discrepancies found between the simulation and experiment results. Data obtained from the simulations were then used to train a fuzzy-neural system, made up of a hierarchy of controllers to control the attitude and position of the quad-rotor helicopter. The success of the project was measured against the quad-rotor’s ability to adapt to wind speeds of different magnitudes and directions by re-arranging the speeds of the rotors to compensate for any disturbance. From the simulation results, the fuzzy-neural controller is sufficient to achieve attitude and position control of the quad-rotor helicopter in different weather conditions, paving way for future real time applications.

Práce popisuje základy principu funkčnosti neuronů a vytvoření umělých neuronových sítí. Je zde důkladně popsána struktura a funkce neuronů a ukázán nejpoužívanější algoritmus pro učení neuronů. Základy fuzzy logiky, včetně jejich výhod a nevýhod, jsou rovněž prezentovány. Detailněji je popsán algoritmus zpětného šíření chyb a adaptivní neuro-fuzzy inferenční systém. Tyto techniky poskytují efektivní způsoby učení neuronových sítí.