Vårt examensarbete har genomförts på företaget Electrolux Laundry Systems (ELS) logistikavdelning, Logistics Center Ljungby (LCL).  Under det senaste året har företaget haft motgångar vid ett IT/IS-projekt inom sin logistikavdelning (LCL). Uppsatsen har således syftat till att beskriva och analysera varför IT/IS-projektet har avstannat, och ej nått implementering. För att uppnå syftet har vi utgått från en, i stort sett, kvalitativ ansats där primärdata har insamlats genom metoder såsom intervjuer och deltagande observationer medan sekundärdata inhämtats i form av dokumentundersökningar och offentliga dokument.   Resultatet av studien har utgjorts av deltagande observationer på fallföretagets logistikavdelning, LCL, samt intervjuer med olika verksamhetsnivåer. Detta har påvisat bristande kommunikation och direktiv samt fallföretagets brister i förstudiens utförande vad gäller förankring av projektet, planering av tid, resurser och kostnader samt formulering av krav. Slutsatser vi kunnat dra av detta är att en fungerande kommunikation mellan olika verksamhetsnivåer samt en noggrant utförd förstudie är essentiella element för att ge ett projekt rätt förutsättningar. / Our thesis has been performed in the company of Electrolux Laundry Systems (ELS) logistics department, Logistics Center Ljungby (LCL). Over the past year, the company has met setbacks during an IT/IS-project in the logistics department (LCL). The essay is thus aimed to describe and analyze why the IT/IS-project have stagnated. To achieve the purpose of the study we have applied a mainly qualitative approach in which the primary data is collected through methods such as interviews and participant observations while the secondary data is obtained by means of litterature and public documents.   The study’s result consisted of participant observation at LCL, and interviews with co-workers at various levels in the organization. These have shown a lack of communication between employees at different levels in the company. Moreover, the result proved the company's shortcomings in designing the pilot study, e.g. deeply root the project, planning time, resources, costs and specify requirements. Our conclusions from this study are that effective communication between different levels of employees, and an accurately performed pilot study, are essential elements to give a project the right conditions.

As wireless communication becomes an ever-more important and pervasive part of our everyday life, system capacity and quality of service issues are becoming more critical. In order to increase the system capacity and improve the quality of service, it is necessary that we pay closer attention to bandwidth and power efficiency issues. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is a multicarrier modulation technique for high speed data transmission and is generally regarded as bandwidth efficient. However, OFDM signals suffer from high peak-to-average power ratios (PARs) which lead to power inefficiency in the RF portion of the transmitter. Moreover, in OFDM, the well-known pilot tone assisted modulation (PTAM) technique utilizes a number of dedicated training pilots to acquire the channel state information (CSI), resulting in somewhat reduced bandwidth efficiency. In this dissertation, we will address the above mentioned bandwidth and power efficiency issues in wireless transmissions. To avoid bandwidth efficiency loss due to dedicated training, we will first develop a superimposed training framework that can be used to track the frequency selective as well as the Doppler shift characteristics of a channel. Later on, we will propose a generalized superimposed training framework that allows improved channel estimates. To improve the power efficiency, we adopt the selected mapping (SLM) framework to reduce the PARs for both OFDM and forward link Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA). We first propose a dynamic SLM algorithm to greatly reduce the computational requirement of SLM without sacrificing its PAR reducing capability. We propose a number of blind SLM techniques for OFDM and for forward link CDMA; they require no side information and are easy to implement. Our proposed blind SLM technique for OFDM is a novel joint channel estimation and PAR reduction algorithm, for which bandwidth efficiency power efficiency - complexity - bit error rate tradeoffs are carefully considered.

Diplomová práce se zabývá představením, popisem a vytvořením modelu postranní řídicí páky pilota s aktivní silovou zpětnou vazbou firmy Honeywell International Inc. v prostředí MATLAB Simulink. Dále pak představením problému pilotem indukovaných oscilací a možnostmi jejich předcházení, detekce a potlačení. Model řídicí páky se silovou zpětnou vazbou je použit pro potlačení detekovaných oscilací v simulaci letounu.

This thesis deals with human – pilot behaviour modelling during a flight in terms of automatic control systems. For these purposes, the introduction to the issue of description and modelling of individual components of the whole pilot – aircraft interaction is presented. Based on that, the simulation models obtained from real measured data are designed. However, the acquisition of the real flight data is quite difficult. Therefore, the flight simulator at Brno University of Defence is used for the purposes of this work. Several experimental measurements were taken using this simulator. These were focused on measuring pilot’s reactions (responses) to visual stimulus with emphasis on obtaining judgements about their current state of training (in terms of dynamic behaviour) as well as attitude to aircraft control. In this phase, two sets of measurements with eight pilots were taken. On average, the pilots had 60 flight hours before the first set of measurements and about 80 flight hours before the second set. The obtained results are analysed using mainly the theory of automatic control approaches in order to evaluate the actual state of pilots’ abilities considering the effects of flight training.

Skanska Grundläggning in Region Special wishes to gain an increased understanding of the extent to which it differs in the wear of percussion hammers and pilot drill crowns, depending on which driving medium is used in down-the-hole drilling, as well as logistical and economic aspects depending on the chosen method. Down-the-hole drilling means that the hammer works down in the borehole and forms one of the components at the far end of the drill string together with a drill bit. The blow of the hammer is created by air or water at high pressure. The piling method that is examined is drilled steel pipe piles, which means that a steel pipe pile is driven into the ground in step with the hammer and the drill bit's advancement. Once the desired depth has been reached, the drill string with the drill bit is pulled out of the casing and then the steel pipe pile is filled with concrete. The study aims to examine the products' lifespans and repair intervals from several different perspectives and set them against reality, as well as what the different methods have for differences regarding logistics and establishment. This is to create a basis for future decisions on the most suitable method of down-the-hole drilling. The beginning of the study consisted of qualitative preliminary interviews to identify and create a problem formulation that was dealt with via a literature study, five semi-structured interviews, eleven questionnaires, internal data from drilling protocols and purchasing. The result shows that there is some difference in wear in the hammer depending on whether it is an air or water powered system, the wear appears in different places and can have an impact on the life of the hammer. The wear that occurs most frequently on drill bit is grinding on the buttons. Geotechnical differences for various projects are a significant factor in the service life of the equipment. An air hammer requires that the air constantly being mixed with lubricating oil and that an air compressor consumes more diesel compared to a high-pressure pump for the equivalent water hammer. The handling of water that is flushed out of the borehole is considered a concern. To reduce wear on water hammers and thus fewer replacements and more repairs, a drill bit intended for water powered down-the-hole hammer should be used. DTH-drilling with an air hammer is considered an industry standard and a certain skepticism towards a water powered system may indicate inexperience. / Skanska Grundläggning inom Region Special önskar att få en ökad förståelse hur vida det skiljer sig vid slitage av hammare och pilotborrkrona beroende på vilket drivande medium som nyttjas vid sänkhammarborrning, samt logistiska och ekonomiska aspekter beroende på vald metod. Sänkhammarborrning innebär att hammaren arbetar nere i borrhålet och utgör en av komponenterna längst ut på borrsträngen tillsammans med en borrkrona. Hammarens slag skapas av luft eller vatten i högt tryck. Pålningsmetoden som undersöks är borrade stålrörspålar, det betyder att ett foderrör drivs ned i marken i takt med hammaren och borrkronans framfart. Väl när önskat djup uppnåtts lyfts borrsträngen med hammaren och piloten upp ur foderröret för att sedan fyllas upp med betong. Studien syftar till att undersöka produkternas livslängder och reparationsintervall från flera olika perspektiv och ställa dem emot verkligheten, samt vad dem olika metoderna har för olikheter kring logistik och etablering. Detta är för att skapa underlag för framtida beslut om mest lämplig metod av sänkhammarborrning. Studiens begynnelse bestod av kvalitativa förintervjuer för att identifiera och skapa en problemformulering som avhandlades via en litteraturstudie, fem semistrukturerade intervjuer, elva frågeformulär, interna data från borrningsprotokoll och inköp. Resultatet visar att det förekommer viss skillnad i slitage i hammaren beroende på om det är en luft- eller vattenanläggning, slitaget visar sig på olika ställen och kan ha betydelse för hammarens livslängd. Det slitage som uppträder mest frekvent på piloter är nedslipning av stift. Geotekniska egenskaper för olika projekt utgör en betydande faktor för utrustningens livslängd. En lufthammare är i behov av att luften konstant beblandas smörjolja och att en luftkompressor förbrukar mer diesel jämfört med en högtryckspump för motsvarande vattenhammare. Efterhanteringen av vatten som spolas upp anses vara ett bekymmer. För att minska slitage på vattenhammare och därmed färre byten och mer reparationer bör en pilotborrkrona avsedd för vattendriven sänkhammarborrning nyttjas. Sänkhammarborrning med lufthammare anses som branschstandard och en viss skepticism mot en vattendriven anläggning kan tyda på oerfarenhet.

Master of Science / Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering / Balasubramaniam Natarajan / In recent years, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) scheme has received significant research interest due to its capability of supporting high data rates in hostile environments. As compared to conventional single-carrier modulation schemes, OFDM benefits from low complexity equalization filters and high spectral efficiency. A multiple access implementation of OFDM, i.e., orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) has been considered as the multiple access (MA) scheme in 3GPP LTE, or LTE advanced downlink. In cellular OFDMA, frequency hopping (FH) is widely used to exploit frequency diversity gain and improve system throughput; and pilot patterns that have low-cross correlation are employed to improve the quality of channel estimation. However, there are numerous unsolved problems that need to be addressed in frequency hopped and pilot assisted OFDMA systems. Surveying the prior works in the literature, we find that limited research efforts have focused on coping with the inherent disadvantages regarding OFDM in cellular OFDMA systems. In this thesis, we employ the so-called residue number system (RNS) arithmetic concentrating on (a) FH pattern design for minimizing/averaging intra/inter-cell interference, (b) pilot pattern design for improving the quality of channel estimation, and (c) pilot pattern design for facilitating time-frequency synchronization and device identification in multi-cell OFDMA. Regarding (a), RNS-based FH patterns not only preserve orthogonality within the same cell, but also have the minimum number of symbol collisions among adjacent cells. Additionally, the RNS-based method exhibits consistent system performance and more frequency diversity gains as compared to previous efforts. With respect to (b), RNS-based pilot pattern design generates more unique pilot patterns than conventional methods. This results in low probability of pilot-to-pilot collisions, which in turn, significantly improves the quality of channel estimation from the system level perspective. For (c), as a special case of linear congruence sequences, RNS-based pilot patterns have good auto-correlation properties, which are extremely helpful in time-frequency synchronization and device identification.

This thesis presents a novel, low cost, high precision , and efficient design for an electro-hydrostatic circuit for single rod hydraulic cylinders. The design is the main contribution of candidate to fulfill the regiments of PhD degree. The challenge of existing deigns of electro-hydrostatic circuits for single-rod cylinders is using one pump to control the cylinder under switching (resistive-assistive) loads. The proposed circuit utilizes off-the-shelf industrial elements. It uses two counterbalance valves to manage switching loads and one on/off solenoid valve to redirect the differential flow of the single rod cylinder to tank. A set of simulation studies is conducted using Simhydraulic tools of Matlab in order to study performances of the proposed circuit and compare it with existing designs. Pump-controlled hydraulic circuit for double rod cylinders was developed and is widely used by industry. It is used as the benchmark for simulation studies. As well, the proposed circuit and two major existing pump-controlled circuits for single rod cylinders are compared to the benchmark circuit. Evaluations are conducted by comparing chamber pressure responses as well as pressure vs position of the cylinder end-effector for each individual circuit. Results indicate that the proposed circuit performed as well as the benchmark circuit by controlling pressures to both sides of the cylinder at the same time. Moreover, the load in the proposed circuit is more controllable compared to the benchmark circuit. Experimental results, obtained from the developed test rig, validate accuracy of the simulation model. Maximum steady state position error of 0.06 mm applications is experimentally observed when the test rig is tested under different loading conditions with various amplitudes and frequencies. The circuit consumes up to 20% of the energy that is required by a valve controlled circuit given the same sinusoidal tracking signal. The relative efficiency of the proposed circuit over a valve xii controlled circuit depends on the pattern and frequency of the tracking signal. In all the experiments, a simple proportional controller, which uses readings of a linear position transducer, is employed. The use of the proportional controller makes the proposed circuit easy to implement and shows it is good candidate for industrial applications. The accuracy of the position response of the proposed circuit indicates, it is a good candidate for robotic applications too. / May 2016

Vascular networks are required to support the formation and function of three-dimensional tissues. Biodegradable scaffolds are being considered in order to promote vascularization where natural regeneration of lost or destroyed vascular networks fails. Particularly; composite materials are expected to fulfill the complex demands of a patient's body to support wound healing. Microbial biopolyesters are being regarded as such second and third generation biomaterials. Methylobacterium extorquens is one of several microorganisms that should be considered for the production of advanced polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs). M. extorquens displays a distinct advantage in that it is able to utilize methanol as an inexpensive substrate for growth and biopolyester production. The design of functionalized PHAs, which would be made of both saturated short-chain-length (scl, C [less than or equal to] 5) and unsaturated medium-chain-length (mcl, 6 [less than or equal to] C [less than or equal to] 14) monomeric units, aimed at combining desirable material properties of inert scl/mcl-PHAs with those of functionalized mcl-PHAs. By independently inserting the phaC1 or the phaC2 gene from Pseudomonas fluorescens GK13, recombinant M. extorquens strains were obtained which were capable of producing PHAs containing C-C double bonds. A fermentation process was developed to obtain gram quantities of biopolyesters employing the recombinant M. extorquens ATCC 55366 strain which harbored the phaC2 gene of P. fluorescens GK13, the better one of the two strains at incorporating unsaturated monomeric units. The PHAs produced were found in a blend of scl-PHAs and functionalized scl/mcl-PHAs (4 [less than or equal to] C [less than or equal to] 6), which were the products of the native and of the recombinant PHA synthase, respectively. Thermo-mechanical analysis confirmed that the functionalized scl/mcl-PHAs exhibited the desirable material properties expected. This project contributed to current research on polyhydroxyalkanoates at different levels. The terminal double bonds of the functionalized scl/mcl-PHAs are amenable to chemical modifications and could be transformed into reactive functional groups for covalently linking other biomacromolecules. It is anticipated that these biopolyesters will be utilized as tissue engineering materials in the future, due to their functionality and thermo-mechanical properties.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 18-21, 2004 / Town & Country Resort, San Diego, California / This paper describes a system of Total Border Surveillance, which is cost effective, closes existing gaps and is less manpower intensive than the current techniques. The system utilizes a fleet of commercially available aircraft converted to unmanned capability, existing GPS and surveillance systems and autonomous ground stations to provide the desired coverage.

Due to economic and operational constraints, there is an increasing demand from aviation operators and training manufacturers to extract maximum training usage from the lower fidelity suite of flight simulators. It is possible to augment low-fidelity flight simulators to achieve equivalent performance compared to high-fidelity setups but at reduced cost and greater mobility. In particular for visual manoeuvres, the virtual reality technique of head-tracking amplification for virtual view control enables full field-of-regard access even with limited field-of-view displays. This research quantified the effects of this technique on piloting performance, workload and simulator sickness by applying it to a fixed-base, low-fidelity, low-cost flight simulator. In two separate simulator trials, participants had to land a simulated aircraft from a visual traffic circuit pattern whilst scanning for airborne traffic. Initially, a single augmented display was compared to the common triple display setup in front of the pilot. Starting from the base leg, pilots exhibited tighter turns closer to the desired ground track and were more actively conducting visual scans using the augmented display. This was followed up by a second experiment to quantify the scalability of augmentation towards larger displays and field of views. Task complexity was increased by starting the traffic pattern from the downwind leg. Triple displays in front of the pilot yielded the best compromise delivering flight performance and traffic detection scores just below the triple projectors but without an increase in track deviations and the pilots were also less prone to simulator sickness symptoms. This research demonstrated that head augmentation yields clear benefits of quick user adaptation, low-cost, ease of systems integration, together with the capability to negate the impact of display sizes yet without incurring significant penalties in workload and incurring simulator sickness. The impact of this research is that it facilitates future flight training solutions using this augmentation technique to meet budgetary and mobility requirements. This enables deployment of simulators in large numbers to deliver expanded mission rehearsal previously unattainable within this class of low-fidelity simulators, and with no restrictions for transfer to other training media.