Les travaux présentés dans cette thèse visent à apporter des outils d’aide à la décision à partir de modèles prenant en compte une représentation Info-Gap des différentes sources de méconnaissance du système. Il est en effet possible en utilisant des simulations numériques de développer des indicateurs de support à la décision sous un certain niveau d’incertitude aléatoire ou épistémique. Le principe de conception est ici utilisé au sens large, et peut entrer sans le cadre du dimensionnement structural de composants, de la définition de l’amplitude d’excitation maximum d’un essai, ou encore de la mise en place d’une distribution de capteurs. Ces différentes méthodologies sont ici développées puis appliquées sur des systèmes académiques et industriels / The work presented in this PhD thesis aims at propose new decision making tools in order to take into account a Info-Gap modelling of the different sources of lack of knowledge. Indeed, numerical simulation allow to develop useful indicators for decision making under a given level of random or epistemic uncertainty. The design principle is hereby used in its very large sense, and can stand for structural component design, maximum load definition fir vibrating test or sensor placement design. In this manuscript, these different methodologies are developed and applied to academic and industrial structures.

Cette thèse traite de techniques promouvant la parcimonie pour déterminer des estimateurs performants n’utilisant les mesures que d’un très faible nombre de capteurs. La position de ces capteurs est cruciale pour de bonnes performances et doit être déterminée avec soin. Les méthodes proposées dans ce travail reposent sur l’utilisation d’une base d’apprentissage du champ d’intérêt considéré et ne nécessitent pas de modèle dynamique du système physique. Les éléments de cette base d’apprentissage sont obtenus à l’aide de mesures effectuées sur le système réel ou par simulation numérique. Se basant uniquement sur ces éléments d’apprentissage, et non sur des modèles dynamiques, les approches proposées sont générales et applicables à des systèmes issus de domaines variés.Les approches proposées sont illustrées sur le cas d’un écoulement fluide 2-D autour d’un obstacle cylindrique. Le champ de pression dans un voisinage du cylindre doit être estimé à partir de quelques mesures de pression effectuées en paroi. En utilisant des positions préalablement fixées des capteurs, des estimateurs adaptés à ces positions sont proposés. Ces estimateurs tirent pleinement parti du très faible nombre de mesures en manipulant des représentations creuses et en exploitant la notion de classes. Des situations où les mesures ne portent pas sur le champ d’intérêt à estimer peuvent également être traitées. Un algorithme de placement de capteurs est proposé et permet une amélioration significative des performances des estimateurs par rapport à des capteurs placés a priori.Plusieurs extensions sont discutées : utilisation de mesures passées, utilisation de commandes passées, estimation du champ d’une quantité d’intérêt reliée de façon non linéaire aux mesures, estimation d’un champ à valeurs vectorielles, etc. / This thesis deals with sparsity promoting techniques in order to produce efficient estimators relying only on a small amount of measurements given by sensors. These sensor locations are crucial to the estimators and have to be chosen meticulously. The proposed methods do not require dynamical models and are instead based on a collection of snapshots of the field of interest. This learning sequence can be acquired through measurements on the real system or through numerical simulation. By relying only on a learning sequence, and not on dynamical models, the proposed methods become general and applicable to a variety of systems.These techniques are illustrated on the 2-D fluid flow around a cylindrical body. The pressure field in the neighbourhood of the cylinder has to be estimated from a limited amount of surface pressure measurements. For a given arrangement of the sensors, efficient estimators suited to these locations are proposed. These estimators fully harness the information given by the limited amount of sensors by manipulating sparse representations and classes. Cases where the measurements are no longer made on the field to be estimated can also be considered. A sensor placement algorithm is proposed in order to improve the performances of the estimators.Multiple extensions are discussed : incorporating past measurements, past control inputs, recovering a field non-linearly related to the measurements, estimating a vectorial field, etc.

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The ankle joint complex is a common source of injury for various demographics and is often observed during gait analysis. I investigate using soft robotic sensors as a means for collecting kinematic data at the ankle joint complex. I validate the linearity of these sensors by measuring stretch against extension and against stretch from frontal and sagittal planar foot movements using a wooden ankle mockup. I then conduct a study involving ten participants who perform repetitive trials of four foot movements (plantarflexion, dorsiflexion, inversion and eversion) using ten different locations. Four optimal locations were identified for these movements based on linearity, accuracy, robustness, and consistency. Lastly, I validated soft robotic sensors against the human gait cycle. Twenty participants were recruited and performed twelve trials, walking across a flat surface and a cross-sloped surface while motion capture data and soft robotic sensor data was collected.

The exploration of oil and natural gas in offshore fields has motivated advanced researches about the environmental forces in the oceans. The waves, in particular, have been measured using different techniques, as meteorological buoys, with recent works proposing motion-based estimations procedures using the vessel, or a floating facility, in analogy with the buoys, as a wave sensor. Even though this approach has a number of benefits, the vessels, as dynamic systems, have a cut-off frequency that degrades the estimation of high-frequency waves, which are important for non-linear drift effects predictions. In order to solve this problem, it is proposed the incorporation of wave-probes - gauges used to measure the wave elevation in a point - installed on the hull of the vessel, based on literature suggestions and simple analytical arguments, using the Bayesian statistics as the standing point of a more complete estimation algorithm. In order to incorporate the measurements of the wave-probes, an extended linear model is proposed, showing that only corrections for the vertical motions of the vessel are necessary. The ideal installation positions of the wave-probes are defined using as base the utility Bayesian optimal design of experiments, which is shown to guarantee an upper bound for other optimal criteria, with the \'Elbow Criterion\" defining the optimal number of sensors to be employed. Based on the previous solutions, other proposals are made: a heuristic to solve the optimal sensor placement problem and an optimal prior exploring the probabilistic nature of the algorithm. Finally, all the proposals are tested numerically and experimentally, with a vessel model in a towing tank, concluding that the addition of the wave-probes is able to improve not only the estimation of high-frequency waves, but also the estimation over a large range of frequencies. For unimodal seas with intermediate draft, the addition of just one wave-probe reaches approximately a 37%-55% improvement in the energy parameter estimations - HS and TP; the addition of two or more probes reaches approximately a 62%-65% improvement in the same parameters estimations; the addition of four probes achieved the best cost benefit for mean direction estimation; and the addition of six probes is shown to be the recommendation for the best high-order directional estimation in the entire range of the spectrum. / A prospecção de óleo e gás natural em campos offshore tem motivado pesquisas avançadas sobre as forças ambientais em oceanos. As ondas, em particular, têm sido medidas através de diferentes técnicas, como boias meteorológicas, com trabalhos recentes propondo técnicas baseadas em movimento para que os navios, em analogia com as boias, possam ser usados como sensores de onda. Apesar desse método ter uma série de vantagens, os navios, como sistemas dinâmicos, têm uma frequência de corte que dificulta a estimação de ondas de altas frequências, que são importantes para a previsão de efeitos de deriva não-lineares. Para resolver esse problema, sugere-se a adição de wave-probes instalados no costado da embarcação, usando como justificativas sugestões da literatura e simples argumentos analíticos, com estatística Bayesiana como fundamentação para um algoritmo de estimação mais completo. Para que as medidas dos wave-probes possam ser incorporadas, um modelo linear estendido é proposto, mostrando que apenas correções para os movimentos verticais do navio são necessárias. A posição ideal de instalação dos wave-probes é definida usando como base o projeto ótimo de experimentos Bayesianos por utilidade, mostrando que o mesmo garante o limite superior de outros critérios de optimalidade, com o \"critério cotovelo\" definindo o número ótimo de sensores a serem usados. Com base nas soluções anteriores, outras propostas são feitas: uma heurística para resolver o problema de posicionamento ótimo dos sensores e uma priori ótima, explorando a natureza probabilística do algoritmo. Ao final, todas as propostas são testadas numericamente e experimentalmente, utilizando um modelo em escala em um tanque de provas, concluindo que a adição de wave-probes é capaz de melhorar não só a estimação de ondas em alta-frequência, mas também a estimação em uma ampla gama de frequências. Para mares unimodais, com calado intermediário, a adição de apenas um sensor alcançou uma melhoria de aproximadamente 37-55% na estimação dos parâmetros relacionados à energia - HS e TP; a adição de dois ou mais sensores alcançou melhorias de 62-65% na estimação de tais parâmetros; a adição de quatro sensores alcançou o melhor custo benefício para estimação da direção média; e a adição de seis sensores se mostrou ideal para estimação de ordem elevada do espectro direcional de energia.

The present work aims to increase the diagnosis systems capabilities by choosing the location of sensors in the process. Therefore, appropriate sensor location will lead to better diagnosis performance and implementation easiness. The work is based on structural models ands some simplifications are considered in order to only focus on the sensor placement analysis. Several approaches are studied to solve the sensor placement problem. All of them find the optimal sensor configuration. The sensor placement techniques are applied to a fuel cell stack system. The model used to describe the behaviour of this system consists of non-linear equations. Furthermore, there are 30 candidate sensors to improve the diagnosis specifications. The results obtained from this case study are used to strength the applicability of the proposed approaches. / El present treball té per objectiu incrementar les prestacions dels diagnosticadors mitjançant la localització de sensors en el procés. D'aquesta manera, instal·lant els sensors apropiats s'obtenen millors diagnosticador i més facilitats d'implementació. El treball està basat en models estructurals i contempla una sèrie de simplificacions per tal de entrar-se només en la problemàtica de la localització de sensors. S'utilitzen diversos enfocs per tal de resoldre la localització de sensors, tot ells tenen com objectiu trobar la configuració òptima de sensors. Les tècniques de localització de sensors són aplicades a un sistema basat en una pila de combustible. El model d'aquest sistema està format per equacions no lineals. A més, hi ha la possibilitat d'instal·lar fins a 30 sensors per tal de millorar la diagnosis del sistema. Degut a aquestes característiques del sistema i del model, els resultats obtinguts mitjançant aquest cas d'estudi reafirmen l'aplicabilitat dels mètodes proposats.

Cette thèse s’inscrit dans le cadre d’un projet visant à développer un robot mobile autonome capable de réaliser des tâches spécifiques dans une zone préalablement définie par l’utilisateur. Afin de faciliter la mise en œuvre du système, des balises radiofréquences fournissant des mesures de distance par rapport au robot sont disposées au préalable autour du terrain. Le déploiement du robot s’effectue en deux phases, une première d’apprentissage du terrain, puis une seconde, où le robot effectue ses tâches de façon autonome. Ces deux étapes nécessitent de résoudre les problèmes de localisation et de localisation et cartographie simultanées pour lesquels différentes solutions sont proposées et testées en simulation et sur des jeux de données réelles. De plus, afin de faciliter l’installation et d’améliorer les performances du système, un algorithme de placement des balises est présenté puis testé en simulation afin de valider notamment l’amélioration des performances de localisation. / This thesis is part of a project which aims at developing an autonomous mobile robot able to perform specific tasks in a preset area. To ease the setup of the system, radio-frequency beacons providing range measurements with respect to the robot are set up beforehand on the borders of the robot’s workspace. The system deployment consists in two steps, one for learning the environment, then a second, where the robot executes its tasks autonomously. These two steps require to solve the localization and simultaneous localization and mapping problems for which several solutions are proposed and tested in simulation and on real datasets. Moreover, to ease the setup and improve the system performances, a beacon placement algorithm is presented and tested in simulation in order to validate in particular the improvement of the localization performances.

In pneumatic pressure control applications the influence of tubes that connect the valve with the control volume ist mainly neglected. This can lead to stability and robustness issues and limit either control performance or tube length. Modeling and considering tube behavior in controller design procedure allows longer tubes while maintaining the required performance and robustness properties without need for manual tuning. The author\'s previously published Simplified Fluid Transmission Line Model and the proposed model-based controller design enable the specification of a desired pressure trajectory in the control volume while the pressure sensor is mounted directly at the valve. Thus wiring effort is reduced as well as cost and the chance of cable break or sensor disturbance. In order to validate the simulated results the proposed control scheme is implemented on a real-time system and compared to a state-of-the-art pressure regulating valve

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is a non-destructive evaluation tool that assesses the functionality of structural systems that are used in the civil, mechanical and aerospace engineering practices. A much desirable objective of a SHM system is to provide a continuous monitoring service at a minimal cost with ability to identify problems even in inaccessible structural components. In this dissertation, several such approaches that utilize the measured dynamic response of structural systems are presented to detect, locate, and quantify the damages that are likely to occur in structures. In this study, the structural damage is identified as a reduction in the stiffness characteristics of the structural elements. The primary focus of this study is on the utilization of measured dynamic strains for damage identification in the framed structures which are composed of interconnected beam elements. Although linear accelerations, being more convenient to measure, are commonly used in most SHM practices, herein the strains being more sensitive to elemental damage are considered. Two different approaches are investigated and proposed to identify the structural element stiffness properties. Both approaches are mode-based, requiring first the identification of system modes from the measured strain responses followed by the identification of the element stiffness coefficients. The first approach utilizes the Eigen equation of the finite element model of the structure, while the second approach utilizes the changes caused by the damage in the structural curvature flexibilities. To reduce size of the system which is primarily determined by the number of sensors deployed for the dynamic data collection, measurement sensitivity-based sensor selection criterion is observed to be effective and thus used. The mean square values of the measurements with respect to the stiffness coefficients of the structural elements are used as the effective measures of the measurement sensitivities at different sensor locations. Numerical simulations are used to evaluate the proposed identification approaches as well as to validate the sensitivity-based optimal sensor deployment approach. / Ph. D. / All modern societies depend heavily on civil infrastructure systems such as transportation systems, power generation and transmission systems, and data communication systems for their day-to-day activities and survival. It has become extremely important that these systems are constantly watched and maintained to ensure their functionality. All these infrastructure systems utilize structural systems of different forms such as buildings, bridges, airplanes, data communication towers, etc. that carry the service and environmental loads that are imposed on them. These structural systems deteriorate over time because of natural material degradation. They can also get damaged due to excessive load demands and unknown construction deficiencies. It is necessary that condition of these structural systems is known at all times to maintain their functionality and to avoid sudden breakdowns and associated ensuing problems. This condition assessment of structural systems, now commonly known as structural health monitoring, is commonly done by visual onsite inspections manually performed at pre-decided time intervals such as on monthly and yearly basis. The length of this inspection time interval usually depends on the relative importance of the structure towards the functionality of the larger infrastructure system. This manual inspection can be highly time and resource consuming, and often ineffective in catching structural defects that are inaccessible and those that occur in between the scheduled inspection times and dates. However, the development of new sensors, new instrumentation techniques, and large data transfer and processing methods now make it possible to do this structural health monitoring on a continuous basis. The primary objective of this study is to utilize the measured dynamic or time varying strains on structural components such as beams, columns and other structural members to detect the location and level of a damage in one or more structural elements before they become serious. This detection can be done on a continuous basis by analyzing the available strain response data. This approach is expected to be especially helpful in alerting the owner of a structure by identifying the iv occurrence of a damage, if any, immediately after an unanticipated occurrence of a natural event such as a strong earthquake or a damaging wind storm.