Modern industrial control systems use a multitude of spatially distributed sensors and actuators to continuously monitor and control physical processes. Information exchange among control system components is traditionally done through physical wires. The need to physically wire sensors and actuators limits flexibility, scalability and reliability, since the cabling cost is high, cable connectors are prone to wear and tear, and connector failures can be hard to isolate. By replacing some of the cables with wireless communication networks, costs and risks of connector failures can be decreased, resulting in a more cost-efficient and reliable system. Integrating wireless communication into industrial control systems is challenging, since wireless communication channels introduce imperfections such as stochastic delays and information losses. These imperfections deteriorate the closed-loop control performance, and may even cause instability. In this thesis, we aim at developing design frameworks that take these imperfections into account and improve the performance of closed-loop control systems. The thesis first considers the joint design of packet forwarding policies and controllers for wireless control loops where sensor measurements are sent to the controller over an unreliable and energy-constrained multi-hop wireless network. For a fixed sampling rate of the sensor, the co-design problem separates into two well-defined and independent subproblems: transmission scheduling for maximizing the deadline-constrained reliability and optimal control under packet losses. We develop optimal and implementable solutions for these subproblems and show that the optimally co-designed system can be obtained efficiently. The thesis continues by examining event-triggered control systems that can help to reduce the energy consumption of the network by transmitting data less frequently. To this end, we consider a stochastic system where the communication between the controller and the actuator is triggered by a threshold-based rule. The communication is performed across an unreliable link that stochastically erases transmitted packets. As a partial protection against dropped packets, the controller sends a sequence of control commands to the actuator in each packet. These commands are stored in a buffer and applied sequentially until the next control packet arrives. We derive analytical expressions that quantify the trade-off between the communication cost and the control performance for this class of event-triggered control systems. The thesis finally proposes a supervisory control structure for wireless control systems with time-varying delays. The supervisor has access to a crude indicator of the overall network state, and we assume that individual upper and lower bounds on network time-delays can be associated to each value of the indicator. Based on this information, the supervisor triggers the most appropriate controller from a multi-controller unit. The performance of such a supervisory controller allows for improving the performance over a single robust controller. As the granularity of the network state measurements increases, the performance of the supervisory controller improves at the expense of increased computational complexity. / <p>QC 20150504</p>

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The implementation of smart contract technology with their plausible applications in a business to business are explored. The thesis work shows how Blockchain technology works on the concept of decentralized system which is beneficial to eliminate the need for central authority. The thesis focuses on elimination of challenges pertaining to the selected departments in an organization. The thesis resolves challenges pertaining to lack of transparency, traceability and significant time-delays while in the process of decision making. The influence of blockchain technology and smart contract technology to eliminate these challenges are discussed. Logic of the smart contract and working of the blockchain pertaining to a specific industrial case study are demonstrated. Methodology to set up a smart contract interface in a business to business setting is investigated in this thesis. An observation study has been done in order to show how transparency, traceability and time delay in decision making is achieved by using smart contract interface. This thesis also shows how the blockchain and smart contract technology tries to implement coordination theory.

Dynamic processes on real-world networks are time-delayed due to finite processing speeds and the need to transmit data over nonzero distances. These time-delays often destabilize the network's dynamics, but are difficult to analyze because they increase the dimension of the network.We present results outlining an alternative means of analyzing these networks, by focusing analysis on the Lipschitz matrix of the relatively low-dimensional undelayed network. The key criteria, intrinsic stability, is computationally efficient to verify by use of the power method. We demonstrate applications from control theory and neural networks.

An arterialblood gas analysis which is conducted in critical care areas contributes to the assessment of a patient's ventilatory status and acid -base balance. The purpose of this research was to determine the relationship of time delays and temperature on the result of a blood gas analysis. The objective was to either accept or refute the null hypothesis, that there is no relationship between temperature and time delays and an arterial blood gas result Fifteen subjects were randomly selected. The researcher drew three samples of arterial blood from each subject. Ethical principles were observed. An inferential non-parametric statistic was used. The chi-squared test was used to test the hypothesis and the Friedman and the Wilcoxon signed ranks test were used to test the differences between the means. The results revealed that there was a relationship between time delays, temperature and the arterial blood gas result. The null hypothesis was rejected. / Health Stusies / M.A. (Health Studies)

An arterialblood gas analysis which is conducted in critical care areas contributes to the assessment of a patient's ventilatory status and acid -base balance. The purpose of this research was to determine the relationship of time delays and temperature on the result of a blood gas analysis. The objective was to either accept or refute the null hypothesis, that there is no relationship between temperature and time delays and an arterial blood gas result Fifteen subjects were randomly selected. The researcher drew three samples of arterial blood from each subject. Ethical principles were observed. An inferential non-parametric statistic was used. The chi-squared test was used to test the hypothesis and the Friedman and the Wilcoxon signed ranks test were used to test the differences between the means. The results revealed that there was a relationship between time delays, temperature and the arterial blood gas result. The null hypothesis was rejected. / Health Stusies / M.A. (Health Studies)

The increase of intelligent systems can be seen in every industry. Integrated sensors and processors are used with internal control systems to create better performance for mobile hydraulic applications. The report describes how an evaluation was made to see if the productivity of a drill rig could be increased. This was done by implementing a programmable hydraulic valve to control the hydraulic drilling functions. The productivity would be increased by reducing the downtime due to jamming in the drill hole. Jamming occur when the system does not compensate for changes in rock conditions. By conducting a series of tests in a controlled environment with simulated loads, the response time of the CMA system and original system could be determined and compared. The CMA system had a response time that was 60-64% faster than the original system. Two different implementations of a controller was tested. Ziegler-Nichols method was used to get the initial value of the PI parameters. The controller that was implemented onboard the valve’s CPU was considered more successfull to reduce jamming. A drill test was conducted to ensure that the programmable valve could handle a drilling procedure with the controller that was implemented onboard the valve’s CPU. The valve handled the drilling procedure well.

This report describes the development and testing of the upgraded Control and Monitoring (C&amp;Mu) system for the TOFOR neutron spectrometer. TOFOR is currently performing plasma diagnostics for the JET experimental fusion reactor. The purpose of the C&amp;Mu system is to enable monitoring of the amplitude dependent time delays of TOFOR. In order to perform this monitoring function the C&amp;Mu system must comprise a pulsed light source with variable intensity and a reference time signal. In this work a reference time signal has been retrieved from a laser comprising a motorized polarizer. This has been accomplished by installing a photomultiplier tube and a beamsplitter cube. The beamsplitter cube splits the laser light into two parts and directs one part into the photomultiplier tube. The photomultiplier tube converts the light into an electrical reference time signal. A control program has been developed for the motorized polarizer, enabling the user to vary the intensity of the light over the interval from 0% to 100%. The C&amp;Mu system has been performance tested and it was found that the time resolution of the system is about 0.1ns and the time stability of the system is about 0.12ns over 27 hours. The system is more than adequate to monitor variations in time delays at TOFOR of several nanoseconds, over a full JET day. The C&amp;Mu system is ready to be installed on TOFOR.

Les travaux présentés dans cette thèse concernent le problème d'identification des systèmes à retards et d'une certaine classe de systèmes hybrides appelés systèmes "impulsifs".Dans la première partie, un algorithme d'identification rapide a été proposé pour les systèmes à entrée retardée. Il est basé sur une méthode d'estimation distributionnelle non asymptotique initiée pour les systèmes sans retard. Une telle technique mène à des schémas de réalisation simples, impliquant des intégrateurs, des multiplicateurs et des fonctions continues par morceaux polynomiales ou exponentielles. Dans le but de généraliser cette approche pour les systèmes à retard, trois exemples d'applications ont été étudiées. La deuxième partie a été consacrée à l'identification des systèmes impulsifs. En se basant sur le formalisme des distributions, une procédure d'identification a été élaborée afin d'annihiler les termes singuliers des équations différentielles représentant ces systèmes. Par conséquent, une estimation en ligne des instants de commutations et des paramètres inconnus est prévue indépendamment des lois de commutations. Des simulations numériques d'un pendule simple soumis à des frottements secs illustrent notre méthodologie / This PhD thesis concerns the problem of identification of the delays systems and the continuous-time systems subject to impulsive terms.Firstly, a fast identification algorithm is proposed for systems with delayed inputs. It is based on a non-asymptotic distributional estimation technique initiated in the framework of systems without delay. Such technique leads to simple realization schemes, involving integrators, multipliers andContribution to the identification of time delays systems and a class of hybrid systems piecewise polynomial or exponential time functions. Thus, it allows for a real time implementation. In order to introduce a generalization to systems with input delay, three simple examples are presented.The second part deals with on-line identification of continuous-time systems subject to impulsive terms. Using a distribution framework, a scheme is proposed in order to annihilate singular terms in differential equations representing a class of impulsive systems. As a result, an online estimation of unknown parameters is provided, regardless of the switching times or the impulse rules. Numerical simulations of simple pendulum subjected to dry friction are illustrating our methodology

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:06:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 6235.pdf: 6898238 bytes, checksum: 058a3b75f03de2058255b7fa7db30dac (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-05-22 / Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos / Visual servoing is a technique that uses computer vision to acquire visual information (by camera) and a control system with closed loop circuit to control robots. One typical application of visual servoing is tracking objects on conveyors in industrial environments. Visual servoing has the advantage of obtaining a large amount of information from the environment and greater flexibility in operations than other types of sensors. A disadvantage are the delays, known as dead-times or time-delays that can occur during the treatment of visual information in computer vision tasks or other tasks of the control system that need large processing capacity. The dead-times in visual servoing applied in industrial operations such as in the tracking of objects on conveyors are critical and can negatively affect production capacity in manufacturing environments. Some methodogies can be found in the literature for this problem and some of these methodologies are often based on the Kalman filter. In this work a technique was selected based on the formulation of the Kalman filter that already had a study on the prediction of future pose of objects with linear motion. This methodology has been studied in detail, tested and analyzed through simulations for other motions and some applications. Three types of experiments were generated: one for different types of motions and two others applied in different types of signals in the velocity control systems. The results from the motion of the object shown that the technique is able to estimate the future pose of objects with linear motion and smooth curves, but it is inefficient for drastic changes in motion. With respect to the signal to be filtered in the velocity control, the methodogy has been shown applicable (with motions conditions) only in the estimation of pose of the object after the occurrence of dead-times caused by computer vision and this information is subsequently used to calculate the future error of the object related to the robotic manipulator used to calculate the velocity of the robot. The trying to apply the methodogy directly on the error used to calculate the velocity to be applied to the robot did not produce good results. With the results the methodogy can be applied for object tracking with linear motion and smooth curves as in the case of objects transported by conveyors in industrial environments. / Servovisao e uma tecnica que utiliza visao computacional para obter informacoes visuais (atraves de camera) e um sistema de controle com circuito em malha fechada para controlar robos. Uma das aplicacoes tipicas de servovisao e no rastreamento de objetos sobre esteiras transportadoras em ambientes industriais. Servovisao possui a vantagem em relacao a outros tipos de sensores de permitir a obtencao de um grande numero de informacoes a partir do ambiente e maior flexibilidade nas operacoes. Uma desvantagem sao os atrasos conhecidos como dead-times ou time-delays que podem ocorrer durante o tratamento de informacoes visuais nas tarefas de visao computacional ou em outras tarefas do sistema de controle que necessitam de grande capacidade de processamento. Os dead-times em servovisao aplicada em operacoes industriais como no rastreamento de objetos em esteiras transportadoras sao criticos e podem afetar negativamente na capacidade de producao em ambientes de manufatura. Algumas metodologias podem ser encontradas na literatura para esse tipo de problema sendo muitas vezes baseadas no filtro de Kalman. Nesse trabalho foi selecionada uma metodologia baseada na formulacao do filtro de Kalman que ja possui um estudo na previsao futura de pose de objetos com movimentacao linear. Essa metodologia foi estudada detalhadamente, testada atraves de simulacoes e analisada sobre outros tipos de movimentos e algumas aplicacoes. No total foram gerados tres tipos de experimentos: um para diferentes tipos de movimentacao e outros dois aplicados em diferentes tipos de sinais no controlador de velocidades. Os resultados a partir da movimentacao do objeto demonstraram que o metodo e capaz de estimar a pose futura de objetos com movimento linear e com curvas suaves, porem e ineficiente para alteracoes drasticas no movimento. Com relacao ao sinal a ser filtrado no controlador de velocidades a metodologia se demonstrou aplicavel (com as condicoes de movimento) somente na estimativa da pose do objeto apos a ocorrencia de dead-times causados por visao computacional e posteriormente essa informacao e utilizada para calcular o erro futuro do objeto em relacao ao manipulador robotico utilizado no calculo da velocidade do robo. A tentativa de aplicacao da tecnica diretamente no erro utilizado no calculo da velocidade a ser aplicada ao robo nao apresentou bons resultados. Com os resultados obtidos a metodologia se demonstrou eficiente para o rastreamento de objetos de forma linear e curvas suaves como no caso de objetos transportados por esteiras em ambientes industriais.