No description available.

Type 2 diabetes has reached epidemic proportions worldwide. The resulting increase in chronic and costly diabetes related complications has potentially catastrophic implications for healthcare systems, and economics and societies as a whole. One of the key pathological factors leading to type 2 diabetes is insulin resistance (IR), which is the reduced or impaired ability of the body to make use of available insulin to maintain safe glucose concentrations in the bloodstream. It is essential to understand the physiology of glucose and insulin when investigating the underlying factors contributing to chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. For many years, clinicians and researchers have been working to develop and use model-based methods to increase understanding and aid therapeutic decision support. However, the majority of practicable tests cannot yield more than basic metrics that allow only a threshold-based assessment of the underlying disorder. This thesis gives an overview on several dynamic model-based methodologies with different clinical applications in assessing glycaemia via measuring effects of treatment or medication on insulin sensitivity. Other tests are clinically focused, designed to screen populations and diagnose or detect the risk of developing diabetes. Thus, it is very important to observe sensitivity metrics in various clinical and research settings. Interstitial insulin kinetics and their influence on model-based insulin sensitivity observation was analysed using data from the clinical pilot study of the dynamic insulin sensitivity and secretion (DISST) test and the glucose-insulin PK-PD models. From these inputs, a model of interstitial insulin dose-response that best links insulin action in plasma to response in blood glucose levels was developed. The critical parameters influencing interstitial insulin pharmacokinetics (PKs) are saturation in insulin receptor binding (αG) and the plasma-interstitium diffusion rate (nI). Population values for these parameters are found to be [αG, nI]=[0.05,0.055]. Critically ill patients are regularly fed via constant enteral (EN) nutrition infusions. The impact of incretin effects on endogenous insulin secretion in this cohort remains unclear. It is hypothesised that the identified SI would decrease during interruptions of EN and would increase when EN is resumed, where, for short periods around transition, the true patient SI would be assumed constant. The model-based analysis was able to elucidate incretin effects by tracking the identified model-based insulin sensitivity (SI) in a cohort of critically ill patients. Thus, changes in model-based SI given the fixed assumed endogenous secretion by the model would support the presence of an EN-related incretin effect in the population of non-diabetic, critically ill patients studied. The PD feedback-control model of Uen was designed to investigate endogenous insulin secretion amongst subjects with different metabolic states and levels of insulin resistance. The underlying effects that influence insulin secretion i.e. incretin effects were also defined by tracking the control model gain/response and the identified insulin sensitivity (SI) using intravenous (IV) bolus and oral glucose responses of insulin sensitivity tests. This new PD control model allowed the characterisation of both static (basal) and dynamic insulin responses, which defined the pancreatic β-cell glucose sensitivity parameters. However, incretin effects were unobserved during oral glucose responses as the PD control gains failed to simulate the true endogenous insulin secretion due to potentially inaccurate glucose appearance rates and low data resolution of glucose concentrations. The net effect of haemodialysis (HD) treatment on glycaemic regulation and insulin sensitivity in a critically ill cohort was investigated. It was hypothesized that the observed SI would decrease during HD due to enhanced insulin clearance compared to the model, and would be recaptured again when HD is stopped. The changes in model-based SI metric at HD transitions in a cohort of critically ill patients were evaluated. Significant changes of -29% in model-based SI was observed during HD therapy. However, there were insignificant changes when HD treatment was ended. Thus, the changes in model-based SI would thus offer a unique observation on insulin kinetics and action in this population of critically ill patients with ARF that would better inform metabolic care.

Teleoperation of hydraulic manipulators is of potential when the presence of the operator, in a remote location, is inconvenient or dangerous. Augmenting such teleoperated systems using haptic sensation will further enhance performance, safety, and convenience. The advantage of using haptic force becomes more evident when it is employed to compensate for undesirable phenomena such as existence of a delayed and lossy communication channel or excitation of the manipulator base. The focus of this thesis is on haptic-enabled control of base-excited hydraulic manipulators that are controlled through a wireless communication channel. The targeted application is live transmission line maintenance. Both unilateral and bilateral controls of teleoperated hydraulic manipulators are studied. On the unilateral front, position error is shown to be an important issue, especially when the position accuracy of the slave manipulator is violated due to fast motion of the operator’s hand at the master site, lack of responsiveness in actuation system, or poor quality of communication channel. With respect to bilateral control, three main challenges are identified, and solutions to these challenges are investigated: (i) accurate control of the slave manipulator when the communication channel is delayed and/or lossy, (ii) control of the teleoperated system when the slave manipulator is mounted atop a moving platform, and (iii) transparent force feedback to improve the position tracking of the system. First, effects of network quality and slave manipulator base excitation are examined on performance of the teleoperated system. The position error between the haptic device implement and the hydraulic manipulator end-effector is shown to increase when the network is delayed and lossy. Next, excitation of the slave manipulator base deviates the end-effector from its reference trajectory, and the position error therefore becomes larger. To alleviate the position inaccuracy, a position referenced force feedback scheme is proposed. The scheme makes the input dynamics a better match with the slave dynamics. Combined with the virtual fixture force, the virtual fixture is shown to aid the operator in following a predefined virtual fixture trajectory. Due to complexity of dynamics, performance evaluations are mostly conducted using experimental validations on actual system in a laboratory setting.

It is a difficult challenge to develop a feedback control system for Statistical Process Control (SPC) because there is no effective method that can be used to calculate the accurate magnitude of feedback control actions in traditional SPC. Suitable feedback adjustments are generated from the experiences of process engineers. This drawback means that the SPC technique can not be directly applied in an automatic system. This thesis is concerned with Fuzzy Sets and Fuzzy Logic applied to the uncertainty of relationships between the SPC (early stage) alarms and SPC implementation. Based on a number of experiments of the frequency distribution for shifts of abnormal process averages and human subjective decision, a Fuzzy-SPC control system is developed to generate the magnitude of feedback control actions using fuzzy inference. A simulation study which is written in C++ is designed to implement a Fuzzy-SPC controller with satisfactory results. To further reduce the control errors, a NeuroFuzzy network is employed to build NNFuzzy- SPC system in MATLAB. The advantage of the leaning capability of Neural Networks is used to optimise the parameters of the Fuzzy- X and Fuzzy-J? controllers in order to obtain the ideal consequent membership functions to adapt to the randomness of various processes. Simulation results show that the NN-Fuzzy-SPC control system has high control accuracy and stable repeatability. To further improve the practicability of a NN-Fuzzy-SPC system, a combined forecaster with EWMA chart and digital filter is designed to reduce the NN-Fuzzy-SPC control delay. For the EWMA chart, the smoothing constant 0 is investigated by a number of experiments and optimised in the forecast process. The Finite Impulse Response (FIR) lowpass filter is designed to smooth the input data (signal) fluctuations in order to reduce the forecast errors. An improved NN-Fuzzy-SPC control system which shows high control accuracy and short control delay can be applied in both automatic control and online quality control.

The Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) is a rotary mechanical pump that is implanted in patients with congestive heart failure to help the left ventricle in pumping blood in the circulatory system. The rotary type pumps are controlled by varying the pump motor current to adjust the amount of blood flowing through the LVAD. One important challenge in using such a device is the desire to provide the patient with as close to a normal lifestyle as possible until a donor heart becomes available. The development of an appropriate feedback controller that is capable of automatically adjusting the pump current is therefore a crucial step in meeting this challenge. In addition to being able to adapt to changes in the patient's daily activities, the controller must be able to prevent the occurrence of excessive pumping of blood from the left ventricle (a phenomenon known as ventricular suction) that may cause collapse of the left ventricle and damage to the heart muscle and tissues. In this dissertation, we present a new suction detection system that can precisely classify pump flow patterns, based on a Lagrangian Support Vector Machine (LSVM) model that combines six suction indices extracted from the pump flow signal to make a decision about whether the pump is not in suction, approaching suction, or in suction. The proposed method has been tested using in vivo experimental data based on two different LVAD pumps. The results show that the system can produce superior performance in terms of classification accuracy, stability, learning speed, iv and good robustness compared to three other existing suction detection methods and the original SVM-based algorithm. The ability of the proposed algorithm to detect suction provides a reliable platform for the development of a feedback control system to control the current of the pump (input variable) while at the same time ensuring that suction is avoided. Based on the proposed suction detector, a new control system for the rotary LVAD was developed to automatically regulate the pump current of the device to avoid ventricular suction. The control system consists of an LSVM suction detector and a feedback controller. The LSVM suction detector is activated first so as to correctly classify the pump status as No Suction (NS) or Suction (S). When the detection is “No Suction”, the feedback controller is activated so as to automatically adjust the pump current in order that the blood flow requirements of the patient’s body at different physiological states are met according to the patient’s activity level. When the detection is “Suction”, the pump current is immediately decreased in order to drive the pump back to a normal No Suction operating condition. The performance of the control system was tested in simulations over a wide range of physiological conditions.

O Motor Assíncrono Tubular para Aplicação na Extração de Óleo do Subsolo MATÆOS foi desenvolvido na Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo (EPUSP) com a função de acionar diretamente uma bomba de sucção, instalada no fundo de um poço de petróleo em terra. Dando continuidade aos trabalhos realizados na EPUSP envolvendo sistemas de levitação magnética, foi desenvolvido um mancal magnético ativo (AMB - Active Magnetic Bearing), aplicado ao protótipo do motor em substituição ao mancal mecânico tradicional existente. O projeto abrange a construção de um protótipo de mancal magnético composto das partes mecânicas, elétricas e de software necessárias ao funcionamento do sistema. O projeto do eletroímã foi realizado por meio do método dos elementos finitos (MEF), para análise da densidade de fluxo e da relação entre a força radial e a corrente elétrica nas bobinas. O controle da levitação do mancal é realizado por meio de controlador digital com placas conversoras AD/DA e algoritmo de controle implementado em hardware FPGA. Utilizando o modelo do sistema, os controladores são sintonizados para atender aos requisitos de estabilidade e rejeição de perturbações, que desviem o entreferro do seu valor nominal. Na configuração do AMB, ao invés do sistema tradicional com oito pólos, um conceito diferente é adotado. Neste, uma máquina primitiva bearingless é excitada com corrente contínua e usada como mancal magnético. Os resultados experimentais obtidos com o protótipo em funcionamento mostram que o sistema em malha fechada é estável e apresenta uma resposta transitória satisfatória. / A tubular linear induction motor applied to onshore oil exploitation, named MATÆOS (which is in the Portuguese acronym for Tubular Asynchronous Motor for Onshore Oil Exploitation) was built at Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo (EPUSP). Its purpose is to directly drive the sucker-rod pump installed in the down hole of the oil well. In continuing the research accomplished at EPUSP concerning magnetic levitation systems, an Active Magnetic Bearing (AMB) was developed and applied to the prototype of the motor in substitution to the existing traditional bearing. The design includes the construction of the magnetic bearing prototype composed of mechanical, electric and software components required to the operation of the system. The electromagnet design was accomplished using the Finite Element Method (FEM) in the analysis of both the flux density and the relationship between the radial force and the suspension winding current. The magnetic bearing levitation control is executed by a digital controller using an AD/DA converter and a control algorithm implemented in FPGA hardware. Using the system model, the controllers are tuned to provide both stability and rejection of disturbances that tend to move the air gap from its nominal value. Instead of the usual eight-pole AMB, a different concept is adopted where a DC-excited primitive bearingless machine is used as a magnetic bearing. The experimental results obtained with the prototype in operation show that the closed-loop system is stable and exhibits a satisfactory transient response.

Orientador: Alberto Luiz Serpa / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Mecânica / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-16T17:57:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Santos_MarcelMerlindos_M.pdf: 5016793 bytes, checksum: f37e8e9c24d066f039f997af537b3b4f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010 / Resumo: Nesse estudo foram aplicadas as técnicas de controle H1 em modelos de suspensões ativas veiculares. O interesse de controlar o sistema baseado nessa técnica está também no fato de que sua obtenção pode ser feita através da solução de problemas de otimização, sendo estes baseados no uso de Desigualdades Matriciais Lineares (LMI, do inglês Linear Matrix Inequalities), que proporciona flexibilidade na formulação de problemas de otimização e possui algoritmos eficientes para a solução. Esse estudo foi baseado em três modelos de suspensão diferentes, com dois, quatro e sete graus de liberdade. Uma suspensão deve proporcionar conforto e segurança aos passageiros. Baseado nisso, adotou-se como desempenho o deslocamento simultâneo das rodas relativo ao chão (segurança) e a aceleração vertical do veículo (conforto dos passageiros). Como sinal de medição, utilizou-se a aceleração vertical do veículo. O controlador foi obtido considerando incertezas do modelo (neste estudo consideradas como incertezas paramétricas). Todos os modelos de suspensão veicular com controle simulados apresentaram melhores resultados, reduzindo não só a resposta temporal do sistema como também a resposta em freqüência, melhorando o conforto e a segurança dos passageiros. Conclui-se assim que é possível controlar o sistema mesmo quando sujeito a incertezas de modelagem. Para a solução numérica do problema foi utilizado o software MATLAB 7.4 com dois pacotes livres de otimização: Yalmip e Sedumi / Abstract: In this study the techniques of control H1 were applied in active suspension models. The interest in controling the system using this technique is based on the fact that the solution can be obtained by solving optimization problems, which are based on the use of Linear Matrix Inequalities, providing flexibility during the problem formulation and with efficient algorithms to solve the problem. This study was based on three different suspension models with two, four and seven degrees of freedom. A suspension should provide comfort and security to the passengers. Based on this, the displacement of wheels on the ground (security) and the vertical acceleration of the vehicle (passengers comfort) were adopted as system performance. The vertical acceleration of the vehicle was the measured signal. The active suspension controller was designed considering uncertainties (in this study as parametric uncertainties). All active suspensions controled models simulated improved their results, reducing not only system's time response but also system's frequency response. This means an improvement of the passengers' safety and comfort. It was concluded that controlling the system even when it has uncertainties was possible. To solve the numerical problem the software MATLAB 7.4 was used with two free optimization packages: Yalmip and Sedumi / Mestrado / Mecanica dos Sólidos e Projeto Mecanico / Mestre em Engenharia Mecânica

O Motor Assíncrono Tubular para Aplicação na Extração de Óleo do Subsolo MATÆOS foi desenvolvido na Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo (EPUSP) com a função de acionar diretamente uma bomba de sucção, instalada no fundo de um poço de petróleo em terra. Dando continuidade aos trabalhos realizados na EPUSP envolvendo sistemas de levitação magnética, foi desenvolvido um mancal magnético ativo (AMB - Active Magnetic Bearing), aplicado ao protótipo do motor em substituição ao mancal mecânico tradicional existente. O projeto abrange a construção de um protótipo de mancal magnético composto das partes mecânicas, elétricas e de software necessárias ao funcionamento do sistema. O projeto do eletroímã foi realizado por meio do método dos elementos finitos (MEF), para análise da densidade de fluxo e da relação entre a força radial e a corrente elétrica nas bobinas. O controle da levitação do mancal é realizado por meio de controlador digital com placas conversoras AD/DA e algoritmo de controle implementado em hardware FPGA. Utilizando o modelo do sistema, os controladores são sintonizados para atender aos requisitos de estabilidade e rejeição de perturbações, que desviem o entreferro do seu valor nominal. Na configuração do AMB, ao invés do sistema tradicional com oito pólos, um conceito diferente é adotado. Neste, uma máquina primitiva bearingless é excitada com corrente contínua e usada como mancal magnético. Os resultados experimentais obtidos com o protótipo em funcionamento mostram que o sistema em malha fechada é estável e apresenta uma resposta transitória satisfatória. / A tubular linear induction motor applied to onshore oil exploitation, named MATÆOS (which is in the Portuguese acronym for Tubular Asynchronous Motor for Onshore Oil Exploitation) was built at Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo (EPUSP). Its purpose is to directly drive the sucker-rod pump installed in the down hole of the oil well. In continuing the research accomplished at EPUSP concerning magnetic levitation systems, an Active Magnetic Bearing (AMB) was developed and applied to the prototype of the motor in substitution to the existing traditional bearing. The design includes the construction of the magnetic bearing prototype composed of mechanical, electric and software components required to the operation of the system. The electromagnet design was accomplished using the Finite Element Method (FEM) in the analysis of both the flux density and the relationship between the radial force and the suspension winding current. The magnetic bearing levitation control is executed by a digital controller using an AD/DA converter and a control algorithm implemented in FPGA hardware. Using the system model, the controllers are tuned to provide both stability and rejection of disturbances that tend to move the air gap from its nominal value. Instead of the usual eight-pole AMB, a different concept is adopted where a DC-excited primitive bearingless machine is used as a magnetic bearing. The experimental results obtained with the prototype in operation show that the closed-loop system is stable and exhibits a satisfactory transient response.

This thesis considers the application of singular value decomposition (SVD) and semi-nonnegative matrix factorization (SNMF) within feedback control systems, called the SVD System and SNMF System, to control numerous subsystems with a reduced number of control inputs. The subsystems are coupled using a row-column structure to allow mn subsystems to be controlled using m+n inputs. Past techniques for controlling systems in this row-column structure have focused on scheduling procedures that offer limited performance. The SVD and SNMF Systems permit simultaneous control of every subsystem, which increases the convergence rate by an order of magnitude compared with previous methods. In addition to closed loop control, open loop procedures using the SVD and SNMF are compared with previous scheduling procedures, demonstrating significant performance improvements. This thesis presents theoretical results for the controllability of systems using the row-column structure and for the stability and performance of the SVD and SNMF Systems. Practical challenges to the implementation of the SVD and SNMF Systems are also examined. Numerous simulation examples are provided, in particular, a dynamic simulation of a pin array device, called Digital Clay, and two physical demonstrations are used to assess the feasibility of the SVD and SNMF Systems for specific applications.

Orientador: Rafael Santos Mendes / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Eletrica e de Computação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-14T05:54:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Mendes_WagnerSchalch_M.pdf: 1828766 bytes, checksum: 0aba4a8b38c8c8768e34ae1f0a7434e6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Resumo: O problema de regulação de trens é particularmente importante entre os problemas de escalonamento encontrados nos sistemas de transporte metroviários, sendo caracterizados por trens percorrendo regiões urbanas levando passageiros de uma localização para outra. Se o intervalo entre trens desejado, tempos de parada em plataformas e os tempos de percurso entre plataformas são determinados e conhecidos a-priori, a solução de estado estável (tabela horária) pode ser calculada. Entretanto, sistemas reais estão sujeitos a perturbações como passageiros impedindo o fechamento de portas, falhas mecânicas ou elétricas, etc., que podem desviar os trens do estado estável. Nesse contexto, esse trabalho está direcionado para a determinação de uma lei de controle, i.e., uma lei para a determinação dos instantes de chegada e partida de cada trem em cada plataforma nos ciclos do sistema para restabelecer e manter a tabela horária (solução de referência). A lei de controle proposta está baseada nos conceitos da álgebra maxplus. Os instantes desejáveis de chegada e partida de cada trem em cada plataforma são calculados a partir dos últimos instantes de ocorrência dos eventos do sistema e de um conjunto de matrizes definido na álgebra max-plus. / Abstract: The train regulation problem is of particular importance among the scheduling problems found in mass transit systems, being characterized by trains running in urban regions taking passengers from one location to another. If the desired headway between trains, dwell-times in platforms and running times between platforms are determined and known a-priori, the steady state solution (timetable) can be calculated. However, real systems are subject to disturbances such as passengers preventing doors from closing, mechanical or electrical failures, etc., that can deviate the trains from the steady state. In this context, this work is concerned with the determination of a control law, i.e., a law for the determination of the arrival and departure times of each train on each platform in the system's cycles in order to reestablish and maintain the timetable (reference solution). The proposed control law is based on max-plus algebra concepts. The desired arrival and departure times of each train on each platform are calculated from the last occurrence instants of the system's events and from a set of matrices defined in max-plus algebra. / Mestrado / Automação / Mestre em Engenharia Elétrica