abstract: The power of science lies in its ability to infer and predict the existence of objects from which no direct information can be obtained experimentally or observationally. A well known example is to ascertain the existence of black holes of various masses in different parts of the universe from indirect evidence, such as X-ray emissions. In the field of complex networks, the problem of detecting hidden nodes can be stated, as follows. Consider a network whose topology is completely unknown but whose nodes consist of two types: one accessible and another inaccessible from the outside world. The accessible nodes can be observed or monitored, and it is assumed that time series are available from each node in this group. The inaccessible nodes are shielded from the outside and they are essentially ``hidden.'' The question is, based solely on the available time series from the accessible nodes, can the existence and locations of the hidden nodes be inferred? A completely data-driven, compressive-sensing based method is developed to address this issue by utilizing complex weighted networks of nonlinear oscillators, evolutionary game and geospatial networks. Both microbes and multicellular organisms actively regulate their cell fate determination to cope with changing environments or to ensure proper development. Here, the synthetic biology approaches are used to engineer bistable gene networks to demonstrate that stochastic and permanent cell fate determination can be achieved through initializing gene regulatory networks (GRNs) at the boundary between dynamic attractors. This is experimentally realized by linking a synthetic GRN to a natural output of galactose metabolism regulation in yeast. Combining mathematical modeling and flow cytometry, the engineered systems are shown to be bistable and that inherent gene expression stochasticity does not induce spontaneous state transitioning at steady state. By interfacing rationally designed synthetic GRNs with background gene regulation mechanisms, this work investigates intricate properties of networks that illuminate possible regulatory mechanisms for cell differentiation and development that can be initiated from points of instability. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 2015

Com o desenvolvimento e disseminação dos protocolos de rede, o surgimento dos chips de ASIC e queda dos preços do silício (estes dois últimos fatores possibilitando com que os sensores e atuadores pudessem ser equipados com interfaces de rede e com isso se tornarem nós independentes em uma rede de controle em tempo real), viabilizaram o desenvolvimento dos sistemas de controle em rede que hoje em dia vêm sendo amplamente utilizados. Juntamente com o aparecimento dos sistemas de controle em rede, novos problemas surgiram sendo um deles o atraso de transporte nas comunicações dos sensores/atuadores/controladores e as conseqüências relacionadas a este fator. Este trabalho tem por objetivo contextualizar sistemas de controle em rede no que concerne novas metodologias de sistemas de controle, escalonamento e apresentar as influências causadas pela comunicação em redes Foundation Fieldbus no desempenho de sistemas de controle. / The development and dissemination of network protocols, the arising of ASIC chip and price drops in silicon (these two last factors allow sensors and actuators be equipped with network interfaces and thus become independent nodes in a real-time control network), make the development of Networked Control Systems possible, which became widely used. New issues - such as an increase in the communication delay among distributed sensors, controller, and actuators have to be handled by designers when developing networked control systems in order to ensure that stability and other usual control performance requirements are met. In this work, the timing behavior of a networked control developed using a Foundation Fieldbus-based network is studied and in particular the impact that communication parameters as jitter, macrocycle, and message scheduling have on control performance metrics like overshoot and settling time are evaluated both theoretically as well as experimentally.

Com o desenvolvimento e disseminação dos protocolos de rede, o surgimento dos chips de ASIC e queda dos preços do silício (estes dois últimos fatores possibilitando com que os sensores e atuadores pudessem ser equipados com interfaces de rede e com isso se tornarem nós independentes em uma rede de controle em tempo real), viabilizaram o desenvolvimento dos sistemas de controle em rede que hoje em dia vêm sendo amplamente utilizados. Juntamente com o aparecimento dos sistemas de controle em rede, novos problemas surgiram sendo um deles o atraso de transporte nas comunicações dos sensores/atuadores/controladores e as conseqüências relacionadas a este fator. Este trabalho tem por objetivo contextualizar sistemas de controle em rede no que concerne novas metodologias de sistemas de controle, escalonamento e apresentar as influências causadas pela comunicação em redes Foundation Fieldbus no desempenho de sistemas de controle. / The development and dissemination of network protocols, the arising of ASIC chip and price drops in silicon (these two last factors allow sensors and actuators be equipped with network interfaces and thus become independent nodes in a real-time control network), make the development of Networked Control Systems possible, which became widely used. New issues - such as an increase in the communication delay among distributed sensors, controller, and actuators have to be handled by designers when developing networked control systems in order to ensure that stability and other usual control performance requirements are met. In this work, the timing behavior of a networked control developed using a Foundation Fieldbus-based network is studied and in particular the impact that communication parameters as jitter, macrocycle, and message scheduling have on control performance metrics like overshoot and settling time are evaluated both theoretically as well as experimentally.

No description available.

The nonlinear interactions between aerodynamic forces and wing structures are numerically investigated as integrated dynamic systems, including structural models, aerodynamics, and control systems, in the time domain. An elastic beam model coupled with rigid-body rotation is developed for the wing structure, and the natural frequencies and mode shapes are found by the finite-element method. A general unsteady vortex-lattice method is used to provide aerodynamic forces. This method is verified by comparing the numerical solutions with the experimental results for several cases; and thereafter applied to several applications such as the inboard-wing/twin-fuselage configuration, and formation flights. The original thought that the twin fuselage could achieve two-dimensional flow on the wing by eliminating free wing tips appears to be incorrect. The numerical results show that there can be a lift increase when two or more wings fly together, compared to when they fly alone. Flutter analysis is carried out for a High-Altitude-Long-Endurance aircraft wing cantilevered from the wall of the wind tunnel, a full-span wing mounted on a free-to-roll sting at its mid-span without and with a center mass (fuselage). Numerical solutions show that the rigidity added by the wall results in a higher flutter speed for the wall-mounted semi-model than that for the full-span model. In addition, a predictive control technique based on neural networks is investigated to suppress flutter oscillations. The controller uses a neural network model to predict future plant responses to potential control signals. A search algorithm is used to select the best control input that optimizes future plant performance. The control force is assumed to be given by an actuator that can apply a distributed torque along the spanwise direction of the wing. The solutions with the wing-tip twist or the wing-tip deflection as the plant output show that the flutter oscillations are successfully suppressed with the neural network predictive control scheme. / Ph. D.

Neste trabalho, estuda-se o sistema de controle distribuído de um veículo submarino não tripulado, assumindo-se um sistema com recursos computacionais limitados. A princípio, são discutidos as fontes e os efeitos dos atrasos de tempo introduzidos pela escassez de recursos. Após o detalhamento da modelagem do veículo LAURS, compara-se o desempenho de alguns compensadores de atraso encontrados na literatura. Para isso, um simulador do sistema de controle do veículo LAURS é desenvolvido com o auxílio de uma ferramenta para Matlab que permite simular os aspectos temporais de um sistema limitado. A partir dos resultados das simulações, incluindo-se o estudo de um cenário, conclue-se que embora os compensadores de atraso melhorem o desempenho do sistema de controle, o custo reduzido de um sistema computacional limitado não justifica a incerteza de desempenho que uma aplicação crítica, como é o caso do veículo submarino não tripulado, apresentará. O resultado das simulações é validado estatisticamente. / This work studies the networked control system of the unmanned underwater vehicle LAURS considering a resource-constrained computer system. At first, delays sources and effects are discussed. The LAURS model is obtained and used for comparison of delay compensation strategies found in the literature. A simulator for the LAURS control system is developed with the aid of a Matlab Toolbox that emulates timing aspects of the limited operating system and network. Considering the simulation results, including a case scenario, it is argued that despite improving performance, the control system with delay compensation strategies remains unpredictable and prone to fail. Therefore, it is not recommended for critical systems such as the unmanned vehicle LAURS, even with the reduced costs of a resource-constrained computer system. The simulation results are statistically validated.

<p>Data networks are an important part in an increasing number of applications with real-time and reliability requirements. To meet these demands a variety of approaches have been proposed. Forward error correction, which adds redundancy to the communicated data, is one of them. However, the redundancy occupies communication bandwidth, so it is desirable to control the amount of redundancy in order to achieve high reliability without adding excessive communication delay. The main contribution of the thesis is to formulate the problem of adjusting the redundancy in a control framework, which enables the dynamic properties of error correction control to be analyzed using control theory. The trade-off between application quality and resource usage is captured by introducing an optimal control problem. Its dependence on the knowledge of the network state at the transmission side is discussed. An error correction controller that optimizes the amount of redundancy without relying on network state information is presented. This is achieved by utilizing an extremum seeking control algorithm to optimize the cost function. Models with varying complexity of the resulting feedback system are presented and analyzed. Conditions for convergence are given. Multiple-input describing function analysis is used to examine periodic solutions. The results are illustrated through computer simulations and experiments on a wireless sensor network.</p>

Networked predictive control is a new research method for Networked Control Systems (NCS), which is able to handle network-induced problems such as time-delay, data dropouts, packets disorders, etc. while stabilizing the closed-loop system. This work is an extension and complement of networked predictive control methodology. There is always present model uncertainties or physical nonlinearity in the process of NCS. Therefore, it makes the study of the robust control of NCS and that of networked nonlinear control system (NNCS) considerably important. This work studied the following three problems: the robust control of networked predictive linear control systems, the control scheme for networked nonlinear control systems (NNCS) and the robust control of NNCS. The emphasis is on stability analysis and the design of robust control. This work adapted the two control schemes, namely, the time-driven and the event driven predictive controller for the implementation of NCS. It studied networked linear control systems and networked nonlinear control systems. Firstly, time-driven predictive controller is used to compensate for the networked-induced problems of a class of networked linear control systems while robustly stabilizing the closed-loop system. Secondly, event-driven predictive controller is applied to networked linear control system and NNCS and the work goes on to solve the robust control problem. The event-driven predictive controller brings great benefits to NCS implementation: it makes the synchronization of the clocks of the process and the controller unnecessary and it avoids measuring the exact values of the individual components of the network induced time-delay. This work developed the theory of stability analysis and robust synthesis of NCS and NNCS. The robust stability analysis and robust synthesis of a range of different system configurations have been thoroughly studied. A series of methods have been developed to handle the stability analysis and controller design for NCS and NNCS. The stability of the closed-loop of NCS has been studied by transforming it into that of a corresponding augmented system. It has been proved that if some equality conditions are satisfied then the closed-loop of NCS is stable for an upper-bounded random time delay and data dropouts. The equality conditions can be incorporated into a sub-optimal problem. Solving the sub-optimal problem gives the controller parameters and thus enables the synthesis of NCS. To simplify the calculation of solving the controller parameters, this thesis developed the relationship between networked nonlinear control system and a class of uncertain linear feedback control system. It proves that the controller parameters of some types of networked control system can be equivalently derived from the robust control of a class of uncertain linear feedback control system. The methods developed in this thesis for control design and robustness analysis have been validated by simulations or experiments.

Neste trabalho, estuda-se o sistema de controle distribuído de um veículo submarino não tripulado, assumindo-se um sistema com recursos computacionais limitados. A princípio, são discutidos as fontes e os efeitos dos atrasos de tempo introduzidos pela escassez de recursos. Após o detalhamento da modelagem do veículo LAURS, compara-se o desempenho de alguns compensadores de atraso encontrados na literatura. Para isso, um simulador do sistema de controle do veículo LAURS é desenvolvido com o auxílio de uma ferramenta para Matlab que permite simular os aspectos temporais de um sistema limitado. A partir dos resultados das simulações, incluindo-se o estudo de um cenário, conclue-se que embora os compensadores de atraso melhorem o desempenho do sistema de controle, o custo reduzido de um sistema computacional limitado não justifica a incerteza de desempenho que uma aplicação crítica, como é o caso do veículo submarino não tripulado, apresentará. O resultado das simulações é validado estatisticamente. / This work studies the networked control system of the unmanned underwater vehicle LAURS considering a resource-constrained computer system. At first, delays sources and effects are discussed. The LAURS model is obtained and used for comparison of delay compensation strategies found in the literature. A simulator for the LAURS control system is developed with the aid of a Matlab Toolbox that emulates timing aspects of the limited operating system and network. Considering the simulation results, including a case scenario, it is argued that despite improving performance, the control system with delay compensation strategies remains unpredictable and prone to fail. Therefore, it is not recommended for critical systems such as the unmanned vehicle LAURS, even with the reduced costs of a resource-constrained computer system. The simulation results are statistically validated.

No description available.