This master thesis deals with application of Markov processes in analysis of reli- ability of complex industrial systems. We describe a general algorithm whose input is a special form of a failure tree, which describes reliability of a certain system, and whose output is a Markov process, which describes evolution of reliability of the given system in time. We assume exponentially distributed time to failure and reparation time of components of the system. The new model of reliability analy- sis, which uses a Markov process describing the given system, enables to consider dynamical evolution of the system and reparation of components when probability of the system failure within the time interval is computed. Moreover, unlike in the classical reliability model, which uses only failure trees, the new model enables to compute, for example, probability distribution of the functionality-determining states of the given system in the phase of steady running, mean time to a failure of the system or probability that the system fails for the whole time period of the length h, h > 0. The procedures how to get these indicators of reliability are described in this thesis in detail. All theoretical findings of this thesis are applied to two concrete subsystems of nuclear power plant Temelín and further, there is an...

This M.S. thesis introduces new modulus scaling techniques for transforming a class of primes into special forms which enable efficient arithmetic. The scaling technique may be used to improve multiplication and inversion in finite fields. We present an efficient inversion algorithm that utilizes the structure of a scaled modulus. Our inversion algorithm exhibits superior performance to the Euclidean algorithm and lends itself to efficient hardware implementation due to its simplicity. Using the scaled modulus technique and our specialized inversion algorithm we develop an elliptic curve processor architecture. The resulting architecture successfully utilizes redundant representation of elements in GF(p) and provides a low-power, high speed, and small footprint specialized elliptic curve implementation. We also introduce a unified Montgomery multiplier architecture working on the extension fields GF(p), GF(2) and GF(3). With the increasing research activity for identity based encryption schemes, there has been an increasing need for arithmetic operations in field GF(3). Since we based our research on low-power and small footprint applications, we designed a unified architecture rather than having a seperate hardware for GF{3}. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time a unified architecture was built working on three different extension fields.

This thesis investigates changes in knowledge required to complete tasks within business processes that have implemented planned/radical change. The research is based on the synthesis of three scholarly domains: change management, knowledge management, and business processes. Organisations implement planned/radical change for various reasons: due to perturbations in the external environment, to achieve strategic goals, or to improve profitability. Radical changes affect business processes and the people carrying out tasks within those processes. Yet, many radical process change initiatives founder. The conceptual argument underpinning this thesis is that planned/radical change initiatives are rarely fully implemented because knowledge does not fully evolve from pre-change to post-change knowledge. People can hold onto knowledge they have, or are unable to grasp new knowledge required, or attempt to apply knowledge that is redundant. This thesis posits that knowledge which does not evolve is a barrier to change. Consequently, this study contributes by providing a deeper understanding of knowledge evolution in the context of processes that have undergone planned/radical change, and specifically the evolution of declarative, procedural and heuristic knowledge necessary to complete new or redesigned tasks within business processes, which form the bedrock to enhancing the implementation of planned/radical change. Drawing on the literature related to change, knowledge, process and dynamic capabilities, a conceptual model is developed to explain evolutionary stages from pre-change to post-change declarative, procedural and heuristic knowledge within business processes. The model is based upon empirical data, collected qualitatively from two higher educational institutes based in Kuwait. This thesis also investigates redundant knowledge: knowledge that is no longer of use in post-change processes. In addition, the factors affecting knowledge evolution that exist during the period of implementing planned/radical change in a business process are identified and defined. Understanding these factors enhances the progression of staff members through the evolution stages. The model suggests that greater recognition of the pace at which knowledge evolves is important for implementing planned/radical change. The implications for practice are highlighted. This study has a number of limitations and suggestions for future research, which are set out in more detail in the concluding chapter.

O desenvolvimento de métodos que permitam reproduzir numericamente o comportamento el de sistemas estruturais reais tem desa ado cientistas e pesquisadores a abordarem questões que vão além das condições de integridade do sistema. Neste sentido, uma série de novos parâmetros devem ser considerados durante um processo de otimização estrutural, zelando pela con abilidade em níveis aceitáveis enquanto que os custos esperados de falhas sejam minimizados. Aparentemente, os objetivos segurança e economia competem entre si, nesse contexto, a otimização do risco estrutural surge como uma formulação que permite equacionar este problema através do chamado custo esperado total. Nesta Tese, apresenta-se o desenvolvimento de uma técnica precisa para satisfazer os termos que compõem a função custo esperado total, isto é, uma técnica capaz de estimar a con abilidade de sistemas estruturais redundantes pela identi cação dos múltiplos modos de falha de uma maneira mais precisa que os métodos convencionais aproximados e de simulação. Além disso, análises inelásticas de estruturas de aço incluindo as não linearidades físicas e geométricas são consideradas utilizando o MCDG, além de leis constitutivas para prever o comportamento inelástico. Em posse destas informações, o algoritmo calcula o risco como sendo a probabilidade de falha multiplicada pela consequência econômica resultante desta falha. Ao risco são acrescentados os demais custos associados ao sistema estrutural, os quais não dependem dos parâmetros aleatórios do sistema e por isso denominados custos xos. Como produto, tem-se o custo esperado total, o qual corresponde a função objetivo do problema de otimização estrutural. Aplicações numéricas demonstram a precisão e e ciência da metodologia na avaliação da probabilidade de falha de problemas envolvendo funções de estado limite altamente não lineares com múltiplas regiões de falhas, assim como os efeitos causados pelas não linearidades físicas e geométricas nas análises probabil ísticas e na otimização do risco das estruturas. Os resultados demonstraram que, em relação às incertezas e consequências monetárias da falha, a estrutura ótima pode ser encontrada apenas pela formulação da otimização do risco, onde a con guração da estrutura e os limites de segurança são otimizados simultaneamente. A otimização do risco resulta numa estrutura ótima em termos mecânicos, custo esperado total e segurança. / The development of methods that allow to numerically reproduce the actual behavior of real structural systems has challenged scientists and researchers and urged them to address issues that extend beyond the integrity of a system. Therefore, a series of new parameters must be taken into account during the structural optimization process, looking for acceptable reliability levels while minimizing the expected failure costs. Apparently, safety and economy compete with each other, and in this context, structural risk optimization arises as a formulation that allows equating this problem through the so-called total expected cost. In this Thesis, an accurate technique is developed to satisfy the minimization of the total expected cost function i:e:; a technique that allows estimating the reliability of redundant structural systems by the identi cation of multiple failure modes in a more precise way than conventional approximation and simulation methods. Besides, inelastic analysis of steel trusses including both geometric and physical nonlinearities are considered using the generalized displacement control method, in addition to constitutive laws to predict the inelastic behavior. Based on this information, the algorithm calculates risk as the failure probability multiplied by the economic losses resulting from such failure. The other costs associated to the structual system are added to the actual risk and since they do not depend on system's random parameters, they are referred as xed costs. As result, one obtains the total expected cost, which corresponds to the objective function of the structural optimization problem. Numerical applications shows the accuracy and e ciency of the methodology in the evaluation of the failure probability of problems represented by high nonlinear limit state functions with multiple failure regions. It is also included the e ects of geometric and physical nonlinearities originated in the probabilistic analysis and risk optimization of truss structures. Results show that, in consideration of uncertainty and the monetary consequences of failure, the optimum structure can only be found by a risk optimization formulation, where structural con guration and safety margins are optimized simultaneously. Risk optimization yields a structure which is optimum in terms of mechanics and in terms of the compromise between cost and safety.

<p>The purpose of this master thesis project has been to analyze and document the Sirius 2001 Concept Car. In addition, it has also been a goal to get the car in a usable state by implementing new software on the on board computers. </p><p>The car is a Tiger Cat E1 that is modified with four wheel steering and an advanced X-by-Wire system. The computers in the X-by-Wire system consist of six TTP PowerNodes that communicate with each other over a redundant, fault tolerant TTP/C communications bus. The computers are connected to a number of sensors and actuators to be able to control the car. </p><p>This project has contributed to the car in several ways. A complete documentation of the systems implemented in the car is one. Another is a programmers manual which significantly lowers the threshold when working with the car. Last but not least is the modifications in hardware and software, which have made the car usable and show some of the possibilities with the system. </p><p>The results show that the Sirius 2001 Concept Car is a suitable platform for research in car dynamics and fault tolerant systems. The work has also shown that the TTP/C communication model works well in an application like this.</p>

The purpose of this master thesis project has been to analyze and document the Sirius 2001 Concept Car. In addition, it has also been a goal to get the car in a usable state by implementing new software on the on board computers. The car is a Tiger Cat E1 that is modified with four wheel steering and an advanced X-by-Wire system. The computers in the X-by-Wire system consist of six TTP PowerNodes that communicate with each other over a redundant, fault tolerant TTP/C communications bus. The computers are connected to a number of sensors and actuators to be able to control the car. This project has contributed to the car in several ways. A complete documentation of the systems implemented in the car is one. Another is a programmers manual which significantly lowers the threshold when working with the car. Last but not least is the modifications in hardware and software, which have made the car usable and show some of the possibilities with the system. The results show that the Sirius 2001 Concept Car is a suitable platform for research in car dynamics and fault tolerant systems. The work has also shown that the TTP/C communication model works well in an application like this.

The hyper redundant manipulators (HRMs) have excessively large degrees of freedom. As a special but practicable subset, the binary HRMs use binary (on-off) actuators with only two stable states such as pneumatic cylinders and solenoids. Such actuators are simple, cheap, and easy to control. Therefore, a binary HRM has been studied in this thesis. The thesis work covers the conceptual design of a spatial binary HRM together with its controlled motion simulations. The manipulator consists of many modules, each of which has the same constructive characteristics and consists of three submodules which are two cascaded variable geometry truss structures working in mutually orthogonal planes and a discrete twister. The manipulator is assumed to be powered with pneumatic on-off actuators. Because of the discrete nature of the binary actuators, a small but continuously actuated manipulator with six degrees of freedom is installed as the last module of the HRM in order to compensate the discretization errors. To solve the inverse kinematics problem of the HRM, three methods have been presented. These are the spline fitting, the extended spline fitting, and the workspace filling methods. The spline fitting method is based on forcing the spine (i.e. the center line) of the manipulator to approximate a spatial reference spline which is specified as a desired curve. In the extended spline fitting method, the result found in the first method is improved by using a genetic algorithm. In the work space filling method, the workspace of the manipulator is filled randomly with a sufficiently large finite number of discrete configurational samples. If it is desired to have concentration on a particular region of the work space, then that region is filled by using a genetic algorithm. After the filling stage, the sample closest to the desired configuration is determined by a suitable search algorithm. Finally, in order to simulate the motion of the HRM between two successive configurational steps, the equations of motions of the HRM are obtained in terms of the pressure forces generated by the binary pneumatic actuators. Then, the necessary simulations are carried out to demonstrate the performance of the HRM in some typical applications.

Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks or RAID is a popular method of improving the reliability and performance of disk storage. Of various levels of RAID, mirrored or RAID1 and rotating parity or RAID5 configurations have become moat popular. Mirrored or RAID1 provides best overall performance and is easier to configure, but has 100 percent storage overhead for the redundancy. Rotating parity or RAID5, on the other hand, is quite inexpensive for the redundancy it provides, shorn impressive performance for reads and full-stripe writes in normal mode, but the small write performance is poor due to the read-modify-write cycle involved. The performance drops drastically when one of the disks fails and the system enters degraded mode. Also RAID5 is relatively difficult to configure. Typical non-scientific system disk access patterns exhibit very high locality of reference. This thesis presents the design and implementation of an Adaptive Hierarchical RAID array to exploit this high locality. Frequently accessed data is migrated towards the top of the hierarchy and not so frequently acee88ed data is moved down the hierarchy, thus adaptively rearranging itself to the access patterns. Previous work on Adaptive Hierarchical RAID such as HP AutoRAID has explored one part of the design space, namely design of configurable storage at the SGSI level with no interaction with higher level layers like volume manager. This thesis explores a different design point: namely, one that is centered at the volume manager layer. This is important also for the reason that with fibre channel disks and SCSI-3, Storage Area Networks (SAN) no longer need a conventional controller but a modified version of a controller that is more close to a volume manager.

This thesis investigates particular topics in advanced motion control of two distinct mechanical systems: human-like motion control of redundant robot manipulators and advanced sensing and control for energy-efficient operation of electromagnetic devices. Control of robot manipulators for human-like motions has been one of challenging topics in robot control for over half a century. The first part of this thesis considers methods that exploits robot manipulators??? degrees of freedom for such purposes. Jacobian transpose control law is investigated as one of the well-known controllers and sufficient conditions for its universal convergence are derived by using concepts of ???stability on a manifold??? and ???transferability to a sub-manifold???. Firstly, a modification on this method is proposed to enhance the rectilinear trajectory of the robot end-effector. Secondly, an abridged Jacobian controller is proposed that exploits passive control of joints to reduce the attended degrees of freedom of the system. Finally, the application of minimally-attended controller for human-like motion is introduced. Electromagnetic (EM) access control systems are one of growing electronic systems which are used in applications where conventional mechanical locks may not guarantee the expected safety of the peripheral doors of buildings. In the second part of this thesis, an intelligent EM unit is introduced which recruits the selfsensing capability of the original EM block for detection purposes. The proposed EM device optimizes its energy consumption through a control strategy which regulates the supply to the system upon detection of any eminent disturbance. Therefore, it draws a very small current when the full power is not needed. The performance of the proposed control strategy was evaluated based on a standard safety requirement for EM locking mechanisms. For a particular EM model, the proposed method is verified to realize a 75% reduction in the power consumption.

Lors du contrôle de robots, les variations fortes et soudaines dans les couples de commande doivent impérativement être évitées. En effet ces discontinuités peuvent entraîner, en plus des comportements imprévisibles du système, des dommages physiques, notamment au niveau des actionneurs. Pour la réalisation de tâches complexes, un robot à plusieurs degrés de liberté utilise généralement un système de commande multi-objectif avec lequel plusieurs tâches doivent être réalisées et plusieurs contraintes respectées. Le basculement entre ces différentes tâches ainsi que les contraintes causées par un environnemt dynamique et imprévisible sont les causes directes des variations fortes dans les couples de commande. Dans ce travail, les problèmes de transitions de priorités entre les différentes tâches ainsi que la variation des contraintes sont considérées avec pour objectif la des variations fortes dans les couples de commande. Deux contributions principales ont été réalisées.Premièrement, un nouveau contrôleur appelé "contrôle hiérarchique généralisé (GHC)" est implémenté sous forme d’optimisation quadratique pour gérer la priorité des transitions entre les tâches de poids différents. Le projecteur utilisé assure en plus de la continuité des transitions, la gestion de l’ajout et/ou de la suppression de tâches. Les couples de commande sont alors calculés en résolvant un problème d’optimisation prenant en compte en même temps la hiérarchie des tâches et les contraintes égalitaire et inégalitaires.Deuxièmement, nous avons développé une primitive de contrôle à base de Contrôle par Modèle Prédictif (CMP) afin de gérer l’existence des discontinuités des contraintes que doit respecter le robot, tel que le changement d’état des contacts ou l’évitement d'obstacles. Le contrôleur profite ainsi de la formulation prédictive en anticipant l'évolution des contraintes vis-à-vis des scénarios de commande et/ou de l'information des capteurs. Il permet de générer des nouvelles contraintes continues qui remplacent les anciennes contraintes discrètes dans le contrôleur réactif QP. Par conséquent, le taux de changement des couples articulaires est minimisé, comparé aux anciennes contraintes discrètes. Cette primitive de contrôle prédictive ne modifie pas directement les objectifs désirés des tâches mais les contraintes, ce qui permet de s’assurer que les changements de couple sont bien gérés dans les pires scénarios.L'efficacité de la stratégie de contrôle proposée est validée via des expériences en simulation avec le robot Kuka LWR 4+ et le robot humanoïde iCub. Les résultats montrent que l'approche développée peut réduire de manière significative la variation des couples articulaires pendant les changements de priorité des tâches ou sous contraintes discrètes. / Large and sudden changes in the torques of the actuators of a robot are highly undesirable and should be avoided during robot control as they may result in unpredictable behaviours. Multi-objective control system for complex robots usually have to handle multiple prioritized tasks while satisfying constraints. Changes in tasks and/or constraints are inevitable for robots when adapting to the unstructured and dynamic environment, and they may lead to large sudden changes in torques. Within this work, the problem of task priority transitions and changing constraints is primarily considered to reduce large sudden changes in torques. This is achieved through two main contributions as follows. Firstly, based on quadratic programming (QP), a new controller called Generalized Hierarchical Control (GHC) is developed to deal with task priority transitions among arbitrary prioritized task. This projector can be used to achieve continuous task priority transitions, as well as insert or remove tasks among a set of tasks to be performed in an elegant way. The control input (e.g. joint torques) is computed by solving one quadratic programming problem, where generalized projectors are adopted to maintain a task hierarchy while satisfying equality and inequality constraints. Secondly, a predictive control primitive based on Model Predictive Control (MPC) is developed to handle presence of discontinuities in the constraints that the robot must satisfy, such as the breaking of contacts with the environment or the avoidance of an obstacle. The controller takes the advantages of predictive formulations to anticipate the evolutions of the constraints by means of control scenarios and/or sensor information, and thus generate new continuous constraints to replace the original discontinuous constraints in the QP reactive controller. As a result, the rate of change in joint torques is minimized compared with the original discontinuous constraints. This predictive control primitive does not directly modify the desired task objectives, but the constraints to ensure that the worst case of changes of torques is well-managed. The effectiveness of the proposed control framework is validated by a set of experiments in simulation on the Kuka LWR robot and the iCub humanoid robot. The results show that the proposed approach significantly decrease the rate of change in joint torques when task priorities switch or discontinuous constraints occur.