Distributed coordination of multi-agent systems (MASs) has been widely studied in various emerging engineering applications, including connected vehicles, wireless networks, smart grids, and cyber-physical systems. In these contexts, agents make the decision locally, relying on the interaction with their immediate neighbors over the connected communication networks. The study of distributed coordination for the multi-agent system (MAS) with constraints is significant yet challenging, especially in terms of ubiquitous uncertainties, the heavy communication burden, and communication delays, to name a few. Hence, it is desirable to develop distributed algorithms for the constrained MAS with these practical issues. In this dissertation, we develop the theoretical results on robust distributed model predictive control (DMPC) algorithms for two types of control problems (i.e., formation stabilization problem and consensus problem) of the constrained and uncertain MAS and apply robust DMPC algorithms in applications of cooperative marine vehicles. More precisely, Chapter 1 provides a systematic literature review, where the state-of-the-art DMPC for formation stabilization and consensus, robust MPC, and MPC for motion control of marine vehicles are introduced. Chapter 2 introduces some notations, necessary definitions, and some preliminaries. In Chapter 3, we study the formation stabilization problem of the nonlinear constrained MAS with un- certainties and bounded time-varying communication delays. We develop a min-max DMPC algorithm with the self-triggered mechanism, which significantly reduces the communication burden while ensuring closed-loop stability and robustness. Chapter 4 investigates the consensus problem of the general linear MAS with input constraints and bounded time-varying delays. We design a robust DMPC-based consensus protocol that integrates a predesigned consensus protocol with online DMPC optimization techniques. Under mild technical assumptions, the estimation errors propagated over prediction due to delay-induced inaccurate neighboring information are proved bounded, based on which a robust DMPC strategy is deliberately designed to achieve robust consensus while satisfying control input constraints. Chapter 5 proposes a Lyapunov-based DMPC approach for the formation tracking control problem of co-operative autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) subject to environmental disturbances. A stability constraint leveraging the extended state observer-based auxiliary control law and the associated Lyapunov function is incorporated into the optimization problem to enforce the stability and enhance formation tracking performance. A collision-avoidance cost is designed and employed in the DMPC optimization problem to further guarantee the safety of AUVs. Chapter 6 presents a tube-based DMPC approach for the platoon control problem of a group of heterogeneous autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs) with input constraints and disturbances. In particular, a coupled inter-vehicle safety constraint is added to the DMPC optimization problem; it ensures that neighboring ASVs maintain the safe distance and avoid inter-vehicle collision. Finally, we summarize the main results of this dissertation and discuss some potential directions for future research in Chapter 7. / Graduate / 2023-04-19

Tesis por compendio / [ES] Con esta tesis se pretende dar solución a algunos de los problemas más habituales que aparecen en los Sistemas de control basados en red (NCS) como son los retardos variables en el tiempo, las pérdidas y el desorden de paquetes, y la restricción de ancho de banda y de recursos computacionales y energéticos de los dispositivos que forman parte del sistema de control. Para ello se ha planteado la integración de técnicas de control multifrecuencial, de control basado en paquetes, de control basado en predictor y de control basado en eventos. Los diseños de control realizados se han simulado utilizando Matlab-Simulink y Truetime, se ha analizado su estabilidad mediante LMIs y QFT, y se han validado experimentalmente en un péndulo invertido, un robot cartesiano 3D y en robots móviles de bajo coste. El artículo 1 aborda el control basado en eventos, el cual minimiza el ancho de banda consumido en el NCS mediante un control basado en eventos periódicos y presenta un método para obtener sus parámetros óptimos para el sistema específico en que se utilice. Los artículos 2, 4 y 6 añaden el control basado en paquetes, así como el control multifrecuencia, que aborda problemas de falta de datos por bajo uso del sensor y los retardos, pérdidas y desórdenes de paquetes en la red. También afrontan, mediante tecnicas de predicción basadas en un filtro de Kalman multifrecuencia variable en el tiempo, los problemas de ruido y perturbaciones, así como la observación de los estados completos del sistema. El artículo 7 hace frente a un modelo no lineal que utiliza las anteriores soluciones junto con un filtro de Kalman extendido para presentar otro tipo de estructura para un vehículo autónomo que, gracias a la información futura obtenida mediante estas técnicas, puede realizar de forma remota tareas de alto nivel como es la toma de decisiones y la monitorización de variables. Los artículos 3 y 5, presentan una forma de obtener y analizar la respuesta en frecuencia de sistemas SISO multifrecuencia y estudian su comportamiento ante ciertas incertidumbres o problemas en la red haciendo uso de procedimientos QFT. / [CA] Amb aquesta tesi es pretén donar solució a alguns dels problemes més habituals que apareixen als Sistemes de Control Basats en xarxa (NCS) com son els retards d'accés i transferència variables en el temps, les pèrdues y desordenament de paquets, i la restricció d'ampli de banda així com de recursos computacionals i energètics dels dispositius que foment part del sistema de control. Per tal de resoldre'ls s'ha plantejat la integració de tècniques de control multifreqüencial, de control basat en paquets, de control basat en predictor i de control basat en events. Els dissenys de control realitzats s'han simulat fent ús de Matlab-Simulink i de TrueTime, s'ha analitzat la seua estabilitat mitjançant LMIs i QFT, i s'han validat experimentalment en un pèndul invertit, un robot cartesià 3D i en robots mòbils de baix cost. L'article 1 aborda el control basat en events, el qual minimitza l'ampli de banda consumit a l'NCS mitjançant un control basat en events periòdics i presenta un mètode per a obtindré els seus paràmetres òptims per al sistema específic en el qual s'utilitza. Els articles 2, 4 i 6 afegeixen el control basat en paquets, així com el control multifreqüència, que aborda problemes de falta de dades per el baix us del sensor i els retards, pèrdues i desordre de paquets en la xarxa. També afronten, mitjançant tècniques de predicció basades en un filtre de Kalman multifreqüència variable en el temps. Els problemes de soroll i pertorbacions, així com la observació dels estats complets del sistema. L'article 7 fa referència a un model no lineal que utilitza les anteriors solucions junt a un filtre de Kalman estès per a presentar altre tipus d'estructura per a un vehicle autònom que, gracies a la informació futura obtinguda mitjançant aquestes tècniques, pot realitzar de manera remota tasques d'alt nivell com son la presa de decisions i la monitorització de variables. Els articles 3 y 5 presenten la manera d'obtindre i analitzar la resposta en frequencia de sistemes SISO multifreqüència i estudien el seu comportament front a certes incerteses o problemes en la xarxa fent us de procediments QFT. / [EN] This thesis attempts to solve some of the most frequent issues that appear in Networked Control Systems (NCS), such as time-varying delays, packet losses and packet disorders and the bandwidth limitation. Other frequent problems are scarce computational and energy resources of the local system devices. Thus, it is proposed to integrate multirate control, packet-based control, predictor-based control and event-based control techniques. The control designs have been simulated using Matlab-Simulink and Truetime, the stability has been analysed by LMIs and QFT, and the experimental validation has been done on an inverted pendulum, a 3D cartesian robot and in low-cost mobile robots. Paper 1 addresses event-based control, which minimizes the bandwidth consumed in NCS through a periodic event-triggered control and presents a method to obtain the optimal parameters for the specific system used. Papers 2, 4 and 6 include packet-based control and multirate control, addressing problems such as network delays, packet dropouts and packet disorders, and the scarce data due to low sensor usage in order to save battery in sensing tasks and transmissions of the sensed data. Also addressed, is how despite the existence of measurement noise and disturbances, time-varying dual-rate Kalman filter based prediction techniques observe the complete state of the system. Paper 7 tackles a non-linear model that uses all the previous solutions together with an extended Kalman filter to present another type of structure for an autonomous vehicle that, due to future information obtained through these techniques, can remotely carry out high level tasks, such as decision making and monitoring of variables. Papers 3 and 5, present a method for obtaining and analyzing the SISO dual-rate frequency response and using QFT procedures to study its behavior when faced with specific uncertainties or network problems. / This work was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad under Grant referenced TEC2012-31506. / Alcaina Acosta, JJ. (2020). Design and implementation of event-based multi-rate controllers for networked control systems [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/159884 / TESIS / Compendio

[ES] Desde la irrupción de los vehículos eléctricos en el mercado automotriz como una opción de transporte limpia y asequible, los fabricantes de motores han estado buscando nuevas formas de reducir la huella ambiental de los actuales motores de combustión interna alternativos (MCIA). Hoy en día, la mayoría de las investigaciones en aplicaciones de vehículos de pasajeros se centran en desarrollar aún más los motores de encendido provocado (MEP) para promover una nueva generación de sistemas de propulsión sostenibles y de alto rendimiento. En este contexto, el concepto de encendido de precámara se está convirtiendo en una solución atractiva para aumentar la eficiencia térmica de los futuros MEP para vehículos de pasajeros, debido a su capacidad de acelerar el proceso de combustión. Además, la combinación de esta estrategia de encendido con mezclas diluidas (ya sea con aire o gases de escape) tiene el potencial de mejorar aún más el rendimiento del motor. En particular, en comparación con los sistemas de precámara activa con suministro de combustible auxiliar, la versión pasiva ofrece ventajas evidentes en términos de simplicidad mecánica, ensamblaje y coste. Sin embargo, todavía existen importantes obstáculos relacionados con la comprensión de los aspectos fisicoquímicos fundamentales del concepto (turbulencia, aerodinámica, conversión de energía, dinámica de los chorros, geometría de precámara...), que en última instancia han limitado la integración de esta tecnología en producción. Por lo tanto, esta tesis doctoral pretende extender el nivel de conocimiento de este concepto de encendido mediante el uso de un modelo CFD de última generación, validado con un extenso conjunto de medidas experimentales y siguiendo una metodología especialmente desarrollada para este trabajo de investigación. Los resultados obtenidos se dividieron en tres partes: La primera parte evaluó un MEP monocilíndrico de investigación, representativo de vehículos automóviles, que integraba el concepto de precámara pasiva en condiciones estequiométricas sin dilución. Aquí se evaluó el impacto del punto de operación del motor, el avance del encendido y la geometría de la precámara sobre los procesos físicos y termoquímicos que intervienen en este concepto de combustión. La segunda parte del estudio se centró en caracterizar el concepto en condiciones diluidas con aire y recirculación de gases de escape (EGR). Se analizó en profundidad la evolución del proceso de combustión y la distribución de energía en la precámara y cámara principal para los límites de dilución experimentales. Además, también se evaluó el uso de hidrógeno para ampliar el límite de dilución con aire. La última etapa de la investigación consistió en evaluar una posible aplicación tecnológica de este concepto de encendido a partir de los conocimientos adquiridos. Por ello, se desarrolló una metodología de diseño de precámara que combina herramientas numéricas 0D/1D y CFD. Posteriormente, la metodología fue validada en el banco de ensayos del motor, y la precámara resultante ofreció buenos niveles de rendimiento térmico y fue capaz de extender el límite de dilución con EGR. Con ello, la presente tesis doctoral supone un avance significativo en el campo del análisis del impacto de la integración de sistemas avanzados en MCIA en general, y en MEP en particular, con el objetivo de mejorar sus prestaciones, emisiones o rendimiento, contribuyendo al esfuerzo que está realizando la comunidad científica para mitigar el impacto ambiental del sector del transporte. / [CAT] Des de la irrupció dels vehicles elèctrics en el mercat automotriu com una opció de transport neta i assequible, els fabricants de motors han estat buscant noves maneres de reduir la petjada ambiental dels actuals motors de combustió interna alternatius (MCIA). Hui dia, la majoria de les investigacions en aplicacions de vehicles de passatgers se centren a desenvolupar encara més els motors d'encesa provocada (MEP) per a promoure una nova generació de sistemes de propulsió sostenibles i d'alt rendiment. En aquest context, el concepte d'encesa de precàmera s'està convertint en una solució atractiva per a augmentar l'eficiència tèrmica dels futurs MEP per a vehicles de passatgers, a causa de la seua capacitat d'accelerar el procés de combustió. A més, la combinació d'aquesta estratègia d'encesa amb mescles diluïdes (siga amb aire o productes de la combustió) té el potencial de millorar encara més el rendiment del motor. En particular, en comparació amb els sistemes de precàmera activa amb subministrament de combustible auxiliar, la versió passiva ofereix avantatges evidents en termes de simplicitat mecànica, assemblatge i cost. No obstant això, encara existeixen importants obstacles relacionats amb la comprensió dels aspectes fisicoquímics fonamentals del concepte (turbulència, aerodinàmica, conversió d'energia, dinàmica d'ejecció, geometria de precàmera...), que en última instància han limitat la integració d'aquesta tecnologia a la producció en sèrie. Per tant, aquesta tesi doctoral pretén estendre el nivell de coneixement d'aquest concepte d'encesa mitjançant l'ús d'un model CFD d'última generació, validat amb un extens conjunt de mesures experimentals i seguint una metodologia especialment desenvolupada per a aquest treball de recerca. Els resultats obtinguts es divideixen en tres parts. La primera part estudia un MEP monocilíndric d'investigació, representatiu dels vehicles actuals d'automoció, que integra el concepte de precàmera passiva en condicions estequiomètriques sense dilució. Ací s'avalua l'impacte del punt d'operació del motor, l'avanç de l'encesa i la geometria de la precàmera sobre els processos físics i termoquímics que intervenen en aquest concepte de combustió. La segona part de l'estudi se centra a caracteritzar el concepte en condicions diluïdes amb aire i recirculació de gasos produïts per la combustió (EGR). S'analitza en profunditat l'evolució del procés de combustió i la distribució d'energia en la precàmera i en cambra principal per als límits de dilució experimentals. A més, també s'avalua l'ús d'hidrogen per a ampliar el límit de dilució amb aire. L'última etapa de la investigació consisteix a avaluar una possible aplicació tecnològica d'aquest concepte d'encesa a partir dels coneixements adquirits. Per això, es desenvolupa una metodologia de disseny de precàmera que combina eines numèriques 0D/1D i CFD. Posteriorment, la metodologia és validada al banc d'assajos del motor, on la precàmera resultant ofereix bons nivells de rendiment tèrmic i és capaç d'estendre el límit de dilució amb EGR. Amb això, la present tesi doctoral suposa un avanç significatiu en el camp de l'anàlisi de l'impacte de la integració de sistemes avançats en MCIA en general, i en MEP en particular, amb l'objectiu de millorar les seues prestacions, emissions o rendiment, contribuint a l'esforç que està realitzant la comunitat científica per a mitigar l'impacte ambiental del sector del transport. / [EN] Since the irruption of electric vehicles in the automotive market as a clean and affordable transportation option, engine manufacturers have been looking for new ways to reduce the environmental footprint of current internal combustion engines (ICE's). Nowadays, most of the research efforts in passenger car applications focus on further developing spark-ignition (SI) engines to promote a new generation of high-performance and sustainable powertrains. In this context, the pre-chamber ignition concept is becoming an attractive solution to increase the thermal efficiency of future light-duty SI engines, due to its inherent capability of enhancing the combustion process. Moreover, combining this ignition strategy with diluted mixtures (either with air or exhaust gases) has the potential to further improve the engine performance and reduce pollutant emissions. In particular, compared to active pre-chamber systems with an auxiliary fuel supply, the passive version provides advantages in terms of mechanical simplicity, packaging and cost-effectiveness. However, there are still major hurdles related to the understanding of the fundamental physicochemical aspects of the concept (turbulence, scavenging, energy conversion, jet dynamics, pre-chamber geometry...), that ultimately have limited the integration of this technology into production vehicles. Therefore, this doctoral thesis intends to fill these knowledge gaps by using a state-of-the-art CFD model, validated with an extensive set of engine tests and following a simulation methodology specially developed for this research work. The obtained results were divided into three parts: The first part evaluated a research single-cylinder SI engine, representative of light-duty applications, operating with the passive pre-chamber system in un-diluted stoichiome\-tric conditions. Here, the impact of the engine operating point, spark timing and pre-chamber geometry over the physical and thermochemical processes that are involved in this combustion concept were evaluated. The second part of the study focused on characterizing the concept in diluted conditions with air and exhaust gas re-circulation (EGR). The combustion evolution and energy distribution in the pre-chamber and main chamber for the experimental dilution limits were deeply analyzed. In addition, the use of hydrogen to extend the air-dilution limit was also assessed. The final part of the investigation consisted in developing a potential technological application of this ignition concept from the acquired knowledge. Therefore, a pre-chamber design methodology combining 0D/1D and CFD numerical tools was developed and validated in the engine test bench. The resulting pre-chamber offered good levels of thermal efficiency and was able to extend the EGR dilution limit. This doctoral thesis represents a significant advancement in the frame of analyzing the impact of advanced ignition systems and their integration in ICE's in general, and in SI engines in particular, with the aim of improving the global features of these powerplants (efficiency and emissions), contributing to the effort that the scientific community is carrying out to mitigate the environmental impact of the transportation sector. / Barbery Avila, II. (2023). CFD Modelling and Analysis of the Passive Pre-Chamber Ignition Concept for Future Generation Spark-Ignition Engines [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/193035

I den här rapporten visar vi att ett undervisningsmaterial, som är framtaget utifrån faktorer som enligt tidigare forskning ökar det situationella intresset för något som ska läras, triggar ett situationellt intresse för materialet hos flera av eleverna i den gymnasieklass som deltog i undersökningen och håller det situationella intresset hos vissa av dessa elever. Intresse är en faktor som påverkar elevers framtida val av yrke och utbildning och således kan lärare som lyckas skapa intresse för fysik hos elever vara med och bidra till en mer jämlik skola. Situationellt intresse är den typ av intresse som på kort sikt går att påverka i klassrummet, och med rätt stöd kan ett situationellt intresse vara grunden för att ett mer långvarigt individuellt intresse ska uppstå. Det finns flera olika faktorer som påverkar det situationella intresset i klassrummet och inte direkt beror av läraren, och utifrån dessa designade vi ett undervisningsmaterial som implementerades i en fysikklass under tre lektioner. Syftet med undersökningen var att se om det uppstod situationellt intresse för materialet hos eleverna genom att titta på hur eleverna har arbetat med och hur de har upplevt materialet. Utifrån observationer, elevintervjuer och elevenkät går det att fastställa att ett situationellt intresse för materialet har uppstått hos flera elever i klassen. Därmed kan det situationella intresset i klassrummet ökas utan att läraren förändrar sitt sätt att undervisa. / In this report, we show that an education material, which is produced according to factors that previous research has shown increases the situational interest for things to be learnt, triggers a situational interest for the material within several of the students that took part in the study and maintains the situational interest for some of these students. Interest is a factor that affects students’ future choice of occupation and education and therefore teachers who successfully create interest for physics within students can contribute to a more equal school system. Situational interest is the kind of interest that with a short-term view can be affected in the classroom, with the right support situational interest can be the foundation for a more long-term individual interest. There are multiple factors that can affect the situational interest in the classroom which do not directly depend on the teacher, and we designed an education material, which was implemented in a physics class during three lessons, according to those factors. The purpose of this study was to see if situational interest arose for the material within the students by looking at how the students work with the material and what they experienced when working with it. From observations, survey answers and interviews one can determine that a situational interest for the material has arisen within many students in the study. One can conclude that the situational interest can be increased in the classroom without the teacher having to change his or her way of teaching.

Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) is a significant hazard to electronic components and systems. Based on a specific processing technology, a given circuit application requires a customized ESD consideration that includes the devices’ operating voltage, leakage current, breakdown constraints, and footprint. As new technology nodes mature every 3-5 years, design of effective ESD protection solutions has become more and more challenging due to the narrowed design window, elevated electric field and current density, as well as new failure mechanisms that are not well understood. The endeavor of this research is to develop novel, effective and robust ESD protection solutions for both emerging technologies and modern complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technologies. The Si nanowire field-effect transistors are projected by the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors as promising next-generation CMOS devices due to their superior DC and RF performances, as well as ease of fabrication in existing Silicon processing. Aiming at proposing ESD protection solutions for nanowire based circuits, the dimension parameters, fabrication process, and layout dependency of such devices under Human Body Mode (HBM) ESD stresses are studied experimentally in company with failure analysis revealing the failure mechanism induced by ESD. The findings, including design methodologies, failure mechanism, and technology comparisons should provide practical knowhow of the development of ESD protection schemes for the nanowire based integrated circuits. Organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) are the basic elements for the emerging flexible, printable, large-area, and low-cost organic electronic circuits. Although there are plentiful studies focusing on the DC stress induced reliability degradation, the operation mechanism of OTFTs iv subject to ESD is not yet available in the literature and are urgently needed before the organic technology can be pushed into consumer market. In this work, the ESD operation mechanism of OTFT depending on gate biasing condition and dimension parameters are investigated by extensive characterization and thorough evaluation. The device degradation evolution and failure mechanism under ESD are also investigated by specially designed experiments. In addition to the exploration of ESD protection solutions in emerging technologies, efforts have also been placed in the design and analysis of a major ESD protection device, diodetriggered-silicon-controlled-rectifier (DTSCR), in modern CMOS technology (90nm bulk). On the one hand, a new type DTSCR having bi-directional conduction capability, optimized design window, high HBM robustness and low parasitic capacitance are developed utilizing the combination of a bi-directional silicon-controlled-rectifier and bi-directional diode strings. On the other hand, the HBM and Charged Device Mode (CDM) ESD robustness of DTSCRs using four typical layout topologies are compared and analyzed in terms of trigger voltage, holding voltage, failure current density, turn-on time, and overshoot voltage. The advantages and drawbacks of each layout are summarized and those offering the best overall performance are suggested at the end

Low-power wireless technology is a part and parcel of our daily life, shaping the way in which we behave, interact, and more generally live. The ubiquity of cheap, tiny, battery-powered devices augmented with sensing, actuation, and wireless communication capabilities has given rise to a ``smart" society, where people, machines, and objects are seamlessly interconnected, among themselves and with the environment. Behind the scenes, low-power wireless protocols are what enables and rules all interactions, organising these embedded devices into wireless networks, and orchestrating their communications. The recent years have witnessed a persistent increase in the pervasiveness and impact of low-power wireless. After having spawned a wide spectrum of powerful applications in the consumer domain, low-power wireless solutions are extending their influence over the industrial context, where their adoption as part of feedback control loops is envisioned to revolutionise the production process, paving the way for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. However, as the scale and relevance of low-power wireless systems continue to grow, so do the challenges posed to the communication substrates, required to satisfy ever more strict requirements in terms of reliability, responsiveness, and energy consumption. Harmonising these conflicting demands is far beyond what is enabled by current network stacks and control architectures; the need to timely bridge this gap has spurred a new wave of interest in low-power wireless networking, and directly motivated our work. In this thesis, we take on this challenge with a main conceptual and technical tool: concurrent transmissions (CTX), a technique that, by enforcing nodes to transmit concurrently, has been shown to unlock unprecedented fast, reliable, and energy efficient multi-hop communications in low-power wireless networks, opening new opportunities for protocol design. We first direct our research endeavour towards industrial applications, focusing on the popular IEEE 802.15.4 narrowband PHY layer, and advance the state of the art along two different directions: interference resilience and aperiodic wireless control. We tackle radio-frequency noise by extensively analysing, for the first time, the dependability of CTX under different types, intensities, and distributions of reproducible interference patterns, and by devising techniques to push it further. Specifically, we concentrate on CRYSTAL, a recently proposed communication protocol that relies on CTX to rapidly and dependably collect aperiodic traffic. By integrating channel hopping and noise detection in the protocol operation, we provide a novel communication stack capable of supporting aperiodic transmissions with near-perfect reliability and a per-mille radio duty cycle despite harsh external interference. These results lay the ground towards the exploitation of CTX for aperiodic wireless control; we explore this research direction by co-designing the Wireless Control Bus (WCB), our second contribution. WCB is a clean-slate CTX-based communication stack tailored to event-triggered control (ETC), an aperiodic control strategy holding the capability to significantly improve the efficiency of wireless control systems, but whose real-world impact has been hampered by the lack of appropriate networking support. Operating in conjunction with ETC, WCB timely and dynamically adapts the network operation to the control demands, unlocking an order-of-magnitude reduction in energy costs w.r.t. traditional periodic approaches while retaining the same control performance, therefore unleashing and concretely demonstrating the true ETC potential for the first time. Nevertheless, low-power wireless communications are rapidly evolving, and new radios striking novel trade-offs are emerging. Among these, in the second part of the thesis we focus on ultra-wideband (UWB). By providing hitherto missing networking primitives for multi-hop dissemination and collection over UWB, we shed light on the communication potentialities opened up by the high data throughput, clock precision, and noise resilience offered by this technology. Specifically, as a third contribution, we demonstrate that CTX not only can be successfully exploited for multi-hop UWB communications but, once embodied in a full-fledged system, provide reliability and energy performance akin to narrowband. Furthermore, the higher data rate and clock resolution of UWB chips unlock up to 80% latency reduction w.r.t. narrowband CTX, along with orders-of-magnitude improvements in network-wide time synchronization. These results showcase how UWB CTX could significantly benefit a multitude of applications, notably including low-power wireless control. With WEAVER, our last contribution, we make an additional step towards this direction, by supporting the key functionality of data collection with an ultra-fast convergecast stack for UWB. Challenging the internal mechanics of CTX, WEAVER interleaves data and acknowledgements flows in a single, self-terminating network-wide flood, enabling the concurrent collection of different packets from multiple senders with unprecedented latency, reliability, and energy efficiency. Overall, this thesis pushes forward the applicability and performance of low-power wireless, by contributing techniques and protocols to enhance the dependability, timeliness, energy efficiency, and interference resilience of this technology. Our research is characterized by a strong experimental slant, where the design of the systems we propose meets the reality of testbed experiments and evaluation. Via our open-source implementations, researchers and practitioners can directly use, extend, and build upon our contributions, fostering future work and research on the topic.

LBIC is a technique for scanning the local quantum efficiency of solar cells. This kind of measurements needs a highly specialized, and time critical controlling software. In 1996 the client, professor Markus Rinio, constructed an LBIC system, and wrote the controlling software as a Turbo-Pascal 7.0 application, running under the MS-DOS 6.22 operating system. By now (2018) both the software and several hardware components are in dire need to be modernized. This thesis thoroughly describes several important aspects of this work, and the considerations needed for a successful result. This includes both very foundational choices about the software architecture, the choice of suitable operating system, the threading model, and the adaptation to new hardware with vastly different behavior. The project also included a new hardware module for position reports and instrument triggering, as well as several adaptations to transform the DOS-based LBIC software into a pleasant modern GUI application.

This work deals with the design of a CMOS pixel sensor prototype (called MIMOSA 31) for the outer layers of the International Linear Collider (ILC) vertex detector. CMOS pixel sensors (CPS) also called monolithic active pixel sensors (MAPS) have demonstrated attractive performance towards the requirements of the vertex detector of the future linear collider. MIMOSA 31developed at IPHC-Strasbourg is the first pixel sensor integrated with 4-bit column-level ADC for the outer layers. It is composed of a matrix of 64 rows and 48 columns. The pixel concept combines in-pixel amplification with a correlated double sampling (CDS) operation in order to reduce the temporal and fixed pattern noise (FPN). At the bottom of the pixel array, each column is terminated with an analog to digital converter (ADC). The self-triggered ADC accommodating the pixel readout in a rolling shutter mode completes the conversion by performing a multi-bit/step approximation. The ADC design was optimized for power saving at sampling frequency. Accounting the fact that in the outer layers of the ILC vertex detector, the hit density is inthe order of a few per thousand, this ADC works in two modes: active mode and inactive mode. This thesis presents the details of the prototype chip and its laboratory test results.

L’objectif principal de cette thèse est d’étudier le problème du contrôle de suivi distribué pour les systèmes de formation de multi-robots à contrainte non holonomique. Ce contrôle vise à entrainer une équipe de robots mobile de type monocycle pour former une configuration de formation désirée avec son centroïde se déplaçant avec une autre trajectoire de référence dynamique et pouvant être spécifié par le leader virtuel ou humain. Le problème du contrôle de suivi a été résolu au cours de cette thèse en développant divers contrôleurs distribués pratiques avec la considération d’un taux de convergence plus rapide, une précision de contrôle plus élevée, une robustesse plus forte, une estimation du temps de convergence explicite et indépendante et moins de coût de communication et de consommation d’énergie. Dans la première partie de la thèse nous étudions d’abord au niveau du chapitre 2 la stabilité à temps fini pour les systèmes de formation de multi-robots. Une nouvelle classe de contrôleur à temps fini est proposée dans le chapitre 3, également appelé contrôleur à temps fixe. Nous étudions les systèmes dynamiques de suivi de formation de multi-robots non holonomiques dans le chapitre 4. Dans la deuxième partie, nous étudions d'abord le mécanisme de communication et de contrôle déclenché par l'événement sur les systèmes de suivi de la formation de multi-robots non-holonomes au chapitre 5. De plus, afin de développer un schéma d'implémentation numérique, nous proposons une autre classe de contrôleurs périodiques déclenchés par un événement basé sur un observateur à temps fixe dans le chapitre 6. / The main aim of this thesis is to study the distributed tracking control problem for the multi-robot formation systems with nonholonomic constraint, of which the control objective it to drive a team of unicycle-type mobile robots to form one desired formation configuration with its centroid moving along with another dynamic reference trajectory, which can be specified by the virtual leader or human. We consider several problems in this point, ranging from finite-time stability andfixed-time stability, event-triggered communication and control mechanism, kinematics and dynamics, continuous-time systems and hybrid systems. The tracking control problem has been solved in this thesis via developing diverse practical distributed controller with the consideration of faster convergence rate, higher control accuracy, stronger robustness, explicit and independent convergence time estimate, less communication cost and energy consumption.In the first part of the thesis, we first study the finite-time stability for the multi-robot formation systems in Chapter 2. To improve the pior results, a novel class of finite-time controller is further proposed in Chapter 3, which is also called fixed-time controller. The dynamics of nonholonomic multi-robot formation systems is considered in Chapter 4. In the second part, we first investigate the event-triggered communication and control mechanism on the nonholonomic multi-robot formation tracking systems in Chapter 5. Moreover, in order to develop a digital implement scheme, we propose another class of periodic event-triggered controller based on fixed-time observer in Chapter 6.

Le sujet de cette thèse est de concevoir un prototype de capteur à pixel CMOS adapté aux couches extérieures du détecteur de vertex de l'International Linear Collider (ILC).Il est le premier prototype de capteur CMOS intégrant un ADC en bas de colonne de 4-bit et une matrice de pixels, dédié aux couches externes. L'architecture du prototype nommé MIMOSA 31 comprend une matrice de pixels de 48 colonnes par 64 lignes, des ADC en bas de colonne. Les pixels sont lus ligne par ligne en mode d'obturation roulant. Les ADCs reçoivent la sortie des pixels en parallèle achève réalisent la conversion en effectuant une approximation de multi-bit/step. Sachant que dans les couches externes de l'ILC, la densité de pixels touchés est de l'ordre de quelques pour mille, !'ADC est conçu pour fonctionner en deux modes (actifs et inactifs) afin de minimiser la consommation d'énergie. Les résultats indiquent que MIMOSA 31 répond aux performances nécessaires pour cette couche de capteurs. / This work deals with the design of a CMOS pixel sensor prototype (called MIMOSA 31) for the outer layers of the International Linear Collider (ILC) vertex detector. CMOS pixel sensors (CPS) also called monolithic active pixel sensors (MAPS) have demonstrated attractive performance towards the requirements of the vertex detector of the future linear collider. MIMOSA 31developed at IPHC-Strasbourg is the first pixel sensor integrated with 4-bit column-level ADC for the outer layers. It is composed of a matrix of 64 rows and 48 columns. The pixel concept combines in-pixel amplification with a correlated double sampling (CDS) operation in order to reduce the temporal and fixed pattern noise (FPN). At the bottom of the pixel array, each column is terminated with an analog to digital converter (ADC). The self-triggered ADC accommodating the pixel readout in a rolling shutter mode completes the conversion by performing a multi-bit/step approximation. The ADC design was optimized for power saving at sampling frequency. Accounting the fact that in the outer layers of the ILC vertex detector, the hit density is inthe order of a few per thousand, this ADC works in two modes: active mode and inactive mode. This thesis presents the details of the prototype chip and its laboratory test results.