Engineering Commons^™

The Challenges Facing Autonomous Vehicles And The Progress In Addressing Them, Garrett Johnson

Senior Honors Theses

Autonomous vehicles are an emerging technology that faces challenges, both technical and socioeconomic. This paper first addresses specific technical challenges, such as parsing visual data, communicating with other entities, and making decisions based on environmental knowledge. The technical challenges are to be addressed by the fields of image processing, Vehicle to Everything Communication (V2X), and decision-making systems. Non-technical challenges such as ethical decision making, social acceptance, and economic pushback are also discussed. Ethical decision making is discussed in the framework of deontology vs utilitarianism, while social acceptance of utilitarian autonomous vehicles is also investigated. Last, the likely economic impact is …

Sensor-Based Adaptive Control And Optimization Of Lower-Limb Prosthesis., Roozbeh Atri

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent developments in prosthetics have enabled the development of powered prosthetic ankles (PPA). The advent of such technologies drastically improved impaired gait by increasing balance and reducing metabolic energy consumption by providing net positive power. However, control challenges limit performance and feasibility of today’s devices. With addition of sensors and motors, PPA systems should continuously make control decisions and adapt the system by manipulating control parameters of the prostheses. There are multiple challenges in optimization and control of PPAs. A prominent challenge is the objective setup of the system and calibration parameters to fit each subject. Another is whether it …

Multiple Pursuer Multiple Evader Differential Games, Eloy Garcia, David Casbeer, Alexander Von Moll, Meir Pachter

Faculty Publications

In this paper an N-pursuer vs. M-evader team conflict is studied. The differential game of border defense is addressed and we focus on the game of degree in the region of the state space where the pursuers are able to win. This work extends classical differential game theory to simultaneously address weapon assignments and multi-player pursuit-evasion scenarios. Saddle-point strategies that provide guaranteed performance for each team regardless of the actual strategies implemented by the opponent are devised. The players' optimal strategies require the co-design of cooperative optimal assignments and optimal guidance laws. A representative measure of performance is proposed and …

Process/Equipment Design Implications For Control System Cybersecurity, Helen Durand

Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Faculty Research Publications

An emerging challenge for process safety is process control system cybersecurity. An attacker could gain control of the process actuators through the control system or communication policies within control loops and potentially drive the process state to unsafe conditions. Cybersecurity has traditionally been handled as an information technology (IT) problem in the process industries. In the literature for cybersecurity specifically of control systems, there has been work aimed at developing control designs that seek to fight cyberattacks by either giving the system appropriate response mechanisms once attacks are detected or seeking to make the attacks difficult to perform. In this …

Economic Model Predictive Control And Process Equipment: Control-Induced Thermal Stress In A Pipe, Helen Durand

Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Faculty Research Publications

Recent work on economic model predictive control (EMPC) has indicated that some processes may be operated in a more economically-optimal fashion under a time-varying operating policy than under a steady-state operating policy. However, a concern for time-varying operation is how such a change in operating policy might impact the equipment within which the processes being controlled are carried out. While under steady-state operation, the operating conditions to which equipment would regularly be exposed can be estimated, this would be more difficult to assess thoroughly a priori under time-varying operation. It could be explored whether the EMPC could be made aware …

Protection Of Active Distribution Networks And Their Cyber Physical Infrastructure, Hany Fawzy Kamel Habib

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Today’s Smart Grid constitutes several smaller interconnected microgrids. However, the integration of converter-interfaced distributed generation (DG) in microgrids has raised several issues such as the fact that fault currents in these systems in islanded mode are way less than those in grid connected microgrids. Therefore, microgrid protection schemes require a fast, reliable and robust communication system, with backup, to automatically adjust relay settings for the appropriate current levels according to the microgrid’s operation mode. However, risks of communication link failures, cyber security threats and the high cost involved to avoid them are major challenges for the implementation of an economic …

Stability Analysis Of A More General Class Of Systems With Delay-Dependent Coefficients, Chi Jin, Keqin Gu, Islam Boussaada, Silviu-Iulian Niculescu

SIUE Faculty Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

This paper presents a systematic method to analyse the stability of systems with single delay in which the coefficient polynomials of the characteristic equation depend on the delay. Such systems often arise in, for example, life science and engineering systems. A method to analyze such systems was presented by Beretta and Kuang in a 2002 paper, but with some very restrictive assumptions. This work extends their results to the general case with the exception of some degenerate cases. It is found that a much richer behavior is possible when the restrictive assumptions are removed. The interval of interest for the …

On Accounting For Equipment-Control Interactions In Economic Model Predictive Control Via Process State Constraints, Helen Durand

Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Faculty Research Publications

Traditionally, chemical processes have been operated at steady-state; however, recent work on economic model predictive control (EMPC) has indicated that some processes may be operated in a more economically-optimal fashion under a time-varying operating policy. It is unclear how time-varying operating policies may impact process equipment, which must be investigated for safety and profit reasons. It has traditionally been considered that constraints on process states can be added to EMPC design to prevent the controller from computing control actions which create problematic operating conditions for process equipment. However, no rigorous investigation has yet been performed to analyze whether, when a …

Edge Heterogeneous Hardware Evaluation Based On Real Connected And Autonomous Vehicles (Cavs) Workloads, Mustafa Ahmad

Research Opportunities for Engineering Undergraduates (ROEU) Program 2018-19

There has recently been a wide expansion of hardware to assist in autonomous driving tasks. On this project, we focus on using some state-of-the-art deep learning workloads in connected autonomous vehicle (CAV) scenarios,such as object detection and object tracking to evaluate the heterogeneous hardware.

Three-Phase Motor Drive Using Hall Sensors And Field Oriented Control, Michael Mayberry

Research Opportunities for Engineering Undergraduates (ROEU) Program 2018-19

Permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSM) are a promising candidate for the push to electrify transportation. They have many benefits over DC motors, however they require advanced control techniques that use accurate rotor position, to achieve optimal operation. Using Field Oriented Control (FOC) and hall sensors allows for a low-cost, reliable solution for PMSM drives.

The current study uses FOCs and hall sensors to achieve a motor drive with high power density, accurate speed control, and a small footprint.

Improvement Of The Material’S Mechanical Characteristics Using Intelligent Real Time Control Interfaces In Hfc Hardening Process, Florentin Smarandache, Luige Vladareanu, Mihaiela Iliescu, Victor Vladareanu, Alexandru Gal, Octavian Melinte, Adrian Margean

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

The paper presents Intelligent Control (IC) Interfaces for real time control of mechatronic systems applied to Hardening Process Control (HPC) in order to improvement of the material’s mechanical characteristics. Implementation of IC laws in the intelligent real time control interfaces depends on the particular circumstances of the models characteristics used and the exact definition of optimization problem. The results led to the development of the IC interfaces in real time through Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and neural networks (NN) using off- line the regression methods.

Real-Time Path Planning In Constrained, Uncertain Environments, Randall Christensen, Robert C. Leishman

Faculty Publications

A key enabler of autonomous vehicles is the ability to plan the path of the vehicle to accomplish mission objectives. To be robust to realistic environments, path planners must account for uncertainty in the trajectory of the vehicle as well as uncertainty in the location of obstacles. The uncertainty in the trajectory of the vehicle is a difficult quantity to estimate, and is influenced by coupling between the vehicle dynamics, guidance, navigation, and control system as well as any disturbances acting on the vehicle. Monte Carlo analysis is the conventional approach to determine vehicle dispersion, while accounting for the coupled …