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The influence of nonuniform aging has not been considered in the prediction of the frequency domain spectroscopy (FDS) of the transformer oil-paper insulation (OPI) when using the finite element method (FEM). Given this issue, the modified simulation model was constructed based on the XY model and FEM. In the current work, the dielectric response property of the pressboards with different aging conditions in the modified model was characterized by its dielectric response parameters measured in the lab. Then the modified simulation model constructed in a 3-D system would be applied to study the effect of both nonuniform aging and the axial geometry on the FDS of OPI. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed models was verified by comparing the measured FDS and the predicted FDS. This article is expected to provide a model for predicting the FDS of the transformer OPI including the effect of nonuniform aging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposed a simulation method for the charge transport in single-layer oil-paper insulation. The method of transient upstream finite-element method (FEM) is derived in order to calculate the time variation of charge densities in medium. The numerical simulation of charge transport in the single-layer oil-paper insulation is realized by applying the transient upstream FEM to the transport equations of bipolar charges. With reasonable microparameter, the charge transport in an experimental object is simulated. The simulation results are consistent with the experimental data. A bent model of oil-paper insulation is analyzed to study the charge distribution under the actual condition. This paper provides an exploratory research to the simulation of charge phenomenon in oil-paper, and has guiding significance to the design of oil-paper insulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with a low-cost method for the assembly of flexible substrate antennas and UHF RF identification silicon (Si) chips. Such a method exploits a magnetic coupling mechanism, thus not requiring for galvanic contacts between the Si chip and antenna itself. The magnetic coupling is established by a planar transformer, the primary and secondary windings of which are implemented on flexible substrate and Si chip, respectively. As a result, the Si chip can be assembled on the antenna with a mere placing and gluing process. First, the idea has been validated by theory. Electromagnetic simulations of a square heterogeneous transformer (1.0-mm side) show a maximum available power gain (MAG) of -0.4 dB at 868 MHz. In addition, the heterogeneous transformer is also quite tolerant with respect to misalignment between primary and secondary. An offset error of 150 \mu\ m reduces the MAG to -0.5 dB. A sub-optimal matching strategy, exploiting a simple on-chip capacitor, is then developed for antennas with 50-\Omega input impedances. Finally, the idea has been experimentally validated exploiting printed circuit board (PCB) prototypes. A PCB transformer (1.5-mm side) and a transformer rectifier (two-diode Dickson multiplier) have been fabricated and tested. Measurements indicates a MAG of -0.3 dB at 868 MHz for the transformer and the capability of the developed rectifier to supply a 220-\k\Omega load at 1.5 V with a -2-dBm input power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new method to improve re performance of intra-field interpolation which is the mos~ important element of deinterlacing method. Traditional edge- based methods were poor at determining accurate edge iirection which decides interpolation performance. The 7roposed method decides the direction and slope of edge based on locally adaptive-thresholded binary image to mprove efficiency and accuracy, and it also increased the ~orizontal size of search window to 15 for better direction ietermination at gentle slope. Compared to traditional edge- based methods, interpolation based on binary image, which is ,`enerated using the proposed method, leads to great erformance improvement. With computer simulations for a ~`ariety of images, this paper shows the new approach is much ~etter than traditional methods.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an implementation of an ~daptive beamformer in a hands-free unit. The proposec~ ~daptive beamformer suppresses stationary noise an~ nterference sound. The adaptive beamformer and acoustic `cho canceller were implemented in a compact hands-free mit with a low-cost DSP. Experimental results demonstrate he noise reduction performance of the hands-free unit'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the 2017 ACM SIGARCH/IEEE-CS TCCA Influential ISCA Paper Award, which was given to the 2002 ISCA paper, “Drowsy Caches: Simple Techniques for Reducing Leakage Power.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marbling creates stone-like or intricate abstract decorations from inks floating on water or gel. Instead of using fluid dynamics to simulate marbling, a proposed method takes a mathematical approach with closed-form expressions. This method improves control, ease of implementation, parallelism, and speed, enabling real-time visual feedback and creation of vivid flowing animations. Users can start designs from a blank sheet, raster images, or videos. When starting with a blank sheet, this method can produce compact resolution-independent vector output. The transforms for the marbling operations all have inverse transforms. Forward application generates compact resolution-independent vector-based output; inverse application generates pixel-based output. In both cases, the closed-form expressions preserve the designs' quality and sharpness. Extensive comparisons with other digital marbling methods demonstrates this method's efficiency and effectiveness. Applications of this method include surface detail rendering for 3D objects, interactive video processing, and scene decoration. The video at http://youtu.be/ZgVbIaKhC_4 shows the application of simulated marbling to a video stream. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Most of the literatures dealing with time domain simulation of grounding system response to lightning surges use an electrostatic approach. In this approach frequency dependence of soil electrical parameters and plane-wave propagation constant are not included. In this paper, based on Hybrid Electromagnetic Method and simplification of it, a new method is developed to include frequency dependent parameters of soil in time domain simulation. Since only one convolution is used, the simulation time is significantly reduced. The consistency of the developed formulation while the plane-wave propagation constant is ignored is investigated through comparisons with experimental results and precise frequency domain approaches. Simulations results show ignoring both effects simultaneously can lead to high levels of error (140%), whereas the error significantly reduces when frequency dependence of soil parameters is considered. The developed model exhibits errors of about 2% to 25% compared to the results of models that take into account both effects. However, simulation results showed all these errors to be conservative. Due to neglecting propagation constant, the model is more suitable for lightning studies of grounding system with short length. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Line-commutated converters are extensively used as the interface between ac grids and classic HVDC systems. At the inverter side, commutation failure of switches is one of the most common faults that can pose threats to the system operation. Practical and reliable study of such phenomena relies on accurate and efficient converter models for simulations. Recently, a parametric average-value model (PAVM) has been presented for ac–dc rectifiers, which considers the internal faults of the converter. In this paper, the PAVM methodology is extended to the dc–ac inverter systems, including the commutation failure of switches. The proposed PAVM also augments an automatic fault detection technique to determine the faulty switches. Using comprehensive simulation studies, the developed model is verified to accurately predict the commutation failure of switches and reconstruct the waveforms consistent with the detailed switching models of inverters while being computationally more efficient. The proposed PAVM is envisioned to be an efficient and accurate asset for simulation of HVDC systems and inevitable when faults of switches need to be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different harmonic mitigation techniques have been utilized in grid-connected inverters to suppress the effect of grid voltage distortion on the output current of these inverters. In practice, to scale up the injected current into the grid, a set of parallel grid-connected inverters are often utilized rather than a single high-power inverter in solar Photovoltaic or motor drive systems. Conventional Point of Common Coupling (PCC) feedforward approaches have been used for harmonic rejection of multi-parallel grid-connected inverters. However, these methods need to implement a separate feedforward scheme for each individual inverter. In this paper, a novel full PCC voltage feedforward strategy is proposed to reduce the cost investment, which is implemented only in one of the grid-connected inverters. The proposed strategy is based on cancelling the total parallel admittance of the system by adding a virtual negative admittance to the target inverter. It is shown that the proposed scheme causes no instability issue on the system since it does not affect the system phase margin. To verify the efficiency of the proposed strategy against emitted harmonics from the grid, simulations and experiments on a system with two parallel single-phase grid-tied inverters are performed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wide-area time-synchronized measurements have recently revealed troublesome forced oscillations (FOs) within modern synchronized power grids. In some cases, these FOs represent a dangerous hazard to the system. Recent research has focused on locating the source of FOs to provide operators with knowledge for mitigating their impact locally. This paper presents a complementary mitigation strategy, which is to purposely induce a second oscillation into the grid which cancels the impact of the FO. Such a strategy is complementary in that it may provide valuable time to operators attempting to locate the FOs source and to determine how to rectify it. This paper presents a suppression control strategy which modulates controllable devices to automatically cancel the impact of the FO without the need for locating the source of the original FO. The strategy is based upon tuned feedback control. The approach is demonstrated on a simulation system via modulation of inverter-based generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovations in biomedical ultrasonics cannot be materialized without foundational advances in experimental methods, tools, and protocols. For instance, innovations in ultrasound imaging are often backed up by various investigative and validation tools including, but not limited to: 1)simulation programs, 2)phantom fabrication techniques, and 3)real-time computing frameworks. In the emerging field of therapeutic ultrasound, fundamental advances in engineering methods have also made significant contributions to the the discipline's technical progress. Well-known examples include: 1)techniques for synthesizing microbubbles and nanodroplets, 2) rational design approaches for acoustic exposure instruments, and 3) establishment of suitable cellular and animal models relevant to therapeutic ultrasound experimentation. Nevertheless, these essential techniques and protocols have not always been reported in depth, and many technical details have been relegated as black-box processes in research articles. There is a dire need for a more concentrated effort on the reporting of the key methods used in contemporary biomedical ultrasound research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

3GPP is now carrying forward the development of the point to multipoint transmission mode of 5G on the basis of the cellular infrastructure and standard. Since the dedicated proposal for multimedia broadcast multicast system (MBMS) was approved, the MBMS technologies are evolving with the update of the requirements from 3G to 5G. This paper reviews the latest progress during the evolved MBMS standardization, which focuses on the LTE-based 5G terrestrial broadcast mode. Some agreements in terms of two widely discussed topics during 3GPP meetings, cell acquisition subframe (CAS) enhancement and numerology refinement, are presented. The enhancement of CAS and the update of numerology aim to deal with the service outage issue in the case of covering large area and serving high-mobility users. To verify the improvement brought by the CAS enhancement and the new numerology, simulations from system level and link level are carried out by several organizations and the representative results are presented and analyzed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an FPGA-based Digital Real-Time Simulation (DRTS) environment for the analysis of Electromagnetic Transients (EMTs) of power systems that include multiple Power Electronic Converters (PECs). The main features of the proposed DRTS platform are that it i) employs two-value resistor switch model for PECs and thus avoids inaccuracies of Associate Discrete Circuit (ADC) model and ii) does not require separation of PECs by transmission lines (stub lines) and thus accurately represents PECs in close electrical proximity of each other. These features respectively result in a time-variant and large system admittance matrix which significantly increases the computation burden in each simulation time-step and can render it infeasible for real-time applications. To overcome this problem this paper introduces i) Switching-Network Partitioning (SNP) method which is tailored for PECs representation in FPGA and ii) Reformulated Modified Nodal Analysis (RMNA) method to enable computational parallelism between the solution of network and component models in FPGA. SNP enables solution-level partitioning of the PECs and the rest of the system. The developed DRTS platform enables sub-microsecond simulation time-step and provides a fixed hardware irrespective of the system configuration. Performance of the platform is evaluated for a study system and verified versus off-line simulation studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prospective authors are requested to submit new, unpublished manuscripts for inclusion in the upcoming event described in this call for papers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers information on the publication of "IEEE Transactions on Computational Social System" and topics covered under the publication which include modeling, simulation and understanding of social system from computational perspectives. The article covered in the publication include social network dynamics, social intelligence and cognition, and computational behavior modeling.

As a new energy saving approach for green communications, energy harvesting (EH) could be suitable technique to facilitate massive connections for large number of devices in such networks. The spectrum shortage occurs in huge number of devices which access with small-cell and macro-cell networks. To tackle these challenges, we develop a tractable framework relying on prominent techniques such as non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), antenna selection and energy harvesting. In this paper, we aim at practical scenarios of small cell networks by jointly evaluating capable of interference management and EH. We benefit from transmission approaches including full duplex (FD) and bi-directional transmission to improve the main performance system metrics such as outage probability and throughput. Three useful schemes are explored by considering EH and inter-cell interference. We derive the closed-form and asymptotic expressions for system metrics. We then perform extensive simulations with different system configurations to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed small-cell NOMA systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The uniformity in collecting scintillation photons to the photomultiplier is one of the key parameters to carry out precise measurement using scintillators. A simple method is proposed to improve the collection uniformity of the scintillation photons just by inserting a light guide between a scintillator and a photomultiplier where the sidewall of the light guide is surrounded by a black paper as a photon absorber. This light guide insertion is expected to have a function to reduce the collection efficiency of the scintillation photons generated closer to the photomultiplier due to the larger transmission loss, since a decrease of the angle of incidence raises the fraction of the photons escaping from the sidewall of the light guide. The experiments using an NE213 liquid organic scintillation detector and gamma-ray sources revealed that the light guide functioned as a compensator for the original tendency of the photon collection and improved the photon collection uniformity. The details of the physical mechanism were examined by simulating the behavior of the gamma rays using the EGS4 electron-photon transport Monte Carlo code and the light propagation process using the ray-tracing program GuideM. The effects of the light guide were also examined on the whole energy resolution and the discrimination capability to separate gamma rays and neutrons [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, a coupled interaction matrix is proposed to describe the interactions between line outages and the load shed at buses. The coupled interaction matrix is effectively estimated by the Expectation Maximization algorithm. A highly probabilistic coupled interaction model is further proposed to efficiently generate cascades with both line outages and the load shed based on the coupled interaction matrix and the distribution of initial outages. To mitigate cascading failures, critical links are identified based on the coupled interaction matrix by calculating a comprehensive severity index that considers the consequences of both line outages and the load shed. Simulation results on the IEEE 300-bus system verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The cascades generated from the coupled interaction model match the statistics of the original cascades very well. The identified critical links based on the comprehensive severity index enable a proper tradeoff between reducing line outages and reducing the load shed, leading to a better mitigation effect than only considering either line outages or the load shed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For Electro-Magnetic-Transient (EMT) simulations of power networks with switches, techniques such as linear interpolation and Critical Damping Adjustment (CDA) are widely used for improving numerical robustness. This paper analyzes the numerical stability of simulations with these techniques. Firstly, it is mathematically shown that the interpolation or CDA step is equivalent to the introduction of additional switching states. Subsequently, Common Quadratic Lyapunov Function (CQLF) theory is used to investigate the numerical stability of the whole simulation considering these new switching states. It is proved that the widely used strategies like linear interpolation and CDA always result a stable simulation if the original switched system is strictly passive in all switching states. Finally, it is shown that the developed approach can be used to determine the stability of other practical interpolation methods. Examples are provided to verify the proposed technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, characteristic model-based modeling and control approaches for complex dynamical networks based on sampled data are studied. It shows that the characteristic model, in which underline network topological structures are simplified, can provide a straightforward and implicit description for network dynamics. The induced parameter estimation method can further make the model adaptive and purely data-driven. Moreover, a control law based on this model is also proposed to govern the network dynamics. Finally, the theoretical results are verified through numerical simulations of modeling and stabilizing a dynamical network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Systems Modeling Language (SysML) is an object management group standard for systems-of-systems engineering. It enables the description of complex system models; however, it cannot effectively support all system engineering activities. For instance, system performance evaluation is usually performed via simulation. In this case, the transformation of SysML system models to executable simulation models for specific simulation methodologies and tools is required. Model transformation is a key component for addressing the challenges of seamless integration of SysML model simulation in model-based system engineering. In this paper, we explore a declarative approach, based on the query/view/transformation-relations (QVT-R) standard, for the transformation of SysML models to executable simulation models, fully adhering model-driven architecture (MDA) concepts. It is supported by a framework implemented to provide executable simulation model and code generation. Methodological guidelines, for the effective use of a declarative language as QVT-R, for model transformation, are provided, emphasizing the utilization of existing domain-specific SysML profiles, as well as executable simulation library components. The experience obtained from two different domains, namely, enterprise information and railway transportation systems, modeled as systems-of-systems via SysML, is discussed, based on a quantitative analysis of the respective QVT-R transformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have previously proposed a live simulation model (LSM) that simulates the heat-balance of high-voltage overhead transmission lines during high-temperature operation without requiring meteorological parameters. This can be used to calculate the dynamic line rating (DLR) in real time, although the accuracy of this approach is significantly influenced by measurement errors in the real-time monitoring system. This paper describes how the nonlinear parameter estimation method can be combined with the tabu search algorithm to determine the optimal solutions for systematic deviation corrections in a practical application of LSM. The effects of this optimal solution on LSM are verified using data from a 110-kV transmission line. The accuracy of the deviation corrections is verified through comparisons with field measurements. After correcting the measurement errors, the average error in the real-time DLR calculated by LSM is expected to be less than 1% and the root mean-squared error is expected to be less than 10%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power hardware-in-the-loop (PHIL) simulation is a technique whereby actual power hardware is interfaced to a virtual surrounding system, simulated in real-time, through PHIL interfaces making use of power amplifiers and/or actuators. While PHIL simulation affords many advantages for flexible testing of power hardware, the accuracy of the experiment can be degraded through the non-ideal aspects of the PHIL interface, including distortion in the frequency domain, delays, and disturbances. This paper presents a practical method to estimate a subset of the closed-loop transfer function accuracy metrics of a PHIL experiment based on impedance measurements from the experiment. The method of assessing the impacts of the PHIL interfaces is demonstrated through application to an experiment in which two simulated systems are coupled through two PHIL interfaces with high bandwidth power amplifiers, enabling comparison of results with those from the ideal system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents research results of voltage gain number control methods of a power electronic resonant zero-current switching dc–dc switched-capacitor (SC) voltage multiplier (SCVM) in a topology with fault tolerance capability (FSCVM). The converters operated under the basic switching patterns are constant-voltage-gain dc–dc series-parallel resonant SC converters. However, this paper presents a method for the output voltage regulation by a special switching strategy. A variable voltage gain is made possible by selecting the number of active switching cells, using an appropriate control method. This creates a set of voltage ratio ranges. In addition, the proposed topology and method of control enable a fault-tolerant operation of the FSCVM under various failures of the device. The paper presents an analysis of the concept, simulation results and an experimental verification in a three-cell FSCVM dc–dc resonant boost converter operating at a 200-watt charge. Issues regarding the selection of components related to the problem of inrush currents that can occur during the voltage ratio increase are also analyzed in this paper, and the design for low inrush currents is demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

So far, the problem of unmixing large or multitemporal hyperspectral data sets has been specifically addressed in the remote sensing literature only by a few dedicated strategies. Among them, some attempts have been made within a distributed estimation framework, in particular, relying on the alternating direction method of multipliers. In this paper, we propose to study the interest of a partially asynchronous distributed unmixing procedure based on a recently proposed asynchronous algorithm. Under standard assumptions, the proposed algorithm inherits its convergence properties from recent contributions in nonconvex optimization, while allowing the problem of interest to be efficiently addressed. Comparisons with a distributed synchronous counterpart of the proposed unmixing procedure allow its interest to be assessed on synthetic and real data. Besides, thanks to its genericity and flexibility, the procedure investigated in this paper can be implemented to address various matrix factorization problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frequency-dependent coupling (FDC) emerges as a new method to introduce the finite-position transmission zeros (TZs) in the synthesis and design of filtering networks. In this paper, several fundamental building blocks with FDCs are introduced and studied. The higher order filters with many TZs can be constructed by cascading these fundamental building blocks. As compared with the conventional coupled-resonator filters with only constant couplings, the inclusion of FDCs can potentially create more TZs with the same coupling topology. It is also shown that to realize the same TZs, a filter can be realized in a simplified structure with less cross-couplings by using FDCs. In this paper, one complete filter design procedure is illustrated, including the steps of the circuit model synthesis by the method introduced in this paper, physical dimensioning of the filter by the electromagnetic simulation and measurement of the fabricated filter. The measurement results are in very good agreement with the theoretical predictions, which validates the modular design strategy for filters with FDCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blast furnace tuyere is an important “window” between the inside and outside of blast furnace. Stable and accurate detection of the combustion condition of tuyere raceway plays a significant role in maintaining longevity, safety, and smooth of blast furnace. The adiabatic combustion temperature as a traditional measurable indicator of the raceway combustion condition considers the raceway temperature as a constant. It cannot explain the productivity and quality fluctuations of iron in practical production while the operation parameters are fixed and unchanged. Thus, this paper presents the image-based flame detection system specific to the blast furnace raceway to research the actual combustion condition in the raceway. The system mainly consists of an optical detector to capture raceway images and a digital image processing unit to extract flame features. In this paper, the nonlinear partial least-squares colorimetry and Monte Carlo method with iterative optimization are developed to obtain the temperature distribution of the raceway. Power spectral analysis is used to extract the flame flicker frequency. Massive raceway images captured from 15 raceways of a 2500-m3 blast furnace were used to analyze raceway flames. The results demonstrate that temperature distribution of the raceway can fluctuate in a wide range and considerable temperature nonuniformity exists among the 15 raceways. This case can explain why productivity and quality of iron are unstable under the same operation parameters. And, the detection system performs well in revealing the nature of the raceway combustion condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the barometer for height estimation often requires the use of external reference to correct biases in measurement. These biases are often caused by the change of the ambient pressure environment. The barometric height estimation is especially challenging in tactical and rescue applications where high temperatures or sudden large pressure shocks can change the pressure rapidly. We assess the suitability of barometers for infrastructure-free navigation in tactical applications. First, this paper investigates the effect of transition in seamless indoor/outdoor navigation. Second, we measure the effects of pressure shocks, caused by explosions or firearms, on low-cost and lightweight micro-electromechanical barometers to ensure that the sensors are capable of operating under these conditions. Finally, we investigate the use of sonar measurement to estimate the vertical speed as an alternative to the reference barometer for infrastructure-free navigation. The fusion of barometer and sonar achieved on average 0.46-m root-mean-square error (RMSE) while simple barometric height estimation had a RMSE of 0.65 m. The fusion method had no errors over 1.5 m during the test. This accuracy is generally sufficient to find the correct floor level which is crucial for tactical situational awareness. The goal of this paper is to develop the methods for seamless indoor/outdoor navigation, and therefore the most important result of this paper is that the error caused when transitioning between outdoor and indoor environments is visibly reduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The piston seal wear in hydraulic cylinder is one of the main factors that give rise to an internal leakage. This paper focuses on diagnosing piston seal wear and subsequent internal leakage from a double acting seal combination seal used in the support oil cylinder of a QY110 mobile crane. Wavelet transform is applied as a feature extractor to transform the raw oil pressure data into a feature vector consisting of wavelet packet subband energy, energy entropy, energy variance, and root mean square of the wavelet detailed coefficient $d_{4}$. This feature vector feeds into the wavelet neural network serving as a pattern recognizer for automatically classifying the fault patterns. We demonstrate with the leakage experiment and simulation data that the proposed fault detection and identification (FDI) scheme is capable of effectively detecting and classifying the piston seal wear with excellent accuracy. Our comparison studies reveal that the proposed FDI tandem produces much more accurate result than that from back-propagation neural network. This paper is supplement to and enrichment of existing studies on fault simulation and diagnosis associated with hydraulic cylinder leakage problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The measurement of the distorted power-frequency electric field needs to meet some special requirements such as appropriate insulation, quick response, passive measurement, and small size. In this paper, based on the Pockels effect, an integrated optical sensor is designed and used for measuring distorted power-frequency electric field for the first time. The input–output characteristic, frequency response, and temperature characteristic of the sensor are studied. The data show that the sensor has a linear measurable range from 100 V/m to 27 kV/m, a 3-dB bandwidth from 20 Hz to 10 MHz, with good temperature stability. The developed sensor is used to measure the distorted electric field and is compared with the Narda-NBM-550 sensor. The relative errors between the measured values of these two sensors and the simulation values obtained by the finite-element method are calculated. It is noted that the relative errors of the integrated optical sensor in different positions are within 12%. However, the Narda-NBM-550 sensor performs poorly at the edges of the barrier with an error of 22%. In conclusion, the findings demonstrate that the integrated optical sensor developed in this paper is more suitable for measuring distorted power-frequency electric field than the Narda-NBM-550 sensor. Further research needs to focus on the measurement of the 3-D distorted power-frequency electric field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The path planning methods based on nonconvex constrained optimization, such as mixed-integer linear programming (MILP), have found various important applications, ranging from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to space vehicles. Moreover, their stochastic extensions have enabled risk-aware path planning, which explicitly limits the probability of failure to a user-specified bound. However, a major challenge of those path planning methods is constraint violation between discrete time steps. In the existing approach, a path is represented by a sequence of waypoints and the safety constraints (e.g., obstacle avoidance) are imposed on waypoints. Therefore, the trajectory between waypoints could violate the safety constraints. A naive continuous-time extension results in unrealistic computation cost. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to ensure constraint satisfaction between waypoints without employing a continuous-time formulation. The key idea is to enforce that the same inequality constraint is satisfied on any two adjacent time steps, under assumptions of polygonal obstacles and straight line trajectory between waypoints. The resulting problem encoding is MILP, which can be solved efficiently by commercial solvers. Thus, we also introduce novel extensions to risk-allocation path planners with improved scalability for real-world scenarios and run-time performance. While the proposed encoding approach is general, the particular emphasis of this paper is placed on the chance-constrained, nonconvex path-planning problem (CNPP). We provide extensive simulation results on CNPP to demonstrate the path safety and scalability of our encoding and related path planners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a practical strategy for utilizing the submodule (SM) redundancy of a modular multilevel converter (MMC) for its fault tolerance. This strategy provides a systematic framework for balancing the tradeoff between two conventional methods for using the active redundancy and, thus, achieves operational flexibility. One of the existing methods improves SM reliability owing to less voltage stress on the SM components by employing all of the SMs to form the ac or dc voltages (voltage-sharing mode). The other avoids transients by keeping the average SM voltage constant at the cost of slightly increased stress on the SM components (fixed-level mode), which, however, can be controlled to provide the grid-adaptive operation by reserving the energy of the SMs not in service. We, thus, develop a new redundancy management scheme by integrating these two methods and exploiting their technical benefits to meet the PQ requirements and MMC control performance. This research provides a theoretical basis and a technical guide to determining the number of SMs, which can further increase the voltage steps as per the MMC and grid conditions. This paper also connects the remaining PQ capability of the MMC at a particular operating point with the SM redundancy concept by defining a potential redundancy, especially useful when the physical redundancy is exhausted. The theoretical findings and efficacy of the proposed strategy are validated through PSCAD/EMTDC time-domain simulations followed by experiments using a nine-level single-phase MMC system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the problem of maximizing the minimum power gain in a wide main lobe for an array antenna. To obtain the desired power gain pattern, current literatures solve the problem known as shaped beam pattern synthesis (SBPS) by setting the beam pattern expression as the cost function. The power gain in a certain direction of the array antenna is comprehensively decided by the array radiated power density and the total radiated power. Both these two parameters are affected by the selection of array elements’ weights. However, the SBPS-based methods do not take the total radiated power into account. Therefore, the SBPS-based methods cannot obtain the power gain pattern directly, and the optimal power gain pattern, consequently, cannot be guaranteed. To overcome this deficiency, this paper maximizes the minimum power gain in the desired wide main lobe by directly setting the power gain expression as the cost function. Aiming at optimizing the cost function, this paper first sets up a power gain optimization problem which has concave form. Termed this optimization problem as the power gain pattern synthesis (PGPS) problem. The concave PGPS problem is then converted to a series of convex subproblems and an iterative algorithm is proposed to solve it efficiently. Solution to the PGPS problem is proven to be able to achieve higher minimum power gain in a desired wide main lobe than the results from the SBPS-based algorithms. Simulations are carried out with both linear array antenna and planar array antenna. Comparisons with the existed SBPS-based algorithms validate the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed PGPS-based algorithm. In addition, further improvement on suppressing the sidelobe level for the PGPS problem is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an adaptively scaled belief (ASB) in Gaussian belief propagation (GaBP) designed for use in large multi-user multi-input multi-output (MU-MIMO) detection under higher order modulation schemes. In practical MU-MIMO systems, the dominant factor in the poor convergence of GaBP iterative detection is approximation errors arising from the fact that the law of large numbers does not work well in many such applications as a result of physical system limitations. Unfortunately, the approximation errors become more severe when there is higher correlation among typical bit-wise prior beliefs when higher order quadrature amplitude modulation schemes are used. To cope with the impairments arising from inter-bit correlation, symbol-wise beliefs can be defined for GaBP self-iterative detection, although this still does not remove approximation errors. As a simple method for mitigating the harmful effects of approximation error, this paper proposes a novel method for adaptive belief scaling while stabilizing the dynamics of random MIMO channels. Based on the functionality of ASB, we also propose a method for approximately calculating conditional expectations with lower computational complexity without sacrificing detection capability. Finally, the validity of using ASB for symbol-wise iterative detection in suppressing the bit-error-rate floor level is confirmed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the manufacturing of printed circuit boards (PCBs) for a Flight Project, it was found that a European manufacturer was building its boards to a European standard that had no requirement for copper wrap on the vias. The amount of copper wrap that was measured on coupons from the panel containing the boards of interest was less than the amount specified in IPC-6012 Rev B, Class 3. To help determine the reliability and usability of the boards, three sets of tests and a simulation were run. The test results, along with results of simulation and destructive physical analysis, are presented in this paper. The first experiment involved subjecting coupons from the panels supplied by the European manufacturer to thermal cycling. After 17 000 cycles, the test was stopped with no failures. A second set of accelerated tests involved comparing the thermal fatigue life of test samples made from FR4 and polyimide with varying amounts of copper wrap. Again, the testing did not reveal any failures. The third test involved using interconnect stress test coupons with through-hole vias and blind vias that were subjected to elevated temperatures to accelerate fatigue failures. While there were failures, as expected, the failures were at barrel cracks. In addition to the experiments, this paper also discusses the results of finite-element analysis using simulation software that was used to model plated-through holes under thermal stress using a steady-state analysis, also showing the main failure mode was barrel cracking. The tests show that although copper wrap was sought as a better alternative to butt joints between barrel plating and copper foil layers, manufacturability remains challenging and attempts to meet the requirements often result in features that reduce the reliability of the boards. Experimental and simulation work discussed in this paper indicate that the standard requirements for copper wrap are not contributing to the overall board reliability, although it should be added that a design with a butt joint is going to be a higher risk than a reduced copper wrap design. The study further shows that procurement requirements for wrap plating thickness from Class 3 to Class 2 would pose little risk to reliability (minimum 5 μm/0.197 mil for all via types). Experimental results corroborated by modeling indicate that the stress maxima are internal to the barrels rather than at the wrap location. In fact, the existence of Cu wrap was determined to have no appreciable effect on reliability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a complete flux scheme (CFS) has been implemented in 1-D fluid model for simulating the pulsed dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) in pure argon at atmospheric pressure. The characteristic quantities of the pulsed DBD have been systematically calculated by using the CFS and presented in comparison with those by using the exponential difference scheme (EDS). This paper shows the following results. There is the two-pulse discharge mode in the present simulation. The two discharge currents obtained using the CFS and EDS converge to the same result in good agreement with the experiment as spatial step length decreases, but the CFS has a fast convergence performance compared to the EDS. With a small grid number, the numerical scheme has an evident effect on the characteristic quantities in the time region corresponding to the first discharge pulse. This paper suggests that in the pulsed DBD, the usage of the CFS with a properly small grid number can give more accurate result and also presents a high calculation efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Major international automakers have considered the deployment of the 5.9 GHz dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) on their vehicle fleets for wireless connectivity. DSRC-enabled vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication through broadcast of basic safety messages enables safety applications for crash warning and avoidance. However, in dense traffic conditions as the V2V deployment scales up, the resultant channel load increases and leads to channel congestion and may adversely affect the performance of the safety applications. The Society of Automotive Engineers J2945/1 standard that builds atop Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11p and IEEE 1609 standards provides the minimum performance requirements for V2V safety communications. Specifically, it provides a congestion control protocol for transmission rate and power adaptations to achieve robust performance in dense vehicular networks. The primary contribution of this paper is that using a congestion generation testbed that emulates channel congestion including a large number of remote vehicles, we can validate and test any V2V equipped vehicle for compliance with the J2945/1 standard. Our paper also demonstrates that under heavy congestion, even with 600 ms of inter-transmit time, a moving vehicle can be tracked to a lane-level accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vehicle platooning systems are often equipped with vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication technologies to improve both the road efficiency and road safety by exchanging vehicle information over wireless networks to maintain relatively small inter-vehicle distance. The road safety often relies on the quality of service delivered by the V2V communication. The V2V networks are, however, subject to channel fading and often have limited communication bandwidth. The limited bandwidth inevitably compromises the road safety as the vehicular network will easily get congested if the number of vehicles joining the network increases. To address the challenges of ensuring vehicle safety under unreliable wireless network with limited bandwidth, this paper first uses a two-state Markov chain to model the channel fading in vehicular networks. Under the Markov chain model, this paper further develops a novel distributed event triggered strategies under which the vehicle platooning system achieves stochastic $\mathcal {L}_2$ string stability while ensuring an efficient use of the limited communication bandwidth. The simulation results are provided to verify the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Railway transport is reaching an important development stage worldwide. While different kinds of technologies have been applied to the train control system, the development and evaluation procedure remains a challenge. This paper aims to introduce main issues associated with the train control system's challenges, development and implementation, and evaluation methodology. A universal procedure is proposed to assist the development and evaluation of the train-centric communication-based system. After introducing the state-of-the-art and challenges, the train-centric communication control system is discussed. The possibly solutions associated with the train-centric communication system are illustrated in the system implementation process. Afterwards, Petri nets method is introduced to assist the system development. To evaluate the system, various evaluation methodologies are discussed, and a case study is given to do the illustration. It is hoped that this paper can help the researchers to analyze the current state, identify future goals, and refine the architectures and technologies for smart rail transportation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Composite power system reliability evaluation is computationally time-consuming because the optimal power flow (OPF) with the least load curtailment is calculated for a large number of samples. Most current studies of probabilistic simulation methods focus on sampling techniques to improve the sampling efficiency and decrease the calculations of the OPF. This paper proposes a fast reliability evaluation method that accelerates the calculation of the OPF using multi-parametric linear programming (MPLP). In this paper, the sampled transmission line statuses are considered by the transmission line status dictionary (TLSD). We match the line status of each sample with the scenarios in the TLSD. For matching samples, the generation status and the sampled load are treated as MPLP parameters of the DC-OPF evaluation model. A dynamic learning algorithm is applied to solve the MPLP problem. Case studies are conducted on both IEEE Reliability Test Systems and a provincial power system in China. The results show that the proposed method improves the evaluation efficiency by 23–30 times compared with the normal DC-OPF-based model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The active contour model is a widely used technique for automatic object contour extraction. Existing methods based on this model can perform with high accuracy, even in the case of complex contours, but challenging issues remain, like the need for precise contour initialization for high curvature boundary segments or the handling of cluttered backgrounds. To deal with such issues, this paper presents a salient object extraction method, the first step of which is the introduction of an improved edge map that incorporates edge direction as a feature. The direction information in the small neighborhoods of image feature points is extracted, and the images’ prominent orientations are defined for direction-selective edge extraction. Using such improved edge information, we provide a highly accurate shape contour representation, which we also combine with texture features. The principle of the paper is to interpret an object as the fusion of its components: its extracted contour and its inner texture. Our goal in fusing textural and structural information is twofold: it is applied for automatic contour initialization, and it is also used to establish an improved external force field. This fusion then produces highly accurate salient object extractions. We performed extensive evaluations, which confirm that the presented object extraction method outperforms parametric active contour models and achieves higher efficiency than the majority of the evaluated automatic saliency methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A residue number system (RNS) has an inherent parallel structure that can be utilized for improving computer hardware systems. An RNS represents large integer numbers as a smaller integer set, or residues of a modulo set, without carry propagation between them. Hence mathematical operations, such as addition or subtraction, can be performed on the residues independently. This paper proposes an RNS implementation of motion estimation for the latest video coding standard known as high-efficiency video coding (HEVC) or H.265. Since motion estimation is the most computationally intensive task in video coding, several simplified algorithms are proposed for mitigating the problem, but the majority of them result in a worsening peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) or bit-rate performance, or sometimes both. This paper also proposes a modified algorithm based on a test-zone (TZ) search algorithm, a widely used fast-search algorithm with good rate-distortion performance, suitable for hardware implementation for encoding ultra-high-definition videos in real time. The results show that worst-case PSNR degradation and bit-rate increases compared with the TZ search in the HEVC reference software implementation are negligible, and the hardware gate count is less than for many other designs in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Harmonic distortions at a point of common coupling (PCC) are caused by the harmonic sources in both supply system and customer facilities. In order to verify compliance with harmonic limits for an operating facility, it is essential to determine the contribution of a facility to the harmonic distortions measured at the PCC. Over the past many years, a significant amount of research work has been conducted in developing different harmonic analysis methods and especially harmonic contribution assessment methods. A common need of this line of research is consistent test systems that can be used to verify/validate a proposed method or to compare different approaches. To address this gap, a benchmark test system representing a typical medium-voltage/low-voltage network supplying industrial loads is proposed in this paper. This paper also includes examples on how to use the system to assess the performance of harmonic contribution determination methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two challenges are combined when compressed tests are computed for path delay faults: 1) path delay faults that are important to detect are associated with long paths, and many of these faults are undetectable and 2) it may not be possible to compress a given test for a path delay fault. This paper addresses these challenges in the context of test data compression methods that are based on a linear-feedback shift-register (LFSR). The basic approach that this paper uses modifies initially random seeds for the LFSR into seeds that produce tests for detecting target faults. This approach can find seeds even if the available tests cannot be compressed into seeds. In addition, the procedure described in this paper also selects detectable path delay faults to address the presence of undetectable path delay faults in the set of target faults. For this purpose it uses a metric that measures the similarity between target and detected path delay faults, and attempts to compute seeds that increase the values of this metric. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate the ability of the procedure to detect path delay faults in benchmark circuits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The abnormal rise in contact temperature in switchgear may lead to overheating or even explosion. It is necessary to monitor the rise in real contact temperature to ensure the safety and stability of switchgear. The accurate measurement of real contact temperature is still a problem, and the continuous state of switchgear cannot be assessed accurately by the temperature monitor. In this paper, a particular installation scheme of temperature sensor is put forward and a calculation algorithm for temperature rise of tulip contacts by the measured temperature of bus bar in real time based on artificial neural network (ANN) is established. An electromagnetic-thermal-fluid coupled simulation model for 10-kV/4000-A switchgears was built, and the thermal characteristic was studied taking the influential factors such as load current, ambient temperature, and contact resistance into consideration. The effectiveness of simulation model is discussed by the comparison to temperature rise experiment. Then, an ANN with three layers of structure is established to calculate the temperature of tulip contacts. The sensitivity and accuracy of network are calculated and verified. The results of this paper may provide a novel method for the monitor of switchgear temperature and assess continuous condition of high-current switchgear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a guidance law that achieves the desired terminal impact time without violating a seeker's field-of-view (FOV) limits. In order to derive the guidance law, kinematic conditions for impact time control are defined, and the backstepping control technique is applied for the satisfaction of the conditions. As a virtual control input for the backstepping structure, the missile lead angle, which represents the angle between the line-of-sight (LOS) and missile velocity vector, is used and its magnitude is limited by a prescribed limit. Then, the seeker's look angle can also be confined within a specific range because the seeker look angle is mainly determined by the difference between the LOS and the velocity vector. This capability to confine the seeker's look angle with achieving the desired impact time is the main contribution of the paper. To evaluate the performance of the proposed law, numerical simulation is conducted. The result demonstrates that the proposed guidance law enables the missile to simultaneously achieve the interception and desired impact time without violating the prespecified FOV limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Snow albedo plays an important role in the global climate system. There are notable missing data and error uncertainties in the current remote sensing snow albedo products that are attributed to the limits of remote-sensing technology. Due to the uncertainties of meteorological factors and the differences in various forward model simulation methods, snow albedo forward simulations also have considerable uncertainties. This paper suggests a long-time-series reconstruction of snow albedo utilizing a forward radiation-transferring model and a remote-sensing retrieval model together with multisource remotely sensed data and meteorological data. The key to this paper is to estimate snow information for areas lacking data utilizing a forward model for snow albedo with clear physical mechanisms. The estimated snow information can be used as reliable data for snow albedo reconstructions. The results indicate that the long time series of snow albedo data obtained by coupling the snow albedo retrieval model and forward simulation model is highly accurate. The mean absolute error, root mean square error, Pearson’s correlation coefficient (R), and Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient of the observed and reconstructed snow albedos are 0.11, 0.14, 0.79, and 0.69, respectively. The reconstructed snow albedo data are underestimated by only 11% relative to the in situ snow surface albedo measurements. In the alpine mountain regions, the proposed method has a simulation accuracy that is 6% greater than that of the MOD10A1 SAD. This paper provides an effective reconstruction solution that improves the accuracy of estimations of snow albedo and fills gaps in the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]