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Multifunctional flexible electronics have been a hot spot in scientific research and technology development. From the view of practical application, high-performance flexible heating devices with the capability to respond to commands are an urgent need for thermal management. Herein, we propose a strategy for multifunctional integration by assembling two pieces of laser-scribed Nomex paper, thus enabling the combination of heating and sensing modules. On account of the good electrothermal and piezoresistive properties of laser-induced graphene, the device can generate high steady-state temperature with a low voltage excitation and recognize valid commands from users finger to switch between operating states. Besides, the fast and efficient fabrication method entirely based on direct laser writing technology is another unique advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advantages of low power consumption, flexibility, and high readability against bright ambiance, electrophoretic displays (EPDs) have wide application prospects in the fields of education, smart supermarkets, Internet of Things, smart homes, wearable devices, etc. EPDs suffer from a severe history dependence during grayscale switching, which results in annoying ghost images. However, currently, it is difficult to distinguish diverse types of ghost images automatically; thus, lookup-tables (LUTs) for multi-grayscale waveform design cannot be effectively generated but require cumbersome manual adjustment. In this article, we proposed to adopt a convolutional neural network (CNN) to automatically recognize ghost images, based on which, LUTs that could suppress ghost images and achieve accurate grayscales were automatically generated for waveform design. Moreover, the workforce for manual adjustment was significantly saved. The results suggest that the CNN is a powerful tool for EPDs to achieve better image quality, as well as less manual cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voltage-controlled three-phase three-leg inverters are widely applied in various occasions. The inverters are generally switched to the current-controlled mode to limit the fault currents when short-circuit faults happen. Under symmetrical fault, the inverter can be controlled as a symmetrical, three-phase current source. However, the voltage limiting will happen under asymmetrical fault. As a result, the fault phase currents will be distorted and cannot be completely controlled. Considering that the voltage limiting is mainly caused by large load impedance of healthy phase under asymmetrical fault, the voltage limiting is avoided by paralleling the virtual impedance with the output filter capacitor in this paper. As a result, the current limiting loop is not broken and the fault phase currents can be effectively controlled. The implementation of virtual impedance in control system and the influence of virtual impedance on the stability of system are also analyzed in detail in this paper. The theoretical results are validated by experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work presented in this paper concerns a switching-based control formulation for multi-intersection and multiphase traffic light systems. A macroscopic traffic flow modeling approach is first presented, which is instrumental to the development of a model-based and switching-based optimization method for traffic signal operation, in the framework of adaptive dynamic programming (ADP). The main advantage of the switching-based formulation is its capability to determine both “when”’ to switch and “which” mode to switch on without the need to use the cycle-based average flow approximation typical of state-of-the-art formulations. In addition, the framework can handle different cycle times across intersections without the need for synchronization constraints and, moreover, minimum dwell-time constraints can be directly enforced to comply with minimum green/red times in each phase. The simulation experiments on a multi-intersection and multiphase traffic light systems are presented to show the effectiveness of the method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) is intended to supplant legacy (optical) bar code scanning technology found in many logistic and retail applications. RFID is distinguished by inexpensive, low power and compact form factor tags, whose longevity and efficacy are predicated on using passive communication techniques and on-tag power harvesting. Such tags employ backscatter modulation, which does not require any active RF components. As a result, backscatter has become an attractive design choice for short-range communications in power constrained wireless sensor networking scenarios. The purpose of this work is two-fold. First, it aims to expose backscatter communication as an emerging topic to a communication systems-theoretic audience. Since backscatter modulation and on-tag power harvesting efficiency are coupled, it is necessary to re-examine notions of power and spectral efficiency from an energy-constraint perspective; this leads to novel coded modulation schemes for future RFID systems. Further, we investigate RFID MIMO systems where the channel fading encountered has different statistics than the classical Rayleigh fading model. In turn,the trade off between diversity order and spatial multiplexing gains are distinct from wide-area MIMO. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

So, you've submitted your paper to your ideal target journal, waited the requisite period, and one day, your inbox contains an e-mail from the publication's editor-in-chief. It's not the hoped for acceptance, but a "Revise and Resubmit." (One of my favorite journals has switched to the more-discouraging, "Reject and Resubmit," but this is actually the same thing.) [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses an advanced method for estimating dc conductivity of oil using parameters evaluated under switching impulse voltage application. Firstly, the effectiveness of switching impulse application for assessing the condition of oil–paper insulation is investigated. Thereafter, the evaluated parameters under switching impulse voltage are fitted by Havriliak and Negami (HN) model for estimating the oil conductivity. The method is applied on oil-impregnated pressboards containing different moistures and a distribution transformer for experimental investigation. Moreover, the limitations of the proposed method are also discussed in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Piezoelectric actuators have been widely applied to precision positioning platforms. However, the positioning accuracy of piezoelectric ceramic has been significantly affected by its characteristics of hysteresis. Owing to the voltage-keeping feature of capacitive load for piezoelectric ceramic, this paper has proposed a switch-based driving in sequence method, which alternately drives each layer of PZT by using switches. Based on the driving in sequence method, the proposed method is capable of reducing the hysteresis to 1/N of the hysteresis under traditional voltage driving method, while significantly lowering the scale and cost of hardware, compared with the previous driving in sequence method. Thus, it allows for application to hundreds of layers of piezoelectric ceramic. According to experiment results, the hysteresis under different frequencies from 0.1 to 500 Hz for homemade seven-layer piezoelectric ceramic can be reduced from 12.5 to 2.1%. Furtherly, the residual hysteresis can be corrected by applying a simple quadratic-polynomial feedforward control, and the hysteresis is constrained within 0.8%, even with feedforward parameters that are not strictly calibrated. The dual-amplifier driving in sequence method proposed in this paper can significantly reduce the hysteresis in open-loop control of piezoelectric stack actuators, effectively improving the positioning and driving performance and saving cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a simple yet effective network pruning framework is proposed to simultaneously address the problems of pruning indicator, pruning ratio, and efficiency constraint. This paper argues that the pruning decision should depend on the convolutional weights, and thus proposes novel weight-dependent gates (W-Gates) to learn the information from filter weights and obtain binary gates to prune or keep the filters automatically. To prune the network under efficiency constraints, a switchable Efficiency Module is constructed to predict the hardware latency or FLOPs of candidate pruned networks. Combined with the proposed Efficiency Module, W-Gates can perform filter pruning in an efficiency-aware manner and achieve a compact network with a better accuracy-efficiency trade-off. We have demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method on ResNet34, ResNet50, and MobileNet V2, respectively achieving up to 1.33/1.28/1.1 higher Top-1 accuracy with lower hardware latency on ImageNet. Compared with state-of-the-art methods, W-Gates also achieves superior performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a new modulation strategy based on the carrier-based switching strategy for the non-square direct matrix converters (MC) is proposed to control the active power of distributed generation (DG) units. In this strategy, the active power of DGs is controlled by the central input current control of the non-square direct MC independent from the voltage and frequency. Conventionally, each DG has a converter, and for supplying a load with N number of DGs, N number of converters are needed and each converter has its own modulation switching and control strategy to control the power output of each DG. Needless to say, in a microgrid with N number of DGs, the control strategy of each converter has more complex structure than that of a microgrid with one converter, and surely the former strategy entails more volume and price. Using the proposed converter in this paper, it is possible to supply a load with N number of DGs through one converter. Also, the power outputs of all DGs are controlled by a central control strategy. The proposed central control strategy is described and simulated for a typical microgrid. Experimental and simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed converter and the proposed strategy. The results demonstrate the applicability and efficiency of the system and verify the theoretical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Network function virtualization (NFV) is a promising technology that decouples network functions from hardware. Connecting virtual network functions (VNFs) in series to form a service function chain (SFC) can flexibly orchestrate and expand network functions. However, there are higher availability requirements for SFCs. This paper aims to solve the SFC placement problem under availability and resource constraints. This paper proposes the sideway cross (SC) backup model, which considers the availability of both VNFs and physical machines (PMs) in a data center. The SC model cross-arranges the backup instances of VNFs to guarantee availability and optimize resource consumption. Then, this paper proposes the heuristic meteor shower optimization (MSO) algorithm to place SFCs. Compared to traditional heuristic algorithms, MSO can improve the execution time by approximately 200%. Combined with the SC backup model, MSO can effectively improve the availability and resource overhead. The evaluation results show that the proposed approach can guarantee higher availability and consumes fewer resources. The proposed approach only needs 75% of the resources to achieve the same availability as the state-of-the-art models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a compact 10-b successive approximation register analog-to-digital converter (SAR ADC) in 65-nm CMOS with an integrated passive finite impulse response (FIR) filter for anti-aliasing. Conventional switched-capacitor digital-to-analog converters (DACs) are usually implemented with unit elements for the best matching performance, at the cost of increased chip area. Instead, this paper proposes a unit-length capacitor implementation, which minimizes the number of components and thus minimizes area, while also achieving good linearity (integral non-linearity of 0.39 LSB, differential non-linearity of 0.55 LSB, and SFDR of 75 dB) despite using a small LSB capacitor of 125 aF. The 10-b SAR ADC occupies only $36 \times 36\,\,\mu \text{m}$ , thanks to the small-size DAC, and by placing the ADC circuits directly under the capacitors. The ADC was tested at 10 and 30 MS/s and achieves an effective number of bits of 9.18/9.10 bit with an figure-of-merit of 4.1/4.4 fJ per conversion-step, respectively. Besides the ADC, a passive analog FIR filter is added to implement an anti-aliasing filter. The topology is based on a passive charge-sharing network and thus only consumes power for the clock phase generation and switch drivers. A 4 $\times $ time-interleaved 15-tap passive FIR filter is implemented, which can realize >42 dB out-of-band rejection and 4 $\times $ decimation while occupying only $53\times 90\,\,\mu \text{m}$. The filter and the ADC together consume 39.2 $\mu \text{W}$ for an output rate of 10 MS/s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) has been pretty mature and widely used in our daily life, the positioning of the indoor environment cannot be realized due to the shielding of concretes or glasses by GNSS. Many positioning methods have been proposed to solve that problem, and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is one of the most widely used wireless technologies. This paper takes BLE Angle of Arrival (AOA) as the research object and proposes a method based on signal fitting and Propagator Direct Data Acquisition (PDDA) angle estimation algorithm. This method can be applied to both linear antenna array and rectangular antenna array and has good positioning performance. The method proposed in this paper does not need to calculate the phase differences between antennas, making it unnecessary to calculate the intersection of cones during spatial positioning. The angle estimation is divided into two steps. Firstly, the frequency deviation of Constant Tone Extension (CTE) is calculated based on the IQ samples captured during the reference period, and the received signal matrix of all antennas is fitted based on frequency deviation. Secondly, the antenna received signal model is established based on hardware antenna arrangement, and the arrival angle is estimated by the PDDA algorithm. In order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, the plane and spatial positioning experiments are carried out using the BLE devices of Nordic Company, which shows a good positioning accuracy. In spatial positioning, the average positioning accuracy of BLE in channel 37, channel 38, and channel 39 is 0.59m, 0.74m, and 0.77m, respectively, which can meet the basic indoor positioning requirements and cover a large area by one receiver. Compared with the classical MUSIC algorithm, the PDDA algorithm has the same positioning accuracy but lower computational complexity, so it has certain advantages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated by applications in data center networks, in this paper, we study the problem of scheduling in an input queued switch. While throughput maximizing algorithms in a switch are well-understood, delay analysis was developed only recently. It was recently shown that the well-known MaxWeight algorithm achieves optimal scaling of mean queue lengths in steady state in the heavy-traffic regime, and is within a factor less than 2 of a universal lower bound. However, MaxWeight is not used in practice because of its high time complexity. In this paper, we study several low complexity algorithms and show that their heavy-traffic performance is identical to that of MaxWeight. We first present a negative result that picking a random schedule does not have optimal heavy-traffic scaling of queue lengths even under uniform traffic. We then show that if one picks the best among two matchings or modifies a random matching even a little, using the so-called flip operation, it leads to MaxWeight like heavy-traffic performance under uniform traffic. We then focus on the case of non-uniform traffic and show that a large class of low time complexity algorithms have the same heavy-traffic performance as MaxWeight, as long as it is ensured that a MaxWeight matching is picked often enough. We also briefly discuss the performance of these algorithms in the large scale heavy-traffic regime when the size of the switch increases simultaneously with the load. Finally, we perform empirical study on a new algorithm to compare its performance with some existing algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The utilization of switched inductors, involving parallel charging and series discharging of inductors, is extensively embraced in diverse DC–DC converters for attaining high voltage gain; nevertheless, the stress on switch voltage and diode current escalates considerably with an increased count of inductors integrated into the switched inductors network. In the classical multistage switched inductor converter, the switch voltage aligns with the output voltage, and the diode experiences a high current as the number of stages increases. This research recommends a DC–DC multistage converter for energy conversion and high voltage gain with low stress. In this paper, a novel multistage switched inductor converter is introduced and designed to attain higher voltage gain while mitigating the stresses on switch voltage and diode current. The proposed circuit is created by replacing the standard multistage switched inductor converter's possible diodes with power switches. All of the switching devices are connected in such a way that the output voltage and input current are shared by all of the switches and diodes, respectively. As a consequence, the voltage stress on switches and the current stress on diodes are comparatively low, resulting in a high efficiency compared to a typical multistage switched inductor converter. It's interesting to note that the proposed converter and a typical multistage switched inductor converter both require the same amount of components. Different operation modes, analysis, a non‐ideal model, and a comparison of the suggested and recently constructed converters are discussed. The effectiveness and performance of the circuit are validated experimentally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose, in this paper, an observer-based nonlinear feedback controller for four degrees of freedom (4-DOF) offshore ship-mounted tower cranes, which includes a robust-type term to address the observation uncertainty, and a switching logic tuning mechanism to update the involved unknown parameter. As a typical nonlinear underactuated mechatronic system, unlike the land-fixed tower cranes, an offshore ship-mounted tower crane also suffers from persistent disturbances caused by sea waves or currents, which leads to many difficulties and challenges in the controller design of such systems. Existing offshore crane control methods require either linearizations or approximations when performing analysis; moreover, most of them are only applicable for simplified 2-DOF crane models, and the ranges of system state errors cannot be guaranteed during the overall process. Motivated by these facts, to achieve simultaneous accurate jib/trolley positioning and fast payload swings suppression against complex unknown external disturbances, in particular, a disturbance observer is first designed in this paper, based on which a novel nonlinear switching logic-based control scheme for offshore cranes with jib rotation and horizontal transportation is proposed. As far as we know, the proposed method yields the first observer-based feedback closed-loop control without simplification operations to the original 4-DOF offshore tower crane dynamics and achieves the first asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system’s equilibrium point for offshore cranes. To support the theoretical derivation, the corresponding stability analysis of the closed-loop system’s equilibrium point is implemented by Lyapunov techniques. Numerous simulation and hardware experimental results are presented to demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed method. Note to Practitioners—This paper is motivated by the issue of controlling a four- degree-of-freedom (4-DOF) offshore ship-mounted tower crane system under the effects of unknown external disturbances. In practical applications, the persistent disturbances caused by sea waves or currents can always happen and make the offshore crane operation very challenging. Moreover, it brings more difficulties in the controller design for such a system due to its nonlinear underactuated property. Existing control approaches for offshore cranes are developed based upon linearized or oversimplified crane models or require exact model knowledge, and they may not work well in the presence of harsh sea conditions. Toward this end, this paper suggests a new control approach for 4-DOF offshore tower cranes suffering from sea wave effects to achieve a satisfactory performance. The asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system’s equilibrium point is derived, implying that the accurate jib/trolley positioning and fast payload swings suppression against complex unknown external disturbances are achieved simultaneously. Preliminary physical experiments implemented on a self-built offshore tower crane hardware test bed verify the effectiveness and the robustness of the proposed observer-based control method. In the future research, we will apply the suggested control approach to industrial offshore crane systems to improve their working efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the development of a manipulation system for electric wires, implemented by means of a commercial gripper installed on an industrial manipulator and equipped with cameras and suitably designed tactile sensors. The purpose of this system is the execution of wire insertion on commercial electromechanical components. The synergy between computer vision and tactile sensing is necessary because, in a real environment, the tight spaces very often prevent the possibility to use the vision system, also when the same task is performed by a human being. A novel technique to speed up the generation of training data sets for convolutional neural networks (CNNs) is proposed. Therefore, this technique is used to train a CNN in order to detect small objects (such as wire terminals). Moreover, aiming to prevent faults during the task and to interact with the environment safely, several machine learning approaches are used to produce an affordable output from the tactile sensor. The proposed approach shows how a cheap sensor embedded with suitable intelligence can provide information comparable to a more expensive force sensor. Note to Practitioners—This paper was motivated by the lack of commercial solution for the automatic cabling of switchgears. Existing approaches to this problem are in some way limited to specific large-scale products or simple layouts. This paper investigated a robust and flexible solution, based on the exploitation of multiple sensors and machine learning algorithms, for wire detection, grasping, and connection. The proposed approach is characterized by simple design and self-tuning capabilities, and it can be easily employed on a wide range of switchgear layouts thanks to the large workspace of the manipulator. Experimental results show that the proposed system is able to achieve a 95% success rate within a realistic admissible region. In the future research, we will integrate the proposed solution with an electromechanical component localization module and a terminal fastening system to evaluate the performance on the real production line. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes unconventional control techniques for a portable power supply consisting of electric double-layer capacitors (EDLCs), a dc–dc converter, and a low-impedance load such a plasma load. Between the EDLCs and the plasma load consuming high power, a dc–dc converter is required to control the output voltage from the rapidly decreasing voltage of EDLCs. In addition, the dc–dc converter should maintain a set point by responding to arcs occurred in plasma process. This paper proposed hybrid analog and digital controls for a nonideal boost converter which was setup by theoretical analysis. The proposed system is verified with experiment and simulation. As a result, the proposed control method can maintain the constant output voltage longer than a traditional analog pulsewidth modulation control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a trajectory optimization approach for high-speed trains to reduce traction energy consumption and increase riding comfort. Besides, the proposed approach can also achieve energy-saving effects by optimizing the operation time between stations. First, an optimization model is developed by defining the objective function as a trade-off function of the traction energy consumption and riding comfort. In addition to constraints in the classic optimal train control model, three new factors–the discrete throttle settings, neutral zones, and sectionalized tunnel resistance–are considered. Then, the model is discretized and turned into a multi-step decision optimization problem. All the nonlinear constraints are approximated using piecewise affine (PWA) functions, and the trajectory optimization problem is turned into a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) problem which can be solved by existing solvers CPLEX and YALMIP. Finally, some case studies with real-world data sets are conducted to present the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The simulation results are compared with the practical running data of trains, which shows that the proposed model and the optimization approach save energy and improve the riding comfort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an optimization approach for day-ahead reactive power planning to improve voltage security in transmission networks. The problem is formulated as a voltage-secure multi-period optimal reactive power dispatch (MP-ORPD) problem. The optimization approach searches for optimal set-points of dynamic and static reactive power (var) resources. Specifically, the output includes set-points for switching shunts, transformer taps, and voltage magnitudes at the regulated buses. The primary goal is to maximize the dynamic reactive power reserve of the system, by minimizing the reactive power supplied by synchronous generators. As the size of the MP-ORPD problem increases significantly with increasing number of contingencies and time periods, efficiency is crucial for practical applications. In this paper, a decomposition technique based on consensus and alternating optimization, where integer variable targets are obtained via MILP, is used to partition the MP-ORPD problem into a set of subproblems, which can be solved in parallel to reduce the computation time. The proposed MP-ORPD problem and its solution algorithm are integrated into the EPRI-VCA software. The results of various power networks of large electric utilities in the Eastern interconnection demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in providing preventive control schedules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to achieve the purpose of extending the speed range and reducing power electronics devices for the permanent-magnet linear motor drive system, a half-centralized open-end winding (OEW) topology is studied for rail transit applications in this paper. In this topology, compared with the traditional OEW topology, the number of voltage-source-inverters (VSIs) can be reduced from four to three to drive two OEW movers and all these VSIs share a common dc bus voltage. In order to improve the steady-state performances, a four-vector phase model predictive voltage control (FV-PMPVC) is proposed in this paper. Due to the spatial distribution of phase voltage vector (PVV), an orthometric synthesis principle (OSP) is proposed to calculated the duration time for the vector synthesis, which reduces the computation burden and enhances the robustness. Comparing the existing control method, FV-PMPVC can get similar dynamic performances but better steady-state performances. Additionally, the half-centralized topology using FV-PMPVC can have same speed range while less VSIs are required. The effectiveness of FV-PMPVC is verified by experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Owning to the sub-standards being developed by IEEE Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) Task Group, the traditional IEEE 802.1 Ethernet is enhanced to support real-time dependable communications for future time- and safety-critical applications. Several sub-standards have been recently proposed that introduce various traffic shapers (e.g., Time-Aware Shaper (TAS), Asynchronous Traffic Shaper (ATS), Credit-Based Shaper (CBS), Strict Priority (SP)) for flow control mechanisms of queuing and scheduling, targeting different application requirements. These shapers can be used in isolation or combination and there is limited work that analyzes, evaluates, and compares their performance, which makes it challenging for end-users to choose the right combination for their applications. This paper aims at (i) quantitatively comparing various traffic shapers and their combinations, (ii) summarizing, classifying, and extending the architectures of individual and combined traffic shapers and their Network calculus (NC)-based performance analysis methods, and (iii) filling the gap in the timing analysis research on handling ATS and CBS used for different priority queues, and two novel hybrid architectures of combined traffic shapers, i.e., TAS+ATS+SP and TAS+ATS+CBS when ATS and CBS used at the same queue. A large number of experiments, using both synthetic and realistic test cases, are carried out for quantitative performance comparisons of various individual and combined traffic shapers, from the perspective of upper bounds of delay, backlog, and jitter. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to quantitatively compare the performance of the main traffic shapers in TSN. The paper aims at supporting the researchers and practitioners in the selection of suitable TSN sub-protocols for their use cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last 10 or 15 years, exciting new developments have occurred in the field of filters and multiplexers. The two words that best explain this phenomenon are “topology” and “technology.” Thus, this paper will cover new connections, new materials, and new processes. This paper summarizes what is new, describes the new devices, and avoids simply surveying the entire field. It is not possible to cover everything, and regrettably, some new and possibly exciting areas are omitted (such as filters fabricated using liquid crystal polymers, active element inclusion, extreme power devices used in accelerators), and others,\ldots, because something has to be left for the next paper! The paper does cover bandstop filters, intrinsically switched film bulk acoustic resonator, and barium–strontium–titanate filters, brand new derivations of lossy filter synthesis and dual-band filter synthesis, multimode networks, new work on optimal multiplexer (multiport network) configurations, and substrate integrated waveguide filters. In each of these areas significant new work has been recently performed and is presented in a summary format suitable for those thinking that the area of filters and multiplexers has become mature (stagnant) with nothing interesting to learn. Nothing could be further from the truth! [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Reliability is a fundamental concept for power systems, and the optimal placement of switchable devices is a valuable tool for improvements in this area. The goal of this paper is to propose an optimal allocation method for circuit breakers and switches that can break the cost–reliability dilemma and simultaneously achieve reliability and economic improvement in terms of the distribution network. Moreover, in view of the fact that variations in the load level can affect the reliability of the distribution network, the variations of different load level scenarios are considered in this paper, where a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model based on fictitious fault flows is established to derive the optimal allocation scheme that can adapt to the changes of multiple scenarios regarding the load. Meanwhile, due to the constraints of reliability indices, the post-fault reconfiguration scheme of a distribution network under different load level scenarios can also be obtained to enhance its overall reliability. Finally, the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed method are verified by numerical tests on a 54-node test system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the system and control community, the sliding mode control technology has been known as a tool which is able to handle system uncertainties and external disturbances. Simplicity in implementation and good stability performance are the other interesting features of the sliding modes. However, traditional sliding mode controllers exhibit two weaknesses, as follows: 1) generally, they have asymptotic stability in sliding mode dynamics which results in a slow speed system and 2) the so-called chattering phenomenon exists, which produces undesirable high frequency oscillations in the control signal. In this paper, the former problem is solved using a twofold terminal sliding manifold displaying desired transient and steady state behavior. The latter issue is responded to by a twofold sliding mode technology which leads to a continuous sliding control rule instead of a discontinuous switching control. The effects of uncertain terms as well as external perturbations with unknown bounds are fully compensated using updated parameters. The values of the updated parameters approach fixed values as the system trajectories converge to the equilibrium states. The analytical results of this paper are theoretically proved using the Lyapunov technique and the finite-time control strategy. Comparative computer simulations on a robotic manipulator confirm the fast convergence attribute and robust performance of the introduced adaptive robust nonsingular terminal sliding control algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a need for economical monitoring of fragile goods that are sensitive to temperature, tilt or vibrations during transit. The mishandling of these goods could permanently alter or damage them. Existing methods rely on electronic devices that need a continuous power source for sensing and data logging. This article introduces a simple battery-free economical solution for recording a singular event of temperature crossing or a tilt activity using liquid metal, namely eutectic gallium indium (EGaIn) coupled to a Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) tag. The crossing of a threshold of either temperature or tilting angle results in EGaIn flow, which activates or deactivates the RFID tag permanently. This change is irreversible; thus, the sensor memorizes the specific temperature or tilt event. This built-in memory function and wireless communication of the RFID sensor enables economical monitoring of temperature and motion-sensitive goods during transport without the need for a battery. In this paper, we have further reduced cost by fabricating these temperature and tilt sensors on paper substrates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper defines a new type of a low-power broadside test, called a reverse low-power broadside test, whose application requires design-for-testability logic. The unique feature of a reverse low-power broadside test is that it duplicates the switching activity during the second functional capture cycle of a given low-power broadside test, except that signal-transitions are reversed. Thus, the switching activity of a reverse low-power broadside test duplicates that of a low-power broadside test in every subcircuit and on every line individually. In addition, the reversed test detects different faults, and can thus increase the fault coverage of a low-power broadside test set. This paper studies the ability of reverse low-power broadside tests to increase the transition fault coverage in benchmark circuits considering functional broadside tests as well as low-power broadside tests that are not functional. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a resonant switching cell model to analyze and design the single-ended resonant dc–dc converters. The single-ended zero-voltage switching (ZVS) converters such as the Class E converter are efficient for megahertz switching because they feature low turn-on and turn-off switching losses. Also, they use only a ground-referenced switch, allowing a simple gate drive circuit. In this paper, we investigate the single-ended resonant converter with the small input inductance, whereas the conventional Class E converter has a large input inductance. The main contribution of this paper is to propose the resonant switching cell as an analytic model that simplifies the analysis and the design of the resonant dc–dc converters. Furthermore, this paper presents the design method of the resonant switching cell model for minimizing the resonant current magnitude and conduction loss while the converter maintains ZVS property. The experimental results from a 10-MHz GaN-based prototype demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the analysis and design based on the proposed resonant switching cell model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SiC-based diodes and mosfets switch extremely quickly with low conduction losses. Thus, from the perspective of efficiency, such devices are ideal for a continuous conduction mode (CCM) boost power factor correction (PFC) converter. However, the circuit parasitic becomes alive while switching with high $dv/dt$ and $di/dt$ values, which necessitates the need for electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) compliance measurements. Employing the best available low-loss SiC mosfet and SiC diode, in this paper, a 1-kW PFC boost converter prototype was designed, developed, and evaluated with the objective of quantifying the efficiency and EMC signature. The efficiency is evaluated through two approaches, namely, a circuit simulation and a laboratory measurement. With the first approach, the switching losses are obtained using a widely accepted double-pulse test methodology, and the conduction losses are taken from the data sheet, whereas with the second approach, the current and voltage are recorded at the input and output of the PFC converter using power analyzer. The electromagnetic interference (EMI) is monitored using line impedance stabilizing network and EMC analyzer. To maximize the efficiency, a fast, clean switching of the silicon carbide (SiC) is necessary. Utilizing a low-parasitic printed circuit board design approach and switching the selected low-loss SiC devices with a 0  $\Omega$ external gate drive resistance, this PFC boost yields a peak efficiency of 97.2% at full-rated power when switched at 250 kHz. Furthermore, the EMI noise was measured at 66 and 250 kHz. It was found that the same EMI filter size satisfies the CISPR 11 Class B conducted EMI limit at both switching frequencies with a noise of approximately 10 dB higher at 250 kHz. As the main contribution of this paper, the best case efficiency and worst case EMI are evaluated in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel procedure for energy management system (EMS) that can utilize the flexibility in transmission networks in a practical way. With the proposed enhanced EMS procedure, the reliability benefits that are provided by corrective transmission switching (CTS) in real-time contingency analysis can be translated into significant cost savings in real-time security-constrained economic dispatch. Simulation results show that the congestion cost with consideration of CTS is largely reduced as CTS can relieve potential post-contingency network violations. The effects of integrating CTS in existing EMS procedure on markets are also analyzed. In conclusion, this two-part paper shows that CTS can achieve substantial reliability benefits, as well as significant cost savings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of applicable carrier-based pulsewidth modulation (PWM) patterns increases with the growth of output levels in scalable multilevel topologies, such as active-neutral-point-clamped (ANPC) converters. Therefore, it is hard to optimize PWM for such topology, especially with large output levels. In this paper, a simplified and modular carrier-based PWM design approach for multilevel ANPC converters is proposed. Inspired by the decomposition theory, the topology decomposition is introduced in this paper to decompose an N-level ANPC converter into low-level subtopologies. Then, the complete set of applicable PWM patterns is derived based on ANPC operation principles, which makes it possible to optimize the performance based on the various requirements in applications. Meanwhile, the carrier-based PWM is implemented through the utilization of subtopologies with low-level modulation schemes, such that the design process of carrier-based PWM is greatly simplified and modularly realized. Both the complete PWM patterns and PWM design examples with experimental results of several ANPC converters are provided to show the feasibility and modularity of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a model predictive current control (MPCC) method of six-phase permanent magnet synchronous hub motor (PMSHM) using auxiliary voltage vectors. First of all, 26 voltage vectors can be obtained from the switching states of six inverters, and 24 auxiliary voltage vectors can be generated by combining them. Second, four virtual voltage vectors can be found through the required locations, and the two vectors with the lowest cost will be selected by cost function. Then, additional current error correction module can better track the current. Finally, the proposed method is compared with the conventional MPCC method and another method with virtual voltage vectors. The innovation of this paper is that the recombination of vectors can better track and predict the current. A current error compensation module is added to reduce the error between the actual current and the predicted current. And the experimental results show that the proposed method has better performance such as smaller torque ripple and current THD both in steady and dynamic states. Finally, the strategy proposed in this paper was applied to the vehicle model through HIL test platform. The possibility of applying the strategy proposed in this paper to pure electric vehicles was verified under New European Driving Cycle (NEDC). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Local Area Network (LAN) is a private communication network for connecting computers and devices in a circumscribed location. This paper explains the design and implementation of LAN for a Hotel named 'Greenwich'. The network topology is achieved with the help of nodes such as Server, Routers, Switches, PCs, Wireless Devices, WLANs and Ethernet cables. The paper also deals with a few other topics like Server Configuration (HTTP, DNS, FTP and Email Servers), IP Address Configuration, transmission of packets among the devices in the network, working of IP phones and also how Virtual LANs can help in separating sectors in a network. All routers of all the floors are connected to the Internet. The entire network topology of Hotel Greenwich is simulated with the help of a simulating software called Cisco Packet Tracer (CPT). The implemented design is of primary level and can be enhanced for higher levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weather-related or other types of faults can negatively impact the continuity of the electricity delivery to the consumers and, thus, lead to poorer reliability scores. 90% of customer outage-minutes are due to events which affect local distribution systems. The radial configuration is simple and has a low cost design; however, when a fault occurs it often causes power outages beyond the location of the fault itself. Therefore, it is beneficial for utilities to automatically isolate the fault and, thus, restore power to as many consumers as possible. The benefits of fault isolation and service restoration include, but are not limited to: enhanced reliability and resiliency, reduced loss of revenue to the utility, and enhanced comfort and satisfaction for the utility’s consumers. This paper provides an algorithm to quickly isolate a fault and automatically restore power to as many nodes of the distribution system as possible by opening and closing switches already placed within the system. The expert model and centralized algorithm that are proposed in this paper guarantee an optimal solution and a short run-time regardless of the size of the distribution system. A mathematical proof of the optimal nature of the solution is provided. In addition, the model is validated in practice, solving two different-sized systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the switching process of driving authority for man-machine cooperative driving, it should be ensured that the driver can take over the vehicle safely, stably and efficiently. This paper proposes a driving authority allocation strategy based on real-time allocation domain (RAD), which mainly includes the establishment of RAD and the dynamic optimization. The RAD is a comprehensive dynamic allocation internal, whose range is determined by the corresponding allocation values of driver’s cognitive state, driver’s muscle state and environment state. The dynamic optimization is to search for the optimal driving authority in RAD at any time, and its optimization objectives and constraints all contain time-varying parameters. This work proposes an improved simulated annealing algorithm to solve this problem. Simulation results show that the proposed driving authority allocation strategy can effectively allocate the driving authority according to the current condition and driver’s state, and ensure the safety, stability and efficiency of the take-over process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In renewable energy micro-source applications, a wide range of voltage conversion of the step-up converter is an essential part to equalize the typical low voltage of micro-source with DC-bus voltage of Inverter or motor drives. In order to meet this purpose, an ultra-voltage gain step-up DC-DC converter is proposed in this paper. The proposed converter has made an arrangement of the regenerative-boost fed switched inductor and capacitor configurations. Thereby, due to such an organization of structure, the proposed converter can develop an extremely high voltage-gain even at lower duty ratios. In addition, it has the advantage of lower switching stress across all power semi-conductive diodes. Furthermore, this paper describes the steady-state analysis and comparative features of the converter with existing recent literature. Finally, to validate theoretical analysis and test the feasibility and suitability of the proposed ultra-gain converter, the experimental results were observed by a 500 W fabricated prototype. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming at the problem that the hardware cost of the interactive interface of the large screen interactive system is high and the noise disturbance can lead to the inaccurate positioning of the interactive target. This paper proposes an any-wall touch system with the switching filter based on 3-D sensor. The proposed any-wall touch system can be achieved by connecting only one computer and the human-computer interaction effect can be well obtained. The main contributions of this paper are as follows: 1) introduce the switching system method into the filter for the first time and propose a switching filter based on the average dwell time switching rule to realize the balance between accuracy and real-time and 2) this presented method can realize touching technology on the wall, which does not need liquid crystal display screen or LED large screen and other expensive display side of the hardware. Using the projector projection wall as a display side and the independent development of interactive software, it can achieve any wall touch function. Many experiments show that the proposed technology has a multi-functional, simple and portable, high precision, which can be widely extended to the classroom, corporate conference room and display platform and other interactive sites. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper investigates the robust containment control problem of multiagent systems with heterogeneous uncertainty and nonlinearity while the nonlinear parts have to satisfy the Lipschitz condition. In this paper, both input time-delay and data transmission time-delay between the agents are considered simultaneously and communication topology of the multiagent systems may switch in the steady-state condition. Under the mentioned conditions, the objective of this paper is to make all the followers’ states converge to the convex hull shaped by the leaders’ states with an expected exponential rate. To this end, an appropriate smooth protocol is proposed. Then, a Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional composed of five terms is proposed and the stability condition is denoted by two linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). In addition to the stability assurance, solving the LMIs would obtain the suitable gains for the protocol. Finally, some numerical simulations are given to verify the theoretical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the issue of reliable sliding mode control for descriptor systems with semi-Markov parameters using the Takagi–Sugeno fuzzy model, in which an average dwell time approach is utilized to tackle generic uncertain transition rates (TRs). From the analysis of the inner mechanism of switching singular system, a continuous sliding surface function is proposed. Different from continuity with probability one for stochastic systems, the absolute continuity of system solution is a key point in this paper being ensured for application of the average dwell time approach. Then, the mean-square exponential stability of the obtained sliding mode is analyzed based on two types of uncertain TRs. Moreover, a sliding mode controller is constructed to ensure the reachability condition in finite time. Lastly, the method is verified numerically by a single-link robot arm model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a continuously evolving, unmet need for RF (Radio Frequency) Filters that operate contiguously over multiple frequency octaves or bands. Unlike traditional switched filter banks, these new filters require similar levels of RF performance but with more filters and a smaller overall footprint. Legacy systems typically operate over a sub-octave and filters meant to break down information from the aperture to sub-bands (octave wide) or a little less. These wideband filters, pre-LNA (low noise amplifier), were minimal loss but very large. This paper will examine two new solutions to miniature, wideband, and contiguous filtering, their different capabilities, and where the new filter technologies can enable new overall system capabilities. The commercial (cell phone) vs DoD (Department of Defense) requirement differences which drive very different needs for RF filters highlight the SWAP-C (Size, Weight, and Power - Cost) challenge as wideband, contiguous vs. not, is considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ulcers and chronic wounds are a large and expensive problem, costing billions of pounds a year and affecting millions of people. Electrical stimulation has been known to have a positive effect on wound healing since the 1960s and this has been confirmed in numerous studies, reducing the time to heal, and the incidence of adverse events such as infections. However, because each study used different parameters for the treatment, inclusion criteria and metrics for quantifying the success, it is currently hard to combine them statistically and gain a true picture of its efficacy. As such, electrical stimulation has not been universally adopted as a recommended treatment for various types of wound. This paper summarises the biological basis for electrical simulation treatment and reviews the clinical evidence for its effectiveness. Notable is the lack of research focused on the electrodes used to deliver electrostimulation treatment. However, a significant amount of work has been conducted on electrodes for other medical applications in the field of e-textiles. This e-textile work is reviewed with a focus on its potential in electrostimulation and proposals are made for future developments to improve future studies and applications for wound healing via electrical stimulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a key component of high‐performance switches and routers, the packet forwarding engine (PFE) is mainly responsible for selecting the appropriate output port for tens of thousands of packets within an extremely short time frame. However, the performance of PFE is determined by the selected group membership algorithm. This paper puts forth a hybrid strategy–caching scalar‐pair and vectors routing and forwarding (CSVRF), consisting of virtual output port bitmap caching (VOPBC) and fractional‐N SVRF to address major multicast forwarding issues such as scalability by using content addressable memory. In CSVRF, a virtual output port bitmap cache is introduced, which includes the most popular combinations of output port bitmap and divides the big scalar‐pair into N sub‐groups to achieve parallel compute and the reusability of less bit‐length prime. The results demonstrate that the memory space and the forwarding latency are effectively reduced compared with previous work. In space efficiency, it only required 10% memory space compared with the original SVRF/fractional‐N SVRF, decreased 10% memory usage compared with pure VOPBC and nearly improved 1 to 4 orders of magnitude of packet processing time compared with the original SVRF and the fractional‐N SVRF respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a high isolation of single pole double throw (SPDT) PIN diode switch using switchable dumbbell-shaped defected ground structure (DGS). The proposed SPDT switch was designed for radio frequency (RF) front-end transceiver of antenna array multiple input multiple output (MIMO) in millimeter wave 28 GHz band. The switchable dumbbell-shaped DGS can be switched between allpass and bandstop responses where the bandstop response of the DGS can be utilized as a high isolation in the SPDT PIN diode switch circuit. A simple mathematical analysis is explained in this paper for the bandstop and allpass responses of the switchable dumbbell-shaped DGS. The propose SPDT switch was designed based on Roger RT/Duroid 5880 with 0.254 mm thickness and relative dielectric constant of 2.2. The simulated result showed that the proposed SPDT PIN diode switch produced an isolation of 36.36 dB at 27.3 GHz (center of 28 GHz band), which was 63% higher than the conventional SPDT design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a comprehensive investigation of several important error sources for the successive-approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). The error sources that we discuss in this paper include the dynamic comparator offset, the dynamic gain error of digital-to-analog converter (DAC), the capacitor mismatch of capacitive DAC, the incomplete settling of DAC, the undershoot of reference voltage, and the input signal coupling. The integral/differential nonlinearities (INL/DNL) of SAR ADCs that are resulted from these error sources are analyzed and addressed. A diagnostic procedure is presented to identify the possible error sources based on the INL/DNL plots. In addition, design suggestions for overcoming these problems are also offered and recommended in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiphase variable-speed drives and generation systems (systems with more than three phases) have become one of the mainstream research areas during the last decade. The main driving forces are the specific applications, predominantly related to the green agenda, such as electric and hybrid electric vehicles (EVs), locomotive traction, ship propulsion, “more-electric” aircraft, remote offshore wind farms for electric energy generation, and general high-power industrial applications. As a result, produced body of significant work is substantial, making it impossible to review all the major developments in a single paper. This paper therefore surveys the recent progress in two specific areas associated with multiphase systems, namely power electronic supply control and innovative ways of using the additional degrees of freedom in multiphase machines for various nontraditional purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights an immediate need for renewable generation developers, manufacturers, utilities and industry standardization institutes to jointly address a challenge of capacitor switching transient immunity in inverter-based wind or solar farms. The need was identified from wide-area operation records which showed partial or full generation loss in coincidence with routine utility-owned capacitor switching. The lack of a clear industry guideline has caused confusion to all involved parties. This paper recommends all entities to address this challenge collaboratively through enhanced equipment specification, design, and test before a well-defined industry guideline becomes available. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper deals with the problem of controller design for normal nonlinear switched systems with unknown dynamics. The situation assumes that the nonlinear component of the system dynamics is unknown and there are extra uncertain terms and external perturbations affecting the system responses. Unlike previous methods that usually apply artificial neural networks to obtain an approximate model for an unknown dynamics, we use simple adaptive laws to surmount such fluctuations as well as to circumvent the steady state errors in the approaches provided by neural networks or fuzzy logics. No information on the bounds and parameters of the uncertain parts is needed. We design a twofold sliding mode control methodology to stabilize the whole switched system with arbitrary switching signals. To handle the consequences of the inherent chattering, a smooth integral type control signal is constructed. It is proved that once the system states attain the developed sliding manifold, the system becomes insensitive to both the lumped uncertainties and the dynamics of the switched system. The common assumption of a known Lyapunov functions for the subsystems is relaxed and the derived adaptive approach provides nonconservative circumstances for guaranteeing the global stability of the equilibrium state. The theoretical results of this paper are generalized for the canonical nonlinear systems with mismatched uncertainties and a novel adaptive sliding manifold is proposed to suppress the effects of the system mismatching uncertain parts. A comparative computer simulation is developed to examine the effective performance of the introduced controllers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a calibration-free 12-bit 50-MS/s full-analog SAR analog-to-digital (A-to-D) converter (ADC) in 40-nm CMOS, which integrates the functions of comparator, SAR logic, and digital-to-analog converter (DAC) switches into multiple feedback zero-crossing detectors (FB-ZCDs). By eliminating all the digital circuits, the full-analog bit conversions operate with the asynchronous amplification-to-regeneration (A-to-R) operation that highly relaxes the requirements of the analog circuits and reference generator. This paper is implemented without any calibration, where the non-ideal effects (offset mismatch, insufficient residue, and noise) are mitigated and eliminated with the proposed techniques as follows. The offset mismatches among the FB-ZCDs are covered by the redundancies of the sub-radix DAC arrangement in the coarse ADC. The bottom-plate coupling compensators (BPCCs) are proposed to correct the consecutive SAR decision errors as quantizing the insufficient residue. The shared FB-ZCD with capacitor coupling decision (CCD) network is developed to obtain the identical offset in the fine ADC. Amplification extension (AE) technique is proposed to enhance the precision of the shared FB-ZCD by reconfiguring as a complementary inverter-based amplifier with the extended amplification period to enhance the output SNR. This paper occupies an active area of 0.01 mm2 and achieves the Nyquist-rate signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio (SNDR), spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR), Walden figure-of-merit (FoMW), and Schreier FoM (FoMS) of 64.1, 75.6 dB, 5.3 fJ/conversion step, and 172.8 dB, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has introduced two important indexes, turn-off surge voltage (TSV) on power switch and peak positive pole potential (PPPP) of storage batteries, which can be used to evaluate switching transient process of high-voltage energy storage system. Research on them is of great significance to power switch choice and high-voltage isolation design in engineering applications. Power switch response process at the turning off moment and transient process in freewheel stage have been analyzed by the established small-signal model of single power switch; then, a power switch test platform for hybrid energy storage system was built to verify it. Taking pulsed-power supply charging device with a novel inductor of low resistance and high inductance as a research object, this paper has analyzed dynamic process of the TSV and the PPPP at the turning off moment through establishing state space model of the whole system. Comparison shows that the numerical curves match the simulated curves well. Finally, the exactness of the employed model has been further verified in two pulse capacitor charging experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile, wearable, and Internet-of-Things (IOT) electronic systems are typically powered by a single-cell lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery. Increasing demand for battery life and the constraint of the overall platform size impose an emerging desire for an efficient and compact power conversion stage that can directly deliver power from the battery, which ranges from 3.2 to 4.2 V, to the supplies of application/communication processors in the range of 1 V. The switched capacitor (SC) converter, though promising in some ways for this application, is inefficient at voltage regulation and is limited in capacitor utilization. This paper presents a hybrid dc–dc converter topology that eliminates charge sharing losses with a small inductor. The necessary inductance can be realized by PCB traces, which shows the potential for a compact system-in-package (SiP) solution. The designed converter is implemented in Texas Instruments’ 0.15- $\mu \text{m}$ CMOS process with a nominal 3:1 conversion ratio. It supports a 3.2–4.2-V input voltage with a continuous output regulation of 0.8–1.5 V. The peak efficiency is 87.2% with 83.4% efficiency at a power density of 0.46 W/mm2. This paper also presents an effective methodology of developing the large-signal model and small-signal dynamics for the generalized N:1 converter topology. A tight load line-based controller is integrated into the designed chip and experimentally verified with a transient performance of 50-mV voltage overshoot/undershoot under 400-mA on-die load step. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]