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Industrial robots are fast and accurate when working with known objects at precise locations in well-structured manufacturing environments, as done in the classical automation setting. In one sense, limited use of sensors leaves robots blind and numb, unaware of what is happening in their surroundings. Whereas equipping a system with sensors has the potential to add new functionality and increase
Safe coexistence of industrial robots and human operators in the same workspace is one of the long standing goals of robotics research. One way to enforce safety is to endow the robotic system with additional sensors that can to some extent monitor the environment surrounding the robot and allow fast reaction to unexpected obstacles. This paper discusses the design of one such anti-collision syste
It has recently been shown that several classical open problems in linear system theory, such as optimization of decentralized output feedback controllers, can be readily solved for positive systems using linear programming. In particular, optimal solutions can be verified for large-scale systems using computations that scale linearly with the number of interconnections. Hence two fundamental adva
A fundamental problem in robotics is generating the motion for a task. How to translate a task to motion or a series of movements is a non-trivial problem. The complexity of the task, the structure of the robot, and the desired performance determine the sequence of movements, the path, and the course of motion as a function of time, namely the trajectory. As we discuss in this thesis, a trajectory
In high throughput applications, such as in multimedia, it is preferable to fully utilize computing resources, even at the price of some (bounded) delay. However, in real-time systems, where the maximum admissible delay is modeled by a deadline, most of the theory is developed with the assumption of a task deadline smaller than or equal to the task period. The reason of this limitation is in the i
We propose an energy-based framework for approximating surfaces from a cloud of point measurements corrupted by noise and outliers. Our energy assigns a tangent plane to each (noisy) data point by minimizing the squared distances to the points and the irregularity of the surface implicitly defined by the tangent planes. In order to avoid the well-known "shrinking" bias associated with first-order
In this paper we introduce a new algorithm for seismic imaging based on the flow out of Gaussian wave packets. We follow the standard strategy of decomposing data into wave packets and flowing them out along rays to approximate the downward wavefield extrapolation, and finally applying an imaging condition. We revisit each computational step to gain efficiency. Furthermore, we develop procedure fo
This paper describes the design of a robust PID controller for propofol infusion in children and presents the results of clinical evaluation of this closed-loop system during endoscopic investigations in children age 6y-17y. The controller design is based on a set of models that describes the inter- patient variability in the response to propofol infusion in the study population. The PID controlle
This paper suggests an extension of an existing, clinically evaluated, closed-loop drug delivery system for hypnotic depth control using propofol. The extension introduces closed-loop administration of the analgesic drug remifentanil, thus forming a multiple input–single output (MISO) control system. Remifentanil acts and is metabolized at a significantly faster time scale than propofol. Direct co
Many cyber-physical systems comprise several control applications implemented on a shared platform, for which stability is a fundamental requirement. This is as opposed to the classical hard real-time systems where often the criterion is meeting the deadline. The stability of control applications depends on not only the delay experienced, but also the jitter. Therefore, the notion of deadline is c
Five recent techniques from hybrid and optimal control are evaluated on two power electronics benchmark problems. The benchmarks involve a number of practically interesting operating scenarios for fixed-frequency synchronous dc-dc converters. The specifications are defined such that good performance can only be obtained if the switched and nonlinear nature of the problem is accounted for during th
This thesis presents methods for improving the accuracy and efficiency of tasks performed using different kinds of industrial manipulators, with a focus on the application of machining. Industrial robots offer a flexible and cost-efficient alternative to machine tools for machining, but cannot achieve as high accuracy out of the box. This is mainly caused by non-ideal properties in the robot joint
Power and energy consumption, today essential in all types of systems, can be reduced by scaling the voltage/frequency at runtime and/or powering down idle components. Efficient management requires not only pertinent decisions, but also early access to workload information, as well as domain specific solutions. This paper focuses on runtime energy management for streaming applications running on m
Submerged breakwaters (SBWs) are becoming a popular option for coastal protection, mainly due to their low aesthetic impact on the natural environment. However, SBWs have rarely been employed for coastal protection in the past and therefore, their efficacy remains largely unknown. The main objective of the present study was to investigate the structural and environmental conditions that govern the
This paper presents a novel control architecture for hybrid stiff and compliant control for minimally invasive surgery which satisfies the constraints of zero lateral velocity at the entry point for serial manipulators. For minimally invasive surgery it is required that there is no sideways motion at the point where the robots enter the abdomen. This is necessary to avoid any damage to the patient
Robust and reliable formulas for predicting bed load and suspended load were developed for application in the nearshore zone where waves and currents may transport sediment separately or in combination. Also, a routine was included to determine the sediment transport in the swash zone, both in the longshore and cross-shore directions. An important objective of the development was to arrive at gene
Thearubigins (TR) are polymeric flavanol-derived compounds formed during the fermentation of tea leaves. Comprising similar to 70% of total polyphenols in black tea, TR may contribute majorly to its beneficial effects on health. To date, there is no appropriate food composition data on TR, although several studies have used data from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) database to estimate TR
The classical Kalman-Yakubovich-Popov lemma gives conditions for solvability of a certain inequality in terms of a symmetric matrix. The lemma has numerous applications in systems theory and control. Recently, it has been shown that for positive systems, important versions of the lemma can equivalently be stated in terms of a diagonal matrix rather than a general symmetric one. This paper generali
