Aircraft Automatic Collision Avoidance Using Spiral Geometric Approach

This paper provides a description of a Collision Avoidance algorithm that has been developed starting from the mathematical modeling of the flight of insects, in terms of spirals and conchospirals geometric paths. It is able to calculate a proper avoidance manoeuver aimed to prevent the infringement of a predefined distance threshold between ownship and the considered intruder, while minimizing the ownship trajectory deviation from the original path and in compliance with the aircraft performance limitations and dynamic constraints. The algorithm is designed in order to be suitable for real-time applications, so that it can be considered for the implementation in the most recent airborne automatic collision avoidance systems using the traffic data received through an ADS-B IN device. The presented approach is able to take into account the rules-of-the-air, due to the possibility to select, through specifically designed decision making logic based on the consideration of the encounter geometry, the direction of the calculated collision avoidance manoeuver that allows complying with the rules-of-the-air, as for instance the fundamental right of way rule. In the paper, the proposed collision avoidance algorithm is presented and its preliminary design and software implementation is described. The applicability of this method has been proved through preliminary simulation tests performed in a 2D environment considering single intruder encounter geometries, as reported and discussed in the paper.

Super-ellipsoidal Potential Function for Autonomous Collision Avoidance of a Teleoperated UAV

In this paper, we present the design of the super-ellipsoidal potential function (SEPF), that can be used for autonomous collision avoidance of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in a 3-dimensional space. In the design of SEPF, we have the full control over the shape and size of the potential function. In particular, we can adjust the length, width, height, and the amount of flattening at the tips of the potential function so that the collision avoidance motion vector generated from the potential function can be adjusted accordingly. Based on the idea of the SEPF, we also propose an approach for the local autonomy of a UAV for its collision avoidance when the UAV is teleoperated by a human operator. In our proposed approach, a teleoperated UAV can not only avoid collision autonomously with other surrounding objects but also track the operator’s control input as closely as possible. As a result, an operator can always be in control of the UAV for his/her high-level guidance and navigation task without worrying too much about the UAVs collision avoidance while it is being teleoperated. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated through a human-in-the-loop simulation of quadrotor UAV teleoperation using virtual robot experimentation platform (v-rep) and Matlab programs.

Classification of Earthquake Distribution in the Banda Sea Collision Zone with Point Process Approach

Banda Sea Collision Zone (BSCZ) is the result of the interaction and convergence of Indo-Australian plate, Eurasian plate and Pacific plate. This location is located in eastern Indonesia. This zone has a very high seismic activity. In this research, we will calculate the rate (λ) and Mean Square Error (MSE). By this result, we will classification earthquakes distribution in the BSCZ with the point process approach. Chi-square is used to determine the type of earthquakes distribution in the sub region of BSCZ. The data used in this research is data of earthquakes with a magnitude ≥ 6 SR for the period 1964-2013 and sourced from BMKG Jakarta. This research is expected to contribute to the Moluccas Province and surrounding local governments in performing spatial plan document related to disaster management.

Mechanical Testing of Composite Materials for Monocoque Design in Formula Student Car

Inspired by the Formula-1 competition, IMechE (Institute of Mechanical Engineers) and Formula SAE (Society of Mechanical Engineers) organize annual competitions for University and College students worldwide to compete with a single-seat racecar they have designed and built. Design of the chassis or the frame is a key component of the competition because the weight and stiffness properties are directly related with the performance of the car and the safety of the driver. In addition, a reduced weight of the chassis has direct influence on the design of other components in the car. Among others, it improves the power to weight ratio and the aerodynamic performance. As the power output of the engine or the battery installed in the car is limited to 80 kW, increasing the power to weight ratio demands reduction of the weight of the chassis, which represents the major part of the weight of the car. In order to reduce the weight of the car, ION Racing team from University of Stavanger, Norway, opted for a monocoque design. To ensure fulfilment of the competition requirements of the chassis, the monocoque design should provide sufficient torsional stiffness and absorb the impact energy in case of possible collision. The study reported in this article is based on the requirements for Formula Student competition. As part of this study, diverse mechanical tests were conducted to determine the mechanical properties and performances of the monocoque design. Upon a comprehensive theoretical study of the mechanical properties of sandwich composite materials and the requirements of monocoque design in the competition rules, diverse tests were conducted including 3-point bending test, perimeter shear test and test for absorbed energy. The test panels were homemade and prepared with equivalent size of the side impact zone of the monocoque, i.e. 275 mm x 500 mm, so that the obtained results from the tests can be representative. Different layups of the test panels with identical core material and the same number of layers of carbon fibre were tested and compared. Influence of the core material thickness was also studied. Furthermore, analytical calculations and numerical analysis were conducted to check compliance to the stated rules for Structural Equivalency with steel grade SAE/AISI 1010. The test results were also compared with calculated results with respect to bending and torsional stiffness, energy absorption, buckling, etc. The obtained results demonstrate that the material composition and strength of the composite material selected for the monocoque design has equivalent structural properties as a welded frame and thus comply with the competition requirements. The developed analytical calculation algorithms and relations will be useful for future monocoque designs with different lay-ups and compositions.

Three-Dimensional Off-Line Path Planning for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Using Modified Particle Swarm Optimization

This paper addresses the problem of offline path planning for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in complex threedimensional environment with obstacles, which is modelled by 3D Cartesian grid system. Path planning for UAVs require the computational intelligence methods to move aerial vehicles along the flight path effectively to target while avoiding obstacles. In this paper Modified Particle Swarm Optimization (MPSO) algorithm is applied to generate the optimal collision free 3D flight path for UAV. The simulations results clearly demonstrate effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in guiding UAV to the final destination by providing optimal feasible path quickly and effectively.

Quantum Statistical Mechanical Formulations of Three-Body Problems via Non-Local Potentials

In this paper, we present a quantum statistical mechanical formulation from our recently analytical expressions for partial-wave transition matrix of a three-particle system. We report the quantum reactive cross sections for three-body scattering processes 1+(2,3)→1+(2,3) as well as recombination 1+(2,3)→1+(3,1) between one atom and a weakly-bound dimer. The analytical expressions of three-particle transition matrices and their corresponding cross-sections were obtained from the threedimensional Faddeev equations subjected to the rank-two non-local separable potentials of the generalized Yamaguchi form. The equilibrium quantum statistical mechanical properties such partition function and equation of state as well as non-equilibrium quantum statistical properties such as transport cross-sections and their corresponding transport collision integrals were formulated analytically. This leads to obtain the transport properties, such as viscosity and diffusion coefficient of a moderate dense gas.

Power Series Solution to Sliding Velocity in Three-Dimensional Multibody Systems with Impact and Friction

The system of ordinary nonlinear differential equations describing sliding velocity during impact with friction for a three-dimensional rigid-multibody system is developed. No analytical solutions have been obtained before for this highly nonlinear system. Hence, a power series solution is proposed. Since the validity of this solution is limited to its convergence zone, a suitable time step is chosen and at the end of it a new series solution is constructed. For a case study, the trajectory of the sliding velocity using the proposed method is built using 6 time steps, which coincides with a Runge- Kutta solution using 38 time steps.

An Optimized Virtual Scheme for Reducing Collisions in MAC Layer

The main function of Medium Access Control (MAC) is to share the channel efficiently between all nodes. In the real-time scenario, there will be certain amount of wastage in bandwidth due to back-off periods. More bandwidth will be wasted in idle state if the back-off period is very high and collision may occur if the back-off period is small. So, an optimization is needed for this problem. The main objective of the work is to reduce delay due to back-off period thereby reducing collision and increasing throughput. Here a method, called the virtual back-off algorithm (VBA) is used to optimize the back-off period and thereby it increases throughput and reduces collisions. The main idea is to optimize the number of transmission for every node. A counter is introduced at each node to implement this idea. Here counter value represents the sequence number. VBA is classified into two types VBA with counter sharing (VBA-CS) and VBA with no counter sharing (VBA-NCS). These two classifications of VBA are compared for various parameters. Simulation is done in NS-2 environment. The results obtained are found to be promising. 

Realization of Soliton Phase Characteristics in 10 Gbps, Single Channel, Uncompensated Telecommunication System

In this paper, the dependence of soliton pulses with respect to phase in a 10Gbps, single channel, dispersion uncompensated telecommunication system was studied. The characteristic feature of periodic soliton interaction was noted at the Interaction point (I=6202.5Km) in one collision length of L=12405.1 Km. The interaction point is located for 10Gbps system with an initial relative spacing (qo) of soliton as 5.28 using Perturbation theory. It is shown that, when two in-phase solitons are launched, they interact at the point I=6202.5 Km, but the interaction could be restricted with introduction of different phase initially. When the phase of the input solitons increases, the deviation of soliton pulses at the ‘I’ also increases. We have successfully demonstrated this effect in a telecommunication set-up in terms of Quality factor (Q), where the Q=0 for in-phase soliton. The Q was noted to be 125.9, 38.63, 47.53, 59.60, 161.37, and 78.04 for different phases such as 10o, 20o, 30o, 45o, 60o and 90o degrees respectively at Interaction point (I).

Real-time Detection of Space Manipulator Self-collision

In order to avoid self-collision of space manipulators during operation process, a real-time detection method is proposed in this paper. The manipulator is fitted into a cylinder-enveloping surface, and then, a kind of detection algorithm of collision between cylinders is analyzed. The collision model of space manipulator self-links can be detected by using this algorithm in real-time detection during the operation process. To ensure security of the operation, a safety threshold is designed. The simulation and experiment results verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm for a 7-DOF space manipulator.

Flexural Performance of the Sandwich Structures Having Aluminum Foam Core with Different Thicknesses

The structures obtained with the use of sandwich technologies combine low weight with high energy absorbing capacity and load carrying capacity. Hence, there is a growing and markedly interest in the use of sandwiches with aluminum foam core because of very good properties such as flexural rigidity and energy absorption capability. In the current investigation, the static threepoint bending tests were carried out on the sandwiches with aluminum foam core and glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) skins at different values of support span distances aiming the analyses of their flexural performance. The influence of the core thickness and the GFRP skin type was reported in terms of peak load and energy absorption capacity. For this purpose, the skins with two different types of fabrics which have same thickness value and the aluminum foam core with two different thicknesses were bonded with a commercial polyurethane based flexible adhesive in order to combine the composite sandwich panels. The main results of the bending tests are: force-displacement curves, peak force values, absorbed energy, collapse mechanisms and the effect of the support span length and core thickness. The results of the experimental study showed that the sandwich with the skins made of S-Glass Woven fabrics and with the thicker foam core presented higher mechanical values such as load carrying and energy absorption capacities. The increment of the support span distance generated the decrease of the mechanical values for each type of panels, as expected, because of the inverse proportion between the force and span length. The most common failure types of the sandwiches are debonding of the lower skin and the core shear. The obtained results have particular importance for applications that require lightweight structures with a high capacity of energy dissipation, such as the transport industry (automotive, aerospace, shipbuilding and marine industry), where the problems of collision and crash have increased in the last years.

A Novel Eccentric Lapping Method with Two Rotatable Lapping Plates for Finishing Cemented Carbide Balls

Cemented carbide balls are usually implemented in industry under the environment of high speed, high temperature, corrosiveness and strong collisions. However, its application is limited due to high fabrication cost, processing efficiency and quality. A novel eccentric lapping method with two rotatable lapping plates was proposed in this paper. A mathematical model was constructed to analyze the influence of each design parameter on this lapping method. To validate this new lapping method, an orthogonal experiment was conducted with cemented carbide balls (YG6). The simulation model was verified and the optimal lapping parameters were derived. The results show that the surface roundness of the balls reaches to 0.65um from 2um in 1 hour using this lapping method. So, using this novel lapping method, it can effectively improve the machining precision and efficiency of cemented carbide balls.

Data Rate Based Grouping Scheme for Cooperative Communications in Wireless LANs

IEEE 802.11a/b/g standards provide multiple transmission rates, which can be changed dynamically according to the channel condition. Cooperative communications were introduced to improve the overall performance of wireless LANs with the help of relay nodes with higher transmission rates. The cooperative communications are based on the fact that the transmission is much faster when sending data packets to a destination node through a relay node with higher transmission rate, rather than sending data directly to the destination node at low transmission rate. To apply the cooperative communications in wireless LAN, several MAC protocols have been proposed. Some of them can result in collisions among relay nodes in a dense network. In order to solve this problem, we propose a new protocol. Relay nodes are grouped based on their transmission rates. And then, relay nodes only in the highest group try to get channel access. Performance evaluation is conducted using simulation, and shows that the proposed protocol significantly outperforms the previous protocol in terms of throughput and collision probability.

Performance Evaluation of an Efficient Asynchronous Protocol for WDM Ring MANs

The idea of the asynchronous transmission in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) ring MANs is studied in this paper. Especially, we present an efficient access technique to coordinate the collisions-free transmission of the variable sizes of IP traffic in WDM ring core networks. Each node is equipped with a tunable transmitter and a tunable receiver. In this way, all the wavelengths are exploited for both transmission and reception. In order to evaluate the performance measures of average throughput, queuing delay and packet dropping probability at the buffers, a simulation model that assumes symmetric access rights among the nodes is developed based on Poisson statistics. Extensive numerical results show that the proposed protocol achieves apart from high bandwidth exploitation for a wide range of offered load, fairness of queuing delay and dropping events among the different packets size categories.

Estimation of Thermal Conductivity of Nanofluids Using MD-Stochastic Simulation Based Approach

The thermal conductivity of a fluid can be significantly enhanced by dispersing nano-sized particles in it, and the resultant fluid is termed as "nanofluid". A theoretical model for estimating the thermal conductivity of a nanofluid has been proposed here. It is based on the mechanism that evenly dispersed nanoparticles within a nanofluid undergo Brownian motion in course of which the nanoparticles repeatedly collide with the heat source. During each collision a rapid heat transfer occurs owing to the solidsolid contact. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation of the collision of nanoparticles with the heat source has shown that there is a pulselike pick up of heat by the nanoparticles within 20-100 ps, the extent of which depends not only on thermal conductivity of the nanoparticles, but also on the elastic and other physical properties of the nanoparticle. After the collision the nanoparticles undergo Brownian motion in the base fluid and release the excess heat to the surrounding base fluid within 2-10 ms. The Brownian motion and associated temperature variation of the nanoparticles have been modeled by stochastic analysis. Repeated occurrence of these events by the suspended nanoparticles significantly contributes to the characteristic thermal conductivity of the nanofluids, which has been estimated by the present model for a ethylene glycol based nanofluid containing Cu-nanoparticles of size ranging from 8 to 20 nm, with Gaussian size distribution. The prediction of the present model has shown a reasonable agreement with the experimental data available in literature.

Comparison of GSA, SA and PSO Based Intelligent Controllers for Path Planning of Mobile Robot in Unknown Environment

Now-a-days autonomous mobile robots have found applications in diverse fields. An autonomous robot system must be able to behave in an intelligent manner to deal with complex and changing environment. This work proposes the performance of path planning and navigation of autonomous mobile robot using Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA), Simulated Annealing (SA) and Particle Swarm optimization (PSO) based intelligent controllers in an unstructured environment. The approach not only finds a valid collision free path but also optimal one. The main aim of the work is to minimize the length of the path and duration of travel from a starting point to a target while moving in an unknown environment with obstacles without collision. Finally, a comparison is made between the three controllers, it is found that the path length and time duration made by the robot using GSA is better than SA and PSO based controllers for the same work.

A Numerical Study of Force-Based Boundary Conditions in Multiparticle Collision Dynamics

We propose a new alternative method for imposing fluid-solid boundary conditions in simulations of Multiparticle Collision Dynamics. Our method is based on the introduction of an explicit potential force acting between the fluid particles and a surface representing a solid boundary. We show that our method can be used in simulations of plane Poiseuille flows. Important quantities characterizing the flow and the fluid-solid interaction like the slip coefficient at the solid boundary and the effective viscosity of the fluid, are measured in terms of the set of independent parameters defining the numerical implementation. We find that our method can be used to simulate the correct hydrodynamic flow within a wide range of values of these parameters.

Earthquake Classification in Molluca Collision Zone Using Conventional Statistical Methods

Molluca Collision Zone is located at the junction of the Eurasian, Australian, Pacific and the Philippines plates. Between the Sangihe arc, west of the collision zone, and to the east of Halmahera arc is active collision and convex toward the Molluca Sea. This research will analyze the behavior of earthquake occurrence in Molluca Collision Zone related to the distributions of an earthquake in each partition regions, determining the type of distribution of a occurrence earthquake of partition regions, and the mean occurence of earthquakes each partition regions, and the correlation between the partitions region. We calculate number of earthquakes using partition method and its behavioral using conventional statistical methods. In this research, we used data of shallow earthquakes type and its magnitudes ≥4 SR (period 1964-2013). From the results, we can classify partitioned regions based on the correlation into two classes: strong and very strong. This classification can be used for early warning system in disaster management.

Neural Network in Fixed Time for Collision Detection between Two Convex Polyhedra

In this paper, a different architecture of a collision detection neural network (DCNN) is developed. This network, which has been particularly reviewed, has enabled us to solve with a new approach the problem of collision detection between two convex polyhedra in a fixed time (O (1) time). We used two types of neurons, linear and threshold logic, which simplified the actual implementation of all the networks proposed. The study of the collision detection is divided into two sections, the collision between a point and a polyhedron and then the collision between two convex polyhedra. The aim of this research is to determine through the AMAXNET network a mini maximum point in a fixed time, which allows us to detect the presence of a potential collision.

Arbitrary Amplitude Ion-Acoustic Solitary Waves in Electron-Ion-Positron Plasma with Nonthermal Electrons

Using pseudo potential method arbitrary amplitude ion-acoustic solitary waves have been theoretically studied in a collisionless plasma consisting of warm drifting positive ions, Boltzmann positrons and nonthermal electrons. Ion-acoustic solitary wave solutions have been obtained and the dependence of the solitary wave profile on different plasma parameters has been studied numerically. Lower and higher order compressive and rarefactive solitary waves are observed in presence of positrons, nonthermal electrons, ion drift velocity and finite ion temperature. Inclusion of higher order nonlinearity is shown to have significant correction to the solitary wave profile for the same values of plasma parameters.