Separating a reentry vehicle into warhead and body is a conventional and efficient means of producing a huge decoy and increasing the kinetic energy of the warhead. This procedure causes the radar to track the body, whose radar cross section is larger, and ignore the warhead, which is the most important part of the reentry vehicle. However, the procedure is difficult to perform using standard tracking criteria. This study presents a novel tracking algorithm by integrating input estimation and modified probabilistic data association filter to solve this difficulty in a clear environment. The proposed algorithm with a new defined association probability in this filter provides a good tracking capability for the warhead ignoring the radar cross section. The simulation results indicate that the errors between the estimated and the warhead trajectories are reduced to a small interval in a short time. Therefore, the radar can produce a beam to illuminate to the right area and keep tracking the warhead all the way. In conclusion, this algorithm is worthy of further study and application.

An $H_2$ filter is derived for time delay systems, where there are time delay terms in the state and in the output. A method to compute the $H_2$ norm of time delay systems is proposed. Based on the $H_2$ norm computation method, an $H_2$ filter design is formulated as a nonlinear optimization problem.

In this paper, PD-like visual servoing is modified in two ways: a sliding-mode observer is applied to estimate the joint velocities, and a RBF neural network is used to compensate the unknown gravity and friction. Based on Lyapunov method and input--to-state stability theory, we prove that PD-like visual servoing with the sliding mode observer and the neuro compensator is robust stable when the gain of the PD controller is bigger than the upper bounds of the uncertainties. Several simulations are presented to support the theory results.

In the real system application, the interacting multiple model (IMM) based algorithm requires less computing resources as well as a good performance with respect to the various target maneuverings. And it further requires an easy design procedure in terms of its structures and parameters. To solve these problems, a fuzzy interacting multiple model (FIMM) algorithm, which is based on the basis sub-models defined by considering the maneuvering property and the time-varying mode transition probabilities designed by using the mode probabilities as inputs of a fuzzy decision maker, is proposed. To verify the performance of the proposed algorithm, airborne target tracking is performed. Simulation results show that the FIMM algorithm solves all problems in the real system application of the IMM based algorithm.

This paper presents the hardware implementation of a neural network controller for a nonlinear system with a micro-controller unit (MCU) and a field programmable gate array (FPGA) chip. As an on-line learning algorithm of a neural network, the reference compensation technique has been implemented on an MCU, while PID controllers with other functions such as counters and PWM generators are implemented on an FPGA chip. Interface between an MCU and a field programmable gate array (FPGA) chip has been developed to complete hardware implementation of a neural controller. The developed neural control hardware has been tested for balancing the inverted pendulum while controlling a desired trajectory of a cart as a nonlinear system.

In a previous research, we presented the Grid Method and confirmed it as a systematic and efficient problem formulation method for the task-oriented design of robot kinematics. However, our previous research was limited in two ways. First, it gave only a local optimum due to its use of a local optimization technique. Second, it used constant weights for a cost function chosen by the manual weights tuning algorithm, thereby showing low efficiency in finding an optimal solution. To overcome these two limitations, therefore, this paper presents a global optimization technique and an adaptive weights tuning algorithm to solve a formulated problem using the Grid Method. The efficiencies of the proposed algorithms have been confirmed through the kinematic design examples of various robot manipulators.

The pattern recognition of the complicated grasping operation based on electroencephalography (simply named as EEG) is very helpful on realtime control of the robotic hand. In the paper, a new spectral feature analysis method based on Band Pass Filter (simply named as BPF) and Power Spectral Analysis (simply named as PSA) is presented for discriminating the complicated grasping operations. By analyzing the spectral features of grasping operations with the use of the two-channel EEG measurement system and the pattern recognition of the BP neural network, the degree of recognition by the traditional spectral feature method based on FFT and the new spectral features method based on BPF and PSA could be compared. The results show that the proposed method provides highly improved performance than the traditional one because the new method has two obvious advantages such as high recognition capability and the fast learning speed.

In this paper, a study on task assignment strategies for a complex real-time network system is presented. Firstly, two task assignment strategies are proposed to improve previous strategies. The proposed strategies assign tasks with meeting end-to-end real-time constraints, and also with optimizing system utilization through period modulation of the tasks. Consequently, the strategies aim at the optimizationto optimize of system performance with while still meeting real-time constraints. The proposed task assignment strategies are devised using the genetic algorithmswith heuristic real-time constraints in the generation of new populations. The strategies are differentiated by the optimization method of the two objectives-meeting end-to-end real-time constraints and optimizing system utilization: the first one has sequential genetic algorithm routines for the objectives, and the second one has one multiple objective genetic algorithm routine to find a Pareto solution. Secondly, the performances of the proposed strategies and a well-known existing task assignment strategy using the BnB(Branch and Bound) optimization are compared with one other through some simulation tests. Through the comparison of the simulation results, the most adequate task assignment strategies are proposed for some as system requirements-: the optimization of system utilization, the maximization of running tasktasks, and the minimization of the number of network node nodesnumber for a network system.

The gyroscope free strap-down INS is composed only of accelerometers. Any gyroscope free INS navigation error is deeply affected by the accuracy of the sensor bias, scale factor, orientation and location error. However these parameters can be found by calibration. There is an important research issue about a multi-position calibration method in this paper. It provides a novel method to find the error parameters for the six-accelerometer INS. A superior simulation is shown that the multi-position calibration can find the specifications of a six-accelerometer INS in laboratory. From these parameters the six-accelerometer INS could apply in realistic navigation.

This paper proposes a hybrid approach involving Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Bacterial Foraging (BF) for tuning the PID controller of an AVR. Recently the social foraging behavior of E. coli bacteria has been used to solve optimization problems. We first illustrate the proposed method using four test functions and the performance of the algorithm is studied with an emphasis on mutation, crossover, variation of step sizes, chemotactic steps, and the life time of the bacteria. Further, the proposed algorithm is used for tuning the PID controller of an AVR. Simulation results are very encouraging and this approach provides us a novel hybrid model based on foraging behavior with a possible new connection between evolutionary forces in social foraging and distributed non-gradient optimization algorithm design for global optimization over noisy surfaces.

Biomedical image is often complex. An applied image analysis system should deal with the images which are of quite low quality and are challenging to segment. This paper presents a framework for color cell image segmentation by learning and classification online. It is a robust two-stage scheme using kernel method and watershed transform. In first stage, a two-class SVM is employed to discriminate the pixels of object from background; where the SVM is trained on the data which has been analyzed using the mean shift procedure. A real-time training strategy is also developed for SVM. In second stage, as the post-processing, local watershed transform is used to separate clustering cells. Comparison with the SSF (Scale space filter) and classical watershed-based algorithm (those are often employed for cell image segmentation) is given. Experimental results demonstrate that the new method is more accurate and robust than compared methods.

In this paper a new type of filter, called the $H_2/H_{\infty}$ FIR filter, is proposed for discrete-time state space signal models. The proposed filter requires linearity, unbiased property, FIR structure, and independence of the initial state information in addition to the performance criteria in both $H_2$ and $H_{infty}$ sense. It is shown that $H_2,\;H_{\infty}$, and $H_2/H_{\infty}$ FIR filter design problems can be converted into convex programming problems via linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) with a linear equality constraint. Simulation studies illustrate that the proposed FIR filter is more robust against temporary uncertainties and has faster convergence than the conventional IIR filters.

The design of $H_2$-optimal control with regional pole assignment via state feedback in linear time-invariant systems is investigated. The aim is to find a state feedback controller such that the closed-loop system has the desired eigenvalues lying in some desired stable regions and attenuates the disturbance between the output vector and the disturbance vector. Based on a proposed result of parametric eigenstructure assignment via state feedback in linear systems, the considered $H_2$-optimal control problem is changed into a minimization problem with certain constraints, and a simple and effective algorithm is proposed for this considered problem. A numerical example and its simulation results show the simplicity and effectiveness of this proposed algorithm.

This paper presents a novel region-based snake method for vessel segmentation. According to geometric shape analysis of the vessel structure with different scale, an efficient statistical estimation of vessel branches is introduced into the energy objective function, which applies not only the vessel intensity information, but also geometric information of line-like structure in the image. The defined energy function is minimized using the gradient descent method and a new region-based speed function is obtained, which is more accurate to the vessel structure and not sensitive to the initial condition. The narrow band algorithm in the level set framework implements the proposed method, the solution of which is steady. The segmentation experiments are shown on several images. Compared with other geometric active contour models, the proposed method is more efficient and robust.