This paper proposes a simple adaptive sliding mode control algorithm for controlling a permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) of a MW-class direct-driven wind turbine system. The proposed adaptive sliding mode controller does not require accurate knowledge of the PMSG parameter or turbine torque values. The proposed controller can accurately track the reference angular speed computed by the maximum power point tracking(MPPT) algorithm. Finally, this paper gives Matlab/Simulink simulation results to verify the practicality and effectiveness of the proposed adaptive sliding mode controller.

This paper presents a robust finite-time sliding mode control (SMC) scheme for unknown disturbance and unmodeled nonlinear friction and dynamics in the robotic manipulator. A finite-time SMC (FSMC) surface and finite-time sliding mode controller are constructed to obtain faster error convergence than the conventional infinite-time based SMC. By adding prescribed constraint control term to a finite-time SMC to compensate for unknown disturbance and uncertainties, a robust control scheme can be designed as well as faster convergence control. In addition, simpler controller structure is built by using feed-forwarding upper bound coefficients of each manipulator dynamic parameters instead of model-based control or adaptive observer to estimate unknown manipulator parameters. Simulation and experimental evaluations highlight the efficacy of the proposed control scheme for an articulated robotic manipulator.

This paper presents a novel robust adaptive AC8B exciter system against synchronous generators for ships. A PID (proportional integral derivative) control framework, which is a part of the AC8B exciter system, is simply composed of nominal and auxiliary control configurations. For selecting these proper parameter values, the former is conventionally chosen based on the experience and knowledge of experts, and the latter is optimally estimated via a neural networks optimization procedure. Additionally, we propose an online parameter learning-based auxiliary control to practically cope with deterioration of control performance owing to uncertainty in electric generator systems. Such a control mechanism ensures the robustness and adaptability of an AC8B exciter to enhance control performance in real-time implementation. We carried out simulation experiments to test the reliability of the proposed robust adaptive AC8B exciter system and prove its superiority through a comparative study in which a conventional PID control-based AC8B exciter system is similarly applied to our simulation experiments under the same simulation scenarios.

In industrial applications, there are disturbances and uncertainties that bring unfavorable effects to achieving the desired performance of a closed-loop system. Not surprisingly, many researchers have developed various techniques to attenuate influence of the disturbance. One intuitive idea is to design a disturbance estimator, called a disturbance observer, and cancel the effects by feedback action. This paper is a survey of disturbance observers and related methods. We categorize existing methods by design approach, applied system, and characterization of disturbance. Several disturbance observers are explained by simple examples. The readers could use this paper to help understand the configurations of representative disturbance observer methods.

This paper presents a robust speed control of an autonomous vehicle using a disturbance observer. For the purpose, the transfer function of speed dynamics of an autonomous vehicle is identified using step response data. Based on the identified transfer function, model based PID (Proportional-Integral-Derivative) control is designed. In order to design a robust control against load variations on the vehicle, a disturbance observer (DOB) based control is devised. The performance of the designed DOB based control is demonstrated by real experiments.

This paper proposes an adaptive robust control method for an acrobot system in the presence of input disturbance. The acrobot system is a typical example of the underactuated system with complex nonlinearity and strong dynamic coupling. Also, disturbance can cause limit cycle phenomenon which appears in the acrobot system around the desired unstable equilibrium point. To minimize the effect of the disturbance, we apply a fuzzy disturbance estimation method for the swing-up and balancing control of the acrobot system. In this paper, both disturbance observer and controller for the acrobot system are designed and verified through mathematical proof and simulations.

In this paper, a DOB (disturbance observer) is designed for the steering stabilization of one-wheeled balancing robot. Based on the simple stick model of the single-wheeled robot, DOBs and the corresponding Q filters are designed. Although the proposed models are simple, DOBs are desired to deal with model uncertainties for the enhanced balancing performance. Experimental studies of two different cases of Q filter design are conducted to evaluate the performances of DOBs. Their performances are compared through balancing control experiments.

In this paper, we propose a technique for drowsiness detection using the histogram and edge information of eyes. The drowsiness of vehicle drivers is the main cause of many vehicle accidents. Therefore, the checking of eye images in order to detect the drowsiness status of a driver is very important for preventing accidents. In our suggested method, we analyze the changes of the histograms and edges of eye region images, which are acquired using a CCD camera. The experimental results show that our proposed method enhances the accuracy of detecting drowsiness to nearly 99%, and can be used for preventing vehicle accidents caused by the driver's drowsiness.

In this paper, range measurement performance of LRF (Laser Range Finder) module and image contrast of color CCD camera are evaluated under the aerosol (high temperature steam) environments, which are simulated severe accident conditions of the LWR (Light-Water-Reactor) nuclear power plant. Data of LRF and color CCD camera are key informations, which are needed in the implementation of SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) function for emergency response robot system to cope with urgently accidents of the nuclear power plant.

The sealing technique is widely used for repairing the cracks on the surface of concrete and preventing their expansion in the future. However, it is difficult to ensure the safety of the workers when sealing large structures in inconvenient working environments. This paper presents the development of a sealing robot system to seal various shapes of concrete surface in rough conditions for a long time. If the robot can maintain the desired contact force, the cracks can be completely sealed. An impedance force tracking controller with slope estimator is proposed to calculate the surface slope in real time using the robot position. It predicts the next point in order to prevent the robot from disengaging from the contact surface owing to quick slope changes. The proposed method has been verified by experimental results.

When Flat Panel Display (FPD) is made with backlight module, such as LED TV, it inherently suffers from the non-uniform backlight luminance problem that results in un-even brightness distribution throughout the TV screen. If the luminance of each pixel location of a TV screen as a function of the driving voltage can be measured, it can be used to compensate the non-uniformity of the backlight module. We use a carefully calibrated imaging system to take pictures of a TV screen at different levels of brightness and generate the compensation functions for the driving circuitry to correct the luminance level at each pixel location. Making use of the fact that the luminance of the screen is normally brightest at around the center of the screen and gradually decreases toward the border of the screen, the luminance of the whole TV screen is approximated by a mathematical function of the pixel locations. The parameters of the function are computed in the least square sense by the values of both the pixel luminance sent from the driving circuit and the grayscale value measured from the image taken by the imaging system. To justify the correction system, a simple second order polynomial function is used to approximate the luminance across the screen. When the driving circuit voltage is corrected according to the measured function, the variance of the screen luminance is reduced to one tenth of the one measured from the un-corrected TV screen.