Recently, the measurement of the pupil dilation response has been applied in many studies to assess listening effort. Meanwhile, the mechanisms underlying this response are still largely unknown. We present the results of a method that separates the influence of the parasympathetic and sympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system on the pupil response during speech perception. This is achieved by changing the background illumination level. In darkness, the influence of the parasympathetic nervous system on the pupil response is minimal, whereas in light, there is an additional component from the parasympathetic nervous system. Nineteen hearing-impaired and 27 age-matched normal-hearing listeners performed speech reception threshold tests targeting a 50% correct performance level while pupil responses were recorded. The target speech was masked with a competing talker. The test was conducted twice, once in dark and once in a light condition. Need for Recovery and Checklist Individual Strength questionnaires were acquired as indices of daily-life fatigue. In dark, the peak pupil dilation (PPD) did not differ between the two groups, but in light, the normal-hearing group showed a larger PPD than the hearing-impaired group. Listeners with better hearing acuity showed larger differences in dilation between dark and light. These results indicate a larger effect of parasympathetic inhibition on the pupil dilation response of listeners with better hearing acuity, and a relatively high parasympathetic activity in those with worse hearing. Previously observed differences in PPD between normal and impaired listeners are probably not solely because of differences in listening effort.

Electrophysiological feedback on activity in the auditory pathway may potentially advance the next generation of hearing aids. Conventional electroencephalographic (EEG) systems are, however, impractical during daily life and incompatible with hearing aids. Ear-EEG is a method in which the EEG is recorded from electrodes embedded in a hearing aid like earpiece. The method therefore provides an unobtrusive way of measuring neural activity suitable for use in everyday life. This study aimed to determine whether ear-EEG could be used to estimate hearing thresholds in subjects with sensorineural hearing loss. Specifically, ear-EEG was used to determine physiological thresholds at 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 kHz using auditory steady-state response measurements. To evaluate ear-EEG in relation to current methods, thresholds were estimated from a concurrently recorded conventional scalp EEG. The threshold detection rate for ear-EEG was 20% lower than the detection rate for scalp EEG. Thresholds estimated using in-ear referenced ear-EEG were found to be elevated at an average of 5.9, 2.3, 5.6, and 1.5 dB relative to scalp thresholds at 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 kHz, respectively. No differences were found in the variance of means between in-ear ear-EEG and scalp EEG. In-ear ear-EEG, auditory steady-state response thresholds were found at 12.1 to 14.4 dB sensation level with an intersubject variation comparable to that of behavioral thresholds. Collectively, it is concluded that although further refinement of the method is needed to optimize the threshold detection rate, ear-EEG is a feasible method for hearing threshold level estimation in subjects with sensorineural hearing impairment.

Input design is an important issue for classical system identification methods but has not been investigated for the kernel-based regularization method (KRM) until very recently. In this paper, we consider the input design problem of KRMs for LTI system identification. Different from the recent result, we adopt a Bayesian perspective and in particular make use of scalar measures (e.g., the A-optimality, D-optimality, and E-optimality) of the Bayesian mean square error matrix as the design criteria subject to power-constraint on the input. Instead of solving the optimization problem directly, we propose a two-step procedure. In the first step, by making suitable assumptions on the unknown input, we construct a quadratic map (transformation) of the input such that the transformed input design problems are convex, and the global minima of the transformed input design problem can thus be found efficiently by applying well-developed convex optimization software packages. In the second step, we derive the characterization of the optimal input based on the global minima found in the first step by solving the inverse image of the quadratic map. In addition, we derive analytic results for some special types of kernels, which provide insights on the input design and also its dependence on the kernel structure. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In this paper. we develop new methods to automatically detect the onset and duration of freezing of gait (FOG) in people with Parkinson disease (PD) in real time, using inertial sensors. We first build a physical model that describes the trembling motion during the FOG events. Then, we design a generalized likelihood ratio test framework to develop a two-stage detector for determining the zero-velocity and trembling events during gait. Thereafter, to filter out falsely detected FOG events, we develop a point-process filter that combines the output of the detectors with information about the speed of the foot, provided by a foot-mounted inertial navigation system. We computed the probability of FOG by using the point-process filter to determine the onset and duration of the FOG event. Finally, we validate the performance of the proposed system design using real data obtained from people with PD who performed a set of gait tasks. We compare our FOG detection results with an existing method that only uses accelerometer data. The results indicate that our method yields 81.03% accuracy in detecting FOG events and a threefold decrease in the false-alarm rate relative to the existing method.

This work investigates the energy consumption of industrial robots in the context of automotive industry. The purpose is to identify the most influencing parameters and variables and to propose best practices with focus on energy efficiency. The analysis approach is composed of three experiments performed in a simulation environment that test different values of programming parameters and variables, such as joint speed, acceleration, robot payload. The first experiment focuses on energy consumption of robots at standstill. The second one considers the robot moving along different paths. Finally, the third one analyses how the joint friction is affected by load, speed and temperature and how it influences the energy consumption. Results show that at standstill, it is important to reduce dwell time, select an energy efficient position and reduce the programmed value of the timer responsible for turning off the servomotors. While moving, it is important to select maximum continuous termination for intermediate points and avoid low speeds. Regarding friction variation, results show that at high motor speed, low temperatures increase energy consumption. In order to evaluate the contribution of the best practices in a real environment, they are applied to a welding robotic cell of an automotive industry.

Model predictive control (MPC) represents nowadays one of the main methods employed for process control in industry. Its strong suits comprise a simple algorithm based on a straightforward formulation and the flexibility to deal with constraints. On the other hand, it can be questioned its robustness regarding model uncertainties and external noises. Thus, a lot of efforts have been spent in the past years into the search of methods to address these shortcomings. In this study, the authors propose a robust MPC controller which stems from the idea of adding robustness in the prediction phase of the algorithm while leaving the core of MPC untouched. More precisely, they consider a robust Kalman filter that has been recently introduced and they further extend its usability to feedback control systems. Overall the proposed control algorithm allows to maintain all of the advantages of MPC with an additional improvement in performance and without any drawbacks in terms of computational complexity. To test the actual reliability of the algorithm, they apply it to control a servomechanism system characterised by non-linear dynamics.

The aim of this paper is to modify continuous-time bounded confidence opinion dynamics models so that "changes of opinion" (intended as changes of the sign of the initial states) are never induced during the evolution. Such sign invariance can be achieved by letting opinions of different sign localized near the origin interact negatively, or neglect each other, or even repel each other. In all cases, it is possible to obtain sign-preserving bounded confidence models with state-dependent connectivity and with a clustering behavior similar to that of a standard bounded confidence model. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Sleep scoring is used as a diagnostic technique in the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders. Automated sleep scoring is crucial, since the large volume of data should be analyzed visually by the sleep specialists which is burdensome, time-consuming tedious, subjective, and error prone. Therefore, automated sleep stage classification is a crucial step in sleep research and sleep disorder diagnosis. In this paper, a robust system, consisting of three modules, is proposed for automated classification of sleep stages from the single-channel electroencephalogram (EEG). In the first module, signals taken from Pz-Oz electrode were denoised using multiscale principal component analysis. In the second module, the most informative features are extracted using discrete wavelet transform (DWT), and then, statistical values of DWT subbands are calculated. In the third module, extracted features were fed into an ensemble classifier, which can be called as rotational support vector machine (RotSVM). The proposed classifier combines advantages of the principal component analysis and SVM to improve classification performances of the traditional SVM. The sensitivity and accuracy values across all subjects were 84.46% and 91.1%, respectively, for the five-stage sleep classification with Cohens kappa coefficient of 0.88. Obtained classification performance results indicate that, it is possible to have an efficient sleep monitoring system with a single-channel EEG, and can be used effectively in medical and home-care applications.

Distributed algorithms for solving coupled semidefinite programs commonly require many iterations to converge. They also put high computational demand on the computational agents. In this paper, we show that in case the coupled problem has an inherent tree structure, it is possible to devise an efficient distributed algorithm for solving such problems. The proposed algorithm relies on predictor- corrector primal-dual interior-point methods, where we use a message-passing algorithm to compute the search directions distributedly. Message passing here is closely related to dynamic programming over trees. This allows us to compute the exact search directions in a finite number of steps. This is because computing the search directions requires a recursion over the tree structure and, hence, terminates after an upward and downward pass through the tree. Furthermore, this number can be computed a priori and only depends on the coupling structure of the problem. We use the proposed algorithm for analyzing robustness of large-scale uncertain systems distributedly. We test the performance of this algorithm using numerical examples.

The commercial interest in proximity services is increasing. Application examples include location-based information and advertisements, logistics, social networking, file sharing, etc. In this paper, we consider positioning of devices based on a time series of proximity reports from a mobile device to a network node. This corresponds to nonlinear measurements with respect to the device position in relation to the network nodes. Motion model will be needed together with the measurements to determine the position of the device. Therefore, sequential Monte Carlo methods, namely particle filtering and smoothing, are applicable for positioning. Positioning performance is evaluated in a typical office area with Bluetooth-low-energy beacons deployed for proximity detection and report, and is further compared to parametric Cramér-Rao lower bounds. Finally, the position accuracy is also evaluated with real experimental data.

Identification of structured state-space (gray-box) model is popular for modeling physical and network systems. Due to the non-convex nature of the gray-box identification problem, good initial parameter estimates are crucial for successful applications. In this paper, the non-convex gray-box identification problem is reformulated as a structured low-rank matrix factorization problem by exploiting the rank and structured properties of a block Hankel matrix constructed by the system impulse response. To address the low-rank optimization problem, it is first transformed into a difference-of-convex (DC) formulation and then solved using the sequentially convex relaxation method. Compared with the classical gray-box identification methods like the prediction-error method (PEM), the new approach turns out to be more robust against converging to non-global minima, as supported by a simulation study. The developed identification can either be directly used for gray-box identification or provide an initial parameter estimate for the PEM. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The aim of this paper is to shed light on the problem of controlling a complex network with minimal control energy. We show first that the control energy depends on the time constant of the modes of the network, and that the closer the eigenvalues are to the imaginary axis of the complex plane, the less energy is required for complete controllability. In the limit case of networks having all purely imaginary eigenvalues (e.g. networks of coupled harmonic oscillators), several constructive algorithms for minimum control energy driver node selection are developed. A general heuristic principle valid for any directed network is also proposed: the overall cost of controlling a network is reduced when the controls are concentrated on the nodes with highest ratio of weighted outdegree vs indegree.

In Model Predictive Control (MPC), the control input is computed by solving a constrained finite-time optimal control (CFTOC) problem at each sample in the control loop. The main computational effort when solving the CFTOC problem using an active-set (AS) method is often spent on computing the search directions, which in MPC corresponds to solving unconstrained finite-time optimal control (UFTOC) problems. This is commonly performed using Riccati recursions or generic sparsity exploiting algorithms. In this work the focus is efficient search direction computations for AS type methods. The system of equations to be solved at each AS iteration is changed only by a low-rank modification of the previous one, and exploiting this structured change is important for the performance of AS type solvers. In this paper, theory for how to exploit these low-rank changes by modifying the Riccati factorization between AS iterations in a structured way is presented. A numerical evaluation of the proposed algorithm shows that the computation time can be significantly reduced by modifying, instead of re-computing, the Riccati factorization. This speed-up can be important for AS type solvers used for linear, nonlinear and hybrid MPC.

Merge scenarios confront drivers with some of the most complicated driving maneuvers in every day driving, requiring anticipatory reasoning of positions of other vehicles, and the own vehicles future trajectory. In congested traffic it might be impossible to merge without cooperation of up-stream vehicles, therefore, it is essential to gauge the effect of our own trajectory when planning a merge maneuver. For an autonomous vehicle to perform a merge maneuver in congested traffic similar capabilities are required. This includes a model describing the future evolution of the scene that allows for optimizing the autonomous vehicle's planned trajectory with respect to risk, comfort, and dynamical limitations. We present a probabilistic model that explicitly models interaction between vehicles and allows for evaluating the utility of a large number of candidate trajectories of an autonomous vehicle using a receding horizon approach in order to select an appropriate merge maneuver. The model is an extension of the intelligent driver model and the modeled behavior of other vehicles are adjusted using on-line model parameter estimation in order to give better predictions. The prediction model is evaluated using naturalistic traffic data and the merge maneuver planner is evaluated in simulation.

State-space smoothing has found many applications in science and engineering. Under linear and Gaussian assumptions, smoothed estimates can be obtained using efficient recursions, for example Rauch Tung Striebel and Mayne Fraser algorithms. Such schemes are equivalent to linear algebraic techniques that minimize a convex quadratic objective function with structure induced by the dynamic model. These classical formulations fall short in many important circumstances. For instance, smoothers obtained using quadratic penalties can fail when outliers are present in the data, and cannot track impulsive inputs and abrupt state changes. Motivated by these shortcomings, generalized Kalman smoothing formulations have been proposed in the last few years, replacing quadratic models with more suitable, often nonsmooth, convex functions. In contrast to classical models, these general estimators require use of iterated algorithms, and these have received increased attention from control, signal processing, machine learning, and optimization communities. In this survey we show that the optimization viewpoint provides the control and signal processing community great freedom in the development of novel modeling and inference frameworks for dynamical systems. We discuss general statistical models for dynamic systems, making full use of nonsmooth convex penalties and constraints, and providing links to important models in signal processing and machine learning. We also survey optimization techniques for these formulations, paying close attention to dynamic problem structure. Modeling concepts and algorithms are illustrated with numerical examples. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Predicting the sign of press perturbation responses in ecological networks is challenging, due to the poor knowledge of the strength of the direct interactions among the species, and to the entangled coexistence of direct and indirect effects. We show in this paper that, for a class of networks that includes mutualistic and monotone networks, the sign of press perturbation responses can be qualitatively determined based only on the sign pattern of the community matrix, without any knowledge of parameter values. For other classes of networks, we show that a semi-qualitative approach yields sufficient conditions for community matrices with a given sign pattern to exhibit mutualistic responses to press perturbations; quantitative conditions can be provided as well for community matrices that are eventually nonnegative. We also present a computational test that can be applied to any class of networks so as to check whether the sign of the responses to press perturbations is constant in spite of parameter variations.

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In this paper, we study the problem of controlling complex networks with unilateral controls, i.e., controls which can assume only positive or negative values, not both. Given a complex network represented by the adjacency matrix A, an algorithm is developed that constructs an input matrix B such that the resulting system (A, B) is controllable with a near minimal number of unilateral control inputs. This is made possible by a reformulation of classical conditions for controllability that casts the minimal unilateral input selection problem into well known optimization problems. We identify network properties that make unilateral controllability relatively easy to achieve as compared to unrestricted controllability. The analysis of the network topology for instance allows us to establish theoretical bounds on the minimal number of controls required. For various categories of random networks as well as for a number of real-world networks these lower bounds are often achieved by our heuristics.

We propose a novel class of Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) algorithms, appropriate for inference in probabilistic graphical models. This class of algorithms adopts a divide-and-conquer approach based upon an auxiliary tree-structured decomposition of the model of interest, turning the overall inferential task into a collection of recursively solved subproblems. The proposed method is applicable to a broad class of probabilistic graphical models, including models with loops. Unlike a standard SMC sampler, the proposed divide-and-conquer SMC employs multiple independent populations of weighted particles, which are resampled, merged, and propagated as the method progresses. We illustrate empirically that this approach can outperform standard methods in terms of the accuracy of the posterior expectation and marginal likelihood approximations. Divide-and-conquer SMC also opens up novel parallel implementation options and the possibility of concentrating the computational effort on the most challenging subproblems. We demonstrate its performance on a Markov random field and on a hierarchical logistic regression problem. Supplementary materials including proofs and additional numerical results are available online.

A platform for sensor fusion consisting of a standard smartphone equipped with the specially developed Sensor Fusion appis presented. The platform enables real-time streaming of data over WiFi to a computer where signal processingalgorithms, e.g., the Kalman filter, can be developed and executed in a Matlab framework. The platform is an excellenttool for educational purposes and enables learning activities where methods based on advanced theory can be implementedand evaluated at low cost. The article describes the app and a laboratory exercise developed around these new technologicalpossibilities. The laboratory session is part of a course in sensor fusion, a signal processing continuation course focused onmultiple sensor signal applications, where the goal is to give the students hands on experience of the subject. This is done byestimating the orientation of the smartphone, which can be easily visualized and also compared to the built-in filters in thesmartphone. The filter can accept any combination of sensor data from accelerometers, gyroscopes, and magnetometers toexemplify their importance. This way different tunings and tricks of important methods are easily demonstrated andevaluated on-line. The presented framework facilitates this in a way previously impossible.

Bayesian nonparametric approaches have been recently introduced in system identification scenario where the impulse response is modeled as the realization of a zero-mean Gaussian process whose covariance (kernel) has to be estimated from data. In this scheme, quality of the estimates crucially depends on the parametrization of the covariance of the Gaussian process. A family of kernels that have been shown to be particularly effective in the system identification framework is the family of Diagonal/Correlated (DC) kernels. Maximum entropy properties of a related family of kernels, the Tuned/Correlated (TC) kernels, have been recently pointed out in the literature. In this technical note, we show that maximum entropy properties indeed extend to the whole family of DC kernels. The maximum entropy interpretation can be exploited in conjunction with results on matrix completion problems in the graphical models literature to shed light on the structure of the DC kernel. In particular, we prove that the DC kernel admits a closed-form factorization, inverse, and determinant. These results can be exploited both to improve the numerical stability and to reduce the computational complexity associated with the computation of the DC estimator.

In this paper the main goal is to compare the instrumental variables and the least squares methods applied to parameter estimation in continuous-time systems, avoiding any preliminary discretization of the process, and to analyse which method is more suitable for estimation in continuous-time under stochastic perturbations. A numerical example illustrates the effectiveness of the algorithms.

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The general Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM) problem aims at estimating the state of a moving platform simultaneously with building a map of the local environment. There are essentially three classes of algorithms. EKF- SLAM and FastSLAM solve the problem on-line, while Nonlinear Least Squares (NLS) is a batch method. All of them scales badly with either the state dimension, the map dimension or the batch length. We investigate the EM algorithm for solving a generalized version of the NLS problem. This EM-SLAM algorithm solves two simpler problems iteratively, hence it scales much better with dimensions. The iterations switch between state estimation, where we propose an Extended Rauch-Tung-Striebel smoother, and map estimation, where a quasi-Newton method is suggested. The proposed method is evaluated in real experiments and also in simulations on a platform with a monocular camera attached to an inertial measurement unit. It is demonstrated to produce lower RMSE than with a standard Levenberg-Marquardt solver of NLS problem, at a computational cost that increases considerably slower. 

This paper reviews the vast literature on static output feedback design for linear time-invariant systems including classical results and recent developments. In particular, we focus on static output feedback synthesis with performance specifications, structured static output feedback, and robustness. The paper provides a comprehensive review on existing design approaches including iterative linear matrix inequalities heuristics, linear matrix inequalities with rank constraints, methods with decoupled Lyapunov matrices, and non-Lyapunov-based approaches. We describe the main difficulties of dealing with static output feedback design and summarize the main features, advantages, and limitations of existing design methods. (C) 2016 International Federation of Automatic Control. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Todays 4G LTE systems bring unprecedented mobile broadband performance to over a billion of users across the globe. Recently, work on a 5G mobile communication system has begun, and next to a new 5G air interface, LTE will be an essential component. The evolution of LTE will therefore strive to meet 5G requirements and to address 5G use cases. In this article, we provide an overview of foreseen key technology areas and components for LTE Release 14, including latency reductions, enhancements for machine-type communication, operation in unlicensed spectrum, massive multi-antenna systems, broadcasting, positioning, and support for intelligent transportation systems.

The identification of multivariable state space models in innovation form is solved in a subspace identification framework using convex nuclear norm optimization. The convex optimization approach allows to include constraints on the unknown matrices in the data-equation characterizing subspace identification methods, such as the lower triangular block-Toeplitz of weighting matrices constructed from the Markov parameters of the unknown observer. The classical use of instrumental variables to remove the influence of the innovation term on the data equation in subspace identification is avoided. The avoidance of the instrumental variable projection step has the potential to improve the accuracy of the estimated model predictions, especially for short data length sequences. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This paper presents a data-driven receding horizon fault estimation method for additive actuator and sensor faults in unknown linear time-invariant systems, with enhanced robustness to stochastic identification errors. State-of-the-art methods construct fault estimators with identified state-space models or Markov parameters, without compensating for identification errors. Motivated by this limitation, we first propose a receding horizon fault estimator parameterized by predictor Markov parameters. This estimator provides (asymptotically) unbiased fault estimates as long as the subsystem from faults to outputs has no unstable transmission zeros. When the identified Markov parameters are used to construct the above fault estimator, stochastic identification errors appear as model uncertainty multiplied with unknown fault signals and online system inputs/outputs (I/O). Based on this fault estimation error analysis, we formulate a mixed-norm problem for the offline robust design that regards online I/O data as unknown. An alternative online mixed-norm problem is also proposed that can further reduce estimation errors at the cost of increased computational burden. Based on a geometrical interpretation of the two proposed mixed-norm problems, systematic methods to tune the user-defined parameters therein are given to achieve desired performance trade-offs. Simulation examples illustrate the benefits of our proposed methods compared to recent literature. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Nonlinear Kalman filters are algorithms that approximately solve the Bayesian filtering problem by employing the measurement update of the linear Kalman filter (KF). Numerous variants have been developed over the past decades, perhaps most importantly the popular sampling based sigma point Kalman filters.In order to make the vast literature accessible, we present nonlinear KF variants in a common framework that highlights the computation of mean values and covariance matrices as the main challenge. The way in which these moment integrals are approximated distinguishes, for example, the unscented KF from the divided difference KF.With the KF framework in mind, a moment computation problem is defined and analyzed. It is shown how structural properties can be exploited to simplify its solution. Established moment computation methods, and their basics and extensions, are discussed in an extensive survey. The focus is on the sampling based rules that are used in sigma point KF. More specifically, we present three categories of methods that use sigma-points 1) to represent a distribution (as in the UKF); 2) for numerical integration (as in Gauss-Hermite quadrature); 3) to approximate nonlinear functions (as in interpolation). Prospective benefits and downsides are listed for each of the categories and methods, including accuracy statements. Furthermore, the related KF publications are listed.The theoretical discussion is complemented with a comparative simulation study on instructive examples.

In this study, Random Forests (RF) classifier is proposed for ECG heartbeat signal classification in diagnosis of heart arrhythmia. Discrete wavelet transform (DWT) is used to decompose ECG signals into different successive frequency bands. A set of different statistical features were extracted from the obtained frequency bands to denote the distribution of wavelet coefficients. This study shows that RF classifier achieves superior performances compared to other decision tree methods using 10-fold cross-validation for the ECG datasets and the obtained results suggest that further significant improvements in terms of classification accuracy can be accomplished by the proposed classification system. Accurate ECG signal classification is the major requirement for detection of all arrhythmia types. Performances of the proposed system have been evaluated on two different databases, namely MIT-BIH database and St. -Petersburg Institute of Cardiological Technics 12-lead Arrhythmia Database. For MIT-BIH database, RF classifier yielded an overall accuracy 99.33 % against 98.44 and 98.67 % for the C4.5 and CART classifiers, respectively. For St. -Petersburg Institute of Cardiological Technics 12-lead Arrhythmia Database, RF classifier yielded an overall accuracy 99.95 % against 99.80 % for both C4.5 and CART classifiers, respectively. The combined model with multiscale principal component analysis (MSPCA) de-noising, discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and RF classifier also achieves better performance with the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) and F- measure equal to 0.999 and 0.993 for MIT-BIH database and 1 and 0.999 for and St. Petersburg Institute of Cardiological Technics 12-lead Arrhythmia Database, respectively. Obtained results demonstrate that the proposed system has capacity for reliable classification of ECG signals, and to assist the clinicians for making an accurate diagnosis of cardiovascular disorders (CVDs).

The first order stable spline (SS-1) kernel (also known as the tunedcorrelated kernel) is used extensively in regularized system identification, where the impulse response is modeled as a zero-mean Gaussian process whose covariance function is given by well designed and tuned kernels. In this paper, we discuss the maximum entropy properties of this kernel. In particular, we formulate the exact maximum entropy problem solved by the SS-1 kernel without Gaussian and uniform sampling assumptions. Under general sampling assumption, we also derive the special structure of the SS-1 kernel (e.g. its tridiagonal inverse and factorization have closed form expression), also giving to it a maximum entropy covariance completion interpretation.

This note presents an efficient approach for the evaluation of multi-parametric mixed integer quadratic programming (mp-MIQP) solutions, occurring for instance in control problems involving discrete time hybrid systems with quadratic cost. Traditionally, the online evaluation requires a sequential comparison of piecewise quadratic value functions. We introduce a lifted parameter space in which the piecewise quadratic value functions become piecewise affine and can be merged to a single value function defined over a single polyhedral partition without any overlaps. This enables efficient point location approaches using a single binary search tree. Numerical experiments with a power electronics application demonstrate an online speedup up to an order of magnitude. We also show how the achievable online evaluation time can be traded off against the offline computational time.

Safety and security applications benefit from better situational awareness. Radar micro-Doppler signatures from an observed target carry information about the target's activity, and have potential to improve situational awareness. This article describes, compares, and discusses two methods to classify human activity based on radar micro-Doppler data. The first method extracts physically interpretable features from the time-velocity domain such as the main cycle time and properties of the envelope of the micro-Doppler spectra and use these in the classification. The second method derives its features based on the components with the most energy in the cadence-velocity domain (obtained as the Fourier transform of the time-velocity domain). Measurements from a field trial show that the two methods have similar activity classification performance. It is suggested that target base velocity and main limb cadence frequency are indirect features of both methods, and that they do often alone suffice to discriminate between the studied activities. This is corroborated by experiments with a reduced feature set. This opens up for designing new more compact feature sets. Moreover, weaknesses of the methods and the impact of non-radial motion are discussed.

Tracking human body motions using inertial sensors has become a well-accepted method in ambulatory applications since the subject is not confined to a lab-bounded volume. However, a major drawback is the inability to estimate relative body positions over time because inertial sensor information only allows position tracking through strapdown integration, but does not provide any information about relative positions. In addition, strapdown integration inherently results in drift of the estimated position over time. We propose a novel method in which a permanent magnet combined with 3-D magnetometers and 3-D inertial sensors are used to estimate the global trunk orientation and relative pose of the hand with respect to the trunk. An Extended Kalman Filter is presented to fuse estimates obtained from inertial sensors with magnetic updates such that the position and orientation between the human hand and trunk as well as the global trunk orientation can be estimated robustly. This has been demonstrated in multiple experiments in which various hand tasks were performed. The most complex task in which simultaneous movements of both trunk and hand were performed resulted in an average rms position difference with an optical reference system of 19.7 +/- 2.2 mm whereas the relative trunk-hand and global trunk orientation error was 2.3 +/- 0.9 and 8.6 +/- 8.7 deg respectively.

The particle Gibbs sampler is a systematic way of using a particle filter within Markov chain Monte Carlo. This results in an off-the-shelf Markov kernel on the space of state trajectories, which can be used to simulate from the full joint smoothing distribution for a state space model in a Markov chain Monte Carlo scheme. We show that the particle Gibbs Markov kernel is uniformly ergodic under rather general assumptions, which we will carefully review and discuss. In particular, we provide an explicit rate of convergence, which reveals that (i) for fixed number of data points, the convergence rate can be made arbitrarily good by increasing the number of particles and (ii) under general mixing assumptions, the convergence rate can be kept constant by increasing the number of particles superlinearly with the number of observations. We illustrate the applicability of our result by studying in detail a common stochastic volatility model with a non-compact state space.

In this paper, we propose using Gaussian processes to track an extended object or group of objects, that generates multiple measurements at each scan. The shape and the kinematics of the object are simultaneously estimated, and the shape is learned online via a Gaussian process. The proposed algorithm is capable of tracking different objects with different shapes within the same surveillance region. The shape of the object is expressed analytically, with well-defined confidence intervals, which can be used for gating and association. Furthermore, we use an efficient recursive implementation of the algorithm by deriving a state space model in which the Gaussian process regression problem is cast into a state estimation problem.

Filtering and smoothing algorithms for linear discrete-time state-space models with skewed and heavy-tailed measurement noise are presented. The algorithms use a variational Bayes approximation of the posterior distribution of models that have normal prior and skew-t-distributed measurement noise. The proposed filter and smoother are compared with conventional low-complexity alternatives in a simulated pseudorange positioning scenario. In the simulations the proposed methods achieve better accuracy than the alternative methods, the computational complexity of the filter being roughly 5 to 10 times that of the Kalman filter.

Today, the workflows that are involved in industrial assembly and production activities are becoming increasingly complex. To efficiently and safely perform these workflows is demanding on the workers, in particular when it comes to infrequent or repetitive tasks. This burden on the workers can be eased by introducing smart assistance systems. This article presents a scalable concept and an integrated system demonstrator designed for this purpose. The basic idea is to learn workflows from observing multiple expert operators and then transfer the learnt workflow models to novice users. Being entirely learning-based, the proposed system can be applied to various tasks and domains. The above idea has been realized in a prototype, which combines components pushing the state of the art of hardware and software designed with interoperability in mind. The emphasis of this article is on the algorithms developed for the prototype: 1) fusion of inertial and visual sensor information from an on-body sensor network (BSN) to robustly track the user’s pose in magnetically polluted environments; 2) learning-based computer vision algorithms to map the workspace, localize the sensor with respect to the workspace and capture objects, even as they are carried; 3) domain-independent and robust workflow recovery and monitoring algorithms based on spatiotemporal pairwise relations deduced from object and user movement with respect to the scene; and 4) context-sensitive augmented reality (AR) user feedback using a head-mounted display (HMD). A distinguishing key feature of the developed algorithms is that they all operate solely on data from the on-body sensor network and that no external instrumentation is needed. The feasibility of the chosen approach for the complete action-perception-feedback loop is demonstrated on three increasingly complex datasets representing manual industrial tasks. These limited size datasets indicate and highlight the potential of the chosen technology as a combined entity as well as point out limitations of the system.

We study cooperative sensor network localization in a realistic scenario where 1) the underlying measurement errors more probably follow a non-Gaussian distribution; 2) the measurement error distribution is unknown without conducting massive offline calibrations; and 3) non-line-of-sight identification is not performed due to the complexity constraint and/or storage limitation. The underlying measurement error distribution is approximated parametrically by a Gaussian mixture with finite number of components, and the expectation-conditional maximization (ECM) criterion is adopted to approximate the maximum-likelihood estimator of the unknown sensor positions and an extra set of Gaussian mixture model parameters. The resulting centralized ECM algorithms lead to easier inference tasks and meanwhile retain several convergence properties with a proof of the "space filling" condition. To meet the scalability requirement, we further develop two distributed ECM algorithms where an average consensus algorithm plays an important role for updating the Gaussian mixture model parameters locally. The proposed algorithms are analyzed systematically in terms of computational complexity and communication overhead. Various computer based tests are also conducted with both simulation and experimental data. The results pin down that the proposed distributed algorithms can provide overall good performance for the assumed scenario even under model mismatch, while the existing competing algorithms either cannot work without the prior knowledge of the measurement error statistics or merely provide degraded localization performance when the measurement error is clearly non-Gaussian.

For communities of agents which are not necessarily cooperating, distributed processes of opinion forming are naturally represented by signed graphs, with positive edges representing friendly and cooperative interactions and negative edges the corresponding antagonistic counterpart. Unlike for nonnegative graphs, the outcome of a dynamical system evolving on a signed graph is not obvious and it is in general difficult to characterize, even when the dynamics are linear. In this paper, we identify a significant class of signed graphs for which the linear dynamics are however predictable and show many analogies with positive dynamical systems. These cases correspond to adjacency matrices that are eventually positive, for which the Perron-Frobenius property still holds and implies the existence of an invariant cone contained inside the positive orthant. As examples of applications, we determine cases in which it is possible to anticipate or impose unanimity of opinion in decision/voting processes even in presence of stubborn agents, and show how it is possible to extend the PageRank algorithm to include negative links.

In optimization algorithms used for on-line Model Predictive Control (MPC), linear systems of equations are often solved in each iteration. This is true both for Active Set methods as well as for Interior Point methods, and for linear MPC as well as for nonlinear MPC and hybrid MPC. The main computational effort is spent while solving these linear systems of equations, and hence, it is of greatest interest to solve them efficiently. Classically, the optimization problem has been formulated in either of two ways. One leading to a sparse linear system of equations involving relatively many variables to compute in each iteration and another one leading to a dense linear system of equations involving relatively few variables. In this work, it is shown that it is possible not only to consider these two distinct choices of formulations. Instead it is shown that it is possible to create an entire family of formulations with different levels of sparsity and number of variables, and that this extra degree of freedom can be exploited to obtain even better performance with the software and hardware at hand. This result also provides a better answer to a recurring question in MPC; should the sparse or dense formulation be used.

This paper addresses one of the main challenges in physical activity monitoring, as indicated by recent benchmark results: The difficulty of the complex classification problems exceeds the potential of existing classifiers. Therefore, this paper proposes the ConfAdaBoost.M1 algorithm. This algorithm is a variant of the AdaBoost.M1 that incorporates well-established ideas for confidence-based boosting. ConfAdaBoost.M1 is compared to the most commonly used boosting methods using benchmark datasets from the UCI machine learning repository.  Moreover, it is evaluated on an activity recognition and an intensity estimation problem, including a large number of physical activities from the recently released PAMAP2 dataset. The presented results indicate that the proposed ConfAdaBoost.M1 algorithm significantly improves the classification performance on most of the evaluated datasets, especially for larger and more complex classification tasks. Finally, two empirical studies are designed and carried out to investigate the feasibility of ConfAdaBoost.M1 for physical activity monitoring applications in mobile systems.

Particle Metropolis-Hastings (PMH) allows for Bayesian parameter inference in nonlinear state space models by combining MCMC and particle filtering. The latter is used to estimate the intractable likelihood. In its original formulation, PMH makes use of a marginal MCMC proposal for the parameters, typically a Gaussian random walk. However, this can lead to a poor exploration of the parameter space and an inefficient use of the generated particles.

We propose two alternative versions of PMH that incorporate gradient and Hessian information about the posterior into the proposal. This information is more or less obtained as a byproduct of the likelihood estimation. Indeed, we show how to estimate the required information using a fixed-lag particle smoother, with a computational cost growing linearly in the number of particles. We conclude that the proposed methods can: (i) decrease the length of the burn-in phase, (ii) increase the mixing of the Markov chain at the stationary phase, and (iii) make the proposal distribution scale invariant which simplifies tuning.

A method for fusing Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images with opticalaerial images is presented. This is done in a navigation framework, where the absolute position and orientation of the flying platform, as computed from the inertial navigation system, is corrected based on the aerial image coordinates taken as ground truth. The method is suitable for new low-price SAR systems for small unmanned vehicles. The primary application is remote sensing, where the SAR image provides one further "colour" channel revealing reflectivity to radio waves. The method is based on first applying an edge detection algorithm to the images and then optimising the most important navigation states by matching the two binary images. To get a measure of the estimation uncertainty, we embed the optimisation in a least squares framework, where an explicit method to estimate the (relative) size of the errors is presented. The performance is demonstrated on real SAR and aerial images, leading to an error of only a few pixels.

Estimation-based iterative learning control (ILC) is applied to a parallel kinematic manipulator known as the Gantry-Tau parallel robot. The system represents a control problem where measurements of the controlled variables are not available. The main idea is to use estimates of the controlled variables in the ILC algorithm, and in the paper this approach is evaluated experimentally on the Gantry-Tau robot. The experimental results show that an ILC algorithm using estimates of the tool position gives a considerable improvement of the control performance. The tool position estimate is obtained by fusing measurements of the actuator angular positions with measurements of the tool path acceleration using a complementary filter.

Particle Markov chain Monte Carlo (PMCMC) is a systematic way of combining the two main tools used for Monte Carlo statistical inference: sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) and Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). We present a new PMCMC algorithm that we refer to as particle Gibbs with ancestor sampling (PGAS). PGAS provides the data analyst with an off-the-shelf class of Markov kernels that can be used to simulate, for instance, the typically high-dimensional and highly autocorrelated state trajectory in a state-space model. The ancestor sampling procedure enables fast mixing of the PGAS kernel even when using seemingly few particles in the underlying SMC sampler. This is important as it can significantly reduce the computational burden that is typically associated with using SMC. PGAS is conceptually similar to the existing PG with backward simulation (PGBS) procedure. Instead of using separate forward and backward sweeps as in PGBS, however, we achieve the same effect in a single forward sweep. This makes PGAS well suited for addressing inference problems not only in state-space models, but also in models with more complex dependencies, such as non-Markovian, Bayesian nonparametric, and general probabilistic graphical models.

Among the many different formulations of Model Predictive Control (MPC) with guaranteed stability, one that has attracted significant attention is the formulation with a terminal cost and terminal constraint set, the so called dual mode formulation. In this technical note our goal is to make minimal changes to the dual mode framework, for the linear polytopic case, in order to develop a flexible reference tracking algorithm with guaranteed stability and low complexity, which is intuitive and easily understood. The main idea is to introduce a scaling variable that dynamically scales the terminal constraint set and therefore allows it to be centered around an arbitrary setpoint without violating the stability conditions. The main benefit of the algorithm is reduced complexity of the resulting QP compared to other state of art methods without loosing performance.

The classical shift retrieval problem considers two signals in vector form that are related by a shift. This problem is of great importance in many applications and is typically solved by maximizing the cross-correlation between the two signals. Inspired by compressive sensing, in this paper, we seek to estimate the shift directly from compressed signals. We show that under certain conditions, the shift can be recovered using fewer samples and less computation compared to the classical setup. We also illustrate the concept of superresolution for shift retrieval. Of particular interest is shift estimation from Fourier coefficients. We show that under rather mild conditions only one Fourier coefficient suffices to recover the true shift.

In this paper, we consider robust stability analysis of large-scale sparsely interconnected uncertain systems. By modeling the interconnections among the subsystems with integral quadratic constraints, we show that robust stability analysis of such systems can be performed by solving a set of sparse linear matrix inequalities. We also show that a sparse formulation of the analysis problem is equivalent to the classical formulation of the robustness analysis problem and hence does not introduce any additional conservativeness. The sparse formulation of the analysis problem allows us to apply methods that rely on efficient sparse factorization techniques, and our numerical results illustrate the effectiveness of this approach compared to methods that are based on the standard formulation of the analysis problem.

The effects of wear to friction are studied based on constant-speed friction data collected from dedicated experiments during accelerated wear tests. It is shown how the effects of temperature and load uncertainties produce larger changes to friction than those caused by wear, motivating the consideration of these effects. Based on empirical observations, an extended friction model is proposed to describe the effects of speed, load, temperature, and wear. Assuming the availability of such a model and constant-speed friction data, a maximum likelihood wear estimator is proposed. The performance of the wear estimator under load and temperature uncertainties is found by means of simulations and verified under three case studies based on real data. Practical issues related to experiment length are considered based on an optimal selection of speed points to collect friction data, improving the achievable performance bound for any unbiased wear estimator. As it is shown, reliable wear estimates can be achieved even under load and temperature uncertainties, making condition-based maintenance of industrial robots possible.

Anomaly detection in large populations is a challenging but highly relevant problem. It is essentially a multi-hypothesis problem, with a hypothesis for every division of the systems into normal and anomalous systems. The number of hypothesis grows rapidly with the number of systems and approximate solutions become a necessity for any problem of practical interest. In this paper we take an optimization approach to this multi-hypothesis problem. It is first shown to be equivalent to a non-convex combinatorial optimization problem and then is relaxed to a convex optimization problem that can be solved distributively on the systems and that stays computationally tractable as the number of systems increase. An interesting property of the proposed method is that it can under certain conditions be shown to give exactly the same result as the combinatorial multi-hypothesis problem and the relaxation is hence tight.

In this paper, we address the problem of multi-target detection and tracking over a network of separately located Doppler-shift measuring sensors. For this challenging problem, we propose to use the probability hypothesis density (PHD) filter and present two implementations of the PHD filter, namely the sequential Monte Carlo PHD (SMC-PHD) and the Gaussian mixture PHD (GM-PHD) filters. Performances of both filters are carefully studied and compared for the considered challenging tracking problem. Simulation results show that both PHD filter implementations successfully track multiple targets using only Doppler shift measurements. Moreover, as a proof-of-concept, an experimental setup consisting of a network of microphones and a loudspeaker was prepared. Experimental study results reveal that it is possible to track multiple ground targets using acoustic Doppler shift measurements in a passive multi-static scenario. We observed that the GM-PHD is more effective, efficient and easy to implement than the SMC-PHD filter.

Most of the currently used techniques for linear system identification are based on classical estimation paradigms coming from mathematical statistics. In particular, maximum likelihood and prediction error methods represent the mainstream approaches to identification of linear dynamic systems, with a long history of theoretical and algorithmic contributions. Parallel to this, in the machine learning community alternative techniques have been developed. Until recently, there has been little contact between these two worlds. The first aim of this survey is to make accessible to the control community the key mathematical tools and concepts as well as the computational aspects underpinning these learning techniques. In particular, we focus on kernel-based regularization and its connections with reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces and Bayesian estimation of Gaussian processes. The second aim is to demonstrate that learning techniques tailored to the specific features of dynamic systems may outperform conventional parametric approaches for identification of stable linear systems.

Random set based methods have provided a rigorous Bayesian framework and have been used extensively in the last decade for point object estimation. In this paper, we emphasize that the same methodology offers an equally powerful approach to estimation of so called extended objects, i.e., objects that result in multiple detections on the sensor side. Building upon the analogy between Bayesian state estimation of a single object and random finite set estimation for multiple objects, we give a tutorial on random set methods with an emphasis on multiple extended object estimation. The capabilities are illustrated on a simple yet insightful real life example with laser range data containing several occlusions.

We consider robust geolocation in mixed line-of-sight (LOS)/non-LOS (NLOS) environments in cellular radio networks. Instead of assuming known propagation channel states (LOS or NLOS), we model the measurement error with a general two-mode mixture distribution although it deviates from the underlying error statistics. To avoid offline calibration, we propose to jointly estimate the geographical coordinates and the mixture model parameters. Two iterative algorithms are developed based on the well-known expectation-maximization (EM) criterion and joint maximum a posteriori-maximum likelihood (JMAP-ML) criterion to approximate the ideal maximum-likelihood estimator (MLE) of the unknown parameters with low computational complexity. Along with concrete examples, we elaborate the convergence analysis and the complexity analysis of the proposed algorithms. Moreover, we numerically compute the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) for our joint estimation problem and present the best achievable localization accuracy in terms of the CRLB. Various simulations have been conducted based on a real-world experimental setup, and the results have shown that the ideal MLE can be well approximated by the JMAP-ML algorithm. The EM estimator is inferior to the JMAP-ML estimator but outperforms other competitors by far.

An important class of optimisation problems in control and signal processing involves the constraint that a Popov function is non-negative on the unit circle or the imaginary axis. Such a constraint is convex in the coefficients of the Popov function. It can be converted to a finite-dimensional linear matrix inequality via the Kalman-Yakubovich-Popov lemma. However, the linear matrix inequality reformulation requires an auxiliary matrix variable and often results in a very large semidefinite programming problem. Several recently published methods exploit problem structure in these semidefinite programmes to alleviate the computational cost associated with the large matrix variable. These algorithms are capable of solving much larger problems than general-purpose semidefinite programming packages. In this paper, we address the same problem by presenting an alternative to the linear matrix inequality formulation of the non-negative Popov function constraint. We sample the constraint to obtain an equivalent set of inequalities of low dimension, thus avoiding the large matrix variable in the linear matrix inequality formulation. Moreover, the resulting semidefinite programme has constraints with low-rank structure, which allows the problems to be solved efficiently by existing semidefinite programming packages. The sampling formulation is obtained by first expressing the Popov function inequality as a sum-of-squares condition imposed on a polynomial matrix and then converting the constraint into an equivalent finite set of interpolation constraints. A complexity analysis and numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the performance improvement over existing techniques.

We present an approach for computing the driving direction of a vehicle by processing measurements from one 2-axis magnetometer. The proposed method relies on a non-linear transformation of the measurement data comprising only two inner products. Deterministic analysis of the signal model reveals how the driving direction affects the measurement signal and the proposed classifier is analyzed in terms of its statistical properties. The method is compared with a model based likelihood test using both simulated and experimental data. The experimental verification indicates that good performance is achieved under the presence of saturation, measurement noise, and near field effects.

This paper considers the problem of dynamic modeling and identification of robot manipulators with respect to their elasticities. The so-called flexible joint model, modeling only the torsional gearbox elasticity, is shown to be insufficient for modeling a modern industrial manipulator accurately. The extended flexible joint model, where non-actuated joints are added to model the elasticity of the links and bearings, is used to improve the model accuracy. The unknown elasticity parameters are estimated using a frequency domain gray-box identification method. The conclusion is that the obtained model describes the movements of the motors and the tool mounted on the robot with significantly higher accuracy. Similar elasticity model parameters are obtained when using two different output variables for the identification, the motor position and the tool acceleration.

Localization is an enabling technology in many applications and services today and in the future. Satellite navigation often works fine for navigation, infotainment and location based services, and it is today the dominating solution in commercial products. A nice exception is the localization in Google Maps, where radio signal strength from WiFi and cellular networks are used as complementary information to increase accuracy and integrity. With the on-going trend with more autonomous functions being introduced in our vehicles and with all our connected devices, most of them operated in indoor enviroments where satellite signals are not available,there is an acute need for new solutions.

At the same time, our smartphones are getting more sophisticated in their sensor configuration. Therefore, in this chapter we present a freely available Sensor Fusion app developed in-house, how it works, how it has been used, and how it can be used based on a variety of applications in our research and student projects.

It is a well-known fact that exercising helps people improve their overall well-being; both physiological and psychological health. Regular moderate physical activity improves the risk of disease progression, improves the chances for successful rehabilitation, and lowers the levels of stress hormones. Physical fitness can be categorized in cardiovascular fitness, and muscular strength and endurance. A proper balance between aerobic activities and strength exercises are important to maximize the positive effects. This balance is not always easily obtained, so assistance tools are important. Hence, ambient assisted living (AAL) systems that support and motivate balanced training are desirable. This chapter presents methods to provide this, focusing on the methodologies and concepts implemented by the authors in the physical activity monitoring for aging people (PAMAP) platform. The chapter sets the stage for an architecture to provide personalized activity monitoring using a network of wearable sensors, mainly inertial measurement units (IMU). The main focus is then to describe how to do this in a personalizable way: (1) monitoring to provide an estimate of aerobic activities performed, for which a boosting based method to determine activity type, intensity, frequency, and duration is given; (2) supervise and coach strength activities. Here, methodologies are described for obtaining the parameters needed to provide real-time useful feedback to the user about how to exercise safely using the right technique.

In this chapter parallel implementations of hybrid MPC will be discussed. Different methods for achieving parallelism at different levels of the algorithms will be surveyed. It will be seen that there are many possible ways of obtaining parallelism for hybrid MPC, and it is by no means clear which possibilities that should be utilized to achieve the best possible performance. To answer this question is a challenge for future research.

We explore the problem of identification of LPV models when the scheduling variables are not known in advance and the model parameters exhibit a dynamic dependence on them. We consider an affine ARX model structure whose parameters vary with time. We solve for the models parameters and scheduling variables in two steps. In the first step, we use the measured input-output data to realize a parameter trajectory by solving a regularized Hankel matrix rank minimization problem. The regularization penalty is guided by the prior knowledge regarding the nature of systems time variation. In the second step, the scheduling variables are estimated as parameters of a sparse ARX structure relating the models parameters to the measured input-output variables. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is illustrated with two practical examples. (C) 2018, IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The demand for fuel-efficient transport solutions are steadily increasing with the goal of reducing environmental impact and increasing efficiency. Heavy-Duty Vehicle (HDV) platooning is a promising concept where multiple HDVs drive together in a convoy with small intervehicular spacing. By doing this, the aerodynamic drag is reduced which in turn lowers fuel consumption. We propose a novel Model Predictive Control (MPC) framework for longitudinal control of the follower vehicle in a platoon consisting of two HDVs when no vehicle-to-vehicle communication is available. In the framework, the preceding vehicle's velocity profile is predicted using artificial neural networks which uses a topographic map of the road as input and is trained offline using synthetic data. The gear shifting and mass of consumed fuel for the controlled follower vehicle is modeled and used within the MPC controller. The efficiency of the proposed framework is verified in simulation examples and is benchmarked with a currently available control solution.  

In this work, we study the multiple kernel based regularized system identification with the hyper-parameter estimated by using the Steins unbiased risk estimators (SURE). To approach the problem, a QR factorization is first employed to compute SUREs objective function and its gradient in an efficient and accurate way. Then we propose an algorithm to solve the SURE problem, which contains two parts: the outer optimization part and the inner optimization part. For the outer optimization part, the coordinate descent algorithm is used and for the inner optimization part, the projection gradient algorithm is used. Finally, the efficacy of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated by numerical simulations. (C) 2018, IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In this paper, we study the asymptotic properties of the generalized cross validation (GCV) hyperparameter estimator and establish its connection with the Steins unbiased risk estimators (SURE) as well as the mean squared error (MSE). It is shown that as the number of data goes to infinity, the GCV has the same asymptotic property as the SURE does and both of them converge to the best hyperparameter in the MSE sense. We illustrate the efficacy of the result by Monte Carlo simulations. (C) 2018, IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Because of the increased demand on fault detection, monitoring and predictive maintenance, online or recursive identification is playing a more important role in systems engineering. In the recent releases of System Identification Toolbox (TM) for MATLAB (R), this has been reflected in a more substantial support for online techniques. This contribution gives an account of these improvements. It covers the addition of nonlinear filtering algorithms, such as the extended Kalman filter, the unscented Kalman filter and particle filters. The traditional recursive estimation techniques for polynomial models have also been enhanced with a more versatile syntax. Several new Simulink (R) blocks have been developed to support Simulink (R) models with online estimation. (C) 2018, IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Using Maximum Likelihood (or Prediction Error) methods to identify linear state space model is a prime technique. The likelihood function is a nonconvex function and care must be exercised in the numerical maximization. Here the focus will be on affine parameterizations which allow some special techniques and algorithms. Three approaches to formulate and perform the maximization are described in this contribution: (1) The standard and well known Gauss Newton iterative search, (2) a scheme based on the EM (expectation-maximization) technique, which becomes especially simple in the affine parameterization case, and (3) a new approach based on lifting the problem to a higher dimension in the parameter space and introducing rank constraints. (C) 2018, IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This paper describes an Arduino Due based platform for digital signal processing (DSP) education. The platform consists of an in-house developed shield for robust interfacing with analog audio signals and user inputs, and an off-the-shelf Arduino Due that executes the students DSP code. This combination enables direct use of the Arduino integrated development environment (IDE), with its low barrier to entry for students, its low maintenance need and cross platform interoperability, and its large user base. Relevant hardware and software features of the platform are discussed throughout, as are design choices made in relation to learning objectives, and the planned use of the platform in our own DSP course.

A key requirement of autonomous vehicles is the capability to safely navigate in their environment. However, outside of controlled environments, safe navigation is a very difficult problem. In particular, the real-world often contains both complex 3D structure, and dynamic obstacles such as people or other vehicles. Dynamic obstacles are particularly challenging, as a principled solution requires planning trajectories with regard to both vehicle dynamics, and the motion of the obstacles. Additionally, the real-time requirements imposed by obstacle motion, coupled with real-world computational limitations, make classical optimality and completeness guarantees difficult to satisfy. We present a unified optimization-based motion planning and control solution, that can navigate in the presence of both static and dynamic obstacles. By combining optimal and receding-horizon control, with temporal multi-resolution lattices, we can precompute optimal motion primitives, and allow real-time planning of physically-feasible trajectories in complex environments with dynamic obstacles. We demonstrate the framework by solving difficult indoor 3D quadcopter navigation scenarios, where it is necessary to plan in time. Including waiting on, and taking detours around, the motions of other people and quadcopters.

In this work we consider a nonlinear interconnected system describing a decision-making process in a community of agents characterized by the coexistence of collaborative and antagonistic interactions. The resulting signed graph is in general not structurally balanced. It is shown in the paper that the decision-making process is affected by the frustration of the signed graph, in the sense that a nontrivial decision can be reached only if the social commitment of the agents is high enough to win the disorder introduced by the frustration in the network. The higher the frustration of the graph, the higher the commitment strength required from the agents.

In this paper, Bayesian lower bounds (BLBs) are obtained via a general form of the Pythagorean theorem where the inner product derives from the joint or the a-posteriori probability density function (pdf). When joint pdf is considered, the BLBs obtained encompass the Weiss-Weinstein family (WWF). When a-posteriori pdf is considered, by resorting to an embedding between two ad hoc subspaces, it is shown that any ”standard” BLBs of the WWF admits a ”tighter” form which upper bounds the ”standard” form. Interestingly enough, this latter result may explain why the ”standard” BLBs of the WWF are not always as tight as expected, as exemplified in the case of the Bayesian Cram´er-Rao Bound. As a consequence an updated definition of efficiency is proposed, as well as the introduction of an updated class of efficient estimators.

This paper presents a systematic approach for computing local solutions to motion planning problems in non-convex environments using numerical optimal control techniques. It extends the range of use of state-of-the-art numerical optimal control tools to problem classes where these tools have previously not been applicable. Today these problems are typically solved using motion planners based on randomized or graph search. The general principle is to define a homotopy that transforms, or preferably relaxes, the original problem to an easily solved problem. In this work, it is shown that by combining a Sequential Quadratic Programming (SQP) method with a homotopy approach that gradually transforms the problem from a relaxed one to the original one, practically relevant locally optimal solutions to the motion planning problem can be computed. The approach is demonstrated in motion planning problems in challenging 2D and 3D environments, where the presented method significantly outperforms both a state-of-the-art numerical optimal control method and a state-of-the-art open-source optimizing sampling-based planner commonly used as benchmark. 

An experimental comparison of two feed-forward based frictioncompensation methods is presented. The first method is based on theLuGre friction model, using identified friction model parameters, andthe second method is based on B-spline network, where the networkweights are learned from experiments. The methods are evaluated andcompared via experiments using a six axis industrial robot carryingout circular movements of different radii. The experiments show thatthe learning-based friction compensation gives an error reduction ofthe same magnitude as for the LuGre-based friction compensation.

The number of sensors used in tracking scenariosis constantly increasing, this puts high demands on the trackingmethods to handle these data streams. Central processing (ideallyoptimal) puts high demands on the central node, is sensitive toinaccurate sensor parameters, and suffers from the single pointof failure problem. Decentralizing the tracking can improve this,but may give considerable performance loss. The newly presentedinverse covariance intersection method, proven to be consistent,even under unknown track cross correlations, is benchmarkedagainst alternatives. Different track-to-track methods, includingsmoothed association over a window, are compared. A scenariowith objects tracked in multiple cameras, not necessarily opti-mized for tracking, are used to give realism to the evaluations.

In this paper, marginal versions of the Bayesian Bhattacharyya lower bound (BBLB), which is a tighter alternative to the classical Bayesian Cramer-Rao bound, for discrete-time filtering are proposed. Expressions for the second and third-order marginal BBLBs are obtained and it is shown how these can be approximately calculated using particle filtering. A simulation example shows that the proposed bounds predict the achievable performance of the filtering algorithms better.

We report the results of a series of numerical studies examining the convergence rate for some approximate representations of alpha-stable distributions, which are a highly intractable class of distributions for inference purposes. Our proposed representation turns the intractable inference for an infinite-dimensional series of parameters into an (approximately) conditionally Gaussian representation, to which standard inference procedures such as Expectation-Maximization (EM), Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and Particle Filtering can be readily applied. While we have previously proved the asymptotic convergence of this representation, here we study the rate of this convergence for finite values of a truncation parameter, c. This allows the selection of appropriate truncations for different parameter configurations and for the accuracy required for the model. The convergence is examined directly in terms of cumulative distribution functions and densities, through the application of the Berry theorems and Parseval theorems. Our results indicate that the behaviour of our representations is significantly superior to that of representations that simply truncate the series with no Gaussian residual term.

With ever-increasing productivity targets in mining operations, there is a growing interest in mining automation. In future mines, remote controlled and autonomous haulers will operate underground guided by LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) sensors. We envision reusing LiDAR measurements to maintain accurate mine maps that would contribute to both safety and productivity. Extrapolating from a pilot project on reliable wireless communication in Bolidens Kankberg mine, we propose establishing a System-of-Systems (SoS) with LiDAR-equipped haulers and existing mapping solutions as constituent systems. SoS requirements engineering inevitably adds a political layer, as independent actors are stakeholders both on the system and SoS levels. We present four SoS scenarios representing different business models, discussing how development and operations could be distributed among Boliden and external stakeholders, e.g., the vehicle suppliers, the hauling company, and the developers of the mapping software. Based on eight key variation points, we compare the four scenarios from both technical and business perspectives. Finally, we validate our findings in a seminar with participants from the relevant stakeholders. We conclude that to determine which scenario is the most promising for Boliden, trade-offs regarding control, costs, risks, and innovation must be carefully evaluated.

In this paper we provide necessary conditions for the existence of multiple equilibrium points for a class of non-linear cooperative networked systems with saturating interactions which describe models of collective decision-making. The multiple steady states of the dynamics represent the possible outcomes of a decision process, and, except for one positive and one negative, have all mixed signs. The conditions we obtain can be formulated in terms of the algebraic connectivity of the network and are inspired by Perron-Frobenius arguments. It is also shown that the mixed-sign equilibria are contained in a ball of radius given by the norm of the positive equilibrium point and centered in the origin. Numerical examples are given to illustrate the results.

In this paper, we study the problem of controlling complex networks with unilateral controls, i.e., controls which can assume only positive or negative values, not both. Given a network with linear dynamics represented by the adjacency matrix A, we seek to understand the minimal number of unilateral controls that renders the network controllable. This problem has structural properties that for instance allows us to establish theoretical bounds and identify key topological properties that makes a network relatively easy to control with unilateral controls as compared to unrestricted controls. We find that the structure of the left null space of A is particularly important to this end. In a computational study we find that the network topology largely determines the number of unilateral controls and that the derived lower bounds often are achieved with heuristic methods. (C) 2017, IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Gray-box identification is prevalent in modeling physical and networked systems. However, due to the non-convex nature of the gray-box identification problem, good initial parameter estimates are crucial for a successful application. In this paper, a new identification method is proposed by exploiting the low-rank and structured Hankel matrix of impulse response. This identification problem is recasted into a difference-of-convex programming problem, which is then solved by the sequential convex programming approach with the associated initialization obtained by nuclear-norm optimization. The presented method aims to achieve the maximum impulse-response fitting while not requiring additional (non-convex) conditions to secure non-singularity of the similarity transformation relating the given state space matrices to the gray-box parameterized ones. This overcomes a persistent shortcoming in a number of recent contributions on this topic, and the new method can be applied for the structured state-space realization even if the involved system parameters are unidentifiable. The method can be used both for directly estimating the gray-box parameters and for providing initial parameter estimates for further iterative search in a conventional gray-box identification setup. (C) 2017, IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The interest for system identification in dynamic networks has increased recently with a wide variety of applications. In many cases, it is intractable or undesirable to observe all nodes in a network and thus, to estimate the complete dynamics. Furthermore, it might even be challenging to estimate a subset of the network if key nodes are unobservable due to correlation between the nodes. In this contribution, we will discuss an approach to treat this problem. The approach relies on additional measurements that are dependent on the unobservable nodes and thus indirectly contain information about them. These measurements are used to form an alternative indirect model that is only dependent on observed nodes. The purpose of estimating this indirect model can be either to recover information about modules in the original network or to make accurate predictions of variables in the network. Examples are provided for both recovery of the original modules and prediction of nodes. (C) 2017, IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Motion planning for a general 2-trailer system poses a hard problem for any motion planning algorithm and previous methods have lacked any completeness or optimality guarantees. In this work we present a lattice-based motion planning framework for a general 2-trailer system that is resolution complete and resolution optimal. The solution will satisfy both differential and obstacle imposed constraints and is intended either as a part of an autonomous system or as a driver support system to automatically plan complicated maneuvers in backward and forward motion. The proposed framework relies on a precomputing step that is performed offline to generate a finite set of kinematically feasible motion primitives. These motion primitives are then used to create a regular state lattice that can be searched for a solution using standard graph-search algorithms. To make this graph-search problem tractable for real-time applications a novel parametrization of the reachable state space is proposed where each motion primitive moves the system from and to a selected set of circular equilibrium configurations. The approach is evaluated over three different scenarios and impressive real-time performance is achieved.

In this paper we provide necessary conditions for the existence of multiple equilibrium points for a class of non-linear cooperative networked systems with saturating interactions which describe models of collective decision-making. The multiple steady states of the dynamics represent the possible outcomes of a decision process, and, except for one positive and one negative, have all mixed signs. The conditions we obtain can be formulated in terms of the algebraic connectivity of the network and are inspired by Perron-Frobenius arguments. It is also shown that the mixed-sign equilibria are contained in a ball of radius given by the norm of the positive equilibrium point and centered in the origin. Numerical examples are given to illustrate the results.

In stable biological and ecological networks, the steady-state influence matrix gathers the signs of steady-state responses to step-like perturbations affecting the variables. Such signs are difficult to predict a priori, because they result from a combination of direct effects (deducible from the Jacobian of the network dynamics) and indirect effects. For stable monotone or cooperative networks, the sign pattern of the influence matrix can be qualitatively determined based exclusively on the sign pattern of the system Jacobian. For other classes of networks, we show that a semi-qualitative approach yields sufficient conditions for Jacobians with a given sign pattern to admit a fully positive influence matrix, and we also provide quantitative conditions for Jacobians that are translated eventually nonnegative matrices. We present a computational test to check whether the influence matrix has a constant sign pattern in spite of parameter variations, and we apply this algorithm to quasi-Metzler Jacobian matrices, to assess whether positivity of the influence matrix is preserved in spite of deviations from cooperativity. When the influence matrix is fully positive, we give a simple vertex algorithm to test robust stability. The devised criteria are applied to analyse the steady-state behaviour of ecological and biomolecular networks.

A signed network is a network with each link associated with a positive or negative sign. Models for nodes interacting over such signed networks, where two types of interactions are defined along the positive and negative links, respectively, arise from various biological, social, political, and economical systems. Starting from standard consensus dynamics, there are two basic types of negative interactions along negative links, namely state flipping or relative-state flipping. In this paper, we provide an algebraic-graphical method serving as a systematic tool of studying these dynamics over signed networks. Utilizing generalized Perron-Frobenius theory, graph theory, and elementary algebraic recursions, we show this method is useful to establish a series of basic convergence results for dynamics over signed networks.

The CDIO framework for development of engineering education is presented, including the overall ideas, the fundamental documents, and some development tools. The automatic control subject and its role in engineering education is studied using the CDIO Standards as reference. Some examples from the engineering education at Linkoping University are presented with special focus on the control education. (C) 2017, IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This work evaluates a previously introduced algorithm called Particle-Based Rapid Incremental Smoother within the framework of state inference and parameter identification in Jump Markov Non-Linear System. It is applied to the recursive form of two well-known Maximum Likelihood based algorithms who face the common challenge of online computation of smoothed additive functionals in order to accomplish the task of model parameter estimation. This work extends our previous contributions on identification of Markovian switching systems with the goal to reduce the computational complexity. A benchmark problem is used to illustrate the results.

In this paper, an indoor vehicle multi-level positioning algorithm is proposed that makes use of an indoor map, as well as dead-reckoning sensor information that is available in every car. A particle filter framework is used for online optimal Bayesian vehicle positioning with indoor-outdoor transitions. The method is validated experimentally in two indoor multi-level car parks. The achieved results indicate that accurate indoor positioning is possible already today without relying on expensive technology such as e.g. laser scanners or additional hardware.

Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) is an emerging cellular technology designed to target low-cost devices, high coverage, long device battery life (more than ten years), and massive capacity. We investigate opportunities for device tracking in NB-IoT systems using Observed Time Difference of Arrival (OTDOA) measurements. Reference Signal Time Difference (RSTD) reports are simulated to be sent to the mobile location center periodically or on an ondemand basis. We investigate the possibility of optimizing the number of reports per minute budget on horizontal positioning accuracy using an on-demand reporting method based on the Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) of the measured cells received by the User Equipment (UE). Wireless channels are modeled considering multipath fading propagation conditions. Extended Pedestrian A (EPA) and Extended Typical Urban (ETU) delay profiles corresponding to low and high delay spread environments, respectively, are simulated for this purpose. To increase the robustness of the filtering method, measurement noise outliers are detected using confidence bounds estimated from filter innovations.

This paper deals with state inference and parameter identification in Jump Markov Non-Linear System. The state inference problem is solved efficiently using a recently proposed Rao-Blackwellized Particle Filter, where the discrete state is integrated out analytically. Within the RBPF framework, Recursive Maximum Likelihood parameter identification is performed using gradient ascent algorithms. The proposed learning method has the advantage over (online) Expectation Maximization methods, that it can be easily applied to cases where the probability density functions defining the Jump Markov Non-Linear System are not members of the exponential family. Two benchmark problems illustrate the parameter identification performance.

In polar region operations, drift sea ice positioning and tracking is useful for both scientific and safety reasons. Modeling ice movements has proven difficult, not least due to the lack of information of currents and winds of high enough resolution. Thus, observations of drift ice is essential to an up-to-date ice-tracking estimate.

As an inverse problem, it is possible to extract current and wind estimates from the tracked objects of a Multi-Target Tracking (MTT) filter. By inserting the track estimates into a Gaussian field, we obtain a two-dimensional current estimate over a region of interest.

The algorithm is applied to a Terrestrial Radar Interferometer (TRI) dataset from Kongsfjorden, Svalbard, to show the practical application of the current estimation.

In this work, we estimate a model of the vertical dynamics of a quadcopter and explain how this model can be used for mass estimation and diagnosis of system changes. First, a standard thrust model describing the relation between the calculated control signals of the rotors and the thrust that is commonly used in literature is estimated. The estimation results are compared to those using a refined thrust model and it turns out that the refined model gives a significant improvement. The combination of a nonlinear model and closed-loop data poses some challenges and it is shown that an instrumental variables approach can be used to obtain accurate estimates. Furthermore, we show that the refined model opens up for fault detection of the quadcopter. More specifically, this model can be used for mass estimation and also for diagnosis of other parameters that might vary between and during missions.

The Military Institute of Engineering (IME) is a Brazilian Army higher education institution, located in Rio de Janeiro – Brazil. Every three years, the Brazilian government evaluates the engineering bachelor´s degree programs and IME is always among the best Brazilian engineering schools. Despite the excellent results, the CDIO framework was chosen, at the end of 2014, as a reference framework to improve the education process, reorganize the programs and promote the development of intra and interpersonal skills. The objective of this work is to show the initial steps of the CDIO  implementation. In the beginning of the process, the idea was to start only with the Mechanical Engineering program. However, after the initial promotion seminars presented for faculty, staff and students, a sense of commitment was created, and four of ten undergraduate programs also decided to participate. One of the first step was the formation of the team responsible to coordinate the implementation of this set of best practices. The Kotter framework has been used to drive this transformation process. The CDIO syllabus was translated into Portuguese, and it was compared with some of the Brazilian regulatory requirements for engineering education and has been used as a reference for future curriculum changes. This paper also highlights the process for change management, the remodeling of the first year and the introduction of an entrepreneurship course in partnership with an outstanding Brazilian business school.

In this paper, an approach to estimate the mass of a quadcopter using only inertial measurements and pilot commands is presented. For this purpose, a lateral dynamic model describing the relation between the roll rate and the lateral acceleration is formulated. Due to the quadcopter’s inherent instability, a controller is used to stabilize the system and the data is collected in closed loop. Under the effect of feedback and disturbances, the inertial measurements used as input and output are correlated with the disturbances, which complicates the parameter estimation. The parameters of the model are estimated using several methods. The simulation and experimental results show that the instrumental-variable method has the best potential to estimate the mass of the quadcopter in this setup.

This paper presents three iterative methods for orientation estimation. The first two are based on iterated Extended Kalman filter (IEKF) formulations with different state representations. The first is using the well-known unit quaternion as state (q-IEKF) while the other is using orientation deviation which we call IMEKF. The third method is based on nonlinear least squares (NLS) estimation of the angular velocity which is used to parametrise the orientation. The results are obtained using Monte Carlo simulations and the comparison is done with the non-iterative EKF and multiplicative EKF (MEKF) as baseline. The result clearly shows that the IMEKF and the NLS-based method are superior to q-IEKF and all three outperform the non-iterative methods.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a global public health problem, affecting approximately 10% of the population worldwide. Yet, there is little direct evidence on how CKD can be diagnosed in a systematic and automatic manner. This paper investigates how CKD can be diagnosed by using machine learning (ML) techniques. ML algorithms have been a driving force in detection of abnormalities in different physiological data, and are, with a great success, employed in different classification tasks. In the present study, a number of different ML classifiers are experimentally validated to a real data set, taken from the UCI Machine Learning Repository, and our findings are compared with the findings reported in the recent literature. The results are quantitatively and qualitatively discussed and our findings reveal that the random forest (RF) classifier achieves the near-optimal performances on the identification of CKD subjects. Hence, we show that ML algorithms serve important function in diagnosis of CKD, with satisfactory robustness, and our findings suggest that RF can also be utilized for the diagnosis of similar diseases.

We introduce interacting particle Markov chain Monte Carlo (iPMCMC), a PMCMC method based on an interacting pool of standard and conditional sequential Monte Carlo samplers. Like related methods, iPMCMC is a Markov chain Monte Carlo sampler on an extended space. We present empirical results that show significant improvements in mixing rates relative to both non-interacting PMCMC samplers and a single PMCMC sampler with an equivalent memory and computational budget. An additional advantage of the iPMCMC method is that it is suitable for distributed and multi-core architectures.

The stable spline kernel and the diagonal correlated kernel are two kernels that have been tested extensively in kernel-based regularization methods for LTI system identification. As shown in our recent works, although these two kernels are introduced in different ways, they share some common features, e.g., they all belong to the class of exponentially convex locally stationary kernels, and state-space model induced kernels. In this work, we further show that similar to the derivation of the stable spline kernel, the continuous-time diagonal correlated kernel can be derived by applying the same "stable" coordinate change to a "generalized" first order spline kernel, and thus can be interpreted as a stable generalized first order spline kernel. This interpretation provides new facets to understand the properties of the diagonal correlated kernel. Due to this interpretation, new eigendecompositions, explicit expression of the norm, and new maximum entropy interpretation of the diagonal correlated kernel are derived accordingly.

Contractive interference functions are a subclass of the standard interference functions used in the design and analysis of distributed power control algorithms for wireless networks. Their peculiarity is that for the resulting positive system the existence and global asymptotic stability of a unique positive equilibrium point is guaranteed. In this paper we give an infinitesimal characterization of nonlinear contractiveinterference functions in terms of the spectral radius of the Jacobian linearization at any point in the positive orthant. The condition we obtain, that the spectral radius is always less than 1, extends to the nonlinear case an equivalent property of linear interference functions, and leads to a Jacobian characterization similar to the one commonly used in contraction analysis of nonlinear systems.

It is a well known fact that finite time optimal controllers, such as MPC do not necessarily result in closed loop stable systems. Within the MPC community it is common practice to add a final state constraint and/or a final state penalty in order to obtain guaranteed stability. However, for more advanced controller structures it can be difficult to show stability using these techniques. Additionally in some cases the final state constraint set consists of so many inequalities that the complexity of the MPC problem is too big for use in certain fast and time critical applications. In this paper we instead focus on deriving a tool for a-postiori analysis of the closed loop stability for linear systems controlled with MPC controllers. We formulate an optimisation problem that gives a sufficient condition for stability of the closed loop system and we show that the problem can be written as a Mixed Integer Linear Programming Problem (MILP).

Reversing with a dolly steered trailer configura- tion is a hard task for any driver without extensive training. In this work we present a motion planning and control framework that can be used to automatically plan and execute complicated manoeuvres. The unstable dynamics of the reversing general 2- trailer configuration with off-axle hitching is first stabilised by an LQ-controller and then a pure pursuit path tracker is used on a higher level giving a cascaded controller that can track piecewise linear reference paths. This controller together with a kinematic model of the trailer configuration is then used for forward simulations within a Closed-Loop Rapidly Exploring Random Tree framework to generate motion plans that are not only kinematically feasible but also include the limitations of the controller’s tracking performance when reversing. The approach is evaluated over a series of Monte Carlo simulations on three different scenarios and impressive success rates are achieved. Finally the approach is successfully tested on a small scale test platform where the motion plan is calculated and then sent to the platform for execution. 

The aim of this paper is to suggest a modification to the usual bounded confidence model of opinion dynamics, so that “changes of opinion” (intended as changes of the sign of the initial state) of an agent are never induced by the dynamics. In order to do so, a bipartite consensus model is used, endowing it with a confidence range. The resulting signed bounded confidence model has a state-dependent connectivity and a behavior similar to its standard counterpart, but in addition it preserves the sign of the opinions by “repelling away” opinions localized near the origin but on different sides with respect to 0.

The safe fusion algorithm is benchmarked againstthree other methods in distributed target tracking scenarios. Safefusion is a fairly unknown method similarly to, e.g., covarianceintersection, that can be used to fuse potentially dependentestimates without double counting data. This makes it suitablefor distributed target tracking, where dependencies are oftenunknown or difficult to derive. The results show that safe fusionis a very competitive alternative in five evaluated scenarios, whileat the same time easy to implement and compute compared tothe other evaluated methods. Hence, safe fusion is an attractivealternative in track to track fusion systems.

This paper is concerned with cooperative Terrain Aided Navigation of a network of aircraft using fusion of Radar Altimeter and inter-node range measurements. State inference is performed using a Rao-Blackwellized Particle Filter with online measurement noise statistics estimation. For terrain coverage measurement noise parameter identification, an online Expectation Maximization algorithm is proposed, where local sufficient statistics at each node are calculated in the E-step, which are then distributed to neighboring nodes using a random gossip algorithm to perform the M-step at each node. Simulation results show that improvement on positioning and calibration performance can be achieved compared to a non-cooperative approach.

In this paper, we study the problem of controlling large scale networks with controls which can assume only positive values. Given an adjacency matrix A, an algorithm is developed that constructs an input matrix B with a minimal number of columns such that the resulting system (A, B) is positively controllable. The algorithm combines the graphical methods used for structural controllability analysis with the theory of positive linear dependence. The number of control inputs guaranteeing positive controllability is near optimal.

In this paper, a calibration method for a triaxial accelerometer using a triaxial gyroscope is presented. The method uses a sensor fusion approach, combining the information from the accelerometers and gyroscopes to find an optimal calibration using Maximum likelihood. The method has been tested by using real sensors in smartphones to perform orientation estimation and verified through Monte Carlo simulations. In both cases, the method is shown to provide a proper calibration, reducing the effect of sensor errors and improving orientation estimates.

This paper presents a batch estimation method for Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) using the Prediction Error Method (PEM). The estimation problem considers landmarks as parameter while treating dynamics using state space models. The gradient needed for parameter estimation is computed recursively using an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). Results using simulations with a monocular camera and inertial sensors are presented and compared to a Nonlinear Least- Squares (NLS) estimator. The presented method produce both lower RMSE’s and scale better to the batch length. 

We consider a target tracking problem where, in addition to the usual sensor measurements, accurate observations with uncertain timestamps are available. Such observations could, \eg, come from traces left by a target or from witnesses of an event, and have the potential in some scenarios to improve the accuracy of an estimate significantly. The Bayesian solution to the smoothing problem for one observation with uncertain timestamp is derived for a linear Gaussian state space model. The joint and marginal distributions of the states and uncertain time are derived, as well as the minimum mean squared error (MMSE) and maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimators. To attain an intuition for the problem in consideration a simple first-order example is presented and its posterior distributions and point estimators are compared and examined in some depth.

This paper presents a feasibility study on smartphone localization of missing persons in Search And Rescue(SAR) operations using widely available Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) products. We assume (1) that the missing person wears an enabled smartphone and (2) that messages transmitted by this smartphone can be intercepted by mobile agents at known positions. We present a proof-of-concept that consists of several mobile agents carrying smartphones that measure the Received Signal Strength (RSS) of Wi-fi messages transmitted by the smartphone of the missing person. The positions of the mobile agents are determined using the GPS unit on the smartphones.The mobile agents send the collected RSS and GPS data to a central processing unit, which processes the data in real-time and guides mobile agents in SAR operations by estimating the position of the missing person. Our central processing unit runs a localization algorithm that requires no calibration, because rescue operations usually take place in unknown environments with unknown hardware. Our experiments in an 250x130m2 outdoor field shows that our localization system provides an average localization performance of roughly 15 meters, which is sufficient for most SAR operations of interest. In addition, we performed several successful tests with a Quadcopter to show the feasibility of using unmanned vehicles in SAR operations.

We consider personal navigation systems in devices equipped with inertial sensors and GPS, where we propose an improved Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) algorithm that learns gait parameters in time intervals when position estimates are available, for instance from GPS or an indoor positioning system (IPS). A novel filtering approach is proposed that is able to learn internal gait parameters in the PDR algorithm, such as the step length and the step detection threshold. Our approach is based on a multi-rate Kalman filter bank that estimates the gait parameters when position measurements are available, which improves PDR in time intervals when the position is not available, for instance when passing from outdoor to indoor environments where IPS is not available. The effectiveness of the new approach is illustrated on several real world experiments. 

We introduce interacting particle Markov chain Monte Carlo (iPMCMC), a PMCMC method based on an interacting pool of standard and conditional sequential Monte Carlo samplers. Like related methods, iPMCMC is a Markov chain Monte Carlo sampler on an extended space. We present empirical results that show significant improvements in mixing rates relative to both non-interacting PMCMC samplers and a single PMCMC sampler with an equivalent memory and computational budget. An additional advantage of the iPMCMC method is that it is suitable for distributed and multi-core architectures.

The speed of a wheeled vehicle is usually estimatedusing wheel speed sensors (WSS) or GPS. If these signals are unavailable, other methods must be used. We propose a novelapproach exploiting the fact that vibrations from rotating axles,with fundamental frequency proportional to vehicle speed, aretransmitted via the vehicle chassis. Using an accelerometer, these vibrations can be tracked to estimate vehicle speed whileother sources of vibrations act as disturbances. A state-space model for the dynamics of the harmonics is presented andformulated such that there is a conditional linear-Gaussiansubstructure, enabling efficient Rao-Blackwellized methods. Avariant of the Rao-Blackwellized point-mass filter is derived, significantly reducing computational complexity, and reducingthe memory requirements from quadratic to linear in thenumber of grid points. It is applied to experimental data from the sensor cluster of a car and validated using therotational frequency from WSS data. The proposed methodshows improved performance and robustness in comparisonto a Rao-Blackwellized particle filter implementation and afrequency spectrum maximization method.

A first course in Automatic control is presented.  A main objective of the course is to put most of the emphasis on the Implement and Operate phases in the process of developing a control system for a process. The course is built around a large amount of student active learning based on three extensive laboratory exercises, where each laboratory exercise can have duration of up to two weeks. For each of the laboratory exercises there is a sequence of learning activities supporting the students’ learning: Introductory lecture, problem solving session, preparation work, help-desk session, independent work in the laboratory, and a final demonstration of the control system. In addition there is a small project where the task is to write a manual for a process operator. The laboratory tasks involve implementation of a control system in an industrial PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) and development of an operator interface.

Parametric Cramer-Rao lower bounds (CRLBs) are given for discrete-time systems with non-zero process noise. Recursive expressions for the conditional bias and mean-square-error (MSE) (given a specific state sequence) are obtained for Kalman filter estimating the states of a linear Gaussian system. It is discussed that Kalman filter is conditionally biased with a non-zero process noise realization in the given state sequence. Recursive parametric CRLBs are obtained for biased estimators for linear state estimators of linear Gaussian systems. Simulation studies are conducted where it is shown that Kalman filter is not an efficient estimator in a conditional sense.

This paper investigates the usefulness of multi-frequency received signal strength (RSS) for indoor localization. Acollected set of data from four sites containing 7 frequencies fromdual receivers and a high accuracy reference positioning systemis presented. The collected data is also made publicly availablethrough ResearchGate. The data is analyzed with respect tospatial variations using Gaussian processes ( GP ). The resultsshow that there are more rapid signal variations across corridorsthan along them. The uniqueness of RSS fingerprints is analyzedsuggesting that sequences of measurements in smoothing, orsmoothing-like, algorithms that can handle temporary positionambiguities are likely the best choice for localization applications.

In many practical applications of system identification, it is not feasible to measure both the inputs applied to the system as well as the output. In such situations, it is desirable to estimate both the inputs and the dynamics of the system simultaneously; this is known as the blind identification problem. In this paper, we provide a novel extension of subspace methods to the blind identification of multiple-input multiple-output linear systems. We assume that our inputs lie in a known subspace, and we are able to formulate the identification problem as rank constrained optimization, which admits a convex relaxation. We show the efficacy of this formulation with a numerical example.

System identification with regularization methods has attracted increasing attention recently and is a complement to the current standard maximum likelihood/ prediction error method. In this paper, we focus on the kernel-based regularization method and give a spectral analysis of the so-called diagonal correlated (DC) kernel, one family of kernel structures that has been proven useful for linear time-invariant system identification. In particular, using the theory of Bessel functions, we derive the eigenvalues and corresponding eigenfunctions of the DC kernel. Accordingly, we derive the Karhunen-Loeve expansion of the stochastic process whose covariance function is the DC kernel.

In this paper, the maximum entropy property of the discrete-time first-order stable spline kernel is studied. The advantages of studying this property in discrete-time domain instead of continuous-time domain are outlined. One of such advantages is that the differential entropy rate is well-defined for discrete-time stochastic processes. By formulating the maximum entropy problem for discrete-time stochastic processes we provide a simple and self-contained proof to show what maximum entropy property the discrete-time first-order stable spline kernel has.

We present algorithm evaluations for ATR of small sea vessels. The targets are at km distance from the sensors, which means that the algorithms have to deal with images affected by turbulence and mirage phenomena. We evaluate previously developed algorithms for registration of 3D-generating laser radar data. The evaluations indicate that some robustness to turbulence and mirage induced uncertainties can be handled by our probabilistic-based registration method.

We also assess methods for target classification and target recognition on these new 3D data. An algorithm for detecting moving vessels in infrared image sequences is presented; it is based on optical flow estimation. Detection of moving target with an unknown spectral signature in a maritime environment is a challenging

problem due to camera motion, background clutter, turbulence and the presence of mirage. First, the optical flow caused by the camera motion is eliminated by estimating the global flow in the image. Second, connected regions containing significant motions that differ from camera motion is extracted. It is assumed that motion caused by a moving vessel is more temporally stable than motion caused by mirage or turbulence. Furthermore, it is assumed that the motion caused by the vessel is more homogenous with respect to both magnitude and orientation, than motion caused by mirage and turbulence. Sufficiently large connected regions with a flow of acceptable magnitude and orientation are considered target regions. The method is evaluated on newly collected sequences of SWIR and MWIR images, with varying targets, target ranges and background clutter.

Finally we discuss a concept for combining passive and active imaging in an ATR process. The main steps are passive imaging for target detection, active imaging for target/background segmentation and a fusion of passive and active imaging for target recognition.

We provide conditions that guarantee existence, uniqueness and stability of strictly positive equilibria for nonlinear cooperative systems associated to vector fields that are concave or subhomogeneous. This class of positive systems describes well interconnected dynamics that are of key interest for communication, biological, economical and neural network applications. These conditions can be formulated directly in terms of the spectral radius of the Jacobian of the system, and do not require to use constant inputs to move the equilibrium point from the origin to the interior of the positive orthant.

To estimate the smoothing distribution in a nonlinear state space model, we apply the conditional particle filter with ancestor sampling. This gives an iterative algorithm in a Markov chain Monte Carlo fashion, with asymptotic convergence results. The computational complexity is analyzed, and our proposed algorithm is successfully applied to the challenging problem of sensor fusion between ultrawideband and accelerometer/gyroscope measurements for indoor positioning. It appears to be a competitive alternative to existing nonlinear smoothing algorithms, in particular the forward filtering-backward simulation smoother. 

We study maximum likelihood (ML) position estimation using quantized received signal strength measurements. In order to mitigate the undesired quantization effect in the observations, the dithering technique is adopted. Various dither noise distributions are considered and the corresponding likelihood functions are derived. Simulation results show that the proposed ML estimator with dithering is able to generate a significantly reduced bias but a modestly increased mean-square error as compared to the conventional ML estimator without dithering.

Particle Metropolis-Hastings enables Bayesian parameter inference in general nonlinear state space models (SSMs). However, in many implementations a random walk proposal is used and this can result in poor mixing if not tuned correctly using tedious pilot runs. Therefore, we consider a new proposal inspired by quasi-Newton algorithms that may achieve similar (or better) mixing with less tuning. An advantage compared to other Hessian based proposals, is that it only requires estimates of the gradient of the log-posterior. A possible application is parameter inference in the challenging class of SSMs with intractable likelihoods.We exemplify this application and the benefits of the new proposal by modelling log-returns offuture contracts on coffee by a stochastic volatility model with alpha-stable observations.

Maximum likelihood (ML) estimation using Newton’s method in nonlinear state space models (SSMs) is a challenging problem due to the analytical intractability of the log- likelihood and its gradient and Hessian. We estimate the gradient and Hessian using Fisher’s identity in combination with a smoothing algorithm. We explore two approximations of the log-likelihood and of the solution of the smoothing problem. The first is a linearization approximation which is computationally cheap, but the accuracy typically varies between models. The second is a sampling approximation which is asymptotically valid for any SSM but is more computationally costly. We demonstrate our approach for ML parameter estimation on simulated data from two different SSMs with encouraging results. 

Vi belyser olikheter och likheter i hur grundutbildningen styrs på fyra svenska tekniska högskolor. Vi jämför hur lärare och examinatorer väljs ut, hur medel fördelas och vilken roll programansvariga (eller motsvarande) har. De strukturella skillnaderna är relativt stora med störst autonomi för programansvariga på Chalmers tekniska högskola vilket delvis har att göra med att detta lärosäte lyder under aktiebolagslagen.

Modeling dynamical systems is important in many disciplines, such as control, robotics, or neurotechnology. Commonly the state of these systems is not directly observed, but only available through noisy and potentially high-dimensional observations. In these cases, system identification, i.e., finding the measurement mapping and the transition mapping (system dynamics) in latent space can be challenging. For linear system dynamics and measurement mappings efficient solutions for system identification are available. However, in practical applications, the linearity assumptions does not hold, requiring nonlinear system identification techniques. If additionally the observations are high-dimensional (e.g., images), nonlinear system identification is inherently hard. To address the problem of nonlinear system identification from high-dimensional observations, we combine recent advances in deep learning and system identification. In particular, we jointly learn a low-dimensional embedding of the observation by means of deep auto-encoders and a predictive transition model in this low-dimensional space. We demonstrate that our model enables learning good predictive models of dynamical systems from pixel information only.

A common issue with many system identification problems is that the true input to the system is unknown. In this paper, a framework, based on indirect input measurements, is proposed to solve the problem when the input is partially or fully unknown, and cannot be measured directly. The approach relies on measurements that indirectly contain information about the unknown input. The resulting indirect model formulation, with both direct and indirect input measurements as inputs, can be used to estimate the desired model of the original system. Due to the similarities with closed-loop system identification, an iterative instrumental variable method is proposed to estimate the indirect model. To show the applicability of the proposed method, it is applied to data from an inverted pendulum experiment with good results. 

This paper presents a method for matching spotlight Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images with a georeferenced 3D-map as means for navigational aid. A hypothesis of the flying platform's absolute position, velocity and direction - which later can be used to correct the inertial navigation system - is attained by image matching and optimization. A projective model with 6 DoF is used to create a simulated SAR image from a 3D map. The parameters of the projective model represents the most important of the platform's navigation state, and these are adjusted by Chamfer matching the captured SAR image to simulated ones. The performance is demonstrated on real spotlight SAR images and 3D-map, and the error is shown to be only a few pixels in average, which in our case is about 3 meters.

This paper presents a distributed online method for joint state and parameter estimation in a Jump Markov NonLinear System based on a distributed recursive Expectation Maximization algorithm. State inference is enabled via the use of Rao-Blackwellized Particle Filter and, for the parameter estimation, the E-step is performed independently at each sensor with the calculation of local sufficient statistics. An average consensus algorithm is used to diffuse local sufficient statistics to neighbors and approximate the global sufficient statistics throughout the network. The evaluation of the proposed algorithm is carried out on a Terrain Based Navigation problem where the unknown parameters of the observation noise model contain relevant information about the terrain properties.

Cramér-Rao lower bounds (CRLBs) are proposed for deterministic parameter estimation under model mismatch conditions where the assumed data model used in the design of the estimators differs from the true data model. The proposed CRLBs are defined for the family of estimators that may have a specified bias (gradient) with respect to the assumed model. The resulting CRLBs are calculated for a linear Gaussian measurement model and compared to the performance of the maximum likelihood estimator for the corresponding estimation problem.

The Ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) is a standard algorithm in oceanography and meteorology, where it has got thousands of citations. It is in these communities appreciated since it scales much better with state dimension n than the standard Kalman filter (KF). In short, the EnKF propagates ensembles with N state realizations instead of mean values and covariance matrices and thereby avoids the computational and storage burden of working on n×n matrices. Perhaps surprising, very little attention has been devoted to the EnKF in the signal processing community. In an attempt to change this, we present the EnKF in a Kalman filtering context. Furthermore, its application to nonlinear problems is compared to sigma point Kalman filters and the particle filter, so as to reveal new insights and improvements for high-dimensional filtering algorithms in general. A simulation example shows the EnKF performance in a space debris tracking application.

A ship's roll dynamics is very sensitive to changes in the loading conditions and a worst-case scenario is the loss of stability.  This paper proposes an approach for online estimation of a ship's mass and center of mass. Instead of focusing on a sensor-rich environment where all possible signals on a ship can be measured and a complete model of the ship can be estimated, a minimal approach is adopted. A model of the roll dynamics is derived from a well-established model in literature and it is assumed that only motion measurements from an inertial measurement unit together with measurements of the rudder angle are available. Furthermore, identifiability properties and disturbance characteristics of the model are presented. Due to the properties of the model, the parameters are estimated with an iterative instrumental variable approach to mitigate the influence of the disturbances and it uses multiple datasets simultaneously to overcome identifiability issues. Finally, a simulation study is presented to investigate the sensitivity to the initial conditions and it is shown that the sensitivity is low for the desired parameters.

In this paper an extension to the sampling based motion planning framework CL-RRT is presented. The framework uses a system model and a stabilizing controller to sample the perceived environment and build a tree of possible trajectories that are evaluated for execution. Complex system models and constraints are easily handled by a forward simulation making the framework widely applicable. To increase operational safety we propose a sampling recovery scheme that performs a deterministic brake profile regeneration using collision information from the forward simulation. This greatly increases the number of safe trajectories and also reduces the number of samples that produce infeasible results. We apply the framework to a Scania G480 mining truck and evaluate the algorithm in a simple yet challenging obstacle course and show that our approach greatly increases the number of feasible paths available for execution.

A local series expansion of a received signal is pro-posed for computing direction of arrival (DOA) in sensor arrays. The advantages compared to classical DOA estimation methods include general sensor configurations, ultra-slow sampling, smalldimension of the arrays, and that it applies for both narrowbandand wideband signals without prior knowledge of the signals. This makes the method well suited for DOA estimation in sensor networks where size and energy consumption have to be small. We generalize the common far-field assumption of the target toalso include the near-field, which enables target tracking usinga network of sensor arrays in one framework.

Micro unmanned aerial vehicles are becoming increasingly interesting for aiding and collaborating with human agents in myriads of applications, but in particular they are useful for monitoring inaccessible or dangerous areas. In order to interact with and monitor humans, these systems need robust and real-time computer vision subsystems that allow to detect and follow persons.

In this work, we propose a low-level active vision framework to accomplish these challenging tasks. Based on the LinkQuad platform, we present a system study that implements the detection and tracking of people under fully autonomous flight conditions, keeping the vehicle within a certain distance of a person. The framework integrates state-of-the-art methods from visual detection and tracking, Bayesian filtering, and AI-based control. The results from our experiments clearly suggest that the proposed framework performs real-time detection and tracking of persons in complex scenarios

This paper presents identification of both network connected systems as well as distributed systems governed by PDEs in the framework of distributed optimization via the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers. This approach opens first the possibility to identify distributed models in a global manner using all available data sequences and second the possibility for a distributed implementation. The latter will make the application to large scale complex systems possible. In addition to outlining a new large scale identification method, illustrations are shown for identifying both network connected systems and discretized PDEs.