Relay selection in cooperative communication systems over continuous time-varying fading channel

In this paper, we study relay selection under outdated channel state information (CSI) in a decode-and-forward (DF) cooperative system. Unlike previous researches on cooperative commu-nication under outdated CSI, we consider that the channel varies continuously over time, i.e., the channel not only changes between relay selection and data transmission but also changes during data transmission. Thus the level of accuracy of the CSI used in relay selection degrades with data transmission. We first evaluate the packet error rate (PER) of the cooperative system under contin-uous time-varying fading channel, and find that the PER performance deteriorates more seriously under continuous time-varying fading channel than when the channel is assumed to be constant during data transmission. Then, we propose a repeated relay selection (RRS) strategy to improve the PER performance, in which the forwarded data is divided into multiple segments and relay is reselected before the transmission of each segment based on the updated CSI. Finally, we propose a combined relay selection (CRS) strategy which takes advantage of three different relay selection strategies to further mitigate the impact of outdated CSI.     

多无人机协同导航技术研究现状及进展

UAV是无人驾驶飞机(Unmanned Aerial Vehicle)的简称,无人机相较于有人驾驶飞机具有用途广泛、成本低和生存能力强等特点,在军事民用领域都有着广阔的前景,受到了国内外研究者的关注。协同导航技术极大地扩展了无人机的应用范围,提高了多无人机定位的精度以及无人机编队的稳定性、安全性和可靠性。现阶段协同导航技术在编队导航、目标监测与跟踪等诸多方面都得到了研究与应用。从四个层次对协同导航的研究现状和进展进行探讨:首先是对多无人机协同导航的概念、基本原理、国内外发展现状和必要性进行阐述;其次对协同导航中相对导航方式进行了分类分析,并分别介绍了无线电导航与视觉导航的原理、优缺点和应用场景;然后从导航目的、协同导航优化算法、滤波方法、协同导航信息融合容错策略几个方面对协同导航进行分析归纳;最后,讨论了基于多无人机协同导航未来的发展趋势。     

异构无人系统协同作战关键技术综述

针对异构无人系统的规模、异构性强弱,对异构无人系统进行了分类,引入了异构无人系统协同作战班组的概念以及应用设想,并通过城市环境中异构无人系统协同作战问题为牵引,提出了异构无人系统协同作战面临的挑战与解决思路,在此基础之上,从异构无人系统协同控制架构、协同任务规划、智能交互、目标感知、环境感知等主要方面对异构无人系统协同作战的关键技术进行了分析,最后对异构无人系统协同作战目前的研究进展与挑战进行了总结。     

A joint mid-course and terminal course cooperative guidance law for multi-missile salvo attack

Salvo attacking a surface target by multiple missiles is an effective tactic to enhance the lethality and penetrate the defense system. However, existing cooperative guidance laws in the mid-course or terminal course are not suitable for long- and medium-range missiles or stand-off attacking. Because the initial conditions of cooperative terminal guidance that are generally generated from the mid-course flight may not lead to a successful cooperative terminal guidance without proper mid-course flight adjustment. Meanwhile, cooperative guidance in the mid-course cannot solely guarantee the accuracy of a simultaneous arrival of multiple missiles. Therefore, a joint mid-course and terminal course cooperative guidance law is developed. By building a distinct leader-follower framework, this paper proposes an efficient coordinated Dubins path planning method to synchronize the arrival time of all engaged missiles in the mid-course flight. The planned flight can generate proper initial conditions for cooperative terminal guidance, and also benefit an earliest simultaneous arrival. In the terminal course, an existing cooperative proportional navigation guidance law guides all the engaged missiles to arrive at a target accurately and simultaneously. The integrated guidance law for an intuitive application is summarized. Simulations demonstrate that the proposed method can generate fast and accurate salvo attack.     

Organizing and managing satellite solar power

Building an organization and management structure to create, launch, utilize and protect a satellite solar power energy system will require a global policy for the beneficial use of SSP. The fundamental organizational tasks are: (1) R&D, achieved through a project organization characterized by the integrated management of applied science, development research and construction engineering; (2) investment, generated by a series of groups creating financial vehicles for public and private investment; (3) transmission and distribution, characterized by attention to an engineering and maintenance process emphasizing high reliability; and (4) crisis response, demanding readiness for instant response to potential internal or external scenarios. A differentiated global organization spanning the long timeframe of SSP will need to have a central management core representative of all parts of the organization, with the capacity for self-renewal and re-adaptation. To be successful over its long timeframe, the SSP organization will need to build continuity and public confidence through intergenerational communication, public education, and community outreach. Integrating structures must be created at all levels of the organization, and should encompass joint work tasks and information-sharing among both industrial and government members. Developmental and alliance partners who support the formation and financing of a differentiated satellite solar power organization will share commensurately in the technologies and competencies that are created.     

Inverse identification of constitutive parameters of Ti2AlNb intermetallic alloys based on cooperative particle swarm optimization

Ti₂AlNb intermetallic alloy is a relatively newly developed high-temperature-resistant structural material, which is expected to replace nickel-based super alloys for thermally and mechanically stressed components in aeronautic and automotive engines due to its excellent mechanical properties and high strength retention at elevated temperature. The aim of this work is to present a fast and reliable methodology of inverse identification of constitutive model parameters directly from cutting experiments. FE-machining simulations implemented with a modified Johnson-Cook (TANH) constitutive model are performed to establish the robust link between observables and constitutive parameters. A series of orthogonal cutting experiments with varied cutting parameters is carried out to allow an exact comparison to the 2D FE-simulations. A cooperative particle swarm optimization algorithm is developed and implemented into the Matlab programs to identify the enormous constitutive parameters. Results show that the simulation observables (i.e., cutting forces, chip morphologies, cutting temperature) implemented with the identified optimal material constants have high consistency with those obtained from experiments, which illustrates that the FE-machining models using the identified parameters obtained from the proposed methodology could be predicted in a close agreement to the experiments. Considering the wide range of the applied unknown parameters number, the proposed inverse methodology of identifying constitutive equations shows excellent prospect, and it can be used for other newly developed metal materials.     

Distributed intelligent self-organized mission planning of multi-UAV for dynamic targets cooperative search-attack

This article studies the cooperative search-attack mission problem with dynamic targets and threats, and presents a Distributed Intelligent Self-Organized Mission Planning (DISOMP) algorithm for multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (multi-UAV). The DISOMP algorithm can be divided into four modules: a search module designed based on the distributed Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm, an attack module designed based on the Parallel Approach (PA) scheme, a threat avoidance module designed based on the Dubins Curve (DC) and a communication module designed for information exchange among the multi-UAV system and the dynamic environment. A series of simulations of multi-UAV searching and attacking the moving targets are carried out, in which the search-attack mission completeness, execution efficiency and system suitability of the DISOMP algorithm are analyzed. The simulation results exhibit that the DISOMP algorithm based on online distributed down-top strategy is characterized by good flexibility, scalability and adaptability, in the dynamic targets searching and attacking problem.     

Modeling and control for cooperative transport of a slung fluid container using quadrotors

In this paper, dynamic modeling and control problem for transfer of a sloshing liquid container suspended through rigid massless links from a team of quadrotors are investigated. By the proposed solution, pose of the slung container and fluid sloshing modes are stabilized appropriately. Dynamics of the container-liquid-quadrotors system is modeled by Euler-Lagrange method. Fluid slosh dynamics is included using multi-mass-spring model. According to derived model, a proper control law is designed for a system with three or more quadrotors. Implementing the proposed control law, quadrotors can control pose of the container, directions of the links and liquid sloshing modes simultaneously. Stability of closed loop system of tracking errors and sloshing modes are demonstrated using a theory of singularly perturbed systems and Lyapunov stability theorem. Also, the capability of the proposed feedback control laws in solving a formerly organized transport problem of a liquid filled container has been demonstrated in simulations. Moreover, priority of the proposed control scheme to an existing slung load controller in the literature is demonstrated.     

航天器自主交会对接的高精度目标定位方法

根据航天器自主式交会对接的实际应用背景和技术需求,针对交会对接过程中所要求的高精度、实时性和强抗扰的技术指标,在合作目标特性分析的基础上,将高斯曲面拟合与双线性插值相结合,提出了一种高精度的合作目标定位方法。首先根据目标图像的灰度分布进行双线性插值和高斯曲面拟合,在此过程中可同时利用目标原有像素和插值点的亚像素信息,使拟合曲面各幅值点的坐标精度达到亚像素级,以确定目标的中心位置。仿真图像和实拍图像的试验结果表明,此定位方法具有亚像素级的定位精度,其总体定位误差可达到1/20个像素左右,并能满足实时性要求,可以在航天器交会对接与空间遥操作等方面的应用中发挥重要作用。     

Relay selection based on MAP estimation for cooperative communication with outdated channel state information

In this paper, we consider an amplify-and-forward (AF) cooperative communication system when the channel state information (CSI) used in relay selection differs from that during data transmission, i.e., the CSI used in relay selection is outdated. The selected relay may not be actually the best for data transmission and the outage performance of the cooperative system will deteriorate. To improve its performance, we propose a relay selection strategy based on maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation, where relay is selected based on predicted signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). To reduce the computation complexity, we approximate the a posteriori probability density of SNR and obtain a closed-form predicted SNR, and a relay selection strategy based on the approximate MAP estimation (RS-AMAP) is proposed. The simulation results show that this approximation leads to trivial performance loss from the perspective of outage probability. Compared with relay selection strategies given in the literature, the outage probability is reduced largely through RS-AMAP for medium-to-large transmitting powers and medium-to-high channel correlation coefficients.