Negative VTEC with spherical harmonic expansion model under different solar activity conditions

The Earth’s ionosphere can be described by a spherical harmonic (SH) expansion up to a specific degree. However, there exist negative vertical total electron content (VTEC) values in the global ionosphere map (GIM) with the SH expansion model. In this contribution, we specifically investigated the negative VTEC values that are induced by the SH expansion model and validated the performance of the inequality-constrained least squares (ICLS) method in eliminating the negative VTEC values. The GPS data from 2004 to 2017 was selected to cover one solar cycle and the experiments under different solar activity conditions were analyzed. The results in our work show that the occurrence of the negative VTEC values is attributed to the deficiency of the SH expansion model when the VTEC itself is small instead of the unevenly distribution of the GNSS stations. The negative VTEC values appear periodically in the temporal domain, showing apparently one year and half year periods. During one year, two peaks in June and December can be observed in the time series of the negative VTEC values. The number of negative VTEC values in June is obvious larger than that in December. During one solar cycle, the number of negative VTEC values under quiet solar activity condition is obvious larger than that under strong solar activity condition. In the spatial domain, the appearance of the negative VTEC values is strongly related with the movement of the subsolar point. In the latitude of the subsolar point has the largest magnitude, the negative values will appear on the opposite hemisphere and the further from the subsolar point the more negative values. The maximum number of the negative VTEC values in the southern hemisphere appears in June, while the peak value in the northern hemisphere appears in December. The maximum number of negative VTEC values in the southern hemisphere is generally larger than that in the northern hemisphere. In addition, the negative VTEC values are distributed both at middle latitude and high latitude in the southern hemisphere, while they are mainly distributed at high latitude in the northern hemisphere. When the ICLS method is used, the negative VTEC values can be eliminated efficiently and it has nearly no influence on the positive VTEC values. The ICLS method can also improve the receiver’s differential code bias (DCB) and significantly decrease the unreasonable negative slant TEC (STEC) values along the lines of sight. Using the final GIM product of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPLG) as a reference, the root mean square (RMS) of the ICLS solution shows maximum 25%, 20% and 45% improvement relative to the least squares (LS) solution at northern high latitude, southern middle latitude and southern high latitude, respectively.     

Trajectory optimisation in electrical discharge machining of three-dimensional curved and twisted channels

Numerical control electrical discharge machining(NC EDM) is one of the most widely used machining technologies for manufacturing a closed blisk flow path, particularly for three-dimensional(3D) curved and twisted flow channels. In this process, tool electrode design and machining trajectory planning are the key factors affecting machining accessibility and efficiency. Herein, to reduce the difficulty in designing the electrode and its motion path in the closed curved and twisted channels, a heur...     

Path,feedrate and trajectory planning for free-form surface machining: A state-of-the-art review

Nowadays, free-form surfaces have been widely used in various industrial fields. They are usually machined by CNC machine tools, but recently have also begun to be manufactured by industrial robotic arm manipulators, thanks to low cost, large operation reaching space and high machining flexibility of robot. So far, various methodologies have been proposed to improve efficiency and quality of free-form surface machining, thus this paper aims at providing a state-of-the-art review on research advances in free-form surface machining. In this review, tool path generation, feedrate scheduling in Cartesian space and trajectory planning in joint space are focused for both CNC machining and robot machining, and their research statues, existing difficulties and key issues are discussed in detail. Finally, the feasible routes, breakthrough points and future development trend are also expounded.     

Smooth free-cycle dynamic soaring in unspecified shear wind via quadratic programming

Harvesting wind energy is promising for extending long-endurance flights, which can be greatly facilitated by a flight technique called dynamic soaring. The presented study is concerned with generating model-based trajectories with smooth control histories for dynamic soaring maneuvers exploiting wind gradients. The desired smoothness is achieved by introducing a trigonometric series parameterization for the controls, which are formulated with respect to the normalized time.Specifically, the per...     

无人机群体视角下的轨迹预测CSCD

利用无人机对观测目标的运动轨迹进行预测是当前无人系统领域的关键任务之一。目前的目标轨迹预测研究通常基于单一无人机所采集的轨迹数据,但由于场景中障碍物以及视角倾斜等因素的影响,单无人机不易稳定监测目标具体位置,容易导致目标丢失。而且,现有利用无人机的目标轨迹预测一般基于鸟瞰视角,没有发挥出无人机的灵活性。随着无人机集群协同技术的发展,无人机群体视角为目标全方位监测提供了新的思路,在解决目标丢失和目标遮挡问题中具有明显的优势。同时,基于多无人机的位姿估计可以估计出目标的准确三维坐标,为无人机的灵活视角观测提供基础。因此,从轨迹预测的相关工作出发,探讨无人机群体视角下轨迹预测中面临的挑战和解决思路,以期对未来的轨迹预测研究以及集群协同技术发展提供一定帮助。     

考虑界面损伤的立式贮存药柱结构完整性研究

为了进一步结合实际分析固体火箭发动机药柱在立式贮存条件下的结构完整性，考虑推进剂/衬层界面损伤模式在复杂应力条件下具有多样性。以某型固体火箭发动机为例，与常规将衬层设置为粘接单元相比，模型在推进剂与绝热层之间设置粘接接触。对固体火箭发动机在立式贮存环境时经历固化降温、充气内压和重力载荷联合作用下有无界面损伤时的发动机进行仿真分析。结果表明:界面损伤的存在导致推进剂/绝热层界面这个薄弱环节更危险；该型固体火箭发动机药柱在充气内压增大过程中在人工脱粘层根部部位应力呈先增大后减小趋势；在充气内压达到0.085MPa之前，推进剂与绝热层之间考虑界面损伤时，推进剂在垂直于轴向的靠近人工脱粘层根部部分更容易损伤，之后则推进剂垂直于轴向的初始点更容易损伤。该结论可以为固体火箭发动机结构完整性精确仿真提供一定的指导。     

Optimal trajectory design accounting for the stabilization of linear time-varying error dynamics

This study is dedicated to the development of a direct optimal control-based algorithm for trajectory optimization problems that accounts for the closed-loop stability of the trajectory tracking error dynamics already during the optimization. Consequently, the trajectory is designed such that the Linear Time-Varying(LTV) dynamic system, describing the controller’s error dynamics, is stable, while additionally the desired optimality criterion is optimized and all enforced constraints on the traje...     

A novel visual servo method for space manipulators by planning jerk

A novel trajectory planning method for space manipulators is proposed in this article, which can generate trajectory in Cartesian space with continuous joint jerk. The key idea is that, given the desired position for an individual joint, the corresponding joint trajectory is generated in a way like a controller. The generated jerk acts as the controller’s output driving an ideal third-order system to arrive at the desired position, with no need for discrete points in advance. In real applications, the visual servo task is accomplished hierarchically. Since the desired pose in Cartesian space measured by cameras concerns multi degrees of freedom (DOF), desired positions for individual joints are obtained by inverse-kinematics model. Then, joint trajectories are generated as above. To improve the trajectory’s smoothness, a bridging matrix is implemented to ensure that the desired pose varies continuously. Simulation and experimental results show that the proposed method is effective to track targets with different kinds of motion, i.e. can track the input-bounded signal asymptotically.     

A policy iteration method for improving robot assembly trajectory efficiency

Bolt assembly by robots is a vital and difficult task for replacing astronauts in extra-vehicular activities (EVA), but the trajectory efficiency still needs to be improved during the wrench insertion into hex hole of bolt. In this paper, a policy iteration method based on reinforcement learning (RL) is proposed, by which the problem of trajectory efficiency improvement is constructed as an issue of RL-based objective optimization. Firstly, the projection relation between raw data and state-action space is established, and then a policy iteration initialization method is designed based on the projection to provide the initialization policy for iteration. Policy iteration based on the protective policy is applied to continuously evaluating and optimizing the action-value function of all state-action pairs till the convergence is obtained. To verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method, a noncontact demonstration experiment with human supervision is performed. Experimental results show that the initialization policy and the generated policy can be obtained by the policy iteration method in a limited number of demonstrations. A comparison between the experiments with two different assembly tolerances shows that the convergent generated policy possesses higher trajectory efficiency than the conservative one. In addition, this method can ensure safety during the training process and improve utilization efficiency of demonstration data.     

Lift performance enhancement for flapping airfoils by considering surging motion

The flapping motion has a great impact on the aerodynamic performance of flapping wings. In this paper, a surging motion is added to an airfoil performing pitching-plunging combined motion to figure out how it influences the lift performance and flow pattern of flapping airfoils. Firstly, the numerical methods are validated by a NACA0012 airfoil pitching case and a NACA0012 airfoil plunging case. Then, the E377m airfoil which has typical geometric characteristics of the bird-like airfoil is selected as the calculation model to study how phase differences φ₁ between surging motion and plunging motion affect the aerodynamic performance of flapping airfoils. The results show that the airfoil with surging motion has comprehensively better lift performance and thrust performance than the airfoil without surging motion when 15°< φ₁ < 90°. It is demonstrated that surging motion has a powerful ability to improve the aerodynamic performance of flapping airfoil by adjusting φ₁. Finally, to further explore how flapping airfoil improves lift performance by considering surging motion, the flapping motions of E377m airfoil with the highest lift coefficient and lift efficiency are obtained through trajectory optimization. The surging motion is removed in the highest lift case and highest lift efficiency case respectively, and the mechanism that surging motion adjusts the aerodynamic force is analyzed in detail by comparing the vortex structure and kinematic parameters. The results of this paper help reveal the aerodynamic mechanism of bird flight and guide the design of Flapping wing Micro Air Vehicles (FMAV).