This book focuses on how the BOXES Methodology, which is based on the work of Donald Michie, is applied to ill-defined real-time control systems with minimal a priori knowledge of the system. The method is applied to a variety of systems including the familiar pole and cart. This second edition includes a new section that covers some further observations and thoughts, problems, and evolutionary extensions that the reader will find useful in their own implementation of the method. This second edition includes a new section on how to handle jittering about a system boundary which in turn causes replicated run times to become part of the learning mechanism. It also addresses the aging of data values using a forgetfulness factor that causes wrong values of merit to be calculated. Another question that is addressed is "Should a BOXES cell ever be considered fully trained and, if so, excluded from further dynamic updates". Finally, it expands on how system boundaries may be shifted using data from many runs using an evolutionary paradigm.

Mathematical analyses and computational predictions of the behavior of complex systems are needed to effectively deal with weather and climate predictions, for example, and the optimal design of technical processes. Given the random nature of such systems and the recognized relevance of randomness, the equations used to describe such systems usually need to involve stochastics. The basic goal of this book is to introduce the mathematics and application of stochastic equations used for the modeling of complex systems. A first focus is on the introduction to different topics in mathematical analysis. A second focus is on the application of mathematical tools to the analysis of stochastic equations. A third focus is on the development and application of stochastic methods to simulate turbulent flows as seen in reality. This book is primarily oriented towards mathematics and engineering PhD students, young and experienced researchers, and professionals working in the area of stochastic differential equations and their applications. It contributes to a growing understanding of concepts and terminology used by mathematicians, engineers, and physicists in this relatively young and quickly expanding field.

This book discusses systems of damage detection and structural health monitoring in mechanical, civil, and aerospace structures. It utilizes principles of fuzzy logic, probability theory, and signal processing to develop systems and approaches that are robust in the presence of both noise in the data and variations in properties of materials which are intrinsic to the process of mass production. This volume will be useful to graduate students, researchers, and engineers working in this area, especially those looking to understand and address model uncertainty in their algorithms.

This book presents a novel theory of multibody dynamics with distinct features, including unified continuum theory, multiscale modeling technology of multibody system, and motion formalism implementation. All these features together with the introductions of fundamental concepts of vector, dual vector, tensor, dual tensor, recursive descriptions of joints, and the higher-order implicit solvers formulate the scope of the book’s content. In this book, a multibody system is defined as a set consisted of flexible and rigid bodies which are connected by any kinds of joints or constraints to achieve the desired motion. Generally, the motion of multibody system includes the translation and rotation; it is more efficient to describe the motion by using the dual vector or dual tensor directly instead of defining two types of variables, the translation and rotation separately. Furthermore, this book addresses the detail of motion formalism and its finite element implementation of the solid, shell-like, and beam-like structures. It also introduces the fundamental concepts of mechanics, such as the definition of vector, dual vector, tensor, and dual tensor, briefly. Without following the Einstein summation convention, the first- and second-order tensor operations in this book are depicted by linear algebraic operation symbols of row array, column array, and two-dimensional matrix, making these operations easier to understand. In addition, for the integral of governing equations of motion, a set of ordinary differential equations for the finite element-based discrete system, the book discussed the implementation of implicit solvers in detail and introduced the well-developed RADAU IIA algorithms based on post-error estimation to make the contents of the book complete. The intended readers of this book are senior engineers and graduate students in related engineering fields.

This book reports on an original approach to problems of loci. It shows how the theory of mechanisms can be used to address the locus problem. It describes the study of different loci, with an emphasis on those of triangle and quadrilateral, but not limited to them. Thanks to a number of original drawings, the book helps to visualize different type of loci, which can be treated as curves, and shows how to create new ones, including some aesthetic ones, by changing some parameters of the equivalent mechanisms. Further, the book includes a theoretical discussion on the synthesis of mechanisms, giving some important insights into the correlation between the generation of trajectories by mechanisms and the synthesis of those mechanisms when the trajectory is given, and presenting approximate solutions to this problem. Based on the authors' many years of research and on their extensive knowledge concerning the theory of mechanisms, and bridging between geometry and mechanics, this book offers a unique guide to mechanical engineers and engineering designers, mathematicians, as well as industrial and graphic designers, and students in the above-mentioned fields alike.

This book develops and substantiates methods for structural mathematical modeling in the context of protecting machines and equipment from vibration effects. It analyzes problems concerning the dynamic interactions of elements in mechanical oscillatory systems, constructing suitable mathematical models, estimating their dynamic properties, and adapting structural mathematical models to the equivalent forms. In turn, it develops a methodological basis for identifying the lever linkages and taking into account the peculiarities of their influence on the dynamic properties of systems. Given its scope, the book offers a valuable resource for specialists in the fields of dynamics and strength of machines, vibration protection systems for equipment, and maintenance of the dynamic quality of vibrating machines, as well as students in related degree programs.

This book deals with the dynamical modeling of thin elastic structures, such as beams, plates and shells - particularly, the linear and nonlinear vibrations in these structures. The approach makes systematic use of variational equations of motion.

This book introduces the theory of structural dynamics, with focus on civil engineering structures. It presents modern methods of analysis and techniques adaptable to computer programming clearly and easily. The book is ideal as a text for advanced undergraduates or graduate students taking a first course in structural dynamics. It is arranged in such a way that it can be used for a one- or two-semester course, or span the undergraduate and graduate levels. In addition, this book serves the practicing engineer as a primary reference. This book is organized by the type of structural modeling. The author simplifies the subject by presenting a single degree-of-freedom system in the first chapters and then moves to systems with many degrees-of-freedom in the following chapters. Many worked examples/problems are presented to explain the text, and a few computer programs are presented to help better understand the concepts. The book is useful to the research scholars and professional engineers, besides senior undergraduate and postgraduate students.

This book is a novel tutorial for research-oriented study of vibration mechanics. The book begins with twelve open problems from six case studies of vibration mechanics in order to guide readers in studying the entire book. Then, the book surveys both theories and methods of linear vibrations in an elementary course from a new perspective of aesthetics of science so as to assist readers to upgrade their way of learning. The successive chapters offer a theoretical frame of linear vibrations and waves, covering the models of vibration systems, the vibration analysis of discrete systems, the natural vibrations of one-dimensional structures, the natural vibrations of symmetric structures, and the waves and vibrations of one-dimensional structures. The chapters help readers solve the twelve open problems step by step during the research-oriented study. The book tries to arouse the interest of graduate students and professionals, who have learnt an elementary course of vibration mechanics of two credits, to conduct the research-oriented study and achieve a helical upgrade understanding to vibration mechanics.

This book presents iterative learning control (ILC) to address practical issues of flexible structures. It is divided into four parts: Part I provides a general introduction to ILC and flexible structures, while Part II proposes various types of ILC for simple flexible structures to address issues such as vibration, input saturation, input dead-zone, input backlash, external disturbances, and trajectory tracking. It also includes simple partial differential equations to deal with the common problems of flexible structures. Part III discusses the design of ILC for flexible micro aerial vehicles and two-link manipulators, and lastly, Part IV offers a summary of the topics covered. Unlike most of the literature on ILC, which focuses on ordinary differential equation systems, this book explores distributed parameter systems, which are comparatively less stabilized through ILC.Including a comprehensive introduction to ILC of flexible structures, it also examines novel approaches used in ILC to address input constraints and disturbance rejection. This book is intended for researchers, graduate students and engineers in various fields, such as flexible structures, external disturbances, nonlinear inputs and tracking control.

This book is aimed to provide comprehensive and systematic knowledge of kinematic synthesis as developed up to date. Modern mechanical systems require advance kinematics knowledge to support mechanism design with sound theories and methods. The book includes not only the classical foundations of kinematic synthesis, but also the latest advances developed by the authors. Moreover, many examples are included to illustrate both methods and their supporting theory. The focus is on systems of rigid bodies forming closed loops. The four-bar linkage, representing the foundations of mechanical systems, is given due attention, in its three domains: planar, spherical, and spatial. The book contains six chapters, the first two covering fundamentals for kinematic synthesis, including qualitative synthesis. Chapters 3-5 describe, in full detail, the function, motion, and path syntheses of single-dof linkages. In the last chapter, the synthesis of single-dof complex linkages, including six-bar and ten-bar linkages, is introduced. The book is suitable for graduate students of mechanical engineering, researchers of mechanism and robot design, and machine design engineers.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of statistical descriptions of turbulent flows. Its main objectives are to point out why ordinary perturbative treatments of the Navier-Stokes equation have been rather futile, and to present recent advances in non-perturbative treatments, e.g., the instanton method and a stochastic interpretation of turbulent energy transfer. After a brief introduction to the basic equations of turbulent fluid motion, the book outlines a probabilistic treatment of the Navier-Stokes equation and chiefly focuses on the emergence of a multi-point hierarchy and the notion of the closure problem of turbulence. Furthermore, empirically observed multiscaling features and their impact on possible closure methods are discussed, and each is put into the context of its original field of use, e.g., the renormalization group method is addressed in relation to the theory of critical phenomena. The intended readership consists of physicists and engineers who want to get acquainted with the prevalent concepts and methods in this research area.

This book presents the proceedings of the 46th National Symposium on Acoustics (NSA 2017). The main goal of this symposium is to discuss key opportunities and challenges in acoustics, especially as applied to engineering problems. The book covers topics ranging from hydro-acoustics, environmental acoustics, bio-acoustics to musical acoustics, electro-acoustics and sound perception. The contents of this volume will prove useful to researchers and practicing engineers working on acoustics problems.

This book contains selected papers in the area of structural engineering from the proceedings of the conference, Futuristic Approaches in Civil Engineering (FACE) 2019. In the area of construction materials, the book covers high quality research papers on raw materials and manufacture of cement, mixing, rheology and hydration, admixtures, characterization techniques and modeling, fiber-reinforced concrete, repair and retrofitting of concrete structures, novel testing techniques such as digital image correlation (DIC). Research on sustainable building materials like Geopolymer concrete and recycled aggregates are covered. In the area of earthquake engineering, papers related to the seismic response of load-bearing unreinforced masonry walls, reinforced concrete frame and buildings with dampers are covered. Additionally, there are chapters on structures subjected to vehicular impact and fire. The contents of this book will be useful for graduate students, researchers and practitioners working in the areas of concrete, earthquake and structural engineering.

This monograph has arisen out of a number of attempts spanning almost five decades to understand how one might examine the evolution of densities in systems whose dynamics are described by differential delay equations. Though the authors have no definitive solution to the problem, they offer this contribution in an attempt to define the problem as they see it, and to sketch out several obvious attempts that have been suggested to solve the problem and which seem to have failed. They hope that by being available to the general mathematical community, they will inspire others to consider-and hopefully solve-the problem. Serious attempts have been made by all of the authors over the years and they have made reference to these where appropriate.

This book gathers the latest advances, innovations, and applications in the field of multibody and mechatronic systems. Topics addressed include the analysis and synthesis of mechanisms; dynamics of multibody systems; design algorithms for mechatronic systems; robots and micromachines; experimental validations; theory of mechatronic simulation; mechatronic systems for rehabilitation and assistive technologies; mechatronic systems for energy harvesting; virtual reality integration in multibody and mechatronic systems; multibody design in robotic systems; and control of mechatronic systems. The contents reflect the outcomes of the 7th International Symposium on Multibody Systems and Mechatronics (7th MuSMe) in 2020, within the framework of the FEIbIM Commission for Robotics and Mechanisms and IFToMM Technical Committees for Multibody Dynamics and for Robotics and Mechatronics.

Perturbation Methods in Science and Engineering provides the fundamental and advanced topics in perturbation methods in science and engineering, from an application viewpoint. This book bridges the gap between theory and applications, in new as well as classical problems. The engineers and graduate students who read this book will be able to apply their knowledge to a wide range of applications in different engineering disciplines. The book begins with a clear description on limits of mathematics in providing exact solutions and goes on to show how pioneers attempted to search for approximate solutions of unsolvable problems. Through examination of special applications and highlighting many different aspects of science, this text provides an excellent insight into perturbation methods without restricting itself to a particular method. This book is ideal for graduate students in engineering, mathematics, and physical sciences, as well as researchers in dynamic systems.

This book provides a systematic approach to the design of predictor based controllers for (time-varying) linear systems with either (time-varying) input or state delays. Differently from those traditional predictor based controllers, which are infinite-dimensional static feedback laws and may cause difficulties in their practical implementation, this book develops a truncated predictor feedback (TPF) which involves only finite dimensional static state feedback. Features and topics: A novel approach referred to as truncated predictor feedback for the stabilization of (time-varying) time-delay systems in both the continuous-time setting and the discrete-time setting is built systematically Semi-global and global stabilization problems of linear time-delay systems subject to either magnitude saturation or energy constraints are solved in a systematic manner Both stabilization of a single system and consensus of a group of systems (multi-agent systems) are treated in a unified manner by applying the truncated predictor feedback and predictor feedback The properties of the solutions to a class of parametric (differential and difference) Lyapunov matrix equations are presented in detail Detailed numerical examples and applications to the spacecraft rendezvous and formation flying problems are provided to demonstrate the usefulness of the presented theoretical results This book can be a useful resource for the researchers, engineers, and graduate students in the fields of control, applied mathematics, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and aerospace engineering.

Approximation Methods in Engineering and Science covers fundamental and advanced topics in three areas: Dimensional Analysis, Continued Fractions, and Stability Analysis of the Mathieu Differential Equation. Throughout the book, a strong emphasis is given to concepts and methods used in everyday calculations. Dimensional analysis is a crucial need for every engineer and scientist to be able to do experiments on scaled models and use the results in real world applications. Knowing that most nonlinear equations have no analytic solution, the power series solution is assumed to be the first approach to derive an approximate solution. However, this book will show the advantages of continued fractions and provides a systematic method to develop better approximate solutions in continued fractions. It also shows the importance of determining stability chart of the Mathieu equation and reviews and compares several approximate methods for that. The book provides the energy-rate method to study the stability of parametric differential equations that generates much better approximate solutions.

This book presents a unified introduction to the theory of mechanical vibrations. The general theory of the vibrating particle is the point of departure for the field of multidegree of freedom systems. Emphasis is placed in the text on the issue of continuum vibrations. The presented examples are aimed at helping the readers with understanding the theory.This book is of interest among others to mechanical, civil and aeronautical engineers concerned with the vibratory behavior of the structures. It is useful also for students from undergraduate to postgraduate level. The book is based on the teaching experience of the authors.

This book discusses the parametric modeling, performance evaluation, design optimization and comparative study of the high-speed, parallel pick-and-place robots. It collects the modeling methodology, evaluation criteria and design guidelines for parallel PnP robots to provide a systematic analysis method for robotic developers. Furthermore, it gathers the research results previously scattered in many prestigious international journals and conference proceedings and methodically edits them and presents them in a unified form. The book is of interest to researchers, R&D engineers and graduate students in industrial parallel robotics who wish to learn the core principles, methods, algorithms, and applications.

For junior-level courses in System Dynamics, offered in Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering departments. This text presents students with the basic theory and practice of system dynamics. It introduces the modeling of dynamic systems and response analysis of these systems, with an introduction to the analysis and design of control systems.

This book discusses the realization and control problems of finite-dimensional dynamical systems which contain linear and nonlinear systems. The author focuses on algebraic methods for the discussion of control problems of linear and non-linear dynamical systems. The book contains detailed examples to showcase the effectiveness of the presented method. The target audience comprises primarily research experts in the field of control theory, but the book may also be beneficial for graduate students alike.

This book focuses on most recent theoretical findings on control issues for active suspension systems. The authors first introduce the theoretical background of active suspension control, then present constrained H control approaches of active suspension systems in the entire frequency domain, focusing on the state feedback and dynamic output feedback controller in the finite frequency domain which people are most sensitive to. The book also contains nonlinear constrained tracking control via terminal sliding-mode control and adaptive robust theory, presenting controller design of active suspensions as well as the reliability control of active suspension systems. The target audience primarily comprises research experts in control theory, but the book may also be beneficial for graduate students alike.

This book is ideal for teaching students in engineering or physics the skills necessary to analyze motions of complex mechanical systems such as spacecraft, robotic manipulators, and articulated scientific instruments. Kane's method, which emerged recently, reduces the labor needed to derive equations of motion and leads to equations that are simpler and more readily solved by computer, in comparison to earlier, classical approaches. Moreover, the method is highly systematic and thus easy to teach. This book is a revision of Dynamics: Theory and Applications (1985), by T. R. Kane and D. A. Levinson, and presents the method for forming equations of motion by constructing generalized active forces and generalized inertia forces. Important additional topics include approaches for dealing with finite rotation, an updated treatment of constraint forces and constraint torques, an extension of Kane's method to deal with a broader class of nonholonomic constraint equations, and other recent advances.