Radio Frequency and Microwave Power Amplifiers are finding an increasingly broad range of applications, particularly in communications and broadcasting, but also in the industrial, medical, automotive, aviation, military, and sensing fields. Each application has its own design specifications, for example, high linearity in modern communication systems or high efficiency in broadcasting, and, depending on process technology, capability to operate efficiently at very high frequencies, such as 77 GHz and higher for automotive radars. Advances in design methodologies have practical applications in improving gain, power output, bandwidth, power efficiency, linearity, input and output impedance matching, and heat dissipation. This essential reference presented in two volumes aims to provide comprehensive, state-of-the-art coverage of RF and microwave power amplifier design with in-depth descriptions of current and potential future approaches. Volume 1 covers principles, device modeling and matching networks, while volume 2 focuses specifically on efficiency and linearity enhancement techniques. The volumes will be of particular interest to engineers and researchers engaged in RF and microwave amplifier design, and those who are interested in systems incorporating RF and microwave amplifiers.

This book gathers the peer-reviewed proceedings of the 12th Annual Meeting of the Bulgarian Section of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, BGSIAM'17, held in Sofia, Bulgaria, in December 2017. The general theme of BGSIAM'17 was industrial and applied mathematics, with a particular focus on: high-performance computing, numerical methods and algorithms, analysis of partial differential equations and their applications, mathematical biology, control and uncertain systems, stochastic models, molecular dynamics, neural networks, genetic algorithms, metaheuristics for optimization problems, generalized nets, and Big Data.

Taking the Qinghai-Tibet Railway as an example, this book introduces intelligent processing for Global Positioning Data (GPS) data. Combining theory with practical applications, it provides essential insights into the Chinese Qinghai-Tibet Railway and novel methods of data processing for GPS satellite positioning, making it a valuable resource for all those working with train control systems, train positioning systems, satellite positioning, and intelligent data processing. As satellite positioning guarantees the safe and efficient operation of train control systems, it focuses on how to best process the GPS data collected, including methods for error detection, reduction and information fusion.

Photographic imagery has come a long way from the pinhole cameras of the nineteenth century. Digital imagery, and its applications, develops in tandem with contemporary society's sophisticated literacy of this subtle medium. This book examines the ways in which digital images have become ever more ubiquitous as legal and medical evidence, just as they have become our primary source of news and have replaced paper-based financial documentation. Crucially, the contributions also analyze the very profound problems which have arisen alongside the digital image, issues of veracity and progeny that demand systematic and detailed response: It looks real, but is it? What camera captured it? Has it been doctored or subtly altered? Attempting to provide answers to these slippery issues, the book covers how digital images are created, processed and stored before moving on to set out the latest techniques for forensically examining images, and finally addressing practical issues such as courtroom admissibility. In an environment where even novice users can alter digital media, this authoritative publication will do much so stabilize public trust in these real, yet vastly flexible, images of the world around us.

This book is devoted to one of the most famous examples of automation handling tasks - the "bin-picking" problem. To pick up objects, scrambled in a box is an easy task for humans, but its automation is very complex. In this book three different approaches to solve the bin-picking problem are described, showing how modern sensors can be used for efficient bin-picking as well as how classic sensor concepts can be applied for novel bin-picking techniques. 3D point clouds are firstly used as basis, employing the known Random Sample Matching algorithm paired with a very efficient depth map based collision avoidance mechanism resulting in a very robust bin-picking approach. Reducing the complexity of the sensor data, all computations are then done on depth maps. This allows the use of 2D image analysis techniques to fulfill the tasks and results in real time data analysis. Combined with force/torque and acceleration sensors, a near time optimal bin-picking system emerges. Lastly, surface normal maps are employed as a basis for pose estimation. In contrast to known approaches, the normal maps are not used for 3D data computation but directly for the object localization problem, enabling the application of a new class of sensors for bin-picking.

Technology has brought about the age of convenience, but at a hefty cost. As a result of a growing production demand on a global scale, adhesive bonding operations also generate a huge amount of hazardous waste. Adhesive bonding, an integral step in manufacturing across several sectors, is one of many culprits of the unprecedented overproduction and environmental burden of municipal, industrial, and hazardous waste. If a cleaner, greener bonding process is formulated, hazardous waste production can be reined in and the world can be safer. Using Lasers as Safe Alternatives for Adhesive Bonding: Emerging Research and Opportunities is a pivotal reference source that analyzes the new conditions for laser processing in the context of adhesive bonding. The book includes the results of experimental research, giving grounds to believe that laser technology has a future in the preparation of products for bonding. From this research, the book presents conclusions for eliminating poisonous chemicals, a threat to humans and the environment, and the burden of liquid and solid waste. It further outlines limitations and requirements imposed on people, such as the need to use personal protective equipment, to establish specific work procedures to ensure the safety of working with lasers, with a view to the future implementation of laser technology in manufacturing facilities. Featuring coverage of a wide range of topics including static strength, surface preparation, and beam impact, this book is ideally designed for engineers, policymakers, researchers, academicians, and students.

This book presents the state-of-the-arts application of digital watermarking in audio, speech, image, video, 3D mesh graph, text, software, natural language, ontology, network stream, relational database, XML, and hardware IPs. It also presents new and recent algorithms in digital watermarking for copyright protection and discusses future trends in the field. Today, the illegal manipulation of genuine digital objects and products represents a considerable problem in the digital world. Offering an effective solution, digital watermarking can be applied to protect intellectual property, as well as fingerprinting, enhance the security and proof-of-authentication through unsecured channels.

The primary aim of this volume is to provide researchers and engineers from both academia and industry with up-to-date coverage of recent advances in the fields of robotic welding, intelligent systems and automation. It gathers selected papers from the 2018 International Conference on Robotic Welding, Intelligence and Automation (RWIA 2018), held Oct 20-22, 2018 in Guangzhou, China. The contributions reveal how intelligentized welding manufacturing (IWM) is becoming an inescapable trend, just as intelligentized robotic welding is becoming a key technology. The volume is divided into four main parts: Intelligent Techniques for Robotic Welding, Sensing in Arc Welding Processing, Modeling and Intelligent Control of Welding Processing, and Intelligent Control and its Applications in Engineering.

This book provides a detailed description of fault tolerant design techniques for smart power drivers and their application in the design of automotive airbag ICs to ensure correct deployment. The book begins with an introduction to the nature of electrical loads in the car, then moves on to describe various current sensing circuits, featuring thermal simulations. It shows how simple design techniques can be applied to ensure appropriate functionality of the IC under any power up condition. It concludes by introducing diagnostic circuits and measurement results. This book is a useful reference for automotive IC designers and provides specifications and design guidelines not found in the current literature.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art in group III-nitride based ultraviolet LED and laser technologies, covering different substrate approaches, a review of optical, electronic and structural properties of InAlGaN materials as well as various optoelectronic components. In addition, the book gives an overview of a number of key application areas for UV emitters and detectors, including water purification, phototherapy, sensing, and UV curing. The book is written for researchers and graduate level students in the area of semiconductor materials, optoelectronics and devices as well as developers and engineers in the various application fields of UV emitters and detectors.

This book investigates the performance limitation issues in networked feedback systems. The fact that networked feedback systems consist of control and communication devices and systems calls for the integration of control theory and information theory. The primary contributions of this book lie in two aspects: the newly-proposed information-theoretic measures and the newly-discovered control performance limitations. We first propose a number of information notions to facilitate the analysis. Using those notions, classes of performance limitations of networked feedback systems, as well as state estimation systems, are then investigated. In general, the book presents a unique, cohesive treatment of performance limitation issues of networked feedback systems via an information-theoretic approach. This book is believed to be the first to treat the aforementioned subjects systematically and in a unified manner, offering a unique perspective differing from existing books.

This book provides a state-of-the art overview of a highly interesting emerging research field in solid state physics/nanomaterials science, topological structures in ferroic materials. Topological structures in ferroic materials have received strongly increasing attention in the last few years. Such structures include domain walls, skyrmions and vortices, which can form in ferroelectric, magnetic, ferroelastic or multiferroic materials. These topological structures can have completely different properties from the bulk material they form in. They also can be controlled by external fields (electrical, magnetic, strain) or currents, which makes them interesting from a fundamental research point of view as well as for potential novel nanomaterials applications. To provide a comprehensive overview, international leading researches in these fields contributed review-like chapters about their own work and the work of other researchers to provide a current view of this highly interesting topic.

For upper-level undergraduate students, and first-year graduate students in materials science, metallurgy, electrical engineering, and applied physics.;This Third Edition is the result of a thorough re-examination of the entire text, incorporating suggestions and corrections by students and professors who have used the text. Explanations and descriptions have been expanded, and additional information has beeen added on high Tc, superconductors, diamond films, "buckminsterfullerene", and thin magnetic materials. Adopted by more than 20 colleges and universities, this text has proven to be a solid introduction to the electrical, optical, and magnetic properties of materials.;It contains comprehensive coverage of electronic properties in metals, semiconductors, and insulators at a fundamental level; stresses the use of wave properties as an integrating theme for the discussion of phonons, photons, and electrons; includes a complete set of illustrative problems along with exercises and answers; and features a careful indication of both Gaussian and SI unit systems.

This is a practical source on recent developments in coherent and nonlinear lightwave communications. The book systematically presents up-to-date explanations of all the relevant physical principles and recent research in this emerging area. Providing an unparallelled engineering-level treatment (with 700 equations), this reference also describes the progression of coherent and nonlinear technology from yesterday's experimental field to today's practical applications tool. This work is intended as a tool for research telecommunication engineers, applications engineers working with broadband telecom systems and networks, and postgraduate students.

This book focuses on the finite-time control of attitude stabilization, attitude tracking for individual spacecraft, and finite-time control of attitude synchronization. It discusses formation reconfiguration for multiple spacecraft in complex networks, and provides a new fast nonsingular terminal sliding mode surface (FNTSMS). Further, it presents newly designed controllers and several control laws to enhance the performance of spacecraft systems and meet related demands, such as strong disturbance rejection and high-precision control. As such, the book establishes a fundamental framework for these topics, while also highlighting the importance of integrated analysis. It is a useful resource for all researchers and students who are interested in this field, as well as engineers whose work involves designing flight vehicles.

This thesis develops a systematic, data-based dynamic modeling framework for industrial processes in keeping with the slowness principle. Using said framework as a point of departure, it then proposes novel strategies for dealing with control monitoring and quality prediction problems in industrial production contexts. The thesis reveals the slowly varying nature of industrial production processes under feedback control, and integrates it with process data analytics to offer powerful prior knowledge that gives rise to statistical methods tailored to industrial data. It addresses several issues of immediate interest in industrial practice, including process monitoring, control performance assessment and diagnosis, monitoring system design, and product quality prediction. In particular, it proposes a holistic and pragmatic design framework for industrial monitoring systems, which delivers effective elimination of false alarms, as well as intelligent self-running by fully utilizing the information underlying the data. One of the strengths of this thesis is its integration of insights from statistics, machine learning, control theory and engineering to provide a new scheme for industrial process modeling in the era of big data.

This book presents the latest key research into the performance and reliability aspects of dependable fault-tolerant systems and features commentary on the fields studied by Prof. Kishor S. Trivedi during his distinguished career. Analyzing system evaluation as a fundamental tenet in the design of modern systems, this book uses performance and dependability as common measures and covers novel ideas, methods, algorithms, techniques, and tools for the in-depth study of the performance and reliability aspects of dependable fault-tolerant systems. It identifies the current challenges that designers and practitioners must face in order to ensure the reliability, availability, and performance of systems, with special focus on their dynamic behaviors and dependencies, and provides system researchers, performance analysts, and practitioners with the tools to address these challenges in their work. With contributions from Prof. Trivedi's former PhD students and collaborators, many of whom are internationally recognized experts, to honor him on the occasion of his 70th birthday, this book serves as a valuable resource for all engineering disciplines, including electrical, computer, civil, mechanical, and industrial engineering as well as production and manufacturing.

This book is a concise navigator across the history of cybernetics, its state-of-the-art and prospects. The evolution of cybernetics (from N. Wiener to the present day) and the reasons of its ups and downs are presented. The correlation of cybernetics with the philosophy and methodology of control, as well as with system theory and systems analysis is clearly demonstrated. The book presents a detailed analysis focusing on the modern trends of research in cybernetics. A new development stage of cybernetics (the so-called cybernetics 2.0) is discussed as a science on general regularities of systems organization and control. The author substantiates the topicality of elaborating a new branch of cybernetics, i.e. organization theory which studies an organization as a property, process and system. The book is intended for theoreticians and practitioners, as well as for students, postgraduates and doctoral candidates. In the first place, the target audience includes tutors and lecturers preparing courses on cybernetics, control theory and systems science.

This book introduces researchers and advanced students with a basic control systems background to an array of control techniques which they can easily implement and use to meet the required performance specifications for their mechatronic applications. It is the result of close to two decades of work of the authors on modeling, simulating and controlling different mechatronic systems from the motion control, automotive control and micro and nano-mechanical systems control areas. The methods presented in the book have all been tested by the authors and a very large group of researchers, who have produced practically implementable controllers with highly successful results. The approach that is recommended in this book is to first start with a conventional control method which may then be cascaded with a feedforward controller if the input is known or can be measured with a preview; to add a disturbance observer if unknown disturbances are to be rejected and if regulation of the uncertain plant about a nominal model is desired; and to add a repetitive controller to take care of any periodic inputs of fixed and known period. Case studies ranging from road vehicle yaw stability control and automated path following, to decoupling control of piezotube actuators in an atomic force microscope are presented. Parameter space based methods are used in the book for achieving robust controllers. Control of Mechatronic Systems is essential reading for researchers and advanced students who want to be exposed to control methods that have been field tested in a wide variety of mechatronic applications, and for practicing engineers who design and implement feedback control systems.

From the Foreword: "...the presentation of real-time scheduling is probably the best in terms of clarity I have ever read in the professional literature. Easy to understand, which is important for busy professionals keen to acquire (or refresh) new knowledge without being bogged down in a convoluted narrative and an excessive detail overload. The authors managed to largely avoid theoretical-only presentation of the subject, which frequently affects books on operating systems. ... an indispensable [resource] to gain a thorough understanding of the real-time systems from the operating systems perspective, and to stay up to date with the recent trends and actual developments of the open-source real-time operating systems." -Richard Zurawski, ISA Group, San Francisco, California, USA Real-time embedded systems are integral to the global technological and social space, but references still rarely offer professionals the sufficient mix of theory and practical examples required to meet intensive economic, safety, and other demands on system development. Similarly, instructors have lacked a resource to help students fully understand the field. The information was out there, though often at the abstract level, fragmented and scattered throughout literature from different engineering disciplines and computing sciences. Accounting for readers' varying practical needs and experience levels, Real Time Embedded Systems: Open-Source Operating Systems Perspective offers a holistic overview from the operating-systems perspective. It provides a long-awaited reference on real-time operating systems and their almost boundless application potential in the embedded system domain. Balancing the already abundant coverage of operating systems with the largely ignored real-time aspects, or "physicality," the authors analyze several realistic case studies to introduce vital theoretical material. They also discuss popular open-source operating systems-Linux and FreRTOS, in particular-to help embedded-system designers identify the benefits and weaknesses in deciding whether or not to adopt more traditional, less powerful, techniques for a project.

The series Topics in Current Chemistry Collections presents critical reviews from the journal Topics in Current Chemistry organized in topical volumes. The scope of coverage is all areas of chemical science including the interfaces with related disciplines such as biology, medicine and materials science. The goal of each thematic volume is to give the non-specialist reader, whether in academia or industry, a comprehensive insight into an area where new research is emerging which is of interest to a larger scientific audience. Each review within the volume critically surveys one aspect of that topic and places it within the context of the volume as a whole. The most significant developments of the last 5 to 10 years are presented using selected examples to illustrate the principles discussed. The coverage is not intended to be an exhaustive summary of the field or include large quantities of data, but should rather be conceptual, concentrating on the methodological thinking that will allow the non-specialist reader to understand the information presented. Contributions also offer an outlook on potential future developments in the field.

Reliability of Microtechnology discusses the reliability of microtechnology products from the bottom up, beginning with devices and extending to systems. The book's focus includes but is not limited to reliability issues of interconnects, the methodology of reliability concepts and general failure mechanisms. Specific failure modes in solder and conductive adhesives are discussed at great length. Coverage of accelerated testing, component and system level reliability, and reliability design for manufacturability are also described in detail.

The book also includes exercises and detailed solutions at the end of each chapter.

This book gathers the proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Computational Science and Technology 2017 (ICCST2017), held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 29-30 November 2017. These proceedings offer practitioners and researchers the opportunity to present exciting advances in computational techniques and solutions in this area. They also identify emerging issues, help to shape future research directions, and will enable industrial users to apply cutting-edge, large-scale and high-performance computational methods.