In this paper, we propose a distributed algorithm for sensor network localization based on a maximum likelihood formulation. It relies on the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm where the computations are distributed among different computational agents using message passing, or equivalently dynamic programming. The resulting algorithm provides a good localization accuracy, and it converges to the same solution as its centralized counterpart. Moreover, it requires fewer iterations and communications between computational agents as compared to first-order methods. The performance of the algorithm is demonstrated with extensive simulations in Julia in which it is shown that our method outperforms distributed methods that are based on approximate maximum likelihood formulations.

A computationally efficient method for online joint state inference and dynamical model learning is presented. The dynamical model combines an a priori known, physically derived, state-space model with a radial basis function expansion representing unknown system dynamics and inherits properties from both physical and data-driven modeling. The method uses an extended Kalman filter approach to jointly estimate the state of the system and learn the unknown system dynamics, via the parameters of the basis function expansion. The key contribution is a computational complexity reduction compared to a similar approach with globally supported basis functions. By using compactly supported radial basis functions and an approximate Kalman gain, the computational complexity is considerably reduced and is essentially determined by the support of the basis functions. The approximation works well when the system dynamics exhibit limited correlation between points well separated in the state-space domain. The method is exemplified via two intelligent vehicle applications where it is shown to: (i) have competitive system dynamics estimation performance compared to the globally supported basis function method, and (ii) be real-time applicable to problems with a large-scale state-space.

Objectives Previous research using non-invasive (magnetoencephalography, MEG) and invasive (electrocorticography, ECoG) neural recordings has demonstrated the progressive and hierarchical representation and processing of complex multi-talker auditory scenes in the auditory cortex. Early responses (<85 ms) in primary-like areas appear to represent the individual talkers with almost equal fidelity and are independent of attention in normal-hearing (NH) listeners. However, late responses (>85 ms) in higher-order non-primary areas selectively represent the attended talker with significantly higher fidelity than unattended talkers in NH and hearing-impaired (HI) listeners. Motivated by these findings, the objective of this study was to investigate the effect of a noise reduction scheme (NR) in a commercial hearing aid (HA) on the representation of complex multi-talker auditory scenes in distinct hierarchical stages of the auditory cortex by using high-density electroencephalography (EEG). Design We addressed this issue by investigating early (<85 ms) and late (>85 ms) EEG responses recorded in 34 HI subjects fitted with HAs. The HA noise reduction (NR) was either on or off while the participants listened to a complex auditory scene. Participants were instructed to attend to one of two simultaneous talkers in the foreground while multi-talker babble noise played in the background (+3 dB SNR). After each trial, a two-choice question about the content of the attended speech was presented. Results Using a stimulus reconstruction approach, our results suggest that the attention-related enhancement of neural representations of target and masker talkers located in the foreground, as well as suppression of the background noise in distinct hierarchical stages is significantly affected by the NR scheme. We found that the NR scheme contributed to the enhancement of the foreground and of the entire acoustic scene in the early responses, and that this enhancement was driven by better representation of the target speech. We found that the target talker in HI listeners was selectively represented in late responses. We found that use of the NR scheme resulted in enhanced representations of the target and masker speech in the foreground and a suppressed representation of the noise in the background in late responses. We found a significant effect of EEG time window on the strengths of the cortical representation of the target and masker. Conclusion Together, our analyses of the early and late responses obtained from HI listeners support the existing view of hierarchical processing in the auditory cortex. Our findings demonstrate the benefits of a NR scheme on the representation of complex multi-talker auditory scenes in different areas of the auditory cortex in HI listeners.

In parliamentary democracies, government negotiations talks following a general election can sometimes be a long and laborious process. In order to explain this phenomenon, in this paper we use structural balance theory to represent a multiparty parliament as a signed network, with edge signs representing alliances and rivalries among parties. We show that the notion of frustration, which quantifies the amount of "disorder" encoded in the signed graph, correlates very well with the duration of the government negotiation talks. For the 29 European countries considered in this study, the average correlation between frustration and government negotiation talks ranges between 0.42 and 0.69, depending on what information is included in the edges of the signed network. Dynamical models of collective decision-making over signed networks with varying frustration are proposed to explain this correlation.

A sensor management method for joint multi-target search and track problems is proposed, where a single user-defined parameter allows for a trade-off between the two objectives. The multi-target density is propagated using the Poisson multi-Bernoulli mixture filter, which eliminates the need for a separate handling of undiscovered targets and provides the theoretical foundation for a unified search and track method. Monte Carlo simulations of two scenarios are used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method.

Fifteen years have passed since the publication of Foxlins seminal paper "Pedestrian tracking with shoe-mounted inertial sensors". In addition to popularizing the zero-velocity update, Foxlin also hinted that the optimal parameter tuning of the zero-velocity detector is dependent on, for example, the users gait speed. As demonstrated by the recent influx of related studies, the question of how to properly design a robust zero-velocity detector is still an open research question. In this review, we first recount the history of foot-mounted inertial navigation and characterize the main sources of error, thereby motivating the need for a robust solution. Following this, we systematically analyze current approaches to robust zero-velocity detection, while categorizing public code and data. The article concludes with a discussion on commercialization along with guidance for future research.

The problem of joint classification of gait and device mode from inertial measurement units (IMU) measurements is considered. For this, an approach for computing unique gait signature using measurements collected from body-worn inertial measurement units (IMUs) is proposed.The gait signature represents one full cycle of the human gait, and is suitable for off-line or on-line classification of the gait mode. The signature can also be used to jointly classify the gait mode and the device mode. The device mode identifies how the IMU-equipped device is being carried by the user. The method is based on precise segmentation and resampling of the measured IMU signal, as an initial step, further tuned by minimizing the variability of the obtained signature within each gait cycle. Finally, a Fourier series expansion of the gait signature is introduced which provides a low-dimensional feature vector well suited for classification purposes. The proposed method is evaluated on a large dataset involving several subjects, each one containing two different gait modes and four different device modes.

Combinations of Gramian-based centrality measures are used for driver node selection in complex networks in order to simultaneously take into account conflicting control energy requirements, like minimizing the average energy needed to steer the state in any direction and the energy needed for the worst direction. The selection strategies that we propose are based on a characterization of the network non-normality. We show that the concept is also related to the idea of balanced realization.

To increase the ecological validity of outcomes from laboratory evaluations of hearing and hearing devices, it is desirable to introduce more realistic outcome measures in the laboratory. This article presents and discusses three outcome measures that have been designed to go beyond traditional speech-in-noise measures to better reflect realistic everyday challenges. The outcome measures reviewed are: the Sentence-final Word Identification and Recall (SWIR) test that measures working memory performance while listening to speech in noise at ceiling performance; a neural tracking method that produces a quantitative measure of selective speech attention in noise; and pupillometry that measures changes in pupil dilation to assess listening effort while listening to speech in noise. According to evaluation data, the SWIR test provides a sensitive measure in situations where speech perception performance might be unaffected. Similarly, pupil dilation has also shown sensitivity in situations where traditional speech-in-noise measures are insensitive. Changes in working memory capacity and effort mobilization were found at positive signal-to-noise ratios (SNR), that is, at SNRs that might reflect everyday situations. Using stimulus reconstruction, it has been demonstrated that neural tracking is a robust method at determining to what degree a listener is attending to a specific talker in a typical cocktail party situation. Using both established and commercially available noise reduction schemes, data have further shown that all three measures are sensitive to variation in SNR. In summary, the new outcome measures seem suitable for testing hearing and hearing devices under more realistic and demanding everyday conditions than traditional speech-in-noise tests.

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We propose a new estimator to measure directed dependencies in time series. The dimensionality of data is first reduced using a new non-uniform embedding technique, where the variables are ranked according to a weighted sum of the amount of new information and improvement of the prediction accuracy provided by the variables. Then, using a greedy approach, the most informative subsets are selected in an iterative way. The algorithm terminates, when the highest ranked variable is not able to significantly improve the accuracy of the prediction as compared to that obtained using the existing selected subsets. In a simulation study, we compare our estimator to existing state-of-the-art methods at different data lengths and directed dependencies strengths. It is demonstrated that the proposed estimator has a significantly higher accuracy than that of existing methods, especially for the difficult case, where the data are highly correlated and coupled. Moreover, we show its false detection of directed dependencies due to instantaneous couplings effect is lower than that of existing measures. We also show applicability of the proposed estimator on real intracranial electroencephalography data.

Unless a segregated airspace and the corresponding clearances can be afforded, flight testing of remotely piloted aircraft is often done near the ground and within visual line-of-sight. In addition to the increased exposure to turbulence, this setup also limits the available time for test manoeuvres on each pass, especially for subscale demonstrators with a relatively high wing loading and flight speed. A suitable testing procedure, efficient excitation signals and a robust system identification method are therefore fundamental. Here, the authors use ground-based flight control augmentation to inject multisine signals with low correlation between the different inputs. Focusing on initial flight-envelope expansion, where linear regression is common, this paper also describes the improvement of an existing frequency-domain method by using an instrumental variable (IV) approach to better handle turbulence and measurement noise and to enable real-time identification analysis. Both simulations and real flight tests on a subscale demonstrator are presented. The results show that the combination of multisine input signals and the enhanced frequency-domain method is an effective way of improving flight testing of remotely piloted aircraft in confined airspace.

In this article, a unified identification framework called constrained subspace method for structured state-space models (COSMOS) is presented, where the structure is defined by a user-specified linear or polynomial parametrization. The new approach operates directly from the input and output data, which differs from the traditional two-step method that first obtains a state-space realization followed by the system-parameter estimation. The new identification framework relies on a subspace inspired linear regression problem which may not yield a consistent estimate in the presence of process noise. To alleviate this problem, the linear regression formulation is imposed by structured and low-rank constraints in terms of a finite set of system Markov parameters and the user specified model parameters. The nonconvex nature of the constrained optimization problem is dealt with by transforming the problem into a difference-of-convex optimization problem, which is then handled by the sequential convex programming strategy. Numerical simulation examples show that the proposed identification method is more robust than the classical prediction-error method initialized by random initial values in converging to local minima, but at the cost of heavier computational burden.

Tracked targets often exhibit common behaviors due to influences from the surrounding environment, such as wind or obstacles, which are usually modeled as noise. Here, these influences are modeled using sparse Gaussian processes that are learned online together with the state inference using an extended Kalman filter. The method can also be applied to time-varying influences and identify simple dynamic systems. The method is evaluated with promising results in a simulation and a real-world application.

In the local approach to linear parameter varying (LPV) system identification, it is widely acknowledged that locally estimated linear state-space models should be made coherent before being interpolated, but the accurate meaning of the term "coherent" or "coherence" is rarely defined. The purpose of this article is to analyze the relevance of two existing definitions and to point out the consequence of this analysis on the practice of LPV system identification.

Estimation of the mean of a stochastic variable observed in noise with positive support is considered. It is well known from the literature that order statistics gives one order of magnitude lower estimation variance compared to the best linear unbiased estimator (BLUE). We provide a systematic survey of some common distributions with positive support, and provide derivations of minimum variance unbiased estimators (MVUE) based on order statistics, including BLUE for comparison. The estimators are derived with or without knowledge of the hyperparameters of the underlying noise distribution. Though the uniform, exponential and Rayleigh distributions, respectively, we consider are standard in literature, the problem of estimating the location parameter with additive noise from these distribution seems less studied, and we have not found any explicit expressions for BLUE and MVUE for these cases. In addition to additive noise with positive support, we also consider the mixture of uniform and normal noise distribution for which an order statistics-based unbiased estimator is derived. Finally, an iterative global navigation satellite system (GNSS) localization algorithm with uncertain pseudorange measurements is proposed which relies on the derived estimators for receiver clock bias estimation. Simulation data for GNSS time estimation and experimental GNSS data for joint clock bias and position estimation are used to evaluate the performance of the proposed methods.

In abstractions of linear dynamic networks, selected node signals are removed from the network, while keeping the remaining node signals invariant. The topology and link dynamics, or modules, of an abstracted network will generally be changed compared to the original network. Abstractions of dynamic networks can be used to select an appropriate set of node signals that are to be measured, on the basis of which a particular local module can be estimated. A method is introduced for network abstraction that generalizes previously introduced algorithms, as e.g. immersion and the method of indirect inputs. For this abstraction method it is shown under which conditions on the selected signals a particular module will remain invariant. This leads to sets of conditions on selected measured node variables that allow identification of the target module. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Poor road conditions in underground mine tunnels can lead to decreased production efficiency and increased wear on production vehicles. A prototype system for road condition monitoring is presented in this paper to counteract this. The system consists of three components i.e. localization, road monitoring, and scheduling. The localization of vehicles is performed using a Rao-Blackwellized extended particle filter, combining vehicle mounted sensors with signal strengths of WiFi access points. Two methods for road monitoring are described: a Kalman filter used together with a model of the vehicle suspension system, and a relative condition measure based on the power spectral density. Lastly, a method for taking automatic action on an ill-conditioned road segment is proposed in the form of a rescheduling algorithm. The scheduling algorithm is based on the large neighborhood search and is used to integrate road service activities in the short-term production schedule while minimizing introduced production disturbances. The system is demonstrated on experimental data collected in a Swedish underground mine.

We study the fundamental problem of fusing one round trip time (RTT) observation associated with a serving base station with one time-difference of arrival (TDOA) observation associated to the serving base station and a neighbor base station to localize a 2-D mobile station (MS). This situation can arise in 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) when the number of reported cells of the mobile station is reduced to a minimum in order to minimize the signaling costs and to support a large number of devices. The studied problem corresponds geometrically to computing the intersection of a circle with a hyperbola, both with measurement uncertainty, which generally has two equally likely solutions. We derive an analytical representation of these two solutions that fits a filter bank framework that can keep track of different hypothesis until potential ambiguities have been resolved. Further, a performance bound for the filter bank is derived. The proposed filter bank is first evaluated in a simulated scenario, where the set of serving and neighbor base stations is changing in a challenging way. The filter bank is then evaluated on real data from a field test, where the result shows a precision better than 40 m 95% of the time.

Smartphone-based driver monitoring is quickly gaining ground as a feasible alternative to competing in-vehicle and aftermarket solutions. Currently the main challenges for data analysts studying smartphone-based driving data stem from the mobility of the smartphone. In this paper, we use kernel-based k-means clustering to infer the placement of smartphones within vehicles. The trip segments are mapped into fifteen different placement clusters. As a part of the presented framework, we discuss practical considerations concerning e.g., trip segmentation, cluster initialization, and parameter selection. The proposed method is evaluated on more than 10 000 kilometers of driving data collected from approximately 200 drivers. To validate the interpretation of the clusters, we compare the data associated with different clusters and relate the results to real-world knowledge of driving behavior. The clusters associated with the label "Held by hand" are shown to display high gyroscope variances, low maximum speeds, low correlations between the measurements from smartphone-embedded and vehicle-fixed accelerometers, and short segment durations.

Gearbox failures cost thousands of lost production hours in plants that use industrial robots. In this context, an automated monitoring system that can warn the user of an impending failure can save precious resources. This problem has been addressed in many other domains through the use of machine learning approaches. However, standard machine learning algorithms are limited in their ability to detect gearbox failures, mainly due to task variability arises from robot-specific data. To improve detection performance of machine learning approaches, in this paper we propose techniques to curate the data prior to building a classification model. In a systematic hypothesis-driven study exploring the effect of different preprocessing techniques, we evaluate training data augmentation with estimated measurements, data differencing to suppress task dependence, inclusion of local variation, and selection of principal components on data collected from 26 industrial robots from the field. Our results show that preprocessing techniques improve the failure detection performance.

Nonlinear system identification is an extremely broad topic, since every system that is not linear is nonlinear. That makes it impossible to give a full overview of all aspects of the fi eld. For this reason, the selection of topics and the organization of the discussion are strongly colored by the personal journey of the authors in this nonlinear universe.

Posterior Cramér-Rao bounds (CRBs) are derived for the estimation performance of three Gaussian process-based state-space models. The parametric CRB is derived for the case with a parametric state transition and a Gaussian process-based measurement model. We illustrate the theory with a target tracking example and derive both parametric and posterior filtering CRBs for this specific application. Finally, the theory is illustrated with a positioning problem, with experimental data from an office environment where the obtained estimation performance is compared to the derived CRBs.

Maneuvering a general 2-trailer with a car-like tractor in backward motion is a task that requires a significant skill to master and is unarguably one of the most complicated tasks a truck driver has to perform. This paper presents a path planning and path-following control solution that can be used to automatically plan and execute difficult parking and obstacle avoidance maneuvers by combining backward and forward motion. A lattice-based path planning framework is developed in order to generate kinematically feasible and collision-free paths and a path-following controller is designed to stabilize the lateral and angular path-following error states during path execution. To estimate the vehicle state needed for control, a nonlinear observer is developed, which only utilizes information from sensors that are mounted on the car-like tractor, making the system independent of additional trailer sensors. The proposed path-planning and path-following control framework is implemented on a full-scale test vehicle and results from simulations and real-world experiments are presented.

INTRODUCTION: The HeartMate 3^™ has shown lower rates of adverse events compared to previous devices due to the design and absence of mechanical bearings. For previous devices, sound analysis emerged as a way to assess pump function. The aims of this study were to determine if sound analysis can be applied to the HeartMate 3 in vivo and in vitro and to evaluate an electronic stethoscope.

METHOD: Sound recordings were performed with microphones and clinical accessible electronic stethoscope. The recordings were studied in both the time and the frequency domains. Recordings from four patients were performed to determine if in vivo and in vitro recordings are comparable.

RESULTS: The results show that it is possible to detect sound from HeartMate 3 and the sound spectrum is clear. Pump frequency and frequency of the pulsatile mode are easily determined. Frequency spectra from in vitro and in vivo recordings have the same pattern, and the major proportion (96.7%) of signal power is located at the pump speed frequency ±40 Hz. The recordings from the patients show low inter-individual differences except from location of peaks originating from pump speed and harmonics. Electronic stethoscopes could be used for sound recordings, but the dedicated equipment showed a clearer sound spectrum.

DISCUSSION: The results show that acoustic analysis can also be performed with the HeartMate 3 and that in vivo and in vitro sound spectrum is similar. The frequency spectra are different from previous devices, and methods for assessing pump function or thrombosis need further evaluation.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to compare listening effort, as estimated via pupillary response, during a speech-in-noise test in bone-anchored hearing system (BAHS) users wearing three different sound processors. The three processors, Ponto Pro (PP), Ponto 3 (P3), and Ponto 3 SuperPower (P3SP), differ in terms of maximum force output (MFO) and MFO algorithm. The hypothesis was that listeners would allocate lower listening effort with the P3SP than with the PP, as a consequence of a higher MFO and, hence, fewer saturation artifacts in the signal. Design: Pupil dilations were recorded in 21 BAHS users with a conductive or mixed hearing loss, during a speech-in-noise test performed at positive signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs), where the speech and noise levels were individually adjusted to lead to 95% correct intelligibility with the PP. The listeners had to listen to a sentence in noise, retain it for 3 seconds and then repeat it, while an eye-tracking camera recorded their pupil dilation. The three sound processors were tested in random order with a single-blinded experimental design. Two conditions were performed at the same SNR: Condition 1, where the speech level was designed to saturate the PP but not the P3SP, and condition 2, where the overall sound level was decreased relative to condition 1 to reduce saturation artifacts. Results: The P3SP led to higher speech intelligibility than the PP in both conditions, while the performance with the P3 did not differ from the performance with the PP and the P3SP. Pupil dilations were analyzed in terms of both peak pupil dilation (PPD) and overall pupil dilation via growth curve analysis (GCA). In condition 1, a significantly lower PPD, indicating a decrease in listening effort, was obtained with the P3SP relative to the PP. The PPD obtained with the P3 did not differ from the PPD obtained with the other two sound processors. In condition 2, no difference in PPD was observed across the three processors. The GCA revealed that the overall pupil dilation was significantly lower, in both conditions, with both the P3SP and the P3 relative to the PP, and, in condition 1, also with the P3SP relative to the P3. Conclusions: The overall effort to process a moderate to loud speech signal was significantly reduced by using a sound processor with a higher MFO (P3SP and P3), as a consequence of fewer saturation artifacts. These findings suggest that sound processors with a higher MFO may help BAHS users in their everyday listening scenarios, in particular in noisy environments, by improving sound quality and, thus, decreasing the amount of cognitive resources utilized to process incoming speech sounds.

Modeling and failure prediction are important tasks in many engineering systems. For these tasks, the machine learning literature presents a large variety of models such as classification trees, random forest, artificial neural networks, among others. Standard statistical models such as the logistic regression, linear discriminant analysis, k-nearest neighbors, among others, can be applied. This work evaluates advantages and limitations of statistical and machine learning methods to predict failures in industrial robots. The work is based on data from more than five thousand robots in industrial use. Furthermore, a new approach combining standard statistical and machine learning models, named hybrid gradient boosting, is proposed. Results show that the hybrid gradient boosting achieves significant improvement as compared to statistical and machine learning methods. Furthermore, local joint information has been identified as the main driver for failure detection, whereas failure classification can be improved using additional information from different joints and hybrid models. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Differential graphical games have been introduced in the literature to solve state synchronization problem for linear homogeneous agents. When the agents are heterogeneous, the previous notion of graphical games cannot be used anymore and a new definition is required. In this paper, we define a novel concept of differential graphical games for linear heterogeneous agents subject to external unmodeled disturbances, which contain the previously introduced graphical game for homogeneous agents as a special case. Using our new formulation, we can solve both the output regulation and H-infinity output regulation problems. Our graphical game framework yields coupled Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations, which are, in general, impossible to solve analytically. Therefore, we propose a new actor-critic algorithm to solve these coupled equations numerically in real time. Moreover, we find an explicit upper bound for the overall L2-gain of the output synchronization error with respect to disturbance. We demonstrate our developments by a simulation example.

A signed network is a network in which each link is associated with a positive or negative sign. Models for nodes interacting over such signed networks arise from various biological, social, political, and economic systems. As modifications to the conventional DeGroot dynamics for positive links, two basic types of negative interactions along negative links, namely, the opposing rule and the repelling rule, have been proposed and studied in the literature. This paper reviews a few fundamental convergence results for such dynamics over deterministic or random signed networks under a unified algebraic-graphical method. We show that a systematic tool for studying node state evolution over signed networks can be obtained utilizing generalized Perron-Frobenius theory, graph theory, and elementary algebraic recursions.

We consider a linear state estimation problem, where, in addition to the usual timestamped measurements, observations with uncertain timestamps are available. Such observations could, e.g., come from traces left by a target in a tracking scenario or from witnesses of an event and have the potential to improve the estimation accuracy significantly. We derive the posterior distribution and point estimators for a linear Gaussian smoothing formulation of this problem and illustrate with two numerical examples.

This tutorial provides a gentle introduction to the particle Metropolis-Hastings (PMH) algorithm for parameter inference in nonlinear state-space models together with a software implementation in the statistical programming language R. We employ a step-by-step approach to develop an implementation of the PMH algorithm (and the particle filter within) together with the reader. This final implementation is also available as the package pmhtutorial from the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN) repository. Throughout the tutorial, we provide some intuition as to how the algorithm operates and discuss some solutions to problems that might occur in practice. To illustrate the use of PMH, we consider parameter inference in a linear Gaussian state-space model with synthetic data and a nonlinear stochastic volatility model with real-world data.

Migraine is a neurological disorder characterized by persisting attacks, underlined by the sensitivity to light. One of the leading reasons that make migraine a bigger issue is that it cannot be diagnosed easily by physicians because of the numerous overlapping symptoms with other diseases, such as epilepsy and tension-headache. Consequently, studies have been growing on how to make a computerized decision support system for diagnosis of migraine. In most laboratory studies, flash stimulation is used during the recording of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals with different frequencies and variable (seconds) time windows. The main contribution of this study is the investigation of the effects of flash stimulation on the classification accuracy, and how to find the effective window length for EEG signal classification. To achieve this, we tested different machine learning algorithms on the EEG signals features extracted by using discrete wavelet transform. Our tests on the real-world dataset, recorded in the laboratory, show that the flash stimulation can improve the classification accuracy for more than 10%. Not surprisingly, it is seen that the same holds for the selection of time window length, i.e. the selection of the proper window length is crucial for the accurate migraine identification. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This paper proposes a new method to identify nonlinear state-space systems from heterogeneous datasets. The method is described in the context of identifying biochemical/gene networks (i.e., identifying both reaction dynamics and kinetic parameters) from experimental data. Simultaneous integration of various datasets has the potential to yield better performance for system identification. Data collected experimentally typically vary depending on the specific experimental setup and conditions. Typically, heterogeneous data are obtained experimentally through 1) replicate measurements from the same biological system or 2) application of different experimental conditions such as changes/perturbations in biological inductions, temperature, gene knock-out, gene over-expression, etc. We formulate here the identification problem using a Bayesian learning framework that makes use of “sparse group” priors to allow inference of the sparsest model that can explain the whole set of observed heterogeneous data. To enable scale up to large number of features, the resulting nonconvex optimization problem is relaxed to a reweighted Group Lasso problem using a convex-concave procedure. As an illustrative example of the effectiveness of our method, we use it to identify a genetic oscillator (generalized eight species repressilator). Through this example we show that our algorithm outperforms Group Lasso when the number of experiments is increased, even when each single time-series dataset is short. We additionally assess the robustness of our algorithm against noise by varying the intensity of process noise and measurement noise.

The behavior of a person during a conversation typically involves both auditory and visual attention. Visual attention implies that the person directs his or her eye gaze toward the sound target of interest, and hence, detection of the gaze may provide a steering signal for future hearing aids. The steering could utilize a beamformer or the selection of a specific audio stream from a set of remote microphones. Previous studies have shown that eye gaze can be measured through electrooculography (EOG). To explore the precision and real-time feasibility of the methodology, seven hearing-impaired persons were tested, seated with their head fixed in front of three targets positioned at -30 degrees, 0 degrees, and +30 degrees azimuth. Each target presented speech from the Danish DAT material, which was available for direct input to the hearing aid using head-related transfer functions. Speech intelligibility was measured in three conditions: a reference condition without any steering, a condition where eye gaze was estimated from EOG measures to select the desired audio stream, and an ideal condition with steering based on an eye-tracking camera. The "EOG-steering" improved the sentence correct score compared with the "no-steering" condition, although the performance was still significantly lower than the ideal condition with the eye-tracking camera. In conclusion, eye-gaze steering increases speech intelligibility, although real-time EOG-steering still requires improvements of the signal processing before it is feasible for implementation in a hearing aid.

The stable spline (SS) kernel and the diagonal correlated (DC) kernel are two kernels that have been applied and studied extensively for kernel-based regularized LTI system identification. In this note, we show that similar to the derivation of the SS kernel, the continuous-time DC 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 DC kernel. In particular, we derive a new orthonormal basis expansion of the DC kernel and the explicit expression of the norm of the reproducing kernel Hilbert space associated with the DC kernel. Moreover, for the nonuniformly sampled DC kernel, we derive its maximum entropy property and show that its kernel matrix has tridiagonal inverse.

Filtering and smoothing algorithms for linear discrete-time state-space models with skew-t-distributed measurement noise are proposed. The algorithms use a variational Bayes based posterior approximation with coupled location and skewness variables to reduce the error caused by the variational approximation. Although the variational update is done suboptimally using an expectation propagation algorithm, our simulations show that the proposed method gives a more accurate approximation of the posterior covariance matrix than an earlier proposed variational algorithm. Consequently, the novel filter and smoother outperform the earlier proposed robust filter and smoother and other existing low-complexity alternatives in accuracy and speed. We present both simulations and tests based on real-world navigation data, in particular the global positioning system data in an urban area, to demonstrate the performance of the novel methods. Moreover, the extension of the proposed algorithms to cover the case where the distribution of the measurement noise is multivariate skew-t is outlined. Finally, this paper presents a study of theoretical performance bounds for the proposed algorithms.

The models of collective decision-making considered in this paper are nonlinear interconnected cooperative systems with saturating interactions. These systems encode the possible outcomes of a decision process into different steady states of the dynamics. In particular, they are characterized by two main attractors in the positive and negative orthant, representing two choices of agreement among the agents, associated to the Perron-Frobenius eigenvector of the system. In this paper we give conditions for the appearance of other equilibria of mixed sign. The conditions are inspired by Perron-Frobenius theory and are related to the algebraic connectivity of the network. We also show how all these equilibria must be contained in a solid disk of radius given by the norm of the equilibrium point which is located in the positive orthant.

The problem of path planning for mobilesensors with the task of target monitoring is considered. A receding horizon optimal control approach based on the information filter is presented, where the limited field of view of the sensor can be modeled by introducing binary variables. The resulting nonlinear mixed integer problem to be solved in each sample, with no apparent tractable solution, is shown to be equivalent to a problem that robustly can be solved to global optimality using off-the-shelf optimization tools.

The kernel-based regularization method has two core issues: kernel design and hyperparameter estimation. In this paper, we focus on the second issue and study the properties of several hyperparameter estimators including the empirical Bayes (EB) estimator, two Steins unbiased risk estimators (SURE) (one related to impulse response reconstruction and the other related to output prediction) and their corresponding Oracle counterparts, with an emphasis on the asymptotic properties of these hyperparameter estimators. To this goal, we first derive and then rewrite the first order optimality conditions of these hyperparameter estimators, leading to several insights on these hyperparameter estimators. Then we show that as the number of data goes to infinity, the two SUREs converge to the best hyperparameter minimizing the corresponding mean square error, respectively, while the more widely used EB estimator converges to another best hyperparameter minimizing the expectation of the EB estimation criterion. This indicates that the two SUREs are asymptotically optimal in the corresponding MSE senses but the EB estimator is not. Surprisingly, the convergence rate of two SUREs is slower than that of the EB estimator, and moreover, unlike the two SUREs, the EB estimator is independent of the convergence rate of Phi(T)Phi/N to its limit, where Phi is the regression matrix and N is the number of data. A Monte Carlo simulation is provided to demonstrate the theoretical results. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

There are two primary sources of sensor measurements for driver behavior profiling within insurance telematics and fleet management. The first is the on-board diagnostics system, typically found within most modern cars. The second is the global navigation satellite system, whose associated receivers commonly are embedded into smartphones or off-the-shelf telematics devices. In this paper, we present maximum likelihood and maximum a posteriori estimators for the problem of fusing speed measurements from these two sources to jointly estimate a vehicles speed and the scale factor of the wheel speed sensors. In addition, we analyze the performance of the estimators by use of the Cramer-Rao bound, and discuss the estimation of model parameters describing measurement errors and vehicle dynamics. Last, simulations and real-world data are used to show that the proposed estimators yield a substantial performance gain compared to when employing only one of the two measurement sources.

Introduction: The use of left ventricular assist device (LVAD) has grown rapidly. Adverse events do continue to occur. In recent years, analysis of LVAD sound recordings emerged as a means to monitor pump function and detect pump thrombosis. The aim of this study was to characterize the sounds from HeartMate II and to evaluate the use of handheld iOS devices for sound recordings. Method: Signal analysis of LVAD sound recordings, with dedicated recording equipment and iOS devices, was performed. Two LVADs running in mock loop circuits were compared to an implanted LVAD. Spectral analysis and parametric signal models were explored to quantify the sound and potentially detect changes in it. Results: The sound recordings of two LVADs in individual mock loop circuits and a third one implanted in a patient appeared to be similar. Qualitatively, sound characteristics were preserved following changes in pump speed. Recordings using dedicated equipment showed that HeartMate II sound comprises low-frequency components corresponding to pump impeller rotation, as well as high-frequency components due to a pulse width modulation of the electric power to the pump. These different signal components interact and result in a complicated frequency spectrum. The iPhone and iPod recordings could not reproduce the sounds as well as the dedicated equipment. In particular, lower frequencies were affected by outside disturbances. Discussion: This article outlines a systematic approach to LVAD sound analysis using signal processing methods to quantify and potentially detect changes, and describes some of the challenges, for example, with the use of inexpensive recording devices.

This note considers the identification of large-scale one-dimensional networks consisting of identical LTI dynamical systems. A subspace identification method is developed that only uses local input-output information and does not rely on knowledge about the local state interaction. The proposed identification method estimates the Markov parameters of a locally lifted system, following the state-space realization of a single subsystem. The Markov-parameter estimation is formulated as a rank minimization problem by exploiting the low-rank property and the two-layer Toeplitz structural property in the data equation, whereas the state-space realization of a single subsystem is formulated as a structured low-rank matrix-factorization problem. The effectiveness of the proposed identification method is demonstrated by simulation examples.

Time-correlated single-photon counting lidar provides very high-resolution range measurements, making the technology interesting for 3D imaging of objects behind foliage or other obscuration. We study six peak detection approaches and compare their performance from several perspectives: detection of double surfaces within the instantaneous field of view, range accuracy, performance under sparse sampling, and the number of outliers. The results presented are based on reference measurements of a characterization target. Special consideration is given to the possibility of resolving two surfaces closely separated in range within the field of view of a single pixel. An approach based on fitting a linear combination of impulse response functions to the collected data showed the best overall performance. (c) 2018 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).

This paper presents a new method to compute upper and lower bounds of any voltage or current of an arbitrary linear electric circuit model with uncertain parameters. The bounds are in the frequency domain, and when compared to a previously proposed method, this novel approach provides a higher level of guarantee. The reason is that the bounds are not only computed for a set of fixed frequencies but also computed to a set of intervals of frequencies. The details of the proposed approach, especially the equivalent uncertain element models, are given. Additionally, tests are performed on problems with low and high number of uncertain parameters. Contrary to the classical method of Monte Carlo, the results are not based on a random choice of parameters and do not depend on the number of iterations. It is shown on an example that the classical method of Monte Carlo needs a high number of iterations to reach results in agreement with the proposed method. Then, it leads to higher computation times of several orders of magnitude.

Nonlinear cooperative systems associated to vector fields that are concave or subhomogeneous describe well interconnected dynamics that are of key interest for communication, biological, economical, and neural network applications. For this class of positive systems, we provide conditions that guarantee existence, uniqueness and stability of strictly positive equilibria. These conditions can be formulated directly in terms of the spectral radius of the Jacobian of the system. If control inputs are available, then it is shown how to use state feedback to stabilize an equilibrium point in the interior of the positive orthant.

This study proposes a new model which is fully specified for automated seizure onset detection and seizure onset prediction based on electroencephalography (EEG) measurements. We processed two archetypal EEG databases, Freiburg (intracranial EEG) and CHB-MIT (scalp EEG), to find if our model could outperform the state-of-the art models. Four key components define our model: (1) multiscale principal component analysis for EEG de-noising, (2) EEG signal decomposition using either empirical mode decomposition, discrete wavelet transform or wavelet packet decomposition, (3) statistical measures to extract relevant features, (4) machine learning algorithms. Our model achieved overall accuracy of 100% in ictal vs. inter-ictal EEG for both databases. In seizure onset prediction, it could discriminate between inter-ictal, pre-ictal, and ictal EEG with the accuracy of 99.77%, and between inter-ictal and pre-ictal EEG states with the accuracy of 99.70%. The proposed model is general and should prove applicable to other classification tasks including detection and prediction regarding bio-signals such as EMG and ECG. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In a continuous-time nonlinear driftless control system, an involutive flow is a composition of input profiles that does not excite any Lie bracket. Such flow composition is trivial, as it corresponds to a "forth and back" cyclic motion obtained rewinding the system along the same path. The aim of this paper is to show that, on the contrary, when a (nonexact) discretization of the nonlinear driftless control system is steered along the same trivial input path, it produces a net motion, which is related to the gap between the discretization used and the exact discretization given by a Taylor expansion. These violations of involutivity can be used to provide an estimate of the local truncation error of numerical integration schemes. In the special case in which the state of the driftless control system admits a splitting into shape and phase variables, our result corresponds to saying that the geometric phases of the discretization need not obey an area rule, i.e., even zero-area cycles in shape space can lead to nontrivial geometric phases. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The local approach to linear parameter varying (LPV) system identification consists in interpolating individually estimated local linear time invariant (LTI) models corresponding to fixed values of the scheduling variable. It is shown in this paper that, without any global structural assumption of the considered LPV system, individually estimated local state-space LTI models do not contain sufficient information for determining similarity transformations making them coherent. It is possible to estimate these similarity transformations from input-output data under appropriate excitation conditions. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

The ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) is a Monte Carlo-based implementation of the Kalman filter (KF) for extremely high-dimensional, possibly nonlinear, and non-Gaussian state estimation problems. Its ability to handle state dimensions in the order of millions has made the EnKF a popular algorithm in different geoscientific disciplines. Despite a similarly vital need for scalable algorithms in signal processing, e.g., to make sense of the ever increasing amount of sensor data, the EnKF is hardly discussed in our field. This self-contained review is aimed at signal processing researchers and provides all the knowledge to get started with the EnKF. The algorithm is derived in a KF framework, without the often encountered geoscientific terminology. Algorithmic challenges and required extensions of the EnKF are provided, as well as relations to sigma point KF and particle filters. The relevant EnKF literature is summarized in an extensive survey and unique simulation examples, including popular benchmark problems, complement the theory with practical insights. The signal processing perspective highlights new directions of research and facilitates the exchange of potentially beneficial ideas, both for the EnKF and high-dimensional nonlinear and non-Gaussian filtering in general.

Passive magnetic sensors measure the magnetic field density in three axes and are often integrated on a single chip. These low-cost sensors are widely used in car navigation as well as in battery powered navigation equipment such as smartphones as part of an electronic compass. We focus on a train localization application with multiple, exclusively onboard sensors and a track map. This approach is considered as a base technology for future railway applications such as collision avoidance systems or autonomous train driving. In this paper, we address the following question: how beneficial are passive magnetic measurements for train localization? We present and analyze measurements of two different magnetometers recorded on a regional train at regular passenger service. We show promising correlations of the measurements with the track positions and the traveled switch way. The processed data reveals that the railway environment has repeatable, location-dependent magnetic signatures. This is considered as a novel approach to train localization, as the use of these magnetic signals at first view is not obvious. The proposed methods based on passive magnetic measurements show a high potential to be integrated in new and existing train localization approaches.

Devising the planar routes of minimal length that are required to pass through predefined neighborhoods of target points plays an important role in reducing the missions operating cost. Two versions of the problem are considered. The first one assumes that the ordering of the targets is fixed a priori. In such a case, the optimal route is devised by solving a convex optimization problem formulated either as a second-order cone program or as a sum-of-squares optimization problem. Additional route properties, such as continuity and minimal curvature, are considered as well. The second version allows the ordering of the targets to be optimized to further reduce the route length. We show that such a problem can be solved by introducing additional binary variables, which allows the route to be designed using off-the-shelf mixed-integer solvers. A case study that shows that the proposed strategy is computationally tractable is presented.

This paper proposes a decentralized control strategy for the voltage regulation of islanded inverter-interfaced microgrids. We show that an inverter-interfaced microgrid under plug-and-play (PnP) functionality of distributed generations (DGs) can be cast as a linear time-invariant system subject to polytopic-type uncertainty. Then, by virtue of this novel description and use of the results from theory of robust control, the microgrid control system guarantees stability and a desired performance even in the case of PnP operation of DGs. The robust controller is a solution of a convex optimization problem. The main properties of the proposed controller are that: 1) it is fully decentralized and local controllers of DGs that use only local measurements; 2) the controller guarantees the stability of the overall system; 3) the controller allows PnP functionality of DGs in microgrids; and 4) the controller is robust against microgrid topology change. Various case studies, based on time-domain simulations in MATLAB/SimPowerSystems Toolbox, are carried out to evaluate the performance of the proposed control strategy in terms of voltage tracking, microgrid topology change, PnP capability features, and load changes.

A common issue with many system identification problems is that the true input to the system is unknown. This paper extends a previously presented indirect modelling framework that deals with identification of systems where the input is partially or fully unknown. In this framework, unknown inputs are eliminated by using additional measurements that directly or indirectly contain information about the unknown inputs. The resulting indirect predictor model is only dependent on known and measured signals and can be used to estimate the desired dynamics or properties. Since the input of the indirect model contains both known inputs and measurements that could all be correlated with the same disturbances as the output, estimation of the indirect model has similar challenges as a closed-loop estimation problem. In fact, due to the generality of the indirect modelling framework, it unifies a number of already existing system identification problems that are contained as special cases. For completeness, the paper is concluded with one method that can be used to estimate the indirect model as well as an experimental verification to show the applicability of the framework.

Most navigation systems today rely on global navigation satellite systems (gnss), including in cars. With support from odometry and inertial sensors, this is a sufficiently accurate and robust solution, but there are future demands. Autonomous cars require higher accuracy and integrity. Using the car as a sensor probe for road conditions in cloud-based services also sets other kind of requirements. The concept of the Internet of Things requires stand-alone solutions without access to vehicle data. Our vision is a future with both invehicle localization algorithms and after-market products, where the position is computed with high accuracy in gnss-denied environments. We present a localization approach based on a prior that vehicles spend the most time on the road, with the odometer as the primary input. When wheel speeds are not available, we present an approach solely based on inertial sensors, which also can be used as a speedometer. The map information is included in a Bayesian setting using the particle filter (PF) rather than standard map matching. In extensive experiments, the performance without gnss is shown to have basically the same quality as utilizing a gnss sensor. Several topics are treated: virtual measurements, dead reckoning, inertial sensor information, indoor positioning, off-road driving, and multilevel positioning.

There is a big trend nowadays to use event-triggered proximity report for indoor positioning. This paper presents a generic received-signal-strength (RSS) threshold optimization framework for generating informative proximity reports. The proposed framework contains five main building blocks, namely the deployment information, RSS model, positioning metric selection, optimization process and management. Among others, we focus on Gaussian process regression (GPR)-based RSS models and positioning metric computation. The optimal RSS threshold is found through minimizing the best achievable localization root-mean-square-error formulated with the aid of fundamental lower bound analysis. Computational complexity is compared for different RSS models and different fundamental lower bounds. The resulting optimal RSS threshold enables enhanced performance of new fashioned low-cost and low-complex proximity report-based positioning algorithms. The proposed framework is validated with real measurements collected in an office area where bluetooth-low-energy (BLE) beacons are deployed.

In this paper, we propose a distributed algorithm for solving coupled problems with chordal sparsity or an inherent tree structure which relies on primal–dual interior-point methods. We achieve this by distributing the computations at each iteration, using message-passing. In comparison to existing distributed algorithms for solving such problems, this algorithm requires far fewer iterations to converge to a solution with high accuracy. Furthermore, it is possible to compute an upper-bound for the number of required iterations which, unlike existing methods, only depends on the coupling structure in the problem. We illustrate the performance of our proposed method using a set of numerical examples.

This paper presents a novel multi-sensor framework to efficiently identify, track, localise and map every piece of fruit in a commercial mango orchard. A multiple viewpoint approach is used to solve the problem of occlusion, thus avoiding the need for labour-intensive field calibration to estimate actual yield. Fruit are detected in images using a state-of-the-art faster R-CNN detector, and pair-wise correspondences are established between images using trajectory data provided by a navigation system. A novel LiDAR component automatically generates image masks for each canopy, allowing each fruit to be associated with the corresponding tree. The tracked fruit are triangulated to locate them in 3D, enabling a number of spatial statistics per tree, row or orchard block. A total of 522 trees and 71,609 mangoes were scanned on a Calypso mango orchard near Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia, with 16 trees counted by hand for validation, both on the tree and after harvest. The results show that single, dual and multi-view methods can all provide precise yield estimates, but only the proposed multi-view approach can do so without calibration, with an error rate of only 1.36% for individual trees.

1 Migratory songbirds carry an inherited capacity to migrate several thousand kilometers each year crossing continental landmasses and barriers between distant breeding sites and wintering areas. How individual songbirds manage with extreme precision to find their way is still largely unknown. The functional characteristics of biological compasses used by songbird migrants has mainly been investigated by recording the birds directed migratory activity in circular cages, so-called Emlen funnels. This method is 50 years old and has not received major updates over the past decades. The aim of this work was to compare the results from newly developed digital methods with the established manual methods to evaluate songbird migratory activity and orientation in circular cages. 2 We performed orientation experiments using the European robin (Erithacus rubecula) using modified Emlen funnels equipped with thermal paper and simultaneously recorded the songbird movements from above. We evaluated and compared the results obtained with five different methods. Two methods have been commonly used in songbirds orientation experiments; the other three methods were developed for this study and were based either on evaluation of the thermal paper using automated image analysis, or on the analysis of videos recorded during the experiment. 3 The methods used to evaluate scratches produced by the claws of birds on the thermal papers presented some differences compared with the video analyses. These differences were caused mainly by differences in scatter, as any movement of the bird along the sloping walls of the funnel was recorded on the thermal paper, whereas video evaluations allowed us to detect single takeoff attempts by the birds and to consider only this behavior in the orientation analyses. Using computer vision, we were also able to identify and separately evaluate different behaviors that were impossible to record by the thermal paper. 4 The traditional Emlen funnel is still the most used method to investigate compass orientation in songbirds under controlled conditions. However, new numerical image analysis techniques provide a much higher level of detail of songbirds migratory behavior and will provide an increasing number of possibilities to evaluate and quantify specific behaviors as new algorithms will be developed.

Geometric phases describe how in a continuous-time dynamical system the displacement of a variable (called phase variable) can be related to other variables (shape variables) undergoing a cyclic motion, according to an area rule. The aim of this paper is to show that geometric phases can exist also for discrete-time systems, and even when the cycles in shape space have zero area. A context in which this principle can be applied is stock trading. A zero-area cycle in shape space represents the type of trading operations normally carried out by high-frequency traders (entering and exiting a position on a fast time-scale), while the phase variable represents the cash balance of a trader. Under the assumption that trading impacts stock prices, even zero-area cyclic trading operations can induce geometric phases, i.e., profits or losses, without affecting the stock quote.

Background: The mode of action of a drug on its targets can often be classified as being positive (activator, potentiator, agonist, etc.) or negative (inhibitor, blocker, antagonist, etc.). The signed edges of a drug-target network can be used to investigate the combined mechanisms of action of multiple drugs on the ensemble of common targets. Results: In this paper it is shown that for the signed human drug-target network the majority of drug pairs tend to have synergistic effects on the common targets, i.e., drug pairs tend to have modes of action with the same sign on most of the shared targets, especially for the principal pharmacological targets of a drug. Methods are proposed to compute this synergism, as well as to estimate the influence of the drugs on the side effect of another drug. Conclusions: Enriching a drug-target network with information of functional nature like the sign of the interactions allows to explore in a systematic way a series of network properties of key importance in the context of computational drug combinatorics.

Inspired by ideas taken from the machine learning literature, new regularization techniques have been recently introduced in linear system identification. In particular, all the adopted estimators solve a regularized least squares problem, differing in the nature of the penalty term assigned to the impulse response. Popular choices include atomic and nuclear norms (applied to Hankel matrices) as well as norms induced by the so called stable spline kernels. In this paper, a comparative study of estimators based on these different types of regularizers is reported. Our findings reveal that stable spline kernels outperform approaches based on atomic and nuclear norms since they suitably embed information on impulse response stability and smoothness. This point is illustrated using the Bayesian interpretation of regularization. We also design a new class of regularizers defined by "integral" versions of stable spline/TC kernels. Under quite realistic experimental conditions, the new estimators outperform classical prediction error methods also when the latter are equipped with an oracle for model order selection. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

It is a well-known fact that externally positive linear systems may fail to have a minimal positive realization. In order to investigate these cases, we introduce the notion of minimal eventually positive realization, for which the state update matrix becomes positive after a certain power. Eventually positive realizations capture the idea that in the impulse response of an externally positive system the state of a minimal realization may fail to be positive, but only transiently. As a consequence, we show that in discrete-time it is possible to use downsampling to obtain minimal positive realizations matching decimated sequences of Markov coefficients of the impulse response. In continuous-time, instead, if the sampling time is chosen sufficiently long, a minimal eventually positive realization leads always to a sampled realization which is minimal and positive.

In this letter, numerical algorithms for computing the marginal version of the Bayesian Cramér–Rao bound (M-BCRB) for jump Markov nonlinear systems and jump Markov linear Gaussian systems are proposed. Benchmark examples for both systems illustrate that the M-BCRB is tighter than three other recently proposed BCRBs

In this work we present a practical calibration algorithm that calibrates a magnetometer using inertial sensors. The calibration corrects for magnetometer sensor errors, for the presence of magnetic disturbances and for misalignment between the magnetometer and the inertial sensor axes. It is based on a maximum likelihood formulation and is formulated as an offline method. It is shown to give good results using data from two different commercially available sensor units. Using the calibrated magnetometer measurements in combination with the inertial sensors to determine orientation, is shown to lead to significantly improved heading estimates.

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.

The use of the CDIO framework in the development of the ECIU University is presented. The paper discusses the relatively moderate adaptations and modifications of the CDIO Syllabus and Standards that are necessary to make the documents applicable also in this context. Since challenge-based learning (CBL) is central learning format in the ECIU University, special attention is given to the connections between CBL method, the conceive-design-implement-operate sequence and project-based learning, which is central in the CDIO framework. The paper presents both general aspects and examples of the applications and activities within ECIU University and Linköping University (LiU). The main messages of the paper are that the development of the ECIU University will benefit from applying the CDIO framework since it offers references for what an education should give, in terms of knowledge and skills, and how an education program should be designed. In addition, the components of the CDIO framework require a moderate amount of adaptation to be directly applicable. Examples of the ongoing implementation activities at LiU. 

Introduction 

Higher education institutions (HEIs) face challenges assessing the relevance of educational programmes. Upon graduation, the student should have acquired knowledge and understanding, competence and skills as well as good judgement and approaches to operate in a changing labour market. Ideas on new programmes and courses mainly emanate from research findings identified at the HEIs. Needs and expectations from external stakeholders have the potential to further contribute if room for collaboration is created. Extensive rapid societal changes increase this need for collaboration. 

The Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG) state that higher education aims to fulfil multiple purposes, including preparing students for active citizenship, future careers, personal development and create a broad, advanced knowledge base and stimulate research and innovation (ENQA, 2015). However, different stakeholders may have other priorities. Therefore, quality assurance needs to take these different perspectives into account. 

Relevance is considered an aspect of quality in higher education, but many HEIs in Sweden lack structures, processes, and methods for assessing relevance and involving stakeholders in these processes.

This project aimed to increase the knowledge and provide methods to systematically assess relevance and use university-industry collaborations as tools for educational development. 

Methods/Approach 

This paper is a summary of the project MERUT focused on methods for assessment of relevance in higher education. The project was carried out during 2017-2020 with financial support from Vinnova (The Swedish Innovation Agency) and involved seven Swedish HEIs. The connection to future career paths is often stated as the primary factor to describe the relevance of educational programmes and was selected as the focus of MERUT. Data have been collected using workshops, meetings, literature reviews, interview studies, and surveys. Important parts of the work have been interviews with external stakeholders in different labour-market areas who, in various ways, are involved in higher education, most often in advisory boards. Also, interviews with quality coordinators at university programmes as well as at faculty and university management levels at each HEI have been carried out.

The seven participating Swedish universities in MERUT have been Karolinska Institutet, Kristianstad University, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Mälardalen University, Linköping University, Stockholm University, and Umeå University.

Results The project resulted in knowledge, tools, and methods to work systematically with relevance in higher education. The results can be summarized as follows:

·         Interviews with HEIs showed that they collaborate with external stakeholders in many ways, primarily around teaching and learning and to a lesser extent around programme management and quality assurance. 

·         Further, the involvement of stakeholders varied both between and within the universities (faculties, subject areas, levels of education). Therefore, it is difficult to evaluate, in a systematic way, how collaboration is included in the quality systems of the HEIs. 

·         A toolbox with methods for how to involve external stakeholders in the process of assessing and developing the relevance of a study programme. These methods can be used in continuous quality work, in major curriculum revisions as well as in the establishment of new programmes.

·         A checklist for external stakeholders' involvement in educational development to facilitate and clarify roles, structures, and tasks in connection with external stakeholders in both the development and operational phases of a study programme. 

The results show that there are many similarities between the HEIs in the study in terms of relevance assessment and dimensioning decisions. However, the potential of a systematic collaboration with stakeholders and society for relevance assessment and dimensioning of education is not yet fully being realised. 

Conclusion 

HEIs interact with external stakeholders in many ways within education. However, it is rare to find examples where external stakeholders are involved in the quality assurance process, at least not in a systematic way. The MERUT project has developed recommendations for collaboration perspectives and stakeholder participation in the governing of educational programmes. A systematic dialogue and interaction with stakeholders contribute to a mutual understanding of different stakeholder groups’ needs and expectations, and their view of quality of higher education. Furthermore, to consider relevance as a quality aspect creates a basis for a more methodical assessment process where external stakeholders can contribute in a clear role. MERUT has developed a toolbox and a checklist to facilitate such systematic interaction and collaboration with stakeholder groups. A conclusion of  this project is that a reciprocal, transparent, and systematic approach leads to a sustainable educational collaboration with improved quality and relevance of higher education.

It would constitute a large gain for society if the HEIs are able to systematically and by efficient processes take external stakeholders’ and societal needs and expectations into account when building comprehensive and systematic relevance assessment processes and in dimensioning of education.  

References

European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA). (2015). Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG). Brussels, EURASHE.

We propose a sequence of pedagogical steps for introducing the Youla-Kucera parametrization, starting from the internal model principle, and introducing the control structures of disturbance observer and internal model control along the way. We provide some background on the concepts and a brief survey of their treatment in textbooks on control. Copyright (C) 2020 The Authors.

The task of maneuvering a multi-steered articulated vehicle in confined environments is difficult even for experienced drivers. In this work, we present an optimization-based trajectory planner targeting low-speed maneuvers in unstructured environments for multi-steered N-trailer vehicles, which are comprised of a car-like tractor and an arbitrary number of interconnected trailers with fixed or steerable wheels. The proposed trajectory planning framework is divided into two steps, where a lattice-based trajectory planner is used in a first step to compute a resolution optimal solution to a discretized version of the trajectory planning problem. The output from the lattice planner is then used in a second step to initialize an optimal control problem solver, which enables the framework to compute locally optimal trajectories that start at the vehicles initial state and reaches the goal state exactly. The performance of the proposed optimization-based trajectory planner is evaluated in a set of practically relevant scenarios for a multi-steered 3-trailer vehicle with a car-like tractor where the last trailer is steerable. Copyright (C) 2020 The Authors.

This paper presents an optimization-based receding horizon trajectory planning algorithm for dynamical systems operating in unstructured and cluttered environments. The proposed approach is a two-step procedure that uses a motion planning algorithm in a first step to efficiently find a feasible, but possibly suboptimal, nominal solution to the trajectory planning problem where in particular the combinatorial aspects of the problem are solved. The resulting nominal trajectory is then improved in a second optimization-based receding horizon planning step which performs local trajectory refinement over a sliding time window. In the second step, the nominal trajectory is used in a novel way to both represent a terminal manifold and obtain an upper bound on the cost-to-go online. This enables the possibility to provide theoretical guarantees in terms of recursive feasibility, objective function value, and convergence to the desired terminal state. The established theoretical guarantees and the performance of the proposed algorithm are verified in a set of challenging trajectory planning scenarios for a truck and trailer system. Copyright (C) 2020 The Authors.

Driving heavy-duty vehicles, such as buses and tractor-trailer vehicles, is a difficult task in comparison to passenger cars. Most research on motion planning for autonomous vehicles has focused on passenger vehicles, and many unique challenges associated with heavy-duty vehicles remain open. However, recent works have started to tackle the particular difficulties related to on-road motion planning for buses and tractor-trailer vehicles using numerical optimization approaches. In this work, we propose a framework to design an optimization objective to be used in motion planners. Based on geometric derivations, the method finds the optimal trade-off between the conflicting objectives of centering different axles of the vehicle in the lane. For the buses, we consider the front and rear axles trade-off, whereas for articulated vehicles, we consider the tractor and trailer rear axles trade-off. Our results show that the proposed design strategy produces planned paths that considerably improve the behavior of heavy-duty vehicles by keeping the whole vehicle body in the center of the lane.

Deep learning is a topic of considerable interest today. Since it deals with estimating - or learning - models, there are connections to the area of System Identification developed in the Automatic Control community. Such connections are explored and exploited in this contribution. It is stressed that common deep nets such as feedforward and cascadeforward nets are nonlinear ARX (NARX) models, and can thus be easily incorporated in System Identification code and practice. The case of LSTM nets is an example of NonLinear State-Space (NLSS) models. Copyright (C) 2020 The Authors.

For robust Gaussian process regression problems where the measurements are contaminated by outliers, a likelihood/measurement noise model with heavy-tailed distributions should be used to improve the prediction performance. In this paper, we propose to use a G-confluent distribution as the measurement noise model and a coordinate ascent variational inference method to infer the overall statistical model. In contrast with the commonly used Students t distribution, the G-confluent distribution can also be written as a Gaussian scale mixture, but its inverse scale follows a Beta distribution rather than a Gamma distribution, and its main advantage is that it is more flexible for modeling outliers while being equally suitable for variational inference. Numerical simulations based on benchmark data show that the G-confluent distribution performs better than or as well as the Students t distribution. Copyright (C) 2020 The Authors.

The Covid-19 pandemic has spawned numerous dynamic modeling attempts aimed at estimation, prediction, and ultimately control. The predictive power of these attempts has varied, and there remains a lack of consensus regarding the mechanisms of virus spread and the effectiveness of various non-pharmaceutical interventions that have been enforced regionally as well as nationally. Setting out in data available in the spring of 2020, and with a nowfamous model by Imperial College researchers as example, we employ an information-theoretical approach to shed light on why the predictive power of early modeling approaches have remained disappointingly poor. Copyright (C) 2020 The Authors.

The task of maneuvering ships in confined environments is a difficult task for a human operator.  One major reason is due to the complex and slow dynamics of the ship which need to be accounted for in order to successfully steer the vehicle. In this work, a two-step optimization-based motion planner is proposed for autonomous maneuvering of ships in constrained environments such as harbors. A lattice-based motion planner is used in a first step to compute a feasible, but suboptimal solution to a discretized version of the motion planning problem. This solution is then used to enable efficient warm-start and as a terminal manifold for a second receding-horizon improvement step. Both steps of the algorithm use a high-fidelity model of the ship to plan feasible and energy-efficient trajectories. Moreover, a novel algorithm is proposed for automatic computation of spatial safety envelopes around the trajectory computed by the lattice-based planner. These safety envelopes are used in the second improvement step to obtain collision-avoidance constraints which complexity scales very well with an increased number of surrounding obstacles. The proposed optimization-based motion planner is evaluated with successful results in a simulation study for autonomous docking problems in a model of the Cape Town harbor. 

This paper addresses the problem of change detection for a quadcopter in the presence ofwind disturbances. Different aspects of the quadcopter dynamics and various flight conditions have beeninvestigated. First, the wind is modeled using the Dryden wind model as a sum of a low-frequent and aturbulent part. Since the closed-loop control can compensate for system changes and disturbances andthe effect of the wind disturbance is significant, the residuals obtained from a standard simulation modelcan be misleading. Instead, a sensor-to-sensor submodel of the quadcopter is selected to detect a changein the payload using the Instrumental Variables (IV) cost function. It is shown that the mass variationcan be detected using the IV cost function in different flight scenarios.

An approach for belief space planning is presented, where knowledge about the landmark density is used as prior, instead of explicit landmark positions.

Having detailed maps of landmark positions  in a previously unvisited environment is considered unlikely in practice. Instead, it is argued that landmark densities should be used, as they could be estimated from other sources, such as ordinary maps or aerial imagery.

It is shown that it is possible to use virtual landmarks to approximate the landmark density to solve the presented problem. This approximation is also shown to give small errors during evaluation.

The approach is tested in a simulated environment, in conjunction with an extended information filter (EIF), where the computed path is shown to be superior compared to other alternative paths used as benchmarks.

Modern maritime navigation is heavily dependent on satellite systems. Availability of an accurate position is critical for safe operations, but satellite-based navigation systems are vulnerable to interference, jamming, and spoofing. In this work, we propose a method for maritime navigation independent of GNSS, able to provide absolute positioning of the vessel based on marine radar scans.

A measurement model is presented where a Digital Elevation Model is used to predict the output of a marine radar, given a hypothetical position. The model, as used by an on-line particle filter, is used to track the movements of a ship from real recorded data. This demonstrates the feasibility of this method for robust positioning, without the need of external positioning signals, in a maritime environment. The tracking only uses sensors commonly available on maritime vessels, and demonstrates its application using freely available elevation data.

Lidar-based positioning in a 2D map is analyzed as a method to provide a robust, high accuracy, and infrastructure-free positioning system required by the automation development in underground mining. Expressions are derived that highlight separate information contributions to the obtained position accuracy. This is used to develop two new methods that efficiently select which subset of available lidar rays to use to reduce the computational complexity and allow for online processing with minimal loss of accuracy. The results are verified in simulations of a mid-articulated underground loader in a mine. The methods are shown to be able to reduce the number of rays needed without considerably affecting the performance, and to be competitive with currently used methods. Furthermore, simulations highlight the effects of errors in the map and other map properties, and how imperfect maps degrades the performance of different selection strategies.

We consider a decentralized sensor network of multiple nodes with limited communication capability where the cross-correlations between local estimates are unknown. To reduce the bandwidth the individual nodes determine which subset of local information is the most valuable from a global perspective. Three information selection methods (ISM) are derived. The proposed ISM require no other information than the communicated estimates. The simulation evaluation shows that by using the proposed ISM it is possible to determine which subset of local information is globally most valuable such that both reduced bandwidth and high performance are achieved.

For a given radar system on an unmanned air vehicle, this work proposes a method to find the optimal tracking rangeand the optimal beamwidth for tracking a maneuvering target.  An inappropriate optimal range or beamwidth is indicative ofthe need for a redesign of the radar system. An extended Kalman filter (EKF) is employed to estimate the state of the target using measurements of the range and bearing from the sensor to the target. The proposed method makes use of an alpha-beta filter to predict the expected tracking performanceof the EKF. Using an assumption of the maximum acceleration of the target, the optimal tracking range (or beamwidth) is determined as the one that minimizes the maximum mean squared error (MMSE) of the position estimates while satisfying a user-defined constraint on the probability of losing track of the target.The applicability of the design method is verified using Monte Carlo simulations.

Alzheimer disease is one of the most prevalent dementia types affecting elder population. On-time detection of the Alzheimer disease (AD) is valuable for finding new approaches for the AD treatment. Our primary interest lies in obtaining a reliable, but simple and fast model for automatic AD detection. The approach we introduced in the present contribution to identify AD is based on the application of machine learning (ML) techniques. For the first step, we use histogram to transform brain images to feature vectors, containing the relevant "brain" features, which will later serve as the inputs in the classification step. Next, we use the ML algorithms in the classification task to identify AD. The model presented and elaborated in the present contribution demonstrated satisfactory performances. Experimental results suggested that the Random Forest classifier can discriminate the AD subjects from the control subjects. The presented modeling approach, consisting of the histogram as the feature extractor and Random Forest as the classifier, yielded to the sufficiently high overall accuracy rate of 85.77%.

Model Predictive Control (MPC) requires an optimization problem to be solved at each time step. For real-time MPC, it is important to solve these problems efficiently and to have good upper bounds on how long time the solver needs to solve them. Often for linear MPC problems, the optimization problem in question is a quadratic program (QP) that depends on parameters such as system states and reference signals. A popular class of methods for solving QPs is primal active-set methods, where a sequence of equality constrained QP subproblems are solved. This paper presents a method for computing which sequence of subproblems a primal active-set method will solve, for every parameter of interest in the parameter space. Knowledge about exactly which sequence of subproblems that will be solved can be used to compute a worst-case bound on how many iterations, and ultimately the maximum time, the active-set solver needs to converge to the solution. Furthermore, this information can be used to tailor the solver for the specific control task. The usefulness of the proposed method is illustrated on a set of MPC problems, where the exact worst-case number of iterations a primal active-set method requires to reach optimality is computed.

In this paper, we present a new result on robust adaptive dynamic programming for the Linear Quadratic Regulation (LQR) problem, where the linear system is subject to unmatched uncertainty. We assume that the states of the linear system are fully measurable and the matched uncertainty models unmeasurable states with an unspecified dimension. We use the small-gain theorem to give a sufficient condition such that the generated policies in each iteration of on-policy and off-policy routines guarantee robust stability of the overall uncertain system. The sufficient condition can be used to design the weighting matrices in the LQR problem. We use a simulation example to demonstrate the result.

In this paper we propose a novel method for achieving average consensus in a continuous-time multiagent network while avoiding to disclose the initial states of the individual agents. In order to achieve privacy protection of the state variables, we introduce maps, called output masks, which alter the value of the states before transmitting them. These output masks are local (i.e., implemented independently by each agent), deterministic, time-varying and converging asymptotically to the true state. The resulting masked system is also time-varying and has the original (unmasked) system as its limit system. It is shown in the paper that the masked system has the original average consensus value as its only attractor. However, in order to preserve privacy, it cannot share an equilibrium point with the unmasked system, meaning that in the masked system the attractor cannot be also stable.

A method to calibrate the geometries of hydrophone arrays using the sound emitted from nearby ships, is presented. The calibration problem is formulated as a simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) estimation problem, where the locations and geometries of the arrays are viewed as unknown map states and the position of the source is viewed as the unknown dynamic state. Two models for the geometry of the arrays are presented. The first model does not impose any constraint on array geometry, whereas the second model takes into account the known maximum distance between the hydrophones. The performance of the proposed calibration method is evaluated using data from two PASS-2447 Omnitech Electronics Inc. 56-element hydrophone arrays. Tests with three data sets show that array geometries in the north-east plane can be consistently estimated. Only the second model provides consistent results in the depth direction. The calibration of the array geometries is shown to increase source localization accuracy significantly.

This paper studies the time-optimal path tracking problem for a cooperative robotic system. The considered system is composed of two two-link planar manipulators with non-actuated end-effectors rigidly grasping a bar. Given a predefined geometric path, the objective is to cooperatively move the bar along the path in minimum time subject to inequality constraints on the joint torques. We show that this problem can be cast as a convex optimization problem by using the existing results for a single manipulator, and also the fact that the desired motion of the bar can be achieved by incorporating its dynamics into the manipulators dynamics. We illustrate our results in simulation. (C) 2019, IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In this paper we show that chordal structure can be used to devise efficient optimization methods for robust model predictive control problems. To this end, first the problem is converted to an equivalent robust quadratic programming formulation. We then illustrate how the chordal structure can be used to distribute the computations in a primal-dual interior-point method among computational agents, which in turn allows us to accelerate the algorithm by efficient parallel computations. We investigate performance of the framework in Julia using numerical examples.

The topic of this paper is the CDIO Standards, specifically the formulation of CDIO Standards version 3.0. The paper first reviews the potential change drivers that motivate a revision of the Standards. Such change drivers are identified both externally (i.e., from outside of the CDIO community) and internally. It is found that external change drivers have affected the perceptions of what problems engineers should address, what knowledge future engineers should possess and what are the most effective teaching practices in engineering education. Internally, the paper identifies criticism of the Standards, as well as ideas for development, that have been codified as proposed additional CDIO Standards. With references to these change drivers, five areas are identified for the revision: sustainability, digitalization of teaching and learning; service; and faculty competence. A revised version of the Standards is presented. In addition, it is proposed that a new category of Standards is established, “optional standards”. Optional Standards are a complement to the twelve “basic” Standards, and serve to guide educational development and profiling beyond the current Standards. A selected set of proposed optional Standards are recommended for further evaluation and possibly acceptance by the CDIO community

It has been shown lately that any "standard" Bayesian lower bound (BLB) on the mean squared error (MSE) of the Weiss-Weinstein family (WWF) admits a "tighter" form which upper bounds the "standard" form. Applied to the Bayesian Cramer-Rao bound (BCRB), this result suggests to redefine the concept of efficient estimator relatively to the tighter form of the BCRB, an update supported by a noteworthy example. This paper lays the foundation to revisit some Bayesian estimation problems where the BCRB is not tight in the asymptotic region.

In this paper, we propose a framework for generating motion primitives for lattice-based motion planners automatically. Given a family of systems, the user only needs to specify which principle types of motions, which are here denoted maneuvers, that are relevant for the considered system family. Based on the selected maneuver types and a selected system instance, the algorithm not only automatically optimizes the motions connecting pre-defined boundary conditions, but also simultaneously optimizes the end-point boundary conditions as well. This significantly reduces the time consuming part of manually specifying all boundary value problems that should be solved, and no exhaustive search to generate feasible motions is required. In addition to handling static a priori known system parameters, the framework also allows for fast automatic re-optimization of motion primitives if the system parameters change while the system is in use, e.g, if the load significantly changes or a trailer with a new geometry is picked up by an autonomous truck. We also show in several numerical examples that the framework can enhance the performance of the motion planner in terms of total cost for the produced solution.

An initial work has been performed to implement a sequential Monte Carlo method to solve the data association problem. The main motivation is to overcome the incorrect association when the state estimates are inaccurate. The solution is based on modeling the data association as a stochastic variable and estimated with a bootstrap particle filter. Two variants of the proposal function are evaluated, one with the uniform distribution over possible associations, and the other one with the distribution depending on the measurements and state estimates. The performance of both proposals is evaluated on the small simulation example, and compared to a purely deterministic approach, Nearest-Neighbour, as well. The obtained initial results are quite promising, and more evaluation and expansion to more examples and real data sets is suggested for the future work.

The unscented Kalman filter (UKF) is a very popular solution for estimation of the state in nonlinear systems. Similar to the extended Kalman filter (EKF) and contrary to the Kalman filter (KF) for linear systems, the UKF provides no guarantees that the filter updates will improve the filtered state estimate. In the past, the iterated EKF (IEKF) has been suggested as a way to online monitor the filter performance and try to improve it using optimization techniques. In this paper we do the same for the UKF, deriving six iterated UKF (IUKF) variations based on two cost functions and three optimization algorithms. The methods are evaluated and compared to IEKF versions and to two versions of the iterative posterior linearization filter (IPLF) in three benchmark simulation studies. The results show that IUKF algorithms can be used as a derivative free alternative to IEKF, and provide insights about the different design choices available in IUKF algorithms.

This paper investigates the problem of controlling a complex network with reduced control energy. Two centrality measures are defined, one related to the energy that a control, placed on a node, can exert on the entire network, and the other related to the energy that the network exerts on a node. We show that by combining these two centrality measures conflicting control energy requirements, like minimizing the average energy needed to steer the state in any direction and the energy needed for the worst direction, can be simultaneously taken into account. From an algebraic point of view, the node ranking that we obtain from the combination of our centrality measures is related to the non-normality of the adjacency matrix of the graph.

By arranging a large number of inertial sensors in an array and fusing their measurements, it is possible to create inertial sensor assemblies with a high performance-to-price ratio. Recently, a maximum likelihood estimator for fusing inertial array measurements collected at a given sampling instance was developed. In this paper, the maximum likelihood estimator is extended by introducing a motion model and deriving a maximum a posteriori estimator that jointly estimates the array dynamics at multiple sampling instances. Simulation examples are used to demonstrate that the proposed sensor fusion method have the potential to yield significant improvements in estimation accuracy. Further, by including the motion model, we resolve the sign ambiguity of gyro-free implementations, and thereby open up for implementations based on accelerometer-only arrays.

We present a technique for kernel-based identification of Wiener systems. We model the impulse response of the linear block with a Gaussian process. The static nonlinearity is modeled with a combination of basis functions. The coefficients of the static nonlinearity are estimated, together with the hyperparameters of the covariance function of the Gaussian process model, using an iterative algorithm based on the expectation-maximization method combined with elliptical slice sampling to sample from the posterior distribution of the impulse response given the data. The same sampling method is then used to find the posterior-mean estimate of the impulse response. We test the proposed algorithm on a benchmark of randomly-generated Wiener systems.

In Massive MIMO, the pilot contamination effect reduces the spectral efficiency (SE) gains and superimposed pilot (SP) transmission has been proposed to mitigate this effect. SP is based on transmitting pilot and data symbols simultaneously to allow for longer pilots and no pilot overhead. This work studies the optimal power control strategies in the uplink of a Massive MIMO system with SP and detection based on maximum ratio combining The optimization objectives arc maximum product of SINRs and max-min fairness, and these problems are reformulated as geometric programs which allow for efficient implementations. The numerical results indicate that the SE gains from the optimal power control with respect to the heuristic statistical channel inversion power control, are more significant when the interference from pilot symbols is subtracted before data detection.

The main idea in this paper is to implement a distributed primal-dual interior-point algorithm for loosely coupled Quadratic Programming problems. We implement this in Julia and show how can we exploit parallelism in order to increase the computational speed. We investigate the performance of the algorithm on a Model Predictive Control problem.

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.

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 concerns the estimation of a dynamic model from two measured signals when it is not clear which signal should be used as input to the model. In this case, both a forward and an inverse model can be estimated. Here, a basic instrumental variable approach is used and it is shown that the forward and inverse model estimators give identical parameter estimates provided that corresponding model structures have been used. Furthermore, it is shown that this scenario occurs when properties of a quadcopter are estimated from accelerometer and gyro signals and, hence, that it does not matter which signal is used as input.

In this paper we show how to synthesize simple explicit MPC controllers based on approximate dynamic programming. Here, a given MPC optimization problem over a finite horizon is solved iteratively as a series of problems of size one. The optimal cost function of each subproblem is approximated by a quadratic function that serves as a cost-to-go function for the subsequent iteration. The approximation is designed in such a way that closed-loop stability and recursive feasibility is maintained. Specifically, we show how to employ sum-of-squares relaxations to enforce that the approximate cost-to-go function is bounded from below and from above for all points of its domain. By resorting to quadratic approximations, the complexity of the resulting explicit MPC controller is considerably reduced both in terms of memory as well as the on-line computations. The procedure is applied to control an inverted pendulum and experimental data are presented to demonstrate viability of such an approach.

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.

This paper considers the input design of kernelbased regularization methods for LTI system identification. We first derive the Bayesian mean squared error matrix under the Bayesian perspective, and then use some typical scalar measures (e.g., the A-optimality, D-optimality, and E-optimality) as optimization criteria for the input design problem. Instead of directly solving the nonconvex optimization problem, we propose a two-step procedure. The first step is to solve a convex optimization and the second one is to determine the inverse image of a quadratic map. Both of these two steps can be solved efficiently by the proposed method and hence all the globally optimal inputs are found. In particular, we show that for some kernels, the optimal input under the D-optimality has an explicit expression.

The continuous-time subspace identification using state-variable filtering has been investigated for a long time. Due to the simple orthogonal basis functions that were adopted by the existing methods, the identification performance is quite sensitive to the selection of the system-dynamic parameter associated with an orthogonal basis. To cope with this problem, a subspace identification method using generalized orthonormal(Takenaka-Malmquist) basis functions is developed, which has the potential to perform better than the existing state-variable filtering methods since the adopted Takenaka-Malmquist basis has more degree of freedom in selecting the system-dynamic parameters. As a price for the flexibility of the generalized orthonormal bases, the transformed state-space model is time-varying or parameter-varying which cannot be identified using traditional subspace identification methods. To this end, a new subspace identification algorithm is developed by exploiting the structural properties of the time-variant system matrices, which is then validated by numerical simulations.

Network reconstruction has become particularly important in systems biology, and is now expected to deliver information on causality. Systems in nature are inherently nonlinear. However, for nonlinear dynamical systems with hidden states, how to give a useful definition of dynamic networks is still an open question. This paper presents a useful definition of Boolean dynamic networks for a large class of nonlinear systems. Moreover, a robust inference method is provided. The well-known Millar-10 model in systems biology is used as a numerical example, which provides the ground truth of causal networks for key mRNAs involved in eukaryotic circadian clocks. In addition, as second contribution of this paper, we suggest definitions of linear network identifiability, which helps to unify the available work on network identifiability.

One-dimensional Bayesian filtering and smoothing problems can be solved numerically using a number of algorithms, even in nonlinear and non-Gaussian cases. In this educational paper we advocate for the benefits of visualizing the obtained posterior densities as complement to, e.g., estimation error analysis. In addition to a review of Bayesian filtering and smoothing and the respective point mass and particle solutions, we devise a novel algorithm for filtering when the likelihood cannot be evaluated. Several instructive examples are discussed and easily adjustable matlab code is provided as complement to this paper.

In this paper, the derivation of the Bayesian Bhattacharyya bound for discrete-time filtering as proposed ina paper by Reece and Nicholson is revisited. It turns out that the results presented in the aforementioned contribution are incorrect, as some expectations appearing in the information matrix recursions are missing. This paper gives a generalized derivation of the N-th order Bayesian Bhattacharyya bound and presents corrected expressions for the case N = 2. A nonlinear toy example is used to illustrate the results

Classification of motion mode (walking, running, standing still) and device mode (hand-held, in pocket, in back-pack) is an enabler in personal navigation systems for the purpose of saving energy and design parameter settings and also for its own sake. Our main contribution is to publish one of the most extensive datasets for this problem, including inertial data from eight users, each one performing three pre-defined trajectories carrying four smartphones and seventeen inertial measurement units on the body. All kind of metadata is available such as the ground truth of all modes and position. A second contribution is the first study on a joint classifier of motion and device mode, respectively, where preliminary but promising results are presented.

Many positioning systems rely on accuratetime of arrival measurements. In this paper, we addressnot only the accuracy but also the relevance of Time ofArrival (TOA) measurement error modeling. We discusshow better knowledge of these errors can improve relativedistance estimation, and compare the impact of differentlydetailed measurement error information. These models arecompared in simulations based on models derived froman Ultra Wideband (UWB) measurement campaign. Theconclusion is that significant improvements can be madewithout providing detailed received signal information butwith a generic and relevant measurement error model.

Advances in sensor systems have resulted in the availability of high resolution sensors, capable of generating massive amounts of data. For complex systems to run online, the primary focus is on computationally efficient filters for the estimation of latent states related to the data. In this paper a novel method for efficient state estimation with the unscented Kalman Filter is proposed. The focus is on applications consisting of a massive amount of data. From a modelling perspective, this amounts to a measurement vector with dimensionality significantly greater than the dimensionality of the state vector. The efficiency of the filter is derived from a parallel filter structure which is enabled by the expectation propagation algorithm. A novel parallel measurement processing expectation propagation unscented Kalman filter is developed. The primary advantage of the novel algorithm is in the ability to achieve computational improvements with negligible loses in filter accuracy. An example of robot localization with a high resolution laser rangefinder sensor is presented. A 47.53% decrease in computational time was exhibited for a scenario with a processing platform consisting of 4 processors, with a negligible loss in accuracy.

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.

Recent years have seen the rise of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) as a platform for geoobservation, and so too for the tracking of sea ice. Being a mobile platform, the research on UAS path-planning is extensive and usually involves an objective-function to minimize. For the purpose of observation however, the objective-function typically changes as observations are made along the path.

Further, the general problem involves multiple UAS and—in the case of sea ice tracking—vast geographical areas.

In this paper we discuss the architectural outline of a system capable of fusing data from multiple sources—UAS’s and others—as well as incorporating that data for both path-planning, sea ice movement prediction and target initialization. The system contains tracking of sea ice objects, situation map logic and is expandable as discussed with path-planning capabilities for closing the loop of optimizing paths for information acquisition.

Assessing the fundamental performance limitationsin Bayesian filtering can be carried out using the parametricCram´er-Rao bound (CRB). The parametric CRB puts a lowerbound on mean square error (MSE) matrix conditioned on aspecific state trajectory realization. In this work, we derive theparametric CRB for state-space models, where the measurementequation is modeled by a Gaussian process regression.These models appear, for instance in proximity report-basedpositioning, where proximity reports are obtained by hardthresholding of received signal strength (RSS) measurements, thatare modeled through Gaussian process regression. The proposedparametric CRB is evaluated on selected state trajectories andfurther compared with the positioning performance obtained bythe particle filter. The results corroborate that the positioningaccuracy achieved in this framework is close to the parametricCRB.