In this letter, a new output feedback tracking control using a fuzzy disturbance observer (FDO) is proposed and its application to control of a nonlinear system in the presence of the internal parameter perturbation and external disturbance is presented. An FDO using a filtered signal is developed and the high gain observer (HGO) is employed to implement the output feedback tracking control. It is shown in a rigorous manner that all the errors involved can be kept arbitrarily small. Finally, the effectiveness and the feasibility of the suggested method is demonstrated by computer simulation.

In this paper, we present an output feedback controller using a fuzzy controller and observer for nonlinear systems with unknown time-delay. Recently, Cao et al. proposed a stabilization method for the nonlinear time-delay systems using a fuzzy controller when the time-delay is known. In general, however, it is impossible to know or measure this time-varying delay. The proposed method requires only the upper bound of the derivative of the time-delay. We represent the nonlinear system with the unknown time-delay by Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy model and design the fuzzy controller and observer for the systems using the parallel distributed compensation (PDC) scheme. In addition, we derive the sufficient condition for the asymptotic stability of the equilibrium point by applying Lyapunov-Krasovskii theorem to the closed-loop system and solve the condition in the formulation of LMI. Finally, computer simulations are included to demonstrate the effectiveness of the suggested method.

Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in employing animated agents for tasks that are typically performed by humans. They serve as communicative partners in a variety of applications, such as tutoring systems, sales, or entertainment. This paper first discusses design principles for animated agents to enhance their effectiveness as tutors, sales persons, or actors, among other roles. It is argued that agents should support their perception as social actors by displaying human-like social cues such as affect and gestures. An architecture for emotion-based agents will be described and a simplified version of the model will be illustrated by two interaction scenarios that feature cartoon-style characters and can be run in a web browser. The second focus of this paper is an empirical evaluation of the effect of an affective agent on users' emotional state which is derived from physiological signals of the user. Our findings suggest that an agent with affective behavior may significantly decrease user frustration.

The conservative mode and the greedy mode scheduling algorithms for OBS switch with shared buffer are presented and discussed. Their performance is evaluated by computer simulations, as well as that of the greedy mode with void-filling algorithm. Simulation results show that the conservative mode and the greedy mode have different characteristics under different input load. The greedy mode and the conservative mode are more applicable in a real system than that with void-filling, owing to their lower computational complexity and FIFO characteristic. Finally, a composite algorithm integrated by the conservative mode and the greedy mode is proposed, which is adapted to the input load with the help of an input load monitor. The simulation results reveal that it has favorable performance under different load.

Burst switched WDM optical networks are coming up as suitable network architectures for future Optical Internet backbones. However, the lack of optical processing capabilities results in increased burst blocking probability, which in turn lead to very limited network performance. Efficient contention resolution algorithm is therefore necessary. In this paper, we propose a distributed wavelength assignment algorithm named Priority-based Wavelength Assignment (PWA) for such networks. Each node selectively assigns wavelengths based on the wavelength priority information "learned" from its wavelength utilization history in a distributed manner. As the learning process progresses, nodes in the same part of the network tend to assign different wavelengths to avoid contentions. Simulation results show that the PWA can effectively reduce the blocking probability and increase the performance of burst optical networks compared to previous algorithms such as random assignment.

Least-squares second-order polynomial filter and fixed-point smoother are derived in systems with uncertain observations, when the variables describing the uncertainty are non-independent. The proposed estimators do not require the knowledge of the state-space model of the signal. The available information is only the moments, up to the fourth one, of the involved processes, the probability that the signal exists in the observations and the (2,2) element of the conditional probability matrices of the sequence describing the uncertainty.

Optical Burst Switching (OBS) is one of the most important switching technologies in future optical Internet. One of critical design issues in OBS is how to reduce burst dropping resulting from resource contention. Especially when traffic load is high, there should be frequent deflection routing as well as more contentions in an optical burst-switched network. The burst loss performance can be improved by implementing a proper deflection routing scheme. In this paper, we propose a limited deflection routing scheme to prevent injudicious deflection routing. The proposed scheme reduces unnecessary contentions resulting from deflection routing itself, increasing the utilization of network resource such as channels. Simulation tests were performed to evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme.

This paper presents an observer design methodology for a special class of MIMO nonlinear systems. First, we characterize the class of MIMO nonlinear systems that consists of the linear observable part and the nonlinear part with a block triangular structure. Also, the similarity transformation that plays an important role in proving the convergence of the proposed observer is generalized to MIMO systems. Since the gain of the proposed observer minimizes a nonlinear part of the system to suppress for the stability of the error dynamics, it improves the transient performance of the high gain observer. Moreover, by using the generalized similarity transformation, it is shown that under some observability and boundedness conditions, the proposed observer guarantees the global exponential convergence to zero of the estimation error. Finally, the simulation results for induction motor are included to illustrate the validity of our design scheme.

The purpose of a testability analysis program is to estimate the difficulty of testing a fault. A good measurement can give an early warning about the testing problem so as to provide guidance in improving the testability of a circuit. There have been researches attempting to efficiently compute the testability analysis. Among those, the Controllability and Observability Procedure COP can calculate the testability value of a stuck-at fault efficiently in a tree-structured circuit but may be very inaccurate for a general circuit. The inaccuracy in COP is due to the ignorance of signal correlations. Recently, the algorithm of TAIR in [5] proposes a testability analysis algorithm, which starts from the result of COP and then gradually improves the result by applying a set of rules. The set of rules in TAIR can capture some signal correlations and therefore the results of TAIR are more accurate than COP. In this paper, we first prove that the rules in TAIR can be replaced by a closed-form formulation. Then, based on the closed-form formulation, we proposed two novel techniques to further improve the testability analysis results. Our experimental results have shown improvement over the results of TAIR.

The locally optimum rank detector achieves a simpler detector structure when reference observations, in addition to regular observations, are available. Without reference observations, we have to use the sign statistics of regular observations, and using the sign statistics results in a complex detector structure. Instead, more computations are necessary to deal with additional reference observations.

A practical EB-testing-pad method, that enables higher observability of multilevel wiring LSIs without any increase of chip size, has been evaluated by using actual 0.25-µm SIMOX/CMOS devices. First, an 80k-gate logic LSI with testing pads was developed, and it was proved that observability improves from 17% to 87%. Next, two kinds of gate-chain TEGs (test element groups), with and without testing pads was developed to investigate the influence of testing pads on gate delay. It was found that the circuit delay increase due to the pads is very small, less than 2.7%. It was also found that capacitances from neighboring wires will increase only by at most 3% due to the testing pads. Thus, the testing pad method has been proved to be extremely effective in improving observability without any overhead in design.

In order to assess the possible impacts of meteors with spacecraft, which is among major hazard in the space environment, it is essential to establish an accurate statistics of their mass and velocity. We developed a radar-optical combined system for detecting faint meteors consisting of a powerful VHF Doppler radar and an ICCD video camera. The Doppler pulse compression scheme is used to enhance the S/N ratio of the radar echoes with very large Doppler shifts, as well as to determine their range with a resolution of 200 m. A very high sensitivity of more than 14 magnitude and 9 magnitude for radar and optical sensors, respectively, has been obtained. Instantaneous direction of meteor body observed by the radar is determined with the interferometry technique. We examined the optimum way of the receiving antenna arrangements, and also of the signal processing. Its absolute accuracy was confirmed by the optical observations with background stars as a reference. By combining the impinging velocity of meteor bodies derived by the radar with the absolute visual magnitude determined by the video camera simultaneously, the mass of each meteor body was estimated. The developed observation system will be used to create a valuable data base of the mass and velocity information of faint meteors, on which very little is known so far. The data base is expected to play a vital role in our understanding of the space environment needed for designing large space structures.

In this paper, we study nonblocking supervisory control of discrete event systems under partial observation. We introduce a weak normality condition defined in terms of a modified natural projection map. The weak normality condition is weaker than the original one and stronger than the observability condition. Moreover, it is preserved under union. Given a marked language specification, we present a procedure for computing the supremal sublanguage which satisfies Lm(G)-closure, controllability, and weak normality. There exists a nonblocking supervisor for this supremal sublanguage. Such a supervisor is more permissive than the one which achieves the supremal Lm(G)-closed, controllable, and normal sublanguage.

Off-line state identification methods for a sequential machine using a homing sequence or an adaptive homing sequence (AHS) are well-known in the automata theory. There are, however, so far few studies on the subject of the on-line state estimator such as a state observer (SO) which is used in the linear system theory. In this paper, we shall construct such an SO for a Moore machine based on the state identification process by means of AHSs, and discuss the convergence property of the SO.

A speaker adaptation technique that maximizes the observation probability of an input speech is proposed. It is applied to semi-continuous hidden Markov model (SCHMM) speech recognizers. The proposed algorithm adapts the mean µ and the covariance Σ iteratively by the gradient search technique so that the features of the adaptation speech data could achieve maximum observation probabilities. The mixture coefficients and the state transition probabilities are adapted by the model interpolation scheme. The main advantage of this scheme is that the means and the variances, which are common to all states in SCHMM, are adapted independently from the other parameters of SCHMM. It allows fast and precise adaptation especially when there is a large acoustic mismatch between the reference model and a new speaker. Also, it is possible that this scheme could be adopted to other areas which use codebook. The proposed adaptation algorithm was evaluated by a male speaker-dependent, a female speaker-dependent, and a speaker-independent recognizers. The experimental results on the isolated word recognition showed that the proposed adaptation algorithm achieved 46.03% average enhancement in the male speaker-dependent recognizer, 52.18% in the female speaker-dependent recognizer, and 9.84% in the speaker-independent recognizer.

Combinational logic circuits are usually implemented as multi-level networks of logic nodes. Multi-level logic simplification using the don't cares on each node is widely used. Large don't cares give good simplification results, but suffer from huge memory area and computation time. Extraction of useful don't cares and reduction of the size of the don't cares are important problems on the simplification using don't cares. In the paper, we propose a new robust heuristic method for the selection of don't cares. We consider an adaptive subnetwork for each simplified node in the network and introduce a stepwise enhancement method of the subnetwork considering the memory area and the network structure. The don't cares extracted from the adaptive subnetworks are called the local don't cares. We have implemented our method for satisfiability don't cares and observability don't cares. We have applied the method on MCNC89 benchmarks, and compared the experimental results with those of the SIS system. The results demonstrate the superiority of our method on the quality of the results and on the size of applicable circuits.

Meteor storms and showers are now considered as potential hazard in the space environment. Radar observations of meteors has an advantage of a much higher sensitivity over optical observations. The MU radar of Kyoto University, Japan has a unique capability of very fast beam steerability as well as a high sensitivity to the echoes from ionization around the meteors. We developed a special observation scheme which enables us to determine the orbit of individual meteors. The direction of the target is determined by comparing the echo intensity at three adjacent beams. The Doppler pulse compression technique is applied to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of the echoes from the very fast target, and also to determine the range accurately. The developed scheme was applied to the observation made during the Leonid meteor storm on November 18, 1998 (JST). Estimated orbital distribution seems to suggest that the very weak meteors detected by the MU radar are dominated by sporadic meteors rather than the stream meteors associated with the Leonids storm.

A Co/Pd multilayer film with perpendicular coercivity of 2.2 kOe and remanence ratio (SQ) of unity was prepared by electron beam evaporation in vacuum. In the MFM image of signal patterns of 4 kFRPI recorded using a ring-type MIG head, many reversed domains were observed. However, when the film was magnetized along the film normal direction using an electromagnet (H = -13 kOe), only few reversed magnetic domains were observed, which was consistent with SQ = 1. Therefore, the reversed domains in the signal patterns were induced in the recording process. dc erasing was also studied with the magnetic field inclined to the film normal. The domain structures were almost the same when the perpendicular component of the field was kept constant while the in-plane component was varied, implying that the in-plane field component did not contribute to the formation of the reversed domains. It was found that reversed magnetic domains were easily induced even by a weak reversing magnetic field applied along the film normal. Hence, although the possibility of an insufficient recording head field was not excluded, it seemed more likely that the reversed magnetic domains in the signal patterns were caused by some erasing effect of the ring-type MIG head. For a Co/Pd multilayer medium with a negative nucleation field in the perpendicular M-H loop, a stronger reversing field was needed to induce the reversed magnetic domains. No reversed magnetic domains were observed in the MFM image for signal patterns of 4 kFRPI in this medium, indicating that a negative nucleation field was effective to suppress the formation of reversed magnetic domains.

This article shows a Boolean Multivalued logical model of varying confirmation by observation of events in human inference and, as an introductory example, applies the model to solve Hempel's paradox of the ravens.

It is well known that the electromagnetic interference (EMI) radiated from industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) apparatus seriously degrades the performance of wireless communication systems. In this paper, an ISM-band wireless local area network (WLAN) which employs a direct sequence-spread spectrum (DS-SS) system is designed to be sufficiently robust and reliable to operate in the presence of this EMI. To satisfy this goal, a technique to suppress EMI in the DS-SS system using a multicode transmission and an EMI observation channel is proposed. In the study, the EMI radiated from switching-type microwave ovens (MWO interference) which are ISM apparatus is concerned, and for a tractable investigation, a statistical model to represent MWO interference based on experimental measurement results is employed. As well known that MWO interference exhibits a bursty impulsive characteristic in time, a technique to transmit multiple long spreading codes (multicode transmission) is introduced for the DS-SS system to overcome the burstness of the interference. Moreover, inspired by the broadband in frequency of MWO interference, a technique to estimate the channel MWO interference by means of observing its levels in an adjacent channel is proposed, and this technique is applied to construct a multicode DS-SS receiver which can suppress the channel MWO interference. An evaluation of the bit error rate performance of the proposed multicode DS-SS system is conducted by computer simulation, and the numerical results demonstrate that the proposed DS-SS system can operate effectively even in the presence of MWO interference.