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Non-destructive techniques are used widely in the metal industry in order to control the quality of materials. Eddy current testing is one of the most extensively used non-destructive techniques for inspecting electrically conductive materials at very high speeds that does not require any contact between the test piece and the sensor. This paper includes an overview of the fundamentals and main variables of eddy current testing. It also describes the state-of-the-art sensors and modern techniques such as multi-frequency and pulsed systems. Recent advances in complex models towards solving crack-sensor interaction, developments in instrumentation due to advances in electronic devices, and the evolution of data processing suggest that eddy current testing systems will be increasingly used in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) based model for environmental variables related to the tobacco drying process. A fitting ANN was used to estimate and predict temperature and relative humidity inside the tobacco dryer: the estimation consists of calculating the value of these variables in different locations of the dryer and the prediction consists of forecasting the value of these variables with different time horizons. The proposed model has been validated with temperature and relative humidity data obtained from a real tobacco dryer using a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). On the one hand, an error under 2% was achieved, obtaining temperature as a function of temperature and relative humidity in other locations in the estimation task. Besides, an error around 1.5 times lower than the one obtained with an interpolation method was achieved in the prediction task when the temperature inside the tobacco mass was predicted with time horizons over 2.5 hours as a function of its present and past values. These results show that ANN-based models can be used to improve the tobacco drying process because with these types of models the value of environmental variables can be predicted in the near future and can be estimated in other locations with low errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a technical review of position and speed sensorless methods for controlling Brushless Direct Current (BLDC) motor drives, including the background analysis using sensors, limitations and advances. The performance and reliability of BLDC motor drivers have been improved because the conventional control and sensing techniques have been improved through sensorless technology. Then, in this paper sensorless advances are reviewed and recent developments in this area are introduced with their inherent advantages and drawbacks, including the analysis of practical implementation issues and applications. The study includes a deep overview of state-of-the-art back-EMF sensing methods, which includes Terminal Voltage Sensing, Third Harmonic Voltage Integration, Terminal Current Sensing, Back-EMF Integration and PWM strategies. Also, the most relevant techniques based on estimation and models are briefly analysed, such as Sliding-mode Observer, Extended Kalman Filter, Model Reference Adaptive System, Adaptive observers (Full-order and Pseudoreduced-order) and Artificial Neural Networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this article, we present an automatic leaves image classification system for sunflower crops using neural networks, which could be used in selective herbicide applications. The system is comprised of four main stages. First, a segmentation based on rgb color space is performed. Second, many different features are detected and then extracted from the segmented image. Third, the most discriminable set of features are selected. Finally, the Generalized Softmax Perceptron (GSP) neural network architecture is used in conjunction with the recently proposed Posterior Probability Model Selection (PPMS) algorithm for complexity selection in order to select the leaves in an image and then classify them either as sunflower or non-sunflower. The experimental results show that the proposed system achieves a high level of accuracy with only five selected discriminative features obtaining an average Correct Classification Rate of 85% and an area under the receiver operation curve over 90%, for the test set. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]