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This article aims at this problem of adaptive neural tracking control for state-constrained systems. A general fixed-time stability criterion is first presented, by which an adaptive neural control algorithm is developed. Under the action of the proposed adaptive neural tracking controller, the tracking error converges into a small neighborhood around the origin in fixed time; meanwhile, all system states abide by the corresponding state constraints for all the time. The main difference between the present research and the previous control schemes for state-constrained systems is that this article proposes a novel and feasible approach to ensure that the constructed virtual control signals satisfy the state constraints on the corresponding states viewed as the virtual control inputs. Such an approach guarantees theoretically that all the system states cannot violate their constrained requirements at any time. Finally, two simulation examples provide support to the proposed results.

WiFi-based passive gesture tracking plays a crucial role in promoting human-computer interface, due to its pervasive availability and cost-effectiveness. Prior works focus on tracking gestures on 2D sensing plane by aggregating multiple WiFi links (typically 2), with Uniform Linear Arrays (ULAs). However, gestures actually contain 3D spatial information instead of just 2D, thus interpreting the 3D traces as 2D may lead to enormous tracking errors. This paper aims at exploring the possibility of passively tracking 3D hand traces likewise leveraging two WiFi links with standard 3-element ULAs, and presents a generic 3D centimeter-level passive gesture tracking system, called CentiTrack-3D. To this end, we make two key observations: (1) The ULA-resolved angle contains the integrated information of the azimuth and elevation in 3D space, despite its inability to estimate azimuth and elevation separately. (2) The radial motion deviating from the sensing plane also leads to length variations of paths. Motivated by the observations, a 3D tracking model named Chaos is elaborately designed to deduce the hand 3D coordinates, so as to track the traces. Extensive experiments yield that CentiTrack-3D achieves an overall median tracking granularity of 2.5 cm in 3D space in case of diverse users and environment conditions.

The amplitude envelope of speech is crucial for accurate comprehension. Considered a key stage in speech processing, the phase of neural activity in the theta-delta bands (1-10 Hz) tracks the phase of the speech amplitude envelope during listening. However, the mechanisms underlying this envelope representation have been heavily debated. A dominant model posits that envelope tracking reflects entrainment of endogenous low-frequency oscillations to the speech envelope. Alternatively, envelope tracking reflects a series of evoked responses to acoustic landmarks within the envelope. It has proven challenging to distinguish these two mechanisms. To address this, we recorded MEG while participants (n= 12, 6 female) listened to natural speech, and compared the neural phase patterns to the predictions of two computational models: an oscillatory entrainment model and a model of evoked responses to peaks in the rate of envelope change. Critically, we also presented speech at slowed rates, where the spectro-temporal predictions of the two models diverge. Our analyses revealed transient theta phase-locking in regular speech, as predicted by both models. However, for slow speech, we found transient theta and delta phase-locking, a pattern that was fully compatible with the evoked response model but could not be explained by the oscillatory entrainment model. Furthermore, encoding of acoustic edge magnitudes was invariant to contextual speech rate, demonstrating speech rate normalization of acoustic edge representations. Together, our results suggest that neural phase-locking to the speech envelope is more likely to reflect discrete representation of transient information rather than oscillatory entrainment.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTThis study probes a highly debated topic in speech perception: the neural mechanisms underlying the cortical representation of the temporal envelope of speech. It is well established that the slow intensity profile of the speech signal, its envelope, elicits a robust brain response that “tracks” these envelope fluctuations. The oscillatory entrainment model posits that envelope tracking reflects phase alignment of endogenous neural oscillations. Here the authors provide evidence for a distinct mechanism. They show that neural speech envelope tracking arises from transient evoked neural responses to rapid increases in the speech envelope. Explicit computational modeling provides direct and compelling evidence that evoked responses are the primary mechanism underlying cortical speech envelope representations, with no evidence for oscillatory entrainment.

This article develops a novel cost function (performance index function) to overcome the obstacles in solving the optimal tracking control problem for a class of nonlinear systems with known system dynamics via adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) technique. For the traditional optimal control problems, the assumption that the controlled system has zero equilibrium is generally required to guarantee the finiteness of an infinite horizon cost function and a unique solution. In order to solve the optimal tracking control problem of nonlinear systems with nonzero equilibrium, a specific cost function related to tracking errors and their derivatives is designed in this article, in which the aforementioned assumption and related obstacles are removed and the controller design process is simplified. Finally, comparative simulations are conducted on an inverted pendulum system to illustrate the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed optimal tracking control strategy.

Gesture recognition by using Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) sensors plays an important role in various Internet of Things (IOT) applications, e.g., smart home, intelligent medical system and so on. Traditional technologies usually utilize machine learning algorithms to train different gestures during the offline phase, then recognize the gesture during the online phase. However, such technologies cannot recognize these gestures without prior training. Even for the same gesture, with different gesture amplitude may result in unsuccessful recognition. Also if we change the person to perform the same gesture, the algorithms fails. In order to overcome these drawbacks, we propose an approach, which will be able to track the human body motion in realtime and also recognize complicated gestures. It utilizes the accelerometer information and proposes comprehensive localization algorithms for each deployed sensor attached on the human body. Then, it takes the correlation and limitation among body parts into account to recognize the gesture. Our experiments results show that, the successful recognition rate of our algorithm is 100%. Furthermore, any part of the human body can be well tracked, the tracking accuracy can reach 0.06m.

In order to make redundant robot manipulators (RRMs) track the complex time-varying trajectory, the motion-planning problem of RRMs can be converted into a constrained time-varying quadratic programming (TVQP) problem. By using a new punishment mechanism-combined recurrent neural network (PMRNN) proposed in this article with reference to the varying-gain neural-dynamic design (VG-NDD) formula, the TVQP problem-based motion-planning scheme can be solved and the optimal angles and velocities of joints of RRMs can also be obtained in the working space. Then, the convergence performance of the PMRNN model in solving the TVQP problem is analyzed theoretically in detail. This novel method has been substantiated to have a faster calculation speed and better accuracy than the traditional method. In addition, the PMRNN model has also been successfully applied to an actual RRM to complete an end-effector trajectory tracking task.

Connected and autonomous vehicles are expected to revolutionize transportation systems in the near future. Nevertheless, full autonomy still requires further development that will only be achieved through a high level of cooperation and coordination among vehicles. For the safe execution of several autonomous functions, vehicles will need to frequently communicate their current location to the Road Side Units (RSUs). However, due to information aging, it is expected that the delays from the time a message is generated until the location of the vehicle is updated will induce a tracking error. Thus, there is a tradeoff between the frequency of location updates and tracking error. Further, in order to reduce the queue-induced delays present in the system, the number of messages can be reduced by employing an event-triggered communication scheme. In this work, a family of optimization problems is proposed, utilizing the event-triggered algorithm, in order to determine the optimal triggering threshold. Both single and multiple RSU cases are considered in several simulation scenarios, demonstrating that the proposed optimization framework derives the optimal tracking accuracy. In the case of multiple RSUs, results are further optimized by assigning roads (and in turn vehicles) to RSUs if coverage areas of multiple RSUs overlap.

Internet of Things (IoT) has brought changes in many fields by joining physical space with the cyber space. The IoT devices are becoming increasingly complex. With the rapid deployment of cameras, tasks in IoT like visual information are more important, but IoT devices have limited computing resources, including power, computing ability, storage, etc. Some tasks that might be perfectly normal to perform on a computer would be rather challenging on an IoT device. Therefore, how to maintain acceptable performance while minimizing resources is becoming a more consequential part in IoT. In the paper, we aim to solve the problem of object detection and tracking in IoT while minimizing resources. The traditional algorithms need to use convolutional neural network (CNN) to identify different objects in each frame, and then determine the tracking target from identified objects, which typically requires a lot of computing resources. By incorporating spatial attention, and multi-domain network, we proposed a novel algorithm named as Spatial Attention Powered Multi-Domain Network (SA-MDNet). By adding spatial attention mechanism to the original MDNet model, and using multi class cross entropy loss, we are able to distinguish the background and the target in different video sequences effectively and efficiently. This novel algorithm achieves similar performance on the OTB 50/100/2013 datasets compared to several state-of-art models, while uses only a fraction of the memory compared to MDNet.

Laboratory testing equipment for asphalt mixtures with three different functionalities is introduced. The rotary compactor and wheel tracker (RCWT) not only achieves realistic contact areas of actual pneumatic tyres but can also compact heavy-duty laboratory asphalt mixtures to the desirable density and conduct simulated wheel tracking tests (WTTs). The RCWT is able to replicate stone mastic asphalt full-scale site rollers. The simulated WTT, with actual pneumatic tyres, reproduced the non-uniform contact stresses as well as other non-linear and viscoelastic behaviours of the tyre–pavement interaction. Furthermore, the instrumentation system with fully calibrated sensors and data acquisition set-up captured all the crucial factors – including the temperature inside the asphalt mixture mat, vertical load, rutting depth and vertical compressive strain at the bottom of the asphalt layer – effectively and continuously.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) have many applications in both commerce and recreation. However, irresponsibly operated UAVs will pose a threat to public safety. Therefore, developing our understanding of UAVs and their uses is of particular interest. This paper considers tracking UAVs, which provide multifaceted information around location, paths and trajectories. To facilitate research on this topic, we introduce a new benchmark, herein referred to as Anti-UAV, which provides a novel direction for UAV tracking with more than 300 video pairs containing over 580k manually annotated bounding boxes. Addressing anti-UAV research challenges could help to design anti-UAV systems, which in turn may improve surveillance. Accordingly, we have proposed a simple yet effective approach, called dual-flow semantic consistency (DFSC) is proposed for UAV tracking. Modulated by the semantic flow across video sequences, tracker learns more robust class-level semantic information and obtains more discriminative instance-level features. Experiments highlight significant performance gain with the proposed approach over state-of-the-art trackers and the challenging aspects of Anti-UAV. The Anti-UAV benchmark and the code for the proposed approach have been made publicly available at https://github.com/ucas-vg/Anti-UAV.

Multi-Panda Tracking (MPT) is a video-based tracking task for panda individuals, which is conducive to the observation and measurement of distribution and status of pandas. Different from tracking general objects such as pedestrians and vehicles, MPT is extremely challenging due to the indistinguishable appearances and diversified postures of pandas. In this case, existing tracking methods cannot appropriately tackle with the excessive occlusion between different panda individuals, hence suffering from identity switch, missing and inaccurate detections. To address these problems, we propose a simple yet effective MPT framework in the tracking-by-detection paradigm, which is benefited both from a short-term prediction filtering module and a discriminative feature learning network. In particular, the short-term prediction filtering module introduces similarity learning to enhance the temporal consistency among detections, which is capable of supplementing the missing detections and discarding false positive detections. Besides, the discriminative feature learning network leverages a two-branch network to learn both local and global discriminative features, so as to distinguish different panda individuals with a very similar appearance with a subtle difference. To evaluate the proposed method, we annotate a large-scale MPT dataset, named PANDA2021, which is particularly challenging due to the similar appearance and dramatic occlusion between panda individuals. Experiments on PANDA2021 demonstrate that the proposed MPT method significantly outperforms the competing methods. Moreover, experimental results on pedestrian tracking dataset MOT16 further demonstrate that the proposed MPT method achieves comparative performance with competing methods.

Recently, multi-task correlation filters has drawn much attention in the object tracking field, which utilizes the multi-task learning (MTL) approach to explore the interdependencies among deep features for object tracking. However, the existing multi-task correlation filters based method fails to consider the relations between the correlation filters. To address this problem, a novel correlation filters based visual tracking method is proposed in this paper, with the integration of multi-task convolution operators and object detection. In our method, convolution and correction filters are jointly learnt through using the MTL technique, with the purpose of exploring not only the interdependencies of deep features but also the internal relevance of the convolution filters. In addition, object detection is introduced into our algorithm to handle the problem of object missing to ensure a better performance of our tracking method. Experiments on five benchmark datasets demonstrate that the proposed visual tracking method outperforms existing state-of-the-art approaches.

In spatial augmented reality, a widely dynamic projection mapping system has been developed as a novel approach to graphics presentation for widely moving objects in dynamic situations. However, this method necessitates a novel tracking marker design that is resistant to random and complex occlusion and out-of-focus blurring, which conventional markers have not achieved. This article presents a uniform circumferential marker that becomes an ellipse in perspective projection and expresses geometric information. It can track the relative posture of a dynamically moving sphere with high speed, high accuracy, and robustness owing to continuous contour lines, thereby supporting both wide-range movement in the depth direction and human interaction. Moreover, a biased circumferential marker is proposed to embed unique coding, where the absolute posture is decoded with a novel recognition algorithm. Moreover, rough initialization using the geometry of multiple ellipses is proposed for both markers to start the automatic and precise tracking. Real-time rotation visualization onto the surface of a moving sphere is made possible with the high-speed, widely dynamic projection mapping system. The tracking performance is demonstrated to exhibit sufficient basic tracking performance as well as robustness against blurring and occlusion compared to conventional dot-based markers.

Multiple cylinders detection from large-scale and complex point clouds is a historical but challenging problem, considering the efficiency and accuracy. We propose a novel framework, named slicing-tracking-detection (STD), that detects multiple cylinders accurately and simultaneously from point clouds of large-scale and complex process plants. In this framework, the 3D cylinder detection problem is reformulated as a cylinder ingredients tracking task based on multi-object tracking (MOT). Firstly, we generate slices from the input point cloud, and render them to slice sequence. Then, the cycle of a cylinder is modeled with a Markov Decision Process (MDP), where the ingredient is tracked with a template and the miss tracking is associated with ingredient proposals through reinforcement learning. Finally, by applying MDP for each cylinder, multiple cylinders can be detected simultaneously and accurately. Extensive experiments show that the proposed STD framework can significantly outperform the state-of-the-art approaches in efficiency, accuracy, and robustness. The source code is available at http://zhiyongsu.github.io.

The issue of neural adaptive self-triggered tracking control for uncertain nonlinear systems with input hysteresis is considered. Combining radial basis function neural networks (RBFNNs) and adaptive backstepping technique, an adaptive self-triggered tracking control approach is developed, where the next trigger instant is determined by the current information. Compared with the event-triggered control mechanism, its biggest advantage is that it does not need to continuously monitor the trigger condition of the system, which is convenient for physical realization. By the proposed controller, the hysteresis's effect can be compensated effectively and the tracking error can be bounded by an explicit function of design parameters. Simultaneously, all other signals in the closed-loop system can be remaining bounded. Finally, two examples are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

This note investigates the control problems of tracking and stabilization simultaneously for nonholonomic mobile robots subjected to input constraints and parameter uncertainties. A saturated time-varying controller is developed by applying a novel error state modification with bounded auxiliary variables. To improve the estimation performance of unknown kinematic and dynamic parameters, two projection-type adaptation laws are presented, while radial basis function (RBF) approximations are used to estimate uncertain dynamics. Simulations are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed controller.

Wireless network is the communication foundation that supports the intelligentization of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) swarm. The topology of UAV communication network is the key to understanding and analyzing the behavior of UAV swarm, thus supporting the further prediction of UAV operations. However, the UAV swarm network topology varies over time due to the high mobility and diversified mission requirements of UAVs. Therefore, it is important but challenging to research dynamic topology inference for tracking the topology changes of the UAV network, especially in non-cooperative manner. In this paper, we study the problem of inferring UAV swarm network topology based on external observations, and propose a dynamic topology inference method. First, we establish a sensing framework for acquiring the communication behavior of the target network over time. Then, we expand the multi-dimensional dynamic Hawkes process to model the communication event sequence in a dynamic wireless network. Finally, combining the sliding time window mechanism, the maximum weighted likelihood estimation is applied to inferring the network topology. Extensive simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Human-on-the-loop (HOTL) system is regarded as a promising technology to allow autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to track the most adequate target point as soon as possible. However, the unique characteristics of the underwater environment make it challenging to perform the tracking task. This article is concerned with a finite-time tracking control issue for AUV, subjected to unavailable velocity signals in the measurement side and uncertain model parameters in physical side. A HOTL system, including operator, buoys, AUV and sensors, is first provided to construct a cooperative tracking network. For such system, operator in surface control center decides the tracking mission based on all available data. Then, a buoy-assisted localization estimator is utilized by AUV to acquire its position, through which a fast terminal sliding mode observer is developed to estimate the velocity of AUV in finite time. With the estimated velocity information, an adaptive-nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode tracking controller is designed to drive AUV to the target point in finite time. For the proposed velocity observer and tracking controller, the signum and differential functions are employed together to improve the convergence speed and reduce the chattering. Besides that, the proposed solution can not only guarantee finite-time velocity observation, but also achieve finite-time tracking control. Finally, simulation and experimental results are both presented to verify the effectiveness.

This paper studies the problem of obstacle-avoidance tracking control for a class of uncertain nonlinear robot systems in multiple-dynamic-obstacles environment. The main challenge focuses on how to simultaneously ensure tracking performance and obstacle avoidance. The existing collision-avoidance tracking control schemes cannot guarantee the tracking performance inside the obstacle detection region, since the use of additive Lyapunov-Barrier function (LBF) generates the dynamic mismatching. To overcome this difficulty, a novel integral-multiplicative LBF (IMLBF) is constructed. The adaptive mechanism is designed to compensate for the mismatching uncertainties. By incorporating the barrier function into backstepping procedure, a secure adaptive tracking control scheme is proposed. Compared with the existing results, the proposed control scheme can simultanesouly achieve the obstacle avoidance and global tracking performance regardless of being inside the obstacle sensing region and unknown nonlinear uncertainties.

The problem of global output tracking is addressed for stable minimum phase systems, with constant uncertain parameters and constant disturbances belonging to a known compact set, in the presence of input constraints such as amplitude saturation. The relative degree, the system order and the sign of the high frequency gain are assumed to be known. A hybrid adaptive output feedback control is designed to achieve global asymptotic output tracking, provided that there exists an input within the input constraints capable of tracking exactly the output reference signal. By virtue of the hybrid control approach, the closed loop system is linear within each time interval between parameter updating. Moreover, no information on input saturation are required by the controller. In addition to the standard assumptions in adaptive control design when inputs are unconstrained, further requirements on the reference signals, on system stability and on parameter bounds are needed when inputs are constrained.

This article studies the vision-based tracking control problem for a nonholonomic multirobot formation system with uncertain dynamic models and visibility constraints. A fixed onboard vision sensor that provides the relative distance and bearing angle is subject to limited range and angle of view due to limited sensing capability. The constraint resulting from collision avoidance is also taken into account for safe operations of the formation system. Furthermore, the preselected specifications on transient and steady-state performance are provided by considering the time-varying and asymmetric constraint requirements on formation tracking errors for each robot. To address the constraint problems, we incorporate a novel barrier Lyapunov function into controller design and analysis. Based on the recursive adaptive backstepping procedure and neural-network approximation, we develop a vision-based formation tracking control protocol such that formation tracking errors can converge into a small neighborhood of the origin in finite time while meeting the requirements of visibility and performance constraints. The proposed protocol is decentralized in the sense that the control action on each robot only depends on the local relative information, without the need for explicit network communication. Moreover, the control protocol could extend to an unconstrained multirobot system. Both simulation and experimental results show the effectiveness of the control protocol.

This article solves the problem of proximate fixed-time prescribed performance trajectory tracking for robot manipulators in the presence of bounded external disturbances and parametric uncertainties. A novel prescribed performance function (PPF) is first presented. A sliding surface with the prescribed performance tracking errors is constructed and a nonsingular proximate fixed-time terminal sliding mode prescribed performance control (FTSMPPC) is developed. It is proved that the position tracking error satisfies the prescribed performance boundaries all the time and globally converges to a preset small region centered on the origin within fixed time and then converges to the origin asymptotically. The proposed FTSMPPC provides faster transient performance quantified and higher steady-state accuracy by the proposed PPF. The effectiveness and improved performances of the presented approach are validated by simulations and experiments.

Localisation is an important part of many applications. Our motivating scenarios are short-term construction work and emergency rescue. These scenarios also require rapid setup and robustness to environmental conditions additional to localisation accuracy. These requirements preclude the use of many traditional high-performance methods, e.g. vision-based, laser-based, Ultra-wide band (UWB) and Global Positioning System (GPS)-based localisation systems. To overcome these challenges, we introduce iMag+, an accurate and rapidly deployable inertial magneto-inductive (MI) mapping and localisation system, which only requires monitored workers to carry a single MI transmitter and an inertial measurement unit in order to localise themselves with minimal setup effort. However, one major challenge is to use distorted and ambiguous MI location estimates for localisation. To solve this challenge, we propose a novel method to use MI devices for sensing environmental distortions for accurate closing inertial loops. We also suggest a robust and efficient first quadrant estimator to sanitise the ambiguous MI estimates. By applying robust simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM), our proposed localisation method achieves excellent tracking accuracy and can improve performance significantly compared with only using a Magneto-inductive device or inertial measurement unit (IMU) for localisation.

This article provides a novel inverse reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm that learns an unknown performance objective function for tracking control. The algorithm combines three steps: 1) an optimal control update; 2) a gradient descent correction step; and 3) an inverse optimal control (IOC) update. The new algorithm clarifies the relation between inverse RL and IOC. It is shown that the reward weight of an unknown performance objective that generates a target control policy may not be unique. We characterize the set of all weights that generate the same target control policy. We develop a model-based algorithm and, further, two model-free algorithms for systems with unknown model information. Finally, simulation experiments are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.

Multiple disturbances are the main constraints that hinder the high-performance velocity tracking of the gimbal servo system in CMG. This paper presents a non-cascade structured velocity-tracking controller (NCVTC) based on a refined disturbance observer (RDO) for handling multiple disturbances and improve the tracking performance. Specifically, a disturbance observer (DO) is designed to estimate the imbalance disturbance which can be represented by an exogenous system. The disturbances that cannot be modeled a priori are treated as a lumped term and estimated via extended state observer (ESO). By resorting to disturbance estimation, a novel sliding mode controller (SMC) based on the disturbance estimation values is developed to handle the mismatched problem and chattering issue. Finally, experimental tests are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed anti-disturbance control scheme.

As a general mechanism for governing the bioactivity of membrane receptors, allosteric modulation is critical in cell signaling and cell communications but remains difficult to be measured in situ....

Due to the simultaneous existence of model uncertainties and external disturbances, designing automated ground vehicle path-following controllers is recognized as a challenging task. The $H_{∞}$ robust control methodology, as one of the accomplished strategies for controller robustification, has been commonly adopted by researchers to address the vehicle path-tracking problems. Nevertheless, despite its advantages, the $H_{∞}$ controller is only capable of limiting the total ``energy'' of the tracking errors. On the other hand, from a safety standpoint, constraining the ``peak'' of the tracking errors may carry an equal or more importance. To establish a guaranteed upper bound on the path-tracking errors, this paper proposes a novel methodology to synthesis the ground vehicle path-following controller in light of the energy-to-peak robust control theory. Additionally, to address the time-varying uncertainties presented in the tire dynamics, robust stabilization constraints based upon the small-gain theorem are also formulated into the overall controller design problem. Comparative study regarding the disturbance rejection performance between the proposed controller and the conventional $H_{∞}$ approach is conducted via CarSim-Simulink joint simulations. Furthermore, the robustness and disturbance attenuation ability of the energy-to-peak path-tracking controller is experimentally verified on a scaled car.

The diffusion of toxic gas, biochemical material, and radio-active contamination, known as continuous objects, endangers the safe production of petrochemical and nuclear industry. Industrial wireless sensor networks are a new paradigm, which shows great potential in monitoring evolving hazardous phenomena in unfriendly industrial field. To prolong the lifetime of IWSNs, existing research focuses on energy-efficient boundary nodes selection. However, sensor state cannot be scheduled proactively due to the difficulty of predicting the spatiotemporal evolution of diffusive hazard. In this article, we propose a predictive boundary tracking algorithm based on motion behavior learning (MBLPT) for continuous objects in IWSNs. Considering the multiple behavior patterns exhibited by continuous objects, MBLPB establishes data-driven models for motion state recognition, and then utilizes Bayesian model averaging for future boundary prediction. The prediction of MBLPT provides the knowledge for establishing a wake-up zone, in which sleeping nodes are activated in advance to participate in tracking the upcoming boundary. Simulation results demonstrate that MBLPB achieves superior energy efficiency under acceptable tracking accuracy.

A fixed-time trajectory tracking control of autonomous surface vessels (ASVs) subject to unmeasured speed is studied in this work. By using the homogeneity-based Lyapunov method, the unknown system states, including the unmeasured speed and lumped disturbances, are estimated by using a novel extended state observer (ESO) within fixed time. Subsequently, using the estimated states, the task of fixed-time tracking is completed with the aid of a newly proposed output-constrained power integrator method, which makes the vessel position and heading strictly within the predefined output constraints, and the tracking errors can be reduced to a range of zero under the continuous control action. The practical fixed-time stability (FTS) of the closed-loop system is analyzed in the sense of Lyapunov, while the output constraints can be well maintained during maneuvering. Finally, the ascendancy of the designed scheme is exhibited by simulation comparisons.

This article studies a novel fixed-time track- ing controller for a class of degree-of-freedom (DoF) nonlinear systems with mismatched and matched perturbations. A modified fixed-time stable system (FTSS) is first proposed, which has an advantage in convergence rate over the existing results. Moreover, an adaptive version of fixed-time disturbance observer (DO) is established to eliminate the requirement for prior knowledge of the perturbation bounds. Based on the aforementioned FTSS and DO, a new fixed-time terminal sliding mode surface (FTTSMS) with singularity circumvention is constructed. Then a novel composite tracking controller is designed, which can guarantee the tracking errors to converge to zero within fixed time. The stabilities of both of the DO and the resulting closed-loop systems are rigorously proved by the Lyapunov theorem. Simulation results of two representative examples demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach.

The instantaneous frequency (IF) is an important feature for the analysis of non-stationary signals. However, extracting multiple IF ridges, crossing IF ridges, and discontinuous IF ridges simultaneously is still a challenging task. To solve this problem, an adaptive IF ridge extraction method is proposed. This method regards the IF ridge values at each time point as targets to be tracked. The tracking targets are defined as three states: survival, death, and birth. Firstly, the potential peaks in the time-frequency representation are found to reduce the noise effect. Secondly, an adaptive penalty function is constructed to determine the target state and track the ridge target. Thirdly, the crossing ridges are separated base on the slope information. This method is capable of simultaneously extracting multiple IF ridges, crossing IF ridges, and discontinuous IF ridges. The performance of the proposed method is investigated by a simulated signal and two experimental signals.

This study investigates the bipartite fixed-time time-varying output formation-containment tracking issue for heterogeneous linear multiagent systems with multiple leaders. Both cooperative communication and antagonistic communication between neighbor agents are taken into account. First, the bipartite fixed-time compensator is put forward to estimate the convex hull of leaders' states. Different from the existing techniques, the proposed compensator has the following three highlights: 1) it is continuous without involving the sign function, and thus, the chattering phenomenon can be avoided; 2) its estimation can be achieved within a fixed time; and 3) the communication between neighbors can not only be cooperative but also be antagonistic. Note that the proposed compensator is dependent on the global information of network topology. To deal with this issue, the fully distributed adaptive bipartite fixed-time compensator is further proposed. It can estimate not only the convex hull of leaders' states but also the leaders' system matrices. Based on the proposed compensators, the distributed controllers are then developed such that the bipartite time-varying output formation-containment tracking can be achieved within a fixed time. Finally, two examples are given to illustrate the feasibility of the main theoretical findings.

An event-triggered adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) algorithm is developed in this article to solve the tracking control problem for partially unknown constrained uncertain systems. First, an augmented system is constructed, and the solution of the optimal tracking control problem of the uncertain system is transformed into an optimal regulation of the nominal augmented system with a discounted value function. The integral reinforcement learning is employed to avoid the requirement of augmented drift dynamics. Second, the event-triggered ADP is adopted for its implementation, where the learning of neural network weights not only relaxes the initial admissible control but also executes only when the predefined execution rule is violated. Third, the tracking error and the weight estimation error prove to be uniformly ultimately bounded, and the existence of a lower bound for the interexecution times is analyzed. Finally, simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the present event-triggered ADP method.

This article studies the path planning for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) standoff tracking a narrow-area target in complex environment. Since the target state estimation considerably influences the target tracking performance, the constrained interacting multiple model, which uses the geographic information of narrow-areas to enhance the estimation accuracy, is proposed. Then, based on the obtained estimation results, the dynamic Lyapunov guidance vector field (DLGVF) is proposed, which can guide UAVs to converge to not only the expected standoff distance in the horizontal plane but also the desired height in the vertical plane. Moreover, the DLGVF renders the UAV trajectories flexible and shortens the convergence time by skillfully introducing adjustment parameters. Finally, to simultaneously complete the missions of target tracking and obstacle avoidance, an integrated method based on the DLGVF and the interfered fluid dynamical system is presented. Simulations are implemented to demonstrate that the proposed framework is effective.

Index tracking is one of the most popular passive strategy in portfolio management. However, due to some practical constrains, a full replication is difficult to obtain. Many mathematical models have failed to generate good results for partial replicated portfolios, but in the last years a data driven approach began to take shape. This paper proposes three heuristic methods for both selection and allocation of the most informative stocks in an index tracking problem, respectively XGBoost, Random Forest and LASSO with stability selection. Among those, latest deep autoencoders have also been tested. All selected algorithms have outperformed the benchmarks in terms of tracking error. The empirical study has been conducted on one of the biggest financial indices in terms of number of components in three different countries, respectively Russell 1000 for the USA, FTSE 350 for the UK, and Nikkei 225 for Japan.

This paper presents a comparative analysis using three Linear Parameter Varying (LPV) control approaches for the lateral control of an autonomous vehicle. Polytopic, gridbased and Linear Fractional Transformation (LFT) lateral controllers are designed, highlighting their benefits and drawbacks from the theoretical design to the real implementation on a real automated Renault ZOE vehicle. A solution is proposed to deal with both lane change and lane tracking problems, using a single LPV controller, by adapting the look-ahead distance. Each LPV controller is designed based on LPV/ concept. Performance comparison includes computational costs, vehicle performance (i.e. lateral tracking error or control effort optimization) and on-board integration complexity. Simulation and experimental results on a private test track are included to support main findings.

Apart from the load variation, the coupling misalignment of a capacitive power transfer (CPT) system can change the resonant frequency, which results in the variation of the output voltage/current. This paper proposes a dual-loop control CPT system aiming at reducing the effect of the coupling misalignment and load variation. Based on the modeling of the LC-LC compensated CPT system, the constant-current (CC) and constant-voltage (CV) frequencies are derived. Then the frequency splitting and frequency bifurcation are illustrated. The frequency tuning is realized by tracking the input and output voltage rather than the input voltage and current. This method is helpful for tracking CV frequency accurately, and it can avoid the system operating at other resonant frequencies caused by frequency bifurcations. Based on the proposed control method, a 250W experimental prototype with 20mm transmission distance is built. The CPT system can always operate in the load-independent CC/CV mode and the output voltage/current can be controlled to the target value with 2% error, when the load resistance and coupling misalignment vary from 5 to 50 ohms, 0 to 100mm x-misalignment, and 0 to 20mm z-misalignment.

This paper presents a deep learning-based method for defect detection and classification of power distribution lines using video analysis. The first stage is dataset preparation in which different videos are recorded. Then, a process is followed in such a way that a limited number of frames are used for processing, and power devices are detected in each frame using Faster R-CNN. Next, an equipment tracking technique is applied through the video frames. In the following, a method based on the classification of power equipment is presented. Then, the frame containing the closest component to the component in the median image is selected. In the selected frame, the area around the component is cut and given to AlexNet or GoogleNet to determine the equipment type and the severity level of defect is determined. Also, the defective equipment phase is determined based on the insulators detected in the video. The proposed method not only performs better than the state-of-the-art but also is a practical method, and with the least dependence on environmental conditions, can automatically identify defects in distribution lines, even in videos containing several possible defective devices.

Object tracking is a fundamental task for the visual perception system on the intelligent unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The high efficiency of correlation filter (CF) based trackers has advanced the widespread development of online UAV object tracking. This kind of method can effectively train a filter to discriminate the target from the background. However, most CF-based methods require a fixed label function over all the previous samples, leading to over-fitting and filter degradation, especially in complex drone scenarios. To address this problem, a novel adaptive response reasoning approach is proposed for CF learning. It can leverage temporal information in filter training and significantly promote the robustness of the tracker. Specifically, the proposed response reasoning method goes beyond the standard response consistency requirement and constructs an auxiliary label of the current sample. Besides, it helps learn a generic relationship between the previous and current filters, thereby realizing self-regulated filter updating and enhancing the discriminability of the filter. Extensive experiments on four well-known challenging UAV tracking benchmarks with 278 videos sequences show that the presented method yields superior results to 40 state-of-the-art trackers with real-time performance on a single CPU, which is suitable for UAV online tracking missions.

In this article, we consider the formation tracking problem of nonholonomic multiagent systems only using relative bearing measurements between the agents. Such a practical and important yet challenging issue has been taken into limited consideration by existing approaches, which usually requires additional measurements such as relative positions. The contributions of this article are two-fold. First, a fully distributed reference velocity estimator is proposed. Under the proposed adaptive estimator, each agent can estimate the time-varying reference velocity asymptotically. Second, an input-to-state stable controller is designed according to the bearing rigid theory. Under the proposed controller, the formation with bearing-only constraints can be achieved. Finally, the proposed scheme is demonstrated and its effectiveness is verified by presenting some simulation and experimental tests.