Common Hardware Research Articles

Optimal System for Warm Standby Components in the Presence of Standby Switching Failures, Two Types of Failures and General Repair Time

different system configurations with warm standby components, standby switching failures, two types of failures common cause and hardware failure and general repair are compared based on the availability. The time-to- for each of the primary and warm standby components are assumed to follow the exponential distribution. Laplace transforms of state probability equations are developed by using the supplementary variable technique. We develop the explicit expressions for the steady-state availability, Av, for two configurations. For all configurations, comparisons are made for specific values of distribution parameters and of the cost of the components. The configurations are ranked based on Av and cost/benefit, for three various repair time distributions: Gamma (G), Weibull (W) and Lognormal (L), where benefit is Av. KeywordsStandby switching failures; Common cause CCF; Supplementary variable; General repair times.

Laser scan matching for self‐localization of a walking robot in man‐made environments

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe a novel application of the well‐established 2D laser scan‐matching technique for self‐localization of a walking robot. The techniques described in this paper enable a walking robot with a 2D laser scanner to obtain precise maps of man‐made environments, which can be useful in search and reconnaissance missions, e.g. in warehouses, production plants, and other industrial areas.Design/methodology/approachThe presented system combines two scan‐matching algorithms (PSM and PLICP) to deal with low‐quality range data from a compact laser scanner and to provide robust self‐localization in various types of man‐made environments. Data from proprioceptive sensors and simplifying assumptions holding in man‐made environments are exploited to compensate for the varying attitude of the walking robot, particularly in uneven terrain.FindingsThe experimental results suggest that neglecting either the poor initial pose guess obtained from the legged odometry, or the varying attitude angles of a walking robot's body, may lead to unacceptable results in self‐localization and scan‐based mapping. It is also demonstrated that using the PSM algorithm to compute the initial pose estimate for the more precise PLICP scan‐matching algorithm improves the results of self‐localization.Research limitations/implicationsSo far, the presented self‐localization system was tested in limited‐scale indoor experiments. Experiments with more extended and realistic scenarios are scheduled as further work.Practical implicationsApplying techniques described in this paper, the author was able to obtain the robot pose and precise maps of man‐made environments, which can be useful in USAR and reconnaissance missions, also in warehouses, production plants, and other industrial areas.Originality/valueThe scan‐matching algorithms used in the presented research are not new, the contribution lies in combining them in order to overcome issues specific to a small‐size legged platform, using only common affordable hardware.

Vertical And Horizontal Integration Of Laboratory Curricula And Course Projects Across The Electronic Engineering Technology Program

This paper discusses the details of the curricular development effort with a focus on the vertical and horizontal integration of laboratory curricula and course projects within the Electronic Engineering Technology (EET) program at Texas A&M University. Both software and hardware aspects are addressed. A common set of software tools are introduced to the sophomore students in the EET curriculum; these tools are then used in several junior and senior level courses. Through early and repeated exposure to these tools, students learn to use them more effectively to solve various engineering problems in laboratory and course projects. A DC permanent magnetic motor is identified as one of the common hardware platforms for multiple course projects. By using a common platform for different course projects, the students can spend much less time preparing for the course projects. With each course adding different features to the common platform, the learning experience in several courses becomes seamlessly integrated. Surveys were conducted to show that the curriculum development effort improved the efficiency of student learning and enhanced the students’ educational experience.

CoMoSy: a Flexible System-on-Chip Platform for Embedded Applications

Thanks to the rapid evolution of semiconduc-tor technology, System-on-Chip (SoC) paradigm has be-come one of the most common design methodologies for quickly developing embedded systems to meet the high demands of embedded applications. In this paper, we present the design and implementation on a SoC platform targeted to controlling and monitoring applications. This proposed platform is composed of a 32-bit processor and a dozen of common hardware interfaces, providing the programmability and connectivity to peripheral devices such as memories, Lan network, monitor, keyboard, ADC, DAC, or other I/O device. In addtion, to increase the flexibility of the system and to rapidly develop end-user applications, we also deploy an application-specific software framework with the robustness of a lightweight kernel and real-time applet management. The system model has finally been validated through the realization of a remote control camera system.

Research on the Teaching System Development of Maintenance Training for General-Purpose Electronic Equipment

Development maintenance training for electronic equipment is the important way to solve the difficult of electronic equipment maintenance and problem of iridescent method of maintenance training. The technical characteristics of the maintenance system for electronic equipment are analyzed in this paper. A maintenance training teaching system for electronic equipment with unity hardware and common software platform is researched. The hardware structure and the development method of its software are discussed in this paper. The teaching system possesses characters such as real physics signal，multi method of human-computer interaction ，well results of learning best，easy to development，etc. The teaching system is mainly composed of the following: motherboard, equipment operation panel, equipment component, lights and buttons etc. Its software is based on a common database. When we need development a teaching system for new equipment, we just add some data to the database using the development platform and need not modify its software. Practice shows that the teaching system uses a common hardware design and software platform, greatly reducing the development workload of a new teaching system using the architecture.

Diagnosis and treatment of complications related to deep brain stimulation hardware

Deep brain stimulation is a therapeutic technique increasingly used in the treatment of a variety of neurological, psychiatric, and pain disorders. Although beneficial, it carries the immediate and long-term risks associated with implanted hardware in the brain parenchyma and subcutaneous tissue. The most common hardware complications include electrode migrations or misplacements, wire fractures, skin erosion, infections, and device malfunction. We systematically reviewed the literature on deep brain stimulation-related complications and propose a diagnostic and therapeutic algorithm. Our aim is to provide a guide for clinicians and medical staff involved in the treatment of patients with deep brain stimulation for rapid recognition and efficient management of these complications.

Numerical homogenization of concrete microstructures without explicit meshes

Life management of electric hydro or nuclear power plants requires to estimate long-term concrete properties on facilities, for obvious safety and serviceability reasons. Decades-old structures are foreseen to be operational for several more decades. As a large number of different concrete formulations are found in EDF facilities, empirical models based on many experiments cannot be an option for a large fleet of power plant buildings. To build predictive models, homogenization techniques offer an appealing alternative. To properly upscale creep, especially at long term, a rather precise description of the microstructure is required. However, the complexity of the morphology of concrete poses several challenges. In particular, concrete is formulated to maximize the packing density of the granular skeleton, leading to aggregates spanning several length scales with small inter particle spacings. Thus, explicit meshing of realistic concrete microstructures is either out of reach of current meshing algorithms or would produce a number of degrees of freedom far higher than the current generic FEM codes capabilities. This paper proposes a method to deal with complex matrix-inclusions microstructures such as the ones encountered at the mortar or concrete scales, without explicitly meshing them. The microstructure is superimposed to an independent mesh, which is a regular Cartesian grid. This inevitably yields so called “gray elements”, spanning across multiple phases. As the reliability of the estimate of the effective properties highly depends on the behavior affected to these gray elements, special attention is paid to them. As far as the question of the solvers is concerned, generic FEM codes are found to lack efficiency: they cannot reach high enough levels of discretization with classical free meshes, and they do not take advantage of the regular structure of the mesh. Thus, a specific finite differences/finite volumes solver has been developed. At first, generic off-the-shelf linear system solvers were used. To further improve the efficiency in terms of memory requirements, specific variants of the preconditioned conjugate gradient were implemented. This allowed to homogenize the conductivity of a concrete-like microstructure using more than 10 9 degrees of freedom on a rather common hardware for 2010 (a PC embedding 48 GB of RAM). Taking benefit of the properties of the regular Cartesian grid we have also investigated a multi-level method to improve the CPU efficiency of the code.

Behavioral modeling of statistical phenomena of single‐photon avalanche diodes

SUMMARYIn this paper, we present an accurate behavioral model for simulating single‐photon avalanche diodes (SPADs). The device operation is described using the Verilog‐A description language, which is an analog extension of the common digital hardware description language. The derived model is able to emulate the static, the dynamic behavior and the main statistical effects of an SPAD, such as the turn‐off probability, the dark‐count and the after‐pulsing phenomena. Spectre simulations reveal the validity of the approach showing a good matching between the behavior of the proposed model and experimental results reported in the literature. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Towards a 3-D tomographic retrieval for the air-borne limb-imager GLORIA

Abstract. GLORIA (Gimballed Limb Observer for Radiance Imaging of the Atmosphere) is a new remote sensing instrument essentially combining a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer with a two-dimensional (2-D) detector array in combination with a highly flexible gimbal mount. It will be housed in the belly pod of the German research aircraft HALO (High Altitude and Long Range Research Aircraft). It is unique in its combination of high spatial and state-of-the art spectral resolution. Furthermore, the horizontal view angle with respect to the aircraft flight direction can be varied from 45° to 135°. This allows for tomographic measurements of mesoscale events for a wide variety of atmospheric constituents. In this paper, a tomographic retrieval scheme is presented, which is able to fully exploit the manifold radiance observations of the GLORIA limb sounder. The algorithm is optimized for massive 3-D retrievals of several hundred thousands of measurements and atmospheric constituents on common hardware. The new scheme is used to explore the capabilities of GLORIA to sound the atmosphere in full 3-D with respect to the choice of the flightpath and to different measurement modes of the instrument using ozone as a test species. It is demonstrated that the achievable resolution should approach 200 m vertically and 20 km–30 km horizontally. Finally, a comparison of the 3-D inversion with conventional 1-D inversions using the assumption of a horizontally homogeneous atmosphere is performed.

Spin-based reader-writer synchronization for multiprocessor real-time systems

Reader preference, writer preference, and task-fair reader-writer locks are shown to cause undue blocking in multiprocessor real-time systems. Phase-fair reader writer locks, a new class of reader-writer locks, are proposed as an alternative. Three local-spin phase-fair lock algorithms, one with constant remote-memory-reference complexity, are presented and demonstrated to be efficiently implementable on common hardware platforms. Both task- and phase-fair locks are evaluated and contrasted to mutex locks in terms of hard and soft real-time schedulability—each under both global and partitioned scheduling—under consideration of runtime overheads on a multicore Sun “Niagara” UltraSPARC T1 processor. Formal bounds on worst-case blocking are derived for all considered lock types.

A series of molecular dynamics and homology modeling computer labs for an undergraduate molecular modeling course

As computational modeling plays an increasingly central role in biochemical research, it is important to provide students with exposure to common modeling methods in their undergraduate curriculum. This article describes a series of computer labs designed to introduce undergraduate students to energy minimization, molecular dynamics simulations, and homology modeling. These labs were created as part of a one-semester course on the molecular modeling of biochemical systems. Students who completed these activities felt that they were an effective component of the course, reporting improved comfort with the conceptual background and practical implementation of the computational methods. Although created as a component of a larger course, these activities could be readily adapted for a variety of other educational contexts. As well, all of these labs utilize software that is freely available in an academic environment and can be run on fairly common computer hardware, making them accessible to teaching environments without extensive computational resources.

Iterative correction applied to streak artifact reduction in an X-ray computed tomography image of the dento-alveolar region

Objectives Streak artifacts that appear on dental and maxillofacial X-ray computed tomography (CT) images are mainly caused by the presence of metallic prosthetic appliances. Because of the design of common CT hardware, the thin slice thickness method is routinely used in CT examinations of the dento-alveolar region. Thus, within the resulting collection of thin slice images, adjacent CT images will often depict very similar anatomical structures. We took advantage of this aspect and employed iterative correction to reduce the streak artifact caused by metallic materials.

Pore3D: A software library for quantitative analysis of porous media

In recent years great interest has been posed in imaging techniques like X-ray computed microtomography which in a nondestructive way produce three-dimensional (3D) images of the internal structure of, e.g. porous media. A major challenge lies in the quantitative analysis of the resulting images that allows a more comprehensive and objective characterization of the sample under investigation. A software able to handle and process large 3D image datasets with common hardware is therefore necessary in order to extract morphological and textural information directly from the images. In the present paper the Pore3D software library developed by the SYRMEP research group of the Elettra Synchrotron Light Laboratory in Trieste (Italy) is presented. The library consists of several state-of-the-art functions and procedures for performing filtering, segmentation and quantitative analysis of 3D images. The current status of the project and some applications are here reported.

Best practices for large-scale signal conditioning systems

Sensor and high-voltage measurements are a vital part of many test systems. What makes these measurements different from typical voltage or current measurements is that a special type of conditioning is required to bring these signals into a measurable range. Some of the common examples of signal conditioning include filtering to eliminate 50 or 60 Hz noise, bridge completion to amplify small signals, isolation of hazardous voltages or attenuating high-voltage signals. It is not uncommon to have systems with tens or hundreds of channels of the above measurements, putting them in the area of medium-to high-channel-count systems. High-channel-count signal conditioning systems present peculiar design as well as implementation challenges, the first and foremost being synchronizing multiple types of measurements while providing different types of conditioning to each sensor or signal. This dives into some of the most common hardware and software considerations and best practices for implementing large-scale systems. It covers hardware topics including synchronizing multiple devices and systems using open, industry-standard hardware such as PXI, data acquisition rates and resolution, cabling and connectivity, and expansion and spares. Topics such as best software practices, large data management, and documentation will also be discussed.

Gallery of uncommon orthopedic implants: a guide for emergency radiologist

The purpose of this gallery of orthopedic implants was to provide a reference for emergency radiologists to quickly identify uncommon devices in the shoulders, hips, and extremities. The cases presented in this exhibit will include unusual arthroplasties and prostheses as well as bone graft implants (including allograft and autograft). Bone grafts are frequently used for the treatment of bone defects, which may be caused by trauma, infection, or avascularity. Autogenous cancellous, corticocancellous, or cortical bone grafts are often used, either free or vascularized. Alternative bone graft substitutes are also used. An obvious complication of bone grafts is the failure of incorporation. Joint arthroplasty is the most frequently performed orthopedic procedure after fracture fixation. Major indications include degenerative joint disease, inflammatory arthropathy, avascular necrosis, and complicated fractures. Custom orthopedic implants are frequently used for less common indications or for patients with bone tumors. The common hardware complications are infections, loosening, small particle disease/osteolysis, periprosthetic fracture, hardware fracture or dislocation, and recurrent disease, especially in patients with tumors. Many of the devices used by orthopedic surgeons are infrequently seen in everyday radiology practice. With such variations, correct recognition of the prosthetic devices and their complications is very important. The goal of this exhibit was to familiarize the radiologist with both the normal and abnormal appearance of many atypical orthopedic implants. It is important to understand the purpose and proper function of a device, but not necessarily important to describe every device by its proper brand name. Although this exhibit is not meant to be inclusive of every unusual orthopedic implant, we will present multiple examples of orthopedic hardware involving the shoulder, humerus, elbow, forearm, wrist, hand, pelvis, hip, femur, knee, tibia, ankle, and foot that are not likely seen in everyday practice.

Shape: automatic conformation prediction of carbohydrates using a genetic algorithm

BackgroundDetailed experimental three dimensional structures of carbohydrates are often difficult to acquire. Molecular modelling and computational conformation prediction are therefore commonly used tools for three dimensional structure studies. Modelling procedures generally require significant training and computing resources, which is often impractical for most experimental chemists and biologists. Shape has been developed to improve the availability of modelling in this field.ResultsThe Shape software package has been developed for simplicity of use and conformation prediction performance. A trivial user interface coupled to an efficient genetic algorithm conformation search makes it a powerful tool for automated modelling. Carbohydrates up to a few hundred atoms in size can be investigated on common computer hardware. It has been shown to perform well for the prediction of over four hundred bioactive oligosaccharides, as well as compare favourably with previously published studies on carbohydrate conformation prediction.ConclusionThe Shape fully automated conformation prediction can be used by scientists who lack significant modelling training, and performs well on computing hardware such as laptops and desktops. It can also be deployed on computer clusters for increased capacity. The prediction accuracy under the default settings is good, as it agrees well with experimental data and previously published conformation prediction studies. This software is available both as open source and under commercial licenses.

Status of information technology applications in Pakistani libraries

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate and determine the levels of information technology (IT) in Pakistani libraries. More specifically, the paper focuses on the status of computers and other commonly used hardware, e‐mail, internet, library software, automated user services, expenditure on IT and online resources available in academic libraries of Pakistan.Design/methodology/approachThe data are collected through a questionnaire survey of 288 (sample of 682) academic libraries across Pakistan. A total of 219 (76 per cent) valid responses are used for data analysis and interpretation using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS).FindingsThe paper finds a low level of IT availability, especially the absence of computers, e‐mail and internet in few libraries. Similarly, the libraries are far behind to achieve excellent IT levels. It is found that libraries need to be fully automated using standard library software/management systems. However, access to online resources through the Higher Education Commission (HEC) is found extensive and comprehensive. The data indicate the need to enhance libraries' IT expenditure.Practical implicationsThe findings can be utilized to evaluate the status of different IT tools and applications. The statistical data are very useful and authentic source for planning to improve the libraries' IT infrastructure, library automation and in reducing the gap in levels of IT application in different type of libraries.Originality/valueThis is a first comprehensive study that provides a complete picture along with statistical data regarding IT applications (computers and other common hardware, software, e‐mail, internet, other information access technologies, applications and online resources available) in academic libraries of Pakistan.

354141 DEVELOPMENT OF SOFTWARE DEFINED TRAIN RADIO FOR CONVENTIONAL LINES(Electric & Energy,Technical Session)

Safety is our first mission. To insure the safety railway operation, we have to keep in touch between the on board crews and dispatchers. The train radio is the key technology to tie between them. The radio we have been operated for 20 years, which is used sound technology and not ready for data communication, and the voice distinction is worse than the modern digital radio. We have some reasons to convert to the digital radio. The first, the voice will be clearer than ever. The second, we can realize the data communication. The third, the bandwidth is narrower than the current system and we can divide from one communication channel to 2 channels. But before we step forward to digital radio system, we have to make strategy to convert to digital, because the current analog radio stations both fixed and mobiles-are huge numbers and change to digital system gradually. If we can change analog to digital easily, it will be the easiest way to convert to newer system. At that point of view, we noticed that software defined radio can change the radio type by changing the software on the common hardware platform. In this paper we describe about newly developed train radio using software defined radio (SDR) technology, synchronized between radios via the Ethernet, encryption method for data communication and resolution IP address from train number.

Low-Power System Design for MPEG-2/4 AAC Audio Decoder Using Pure ASIC Approach

This paper presents an implementation of a low-power and pure-hardware advanced-audio-coding (AAC) audio decoder system. Based on the characteristics of each decoding block, the AAC system is partitioned into four separate modules. For low-power and low-complexity considerations, architectural- and algorithmic-level approaches are adopted in both individual modules and whole system. In parallel PLA-based codeword decoder, we achieve a constant output rate of Huffman decoding in 2.5 cycles for the worst case, and memory usage is decreased compared to that in the binary-tree memory-based method. In reduced lookup table inverse quantizer, a table lookup with interpolation scheme is adopted which reduces the size of the lookup table from 8192 to 256. In hardware-shared signal processor, we use a hardware-sharing technique which integrates several similar blocks into a common hardware to reduce cost and enhance hardware utilization. In fully pipelined filterbank, a fast algorithm decreases the numbers of multiplication and addition largely to factors of 24 and 144 for the short and long blocks, respectively. A corresponding hardware for filterbank processing is proposed with fully pipelined architecture. Referring to stereo processing, a single hardware is shared for the channel pairs with low-cost consideration. The hardware operations of each module are well scheduled with high utilization of pipeline, and furthermore, the parallel processing among blocks is joined to increase efficiency. A 48% power savings can be reached by using the pipeline and parallel techniques of the channel pair. The proposed AAC decoder is realized in UMC 0.18-mum 1P6M technology and is operated at only 3 MHz in the worst case. The power dissipation is only 2.45 mW at the sampling frequency of 44.1 kHz.

Distributed design review using tangible augmented technical drawings

In this work we integrate augmented reality technology in a product development process using real technical drawings as a tangible interface for design review. We present an original collaborative framework for Augmented Design Review Over Network (ADRON). It provides the following features: augmented technical drawings, interactive FEM simulation, multimodal annotation and chat tools, web content integration and collaborative client/server architecture. Our framework is intended to use common hardware instead of expensive and complex virtual or augmented facilities. We designed the interface specifically for users with little or no augmented reality expertise proposing tangible interfaces for data review and visual editing for all the functions and configurations. Two case studies are presented and discussed: a real-time “touch and see” stress/strain simulation and a collaborative distributed design review session of an industrial component.