Deposits of clastic carbonate-dominated (calciclastic) sedimentary slope systems in the rock record have been identified mostly as linearly-consistent carbonate apron deposits, even though most ancient clastic carbonate slope deposits fit the submarine fan systems better. Calciclastic submarine fans are consequently rarely described and are poorly understood. Subsequently, very little is known especially in mud-dominated calciclastic submarine fan systems. Presented in this study are a sedimentological core and petrographic characterisation of samples from eleven boreholes from the Lower Carboniferous of Bowland Basin (Northwest England) that reveals a >250 m thick calciturbidite complex deposited in a calciclastic submarine fan setting. Seven facies are recognised from core and thin section characterisation and are grouped into three carbonate turbidite sequences. They include: 1) Calciturbidites, comprising mostly of highto low-density, wavy-laminated bioclast-rich facies; 2) low-density densite mudstones which are characterised by planar laminated and unlaminated muddominated facies; and 3) Calcidebrites which are muddy or hyper-concentrated debrisflow deposits occurring as poorly-sorted, chaotic, mud-supported floatstones. These

Phd by thesis

The organization of behavior: A neuropsychological theory

A scheme is developed for classifying the types of motion perceived by a humanlike robot. It is assumed that the robot receives visual images of the scene using a perspective system model. Equations, theorems, concepts, clues, etc., relating the objects, their positions, and their motion to their images on the focal plane are presented. >

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel2/815/3148/00100651.pdf

Robot vision

This book, written by two major figures in adaptive control, provides a wealth of material for researchers, practitioners, and students. While some researchers in adaptive control may note the absence of a particular topic, the book‘s scope represents a high-gain instrument. It can be used by designers of control systems to enhance their work through the information on many new theoretical developments, and can be used by mathematical control theory specialists to adapt their research to practical needs. The book is strongly recommended to anyone interested in adaptive control.

Adaptive Control

We are witnessing the advent of a new era of robots - drones - that can autonomously fly in natural and man-made environments. These robots, often associated with defence applications, could have a major impact on civilian tasks, including transportation, communication, agriculture, disaster mitigation and environment preservation. Autonomous flight in confined spaces presents great scientific and technical challenges owing to the energetic cost of staying airborne and to the perceptual intelligence required to negotiate complex environments. We identify scientific and technological advances that are expected to translate, within appropriate regulatory frameworks, into pervasive use of autonomous drones for civilian applications.

/pdf/science-technology-and-the-future-of-small-autonomous-drones-1bc8o99b9w.pdf

Science, technology and the future of small autonomous drones

In this paper, we address the design of an autopilot for autonomous landing of a helicopter on a rocking ship, due to rough sea. A tether is used for landing and securing a helicopter to the deck of the ship in rough weather. A detailed nonlinear dynamic model for the helicopter is used. This model is underactuated, where the rotational motion couples into the translation. This property is used to design controllers which separate the time scales of rotation and translation. It is shown that the tether tension can be used to couple the translation of the helicopter to the rotation. Two controllers are proposed in this paper. In the first, the rotation time scale is chosen much shorter than the translation, and the rotation reference signals are created to achieve a desired controlled behavior of the translation. In the second, due to coupling of the translation of the helicopter to the rotation through the tether, the translation reference rates are created to achieve a desired controlled behavior of the attitude and altitude. Controller A is proposed for use when the helicopter is far away from the goal, while Controller B is for the case when the helicopter is close to the ship. The proposed control schemes are proved to be robust to the tracking error of its internal loop and results in local exponential stability. The performance of the control system is demonstrated by computer simulations. Currently, work is in progress to implement the algorithm using an instrumented model of a helicopter with a tether.

Approaches for a tether-guided landing of an autonomous helicopter

We present a vision system design for landing an unmanned aerial vehicle on a ship's flight deck autonomously. The edge information from the international landing target is used to perform line segment detection, feature point mapping and clustering. Then a cascade filtering scheme is applied for target recognition. Meanwhile, the 4 DoF pose of the vehicle with respect to the target is estimated. The vision system has been implemented on the Asctec Pelican quadrotor in conjunction with a state estimator to perform real-time target recognition and tracking. An onboard controller is designed to close the control loop. Experiments show that the vision system is accurate, robust, and capable of dealing with an incomplete landing target, whilst the overall implementation shows the practicability of real-time onboard target tracking and closed-loop control.

Monocular vision-based real-time target recognition and tracking for autonomously landing an UAV in a cluttered shipboard environment

This paper presents a novel application of backstepping controller for autonomous landing of a rotary wing UAV (RUAV). This application, which holds good for the full flight envelope control, is an extension of a backstepping algorithm for general rigid body velocity control. The nonlinear RUAV model used in this paper includes the flapping and servo dynamics. The backstepping‐based controller takes advantage of the ‘decoupling’ of the translation and rotation dynamics of the rigid body, resulting in a two‐step procedure to obtain the RUAV control inputs. The first step is to compute desired thrusts and flapping angles to achieve the commanded position and the second step is to compute control inputs, which achieve the desired thrusts and flapping angles. This paper presents a detailed analysis of the inclusion of a flapping angle correction term in control. The performance of the proposed algorithm is tested using a high‐fidelity RUAV simulation model. The RUAV simulation model is based on miniature rotorcraft parameters. The closed‐loop response of the rotorcraft indicates that the desired position is achieved after a short transient. The Eagle RUAV control inputs, obtained using high‐fidelity simulation results, clearly demonstrate that this algorithm can be implemented on practical RUAVs.

Flight control of a rotary wing UAV using backstepping

We discuss state-of-the-art intelligent robotic aircraft with the special focus on evolutionary autopilots for small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Under the umbrella of adaptive autopilots, we highlight the pros and cons of the most widely implemented intelligent algorithms against the navigational and maneuvering capabilities of small UAVs. We present several cutting-edge applications of bioinspired flight control systems that have the capability of self-learning. We also highlight several research opportunities and challenges associated with each technique. Note to Practitioners —Soft computing methods have been widely implemented in numerous engineering applications. Recent advancements in computational technology have enabled the implementations of intelligent autopilots in real time. This paper aims to discuss many aspects of the developments and implementations of soft computing techniques in aerial robotics with the main focus on its flight control systems.

State-of-the-Art Intelligent Flight Control Systems in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

In this paper, we comprehensively discuss the current progress of visual–inertial (VI) navigation systems and sensor fusion research with a particular focus on small unmanned aerial vehicles, known as microaerial vehicles (MAVs). Such fusion has become very topical due to the complementary characteristics of the two sensing modalities. We discuss the pros and cons of the most widely implemented VI systems against the navigational and maneuvering capabilities of MAVs. Considering the issue of optimum data fusion from multiple heterogeneous sensors, we examine the potential of the most widely used advanced state estimation techniques (both linear and nonlinear as well as Bayesian and non-Bayesian) against various MAV design considerations. Finally, we highlight several research opportunities and potential challenges associated with each technique.

Matthew Garratt

Papers

Approaches for a tether-guided landing of an autonomous helicopter

Monocular vision-based real-time target recognition and tracking for autonomously landing an UAV in a cluttered shipboard environment

Flight control of a rotary wing UAV using backstepping

State-of-the-Art Intelligent Flight Control Systems in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Visual–Inertial Navigation Systems for Aerial Robotics: Sensor Fusion and Technology