Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology

About: Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology is a education organization based out in New York, New York, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Gravitational microlensing & Planetary system. The organization has 727 authors who have published 708 publications receiving 14082 citations. The organization is also known as: College of Aeronautics.

Adaptive neural control for a class of time-delay systems in the presence of backlash or dead-zone non-linearity

Abstract: This study addresses the adaptive tracking control problem for a class of time-delay systems in strict-feedback form with unknown control gains and uncertain actuator non-linearity. The actuator non-linearity can be either backlash or dead zone, and the proposed approach does not require the knowledge of the bounds of non-linearity parameters. By applying an appropriate Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional and utilising the property of the well-defined trigonometric functions, the problems of time delay and controller singularity are avoided. The feasibility of using a static neural network to attenuate the effect of actuator non-linearity is proved with the aid of intermediate value theorem. Furthermore, it is proved that all closed-loop signals are bounded and the tracking error converges to a small residual set asymptotically. Two simulation examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the designed method.

OGLE-2008-BLG-510: First automated real-time detection of a weak microlensing anomaly - brown dwarf or stellar binary?

Abstract: The microlensing event OGLE-2008-BLG-510 is characterized by an evident asymmetric shape of the peak, promptly detected by the Automated Robotic Terrestrial Exoplanet Microlensing Search (ARTEMiS) system in real time. The skewness of the light curve appears to be compatible both with binary-lens and binary-source models, including the possibility that the lens system consists of an M dwarf orbited by a brown dwarf. The detection of this microlensing anomaly and our analysis demonstrate that: (1) automated real-time detection of weak microlensing anomalies with immediate feedback is feasible, efficient and sensitive, (2) rather common weak features intrinsically come with ambiguities that are not easily resolved from photometric light curves, (3) a modelling approach that finds all features of parameter space rather than just the ‘favourite model’ is required and (4) the data quality is most crucial, where systematics can be confused with real features, in particular small higher order effects such as orbital motion signatures. It moreover becomes apparent that events with weak signatures are a silver mine for statistical studies, although not easy to exploit. Clues about the apparent paucity of both brown-dwarf companions and binary-source microlensing events might hide here.