Showing papers in "Ieej Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Engineering in 2011"

Recent progress in MEMS electret generator for energy harvesting

Abstract: Energy harvesting is a method by which energy naturally present in the environment is captured and then converted into electricity for use in low-power electronics. Among the various energy sources, structural vibration is believed to be useful for powering wireless sensors in various applications such as sensor network and structural health monitoring. In the present paper, after a brief introduction to electret materials and charging technologies, recent progress in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) electret generators is reviewed. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Primary study of spiral dynamics inspired optimization

Abstract: Logarithmic spiral phenomena are often appeared in nature. In this letter, we show that a logarithmic spiral can realize an effective strategy regarding the metaheuristics and propose a new two-dimensional metaheuristics called spiral optimization utilizing a feature of the logarithmic spiral. The simulation results for two-dimensional benchmark problems show the effectiveness and the potential of the proposed method. © 2010 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Statistical analysis on the effect of capacitance mismatch in a high-resolution successive-approximation ADC

Abstract: This paper describes the statistical analysis of the effect of capacitance mismatch on the accuracy of a high-resolution successive-approximation analog-to-digital converter (ADC), which employs a split capacitor array to achieve high resolution. An analysis has been made for the following two types of capacitor digital-to-analog converters (DACs). One is the capacitor DAC with binary-weighted capacitor array. The other is that which uses the segmented capacitor array for the upper bits to relax the matching requirement. The analysis was verified using the Monte-Carlo simulation with capacitance mismatch. This analysis clarifies the required capacitance matching for a given ADC resolution and provides with a guideline for the optimum design. © 2010 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An FPGA implementation of hard‐wired sequence control system based on PLC software

Abstract: Although a programmable logic controller (PLC) has been widely adopted for the sequence control of industrial machinery, its performance does not always satisfy the recent requirements in large and highly responsive systems. With the state-of-the-art field programmable gate array (FPGA) technology, it is possible to implement a control program with hard-wired logic for higher response and reduced implementation cost/space. This approach is also worthwhile for transmigration of legacy PLC software into forthcoming FPGA-based control hardware. This study presents a systematic method to implement a hard-wired sequence control from PLC software. PLC instructions are converted into VHDL codes, and then implemented as logic circuit with various peripheral functions. Productive PLC programs were examined with Mitsubishi Electric FX2N PLC and Altera Stratix II FPGA, and were shown to fit into a common FPGA chip. A straightforward Sequential design was estimated to be 184 times faster than PLC, while a performance-oriented Flat design was estimated to be 44 times faster than Sequential design (i.e., 8050 times faster than PLC). A practical perfect layer winder system was actually built and successfully operated with our FPGA control board, whose logic design was implemented with our tools. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Multiphysics analysis for micro electromechanical systems based on electrical circuit simulator

Abstract: We report a newly developed equivalent electrical circuit for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) based on a circuit simulator Qucs (Quite Universal Circuit Simulator). An analog computing solver for the equation of motion (EOM) has been interpreted to an electrical equivalent circuit by using an electrical capacitor as an ideal mathematic integrator. Viscoelastic suspension and electrostatic parallel-plate actuator are modeled as equivalent subcircuits that can be cosolved with the EOM module. Those subcircuit models are used as building blocks to numerically simulate the behavior of various types of MEMS actuators. Thanks to the well-prepared simulation toolbox of Qucs, multiphysics analysis of micromechanical and electrical quantities has become straightforward on a single platform. Equivalent circuit models for coupled oscillator and parallel-plate electrostatic actuator (including mechanical contact after electrostatic pull-in) are presented as a verification program to examine the simulation accuracy.  2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Development of lateral displacement sensor for real‐time detection of structural damage

Abstract: We have developed a novel sensor that enables us to measure the relative story displacement of a building structure in real time. This lateral displacement sensor (LDS) is composed of a light-emitting diode (LED) array, which is fixed on the ceiling, and a position-sensitive detector (PSD) unit, which is placed on the floor. We optimized the LDS to achieve high accuracy in lateral displacement measurement. The accuracy was evaluated to be 60 µm by conducting shaking table tests. Two LDSs were implemented in an actual building equipped with an active variable stiffness (AVS) system, and the building was vibrated with seismic waveforms by an exciter placed on the rooftop. The seismic displacement of the second floor relative to the first floor was measured using the LDS. Furthermore, the inclination angle of the second floor could be measured using the LDS during the seismic vibration. Using the AVS system, we realized the residual displacement of the second floor without inducing damage to the building, and succeeded in real-time residual displacement measurement for the first time. These results indicate that the LDS is useful for the health diagnosis of a building structure. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Application of adaptive neuro‐fuzzy inference for wind power short‐term forecasting

Abstract: The increased integration of wind power into the electric grid, as nowadays occurs in Portugal, poses new challenges due to its intermittency and volatility. Hence, good forecasting tools play a key role in tackling these challenges. In this paper, an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference approach is proposed for short-term wind power forecasting. Results from a real-world case study are presented. A thorough comparison is carried out, taking into account the results obtained with other approaches. Numerical results are presented and conclusions are duly drawn. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Dynamic Optimal Route Search Algorithm for Car Navigation Systems with Preferences by Dynamic Programming

Abstract: Optimal route search to the destination is one of the most important functions of car navigation devices. The development of road traffic infrastructure has made it possible to receive real-time information of the traffic situation. Route search algorithms for car navigation devices make use of this information to avoid the traffic congestions. Such algorithms should find the new optimal route efficiently when the traffic situation changes. Usually, the minimum traveling time or distance is considered to define the optimal route. However, the minimum traveling time or distance is not always what the user is looking for. The user may prefer to travel on a certain route even at the cost of traveling time or distance. Car navigation devices should consider such preferences when finding the optimal route. In this paper, we propose a dynamic programming algorithm to find the optimal route considering that it should deal with the changes of the traffic situation and multiple criteria. The proposed method uses the information from the previous computation to find the new optimal route considering user preferences when the traveling time of the road section changes. The proposed method was applied to a real road network to find the optimal route. Results show that the proposed method can find the user-preferred optimal route. Simulation results also show better calculation time of the proposed method compared to the Dijkstra algorithm. Copyright © 2010 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Multiple Gaussian process models for direct time series forecasting

Abstract: This paper focuses on the problem of time series forecasting using the Gaussian process models. The Gaussian process model is a nonparametric model and the output of the model has Gaussian distribution with mean and variance. The multiple Gaussian process models as every step ahead predictors are used for time series forecasting in accordance with the direct approach. The separable least-squares approach that combines the genetic algorithm with the linear least-squares method is applied to train these Gaussian process models. Simulation results are shown to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed direct forecasting method. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Feature subset selection: a correlation-based SVM filter approach

Abstract: The central criterion of feature selection is that good feature sets contain features that are highly correlated with the output, yet uncorrelated with each other. Based on this criterion, we address the problem of feature selection through correlation-based feature clustering and support vector machine (SVM) based feature ranking. Correlation-based clustering is proposed to group features into some clusters based on the correlation between two features. As a result, a feature is highly correlated to any other feature in the same cluster but uncorrelated to the features in other clusters. From each cluster, we select a feature as the delegate based on its influence quantities on the output. The influence quantities are measured by the feature sensitivity in the SVM. The proposed approach can identify relevant features and eliminate redundancy among them effectively. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated through comparisons with other methods using real-world data with different dimensions. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Effect of Tacticity on the Dielectric Properties of Polystyrene

Abstract: Dielectric properties of polystyrene (PS) were investigated by measuring electrical conduction current and frequency spectra of complex permittivity at temperatures from 20 to 199 °C. To clarify the effects of tacticity, the properties were compared among two kinds of syndiotactic PS (SPS) with different crystallinity values and one atactic PS (APS). Experimental results indicate that the two SPS samples show a high melting point of about 250 °C. The conductivity is lowest in SPS with the low crystallinity in the whole temperature range from 20 to 199 °C, while APS had a breakdown at 140 °C. Moreover, the low-crystallinity SPS shows the smallest permittivity values and the smallest increase in dielectric loss factor toward low frequencies among the three samples. The high-crystallinity SPS has α crystals. Since the density of α crystals is lower than the amorphous region, the charge transport and polarization are easier in the high-crystallinity SPS than in the low-crystallinity SPS. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Image denoising using pulse coupled neural network with an adaptive Pareto genetic algorithm

Abstract: Recently, pulse coupled neural network (PCNN) attracts much attention in image denoising as a nonlinear filtering technique. The PCNN-based anisotropic diffusion (PCNN-AD) method has been proposed previously for flicker noise reduction and its effectiveness has been demonstrated. Using the visual characteristics of PCNN, PCNN-AD has also solved the problem of AD that AD is not able to suppress the isolate noise. However, there are still two drawbacks in PCNN-AD, that is, time consuming and PCNN parameters' estimation. In order to improve the efficiency and the denoising performance of PCNN-AD, a PCNN-based method with an adaptive Pareto genetic algorithm (GA-PCNN) has been proposed to restrain from additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) in this paper. GA-PCNN firstly integrates the PCNN and AD as a parallel system, then, optimizes the parameters of a simplified PCNN by the adaptive Pareto GA. Experimental results indicate that GA-PCNN has better performances than the previous denoising techniques, i.e. median filter, Wiener filter, AD filter, and PCNN-AD. The effectiveness of GA-PCNN on AWGN reduction and edge preservation are shown finally. The results will also contribute to denoising in CMOS image sensors in the future. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

A novel approach to deliverable power in low‐voltage DC distribution system on the basis of voltage stability

Abstract: This paper proposes that a deliverable power through a low-voltage DC distribution system has an upper limitation The upper limitation of the deliverable power, Plim, is explained on the basis of a voltage instability phenomenon occurring for the load with a voltage sensitivity below 1 From theoretical-calculation results, it is pointed out that Plim diminishes with augment in the distribution-line length This phenomenon becomes more distinct for the higher distribution-line inductance per unit length Connection of the capacitor to the receiving end of the distribution line is discussed as a method for rising Plim Measurements of the voltage waveform at the load terminals successfully support Plim derived from the theoretical calculation © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc

Effects of electrical stimulation on autonomous electrical activity in a cultured rat hippocampal neuronal network

Abstract: The complex dynamics of electrical activity in a neuronal network can be effectively analyzed using a small-scale network of cultured living neurons A multielectrode array culture dish is convenient for this purpose In this study, we focused on the effects of electrical stimulation on autonomous electrical activity, which included widespread global activity, bursting activity in several parts of the network, and unsynchronized local activity The electrical stimulation selectively reduced bursting activity in intermediate areas These results suggest that electrical stimulation not only evoked action potentials but also reduced autonomous activity in a circuit- and frequency-restricted manner Thus, electrical stimulation changed the internal state of the network © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc

Weighted Least Absolute Value Power System State Estimation Using Rectangular Coordinates and Equivalent Measurement Functions

Abstract: This paper presents a new efficient computation technique for robust power system state estimation based on weighted least absolute value (WLAV) criterion. The proposed method employs rectangular form of state variables and equivalent measurements technique in order to obtain the linear measurement functions with linear constraints of state variables. The state estimation problem is then formulated as an optimization problem with a set of equality and inequality constraints. A solution method based on interior point algorithm is also proposed. Tests with several IEEE standard systems have been performed to investigate the performance of the proposed algorithm. Results indicate that the proposed state estimator gives promising performance compared with weighted least square (WLS) based estimation algorithms using state variables in polar forms. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An efficient preprocessing method for suboptimal route computation

Abstract: In this paper, an effective genetic-based clustering algorithm (GCA) is proposed to preprocess the road network into a multilevel network that can reduce the route computation time substantially. Based on the multilevel network, route computation algorithms can provide suboptimal routes with little loss of accuracy (LOA). The geographic information of the road network is considered when constructing the multilevel network. In the proposed GCA, three criteria are considered to evaluate the clustering results. Route calculation results based on the multilevel network constructed by the proposed GCA are compared with the recent research to analyze and quantify the LOA. © 2010 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

STATCOM/SVC impact on the performance of transmission line distance protection

Abstract: The impact of 48-pulse STATCOM/SVC on the apparent impedance seen by the transmission line distance relay is investigated in this paper. Analytical results are presented and verified by detailed simulations. The STATCOM/SVC control systems are modeled in full details and practical constraints are applied. It is shown that the presence of a current limiter in the control system of STATCOM could significantly mitigate the impact of STATCOM on the relay's calculated apparent impedance. Six different phase-to-phase and phase-to-ground measuring units of the distance relay are simulated to resemble the behavior of the relay. It is shown that the impact of SVC on the apparent impedance seen by the phase-to-ground fault measuring units is more pronounced. Different power system operating conditions, STATCOM/SVC control system settings and fault scenarios are considered in the simulations. The STATCOM/SVC effects on the distance relay tripping characteristics are also analyzed. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

A portfolio selection model using genetic relation algorithm and genetic network programming

Abstract: In this paper, new evolutionary computation methods named genetic relation algorithm (GRA) and genetic network programming (GNP) have been applied to the portfolio selection problem. The number of brands in the stock market is generally very large, therefore, techniques for selecting the effective portfolio are likely to be of interest in the financial field. In order to pick up the most efficient portfolio, the proposed model considers the correlation coefficient between stock brands as strength, which indicates the relation between nodes in GRA. The algorithm evaluates the relationships between stock brands using a specific measure of strength and generates the optimal portfolio in the final generation. Then, the selected portfolio is further optimized by the stock trading model of GNP. In a sense, the proposed model is an integrated intelligent model. A comprehensive analysis of the results is provided, and it is clarified that the proposed model can obtain much higher profits than other traditional methods. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Arc behavior and interruption ability of uniform vacuum arc control technology and its application to vacuum interrupter

Abstract: The vacuum arc characteristics and high current interruption ability of several different sized electrodes applied in the uniform vacuum arc control method named self arc diffusion by electrode (SADE) are presented. The arc behavior of the test electrode during the arcing period was observed by a high-speed video camera. At extremely high interruption currents, the arc of the conventional axial magnetic field (AMF) electrode concentrates, causing local heating of the electrode. However, the arc of the SADE diffuses over the whole contact area thus avoiding local heating. The interruption ability of SADE is about twice as much as that of the conventional AMF for the same sized electrode. By applying this arc control method to vacuum circuit breaker (VCB), it can be made more compact and lighter than the conventional type. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Japanese sentence pattern learning with the use of illustrative examples extracted from the web

Abstract: It is quite difficult for a foreigner to compose a Japanese sentence comparing with the case of speaking Japanese. Two main factors are supposed to be leading to this situation. One is the scale of Japanese vocabulary and another is the variousness of Japanese sentence patterns. As most Kanji characters are common in Chinese and Japanese, the more confusing issue for native Chinese-speaking foreigners is the latter one. There are many sentence patterns in Japanese to express different meanings in various situations. In this paper, we first make a survey on existing strategies to support foreigners to compose Japanese sentences, and then develop a system for native Chinese-speaking foreigners to learn Japanese sentence patterns with the use of illustrative examples extracted from the Web in a practical and convenient way. Finally, we conduct some experiments to examine the effectiveness of our approach. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

New saturable-core fault current limiter topology with reduced core size

Abstract: Fault current limiters (FCLs) are expected to play an important role in protection of future power grids. By inserting a limiting impedance in series with a line, they limit the increasing levels of the fault currents to acceptable values. Inductive FCLs based on core-saturation effect are particularly interesting due to their inherent reaction on a fault. However, some challenges are to be solved: too large amount of required material and induced over-voltage across the DC winding that is used to drive the core into saturation. This paper introduces a new configuration of the inductive FCLs, where the amount of the required material is reduced considerably and the induced over-voltage across the DC winding is decreased. The amount of magnetic material is reduced by employment of one core per-phase instead of two. The middle leg of the three-leg core is used as a shunt path for the AC flux. It enables a gap insertion in the AC magnetic circuit without influencing the DC magnetic circuit, i.e. the amount of DC winding material. Thus, a smaller core (less magnetic material) can be used for the same power level. Results obtained from the lab prototype match very well the one from simulations. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Development of a thermal voltage converter with calculable high‐frequency characteristics

Abstract: A thermal-voltage converter for high-frequency (HF-TVC) AC–DC transfer standard has been developed. The HF-TVC was designed such that the frequency characteristic is calculable from the shape and dimension of the input circuit. A new multi-junction thermal converter element (JSTC04) has been developed, which has a simple and straight heater configuration to minimize the parasitic impedances in the input circuit. The AC–DC difference of the HF-TVC was evaluated by two independent methods, with agreement better than 7 µV/V up to 1 MHz. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Deblur of Radially Variant Blurred Image for Single Lens System

Abstract: This paper introduces a method to deblur a radially blurred image which is created by a single lens imaging system. Single lens imaging system does not create stronger lens aberrations around the center of an image, but stronger around the outside. One obvious phenomenon caused by this is the radially increased blurring effect along the radial line. Researchers have already studied one kind of radial blur caused by vertical motion between camera and object, but few have studied on the radial blur caused by inherent defect of a single lens system. Because of the radially variant property, a method is proposed in this paper that carries out the deconvolution using Polar coordinate system for both image and point spread functions (PSFs) converted from Cartesian coordinate system. By doing this the deblurring becomes a regular spatially invariant (SI) linear mathematical model for each circled region in the image that has same radial distance from the image center. Simulation results suggest the proposed method visually obtained the best deblurred image quality using four PSFs applied to four SI regions compared to deblurred images by other simulation conditions. However, segmenting the blurred image into more than four regions is undesirable because of the high β/n ratio. © 2010 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

A two‐step scheme for polynomial NARX model identification based on MOEA with prescreening process

Abstract: Polynomial NARX (nonlinear autoregressive with exogenous) model identification has received considerable attention in last three decades. However, in a high-order nonlinear system, it is very difficult to obtain the model structure directly even with state-of-art algorithms, because the number of candidate monomial terms is huge and increases drastically as the model order increases. Motivated by this fact, in this research, the identification is performed in two steps: firstly a prescreening process is carried out to select a reasonable number of important monomial terms based on two kinds of the importance indices. Then, in the reduced searching space with only the selected important terms, multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA) is applied to determine a set of significant terms to be included in the polynomial model with the help of independent validation data. In this way, the whole identification algorithm is implemented efficiently. Numerical simulations are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed identification method. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Real-Time Word Lip Reading System Based on Trajectory Feature

Abstract: This paper describes a real-time word lip reading system. Although our system is based on a word lip reading method already proposed, this system adapts to the user facial movements that cannot be avoided in a real-time process. With nine subjects, we obtained an average recognition rate of 89% for 14 Japanese words. Moreover, we carried out additional experiments with the system under various conditions, and verified the robustness and usefulness of our system.  2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Study of a wireless multimodal sensing system integrated with an electrical conductivity sensor and a temperature sensor for the health control of cows

Abstract: Improved technology for the real-time, continuous monitoring of health of the animals is an important requirement for the animal production industry. We have studied a multimodal sensor consisting of integrated electrical conductivity (EC) and temperature sensors, a wireless unit, and some circuit boards. We measured the information relayed by the integrated sensor located at several positions within the first stomach (known as ‘the rumen’) in cows. The wireless unit was able to simultaneously monitor the EC and temperature sensors. The results of these tests showed that the developed unit is a useful tool, since the data obtained were reasonable. We then measured the RF field strength as a function of the distance between the wireless unit and the antenna. We calculated the performance that is required in terms of the received power to accurately transmit results from the rumen. We confirmed that the unit could achieve the necessary performance to send data from the rumen to the receiver. We could also find a criterion for the amount of RF power necessary for successful measurements from rumen. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Contour Extraction of Glomeruli by Using Genetic Algorithm for Edge Patching

Abstract: Glomeruli extraction is a vital step in computer-aided diagnosis systems of kidney disease. Since there are not only glomeruli but also other tissues in an image, when detecting the edges of glomeruli, lot of noises caused by other tissues will be detected at the same time. These noises cause discontinuous edges of glomeruli when some operation, such as labeling, is applied to denoise. According to this characteristic, this article proposes a contour extraction method based on genetic algorithm (GA) for edge patching. First, a Canny operator is applied to obtain the edges of glomeruli with noises. Then labeling and other operations such as dilation, thinning and cross-point deletion are applied to markedly remove the noises. After the above operations, GA is finally used to search for optimal patching segments to join the discontinuous edges together and a closed curve with highest fitness would be able to form the contour of glomeruli. Experimental results show that the proposed method performs well for the renal biopsy images. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Application of the Partial Element Equivalent Circuit Method to Tower Surge Response Calculations

Abstract: This article presents calculations of tower surge responses and insulator voltages of an actual transmission tower including ground wires and phase wires. The partial element equivalent circuit (PEEC) method is applied as a simulation tool. Surge responses of the tower and insulator voltages calculated by the PEEC method are compared with electro magnetic transients program (EMTP) simulated results and experimental results collected from the literatures. The results calculated by the PEEC method agree well with the experimetal results, not only amplitudes but also waveshapes. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Surface passivation of the thin‐film LAPS with perhydropolysilazane‐derived silica treated by O2 plasma

Abstract: Here, we describe a novel method for surface passivation of the thin-film light addressable potentiometric sensor (LAPS). To form a uniform passivation layer, perhydropolysilazane (PHPS) was utilized as a spin-coatable precursor of silica. After transformation of PHPS into silica by baking, we introduced an O2 plasma treatment aiming for enhancement of the water resistance of the PHPS-derived silica (PDS) film by completing the PHPS-to-silica conversion. To confirm the effect of the O2 plasma treatment, the PDS film was deposited on a thin-film LAPS electrode and tested by immersion in a cell culturing medium. The immersion test demonstrated that the plasma-treated PDS film could keep the electrode stable longer than the untreated could. With the treated PSD film of 600 nm in thickness, a lifetime of the thin-film LAPS was estimated at over 2 weeks, which is sufficient for cell culturing experiments. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

MBFP generalized association rule mining and classification in traffic volume prediction

Abstract: Genetic network programming (GNP)-based time-related association rules mining method provides a useful mean to investigate future traffic volume of road networks and hence helps us to develop traffic navigation system. Further improvements have been proposed in this paper about the time-related association rule mining using generalized GNP with multibranches and full-paths (MBFP) algorithm. For fully utilizing the potential ability of GNP structure, the mechanism of generalized GNP with MBFP is studied. The aim of this algorithm is to better handle association rule extraction from the databases with high efficiency in a variety of time-related applications, especially in the traffic volume prediction problems. The generalized algorithm which can find the important time-related association rules is described, and experimental results are presented considering a traffic prediction problem. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.