The 550-au Mission: a critical discussion

We have studied the science rationale, goals and requirements for a mission aimed at using the gravitational lensing from the Sun as a way of achieving high angular resolution and high signal amplification. We find that such a mission concept is compromised by several practical problems. Most severe are the effects due to the plasma in the solar atmosphere which cause refraction and scattering of the propagating rays. These effects either limit the frequencies that can be observed to those above ∼1 THz, or they move the optical point outwards beyond the vacuum value of ≥550 au. (Thus for observing frequency of 300 GHz the optical point is moved outwards to ∼ 680 au.) Density fluctuations in the inner solar atmosphere will further cause random pathlength differences for different rays. The corrections for the radiation from the Sun itself will also be a major challenge at any wavelength used, but could be mitigated with coronographic techniques. Given reasonable constraints on the spacecraft (particularly in terms of size and propulsion), source selection as well as severe navigational constraints further add to the difficulties for a potential mission. Nevertheless, unbiased surveys of small-scale structure on the sky at short wavelengths might be the most promising application of such a mission.     

智能潜器的集成仿真系统

本文介绍了智能潜器集成仿真系统的硬、软件结构．通过这一系统所展示的水下虚拟仿真环境能够在研究和开发智能潜器的控制体系结构、潜器载体的水动力学、信息融合和目标识别等工作中发挥巨大作用     

LZY1—1型光电浊度仪

本文介绍了LZY_(1-1)型光电浊度仪的设计原理,标定方法及使用结果,该仪器用经典法校准后,能快速测量大批量样品的悬浮物含量。     

Expanded adaptive fuzzy sliding mode controller using expert knowledge and fuzzy basis function expansion for UFV depth control

Generally, the underwater flight vehicle (UFV) depth control system operates with the following problems: it is a multi-input multi-output (MIMO) system, it requires robustness, a continuous control input, and further, it has the speed dependency of controller parameters. To solve these problems, an expanded adaptive fuzzy sliding mode controller (EAFSMC), which is based on the decomposition method designed by using an expert knowledge and the decoupled sub-controllers and composition method designed by using the fuzzy basis function expansions (FBFEs), is proposed. To verify the performance of the EAFSMC, the depth control of UFV in various operating conditions is performed. Simulation results show that the EAFSMC solves all problems experienced in the UFV depth control system online.     

Robust and adaptive path following for underactuated autonomous underwater vehicles

This paper proposes a nonlinear robust adaptive control strategy to force a six degrees of freedom underactuated underwater vehicle with only four actuators to follow a predefined path at a desired speed despite of the presence of environmental disturbances and vehicle’s unknown physical parameters. The proposed controller is designed using Lyapunov’s direct method, the popular backstepping and parameter projection techniques. The closed loop path following errors can be made arbitrarily small. Interestingly, it is shown that our developed control strategy is easily extendible to situations of practical importance such as parking and point-to-point navigation. Numerical simulations are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.     

Code of Practice For Ocean Mining: An International Effort to Develop a Code For Environmental Management of Marine Mining

A code of practice for ocean mining has been developed by the International Marine Minerals Society. The code provides general guiding Principles for development of marine mineral resources and delineates Operating Guidelines for application, as appropriate, at specific mining sites. In total 11 operating guidelines are provided to serve as benchmarks for industry and targets for regulatory agencies and other stakeholders. They include the following commitments: •To sustainable development, •To environmentally responsible corporate ethics, •To the development of effective community partnership, •To implementation of environmental risk management, •To the integration of environmental management into all phases of development, •To the establishment of corporate environmental performance targets, •To timely environmental improvements and upgrading, •To responsible rehabilitation of operations sites and decommissioning of facilities, and •To accurate and timely, reporting and documentation, archiving, and performance review.     

Experimental investigation on a two-part underwater towed system

An experimental set-up is developed and proved to be effective for laboratory study of an underwater towed system. The experimental technique gives a practical method for monitoring the kinematic and dynamic performance of an underwater towed system in a ship towing tank. Both the theoretical and experimental results in the investigation indicate that the hydrodynamic response of a towed vehicle to the wave induced motion of a towing ship can be significantly reduced by applying a two-part tow method. A comparison of the numerical and experimental results in the investigation demonstrates that the numerical simulation results are close to the experimental data, overall agreement between experimental and theoretical results is satisfactory. The results qualitatively verify the mathematical model of a two-part underwater towed system proposed by Wu and Chwang [Wu, J., Chwang, A.T., 2000. A hydrodynamic model of a two-part underwater towed system. Ocean Engineering 27 (5), 455–472].     

Dynamics and control of a towed underwater vehicle system, part I: model development

Autonomous vehicles are being developed to replace the conventional, manned surface vehicles that tow mine hunting towed platforms. While a wide body of work exists that describes numerical models of towed systems, they usually include relatively simple models of the towed bodies and neglect the dynamics of the towing vehicle. For systems in which the mass of the towing vehicle is comparable to that of the towed vehicle, it becomes important to consider the dynamics of both vehicles. In this work, we describe the development of a numerical model that accurately captures the dynamics of these new mine hunting systems. We use a lumped mass approximation for the towcable and couple this model to non-linear numerical models of an autonomous surface vehicle and an actively controlled towfish. Within the dynamics models of the two vehicles, we include non-linear controllers to allow accurate maneuvering of the towed system.     

A hierarchical real-time control architecture for a semi-autonomous underwater vehicle

This paper describes a real-time control architecture for Dual Use Semi-Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (DUSAUV), which has been developed at Korea Research Institute of Ships and Ocean Engineering (KRISO) for being a test-bed of development of underwater navigation and manipulator technologies. DUSAUV has three built-in computers, seven thrusters for six DOF motion control, one 4-function electric manipulator, one ballasting motor, built-in power source, and various sensors. A supervisor control system with GUI and a multi-purpose joystick is mounted on the surface vessel and communicates with vehicle through a fiber optic link. Furthermore, QNX, one of real-time operating system, is ported on the built-in control and navigation computers for real-time control purpose, while Microsoft OS product is ported in the supervisor computer for GUI programming convenience. A hierarchical control architecture, which consists of application layer, real-time layer and physical layer, has been developed for efficient control system of above complex underwater robotic system. The experimental results with implementation of the layered control architecture for various motion control of DUSAUV in an ocean engineering basin of KRISO is also presented.