Search results for "Industrial engineering"
showing 10 items of 835 documents
Novel Energy Modelling and Forecasting Tools for Smart Energy Networks
2015
A novel Energy Modelling and Forecasting Tool (EMFT) has been adopted for use in the VIM SEN (Virtual Microgrids for Smart Energy Networks) project and this paper gives an insight of the techniques used to provide vital support to the energy market, in particular to energy aggregators. A brief description of one of the test sites where data has been collected for validation of the EMFT will be outlined and some examples shown. The information and predictions will then be used by a decision support system to dynamically adjust energy delivery and consumption, by giving advice to users and operators on actions they can take to obtain a better match between energy supply and demand that increa…
Perceived-Value-driven Optimization of Energy Consumption in Smart Homes
2020
Residential energy consumption has been rising rapidly during the last few decades. Several research efforts have been made to reduce residential energy consumption, including demand response and smart residential environments. However, recent research has shown that these approaches may actually cause an increase in the overall consumption, due to the complex psychological processes that occur when human users interact with these energy management systems. In this article, using an interdisciplinary approach, we introduce a perceived-value driven framework for energy management in smart residential environments that considers how users perceive values of different appliances and how the us…
Packing a trunk - Now with a twist!
2005
In an industry project with a German car manufacturer we are faced with the challenge of placing a maximum number of uniform rigid rectangular boxes in the interior of a car trunk. The problem is of practical importance due to a European industry norm which requires car manufacturers to state the trunk volume according to this measure. No really satisfactory automated solution for this problem has been known in the past. In spite of its NP hardness, combinatorial optimization techniques, which consider only grid-aligned placements, produce solutions which are very close to the one achievable by a human expert in several hours of tedious work. The remaining gap is mostly due to the constrain…
Development of Point-to-Point Path Control in Actuator Space for Hydraulic Knuckle Boom Crane
2020
This paper presents a novel method for point-to-point path control for a hydraulic knuckle boom crane. The developed path control algorithm differs from previous solutions by operating in the actuator space instead of the joint space or Cartesian space of the crane. By operating in actuator space, almost all the parameters and constraints of the system become either linear or constant, which greatly reduces the complexity of both the control algorithm and path generator. For a given starting point and endpoint, the motion for each actuator is minimized compared to other methods. This ensures that any change in direction of motion is avoided, thereby greatly minimizing fatigue, jerky motion,…
The Last Planner System Style of Planning: Its Basis in Learning Theory
2012
The objective of this article is to contribute to creating a better understanding of the Last Planner System (LPS) - which is associated with Lean Construction - in the light of the learning processes at the basis of knowledge development, and of change and innovation. Founded on a theoretical discussion, three research questions are asked, namely: In what ways can the LPS be expected to alter the learning arenas compared to conventional project management in construction; according to learning theory, what are the main challenges associated with implementing the LPS; and, finally, what kind of learning can be linked to an implemented LPS that functions as intended? The implementation of th…
Decentralized Coordination System for Multiple AGVs in a Structured Environment
2011
Abstract In this paper, we propose a decentralized coordination algorithm for safe and efficient management of a group of mobile robots following predefined paths in a dynamic industrial environment. The proposed algorithm is based on shared resources and proved to guarantee ordered traffic flows avoiding collisions and deadlocks. In consistency with the model of distributed robotic systems (DRS), no centralized mechanism, synchronized clock, shared memory or ground support is needed. A local inter-robot communication is required among a small number of spatially adjacent robotic units.
Model predictive control for continuous lactide ring‐opening polymerization processes
2020
International audience; Polylactic acid (PLA) is an attractive environment-friendly thermoplastic that is bio-sourced and biodegradable. PLA is industrially produced by the ring-opening polymerization of Lactide. This reaction is sensitive to drifts in the operating conditions and impurities in the raw materials that may affect the reaction rate as well as the polymer properties, which can be very costly in continuous processes. It is therefore crucial to employ a control strategy that allows recovering the nominal conditions and maintaining the desired properties and conversion level in case of drift. Three control strategies are discussed in this paper: Proportional-Integral controller (P…
Boundary controlled irreversible port-Hamiltonian systems
2021
Abstract Boundary controlled irreversible port-Hamiltonian systems (BC-IPHS) defined on a 1-dimensional spatial domain are defined by extending the formulation of reversible BC-PHS to irreversible thermodynamic systems controlled at the boundaries of their spatial domain. The structure of BC-IPHS has clear physical interpretation, characterizing the coupling between energy storing and energy dissipating elements. By extending the definition of boundary port variables of BC-PHS to deal with the irreversible energy dissipation, a set of boundary port variables are defined such that BC-IPHS are passive with respect to a given set of conjugated inputs and outputs. As for finite dimensional IPHS…
Classification et chronologie de bas fourneaux de réduction du fer à usage unique au sud-ouest du Niger
2016
In southwestern Niger, near Niamey, several thousand single-use bloomery furnaces have been mapped and identified. The archaeological study of approximately 30 furnaces and their slag reveals the existence of four methods for iron smelting: three types of pit furnace and one slag-tapping type. The slag pit furnaces are clearly differentiated by the form and volume of their pits. All slag-tapping furnaces drain off slag through small openings. The slag is tapped either vertically or laterally. According to radiocarbon dates, the smelting activity developed in the 2 nd century AD and intensified through to the 14 th century. It continued to evolve until the middle of the 20 th century. The lo…
Analysis of a slow–fast system near a cusp singularity
2016
This paper studies a slow fast system whose principal characteristic is that the slow manifold is given by the critical set of the cusp catastrophe. Our analysis consists of two main parts: first, we recall a formal normal form suitable for systems as the one studied here; afterwards, taking advantage of this normal form, we investigate the transition near the cusp singularity by means of the blow up technique. Our contribution relies heavily in the usage of normal form theory, allowing us to refine previous results. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.