Communication patterning for multi-step TDMA bandwidth allocation using wireless structural control

Legged robot locomotion is a challenging task due to a myriad of sub-problems, such as the hybrid dynamics of foot contact and the effects of the desired gait on the terrain. Accurate and efficient state estimation of the floating base and the feet joints can help alleviate much of these issues by providing feedback information to robot controllers. Current state estimation methods are highly reliant on a conjunction of visual and inertial measurements to provide real-time estimates, thus being handicapped in perceptually poor environments. In this work, we show that by leveraging the kinematic chain model of the robot via a factor graph formulation, we can perform state estimation of the base and the leg joints using primarily proprioceptive inertial data. We perform state estimation using a combination of preintegrated IMU measurements, forward kinematic computations, and contact detections in a factor-graph based framework, allowing our state estimate to be constrained by the robot model. Experimental results in simulation and on hardware show that our approach out-performs current proprioceptive state estimation methods by 27% on average, while being generalizable to a variety of legged robot platforms. We demonstrate our results both quantitatively and qualitatively on a wide variety of trajectories.

For nonlinear discrete systems with dual unknown inputs, there are many limitations regarding previous nonlinear filters. This paper proposes two new, improved square-root cubature Kalman filtering (ISRCKF) algorithms to estimate system states and dual unknown inputs. Improved square-root cubature Kalman filtering 1 (ISRCKF1) introduces an innovation that first obtains the unknown input estimates from the measurement equation, then updates the innovation to derive the unknown input estimates from the state equation, then uses the already obtained estimates of the dual unknown inputs to correct the one-step estimate of the state, and finally the minimum variance unbiased estimate of the state is obtained. Improved square-root cubature Kalman filtering 2 (ISRCKF2) builds a unified innovation feedback model, then applies the minimum variance unbiased estimation (MVUE) criterion to obtain the estimates of system states and dual unknown inputs, refining a more concise recursive filter but requiring stronger assumptions. Finally, simulation results demonstrate that the above two algorithms can achieve the optimal estimates of system states and dual unknown inputs simultaneously, and ISRCKF2 further enhances the accuracy of both state and dual unknown inputs estimation, which verifies the validity of the proposed algorithms.

SummaryThis paper presents a novel state estimation approach for linear dynamic systems when measurements are corrupted by outliers. Since outliers can degrade the performance of state estimation, outlier accommodation is critical. The standard approach combines outlier detection utilizing Neyman‐Pearson (NP) type tests with a Kalman filter (KF). This approach ignores all residuals greater than a designer‐specified threshold. When measurements with outliers are used (ie, missed detections), both the state estimate and the error covariance matrix become corrupted. This corrupted state and covariance estimate are then the basis for all subsequent outlier decisions. When valid measurements are rejected (ie, false alarms), potentially using the corrupted state estimate and error covariance, measurement information is lost. Either using invalid information or discarding too much valid information can result in divergence of the KF. An alternative approach is moving‐horizon (MH) state estimation, which maintains all recent measurement data within a moving window with a time horizon of length L. In MH approaches, the number of measurements available for state estimation is affected by both the number of measurements per time step and the number of time steps L over which measurements are retained. Risk‐averse performance‐specified (RAPS) state estimation works within an optimization setting to choose a set of measurements that achieves a performance specification with minimum risk of outlier inclusion. This paper derives and formulates the MH‐RAPS solution for outlier accommodation. The paper also presents implementation results. The MH‐RAPS application uses Global Navigation Satellite Systems measurements to estimate the state of a moving platform using a position, velocity, and acceleration model. In this application, MH‐RAPS performance is compared with MH‐NP state estimation.

There are different types of rechargeable batteries, but lithium-ion battery has proven to be superior due to its features including small size, more volumetric energy density, longer life, and low maintenance. However, lithium-ion batteries face safety issues as one of the common challenges in their development, necessitating research in this area. For the safe operation of lithium-ion batteries, state estimation is very significant and battery parameter identification is the core in battery state estimation. The battery management system for electric vehicle application must perform a few estimation tasks in real-time. Battery state estimation is defined by the battery model adopted and its accuracy impacts the accuracy of state estimation. The knowledge of the actual operating conditions of electric vehicles requires the application of an accurate battery model; for our research, we adopted the use of the dual extended Kalman filter and it demonstrated that it yields more accurate and robust state estimation results. Since no single battery model can satisfy all the requirements of battery estimation and parameter identification, the hybridization of battery models together with the introduction of internal sensors to batteries to measure battery internal reactions is very essential. Similarly, since the current battery models rarely consider the coupling effect of vibration and temperature dynamics on model parameters during state estimation, this research goal is to identify the battery parameters and then present the effect of the vibration and temperature dynamics in battery state estimation.

State estimation plays a critical role in power dis-tribution systems. However, the conventional state estimation commonly used in transmission systems cannot be applied to the distribution systems because of insufficient measurements. Even though machine learning methods have begun to demonstrate their capabilities to overcome this challenge, they are not capa-ble of explicitly incorporating distribution systems' topological information. This paper proposes EleGNN, an electrical-model-guided graph neural network (GNN), to perform power distri-bution system state estimation (DSSE). By explicitly considering physical topology, EleGNN enhances GNN with original node and edge feature propagation methods, allowing us to obtain accurate estimation results despite insufficient measurements and various topologies. Evaluations of six different power systems demonstrate significant improvement in state estimation accuracy than the method relying on general neural networks. Specifically, node-level mean square errors introduced by EleGNN are at least one order of magnitude smaller, even with up to 50% of missing measurements.

Maintaining reliability during power system operation relies heavily on the operator’s knowledge of the system and its current state. With the increasing complexity of power systems, full system monitoring is needed. Due to the costs to install and maintain measurement devices, a cost-effective optimal placement is normally employed, and as such, state estimation is used to complete the picture. However, in order to provide accurate state estimates in the current power system climate, the models must be fully expanded to include probabilistic uncertainties and non-linear assets. Recognizing its analogous relationship with state estimation, machine learning and its ability to summarily model unseen and complex relationships between input data is used. Thus, a power system state estimator was developed using modified long short-term (LSTM) neural networks to provide quicker and more accurate state estimates over the conventional weighted least squares-based state estimator (WLS-SE). The networks are then subject to standard polynomial scheduled weight pruning to further optimize the size and memory consumption of the neural networks. The state estimators were tested on a hybrid AC/DC distribution system composed of the IEEE 34-bus AC test system and a 9-bus DC microgrid. The conventional WLS-SE has achieved a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.0151 p.u. for voltage magnitude estimates, while the LSTM’s were able to achieve RMSE’s between 0.0019 p.u. and 0.0087 p.u., with the latter having 75% weight sparsity, estimates about ten times faster, and half of its full memory requirement occupied.

The cubature Kalman filter (CKF) is well-known for a decade as a derivative-free nonlinear Kalman filter that is well-suited for high-dimensional nonlinear estimation problems. This paper further develops this classical CKF in order to cope with time-varying noise statistics as well as inequality constraints on the estimated states. The resulting adaptive filter is suggested to provide more accurate state estimates and to be more robust against filter divergence. Moreover, this contribution proposes an automated filter design based on numerical optimization which uses the normalized estimation error squared (NEES) and the normalized innovation squared (NIS) as part of the objective function. The novel adaptive CKF is applied to wind turbines in order to assess the potential improvement for state and parameter estimation. The simulation results for an illustrative acid test scenario with time-varying measurement noise show the superiority of the novel adaptive CKF since it compensates the noise robustly and thereby outperforms the classical filter.

The presence of an accurate and efficient system state estimator is a precondition for supervision and closed-loop-control of low voltage grids. Such an estimator has to perform in consecutive periods of minutes. Between two periods in most cases, only the measurement values will change, but sometimes also the measurement model. This paper gives suggestions on how to improve the computationally efficiency of state estimation algorithms that have to perform in such an environment. The efficiency improvements are achieved by the application of advanced matrix inversion methods. Further the use of a linear measurement model and the application of the standard augmented matrix approach for solving the state estimation formula is suggested. However, these improvements can also be applied to other measurement models and estimation methods. The efficiency of the improvements is benchmarked against standard methods for different real grid operation cases. In particular, cases when new measurements are added or measurement values get lost are considered. The final result of the paper is an adjustable, robust and efficient algorithm for low voltage state estimation, presented in a way to support manufacturers and operators to implement and maintain it. The paper is a contribution in the field of static state estimation and short-term operation in distribution systems, in particular, low voltage grids.

Wireless Structural Control (WSC) systems can play a crucial role in protecting civil infrastructure in the event of earthquakes and other natural disasters. Such systems represent an exemplary class of cyber-physical systems that perform close-loop control using wireless sensor networks. Existing WSC research usually employs wireless sensors installed on small lab structures, which cannot capture realistic delays and data loss in wireless sensor networks deployed on large civil structures. The lack of realistic tools that capture both the cyber (wireless) and physical (structural) aspects of WSC systems has been a hurdle for cyber-physical systems research for civil infrastructure. This advances the state of the art through the following contributions. First, we developed the Wireless Cyber-Physical Simulator (WCPS), an integrated environment that combines realistic simulations of both wireless sensor networks and structures. WCPS integrates Simulink and TOSSIM, a state-of-the-art sensor network simulator featuring a realistic wireless model seeded by signal traces. Second, we performed two realistic case studies each combining a structural model with wireless traces collected from real-world environments. The building study combines a benchmark building model and wireless traces collected from a multi-story building. The bridge study combines the structural model of the Cape Girardeau bridge over the Mississippi River and wireless traces collected from a similar bridge (the Jindo Bridge) in South Korea. These case studies shed light on the challenges of WSC and the limitations of a traditional structural control approach under realistic wireless conditions. Finally, we proposed a cyber-physical co-design approach to WSC that integrates a novel holistic scheduling scheme (for sensing, communication and control) and an Optimal Time Delay Controller (OTDC) that substantially improves structural control performance.

The task of simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) is to build environmental map and locate the position of mobile robot at the same time. FastSLAM 2.0 is one of powerful techniques to solve the SLAM problem. However, there are two obvious limitations in FastSLAM 2.0, one is the linear approximations of nonlinear functions which would cause the filter inconsistent and the other is the “particle depletion” phenomenon. A kind of PSO & H∞-based FastSLAM 2.0 algorithm is proposed. For maintaining the estimation accuracy, H∞ filter is used instead of EKF for overcoming the inaccuracy caused by the linear approximations of nonlinear functions. The unreasonable proposal distribution of particle greatly influences the pose state estimation of robot. A new sampling strategy based on PSO (particle swarm optimization) is presented to solve the “particle depletion” phenomenon and improve the accuracy of pose state estimation. The proposed approach overcomes the obvious drawbacks of standard FastSLAM 2.0 algorithm and enhances the robustness and efficiency in the parts of consistency of filter and accuracy of state estimation in SLAM. Simulation results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed approach.

—Fast and accurate state estimation has a crucial role in practical implementation of state feedback-based controllers. But most of the states are not accessible or economically feasible to measure and must be estimated. Although such controllers are normally designed offline, their dynamic performance is evaluated online. Hence, having high speed with acceptable accuracy is an essential feature for estimators. In this article, a state estimator based on an artificial neural network incorporated into a linear optimal regulator is introduced. First, an extended Kalman filter is designed, then an estimator based on a proposed feed-forward neural network structure is elaborated after much effort on promising neural network structures. Different neural networks are trained using the data collected from the extended Kalman filter, and a qualified and shapeable alternative for the extended Kalman filter in reducing its drawbacks is obtained. The optimum structure is identified when minimum state estimation error is achieved. Significant speed and sufficient accuracy are the main advantages of the proposed structure to be used online for state estimation. Dynamic performance of the system equipped with the linear optimal regulator plus different estimators is examined and compared to a single-machine/infinite-bus power system in MATLAB (The MathWorks, Natick, Massachusetts, USA).

Nonlinear state estimation is a pre-requisite for advanced process control and fault diagnosis tasks. In literature, various recursive nonlinear filtering techniques have been proposed and used for state estimation of nonlinear systems. Over the last few years, Moving Horizon Estimation (MHE) is increasingly being used for state estimation of nonlinear systems. Moving horizon estimation works with a window of data and hence requires additional online computation compared to recursive nonlinear filters. However, MHE performs both smoothing and filtering and thus has the potential to obtain more accurate state estimates as compared to the recursive filters. Most of the available comparisons of MHE with recursive filters are based on simulation case studies where the true states and parameters, as well as noise processes are exactly known. In this work, we apply MHE to a three-tank experimental setup and compare its performance with various nonlinear filters available in literature such as Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) and Gaussian Sum EKF (GSEKF). We present some of the challenges in experimental implementation of state estimation approaches. These include presence of unknown disturbances, non-whiteness of noise signals as well as lack of accurate measurements. We then discuss the approach followed for obtaining model parameters and noise characterization to make the models amenable for filter implementation. It is found that EKF, GSEKF and UKF perform as well as MHE as far as accuracy is concerned, but require significantly lower computational efforts.

As one of the main application forms of energy coupling utilization, the electric gas integrated energy system has been widely concerned. State estimation plays an important role in the operation monitoring and optimal scheduling of the electric gas integrated energy system. The state estimation is the basis of energy management of the electro-pneumatic coupling network, which can provide a high-precision global consistent solution for the subsequent optimal scheduling and safety evaluation of the electro-pneumatic coupling network. The steady state estimation model of gas network is established for grid connected operation or island mode, and the state estimation of complex gas network is realized. On this basis, the coupled state estimation model of electricity and gas is further established, and its performance in state estimation accuracy and bad data identification is tested.

Accurate and reliable state estimation is the core stone for flexible operation and control of active smart grids. Through the current expansion of integrating DG units in low voltage networks, the network operation is becoming more complex than before. However, real-time monitoring and control through state estimation is a routine task for the transmission system operators (TSO's) due to the availability of measurement data. The distribution system operators (DSO's) are trying to extend their monitoring and control for medium and low voltage network in order to enable smart grid applications. With the current rollout of smart meters, which are considered as a key component of future smart grids, there would be enough metering data in the distribution networks (voltage, current, active and reactive power consumption and generation) available at every customer connection point. This paper aims to develop a method to solve the problem of meter placement for low voltage system state estimation through deciding which measurement data from the installed smart meters should be considered in the state estimation algorithms in order to improve on the uncertainty of the estimated voltage and its phase angle at every node in the network. (4 pages)

Accurate power system state estimation facilitates power system control, optimization, and security analysis. In this paper, a joint filter approach is proposed to estimate both the static states (voltage magnitude and phase angle of bus) and the dynamic states (rotor angle, rotor speed, and transient voltages of generator) utilizing the measurements of phasor measurement unit. First, due to the complexity and dynamics of power system, the power system model is usually not known accurately. The uncertainties include both model uncertainty and noise statistics uncertainty. Therefore, H <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">∞</sub> filter is applied to reliable estimation of the static states. As a link between the static state estimation and the dynamic state estimation, the estimated static states are fed to dynamic state estimation. Next, to deal with the nonlinearity of synchronous generator model, an extended Kalman particle filter is employed to accurately estimate the dynamic states. The numerical tests on IEEE 30-bus system show that the proposed method is into both the static state estimation and the dynamic state estimation.