An Improved Timed Elastic Band (TEB) Algorithm of Autonomous Ground Vehicle (AGV) in Complex Environment

In recent decades, the Timed Elastic Band (TEB) algorithm is widely used for the AGV local path panning because of its convenient and efficiency. However, it may make a local detour when encountering a curve turn and cause excessive energy consumption. To solve this problem, this paper proposed an improved TEB algorithm to make the AGV walk along the wall when turning, which shortens the planning time and saves energy. Experiments were implemented in the Rviz visualization tool platform of the robot operating system (ROS). Simulated experiment results reflect that an amount of 5% reduction in the planning time has been achieved and the velocity curve implies that the operation was relatively smooth. Practical experiment results demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method that the robots can avoid obstacles smoothly in the unknown static and dynamic obstacle environment.

Simulated Experiment on Wind Erosion Resistance of Salix Residual in the Agro-Pastoral Ecotone

Plant residual is of great importance in retarding soil wind erosion in the agro-pastoral ecotone. However, few studies have determined the effects of sand plant residual on wind erosion resistance. Based on field surveys, the influences of Salix residual biomass of 200, 400, 600, and 800 g m−2, soil incorporated with a residual thickness of 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 cm, and typical proportion of residual branches and leaves (2:1, 1:1, and 1:2) on wind erosion resistance were investigated using a simulated wind tunnel. The results showed the following: 1) The soil loss amount ranged from 1.56 to 40.8 kg m−2 as Salix residual biomass decreased from 800 to 0 g m−2, with a critical residual biomass value of 400 g m−2. 2) As the thickness of soil-incorporated residual increased, the soil loss amount reduced rapidly, especially for 0–9 cm above the surface accounting for 84.6% of the total. 3) Salix branch residual is more important in resisting soil wind erosion as compared with its leaves. This kind of study may provide theoretical explanations for the optimal reconstruction of sandy vegetation in the northern wind-sand regions.

In COM we trust: Feasibility of USB-based event marking

Modern experimental research often relies on the synchronization of different events prior to data analysis. One way of achieving synchronization involves marking distinct events with electrical pulses (event markers or “TTL pulses”), which are continuously recorded with research hardware, and can later be temporally aligned. Traditionally, this event marking was often performed using the parallel port in standard personal computers. However, the parallel port is disappearing from the landscape of computer hardware, being replaced by a serial (COM) port, namely the USB port. To find an adequate replacement for the parallel port, we evaluated four microcontroller units (MCUs) and the LabJack U3, an often-used USB data acquisition device, in terms of their latency and jitter for sending event markers in a simulated experiment on both Windows and Linux. Our results show that all four MCUs were comparable to the parallel port in terms of both latency and jitter, and consistently achieved latencies under 1 ms. With some caveats, the LabJack U3 can also achieve comparable latencies. In addition to the collected data, we share extensive documentation on how to build and use MCUs for event marking, including code examples. MCUs are a cost-effective, flexible, and performant replacement for the disappearing parallel port, enabling event marking and synchronization of data streams.

Computer Adaptive Test Development To Assess Students’ Psychology

Stress becomes a significantly serious issue among university students and we need efficient tools to understand it more. The aim of present study is to develop a Computerized Adaptive Testing (CAT) to measure the mentioned stress, as pioneer project in Vietnam. In this vein, an item bank of 68 items has been constructed, which is based on Likert Polytomous Scales through five subdomains: behavior, academic performance, family, lecturer and finance. The sampling of the survey is large. It has assessed 2,085 students (704 males and 1,381 females). Multidimensional Random Coefficients Multinomial Logit (MRCML) Model is applied to develop Multidimensional Stress Scales and Computerized Adaptive Testing procedure. The result findings indicate that Multidimensional Random Coefficients Multinomial Logit (MRCML) can be used to develop new scale with psychometric properties. Indicated by various fit criteria MNSQ, standard errors, Z (t-test) implemented in software ConQuest. The subdomain has a good reliability (from .857 to .798). As respect to CATs, a simulated experiment based on the empirical data is applied to evaluate the performance of the proposed computerized adaptive testing. The standard error of the estimated stress proficiencies are reported in this study. The 68 items stress data appropriate fit the Multidimensional model applied.

In COM We Trust: Feasibility of USB-Based Event Marking

Modern experimental research often relies on the synchronization of different events prior to data analysis. One way of achieving synchronization involves marking distinct events with electrical pulses (event markers or “TTL pulses”), which are continuously recorded with research hardware, and can later be temporally aligned. Traditionally, this event marking was often performed using the parallel port in standard personal computers. However, the parallel port is disappearing from the landscape of computer hardware, being replaced by a serial (COM) port, namely the USB port. To find an adequate replacement for the parallel port, we evaluated four microcontroller units (MCUs) and the LabJack U3, an often used USB data acquisition device, in terms of their latency and jitter for sending event markers in a simulated experiment. Our results show that all four MCUs were comparable to the parallel port in terms of both latency and jitter, and consistently achieved latencies under one millisecond. With some caveats, the LabJack U3 can also achieve comparable latencies. In addition to the collected data, we share extensive documentation on how to build and use MCUs for event marking, including code examples. MCUs are a cost-effective, flexible, and performant replacement for the disappearing parallel port, enabling event marking and synchronization of data streams.

Critical hypersurfaces and instability for reconstruction of scenes in high dimensional projective spaces

In the context of multiple view geometry, images of static scenes are modeled as linear projections from a projective space P^3 to a projective plane P^2 and, similarly, videos or images of suitable dynamic or segmented scenes can be modeled as linear projections from P^k to P^h, with k>h>=2. In those settings, the projective reconstruction of a scene consists in recovering the position of the projected objects and the projections themselves from their images, after identifying many enough correspondences between the images. A critical locus for the reconstruction problem is a configuration of points and of centers of projections, in the ambient space, where the reconstruction of a scene fails. Critical loci turn out to be suitable algebraic varieties. In this paper we investigate those critical loci which are hypersurfaces in high dimension complex projective spaces, and we determine their equations. Moreover, to give evidence of some practical implications of the existence of these critical loci, we perform a simulated experiment to test the instability phenomena for the reconstruction of a scene, near a critical hypersurface.

Migdal effect and photon Bremsstrahlung: improving the sensitivity to light dark matter of liquid argon experiments

The search for dark matter weakly interacting massive particles with noble liquids has probed masses down and below a GeV/c2. The ultimate limit is represented by the experimental threshold on the energy transfer to the nuclear recoil. Currently, the experimental sensitivity has reached a threshold equivalent to a few ionization electrons. In these conditions, the contribution of a Bremsstrahlung photon or a so-called Migdal electron due to the sudden acceleration of a nucleus after a collision might be sizable. In the present work, we use a Bayesian approach to study how these effects can be exploited in experiments based on liquid argon detectors. In particular, taking inspiration from the DarkSide-50 public spectra, we develop a simulated experiment to show how the Migdal electron and the Bremsstrahlung photon allow to push the experimental sensitivity down to masses of 0.1 GeV/c2, extending the search region for dark matter particles of previous results. For these masses we estimate the effect of the Earth shielding that, for strongly interacting dark matter, makes any detector blind. Finally, we show how the sensitivity scales for higher exposure.