Zeashan Hameed Khan

Wireless Network Architecture for Diagnosis and Monitoring Applications

This paper describes a distributed wireless network architecture for remote diagnosis and monitoring. A windmill farm is considered as a target application, which is further grouped into small clusters of windmills communicating with each other for the purpose of distributed diagnosis. Wireless links are commonly used for long-range communication in SCADA systems. In order to extend wireless networks for remote diagnosis applications, strict requirements on availability, robustness, reliability and performance have to be satisfied in order to meet industrial standards. This paper is intended to present a wireless network architecture for tele-operation of large industrial applications.

Computational Intelligence for Decision Support in Cyber-Physical Systems

This book is dedicated to applied computational intelligence and soft computing techniques with special reference to decision support in Cyber Physical Systems (CPS), where the physical as well as the communication segment of the networked entities interact with each other. The joint dynamics of such systems result in a complex combination of computers, software, networks and physical processes all combined to establish a process flow at system level. This volume provides the audience with an in-depth vision about how to ensure dependability, safety, security and efficiency in real time by making use of computational intelligence in various CPS applications ranging from the nano-world to large scale wide area systems of systems. Key application areas include healthcare, transportation, energy, process control and robotics where intelligent decision support has key significance in establishing dynamic, ever-changing and high confidence future technologies. A recommended text for graduate students and researchers working on the applications of computational intelligence methods in CPS.

Adaptive Trajectory Tracking of Wheeled Mobile Robot with Uncertain Parameters

A wheeled mobile robot (WMR) belongs to the class of non-holonomic systems with highly nonlinear dynamics. Because of their fast maneuvering and energy saving characteristics, these robots are especially popular in following or tracking a pre-defined trajectory. The trajectory of a WMR is controlled with the help of two very different control schemes namely model dependent approach and model free approach. While the model dependent approach relies on a particular model for the controller design, the model free method controls the trajectory with the help of learning methods. A Direct Model Reference Adaptive Controller (D-MRAC) is described for the model based technique, while an Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) is used for the model-free adaptive control design. With the help of simulations, it is shown that data driven intelligent approach is comparable to model dependent approach in terms of tracking performance and therefore can be preferred over complex model dependent adaptive algorithms.

A Systematic Approach for Developing Mobile Information System based on Location Based Services

This paper describes the mechanism of some novice location based services that can be used over the Mobile Information System frame work that we have developed. In this paper, a simple and innovative network based mobile information system technique is introduced, that provides extensive flexibility at the user end. This paper discusses the methodology adopted for the design and simulation of location based friend finder and location based web tracking services. Both these services are integrated with the real-time billing system. An advance technology of using spatial triggers is introduced that results in a cost-effective solution for mobile companies.

Hierarchical Wireless Network Architecture for Distributed Applications

This paper describes a hierarchical wireless network architecture for real time remote coordination and monitoring in distributed applications. The problem of defining a communication architecture keeping in view the constraints imposed by control and monitoring tasks requires a co-design approach. The present framework takes into account the available infrastructure to satisfy the requirements of end to end delay and quality of service for time critical applications communicating over network.

Role of laboratory setup in project-based learning of freshmen electrical engineering in Pakistan:

This paper deals with lab design tools and their impact on the learning progression of first-year electrical engineering students. Project-based learning is an innovative domain of acquiring knowledge in engineering education, where the role of experimental setup and use of advanced technology imitates real-world engineering problems. This experimentation induces a desire to learn in newly inducted students and influences their minds to understand the applied content of engineering education thus resulting in improved retention rates in engineering programs. A Likert scale is used to generate statistics which suggest that an intelligent design of engineering lab by choosing advanced learning methodology for freshmen electrical engineering students improves their ability to absorb modern engineering concepts as compared to the classical lab setup.

A Comparison of Pulse Compression Techniques for Ranging Applications

In this chapter, a comparison of Golay code based pulse compression (GCPC) technique with the Neuro-Fuzzy based pulse compression (NFPC) technique is demonstrated for ranging systems. Both of these techniques are used for the suppression of range side lobes that appear during the pulse compression process of the received echo pulse at the receiver for target(s) detection. Golay code is a pair of complementary codes and has an inherent property of zero side lobes when the two auto-correlation results of the complementary code pair are added. On the other side, neural network based pulse compression techniques are also developed to reduce the range side lobes. Both the techniques are different in nature but they share the common objective of range side lobe suppression in target detection. The differentiation parameters chosen for the comparison of GCPC and NFPC techniques include the computational complexity, range side lobe suppression levels, noise rejection capability, Doppler tolerance capability, range resolution capability as well as the training and convergence requirements of these pulse compression techniques. All these comparison criteria are found to determine the overall performance measures of the pulse compression techniques for ranging applications especially in case of detection and ranging of multiple closely spaced and weak targets. This comparison may be useful for a system designer to select a particular type of pulse compression technique for a specific ranging application.

Model-Based Verification and Validation of Safety-Critical Embedded Real-Time Systems: Formation and Tools

Verification, Validation and Testing (VV&T) is an imperative procedure for life cycle analysis of safety critical embedded real-time (ERT) systems. It covers software engineering to system engineering with VV&T procedures for every stage of system design e.g. static testing, functional testing, unit testing, fault injection testing, consistency techniques, Software-In-The-Loop (SIL) testing, evolutionary testing, Hardware-In-The-Loop (HIL) testing, black box testing, white box testing, integration testing, system testing, system integration testing, etc. This chapter discusses some of the approaches to demonstrate the importance of model-based VV&T in safety critical embedded real-time system development. An industrial case study is used to demonstrate the implementation feasibility of the VV&T methods.

Optimized reconfigurable autopilot design for an aerospace CPS

A modular flight control strategy is presented here to demonstrate the improved command tracking performance with fault tolerance and reconfiguration capabilities. The modular control design process consists of inner and outer loop design concept, where outer baseline controller feedback loop ensures the stability and robustness and inner reconfigurable design is responsible for the fault-tolerance against actuator faults/failures. This guarantees augmented autonomy and intelligence on board aircraft for real time decision and fault tolerant control. Requirements for aerospace cyber physical systems (ACPS) and software are far more stringent than those found in industrial automation systems. The results shows that fault tolerant aspect is mandatory for ACPS, that must support real time behavior and also requires ultra-high reliability as many systems or/sub-systems are safety critical and require certification.

Can Signature Biometrics Address Both Identification and Verification Problems

Handwritten signatures are one of the most socially acceptable and traditionally used person identification and authentication metric. Although a number of authentication systems based on handwritten signatures have been proposed, a little attention is paid towards employing signatures for person identification. In this work, we address both the identification and verification problems related to analysis of dynamic handwritten signatures. In this way, the need to present username before biometric verification can be eliminated in current signature based biometric authentication systems. A compressed sensing approach is used for user identification and to reject a query signature that does not belong to any user in the database. Once a person is identified, an automatic alignment of query signature with the reference template is carried out such that the correlations between two signature instances are maximized. An elastic distance matching algorithm is then run over the presented data which declares the query signature as either genuine or forged based on the dissimilarity with the reference signature. Our results show that dynamic signatures can be accurately used for person identification along with the traditional verification methods.