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# IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering

### Early Access Articles

Early Access articles are made available in advance of the final electronic or print versions. Early Access articles are peer reviewed but may not be fully edited. They are fully citable from the moment they appear in IEEE Xplore.

## Filter Results

Displaying Results 1 - 25 of 91
• ### A Wavelet-Based Statistical Approach for Monitoring and Diagnosis of Compound Faults With Application to Rolling Bearings

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 10
| | PDF (3127 KB)

This paper proposes a wavelet-based statistical signal detection approach for monitoring and diagnosis of bearing compound faults at an early stage. The bearing vibration signal is decomposed by an orthonormal discrete wavelet transform to obtain its energy dispersions at multiple levels. We investigate the statistical properties of the decomposed signal energy under both the normal and faulty con... View full abstract»

• ### Automated Transportation of Biological Cells for Multiple Processing Steps in Cell Surgery

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 10
| | PDF (2152 KB) |  Media

Most studies on automated cell transportation are single-task oriented. Results from these investigations hardly meet the increasing demand for emerging cell surgery operations that usually require a series of manipulation tasks with multiple processing steps. In this paper, automated cell transportation to accomplish a multistep process in cell surgery was investigated. A novel control system tha... View full abstract»

• ### Automatic and Robust Estimation of Heart Rate in Zebrafish Larvae

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 12
| | PDF (2743 KB)

Noncontact assessment of heart rate (HR) in Zebrafish larvae, based on a video record of the organism, acquired using a camera mounted on a microscope, has gained enormous significance. Completely automatic and robust estimation of HR from videos of nontransgenic larvae requires the determination of an appropriate region of interest (ROI), followed by suitable signal processing steps. Toward such ... View full abstract»

• ### Automated Partitioning of Concurrent Discrete-Event Systems for Distributed Behavioral Identification

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 10
| | PDF (1938 KB)

The aim of behavioral identification of discrete-event systems is to build, from a sequence of observed inputs/outputs events, an understandable model that exhibits both the direct relations between inputs and outputs events (i.e., the observable behavior of the system) and the internal state evolutions (i.e., the unobservable behavior). Since parallelism hinders the construction of monolithic mod... View full abstract»

• ### Probabilistic Automata Model of a Soft Robot for the Planning of Manipulation Tasks

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 9
| | PDF (1911 KB)

Soft robots must be able to structure an automation problem into a sequence of actions that lead to a desired state, before they can fulfill a meaningful role in automation applications. This, however, can only be successful if the robot can predict the outcome of an action. The theory of rigid industrial robots is not applicable without major changes, because kinematic chains do not adequately de... View full abstract»

• ### Multiscale Neighborhood Normalization-Based Multiple Dynamic PCA Monitoring Method for Batch Processes With Frequent Operations

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 12
| | PDF (3248 KB) |  Media

This paper presents a novel multiscale neighborhood normalization-based multiple dynamic principal component analysis (MNN-MDPCA) method to detect the fault in complex batch processes with frequent operations. Since the difference between batches is larger under random frequent operations according to phase, the corresponding monitoring model should be changed accordingly. However, the data quanti... View full abstract»

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 15
| | PDF (1940 KB)

In this paper, we investigate a problem associated with transferring a set of containers from the storage to the loading area of a warehouse using autonomous robots. In addition to assigning robots to containers, the special topology considered in this paper requires coordinated planning of the robots' movement to avoid conflicts. We formulate the joint problem of robot assignment and movement coo... View full abstract»

• ### Overapproximative Human Arm Occupancy Prediction for Collision Avoidance

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 14
| | PDF (2471 KB)

Predicting the occupancy of a human in real time is of great interest in human-robot coexistence for obtaining regions that a robot should avoid in safe motion planning. The human body is composed of joints and links, suiting approximation by a kinematic chain, but the control strategy of the human is completely unknown, meaning the potential occupancy grows very fast and it is difficult to comput... View full abstract»

• ### Dynamic Positioning of Vessels Using a UKF-Based Observer and an NMPC-Based Controller

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 8
| | PDF (3209 KB)

This paper presents a solution to the problem of dynamic positioning (DP) of vessels in ice-infested environments using a nonlinear observer and a finite-horizon optimal control-based approach. An unscented Kalman filter-based nonlinear observer is developed to estimate both the vessel states and the unknown inputs, such as the ice load. To perform better control and disturbance rejection, a nonli... View full abstract»

• ### Analytical Approach to Estimate Efficiency of Series Machines in Production Lines

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 14
| | PDF (853 KB)

Series machines, i.e., machines (which are usually unreliable) arranged in series with no buffering, are pervasive in production systems. In the analysis, design, and optimization of the series-machine system, the efficiency analysis is one of the most fundamental issues. There are not a lot of researches analyzing the efficiency of the series-machine system, and almost all of them assume that the... View full abstract»

• ### An Uncalibrated Visual Servo Method Based on Projective Homography

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 12
| | PDF (3170 KB)

An uncalibrated visual servo method based on projective homography, denoted as Projective Homography based Uncalibrated Visual Servoing (PHUVS), is proposed in this paper, in which a novel task function based on the element of projective homography is devised to realize visual servo without a prior knowledge of the camera intrinsic parameters and hand-eye relationships. The main advantage of this ... View full abstract»

• ### Concise Planning and Filtering: Hardness and Algorithms

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 16
| | PDF (1725 KB)

Motivated by circumstances with severe computational resource limits (e.g., settings with strong constraints on memory or communication), this paper addresses the problem of concisely representing and processing information for estimation and planning tasks. In this paper, conciseness is a measure of explicit representational complexity: for filtering, we are concerned with maintaining as little s... View full abstract»

• ### Modeling and Offset-Free Model Predictive Control of a Hydraulic Mini Excavator

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 13
| | PDF (3976 KB)

During the virtual development and experimental testing of advanced construction machinery, automation approaches for automated task execution can prove very valuable. In this paper, modeling and automation approaches for a hydraulic mini excavator are developed. In particular, a physical model for detailed system analysis and a simplified Hammerstein model for controller tuning are developed and ... View full abstract»

• ### VCG Auction-Based Dynamic Pricing for Multigranularity Service Composition

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 10
| | PDF (1514 KB)

When a single service on its own cannot fulfill a sophisticated application, a composition of services is required. Existing methods mostly use a fixed-price scheme for service pricing and determine service allocation for composition based on a first-price auction. However, in a dynamic service market, it is difficult for service providers to determine a fixed price that is profitable while attrac... View full abstract»

• ### Fast Linear Quaternion Attitude Estimator Using Vector Observations

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 13
| | PDF (7492 KB)

As a key problem for multisensor attitude determination, Wahba's problem has been studied for almost 50 years. Different from existing methods, this paper presents a novel linear approach to solve this problem. We name the proposed method the fast linear attitude estimator (FLAE) because it is faster than known representative algorithms. The original Wahba's problem is extracted to several 1-D equ... View full abstract»

• ### Stochastic Approach for Feature-Based Tip Localization and Planning in Nanomanipulations

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 12
| | PDF (3603 KB)

In atomic force microscopy (AFM)-based nanomanipulation, the tip position uncertainties still exist due to the parameter inaccuracies in the open-loop compensation of the piezo scanner, the noise in the closed-loop control and thermal drift. These spatial uncertainties are very challenging to be directly estimated owing to the lack of real-time feedback, and its effects are more significant in per... View full abstract»

• ### Integration of Learning-Based Testing and Supervisory Control for Requirements Conformance of Black-Box Reactive Systems

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 14
| | PDF (2530 KB)

A fundamental requirement of the supervisory control theory (SCT) of discrete-event systems is a finite automaton model of the plant. The requirement does not hold for black-box systems whose source code and logical model are not accessible. To apply SCT to black-box systems, we integrate automaton learning technology with SCT and apply the new method to improve the requirements conformance of sof... View full abstract»

• ### Discovering Petri Net Models of Discrete-Event Processes by Computing T-Invariants

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 12
| | PDF (1752 KB) |  Media

This paper addresses the problem of discovering a Petri Net (PN) from a long event sequence representing the behavior of discrete-event processes. A method for building a 1-bounded PN able to execute the events sequence $S$ is presented; it is based on determining causality and concurrence relations between events and computing the t-invariants. This novel method determines the structure and the i... View full abstract»

• ### Job Scheduling at Cascading Machines

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 9
| | PDF (1060 KB)

We consider the serial batching scheduling problem in which a group of machines can process multiple jobs continuously to reduce the processing times of the second and subsequent jobs. The maximum batch size is finite. Since all jobs in the same batch are loaded and unloaded simultaneously, a completed job has to wait for the others. We examine how to schedule all jobs to minimize the total comple... View full abstract»

• ### Simulation Optimization for Medical Staff Configuration at Emergency Department in Hong Kong

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 11
| | PDF (3421 KB)

Medical staff configuration is a critical problem in the management of an emergency department (ED) in Hong Kong (HK). Given the service requirements by HK government, it is imperative for the hospital managers to develop medical staff configuration in a cost-and-time-effective way. In this paper, the medical staff configuration problem in ED is modeled as minimizing the total labor cost while sat... View full abstract»

• ### Dynamic Cloud Task Scheduling Based on a Two-Stage Strategy

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 12
| | PDF (2126 KB)

To maximize task scheduling performance and minimize nonreasonable task allocation in clouds, this paper proposes a method based on a two-stage strategy. At the first stage, a job classifier motivated by a Bayes classifier's design principle is utilized to classify tasks based on historical scheduling data. A certain number of virtual machines (VMs) of different types are accordingly created. This... View full abstract»

• ### Process Mining to Discover Shoppers' Pathways at a Fashion Retail Store Using a WiFi-Base Indoor Positioning System

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 7
| | PDF (1615 KB)

We present a preliminary report of a customer pathway analysis in an off-line store. Smart phone WiFi-based positioning technology is used to identify each customer's pathway behavior. The log data containing the space-time information are analyzed using process mining, a tool that provides a comprehensive view of an entire process. The main benefit of process mining is that it provides the topolo... View full abstract»

• ### Automatic Fabric Defect Detection Using Learning-Based Local Textural Distributions in the Contourlet Domain

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 13
| | PDF (15655 KB)

We propose a learning-based approach for automatic detection of fabric defects. Our approach is based on a statistical representation of fabric patterns using the redundant contourlet transform (RCT). The distribution of the RCT coefficients are modeled using a finite mixture of generalized Gaussians (MoGG), which constitute statistical signatures distinguishing between defective and defect-free f... View full abstract»

• ### Quality of Traffic Observability on Highways With Lagrangian Sensors

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 11
| | PDF (2219 KB)

Observability is essential to estimate the states of a system from sensor measurements. Observability indicates the sufficiency of the sensors for state estimation. In a highway traffic setting, using global positioning system-enabled smartphones as sensors sets this observability problem in the Lagrangian dynamics framework, in which the moving vehicle that follows the microscopic dynamics of the... View full abstract»

• ### Disassembly Sequence Planning Considering Fuzzy Component Quality and Varying Operational Cost

Publication Year: 2017, Page(s):1 - 13
| | PDF (1907 KB)

Disassembly planning aims to search the best disassembly sequences of a given obsolete/used product in terms of economic and environmental performances. A practical disassembly process may face great uncertainty owing to various unpredictable factors. To handle it, researchers have addressed the stochastic cost and time problems of product disassembly. In reality, the uncertain environment of prod... View full abstract»

## Aims & Scope

T-ASE will publish foundational research on Automation: scientific methods and technologies that improve efficiency, productivity, quality, and reliability, specifically for methods, machines, and systems operating in structured environments over long periods, and the explicit structuring of environments.

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## Meet Our Editors

Editor-in-Chief
Michael Y. Wang
HKUST Robotics Institute
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology