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Contemporary literature reveals that, to date, the poultry livestock sector has not received sufficient research attention. This particular industry suffers from unstructured supply chain practices, lack of awareness of the implications of the sustainability concept and failure to recycle poultry wastes. The current research thus attempts to develop an integrated supply chain model in the context of poultry industry in Bangladesh. The study considers both sustainability and supply chain issues in order to incorporate them in the poultry supply chain. By placing the forward and reverse supply chains in a single framework, existing problems can be resolved to gain economic, social and environmental benefits, which will be more sustainable than the present practices.

The theoretical underpinning of this research is ‘sustainability’ and the ‘supply chain processes’ in order to examine possible improvements in the poultry production process along with waste management. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and ‘design science’ methods with the support of system dynamics (SD) and the case study methods. Initially, a mental model is developed followed by the causal loop diagram based on in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observation techniques. The causal model helps to understand the linkages between the associated variables for each issue. Finally, the causal loop diagram is transformed into a stock and flow (quantitative) model, which is a prerequisite for SD-based simulation modelling. A decision support system (DSS) is then developed to analyse the complex decision-making process along the supply chains.

The findings reveal that integration of the supply chain can bring economic, social and environmental sustainability along with a structured production process. It is also observed that the poultry industry can apply the model outcomes in the real-life practices with minor adjustments. This present research has both theoretical and practical implications. The proposed model’s unique characteristics in mitigating the existing problems are supported by the sustainability and supply chain theories. As for practical implications, the poultry industry in Bangladesh can follow the proposed supply chain structure (as par the research model) and test various policies via simulation prior to its application. Positive outcomes of the simulation study may provide enough confidence to implement the desired changes within the industry and their supply chain networks.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and systemize the 3D finite element (FE) description of electromagnetic field in electrical machines.

3D FE models of electrical machines are considered. The model consists of FE equations for the magnetic field, equations describing eddy currents and equations, which describe the currents in the machine windings. The FE equations are further coupled by the electromagnetic torque to the differential equation of motion. In the presented field‐circuit model, the flux linkages with the windings are expressed by two components. Attention is paid to the description of machine winding. Both scalar and vector potential formulations are analysed. The FE equations are derived by using the notation of circuit theory. The methods of movement simulation and torque calculation in FE models are discussed.

Proposed circuit description of electromagnetic field in electrical machines conforms to the applied method of electric and magnetic circuit analysis. The advantage of the presented description is that the equations of field model can be easy associated with the other equations of the electric drive system.

The applied analogies between the FE formulation and the equivalent magnetic and electric network models help formulate efficient field models of electrical machines. The developed models after coupling to the models of supply and control system can be successfully used in the analysis and design electric drives.

This paper aims to present a cascaded pseudo derivative feedback (PDF) plus pseudo derivative feedback plus pseudo derivative feedforward (PDFF) controller for a permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) to improve the transient response of the system.

Proportional integral (PI) plus PI controller and the proposed PDF plus PDFF controller are designed, stability analysis is performed using the extended root locus method, and the effect of the damping coefficient is also extensively studied to validate the robustness of the proposed controller.

When compared to a cascaded PI plus PI controller, the proposed control approach has a much shorter settling time for the entire system and a 50% reduction in overshoot in stator current under extensive variations in speed with load disturbance.

The proposed controller is programmed into an FPGA Altera Cyclone II and applied to a 1.5 kW laboratory prototype PMSM drive. The effectiveness of the proposed methods has been demonstrated experimentally throughout a wide variable speed range, from 0 to 157 rad/s at different load conditions.

An exact mathematical solution has been obtained for the quasistationary electromagnetic field of a circular current loop coaxial with a conducting circular cylinder in uniform relative motion with respect to each other. The vector magnetic potential corresponding to a filamentary loop carrying a variable with time current is determined by applying the method of separation of variables. Expressions for the fields outside and inside the cylindrical conductor, the eddy‐current distribution, the power loss and the interaction force are derived directly from the vector potential. The fields due to practical current coils are obtained by integration from the results for the filamentary loop. An approximate simple formula is presented for a loop carrying direct current at high velocities. The analysis performed is relevant to the design and operation of magnetic devices with metallic cores in motion, linear electrical machines and electromagnetic launching systems.

This paper presents a unique method to recognize circular holes from 3D models in the STL format. The topological information generated by this method enables identification of holes and tool path generation for holes which should be drilled rather than milled.

A method based on a set of developed algorithms is used to identify closed loops from a STL model, identify which closed loops correspond to cylindrical holes, find hole orientations, locations and diameters, and calculate the depth for the recognized holes. The developed procedure and algorithms have been implemented in Visual C++ to illustrate the efficacy of the method.

The implementation results showed that the developed algorithms can successfully recognize circular holes of differing sizes on both simple and complex surfaces, and in any orientation. Tool paths can thus be generated from STL models to more efficiently and accurately machine circular holes.

The developed method requires that at least one simple closed loop exist for each potential hole.

A new and unique hole recognition method for use with STL models was developed. This method is useful for accurately and efficiently machining parts with circular holes from STL models as well as finish machining near‐net shape parts with circular holes created using rapid prototyping.

The aim of this paper is to implement direct teaching of industrial manipulators using current sensors. The traditional way to implement teaching is either to use a teaching pedant, which is time consuming, or use force sensors, which increases system cost. To overcome these disadvantages, a novel method is explored in the paper by using current sensors installed at joints as torque observers.

The method uses current sensors installed at each joint of a manipulator as torque observers and estimates external forces from differences between joint-driven torque computed based on the values of current sensors and commanded values of motor-driven torque. The joint-driven torque is computed by cancelling out both pre-calibrated gravity and friction resistance (compensation). Also, to make the method robust, the paper presents a strategy to detect unexpected slowly drifts and zero external forces and stop the robot in those situations.

Experimental results demonstrated that compensating the joint torques using both pre-calibrated gravity and friction resistance has performance comparable to a force sensor installed on the end effector of a manipulator. It is possible to implement satisfying direct teaching without using force sensors on 7 degree of freedom manipulators with large mass and friction resistance.

The main contribution of the paper is that the authors cancel out both pre-calibrated gravity and friction resistance to improve the direct teaching using only current sensors; they develop methods to avoid unsafe situations like slow drifts. The method will benefit industrial manipulators, especially those with large mass and friction resistance, to realize flexible and reliable direct teaching.

The purpose of this paper is to present an approach to design passive loop systems in order to reach good performances.

The optimization has been performed by means of the MATLAB optimization toolbox “Gatool” which solves the optimization problems with a genetic algorithm.

Several configurations have been analyzed by varying the number of loops from 2 to 15, whose geometry has been chosen by the genetic algorithm. Considering a five loops configuration, along the reference path it is possible to obtain a shielding factor almost constant and equal to 3.5.

The optimized configurations have been compared with a practical employed layout composed of 17 closed loops placed above and around the junction zone. The shielding factors obtained by the six loops configuration are comparable with the ones of the practical layout.

This paper intent to design, develop, and fabricate a robust cascaded controller based on the dual loop concept i.e. Fuzzy Sliding Mode concept in the inner loop and traditional Proportional Integral controller in the outer loop to reduce the unknown dynamics and disturbances that occur in the DC-DC Converter.

The proposed Fuzzy sliding mode approach combines the merits of both SMC and Fuzzy logic control. FSMC approach reduces the chattering phenomena that commonly occurs in the sliding mode control and speed up the response of the controller.

In most of the research work, the inner current loop of cascaded controller was designed by sliding mode control. In this paper FSMC is proposed and its efficacy is confirmed with SMC -PI. In most uncertainties, FSMC-PI produces null maximum peak overshoot and a very less settling time of 0.0005 sec.

The presence of Fuzzy SMC in the inner loop ensure satisfactory response against all uncertainties such as steady state, circuit parameter variations and sudden line and load disturbances.

In the event of a DC short-circuit fault in a flexible DC power grid, the high peak value of the fault current puts forward more stringent requirements on the DC circuit breaker. The existing fault current cutoff mainly focuses on changing the topology structure. To suppress the development of fault current and reduce the investment cost of the DC grid, this paper aims to propose a dual-loop active current-limiting control based on energy difference.

Firstly, the equivalent circuit at fault is established, and the parameters related to the fault current are analyzed. Then, the relationship between the output voltage change of the bridge arm and the difference between the AC and DC energy is deduced. Finally, the experimental results are discussed on the real-time simulation platform Opal-RT.

The proposed current-limiting measures can greatly reduce the fault current, reduce the breaking current of the circuit breaker and increase the capacitor voltage during the fault period, which is beneficial to the stability of the AC system. It is verified that the proposed method is also applicable to a certain high-resistance fault.

This paper applies the method of AC fault to DC fault and deduces the relationship between energy difference and voltage variation corresponding to different step lengths based on digital simulation. In addition, two variables are used as control structure parameters to reduce the probability of system misoperation.

Five-level rectifiers have received widespread attention because of their excellent performance in high-voltage and high-power applications. Taking a five-level rectifier with only four-IGBT for this study, a sliding mode predictive control (SMPC) algorithm is proposed to solve the problem of poor dynamic performance and poor anti-disturbance ability under the traditional model predictive control with the PI outer loop.

First, mathematical models under the two-phase stationary coordinate system and two-phase synchronous rotating coordinate system are established. Then, the design of the outer-loop sliding mode controller is completed by establishing the sliding mode surface and design approach rate. The design of the inner-loop model predictive controller was completed by discretizing the mathematical model equations. The modulation part uses a space vector modulation technique to generate the PWM wave.

The sliding mode predictive control strategy is compared with the control strategy with a PI outer loop and a model predictive inner loop. The proposed control strategy has a faster dynamic response and stronger anti-interference ability.

For the five-level rectifier, the advantages of fast dynamic influence and parameter insensitivity of sliding mode control are used in the voltage outer loop to replace the traditional PI control, and which is integrated with the model predictive control used in the current inner loop to form a novel control strategy with a faster dynamic response and stronger immunity to disturbances. This novel strategy is called sliding mode predictive control (SMC).