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1 – 10 of over 2000
Article
Publication date: 8 March 2010

Bo Chen, Jifeng Wang and Shanben Chen

Welding sensor technology is the key technology in welding process, but a single sensor cannot acquire adequate information to describe welding status. This paper addresses arc…

Abstract

Purpose

Welding sensor technology is the key technology in welding process, but a single sensor cannot acquire adequate information to describe welding status. This paper addresses arc sensor and sound sensor to acquire the voltage and sound information of pulsed gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) simultaneously, and uses multi‐sensor information fusion technology to fuse the information acquired by the two sensors. The purpose of this paper is to explore the feasibility and effectiveness of multi‐sensor information fusion in pulsed GTAW.

Design/methodology/approach

The weld voltage and weld sound information are first acquired by arc sensor and sound sensor, then the features of the two signals are extracted, and the features are fused by weighted mean method to predict the changes of arc length. The weights of each feature are determined by optional distribution method.

Findings

The research findings show that multi‐sensor information fusion technology can effectively utilize the information of different sensors and get better result than single sensor.

Originality/value

The arc sensor and sound sensor are first used at the same time to get information about pulsed GTAW and the fusion result shows its advantages over single sensor; this reveals that multi‐sensor fusion technology is a valuable research area in welding process.

Details

Industrial Robot: An International Journal, vol. 37 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0143-991X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 26 June 2009

Bo Chen, Jifeng Wang and Shanben Chen

Welding process is a complicated process influenced by many interference factors, a single sensor cannot get information describing welding process roundly. This paper…

Abstract

Purpose

Welding process is a complicated process influenced by many interference factors, a single sensor cannot get information describing welding process roundly. This paper simultaneously uses different sensors to get different information about the welding process, and uses multi‐sensor information fusion technology to fuse the different information. By using multi‐sensors, this paper aims to describe the welding process more precisely.

Design/methodology/approach

Electronic and welding pool image information are, respectively, obtained by arc sensor and image sensor, then electronic signal processing and image processing algorithms are used to extract the features of the signals, the features are then fused by neural network to predict the backside width of weld pool.

Findings

Comparative experiments show that the multi‐sensor fusion technology can predict the weld pool backside width more precisely.

Originality/value

The multi‐sensor fusion technology is used to fuse the different information obtained by different sensors in a gas tungsten arc welding process. This method gives a new approach to obtaining information and describing the welding process.

Details

Sensor Review, vol. 29 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0260-2288

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 June 2013

Rong Wang, Jianye Liu, Zhi Xiong and Qinghua Zeng

The Embedded GPS/INS System (EGI) has been used more widely as central navigation equipment of aircraft. For certain cases needing high attitude accuracy, star sensor can be…

Abstract

Purpose

The Embedded GPS/INS System (EGI) has been used more widely as central navigation equipment of aircraft. For certain cases needing high attitude accuracy, star sensor can be integrated with EGI to improve attitude performance. Since the filtering‐correction loop has already built in finished EGI product, centralized or federated Kalman filter is not applicable for integrating EGI with star sensor; it is a challenge to design multi‐sensor information fusion algorithm suitable for this situation. The purpose of this paper is to present a double‐layer fusion scheme and algorithms to meet the practical need of constructing integrated multi‐sensor navigation system by star sensor assisting finished EGI unit.

Design/methodology/approach

The alternate fusion algorithms for asynchronous measurements and the sequential fusion algorithms for synchronous measurements are presented. By combining alternate filtering and sequential filtering algorithms, a kind of double‐layer fusion algorithms for multi‐sensors is proposed and validated by semi‐physical test in this paper.

Findings

The double‐layer fusion algorithms represent a filtering strategy for multiple non‐identical parallel sensors to assist INS, while the independent estimation‐correction loop in EGI is still maintained. It has significant benefits in updating original navigation system by integrating new sensors.

Practical implications

The approach described in this paper can be used in designing similar multi‐sensor information fusion navigation system composed by EGI and various kinds of sensors, so as to improve the navigation performance.

Originality/value

Compared with conventional approach, in the situation that centralized and federated Kalman filter are not applicable, the double‐layer fusion scheme and algorithms give an external filtering strategy for measurements of finished EGI unit and star sensors.

Details

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, vol. 85 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0002-2667

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 August 2010

Bo Chen and Shanben Chen

The status of welding process is difficult to monitor because of the intense disturbance during the process. The purpose of this paper is to use multiple sensors to obtain…

Abstract

Purpose

The status of welding process is difficult to monitor because of the intense disturbance during the process. The purpose of this paper is to use multiple sensors to obtain information about the process from different aspects and use multi‐sensor information fusion technology to fuse the information, to obtain more precise information about the process than using a single sensor alone.

Design/methodology/approach

Arc sensor, visual sensor, and sound sensor were used simultaneously to obtain weld current, weld voltage, weld pool's image, and weld sound about the pulsed gas tungsten‐arc welding (GTAW) process. Then special algorithms were used to extract the signal features of different information. Fuzzy measure and fuzzy integral method were used to fuse the extracted signal features to predict the penetration status about the welding process.

Findings

Experiment results show that fuzzy measure and fuzzy integral method can effectively utilize the information obtained by different sensors and obtain better prediction results than a single sensor.

Originality/value

Arc sensor, visual sensor, and sound sensor are used in pulsed GTAW at the same time to obtain information, and fuzzy measure and fuzzy integral method are used to fuse the different features in welding process for the first time; experiment results show that multi‐sensor information can obtain better results than single sensor, this provides a new method for monitoring welding status and to control the welding process more precisely.

Details

Assembly Automation, vol. 30 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-5154

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 16 January 2019

Kefan Xie, Zimei Liu, Liuliu Fu and Benbu Liang

The purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical framework of applying the Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to the intelligent evacuation protocol in libraries at…

3068

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical framework of applying the Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to the intelligent evacuation protocol in libraries at emergency situations.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted field investigations on eight libraries in Wuhan, China, analyzed the characteristics of crowd gathering in libraries and the problems of the libraries’ existing evacuation plans. Therefore, an IoT-based intelligent evacuation protocol in libraries was proposed. Its basic structure consisted of five components: the information base, the protocol base, the IoT sensors, the information fusion system and the intelligent evacuation protocol generation system. In the information fusion system, Dempster–Shafer (D-S) evidence theory was employed as the information fusion algorithm to fuse the multi-sensor information at multiple time points, so as to reduce the uncertainty of disaster prediction. The authors also conducted a case study on the Library L in Wuhan, China. A specific evacuation route was generated for a fire and the crowd evacuation was simulated by the software Patherfind.

Findings

The proposed IoT-based evacuation protocol has four distinguishing features: scenario corresponding, precise evacuation, dynamic correction and intelligent decision-making. The case study shows that the proposed protocol is feasible in practice, indicating that the IoT technologies have great potential to be successfully applied to the safety management in libraries.

Research limitations/implications

The software and hardware requirements as well as the Internet network requirements of IoT technologies need to be further discussed.

Practical implications

The proposed IoT-based intelligent evacuation protocol can be widely used in libraries, which is one of the inspirations for the use of IoT technologies in modern constructers.

Originality/value

The application of IoT technologies in libraries is a brand-new topic that has drawn much attention in academia recently. The crowd safety management in libraries is of great significance, and there is little professional literature on it. This paper proposes an IoT-based intelligent evacuation protocol, aiming at improving the safety management in libraries at emergency situations.

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 12 August 2022

Bolin Gao, Kaiyuan Zheng, Fan Zhang, Ruiqi Su, Junying Zhang and Yimin Wu

Intelligent and connected vehicle technology is in the ascendant. High-level autonomous driving places more stringent requirements on the accuracy and reliability of environmental…

Abstract

Purpose

Intelligent and connected vehicle technology is in the ascendant. High-level autonomous driving places more stringent requirements on the accuracy and reliability of environmental perception. Existing research works on multitarget tracking based on multisensor fusion mostly focuses on the vehicle perspective, but limited by the principal defects of the vehicle sensor platform, it is difficult to comprehensively and accurately describe the surrounding environment information.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, a multitarget tracking method based on roadside multisensor fusion is proposed, including a multisensor fusion method based on measurement noise adaptive Kalman filtering, a global nearest neighbor data association method based on adaptive tracking gate, and a Track life cycle management method based on M/N logic rules.

Findings

Compared with fixed-size tracking gates, the adaptive tracking gates proposed in this paper can comprehensively improve the data association performance in the multitarget tracking process. Compared with single sensor measurement, the proposed method improves the position estimation accuracy by 13.5% and the velocity estimation accuracy by 22.2%. Compared with the control method, the proposed method improves the position estimation accuracy by 23.8% and the velocity estimation accuracy by 8.9%.

Originality/value

A multisensor fusion method with adaptive Kalman filtering of measurement noise is proposed to realize the adaptive adjustment of measurement noise. A global nearest neighbor data association method based on adaptive tracking gate is proposed to realize the adaptive adjustment of the tracking gate.

Details

Smart and Resilient Transportation, vol. 4 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2632-0487

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 March 2017

Pei-Ju Lee, Peng-Sheng You, Yu-Chih Huang and Yi-Chih Hsieh

The historical data usually consist of overlapping reports, and these reports may contain inconsistent data, which may return incorrect results of a query search. Moreover, users…

Abstract

Purpose

The historical data usually consist of overlapping reports, and these reports may contain inconsistent data, which may return incorrect results of a query search. Moreover, users who issue the query may not learn of this inconsistency even after a data cleaning process (e.g. schema matching or data screening). The inconsistency can exist in different types of data, such as temporal or spatial data. Therefore, this paper aims to introduce an information fusion method that can detect data inconsistency in the early stages of data fusion.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper introduces an information fusion method for multi-robot operations, for which fusion is conducted continuously. When the environment is explored by multiple robots, the robot logs can provide more information about the number and coordination of targets or victims. The information fusion method proposed in this paper generates an underdetermined linear system of overlapping spatial reports and estimates the case values. Then, the least squares method is used for the underdetermined linear system. By using these two methods, the conflicts between reports can be detected and the values of the intervals at specific times or locations can be estimated.

Findings

The proposed information fusion method was tested for inconsistency detection and target projection of spatial fusion in sensor networks. The proposed approach examined the values of sensor data from simulation that robots perform search tasks. This system can be expanded to data warehouses with heterogeneous data sources to achieve completeness, robustness and conciseness.

Originality/value

Little research has been devoted to the linear systems for information fusion of tasks of mobile robots. The proposed information fusion method minimizes the cost of time and comparison for data fusion and also minimizes the probability of errors from incorrect results.

Details

Engineering Computations, vol. 34 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-4401

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 June 2013

Wen‐Tsai Sung and Chia‐Cheng Hsu

This study aims to analyze the inertial weight factor value in the (PSO) algorithm and propose non‐linear weights with decreasing strategy to implement the improved PSO (IPSO…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to analyze the inertial weight factor value in the (PSO) algorithm and propose non‐linear weights with decreasing strategy to implement the improved PSO (IPSO) algorithm. Using various types of sensors, combined with ZigBee wireless sensor networks and the TCP/IP network. The GPRS/SMS long‐range wireless network will sense the measured data analysis and evaluation to create more effective monitoring and observation in a regional environment to achieve an Internet of Things with automated information exchange between persons and things.

Design/methodology/approach

This study proposes a wireless sensor network system using ZigBee (PSoC‐1605A) chip, sensor and circuit boards to constitute the IOT system. The IOT system consists of a main coordinator (PSoC‐1605A), smart grid monitoring system, robotic arm detection warning system and temperature and humidity sensor network. The hardware components communicate with each other through wireless transmission. Each node collects data and sends messages to other objects in the network.

Findings

This study employed IPSO to perform information fusion in a multi‐sensor network. The paper shows that IPSO improved the measurement preciseness via weight factors estimated via experimental simulations. The experimental results show that the IPSO algorithm optimally integrates the weight factors, information source fusion reliability, information redundancy and hierarchical structure integration in uncertain fusion cases. The sensor data approximates the optimal way to extract useful information from each fusion data and successfully eliminates noise interference, producing excellent fusion results.

Practical implications

Robotic arm to tilt detection warning system: Several geographic areas are susceptible to severe tectonic plate movement, often generating earthquakes. Earthquakes cause great harm to public infrastructure, and a great threat to high‐tech, high‐precision machinery and production lines. To minimize the extent of earthquake disasters and allow managers to deal with power failures, vibration monitoring system construction can enhance manufacturing process quality and stability. Smart grid monitoring system: The greenhouse effect, global energy shortage and rising cost of traditional energy are related energy efficiency topics that have attracted much attention. The aim of this paper is that real‐time data rendering and analysis can be more effective in understanding electrical energy usage, resulting in a reduction in unnecessary consumption and waste. Temperature and humidity sensor network system: Environmental temperature and humidity monitoring and application of a wide range of precision industrial production lines, laboratories, antique works of art that have a higher standard of environmental temperature and humidity requirements. The environment has a considerable influence on biological lifeforms. The relative importance of environmental management and monitoring is acute.

Originality/value

This paper improves the fixed inertial weight of the original particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. An illustration in the paper indicates that IPSO applies the Internet of Things (IOT) system in monitoring a system via adjusted weight factors better than other existing PSO methods in computing a precise convergence rate for excellent fusion results.

Details

Sensor Review, vol. 33 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0260-2288

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 September 2022

Yinghan Wang, Diansheng Chen and Zhe Liu

Multi-sensor fusion in robotic dexterous hands is a hot research field. However, there is little research on multi-sensor fusion rules. This study aims to introduce a multi-sensor

Abstract

Purpose

Multi-sensor fusion in robotic dexterous hands is a hot research field. However, there is little research on multi-sensor fusion rules. This study aims to introduce a multi-sensor fusion algorithm using a motor force sensor, film pressure sensor, temperature sensor and angle sensor, which can form a consistent interpretation of grasp stability by sensor fusion without multi-dimensional force/torque sensors.

Design/methodology/approach

This algorithm is based on the three-finger force balance theorem, which provides a judgment method for the unknown force direction. Moreover, the Monte Carlo method calculates the grasping ability and judges the grasping stability under a certain confidence interval using probability and statistics. Based on three fingers, the situation of four- and five-fingered dexterous hand has been expanded. Moreover, an experimental platform was built using dexterous hands, and a grasping experiment was conducted to confirm the proposed algorithm. The grasping experiment uses three fingers and five fingers to grasp different objects, use the introduced method to judge the grasping stability and calculate the accuracy of the judgment according to the actual grasping situation.

Findings

The multi-sensor fusion algorithms are universal and can perform multi-sensor fusion for multi-finger rigid, flexible and rigid-soft coupled dexterous hands. The three-finger balance theorem and Monte Carlo method can better replace the discrimination method using multi-dimensional force/torque sensors.

Originality/value

A new multi-sensor fusion algorithm is proposed and verified. According to the experiments, the accuracy of grasping judgment is more than 85%, which proves that the method is feasible.

Details

Industrial Robot: the international journal of robotics research and application, vol. 50 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0143-991X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 May 2011

Shuping Wan

Multi‐sensor data fusion (MSDF) is defined as the process of integrating information from multiple sources to produce the most specific and comprehensive unified data about an…

317

Abstract

Purpose

Multi‐sensor data fusion (MSDF) is defined as the process of integrating information from multiple sources to produce the most specific and comprehensive unified data about an entity, activity or event. Multi‐sensor object recognition is one of the important technologies of MSDF. It has been widely applied in the fields of navigation, aviation, artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, fuzzy control, robot, and so on. Hence, aimed at the type recognition problem in which the characteristic values of object types and observations of sensors are in the form of triangular fuzzy numbers, the purpose of this paper is to propose a new fusion method from the viewpoint of decision‐making theory.

Design/methodology/approach

This work, first divides the comprehensive transaction process of sensor signal into two phases. Then, aimed at the type recognition problem, the paper gives the definition of similarity degree between two triangular fuzzy numbers. By solving the maximization optimization model, the vector of characteristic weights is objectively derived. A new fusion method is proposed according to the overall similarity degree.

Findings

The results of the experiments show that solving the maximization optimization model improves significantly the objectivity and accuracy of object recognition.

Originality/value

The paper studies the type recognition problem in which the characteristic values of object types and observations of sensors are in the form of triangular fuzzy numbers. By solving the maximization optimization model, the vector of characteristic weights is derived. A new fusion method is proposed. This method improves the objectivity and accuracy of object recognition.

Details

Kybernetes, vol. 40 no. 3/4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0368-492X

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 2000