Vast quantities of plastic waste packaging materials such as bottles, food container etc are currently sent to land-fill. This 14-month project sponsored by the Onyx Environmental Trust investigates the use of electrostatic tehniques to identify the different plastic types which are then segregated from each other and recycled.
A pilot-scale conveyor line is under construction in the EPE Group laboratories which handles mixed waste and ejects the different plastics at different points on the line. 'Non plastics' such as cardboard and wood are also streamed out.
Control systems are described by equations (eg differential equations), but their properties of interest are most naturally expressed in terms of the system trajectories (the set of all solutions to the equations). This is formalized by the relatively new notion of the system behaviour, due to Willems. The manipulation of system equations on the other hand can be formalized using algebra, more precisely module theory for linear systems. The relationship between modules and behaviours is very rich and leads to deep results on system structure.
The aim of this project is to investigate this module-behaviour correspondence and apply it to deepen our understanding of control systems theory and address outstanding problems. We are particularly interested in the application area of multidimensional systems, i.e. systems described by partial differential equations or the discrete equivalent. In this area, we have to date had much success using these tools, eg in the characterization of controllability, the definition, characterization and decomposition of system poles, and the investigation of the relationship between feedback and trajectory control. Current areas of work include the extension to systems with variable coefficients, and the development of a general theory of model reduction and system identification for such systems.
A major aim of the project at Southampton is to develop a database for research work in automatic gait recognition. We describe elsewhere our own research in automatic gait recognition where many of our students apply their new moving-feature extraction and description techniques. The advantages of using gait as a biometric are that it is non-contact and sequence based.
The work proposed in this project seeks to investigate the issues involved in the application of agents in diverse platforms from mobile communication devices to consumer electronics, specifically in relation to enabling technologies for the construction of conceptually grounded, practical frameworks for agent systems development
The aim of the project is to implement Iterative Learning Control (ILC) on a multi-axis conveyor belt system, similar to those found in industry. Conveyor systems are widely used throughout industry to transport products from one industrial process to another. Typical applications can be found in the automotive and food production industries. Particular attention will be given to the food production industry where conveyor systems are generally based on two parallel lengths of chain with a conveying surface between them. PID Control is practically the only system used, and these systems could well be described as "rough and ready".
A section of chain conveyor will be contructed with a range of different dispensers along its length, totalling in the region of 8 axes of motion. ILC will be used to improve positioning accuracy of the conveyor in both synchronous and indexing modes of operation, with a focus on reducing the relative error between dispensor and product.
To implement and evaluate Iterative Learning Control algorithms on a rig especially designed for this purpose. This rig will be linear, non-minimum phase, SISO, and time invariant. It is expected that important results will arise from testing these schemes in the real world, as opposed to simulation.
This project is concerned with the process of managing intrusiveness in pervasive computing environments. In particular, we intend to investigate the use of argumentation-based negotiation as mechanism for managing intrusivess in a context sensitive fashion.
The Centre for Digital Library Research, established in 1998, co-ordinates the group's digital library activities and the development of electronic archives of historical manuscript collections. Collaborative activities in this area include work on the Wellington, Mountbatten, Churchill and Turing archives in collaboration with the archivists at the University Library and the University of Cambridge.
The project is working on creating a digital version of the Alan Turing archive held at Kings College Cambridge. It has digitised around 800 items as a trial and made them available as http://www.turingarchive.org/, using various technologies from the IAM group.