The topic of the article is the problem of fault diagnosis in the technical systems described by the linear dynamic models based on the non-parametric method. A feature of this method for the linear system models is that for the purpose of diagnosis the knowledge of the system's constant parameters is not required; it is sufficient to know only the dimensions of the input, state, and output vectors of the system. Thus, this method ensures an active robustness, which is concentrated at the stage of the residual generation and makes the residual insensitive to the uncertainties and, simultaneously, sensitive to the faults. The objective of the present paper is to extend the known non-parametric method to the linear discrete-time systems taking into account the specific features of the linear models. In order to isolate the faults, special decomposition and canonical form of each subsystem are used and then the redundancy relations based on these subsystems are obtained. A feature of the proposed solution is that in order to check the redundancy relations it is necessary to find a kernel of some matrix of the functional, which is constructed by on-line processing the system's inputs and outputs measured over a finite time window, i.e. without knowledge of the system's parameters. In order to decrease the computational complexity, it is suggested to calculate the time window on the basis of the structure of the matrices describing each subsystem. For decision making, the matrix of the syndromes is used. The theoretical results are illustrated by practical examples.

The article is devoted to the problem of the distributed control of a heterogeneous group of vehicles in the environment with obstacles. A brief overview is presented of the objectives and methods of the group control. A task is set of synthesis of the local control algorithms, ensuring movement of the heterogeneous groups in a two-dimensional environment with non-stationary obstacles. The model of the movements' planning is based on the equations of kinematics in a two-dimensional environment. The results of the algorithm are the desired speed and direction of movement of each object in the group. The proposed algorithms are based on the assumption that all the neighboring objects are repellers. At that, in contrast to the known methods for formation of the repellers, the repulsive forces are generated at the output of the dynamic system, which allows synthesis in the state space, and not in the geometrical space. The proposed method allows us to introduce for consideration the repellers, which depend not only on the position of an object, but also on its speed and acceleration. The paper presents an analysis of the steady state motion and stability of the planned trajectories. Expressions were received allowing to determine a steady state of motion. Also an analysis was done of the movement of the robots' groups in the environments with the obstacles moving with constant velocities. Displacements of the robots 'positions were defined, caused by the moving obstacles, and an analysis of sustainability was done. Similarly, it is possible to analyze the situation with the obstacles moving with constant accelerations. Simulation confirmed the results of the analysis. The proposed approach, in case the kinematics and dynamics equations are used, allows us to combine the level of planning and movement control.

Manipulators with the mechanisms of a parallel structure are increasingly used in various industries: in mechanical engineering as parts of complex geometry mechanical processing, tool engineering, products packaging, as well as in the technological processes and in the production and processing of the agricultural products. Loading and unloading operations are well-suited for mechanization and automation with the use of a tripod manipulator. Till nowadays due to a limited working area, a relatively small degree of manipulation of a tripod manipulator, and, even less, the technological processes can be subjected to mechanization and automation in processing of the agricultural products: sorting, packaging and canning of fruits and vegetables. In order to increase manipulation of the tripod manipulator (hand) in the joint, where the linear displacement drive units axis geometrically converge at a single point by a spherical five moveable hinge unit, a driven mechanism was designed consisting of three series-connected pairs of the fifth class of links (gripper) with a working body (brush). Since one of the basic requirements, which determine performance of the manipulators, is to ensure an approach of the manipulator's working body to the points of a service object with a given orientation of the working body, we define the tasks of positioning of the manipulator's working body and evaluation of its functional abilities in the service area. The task of a manipulator's positioning is to determine the manipulator's generalized coordinates at a given program position of the working body. In order to handle this problem it is necessary to solve the direct task for the hand of the manipulator, i.e. to determine the Cartesian coordinates of the suspension point in the absolute coordinate system of Oxyz and the inverse task for the gripper. Thus, the proposed scheme of a tripod manipulator with an additional mechanism for the gripper with three degrees of mobility allows us to ensure the necessary manipulation parameters and the optimal configuration of the manipulator in the transition from its initial position to the final one. A method for handling of the direct and inverse problems of the manipulator kinematics was developed. The solution is provided for two design options of the gripper.

The paper presents the method of the angular orientation for a mobile robot passing obstacles in a labyrinth. A small RAM of the microcontroller is one of the drawbacks in the mobile robots' control system. In order to compensate for it the authors suggest using fuzzy hierarchical system of the angular orientation of the mobile robots. An advantage of this system is a smaller number of computations. This is possible because the output information is supplied to the next level of the fuzzy hierarchical system without the use of defuzzification. The input information for the fuzzy hierarchical system of control of a mobile robot is the data, which comes from the laser and ultrasonic sensors. Proceeding from this information, the paper presents the algorithms, which allow a mobile robot to detect obstacles and bypass them. Besides, the circuits connecting the sensors to a mobile robot are shown. The second part of the paper presents the top level of the fuzzy hierarchical control system of the angular orientation of a mobile robot. A distinctive feature of the fuzzy hierarchical system is that the model difference areas are used in the defuzzification. Simulation of the fuzzy hierarchical system was realized, when hard and soft arithmetic operations were used in the fuzzy inference. The presented graphs of the results of the work of the fuzzy hierarchical system show the effectiveness of the proposed solutions. The experimental results of bypassing of the labyrinth by a mobile robot also confirmed the adequacy of the developed fuzzy hierarchical control system of the angular orientation for a mobile robot.

A wind turbine with the working element based on an antiparallel link mechanism is proposed. A blade of the turbine is attached to the connecting rod. The flow acting on the blade is supposed to have a constant speed. A quasi-static model of an aerodynamic action is used. A rotor of the electric generator is attached to the axis of the crank. Electromechanical torque is supposed to be a linear function of the angular speed of the rotor of the generator. The mechanical system has one degree of freedom. The angle of rotation of the crank is chosen as a generalized coordinate. A mathematical model of the system was constructed. The attracting 2p- periodic trajectory of the dynamical system corresponds to the working periodic regime of the wind turbine. The Poincare-Pontryagin asymptotic approach is used to obtain the sufficient conditions for the existence and stability of the 2p-periodic trajectories and to estimate the mechanical power in the corresponding modes. Two types of asymptotic bifurcation diagrams of the trapped power were constructed: depending on the average speed of the center of pressure in the working modes, and depending on the coefficient of the external mechanical load. An asymptotic dependence of the average aerodynamic torque on the average speed of the center of pressure was constructed. A laboratory prototype of the turbine was constructed and tested. The prototype proved to be self-starting at the wind speed higher than 4m/s and with a sufficient initial position of a wind-receiving plate.

Modern intelligent methods for information processing are used to estimate the filling level of the ball mills. This problem has been topical for a long time. Moreover, the increasing number of the used ball mills makes it even more important. The main objective is that the ball mill's functioning mode, which is optimal from the point of view of the energy efficiency, can be reached, if the mill is loaded with the ore as much as possible. In its turn, such a mode may cause an overloading in case of any additional ore supply. This leads to the balls' and ore grain's coarse blowout and, as a result, the mill emergency stopping. As a consequence, the mill downtime results in economic losses. The main aim of this research is to develop a method for processing of the vibration acceleration signal from the ball mill's pin in order to discover the hidden dependencies in it. Such dependencies will allow us to estimate the mills' filling level more effectively, but they cannot be discovered by the classical methods, like spectrum analysis of the signal amplitude. A pilot ball mill is used in the laboratory conditions in order to reach such results. A vibration acceleration sensor is set at its pin. A ball load is changed during experiments. A training set for a neural network is formed as a result of the spectrum analysis of the signal obtained from the sensor. The neural network helped to find a relation between the vibration acceleration spectrum and the ball mill filling level. After the conducted experiments a conclusion can be made that such a network is insensitive to the noise caused by a change of the ball load. This insensitivity is higher in comparison with the methods, which are used as a basis for the conventional vibration-acoustic analyzers.

The article describes the main approaches (including technical parameters and equipment) to taking into account the changes and correction of the electrolyte components of the bath with the supplementary cathodes and bipolar electrodes in the electroplating processing of products. A voltage change on the anode is proposed as a manipulated variable for the galvanic process as a control object for the electroplating bath. The task of optimal control of the electroplating process by the criterion of distribution of uniformity on the surface of the coating thickness of the product is set. A mathematical model is formulated of the dynamics of the distributed coordinates for the contact criterion of the uniformity coverage with the control action in the form of changes of the anode voltage, taking into account the structural and technological assumptions. This is based on the Faraday's law, Ohm's law of the differential form and a partial differential equation of a parabolic type describing the distribution built in the amount of the electroplating bath. An algorithm was invented for solving the equations of the mathematical model of the electroplating process, which considers the task as a quasi-static one and based on the modifications of the direct Ritz method for the search function of the anode voltage in the class of the polynomials of various degrees. A comparison is proposed of the relative values of the refinement criteria of the unevenness produced during the transition to a higher polynomial degree in order to obtain the required accuracy solutions for determination of the degree of the polynomial control. An example is described of solving the problem of chrome electroplating of V-shape parts in the electroplating bath with two side cathodes and one bipolar electrode. This example describes the function of the anode voltage in the form of the polynomials of the zero, first and second degrees. A rational solution describing the anode voltage changes as the polynomials of the first degree is shown. The further increase in the degree doesn't give a significant gain in the unevenness of the coverage criterion, however, it ensures a significant increase of the duration of the search optimization. Thus, the obtained feature of the voltage change on the anode does not depends strongly on time, so, the change of the concentration of the electrolyte components is reduced slightly during a short period of coating. However, when analyzing a longer period, the process under a constant stress might lead to significant losses in the expected distribution of the coating thickness.

The authors consider feasibility of development of a quasi-imperturbable pendulum vertical sensor. The result is achieved due to compensation for the error caused by the acceleration of an object by means of the corrective actions on the pendulum formed by the signals of the inertial sensors. They also consider a possibility of reduction of the displacement of the pendulum from the vertical position under the influence of the horizontal acceleration of an object by formation of a reaction, which compensates for the inertial forces by the sensors of the same physical nature - an accelerometer and additional sources of information - rate gyro and additional feedback from the output signal. The article discusses versions of various combinations of the corrective devices, namely: 1) basic option - pendulum corrected by an accelerometer 2) basic option and additional feedback from the output signal 3) version of paragraph 2, with additional correction sensor - rate gyro. It was demonstrated that the basic option does not reduce the pendulum static displacement from the vertical, but significantly increases the time constant depending on the feedback factor, and significantly reduces the rate of the displacement increase from the vertical. It may be used in a number of technical applications. Version of paragraph 2 has the following features: in the presence of a horizontal acceleration and in the absence of the deviation angles of the housing of the pendulum it becomes quasi-imperturbable, and the steady-state value of the displacement angle in relative units at a single step unit of acceleration is defined as a_x(1 - d)/g, where d - feedback factor 0 < d £ 1, but, if the deviation angle of the housing of the pendulum is present, it becomes practically unworkable because the pendulum follows its housing. Therefore, there is a need to compensate for this effect using the information from the rate gyro. In this case the pendulum becomes quasi-imperturbable and any acceleration of an object will result in the steady-state value of displacement angle a_x(1 - d)/g. The carried out physical experiments of modeling and simulation confirm the findings and possibility of development of a number of technical applications on this basis.

In order to ensure safe operation of a helicopter in a parking lot before the start of its power plant and promotion of the main rotor when taxiing and maneuvering on the earth's surface (the starting mode), at the stages of take-off, lowering, hovering and landing (take-off and landing modes), the crew needs reliable information about the current velocity and direction angle of the wind vector in relation to the longitudinal axis of the helicopter. However, if we set the known measurement of the wind vector on board of a helicopter, the inductive flows have a significant impact on the work of the vortex column of the main rotor, which limits the ability to measure. The authors consider the potential of the use for the purposes of measurement of the information aerodynamic field of the vortex column of the main rotor and its perception using the stationary multifunctional receiver. They also consider the theoretical basis for the formation and perception of the velocity of the resulting air flow of the vortex column of the main rotor by using a multifunctional aerometric receiver, functional diagram of the system and the algorithms for determination of the parameters of the wind vector in the take-off and landing modes of a helicopter. The methodology and the results of development and testing of the experimental model of the system for measurement of the wind vector in a wind tunnel are presented.

The paper presents the problem of the optimal reorientation of the spacecraft's orbit by a limited or pulse jet thrust, which is orthogonal to the plane of the osculating orbit, with the help of a quaternion differential equation of the spacecraft (SC) orbit orientation and the Pontryagin maximum principle. This kind of a jet thrust changes orientation of the spacecraft orbits while its shape and size are kept unchanged during the control process. The functional, which defines the quality of the control process, is a weighted convolution of two criteria: time and the total momentum of the jet thrust spent on the control process (special cases of this functional are the quick response problem and the problem of minimizing the characteristic velocity). In the first part of the article the authors present a review of the papers on the differential equations of the spacecraft orbit orientation and the problem of the optimal spacecraft orbit reorientation in the inertial coordinate system by a jet thrust, which is orthogonal to the plane of the osculating orbit of the spacecraft. The authors present the theory of solving the problem of the optimal reorientation of a spacecraft orbit using a quaternion differential equation of the spacecraft orbit orientation in the nonlinear continuous formulation (using a limited (small) thrust).