A Sequential Sampling Algorithm for Multistage Static Coverage Problems

Author(s):  
Binbin Zhang ◽  
Jida Huang ◽  
Rahul Rai ◽  
Hemanth Manjunatha

In many system-engineering problems, such as surveillance, environmental monitoring, and cooperative task performance, it is critical to allocate limited resources within a restricted area optimally. Static coverage problem (SCP) is an important class of the resource allocation problem. SCP focuses on covering an area of interest so that the activities in that area can be detected with high probabilities. In many practical settings, primarily due to financial constraints, a system designer has to allocate resources in multiple stages. In each stage, the system designer can assign a fixed number of resources, i.e., agents. In the multistage formulation, agent locations for the next stage are dependent on previous-stage agent locations. Such multistage static coverage problems are nontrivial to solve. In this paper, we propose an efficient sequential sampling algorithm to solve the multistage static coverage problem (MSCP) in the presence of resource intensity allocation maps (RIAMs) distribution functions that abstract the event that we want to detect/monitor in a given area. The agent's location in the successive stage is determined by formulating it as an optimization problem. Three different objective functions have been developed and proposed in this paper: (1) L2 difference, (2) sequential minimum energy design (SMED), and (3) the weighted L2 and SMED. Pattern search (PS), an efficient heuristic algorithm has been used as optimization algorithm to arrive at the solutions for the formulated optimization problems. The developed approach has been tested on two- and higher dimensional functions. The results analyzing real-life applications of windmill placement inside a wind farm in multiple stages are also presented.

Author(s):  
Hemanth Manjunatha ◽  
Jida Huang ◽  
Binbin Zhang ◽  
Rahul Rai

It is critical in many system-engineering problems (such as surveillance, environmental monitoring, and cooperative task performance) to optimally allocate resources in the presence of limited resources. Static coverage problem is an important class of the resource allocation problems that focuses on covering an area of interest so that the activities in the area of interest can be detected/monitored with higher probability. In many practical settings (primarily due to financial constraints) a system designer has to allocate resources in multiple stages. In each stage, the system designer can assign a fixed number of resources (agents). In the multi-stage formulation, the agents locations for the next stage are dependent on all the agents location in the previous stages. Such multi-stage static coverage problems are non-trivial to solve. In this paper, we propose a robust and efficient sequential sampling algorithm to solve the multi-stage static coverage problem in the presence of probabilistic resource intensity allocation maps (RIAMs). The agents locations are determined by formulating this problem as an optimization problem in the successive stage . Three different objective functions are compared and discussed from the aspects of decreasing L2 difference and Sequential Minimum Energy Design (SMED). It is shown that utilizing SMED objective function leads to a better approximation of the RIAMs. Two heuristic algorithms, i.e. cuckoo search, and pattern search, are used as optimization algorithms. Numerical functions and real-life applications are provided to demonstrate the robustness and efficiency of the proposed approach.


2016 ◽  
Vol 138 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Binbin Zhang ◽  
Nagavenkat Adurthi ◽  
Rahul Rai ◽  
Puneet Singla

Resource allocation in the presence of constraints is an important activity in many systems engineering problems such as surveillance, infrastructure planning, environmental monitoring, and cooperative task performance. The resources in many important problems are agents such as a person, machine, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), infrastructures, and software. Effective execution of a given task is highly correlated with effective allocation of resources to execute the task. An important class of resource allocation problem in the presence of limited resources is static coverage problem. In static coverage problems, it is necessary to allocate resources (stationary configuration of agents) to cover an area of interest so that an event or spatial property of the area can be detected or monitored with high probability. In this paper, we outline a novel sampling algorithm for the static coverage problem in presence of probabilistic resource intensity allocation maps (RIAMs). The key intuition behind our sampling approach is to use the finite number of samples to generate an accurate representation of RIAM. The outlined sampling technique is based on an optimization framework that approximates the RIAM with piecewise linear surfaces on the Delaunay triangles and optimizes the sample placement locations to decrease the difference between the probability distribution and Delaunay triangle surface. Numerical results demonstrate that the algorithm is robust to the initial sample point locations and has superior performance in a wide range of theoretical problems and real-life applications. In a real-life application setting, we demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed algorithm to predict the position of wind stations for monitoring wind speeds across the U.S. The algorithm is also used to give recommendations on the placement of police cars in San Francisco and weather buoys in Pacific Ocean.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (20) ◽  
pp. 5748
Author(s):  
Zhibo Zhang ◽  
Qing Chang ◽  
Na Zhao ◽  
Chen Li ◽  
Tianrun Li

The future development of communication systems will create a great demand for the internet of things (IOT), where the overall control of all IOT nodes will become an important problem. Considering the essential issues of miniaturization and energy conservation, in this study, a new data downlink system is designed in which all IOT nodes harvest energy first and then receive data. To avoid the unsolvable problem of pre-locating all positions of vast IOT nodes, a device called the power and data beacon (PDB) is proposed. This acts as a relay station for energy and data. In addition, we model future scenes in which a communication system is assisted by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), large intelligent surfaces (LISs), and PDBs. In this paper, we propose and solve the problem of determining the optimal flight trajectory to reach the minimum energy consumption or minimum time consumption. Four future feasible scenes are analyzed and then the optimization problems are solved based on numerical algorithms. Simulation results show that there are significant performance improvements in energy/time with the deployment of LISs and reasonable UAV trajectory planning.


2021 ◽  
pp. 875529302110423
Author(s):  
Zoran Stojadinović ◽  
Miloš Kovačević ◽  
Dejan Marinković ◽  
Božidar Stojadinović

This article proposes a new framework for rapid earthquake loss assessment based on a machine learning damage classification model and a representative sampling algorithm. A random forest classification model predicts a damage probability distribution that, combined with an expert-defined repair cost matrix, enables the calculation of the expected repair costs for each building and, in aggregate, of direct losses in the earthquake-affected area. The proposed building representation does not include explicit information about the earthquake and the soil type. Instead, such information is implicitly contained in the spatial distribution of damage. To capture this distribution, a sampling algorithm, based on K-means clustering, is used to select a minimal number of buildings that represent the area of interest in terms of its seismic risk, independently of future earthquakes. To observe damage states in the representative set after an earthquake, the proposed framework utilizes a local network of trained damage assessors. The model is updated after each damage observation cycle, thus increasing the accuracy of the current loss assessment. The proposed framework is exemplified using the 2010 Kraljevo, Serbia earthquake dataset.


2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (6) ◽  
pp. 454-464
Author(s):  
Omar Benmiloud ◽  
Salem Arif

Abstract Dynamic equivalent (DE) is an important process of multi-area interconnected power systems. It allows to perform stability assessment of a specific area (area of interest) at minimum cost. This study is intended to investigate the dynamic equivalent of two relatively large power systems. The fourth-order model of synchronous generators with a simplified excitation system is used as equivalent to the group of generators in the external system. To improve the accuracy of the estimated model, the identification is carried in two stages. First, using the global search Sine Cosine Algorithm (SCA) to find a starting set values, then this set is used as starting point for the fine-tuning made through the Pattern Search (PS) algorithm. To increase the reliability of the model’s parameters, two disturbances are used to avoid the identification based on a specific event. The developed program is applied on two standard power systems, namely, the New England (NE) system and the Northeast Power Coordinating Council (NPCC) system. Simulation results confirm the ability of the optimized model to preserve the main dynamic properties of the original system with accuracy.


2009 ◽  
Vol 131 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sung K. Koh ◽  
Guangjun Liu ◽  
Wen-Hong Zhu

A continuous protein synthesis formulation based on the design principles applied to topology optimization problems is proposed in this paper. In contrast to conventional continuous protein design methods, the power law (PL) protein design formulation proposed in this paper can handle any number of residue types to accomplish the goal of protein synthesis, and hence provides a general continuous formulation for protein synthesis. Moreover, a discrete sequence with minimum energy can be determined by the PL design method as it inherits the feature of material penalization used in designing a structural topology. Since a continuous optimization method is implemented to solve the PL design formulation, the entire design process is more efficient and robust than conventional design methods employing stochastic or enumerative search methods. The performance of the proposed PL design formulation is explored by designing simple lattice protein models, for which an exhaustive search can be carried out to identify a sequence with minimum energy. We used residue probabilities as an initial guess for the design optimization to enhance the capability and efficiency of the PL design formulation. The comparison with the exchange replica method indicates that the PL design method is millions of times more efficient than the conventional stochastic protein design method.


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