Open Access

Since their dawning, space communications have been among the strongest driving applications for the development of error correcting codes. Indeed, space-to-Earth telemetry (TM) links have extensively exploited advanced coding schemes, from convolutional codes to Reed-Solomon codes (also in concatenated form) and, more recently, from turbo codes to low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. The efficiency of these schemes has been extensively proved in several papers and reports. The situation is a bit different for Earth-to-space telecommand (TC) links. Space TCs must reliably convey control information as well as software patches from Earth control centers to scientific payload instruments and engineering equipment onboard (O/B) spacecraft. The success of a mission may be compromised because of an error corrupting a TC message: a detected error causing no execution or, even worse, an undetected error causing a wrong execution. This imposes strict constraints on the maximum acceptable detected and undetected error rates.

In den vergangenen Jahren ist das technische Gas Schwefelhexafluorid (SF6) immer wieder Gegenstand von Diskussionen des Klimaschutzes und der technischen Notwendigkeit für den Betrieb von Schaltanlagen gewesen und wird dies wohl auch noch für längere Zeit bleiben. Das Gas, welches sich aus einem Schwefelatom und sechs Fluoratomen zusammensetzt, wird seit Ende der sechziger 1960er Jahre in Schaltanlagen der Mittel- und Hochspannung eingesetzt. So günstig dessen Eigenschaften im technischen Einsatz auch sind, so klimaschädlich ist es beim Entweichen in die Atmosphäre. SF6 ist das Klimagas mit dem größten bekannten Treibhauspotenzial, es weist ein CO2-Äquivalent (GWP) von 23.900 und eine atmosphärische Lebensdauer von ca. 3.200 Jahren auf. Neben nur wenig verbliebenen Anwendungen in Industrie, Militär und Medizin kommt es heute hauptsächlich bei der elektrischen Energieversorgung als Isolier- und Lichtbogenlöschgas in Schaltanlagen von Übertragungs- und Verteilnetzen zum Einsatz. Grund genug die technische Notwendigkeit, mögliche Alternativen und Konsequenzen drohender Verbote zu diskutieren. In diesem Artikel werden zunächst die Grundlagen moderner SF6- Hochspannungsschaltanlagen vorgestellt, die Klimabelastung durch entweichendes SF6 evaluiert, ein Überblick über den Stand der Forschung gegeben und mögliche Konsequenzen eines Verbotes von Schwefelhexafluorid in der Energieversorgung diskutiert.

This chapter portrays the historical and mathematical background of dynamic and procedural content generation (PCG). We portray and compare various PCG methods and analyze which mathematical approach is suited for typical applications in game design. In the next step, a structural overview of games applying PCG as well as types of PCG is presented. As abundant PCG content can be overwhelming, we discuss context-aware adaptation as a way to adapt the challenge to individual players’ requirements. Finally, we take a brief look at the future of PCG.

Special Issue: Selected papers presented at the 16th International TRIZ Future Conference, October 24-27, 2016, Wroclaw, Poland

In the present work, nonlinearities in temperature compensating (TC) SAW devices are investigated. The materials used are LiNbO3-rot128YX as the substrate and Copper electrodes covered with a SiO2-layer as the compensating layer. In order to understand the role of these materials for the nonlinearities in such acoustic devices, a FEM simulation model in combination with a perturbation approach [1] is applied. The nonlinear tensor data of the different materials involved in TC-SAW devices have been taken from literature, but were partially modified to fit experimental data by introducing scaling factors. An effective nonlinearity constant is determined by comparison of nonlinear P-matrix simulations to IMD3 measurements of test filters. By employing these constants in nonlinear periodic P-matrix simulations a direct comparison to nonlinear periodic FEM-simulations yields the scaling factors for the material used. Thus, the contribution of different materials to the nonlinear behavior of TC-SAW devices is obtained and the role of metal electrodes is discussed in detail

Our university carries out various research projects. Among others, the project Schluckspecht is an interdisciplinary work on different ultra-efficient car concepts for international contests. Besides the engineering work, one part of the project deals with real-time data visualization. In order to increase the efficiency of the vehicle, an online monitoring of the runtime parameters is necessary. The driving parameters of the vehicle are transmitted to a processing station via a wireless network connection. We plan to use an augmented reality (AR) application to visualize different data on top of the view of the real car. By utilizing a mobile Android or iOS device a user can interactively view various real-time and statistical data. The car and its components are meant to be augmented by various additional information, whereby that information should appear at the correct position of the components. An engine e.g. could show the current rpm and consumption values. A battery on the other hand could show the current charge level. The goal of this paper is to evaluate different possible approaches, their suitability and to expand our application to other projects at our university.

Three real-lab trigeneration microgrids are investigated in non-residential environments (educational, office/administrational, companies/production) with a special focus on domain-specific load characteristics. For accurate load forecasting on such a local level, à priori information on scheduled events have been combined with statistical insight from historical load data (capturing information on not explicitly-known consumer behavior). The load forecasts are then used as data input for (predictive) energy management systems that are implemented in the trigeneration microgrids. In real-world applications, these energy management systems must especially be able to carry out a number of safety and maintenance operations on components such as the battery (e.g. gassing) or CHP unit (e.g. regular test runs). Therefore, energy management systems should combine heuristics with advanced predictive optimization methods. Reducing the effort in IT infrastructure the main and safety relevant management process steps are done on site using a Smart & Local Energy Controller (SLEC) assisted by locally measured signals or operator given information as default and external inputs for any advanced optimization. Heuristic aspects for local fine adjustment of energy flows are presented.

In this paper we show that a model-free approach to learn behaviors in joint space can be successfully used to utilize toes of a humanoid robot. Keeping the approach model-free makes it applicable to any kind of humanoid robot, or robot in general. Here we focus on the benefit on robots with toes which is otherwise more difficult to exploit. The task has been to learn different kick behaviors on simulated Nao robots with toes in the RoboCup 3D soccer simulator. As a result, the robot learned to step on its toe for a kick that performs 30% better than learning the same kick without toes.