IEEE Expert Now Courses (for January 2009) : vTools Events

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IEEE Expert Now Courses (for January 2009)

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Here is your chance to try the IEEE "Expert Now" courses at no cost to you. This is over a $200 value in training. These three courses are being shown one day only! Attend any or all.

Three IEEE Expert Now Course, Presented by Computational Intelligence Chapter XVI, Robotics and Automation Chapter XIV.

1. Type-2 Fuzzy Logic Controllers: Towards a New Approach for Handling Uncertainties in 
Real World Environmentsâ€ by Hani Hagras, sponsored by the IEEE Computational Intelligence
Society.

This course will have a large impact on a large audience as handling uncertainties will be a very important challenge to any real world application that operate in real world changing and dynamic environments. The course will present the theoretical aspects of type-2 FLCs and how to build a type-2 FLC. The course will also present many applications in different areas ranging from Control of Marine Diesel Engines, Autonomous Outdoor mobile Robots as well as Embedded Agents and Ambient Intelligent Environments which deals with how we can embed very efficient computational intelligence and type-2 techniques in small computing and memory platforms.

2. Cooperative Control of Multiagent Systems: Synthesis and Experimentation Rabbath, 
Camille-Alain. Synthesis and Experimentationâ€ by Camille-Alain Rabbath, sponsored by the 
IEEE Systems, Man & Cybernetics Society

The Cooperative Control of Multiagent Systems course will illustrate the various attributes needed in such systems and the complexity inherent to the design. Cooperative systems are currently limited in capacity and in availability, partly due to this so-called complexity and to the multifaceted nature of design and analysis. This course will focus on the well- known problem of multiagent path planning, with brief discussions of advanced techniques for formation flight health management. The optimization problem and its solution will be cast in the framework of dynamic programming and Markov decision processes, typical of problems of optimization under uncertainty. A discussion of the results of numerical simulations, integrating decision-making with closed-loop dynamics of the air vehicles, for both formation flight and path planning, will conclude the course.

3. A Software Design Method for Embedded Systems Berndt, Don. by Don Berndt, sponsored by 
the IEEE Computer Society.

This course introduces an innovative architecture and software design method specifically for embedded devices. The proposed architecture consists of a system of Finite State Machine-encoded application tasks, an executive to provide for the concurrent execution of task FSMs, and useful system services such as a system timer, inter-task communication and system calls.

The course presents an overview of the extensive use of embedded systems throughout various industries. A discussion of features and processes common to many embedded systems is then presented to emphasize their distinctive role in both critical and non-critical real-time applications.

A thorough treatment of Finite State Machines is presented, demonstrating their usefulness in the analysis and design of both abstract and physical systems. Many C-language examples are presented, showing how a task FSM can be directly coded from its state diagram, and how internal state logic can be conveyed using two basic flowcharting symbols.

From a systems perspective, the course presents those services integral to most embedded systems: a runtime executive, a system timer, inter-task communication and valuable systems calls. The course demonstrates how these services are highly integrated into this architecture of FSM-based tasks.

Finally, the course offers a discussion and examples of how to document the design of embedded system software using this method. To ensure a successful project, the quality of communication among team members is enhanced by utilizing the document chain recommended within this course. The value of a properly documented design will pay dividends during the software life-cycle, and especially, during validation and verification activities.

The Mealy/Moore paradigm of Finite State Machines has been harnessed by the community of digital hardware designers for decades. As described within the content of this course, these basic concepts have been abstracted into the software realm, resulting in excellent application performance through synergy with the underlying hardware in which it runs.

This introductory course will benefit both hardware and software engineers, as well as those managing embedded systems projects. A working knowledge of the C-language is required to understand the concepts presented in this undergraduate/masters level course.

Free for IEEE Members.