This paper reports a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) as a biosensor. The FBGs were etched using a chemical agent,namely,hydrofluoric acid (HF). This implies the removal of some part of the cladding layer. Consequently, the evanescent field propagating out of the core will be closer to the environment and become more sensitive to the change in the surrounding. The proposed FBG sensor was utilized to detect toxic heavy metal ions aqueous medium namely, copper ions (Cu2+). Two FBG sensors were etched with 20 and 40 μm diameters and fabricated. The sensors were studied towards Cu2+ with different concentrations using wavelength shift as a result of the interaction between the evanescent field and copper ions. The FBG sensors showed

Rutting is one of the most complex and widespread types of distress. The rutting is frequently observed on Iraqi roads, especially at the checkpoints, forming a significant hazard on the asphalt layers. Factors such as heavy loads and high temperatures contribute to this distress. Adding fibers to a hot mix asphalt (HMA) effectively improves performance and extends the lifespan of the flexible pavement. This article used glass, steel, and basalt fibers. The wheel tracking test assessed the fibre-asphalt mixture for rutting resistance and compared it with the mix without adding fibers (control HMA). Meanwhile, the microscopic structure of fibres and asphalt mixture modified with fibers was examined using the Field Emission Scanning E

Chalcogenide glasses SeTe have been prepared from the high purity constituent elements .Thin films of SeTe compound have been deposited by thermal evaporation onto glass substrates for different values of film thickness . The effect of varying thickness on the value of the optical gap is reported . The resultant films were in amorphous nature . The transmittance spectra was measured for that films in the wavelength range (400-1100) nm . The energy gap for such films was determined .

This paper proposes a new structure for a Fractional Order Sliding Mode Controller (FOSMC) to control a Twin Rotor Aerodynamic System (TRAS). The new structure is composed by defining two 3-dimensional sliding mode surfaces for the TRAS model and introducing fractional order derivative integral in the state variables as well as in the control action. The parameters of the controller are determined so as to minimize the Integral of Time multiplied by Absolute Error (ITAE) performance index. Through comparison, this controller outperforms its integer counterpart in many specifications, such as reducing the delay time, rise time, percentage overshoot, settling time, time to reach the sliding surface, and amplitude of chattering in control inpu

The flexible joint robot manipulators provide various benefits, but also present many control challenges such as nonlinearities, strong coupling, vibration, etc. This paper proposes optimal second order integral sliding mode control (OSOISMC) for a single link flexible joint manipulator to achieve robust and smooth performance. Firstly, the integral sliding mode control is designed, which consists of a linear quadratic regulator (LQR) as a nominal control, and switching control. This control guarantees the system robustness for the entire process. Then, a nonsingularterminal sliding surface is added to give a second order integral sliding mode control (SOISMC), which reduces chartering effect and gives the finite time convergence as well. S

Lowering the emission, fuel economy and torque management are the essential
requirements in the recent development in the automobile industry. The main engine control
input that satisfies the above requirements is the throttling angle which adjusts the air mass
flow rate to the engine port. Due to the uncertainty and the presence of the nonlinear
components in its dynamical model, the sliding mode control theory is utilized in this work
for the throttle valve angle control system to design a robust controller for this system in the
presence of a nonlinear spring and Coulomb friction. A continuous sliding mode control law
which consists of a saturation function, instead of a signum function, and the integral of
ano

Ball and Plate (B&P) system is a benchmark system in the control engineering field that has been used to verify many control methods. In this paper the design of a sliding mode . controller has been investigated and verified in real-time via implementation on a real ball and plate system hardware. The mathematical model has been derived and the necessary parameters have been measured. The sliding mode controller has been designed based on the obtained mathematical model. The resulting controller has been implemented using the Arduino Mega 2560 and a ball and plate system built completely from scratch. The Arduino has been programmed by the Arduino support target for Simulink. Three test signals has been used for verification purposes

This article presents a new cascaded extended state observer (CESO)-based sliding-mode control (SMC) for an underactuated flexible joint robot (FJR). The control of the FJR has many challenges, including coupling, underactuation, nonlinearity, uncertainties and external disturbances, and the noise amplification especially in the high-order systems. The proposed control integrates the CESO and SMC, in which the CESO estimates the states and disturbances, and the SMC provides the system robustness to the uncertainty and disturbance estimation errors. First, a dynamic model of the FJR is derived and converted from an underactuated form to a canonical form via the Olfati transformation and a flatness approach, which reduces the complexity of th