In this paper we describe a recursive algorithm to compute representations of functions with respect to nonorthogonal and possibly overcomplete dictionaries of elementary building blocks e.g. aiEne (wa.velet) frames. We propoeea modification to the Matching Pursuit algorithm of Mallat and Zhang (1992) that maintains full backward orthogonality of the residual (error) at every step and thereby leads to improved convergence. We refer to this modified algorithm as Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (OMP). It is shown that all additional computation required for the OMP al gorithm may be performed recursively.

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This paper presents a Lie group setting for the problem of control of formations, as a natural outcome of the analysis of a planar two-vehicle formation control law. The vehicle trajectories are described using the planar Frenet-Serret equations of motion, which capture the evolution of both the vehicle position and orientation for unit-speed motion subject to curvature (steering) control. The set of all possible (relative) equilibria for arbitrary G-invariant curvature controls is described (where G =SE (2) is a symmetry group for the control law), and a global convergence result for the two-vehicle control law is proved. An n-vehicle generalization of the two-vehicle control law is also presented, and the corresponding (relative) equilibria for the n-vehicle problem are characterized. Work is on-going to discover stability and convergence results for the n-vehicle problem.

Acquisition of food in many animal species depends on the pursuit and capture of moving prey. Among modern humans, the pursuit and interception of moving targets plays a central role in a variety of sports, such as tennis, football, Frisbee, and baseball. Studies of target pursuit in animals, ranging from dragonflies to fish and dogs to humans, have suggested that they all use a constant bearing (CB) strategy to pursue prey or other moving targets. CB is best known as the interception strategy employed by baseball outfielders to catch ballistic fly balls. CB is a time-optimal solution to catch targets moving along a straight line, or in a predictable fashion—such as a ballistic baseball, or a piece of food sinking in water. Many animals, however, have to capture prey that may make evasive and unpredictable maneuvers. Is CB an optimum solution to pursuing erratically moving targets? Do animals faced with such erratic prey also use CB? In this paper, we address these questions by studying prey capture in an insectivorous echolocating bat. Echolocating bats rely on sonar to pursue and capture flying insects. The bat's prey may emerge from foliage for a brief time, fly in erratic three-dimensional paths before returning to cover. Bats typically take less than one second to detect, localize and capture such insects. We used high speed stereo infra-red videography to study the three dimensional flight paths of the big brown bat, Eptesicus fuscus, as it chased erratically moving insects in a dark laboratory flight room. We quantified the bat's complex pursuit trajectories using a simple delay differential equation. Our analysis of the pursuit trajectories suggests that bats use a constant absolute target direction strategy during pursuit. We show mathematically that, unlike CB, this approach minimizes the time it takes for a pursuer to intercept an unpredictably moving target. Interestingly, the bat's behavior is similar to the interception strategy implemented in some guided missiles. We suggest that the time-optimal strategy adopted by the bat is in response to the evolutionary pressures of having to capture erratic and fast moving insects.

This paper studies the perturbation of a Lie-Poisson (or, equivalently an Euler-Poincaré) system by a special dissipation term that has Brockett's double bracket form. We show that a formally unstable equilibrium of the unperturbed system becomes a spectrally and hence nonlinearly unstable equilibrium after the perturbation is added. We also investigate the geometry of this dissipation mechanism and its relation to Rayleigh dissipation functions. This work complements our earlier work Ratiu [1991, 1994]) in which we studied the corresponding problem for systems with symmetry with the dissipation added to the internal variables; here it is added directly

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