Consequent to previously published theoretical work by Marshall, Broucke, and Francis, this paper summarizes the apparatus and results of multirobot coordination experiments conducted at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies. These experiments successfully demonstrated the practicality of cyclic pursuit as a distributed control strategy for multiple wheeled-robot systems. Moreover, the pursuit-based coordination algorithm was found to be surprisingly robust in the presence of unmodelled dynamics and delays due to sensing and information processing. The findings of this research not only bode well for continuing research on pursuit-based coordination strategies, but also for other cooperative multirobot control techniques employing similar local interactions.

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High ABSTRACTThe oxidation of a low erucic rapeseed oil was compared to the oxidation of a high erucic rapeseed oil in the temperature range 100 to 140 C. The two oils were found to be very similar in the rate of peroxidation, viscosity increase, change of refractive index, oxidation of the individual fatty acids, and hydroperoxide decay. Rate constants and activation energies for the change of these quantities were determined. The rate of hydroperoxide decomposition was found to be of first order for both oils, but there was evidence that a second order mechanism becomes important at temperatures less than 100 C. Butylated hydroxy anisole (BHA) caused decomposition of hydroperoxide and reacted with fatty acid and possibly with natural antioxidants in the oil. It did not react with oxygen. BHA decomposed thermally between 110 and 140 C. BHA is not an effective antioxidant at these temperatures in an oil which contains esters of highly reactive fatty acids.

Abstract-This paper describes some methods to improve the efficiency of power transfer in neuroprosthesis. In the neuroprosthesis, there is a low power level DC to DC converter in which the size is very small for the power conversion. The reduction of size of the converter uses the technique of cordless printed circuit board transformers that allows the contactless power transfer through the skin. In such, the coupling of the primary and secondary transformers is only skin and air gap.Meanwhile, the magnetizing inductance, leakage inductance and some other parameters affects the efficiency of the power transfer. The paper will discuss the relationship of those parameters and some suggestions for improvement of the overall performance of the converter.