A Parametric Model of the LARCODEMS Heavy Media Separator by Means of Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines.

Modeling of a cylindrical heavy media separator has been conducted in order to predict its optimum operating parameters. As far as it is known by the authors, this is the first application in the literature. The aim of the present research is to predict the separation efficiency based on the adjustment of the device's dimensions and media flow rates. A variety of heavy media separators exist that are extensively used to separate particles by density. There is a growing importance in their application in the recycling sector. The cylindrical variety is reported to be the most suited for processing a large range of particle sizes, but optimizing its operating parameters remains to be documented. The multivariate adaptive regression splines methodology has been applied in order to predict the separation efficiencies using, as inputs, the device dimension and media flow rate variables. The results obtained show that it is possible to predict the device separation efficiency according to laboratory experiments performed and, therefore, forecast results obtainable with different operating conditions.

Missing data imputation of solar radiation data under different atmospheric conditions.

Global solar broadband irradiance on a planar surface is measured at weather stations by pyranometers. In the case of the present research, solar radiation values from nine meteorological stations of the MeteoGalicia real-time observational network, captured and stored every ten minutes, are considered. In this kind of record, the lack of data and/or the presence of wrong values adversely affects any time series study. Consequently, when this occurs, a data imputation process must be performed in order to replace missing data with estimated values. This paper aims to evaluate the multivariate imputation of ten-minute scale data by means of the chained equations method (MICE). This method allows the network itself to impute the missing or wrong data of a solar radiation sensor, by using either all or just a group of the measurements of the remaining sensors. Very good results have been obtained with the MICE method in comparison with other methods employed in this field such as Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) and Multiple Linear Regression (MLR). The average RMSE value of the predictions for the MICE algorithm was 13.37% while that for the MLR it was 28.19%, and 31.68% for the IDW.

Modeling a MEMS deformable mirror using non-parametric estimation techniques.

Using non-parametric estimation techniques, we have modeled an area of 126 actuators of a micro-electro-mechanical deformable mirror with 1024 actuators. These techniques produce models applicable to open-loop adaptive optics, where the turbulent wavefront is measured before it hits the deformable mirror. The model's input is the wavefront correction to apply to the mirror and its output is the set of voltages to shape the mirror. Our experiments have achieved positioning errors of 3.1% rms of the peak-to-peak wavefront excursion.

Deformable mirror model for open-loop adaptive optics using multivariate adaptive regression splines.

Open-loop adaptive optics is a technique in which the turbulent wavefront is measured before it hits the deformable mirror for correction. We present a technique to model a deformable mirror working in open-loop based on multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS), a non-parametric regression technique. The model's input is the wavefront correction to apply to the mirror and its output is the set of voltages to shape the mirror. We performed experiments with an electrostrictive deformable mirror, achieving positioning errors of the order of 1.2% RMS of the peak-to-peak wavefront excursion. The technique does not depend on the physical parameters of the device; therefore it may be included in the control scheme of any type of deformable mirror.