Presenting Engineering Data Using MATLAB Figures

Research ideas can be effectively communicated using visual representations of data.  Computer software, such as MATLAB, provides many useful tools which can be used to aid in the preparation of illustrative figures.  Some general recommendations are provided in this article in order to generate quality figures for various technical works.  Additionally, more detailed examples are offered to provide examples of these techniques in practice. 

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Understanding Nonlinear Kalman Filters, Part II: An Implementation Guide

Kalman filters provide an important technique for estimating the states of engineering systems.  With several variations of nonlinear Kalman filters, there is a lack of guidelines for filter selection with respect to a specific research or engineering application.  This creates a need for an in-depth discussion of the intricacies of different nonlinear Kalman filters.  Particularly of interest for practical state estimation applications are the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) and Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF).  This tutorial is divided into three self-contained articles. Part II presents detailed information about the implementation of EKF and UKF, including equations, tips, and example codes.    

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Understanding Nonlinear Kalman Filters, Part I: Selection between EKF and UKF

Kalman filters provide an important technique for estimating the states of engineering systems.  With several variations of nonlinear Kalman filters, there is a lack of guidelines for filter selection with respect to a specific research or engineering application.  This creates a need for an in-depth discussion of the intricacies of different nonlinear Kalman filters.  Particularly of interest for practical state estimation applications are the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) and Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF).  This tutorial is divided into three self-contained articles.  Part I gives a general comparison of EKF and UKF, and offers a guide to the selection of a filter.  

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Introducing the Interactive Robotics Letters

The Interactive Robotics Letters (IRL) is an open-review and open-access research forum that is organized by the West Virginia University (WVU) Interactive Robotics Laboratory (also IRL). The purpose of IRL is to help disseminate the latest research outcomes in robotics, explore radically different or controversial ideas, and promote research collaborations. Authors for IRL papers are not limited to WVU researchers. Submissions can be made by directly emailing the editorial board with a PDF document following this template.

The IRL is also serving as an experiment for a new form of interactive publication that lies between traditional peer-reviewed journals and collective contributed Wiki pages. Each submitted manuscript that passes an initial screening by the editorial board will be posted online. The article is then open to review by any researchers in the field, whose names will be acknowledged in the revised publication.  Following each review, the article will be revised by the original authors and then updated online with a new version number and a summary of the revisions. Additionally, each article will have a corresponding blog page for readers to post their suggestions and comments. Feedback from readers will be solicited in refining or correcting the article during its entire life cycle. A detailed documentation of the editorial history will be included in each revision and all earlier versions will be accessible from the IRL website.

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