Underwater wireless sensor networks are currently seeing broad research in various applications for human benefits. Large numbers of sensor nodes are being deployed in rivers and oceans to monitor the underwater environment. In the paper, we propose an energy-efficient clustering multi-hop routing protocol (EECMR) which can balance the energy consumption of these nodes and increase their network lifetime. The network area is divided into layers with regard to the depth level. The data sensed by the nodes are transmitted to a sink via a multi-hop routing path. The cluster head is selected according to the depth of the node and its residual energy. To transmit data from the node to the sink, the cluster head aggregates the data packet of all cluster members and then forwards them to the upper layer of the sink node. The simulation results show that EECMR is effective in terms of network lifetime and the nodes’ energy consumption.

Purpose: Generally, humanoid robots usually suffer significant impact force when walking or running in a non-predefined environment that could easily damage the actuators due to high stiffness. In recent years, the utilization of passive compliant series elastic actuators (SEA) for driving humanoid's joints has proved the capability in many aspects so far. However, despite being widely applied in the biped robot research field, the stable control problem for a humanoid powered by the SEAs, especially in the walking process, is still a challenge. This paper proposes a model reference adaptive control (MRAC) combined with the back-stepping algorithm to deal with the parameter uncertainties in a humanoid's lower limb driven by the SEA system. This is an extension of our previous research (Lanh et al., 2021).Design/methodology/approach: Firstly, a dynamic model of SEA is obtained. Secondly, since there are unknown and uncertain parameters in the SEA model, a Model Reference Adaptive Controller (MRAC) is employed to guarantee the robust performance of the humanoid's lower limb. Finally, an experiment is carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed controller and the SEA mechanism.Findings: This paper proposes an effective control algorithm that can be widely applied for the humanoid-SEA system. Besides, the effect of the coefficients in the control law is analyzed to further improve the response's quality.Research limitations/implications: Even though the simulation shows good results with stable system response, the practical experiment has not been implemented to fully evaluate the quality of the controller.Originality/value: The MRAC is applied to control the humanoid's lower limb and the back-stepping process is utilized to combine with an external SEA system but still maintain stabilization. The simplified model of the lower-limb system proposed in the paper is proven to be appropriate and can be taken for further research in the future.

The evolution of wireless communication networks has introduced various applications that require massive device connectivity and high spectral efficiency. Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) technique is one of the most promising technologies to perform efficiently data transmission. The NOMA technique can allocate the same resource block for two users by super-imposing signals. At the receiver, the signals are separated by performing successive interference cancellation (SIC) technique. For efficient data transmission, the fading and shadowing effects of channels also play a pivotal role. Many researches have considered Rayleigh, Rician, Nakagami-m, and other fading channels in various perspectives. In our paper, a system model based on a NOMA network with two users over log-normal fading distribution in the presence of channel estimation errors and SIC imperfections is proposed. The performance is analyzed in terms of outage probability and simulations are performed with the assistance of Monte-Carlo simulations. The obtained results shown the effectiveness in comparison with the traditionally used fading distributions. The same analysis is also performed in various scenarios of power allocation levels, target rates, and imperfections. The transmit SNR and power allocation of the users are important for efficient communication in any fading distribution as shown in this paper.