Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons^™

Csar 62 Spin Curve, Mohsen Azadi, Georgia Griggs, Glen De Villafranca, Gerald Lopez

Protocols and Reports

No abstract provided.

Input Space Dependent Controller For Civil Structures Exposed To Multi-Hazard Excitations, Liang Cao, Simon Laflamme, Jonathan Hong, Jacob Dodson

Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering Publications

A challenge in the control of civil structures exposed to multiple types of hazards is in the tuning of control parameters to ensure a prescribed level of performance under substantially different excitation dynamics, which could be considered as largely uncertain. A solution is to leverage data driven control algorithms, which, in their adaptive formulation, can self-tune to uncertain environments. The authors have recently proposed a new type of data-driven controller, termed input space dependent controller (ISDC), that has the particularity to adapt its input space in real-time to identify key measurements that represent the essential dynamics of the system. Previous ...

Development Of Carbon Fiber-Modified Electrically Conductive Concrete For Implementation In Des Moines International Airport, Alireza Sassani, Halil Ceylan, Sunghwan Kim, Ali Arabzadeh, Peter C. Taylor, Kasthurirangan Gopalakrishnan

Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering Publications

This paper reports on the procedures of mix design preparation, production, placement, and performance evaluation of the first electrically conductive concrete (ECON) heated-pavement system (HPS) implemented at a U.S. airport. While ECON has drawn considerable attention as a paving material for multi-functional pavements, including HPS, the majority of ECON HPS applications and studies have been limited to laboratory scale or include materials/methods that do not conform to regulations enforced by airfield construction practices. Carbon fiber-reinforced ECON provides a promising prospective for application in airfield pavements. In this study, ECON mixtures were prepared in the laboratory using varying cementitious ...

Sensor-Based Reactive Symbolic Planning In Partially Known Environments, Vasileios Vasilopoulos, William Vega-Brown, Omur Arslan, Nicholas Roy, Daniel E. Koditschek

Departmental Papers (ESE)

This paper considers the problem of completing assemblies of passive objects in nonconvex environments, cluttered with convex obstacles of unknown position, shape and size that satisfy a specific separation assumption. A differential drive robot equipped with a gripper and a LIDAR sensor, capable of perceiving its environment only locally, is used to position the passive objects in a desired configuration. The method combines the virtues of a deliberative planner generating high-level, symbolic commands, with the formal guarantees of convergence and obstacle avoidance of a reactive planner that requires little onboard computation and is used online. The validity of the proposed ...

Statistical Analysis And Comparison Of Optical Classification Of Atmospheric Aerosol Lidar Data, Kwasi Gyening Afrifa

Electrical & Computer Engineering Projects for D. Eng. Degree

This dissertation presents a new study for the analysis and classification of atmospheric aerosols in remote sensing LIDAR data. Information on particle size and associated properties are extracted from these remote sensing atmospheric data which are collected by a ground-based LIDAR system. This study first considers optical LIDAR parameter-based classification methods for clustering and classification of different types of harmful aerosol particles in the atmosphere. Since accurate methods for aerosol prediction behaviors are based upon observed data, computational approaches must overcome design limitations, and also consider appropriate calibration and estimation accuracy. Consequently, two statistical methods based on generalized linear models ...

Modular, Scalable Battery Systems With Integrated Cell Balancing And Dc Bus Power Processing, Muhammad Muneeb Ur Rehman

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Traditional electric vehicle and stationary battery systems use series-connected battery packs that employ centralized battery management and power processing architecture. Though, these systems meet the basic safety and power requirements with a simple hard- ware structure, the approach results in a battery pack that is energy and power limited by weak cells throughout life and most importantly at end-of-life. The applications of battery systems can benefit significantly from modular, scalable battery systems capable of advanced cell balancing, efficient power processing, and cost gains via reuse beyond first-use application. The design of modular battery systems has unique requirements for the power ...

Association Learning Via Deep Neural Networks, Trevor J. Landeen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Deep learning has been making headlines in recent years and is often portrayed as an emerging technology on a meteoric rise towards fully sentient artificial intelligence. In reality, deep learning is the most recent renaissance of a 70 year old technology and is far from possessing true intelligence. The renewed interest is motivated by recent successes in challenging problems, the accessibility made possible by hardware developments, and dataset availability.

The predecessor to deep learning, commonly known as the artificial neural network, is a computational network setup to mimic the biological neural structure found in brains. However, unlike human brains, artificial ...

Design, Fabrication, And Characterization Of Novel Optoelectronic Devices For Near-Infrared Detection, Ahmad Nusir

Theses and Dissertations

Investigating semiconductor materials and devices at the nanoscale has become crucial in order to maintain the exponential development in today’s technology. There is a critical need for making devices lower in power consumption and smaller in size. Nanoscale semiconductor materials provide a powerful platform for optoelectronic device engineers. They own interesting properties which include enhanced photoconductivity and size-tunable interband transitions.

In this research, different types of nanostructures were investigated for optoelectronic devices: nanocrystals, nanowires, and thin-films. First, lead selenide nanocrystals with narrow bandgap were synthesized, size-tailored, and functionalized with molecular ligands for the application of uncooled near-infrared photodetectors. The ...

The Response Of Fuzzy Electronics To Ionizing Radiation, Simar Singh

Honors Theses

Small satellites such as CubeSats operate under environmental constraints that are outside of typical commercial specifications. Such constraints include the ability to operate over an extended temperature range and during exposure to ionizing radiation. Nevertheless, commercial technologies are being implemented in CubeSat spacecraft because of the low-cost, low-power, and space savings requirements often achievable with advanced microelectronics [1]. Due to flexibility and the ability to handle uncertainty, fuzzy logic is viable for satellite control while meeting the strict design requirements of a CubeSat. This work evaluates the response of fuzzy control logic to ionizing radiation and compares the response to ...

Vocal Processing With Spectral Analysis, Brad Fitzgerald

Scholar Week 2016 - present

A method of vocal signal processing was examined to determine if principal component analysis of spectral data may be used to characterize differences between speakers and if these differences may be used to separate mixtures of vocal signals. Processing was done on a set of voice recordings from 30 different speakers in order to create a projection matrix which could be used by an algorithm to identify the source of an unknown recording from one of the 30 speakers. Two different identification algorithms were tested, both of which were generally unable to correctly identify the source of a single vocal ...

Weed And Crop Discrimination Through An Offline Computer Vision Algorithm, Phillip Jamison Putney

Scholar Week 2016 - present

With the recent global interest in organic farming and cultivation, many people are turning away from chemical-based herbicides and moving towards alternate methods to extirpate weeds living amongst their crops. Of the methods proposed, robotic weed detection and removal is the most promising because of its possibility to be completely autonomous. Several robust, fully-autonomous robots have been developed, although none have approved for commercial use. This paper proposes a weed and crop discrimination algorithm that utilizes an excessive green color filter paired with principal component analysis to detect spatial frequencies within an image corresponding to different types of weeds and ...

Human Following Using Kinect V2, Nate J. Titus, Tori M. Handley, Josiah D. Watson

The Research and Scholarship Symposium

With the emergence of continuously improving imaging and image processing technologies comes the challenge of applying those technologies to create robots that can make navigational decisions based on visual inputs. In this project, a human-following robot is designed and implemented using the Microsoft Kinect v2 system for PC. This system feeds the robot both color and depth information from the environment in front of it, allowing it to navigate obstacles and follow a specific user. The Kinect is used to find the user’s location with respect to the robot, based primarily on what the user is wearing and where ...

The Eco-Smart Can V2.0, Darack B. Nanto

Appalachian Student Research Forum

I noticed that the workers had the same itinerary when emptying trashcans, meanwhile trashcans needed urgently to be emptied. Traditionally, ETSU maintenance operate on daily routes to pick trash on designated time, regardless the level of the containers. This leads to overflown trashcan in busy areas or during rush hours in certain areas. This overflown trashcan result in an unclean environment for the community and an unpleasant look of our beautiful campus. The time, resources and labor invested in collecting the trash could be saved. Therefore, I decided to use the Internet of Things (IoT) to create a device that ...

Multitarget Joint Delay And Doppler Shift Estimation In Bistatic Passive Radar, Mohammed Rashid

LSU Master's Theses

Bistatic passive radar (BPR) system does not transmit any electromagnetic signal unlike the active radar, but employs an existing Illuminator of opportunity (IO) in the environment, for instance, a broadcast station, to detect and track the targets of interest. Therefore, a BPR system is comprised of two channels. One is the reference channel that collects only the IO signal, and the other is the surveillance channel which is used to capture the targets' reflected signals. When the IO signal reflected from multiple targets is captured in the surveillance channel (SC) then estimating the delays and Doppler shifts of all the ...

Hybrid Sensorless Field Oriented And Direct Torque Control For Variable Speed Brushless Dc Motors, Kellen Carey

Master's Theses (2009 -)

The objective of this thesis is to design a hybrid sensorless closed-loop motor controller using a combination of Field-Oriented Control (FOC) and Direct Torque Control (DTC) for brushless DC motors used in multi-rotor aerial vehicles. The primary challenge is the wide range of desired working speeds, which can quickly vary from low speed to high speed. For this range, the control approach must be efficient, effective, and low-cost in order to provide fast response times during initial startup, steady-state, and transient operation. Additional design challenges include minimal response time to desired speed changes and small steady-state speed errors. Finally, the ...

Fabricating Ordered 2-D Nano-Structured Arrays Using Nanosphere Lithography, Chenlong Zhang, Sandra Cvetanovic, Joshua M. Pearce

Joshua M. Pearce

Recent advances in the use of plasmonic metamaterials to improve absorption of light in thin-film solar photovoltaic devices has created a demand for a scalable method of patterning large areas with metal nanostructures deposited in an ordered array. This article describes two methods of fabricating ordered 2D nanosphere colloidal films: spin coating and interface coating. The two methods are compared and parameter optimization discussed. The study reveals that:

• For smaller nanosphere sizes, spin coating is more favorable, while for larger nanospheres, the angled interface coating provides more coverage and uniformity.

• A surfactant-free approach for interface coating is developed to fabricate ...

General Design Procedures For Airport-Based Solar Photovoltaic Systems, Anurag Anurag, Jiemin Zhang, Jephias Gwamuri, Joshua M. Pearce

Joshua M. Pearce

A source of large surface areas for solar photovoltaic (PV) farms that has been largely overlooked in the 13,000 United States of America (U.S.) airports. This paper hopes to enable PV deployments in most airports by providing an approach to overcome the three primary challenges identified by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA): (1) reflectivity and glare; (2) radar interference; and (3) physical penetration of airspace. First, these challenges and precautions that must be adhered to for safe PV projects deployment at airports are reviewed and summarized. Since one of the core concerns for PV and airport symbiosis is ...

Discharge: Spin-On Anti-Charging Agent For Electron Beam Lithography, Gerald G. Lopez Ph.D., Glen De Villafranca

Protocols and Reports

This report documents the chemical DisCharge from DisChem, Inc. used as an anti-charging agent for electron beam lithography at the University of Pennsylvania Singh Center for Nanotechnology Quattrone Nanofabrication Facility. Charge accumulation while exposing atop an electrically insulating substrate can severely impact positional accuracy of the beam yielding poor litho. Using DisCharge has been shown to reduce charge accumulation for insulating substrates such as fused silica pieces, glass slides, and PDMS for positive resists such as PMMA, ZEP520A, CSAR 62 and mr-PosEBR.

Braided Cobwebs: Cautionary Tales For Dynamic Retail Pricing In End-To-End Power Systems, Auswin George Thomas, Leigh Tesfatsion

Economics Working Papers

This study investigates the effects of dynamic-price retail contracting on end-to-end power system operations. Performance is evaluated by means of carefully defined metrics for system stability, market efficiency, and market participant welfare. The study is carried out for an Integrated Retail and Wholesale (IRW) Test Case for which households have smart (price-responsive) air-conditioning (A/C) systems. A simplified version of the IRW Test Case with a directly postulated linear household demand curve is first used to derive, analytically, a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for system stability under dynamic-price retail contracting. A key finding is that dynamicprice retail contracts ...

Capacitance-Based Wireless Strain Sensor Development, Jong-Hyun Jeong, Jian Xu, Hongki Jo, Jian Li, Xiangxiong Kong, William Collins, Caroline Bennett, Simon Laflamme

Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering Conference Presentations and Proceedings

A capacitance based large-area electronics strain sensor, termed soft elastomeric capacitor (SEC) has shown various advantages in infrastructure sensing. The ability to cover large area enables to reflect mesoscale structural deformation, highly stretchable, easy to fabricate and low-cost feature allow full-scale field application for civil structure. As continuing efforts to realize full-scale civil infrastructure monitoring, in this study, new sensor board has been developed to implement the capacitive strain sensing capability into wireless sensor networks. The SEC has extremely low-level capacitance changes as responses to structural deformation; hence it requires high-gain and low-noise performance. For these requirements, AC (alternating current ...