Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons^™

Recursive Non-Local Means Filter For Video Denoising, Redha A. Ali, Russell C. Hardie

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

In this paper, we propose a computationally efficient algorithm for video denoising that exploits temporal and spatial redundancy. The proposed method is based on non-local means (NLM). NLM methods have been applied successfully in various image denoising applications. In the single-frame NLM method, each output pixel is formed as a weighted sum of the center pixels of neighboring patches, within a given search window.

The weights are based on the patch intensity vector distances. The process requires computing vector distances for all of the patches in the search window. Direct extension of this method from 2D to 3D, for video ...

Performance And Mitigation Strategy Of Distributed Ac-Stacked Pv Inverter Architecture Under Grid Background Harmonics, Namwon Kim, Hamidreza Jafarian, Babak Parkhideh, Johan Enslin

Hamidreza Jafarian

A Distributed Active And Reactive Power Control For Grid-Tied Cascaded H-Bridge Pv Inverter System Using Relative Gain Array Approach, Hamidreza Jafarian, Namwon Kim, Babak Parkhideh

Hamidreza Jafarian

Residual Self-Interference Cancellation And Data Detection In Full-Duplex Communication Systems, Abbas Koohian, Hani Mehrpouyan, Ali Arshad Nasir, Salman Durrani, Steven D. Blostein

Hani Mehrpouyan

Residual self-interference cancellation is an important practical requirement for realizing the full potential of full-duplex (FD) communication. Traditionally, the residual selfinterference is cancelled via digital processing at the baseband, which requires accurate knowledge of channel estimates of the desired and self-interference channels. In this work, we consider point-to-point FD communication and propose a superimposed signaling technique to cancel the residual self-interference and detect the data without estimating the unknown channels. We show that when the channel estimates are not available, data detection in FD communication results in ambiguity if the modulation constellation is symmetric around the origin. We demonstrate that ...

Relative Target Estimation Using A Cascade Of Extended Kalman Filters, Jerel Nielsen, Randal Beard

All Student Publications

This paper presents a method of tracking multiple ground targets from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in a 3D reference frame. The tracking method uses a monocular camera and makes no assumptions on the shape of the terrain or the target motion. The UAV runs two cascaded estimators. The first is an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), which is responsible for tracking the UAV’s state, such as position and velocity relative to a fixed frame. The second estimator is an EKF that is responsible for estimating a fixed number of landmarks within the camera’s field of view. Landmarks are ...

Fusing Self-Reported And Sensor Data From Mixed-Reality Training, Trevor Richardson, Stephen B. Gilbert, Joseph Holub, Frederick Thompson, Anastacia Macallister, Rafael Radkowski, Eliot Winer

Anastacia MacAllister

Military and industrial use of smaller, more accurate sensors are allowing increasing amounts of data to be acquired at diminishing costs during training. Traditional human subject testing often collects qualitative data from participants through self-reported questionnaires. This qualitative information is valuable but often incomplete to assess training outcomes. Quantitative information such as motion tracking data, communication frequency, and heart rate can offer the missing pieces in training outcome assessment. The successful fusion and analysis of qualitative and quantitative information sources is necessary for collaborative, mixed-reality, and augmented-reality training to reach its full potential. The challenge is determining a reliable framework ...

Data Predictive Control Using Regression Trees And Ensemble Learning, Achin Jain, Francesco Smarra, Rahul Mangharam

Real-Time and Embedded Systems Lab (mLAB)

Decisions on how to best operate large complex plants such as natural gas processing, oil refineries, and energy efficient buildings are becoming ever so complex that model-based predictive control (MPC) algorithms must play an important role. However, a key factor prohibiting the widespread adoption of MPC, is the cost, time, and effort associated with learning first-principles dynamical models of the underlying physical system. An alternative approach is to employ learning algorithms to build black-box models which rely only on real-time data from the sensors. Machine learning is widely used for regression and classification, but thus far data-driven models have not ...

Further Cost Reduction Of Battery Manufacturing, Amir A. Asif, Rajendra Singh

Amir Asif

The demand for batteries for energy storage is growing with the rapid increase in photovoltaics (PV) and wind energy installation as well as electric vehicle (EV), hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV). Electrochemical batteries have emerged as the preferred choice for most of the consumer product applications. Cost reduction of batteries will accelerate the growth in all of these sectors. Lithium-ion (Li-ion) and solid-state batteries are showing promise through their downward price and upward performance trends. We may achieve further performance improvement and cost reduction for Li-ion and solid-state batteries through reduction of the variation in ...

Emerging Role Of Photovoltaics For Sustainably Powering Underdeveloped, Emerging, And Developed Economies, Rajendra Singh, Amir A. Asif, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy, Akhlesh Lakhtakia, Mahmoud Abdelhamid, Githin F. Alapatt, David A. Ladner

Amir Asif

With the advent of low-cost solar photovoltaic (PV) panels and our ability to generate, store, and use electrical energy locally without the need for long-range transmission, the world is about to witness transformational changes in electricity infrastructures. The use of DC electricity enhances systemwide efficiency. DC microgrids and nanogrids powered by solar PV systems and gigawatt batteries for electricity storage can sustainably power the needs of all human beings equitably and empower every individual. Ultralarge-scale manufacturing of PV systems and batteries, a vertically integrated business model, and a targeted monetary policy of quantitative easing can rapidly power all human activities.

Technical And Economic Assessment Of Perovskite Solar Cells For Large Scale Manufacturing, Amir A. Asif, Rajendra Singh, Githin F. Alapatt

Amir Asif

In this paper, we have carried out detailed technical and economic assessment of perovskite solar cells for large scale manufacturing. For ultra-small area of the order of 0.1 cm², efficiency of 20% or so are reported. However, for area of 25 cm², the efficiency is about 10%. Based on the photovoltaic module manufacturing requirements of no constraint on the supply of raw materials, low variability of every key process and process-induced defects, low cost of manufacturing, prospects for further cost reduction in the future, green manufacturing, and long-term reliability, there are absolutely no prospects of manufacturing perovskite ...

Transformative Role Of Photovoltaics In Phasing Out Alternating Current Based Grid By Local Dc Power Networks For Sustainable Global Economic Growth, Rajendra Singh, Amir A. Asif, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy

Amir Asif

For sustainable global economic growth, eradication of global energy poverty and addressing climate challenges, free fuel based solar and wind energy sources are the only viable solution for electricity generation. Due to inherent advantages, photovoltaics has emerged as the major source of electrical power. Local generation of direct current (DC) power by PV and the use of batteries for storing electrical power have the potential of transforming global electricity infrastructure to address the problems faced by alternating current (AC) based centralized power generation and long haul transmission and distribution.

Swing Contracts With Dynamic Reserves For Flexible Service Management, Shanshan Ma, Zhaoyu Wang, Leigh Tesfatsion

Economics Working Papers

The increasing penetration of variable energy resources in modern electric power systems requires additional flexibility in ancillary service provision to maintain reliable and efficient grid operations. However, full recognition and appropriate compensation of this flexibility is difficult to ensure within current power market designs due to rigidities in service definitions and requirements. For example, reserve requirements (RRs) are typically set in advance at administratively determined levels. If RRs are too large, wasteful expenditures result; and, if RRs are too small, high real-time costs are incurred for peak generation and/or load curtailment. To address these problems, this paper proposes a ...

Design And Validation Of A Low Cost High Speed Atomic Force Microscope, Michael Ganzer, Tien Pham

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

The Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) is an important instrument in nanoscale topography, but it is expensive and slow. The authors designed an AFM to overcome both limitations. To do this, they used an Optical Pickup Unit (OPU) from a DVD player as the laser and photodetector system to minimize cost and they did not implement a vertical control loop, which maximized potential speed. Students will be able to be use this device to make nanoscale measurements and engage in micro-engineering. To prototype this idea, the authors tested an OPU with a silicon wafer and demonstrated the ability to consistently distinguish ...

Improving Speech Recognition For Interviews With Both Clean And Telephone Speech, Sung Woo Choi

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

High quality automatic speech recognition (ASR) depends on the context of the speech. Cleanly recorded speech has better results than speech recorded over telephone lines. In telephone speech, the signal is band-pass filtered which limits frequencies available for computation. Consequently, the transmitted speech signal may be distorted by noise, causing higher word error rates (WER). The main goal of this research project is to examine approaches to improve recognition of telephone speech while maintaining or improving results for clean speech in mixed telephone-clean speech recordings, by reducing mismatches between the test data and the available models. The test data includes ...

Forensic State Acquisition From Internet Of Things (Fsaiot): A General Framework And Practical Approach For Iot Forensics Through Iot Device State Acquisition, Christopher S. Meffert, Devon R. Clark, Ibrahim Baggili, Frank Breitinger

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

IoT device forensics is a difficult problem given that manufactured IoT devices are not standardized, many store little to no historical data, and are always connected; making them extremely volatile. The goal of this paper was to address these challenges by presenting a primary account for a general framework and practical approach we term Forensic State Acquisition from Internet of Things (FSAIoT). We argue that by leveraging the acquisition of the state of IoT devices (e.g. if an IoT lock is open or locked), it becomes possible to paint a clear picture of events that have occurred. To this ...

Computation Of State Reachable Points Of Second Order Linear Time-Invariant Descriptor Systems, Subashish Datta Ph.D., V Mehrmann

Electronic Journal of Linear Algebra

This paper considers the problem of computing the state reachable points (from the origin) of a linear constant coefficient second order descriptor system. A new method is proposed to compute the reachable set in a numerically stable way. The original descriptor system is transformed into a strangeness-free system within the behavioral framework followed by a projection that separates the system into different order differential and algebraic equations while keeping the original state variables. This reformulation is followed by a first order formulation that avoids all unnecessary smoothness requirements. For the resulting first order system, it is shown that the computation ...

Grnsight: A Web Application And Service For Visualizing Models Of Small- To Medium-Scale Gene Regulatory Networks, Kam D. Dahlquist, John David N. Dionisio, Ben G. Fitzpatrick, Nicole A. Anguiano, Anindita Varshneya, Britain J. Southwick, Mihir Samdarshi

Ben G. Fitzpatrick

GRNsight is a web application and service for visualizing models of gene regulatory networks (GRNs). A gene regulatory network (GRN) consists of genes, transcription factors, and the regulatory connections between them which govern the level of expression of mRNA and protein from genes. The original motivation came from our efforts to perform parameter estimation and forward simulation of the dynamics of a differential equations model of a small GRN with 21 nodes and 31 edges. We wanted a quick and easy way to visualize the weight parameters from the model which represent the direction and magnitude of the influence of ...

Force Sensing Surgical Grasper With Folding Capacitive Sensor, Dave Bp Tripp

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Minimally-invasive surgery (MIS) has brought many benefits to the operating room, however, MIS procedures result in an absence of force feedback, and surgeons cannot as accurately feel the tissue they are working on, or the forces that they are applying. One of the barriers to introducing MIS instruments with force feedback systems is the high cost of manufacturing and assembly. Instruments must also be sterilized before every use, a process that can destroy embedded sensing systems. An instrument that can be disposed of after a single use and produced in bulk at a low cost is desirable. Printed circuit micro-electro-mechanical ...

Secure Integer Comparisons Using The Homomorphic Properties Of Prime Power Subgroups, Rhys A. Carlton

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Secure multi party computation allows two or more parties to jointly compute a function under encryption without leaking information about their private inputs. These secure computations are vital in many fields including law enforcement, secure voting and bioinformatics because the privacy of the information is of paramount importance.

One common reference problem for secure multi party computation is the Millionaires' problem which was first introduced by Turing Award winner Yao in his paper "Protocols for secure computation". The Millionaires' problem considers two millionaires who want to know who is richer without disclosing their actual worth.

There are public-key cryptosystems that ...

Relative Navigation: A Keyframe-Based Approach For Observable Gps-Degraded Navigation, David O. Wheeler, Daniel P. Koch, James S. Jackson, Timothy W. Mclain, Randal W. Beard

All Faculty Publications

State estimation for micro air vehicles (MAVs) often depends heavily on reliable global measurements such as GPS. When global measurements are unavailable, additional sensors, such as cameras or laser scanners, are commonly used to provide measurements of the MAV’s translation and rotation relative to a previously observed keyframe image or scan. With the use of only relative sensors, however, the global position and heading of the vehicle are unobservable and cannot be reliably reconstructed. Many existing approaches work with respect to a global reference frame, resulting in a loss of state observability. This article highlights that unobservability leads to ...