Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons^™

College Of Engineering Senior Design Competition Spring 2013, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas

Senior Projects (COE)

Senior Design Experience

Part of every UNLV engineering student's academic experience, the Senior Design project stimulates engineering innovation and entrepreneurship. Each student in their senior year chooses, plans, designs and prototypes a product in this required element of the curriculum. Working in teams, the senior design project encourages students to use everything learned in the engineering and computer design programs to create a practical, real world solution to an engineering challenge.

Beyond the classroom ...

Because of the requirement to work in teams, students also build good communication skills, presentation skills and even business writing skills. They also have to ...

Reconfigurable Threshold Logic Gates Using Memristive Devices, Adrian Rothenbuhler, Thanh Tran, Elisa H. Barney Smith, Vishal Saxena, Kristy A. Campbell

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

We present our design exploration of reconfigurable Threshold Logic Gates (TLG) implemented using silver–chalcogenide memristive devices combined with CMOS circuits. Results from simulations and physical circuits are shown. A variety of linearly separable logic functions including AND, OR, NAND, NOR have been realized in discrete hardware using a single-layer TLG. The functionality can be changed between these operations by reprogramming the resistance of the memristive devices.

Optimal Breast Cancer Screening Policies, Junxiang Chen

Electrical and Computer Engineering Master's Theses

Breast cancer is the most common non-preventable cancer among women. Although it has been demonstrated in randomized trials that mammography screening reduces the breast cancer mortality rate, the optimal screening policy is not known. When screening should start and stop, and the optimal interval between screening sessions are controversial issues. In this thesis, we present dynamic programming algorithms that find optimal variable-interval screening policies that can either minimize lifetime cancer mortality risk or maximize life expectancy. We evaluate these policies using a simulation based on the MISCAN-Fadia breast cancer model. By applying the optimal policies, we can typically either increase ...

A Power Line Inspector Device, Brendan Gates

Honors College

The goal of this project is to create a functional power line inspection device which could replace the old inspection method of using helicopters. This microchip based robotic device is able to ride along a conductor and send video feed, encoder readouts, and temperature measurements to the user. The user operating system consists of an LCD screen, two potentiometers for motor control, and a screen to display video feed. Achieved specifications include a battery lifetime of 1 hour and 45 minutes, distance measurements within 1 inch, and temperature accuracy within 2 °C. This thesis includes a brief discussion on previous ...

Improving The Performance Of Gis/Spatial Analysts Though Novel Applications Of The Emotiv Epoc Eeg Headset, Justin Carter

Theses and Dissertations

Geospatial information systems are used to analyze spatial data to provide decision makers with relevant, up-to-date, information. The processing time required for this information is a critical component to response time. Despite advances in algorithms and processing power, we still have many “human-in-the-loop” factors. Given the limited number of geospatial professionals, analysts using their time effectively is very important. The automation and faster humancomputer interactions of common tasks that will not disrupt their workflow or attention is something that is very desirable. The following research describes a novel approach to increase productivity with a wireless, wearable, electroencephalograph (EEG) headset within ...

Design And Analysis Of Minimum Energy Fpgas, Peter Grossmann

Electrical Engineering Dissertations

Embedded systems continue to become smaller, demand greater compute capability, and target deployment in more energy-starved environments. System power budgets of less than 1 mW are increasingly common, while standby power is brought as close to zero as possible. While field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) have historically been used as compute engines in low power systems, they have not kept pace with application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and microprocessors in meeting the needs of these ultra low power systems. Research in both ASICs and microprocessors has extended voltage scaling into the subthreshold region of transistor operation, sacrificing performance in exchange for ...

Finite-Difference Time-Domain Simulations Of Metamaterials, Zhengwei Hao

Electrical Engineering Dissertations

Metamaterials are periodic structures created by many identical scattering objects which are stationary and small compared to the wavelength of electromagnetic wave applied to it so that when combined with different elements, these materials have the potential to be coupled to the applied electromagnetic wave without modifying the structure. Due to their unusual properties that are not readily available in nature, metamaterials have been drawing significant attentions in many research areas, including theoretical, experimental as well as numerical investigations.

As one of the major computational electromagnetic modeling methods, finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) technique tackles problems by providing a full wave solution ...

Methanol Fuel Safety - A Practical Guide, Art Maccarley

Electrical Engineering

This guide was written initially for the students at Cal Poly engaged in the conversion of IC engines to methanol fuel, especially my students working on methanol projects in my course “Automotive Technologies for a Sustainable Future”. It may be of interest to anyone considering the conversion or operation of an engine on methanol, or to those that handle methanol for other purposes. One of many Materials Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) for methanol that can be found online is: http://www.midi-inc.com/pdf/MSDS_Methanol.pdf.

Robust Fusion Methods For Distribution Shifts, Matt Higger

Electrical and Computer Engineering Master's Theses

We explore the effect of a shift in an underlying joint distribution between feature and target variables in a classification problem. This arises in the context of air-port explosives detection where breaking a single sensor could add risk to the fused decision about whether a passenger is dangerous. We develop a method which mitigates the negative effects of a failure of subset of modalities or sensors within a single modality. In a Brain Computer Interface (BCI) application, we note that an artifact can be viewed as a shift in this joint distribution. A similar methods is applied to manage the ...

Design, Fabrication And Assembly Of Multiple Biomarker In-Vivo Biosensor, Asanterabi Malima

Electrical Engineering Dissertations

High sensitivity and high specificity detection of disease biomarkers is crucial for early diagnostics and monitoring of diseases. Current cancer diagnostics tools are invasive and uncomfortable. Blood tests that are currently being used also lack sufficient sensitivity and specificity for early detection of diseases. In this thesis, a design for highly sensitive micron scale in-vivo sensor platform device for simultaneous detection of multiple disease biomarkers is presented. The biosensor microchip is 0.25mm in diameter, based on SU-8 polymeric platform fabricated incorporating four active isolated areas as small as 70µm x 70µm. Conventional micro and nanofabrication processes were used for ...

Elastometric Device For Tunable Imaging, Jaeyoun Kim

Iowa State University Patents

An optical micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) structure is provided. The structure includes an elastomer membrane, a plurality of polymer fibers attached to the elastomer membrane, an array of detectors operatively connected to the plurality of polymer fibers at a first end of the plurality of polymer fibers, and a microlens array operatively connected to the plurality of polymer fibers at a second end of the plurality of polymer fibers. A method of manufacturing an optical MEMS structure is provided. The method includes forming a hollow PDMS chamber in which PDMS fibers extend from top to bottom using a lost wax molding ...

Maine’S Three Ring Binder, Fletcher Kittredge

Maine Policy Review

Although Maine is a rural state, it has had success in keeping pace with technological changes since the rise of the Internet 20 years ago. In this section, authors describe some of these successes and the challenges faced by both consumers and libraries in the new digital environment. Fletcher Kittredge presents the history and promise of Maine’s “Three Ring Binder,” a new and important fiber optic network that will bring high-speed broadband connectivity to rural parts of the state. The Three Ring Binder is expected both to improve economic opportunities for businesses and to increase high-speed Internet access for ...

Monitoring Dairy Cow Feed Intake Using Machine Vision, Anthony N. Shelley

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

The health and productive output of dairy cows can be closely correlated to individual cow feed intake. Being able to monitor feed intake on a daily basis is beneficial dairy farm management. Each cow can be addressed individually with minimal time required from those working with the animals. This is essential as time management is closely tied to resource management in a dairy operation. Anything that can save time and resources and increase profitability and herd health is a paramount advantage in dairy farming. This study examined the use of machine vision structured light illumination three-dimensional scanning of cow feed ...

Modeling The Liquid, Nasal, And Vowel Transitions Of North American English Using Linear Predictive Filters And Line Spectral Frequency Interpolations For Use In A Speech Synthesis System, Jacob G. Nieveen

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports

A speech synthesis system with an original user interface is being developed. In contrast to most modern synthesizers, this system is not text to speech (TTS). This system allows the user to control vowels, vowel transitions, and consonant sounds through a simple 2-d vowel pad and consonant buttons. In this system, a synthesized glottal waveform is passed through vowel filters to create vowel sounds. Several filters were calculated from recordings of vowels using linear predictive coding (LPC). The rest of the vowels in the North American English vowel space were found using interpolation techniques with line spectral frequencies (LSF). The ...

Extracting Atmospheric Profiles From Hyperspectral Data Using Particle Filters, Dustin Rawlings

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Removing the effects of the atmosphere from remote sensing data requires accurate knowledge of the physical properties of the atmosphere during the time of measurement. There is a nonlinear relationship that maps atmospheric composition to emitted spectra, but it cannot be easily inverted. The time evolution of atmospheric composition is approximately Markovian, and can be estimated using hyperspectral measurements of the atmosphere with particle filters. The difficulties associated with particle filtering high-dimension data can be mitigated by incorporating future measurement data with the proposal density.

Determination Of Ionospheric Current Systems By Measuring The Phase Shift On Amateur Satellite Frequencies, Prajwal M. Kasturi

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

We investigate the possibility of measuring and using the phase delay of radio frequency transmissions in the amateur satellite band as a method to determine the distribution of currents systems in the ionosphere. The amateur satellite transmissions at 7MHz, 14M Hz, and 144M Hz are low enough for Faraday rotation to cause a significant phase delay on the propagating signals in addition to the phase delay produced by the total electron content (TEC) in the ionosphere. The ionosphere in the E and F regions is modeled as an equivalent thin planar shell of collision free cold plasma 100 km in ...

Evolutionary Optimization Algorithms For Nonlinear Systems, Ashish Raj

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Many real world problems in science and engineering can be treated as optimization problems with multiple objectives or criteria. The demand for fast and robust stochastic algorithms to cater to the optimization needs is very high. When the cost function for the problem is nonlinear and non-differentiable, direct search approaches are the methods of choice. Many such approaches use the greedy criterion, which is based on accepting the new parameter vector only if it reduces the value of the cost function. This could result in fast convergence, but also in misconvergence where it could lead the vectors to get trapped ...

Thermo-Piezo-Electro-Mechanical Simulation Of Algan (Aluminum Gallium Nitride) / Gan (Gallium Nitride) High Electron Mobility Transistor, Lorin E. Stevens

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Due to the current public demand of faster, more powerful, and more reliable electronic devices, research is prolific these days in the area of high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) devices. This is because of their usefulness in RF (radio frequency) and microwave power amplifier applications including microwave vacuum tubes, cellular and personal communications services, and widespread broadband access. Although electrical transistor research has been ongoing since its inception in 1947, the transistor itself continues to evolve and improve much in part because of the many driven researchers and scientists throughout the world who are pushing the limits of what modern ...

Spacial Optimization: A Study In Theme Park Design, Zachary Balgeman

Celebration of Undergraduate Scholarship

Optimization is carefully considered when a company begins to design a theme park. The company wants to maximize their profits while still meeting the consumers' expectations. One of the things that must be kept in mind throughout the optimization process is space management. With a fixed space budget, only a finite amount of land is available for different park components (including attractions, shops, restaurants, and open areas). We have been studying the allocation of these areas in the Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom. From this, we want to develop a model for an amusement park in an urban environment.

Envision - A Novel Computational Platform For Oncology Study, Jiawei Shen

Electrical and Computer Engineering Master's Theses

We have developed a novel computational platform, ENVISION, for oncology pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) research and development efforts. ENVISION is an "evolvable computational environment" that mimics the stochastic behavior of cancer growth and development and generates virtual population over space (3-D) and time (1-D) and. For this purpose, we use a cellular automata grid composed of volumetric pixels (voxels) and model tumor biology across physiological scales (millimeters) on the grid. We use the ectopic xenograft tumor model in immune compromised mice as the test system. Specifically, we create a virtual mouse-like environment in the grid and "grow" tumor based on ...