Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons^™

Low-Noise Speed-Optimized Large Area Cmos Avalanche Photodetector For Visible Light Communication, Md. Mottaleb Hossain, Sagar Ray, Jeng Shiuh Cheong, Liang Qiao, Aina N.A.P. Baharuddin, Mona Mostafa Hella, John P.R. David, Majeed M. Hayat

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Mean-gain and excess-noise measurements are presented for a 350 × 350 μm ² P+/N-well/P-sub and a 270 × 270 μm ² N-well/P-sub avalanche photodetectors fabricated using 0.13-μm CMOS technology. The active area of the P+/N-well/P-sub device was divided into multiple subsections to decrease transit time and increase speed. For the P+/N-well structure, remarkably low excess-noise factors of 4.1 and 4 were measured at a mean gain of 16 corresponding to a k value of approximately 0.1, using a 542 (633) nm laser. For a variant N-well/P-sub structure, excess-noise factors of 6.5 and 6.2 were measured at a mean-gain of 16 …

Antenna Design For Small Uav Locator Applications, Randall L. Musselman, Steve Eugene Watkins

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

An antenna design problem is presented for a small UAV application. A UAV locator system must include an on-board transmitter with the capability to provide a beacon signal, in the event of a crash, and a receiver that is tailored for a transmitter hunt. This specific context for applying antenna theory allows a variety of design constraints, technical approaches, performance measures, and required results. The paper provides a structure for organizing the material, example approaches that illustrate possible design choices, and recommendations on educational implementation.

Verification Of Receiver Equalization By Integrating Dataflow Simulation And Physical Channels, David M. Ritter, Tina Smilkstein

Master's Theses

This thesis combines Keysight’s SystemVue software with a Vector Signal Analyzer (VSA) and Vector Signal Generator (VSG) to test receiver equalization schemes over physical channels. The testing setup, “Equalization Verification,” is intended to be able to evaluate any equalization scheme over any physical channel, and a decision-directed feed-forward LMS equalizer is used as an example. The decision-directed feed-forward LMS equalizer is shown to decrease the BER from 10^-2 to 10^-3 (average of all trials) over a CAT7 and CAT6A cable, both simulated and physical, for 1GHz and 2GHz carrier, and 80MHz data rate. A wireless channel, 2.4GHz Dipole …

Cubesat Data Transmission And Storage Throughput Optimization Through The Use Of A Zynq Soc Based Cubesat Science Instrument Interface Electronics Board, Caleb Mosby Munsill

Master's Theses

The CubeSat standard sprang from the desire to create a satellite standard that would open the doors for universities and other lower budget research institutions by making it more feasible to get their work into space. Since then, many other institutions and industries have been adopting variations on the standard for their own use. As more people are seeking out to use the CubeSat standard as their main bus, the standards and practices of the community have grown and expanded and with this growth, new challenges have been created. One such challenge is the bandwidth limitation in the RF-downlink. When …

Dc-Dc Converter Control System For The Energy Harvesting From Exercise Machines System, Alexander Sireci

Master's Theses

Current exercise machines create resistance to motion and dissipate energy as heat. Some companies create ways to harness this energy, but not cost-effectively. The Energy Harvesting from Exercise Machines (EHFEM) project reduces the cost of harnessing the renewable energy. The system architecture includes the elliptical exercise machines outputting power to DC-DC converters, which then connects to the microinverters. All microinverter outputs tie together and then connect to the grid. The control system, placed around the DC-DC converters, quickly detects changes in current, and limits the current to prevent the DC-DC converters and microinverters from entering failure states.

An artificial neural …

Estimating Transit Ridership Patterns Through Automated Data Collection Technology: A Case Study In San Luis Obispo, California, Ashley Kim

Master's Theses

Public transportation offers a crucial solution to the travel demand in light of national and global economic, energy, and environmental challenges. If implemented effectively, public transit offers an affordable, convenient, and sustainable transportation mode. Implementation of new technologies for information-harvesting may lead to more effective transit operations. This study examines the potential of automated data collection technologies to analyzing and understand the origin-destination flow patterns, which is essential for transit route planning and stop location placement.

This thesis investigates the collection and analysis of data of passengers onboard San Luis Obispo Transit buses in February and March 2017 using Bluetooth …

Complex Filters As Cascade Of Buffered Gingell Structures: Design From Band-Pass Constraints, Nicole M. Hay

Master's Theses

Complex filters are multi-input, multi-output networks designed to discriminate based upon the relative phase difference between input signals. Complex filters find application in modern wireless systems for single sideband transmission and image-reject reception. This thesis presents one active complex filter implementation using two operational amplifiers per stage, termed “type-II” topology. The “type-II” originates from the passive RC-CR polyphase topology presented by Gingell in his 1973 paper, “Single sideband modulation using sequence asymmetric polyphase networks.” This new topology gains several advantages over existing complex filter implementations, namely “cascadability” (multiple sections placed in series to create a higher-order response) without altering the …

A Modified Boost Converter With Reduced Input Current Ripple, Nathan H. Lentz

Master's Theses

Battery-powered trends in consumer electronics, transportation, and renewable energy sectors increase demands on DC/DC converter technology. Higher switching frequency and efficiency reduces solution size and cost, while increasing power capabilities. Still, switching noise remains the primary drawback associated with any DC/DC converter. Reducing a converter’s input ripple helps prevent switching noise from spreading to other systems on a shared DC power bus. This thesis covers the analysis, simulation, and implementation of a recently-proposed boost converter topology, alongside an equivalent standard boost converter, operating in steady-state, continuous conduction mode. A Matlab-based simulation predicts each converter’s input ripple performance using a state-space …

Modeling And Charging Control Of A Lithium Ion Battery System For Solar Panels, Garrett David Heinen

Master's Theses

The advancement in solar panel and battery technology makes them useful for energy supply and storage. This thesis involves the modeling and charging control of a lithium ion battery system for solar panels. The proposed model is based on the parameters and characteristics of a realistic battery and solar panel system; and the hybrid control approach combines the advantages of the adaptive incremental conductance method and the perturb and observe method to track the maximum power point of the solar panel for charging the battery unit. Computer simulation results demonstrate that this proposed approach offers a faster convergence rate than …

Hand (Motor) Movement Imagery Classification Of Eeg Using Takagi-Sugeno-Kang Fuzzy-Inference Neural Network, Rory Larson Donovan

Master's Theses

Approximately 20 million people in the United States suffer from irreversible nerve damage and would benefit from a neuroprosthetic device modulated by a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI). These devices restore independence by replacing peripheral nervous system functions such as peripheral control. Although there are currently devices under investigation, contemporary methods fail to offer adaptability and proper signal recognition for output devices. Human anatomical differences prevent the use of a fixed model system from providing consistent classification performance among various subjects. Furthermore, notoriously noisy signals such as Electroencephalography (EEG) require complex measures for signal detection. Therefore, there remains a tremendous need to …

Design Of An Active Harmonic Rejection N-Path Filter For Highly Tunable Rf Channel Selection, Craig J. Fischer

Master's Theses

As the number of wireless devices in the world increases, so does the demand for flexible radio receiver architectures capable of operating over a wide range of frequencies and communication protocols. The resonance-based channel-select filters used in traditional radio architectures have a fixed frequency response, making them poorly suited for such a receiver. The N-path filter is based on 1960s technology that has received renewed interest in recent years for its application as a linear high Q filter at radio frequencies. N-path filters use passive mixers to apply a frequency transformation to a baseband low-pass filter in order to achieve …

Evolution Of An Introductory Electrical Engineering And Programming Course, Branimir Pejcinovic, Phillip Wong

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Our first year electrical engineering sequence includes two courses that involve programming and hardware interfacing. ECE 102 deals with engineering problem solving and MATLAB, while ECE 103 introduces C programming. We use MATLAB both as a problem solving tool and as an introduction to programming. Students utilize MATLAB to control a data acquisition device, which enables more realistic team-based projects that combine problem-solving, programming, and interfacing. As is widely recognized, these types of courses are important and difficult to teach. We identified areas that needed improvement in ECE 102: a) outdated lecture format, b) not enough timely feedback, c) insufficient …

Generalized Differential Calculus And Applications To Optimization, R. Blake Rector

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis contains contributions in three areas: the theory of generalized calculus, numerical algorithms for operations research, and applications of optimization to problems in modern electric power systems. A geometric approach is used to advance the theory and tools used for studying generalized notions of derivatives for nonsmooth functions. These advances specifically pertain to methods for calculating subdifferentials and to expanding our understanding of a certain notion of derivative of set-valued maps, called the coderivative, in infinite dimensions. A strong understanding of the subdifferential is essential for numerical optimization algorithms, which are developed and applied to nonsmooth problems in operations …

Passive Bottom Reflection-Loss Estimation Using Ship Noise And A Vertical Line Array, Lanfranco Muzi, Martin Siderius, Christopher M. Verlinden

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

An existing technique for passive bottom-loss estimation from natural marine surface noise (generated by waves and wind) is adapted to use noise generated by ships. The original approach—based on beamforming of the noise field recorded by a vertical line array of hydrophones—is retained; however, additional processing is needed in order for the field generated by a passing ship to show features that are similar to those of the natural surface-noise field. A necessary requisite is that the ship position, relative to the array, varies over as wide a range of steering angles as possible, ideally passing directly over the array …

Estimation Of Size And Rotations Of Icebergs From Historical Data Utilizing Scatterometer Data, Jeffrey Scott Budge

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, the development and methodology of a new, consolidated BYU/NIC Antarctic Iceberg Tracking Database is presented. The new database combines data from the original BYU daily iceberg tracking database derived from scatterometers, and the National Ice Center's weekly Antarctic iceberg tracking database derived from mostly optical and infrared sensors. Using this data, interpolation methods and statistical analyses of iceberg locations are discussed. The intent of this database is to consolidate iceberg location data in order to increase accessibility to users.Active microwave remote sensing instruments are used to track tabular icebergs and provide a daily estimate of their positions …

Testimony Of Dr. George H. Baker, Senior Advisor To The Congressional Emp Commission, George H. Baker Iii

Department of Integrated Science and Technology - Faculty Scholarship

This is the script of testimony before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. It offers a vision for a future in which our electric power systems will be able to operate through or quickly recover from catastrophic failure due to electromagnetic pulse (EMP), cyber, and physical attacks. The scope of the term ‘EMP’ used in this testimony includes both naturally occurring solar storms and the more energetic man-made EMP hazards. The vision has been discussed with members of the electric power industry, and prominent EMP/cyber/physical protection advocates who find it to be supportable and actionable. The nature of EMP, cyber, and …

A Survey Of Sparse Channel Estimation In Aeronautical Telemetry, Christopher James Hogstrom

Theses and Dissertations

Aeronautical telemetry suffers from multipath interference, which can be resolved through the use of equalizers at the receiver. The coefficients of data-aided equalizers are computed from a channel estimate. Most channels seen in aeronautical telemetry are sparse, meaning that most of the coefficients of the channel are zero or nearly zero. The maximum likelihood (ML) estimate does not always produce a sparse channel estimate. This thesis surveys a number of sparse estimation algorithms that produce a sparse channel estimate and compares the post-equalizer bit error rates (BER) using these sparse estimates with the post-equalizer BER using the ML estimate. I …

Flexible Micro-N-Line Probe And Apparatus To Characterize Electronic Conductivity Of Li-Ion Battery Electrode Films, Derek Van Clement

Theses and Dissertations

A key metric that affects Li-ion battery cell performance is the electronic conductivity of the electrode films. Previous research has found that the conductivity of electrodes is not homogeneous throughout the entirety of the deposited film area. To further characterize the non-homogeneity of the conductivity of electrode films, a micro-N-line probe and a micro-flex-line probe were developed to take micro-scale conductivity measurements of thin-film battery electrodes in a non-destructive manner. These devices have been validated by comparing test results to those of it's predecessor, the micro-four-line probe, on various commercial-quality Li-ion battery electrodes. Results show that there is significant variation …

Introductory Chapter: Recent Advances, Adel El-Shahat

Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Publications

Chapter Excerpt: This book proposes the most important researches in electrical resistivity and conductivity modeling, measurement, estimation and sensing methods, and implications. Electrical conductivity and electrical resistivity are very important properties for different materials. The goal of the book achieved via presenting new and modern case studies for sensing methods of electrical resistivity, resistivity modeling of frozen soil, measurement of the electrical resistivity for unconventional structures, estimation of hydrological parameters from geoelectric measurements, and assessment of cryoprotectant concentration by electrical conductivity measurement. It presents different methods to measure resistivity for both liquid and solid materials by explaining two, three, and …

Undersampling Ga-Svm For Network Intrusion Detection, Zhenyu He

Theses

Network intrusion detection is one of the hottest issues in the world. An increasing number of researchers and engineers deal with this problem by using machine learning methods. However, how to improve the identification accuracy of all the attack classes remains unsolved since the dataset is an imbalanced one with high imbalance ratio. This thesis work intends to build a classifier to achieve high classification accuracy. It proposes an undersampling Genetic Algorithm-Support Vector Machine (GA-SVM) method to handle this problem. It applies an undersampling method in GA-SVM. To solve the multiclassification problem with a binary classifier, this work proposes to …