Digital Commons Network^™

Partial Discharge Testing And Detection Under Pwm Voltage, John Meadors

Masters Theses

Partial Discharge detection and measurement is an important part of electric insulation design. However, in PWM (pulse width modulation) voltage source converter environments, the noise resulting from switching voltage (rise and fall times of tens of nanoseconds) makes detection and extraction of partial discharge difficult. Unique methods of partial discharge detection are needed to address and decouple the noise from partial discharge measurements. PWM voltage can feature high switching speeds and high dv/dt during voltage switching. These PWM voltage behaviors are not found in traditional utility high voltage applications, and the effects that this type of voltage has on insulation …

Evaluation Of Robust Deep Learning Pipelines Targeting Low Swap Edge Deployment, David Carter Cornett

Masters Theses

The deep learning technique of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) has greatly advanced the state-of-the-art for computer vision tasks such as image classification and object detection. These solutions rely on large systems leveraging wattage-hungry GPUs to provide the computational power to achieve such performance. However, the size, weight and power (SWaP) requirements of these conventional GPU-based deep learning systems are not suitable when a solution requires deployment to so called "Edge" environments such as autonomous vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and smart security cameras.

The objective of this work is to benchmark FPGA-based alternatives to conventional GPU systems that have the …

Development Of A Point-Of-Use Testing Platform For Detecting Bacteria Infection In Raw Milk, Xin Xia

Masters Theses

The detection and quantification of bacteria are essential to environment and food quality monitoring. Escherichia coli (E. coli) is a common pathogen, also a causative agent of mastitis. Traditional methods usually require samples to be tested in a laboratory. However, sending samples to remote lab increases the cost of time and money spent on delivery. Sometimes, samples can degrade during this long progress and cause inaccuracy. A low cost and reusable sensor is designed to perform on-site quantification. The sensor composed of two layers of asymmetrical mesh electrodes, which is used in coordination magnetic microparticles functionalized with bacterium-specific antibody. Immunological …

Power System Stability Assessment With Supervised Machine Learning, Mirka Mandich

Masters Theses

Power system stability assessment has become an important area of research due to the increased penetration of photovoltaics (PV) in modern power systems. This work explores how supervised machine learning can be used to assess power system stability for the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) service region as part of the Data-driven Security Assessment for the Multi-Timescale Integrated Dynamics and Scheduling for Solar (MIDAS) project. Data-driven methods offer to improve power flow scheduling through machine learning prediction, enabling better energy resource management and reducing demand on real-time time-domain simulations. Frequency, transient, and small signal stability datasets were created using the …

Design And Simulation Of A Supervisory Control System For Hybrid Manufacturing, Michael Buckley

Masters Theses

The research teams of Dr. Bill Hamel, Dr. Bradley Jared and Dr. Tony Schmitz were tasked by the Office of Naval Research to create a hybrid manufacturing process for a reduced scale model of a naval ship propeller. The base structure of the propeller is created using Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM), which is then scanned to compare created geometry to desired geometry. The propeller is then machined down to match the desired geometry. This process is iterated upon until the final product meets design tolerances. Due to the complex nature and numerous industrial machines used in the process, it …

Modeling And Evaluation Of Utility-Scale Microgrid Investment For Distribution System Planning, Ian Schomer

Masters Theses

The electrical distribution network faces two great challenges for the immediate future. First, increased affordability of distributed energy resources (DERs)—and advancing control technologies of inverters that interface them to the grid—have driven a shift from a passive to an active distribution network (ADN), which heightens the complexity of system management. Second, the increased frequency of severe weather events and increased potential for a cybersecurity attack necessitate the need for a resilient infrastructure that can respond adaptively to shutdowns within the system. Microgrids (MGs) present a promising framework both to provide hierarchal control of DERs and to increase resiliency with grid-forming …

High Frequency Injection Sensorless Control For A Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machine Driven By An Fpga Controlled Sic Inverter, Jared Walden

Masters Theses

As motor drive inverters continue to employ Silicon Carbide (SiC) and Gallium Nitride (GaN) devices for power density improvements, sensorless motor control strategies can be developed with field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA) to take advantage of high inverter switching frequencies. Through the FPGA’s parallel processing capabilities, a high control bandwidth sensorless control algorithm can be employed. Sensorless motor control offers cost reductions through the elimination of mechanical position sensors or more reliable electric drive systems by providing additional position and speed information of the electric motor. Back electromotive force (EMF) estimation or model-based methods used for motor control provide precise sensorless …

Development Of An Encrypted Wireless System For Body Sensor Network Applications, Kendra Anderson

Masters Theses

Wireless body area networks (WBAN), also called wireless body sensor networks (WBSN), consist of a collection of wireless sensor nodes used to monitor and assess various human physiological conditions, which can then be used by healthcare professionals to help them make important healthcare decisions. They can be used to prevent disease, help diagnosis a disease, or manage the symptoms of a disease. An extremely important aspect of WBAN is security to protect a patient's healthcare information, as a hacker could potentially cause fatal harm. Current security measures are implemented in software at the MAC layer and higher, not in the …

A Communications Testbed For Testing Power Electronic Agent Systems, Benjamin R. Dean

Masters Theses

As power electronic system (PES) continue to incorporate complex intra-system communication, understanding and characterizing this communication has become a complex task. Knowing how a system’s communication will behave is vital to ensuring proper operation of these systems. This thesis proposes and outlines a communication testbed that streamlines the development and testing of the communications between the components of PES, and further presents the characterization of communication protocol utilized in these multi-agent PESs. These communication protocols include MQTT, Modbus, or User Datagram Protocol (UDP). Understanding the different behavior of these protocols presents is paramount for the design of PESs.

A Secure Architecture For Defense Against Return Address Corruption, Grayson J. Bruner

Masters Theses

The advent of the Internet of Things has brought about a staggering level of inter-connectivity between common devices used every day. Unfortunately, security is not a high priority for developers designing these IoT devices. Often times the trade-off of security comes at too high of a cost in other areas, such as performance or power consumption. This is especially prevalent in resource-constrained devices, which make up a large number of IoT devices. However, a lack of security could lead to a cascade of security breaches rippling through connected devices. One of the most common attacks used by hackers is return …

Development Of A Converter-Based Testing Platform And Battery Energy Storage System (Bess) Emulator For Microgrid Controller Function Evaluation, Dingrui Li

Masters Theses

The microgrid has attracted increasing research attention in the last two decades. Due to the development of renewable energy resources and power electronics technologies, the future microgrid will trend to be smarter and more complicated. The microgrid controller performs a critical role in the microgrid operation, which will also become more and more sophisticated to support the future microgrid. Before final field deployment and test, the evaluation and testing of the controller is an indispensable step in the controller development, which requires a proper testing platform.

However, existing simulation-based platforms have issues with potential numerical oscillation and may require huge …

Optimal And Model Free Control Of Tumor Immune Interaction Dynamic To Schedule Cancer Treatments, Mohamed Alsager

Masters Theses

Cancer is an intricate disease that can attack different parts of the human body. In the most common types of cancer, abnormal cells divide uncontrollably and impair body tissue. Cross disciplinary research has long aided expansion of our knowledge and ability to approach problems with a different perspective. Engineers and clinicians can collaborate to solve mysteries surrounding cancer cells function and responses. Engineers have contributed to cancer treatment, by studying new ways to diagnose and treat cancer. According to a study by John Hopkins university engineered Nano-particles can induce immune reaction and kill cancer cells. In addition, new ways of …