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Engineering

Theses/Dissertations

2010

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Network Security Toolkit Including Heuristic Solutions For Trust System Placement And Network Obfuscation, Gabriel H. Greve Dec 2010

Network Security Toolkit Including Heuristic Solutions For Trust System Placement And Network Obfuscation, Gabriel H. Greve

Theses and Dissertations

For Part I, a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) network consists of a group stations and substations in a portion of the power grid. The use of Internet technology in SCADA communications as well as other factors has caused vulnerabilities. One idea to help mitigate this risk is to strategically place trust nodes to compartmentalize and secure the SCADA systems without disturbing its finely honed processes. The trust nodes combine firewall and intrusion detection technology to provide more secure communication. An optimal solution to this problem has already been developed using a mixed-integer linear programming model. Because the problem …


Navigation With Limited Prior Information Using Time Difference Of Arrival Measurements From Signals Of Opportunity, Christopher M. Rondeau Dec 2010

Navigation With Limited Prior Information Using Time Difference Of Arrival Measurements From Signals Of Opportunity, Christopher M. Rondeau

Theses and Dissertations

The Global Positioning System (GPS) provides world-wide availability to high-accuracy navigation and positioning information. However, the threats to GPS are increasing, and many limitations of GPS are being encountered. Simultaneously, systems previously considered as viable backups or supplements to GPS are being shut down. This creates the need for system alternatives. Navigation using signals of opportunity (SoOP) exploits any signal that is available in a given area, regardless of whether or not the original intent of the signal was for navigation. Common techniques to compute a position estimate using SoOP include received signal strength, angle of arrival, time of arrival, …


A Linear Combination Of Heuristics Approach To Spatial Sampling Hyperspectral Data For Target Tracking, Barry R. Secrest Dec 2010

A Linear Combination Of Heuristics Approach To Spatial Sampling Hyperspectral Data For Target Tracking, Barry R. Secrest

Theses and Dissertations

Persistent surveillance of the battlespace results in better battlespace awareness which aids in obtaining air superiority, winning battles, and saving friendly lives. Although hyperspectral imagery (HSI) data has proven useful for discriminating targets, it presents many challenges as a useful tool in persistent surveillance. A new sensor under development has the potential of overcoming these challenges and transforming our persistent surveillance capability by providing HSI data for a limited number of pixels and grayscale video for the remainder. The challenge of exploiting this new sensor is determining where the HSI data in the sensor's field of view will be the …


An Integrity Framework For Image-Based Navigation Systems, Craig D. Larson Jun 2010

An Integrity Framework For Image-Based Navigation Systems, Craig D. Larson

Theses and Dissertations

This work first examines fundamental differences between measurement models established for GPS and those of proposed image-based navigation systems. In contrast to single value per satellite GPS pseudorange measurements, image measurements are inherently angle-based and represent pixel coordinate pairs for each mapped target. Thus, in the image-based case, special consideration must be given to the units of the transformations between the states and measurements, and also to the fact that multiple rows of the observation matrix relate to particular error states. An algorithm is developed to instantiate a framework for image-based integrity analogous to that of GPS RAIM. The algorithm …


Multi-Objective Constraint Satisfaction For Mobile Robot Area Defense, Kenneth W. Mayo Mar 2010

Multi-Objective Constraint Satisfaction For Mobile Robot Area Defense, Kenneth W. Mayo

Theses and Dissertations

In developing multi-robot cooperative systems, there are often competing objectives that need to be met. For example in automating area defense systems, multiple robots must work together to explore the entire area, and maintain consistent communications to alert the other agents and ensure trust in the system. This research presents an algorithm that tasks robots to meet the two specific goals of exploration and communication maintenance in an uncoordinated environment reducing the need for a user to pre-balance the objectives. This multi-objective problem is defined as a constraint satisfaction problem solved using the Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II). Both …


Global Navigation Satellite System Software Defined Radio, Jason M. Mcginthy Mar 2010

Global Navigation Satellite System Software Defined Radio, Jason M. Mcginthy

Theses and Dissertations

The GNSS world is quickly growing. The United States’ GPS, the European Union’s Galileo, China’s Compass, and Russia’s GLONASS systems are all developing or modernizing their signals, and there will soon be more navigation satellites in space than ever before. The goal of this research was to develop an initial capability for an AFIT GNSS software receiver. This software receiver is intended to be used for research purposes at the Advanced Navigation Technology (ANT) Center. First a GPS-only software receiver was built. It successfully acquired, tracked, and provided reasonable position estimates. Next, the receiver was successfully modified to acquire and …


Monocular Vision Localization Using A Gimbaled Laser Range Sensor, Don J. Yates Mar 2010

Monocular Vision Localization Using A Gimbaled Laser Range Sensor, Don J. Yates

Theses and Dissertations

There have been great advances in recent years in the area of indoor navigation. Many of these new navigation systems rely on digital images to aid an inertial navigation estimates. The Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) has been conducting research in this area for a number of years. The image-aiding techniques are centered around tracking stationary features in order to improve inertial navigation estimates. Previous research has used stereo vision systems or terrain constraints with monocular systems to estimate feature locations. While these methods have shown good results, they do have drawbacks. First, as unmanned exploration vehicles become smaller …


Aiding Gps With Additional Satellite Navigation Services, Yasin A. Mutlu Mar 2010

Aiding Gps With Additional Satellite Navigation Services, Yasin A. Mutlu

Theses and Dissertations

In modern warfare navigation services are very important. GPS is currently providing service for accurate navigation, except in some areas, especially urban areas, where GPS signals cannot always be tracked by users. In these cases some additional navigation support could be provided by other global navigation satellite systems. If GPS is combined with other navigation systems than the navigation gap will be minor. In this thesis, the effect of combining GPS with other satellite navigation systems, specifically GLONASS, Galileo and Compass, is evaluated in terms of availability and position dilution of precision (PDOP) values. First, satellite constellations are simulated in …


Analysis Of Hybrid-Electric Propulsion System Designs For Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Ryan M. Hiserote Mar 2010

Analysis Of Hybrid-Electric Propulsion System Designs For Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Ryan M. Hiserote

Theses and Dissertations

Currently fielded electric-powered small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) lack the endurance desired by warfighters, while their internal combustion engine (ICE) driven counterparts generate mission compromising acoustic and thermal signatures. Parallel hybrid-electric propulsion systems would meet the military’s needs by combining the advantages of hydrocarbon and electric power systems. Three distinct parallel hybrid-electric system designs, each with three unique battery discharging profiles, were analyzed and compared using a constrained static optimization formulation based upon traditional aircraft design equations. Each system combined an ICE sized for cruise speed with an electric motor sized for endurance speed. The nine hybrid variations were compared …


Gravity Gradiometry And Map Matching: An Aid To Aircraft Inertial Navigation Systems, Anthony J. Degregoria Mar 2010

Gravity Gradiometry And Map Matching: An Aid To Aircraft Inertial Navigation Systems, Anthony J. Degregoria

Theses and Dissertations

Inertial navigation systems (INS) offer passive, all-weather, and undeniable navigation information, which military customers often view as especially appealing strengths. Unfortunately, Airmen and engineers still struggle with INS’s drifting position errors, and navigation aids generally detract from INS’s strengths. At this year’s Air, Space, and Cyberspace in the 21st Century Conference, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force identified the Global Positioning System (GPS) as a widely-known and exploitable vulnerability, saying that it’s critical the Joint force reduce GPS dependence. Recent advances provide an opportunity for gravity gradient instruments (GGI), which measure spatial derivatives of the gravity vector, to …


Conceptual Design Tool For Fuel-Cell Powered Micro Air Vehicles, Paul M. Hrad Mar 2010

Conceptual Design Tool For Fuel-Cell Powered Micro Air Vehicles, Paul M. Hrad

Theses and Dissertations

A conceptual design tool was built to explore power requirements of a hybrid-power system for Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) comparable in size to the Cooper's Hawk. An inviscid aerodynamic code, Athena Vortex Lattice (AVL), and a motor-propeller analysis code, QPROP, provide overall lift, drag, and thrust data for power-required calculation as functions of many variables to include mass, platform geometry, altitude, velocity, and mission duration. Phoenix Technologies’ Model Center was used to integrate multi-disciplinary components that employ specific power and specific energy of two power sources to determine power system mass required for a designated mission. The tool simulated a …