Digital Commons Network^™

Adaptive Personalized Drug Delivery Method For Warfarin And Anemia Management: Modeling And Control., Affan Affan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Personalized precision medicine aims to develop the appropriate treatments for suitable patients at the right time to obtain optimal results. Personalized medicine is challenging due to inter- and intra-patient variability, narrow therapeutic window, the effect of other medications, comorbidity (more than one disease at a time), nonlinear patient dynamics, and time-varying patient dose response characteristics which include bleeding (internal and external). This research aims to develop a framework for an adaptive personalized modeling and control method with minimum clinical patient specific dose response data for optimal drug dosing. The proposed methodology is applied to anemia and warfarin management. It is …

Design, Fabrication, And Integration Of Robotic Skin Sensors For Human Robot Interaction., Olalekan Olakitan Olowo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Enhancing physical human-robot interaction in modern robotics relies on refining the tactile perception of robot skin sensors. This research focuses on crucial aspects of the development process, including fabrication techniques, miniaturization, and integration for a more efficient collaborative human-robot interface. The fabrication process of robot skin sensors, designed to mimic human skin, is explored both within and outside cleanroom environments. An enhanced technique is presented to increase fabrication yield and create more miniaturized sensor designs with feature sizes in the tens of microns. These sensors function as piezoresistive arrays using organic polymers like PEDOT: PSS as the pressure-sensing medium. Various …

Investigating Mems Devices In Flow Conditions Relevant To Flow-Through Systems., Mohammad Shafquatul Islam

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Advancements in microscale actuating technologies has substantially expanded the possibilities of interacting with the surrounding environment. Microstructures that deflect in response to mechanical forces are one of the largest application areas of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). MEMS devices, functioning as sensors, actuators, and support structures, find applications in inertial sensors, pressure sensors, chemical sensors, and robotics, among others. Driven by the critical role of catalytic membrane reactors, this dissertation aims to evaluate enzyme activity on polymeric membranes and explore how fabrication methods from the field of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) can incorporate sensing and actuation into these porous surfaces. Toward …

A Modular Framework For Surface-Embedded Actuation And Optical Sensing In Soft Robots., Paul Bupe Jr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the development and integration of modular technologies in soft robotics, with a focus on the OptiGap sensor system. OptiGap serves as a simple, flexible, cost-effective solution for real-time sensing of bending and deformation, validated through simulation and experimentation. Working as part of an emerging category of soft robotics called Soft, Curved, Reconfigurable, Anisotropic Mechanisms, or SCRAMs, this research also introduces the Thermally-Activated SCRAM Limb (TASL) technology, which employs shape-memory alloy (SMA) wire embedded in curved sheets for surface actuation and served as the initial inspiration for OptiGap. In addition, the EneGate system is presented as a complementary …

The Study Of Corrosion On Additive-Manufactured Metals., Braydan Daniels

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate and compare the corrosion mechanisms between wrought and additive-manufactured (3D-printed) copper and stainless steel. The experimental procedure consisted of measuring the open circuit potential, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, linear sweep voltammetry, Tafel analysis, surface topology, and scanning electron microscopy for each metal within salt water, tap water, sulfuric acid, and synthetic body fluid (excluding copper in synthetic body fluid).

Overall, printed stainless steel was more corrosion-resistant than wrought stainless steel in tap water and synthetic body fluid based on OCP, LSV, and surface topology results. Additionally, printed copper was more corrosion-resistant than wrought …

Modeling, Simulation And Control Of Microrobots For The Microfactory., Zhong Yang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Future assembly technologies will involve higher levels of automation in order to satisfy increased microscale or nanoscale precision requirements. Traditionally, assembly using a top-down robotic approach has been well-studied and applied to the microelectronics and MEMS industries, but less so in nanotechnology. With the boom of nanotechnology since the 1990s, newly designed products with new materials, coatings, and nanoparticles are gradually entering everyone’s lives, while the industry has grown into a billion-dollar volume worldwide. Traditionally, nanotechnology products are assembled using bottom-up methods, such as self-assembly, rather than top-down robotic assembly. This is due to considerations of volume handling of large …

Nonlinear Observers For Burning Zone Temperatures And Torque Estimation Of The Rotary Cement Kiln., Bhagyashri Aditya Bhagwat

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Due to consistent expansion in the infrastructure and housing sectors worldwide have given a new way for the rapid growth of global cement market. Increased global demand for the cement production makes the attractive research topic which can lead to the quality and overall efficiency of the product. Measurement of the temperature in the burning zone is vital to maintain product quality and kiln efficiency in the cement industry. Often the BZT is un-measurable due to internal kiln conditions, dusty environment, extreme heat, harshness for example and this leads to kiln not being driven as efficient as possible. Multi-physics tools …

Design, Evaluation, And Control Of Nexus: A Multiscale Additive Manufacturing Platform With Integrated 3d Printing And Robotic Assembly., Danming Wei

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Additive manufacturing (AM) technology is an emerging approach to creating three-dimensional (3D) objects and has seen numerous applications in medical implants, transportation, aerospace, energy, consumer products, etc. Compared with manufacturing by forming and machining, additive manufacturing techniques provide more rapid, economical, efficient, reliable, and complex manufacturing processes. However, additive manufacturing also has limitations on print strength and dimensional tolerance, while traditional additive manufacturing hardware platforms for 3D printing have limited flexibility. In particular, part geometry and materials are limited to most 3D printing hardware. In addition, for multiscale and complex products, samples must be printed, fabricated, and transferred among different …

Computer Aided Diagnosis System For Breast Cancer Using Deep Learning., Asma Baccouche

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The recent rise of big data technology surrounding the electronic systems and developed toolkits gave birth to new promises for Artificial Intelligence (AI). With the continuous use of data-centric systems and machines in our lives, such as social media, surveys, emails, reports, etc., there is no doubt that data has gained the center of attention by scientists and motivated them to provide more decision-making and operational support systems across multiple domains. With the recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, the use of machine learning and deep learning models have achieved remarkable advances in computer vision, ecommerce, cybersecurity, and healthcare. Particularly, numerous …

Automatic Testing Of Organic Strain Gauge Tactile Sensors., Brian P. Goulet

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Human-Robot Interaction is a developing field of science, that is posed to augment everything we do in life. Skin sensors that can detect touch, temperature, distance, and other physical interaction parameters at the human-robot interface are very important to enhancing the collaboration between humans and machines. As such, these sensors must be efficiently tested and characterized to give accurate feedback from the sensor to the robot. The objective of this work is to create a diversified software testing suite that removes as much human intervention as possible. The tests and methodology discussed here provide multiple realistic scenarios that the sensors …

Collaborative Human-Machine Interfaces For Mobile Manipulators., Shamsudeen Olawale Abubakar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The use of mobile manipulators in service industries as both agents in physical Human Robot Interaction (pHRI) and for social interactions has been on the increase in recent times due to necessities like compensating for workforce shortages and enabling safer and more efficient operations amongst other reasons. Collaborative robots, or co-bots, are robots that are developed for use with human interaction through direct contact or close proximity in a shared space with the human users. The work presented in this dissertation focuses on the design, implementation and analysis of components for the next-generation collaborative human machine interfaces (CHMI) needed for …

Additive Manufacturing Using Robotic Manipulators, Fdm, And Aerosol Jet Printers., Alexander Curry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Additive manufacturing has created countless new opportunities for fabrication of devices in the past few years. Advances in additive manufacturing continue to change the way that many devices are fabricated by simplifying processes and often lowering cost. Fused deposition modeling (FDM) is the most common form of 3D printing. It is a well-developed process that can print various plastic materials into three-dimensional structures. This technology is used in a lot of industries for rapid prototyping and sometimes small batch manufacturing. It is very inexpensive, and a prototype can be created in a few hours, rather than days. This is useful …

Signal Fingerprinting And Machine Learning Framework For Uav Detection And Identification., Olusiji Oloruntobi Medaiyese

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Advancement in technology has led to creative and innovative inventions. One such invention includes unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). UAVs (also known as drones) are now an intrinsic part of our society because their application is becoming ubiquitous in every industry ranging from transportation and logistics to environmental monitoring among others. With the numerous benign applications of UAVs, their emergence has added a new dimension to privacy and security issues. There are little or no strict regulations on the people that can purchase or own a UAV. For this reason, nefarious actors can take advantage of these aircraft to intrude into …

Variable Autonomy Assignment Algorithms For Human-Robot Interactions., Christopher Kevin Robinson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As robotic agents become increasingly present in human environments, task completion rates during human-robot interaction has grown into an increasingly important topic of research. Safe collaborative robots executing tasks under human supervision often augment their perception and planning capabilities through traded or shared control schemes. However, such systems are often proscribed only at the most abstract level, with the meticulous details of implementation left to the designer's prerogative. Without a rigorous structure for implementing controls, the work of design is frequently left to ad hoc mechanism with only bespoke guarantees of systematic efficacy, if any such proof is forthcoming at …

Biometric Features Modeling To Measure Students Engagement., Islam Mohamed Ahmed Mohamed Mahmoud Alkabbany

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The ability to measure students’ engagement in an educational setting may improve student retention and academic success, revealing which students are disinterested, or which segments of a lesson are causing difficulties. This ability will facilitate timely intervention in both the learning and the teaching process in a variety of classroom settings. In this dissertation, an automatic students engagement measure is proposed through investigating three main engagement components of the engagement: the behavioural engagement, the emotional engagement and the cognitive engagement. The main goal of the proposed technology is to provide the instructors with a tool that could help them estimating …

Flight Trajectory Prediction For Aeronautical Communications., Nathan T Schimpf

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The development of future technologies for the National Airspace System (NAS) will be reliant on a new communications infrastructure capable of managing a limited spectrum among aircraft and ground systems. Emerging approaches to this spectrum allocation task mostly consider machine learning techniques reliant on aircraft and Air Traffic Control (ATC) sector data. Much of this data, however, is not directly available. This thesis considers the development of two such data products: the 4D trajectory (latitude, longitude, altitude, and time) of aircraft, and the anticipated airspace utilization and communication demand within an ATC sector. Data predictions are treated as a time …

Adaptive Control And Parameter-Dependent Anti-Windup Compensation For Inertia Varying Quadcopters., Benjamin Edwards Farber

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A novel parameter-dependent anti-windup compensator is developed to improve the performance of a saturation constrained model reference adaptive controller. The combined control structure solves the input saturation and stability problem for inertia varying quadcopters. The control synthesis follows the conventional two-step anti-windup design paradigm where a nominal controller is designed without consideration of the input saturation, and the anti-windup compensator is designed to minimize deviations from nominal performance caused by saturated inputs. To account for varying inertia of the quadcopter during package retrieval/delivery routines, the inertia parameters of the vehicle/package are estimated with an online recursive system identification technique, and …

Fly-In Visualization Of Tubular Objects: Theory And Application In Virtual Colonoscopy., Mostafa Mohamed

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, visualization for tubular objects, i.e., projecting 2D images from 3D inner surfaces of tubular objects, is investigated. Given surface points on 3D objects, an approach that most accurately and effectively projects 2D images from the 3D surface with minimal loss of information is desired. A new visualization method for tubular surfaces is proposed, denoted by "Fly-In". The approach uses a virtual camera ring that moves along the inner surface's centerline, obtaining projections of the surrounding views, forming small 3D topological rings within the tube rendered as a 2D rectangular image. A new visualization loss measure is also …

Nonlinear Control And Observation Of Full-Variable Speed Wind Turbine Systems., Nicholas Hawkins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With increasing concern for the environmental effects of power generation from fossil fuels, wind energy is a competitive source for electrical power with higher efficiency than other clean sources. However, the nature of this power source makes controlling wind turbines difficult. The variability of wind as a source either requires highly accurate measurement equipment or sophisticated mathematical alternatives. In addition to the unknown quantities of the weather itself, the efficiency of power capture at the turbine blades is highly nonlinear in nature and difficult to ascertain. The ability of either determine these troublesome quantities, or control the system despite ignorance …

Model-Based Control Methods To Improve The Power Qualify Of Grid-Connected Single-Phase Inverters., Moath Alqatamin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Power electronic converters are commonly used for interfacing distributing generation sources (DGs) to the electrical power system networks. This is necessary because these DGs usually have different output characteristics and cannot be connected directly to the local load and/or the grid. The power electronic front-end converter is an inverter whose dc link is fed by an ac/dc converter or by a dc/dc converter, according to the DG source type. The commercial front-end inverters are designed to operate either in grid-connected (GC) mode or in stand-alone (SA) mode. In the SA mode, the inverter is connected to local load, but in …

Inventory Management Of The Refrigerator's Produce Bins Using Classification Algorithms And Hand Analysis., Sarah Virginia Morris

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Tracking the inventory of one’s refrigerator has been a mission for consumers since the advent of the refrigerator. With the improvement of computer vision capabilities, automatic inventory systems are within reach. One inventory area with many potential benefits is the fresh food produce bins. The bins are a unique storage area due to their deep size. A user cannot easily see what is in the bins without opening the drawer. Produce items are also some of the quickest foods in the refrigerator to spoil, despite being temperature and humidity controlled to have the fruits and vegetables last longer. Allowing the …

Microrobots For Wafer Scale Microfactory: Design Fabrication Integration And Control., Ruoshi Zhang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Future assembly technologies will involve higher automation levels, in order to satisfy increased micro scale or nano scale precision requirements. Traditionally, assembly using a top-down robotic approach has been well-studied and applied to micro-electronics and MEMS industries, but less so in nanotechnology. With the bloom of nanotechnology ever since the 1990s, newly designed products with new materials, coatings and nanoparticles are gradually entering everyone’s life, while the industry has grown into a billion-dollar volume worldwide. Traditionally, nanotechnology products are assembled using bottom-up methods, such as self-assembly, rather than with top-down robotic assembly. This is due to considerations of volume handling …

Triple-Junction Solar Cells : In Parallel., Levi C Mays

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper looks into the current inefficiency of solar cells and attempts a few alternative solar cell structures in order to provide a more effective source of renewable energy. Currently, multi-junction solar cells are being developed to capture the sun’s light more efficiently. One of the ideas in this paper is to add a window to see if the addition of such a layer into a junction will increase the voltage while maintaining nearly the same current output. Central to this paper is the rearranging of the conducting layers of the multi-junction cell so that the junctions can be connected …

Adaptive Physical Human-Robot Interaction (Phri) With A Robotic Nursing Assistant., Sumit Kumar Das

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recently, more and more robots are being investigated for future applications in health-care. For instance, in nursing assistance, seamless Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) is very important for sharing workspaces and workloads between medical staff, patients, and robots. In this thesis we introduce a novel robot - the Adaptive Robot Nursing Assistant (ARNA) and its underlying components. ARNA has been designed specifically to assist nurses with day-to-day tasks such as walking patients, pick-and-place item retrieval, and routine patient health monitoring. An adaptive HRI in nursing applications creates a positive user experience, increase nurse productivity and task completion rates, as reported by experimentation …

Formally Designing And Implementing Cyber Security Mechanisms In Industrial Control Networks., Mehdi Sabraoui

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation describes progress in the state-of-the-art for developing and deploying formally verified cyber security devices in industrial control networks. It begins by detailing the unique struggles that are faced in industrial control networks and why concepts and technologies developed for securing traditional networks might not be appropriate. It uses these unique struggles and examples of contemporary cyber-attacks targeting control systems to argue that progress in securing control systems is best met with formal verification of systems, their specifications, and their security properties. This dissertation then presents a development process and identifies two technologies, TLA+ and seL4, that can be …

Cognitive Satellite Communications And Representation Learning For Streaming And Complex Graphs., Wenqi Liu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation includes two topics. The first topic studies a promising dynamic spectrum access algorithm (DSA) that improves the throughput of satellite communication (SATCOM) under the uncertainty. The other topic investigates distributed representation learning for streaming and complex networks. DSA allows a secondary user to access the spectrum that are not occupied by primary users. However, uncertainty in SATCOM causes more spectrum sensing errors. In this dissertation, the uncertainty has been addressed by formulating a DSA decision-making process as a Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP) model to optimally determine which channels to sense and access. Large-scale networks have attracted …

Hardware Implementation Of Boost Power Factor Correction Converter., Shruti Motilal Deore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nowadays, there has been an increasing demand of unity power factor in electrical power sector. Due to the nonlinear nature of load equipment, switching devices, source voltage and current are out of phase with each other. Many power converters topologies are used for the power factor correction. The boost converter with controller is most common for power factor correction circuits. The controller objective is to maintain the output voltage regulation and input current tracking with source voltage. The voltage ripple present due to the ac component of the current tracking objective, hence instead of ignoring that ripple, it is used …

Automatic Signal And Image-Based Assessments Of Spinal Cord Injury And Treatments., Samineh Mesbah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is one of the most common sources of motor disabilities in humans that often deeply impact the quality of life in individuals with severe and chronic SCI. In this dissertation, we have developed advanced engineering tools to address three distinct problems that researchers, clinicians and patients are facing in SCI research. Particularly, we have proposed a fully automated stochastic framework to quantify the effects of SCI on muscle size and adipose tissue distribution in skeletal muscles by volumetric segmentation of 3-D MRI scans in individuals with chronic SCI as well as non-disabled individuals. We also developed …

Receptive Fields Optimization In Deep Learning For Enhanced Interpretability, Diversity, And Resource Efficiency., Babajide Odunitan Ayinde

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In both supervised and unsupervised learning settings, deep neural networks (DNNs) are known to perform hierarchical and discriminative representation of data. They are capable of automatically extracting excellent hierarchy of features from raw data without the need for manual feature engineering. Over the past few years, the general trend has been that DNNs have grown deeper and larger, amounting to huge number of final parameters and highly nonlinear cascade of features, thus improving the flexibility and accuracy of resulting models. In order to account for the scale, diversity and the difficulty of data DNNs learn from, the architectural complexity and …

Modeling And Simulation Methodologies For Spinal Cord Stimulation., Saliya Kumara Kirigeeganage

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The use of neural prostheses to improve health of paraplegics has been a prime interest of neuroscientists over the last few decades. Scientists have performed experiments with spinal cord stimulation (SCS) to enable voluntary motor function of paralyzed patients. However, the experimentation on the human spinal cord is not a trivial task. Therefore, modeling and simulation techniques play a significant role in understanding the underlying concepts and mechanics of the spinal cord stimulation. In this work, simulation and modeling techniques related to spinal cord stimulation were investigated. The initial work was intended to visualize the electric field distribution patterns in …