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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

The Use Of Scattering Cancellation To Cloak And Decouple Slot Antennas And Antenna Arrays, Daniel Ferro May 2023

The Use Of Scattering Cancellation To Cloak And Decouple Slot Antennas And Antenna Arrays, Daniel Ferro

Honors Theses

The concept of cloaking has been prevalent in emerging research, being able to hide oneself completely from outside observers would be a huge benefit for covert surveillance and other fields. This idea has expanded past optical invisibility into the field of electromagnetic invisibility. To accomplish this form of cloaking, a non-natural material, called metamaterials, must be used. Furthermore, metamaterials can be used in a variety of different techniques including transformation-based cloaking, transmission line cloaking, and scattering cancellation cloaking. One application of cloaking is to use scattering cancellation to decouple two antennas that are placed too closely together such as in …


Effective Green Marketing Strategies On Social Media: Selling Companies And Their Consumers On Investing In Carbon Offsetting And Solar Energy In 2021, Melvin Richard Springer Iv May 2022

Effective Green Marketing Strategies On Social Media: Selling Companies And Their Consumers On Investing In Carbon Offsetting And Solar Energy In 2021, Melvin Richard Springer Iv

Honors Theses

In a digital world where consumers and businesses alike care significantly about sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR), the success of startup companies hinges on constant, clear, and thoughtful communication. Through my research into successfully marketing such concerns on social media as well as my internship at Clearloop, I discovered some of the best ways to convince both companies and consumers that preserving the planet should be a primary concern for every environmentally conscious company. Companies that ignore their impacts on the environment are synonymous with companies doomed to fail in the 21st century. Clearloop’s model of partnering with …


An Investigation Into Cognitive Radio System Performance, Courtney Hardy, Lucas F. Feather, William S. Guy May 2021

An Investigation Into Cognitive Radio System Performance, Courtney Hardy, Lucas F. Feather, William S. Guy

Honors Theses

The objective of this thesis is to explore cognitive radio performance through an in-depth literature review and an implementation of a software-defined radio prototyping system. Specifically, this thesis investigates the spectrum-sensing aspect of cognitive radio by comparing two spectrum-sensing methods. It was found in the literature review that a system utilizing matched filter detection would provide higher probability of detection in low signal-to-noise ratio environments when compared to a system utilizing energy detection. These spectrum sensing methods were thus implemented and compared in the cognitive radio systems presented in this thesis. Additionally, experiments were conducted to determine the most efficient …


A Study Of Deep Reinforcement Learning In Autonomous Racing Using Deepracer Car, Mukesh Ghimire May 2021

A Study Of Deep Reinforcement Learning In Autonomous Racing Using Deepracer Car, Mukesh Ghimire

Honors Theses

Reinforcement learning is thought to be a promising branch of machine learning that has the potential to help us develop an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) machine. Among the machine learning algorithms, primarily, supervised, semi supervised, unsupervised and reinforcement learning, reinforcement learning is different in a sense that it explores the environment without prior knowledge, and determines the optimal action. This study attempts to understand the concept behind reinforcement learning, the mathematics behind it and see it in action by deploying the trained model in Amazon's DeepRacer car. DeepRacer, a 1/18th scaled autonomous car, is the agent which is trained …


An Open-Baffle Motional Feedback Loudspeaker, Matthew Quinlivan, William Harvie May 2021

An Open-Baffle Motional Feedback Loudspeaker, Matthew Quinlivan, William Harvie

Honors Theses

A dynamic loudspeaker mounted in an open baffle has the same parameters as a loudspeaker in free space. A subwoofer mounted in an open baffle has a small total quality factor and therefore the frequency above which the driver has a significant output is too high despite the subwoofer's low resonant frequency. To address this issue, we implemented a motional feedback circuit with the goal of introducing both velocity feedback and acceleration feedback into the loudspeaker system and thus altering the resonant frequency and total quality factor of the system. After verifying the efficacy of our feedback circuit with computer …


Parametric Design Of Flywheel For An Electric Punch Press, Prashant Dhakal Apr 2021

Parametric Design Of Flywheel For An Electric Punch Press, Prashant Dhakal

Honors Theses

Almost all designs start with a design requirement. These may be weight, volume, clearance, and even custom calculations. Finding a solution that meets these requirements often involves tedious and time-consuming iterations. Once the solution has been found, the design must be optimized to find the best possible solution. Finding the ‘best possible design’ requires substantial time and effort dedicated to iterating and analyzing the potential model solutions. This is where Parametric design comes into play. The Parametric design aids in specifying the key parameters of the design and makes changes interactively, with the model updating automatically. The purpose of this …


Heel Down And Toe-Off Time Measured With Ultrasonic Doppler System And Force Plate Sensor, Sabin Timsina May 2020

Heel Down And Toe-Off Time Measured With Ultrasonic Doppler System And Force Plate Sensor, Sabin Timsina

Honors Theses

Collie Box is a medical device that measures the gait parameters of the person walk- ing in front of it. This device uses the Ultrasonic Doppler system to extract the heel-contact and toe-off times of a person walking within the range of 2-10 meters. These times are used to determine the leg’s swing phase and double stance times. The ultrasonic transducer of 10mm diameter is driven at 40kHz. At the time of the heel-contact and toe-off, foot velocity is zero while the torso part of the human body is still in motion. The wide directivity of 10mm diameter ultrasonic transducer …


A Modular Data Acquisition Device And Biosignal Amplifier Design, Erin Bratu May 2019

A Modular Data Acquisition Device And Biosignal Amplifier Design, Erin Bratu

Honors Theses

The purpose of this research project is to revise a previous design of a modular data collection device and to develop a biosignal amplifier for use in EEG research. The primary goals of the device redesign were to address the challenges identified at the conclusion of the previous research and to either reaffirm or update various aspects of the implementation – primarily the main components that make up the device. The amplifier circuitry is designed to provide both amplification of the input signals and preliminary filtering of undesirable noise artifacts caused by common environmental sources. Both the collection device and …


Analysis And Optimization Of A Triple Notch Ultra-Wideband Antenna, Caleb D. Keathley Jan 2019

Analysis And Optimization Of A Triple Notch Ultra-Wideband Antenna, Caleb D. Keathley

Honors Theses

This paper analyzes a microstrip fed triple notch band Ultra-Wideband (UWB) antenna designed with an inverted pi slot and a Defected Microstrip Structure (DMS) Band-Stop Filter (BSF) from the design stage to the testing stage. This paper systematically steps through each phase of the antenna from simulation, to fabrication, and finally testing. The results of the simulation and testing phases are both compared to each other before comparing the entire project's results to the source paper's results. After determining the accuracy of the fabricated antenna, the paper discusses future avenues for optimization of an Ultra Wide-Band antenna.


Effects Of The America Invents Act And Recent Supreme Court Decisions On Patent Law, Bridgett Roal Jan 2019

Effects Of The America Invents Act And Recent Supreme Court Decisions On Patent Law, Bridgett Roal

Honors Theses

Due to an interest in pursuing a career in patent law with an electrical engineering background, this thesis describes the 2012 America Invents Act (AIA), which made major changes to patent law in the United States including the switch from “first-to-invent” to “first-to-file” and the creation of the Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB), as well as several relevant key Supreme Court decisions, and explains the impact that these events have caused. Through interviews with attorneys and others in the patent law community, personal research and investigation, and data from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), it has …


Tracking Using Fusion Of Multiple Inertial Measurement Units, Jacob Reed Mccall Jan 2019

Tracking Using Fusion Of Multiple Inertial Measurement Units, Jacob Reed Mccall

Honors Theses

The objective of this thesis is to determine the effectiveness of fusing data from multiple inertial measurement units (IMU) to reduce bias and noise with an overall goal of achieving accurate tracking, which is the process of locating a body as it moves in a fixed environment. Every sensor is subject to noise, and each sensor has its own unique set of biases. The thesis presents a systematic overview of the sensors used in this research, which feature linear acceleration, angular acceleration, and a directional sensor, to form an inertial navigation system (INS). Sources of noise and bias that affect …


Home Network Protector - Iot Device, Rodrick Rogers, Kranthi Kadaru Jan 2018

Home Network Protector - Iot Device, Rodrick Rogers, Kranthi Kadaru

Honors Theses

The Internet of Things (IoT) market is projected to grow to more than 80 billion connected devices by the year 2025 [1]. This surge in relevance opens numerous avenues to those with malicious intent to prey on the uninitiated. With the projected growth of IoT devices, this implies a more connected lifestyle for your everyday consumer. As more devices integrate into our daily lives, security of those devices becomes substantially more important. It all starts with the home network. Just as people feel secure from outside dangers from within their home, they should also have the same peace of mind …


Walking Gait Measurement And Gait Parameters Extraction, Chenye Li Jan 2018

Walking Gait Measurement And Gait Parameters Extraction, Chenye Li

Honors Theses

A fourth generation walking gait measurement device has been designed to capture and analyze detailed gait and stride metrics which eventually provides a Fall-Risk Assessment score. Specifically, the device has been modified to fit the residential environment and the elderly consumers which is low-cost, user-friendly, and portable. The gait parameters would be obtained by the on-board gait analysis protocol. Through gait parameters people's falling risk can then be calculated so that people can be alerted to take precautionary measures before falling. Overall, the device has been made and demonstrated having better performance than its previous generations. The on-board gait analyzing …


Design And Analysis Of An Fmri-Compatible Vibrotactile Skin Stimulator, Jacob Skyler Azbell Jan 2018

Design And Analysis Of An Fmri-Compatible Vibrotactile Skin Stimulator, Jacob Skyler Azbell

Honors Theses

The purpose of this research project is to design a multi-purpose fMRI-compatible vibrotactile skin stimulator that can be used in varying felds of research so that a specifc design does not have to be built for each individual application. Throughout this project, several stimulator designs were produced, but the core idea for each was quite similar. In each design, a wire coil was wound on a exible plastic tape former. One point of each coil is fxed, and the opposite point provides stimulation. Each wire coil was placed in a constant magnetic feld, which provided a weaker version of the …


A Hardware Algorithm For Self-Balancing Binary Search Trees, Joseph Deiermann Jan 2017

A Hardware Algorithm For Self-Balancing Binary Search Trees, Joseph Deiermann

Honors Theses

Binary search trees are binary trees with an ordering mechanism that makes the time to search for any given item within the tree is greatly reduced compared to an unordered array of numbers. More specifically, a balanced binary search tree is faster at finding a specific item in the tree than an unbalanced tree. There are several algorithms that can automatically balance a binary search tree. Most of them do this through rotations directly in their respective insert functions. These algorithms are mostly implemented in software. This paper will present a hardware-based algorithm to balance binary search trees. This algorithm …


The Effect On Postural Balance As A Result Of Different Types Of Golf-Specific Footwear Over An Extended Duration, Alice Mcgee Jan 2017

The Effect On Postural Balance As A Result Of Different Types Of Golf-Specific Footwear Over An Extended Duration, Alice Mcgee

Honors Theses

The sport of golf is increasingly popular within the United States, with an estimated 35 million participants worldwide. To be successful, the golf swing, regarded as a difficult biomechanical motion to accomplish, needs to be accurate and powerful. A proper swing incorporates a weight shift from the rear foot to the leading foot, which indicates that balance is crucial to maintain. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of golf-specific footwear on static balance over an extended duration in order to relate it to golf performance. Twelve recreationally trained males (age: 23.4±2.2 years; height: 181.5±9.0cm; mass 95.8±18.6 …


A Survey On Research Gaps In Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy And American Football Players, Thomas Brent Ferguson Jan 2017

A Survey On Research Gaps In Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy And American Football Players, Thomas Brent Ferguson

Honors Theses

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) has recently received extensive media coverage, significantly increasing interest in concussions and their relation to the brain disease. As research continues on the disease and the protein Tau that is associated with it, it is imperative to find a correlation between any possible causation other than concussions. All American football players suffer subconcussive impacts, yet only some are diagnosed with the disease, leading most to believe there is something missing. Interviews were conducted with multiple university officials who work in sports and health, former football players, and team doctors. After interviews, 18 former football players who …


The Effect Of Golf Shoe Characteristics On Static Balance Over An Extended Duration, Jordan Colbert Jan 2017

The Effect Of Golf Shoe Characteristics On Static Balance Over An Extended Duration, Jordan Colbert

Honors Theses

Golf performance is greatly impacted by balance ability, specifically during a golfer's swinging and putting motion. Previous studies have found that certain shoe characteristics can affect balance; however, no such study has been conducted for golf shoes. This study's objective was to compare balance scores between three different golf shoe styles and determine which style or characteristics serve golfers best in improving balance under quiet standing conditions over time. Twelve adults (age: 23.4 ± 2.2 years; height: 181.5 ± 9.0 cm; mass: 95.8 ± 18.6 kg) participated in this study. Each participant made four visits, one for each footwear condition: …


Performance Of Message Queue Telemetry Transport Protocol And Constrained Application Protocol In Wireless Sensor Networks, Yaguang Chen Jan 2017

Performance Of Message Queue Telemetry Transport Protocol And Constrained Application Protocol In Wireless Sensor Networks, Yaguang Chen

Honors Theses

The Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are formed by a broker/server, a few gateways and a large numbers of Sensor/Actuator (SA) devices, which are battery-operated and able to collect information about their environment, storage a small amount of data and transfer those data to the gateways for further operations. In this paper, two potential high performance protocols that could be implemented for WSNs are studied. These two protocols are MQTT-SN and CoAP protocols and their performances of time efficiency and power efficiency are mainly discussed and studied. A set of principles and designed experiments for both protocols are presented. The simulation …


Portable Bio-Signal Data Logger, Suprabh Singh Jan 2017

Portable Bio-Signal Data Logger, Suprabh Singh

Honors Theses

Increased involvement of Data Acquisition in current world research has pushed the requirements of data acquisition systems. This is particularly true in Biomedical engineering, where portable, light and easily accessible DAQ systems are needed. These systems should be light so that they can be wore on the body and should have long battery life where it can be powered all day for comprehensive research data. Under my honor thesis, we designed a portable DAQ which can record the data on eight channel simultaneously for minimum of 6 hours. Comparing to the present market option for portable DAQ, this system is …


A Framework For Verification Of Signal Propagation Through Sequential Nanomagnet Logic Devices, Alexander Gunter Jan 2016

A Framework For Verification Of Signal Propagation Through Sequential Nanomagnet Logic Devices, Alexander Gunter

Honors Theses

Nanomagnet Logic is an emerging technology for low-power, highly-scalable implementation of quantum-dot cellular automata. Feedback permits reuse of logical subroutines, which is a desired functionality of any computational device. Determining whether feedback is feasible is essential to assessing the robustness of nanomagnet logic in any pipelined computing design. Therefore, development of a quantitative approach for verification of feedback paths is critical for development of design and synthesis tools for nanomagnet logic structures. In this paper, a framework for verification of sequential nanomagnet logic devices is presented. A set of definitions for canonical alignment and state definitions for NML paths are …


Concussion In Women's Soccer: A Prescriptive Analysis Of Force Loading During Heading, James Michael Robinson Jan 2016

Concussion In Women's Soccer: A Prescriptive Analysis Of Force Loading During Heading, James Michael Robinson

Honors Theses

Women's soccer has the highest incidence of concussion among female sports. However, there has been relatively little research investigating the immediate and cumulative effects of soccer heading on brain injury, especially among youth. In an effort to better understand concussion in the often-underserved population of women high school soccer players, we investigated, both quantitatively and qualitatively, the nature of force loading during heading of a soccer ball. Data was collected from the Oxford High School Women's Varsity Soccer Team using X2 Biosystems' xPatch, which measures force loading magnitude and direction with six degrees of linear and rotational freedom using a …


An Investigation Of Abnormal Brain Connectivity Associated With Regions Implicated In Adhd, Roya Gordji Jan 2016

An Investigation Of Abnormal Brain Connectivity Associated With Regions Implicated In Adhd, Roya Gordji

Honors Theses

Research into the unique etiology of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has in recent years moved from a focus on dysfunction in brain regions to abnormalities between those regions. In this study, we examined the connectivity in brain areas that were deemed to be of particular significance to the disease in terms of their function and already known discrepancies in morphology and connectivity from healthy individuals. The thalamic VA nucleus and the hippocampus were the regions investigated. The data, obtained from the ADHD-200 Sample, consisted of MRI, clinical, and demographic data and were made up of 215 individuals, 117 of …


The Effects Of Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage On Motor Unit Firing, Sherman Jones Jan 2016

The Effects Of Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage On Motor Unit Firing, Sherman Jones

Honors Theses

Exercise induced muscle damage is commonly seen in individuals who are unaccustomed to exercise above a particular activity level. This temporary condition is marked by damage to individual sarcomeres, delayed onset muscle soreness, and localized edema. The analyzed data is decomposed electromyography (dEMG) data from the University of Oklahoma's Department of Health and Exercise Science. There, it was shown that following exercise-induced muscle damage, more slow motor units are recruited for force production. For this thesis, MATLAB ® was used to calculate the synchronization and coherence of 378 motor unit pairs. It was found that following exercise-induced muscle damage, both …


Anatomical Locality On Haptic Feedback To Attenuate Stuttering, Travis Fortin Jan 2016

Anatomical Locality On Haptic Feedback To Attenuate Stuttering, Travis Fortin

Honors Theses

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a change in the location of the tactile stimulator would alter the instances of stuttering. Method Each subject was required to read a randomly assigned 300-syllable passage in each of the five assigned speaking conditions, which includes the control, fingers, chest, wrist, and foot. Results The stuttering count for each condition was analyzed by two trained research assistants. The median for the control was 44 syllables, the fingers were 41 syllables, the chest was 35 syllables, the wrist was 44 syllables, and the foot was 23 syllables. An RM-ANOVA was …


Ultrasonic Doppler Sonar Sensor System For Extraction Of Walk Signatures, Demba B. Komma Jan 2016

Ultrasonic Doppler Sonar Sensor System For Extraction Of Walk Signatures, Demba B. Komma

Honors Theses

In this work, a portable low cost sensor system is designed for the extraction of walking signatures in humans using the principle of Ultrasonic Doppler Sonar (UDS). UDS involves the use of two ultrasonic transducers acting as a transmitter-receiver pair. The transmitter produces a continuous ultrasonic signal at a specific frequency to be broadcasted onto a moving target, while the receiver will perform a frequency shift on the reflected signal in relation to the movement of the target. The sensor system used in this work is comprised of a frequency generator that drives the transducer with a 40 kHz sine …


An Examination Of The Effects Of Psychological Stress And Anxiety On Physical Activity And Physical Fitness, Lydia Makepeace Jan 2015

An Examination Of The Effects Of Psychological Stress And Anxiety On Physical Activity And Physical Fitness, Lydia Makepeace

Honors Theses

In this study multiple measures of psychological stress, anxiety, physical fitness and physical activity were collected from 25 subjects in order to examine the relationships between stress, anxiety and fitness and between stress, anxiety and physical activity levels. It has long been hypothesized that levels of physical activity and physical fitness are moderators of psychological stress (Da Silva, et al., 2012). It has also been suggested that there is a bidirectional relationship between stress and physical activity and fitness levels (Da Silva, et al., 2012). This study intended to consider the ways that psychological stress may influence physical fitness and …


Prepulse Inhibition Of The Acoustic Startle Reflex: Comparing Low And High Trait Anxious Individuals, Krista Sturm Jan 2014

Prepulse Inhibition Of The Acoustic Startle Reflex: Comparing Low And High Trait Anxious Individuals, Krista Sturm

Honors Theses

This investigation examined whether prepulse inhibition of the acoustic startle reflex was impaired among individuals with high trait anxiety compared to controls. PPI has traditionally been theorized to be a psychophysiological index of information processing and sensorimotor gating, and is now being used to help identify various psychological disorders. Although results of existing research on reduced PPI across the anxiety spectrum are equivocal, previous findings indicate that highly anxious (HA) participants exhibit significantly reduced PPI at lead intervals of 60 ms relative to low anxious (LA) controls. This study paired a 70 dB (A) white noise prepulse stimulus with a …


Processor, Payload, And Power Subsystem Development Of The Missat-1 Cubesat, Rana Roxanne Gordji, Zachary Christian Puuwai Olaa Morgan, Samuel Liyang Di Jan 2014

Processor, Payload, And Power Subsystem Development Of The Missat-1 Cubesat, Rana Roxanne Gordji, Zachary Christian Puuwai Olaa Morgan, Samuel Liyang Di

Honors Theses

This thesis details the development and programming of the processor subsystem, camera payload, and power subsystem of the Mississippi Imaging Space Satellite (MISSat-1). An overview of the hardware and software considerations necessary for the processor subsystem is discussed. An explanation of microcontroller uses as well as real time operating system fundamentals is also presented as it relates to MISSat-1. The subsystem deals with varieties of peripheral integration and communication standards among devices. The camera graphical user interface (GUI) was expanded with the addition of functions that improve CubeSat image handling. Additionally, image processing techniques and algorithms are considered to improve …