Engineering Commons^™

Study And Modelling Of Lithium Ion Cell With Accurate Soc Measurement Algorithm Using Kalman Filter For Electric Vehicles, Kasthuriramanan Mahendravadi Sivaguru

Theses

Lithium Ion cells are preferred over lead acid cells for electric vehicles due to their energy density, higher discharge current and size. The cost of lithium ion cells is scaling down compared to ten years earlier, but as their performance characteristics increase, the need for safety and accurate modelling also increases.

The absence of a generic cell model is associated to the different makes of cells and different chemistries of Lithium ion cells behave differently under the testing conditions required for every unique application. The focus of this thesis will be on how to provide intelligence to the battery management …

Blind Source Separation Using Dictionary Learning Over Time-Varying Channels, Anushreya Ghosh

Theses

Distributed sensors observe radio frequency (RF) sources over flat-fading channels. The activity pattern is sparse and intermittent in the sense that while the number of latent sources may be larger than the number of sensors, only a few of them may be active at any particular time instant. It is further assumed that the source activity is modeled by a Hidden Markov Model. In previous work, the Blind Source Separation (BSS) problem solved for stationary channels using Dictionary Learning (DL). This thesis studies the effect of time-varying channels on the performance of DL algorithms. The performance metric is the probability …

Design Of Dual-Band Rf-Dc Rectifier And Dc-Dc Boost Converter For Energy Harvesting Applications, Merghani K. Merghani

Theses

Wireless sensors are used in many industrial and commercial applications. However powering up those sensors is challenging, because batteries have limited lifetime, require periodic maintenance, and their depositions are toxic to the environment. One of the new methods to power up those small sensors is to capture energy from ambient sources and convert it into a steady dc output voltage, which is known as energy harvesting or scavenging. In this thesis, we propose an energy harvesting method by scavenging the electromagnetic (EM), or radio frequency (RF) energy in the ambient and converting it into a steady dc output voltage that …

Reinforcement Learning Reward Design For Low-Level Controllers, Evan J. Olney

Theses

The past few decades have produced many successful applications of machine learning. In the area of automated controls, machine learning controllers have been developed to take advantage of the tendency for computers to stumble upon avenues to solutions people either overlooked, or simply do not have the computational capability to explore. Reinforcement learning is a machine learning technique for learning how to choose actions in an environment to increase its expected reward. The reward is the signal that indicates whether or not proper actions were chosen, therefore a behavioral goal is achieved from implicit rewards rather than explicit direction. The …

Comparison Study Of Supervised Machine Learning Algorithms For Real Time Prediction Of Uav Behaviors, Brian Baity

Theses

An American scientific writer/critic of the mid-20th century, Joseph Wood Krutch, stated, “Technology made large populations possible: large populations now make technology indispensable.” Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become a vital part of society, evolving from solely military use to commercial and even personal day-to-day use. UAV application has grown for mobility on demand, increasing the number of UAVs in the sky. Consequently, more UAVs increases the possibility of aerial collisions, challenging the safety of passengers flying and bystanders on the ground. Understanding the behavior of UAVs and unmanned aerial systems (UAS) in general, therefore, will decrease the possibility of …

Icing Thickness Prediction Model For Overhead Transmission Lines, Yue Ming

Theses

Failures in a large electric power system are often inevitable. Severe weather conditions are one of the main causes of transmission line failures. Using the fault data of transmission lines of Shaanxi Power Grid from 2006 to 2016, in conjunction with meteorological information, this paper analyses the relationship between the temporal-spatial distribution characteristics of meteorological disasters and the fault of transmission lines in Shaanxi Province, China.

In order to analyze the influence of micro-meteorology on ice coating, a grey correlation analysis method is proposed. This thesis calculates the grey relational between ice thickness and micro-meteorological parameters such as ambient temperature, …

Amorphous Metal Oxide Semiconductor Thin Film Transistors For Printed Electronics, Mustafa Mohammad Yousef

Theses

There is an acute market need for solution-processable semiconductor inks that can form the essential components of the printed analog and digital circuits. Currently, the industry is migrating beyond simply printing conductive metals for interconnects and embracing higher integration by printing transistors directly on the same substrate. This thesis focuses on investigating solution-processed amorphous indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) as a semiconducting channel layer of a field-effect transistor to enable low-cost, large-area printed electronics that are physically flexible and optically transparent. Specifically, we aim to achieve field-effect mobility exceeding 1 cm²/Vs, to overcome the limits faced in existing …

Predicting Energy And Water Consumption On Dairy Farms Through Statistical Analysis And Machine-Learning Methods, Philip Shine

Theses

With the abolishment of milking quotas across all European Union member states in April 2015, dairy farmers must adjust their farming practises to minimise milk production costs to adequately prepare for potential periods of reduced revenue. Milk production is an intense energy and water consuming process. Coupled with challenging European greenhouse gas reduction targets and legislation regarding the prevention of groundwater pollution and deterioration, increasing the production of milk in Ireland must be met with the sustainable consumption of on-farm energy and direct water resources, to ensure the future monetary and environmental sustainability of Ireland’s dairy industry. Thus, this body …

Iterative Learning Control For Improved Tracking Of Fluid Percussion Injury Device, Steve Susanibar

Theses

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) afflicts over 10 million people around the world. Injury to the brain can occur from a variety of physical insults and the degree of disability can greatly vary from person to person. It is likely that the wide range of TBI outcomes may be due to the magnitude, direction, and forces of biomechanical insult acting on the head during such TBI events. Lateral Fluid Percussion (FPI) brain injury is one of the most commonly used and well-characterized experimental models of TBI. A Fluid Percussion Injury (FPI) device in the laboratory is used to replicate the injury …

A Fuzzy Logic-Based Text Classification Method For Social Media, Keyuan Wu

Theses

Social media offer abundant information for studying people’s behaviors, emotions and opinions during the evolution of various rare events such as natural disasters. It is useful to analyze the correlation between social media and human-affected events. This study uses Hurricane Sandy 2012 related Twitter text data to conduct information extraction and text classification. Considering that the original data contains different topics, we need to find the data related to Hurricane Sandy. A fuzzy logic-based approach is introduced to solve the problem of text classification. Inputs used in the proposed fuzzy logic-based model are multiple useful features extracted from each Twitter’s …

Field Oriented Control Of Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor With Third-Harmonic Injection Pulse Width Modulation To Reduce Quadrotors’ Speed Ripples, Yuxi Shi

Theses

The world’s commercial unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) industry has witnessed unprecedented boom in recent years. Delighted with an ample supply of this excellent high-tech product, global consumers are paying more attention on UAVs. Civilian UAVs now vastly outnumber military ones, with the estimate of over a million sold by 2016. An UAV has various degrees of autonomy as enabled by the use and precise control of motors. Traditional Direct Current (DC) motors are replaced by permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSM) associated with the new power electronic inverters. Because of a PMSM’s higher power density than a DC motor, it reduces …

Iii-Nitride Nanowire Light-Emitting Diodes: Design And Characterization, Dipayan Datta Choudhary

Theses

III-nitride semiconductors have been intensively studied for optoelectronic devices, due to the superb advantages offered by this materials system. The direct energy bandgap III-nitride semiconductors can absorb or emit light efficiently over a broad spectrum, ranging from 0.65 eV (InN) to 6.4 eV (AlN), which encompasses from deep ultraviolet to near infrared spectrum. However, due to the lack of native substrates, conventional III-nitride planar heterostructures generally exhibit very high dislocation densities that severely limit the device performance and reliability. On the other hand, nanowire heterostructures can be grown on lattice mismatched substrates with drastically reduced dislocation densities, due to highly …

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 …

Development Of A Novel Kalman Filter Bank Predictor To Optimally Schedule The Renewable Energy Contribution Within A Micro-Grid, Conor Lynch

Theses

This PhD thesis presents a novel Kalman Filter Bank (KFB) methodology. The novel KFB is applied to predict and optimally schedule the operation of micro-grid energy resources with a public fixed-grid connection and an auxiliary battery storage backup facility. This methodology relies on a sliding single time step forecast projection to accurately acquire the anticipated schedule for a range of time dependent parameters, stochastic by nature, that have inherent embedded cyclical patterns. The innovative feature here consists of a novel bank of hourly adjacent Kalman Filter estimators, which operate in synchronism, for accurate parameter prediction over a selected time horizon. …

Semiconductor Materials And Devices For 2 Micron Generation, Dzianis Saladukha

Theses

In the last century, semiconductor research has led to significant changes in the fields of communication, medicine, the environment, and many others. Semiconductor devices provide a relatively simple and effective way to convert electrical energy to light and vice versa. Devices based on semiconductor materials of various kinds provide interaction of an electromagnetic signal in the range of wavelengths with a medium. Examples of such devices are LED lamps, photovoltaic cells, thermometers, gas sensors, cameras, and many others. The study of various semiconductors broadens the range of application of photonics. This work is based on the study of materials which …

Simulation Of A Low Voltage Customer Microgrid Using Petri Nets, Joshua Mark

Theses

With renewable energy coming to the forefront of how power is generated and delivered to the modern consumer, Microgrids are emerging as an optimal and efficient method for implementing renewables and changing the infrastructure of the dated transmission and distribution grid. This thesis work presents mathematical models of Petri Nets for the simulation of a low voltage customer Microgrid. Using previous work created in this specific field, a Hybrid Petri Net is modified such that it consists of multiple distributed generators, storage, and the utility which is referred to as the main distribution grid in this thesis. A Discrete Petri …

Optimum Distance Between Ground Base Stations For High-Speed Train Communications Using Free-Space Optical Laser Links, Sina Fathi Kazerooni

Theses

High-Speed trains (HSTs) can travel at speeds up to 430 Km/h. The increasing adoption rate of HSTs, and large number of Internet-connected digital devices, pose a great demand for a fast and reliable Internet connection in high-speed trains. Different radio-frequency (RF) wireless communication systems have been studied for HSTs. However, RF wireless communications in high-speed mobility environments suffer from frequent handovers, penetration loss, and Doppler effect. These problems promote the use of other technologies such as free-space optical (FSO) communications to provide reliable Internet connection for HST’s passengers.

Two different approaches for performing signal handover using FSO technology for ground …

An Fpga Implementation Of A Sleep Enabled Pon System, Zheyu Liu

Theses

Owing to the growing demand for bandwidth-hungry video-on-demand applications, Passive Optical Network (PON) has been widely considered as one of the most promising solutions for broadband access. Environmental concerns motivated network designers to lower energy consumption of optical access networks. A well-known approach to reduce energy consumption is to allow network elements to switch to the sleep mode.

In this framework, an improved Optical network Unit (ONU) architecture in TDM-PON is proposed to reduce the handover time of status switching. Energy-saving performances of current and improved architectures are compared in different scenarios. The simulation results show that by applying a …

A Plastic Encapsulated Wireless Sensor Module For Monitoring Of Medical Steam Sterilisers, Jinto George

Theses

Steam sterilisation is a process of removing or killing living organisms from medical equipment using saturated steam in a steriliser at 134°C and 3 bar pressure. Monitoring of the steriliser is very important to verify whether the sterilisation cycle is adequate or not. In current practice, hospitals widely use chemical or biological indicators for monitoring the performance of the sterilisation cycle but these are simple pass/fail monitors and do not allow continuous monitoring. This thesis presents design and development of a real time wireless sensing module (WSM) for monitoring the sterilisation cycle which can be used to replace existing chemical …

Modeling The Controlled Delivery Power Grid, Vinit Madhukar Sahasrabudhe

Theses

Competitive energy markets, stricter regulation, and the integration of distributed renewable energy sources are forcing companies to reengineer energy production and distribution. The Controlled Delivery Power Grid is proposed as a novel approach to transport energy from generators to consumers. In this approach, energy distribution is performed in an asynchronous and distributed fashion. Much like the Internet, energy is delivered as addressable packets, which allow a controlled delivery of energy.

As a proof-of-concept of the controllable delivery grid, two experimental test beds, one with integrated energy storage and another with no energy storage, were designed and built to evaluate the …

Hollow Cathode Sputtering System - Installation, Operation And Theoretical Background, Sebastian Falk

Theses

The objective of this work was to assemble, install and operate a hollow cathode sputtering system (HCSS). Therefore a complex vacuum system was built to create the right sputtering environment. The purpose of the HCSS is to develop advanced thin conducting oxides (TCOs) as well as high resistivity transparent (HRT) layers which are used for thin film photovoltaic technology, particularly cadmium telluride based and copper indium gallium selenide based solar cells.

A theoretical background of the thin film technology and a comparison of different deposition methods in regards to the sputtering process is provided. Thereby, an in-depth investigation of zinc …

Review Of Steganalysis Of Digital Images, Xinlei Pan

Theses

Steganography is the science and art of embedding hidden messages into cover multimedia such as text, image, audio and video. Steganalysis is the counterpart of steganography, which wants to identify if there is data hidden inside a digital medium. In this study, some specific steganographic schemes such as HUGO and LSB are studied and the steganalytic schemes developed to steganalyze the hidden message are studied. Furthermore, some new approaches such as deep learning and game theory, which have seldom been utilized in steganalysis before, are studied. In the rest of thesis study some steganalytic schemes using textural features including the …

An Embedded System Supporting Dynamic Partial Reconfiguration Of Hardware Resources For Morphological Image Processing, Gyana Ranjan Sahu

Theses

Processors for high-performance computing applications are generally designed with a focus on high clock rates, parallelism of operations and high communication bandwidth, often at the expense of large power consumption. However, the emphasis of many embedded systems and untethered devices is on minimal hardware requirements and reduced power consumption. With the incessant growth of computational needs for embedded applications, which contradict chip power and area needs, the burden is put on the hardware designers to come up with designs that optimize power and area requirements.

This thesis investigates the efficient design of an embedded system for morphological image processing applications …

Petri Net Models Of Microgrids With Distributed Generators, Xiaoyu Lu

Theses

This thesis introduces some basic concepts and control methods about a microgrid. Then, two hot issues are investigated. One is how to control multiple distributed generators; and another is how to model both discrete event and continuous behaviors of a microgrid. To address these two issues, this thesis work applies Petri nets to both modeling and control of a microgrid. Ordinary Petri nets, hybrid Petri nets, and finite capacity Petri nets, are introduced with their examples targeted at modeling the behavior of a microgrid. Coordination control of multiple distributed generators based on a Petri net model is proposed. Compared with …

Computer Aided Analysis Of Skin Lesions, Sukanya Panja

Theses

Effective screening to detect the skin cancer accurately in the early stage is essential for reducing the mortality of skin cancer. Surface features, such as texture and pigmentation area from the surface, epi-illumination images of the skin lesions have been well correlated to detect skin cancer. An increase in the lesion's subsurface blood volume has been correlated to early diagnosis of malignant melanoma. A method for estimating the optimal features is obtained. The optimal features help in accurately classify the skin lesion in various grades. To make the process faster these optimal features are clustered. The optimal clusters are obtained …

A Study Of The Electronics And Software Industry In Ireland 1960-2010, Sarah Davis

Theses

This study explores the origins of the Electronics/ Software industrial sector in the Republic of Ireland and its subsequent development from 1960 to 2010 inclusive. A key focus of the study is to identify and explore the sectoral drivers/inhibitors. The influence of government policy and technical education on this development is explored. This research study was sponsored by the Irish American Partnership.

A critical realist philosophical approach is chosen to deal with the time-frame and the subject area breadth. An evolutionary research design process is used. An ongoing literature review and access to historical documentation provides other contextual data. Roadmapping …

An Adaptive Physical- And Link Layer For Narrowband Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks, Mathias Dehm

Theses

Search and Rescue (SAR) missions require robust ad-hoc networks especially in situations where existing wired or cellular networks have been damaged or are not available. Here, a promising SAR communications technology is a Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs). However, development of systems is challenging due to bandwidth constraints, various application services, high mobility and harsh environments leading to unstable wireless connections.

Throughout this thesis, a prototype of a physical- and link layer is developed which satisfies the criteria for communication services in SAR missions.

This work includes three major contributions:

The first contribution is a single-carrier narrowband physical layer. The transmission …

Extending The Sensing Of Online Social Networks – A Healthcare Perspective, Asma’ Wasfi Fayez Mustafa

Theses

Obesity is a rising health concern in the United Arab Emirates. Obesity leads to health risks such as diabetes, heart disease, and other conditions. It may also lead to eating disorders, depression, and low self-esteem. Regular exercising helps to protect from obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and better manage stress. Despite all the benefits of exercising, people are doing less of it. In this research, an effort is made to encourage people to exercise by extending the prevalent sensing abilities of Online Social Networks (OSNs). Sensors are used to collect and generate data to be processed, clustered and …

Gaussian Beam Scattering From A Deterministic Rough Metal Surface, Qi Wang

Theses

A full-wave theory of plane wave scattering from rough surfaces called the Correction Current (CC) method was recently developed for the two-dimensional scatter problem that have a one-dimensional roughness profile. The method involves a primary field and radiation modes that are plane-wave-type fields that satisfy the boundary conditions at the rough surface. These fields do not satisfy Maxwell's source free equations, but they are forced to satisfy Maxwell's equations with distributed sources upon the introduction of fictitious volume currents distributions which correct for the field errors. Additionally, current sheet distributions are introduced which generate a radiation modal field that satisfies …

Model Predictive Control Of Timed Continuous Petri Nets, Huaiyu Zhan

Theses

This thesis addresses the optimal control problem of timed continuous Petri nets. The theory of Model Predictive Control (MPC) is first discussed. Then continuous Petri nets (PN) are introduced as a powerful tool for modelling, simulation and analysis of discrete event/continuous systems. Their useful capabilities are studied. Finally, a macroscopic model based on PN as a tool for designing control laws that improve the behavior of traffic systems is given. The goal is to find an approach that minimizes the total delay of cars in an intersection by computing the switching sequence of the traffic lights. The simulation results show …