Engineering Commons^™

Smart Iot Sprinkler System, Galib F. Rahman

Publications and Research

The average family spends more than $1000 in water costs per year. One-way water is commonly wasted in many households is via inefficient sprinkler systems for lawns. Current technology has enabled the development of automatic sprinkler systems, which can be preconfigured to operate at desired times of day and intervals. Although these systems may reduce the amount of water utilized overall, they are not weather forecast aware. In situations when rainfall is upcoming the systems still water the lawn. In this project, we plan to implement a smart sprinkler system that has full awareness of upcoming weather and take account …

Distance-Based Cluster Head Election For Mobile Sensing, Ruairí De Fréin, Liam O'Farrell

Conference papers

Energy-efficient, fair, stochastic leader-selection algorithms are designed for mobile sensing scenarios which adapt the sensing strategy depending on the mobile sensing topology. Methods for electing a cluster head are crucially important when optimizing the trade-off between the number of peer-to- peer interactions between mobiles and client-server interactions with a cloud-hosted application server. The battery-life of mobile devices is a crucial constraint facing application developers who are looking to use the convergence of mobile computing and cloud computing to perform environmental sensing. We exploit the mobile network topology, specifically the location of mobiles with respect to the gateway device, to stochastically …

Review Of Recent Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Studies Of Ion Transport In Polymer Electrolytes, Stephen Munoz, Steven Greenbaum

Publications and Research

Current and future demands for increasing the energy density of batteries without sacrificing safety has led to intensive worldwide research on all solid state Li-based batteries. Given the physical limitations on inorganic ceramic or glassy solid electrolytes, development of polymer electrolytes continues to be a high priority. This brief review covers several recent alternative approaches to polymer electrolytes based solely on poly(ethyleneoxide) (PEO) and the use of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to elucidate structure and ion transport properties in these materials.

Cost Benefit Analysis Of Led Vs Florescent Lighting, Kurtis Clark, Phillip Humphrey

Student Research

Over the last few years, the state of Oklahoma has been looking at ways to reduce expenses to address concerns about a budget deficit. There have been efforts made to reduce expenses due to the use of energy. It has been said, when the lights are on, work is getting done. Running lights is therefore the cost of doing business. Our research examines the question, “is there a way to provide better lighting while operating at a lower cost.” This research examines the current lighting at Southwestern State University, primarily fluorescent lighting (FL), and a cost benefit analysis of switching …

Connectivity Analysis Of Electroencephalograms In Epilepsy, Panuwat Janwattanapong

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation introduces a novel approach at gauging patterns of informa- tion flow using brain connectivity analysis and partial directed coherence (PDC) in epilepsy. The main objective of this dissertation is to assess the key characteristics that delineate neural activities obtained from patients with epilepsy, considering both focal and generalized seizures. The use of PDC analysis is noteworthy as it es- timates the intensity and direction of propagation from neural activities generated in the cerebral cortex, and it ascertains the coefficients as weighted measures in formulating the multivariate autoregressive model (MVAR). The PDC is used here as a feature extraction …

Secure Large Scale Penetration Of Electric Vehicles In The Power Grid, Abla Hariri

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As part of the approaches used to meet climate goals set by international environmental agreements, policies are being applied worldwide for promoting the uptake of Electric Vehicles (EV)s. The resulting increase in EV sales and the accompanying expansion in the EV charging infrastructure carry along many challenges, mostly infrastructure-related. A pressing need arises to strengthen the power grid to handle and better manage the electricity demand by this mobile and geo-distributed load. Because the levels of penetration of EVs in the power grid have recently started increasing with the increase in EV sales, the real-time management of en-route EVs, before …

Thin Film Based Biosensors For Point Of Care Diagnosis Of Cortisol, Syed Khalid Pasha

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the different ways to create thin film-based biosensors that are capable of rapid and label-free detection of cortisol, a non-specific biomarker closely linked to stress, within the physiological range of 10pM to 10 uM. Increased cortisol levels have been linked to stress-related diseases, such as chronic fatigue syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome, and post-traumatic stress disorder. It also plays a role in the suppression of the immune system as well. Therefore, accurate measurement of cortisol in saliva, serum, plasma, urine, sweat, and hair, is clinically significance to predict physical and mental diseases.

In this dissertation, thin film-based electrochemical …

Multivariate Analysis For The Quantification Of Transdermal Volatile Organic Compounds In Humans By Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell System, Ahmed Hasnain Jalal

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this research, a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) sensor was investigated for specific detection of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) for point-of-care (POC) diagnosis of the physiological conditions of humans. A PEMFC is an electrochemical transducer that converts chemical energy into electrical energy. A Redox reaction takes place at its electrodes whereas the volatile biomolecules (e.g. ethanol) are oxidized at the anode and ambient oxygen is reduced at the cathode. The compounds which were the focus of this investigation were ethanol (C₂H₅OH) and isoflurane (C₃H₂ClF₅O), but theoretically, the sensor …

Evaluation Of Eu:Licaf For Neutron Detection Utilizing Sipms And Portable Electronics, Michael A. Ford, Buckley E. O'Day Iii, John W. Mcclory, Manish K. Sharma, Areg Danagoulian

Faculty Publications

With the increasing cost and decreasing availability of ³He, there have been many efforts to find alternative neutron detection materials. Lithium calcium aluminum fluoride (LiCAF) enriched to 95% ⁶Li doped with europium was evaluated here as a replacement material for ³He. Wafers 0.5 cm thick, consisting of LiCAF crystals in a rubberized matrix, were embedded with wavelength shifting fibers (WSF) and mated to silicon photo-multipliers (SiPMs) to measure the photon response in a flux of neutrons from a DD neutron generator. Excellent discrimination was realized between neutrons and gammas, and both pulse-height discrimination and pulse-shape analysis were …

Spectrum Sharing, Latency, And Security In 5g Networks With Application To Iot And Smart Grid, Imtiaz Parvez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The surge of mobile devices, such as smartphones, and tables, demands additional capacity. On the other hand, Internet-of-Things (IoT) and smart grid, which connects numerous sensors, devices, and machines require ubiquitous connectivity and data security. Additionally, some use cases, such as automated manufacturing process, automated transportation, and smart grid, require latency as low as 1 ms, and reliability as high as 99.99\%. To enhance throughput and support massive connectivity, sharing of the unlicensed spectrum (3.5 GHz, 5GHz, and mmWave) is a potential solution. On the other hand, to address the latency, drastic changes in the network architecture is required. The …

Design Optimization Of Inductive Power Transfer Systems For Contactless Electric Vehicle Charging Applications, Masood Moghaddami

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Contactless Electric Vehicle (EV) charging based on magnetic resonant induction is an emerging technology that can revolutionize the future of the EV industry and transportation systems by enabling an automated and convenient charging process. However, in order to make this technology an acceptable alternative for conventional plug-in charging systems it needs to be optimized for different design measures. Specifically, the efficiency of an inductive EV charging system is of a great importance and should be comparable to the efficiency of conventional plug-in EV chargers.

The aim of this study is to develop solutions that contribute to the design enhancement of …

Effect Of Wireless Communication Delay On Dc Microgrids Performance, Mahmoud Saleh, Yusef Esa, Ahmed Mohamed

Publications and Research

This paper investigates the effect of wireless communication technologies latency on the converters and the bus voltage of centrally communication based controlled DC microgrids (MGs) during islanding. A DC microgrid with its communication based control scheme was modeled to show the impact of latency. Simulation results show that the impact may be severe depending on the design, and the operational condition of the microgrid before latency occurs.

Impact Of Communication Latency On The Bus Voltage Of Centrally Controlled Dc Microgrid During Islanding, Mahmoud Saleh, Yusef Esa, Ahmed Mohamed

Publications and Research

Maintaining a sustainable and reliable source of energy to supply critical loads within a renewable energy based microgrid (MG) during blackouts is directly related to its bus voltage variations. For example, voltage variation might trigger protection devices and disconnect DERs within the MG. Centrally controlled MGs (CCMGs) type is dependent on communication. Therefore, it is very important to analyze the impact of communication networks performance degradation, such as latency, on the bus voltage of CCMGs. This paper investigates the effect of wireless communication technologies latency on the bus voltage and performance of centralized DC MGs. Two mathematical models were developed …

Wireless Sensor Networks For Smart Communications, Mu Zhou, Qilian Liang, Hongyi Wu, Weixiao Meng, Kunjie Xu

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) In the first edition of the special issue titled “Wireless Sensor Networks for Smart Communications”, a total of 22 manuscripts were received and 6 of these were accepted. This issue demonstrated that network congestion, user mobility, and adjacent spectrum interference are the main reasons for the degradation ofcommunication quality inWireless Sensor Networks (WSNs).

The Study Of Reconfigurable Antennas And Associated Circuitry, Kansheng Yang [Thesis]

Doctoral

This research focuses on the design of pattern reconfigurable antennas and the associated circuitry. The proposed pattern reconfigurable antenna designs benefit from advantages such as maximum pattern diversity and optimum switching circuits to realise 5G reconfigurable antennas. Whereas MIMO based solutions can provide increased channel capacity, they demand high computational capability and power consumption due to multiple channel processing. This prevents their use in many applications most notably in the Internet of Things where power consumption is of key importance. A switched-beam diversity allows an energy-efficient solution improving the link budget even for small low-cost battery operated IoT/sensor network applications. …

Comparison Of Grid Array And Microstrip Patch Array Antennas At 28 Ghz, Zeeshan Ahmed, Patrick Mcevoy, Max Ammann

Conference papers

A millimeter wave Grid Array Antenna for fifth generation (5G) communications is presented. The 20 cell, nearly-rhombic, 40×40 mm2 Grid Array Antenna structure is simulated and fabricated on a Rogers RT/Duroid 5880 substrate with thickness of 0.25 mm. The grid array has |S11|

Cmos Radioactive Isotope Identification With Multichannel Analyzer And Embedded Neural Network, Samuel Murray

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

A radiation detection and identification system is designed and implemented to perform gamma ray spectroscopy on radioactive sources and identify which isotopes are present in the sources. A multichannel analyzer is implemented on an ASIC to process the signal produced from gamma rays detected by a scintillator and photomultiplier tube and to quantize the gamma ray energies to build a histogram. A fast, low memory embedded neural network is implemented on a microcontroller ASIC to identify the isotopes present in the gamma ray histogram produced by the multichannel analyzer in real time.

Advisors: Sina Balkir and Michael Hoffman

Properties Of Matter, Mike Jackson, Holly Haney

High School Lesson Plans

Students will investigate the relationship(s) between thermal and electrical properties of matter. First, students will use a multimeter and temperature probe to investigate the relationship between electrical resistance and temperature of an electrical resistor composed of metals. They will then graph collected data to analyze the relationship and draw a conclusion as to their relationship. They will then perform the same investigation on a thermal resistor made of a semiconducting substance and analyze that collected data. Finally, using ClaimEvidence-Reasoning (CER) structure, students will use their experimental evidence to state the similarities and differences between the electro-thermal properties of metals and …

Flip-Chip (Fc) And Fine-Pitch-Ball-Grid-Array (Fpbga) Underfills For Application In Aerospace Electronics—Brief Review, Ephraim Suhir, Reza Ghaffarian

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this review, some major aspects of the current underfill technologies for flip-chip (FC) and fine-pitch-ball-grid-array (FPBGA), including chip-size packaging (CSP), are addressed, with an emphasis on applications, such as aerospace electronics, for which high reliability level is imperative. The following aspects of the FC and FPGGA technologies are considered: attributes of the FC and FPBGA structures and technologies; underfill-induced stresses; the roles of the glass transition temperature (T_g) of the underfill materials; some major attributes of the lead-free solder systems with underfill; reliability-related issues; thermal fatigue of the underfilled solder joints; warpage-related issues; attributes of accelerated life …

Performance Evaluation Of Energy-Autonomous Sensors Using Power-Harvesting Beacons For Environmental Monitoring In Internet Of Things (Iot), George Dan Moiş, Teodora Sanislav, Silviu Corneliu Folea, Sherali Zeadally

Information Science Faculty Publications

Environmental conditions and air quality monitoring have become crucial today due to the undeniable changes of the climate and accelerated urbanization. To efficiently monitor environmental parameters such as temperature, humidity, and the levels of pollutants, such as fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the air, and to collect data covering vast geographical areas, the development of cheap energy-autonomous sensors for large scale deployment and fine-grained data acquisition is required. Rapid advances in electronics and communication technologies along with the emergence of paradigms such as Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) and the Internet of Things (IoT) have led to …

Security Analysis Of The Uconn Husky One Card, Trevor Phillips

Honors Scholar Theses

The “Husky One Card” is the name given to student IDs at the University of Connecticut. It can identify students, faculty, and staff in a variety of situations. The One Card is used for meal plans, Husky Bucks (an equivalent of money, but valid only in the Storrs area), residence hall/ university facility access, and student health services. The current Husky One Card consists of a picture identification on the front and a standard 1-dimensional barcode and 3-track magnetic strip on the back.

The goal of this thesis is to investigate the feasibility of cloning Husky One Cards, the ease …

On-Line Condition Monitoring, Fault Detection And Diagnosis In Electrical Machines And Power Electronic Converters, Alberto Berzoy

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this PhD research is to develop robust, and non-intrusive condition monitoring methods for induction motors fed by closed-loop inverters. The flexible energy forms synthesized by these connected power electronic converters greatly enhance the performance and expand the operating region of induction motors. They also significantly alter the fault behavior of these electric machines and complicate the fault detection and protection. The current state of the art in condition monitoring of power-converter-fed electric machines is underdeveloped as compared to the maturing condition monitoring techniques for grid-connected electric machines.

This dissertation first investigates the stator turn-to-turn fault modelling for …

Study Of Mm-Wave Microstrip Patch Array On Curved Substrate, Zeeshan Ahmed, Kansheng Yang, Patrick Mcevoy, Max Ammann

Conference papers

A millimetre wave rectangular microstrip patch antenna array for fifth generation communications (5G) applications is presented. With the increase in demand for high data rates and capacity, there is a need to include mm-Wave frequencies for 5G. The 4×2 patch array is simulated and fabricated on a Rogers RT/Duroid 5880 substrate with a thickness of 0.25 mm. The effects of bending the substrate on the antenna performance are also presented. The experimental results show a fractional bandwidth and gain of more than 3% and 16.1 dBi, respectively.

Reconfigurable Antennas Using Liquid Crystalline Elastomers, John Gibson

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation demonstrates the design of reversibly self-morphing novel liquid crystalline elastomer (LCE) antennas that can dynamically change electromagnetic performance in response to temperature. This change in performance can be achieved by programming the shape change of stimuli-responsive (i.e., temperature-responsive) LCEs, and using these materials as substrates for reconfigurable antennas. Existing reconfigurable antennas rely on external circuitry such as Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (MEMS) switches, pin diodes, and shape memory alloys (SMAs) to reconfigure their performance. Antennas using MEMS or diodes exhibit low efficiency due to the losses from these components. Also, antennas based on SMAs can change their performance only once as …

Origami Antennas For Novel Reconfigurable Communication Systems, Xueli Liu

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Antennas play a crucial role in communication systems since they are the transmitting/receiving elements that transition information from guided transmission to open-space propagation. Antennas are used in many different applications such as aerospace communications, mobile phones, TVs and radios. Since the dimensions of antennas are usually physically proportional to the wavelength at their operating frequencies, it is important to develop large antennas and arrays that can be stowed compactly and easily deployed. Also, it is important to minimize the number of antennas on a platform by developing multifunctional antennas.

The first aim of this research is to develop new deployable, …

Novel Strongly Coupled Magnetic Resonant Systems, Daerhan Liu

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Wireless power transfer (WPT) technologies have become important for our everyday life. The most commonly used near-field WPT method is inductive coupling, which suffers from low efficiency and small range. The Strongly Coupled Magnetic Resonance (SCMR) method was developed recently, and it can be used to wirelessly transfer power with higher efficiency over a longer distance than the inductive coupling method.

This dissertation develops new SCMR systems that have better performance compared to standard SCMR systems. Specifically, two new 3-D SCMR systems are designed to improve the angular misalignment sensitivity of WPT systems. Their power transfer efficiency for different angular …

Scheduling Based On Interruption Analysis And Pso For Strictly Periodic And Preemptive Partitions In Integrated Modular Avionics, Hui Lu, Qianlin Zhou, Zongming Fei, Rongrong Zhou

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Integrated modular avionics introduces the concept of partition and has been widely used in avionics industry. Partitions share the computing resources together. Partition scheduling plays a key role in guaranteeing correct execution of partitions. In this paper, a strictly periodic and preemptive partition scheduling strategy is investigated. First, we propose a partition scheduling model that allows a partition to be interrupted by other partitions, but minimizes the number of interruptions. The model not only retains the execution reliability of the simple partition sets that can be scheduled without interruptions, but also enhances the schedulability of the complex partition sets that …

Space-Angle Signal Processing Using A Modulated Scatter Array, Nasr Alkhafaji

Electrical and Computer Engineering PhD Day

A UHF signal processing technique is described in the Fourier Space-Angle domain that uses an array of scattering elements with reflection coefficients modulated at baseband. The illumination arrival angle distributes a UHF phase across the array, and the baseband modulator phase at each of the array elements determines the radiation angle of the desired scattered product. Undesired products are re-radiated in different directions. Example 1, 2 and 4 element arrays operate at 432 MHz array with 700 Hz modulation. 2 element arrays cancel one sideband, and the 4 element array cancels both the undesired sideband and 2nd order products. Reflection …

Drafting In Self-Timed Circuits, Christopher Cowan

Electrical and Computer Engineering PhD Day

Intervals between data items propagating in self-timed circuits are controlled by handshake signals rather than by a clock. The sequence of handshakes can be abstracted as the movement of “tokens”. In many self-timed designs, a trailing token will catch up with a leading token, even when it trails by thousands of gate delays. Simulations in SPICE of a simple GasP circular FIFO reveal this effect. Contrary to earlier work, we find the cause of drafting to be charge stored on an isolated node between two series transistors. This mechanism occurs in many decision gates that implement a logical AND. The …

Coaxial Magnetic Gearbox With A Flux Concentration Halbach Rotor And Consequent Pole Rotor Typology, Ho Yin Wong

Electrical and Computer Engineering PhD Day

This paper presents the performance comparison between a flux concentration and triple permanent magnet consequent pole magnetic gear rotor typology with the same 7.5:1 gear ratio. The triple permanent magnet consequent pole magnetic gear is unique in that it can create torque change through two field heterodyning pole combinations. The performance with respect to volumetric and mass torque density is considered. It is shown that the flux concentration typology can operate with a higher mass and volumetric higher torque density, even when using a low flux concentration ratio rotor.