Engineering Commons^™

Understanding Quadrature Modulation By Designing A 7mhz Iq Test Bench To Encode The Polybius Square, William Lee Bradley

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis outlines the design of an IQ Test Bench that allows for experimentation of quadrature modulation techniques. Quadrature modulation utilizes two signals I and Q, 90° out of phase from each other, to greatly increase communication data rates. Using Desmos, a thorough mathematical analysis of waveform mixing is presented, and constellation diagrams are plotted from the results. From this an ancient fire signaling technique known as the Polybius Square is encoded into the system. The IQ Test Bench is built from fundamental components that would be contained within an RFFE: a local oscillator and two frequency mixers. The LO …

Design And Characterization Of 2.4ghz Antennas For Wireless Sensor Applications, Luis Zogby Brennan

Dissertations and Theses

Wireless sensor networks benefit greatly from advances in circuit integration and miniaturization. However, antennas are bound to specific geometries both in terms of fundamental limits and their response to immediate surroundings. As such, various successful techniques for antenna miniaturization must still be carefully tested and characterized as part of the design process of a sensor system. The work presented here fully characterizes a number of miniaturized 2.4~GHz antennas and successfully integrates designs into a sensor system using the highly integrated Single Chip Micro Mote (SCµM), which uses a crystal-less radio design resulting in the requirement of only a …

Systematic Characterization Of Power Side Channel Attacks For Residual And Added Vulnerabilities, Aurelien Tchoupou Mozipo

Dissertations and Theses

Power Side Channel Attacks have continued to be a major threat to cryptographic devices. Hence, it will be useful for designers of cryptographic systems to systematically identify which type of power Side Channel Attacks their designs remain vulnerable to after implementation. It’s also useful to determine which additional vulnerabilities they have exposed their devices to, after the implementation of a countermeasure or a feature. The goal of this research is to develop a characterization of power side channel attacks on different encryption algorithms' implementations to create metrics and methods to evaluate their residual vulnerabilities and added vulnerabilities. This research studies …

Bodyslam: Feasibility Of Tracking Human Kinematics With Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (Slam), Sepehr Laal

Dissertations and Theses

We evaluated a new wearable technology that fuses inertial sensors and cameras for tracking human kinematics. These devices use on-board simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) algorithms to localize the camera within the environment. Significance of this technology is in its potential to overcome many of the limitations of the other dominant technologies. Our results demonstrate this system often attains an estimated orientation error of less than 1° and a position error of less than 4cm as compared to a robotic arm. This demonstrates that SLAM's accuracy is adequate for many practical applications for tracking human kinematics.

Design And Optimization With Quantum And Memristor Platforms, Yiwei Li

Dissertations and Theses

The complexity and diversity of modern computing challenges have made it difficult for traditional computers to efficiently handle tasks such as computer-aided design, design optimization, and combinatorial problems within a reasonable time frame. In applications such as bitcoin mining and robotic control, power consumption and circuit size are critical factors. To overcome these limitations, this dissertation examines alternative computing technologies such as quantum computers and hybrid memristive circuits. The research demonstrates that these technologies hold the potential to offer more efficient and effective solutions for particular problems, whether in terms of faster computation or reduced power consumption.

Highly Power Dense Dc To Three-Phase Ac Modular Converters With Tiny Module Capacitors, Wiwin Hartini Lew

Dissertations and Theses

A Modular Multilevel Converter (MMC) is an attractive candidate in high power conversion due to its modularity and scalability. The energy storage element, namely the module capacitance in the MMC submodule circuit, is typically large and when scaled to convert high power, requires very bulky module capacitors. In addition to deteriorating the power density, the design necessitates the use of electrolytic capacitors, which further affects the overall converter efficiency and reliability. This research presents an MMC submodule topology and the accompanying modulation approach that reduces the submodule capacitance requirements significantly compared to conventional MMC topology (few micro-farads versus several milli-farads). …

Development Of A Configurable Real-Time Event Detection Framework For Power Systems Using Swarm Intelligence Optimization, Umar Farooq

Dissertations and Theses

Modern power systems characterized by complex topologies require accurate situational awareness to maintain an adequate level of reliability. Since they are large and spread over wide geographical areas, occurrence of failures is inevitable in power systems. Various generation and transmission disturbances give rise to a mismatch between generation and demand, which manifest as frequency events. These events can take the form of negligible frequency deviations or more severe emergencies that can precipitate cascading outages, depending on the severity of the disturbance and efficacy of remedial action schema. The impacts of such events have become more critical with recent decline in …

Modeling And Analysing The Impact Of Heat Pump Water Heaters On Distribution Systems Using Gridlab-D, Midrar Adham

Dissertations and Theses

With the constant increase in energy demand, finding ways to reduce peak load and the energy-costs factors has become more imperative. Domestic water heating showcases a significant opportunity for such applications. Water heating is the second-highest energy consumer in the residential sector across the United States. Electric Water Heaters (EWHs), in particular, constitute nearly 43% of American household water heating energy consumption. Heat Pump Water Heater (HPWH), on the other hand, is an advanced water heating technology that has recently emerged in the United States residential market.

The objectives of this work are to develop a HPWH model and build …

A Privacy-Preserving Strategy For The Trust Layer Of The Energy Grid Of Things Distributed Energy Resource Management System, Mohammed Abdullah Alsaid

Dissertations and Theses

Emergent from the shadows of the traditional grid flaws, the Smart Grid (SG) idea was born and led by government mandates toward cleaner energy production. The SG represents the next generation of electricity distribution systems that subsume recent technological innovations. It uses digital communication between its components and entities to attain more automation, self-sufficiency, and reliability. Unfortunately, this relatively new concept is not flawless; the intrinsic reliance on increased digital communication spreads open attack paths for adversaries. Therefore, finding solutions that address information exchange vulnerabilities has become imperative.

The Energy Grid of Things (EGoT) is Portland State University's implementation of …

Development Of A Configurable Derms Test System In Gridapps-D, Sean James Keene

Dissertations and Theses

Distributed Energy Resources and their increased penetration within the power grid are a suitable method to provide essential reliability services. In order to do so, they must operate in aggregate. Aggregation of a wide variety of systems with varying standards and protocols is a complex task, which could benefit from rules and standards to support interoperability. To this end, the Portland State University Power Lab has developed the Energy Grid of Things project, which includes a Distributed Energy Resource Management System to provide aggregation and demonstrate the usage of an Energy Services Interface: a set of rules governing the interface …

Developing An Energy Service Interface Specification, Jaime T. Kolln

Dissertations and Theses

Developing an Energy Service Interface (ESI) specification requires engaging a community of stakeholders including grid operators, Information and Communication Technology implementors, integrators, and finally standards bodies who will define an interface that respects and boundaries of ownership and roles of responsibility in order to activate millions of Distributed Energy Resources for the provision of grid services. By applying Interoperability Maturity Model Criteria and ESI principles to common grid-DER service use cases, the Grid Modernization Lab Consortium team will engage subject matter experts to develop a specification, with an eventual goal of informing development of ESI compliant profiles or standards. The …

An Investigation Into Magnetic Gears And Magnetic Springs For Marine Hydrokinetic Power Generators, Hossein Baninajar

Dissertations and Theses

Marine hydrokinetic generators often use mechanical gears to convert the low-speed motion into the high-speed rotary motion that is required for conventional electrical generators. While mechanical gearboxes have a high torque density and can reach high efficiencies, they suffer from serious reliability issues. Recently, magnetic gearing technology has been proposed as a means of making hydrokinetic generators more reliable. As magnetic gears use magnetic field modulation to create speed change, they offer a high reliability, nonfriction, power transmission mechanism that limits the wear to only the bearings and makes the magnetic gears almost maintenance-free. During an over-torque condition, a magnetic …

Robust Design Methodologies Under Performance Variations For More Than Moore Technologies: Cnfets & 3dics, Satya Keerthi Vendra

Dissertations and Theses

Various emerging technologies have shown great potential of supplementing silicon transistors as Moore's law slows down. One such disruptive technology, Carbon Nanotube Field Effect Transistors (CNFET), among others, promises increased speed and integration with reduced power consumption. However, due to a limited controllability over the Carbon Nano-tube(CNT) growth process, CNFETs show large variations in their performance and behavior. It is therefore difficult to predict and model their behavior while design suggestions are also challenging. CNT variations are important for a realistic delay modelling. Due to the presence of CNT-specific variations, conventional CMOS evaluation techniques cannot be used for CNFETs.

This …

Development Of A Testing Station For Grid-Interactive Smart Inverter Systems, Yudong Lan

Dissertations and Theses

As renewable energy penetration increases within the electrical power grid, flexible power is required to ensure reliability. Reliability can be jeopardized by the fluctuation and non-dispatch ability of renewable generators. This instability is caused by an imbalance between the amount of power produced and the amount of power consumed. Grid-enabled battery inverter systems are considered a solution to offset voltage and frequency fluctuations, which arise due to this power imbalance.

The objective of this work is to develop a system for testing grid-enabled inverters. These inverters use one or more communication standards to control their interactions with the grid. This …

The Distributed Trust Model Applied To The Energy Grid Of Things, Narmada Sonali Fernando

Dissertations and Theses

Electric power system operators can manage distribution system utilization and usage by coordinating end customer usage of distributed energy resources. The end customers in this regard are Service Provisioning Customers, who provide their energy resources to a Grid Service Provider, which in turn dispatches large aggregations of distributed energy resources to provide reliable service to the power system. The security of this system relies upon information protection mechanisms, as described in IEEE 2030.5. However, in addition to preventive security measures, a monitoring function is required to ensure trustworthiness.

Trust models are a method to detect and respond to both expected …

Quantum Grover's Oracles With Symmetry Boolean Functions, Peng Gao

Dissertations and Theses

Quantum computing has become an important research field of computer science and engineering. Among many quantum algorithms, Grover's algorithm is one of the most famous ones. Designing an effective quantum oracle poses a challenging conundrum in circuit and system-level design for practical application realization of Grover's algorithm.

In this dissertation, we present a new method to build quantum oracles for Grover's algorithm to solve graph theory problems. We explore generalized Boolean symmetric functions with lattice diagrams to develop a low quantum cost and area efficient quantum oracle. We study two graph theory problems: cycle detection of undirected graphs and generalized …

Method Of Modeling The Swing Equation Using Time Synchronized Measurements, Robert Matthew Ferraro

Dissertations and Theses

In three phase, high-voltage transmission systems, synchronous generators accelerate or decelerate to adapt to changing power transfer requirements that occur during system disturbances. In network electrical power systems, frequency changes constantly based on system dynamics. Modeling network dynamics from oscillations and transients using time-synchronized measurements can provide real-time information, including angular displacements, voltage and current phasors, frequency changes, and rate of signal system decay from positive-sequence components.

Power system voltage and current waveforms are not steady-state sinusoids, especially during system disturbances. These waveforms contain sustained harmonic and non-harmonic components. Additionally, because of faults and other switching electromagnetic transients, there may …

Spectrum Modeling Of Rf Amplifiers Based On Intercept Points With Measurement Improvements, Siyuan Yan

Dissertations and Theses

Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing has been developed into a popular modulation scheme for wireless communication systems, used in applications such as LTE and 5G. In wireless communication system, spectrum regrowth caused by RF amplifiers will generate distortions to both passband in use and adjacent channels such that the transmission quality will be degraded. The study of this dissertation aims to predict the spectrum regrowth for OFDM based signals at the output of a RF amplifier due to the nonlinearity. Based on Taylor polynomial coefficients, a power spectrum expression for amplified OFDM signals in terms of intercept points up to nth-order is …

Modeling Tools For Analyzing Electrical Power Distribution Systems Impacted By Electric Vehicle Load Growth, Jacob Sheeran

Dissertations and Theses

Growing Electric Vehicle penetration presents unwanted problems to grid reliability. For nearly every EV there is corresponding household charging. High penetration of Electric Vehicle Service Equipment can lead to over loading of assets and under voltage conditions. In order to understand the effects EV have on a distribution system, studies have to be done for EVSE to understand how the distribution system is affected. Using advanced Power Engineering Simulation Software is often the best way to model systems due to the credibility of their software modules. For this thesis, I developed a suite of distribution system analysis tools using CYME …

Memristor Crossbar Array Testing Using Sneak Paths, Rasika Dhananjay Joshi

Dissertations and Theses

Moore's law decline has paved the way to shift to new technologies at architectural and device levels. CMOS based technologies are facing many challenges with the growing demand for miniaturization. The growing heat dissipation is the major limitation for performance, energy efficiency and reliability with the increasing transistor count in integrated circuits. Manufacturing costs and process/memory performance gap have also grown steadily over the last several decades with the scaling down of the CMOS feature size. Memristor, a nanoscale device, has the potential to address the CMOS limitations because of its non-volatility, high density, low power operation, low cost per …

Power Distribution System Tools For Analyzing Impacts Of Projected Electric Vehicle Load Growth Using Gridlab-D, Shahad Alomani

Dissertations and Theses

The increased penetration of Electric Vehicle (EV) will provide substantial benefits to the environment. However, each EV will present a significant additional load to electric power distribution infrastructure, especially to radial distribution feeders. The additional load may cause transformers to operate beyond their thermal limits, unacceptable voltage drops along distribution lines, and primary conductor overloads. It is now, more than ever, vital to understand the limitations of existing infrastructure in light of an accelerating push for greener alternatives with insight that stems from modeling, simulation, and proper analysis as the backbone to a well-informed response.

The objective of this work …

Methods For Object Tracking With Machine Vision, Zachary Simon Stamler

Dissertations and Theses

As machine learning and deep learning systems continue to find applications in science and engineering, the problem of providing these systems with high-quality data continues to increase in importance. Many of these systems utilize machine vision as their primary source of information, and in order to maximally leverage their abilities it is important to be able to provide them with high quality, accurate data. Unfortunately, many sets of tracking data extracted from video suffer from the problem of missing frames, which can arise from a multitude of causes depending on the system. These missing frames can result in confusion between …

Vessel Trajectory Prediction Using Historical Ais Data, Jagir Laxmichand Charla

Dissertations and Theses

Maritime vessel position coordinates are important information for maritime situational planning and organization. A better estimate of future locations of the maritime vessels, from their current locations, can help maritime authorities to make planned decisions, which can be helpful to avoid traffic congestion and longer waiting times. This thesis develops a method for estimating future locations of the vessels using their current and previous locations and other data.

The motivating scenario for this work is that of determining the future locations of the vessels based on their current location and previous locations for accurate modelling of underwater acoustic noise. As …

Clustered Hyperspectral Target Detection, Sean Onufer Stalley

Dissertations and Theses

Aerial target detection is often used to search for relatively small things over large areas of land. Depending on the size and signature of the target, detection can be a very easy or very difficult task. By capturing images with several hundred color channels, hyperspectral sensors provide a new way of looking at this task, both literally and figuratively. Hyperspectral sensors can be used in many aerial target detection tasks such as identifying unhealthy trees in a forest, searching for minerals at a mining site, or finding the sources of chemical leaks at a factory. The high spectral resolution of …

Approximate Pattern Matching Using Hierarchical Graph Construction And Sparse Distributed Representation, Aakanksha Mathuria

Dissertations and Theses

With recent developments in deep networks, there have been significant advances in visual object detection and recognition. However, some of these networks are still easily fooled/hacked and have shown "bag of features" kinds of failures. Some of this is due to the fact that even deep networks make only marginal use of the complex structure that exists in real-world images. Primate visual systems appear to capture the structure in images, but how?

In the research presented here, we are studying approaches for robust pattern matching using static, 2D Blocks World images based on graphical representations of the various components of …

Theoretical And Experimental Validation Of A Cubesat's L-Band Communication System, Evangelos Mastrogiannis

Dissertations and Theses

An L-band uplink communication system was designed and validated in the lab for a CubeSat satellite operating in low Earth orbit (LEO). This paper investigates communication link analysis, discusses the design strategy for an inexpensive CubeSat receiver operating in L-band with a moderate power Earth station transmitter, and validates the link budget with prototype hardware using an anechoic chamber.

A receiver's required carrier-to-noise ratio (CNR) establishes the basis for a link budget. The requirement for a digital communication link is set by the bit-error-rate (BER) requirement of a chosen communication protocol which is inversely related to the energy per bit …

Analog Statistical Design For Manufacturability, Yu-Shan Wang

Dissertations and Theses

The manufacturing yield, overkill, and defect level limit the feasibility of analog circuits in SoCs. The conventional method of handling process and environmental variation is to assign a design margin such that the design meets specifications at several processes and environmental corners. However, checking only extreme corners limits performance in comparison to the more rigorous statistical approach of the computing manufacturing and quality figure of merit. The statistical approach requires transistor-level simulation of hundreds or even thousands of samples, not just a few corners, and thus is very time consuming.

This research offers a method for reducing the time required …

Dynamic Through-Silicon Via Clustering In 3d Ic Floorplanning For Early Performance Optimization, Sucheta Mohapatra

Dissertations and Theses

Through-silicon via (TSV)-based three-dimensional integrated circuits (3D ICs) are expected to be the breakthrough technology for keeping up with the scaling trends of Moore's law, while also offering the unique opportunity for functional diversification through heterogenous integration. TSVs are vertical metal interconnects enabling communication across stacked and thinned dies. The dramatic reduction in global wirelength and chip footprint in 3DICs, directly improves delay, device density, bandwidth and routing congestion. Even with the current maturation of TSV process, the roadmap for industry adoption of 3DICs remains largely uncertain due to lack of standardized 3D tools capable of handling the sheer complexity …

Memristive Architectures And Algorithms For Approximate Graph-Based Inference, Mohammad M.A. Taha

Dissertations and Theses

The goal of this thesis is to design fast, low-power, robust graph-based inference systems. Our approach to this is by using (1) in-memory computing, (2) approximate computing principles, and (3) memristive devices.

This work is motivated by the fact that conventional von Neumann architectures are not efficient for inference applications, mainly due to the data transfer bottleneck. Adding cache memories and using GPUs is a remedy, however, does not eliminate this bottleneck. In-memory computing is an alternative approach that performs all computations inside the memory, thus eliminating the data transfer bottleneck.

The memristor, which is a passive two-terminal device, is …

Evaluating R&D Projects In Regulated Utilities: The Case Of Power Transmission Utilities, Edwin Garces

Dissertations and Theses

R&D project selection is essential for many organizations; however, it is a complex decision since it is affected by many factors. These factors vary among organizations because of their different objectives and conditions. There are limited budgets for the investments, and the current R&D project selection methods are focused on financial analysis or complex mathematical probabilistic calculations. Therefore, the main motivation of this research is to create a method to help improve the ex-ante selection of R&D projects in regulated organizations. More importantly, the case application is the electric transmission utilities sector, which plays one of the most critical roles …