Engineering Commons^™

Mixed Modulation For Remote Sensing With Embedded Navigation, Michael J. Nowak

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As electromagnetic spectrum availability shrinks, there is growing interest in combining multiple functions, such as radar and communications signals, into a single multipurpose waveform. Historically mixed-modulation has used orthogonal separation of different message signals in different dimensions such as time or frequency. This research explores an alternative approach of implementing an in-band, mixed-modulated waveform that combines surveillance radar and navigation functions into a single signal and demonstrates the feasibility of this approach for a limited area navigation solution. The first contribution of this research is the use of reduced phase-angle binary phase shift keying (BPSK) along with overlapped (channelized) spread-spectrum …

Retail Facility Design Considering Product Exposure, Corinne H. Mowrey

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Retail store's layout affects a shopper's visual experience and correspondingly the time spent in the store, navigation through the aisles, and allocation of attention and money across departments and categories. We contend that alternate rack layouts allow for more of a rack's facing to appear in the shopper's visual field. In this work we focus on the following two questions: (i) what impact does a given rack layout have on how much of a rack display is exposed to a shopper? (ii) what rack layouts maximize exposure to a shopper? To address the first question, we introduce a set of …

Aligned Carbon Nanotube Carpets On Carbon Substrates For High Power Electronic Applications, Betty Tun-Huan Quinton

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Abstract Quinton, Betty Tun-Huan. Ph.D., Engineering Ph.D. Program, Wright State University, 2016. Aligned Carbon Nanotube Carpets On Carbon Substrates for High Power Electronic Applications. One of the driving forces behind nanotechnology research is the miniaturization of electronic devices. Electrical and thermal transport properties of device materials at micrometer and nanometer scales become very important in such applications. Carbon materials, especially carbon nanotubes (CNTs), have exceptionally low density and superior electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties. Vertically aligned CNTs attached to lightweight carbon substrates may hold the key to fully use these outstanding properties. However, the majority of studies reported to date …

From 2d To 3d: On The Development Of Flexible And Conformal Li-Ion Batteries Via Additive Manufacturing, Aaron Joseph Blake

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The future of electronic devices, such as smart skins, embedded electronics, and wearable applications, requires a disruptive innovation to the design of conventional batteries. This research was thus aimed at leveraging additive manufacturing as a means to invigorate the design of next-generation Li-ion batteries to meet the emerging requirements of flexible electronics. First, a state-of-the art approach for achieving flexible Li-ion batteries, using a robust, multi-walled carbon nanotube mat as current collector was demonstrated. A unique mechanical device was constructed to experimentally observe the correlation between mechanical fatigue and electrochemical stability. Points of failure in the conventional architecture were evaluated …

Rf Cmos Band Pass Filters With Wide Tuning Frequency, Controllable Pass Band And High Stopband Rejection: Using Passive And Active Inductors, Jian Chen

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With the increasing demand for high performance RF front-end modules, like multimedia handset and base station devices accommodating multiple wireless standards (2G, 2.5G, 3G, WiMAX, and LTE). Multiple IF amplifiers, mixers, RF band pass filters (BPFs), modulators and demodulators are desired to be tunable to meet dynamic standards with different frequency bands. Tunable devices with wide tuning frequency range, tuning speed, high linearity, energy conservative, high pass band gain, high stop band rejection are the paramount components in the reconfigurable RF front-end systems. In this dissertation, first a wide tuning passive inductor band pass filter (BPF) with steep roll-off high …

Engineering Healthcare Delivery: A Systems Engineering Approach To Improving Trauma Center Nursing Efficacy, Robert A. Myers

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The efficacy of nurses is impacted by their availability to their patients and the occurrence of both beneficial and detrimental interruptions. Using system engineering tools, this work addresses open challenges in (i) methods for effective matching of nurse availability to non-stationary stochastic demand, (ii) differentiation of beneficial and detrimental interruptions, and (iii) modeling of nurses’ work with interruptions to provide an objective method of testing interruption interventions. First, we propose both qualitative and quantitative approaches to evaluate and then model the impact of resource scheduling on patient wait time in a Level I trauma center for a highly specialized nurse, …

Data Mining And Mathematical Models For Direct Market Campaign Optimization For Fred Meyer Jewelers, Lebin Lin

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Jewelry retail companies like Fred Meyer Jewelers employ direct marketing such as mailing lists and catalogs as a primary means to promote products, maintain customer relationships, and drive sale growths. Most jewelry customers, however, do not purchase frequently – they make only a limited number of purchases at special times with long lead-times between purchases. This has created a series of challenging problems for the marketing team at these jewelry stores in a) predicting when and what the customer purchases, and b) deciding what customers to be targeted so as to maximize the return on investment in the design of …

High-Fidelity Multidisciplinary Sensitivity Analysis For Coupled Fluid-Solid Interaction Design, Koorosh Gobal

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In many engineering disciplines such as aerospace, marine, automotive, and biomedical engineering, the consideration of the coupling between the fluid and structural systems is necessary for quality engineering analysis. Therefore, the need for such analysis in the design is continuously increasing. The primary motivation for this work is to develop a sensitivity analysis tool that is capable of calculating accurate sensitivities without significant modification of the source codes for simulations based on non-body conformal grids. The majority of work done on the coupled fluid-solid simulations are based on computational grids that conform to solid boundaries. This becomes a restriction for …

Development, Design, Manufacture And Test Of Flapping Wing Micro Aerial Vehicles, Todd J. Smith

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The field of FlappingWing Micro Air Vehicles (FWMAV) has been of interest in recent years and as shown to have many aerodynamic principles unconventional to traditional aviation aerodynamics. In addition to traditional manufacturing techniques, MAVs have utilized techniques and machines that have gained significant interest and investment over the past decade, namely in additive manufacturing. This dissertation discusses the techniques used to manufacture and build a 30 gram-force (gf) model which approaches the lower limit allowed by current commercial off-the-shelf items. The vehicle utilizes a novel mechanism that minimizes traditional kinematic issues associated with four bar mechanisms for flapping wing …

Compressed Sensing For Electronic Radio Frequency Receiver: Detection, Sensitivity, And Implementation, Ethan Lin

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The current state-of the-art for digital receiver bandwidth coverage is now reaching multi-GHz. The conventional wideband digital receiver design is based on the Nyquist information theory, and its bandwidth coverage is limited by the Nyquist sampling rate. Therefore, receiver performance highly depends on the high speed analog-to-digital (ADC) technology and computation hardware such as FPGA. Having proved a fundamental theory that Nyquist waveform can be restored with a reduced sampling rate under certain situations, compressed sensing (CS) technique becomes an attractive solution to wideband digital receiver development.

In this dissertation, performance analysis of the compressed sensing in receiver application is …

The Development Of A Human Operator Informatic Model (Hoim) Incorporating The Effects Of Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation On Information Processing While Performing Multi-Attribute Task Battery (Matb), Justin Nelson

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Multitasking has become an integral attribute associated with military operations in tasks such as cyber defense operators, remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) operators and air traffic controllers. These tasks are monotonous and repetitive in nature requiring the human operator to interpret and process information that may exceed their mental capability. When the human operator can no longer effectively process and respond to the critical incoming information, an asymptotic limit known as the multitasking throughput capacity (MTC) will be present. At this point, critical target detection and reaction times may degrade resulting in a decrement in performance. The objective of this research …

Fault Diagnosis And Fault-Tolerant Control Of Quadrotor Uavs, Remus C. Avram

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Quadrotors represent a special class of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and have attracted significant attention in recent years due to their potential in various military and civilian applications. However, due to their intrinsic fabrication process and component damage, quadrotors are prone to various type of faults. This dissertation presents the design, analysis, and experimental implementation of fault diagnosis, fault-tolerant control, and controller verification methods to achieve safety assurance and trusted autonomy of quadrotor UAVs. First, the issue of sensor faults is investigated under two different scenarios: (1) the case when all Euler angles are available for measurement; (2) the case …

A Theoretical Framework For Evaluating Mental Workload Resources In Human Systems Design For Manufacturing Operations, Sharon Claxton Bommer

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Manufacturing is a human-driven process that applies energy and manpower to produce consumer goods. In repetitive task processes like manufacturing systems, optimal performance is extremely important for the production employee and the company. In the general fast pace of manufacturing operations, there is the potential for operator errors, which correlates to possible safety issues and loss of revenue. This research explores the influence of cognitive resources on operator performance in manufacturing operations using the Multiple Resource Theory (MRT) and mental workload measures. Computer simulation models and mathematical modeling with Improved Performance Research Integration Tool (IMPRINT) were used to assess mental …

Performance Prediction Of Constrained Waveform Design For Adaptive Radar, Aaron M. Jones

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Today's radars face an ever increasingly complex operational environment, intensified by the numerous types of mission/modes, number and type of targets, non-homogenous clutter and active interferers in the scene. Thus, the ability to adapt ones transmit waveform, to optimally suit the needs for a particular radar tasking and environment, becomes mandatory. This requirement brings with it a host of challenges to implement including the basic decision of what to transmit. In this dissertation, we discuss six original contributions, including the development of performance prediction models for constrained radar waveforms, that aid in the decision making process of an adaptive radar …