Engineering Commons^™

Open-Ended Hollow Coaxial Cable Resonance Sensing Via Permittivity Fluctuations For Applications To Exhaled Breath Health Monitoring, Peter Henry Holtmann

Masters Theses

"We report a pre-diagnostics breath analyzer based on the open-ended hollow coaxial cable resonator (OE-HCCR) to achieve real-time differentiation of healthy and compromised lung function through electromagnetic analysis of exhaled breath matter. A two-phase amplification scheme of electromagnetic signatures metered via the S11 phase curve offers high sensitivity to permittivity fluctuations in exposed airflow. The mathematical model of the breath analyzer is explained, followed by experimental validation of numerical findings from previous work. The collection of breath transient signals is performed through monitoring the reflected power magnitude and phase of the scattering parameter (S11) at the resonance frequency. Material fluctuations …

In Situ High Temperature Fiber-Optic Raman Sensor For Industrial Applications, Bohong Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

"Continuous casting in steel production uses specially developed oxyfluoride glasses (mold fluxes) to lubricate a mold and control the solidification of the steel in the mold. The composition of the flux impacts properties, including basicity, viscosity, and crystallization rate, all of which affect the stability of the casting process and the quality of the solidified steel. However, mold fluxes interact with steel during the casting process, resulting in flux chemistry changes that must be considered in the flux design. Currently, the chemical composition of mold flux must be determined by extracting flux samples from the mold during casting and then …

Modeling And Analysis Methods For Esd And Emi Problems, Xin Yan

Doctoral Dissertations

"Electrostatic discharge (ESD) failures and Electromagnetic interference (EMI) problems are becoming more critical in electronic devices and large systems. In this work, four studies are presented to model and analyze ESD and EMI problems.

First, a simplified physical-based model for deep-snapback transient voltage suppressors (TVS) is developed. While based on physics, the number of parameters and components is minimized. Results show that the proposed model captures the most important behaviors of the TVS response using a limited number of parameters, allowing the model to be tuned relatively easily using data obtained only from package-level transient and quasi-static measurements. Second, a …

Control And Optimization Of Energy Storage System In Power Distribution System, Waqas Ur Rehman

Doctoral Dissertations

"The widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) and transportation electrification is encumbered by two chief barriers: i) the limited driving range of EVs in the market today and ii) inadequate fast-charging infrastructure for long-distance trips. Extreme fast charging (XFC) technology can recharge EVs in less than 10 minutes for 200 miles range. Firstly, a novel robust optimization-based mixed integer linear programming model is proposed to size a battery energy storage system (BESS) and PV system in an XFCS. In this part, it is assumed that the sizing and location of the XFCS are known. Secondly, the aforesaid assumption is relaxed, …

Geometry-Aware Methodology For Coupling Mechanism Analysis And Radiation Mechanism Analysis, Xu Wang

Doctoral Dissertations

"Due to the wide-band spectrum of digital signals, a variety of noise generators, including microprocessors, liquid crystal displays, digital microphones, high-speed traces, and double-data-rate memory modules, are found in consumer electronics products. Noise generated by digital circuits can couple to the antennas and degrade their sensitivity. Additionally, it also couples to metallic housings or heatsinks and produces a significant amount of emission. In this research, methodologies are presented to analyze the coupling and radiation mechanism in electronic devices.

To investigate the coupling between the distributive geometries in the radio frequency interference (RFI) problem, a mesh-dependent partition-based coupling mechanism analysis method …

Fiber Optic Sensors For Liquid Identifications, Wassana Naku

Doctoral Dissertations

"The fiber optic Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) is a widely utilized sensing configuration, offering numerous advantages over conventional electronic sensors, including high accuracy, distributed sensing capabilities, immunity to electromagnetic interference, and compact size. In this study, we propose a remarkably simple fiber optic-tip sensor system combined with machine learning techniques for the identification of pure and volatile organic liquids (VOLs).

A liquid droplet forms an extrinsic FPI (EFPI), with its effective reflectance being a function of the droplet's length. As the droplet evaporates, its length decreases. We conducted immersion tests using optical fiber tip sensors and monitored the time-transient responses of …

Introduction Of A Variable Inductance Transformer For The Design Of Resonant Power Converters, Angshuman Sharma

Doctoral Dissertations

"Magnetic integration is a hot topic in power electronics that concerns the use of a transformer's leakage and magnetizing inductances purposefully in isolated power electronic converters, thereby giving the opportunity to save the cost and footprint of any additional inductor. This is of prime interest, especially in CLLLC resonant converters which require up to three inductors. For a complete integration of these inductances, the concept of a variable inductance transformer (VIT) is introduced in this thesis. A VIT is an adaptive magnetic structure that facilitates an easy adjustment of both magnetizing and leakage inductances to meet their desired values. However, …

Improved Decap Model And Placement Optimization Algorithm For Power Distribution Network Design, Jack Juang

Masters Theses

"Decoupling capacitors (decaps) are used in power distribution network (PDN) design to act as a low impedance return path for noise and act as a local source of charge when required by integrated circuits (IC). For placement of decaps, which can number even to the hundreds, many algorithms have been proposed including genetic algorithms (GA), iterative algorithm, and machine learning methods.

One limitation of iterative decap placement algorithms (adding one decap at a time) is how the construction of the algorithm affects the form of the final solution. For example, if the reward function (used in GA and machine learning …

Prediction And Root-Cause Analysis For Smart Speaker Intentional Electromagnetic Interference Attacks, Tanner Fokkens

Masters Theses

"Smart home and Internet of Things (IoT) devices have become ubiquitous in homes over the past decade. The smart speaker itself is often the device that interfaces all these devices together. Because of this, the smart speaker can become a point of attack for someone trying to exploit or hack into the smart home devices. In the past few years, it was discovered that smart speakers with microwave electromechanical system (MEMS) microphones are susceptible to intentional electromagnetic interference (I-EMI) attacks by modulating an audio command to a high-frequency carrier signal. This attack allows for command recognition for long-distances and smart …

Static I-V Curve And Aging Test For Pim Characterization In Metallic Contacts, Kalkidan Anjajo

Masters Theses

"Spring clips and fabric-over-foams (FOFs) are widely used in mobile devices for electrical connection purposes. However, the imperfect metallic connections tend to induce passive intermodulation (PIM), resulting in a receiver sensitivity degradation, known as RF desensitization. Due to the complexity of the PIM characterization, there is not yet a way to evaluate PIM performance using a simple setup for environments like factories. In this study, a current-voltage (I-V) behavior-based PIM evaluation method is proposed and validated with various metallic contacts and contact forces. The test results demonstrated the feasibility of the PIM performance evaluation based on the measured static I-V …

A Real-Time Microwave Camera Using Zero-Bias Diode Detector, Liang Liu

Masters Theses

"This thesis presents the design of a microwave camera that utilizes a two-dimensional array of elliptical slot antennas and diode detectors to quickly and accurately locate radiation sources. Unlike traditional scanning techniques like ESM and holography, which rely on mechanical scanning, require a long measurement time, and are prone to mechanical errors, the microwave camera operates quickly and efficiently by using electronic switching to access the output of each detector. This results in a more precise and efficient means of locating radiation sources'--Abstract, p. iii

Design, Modeling And Analysis Of An Ac-Ac Dual Active Bridge Converter, Kartikeya Jayadurga Prasad Veeramraju

Doctoral Dissertations

"The Solid-State Transformer (SST) is gaining attention as an alternative to conventional iron-core transformers in the power electronic community. The power industry's increasing demands for smaller size, higher efficiency, and greater energy density have made the SST an attractive option. Among various power electronic converter topologies, the Dual Active Bridge (DAB) has become popular for its bidirectional power flow capability and galvanic isolation, primarily in the DC application space. Advancements in semiconductor technologies have introduced new bidirectional switches, opening avenues for novel SST topologies. This research investigates the application of the DAB as a single-stage SST and focuses on advancements …

Advanced Topologies Of High Step-Up Dc-Dc Converters For Renewable Energy Applications, Ramin Rahimi

Doctoral Dissertations

"This research is focused on developing several advanced topologies of high step-up DC-DC converters to connect low-voltage renewable energy (RE) sources, such as photovoltaic (PV) panels and fuel cells (FCs), into a high-voltage DC bus in renewable energy applications. The proposed converters are based on the combinations of various voltage-boosting (VB) techniques, including interleaved and quadratic structures, switched-capacitor (SC)-based voltage multiplier (VM) cells, and magnetically coupled inductor (CI) and built-in-transformer (BIT). The proposed converters offer outstanding features, including high voltage gain with low or medium duty cycle, a small number of components, low current and voltage stresses on the components, …

Machine Learning Applications In Plant Identification, Wireless Channel Estimation, And Gain Estimation For Multi-User Software-Defined Radio, Viraj K. Gajjar

Doctoral Dissertations

"This work applies machine learning (ML) techniques to selected computer vision and digital communication problems. Machine learning algorithms can be trained to perform a specific task without explicit programming. This research applies ML to the problems of: plant identification from images of leaves, channel state information (CSI) estimation for wireless multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems, and gain estimation for a multi-user software-defined radio (SDR) application.

In the first task, two methods for plant species identification from leaf images are developed. One of the methods uses hand-crafted features extracted from leaf images to train a support vector machine classifier. The other method combines …

Pi And Emi Analysis Of 3d Ic System With Tsvs And Co-Packaged Optics, Wei Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

"With the demand for developing high-capacity, high-density, high-power optical links for data center communications, co-packaged optics is a promising solution. When the three-dimensional (3D) IC and optic engines are integrated into the same package, the design of such systems in terms of signal integrity, power integrity, and electromagnetic interference will be more challenging.

This first paper mainly focuses on modeling the bias-voltage-dependent, temperature-dependent, and light-intensity-dependent hysteresis behavior of a through-silicon-vias (TSV) structure in 3D IC and analyzing its effect on the power integrity of a system with 3D IC.

This second paper investigates the scaled tendency of the emissions in …

Numerical Investigations Of 2-D Magnetic Nozzles On Pulsed Plasma Plumes, Joshua Daniel Burch

Masters Theses

"This research presents studies of a novel type of magnetic nozzle that allows for three-dimensional (3-D) steering of a plasma plume. Numerical simulations were performed using Tech-X's USim® software to quantify the nozzle's capabilities. A2-D planar magnetic nozzle was applied to plumes of a nominal pulsed inductive plasma (PIP) source with discharge parameters similar to those of Missouri S&T's Missouri Plasmoid Experiment (MPX). Argon and xenon plumes were considered. Simulations were verified and validated through a mesh convergence study as well as comparison with available experimental data. Periodicity was achieved over the simulation run time and phase angle samples were …

Signal Integrity Analysis And Electromagnetic Inteference Modeling For Autonomous Vehicles, Yuandong Guo

Doctoral Dissertations

"An autonomous vehicle (AV) may employ various sensors to detect the environment, and the hardware for self-driving should be able to process large volume of sensor data and make real-time decisions. For signal integrity (SI), both the bandwidths and data rates of the high-speed channels should meet the requirements. The electromagnetic interference (EMI) noise may become a major concern with the ever-increasing number of electric modules. This research focuses on both SI analysis and EMI modeling for AVs. The first topic is accurate and broadband three-phase motor modeling. The novel modeling methodology for a typical three-phase motor is presented, using …

Multi-Stage Multi-Market Optimal Bidding Strategy In Electricity Markets, Hossein Mehdipourpicha

Doctoral Dissertations

"Restructuring of power industry created the competitive situations for different MPs through designing appropriate electricity markets. Typically, in pool-based electricity markets, MPs submit their offers, and ISO clears the market and notifies MPs of the cleared power amounts and market prices. In this situation, designing an effective bidding strategy for MPs who seek to maximize their profits has thus become one of the crucial yet difficult tasks that still need further exploration. The majority of recent studies overlooked this problem for the purely financial players. Therefore, designing an efficient strategy for virtual bidder in the pool-based electricity markets is studied …

Far-End Crosstalk Modeling And Prediction For High-Speed Pcb Design With Inhomogeneous Dielectric Layers (Idls), Yuanzhuo Liu

Doctoral Dissertations

"Far-end crosstalk (FEXT) noise is a critical factor that affects signal integrity performance in high-speed systems. The FEXT level is sensitive to the inhomogeneity of the dielectric layers in fabricated printed circuit boards (PCB). The stripline is laminated by multiple inhomogeneous dielectric layers (IDL). The dielectric layers of the stripline are laminated with epoxy resin and glass bundles. The dielectric permittivity of the epoxy resin and glass bundles are different, which causes the inhomogeneity of the dielectric layers while also increasing the FEXT magnitude. The dielectric of the microstrip in printed circuit boards (PCB) fabrication usually consists of two layers: …

Array Signal Processing For Source Localization And Enhancement, Sohel J. Patel

Doctoral Dissertations

“A common approach to the wide-band microphone array problem is to assume a certain array geometry and then design optimal weights (often in subbands) to meet a set of desired criteria. In addition to weights, we consider the geometry of the microphone arrangement to be part of the optimization problem. Our approach is to use particle swarm optimization (PSO) to search for the optimal geometry while using an optimal weight design to design the weights for each particle’s geometry. The resulting directivity indices (DI’s) and white noise SNR gains (WNG’s) form the basis of the PSO’s fitness function. Another important …

Automatic Sparse Esm Scan Using Gaussian Process Regression, Jiangshuai Li

Masters Theses

“Emission source microscopy (ESM) technique can be utilized for localization of electromagnetic interference sources in complex and large systems. In this work a Gaussian process regression (GPR) method is applied in real-time to select sampling points for the sparse ESM imaging using a motorized scanner. The Gaussian process regression is used to estimate the complex amplitude of the scanned field and its uncertainty allowing to select the most relevant areas for scanning. Compared with the randomly selected samples the proposed method allows to reduce the number of samples needed to achieve a certain dynamic range of the image, reducing the …

Distributed Fiber-Optic Temperature Sensors For Applications In The Steel Industry, Muhammad Roman

Doctoral Dissertations

"Steelmaking facilities require continuous temperature measurements throughout the manufacturing process to ensure consistent product quality and high productivity. Motivated by the limitations of conventional temperature sensors, distributed fiber-optic sensors (DFOS) were developed and deployed for various applications in the steel industry. Fiber-optic sensors offer various advantages over conventional sensors, such as the miniaturized size of the optical fiber, immunity to electromagnetic interferences, capability for multiplexing and distributed sensing, and the ability to withstand harsh environments.

Firstly, high-resolution Rayleigh backscattering based DFOS were demonstrated as potential solutions for temperature measurements in steelmaking processes by performing experimental simulations. Additionally, aluminum casting experiments …

Optimization Of Energy Storage Scheduling In Electricity Markets, Jian Liu

Doctoral Dissertations

"In the existing literature, merchants' trading actions are usually assumed not to affect market prices; however, a large-scale energy storage merchant’s actions can affect market prices. This work examined two electricity merchant scenarios: one with only energy storage and the other with both energy storage and renewable power plants. We approximated market impact via a linear function of the electricity traded by the merchant. This study began by applying dynamic programming to the optimal economic dispatch policy of electricity merchants and it considered the market impact, physical characteristics of storage systems, and the uncertainty of renewable energy sources. Then, this …

Optimization And Modeling Of Esd Protection Devices, Li Shen

Masters Theses

“Transient voltage suppressors (TVS) are used to protect ICs (integrated circuits) against overvoltage, ESD (Electrostatic Discharge), inductive load switching, and even lightning strikes. In this research, a transient behavior model framework for ESD protection devices is used for modelling four different types of TVS (non-snapback, snapback, spark gap like device and varistor). The System-Efficient ESD Design (SEED) methodology is utilized to strengthen the trust in the model framework by efficient simulation of ESD interaction of the off-chip ESD protection devices with the IC ESD protection device and associated measurement data.

Improvements in the TVS transient response, accounting for conductivity modulation, …

State Level Trends In Renewable Energy Procurement Via Solar Installation Versus Green Electricity, Eric Michael Hanson

Masters Theses

“In the past 5 years, consumer options for procuring renewable energy have increased, ranging from rooftop solar installation to utility green pricing to Community Choice Aggregation. These options vary in terms of costs and benefits to the consumer as well as grid integration implications. However, little is known regarding how the presence of a wide range of options for utility-scale renewable procurement affects demand for distributed residential solar installations. In theory, there are three possible relationships, (1) positive correlation, where utility-scale and distributed resources complement each other to increase overall production, (2) negative correlation, where utility-scale and distributed resources are …

Predicting Radiated Emissions From A Cable Harness Through Component Level Tests, Fuwei Ma

Masters Theses

“In this work, a procedure is developed to predict the radiated emissions from a cable harness using component-level tests. Direct measurement on the engine control unit is utilized to accurately characterize the equivalent common mode source voltages and impedance associated with the device. The cable harness geometry is reduced using the equivalent cable bundle approach by lumping wires according to the source and load impedance compared with characteristic impedance of the harness, which dramatically reduces the measurement effort and allows practical 3D full-wave simulation of the radiated emissions. Radiated emissions are predicted from an engine control unit (ECU) and an …

Modeling Strategy For Emi Filter And Flyback Transformer, Ruijie He

Doctoral Dissertations

“The switch-mode power supply is key to miniaturizing power adapters. However, the switching nature of the circuit introduces issues in conducted emissions. In a flyback converter, the transformer serves as the path for common mode current flowing from the primary side to the secondary side. Different winding technologies have been invented and implemented to reduce the capacitance between the primary side and the secondary side. But the repeatability of the winding is still poor due to the fluctuations of the winding machine. Thus, the resulting conducted emission has a fluctuation that can lead to failure in the compliance tests. EMI …

Characterization And Modeling Of Esd Events, Risk And Protection, Jianchi Zhou

Doctoral Dissertations

“The ESD (Electrostatic discharge) failures have been raising critical reliability problems in electronic devices design. However, not all the ESD scenarios have been specified by the IEC standard and the characterizations of the ESD risk for different scenarios are essential to evaluate the ESD robustness of the devices in the real word.

The insulation of plastic enclosures provides protection against ESD to the electronic system inside. However, seams between plastic parts are often unavoidable. Different plastic arrangements are constructed to investigate the spark length and current derivatives and to understand the ESD spark behavior for geometries having spark lengths longer …

Novel Sensor Platforms Based On Fabry-Perot Resonators For Applications In Environmental Geophysics, Jing Guo

Doctoral Dissertations

"Fabry-Perot resonator sensors have been widely used for various physical and chemical measurements owing to their unique advantages over traditional sensors such as high measurement resolution, mechanically robust, and distributed sensing capabilities. This dissertation focuses on the development of robust fiber optic microwave sensors based on Fabry-Perot resonator mechanism for real-time applications in environmental geophysics.

Firstly, a novel Extrinsic Fabry-Perot Interferometer (EFPI)-based fiber-optic sensor for force measurement using a pre-buckled beam was demonstrated. The axial displacement is transferred and amplified to a horizontal deflection at the middle of the buckled beam, leading to a relatively significant change in the Fabry-Perot …

Accuracy Improvement Of Cable Harness Modeling & Analytical Modeling Of Multi-Reflections In High-Speed Signal Channels, Muqi Ouyang

Doctoral Dissertations

"Cable harnesses are widely used in modern vehicles to power electric systems locating at different locations throughout the vehicle and to establish signal channels for data communications between these systems. Generally, a cable harness consists of multiple wires and its geometry can be very complicated, making full-wave modeling and simulation approaches computational resource-intensive. To cut down the computational effort, the hybrid multiconductor transmission-line (MTL) method has been developed, and the generalized MTL (GMTL) method and the multiple scattering (MS) method have been developed to improve the accuracy of the hybrid MTL method. In this research, the convergence issue in the …