Engineering Commons^™

Design, Simulation, And Construction Of An Ieee 14-Bus Power System, John Albert Boudreaux

LSU Master's Theses

Today’s bulk power system is massive, complex, and very dynamic. The U.S. power grid spans from coast to coast and even as far reaching as Canada. With the addition of new technologies such as renewable energies and power electronics to aid in power conversion and control, the power system grows more complex by the day. The most common approach of analyzing power system stability is through computer modeling and simulation. Due to the vast size and inaccessibility of transmission systems, real time testing can prove difficult. The motivation of this project was to design, simulate, and construct an IEEE 14 …

Cryptki: Mobile Hardware Wallet, Derrick Chan, Rowan Decker, William Nguyen, Yuya Oguchi

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Cryptocurrencies are rapidly receiving mainstream attention and adoption. As a result, new technologies are developing to store and transact cryptocurrencies to keep up with a rapidly developing market. We have developed a way to utilize a mobile phone to communicate with the Ethereum blockchain in order to monitor and initiate cryptocurrency transactions. The project allows users to create new Ethereum addresses and to send arbitrary amounts of Ether to existing Ethereum addresses, while maintaining security for the end user. We conclude that this method of communication with the Ethereum blockchain is viable and is an avenue for exploration in the …

Camera-Based Distance Sensor, Kai Schmidt, Evan Holmes

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

While working on a robotics project at the electrical contracting company for which we work, we discovered a gap in the electronic distance sensor market in terms of range, accuracy, precision, and cost. We designed and constructed a prototype for an electronic distance sensing component which utilizes a camera, laser, and image processor to measure distances. The laser is pointed at a surface and an image of the laser dot is captured. An image processing algorithm determines the pixel position of the dot in the image, and this position is compared to a lookup table of known values to determine …

B.O.G.G.L.E.S.: Boundary Optical Geographic Lidar Environment System, Miguel Chapa, Evan Hoerl, Isaac Jorgensen, Carl Maggio

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

The purpose of this paper is to describe a pseudo X-ray vision system that pairs a Lidar scanner with a visualization device. The system as a whole is referred to as B.O.G.G.L.E.S. There are several key factors that went into the development of this system and the background information and design approach are thoroughly described. B.O.G.G.L.E.S functionality is depicted through the use of design constraints and the analysis of test results. Additionally, many possible developments for B.O.G.G.L.E.S are proposed in the paper. This indicates that there are various avenues of improvement for this project that could be implemented in the …

Halo - A Personal Iot Air Monitor Powered By Harvested Energy, Benjamin Lampe, Taylor Mau, Samantha Morehead, Naeem Turner-Bandele

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Urban air pollution leads to widespread respiratory illness and millions of deaths annually. PM2.5, particulate matter with a diameter less than 2.5 micrometers, is the product of many common combustion reactions and poses a particularly serious health risk. Its small size allows it to penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream. Existing air quality monitors are aimed at scientific research, di↵erentiating between pollutants and providing high accuracy in measurement. These devices are prohibitively expensive and cannot easily be carried around. Due to the highly localized nature of air pollution, and in order to allow individuals and institutions to …

Rf Roaming System Locator: A Modular Omnidirectional Antenna System, George Stathakis, Josh Sullivan, Christian Ayscue

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Drones are increasingly common in everything from entertainment to delivery services. Currently, GPS and wireless triangulation are the two main methods of tracking drones and collision avoidance. The main problem with these two methods are accuracy and mobility. This thesis goes into building a system that is able to solve the two main drawbacks, by using a completely contained antenna system. The system is robust and can work in a variety of environments and situations. While the thesis focuses on drone tracking, the system is built with modularity in mind and can be adapted to track other RF signals with …

The Vessel For Autonomous Research Underwater (The Varuna), Tyler Briles, Shae Connor, Erin Guthrie, Anthony Jackson, Madeleine Peauroi

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Humans are intimately connected to the Earth’s ocean, and yet only 5% of it has been explored. Learning more about marine life and ocean chemistry can only improve our stewardship efforts. The addition of an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle to the Santa Clara University Robotic Systems Laboratory’s collection of marine robots will contribute to this quest for knowledge. It will assist researchers by providing a low-cost, easy-to-use, portable, reliable, and safe alternative to operator-controlled vehicles. This report describes our motivations for this project, the decisions we made in the design and manufacturing of the VARUNA, and tradeoff analyses of possible options. …

Pressure Ulcer Prevention System, Rey-David Palomares, Ojus Rao

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Pressure ulcers, also known as bedsores, are a widespread but often understated problem. A pressure ulcer is an injury that develops with constant pressure on an area of skin for a long time. They range from bruises to open wounds to even exposed bone. These injuries especially impact bedridden and elderly hospital inpatients, since these people must depend on nursing staff for mobility.

Pressure ulcers can seem to be a solved problem. Solutions that completely eliminate pressure ulcers do exist. These solutions, however, are too expensive for widespread use, at thousands of dollars per bed. Other solutions, such as relying …

The Human Keyboard, Derek Char, Thomas Chung, Alexander Mckee, Allen Pai

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Most products that implement features for user interactions utilize buttons or switches for the user to command to select actions to perform. Such designs are typically controlled with direct motions, such as touch or voice and are seldom designed in consideration of those unable to utilize direct control. In this project, we designed technology that reads naturally occuring biosignals from the body, which then can be apply those signals with any interface. For our specific application in this project, we decided to implement a keyboard. Instead of teaching the fingers how to type on a mechanical keyboard, the body can …

2018 Ieee Signal Processing Cup: Forensic Camera Model Identification Challenge, Michael Geiger

Honors Theses

The goal of this Senior Capstone Project was to lead Union College’s first ever Signal Processing Cup Team to compete in IEEE’s 2018 Signal Processing Cup Competition. This year’s competition was a forensic camera model identification challenge and was divided into two separate stages of competition: Open Competition and Final Competition. Participation in the Open Competition was open to any teams of undergraduate students, but the Final Competition was only open to the three finalists from Open Competition and is scheduled to be held at ICASSP 2018 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Teams that make it to the Final Competition will …

Hardware And Software Improvements To A Low-Cost Holographic Video Monitor, Andrew August Henrie

Theses and Dissertations

The "Mark V" Holographic Video Monitor ("HoloMonitor") is a continuation of effort and accomplishments to produce a low-cost device capable of reproducing true full-color horizontal-parallax-only computer-generated holograms at typical video frame-rates. While other devices around the world may have greater capabilities, these devices are currently confined to laboratory settings due to their sheer complexity and expense. The aim of this project is to provide researchers and "tinkerers" with a device capable of recreating holographic effects in full color, respectable resolution, in real time, and at a comparatively low cost. The "Mark V" HoloMonitor is a closer representation of a consumer …

School Logo Cleveland State University Logo Title Evolutionary Optimization For Safe Navigation Of An Autonomous Robot In Cluttered Dynamic Unknown Environments, Arash Roshanineshat

ETD Archive

We present a path planning approach based on probabilistic methods for a robot to navigate in a cluttered, dynamic, unknown environment. There are dynamic obstacles moving around and static obstacles located in the map. The robot does not have any prior information about them but should be able to navigate through the map beginning from a known starting point and safely ending at a known target point. The only information the robot has is the location of the starting point and the target point and it uses sensory information to collect information about its surroundings. Our method is compared to …

Evolutionary Optimization For Safe Navigation Of An Autonomous Robot In Cluttered Dynamic Unknown Environments, Arash Roshanineshat

ETD Archive

We present a path planning approach based on probabilistic methods for a robot to navigate in a cluttered, dynamic, unknown environment. There are dynamic obstacles moving around and static obstacles located in the map. The robot does not have any prior information about them but should be able to navigate through the map beginning from a known starting point and safely ending at a known target point. The only information the robot has is the location of the starting point and the target point and it uses sensory information to collect information about its surroundings. Our method is compared to …

True-Average Current-Mode Control Of Dc-Dc Power Converters: Analysis, Design, And Characterization, Dalvir K. Saini

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Energy efficient, wide-bandwidth, and well-regulated dc-dc power converters are in great demand in today's emerging technologies in areas such as medical, communication, aerospace, and automotive industries. In addition to design and selection of the converter components, a robust closed-loop modeling is very essential for reliable power-electronic systems. Two closed-loop control techniques for power converters exist: voltage-mode control and current-mode control. The principles of voltage-mode control have been explored in great depths by researchers over the last two decades. However, the dynamic modeling of current-mode controlled dc-dc power converters has many uncharted areas that needs careful attention. Two main methods exist …

Examination Of Gain Scheduling And Fuzzy Controllers With Hybrid Reachability, Aaron W. Fifarek

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Modern aircraft with nonlinear flight envelopes predominately utilize gain scheduled controllers to provide stability of flight. Using gain scheduled control techniques, nonlinear envelopes can be linearized into collections of linear systems that operate under various system dynamics. Linear controllers approximate the nonlinear response over setpoints of operating conditions which allow traditional linear theory to be applied to maintain stability. Techniques to prove linear stability are well understood and realized in control systems, but when controllers are switched, interpolation methods must be used. Interpolation is necessary as gain scheduled systems do not have foundational switching paradigms as part of their realization …

Wideband Doa And Parameter Estimation Of Chirp Sources Using Dcft And Compressive Sensing, Luay A. Al Irkhis

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Direction of Arrival (DoA) estimation of chirp sources has many applications in radar, sonar and medical imaging. This work considers DoA and parameter estimation of wide- band chirp sources by the use of Discrete Chirp Fourier Transform (DCFT), its Compres- sive Sensing formulation (CS-DCFT) and Distributed CS. DCFT is similar to traditional Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) but with chirp ba- sis and two-dimensional search over chirp rate and chirp frequency. For chirp parame- ters estimation, the proposed Compressive Sensing (CS) formulation uses the parametric DCFT basis to achieve superior estimator performance in polynomial time using Orthog- onal Matching Pursuit (OMP) …

Feed-Forward Compensation Of Non-Minimum Phase Systems, Venkatesh Dudiki

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Due to inherent limitations posed by existence of zeros of a transfer function in the righthalfof the complex plane, known as non-minimum phase zeros, the issue of dealing withsuch zeros is extremely important in control of linear systems. Considerable literatureexists in control theory to try and minimize or eliminate the effect of non-minimum phasezeros. These include pole-zero cancellation, feedforward compensation, among others.These methods are only limited only to stable systems (systems with poles in the left halfof the complex plane); and will fail for systems that are unstable as well as non-minimumphase.This research focuses in designing feedforward compensators for unstable …

Hardware Security And Vlsi Design Optimization, Hao Xue

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Microelectronic circuit is ubiquitous component of modern electrical devices. The increasing complexity and professionality of phases in microelectronic supply chain bring more global cooperation to integrated circuit (IC) production. Therefore, providing a secure environment for microelectronic circuit design does not ensure the integrity of the hardware since any participator of IC fabrication has the opportunity to implant a malicious alteration in original IC design. Especially overseas chip-fabrication is a vital potential threat for national defense products. In theory, anyone who has access to fabrication process can tamper with the original design, with the potential to change function, modify parametric properties …

Thz Sources Based On Er-Doped Gaas Driven At Telecom-Fiber Wavelengths, Andrea Mingardi

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This dissertation entails the investigation of ultrafast photoconductive (PC) THz sources driven by fiber and semiconductor lasers around λ= 1550-nm to utilize commercial fiber-optic telecom technology. The preferred approach is to use GaAs with a high concentration of erbium, which has performed well when driven with laser sources at both 800 nm wavelength, through intrinsic photoconductivity, and 1550 nm, through extrinsic photoconductivity. Studies in the early 1990s showed that the Er doping level has a solubility limit of ~ 7 × 1017 cm−3 at 580 °C, above which erbium is incorporated into GaAs as ErAs nanoparticles which promote resonant absorption …

Resonant Gate-Drive Circuits For High-Frequency Power Converters, Hur Jedi

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The development trend of power converters motivates the pursuit with high density, high efficiency, and low cost. Increasing the frequency can improve the power density and lead to small passive elements and a fast dynamic response. Each one of these power converters must be driven by a gate-drive circuit to operate efficiently. Conventional gate-drivers are used up to frequencies of about 5 MHz and suffer from switching losses. Therefore, the development of switch-mode power supplies (SMPS) operating at high frequencies requires high-speed gate drivers. The presented research in this dissertation focuses on analysis, design, and development of new types of …

Switching Neural Network Systems For Nonlinear Tracking, Manoj Ghimire

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In this thesis, we consider the problem of tracking in complex nonlinear dynamical systems. While the Kalman filter is known to be the mean-squared error optimal tracker under linear dynamics and linear measurements, more sophisticated models and algorithms are required for complex dynamics. Here, we consider switching systems where the dynamical properties vary (''switch modes") over time. For example, the dynamics of a vehicle may switch as it transitions from interstate to urban conditions, human speech dynamics switch as speakers change, and stock market dynamics switch with discrete news events. In this work, we use mode-dependent neural networks to capture …

Chaotic Based Self-Synchronization For Rf Steganography Radar/Communication Waveform, Michael A. Gonnella

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In this project, we continue previous CSR project entitled RF Steganography based Joint Radar/Communication Waveform Design to develop a bio-inspired secure low probability detection (LPD) radio frequency (RF) waveform that can serve multiple purposes simultaneously. Previously, we have developed an RF steganography based RF waveform to conceal a secure digital communication within a linear frequency modulated (LFM) chirp radar signal. By exploiting novel reduced phase shift keying modulation and variable symbol duration, the new waveform is resistant to time domain analysis, frequency domain analysis and cyclostationary analysis. However, to demodulate the hidden communication message, the intended receiver has to know …

Temperature Robust Longwave Infrared Hyperspectral Change Detection, Nicholas A. Durkee

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In this thesis, we develop and evaluate change detection algorithms for longwave infrared (LWIR) hyperspectral imagery. Because measured radiance in the LWIR domain depends on unknown surface temperature, care must be taken to prevent false alarms resulting from in-scene temperature differences that appear as material changes. We consider fewer variables. Examples using synthetic and measured data quantify the computational complexity of the proposed methods and demonstrate orders of magnitude reduction in false alarm rates relative to existing methods. Four strategies to mitigate this effect. In the first, pre-processing via traditional temperatureemissivity separation yields approximately temperature-invariant emissivity vectors for use in …

Display And Analysis Of Tomographic Reconstructions Of Multiple Synthetic Aperture Ladar (Sal) Images, Bassirou Seck

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Synthetic aperture ladar (SAL) is similar to synthetic aperture radar (SAR) in that it can create range/cross-range slant plane images of the illuminated scatters; however, SAL has wavelengths 10,000x smaller than SAR enabling a relatively narrow real aperture, diffraction limited beam widths. The relatively narrow real aperture resolutions allow for multiple slant planes to be created for a single target with reasonable range/aperture combinations. These multiple slant planes can be projected into a single slant plane projections (as in SAR). It can also be displayed as a 3-D image with asymmetric resolutions, diffraction limited in the dimension orthogonal to the …