Engineering Commons^™

Golightly : A Gpu Implementation Of The Finite-Difference Time-Domain Method, S. David Lively

Electrical Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Traditionally, optical circuit design is tested and validated using software which implement numerical modeling techniques such as Beam Propagation, Finite Element Analysis and the Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method. FDTD simulations require significant computational power. Existing installations may distribute the computational requirements across large clusters of high-powered servers. This approach entails significant expense in terms of hardware, staffing and software support which may be prohibitive for some research facilities and private-sector engineering firms. The application of modern programmable GPUs to problems in scientific visualization and computation has facilitated faster development cycles for a variety of industry segments including large dataset visualization, …

Impact Of Teaching Practices And Communication Climates On Participation In Computer Science Education, Jackie Krone

Master's Theses

One way to understand teaching is to view it as a people process rather than a presentation of knowledge. It follows that the role of an educator often extends beyond the primary subject matter and into the realm of classroom management. With this in mind, our research aimed to capture the various teaching practices, participation patterns, and communication climates that occur in virtual computer science classrooms. We sought to answer the following research questions related to virtual computer science classrooms at our institution: Who participates in virtual computer science classrooms, and is participation proportional to student demographics? Is there any …

Enhanced Security Utilizing Side Channel Data Analysis, Michael Taylor

Computer Science and Engineering Theses and Dissertations

The physical state of a system is affected by the activities and processes in which it is tasked with carrying out. In the past there have been many instances where such physical changes have been exploited by bad actors in order to gain insight into the operational state and even the data being held on a system. This method of side channel exploitation is very often effective due to the relative difficulty of obfuscating activity on a physical level. However, in order to take advantage of side channel data streams one must have a detailed working knowledge of how a …

Context-Aware Sensing And Fusion For Structural Health Monitoring And Night Time Traffic Surveillance, Xinxiang Zhang

Electrical Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Rapid developments in computer vision technologies have been transforming many traditional fields in engineering and science in the last few decades, especially in terms of diagnosing problems from visual images. Leveraging computer vision technologies to inspect, monitor, assess infrastructure conditions, and analyze traffic dynamics, has gained significant increase in both effectiveness and efficiency, compared to the cost of traditional instrumentation arrays to monitor, and manually inspect civil infrastructures and traffic conditions. Therefore, to construct the next-generation intelligent civil and transportation infrastructures, this dissertation develops a comprehensive computer-vision based sensing and fusion framework for structural health monitoring and intelligent transportation systems. …

Multigrid For The Nonlinear Power Flow Equations, Enrique Pereira Batista

Mathematics Theses and Dissertations

The continuously changing structure of power systems and the inclusion of renewable
energy sources are leading to changes in the dynamics of modern power grid,
which have brought renewed attention to the solution of the AC power flow equations.
In particular, development of fast and robust solvers for the power flow problem
continues to be actively investigated. A novel multigrid technique for coarse-graining
dynamic power grid models has been developed recently. This technique uses an
algebraic multigrid (AMG) coarsening strategy applied to the weighted
graph Laplacian that arises from the power network's topology for the construction
of coarse-grain approximations to …

Learning Deep Architectures For Power Systems Operation And Analysis, Mahdi Khodayar

Electrical Engineering Theses and Dissertations

With the rapid increase in size and computational complexities of power systems, the need for powerful computational models to capture strong patterns from energy datasets is emerged. In this thesis, we provide a comprehensive review on recent advances in deep neural architectures that lead to significant improvements in classification and regression problems in the area of power engineering. Furthermore, we introduce our novel deep learning methodologies proposed for a large variety of applications in this area. First, we present the interval deep probabilistic modeling for wind speed forecasting. Incorporating the Rough Set Theory into deep neural networks, we create an …

Machine Learning Applications In Power Systems, Xinan Wang

Electrical Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Machine learning (ML) applications have seen tremendous adoption in power system research and applications. For instance, supervised/unsupervised learning-based load forecasting and fault detection are classic ML topics that have been well studied. Recently, reinforcement learning-based voltage control, distribution analysis, etc., are also gaining popularity. Compared to conventional mathematical methods, ML methods have the following advantages: (i). better robustness against different system configurations due to its data-driven nature; (ii). better adaption to system uncertainties; (iii). less dependent on the modeling accuracy and validity of assumptions. However, due to the unique physics of the power grid, many problems cannot be directly solved …

Real-Time Detection Of Demand Manipulation Attacks On A Power Grid, Srinidhi Madabhushi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An increased usage in IoT devices across the globe has posed a threat to the power grid. When an attacker has access to multiple IoT devices within the same geographical location, they can possibly disrupt the power grid by regulating a botnet of high-wattage IoT devices. Based on the time and situation of the attack, an adversary needs access to a fixed number of IoT devices to synchronously switch on/off all of them, resulting in an imbalance between the supply and demand. When the frequency of the power generators drops below a threshold value, it can lead to the generators …

Safe And Efficient Intelligent Intersection Control Of Autonomous Vehicles, Qiang Lu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, we address a problem of safe and efficient intersection crossing traffic management of autonomous and connected ground traffic. Toward this objective, we propose several algorithms to handle different traffic environments. First, an algorithm that is called the Discrete-time occupancies trajectory (DTOT) based Intersection traffic Coordination Algorithm (DICA) is proposed. All vehicles in the system are Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) and capable of wireless Vehicle-to-Intersection communication. The main advantage of DICA is that it enables us to utilize the intersection space more efficiently resulting in less delay for vehicles to cross the intersection. In the proposed framework, …

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 …

Cell-Aware Fault Analysis And Test Set Optimization In Digital Integrated Circuits, Fanchen Zhang, Jennifer Dworak

Computer Science and Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Structural tests have many advantages over functional patterns. The fault coverage of structural patterns is generally higher and easier to quantify, well-known algorithms are available to generate them, and they are often a much easier choice for debugging and diagnosis. However, depending on the fault models used, traditional structural patterns can still miss many defects, such as the defects that may occur inside the standard cells, and when chips are placed on a board, they may fail in functional mode even if they pass all structural tests. This can happen even if those same structural tests are applied in-system on …

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

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

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 …

Maintaining Parallel Realities In Cqrs And Event Sourcing, Ehren Thomas Eschmann

ETD Archive

In today’s distributed software ecosystem, we have witnessed a broad exhibition of notable approaches to software architecture. Traditionally, these approaches have centered around persisting a system’s current state. Rather than adhere to these criteria, two modern architectures, Command Query Responsibility Segregation (CQRS) and Event Sourcing have inspired us to persist the interactions of the software actor as replayable events which describe the history of their input data.

While CQRS and Event Sourcing allow for considerable benefits in many types of
systems, maintaining parallel realities (multiple snapshots of history deriving from a single parent history) is generally regarded as too complex …

Simulation Of Sic Mosfet Power Converters, Mustafa Nameer Albadri

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses the use of wide bandgap devices (SiC-MOSFET) in the design and implementation of various power converters (Push-pull inverter, Buck converter). Different parameters and scenarios were discussed and implemented for both silicon and silicon carbide MOSFET cases. A comparison between same circuits is done using silicon in the first case and silicon carbide MOSFET was implemented under the same conditions and parameters to investigate the silicon carbide MOSFET enhancement to the circuit. The modeling for silicon and silicon carbide MOSFET was created using the spice model provided from leading electronics companies as ROHM, CREE and INFINION. This spice …

Human Motion Analysis Based On Sequential Modeling Of Radar Signal And Stereo Image Features, Meng Wu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Falls are one of the greatest threats to elderly health in their daily living routines and activities. Therefore, it is very important to detect falls of an elderly in a timely and accurate manner, so that immediate response and proper care can be provided, by sending fall alarms to caregivers.

Radar is an effective non-intrusive sensing modality which is well suited for this purpose, which can detect human motions in all types of environments, penetrate walls and fabrics, preserve privacy, and is insensitive to lighting conditions. Micro-Doppler features are utilized in radar signal corresponding to human body motions and gait …

Simulation, Application, And Resilience Of An Organic Neuromorphic Architecture, Made With Organic Bistable Devices And Organic Field Effect Transistors, Robert A. Nawrocki

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents work done simulating a type of organic neuromorphic architecture, modeled after Artificial Neural Network, and termed Synthetic Neural Network, or SNN. The first major contribution of this thesis is development of a single-transistor-single-organic-bistable-device-per-input circuit that approximates behavior of an artificial neuron. The efficacy of this design is validated by comparing the behavior of a single synthetic neuron to that of an artificial neuron as well as two examples involving a network of synthetic neurons. The analysis utilizes electrical characteristics of polymer electronic elements, namely Organic Bistable Device and Organic Field Effect Transistor, created in the laboratory at …