Computer Engineering Commons^™

Mobile Computing: Challenges And Opportunities For Autonomy And Feedback, Ole J. Mengshoel, Bob Iannucci, Abe Ishihara

Ole J Mengshoel

Modeling A Sensor To Improve Its Efficacy, Nabin K. Malakar, Daniil Gladkov, Kevin H. Knuth

Physics Faculty Scholarship

Robots rely on sensors to provide them with information about their surroundings. However, high-quality sensors can be extremely expensive and cost-prohibitive. Thus many robotic systems must make due with lower-quality sensors. Here we demonstrate via a case study how modeling a sensor can improve its efficacy when employed within a Bayesian inferential framework. As a test bed we employ a robotic arm that is designed to autonomously take its own measurements using an inexpensive LEGO light sensor to estimate the position and radius of a white circle on a black field. The light sensor integrates the light arriving from a …

Desktop Warfare: Robotic Collaboration For Persistent Surveillance, Situational Awareness And Combat Operations, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

Robotic sensing and weapons platforms can be controlled from a desktop workstation on the other side of the planet from where combat is occurring. This minimizes the potential for injury to soldiers and increases operational productivity. Significant work has been undertaken and is ongoing related to the autonomous control of battlefield sensing and warfighting systems. While many aspects of these operations can be performed autonomously, in some cases it is necessary (due to technical limitations) or desirable (due to legal or political implications) to involve humans in the low-level decision making. This paper reviews a number of specific applications where …

Spatial Computing In An Orbital Environment: An Exploration Of The Unique Constraints Of This Special Case To Other Spatial Computing Environments, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

The creation of an orbital services model (where spacecraft expose their capabilities for use by other spacecraft as part of a service-for-hire or barter system) requires effective determination of how to best transmit information between the two collaborating spacecraft. Existing approaches developed for ad hoc networking (e.g., wireless networks with users entering and departing in a pseudo-random fashion) exist; however, these fail to generate optimal solutions as they ignore a critical piece of available information. This additional piece of information is the orbital characteristics of the spacecraft. A spacecraft’s orbit is nearly deterministic if the magnitude and direction of its …

The Development Of Payload Software For A Small Spacecraft, Kyle Goehner, Christoffer Korvald, Jeremy Straub, Ronald Marsh

Jeremy Straub

The OpenOrbiter project is a multi-department effort to design and build a small spacecraft which will demonstrate the feasibility of the Open Prototype for Educational NanoSats (OPEN) framework. This framework will reduce cost of small spacecraft creation by providing design plans for free. The focus of the payload software group is to design and implement an onboard task processing and image processing service. Currently the project is in the development phase and most large design decisions have been made. This poster presents the major design decisions that have been made for the payload software and how they will affect the …

A Human Proximity Operations System Test Case Validation Approach, Justin Huber, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

A Human Proximity Operations System (HPOS) poses numerous risks in a real world environment. These risks range from mundane tasks such as avoiding walls and fixed obstacles to the critical need to keep people and processes safe in the context of the HPOS’s situation-specific decision making. Validating the performance of an HPOS, which must operate in a real-world environment, is an ill posed problem due to the complexity that is introduced by erratic (non-computer) actors. In order to prove the HPOS’s usefulness, test cases must be generated to simulate possible actions of these actors, so the HPOS can be shown …

Exposing Multiple User-Specific Data Denominated Products From A Single Small Satellite Data Stream, Atif F. Mohammad,, Emanuel Grant, Jeremy Straub, Ronald Marsh, Scott Kerlin

Jeremy Straub

This paper presents a research work on small satellite data stream and related distribution to associated stakeholders, which is a field that needs to get explored in more detail. The algorithm that is presented to extract USDDP (User-Specific Data Denominated Products) is a self managing body, which will be within as Open Space Box environment or OSBE as a novel idea. It contains an individual stream transmitted by the small satellite, which later is to be converted into USDDP. The context defined here deals with area in detail. Contexts are vitally important because they control, influence and affect everything within …

Model-Based Software Engineering For An Imaging Cubesat And Its Extrapolation To Other Missions, Atif Mohammad, Jeremy Straub, Christoffer Korvald, Emanuel Grant

Jeremy Straub

Small satellites with their limited computational capabilities require that software engineering techniques promote efficient use of spacecraft resources. A model-driven approach to software engineering is an excellent solution to this resource maximization challenge as it facilitates visualization of the key solution processes and data elements.

The software engineering process utilized for the OpenOrbiter spacecraft, which is a remote sensing technology demonstrator, is presented. Key challenges presented by the Open Orbiter project included concurrent operation and tasking of five computer-on-module (COM) units and a flight computer and the associated data marshaling between local and general storage. The payload processing system (consisting …

Open Space Box Model: Service Oriented Architecture Framework For Small Spacecraft Collaboration And Control, Atif F. Mohammad, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

A Cubesat is a small satellite with very less competence to compute, it requires software engineering techniques, which can enhance the computational power for this small box. A model-driven approach of software engineering, which is called OSBM or Open Space Box Modeling technique, is an excellent solution to this re-source maximization challenge. OSBM facilitates apparition of the key solution pro-cesses computation and satellite related data elements using Service Oriented Ar-chitecture 3.0 (SOA 3.0) as base to work on to design services. The key challenges that can be handled by utilizing OSBM include concurrent operation and tasking of few as five …

Reducing Communication Delay Variability For A Group Of Robots, Goncalo Martins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A novel architecture is presented for reducing communication delay variability for a group of robots. This architecture relies on using three components: a microprocessor architecture that allows deterministic real-time tasks; an event-based communication protocol in which nodes transmit in a TDMA fashion, without the need of global clock synchronization techniques; and a novel communication scheme that enables deterministic communications by allowing senders to transmit without regard for the state of the medium or coordination with other senders, and receivers can tease apart messages sent simultaneously with a high probability of success. This approach compared to others, allows simultaneous communications without …

Robotic Swarming Without Inter-Agent Communication, Daniel Jonathan Standish

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Many physical and algorithmic swarms utilize inter-agent communication to achieve advanced swarming behaviors. These swarms are inspired by biological swarms that can be seen throughout nature and include bee swarms, ant colonies, fish schools, and bird flocks. These biological swarms do not utilize inter-agent communication like their physical and algorithmic counterparts. Instead, organisms in nature rely on a local awareness of other swarm members that facilitates proper swarm motion and behavior. This research aims to pursue an effective swarm algorithm using only line-of-sight proximity information and no inter-agent communication. It is expected that the swarm performance will be lower than …

Cognitive Architectures And Autonomy: Commentary And Response, Włodzisław Duch, Ah-Hwee Tan, Stan Franklin

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper provides a very useful and promising analysis and comparison of current architectures of autonomous intelligent systems acting in real time and specific contexts, with all their constraints. The chosen issue of Cognitive Architectures and Autonomy is really a challenge for AI current projects and future research. I appreciate and endorse not only that challenge but many specific choices and claims; in particular: (i) that “autonomy” is a key concept for general intelligent systems; (ii) that “a core issue in cognitive architecture is the integration of cognitive processes ....”; (iii) the analysis of features and capabilities missing in current …

Real-Time Mobile Stereo Vision, Bryan Hale Bodkin

Masters Theses

Computer stereo vision is used extract depth information from two aligned cameras and there are a number of hardware and software solutions to solve the stereo correspondence problem. However few solutions are available for inexpensive mobile platforms where power and hardware are major limitations. This Thesis will proposes a method that competes with an existing OpenCV stereo correspondence method in speed and quality, and is able to run on generic multi core CPU’s.

A Location-Aware Architecture Supporting Intelligent Real-Time Mobile Applications, Sean J. Barbeau

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents LAISYC, a modular location-aware architecture for intelligent real-time mobile applications that is fully-implementable by third party mobile app developers and supports high-precision and high-accuracy positioning systems such as GPS. LAISYC significantly improves device battery life, provides location data authenticity, ensures security of location data, and significantly reduces the amount of data transferred between the phone and server. The design, implementation, and evaluation of LAISYC using real mobile phones include the following modules: the GPS Auto-Sleep module saves battery energy when using GPS, maintaining acceptable movement tracking (approximately 89% accuracy) with an approximate average doubling of battery life. …

Multi-Tier Exploration Concept Demonstration Mission, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

A multi-tier, multi-craft mission architecture has been proposed but, despite its apparent promise, limited use and testing of the architecture has been conducted. This paper proposes and details a mission concept and its implementation for testing this architecture in the terrestrial environment. It is expected that this testing will allow significant refinement of the proposed architecture as well as providing data on its suitability for use in both terrestrial and extra-terrestrial applications. Logistical and technical challenges with this testing are discussed.

Provable De-Anonymization Of Large Datasets With Sparse Dimensions, Anupam Datta, Divya Sharma, Arunesh Sinha

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

There is a significant body of empirical work on statistical de-anonymization attacks against databases containing micro-dataabout individuals, e.g., their preferences, movie ratings, or transactiondata. Our goal is to analytically explain why such attacks work. Specifically, we analyze a variant of the Narayanan-Shmatikov algorithm thatwas used to effectively de-anonymize the Netflix database of movie ratings. We prove theorems characterizing mathematical properties of thedatabase and the auxiliary information available to the adversary thatenable two classes of privacy attacks. In the first attack, the adversarysuccessfully identifies the individual about whom she possesses auxiliaryinformation (an isolation attack). In the second attack, the adversarylearns additional …

Adaptive Algorithms For Coverage Control And Space Partitioning In Mobile Robotic Networks, Jerome Le Ny, George J. Pappas

George J. Pappas

We consider deployment problems where a mobile robotic network must optimize its configuration in a distributed way in order to minimize a steady-state cost function that depends on the spatial distribution of certain probabilistic events of interest. Three classes of problems are discussed in detail: coverage control problems, spatial partitioning problems, and dynamic vehicle routing problems. Moreover, we assume that the event distribution is a priori unknown, and can only be progressively inferred from the observation of the location of the actual event occurrences. For each problem we present distributed stochastic gradient algorithms that optimize the performance objective. The stochastic …

Adaptive Algorithms For Coverage Control And Space Partitioning In Mobile Robotic Networks, Jerome Le Ny, George J. Pappas

George J. Pappas

We consider deployment problems where a mobile robotic network must optimize its configuration in a distributed way in order to minimize a steady-state cost function that depends on the spatial distribution of certain probabilistic events of interest. Three classes of problems are discussed in detail: coverage control problems, spatial partitioning problems, and dynamic vehicle routing problems. Moreover, we assume that the event distribution is a priori unknown, and can only be progressively inferred from the observation of the location of the actual event occurrences. For each problem we present distributed stochastic gradient algorithms that optimize the performance objective. The stochastic …

Adaptive Algorithms For Coverage Control And Space Partitioning In Mobile Robotic Networks, Jerome Le Ny, George J. Pappas

George J. Pappas

We consider deployment problems where a mobile robotic network must optimize its configuration in a distributed way in order to minimize a steady-state cost function that depends on the spatial distribution of certain probabilistic events of interest. Three classes of problems are discussed in detail: coverage control problems, spatial partitioning problems, and dynamic vehicle routing problems. Moreover, we assume that the event distribution is a priori unknown, and can only be progressively inferred from the observation of the location of the actual event occurrences. For each problem we present distributed stochastic gradient algorithms that optimize the performance objective. The stochastic …

Operating Software, Donovan Torgerson, Miyuru Arangala, Michael Hlas, David Bullock, Dayln Limesand, Cameron Kerbaugh, Daniel Schuler, Mitchell Fossen, Edwin Carlson, Atif Mohammad, Josh Berk, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

No abstract provided.

Cubesat Software Architecture, Christoffer Korvald, Atif Mohammad, Jeremy Straub, Josh Berk

Jeremy Straub

No abstract provided.

Payload Software, Christoffer Korvald, Jeremy Straub, Atif Mohammad, Josh Berk

Jeremy Straub

No abstract provided.

The Application Of Fuzzy Granular Computing For The Analysis Of Human Dynamic Behavior In 3d Space, Murad Mohammad Alaqtash

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Human dynamic behavior in space is very complex in that it involves many physical, perceptual and motor aspects. It is tied together at a sensory level by linkages between vestibular, visual and somatosensory information that develop through experience of inertial and gravitational reaction forces. Coordinated movement emerges from the interplay among descending output from the central nervous system, sensory input from the body and environment, muscle dynamics, and the emergent dynamics of the whole neuromusculoskeletal system.

There have been many attempts to directly capture the activities of the neuronal system in human locomotion without the ability to clarify how the …

Preface: Trends In Natural And Machine Intelligence, Jonathan H. Chan, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Trends in natural and machine intelligence are increasingly reflecting a convergence in these two well-established fields of study. The Third International Neural Network Society Winter Conference (INNS-WC 2012) was held in Bangkok, Thailand, on October 3-5, 2012. INNS-WC2012, with an aim to bring together scientists, practitioners, and students worldwide, to discuss the past, present, and future challenges and trends in the area of natural and machine intelligence. This event has been a bi-annual conference of the International Neural Network Society (INNS) to provide a forum for international researchers to exchange latest ideas and advances on neural networks and related discipline.

Artificial Intelligence – I: A Preliminary Framework For Human-Agent Communication In Electronic Negotiations, Moez Ur Rehman, Nosheen Riaz

International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies

Electronic negotiations are business negotiations conducted via electronic means using information and communications technologies (ICT). Two dominant types of electronic negotiation systems are automated negotiation systems for software agents and negotiation support systems (NSSs) for humans. However, the integration of two types for human-agent negotiations is an important task. In this paper, an extended communication model for human-agent business negotiations is presented. For this purpose, the underlying communication models of automated negotiations and NSSs are analyzed. The extended communication model is based on a common negotiation ontology which captures the negotiation agenda and paves the way for such hybrid communication, …

Holistic Network Defense: Fusing Host And Network Features For Attack Classification, Jenny W. Ji

Theses and Dissertations

This work presents a hybrid network-host monitoring strategy, which fuses data from both the network and the host to recognize malware infections. This work focuses on three categories: Normal, Scanning, and Infected. The network-host sensor fusion is accomplished by extracting 248 features from network traffic using the Fullstats Network Feature generator and from the host using text mining, looking at the frequency of the 500 most common strings and analyzing them as word vectors. Improvements to detection performance are made by synergistically fusing network features obtained from IP packet flows and host features, obtained from text mining port, processor, logon …

Kernelized Locality-Sensitive Hashing For Fast Image Landmark Association, Mark A. Weems

Theses and Dissertations

As the concept of war has evolved, navigation in urban environments where GPS may be degraded is increasingly becoming more important. Two existing solutions are vision-aided navigation and vision-based Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM). The problem, however, is that vision-based navigation techniques can require excessive amounts of memory and increased computational complexity resulting in a decrease in speed. This research focuses on techniques to improve such issues by speeding up and optimizing the data association process in vision-based SLAM. Specifically, this work studies the current methods that algorithms use to associate a current robot pose to that of one previously …

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 …

Developing An Effective And Efficient Real Time Strategy Agent For Use As A Computer Generated Force, Kurt Weissgerber

Theses and Dissertations

Computer Generated Forces (CGF) are used to represent units or individuals in military training and constructive simulation. The use of CGF significantly reduces the time and money required for effective training. For CGF to be effective, they must behave as a human would in the same environment. Real Time Strategy (RTS) games place players in control of a large force whose goal is to defeat the opponent. The military setting of RTS games makes them an excellent platform for the development and testing of CGF. While there has been significant research in RTS agent development, most of the developed agents …

A Neural Network Approach To Border Gateway Protocol Peer Failure Detection And Prediction, Cory B. White

Master's Theses

The size and speed of computer networks continue to expand at a rapid pace, as do the corresponding errors, failures, and faults inherent within such extensive networks. This thesis introduces a novel approach to interface Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) computer networks with neural networks to learn the precursor connectivity patterns that emerge prior to a node failure. Details of the design and construction of a framework that utilizes neural networks to learn and monitor BGP connection states as a means of detecting and predicting BGP peer node failure are presented. Moreover, this framework is used to monitor a BGP network …