Computer Engineering Commons^™

Computational Modeling For Transportation Network Security, Sherif A. Tolba

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Cplop - Cal Poly's Library Of Pyroprints, Kevin Webb

Computer Engineering

California Polytechnic Library of Pyroprints, CPLOP, is a web driven data-base application that stores data from the biology’s departments E. coli Pyrosequencing project. Some of this data was stored in Excel datasheets, while data from the pyrosequencing machines was stored as just a list of random .xml files. There was no useful way to organize and store the massive amounts of data from multiple file sources in one location, nor to perform the complicated searches and comparisons that the project requires. CPLOP’s primary goal is to store such data in three organized tables that relate to one another. It was …

Wireless Solar-Powered Thermal Imaging Camera, Andy Bonk, Billy Mcvicker, Jacob Richardson

Mechanical Engineering

Creation of a mounted wireless self-powered thermal imaging camera system.

Location-Aware Traffic Management On Mobile Phones, Sarath Krishna Mandava

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The growing number of mobile phone users is a primary cause of congestion in cellular networks. Therefore, cellular network providers have turned to expensive and differentiated data plans. Unfortunately, as the number of smartphone users keeps increasing, changing data plans only provides a temporary solution. A more permanent solution is offloading 3G traffic to networks in orthogonal frequency bands. One such plausible network is open Wi-Fi, which is free by definition. As Wi-Fi networks become ubiquitous, there are several areas where there is simultaneous Wi-Fi and 3G coverage. In this thesis, we study the feasibility of offloading 3G traffic to …

Application Of The Empirical Mode Decomposition On The Characterization And Forecasting Of The Arrival Data Of An Enterprise Cluster, Linh Bao Ngo

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Characterization and forecasting are two important processes in capacity planning. While they are closely related, their approaches have been different. In this research, a decomposition method called Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) has been applied as a preprocessing tool in order to bridge the input of both characterization and forecasting processes of the job arrivals of an enterprise cluster. Based on the facts that an enterprise cluster follows a standard preset working schedule and that EMD has the capability to extract hidden patterns within a data stream, we have developed a set of procedures that can preprocess the data for characterization …

Mapping Device With Wireless Communication, Xiangyu Liu

Electrical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Wireless communication is one of the most powerful communication methods that people use nowadays. The key advantage of wireless communications is that it can cover large distances without having to run any cables from one end to the other. Based on this advantage, wireless communication has many important applications, such as remote controls, cell phones, and global positioning system (GPS). This senior design project is developed to use wireless communication technology to map the geographic characteristics of an unknown place. It contains two wireless communication modules with Atmega1281 microprocessor, two robots with the 8051 microcontroller, six pairs of infrared transmitters …

Distributed Data Aggregation For Sparse Recovery In Wireless Sensor Networks, Shuangjiang Li

Masters Theses

We consider the approximate sparse recovery problem in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) using Compressed Sensing/Compressive Sampling (CS). The goal is to recover the $n \mbox{-}$dimensional data values by querying only $m \ll n$ sensors based on some linear projection of sensor readings. To solve this problem, a two-tiered sampling model is considered and a novel distributed compressive sparse sampling (DCSS) algorithm is proposed based on sparse binary CS measurement matrix. In the two-tiered sampling model, each sensor first samples the environment independently. Then the fusion center (FC), acting as a pseudo-sensor, samples the sensor network to select a subset of …

Energy Efficient Reduced Complexity Multi-Service, Multi-Channel Scheduling Techniques, Dan J. Dechene

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The need for energy efficient communications is essential in current and next-generation wireless communications systems. A large component of energy expenditure in mobile devices is in the mobile radio interface. Proper scheduling and resource allocation techniques that exploit instantaneous and long-term average knowledge of the channel, queue state and quality of service parameters can be used to improve the energy efficiency of communication.

This thesis focuses on exploiting queue and channel state information as well as quality of service parameters in order to design energy efficient scheduling techniques. The proposed designs are for multi-stream, multi-channel systems and in general have …

A Novel Malware Target Recognition Architecture For Enhanced Cyberspace Situation Awareness, Thomas E. Dube

Theses and Dissertations

The rapid transition of critical business processes to computer networks potentially exposes organizations to digital theft or corruption by advanced competitors. One tool used for these tasks is malware, because it circumvents legitimate authentication mechanisms. Malware is an epidemic problem for organizations of all types. This research proposes and evaluates a novel Malware Target Recognition (MaTR) architecture for malware detection and identification of propagation methods and payloads to enhance situation awareness in tactical scenarios using non-instruction-based, static heuristic features. MaTR achieves a 99.92% detection accuracy on known malware with false positive and false negative rates of 8.73e-4 and 8.03e-4 respectively. …

Twitter Malware Collection System: An Automated Url Extraction And Examination Platform, Benjamin B. Kuhar

Theses and Dissertations

As the world becomes more interconnected through various technological services and methods, the threat of malware is increasingly looming overhead. One avenue in particular that is examined in this research is the social networking service Twitter. This research develops the Twitter Malware Collection System (TMCS). This system gathers Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) posted on Twitter and scans them to determine if any are hosting malware. This scanning process is performed by a cluster of Virtual Machines (VMs) running a specified software configuration and the execution prevention system known as ESCAPE, which detects malicious code. When a URL is detected by …

Using Reputation Based Trust To Overcome Malfunctions And Malicious Failures In Electric Power Protection Systems, Jose E. Fadul

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation advocates the use of reputation-based trust in conjunction with a trust management framework based on network flow techniques to form a trust management toolkit (TMT) for the defense of future Smart Grid enabled electric power grid from both malicious and non-malicious malfunctions. Increases in energy demand have prompted the implementation of Smart Grid technologies within the power grid. Smart Grid technologies enable Internet based communication capabilities within the power grid, but also increase the grid's vulnerability to cyber attacks. The benefits of TMT augmented electric power protection systems include: improved response times, added resilience to malicious and non-malicious …

Collaborative Solutions To Visual Sensor Networks, Mahmut Karakaya

Doctoral Dissertations

Visual sensor networks (VSNs) merge computer vision, image processing and wireless sensor network disciplines to solve problems in multi-camera applications in large surveillance areas. Although potentially powerful, VSNs also present unique challenges that could hinder their practical deployment because of the unique camera features including the extremely higher data rate, the directional sensing characteristics, and the existence of visual occlusions.

In this dissertation, we first present a collaborative approach for target localization in VSNs. Traditionally; the problem is solved by localizing targets at the intersections of the back-projected 2D cones of each target. However, the existence of visual occlusions among …

Reliable Ethernet, Aleksandr Movsesyan

Master's Theses

Networks within data centers, such as connections between servers and disk arrays, need lossless flow control allowing all packets to move quickly through the network to reach their destination. This paper proposes a new algorithm for congestion control to satisfy the needs of such networks and to answer the question: Is it possible to provide circuit-less reliability and flow control in an Ethernet network? TCP uses an end-to-end congestion control algorithm, which is based on end-to-end round trip time (RTT). Therefore its flow control and error detection/correction approach is dependent on end-to-end RTT. Other approaches utilize specialized data link layer …

Using The Web Infrastructure For Real Time Recovery Of Missing Web Pages, Martin Klein

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

Given the dynamic nature of the World Wide Web, missing web pages, or "404 Page not Found" responses, are part of our web browsing experience. It is our intuition that information on the web is rarely completely lost, it is just missing. In whole or in part, content often moves from one URI to another and hence it just needs to be (re-)discovered. We evaluate several methods for a \justin- time" approach to web page preservation. We investigate the suitability of lexical signatures and web page titles to rediscover missing content. It is understood that web pages change over time …

A Framework For Dynamic Traffic Monitoring Using Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks, Mohammad Hadi Arbabi

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

Traffic management centers (TMCs) need high-quality data regarding the status of roadways for monitoring and delivering up-to-date traffic conditions to the traveling public. Currently this data is measured at static points on the roadway using technologies that have significant maintenance requirements. To obtain an accurate picture of traffic on any road section at any time requires a real-time probe of vehicles traveling in that section. We envision a near-term future where network communication devices are commonly included in new vehicles. These devices will allow vehicles to form vehicular networks allowing communication among themselves, other vehicles, and roadside units (RSUs) to …

Host-Based Systemic Network Obfuscation System For Windows, Kevin E. Huber

Theses and Dissertations

Network traffic identifies the operating system and services of the host that created the traffic. Current obfuscation programs focus solely on the Transport and Internet layer protocols of the TCP/IP model. Few obfuscation programs were developed to run on a Windows operating system to provide host-based obfuscation. Systemic Network Obfuscation System (SNOS) was developed to provide a thorough obfuscation process for network traffic on the Windows operating system. SNOS modifies the protocols found at all layers of the TCP/IP model to effectively obfuscate the Windows operating system and services running on the host.

San Luis Obispo Transit Tracker System Back-End Server, Daryl Alan A. Dimalanta

Computer Engineering

This document gives the rationale, design process, technical implementation, testing procedures, and testing results of a back-end server used for the San Luis Obispo (SLO) Transit Tracker System. The SLO Transit Tracker System (SLOTTS) includes client software installed on mobile devices and a back-end server. The purpose of this system is to encourage SLO residents to utilize the transit system by having the client software present current bus location, navigation instructions, and bus schedule in a simple, fast, and easy to use mobile application.

Due to the limited central processing unit (CPU) and limited power supplied by the battery, route …

Streaming Client And Server Model, Austin Alan Diec

Computer Engineering

A few years ago, several Cal Poly undergraduates started the Autonomous Robot Platform (ARP). Interest in a revision of the ARP requires a new layer of communication. This paper describes the design and partial implementation of the communication layer to be used with the revised ARP. The communication layer would allow the autonomous robot platform to connect with a client over the wireless local area network (WLAN) for instructions and commands. It is important to note that currently, the assumed revision of the ARP is nonexistent, so many of the design decisions are based solely on the assumptions of ARP …

Project 308: Augmented Reality Mario Kart, Joseph Abad, David Allender, Joryl Calizo, Ryan Gaspar, Gavin Lee

Computer Engineering

Mario Kart is a popular go-kart racing game developed by Nintendo. The premise of the game is simple: drive a go-kart along a racetrack and reach the finish line before the other players. What makes this game unique, however, is the inclusion of weapons, traps, and other projectiles that a player can use to gain an advantage in the race. We have taken on the challenge of not only recreating this amazing game, but using the art of Augmented Reality to fully immerse the player in the full experience. Rather than play the game on a television screen with a …

Optical Network-On-Chip Architectures And Designs, Lei Zhang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

As indicated in the latest version of ITRS roadmap, optical wiring is a viable interconnection technology for future SoC/SiC/SiP designs that can provide broad band data transfer rates unmatchable by the existing metal/low-k dielectric interconnects. In this dissertation study, a set of different optical interconnection architectures are presented for future on-chip optical micro-networks.

Three Optical Network-on-Chip (ONoC) architectures, i.e., Wavelength Routing Optical Network-on-Chip (WRON), Redundant Wavelength Routed Optical Network (RDWRON) and Recursive Wavelength Routed Optical Network (RCWRON) are proposed. They are fully connected networks designed based on passive switching Microring Resonator (MRR) optical switches. Given enough different routing optical wavelengths, …

Optical-Wimax Hybrid Networks, Abdou R. A. Ahmed

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The emergence of bandwidth-intensive Internet services, such as
circuit-quality voice transfer and interactive video gaming, create
a high demand for a very qualified next-generation access network.
In addition to high bandwidth, these future access networks should
also provide improved network availability, flexibility, mobility,
reliability, failure protection, quality of service (QoS) support
and cost-effective access. The integration between optical networks
and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a
promising solution for future access networks. Accordingly, a few
different architectures and MAC protocol components have recently
been proposed for the integration between the Ethernet Passive
Optical Network (EPON) and WiMAX. However, …

Solving The Vehicle Re-Identification Problem By Using Neural Networks, Tanweer Rashid

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Vehicle re-identification is the process by which vehicle attributes measured at one point on a road network are compared to vehicle attributes measured at another point in an effort to match vehicles without using any unique identifiers such as license plate numbers. A match is made if the two measurements are estimated to belong to the same vehicle. Vehicle attributes can be sensor readings such as loop induction signatures, or they can also be actual vehicle characteristics such as length, weight, number of axles, etc. This research makes use of vehicle length, travel time, axle spacing and axle weights for …

Data Aggregation And Dissemination In Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks, Khaled Ibrahim

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks (VANETs) are a fast growing technology that many governments and automobile manufacturers are investing in to provide not only safer and more secure roads, but also informational and entertainment-based applications for drivers. The applications developed for VANETs can be classified into multiple categories (safety, informational, entertainment). Most VANET applications, regardless of their category, depend on having certain vehicular data(vehicular speed, X position and Y position) available. Although these applications appear to use the same vehicular data, the characteristics of this data (i.e., amount, accuracy, and update rate) will vary based on the application category. For …

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 …

Adaptive Quality Of Service Engine With Dynamic Queue Control, James D. Haught

Theses and Dissertations

While the current routing and congestion control algorithms in use today are often sufficient for networks with relatively static topology, these algorithms may not be sufficient for military networks where a certain level of quality of service (QoS) needs to be achieved to complete a mission. Current networking technology limits a network's ability to adapt to changes and interactions in the network, often resulting in sub-optimal performance. This research investigates the use of queue size predictions to create a network controller to optimize computer networks. These queue size predictions are made possible through the use of Kalman filters to detect …

Covert Channels Within Irc, Wayne C. Henry

Theses and Dissertations

The exploration of advanced information hiding techniques is important to understand and defend against illicit data extractions over networks. Many techniques have been developed to covertly transmit data over networks, each differing in their capabilities, methods, and levels of complexity. This research introduces a new class of information hiding techniques for use over Internet Relay Chat (IRC), called the Variable Advanced Network IRC Stealth Handler (VANISH) system. Three methods for concealing information are developed under this framework to suit the needs of an attacker. These methods are referred to as the Throughput, Stealth, and Baseline scenarios. Each is designed for …

Routing Uavs To Co-Optimize Mission Effectiveness And Network Performance With Dynamic Programming, Spenser D. Lee

Theses and Dissertations

In support of the Air Force Research Laboratory's (AFRL) vision of the layered sensing operations center, command and control intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance (C2ISR) more focus must be placed on architectures that support information systems, rather than just the information systems themselves. By extending the role of UAVs beyond simply intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) operations and into a dual-role with networking operations we can better utilize our information assets. To achieve the goal of dual-role UAVs, a concrete approach to planning must be taken. This research defines a mathematical model and a non-trivial deterministic algorithmic approach to determining UAV …

Malicious And Malfunctioning Node Detection Via Observed Physical Layer Data, Tyler J. Hardy

Theses and Dissertations

There are many mechanisms that can cause inadequate or unreliable information in sensor networks. A user of the network might be interested in detecting and classifying specific sensors nodes causing these problems. Several network layer based trust methods have been developed in previous research to assess these issues; in contrast this work develops a trust protocol based on observations of physical layer data collected by the sensors. Observations of physical layer data are used for decisions and calculations, and are based on just the measurements collected by the sensors. Although this information is packaged and distributed on the network layer, …

Creating A Network Model For The Integration Of Dynamic And Static Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (Scada) Test Environment, Marlon Coerbell

Theses and Dissertations

Since 9/11 protecting our critical infrastructure has become a national priority. Presidential Decision Directive 63 mandates and lays a foundation for ensuring all aspects of our nation's critical infrastructure remain secure. Key in this debate is the fact that much of our electrical power grid fails to meet the spirit of this requirement. My research leverages the power afforded by Electric Power and Communication Synchronizing Simulator (EPOCHS) developed with the assistance of Dr. Hopkinson, et al. The power environment is modeled in an electrical simulation environment called PowerWorld©. The network is modeled in OPNET® and populated with self-similar network and …

A Multi Agent System For Flow-Based Intrusion Detection Using Reputation And Evolutionary Computation, David Hancock

Theses and Dissertations

The rising sophistication of cyber threats as well as the improvement of physical computer network properties present increasing challenges to contemporary Intrusion Detection (ID) techniques. To respond to these challenges, a multi agent system (MAS) coupled with flow-based ID techniques may effectively complement traditional ID systems. This paper develops: 1) a scalable software architecture for a new, self-organized, multi agent, flow-based ID system; and 2) a network simulation environment suitable for evaluating implementations of this MAS architecture and for other research purposes. Self-organization is achieved via 1) a reputation system that influences agent mobility in the search for effective vantage …