Computer Engineering Commons^™

Software Protection And Secure Authentication For Autonomous Vehicular Cloud Computing, Muhammad Hataba

Dissertations

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing every technology we deal with. Autonomy has been a sought-after goal in vehicles, and now more than ever we are very close to that goal. Vehicles before were dumb mechanical devices, now they are becoming smart, computerized, and connected coined as Autonomous Vehicles (AVs). Moreover, researchers found a way to make more use of these enormous capabilities and introduced Autonomous Vehicles Cloud Computing (AVCC). In these platforms, vehicles can lend their unused resources and sensory data to join AVCC.

In this dissertation, we investigate security and privacy issues in AVCC. As background, we built our …

Performance Analysis Of The Dominant Mode Rejection Beamformer, Enlong Hu

Dissertations

In array signal processing over challenging environments, due to the non-stationarity nature of data, it is difficult to obtain enough number of data snapshots to construct an adaptive beamformer (ABF) for detecting weak signal embedded in strong interferences. One type of adaptive method targeting for such applications is the dominant mode rejection (DMR) method, which uses a reshaped eigen-decomposition of sample covariance matrix (SCM) to define a subspace containing the dominant interferers to be rejected, thereby allowing it to detect weak signal in the presence of strong interferences. The DMR weight vector takes a form similar to the adaptive minimum …

Artificial Neural Networks And Their Applications To Intelligent Fault Diagnosis Of Power Transmission Lines, Fatemeh Mohammadi Shakiba

Dissertations

Over the past thirty years, the idea of computing based on models inspired by human brains and biological neural networks emerged. Artificial neural networks play an important role in the field of machine learning and hold the key to the success of performing many intelligent tasks by machines. They are used in various applications such as pattern recognition, data classification, stock market prediction, aerospace, weather forecasting, control systems, intelligent automation, robotics, and healthcare. Their architectures generally consist of an input layer, multiple hidden layers, and one output layer. They can be implemented on software or hardware. Nowadays, various structures with …

Outdoor Operations Of Multiple Quadrotors In Windy Environment, Deepan Lobo

Dissertations

Coordinated multiple small unmanned aerial vehicles (sUAVs) offer several advantages over a single sUAV platform. These advantages include improved task efficiency, reduced task completion time, improved fault tolerance, and higher task flexibility. However, their deployment in an outdoor environment is challenging due to the presence of wind gusts. The coordinated motion of a multi-sUAV system in the presence of wind disturbances is a challenging problem when considering collision avoidance (safety), scalability, and communication connectivity. Performing wind-agnostic motion planning for sUAVs may produce a sizeable cross-track error if the wind on the planned route leads to actuator saturation. In a multi-sUAV …

Machine Learning Techniques For Network Analysis, Irfan Lateef

Dissertations

The network's size and the traffic on it are both increasing exponentially, making it difficult to look at its behavior holistically and address challenges by looking at link level behavior. It is possible that there are casual relationships between links of a network that are not directly connected and which may not be obvious to observe. The goal of this dissertation is to study and characterize the behavior of the entire network by using eigensubspace based techniques and apply them to network traffic engineering applications.

A new method that uses the joint time-frequency interpretation of eigensubspace representation for network statistics …

On Resource-Efficiency And Performance Optimization In Big Data Computing And Networking Using Machine Learning, Wuji Liu

Dissertations

Due to the rapid transition from traditional experiment-based approaches to large-scale, computational intensive simulations, next-generation scientific applications typically involve complex numerical modeling and extreme-scale simulations. Such model-based simulations oftentimes generate colossal amounts of data, which must be transferred over high-performance network (HPN) infrastructures to remote sites and analyzed against experimental or observation data on high-performance computing (HPC) facility. Optimizing the performance of both data transfer in HPN and simulation-based model development on HPC is critical to enabling and accelerating knowledge discovery and scientific innovation. However, such processes generally involve an enormous set of attributes including domain-specific model parameters, network transport …

Intelligent And Secure Fog-Aided Internet Of Drones, Jingjing Yao

Dissertations

Internet of drones (IoD), which utilize drones as Internet of Things (IoT) devices, deploys several drones in the air to collect ground information and send them to the IoD gateway for further processing. Computing tasks are usually offloaded to the cloud data center for intensive processing. However, many IoD applications require real-time processing and event response (e.g., disaster response and virtual reality applications). Hence, data processing by the remote cloud may not satisfy the strict latency requirement. Fog computing attaches fog nodes, which are equipped with computing, storage and networking resources, to IoD gateways to assume a substantial amount of …

Live Media Production: Multicast Optimization And Visibility For Clos Fabric In Media Data Centers, Ammar Latif

Dissertations

Media production data centers are undergoing a major architectural shift to introduce digitization concepts to media creation and media processing workflows. Content companies such as NBC Universal, CBS/Viacom and Disney are modernizing their workflows to take advantage of the flexibility of IP and virtualization.

In these new environments, multicast is utilized to provide point-to-multi-point communications. In order to build point-to-multi-point trees, Multicast has an established set of control protocols such as IGMP and PIM. The existing multicast protocols do not optimize multicast tree formation for maximizing network throughput which lead to decreased fabric utilization and decreased total number of admitted …

Energy And Performance-Optimized Scheduling Of Tasks In Distributed Cloud And Edge Computing Systems, Haitao Yuan

Dissertations

Infrastructure resources in distributed cloud data centers (CDCs) are shared by heterogeneous applications in a high-performance and cost-effective way. Edge computing has emerged as a new paradigm to provide access to computing capacities in end devices. Yet it suffers from such problems as load imbalance, long scheduling time, and limited power of its edge nodes. Therefore, intelligent task scheduling in CDCs and edge nodes is critically important to construct energy-efficient cloud and edge computing systems. Current approaches cannot smartly minimize the total cost of CDCs, maximize their profit and improve quality of service (QoS) of tasks because of aperiodic arrival …

Communications With Spectrum Sharing In 5g Networks Via Drone-Mounted Base Stations, Liang Zhang

Dissertations

The fifth generation wireless network is designed to accommodate enormous traffic demands for the next decade and to satisfy varying quality of service for different users. Drone-mounted base stations (DBSs) characterized by high mobility and low cost intrinsic attributes can be deployed to enhance the network capacity. In-band full-duplex (IBFD) is a promising technology for future wireless communications that can potentially enhance the spectrum efficiency and the throughput capacity. Therefore, the following issues have been identified and investigated in this dissertation in order to achieve high spectrum efficiency and high user quality of service.

First, the problem of deploying DBSs …

Analyzing Evolution Of Rare Events Through Social Media Data, Xiaoyu Lu

Dissertations

Recently, some researchers have attempted to find a relationship between the evolution of rare events and temporal-spatial patterns of social media activities. Their studies verify that the relationship exists in both time and spatial domains. However, few of those studies can accurately deduce a time point when social media activities are most highly affected by a rare event because producing an accurate temporal pattern of social media during the evolution of a rare event is very difficult. This work expands the current studies along three directions. Firstly, we focus on the intensity of information volume and propose an innovative clustering …

Can Threshold-Based Sensor Alerts Be Analysed To Detect Faults In A District Heating Network?, Liam Cantwell

Dissertations

Older IoT “smart sensors” create system alerts from threshold rules on reading values. These simple thresholds are not very flexible to changes in the network. Due to the large number of false positives generated, these alerts are often ignored by network operators. Current state-of-the-art analytical models typically create alerts using raw sensor readings as the primary input. However, as greater numbers of sensors are being deployed, the growth in the number of readings that must be processed becomes problematic. The number of analytic models deployed to each of these systems is also increasing as analysis is broadened. This study aims …

Implementation Of Traditional Printing Techniques For The Development Of Flexible Printed Sensors, Sai Guruva Reddy Avuthu

Dissertations

Printed electronics has gained a remarkable interest over the past decade for the fabrication of cost efficient electronic devices, with a major focus on the development of flexible sensors. This dissertation focuses on the fabrication of flexible sensors using traditional printing processes such as screen, inkjet and gravure printing.

A flexible organic thin film transistor (OTFT) was successfully fabricated on a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate and employed as a humidity sensor. Aluminum gate electrode was thermally evaporated on PET and UV clear dielectric layer was spin coated. Source and drain silver interdigitated electrodes were screen printed. 6,13-bis(triisopropylsilylethynyl) pentacene, a humidity …

Exploration Of Stimulus Current Energy Reduction And Bifurcation Dynamics In Conductance-Based Neuron Models Using Optimal Control Theory, Michael E. Ellinger

Dissertations

Hodgkin-Huxley type conductance-based models can simulate the effect of time-varying injected stimulus currents on the neuron membrane voltage. The dynamics simulated by these model types enables investigation of the biophysical basis of neuronal activity which is fundamental to higher level function. Broadened understanding the basis of nervous system function could lead to development of effective treatment for related diseases, disorders, and the effects of trauma. In this dissertation, optimal control is used with conductance-based neuron models to develop a "Reduced Energy Input Stimulus Discovery Method." Within the method, an objective function balances two competing criteria: tracking a reference membrane voltage …

Cross-Layer Design For Mobile Ad-Hoc Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Communication Networks, Abdel Ilah Nour Alshbatat

Dissertations

Mobile Ad-Hoc network (MANET) is a popular type of wireless network that is formed by a collection of mobile nodes. Each node in such a network has the capability to communicate with its neighbors and non-neighbors through a wireless medium without using any existing network infrastructure. Due to the lack of infrastructure, all nodes in Ad-Hoc network are designed to act as an end system and a router for other nodes.

Traditionally, the dominant design methodology for network protocols was based on the open systems interconnection (OSI) reference model. This methodology divided the stack into seven layers in which each …

Pattern Recognition For Fault Detection, Classification, And Localization In Electrical Power Systems, Qais Hashim Alsafasfeh

Dissertations

The longer it takes to identify and repair a fault, the more damage may result in the electrical power system, especially in periods of peak loads, which could lead to the collapse of the system, causing the power outage to extend for a longer period and larger parts of the electrical network. Reducing the outage time and immediate restoration of service can be achieved if the fault type and location are determined in a timely and precise manner.

An integrated algorithm that is based on generating unique signatures from the electric current signal to detect, classify, and localize a fault …

Design Of Adaptive Collective Foraging In Swarm Robotic Systems, Hanyi Dai

Dissertations

Inspired by the collective behavior observed in biological colonies, swarm robotics is a new approach to design a distributed control algorithm in order to coordinate a group of simple robots performing a complex group task. With only limited computation and communication ability of individual robots, one of the challenges in designing such multi-robotic systems is to understand the effect of individual robots behavior on the group performance. This thesis dedicates the research to designing a set of local interaction and adaptation rule for individual robots so that optimized collective foraging performance can be achieved at group level.

The research starts …

Communications And Positioning In Wireless Networks, Yao Zhao

Dissertations

My doctoral research for the past three years is presented in this report. My research mainly focuses on the communications and positioning for wireless networks and is composed of three parts. First, I explored a new Turbo frequency equalization technique for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communications systems to improve the performance of wireless communications. In the second part of my research, I studied the multiple antenna cooperative communications from the perspective of information theories. The third part of my work is dedicated to extensive research on positioning technology for wireless networks using knowledge of the estimation theory in signal processing.