Computer Engineering Commons^™

Fast Super-Resolution With Affine Motion Using An Adaptive Wiener Filter And Its Application To Airborne Imaging, Russell C. Hardie, Kenneth J. Barnard, Raúl Ordóñez

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Fast nonuniform interpolation based super-resolution (SR) has traditionally been limited to applications with translational interframe motion. This is in part because such methods are based on an underlying assumption that the warping and blurring components in the observation model commute. For translational motion this is the case, but it is not true in general. This presents a problem for applications such as airborne imaging where translation may be insufficient. Here we present a new Fourier domain analysis to show that, for many image systems, an affine warping model with limited zoom and shear approximately commutes with the point spread function …

Construction Of The Next Generation Of Energy Efficient Light Boxes - Sponsored By Bayer Environmental Science, Gregory Keith Bartley Jr.

Gregory Keith Bartley Jr.

This short presentation includes an overview of features that went into constructing a new type of light box technology utilizing low-power usage LEDs and Low Density flexible Polymers. This light box was constructed for digital image analysis of plant health and ground cover using a Canon Powershot G12 camera and Sigma Scan Digital Image Analysis Software.

Semantic Geotagging: A Location-Based Hypermedia Approach To Creating Situational Awareness, Ray Bareiss, Martin Griss, Steven Rosenberg, Yu Zhang

Ray Bareiss

As emergency first responders and commanders increasingly use mobile phones, tablets, and social media to communicate, coordinate, and manage information during disasters, we see a need and opportunity to provide a mobile device-appropriate semantic layer to a geographically-based common operating picture. The challenge is to provide a simple, usable structure for a rapidly growing body of information to simplify the development of situational awareness in an unfolding disaster. We use a hyperlinked structure based on the ASK model to organize information in a readily accessible form. In this paper we describe our initial design and experience with an Android-based prototype, …

Semantic Geotagging: A Location-Based Hypermedia Approach To Creating Situational Awareness, Ray Bareiss, Martin Griss, Steven Rosenberg, Yu Zhang

Martin L Griss

As emergency first responders and commanders increasingly use mobile phones, tablets, and social media to communicate, coordinate, and manage information during disasters, we see a need and opportunity to provide a mobile device-appropriate semantic layer to a geographically-based common operating picture. The challenge is to provide a simple, usable structure for a rapidly growing body of information to simplify the development of situational awareness in an unfolding disaster. We use a hyperlinked structure based on the ASK model to organize information in a readily accessible form. In this paper we describe our initial design and experience with an Android-based prototype, …

Construction Of A Mobile Spectrophotometer For Mapping Plant Health: Combining Crop Circle™ And Gps Technology, Gregory Keith Bartley Jr., Brandon J. Horvath

Gregory Keith Bartley Jr.

With the introduction of GPS technology, came the ability to produce maps of plant cover and health over large areas. By correlating the reflectance values of a plant with its respective GPS coordinates, we can form a bird’s eye view of relative plant health using different colors. The commercialization of high precision GPS receivers has allowed researchers to plot these maps with increased accuracy, limiting error to less than 1 inch.

Chaotic Bandgaps In Hybrid Acousto-Optic Feedback And Their Implications, Monish Ranjan Chatterjee, Mohammed A. Al-Saedi

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The nonlinear dynamics of a hybrid acousto-optic device was examined from the perspective of the Lyapunov exponent (LE) and bifurcation maps. The plots for LE versus system parameters and bifurcation maps have recently been examined against known simulation results including chaotic encryption experiments [1]. It is verified that the "loop gain" (feedback gain (β) times incident light amplitude (Iin) needs to be greater than one as a necessary , but not sufficient condition for the onset of chaos.

It is found that for certain combinations of β, Iin, net bias voltage (αtοt), and the initial value of the first-order scattered …

Wireless Embedded Smart Cameras: Performance Analysis And Their Application To Fall Detection For Eldercare., Alvaro Pinto

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Wireless Embedded Smart Camera Networks has received a lot of attention from academia and industry because they are small in size and easy to deploy, and they offer a multitude of attractive applications. They can be used for embedded single unit applications, or can be networked for multi-camera applications.

We first analyze three different operation scenarios for a wireless vision sensor network wherein different levels of local processing is performed. A detailed quantitative comparison of three operation scenarios are presented in terms of energy consumption and latency. This quantitative analysis provides the motivation for performing high-level local processing and decision …

Performance Analysis And Optimization Of The Winnow Secret Key Reconciliation Protocol, Kevin C. Lustic

Theses and Dissertations

Currently, private communications in public and government sectors rely on methods of cryptographic key distribution that will likely be rendered obsolete the moment a full-scale quantum computer is realized, or efficient classical methods of factoring are discovered. There are alternative methods for distributing secret key material in a post-quantum era. One example of a system capable of securely distributing cryptographic key material, known as Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), is secure against quantum factorization techniques as its security rests on generally accepted laws of quantum physics. QKD protocols typically include a phase called Error Reconciliation, a clear-text classical-channel discussion between legitimate …

Discrete Alarm Clock, Travis Moore, Collin Barth

Electrical Engineering

The standard alarm clock, as used daily by millions worldwide, has clear room for modification and improvement. This paper documents an implementation that rectifies many of these flaws. Improvements include adjustable snooze length, an IR remote for ease of use, and an RF headset for discrete alarm use or potential incorporation into a device much like a hearing aid. The processes involved in creating a digital alarm clock, as well as the obstacles met in the implementation of the enhanced design, are detailed within.

Examination Of Chaotic Signal Encryption And Recovery For Secure Communication Using Hybrid Acousto-Optic Feedback, Monish Ranjan Chatterjee, Mohammed A. Al-Saedi

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Generation of chaos from acousto-optic (A-O)Bragg cell modulators with an electronic feedback has been studied for over 3 decades. Since an acousto-optic Bragg cell with zeroth- and first-order feedback exhibits chaotic behavior past the threshold for bistability, such a system was recently examined for possible chaotic encryption of simple messages (such as a low-amplitude sinusoidal signal) applied via the bias input of the sound cell driver. Subsequent recovery of the message signal was carried out via a heterodyne-type strategy employing a locally generated chaotic carrier, with threshold parameters matched to the transmitting Bragg cell.

In this paper, we present numerical …

An Exploration Of Knowledge And Skills Transfer From A Formal Software Engineering Curriculum To A Capstone Practicum Project, Ray Bareiss, Ed Katz

Ray Bareiss

Students at Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley complete a team-based practicum project for an industrial sponsor as the capstone of their master’s education in software engineering. Over time, the faculty member who typically serves as advisor for such projects has been disturbed by the failure of several student teams to transfer some relevant knowledge and skills from the formal curriculum to the relatively unstructured practicum project environment. We conducted a survey of all 2010 software engineering students to ascertain the most significant selfreported shortcomings. This paper presents the survey data and then discusses the results in terms of a theory of …

Scalar Em Beam Propagation In Inhomogeneous Media, John M. Jarem, Partha P. Banerjee

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

In the previous chapter, we reviewed some of the mathematical preliminaries that will be useful later on in the text. In this chapter, we discuss some of the basic concepts of scalar wave propagation, and discuss an important numerical method, called the beam propagation method (BPM), to study propagation in linear media and in media with induced nonlinearities. Furthermore, we also discuss propagation through induced gratings, both transmission and reflection type, in order to assess energy coupling between participating waves. Finally, we introduce readers to an important characterization method, called the z-scan method, which is often used to determine the …

Binary And Core-Shell Nanoparticle Dispersed Liquid Crystal Cells For Metamaterial Applications, George Nehmetallah, Rola Aylo, Partha P. Banerjee

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

We theoretically explored the feasibility of a tunable metamaterial using binary as well as core-shell nanoparticle dispersed liquid crystal cells in the infrared and optical regimes. Owing to the spatial variation of the permittivity of the liquid crystal host upon the application of a bias voltage, the host was decomposed into a layered medium and the effective refractive index recalculated for each layer due to the distribution of polaritonic and plasmonic nanoparticles.

The scattering, extinction, and absorption of such a nanoparticle dispersed liquid crystal cell were also found. Depending on the applied voltage bias across the liquid crystal host, the …

Imirok: Real-Time Imitative Robotic Arm Control For Home Robot Applications, Heng-Tze Cheng, Zheng Sun, Pei Zhang

Zheng Sun

Training home robots to behave like human can help people with their daily chores and repetitive tasks. In this paper, we present Imirok, a system to remotely control robotic arms by user motion using low-cost, off-the-shelf mobile devices and webcam. The motion tracking algorithm detects user motion in real-time, without classifier training or predefined action set. Experimental results show that the system achieves 90% precision and recall rate on motion detection with blank background, and is robust under the change of cluttered background and user-to-camera distance.

Leveraging Mobile Context For Effective Collaboration And Task Management In Disaster Response, Faisal Luqman, Martin L. Griss

Martin L Griss

Collaboration and task management is challenging in distributed, dynamically-formed teams, typical in large scale disaster response scenarios. Ineffective collaboration may result in poor performance and possible loss of life. In this paper, we present Overseer, an agent-based system that exploits context information from mobile devices to facilitate collaboration and task allocation. We describe our system architecture and show how mobile context can be used to create dynamic role-based assignments to support collaboration and effective task management.

Anisotropic Electrical Properties Of Nanostructured Metallic Thin Films, Mo Ahoujja, Piyush Shah, Andrew Saragan, Said Elhamri, Elena A. Guliants

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

High surface area, porous, metallic (Ti, Cr) nanorod thin ¯lms with columnar microstructure can be deposited using conventional physical vapor deposition technique of E-beam evaporation. The technique relies on the physical vapor deposition onto a static substrate oriented in a position where °ux from the source material (Ti, Cr) arrives at oblique angle. The adatoms provides geometrical shadowing which results in growth of nanorod columns in the direction of vapor source. Deposition conditions such as angle of the incoming vapor °ux, substrate temperature, surface di®usion etc. have strong in°uence on the shape and arrangement of the columnar thin ¯lms. In …

Single-Beam Holographic Tomography Creates Images In Three Dimensions, George Nehmetallah, Partha P. Banerjee, Nickolai Kukhtarev

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

In digital holography (DH), the interference between light scattered from an object and a reference wave is recorded using a CCD camera. DH has various advantages over analog holography: no film processing is needed, reconstruction is performed using numerical methods, and no further experimental setup is necessary. However, one of the disadvantages of DH is that current CCDs have a resolution of approximately 1,000 lines/mm, which is less than that of photographic film.

Anubis: An Attestation Protocol For Distributed Context-Aware Applications, Senaka Buthpitiya, Feng-Tso Sun, Heng-Tze Chen, Patrick Tague, Martin L. Griss, Anind K. Dey

Martin L Griss

Sharing sensitive context information among multiple distributed components in mobile environments introduces major security concerns. The distributed sensing, processing and actuating components of these applications can be compromised and modified or impersonated to extract private and confidential information or to inject false information. In this paper we present the Anubis protocol for remote code attestation and access control of distributed components using remote execution of trusted code. Our Anubis protocol leverages previous work in the fields of wireless sensor networks and secure web browsing. Anubis allows new components to be introduced to the environment without updating existing components. Our implementation …

Mobile Context-Aware Personal Messaging Assistant, Senaka Buthpitiya, Deepthi Madamanchi, Sumalatha Kommaraju, Martin L. Griss

Martin L Griss

A previous study shows that busy professionals receive in excess of 50 emails per day of which approximately 23% require immediate attention, 13% require attention later and 64% are unimportant and typically ignored. The flood of emails impact mobile users even more heavily. Flooded inboxes cause busy professionals to spend considerable amounts of time searching for important messages, and there has been much research into automating the process using email content for classification; but we find email priority depends also on user context. In this paper we describe the Personal Messaging Assistant (PMA), an advanced rule-based email management system which …

Sensorchestra: Collaborative Sensing For Symbolic Location Recognition, Heng-Tze Cheng, Feng-Tso Sun, Senaka Buthpitiya, Martin L. Griss

Martin L Griss

"Symbolic location of a user, like a store name in a mall, is essential for context-based mobile advertising. Existing fingerprint- based localization using only a single phone is susceptible to noise, and has a major limitation in that the phone has to be held in the hand at all times. In this paper, we present SensOrchestra, a col- laborative sensing framework for symbolic location recognition that groups nearby phones to recognize ambient sounds and images of a location collaboratively. We investigated audio and image features, and designed a classifier fusion model to integrate estimates from diff erent phones. We also …

Omnisense: A Collaborative Sensing Framework For User Context Recognition Using Mobile Phones, Heng-Tze Cheng, Senaka Buthpitiya, Feng-Tso Sun, Martin L. Griss

Martin L Griss

Context information, including a user’s locations and activities, is indispensable for context-aware applications such as targeted advertising and disaster response. Inferring user context from sensor data is intrinsically challenging due to the semantic gap between low-level signals and high-level human activities. When implemented on mobile phones, more challenges on resource limitations are present. While most existing work focuses on context recognition using a single mobile phone, collaboration among multiple phones has received little attention, and the recognition accuracy is susceptible to phone position and ambient changes. Simply putting a phone in one’s pocket can render the microphone muffled and the …

Room-Level Wi-Fi Location Tracking, Joshua Correa, Ed Katz, Patricia Collins, Martin Griss

Martin L Griss

Context-aware applications for indoor intelligent environments require an appropriately accurate and stable interior positioning system to adapt services to the location of a mobile user or mobile device in a building. Different technologies provide a varying mix of resolution, accuracy, stability and challenges. In this paper we report on our experience using an existing Wi-Fi infrastructure without specialized hardware added to support location tracking. There are several approaches to track the location of Wi-Fi enabled devices within a building such as signal propagation models and signature matching. We found signature matching most effective in our environment. Signature matching is accomplished …

Particle Swarm Optimization For Simultaneous Tuning Of Static Var Compensator And Power System Stabilizer, Mahdiyeh Eslami, Hussain Shareef, Azah Mohamed, Mohammad Khajehzadeh

Dr. Mahdiyeh Eslami (مهدیه اسلامی)

No abstract provided.

Economic Design Of Foundation Using Harmony Search Algorithm, Mohammad Khajehzadeh, Mohd R. Taha, Ahmed El-Shafie, Mahdiyeh Eslami

Dr. Mahdiyeh Eslami (مهدیه اسلامی)

No abstract provided.

Fluorinated Templates For Energy-Related Nanomaterials And Applications, Mohammed J. Meziani, Fushen Lu, Li Cao, Christopher E. Bunker, Elena A. Guliants, Ya-Ping Sun

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Fluorinated ionomer membranes, as represented by the commercially available Nafion films, are macroscopically homogeneous and optically transparent but microscopically inhomogeneous with the presence of nanoscale hydrophilic cavities. These cavities serve as nanoscale reactors for the synthesis of nanoparticles from a variety of materials. The membranes with embedded nanoscale semiconductors, still optically transparent, have been used as sheet-photocatalysts for energy conversion applications, while those with embedded reactive metals used as nano-energetic materials for hydrogen generation and beyond. This chapter provides an overview on the templated synthesis of nanomaterials in fluorinated ionomer membranes and the various energy-related applications of this unique class …

Comparison Of Turbulence-Induced Scintillations For Multi-Wavelength Laser Beacons Over Tactical (7 Km) And Long (149 Km) Atmospheric Propagation Paths, Mikhail Vorontsov, Venkata S. Rao Gudimetla, Gary W. Carhart, Thomas Weyrauch, Svetlana Lachinova, Ernst Polnau, Joseph Rierson, Leonid A. Beresnev, Jony Jiang Liu, Jim F. Riker

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

We report results of the experimental analysis of atmospheric effects on laser beam propagation over two distinctive propagation paths: a long-range (149 km) propagation path between Mauna Loa (Island of Hawaii) and Haleakala (Island of Maui) mountains, and a tactical-range (7 km) propagation path between the roof of the Dayton Veterans Administration Medical Center (VAMC) and the Intelligent Optics Laboratory (IOL/UD) located on the 5th floor of the University of Dayton College Park Center building. Both testbeds include three laser beacons operating at wavelengths 532 nm, 1064 nm, and 1550 nm and a set of identical optical receiver systems with …

A Midsummer Night’S Dream (With Flying Robots), Robin Murphy, Dylan Shell, Amy Guerin, Brittany Duncan, Benjamin Fine, Kevin Pratt, Takis Zourntos

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

Seven flying robot “fairies” joined human actors in the Texas A&M production of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The production was a collaboration between the departments of Computer Science and Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Theater Arts. The collaboration was motivated by two assertions. First, that the performing arts have principles for creating believable agents that will transfer to robots. Second, the theater is a natural testbed for evaluating the response of untrained human groups (both actors and the audience) to robots interacting with humans in shared spaces, i.e., were believable agents created? The production used two types …

Multi-Pose Face Recognition And Tracking System, Binu Muraleedharan Nair, Jacob Foytik, Richard Tompkins, Yakov Diskin, Theus Aspiras, Vijayan K. Asari

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

We propose a real time system for person detection, recognition and tracking using frontal and profile faces. The system integrates face detection, face recognition and tracking techniques. The face detection algorithm uses both frontal face and profile face detectors by extracting the 'Haar' features and uses them in a cascade of boosted classifiers. The pose is determined from the face detection algorithm which uses a combination of profile and frontal face cascades and, depending on the pose, the face is compared with a particular set of faces having the same range for classification. The detected faces are recognized by projecting …

Contextualized Mobile Support For Learning By Doing In The Real World, Ray Bareiss, Natalie Linnell, Martin Griss

Ray Bareiss

This research addresses the use of mobile devices with both embedded and external sensors to provide contextualized help, advice, and remediation to learners engaged in real-world learn-by-doing tasks. This work is situated within the context of learning a complex procedure, in particular emergency responders learning to conduct urban search and rescue operations. Research issues include the design and delivery of contextualized performance support and the inferring of learner actions and intentions from sensor data to ensure that the right support is delivered just in time, as it is relevant to what the learner is doing.