Computer Engineering Commons^™

A Modular Framework For Surface-Embedded Actuation And Optical Sensing In Soft Robots., Paul Bupe Jr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the development and integration of modular technologies in soft robotics, with a focus on the OptiGap sensor system. OptiGap serves as a simple, flexible, cost-effective solution for real-time sensing of bending and deformation, validated through simulation and experimentation. Working as part of an emerging category of soft robotics called Soft, Curved, Reconfigurable, Anisotropic Mechanisms, or SCRAMs, this research also introduces the Thermally-Activated SCRAM Limb (TASL) technology, which employs shape-memory alloy (SMA) wire embedded in curved sheets for surface actuation and served as the initial inspiration for OptiGap. In addition, the EneGate system is presented as a complementary …

Reduced Fuel Emissions Through Connected Vehicles And Truck Platooning, Paul D. Brummitt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication enable the sharing, in real time, of vehicular locations and speeds with other vehicles, traffic signals, and traffic control centers. This shared information can help traffic to better traverse intersections, road segments, and congested neighborhoods, thereby reducing travel times, increasing driver safety, generating data for traffic planning, and reducing vehicular pollution. This study, which focuses on vehicular pollution, used an analysis of data from NREL, BTS, and the EPA to determine that the widespread use of V2V-based truck platooning—the convoying of trucks in close proximity to one another so as to reduce air drag …

Flight Trajectory Prediction For Aeronautical Communications., Nathan T Schimpf

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The development of future technologies for the National Airspace System (NAS) will be reliant on a new communications infrastructure capable of managing a limited spectrum among aircraft and ground systems. Emerging approaches to this spectrum allocation task mostly consider machine learning techniques reliant on aircraft and Air Traffic Control (ATC) sector data. Much of this data, however, is not directly available. This thesis considers the development of two such data products: the 4D trajectory (latitude, longitude, altitude, and time) of aircraft, and the anticipated airspace utilization and communication demand within an ATC sector. Data predictions are treated as a time …

Cognitive Satellite Communications And Representation Learning For Streaming And Complex Graphs., Wenqi Liu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation includes two topics. The first topic studies a promising dynamic spectrum access algorithm (DSA) that improves the throughput of satellite communication (SATCOM) under the uncertainty. The other topic investigates distributed representation learning for streaming and complex networks. DSA allows a secondary user to access the spectrum that are not occupied by primary users. However, uncertainty in SATCOM causes more spectrum sensing errors. In this dissertation, the uncertainty has been addressed by formulating a DSA decision-making process as a Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP) model to optimally determine which channels to sense and access. Large-scale networks have attracted …

Low Power Wide Area Networks (Lpwan): Technology Review And Experimental Study On Mobility Effect, Dhaval Patel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the past decade, we have witnessed explosive growth in the number of low-power embedded and Internet-connected devices, reinforcing the new paradigm, Internet of Things (IoT). IoT devices like smartphones, home security systems, smart electric meters, garage parking indicators, etc., have penetrated deeply into our daily lives. These IoT devices are increasingly attached and operated in mobile objects like unmanned vehicles, trains, airplanes, etc. The low power wide area network (LPWAN), due to its long-range, low-power and low-cost communication capability, is actively considered by academia and industry as the future wireless communication standard for IoT. However, despite the increasing popularity …

Design, Implementation And A Pilot Study Of Mobile Framework For Pedestrian Safety Using Smartphone Sensors, Aawesh Man Shrestha

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pedestrian distraction from smartphones is a serious social problem that caused an ever increasing number of fatalities especially as virtual reality (VR) games have gained popularity recently. In this thesis, we present the design, implementation, and a pilot study of WiPedCross, a WiFi direct-based pedestrian safety system that senses and evaluates a risk, and alerts accordingly the user to prevent traffic accidents. In order to develop a non-intrusive, accurate, and energy-efficient pedestrian safety system, a number of technical challenges are addressed: to enhance the positioning accuracy of the user for precise risk assessment, a map-matching algorithm based on a Hidden …

Ultra-Fast, Autonomous, Reconfigurable Communication System, Paul Bupe Jr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The recent years have witnessed an increase in natural disasters in which the destruction of essential communication infrastructure has significantly affected the number of casualties. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina in the United States resulted in over 1,900 deaths, three million land-line phones disconnections, and more than 2000 cell sites going out of service. This incident highlighted an urgent need for a quick-deployment, efficient communication network for emergency relief purposes. In this research, a fully autonomous system to deploy Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) as the first phase disaster recovery communication network for wide-area relief is presented. As part of this system, …

Comparing The Efficiency Of Heterogeneous And Homogeneous Data Center Workloads, Brandon Kimmons

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Information Technology, as an industry, is growing very quickly to keep pace with increased data storage and computing needs. Data growth, if not planned or managed correctly, can have larger efficiency implications on your data center as a whole. The long term reduction in efficiency will increase costs over time and increase operational overhead. Similarly, increases in processor efficiency have led to increased system density in data centers. This can increase cost and operational overhead in your data center infrastructure.

This paper proposes the idea that balanced data center workloads are more efficient in comparison to similar levels of …

Assessment Of Audio Interfaces For Use In Smartphone Based Spatial Learning Systems For The Blind, Shreyans Jain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent advancements in the field of indoor positioning and mobile computing promise development of smart phone based indoor navigation systems. Currently, the preliminary implementations of such systems only use visual interfaces—meaning that they are inaccessible to blind and low vision users. According to the World Health Organization, about 39 million people in the world are blind. This necessitates the need for development and evaluation of non-visual interfaces for indoor navigation systems that support safe and efficient spatial learning and navigation behavior. This thesis research has empirically evaluated several different approaches through which spatial information about the environment can be conveyed …

Mobile Map Browsers: Anticipated User Interaction For Data Pre-Fetching, Benjamin T. Weber

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

When browsing a graphical display of geospatial data on mobile devices, users typically change the displayed maps by panning, zooming in and out, or rotating the device. Limited storage space on mobile devices and slow wireless communications, however, impede the performance of these operations. To overcome the bottleneck that all map data to be displayed on the mobile device need to be downloaded on demand, this thesis investigates how anticipated user interactions affect intelligent pre-fetching so that an on-demand download session is extended incrementally. User interaction is defined as a set of map operations that each have corresponding effects on …

Architecture For Intelligent Power Systems Management, Optimization, And Storage., J. Chris Foreman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The management of power and the optimization of systems generating and using power are critical technologies. A new architecture is developed to advance the current state of the art by providing an intelligent and autonomous solution for power systems management. The architecture is two-layered and implements a decentralized approach by defining software objects, similar to software agents, which provide for local optimization of power devices such as power generating, storage, and load devices. These software device objects also provide an interface to a higher level of optimization. This higher level of optimization implements the second layer in a centralized approach …

Design And Applications Of A Graphics Package For The Hp1000 Computer., Hsiao-Chih George Lee

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this thesis is to develop the FORTRAN subroutine PLOTER which is a general-purpose plotting tool to plot charts on a Hewlett Packard plotter. The programs RESP and INVLAP which can plot the frequency and time responses of system functions are modified to adopt the PLOTER subroutine and are stored of the HP1000-A900 minicomputer whose software, the GRAPHICS/1000, supports the graphics ability of PLOTER. This thesis describes the theories, functions, software techniques and operations of the PLOTER subroutine and the application programs RESP and the INVLAP. It also provides program listings and example plots.