Computer Engineering Commons^™

Safdetection:Sensor Analysis Based Fault Detection In Tightly-Coupledmulti-Robot Team Tasks, Xingyan Li

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation addresses the problem of detecting faults based on sensor analysis for tightly-coupled multi-robot team tasks. The approach I developed is called SAFDetection, which stands for Sensor Analysis based Fault Detection, pronounced “Safe Detection”. When dealing with robot teams, it is challenging to detect all types of faults because of the complicated environment they operate in and the large spectrum of components used in the robot system. The SAFDetection approach provides a novel methodology for detecting robot faults in situations when motion models and models of multi-robot dynamic interactions are unavailable. The fundamental idea of SAFDetection is to build …

Distributed Control For Robotic Swarms Using Centroidal Voronoi Tessellations, Shelley Rounds

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis introduces a design combining an emerging area in robotics with a well established mathematical research topic: swarm intelligence and Voronoi tessellations, respectively. The main objective for this research is to design an economical and robust swarm system to achieve distributed control. This research combines swarm intelligence with Voronoi tessellations to localize a source and create formations. Extensive software coding must be implemented for this design, such as the development of a discrete centroidal Voronoi tessellation (CVT) algorithm.

The ultimate purpose of this research is to advance the existing Mobile Actuator and Sensor Network (MASnet) platform to eventually develop …

Mapping Reality Into Virtual Worlds, Josh Mcfarlane

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

As virtual worlds become more prevalent, they become increasingly useful as a means of information dissemination. This thesis examines the possible connections between real world objects and their virtual world counterparts. We look at how, by attaching sensors to an object, or by using a smart object with embedded sensors, the information can be relayed to a server. From this information, it will be possible to create a duplicate object in the virtual world and have it mirror the real world object in terms of state and movement. Almost all current solutions for remotely viewing a room or area are …

Steganography In Ipv6, Barret Miller

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Steganography is the process of hiding a secret message within another message such that it is difficult to detect the presence of the secret message. In other words, the existence of the secret message is hidden. A covert channel refers to the actual medium that is used to communicate the information such as a message, image, or file. This honors thesis uses steganography within the source address fields of Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) packets to create a covert channel through which clandestine messages are passed from one party to another. A fully functional computer program was designed and written …

Application Of Parent-Child Uav Tasking For Wildfire Detection And Response, Stephen T. Kubik

Master's Theses

In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become a dominant force in the aerospace industry. Recent technological developments have moved these aircraft from remote operation roles to more active response missions. Of particular interest is the possibility of applying UAVs toward solving complex problems in long-endurance missions. Under that belief, the feasibility of utilizing UAVs for wildfire detection and response was investigated in a partnership that included NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate and Science Mission Directorate, and the United States Forest Service. Under NASA’s Intelligent Mission Management (IMM) project, research was conducted to develop a mission architecture that would …

Irrelevance, Polymorphism, And Erasure In Type Theory, Richard Nathan Mishra-Linger

Dissertations and Theses

Dependent type theory is a proven technology for verified functional programming in which programs and their correctness proofs may be developed using the same rules in a single formal system. In practice, large portions of programs developed in this way have no computational relevance to the ultimate result of the program and should therefore be removed prior to program execution. In previous work on identifying and removing irrelevant portions of programs, computational irrelevance is usually treated as an intrinsic property of program expressions. We find that such an approach forces programmers to maintain two copies of commonly used datatypes: a …

Window Queries Over Data Streams, Jin Li

Dissertations and Theses

Evaluating queries over data streams has become an appealing way to support various stream-processing applications. Window queries are commonly used in many stream applications. In a window query, certain query operators, especially blocking operators and stateful operators, appear in their windowed versions. Previous research work in evaluating window queries typically requires ordered streams and this order requirement limits the implementations of window operators and also carries performance penalties. This thesis presents efficient and flexible algorithms for evaluating window queries. We first present a new data model for streams, progressing streams, that separates stream progress from physical-arrival order. Then, we …

Modeling And Stability Analysis Of Nonlinear Sampled-Data Systems With Embedded Recovery Algorithms, Heber Herencia-Zapana

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Computer control systems for safety critical systems are designed to be fault tolerant and reliable, however, soft errors triggered by harsh environments can affect the performance of these control systems. The soft errors of interest which occur randomly, are nondestructive and introduce a failure that lasts a random duration. To minimize the effect of these errors, safety critical systems with error recovery mechanisms are being investigated. The main goals of this dissertation are to develop modeling and analysis tools for sampled-data control systems that are implemented with such error recovery mechanisms. First, the mathematical model and the well-posedness of the …

Using Timed-Release Cryptography To Mitigate Preservation Risk Of Embargo Periods, Rabia Haq

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

This research defines Time-Locked Embargo, a framework designed to mitigate the Preservation Risk Interval: the preservation risk associated with embargoed scholarly material. Due to temporary access restrictions, embargoed data cannot be distributed freely and thus preserved via data refreshing during the embargo time interval. A solution to mitigate the risk of data loss has been developed by suggesting a data dissemination framework that allows data refreshing of encrypted instances of embargoed content in an open, unrestricted scholarly community. This framework has been developed by exploiting implementations of existing technologies to"time-lock" data using Timed-Release Cryptology (TRC) so that it can be …

Integration Of Spatial And Spectral Information For Hyperspectral Image Classification, Zheng Du

Doctoral Dissertations

Hyperspectral imaging has become a powerful tool in biomedical and agriculture fields in the recent years and the interest amongst researchers has increased immensely. Hyperspectral imaging combines conventional imaging and spectroscopy to acquire both spatial and spectral information from an object. Consequently, a hyperspectral image data contains not only spectral information of objects, but also the spatial arrangement of objects. Information captured in neighboring locations may provide useful supplementary knowledge for analysis. Therefore, this dissertation investigates the integration of information from both the spectral and spatial domains to enhance hyperspectral image classification performance.

The major impediment to the combined spatial …

Performance And Analysis Of Transfer Control Protocol Over Voice Over Wireless Local Area Network, Rajendra Patil

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Science and Technology at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree Master of Science by Rajendra Patil in August of 2008.

Key Factors In Tag Recognition For Rfid System, Nachiketa Das

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The research effort described here was a study of factors that affect the efficiency of a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system in reading a certain type of commonly used passive RFID tag ('Squiggle' by Alien Technologies). The two sets of experiments conducted under this study focus on two response variables namely: readability and read rate. The factors in focus are distance between antenna and tags, the number and combinations of tags simultaneously read by the system and position of the tags left or right of the center of the antenna. Two separate experimental setups as explained in the following sections …

Service Oriented Transitive Closure Solution, Jonathan Baran

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The goal of this project is a service based solution that utilizes parallel and distributed processing algorithms to solve the transitive closure problem for a large dataset. A dataset may be view conceptually as a table in a database, with a physical structure representing a file containing a sequence of records and fields. Two records are said to be transitively related if and only if they are directly related due to sharing of one or more specific fields, or a sequence may be made from one record to the other under the condition that all intermediate entries are related the …

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 …

Dynamic Target Classification In Wireless Sensor Networks, Ying Sun

Masters Theses

Information exploitation schemes with high-accuracy and low computational cost play an important role in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). This thesis studies the problem of target classification in WSNs. Specifically, due to the resource constraints and dynamic nature of WSNs, we focus on the design of the energy-efficient solutionwith high accuracy for target classification in WSNs.

Feature extraction and classification are two intertwined components in pattern recognition. Our hypothesis is that for each type of target, there exists an optimal set of features in conjunction with a specific classifier, which can yield the best performance in terms of classification accuracy using …

Extending Hardware Based Mandatory Access Controls To Multicore Architectures, Brian Lewis Sharp

Masters Theses

Memory based vulnerabilities have plagued the computer industry since the release of the Morris worm twenty years ago. In addition to buffer overflow attacks like the Morris worm, format strings, ret-libC, and heap double free() viruses have been able to take advantage of pervasive programming errors. A recent example is the unspecified buffer overflow vulnerability present in Mozilla Firefox 3.0. From the past one can learn that these coding mistakes are not waning. A solution is needed that can close off these security shortcomings while still being of minimal impact to the user. Antivirus software makers continuously overestimate the lengths …

Using Agile Software Development Practices In A Research Oriented Distributed Simulation, Douglas James Mielke

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Although sometimes controversial, agile methodologies have proven to be a viable choice for some software development projects. Projects suited to agile methodologies are those that involve new technology, have requirements that change rapidly, and are controlled by small, talented teams. Much literature about agile software development leans towards business products and non-government entities. Only a handful of literature resources mention agile software development being used in government contracts and even fewer resources mention research projects. NASA's Airspace and Traffic Operations Simulation (ATOS) is a research oriented simulation that doesn't follow the traditional business project mold. In an effort to gain …

Integrating Preservation Functions Into The Web Server, Joan A. Smith

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

Digital preservation of theWorldWideWeb poses unique challenges, different fromthe preservation issues facing professional Digital Libraries. The complete list of a website’s resources cannot be cited with confidence, and the descriptive metadata available for the resources is so minimal that it is sometimes insufficient for a browser to recognize. In short, the Web suffers from a counting problem and a representation problem. Refreshing the bits, migrating from an obsolete file format to a newer format, and other classic digital preservation problems also affect the Web. As digital collections devise solutions to these problems, the Web will also benefit. But the core …

An Analysis Of Botnet Vulnerabilities, Sean W. Hudson

Theses and Dissertations

Botnets are a significant threat to computer networks and data stored on networked computers. The ability to inhibit communication between servers controlling the botnet and individual hosts would be an effective countermeasure. The objective of this research was to find vulnerabilities in Unreal IRCd that could be used to shut down the server. Analysis revealed that Unreal IRCd is a very mature and stable IRC server and no significant vulnerabilities were found. While this research does not eliminate the possibility that a critical vulnerability is present in the Unreal IRCd software, none were identified during this effort.

Selective Summarization Of Online Discussions, Mohamed Al Tantawy

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

A Survey Of Satellite Communications System Vulnerabilities, Jessica A. Steinberger

Theses and Dissertations

The U.S. military’s increasing reliance on commercial and military communications satellites to enable widely-dispersed, mobile forces to communicate makes these space assets increasingly vulnerable to attack by adversaries. Attacks on these satellites could cause military communications to become unavailable at critical moments during a conflict. This research dissected a typical satellite communications system in order to provide an understanding of the possible attacker entry points into the system, to determine the vulnerabilities associated with each of these access points, and to analyze the possible impacts of these vulnerabilities to U.S. military operations. By understanding these vulnerabilities of U.S. communications satellite …

A Simulation Study Of Medium Access Control Protocols Of Wireless Networks, Rohan Uddhav Patel

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Science and Technology at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science by Rohan Uddhav Patel on May 8, 2008.

Location-Based Hashing For Querying And Searching, Felix Ching

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The rapidly growing information technology in modern days demands an efficient searching scheme to search for desired data. Locality Sensitive Hashing (LSH) is a method for searching similar data in a database. LSH achieves high accuracy and precision for locating desired data, but consumes a significant amount of memory and time. Based on LSH, this thesis presents two novel schemes for efficient and accurate data searching: Locality Sensitive Hashing-SmithWaterman (LSH-SmithWaterman) and Secure Min-wise Locality Sensitive Hashing (SMLSH). Both methods dramatically reduce the memory and time consumption and exhibit high accuracy in data searching. Simulation results demonstrate the efficiency of the …

Pitch Correction On The Human Voice, Suzanne Ownbey

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Visualization Of An Approach To Data Clustering, Marisabel Guevara

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Using visualization and clustering goals as guidelines, this thesis explores a graphic implementation of a data clustering technique that repositions vertices by applying physical laws of charges and springs to the components of the graph. The resulting visualizations are evidence of the success of the approach as well as of the data sets that lend themselves to a clustering routine. Due to the visual product of the implementation, the algorithm is most useful as an aid in understanding the grouping pattern of a data set. Either for a rapid analysis or to assist in presentation, the visual result of the …

Analysis And Experiments For Tendril-Type Robots, Lara Cowan

All Theses

New models for the Tendril continuous backbone robot, and other similarly constructed robots, are introduced and expanded upon in this thesis. The ability of the application of geometric models to result in more precise control of the Tendril manipulator is evaluated on a Tendril prototype. We examine key issues underlying the design and operation of 'soft' robots featuring continuous body ('continuum') elements. Inspiration from nature is used to develop new methods of operation for continuum robots. These new methods of operation are tested in experiments to evaluate their effectiveness and potential.

Evaluation Of The Applicability Of Jc3iedm Based Information Exchange Standardization Efforts To Link-16 Based Systems, Anthony Devivi

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Command and Control (C2) systems are critical components in decision-making systems in both the military and civilian domains. These systems act as the data evaluation and dissemination tools for larger Command, Control, Computer, Communication, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Recognizance (C4ISR) systems. Typical C2 systems accept a wide variety of inputs from many sources such as radars, weapons systems, simulators, operators, and other C2 systems. The C2 system processes the input data and presents to the user information with which decisions are made. The C2 system also determines what information should be translated and disseminated to other C2 platforms.

The basis for …

Optimal Guidance Of A Relay Mav For Isr Support Beyond Line-Of-Sight, John H. Hansen

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis developed guidance laws to optimally position a relay Micro-UAV (MAV) to provide an operator with real-time Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) by relaying communication and video signals when there is no line-of-sight between the operator at the base and the rover MAV performing the ISR mission. The ISR system consists of two MAVs, the Relay and the Rover, and a Base. The Relay strives to position itself to minimize the radio frequency (RF) power required for maintaining communications between the Rover and the Base, while the Rover performs the ISR mission, which may maximize the required RF power. …

Composable Distributed Access Control And Integrity Policies For Query-Based Wireless Sensor Networks, David W. Marsh

Theses and Dissertations

An expected requirement of wireless sensor networks (WSN) is the support of a vast number of users while permitting limited access privileges. While WSN nodes have severe resource constraints, WSNs will need to restrict access to data, enforcing security policies to protect data within WSNs. To date, WSN security has largely been based on encryption and authentication schemes. WSN Authorization Specification Language (WASL) is specified and implemented using tools coded in JavaTM. WASL is a mechanism{independent policy language that can specify arbitrary, composable security policies. The construction, hybridization, and composition of well{known security models is demonstrated and shown to preserve …

Shi(El)Ds: A Novel Hardware-Based Security Backplane To Enhance Security With Minimal Impact To System Operation, Matthew G. Judge

Theses and Dissertations

Computer security continues to increase in importance both in the commercial world and within the Air Force. Dedicated hardware for security purposes presents and enhances a number of security capabilities. Hardware enhances both the security of the security system and the quality and trustworthiness of the information being gathered by the security monitors. Hardware reduces avenues of attack on the security system and ensures the trustworthiness of information only through proper design and placement. Without careful system design, security hardware leaves itself vulnerable to many attacks that it is capable of defending against. Our SHI(EL)DS architecture combines these insights into …