Computer Engineering Commons^™

Creating A Low-Cost Radio For An Open Cubesat, Michael Wegerson, Jeremy Straub, Ronald Marsh

Jeremy Straub

A reliable communication system is key to the success of a CubeSat mission, allowing for data to be trans-mitted to the ground station and commands to be up-loaded to the satellite. To satisfy this need, the OpenOrbiter satellite (a 1-U CubeSat [1], being devel-oped with a target parts budget of under $5,000 [2]) is leveraging previously space-tested [3], low-cost trans-ceiver design which is based on the SI 4463 IC unit. This board design will be included in the publically available Open Framework for Educational Nanosatel-lites (OPEN) allowing others to modify, enhance and/or make use of the design in the future.

Update On The Progress Of The 1-U Open Cubesat Development, Jeremy Straub, Ronald Marsh

Jeremy Straub

The OpenOrbiter program [1] is developing a low-cost framework for the creation of space-craft [2] by researchers and educators world-wide [3]. In line with the objective of enabling future educational use by others, educational assessment [4, 5] has been a key focus. Sever-al areas were assessed: students were asked what types of benefits they sought from their participation [6], assessment of benefit attain-ment is ongoing. Work on the development of a designs (See Figures 2 and 8) that can be used to build a spacecraft with a cost of under $5,000 [7] using primarily COTS parts and testing (see Figure …

Three-Dimensional Printing And Scanning Web-Based Job Management System, Stephanie Hollman, Dalyn Limesand, Jeremy Straub, Scott Kerlin

Jeremy Straub

Three-dimensional (3D) printers have gained popularity for use for many different projects. The work presented herein aims to make this process simpler. This poster discusses a system that will allow individuals from all over campus to submit object files for printing, without having to schedule appointments and schedule 3D scanning appointments and retrieve scan results.

Automated Technique For Real-Time Production Of Lifelike Animations Of American Sign Language, John Mcdonald, Rosalee Wolfe, Jerry C. Schnepp, Julie Hochgesang, Diana Gorman Jamrozik, Marie Stumbo, Larwan Berke, Melissa Bialek, Farah Thomas

Jerry C Schnepp

Generating sentences from a library of signs implemented through a sparse set of key frames derived from the segmental structure of a phonetic model of ASL has the advantage of flexibility and efficiency, but lacks the lifelike detail of motion capture. These difficulties are compounded when faced with real-time generation and display. This paper describes a technique for automatically adding realism without the expense of manually animating the requisite detail. The new technique layers transparently over and modifies the primary motions dictated by the segmental model, and does so with very little computational cost, enabling real-time production and display. The …

Trends In Multimodal Human-Computer Interfaces, Jerry C. Schnepp

Jerry C Schnepp

Touch screens, voice commands and wireless gesture controllers have the potential to provide a more natural human-computer interface than traditional mice and keyboards. While these technologies are still evolving, the usefulness of such interfaces across industries is undeniable. In this presentation, the state of the art of human-computer interfaces will be explored. We will examine the qualifications necessary for these technologies to replace traditional interface hardware and project how far this interface revolution can take us.

Signquote: A Remote Testing Facility For Eliciting Signed Qualitative Feedback, Jerry Schnepp, Rosalee Wolfe, Brent Shiver, John Mcdonald, Jorge Toro

Jerry C Schnepp

Sign synthesis is still an evolving technology and improving it requires the elicitation of qualitative feedback from users. Current options for acquiring qualitative feedback are limited. Face-toface tests conducted in sign language are expensive. On the other hand, remote tests do not use the preferred language of the test participants. A new tool, SignQUOTE, (Signed Qualitative Usability Online Testing Environment) is a configurable, cross platform remote testing system based entirely on sign language. It includes an innovative method for capturing qualitative feedback in sign language via webcam. In a comparison study, participants viewed animations of American Sign Language and gave …

Achieving Consistency In An Fk/Ik Interface For A Seven Degree Of Freedom Kinematic Chain, John Mcdonald, Rosalee Wolfe, Karen Alkoby, Roymeico Carter, Mary Jo Davidson, Jacob Furst, Damien Hinkle, Bret Knoll, Glenn Lancaster, Lori Smallwood, Nedjla Ougouag, Jerry Schnepp

Jerry C Schnepp

Conference proceedings from the 13th International Conference in Central Europe on Computer Graphics, Visualization and Interactive Digital Media-2005. Plzen, Czech Republic, February 2005, pp 171-179.

Combining Emotion And Facial Nonamanual Signals In Synthesized American Sign Language, Jerry Schnepp, Rosalee Wolfe, John Mcdonald, Jorge Toro

Jerry C Schnepp

Conference proceedings from the the 14th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility-2012. ASSETS '12. Boulder, CO, USA, October 22 - 24, 2012. New York, NY, USA: ACM. 249-250.

Synthetic Corpora: A Synergy Of Linguistics And Computer Animation, Jerry C. Schnepp, Rosalee Wolfe, John Mcdonald

Jerry C Schnepp

Synthetic corpora enable the creation of computer-generated animations depicting sign language and are the complement of corpora containing videotaped exemplars. Any design for a synthetic corpus needs to accommodate linguistic processes as well as support the generation of believable, acceptable synthesized utterances. This paper explores one possibility for representing linguistic and extralinguistic processes that involve the face and reports on the outcomes of a user test evaluating the clarity of utterances synthesized by this approach.

Voice Activated Display Of American Sign Language For Airport Security, Glenn Lancaster, Karen Alkoby, Jeff Campen, Roymieco Carter, Mary Jo Davidson, Dan Ethridge, Jacob Furst, Damien Hinkle, Bret Kroll, Ryan Layesa, Barbara Loeding, John Mcdonald, Nedjla Ougouag, Jerry Schnepp, Lori Smallwood, Prabhakar Srinivasan, Jorge Toro, Rosalee Wolfe

Jerry C Schnepp

Conference proceedings from the Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference-2003. California State University at Northridge, Los Angeles, CA March 17-22, 2003.

Improved Tool For Fingerspelling Recognition, Rosalee Wolfe, Nora Alba, Stacey Billups, Mary Jo Davidson, Cindy Dwyer, Diana Gorman Jamrozik, Lori Smallwood, Karen Alkoby, Lesley Carhart, Damien Hinkle, Amy Hitt, Brian Kirchman, Glenn Lancaster, John Mcdonald, Lindsay Semler, Jerry Schnepp, Brent Shiver, Anna Suh, Jeffrey Young

Jerry C Schnepp

Conference proceedings from the Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference-2006. California State University at Northridge, Los Angeles, CA March 20-25, 2006.

Generating Co-Occurring Facial Nonmanual Signals In Synthesized American Sign Language, Jerry Schnepp, Rosalee Wolfe, John Mcdonald, Jorge Toro

Jerry C Schnepp

Translating between English and American Sign Language (ASL) requires an avatar to display synthesized ASL. Essential to the language are nonmanual signals that appear on the face. In the past, these have posed a difficult challenge for signing avatars. Previous systems were hampered by an inability to portray simultaneously-occurring nonmanual signals on the face. This paper presents a method designed for supporting co-occurring nonmanual signals in ASL. Animations produced by the new system were tested with 40 members of the Deaf community in the United States. Participants identified all of the nonmanual signals even when they co-occurred. Co-occurring question nonmanuals …

Avatar To Depict Sign Language: Building From Reusable Hand Animation, Rosalee Wolfe, John Mcdonald, Jerry C. Schnepp

Jerry C Schnepp

No abstract provided.

Physical Intelligent Sensors, Pavan Bandhil, Sanjeevi Chitikeshi, Ajay Mahajan, Fernando Figueroa

Dr. Ajay Mahajan

This paper proposes the development of intelligent sensors as part of an integrated systems approach, i.e. one treats the sensors as a complete system with its own sensing hardware (the traditional sensor), A/D converters, processing and storage capabilities, software drivers, self-assessment algorithms, communication protocols and evolutionary methodologies that allow them to get better with time. Under a project being undertaken at the NASA s Stennis Space Center, an integrated framework is being developed for the intelligent monitoring of smart elements. These smart elements can be sensors, actuators or other devices. The immediate application is the monitoring of the rocket test …

A Novel Method To Create Intelligent Sensors With Learning Capabilities, Ajay Mahajan, Fernando Figueroa

Dr. Ajay Mahajan

A formal theory for the development of a generic model of an autonomous sensor is proposed and implemented. An autonomous sensor not only interprets the acquired data in accordance with an embedded expert system knowledge base, but is also capable of using this data to modify and enhance this knowledge base. Hence, the system is capable of learning and thereby improving its performance over time. The main objective of the model is to combine the capabilities of the physical sensor and an expert operator monitoring the sensor in real-time. The system has been successfully tested using various simulated data sets …

Crowdsourced Earthquake Early Warning, Sarah Minson, Benjamin Brooks, Craig Glennie, Jessica Murray, John Langbein, Susan Owen, Thomas Heaton, Robert Iannucci, Darren Hauser

Robert A Iannucci

Earthquake early warning (EEW) can reduce harm to people and infrastructure from earthquakes and tsunamis, but it has not been implemented in most high earthquake-risk regions because of prohibitive cost. Common consumer devices such as smartphones contain low-cost versions of the sensors used in EEW. Although less accurate than scientific-grade instruments, these sensors are globally ubiquitous. Through controlled tests of consumer devices, simulation of an Mw (moment magnitude) 7 earthquake on California’s Hayward fault, and real data from the Mw 9 Tohoku-oki earthquake, we demonstrate that EEW could be achieved via crowdsourcing.

Comparative Study Of Various Sdlc Models On Different Parameters, Innovative Research Publications Irp India, Prateek Sharma, Dhananjaya Singh

Innovative Research Publications IRP India

The success of a software development project greatly depends upon which process model is used. This paper emphasizes on the need of using appropriate model as per the application to be developed. In this paper we have done the comparative study of the following software models namely Waterfall, Prototype, RAD (Rapid Application Development) Incremental, Spiral, Build and Fix and V-shaped. Our aim is to create reliable and cost effective software and these models provide us a way to develop them. The main objective of this research is to represent different models of software development and make a comparison between them …

Institutional Maximization And Path Dependency – The Delay Of Implementation Of The Eu Public Sector Information Directive In Sweden, Jan Kallberg, Erik Lakomaa

Jan Kallberg

The implementation of the EU public sector information (PSI) directive was expected to open up European governmental data sources for commercialization and create, conservatively estimated, a € 32 billion European public information market. Institutional arrangements and governmental path dependency has delayed the directive’s implementation in several countries, most notably Poland and Sweden. In this paper we use the Swedish case to examine how bureaucratic inertia and path dependence can stall the implementation of EU directives that conflicts with the member state’s internal bureaucratic agenda. Sweden usually implements EU directives rapidly and extensively. In the case of the PSI-directive however, the …

A Memristor Device Model, Chris Yakopcic, Tarek Taha, Guru Subramanyam

Guru Subramanyam

This letter proposes a new mathematical model for memristor devices. It builds on existing models and is correlated against several published device characterizations. This letter identifies significant discrepancies between the existing models and published device characterization data. The proposed model addresses these discrepancies. In particular, it allows modeling of memristor-based neuromorphic systems.

Partition-Based Interpolation For Color Filter Array Demosaicking And Super-Resolution Reconstruction, Min Shao, Kenneth E. Barner, Russell C. Hardie

Russell C. Hardie

A class of partition-based interpolators that addresses a variety of image interpolation applications are proposed. The proposed interpolators first partition an image into a finite set of partitions that capture local image structures. Missing high resolution pixels are then obtained through linear operations on neighboring pixels that exploit the captured image structure. By exploiting the local image structure, the proposed algorithm produces excellent performance on both edge and uniform regions. The presented results demonstrate that partition-based interpolation yields results superior to traditional and advanced algorithms in the applications of color filter array (CFA) demosaicking and super-resolution reconstruction.

A Map Estimator For Simultaneous Superresolution And Detector Nonunifomity Correct, Russell Hardie, Douglas Droege

Russell C. Hardie

During digital video acquisition, imagery may be degraded by a number of phenomena including undersampling, blur, and noise. Many systems, particularly those containing infrared focal plane array (FPA) sensors, are also subject to detector nonuniformity. Nonuniformity, or fixed pattern noise, results from nonuniform responsivity of the photodetectors that make up the FPA. Here we propose a maximuma posteriori (MAP) estimation framework for simultaneously addressing undersampling, linear blur, additive noise, and bias nonuniformity. In particular, we jointly estimate a superresolution (SR) image and detector bias nonuniformity parameters from a sequence of observed frames. This algorithm can be applied to video in …

High-Resolution Image Reconstruction From Digital Video By Exploitation Of Nonglobal Motion, Timothy Tuinstra, Russell Hardie

Russell C. Hardie

Many imaging systems utilize detector arrays that do not sample the scene according to the Nyquist criterion. As a result, the higher spatial frequencies admitted by the optics are aliased. This creates undesirable artifacts in the imagery. Furthermore, the blurring effects of the optics and the finite detector size also degrade the image quality. Several approaches for increasing the sampling rate of imaging systems have been suggested in the literature. We propose an algorithm for resolution enhancement that exploits object motion in digital video sequences. Unlike previously defined techniques, we use an automated segmentation method to isolate rigid moving objects. …

Aliasing Reduction In Staring Infrared Imagers Utilizing Subpixel Techniques, Joseph C. Gillette, Thomas M. Stadtmiller, Russell C. Hardie

Russell C. Hardie

We introduce and analyze techniques for the reduction of aliased signal energy in a staring infrared imaging system. A standard staring system uses a fixed two-dimensional detector array that corresponds to a fixed spatial sampling frequency determined by the detector pitch or spacing. Aliasing will occur when sampling a scene containing spatial frequencies exceeding half the sampling frequency. This aliasing can significantly degrade the image quality. The aliasing reduction schemes presented here, referred to as microscanning, exploit subpixel shifts between time frames of an image sequence. These multiple images are used to reconstruct a single frame with reduced aliasing. If …

Design Of An Onboard Distributed Multiprocessing System For A Cubesat, Michael Wegerson, Jeremy Straub, Ronald Marsh

Jeremy Straub

The OpenOrbiter program aims to develop a low-cost framework to facilitate the development of CubeSat-class spacecraft (small spacecraft with nominal dimensions of 10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm) for a parts cost of less than $5,000. To validate the framework that has been developed, a prototype unit will also be fabricated and tested in low-Earth orbit. In addition to validating the development of Open Prototype for Educational Nanosats (OPEN) framework, the spacecraft will perform on-orbit science. One aspect of the science mission will be to demonstrate and characterize the efficacy of two types of image processing. To this …

Fundamentals And Applications Of Transducers Technology And Sensors In Measuring Methodology, Innovative Research Publications Irp India, Nwosu, A.W., Eke, V.O.C.

Innovative Research Publications IRP India

This paper deals on fundamentals and application of transducer technology and sensors in measuring techniques. Emphasis are laid on the principles of sensors and transducer technology, its application in measurement and their significance in data acquisition for micro-computer data based machine or automatic control systems .More so, the discussion exclusively appended improved applications of technology, expect and remote control systems.

Analysis Of A ‘Turn-Key’ No Hardware Space Mission Using The Orbital Services Model, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

Many applications that would benefit from access to space cannot afford the cost of spacecraft development, launch and operations. Other operations require only a fraction of a spacecraft or complete use of a spacecraft for a limited period of time. This paper considers the value of a ‘turn-key’ style space mission. It considers what types of missions could be reasonably conducted using this approach. The economics of being a service provider are considered. Then, a prospective mission concept for one OSM ‘turn-key’ mission is presented. The value proposition of this mission is assessed and the hardware and other capabilities required …

Nanosatellite Scheduling Using A Dictionary Module And A ‘Useful Trick’ With Coded Unsigned Integers, Monilito Castro, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

Schedulers for small spacecraft must satisfy the dual requirement of generating very efficient schedules while concurrently minimizing the resources required to create the schedule. This paper proposes a technique for searching for tasks that can be utilized to fill particular schedule locations. This approach is based on a modular system for storing important variables. This modular system has three important variables: t0, x0 and y0. The variable y is latitude and x is longitude. Time variable t is an integer and each unit represents a time quantum. They are related to each other by three functions Ft, Fx, and Fy. …

Swarm Intelligence, A Blackboard Architecture And Local Decision Making For Spacecraft Command, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

Control of a multi-spacecraft constellation is a topic of significant inquiry, at present. This paper presents and evaluates a command architecture for a multi-spacecraft mission. It combines swarm techniques with a decentralized / local decision making architecture (which uses a set of shared blackboards for coordination) and demonstrates the efficacy of this approach. Under this approach, the Blackboard software architecture is used to facilitate data sharing between craft as part of a resilient hierarchy and the swarm techniques are used to coordinate activity. The paper begins with an overview of prior work on the precursor command technologies and then presents …

Small Satellite Communications Security And Student Learning In The Development Of Ground Station Software, Scott Kerlin, Jeremy Straub, Jacob Huhn, Alexander Lewis

Jeremy Straub

Communications security is gaining importance as small spacecraft include actuator capabilities (i.e., propulsion), payloads which could be misappropriated (i.e., high resolution cameras), and research missions with high value/cost. However, security is limited by capability, interoperability and regulation. Additionally, as the small satellite community becomes more mainstream and diverse, the lack of cheap, limited-to-no configuration, pluggable security modules for small satellites also presents a limit for user adoption of security.

This paper discusses a prospective approach for incorporating robust security into a student-developed ground station created at the University of North Dakota as part of a Computer Science Department senior design …

Using Essence Reflection Meetings In Team-Based Project Courses, Todd Sedano, Cécile Péraire

Cécile Péraire

No abstract provided.