Other Computer Engineering Commons^™

A Hands-On Robotics Concentration Curricula In Engineering Technology Programs, Andy S. Zhang, Angran Xiao, Yu Wang, Farrukh Zia, Muhammad Ummy

Publications and Research

This paper discusses the creation of a robotic concentration with four courses to meet the industry demands for qualified graduates in product design and services. Advances in computer technology and electronics have created a new field called mechatronics. Nowadays almost all high tech products are mechatronics in nature. Products such as automotive subsystems (such as anti-lock braking systems and automatic steering systems), medical devices, environmental monitoring systems, service and surgical robots are all mechatronic products. The robotic concentration focus on one of the most popular and visible area of mechatronics: robotics. The creation of the four courses: Embedded Systems Fundamentals, …

Improved Iterative Truncated Arithmetic Mean Filter, Prathyusha Surampudi Venkata

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses image processing and filtering techniques with emphasis on Mean filter, Median filter, and different versions of the Iterative Truncated Arithmetic Mean (ITM) filter. Specifically, we review in detail the ITM algorithms (ITM1 and ITM2) proposed by Xudong Jiang. Although filtering is capable of reducing noise in an image, it usually also results in smoothening or some other form of distortion of image edges and file details. Therefore, maintaining a proper trade off between noise reduction and edge/detail distortion is key. In this thesis, an improvement over Xudong Jiang’s ITM filters, namely ITM3, has been proposed and tested …

Investigating Dataset Distinctiveness, Andrew Ulmer, Kent W. Gauen, Yung-Hsiang Lu, Zohar R. Kapach, Daniel P. Merrick

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Just as a human might struggle to interpret another human’s handwriting, a computer vision program might fail when asked to perform one task in two different domains. To be more specific, visualize a self-driving car as a human driver who had only ever driven on clear, sunny days, during daylight hours. This driver – the self-driving car – would inevitably face a significant challenge when asked to drive when it is violently raining or foggy during the night, putting the safety of its passengers in danger. An extensive understanding of the data we use to teach computer vision models – …

Spam Elimination And Bias Correction : Ensuring Label Quality In Crowdsourced Tasks., Lingyu Lyu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Crowdsourcing is proposed as a powerful mechanism for accomplishing large scale tasks via anonymous workers online. It has been demonstrated as an effective and important approach for collecting labeled data in application domains which require human intelligence, such as image labeling, video annotation, natural language processing, etc. Despite the promises, one big challenge still exists in crowdsourcing systems: the difficulty of controlling the quality of crowds. The workers usually have diverse education levels, personal preferences, and motivations, leading to unknown work performance while completing a crowdsourced task. Among them, some are reliable, and some might provide noisy feedback. It is …

How Much Privacy Do We Have Today? A Study Of The Life Of Marc Mezvinsky, Miguel Mares, Salomon Gilles, Brian D. Gobran, Dan Engels

SMU Data Science Review

In this paper, we present a case study evaluating the level of information available about an individual through public, Internet-accessible sources. Privacy is a basic tenet of democratic society, but technological advances have made access to information and the identification of individuals much easier through Internet-accessible databases and information stores. To determine the potential level of privacy available to an individual in today’s interconnected world, we sought to develop a detailed history of Marc Mezvinsky, a semi-public figure, husband of Chelsea Clinton, and son of two former members of the United States House of Representatives. By utilizing only publicly and …

Retrieval Of Infotainment System Artifacts From Vehicles Using Ive, Celia J. Whelan, John Sammons, Brian Mcmanus, Terry W. Fenger

Journal of Applied Digital Evidence

The analysis of mobile devices and hard drives has been the focus of the digital forensics world for years, but there is another source of potential evidence not often considered: vehicles. Many of today’s “connected cars” have systems that function like computers, storing information they process including user data from devices synced to the system. There has been little to no research done regarding what types of user artifacts can be found on the system, how long these artifacts remain, whether or not the user can remove those artifacts, and whether certain systems provide more information than others. For this …

Power Laws In Complex Graphs: Parsimonious Generative Models, Similarity Testing Algorithms, And The Origins, Shan Lu

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation mainly discussed topics related to power law graphs, including graph similarity testing algorithms and power law generative models. For graph similarity testing, we proposed a method based on the mathematical theory of diffusion over manifolds using random walks over graphs. We show that our method not only distinguishes between graphs with different degree distributions, but also graphs with the same degree distributions. We compare the undirected power law graphs generated by Barabasi-Albert model and directed power law graphs generated by Krapivsky's model to the random graphs generated by Erdos-Renyi model. We also compare power law graphs generated by …

Intelligent Computational Transportation, Yuming Zhang

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

Transportation is commonplace around our world. Numerous researchers dedicate great efforts to vast transportation research topics. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate and address a couple of transportation problems with respect to geographic discretization, pavement surface automatic examination, and traffic ow simulation, using advanced computational technologies. Many applications require a discretized 2D geographic map such that local information can be accessed efficiently. For example, map matching, which aligns a sequence of observed positions to a real-world road network, needs to find all the nearby road segments to the individual positions. To this end, the map is discretized by …

A Simplified Secure Programming Platform For Internet Of Things Devices, Halim Burak Yesilyurt

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The emerging Internet of Things (IoT) revolution has introduced many useful applications that are utilized in our daily lives. Users can program these devices in order to develop their own IoT applications; however, the platforms and languages that are used during development are abounding, complicated, and time-consuming. The software solution provided in this thesis, PROVIZ+, is a secure sensor application development software suite that helps users create sophisticated and secure IoT applications with little software and hardware experience. Moreover, a simple and efficient domain-specific programming language, namely Panther language, was designed for IoT application development to unify existing programming languages. …

Multiple-Change-Point Modeling And Exact Bayesian Inference Of Degradation Signal For Prognostic Improvement, Yuxin Wen, Jianguo Wu, Qiang Matthew Zhou, Tzu-Liang Bill Tseng

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

Prognostics play an increasingly important role in modern engineering systems for smart maintenance decision-making. In parametric regression-based approaches, the parametric models are often too rigid to model degradation signals in many applications. In this paper, we propose a Bayesian multiple-change-point (CP) modeling framework to better capture the degradation path and improve the prognostics. At the offline modeling stage, a novel stochastic process is proposed to model the joint prior of CPs and positions. All hyperparameters are estimated through an empirical two-stage process. At the online monitoring and remaining useful life (RUL) prediction stage, a recursive updating algorithm is developed to …

Investigating On Through Glass Via Based Rf Passives For 3-D Integration, Libo Qian, Jifei Sang, Yinshui Xia, Jian Wang, Peiyi Zhao

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Due to low dielectric loss and low cost, glass is developed as a promising material for advanced interposers in 2.5-D and 3-D integration. In this paper, through glass vias (TGVs) are used to implement inductors for minimal footprint and large quality factor. Based on the proposed physical structure, the impact of various process and design parameters on the electrical characteristics of TGV inductors is investigated with 3-D electromagnetic simulator HFSS. It is observed that TGV inductors have identical inductance and larger quality factor in comparison with their through silicon via counterparts. Using TGV inductors and parallel plate capacitors, a compact …

Delegation Application, Erik Matthew Phillips

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Delegation is a cross-platform application to provide smart task distribution to users. In a team environment, the assignment of tasks can be tedious and difficult for management or for users needing to discover a starting place for where to begin with accomplishing tasks. Within a specific team, members possess individual skills within different areas of the team’s responsibilities and specialties, and certain members will be better suited to tackle specific tasks. This project provides a solution, consisting of a smart cross-platform application that allows for teams and individuals to quickly coordinate and delegate tasks assigned to them.

Forumsphere.Com, Nicholas Scott Gatehouse, Sam Robert Rastovich

Computer Science and Software Engineering

We live in the Age of Information & Technology where social media has become an integral part of our society. Social media platforms such as Facebook help bring people and ideas together in one place. However, currently there is no centralized hub on the internet that is geared towards individual college campuses. Our goal is to create an environment that promotes structured and productive discussion between students, alumni, and staff. A platform like ours is needed to bring a campus closer if the community is willing and able to help one another.

There are other platforms that focus on social …

Generalized Featured Product Page, Andrew J. Pirondini

Computer Science and Software Engineering

The goal of my senior project was to generalize the process of creating featured product pages with iFixit. Featured product pages are pages with custom content describing an individual product such as text blurbs, images, and even some responsive components. These do not have a simple template like products you might see on Amazon but instead involve scrolling through a variable amount of content.

In order to generalize these, each part of the page was broken into discrete components that contain custom content. There are components for images, paragraph blurbs, lists, footers and more. These components are implemented with React …

Home Weather Station, Jarrett William Corr

Computer Engineering

This senior project implements a mobile weather station that can relay weather data to an indoor module with an LCD display. The outdoor module utilizes a temperature, humidity, and pressure sensor to collect atmospheric weather data and a radio transceiver to transmit the data to a display station via radio frequency communications. The indoor station displays the temperature, humidity and time with an LCD display. The indoor station has a settings menu which allows the user to configure the unit of measurement for the temperature and time where the device is located.

Dynamic Video Streaming For Nano Quadcopters, Shane Daniel Kent, Ryan Weideman, Nicholas Kimball

Computer Engineering

The objective of this project was to develop a system that streams real-time video from a Crazyflie 2.0 nano quadcopter. We discuss the motivation behind the project including applications to swarm robotics and computer vision research. We highlight the initial research and design goals that guided the development of the system such as hardware selection and system specifications. We detail the software and hardware subsystems that we implemented including the video-streaming board, firmware, and video-streaming user application. We examine the performance of the final system and discuss the limitations imposed by the hardware. We conclude by describing future work that …

Abbott Alarm System, Galen Wu

Computer Engineering

In order to improve production efficiency of implantable cardioverter defibrillators, the Sylmar’s Abbott product manufacturing team requested assistance from the Sylmar hardware development team to construct a system to monitor a UB25, a resistance welder. This system shall monitor the welder for false welds, regulate the number of welds the operator executes, and alerts the operator and floor supervisor of these events. These tasks will ultimately improve the quality of the product and decrease the risk and cost to the customer.

Tracking Eye Movements Over Source Code, Faith Chan

Computer Engineering

Studies on software developers’ behavior guide the development of tools that facilitate source code reading and reviewing. Eye trackers have allowed researchers to study this behavior in more detail–to pinpoint where the developer is looking, or even to detect which source code element the developer is viewing. However, systems that map gaze to characteristics as specific as source code elements are often expensive, either because of the cost of compatible eye trackers or because of the cost of the required software. This project aims to use existing technology to create a lower-cost system that provides information on the source code …

Otd 360 Corsa Plate And Pcb Recreation, Patrick Ryan Malapira

Computer Engineering

Mechanical keyboards have a rich history alongside the development of personal computers with keyboards from leading manufacturers such as IBM and Apple, which are sought after by today’s enthusiast. As the hobby matured and hobbyist began straying from original equipment manufacturer, OEM, mechanical keyboards, enthusiasts sought to create their own keyboards.The custom mechanical keyboard hobby’s origins can be traced back to Korea on an online forum otd.kr. Custom mechanical keyboards has progressed far past the provided OEM solutions focusing on various aspects such as ergonomics, programmability, and portability. In today’s do it yourself, DIY, culture, hobbyists can play a role …

Career Path Web Application, Annamarie Roger

Computer Science and Software Engineering

This web application provides a new approach to organizing career advice. It allows a prospective student to outline career priorities and receive suggestions drawing from a repository of reports from professionals in their respective fields. This gives the student access to advice from individuals who do not know the user personally and aims to remove the possible bias that may exist on that level. Furthermore, the system is periodically updated to include recent reports.

Vehicle Pseudonym Association Attack Model, Pierson Yieh

Master's Theses

With recent advances in technology, Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) have grown in application. One of these areas of application is Vehicle Safety Communication (VSC) technology. VSC technology allows for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications that enhance vehicle safety and driving experience. However, these newly developing technologies bring with them a concern for the vehicular privacy of drivers. Vehicles already employ the use of pseudonyms, unique identifiers used with signal messages for a limited period of time, to prevent long term tracking. But can attackers still attack vehicular privacy even when vehicles employ a pseudonym change strategy? The major contribution …

Portable High-Definition Audio Spectrum Analyzer, Alex Zahn, Jamie Corr

Electrical Engineering

The Portable High-definition Audio Spectrum Analyzer (PHASA) allows the user to visualize the audio frequency spectrum of an incoming line-level stereo audio signal. Upon pressing the touch screen spectrum graph, the PHASA displays the corresponding frequency and volume levels as well as crosshairs at the touched location. The PHASA features multiple left/right channel display modes— Left channel only, right channel only, both channels simultaneously, and the average between the two channels. The PHASA features multiple resolution display modes (standard-resolution and high-resolution) and multiple dynamics display modes (standard dynamics, averaging, and peak/hold). The PHASA accepts input audio via a 1/4" TRS …

Collision Avoidance Smartphone, Matt Columbres, Aaron Parisi, Joey Schnecker, Luis Wong

Electrical Engineering

There are many instances in day-to-day life where people cannot or would rather not pay full attention to their surroundings. Walking while preoccupied with a smartphone or walking while blind are excellent examples where technology could be used to make the task of avoiding 2collisions reactive, instead of proactive. A device which monitors a user’s surroundings and notifies the user when a potential collision is detected (and, additionally, notifying them as to where the obstacle is with respect to them) could be used to make walking distracted less of a hazard for the user and those around the user and …

Developing, Evaluating, And Demonstrating An Open Source Gateway And Mobile Application For The Smartfarm Decision Support System, Caleb D. Fink

Master's Theses

The purpose of this research is to design, develop, evaluate, and demonstrate an open source gateway and mobile application for the SmartFarm open source decision support system to improve agricultural stewardship, environmental conservation, and provide farmers with a system that they own. There are very limited options for an open source gateway for collecting data on the farm. The options available are: expensive, require professional maintenance, are not portable between systems, improvements are made only by the manufacturer, limited in customization options, difficult to operate, and data is owned by the company rather than the farmer. The gateway is designed …

Funqual: User-Defined, Statically-Checked Call Graph Constraints In C++, Andrew P. Nelson

Master's Theses

Static analysis tools can aid programmers by reporting potential programming mistakes prior to the execution of a program. Funqual is a static analysis tool that reads C++17 code ``in the wild'' and checks that the function call graph follows a set of rules which can be defined by the user. This sort of analysis can help the programmer to avoid errors such as accidentally calling blocking functions in time-sensitive contexts or accidentally allocating memory in heap-sensitive environments. To accomplish this, we create a type system whereby functions can be given user-defined type qualifiers and where users can define their own …

Towards Autonomous Localization Of An Underwater Drone, Nathan Sfard

Master's Theses

Autonomous vehicle navigation is a complex and challenging task. Land and aerial vehicles often use highly accurate GPS sensors to localize themselves in their environments. These sensors are ineffective in underwater environments due to signal attenuation. Autonomous underwater vehicles utilize one or more of the following approaches for successful localization and navigation: inertial/dead-reckoning, acoustic signals, and geophysical data. This thesis examines autonomous localization in a simulated environment for an OpenROV Underwater Drone using a Kalman Filter. This filter performs state estimation for a dead reckoning system exhibiting an additive error in location measurements. We evaluate the accuracy of this Kalman …

Polycommit: Building Better Habits Through Gamification, Elliot Fiske

Master's Theses

Computer-assisted learning is older than Turing machines, and constantly evolves as technology improves. While some teachers are resistant to using technology in the classroom, “e-learning” techniques are becoming more common in almost every school, from K-12 to universities. As technology becomes more widespread, it becomes crucial to examine the various methodologies of computer-assisted learning and find the techniques that are most effective.

This paper explores the effectiveness of one such methodology, spaced repetition. This technique applies to homework assignments available to students online. We include an exploration of several existing apps that use this technique, and introduce our own novel …

Leave The Features: Take The Cannoli, Jonathan Joseph Catanio

Master's Theses

Programming languages like Python, JavaScript, and Ruby are becoming increasingly popular due to their dynamic capabilities. These languages are often much easier to learn than other, statically type checked, languages such as C++ or Rust. Unfortunately, these dynamic languages come at the cost of losing compile-time optimizations. Python is arguably the most popular language for data scientists and researchers in the artificial intelligence and machine learning communities. As this research becomes increasingly popular, and the problems these researchers face become increasingly computationally expensive, questions are being raised about the performance of languages like Python. Language features found in Python, more …

Mastering The Game Of Gomoku Without Human Knowledge, Yuan Wang

Master's Theses

Gomoku, also called Five in a row, is one of the earliest checkerboard games invented by humans. For a long time, it has brought countless pleasures to us. We humans, as players, also created a lot of skills in playing it. Scientists normalize and enter these skills into the computer so that the computer knows how to play Gomoku. However, the computer just plays following the pre-entered skills, it doesn’t know how to develop these skills by itself. Inspired by Google’s AlphaGo Zero, in this thesis, by combining the technologies of Monte Carlo Tree Search, Deep Neural Networks, and Reinforcement …

Resource Brokering In Grid Computing, Adrian T. Bienkowski

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Grid Computing has emerged in the academia and evolved towards the bases of what is currently known as Cloud Computing and Internet of Things (IoT). The vast collection of resources that provide the nature for Grid Computing environment is very complex; multiple administrative domains control access and set policies to the shared computing resources. It is a decentralized environment with geographically distributed computing and storage resources, where each computing resource can be modeled as an autonomous computing entity, yet collectively can work together. This is a class of Cooperative Distributed Systems (CDS). We extend this by applying characteristic of open …