Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons^™

Blockchain Design For A Secure Pharmaceutical Supply Chain, Zhe Xu

Masters Theses

In the realm of pharmaceuticals, particularly during the challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic, the supply chain for drugs has faced significant strains. The increased demand for vaccines and therapeutics has revealed critical weaknesses in the current drug supply chain management systems. If not addressed, these challenges could lead to severe societal impacts, including the rise of counterfeit medications and diminishing trust in government authorities.

The study identified that more than the current strategies, such as the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) in the U.S., which focuses on unique authentication and traceability codes for prescription drugs, is needed to …

Singular Integration By Interpolation For Integral Equations, Ioannis Kyriakou

Doctoral Dissertations

Maxwell’s equations and the laws of Electromagnetics (EM) govern a plethora of electrical, optical phenomena with applications on wireless, cellular, communications, medical and computer hardware technologies to name a few. A major contributor to the technological progress in these areas has been due to the development of simulation and design tools that enable engineers and scientists to model, analyze and predict the EM interactions in their systems of interest. At the core of such tools is the field of Computational Electromagnetics (CEM), which studies the solution of Maxwell’s equations with the aid of computers. The advances in these applications technologies, …

Planar Ultra-Wideband Modular Antenna (Puma) Arrays For High-Volume Manufacturing On Organic Laminates And Bga Interfaces, James R. Lacroix

Masters Theses

This work proposes wideband and broadband Planar Ultra-wideband Modular Antenna (PUMA) arrays designed to improve cost and reliability for high production volume commercial and military applications. The designs feature simplified PCB stack-ups with high dielectric constant (Dk) dimensionally stable materials to improve the manufacturing cost and yield. Additionally, the packages use ball grid array (BGA) interconnects, commonly used in digital electronics, for simple solder reflow integration with radio frequency (RF) electronics. While high Dk materials present practical manufacturing benefits, theoretical background will show how and why PUMA arrays lose frequency bandwidth and scan volume with high Dk materials. Further, a …

Sustainable Computing - Without The Hot Air, Noman Bashir, David Irwin, Prashant Shenoy, Abel Souza

Publications

The demand for computing is continuing to grow exponentially. This growth will translate to exponential growth in computing's energy consumption unless improvements in its energy-efficiency can outpace increases in its demand. Yet, after decades of research, further improving energy-efficiency is becoming increasingly challenging, as it is already highly optimized. As a result, at some point, increases in computing demand are likely to outpace increases in its energy-efficiency, potentially by a wide margin. Such exponential growth, if left unchecked, will position computing as a substantial contributor to global carbon emissions. While prominent technology companies have recognized the problem and sought to …

Metasurface Design And Optimization With Adjoint Method, Mahdad Mansouree

Doctoral Dissertations

The invention and advancement of optical devices have tremendously changed our life. Devices such as cameras, displays and optical sensors are now an integral part of our lives. Moreover, with the rapid growth in new markets such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), autonomous vehicles and internet of things (IoT) the need for optical devices is expected to grow considerably. Recent advances in nano-fabrication techniques have spurred a new wave of interest in optical metasurfaces. Metasurfaces are arrays of wisely selected nano-scattereres that generate desired transformation on the incident light. Metasurfaces provide a new platform for the development of …

Numerical Simulation Of Thermoelectric Transport In Bulk And Nanostructured Sisn Alloys, Venkatakrishna Dusetty

Masters Theses

The current high demand for sustainable and renewable energy sources to solve world energy crisis has enormously increased interest in looking at alternative sources of energy. All the machines used in manufacturing process, electricity generation, residential applications, transportation etc., rejects energy in the form of heat into environment. Thermoelectric materials can convert thermal-to-electrical and electrical-to-thermal energy and can be utilized in waste-heat harvesting, more efficient cooling to reduce energy usage and CO₂ emissions. Significant research efforts have been devoted over the past decade to thermoelectric materials, with particular emphasis being placed on combining materials selection with nanostructuring. The overarching …

Anti-Jam Gps Controlled Reception Pattern Antennas For Man-Portable Applications, Jeffrey A. Maloney

Doctoral Dissertations

Military GPS receivers provide crucial information to soldiers in the field, however, the performance of these devices is degraded by in band RF interference, making GPS susceptible to jamming. Anti-jam techniques for aircraft and vehicular platforms have been developed, but at present there is no system for dismounted soldiers. There is a need for an anti-jam system which meets the demands of a dismounted soldier and conforms to the size, weight, and power requirements of a portable device. A controlled reception pattern antenna, or CRPA, is a potential solution for jammer mitigation. These devices work by steering reception pattern nulls …

Bandwidth Bounds Of Infinite Planar Array Elements, Hsieh-Chi Chang

Doctoral Dissertations

For elements of an infinite planar phased array in free space and an infinite conductor-backed free standing planar phased array, fundamental bandwidth bounds are derived from the optical theorem for periodic scatterers. The bounds are based on Gustafsson’s theory of fundamental bandwidth limits for electrically small antennas of arbitrary shape, but extended to periodic configurations. The element bandwidth bound is found to be a function of the strengths of the induced static dipole moments in constant background fields as well as the unit-cell dimensions and the scan angle. Explicit bandwidth bound expressions are found for narrowband and ultrawideband array cases. …

Function And Dissipation In Finite State Automata - From Computing To Intelligence And Back, Natesh Ganesh

Doctoral Dissertations

Society has benefited from the technological revolution and the tremendous growth in computing powered by Moore's law. However, we are fast approaching the ultimate physical limits in terms of both device sizes and the associated energy dissipation. It is important to characterize these limits in a physically grounded and implementation-agnostic manner, in order to capture the fundamental energy dissipation costs associated with performing computing operations with classical information in nano-scale quantum systems. It is also necessary to identify and understand the effect of quantum in-distinguishability, noise, and device variability on these dissipation limits. Identifying these parameters is crucial to designing …

Analog Computing Using 1t1r Crossbar Arrays, Yunning Li

Masters Theses

Memristor is a novel passive electronic device and a promising candidate for new generation non-volatile memory and analog computing. Analog computing based on memristors has been explored in this study. Due to the lack of commercial electrical testing instruments for those emerging devices and crossbar arrays, we have designed and built testing circuits to implement analog and parallel computing operations. With the setup developed in this study, we have successfully demonstrated image processing functions utilizing large memristor crossbar arrays. We further designed and experimentally demonstrated the first memristor based field programmable analog array (FPAA), which was successfully configured for audio …

Immersive Pre-Travel Training Application For Seniors And People With Disabilities, Yang Li

Masters Theses

The ability to travel independently by using public transportation is important to everyone. However, that is a very difficult task for seniors and people with disabilities since it may cause anxiety when they use unfamiliar transportation venues. Therefore, many seniors and people with disabilities use paratransit services instead of public transportation such as the subway and buses. However, the cost of paratransit services is prohibitive and growing due to the increase in the number of seniors and people with disabilities.

This master thesis project presents an immersive pre-travel training application for seniors and people with disabilities. It will help them …

Indoor Navigation For The Blind And Visually Impaired: Validation And Training Methodology Using Virtual Reality, Sili Wang

Masters Theses

In this thesis we propose a navigation instruction validation tool and an user training tool for PERCEPT system.

The validation tool evaluates the navigation instructions using a virtual reality environment by ensuring that each path in the virtual environment can be traversed by following the navigation instructions. This validation tool will serve as a first automatic validation of navigation instructions prior to testing them with blind and visually impaired users.

The user-training tool enables the blind user to explore and get familiar with the real environment by using the virtual environment generated in the Unity3d based game. The user interacts …

Low Cross-Polarization Vivaldi Arrays, John Logan

Doctoral Dissertations

Ultra-wideband (UWB) electronically scanned arrays (ESA) with high efficiency, excellent polarization agility, and wide-scan matching remain essential for servicing multifunctional RF front-ends and other communications, sensing, and jamming or countermeasure systems. To this day, the most popular antenna array element in modern UWB-ESA systems is the Vivaldi, or flared notch, due to its superior wide-scan wide impedance bandwidth, well-known design guidelines, and practical embodiment versatility. Despite their popularity, these arrays tend to radiate unacceptably high cross-polarization levels, thus encouraging a great research opportunity. This dissertation presents the theory and design of a new class of UWB-ESAs, termed Sliced Notch Antenna …

Localization, Visualization And Evacuation Guidance System In Emergency Situations, Jingyan Tang

Masters Theses

Urban search and rescue is needed for a variety of emergencies or disasters, including tornadoes, floods, dam failures, technological accidents, and terrorist activities. The efficiency to save people is becoming very important. With the development of the technology, people are trying to find a better way to help people get out of the dangerous places as soon as possible. DIORAMA system has been proposed to help with this problem and turns out very successful on improving efficiency during emergency situation. However, the current DIORAMA system is not perfect for all scenarios, for example, there are some outdoor environments do not …

Integrated Solar Technologies With Outdoor Pedestrian Bridge Superstructure Decking, Richard K. Racz

Masters Theses

Solar technology has been a major topic in sustainable design for many years. In the last five years, however, the solar technology industry has seen a rapid growth in installations and technological advances in cell design. Combined with a rapidly declining overall system cost, the idea of introducing solar technology into a wider range of applications is becoming a focus for engineers and scientists around the world. So many variables which alter solar energy production, such as the sun and surrounding environment, determine whether a solar design is beneficial. This thesis presents a bridge deck surface integrated with solar cells …

Point Of Care Diagnostics And Health Monitoring Devices, Akshaya Shanmugam

Doctoral Dissertations

Existing disease screening methods mostly rely on symptom based diagnosis. This is mainly because of lack of accessibility and cost associated with the tests. Testing for the presence of the disease after the onset of symptoms has a negative impact on chances of survival and treatment costs. Miniaturized low cost diagnostic devices that can be used outside the hospital setting can provide continuous health monitoring and aid in early diagnosis. This thesis presents techniques to develop such disease screening and health monitoring devices. The techniques presented here focus on medical devices that can benefit from microfluidic devices, fluorescence imaging, and …

Development Of Prototypes Of A Portable Road Weather Information System, Meha Kainth

Masters Theses

Weather conditions have significant impact on road safety and roadway maintenance operations. Road Weather Information Systems (RWIS) play a significant role in providing weather and surface conditions to transportation agencies to monitor weather events. Fixed installations of RWIS are used for weather and pavement surface monitoring. However, permanent fixture installations may not be feasible due to reasons such as cost, accessibility to the site, siting concerns, and terrain. Portable RWIS provide a cost-effective solution in areas where permanent weather station installation is not possible. This study discusses use and benefits of the portable RWIS and outlines the issues involved in …

Improving Sea-Surface Remote Sensing Of Ocean Wind Vectors By Scatterometers, Joseph W. Sapp

Doctoral Dissertations

Though scatterometers have been used to sense global ocean surface wind vectors for over 40 years, there remain some significant shortcomings. The largest problems appear in retrieving the wind vector when the ocean is being driven by high wind speeds or when rain is present in the beam-illuminated volume. Geophysical model functions (GMFs) developed using data from high-wind events can improve retrievals at high wind speeds, but only if sufficient ground truth measurements exist in the scatterometer swath. Airborne scatterometers, such as the Imaging Wind and Rain Airborne Profiler (IWRAP) developed by the Microwave Remote Sensing Laboratory (MIRSL) at the …

Propagation Prediction Over Random Rough Surface By Zeroth Order Induced Current Density, Narayana Srinivasan Balu

Masters Theses

Electromagnetic wave propagation over random sea surfaces is a classical problem of interest for the Navy, and significant research has been done over the years. Here we make use of numerical and analytical methods to predict the propagation of microwaves over random rough surface. The numerical approach involves utilization of the direct solution (using Volterra integral equation of the second kind) to currents induced on a rough surface due to forward propagating waves to compute the scattered field. The mean scattered field is computed using the Monte-Carlo method. Since the exact solution (consisting of an infinite series) to induced current …

Millimeter Wave Indium Phosphide Heterojunction Bipolar Transistors: Noise Performance And Circuit Applications, Metin Ayata

Masters Theses

The performance of III-V heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) has improved significantly over the past two decades. Today’s state of the art Indium Phosphide (InP) HBTs have a maximum frequency of oscillation greater than 800 GHz and have been used to realize an amplifier operating above 600 GHz . In comparison to silicon (Si) based devices, III-V HBTs have superior transport properties that enables a higher gain, higher speed, and noise performance, and much higher Johnson figure- of-merit . From this perspective, the InP HBT is one of the most promising candidates for high performance mixed signal electronic systems.

Beam Steering Control System For Low-Cost Phased Array Weather Radars: Design And Calibration Techniques, Rafael H. Medina-Sanchez

Doctoral Dissertations

Phase array antennas are a promising technology for weather surveillance radars. Their fast beam steering capability offer the potential of improving weather observations and extending warning lead times. However, one major problem associated with this technology is their high acquisition cost to be use in networked radar systems. One promising technology that could have a significant impact in the deployment of future dense networks of short-range X-band weather radars is the ``Phase-Tilt Radar'', a system that uses a one-dimensional phase scanned antenna array mounted over a tilting mechanism. This dissertation addresses some of specific challenges that arise in designing and …

Post Hoc Indoor Localization Based On Rss Fingerprint In Wlan, Hao Huang

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

In the investigation of crimes committed by wireless users, one of the key goals is to determine the location of the mobile device at the time of the crime. Since this happens during the investigative phase after the crime is committed, we term this the post hoc geographical localization estimation problem. In this thesis, we introduce the post hoc geographical localization estimation problem and present approaches for its solution based on radio frequency (RF) fingerprinting. Motivated by the goal of establishing a crime's location with enough accuracy to obtain a search warrant, our focus is on locating a criminal mobile …

A Non-Linear Eigensolver-Based Alternative To Traditional Self-Consistent Electronic Structure Calculation Methods, Brendan E. Gavin

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

This thesis presents a means of enhancing the iterative calculation techniques used in electronic structure calculations, particularly Kohn-Sham DFT. Based on the subspace iteration method of the FEAST eigenvalue solving algorithm, this nonlinear FEAST algorithm (NLFEAST) improves the convergence rate of traditional iterative methods and dramatically improves their robustness. A description of the algorithm is given, along with the results of numerical experiments that demonstrate its effectiveness and offer insight into the factors that determine how well it performs.

Critical Area Driven Dummy Fill Insertion To Improve Manufacturing Yield, Nishant Dhumane

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Non-planar surface may cause incorrect transfer of patterns during lithography. In today’s IC manufacturing, chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) is used for topographical planarization. Since polish rates for metals and oxides are different, dummy metal fills in layout is used to minimize post-CMP thickness variability. Traditional metal fill solutions focus on satisfying density target determined by layout density analysis techniques. These solutions may potentially reduce yield by increasing probability of failure (POF) due to particulate defects and also impact design performance. Layout design solutions that minimize POF and also improve surface planarity via dummy fill insertions have competing requirements for line …

Scheduling Heuristics For Maximizing The Output Quality Of Iris Task Graphs In Multiprocessor Environment With Time And Energy Bounds, Rajeswaran Chockalingapuram Ravindran

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Embedded real time applications are often subject to time and energy constraints. Real time applications are usually characterized by logically separable set of tasks with precedence constraints. The computational effort behind each of the task in the system is responsible for a physical functionality of the embedded system. In this work we mainly define theoretical models for relating the quality of the physical func- tionality to the computational load of the tasks and develop optimization problems to maximize the quality of the system subject to various constraints like time and energy. Specifically, the novelties in this work are three fold. …

A Theoretical Approach To Fault Analysis And Mitigation In Nanoscale Fabrics, Md Muwyid Uzzaman Khan

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

High defect rates are associated with novel nanodevice-based systems owing to unconventional and self-assembly based manufacturing processes. Furthermore, in emerging nanosystems, fault mechanisms and distributions may be very different from CMOS due to unique physical layer aspects, and emerging circuit and logic styles. Thus, theoretical fault models for nanosystems are necessary to extract detailed characteristics of fault generation and propagation. Using the intuition garnered from the theoretical analysis, modular and structural redundancy schemes can be specifically tailored to the intricacies of the fabric in order to achieve higher reliability of output signals.

In this thesis, we develop a detailed analytical …

Inversion Of Marine Radar Imagery To Surface Realizations And Dual-Polarization Analysis, Brian Paulsen

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

The ocean influences global weather patterns, stores and transports heat, and supports entire ecosystems. An area of interest is the relationship between the observed backscattered power received by a surface-based marine radar and the ocean surface topography. Current methods for obtaining surface elevation maps involve either in situ devices, which only provide point measurements, or an interferometric radar, which can be costly. During the late 1990's and early 2000's a radar was built at UMass, called the Focused Phased Array Imaging Radar II (FOPAIR II), and deployed at a several locations. A method is discussed to determine a transfer function …

Automated Detection And Counting Of Pedestrians On An Urban Roadside, Gayatri D. Prabhu

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

This thesis implements an automated system that counts pedestrians with 85% accuracy. Two approaches have been considered and evaluated in terms of count accuracy, cost and ease of deployment. The first approach employs the Autoscope Solo Terra, a traffic camera which is widely used to monitor vehicular traffic. The Solo Terra supports an image processing-based detector that counts the number of objects crossing user-defined areas in the captured image. The count is updated based on the amount of movement across the selected regions. Therefore, a second approach has been considered that uses a histogram of oriented gradients (HoG), an advanced …

Efficient Modeling Techniques For Time-Dependent Quantum System With Applications To Carbon Nanotubes, Zuojing Chen

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

The famous Moore's law states: Since the invention of the integrated circuit, the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit has increased exponentially, doubling approximately every two years. As a result of the downscaling of the size of the transistor, quantum effects have become increasingly important while affecting significantly the device performances. Nowadays, at the nanometer scale, inter-atomic interactions and quantum mechanical properties need to be studied extensively. Device and material simulations are important to achieve these goals because they are flexible and less expensive than experiments. They are also important for designing and characterizing new …