Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons^™

Hand Movement Detection In Collaborative Learning Environment Videos, Callie J. Darsey

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

Human activity detection in digital videos is currently attracting significant research interest. This problem is especially challenging for video datasets that have a lot of human activity, illumination noise, and structural noise. The video dataset associated with the Advancing Out of School Learning in Mathematics and Engineering (AOLME) project has these challenges. ALOME videos have been used in the study of human activities “in the wild”.

This thesis explores detection of hand movement using color and optical flow. Exploratory analysis considered the problem component wise on components created from thresholds applied to motion and color. The proposed approach uses patch …

Analog Signal Processing Solutions And Design Of Memristor-Cmos Analog Co-Processor For Acceleration Of High-Performance Computing Applications, Nihar Athreyas

Doctoral Dissertations

Emerging applications in the field of machine vision, deep learning and scientific simulation require high computational speed and are run on platforms that are size, weight and power constrained. With the transistor scaling coming to an end, existing digital hardware architectures will not be able to meet these ever-increasing demands. Analog computation with its rich set of primitives and inherent parallel architecture can be faster, more efficient and compact for some of these applications. The major contribution of this work is to show that analog processing can be a viable solution to this problem. This is demonstrated in the three …

Non-Gnss Smartphone Pedestrian Navigation Using Barometric Elevation And Digital Map-Matching, Daniel Broyles, Kyle J. Kauffman, John F. Raquet, Piotr Smagowski

Faculty Publications

Pedestrian navigation in outdoor environments where global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) are unavailable is a challenging problem. Existing technologies that have attempted to address this problemoften require external reference signals or specialized hardware, the extra size,weight, power, and cost of which are unsuitable for many applications. This article presents a real-time, self-contained outdoor navigation application that uses only the existing sensors on a smartphone in conjunction with a preloaded digital elevation map. The core algorithm implements a particle filter, which fuses sensor data with a stochastic pedestrian motion model to predict the user’s position. The smartphone’s barometric elevation is then …

Using Principle Component Analysis Of Spectral Mixtures To Analyze Tertiary And Four End-Member Mixtures Containing Carbonates And Olivine, David Burnett

Pence-Boyce STEM Student Scholarship

CRISM images from Mars are expected to contain carbonates such as magnesite [1]. Prior research has been successfully able to determine the approximate percent composition of phyllosilicates in binary lab mixtures using Principle Component Analysis (PCA) [2]. In order to expand this model to work on CRISM images, one of preliminary steps is allowing the algorithm to work on mixtures with more than two components.

Improvements For Vision-Based Navigation Of Small, Fixed-Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Robert C. Leishman, Jeremy Gray, John F. Raquet, Adam Rutkowski

Faculty Publications

Investigating alternative navigation approaches for use when GPS signals are unavailable is an active area of research across the globe. In this paper we focus on the navigation of small, fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that employ vision-based approaches combined with other measurements as a replacement for GPS. We demonstrate with flight test data that vehicle attitude information, derived from cheap, MEMS-based IMUs is sufficient to improve two different types of vision processing algorithms. Secondly, we show analytically and with flight test data that range measurements to one other vehicle with global pose is sufficient to constrain the global drift …

Mitigating Interference With Knowledge-Aided Subarray Pattern Synthesis And Space Time Adaptive Processing, Yongjun Yoon

Theses and Dissertations

Phased arrays are essential to airborne ground moving target indication (GMTI), as they measure the spatial angle-of-arrival of the target, clutter, and interference signals. The spatial and Doppler (temporal) frequency is utilized by space-time adaptive processing (STAP) to separate and filter out the interference from the moving target returns. Achieving acceptable airborne GMTI performance often requires fairly large arrays, but the size, weight and power (SWAP) requirements, cost and complexity considerations often result in the use of subarrays. This yields an acceptable balance between cost and performance while lowering the system’s robustness to interference. This thesis proposes the use of …

Dark Current Rts-Noise In Silicon Image Sensors, Benjamin William Hendrickson

Dissertations and Theses

Random Telegraph Signal (RTS) noise is a random noise source defined by discrete and metastable changes in the magnitude of a signal. Though observed in a variety of physical processes, RTS is of particular interest to image sensor fabrication where progress in the suppression of other noise sources has elevated its noise contribution to the point of approaching the limiting noise source in scientific applications.

There have been two basic physical sources of RTS noise reported in image sensors. The first involves a charge trap in the oxide layer of the source follower in a CMOS image sensor. The capture …

Novel Structural Health Monitoring And Damage Detection Approaches For Composite And Metallic Structures, Shervin Tashakori

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Mechanical durability of the structures should be continuously monitored during their operation. Structural health monitoring (SHM) techniques are typically used for gathering the information which can be used for evaluating the current condition of a structure regarding the existence, location, and severity of the damage. Damage can occur in a structure after long-term operating under service loads or due to incidents. By detection of these defects at the early stages of their growth and nucleation, it would be possible to not only improve the safety of the structure but also reduce the operating costs. The main goal of this dissertation …

New Algorithms For Compressed Sensing Of Mri: Wtwts, Dwts, Wdwts, Srivarna Settisara Janney

Master of Science in Computer Science Theses

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is one of the most accurate imaging techniques that can be used to detect several diseases, where other imaging methodologies fail. MRI data takes a longer time to capture. This is a pain taking process for the patients to remain still while the data is being captured. This is also hard for the doctor as well because if the images are not captured correctly then it will lead to wrong diagnoses of illness that might put the patients lives in danger. Since long scanning time is one of most serious drawback of the MRI modality, reducing …

"Dual Peaks" Analog Distortion Guitar Effects Pedal, Dave Raul Breuer

Computer Engineering

The Dual Peaks distortion pedal is an analog effects pedal for electric guitar that distorts and boosts the guitar signal in order to achieve tonal characteristics often heard in music genres such as blues, rock, hard rock, and metal. Dual Peaks aims to remedy the current distortion pedal design, and provide a new spin not often provided in the majority of pedals. Dual Peaks contains two separate distortion channels which provide the player with a vast array of distortion and overdrive tones at the press of a switch. Also, Dual Peaks has a "noise gate" and 3-band equalizer circuits built …

Fpga-Based Dsp System, Aaron Nguyen

Computer Engineering

The purpose of this project is to create a modular FPGA-based filtering system for audio in VHDL. The final implementation has a working input, output, and filtering system but the filtering system still must be fine-tuned.

Analog Sorting Using Pulse Width Modulation, Riley C. Olson

Computer Engineering

As time goes on, computers become more and more powerful. However, as processing time becomes less of a limiting factor for computing tasks, power consumption takes its place for many tasks. This paper proposes and tests a new method for sorting analog signals. This new sorting method converts analog signals into Pulse Width Modulated(PWM) signals of varying duty cycle , which are then sorted by a simple network of combinational logic, and then converted to a normal binary representation. In order to implement this new method, multiple circuits had to be designed and and tested to ensure their functionality and …

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 …

2018 Ieee Signal Processing Cup: Forensic Camera Model Identification Challenge, Michael Geiger

Honors Theses

The goal of this Senior Capstone Project was to lead Union College’s first ever Signal Processing Cup Team to compete in IEEE’s 2018 Signal Processing Cup Competition. This year’s competition was a forensic camera model identification challenge and was divided into two separate stages of competition: Open Competition and Final Competition. Participation in the Open Competition was open to any teams of undergraduate students, but the Final Competition was only open to the three finalists from Open Competition and is scheduled to be held at ICASSP 2018 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Teams that make it to the Final Competition will …

The Design, Building, And Testing Of A Constant On Discreet Jammer For The Ieee 802.15.4/Zigbee Wireless Communication Protocol, Alexandre J. Marette

Master's Theses

As wireless protocols become easier to implement, more products come with wireless connectivity. This latest push for wireless connectivity has left a gap in the development of the security and the reliability of some protocols. These wireless protocols can be used in the growing field of IoT where wireless sensors are used to share information throughout a network. IoT is being implemented in homes, agriculture, manufactory, and in the medical field. Disrupting a wireless device from proper communication could potentially result in production loss, security issues, and bodily harm. The 802.15.4/ZigBee protocol is used in low power, low data rate, …

Modeling The Spatially Varying Point Spread Function Of The Kirkpatrick-Baez Optic, Nathan Adelman

Master's Theses

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's (LLNL) National Ignition Facility (NIF) uses a variety of diagnostics and image capturing optics for collecting data in High Energy Density Physics (HEDP) experiments. However, every image capturing system causes blurring and degradation of the images captured. This degradation can be mathematically described through a camera system's Point Spread Function (PSF), and can be reversed if the system's PSF is known. This is deconvolution, also called image restoration. Many PSFs can be determined experimentally by imaging a point source, which is a light emitting object that appears infinitesimally small to the camera. However, NIF's Kirkpatrick-Baez Optic …

Corridor Navigation For Monocular Vision Mobile Robots, Matthew James Ng

Master's Theses

Monocular vision robots use a single camera to process information about its environment. By analyzing this scene, the robot can determine the best navigation direction. Many modern approaches to robot hallway navigation involve using a plethora of sensors to detect certain features in the environment. This can be laser range finders, inertial measurement units, motor encoders, and cameras.

By combining all these sensors, there is unused data which could be useful for navigation. To draw back and develop a baseline approach, this thesis explores the reliability and capability of solely using a camera for navigation. The basic navigation structure begins …

Subspace Averaging Of Auditory Evoked Potentials, Xiaoliang Wang

Electrical Engineering Theses and Dissertations

The auditory evoked potential (AEP) is an electric potential generated in the brain in response to auditory stimuli. It has clinical importance in the detection of newborn infant hearing loss. The signal to noise ratio (SNR) of the AEP is low, so signal averaging is typically employed to estimate it. Often, thousands of trials must be averaged before a sufficiently high SNR estimate is obtained.

In this research, we have developed a new AEP averaging method called subspace averaging. The subspace averaging method projects onto the signal subspace: the span of the principal eigenvectors of the signal correlation matrix. The …

Computational Theories For Human Stereo Vision, Han Gao

Electrical Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Binocular stereopsis refers to the ability to perceive depth, which has always been a central problem in perception since the time of da Vinci. The foremost theoretical difficulty that arises when attempting to understand how the visual system computes disparity is known as the correspondence or matching problem. Decades of research upon macaque primary visual cortex has shown that in each layer of the primary visual cortex (V1) long-range horizontal connections among striate cortex cells exist which integrate information from different parts of the visual field. Inspired by long-range horizontal connections in V1 and the Jeffress model, a time-delay neural …

Optimization Of Gpu-Accelerated Iterative Ct Reconstruction Algorithm For Clinical Use, Tao Ge

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

In order to transition the GPU-accelerated CT reconstruction algorithm to a more clinical environment, a graphical user interface is implemented. Some optimization methods on the implementation are presented. We describe the alternating minimization (AM) algorithm as the updating algorithm, and the branchless distance-driven method for the system forward operator. We introduce a version of the Feldkamp-Davis-Kress algorithm to generate the initial image for our alternating minimization algorithm and compare it to a choice of a constant initial image. For the sake of better rate of convergence, we introduce the ordered-subsets method, find the optimal number of ordered subsets, and discuss …

Hypothesis Testing And Model Estimation With Dependent Observations In Heterogeneous Sensor Networks, Sima Sobhiyeh

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Advances in microelectronics, communication and signal processing have enabled the development of inexpensive sensors that can be networked to collect vital information from their environment to be used in decision-making and inference. The sensors transmit their data to a central processor which integrates the information from the sensors using a so-called fusion algorithm. Many applications of sensor networks (SNs) involve hypothesis testing or the detection of a phenomenon. Many approaches to data fusion for hypothesis testing assume that, given each hypothesis, the sensors' measurements are conditionally independent. However, since the sensors are densely deployed in practice, their field of views …

State Acquisition In Computer Networks, Ruairí De Fréin

Conference papers

We establish that State Acquisition should be per- formed in networks at a rate which is consistent with the rate-of-change of the element or service being observed. We demonstrate that many existing monitoring and service-level prediction tools do not acquire network state in an appropriate manner. To address this challenge: (1) we define the rate-of- change of different applications; (2) we use methods for analysis of unevenly spaced time series, specifically, time series arising from video and voice applications, to estimate the rate-of-change of these services; and finally, (3) we demonstrate how to acquire network state accurately for a number …

Wireless Sensor System For Mild Cognitive Impairment Diagnosis, Ahmed A. Almaghasilah Mr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Alzheimer’s disease (AD), which causes decline in the cognitive functions, is the

major lead of dementia. AD begins showing damage in memory, making patients

dependent on caregivers. Treating AD requires early diagnosis of its signs. The

initial sign of AD is mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which is the middle stage

between a healthy patient and one diagnosed with AD. The proposed sleep

monitoring system is capable of diagnosing MCI symptoms.

MCI patients are characterized with sleep fragmentation and sleep disorder. The

sleep fragmentation is defined as awakenings that interrupt the normal sleep. The

proposed system in this thesis uses force …

Bit-Serial Multiplier For Fpga Applications, Akhan Almagambetov, Holly Renee Ross

Publications

A Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) implementation of a multiplier topology can provide a considerable increase in computation performance and cost benefit as compared to other approaches, particularly for large bit widths ( e.g., for multiplication of large-bit numbers). A lack of sufficient input/output (I/O) ports on the FPGA for a particular bit width can be remedied by implementing large-bit number multiplications in a bit-serial fashion. The bit-serial multi­plier topologies described herein can provide a relatively small footprint as compared to other approaches. An FPGA-­implemented bit-serial multiplier can improve operation of a computing system, for example, by offloading binary multiplication operations …

Digital Enhancement Of Analog Measurement Systems For Temperature Compensation Of Strain Gages, Islombek Karimov

Electrical Engineering Theses

Generally known temperature compensation techniques for strain gages (like the use of a dummy gage or the implementation of half- and full-bridge configurations) are not applicable to all strain-measurement situations and cannot fully compensate for all sources of error. Digital Enhancement of Analog Measurement Systems presents a universal method of corrections for these effects in which temperature is measured independently of other variables and ex post facto corrections are computed and applied to digitized readings of the analog measurement system.

A single, linear-pattern strain gage, self-temperature-compensated for steel 1018, has been utilized in a quarter-bridge to measure tensile strain in …

Vocal Processing With Spectral Analysis, Bradley Fitzgerald

Honors Program Projects

A well-known signal processing issue is that of the “cocktail party problem”, which refers to the need to be able to separate speakers from a mixture of voices. A solution to this problem could provide insight into signal separation in a variety of signal processing fields. In this study, a method of vocal signal processing was examined to determine if principal component analysis of spectral data may be used to characterize differences between speakers and if these differences may be used to separate mixtures of vocal signals. Processing was done on a set of voice recordings from 30 different speakers …

Longitudinal Tracking Of Physiological State With Electromyographic Signals., Robert Warren Stallard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Electrophysiological measurements have been used in recent history to classify instantaneous physiological configurations, e.g., hand gestures. This work investigates the feasibility of working with changes in physiological configurations over time (i.e., longitudinally) using a variety of algorithms from the machine learning domain. We demonstrate a high degree of classification accuracy for a binary classification problem derived from electromyography measurements before and after a 35-day bedrest. The problem difficulty is increased with a more dynamic experiment testing for changes in astronaut sensorimotor performance by taking electromyography and force plate measurements before, during, and after a jump from a small platform. A …

Software Defined Radar For Vital Sign Detection, Chandler J. Bauder, James Bates, Steven Engel, James S. Tucker, Fangzhou Liu

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Detecting Suicide Risk From Wristworn Activity Tracker Data Using Machine Learning Approaches, Pallavi Atluri

Electrical Engineering Theses

Suicide is a prevalent cause of death worldwide and depression is a primary concern of many suicidal acts. It is possible that an individual during depression never has any suicidal thoughts at all. On the other hand, some individuals in stable condition with no apparent symptoms of depression feel urges to commit suicide (suicidal ideation). Many such individuals never let anyone know what they are feeling or planning. Suicidal ideation considered an important precursor to suicidal acts.

Detecting the suicide risk in individuals with mood disorders is a major challenge. The current clinical practice to assess suicide risk in these …