Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons^™

Surface-Related Breakdown In Silicon: Imaging Of Current Filaments In Long P+-N--N+ Structures, B. J. Hankla, P. F. Williams, G. A. Frecks, F. E. Peterkin

P. F. (Paul Frazer) Williams Publications

We present Schlieren images which show the existence and evolution of current filaments during the very early stages of surface-related breakdown inside 1 cm silicon p⁺-n^--n⁺ structures. These images confirm our previous finding that breakdown occurs in the silicon rather than in the ambient, and suggest that a streamerlike mechanism may be responsible.

Transients In Power Systems, M. Belkhayat, J. Edwards, N. Hoonchareon, O. Marte, D. Stenberg, E. Walters

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Technical Reports

Power system engineering largely focuses on steady state analysis. The main areas of power system engineering are power flow studies and fault studies - both steady state technologies. But the world is largely transient, and power systems are always subject to time varying and short lived signals. This technical report concerns several important topics in transient analyses of power systems. The leading chapter deals with a new analytical tool-wavelets-for power system transients. Flicker and electric are furnace transients are discussed in Chapters I1 and IV. Chapter 111 deals with transients from shunt capacitor switching. The concluding chapters deal with transformer …

The Effect Of Excitation Limits On Voltage Stability, Jyothi Ayyagari, Mariesa Crow

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Voltage collapse has been commonly associated with insufficient reactive power support. Steady state studies have related reactive power generation limitations to the sudden onset of voltage instability. This paper extends this approach to the dynamic case. The relationship between the dynamic models and steady state behavior is established. The dynamic model is then used to investigate the sudden change in system stability when the maximum excitation limit is reached. Several illustrative examples are analyzed. Corrective actions are proposed which will move the physical system away from the region of instability.

Calibration And Measurement Of Dielectric Properties Of Finite Thickness Composite Sheets With Open-Ended Coaxial Sensors, Stoyan I. Ganchev, Nasser N. Qaddoumi, Sasan Bakhtiari, R. Zoughi

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The application of open-ended coaxial sensors for dielectric measurement of finite thickness composite sheets is studied. Expressions for calculation of the complex aperture admittance for two geometries are presented. These expressions are used to calculate the dielectric constant of infinite half-space as well as finite thickness slabs. A more efficient method of such calculations, using a personal computer, for low to medium loss dielectrics is demonstrated. The question of when a dielectric layer may be considered as infinitely thick is also addressed, and examples are presented. A different calibration technique (compared to the conventional ones) is described and successfully implemented. …

A Massively Parallel Computation Strategy For Fdtd: Time And Space Parallelism Applied To Electromagnetics Problems, Michael A. Jensen, Amir Fijany, Yahya Rahmat-Samii, Jacob Barhen

Faculty Publications

We present a novel strategy for incorporating massive parallelism into the solution of Maxwell's equations using finite-difference time-domain methods. In a departure from previous techniques wherein spatial parallelism is used, our approach exploits massive temporal parallelism by computing all of the time steps in parallel. Furthermore, in contrast to other methods which appear to concentrate on explicit schemes such as Yee's (1966) algorithm, our strategy uses the implicit Crank-Nicolson technique which provides superior numerical properties. We show that the use of temporal parallelism results in algorithms which offer a massive degree of coarse grain parallelism with minimum communication and synchronization …

Flash Memory Boot Block Architecture For Safe Firmware Updates, Hsiang Chi

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The most significant risk of updating embedded system code is the possible loss of system firmware during the update process. If the firmware is lost, the system will cease to operate, which can be very costly to the end user. This thesis is concerned with exploring alternate architectures which exploit the integration of flash memory technology in order to overcome this problem. Three design models and associated software techniques will be presented. These design models are described in detail in terms of the strategies they employ in order to prevent system lockup and the loss of firmware. The most important …

Analysis Of Ladar Range Resolution Enhancement By Sinusoidal Phase Modulation, Leonard T. Masters, Martin B. Mark, Bradley D. Duncan

Electro-Optics and Photonics Faculty Publications

The ability of a ladar system to resolve two or more separate returns from a combined echo is related to the effective correlation bandwidth of the pulse emitted by the ladar system. Phase modulation of an outgoing pulse introduces additional frequency components, which increases the effective correlation bandwidth of the pulse and thus improves the range resolution of the system. In this paper, we discuss the general theoretical basis for achieving improved range resolution using a modulated waveform and a matched filter receiver. We then demonstrate these concepts by considering the particular case of improved range resolution for a sinusoidally …

Spectroscopic Ellipsometric Monitoring Of Electron Cyclotron Resonance Plasma Etching Of Gaas And Algaas, Paul G. Snyder, Natale J. Ianno, B. Wigert, S. Pittal, B. Johs, John A. Woollam

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

In situ real time spectroscopic ellipsometry measurements were made during electron cyclotron resonance plasma etching of radio frequency biased GaAs and AlGaAs samples. Gas mixtures used were CH₄/H₂/Ar, pure H₂ , and pure Ar. Ellipsometry provided information about damage to the surface region and AlGaAs epilayer thickness. For the methane mixture GaAs etch, damage appeared in the form of redshifted and broadened E₁ and E₁+ Δ₁ critical point features in a surface layer several tens of nm thick. The damage layer began forming within a few seconds after the start of …

Intelligent Control Of Vehicles: Preliminary Results On The Application Of Learning Automata Techniques To Automated Highway System, Cem Unsal, John S. Bay, Pushkin Kachroo

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Research

We suggest an intelligent controller for an automated vehicle to plan its own trajectory based on sensor and communication data received. Our intelligent controller is based on an artificial intelligence technique called learning stochastic automata. The automaton can learn the best possible action to avoid collisions using the data received from on-board sensors. The system has the advantage of being able to work in unmodeled stochastic environments. Simulations for the lateral control of a vehicle using this AI method provides encouraging results.

Image Restoration Of Dispersion-Degraded Images From A Liquid-Crystal Beam Steerer, Ronald J. Broessel, Vince Dominic, Russell C. Hardie

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Liquid-crystal arrays represents one of the first practical technologies capable of steering light by electronic control only. We use such a device to steer the field of view of a broadband imaging sensor. Unfortunately, dispersion degrades the image quality by smearing out details in the image and by introducing multiple diffraction orders (echoes) at the detector plane. We present a method to compensate for these unwanted effects and thus restore the broadband images obtained with the beam steerer. We use the beam-propagation method to find the wavelength-dependent impulse response, from which we determine the appropriate Wiener filter. When training data …

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

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

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 …

An Algorithmic Approach To Loop Shaping With Applications To Self-Tuning Control Systems, Zhiqiang Gao

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

An algorithmic approach to feedback control design is introduced. It simplifies the existing iterative design process, which is often tedious, by reducing the design problem to solving a set of linear algebraic equations. The algorithmic nature of such an approach makes it attrative to not only off-line designs but also self-tuning control systems, where the compensators are continuously tuned on-line as the dynamics of the physical process vary with time. This is demonstrated in the example where the proposed algorithm is implemented for an industrial tension regulation system with successful simulation results. Extensions of the algorithm to …

Fault Tolerant Training For Optimal Interpolative Nets, Daniel J. Simon, Hossny El-Sherief

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The optimal interpolative (OI) classification network is extended to include fault tolerance and make the network more robust to the loss of a neuron. The OI net has the characteristic that the training data are fit with no more neurons than necessary. Fault tolerance further reduces the number of neurons generated during the learning procedure while maintaining the generalization capabilities of the network. The learning algorithm for the fault-tolerant OI net is presented in a recursive formal, allowing for relatively short training times. A simulated fault-tolerant OI net is tested on a navigation satellite selection problem

Integrating Reconstructed Scatterometer And Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer Data For Tropical Forest Inventory, David G. Long, Perry J. Hardin

Faculty Publications

A scientific effort is currently underway to assess tropical forest degradation and its potential impact on Earth's climate. Because of the large continental regions involved, Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) imagery and its derivative vegetation index products with resolutions between 1 and 12 km are typically used to inventory the Earth's equatorial vegetation. Archival AVHRR imagery is also used to obtain a temporal baseline of historical forest extent. Recently however, 50-km Seasat-A Scatterometer (SASS) Ku-band imagery (acquired in 1978) has been reconstructed to = 4-km resolution, making it a supplement to AVHRR imagery for historical vegetation assessment. In order …

Heterodyne Ladar System Efficiency Enhancement Using Single-Mode Optical Fiber Mixers, Donald K. Jacob, Martin B. Mark, Bradley D. Duncan

Electro-Optics and Photonics Faculty Publications

A theoretical performance analysis of a heterodyne ladar system incorporating a single-mode fiber receiver has been performed. For our purposes, the performance parameters of interest are the coupling and mixing efficiency of the ladar receiver, as they relate to the overall system carrier-to-noise ratio. For a receiver incorporating a single-mode fiber mixer, the received and local-oscillator fields are matched both spatially and temporally at the detector, yielding 100% mixing efficiency. We have therefore focused our efforts on determining an expression for the efficiency with which a diffuse return from a purely speckle target can be coupled into the receiving leg …

Extreme Ultraviolet Polarizing Optics Using Bare And Aluminum-Coated Silicon Carbide, R. M.A. Azzam, A. M. Kan’An

Electrical Engineering Faculty Publications

A deformable three-reflection system that uses a bare silicon carbide substrate can function as an in-line, high-throughput (>30%), 90° phase shifter in the 50–100 nm spectral range. For a given extreme ultraviolet wavelength, an aluminum thin film can be deposited on the silicon carbide substrate to suppress the parallel (p) or perpendicular (s) polarization on single reflection or to introduce quarter-wave retardation and equal reflectances for incident p- and s-polarized light.

Flexible Low-Cost Automated Scaled Highway (Flash) Laboratory For Studies On Automated Highway Systems, Pushkin Kachroo, Kaan Ozbay, Robert G. Leonard, Cem Unsal

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Research

This paper addresses the development of a flexible low-cost automated scale highway (FLASH) laboratory which is intended to serve as a catalyst for accelerating the development of many intelligent vehicle highway system (IVHS) concepts. It also highlights the significance of the laboratory for the research, evaluation, and testing of automated highway system (AHS) configurations, architectures, designs and technologies. This laboratory, using small scale standardized vehicles will serve as a test bed for the economical development and evaluation of various hardware, software, and management systems before full scale testing and deployment. The laboratory will provide the capability to test day and …

Stop That Noise, Thomas Van Doren, Todd H. Hubing, Fei Sha, James L. Drewniak, David M. Hockanson

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The authors discuss electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) and electromagnetic interference (EMI). After a brief look at the causes of EMI, they describe conductive coupling and electromagnetic radiative coupling. Career opportunities in EMC problem solving are looked at.

Safe Stratified Datalog With Integer Order Programs, Peter Revesz

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

Guaranteeing termination of programs on all valid inputs is important for database applications. Termination cannot be guaranteed in Stratified Datalog with integer (gap)-order programs on generalized databases because they express any Turing-computable function. This paper introduces a restriction of those programs that can express only computable queries. The restricted language has a high expressive power and a non-elementary data complexity.

A Fuzzy Based Load Model For Power System Direct Load Control, K. Bhattacharyya, Mariesa Crow

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Demand side management programs are strategies designed to alter the shape of the load curve. In order to successfully implement such a strategy, customer acceptance of the program is vital. It is thus desirable to design a model for direct load control which may accommodate customer preferences. This paper presents a methodology for optimizing both customer satisfaction and utility unit commitment savings, based on a fuzzy load model for the direct load control of appliances.

Fluttering Fountains: Annular Geometry, Lee W. Casperson

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Under certain conditions of flow rate, height, and feedback, periodic or chaotic fluttering oscillations can be observed as the sheet of water from a dam or waterfall fountain descends through the air. Numerical and analytical interpretations of this phenomenon have recently been reported. The extension of these results to other fountain geometries is discussed here together with experimental observations on an annular waterfall fountain.

A Pixel Scale Digital-To-Analog Converter Array For Liquid Crystal On Vlsi Displays, Gregory P. Nordin, S. T. Kowel, J. H. Kulick, R. G. Lindquist, P. J. Nasiatka, A. Thomsen

Faculty Publications

A pixel scale digital to analog converter and driver for liquid crystal (LC) cells is presented. The circuit is a compact CMOS logic gate that sums pulse density modulation (pdm) signals. Low pass filtering of the pdm signal is 'done by the LC material. The circuit is suitable to implement large arrays of converters as, for example, in display applications. It is applicable in LC on silicon displays where gray scale data are stored and converted at each pixel site. Advantages over the commonly used active matrix technology include the removal of all analog circuitry, no need for refresh, reduced …

Biquad Gm-C Structures Which Use Double-Output Transconductors, Vladimir I. Prodanov, Michael M. Green

Electrical Engineering

Two Gm-C biquad structures are derived. They use only two grounded capacitors and three transconductors, two of which have double-outputs. The realization of the double-output transconductors is discussed. It is shown that only two additional transistors are needed to convert a single-output transconductor to a double-output one suitable for implementation of the proposed structures. HSPICE simulations and experimental results of a 5-th order inverse Gaussian filter using the proposed biquad structures are given.

Broadband Dynamic, Holographically Self-Recorded, And Static Hexagonal Scattering Patterns In Photorefractive Knbo3:Fe, Nickolai Kukhtarev, Tatiana V. Kukhtareva, John Caulfield, Partha P. Banerjee, Hsueh-Ling Yu, Lambertus Hesselink

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

We have observed and explained three types of hexagon pattern formation in photo refractive crystal KNb03:Fe. These are:

• Dynamic (laser induced)
• Semipermanent (holographically stored)
• Permanent (induced by a static domain grid) over a wide wavelength range

Guest Editorial: Special Section On Photorefractive Nonlinear Optics, Partha P. Banerjee

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Hand in hand with experimental work in photorefractives, there is a lot of activity in modeling photorefractive materials and experimental observations in the open literature. This special section contains a paper by Banerjee and Jarem, who use a rigorous coupled wave theory to analyze two- and multiple-wave mixing photorefractive barium titanate, modeled through the Kukhtarev equations.

Single-Layer-Coated Surfaces With Linearized Reflectance Versus Angle Of Incidence: Application To Passive And Active Silicon Rotation Sensors, R. M.A. Azzam, M. M. K. Howlader, T. Y. Georgiou

Electrical Engineering Faculty Publications

A transparent or absorbing substrate can be coated with a transparent thin film to produce a linear reflectanceversus- angle-of-incidence response over a certain range of angles. Linearization at and near normal incidence is a special case that leads to a maximally flat response for p-polarized, s-polarized, or unpolarized light. For midrange and high-range linearization with moderate and high slopes, respectively, the best results are obtained when the incident light is s polarized. Application to a Si substrate that is coated with a SiO₂ film leads to novel passive and active reflection rotation sensors. Experimental results and an error analysis …

An Experimental Investigation Of 4-Layer Printed Circuit Board Decoupling, Todd H. Hubing, Thomas Van Doren, Fei Sha, James L. Drewniak, Michael J. Wilhelm

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper examines the measured power bus impedance of fully populated 4-layer printed circuit boards with internal power and ground planes. Three boards provided by two leading computer companies were evaluated. Each of the state-of-the-art high-speed boards used in this study employed surface-mount decoupling capacitors to reduce noise on the power bus. The boards were measured with and without some or all of their decoupling capacitance. The effectiveness of the decoupling capacitors as a function of location and frequency and the relationship between board impedance and power bus noise was explored. The behavior of 4-layer boards is shown to be …

Comparison Of Time-Domain Reflectometry Performance Factors For Several Dielectric Geometries: Theory And Experiments, S. V. Maheshwarla, R. Venkatasubramanian, Robert F. Boehm

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Research

We propose three nontraditional dielectric geometries and present an experimental and theoretical analysis and comparison of time domain reflectometry (TDR) performances for them. The traditional geometry (the probes inserted in material of essentially infinite extent) is compared to three nontraditional geometries where the probes are affixed outside of a core sample, inside of a bore, or flat on the surface of a semi-infinite solid. Our derivation relates the velocity of electromagnetic wave propagation to the complex permittivities and permeabilities of the media and the geometry for the three nontraditional configurations. Experimental results for air, styrofoam, dry sand, wet sand of …

Integrating Electromagnetic Compatibility Laboratory Exercises Into Undergraduate Electromagnetics, James L. Drewniak, Todd H. Hubing, Thomas Van Doren, Fei Sha

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A state-of-the art high-frequency laboratory is being developed for pursuing laboratory exercises in EMC. These exercises are being integrated into three undergraduate electromagnetics courses. Two of the courses are a required introductory sequence. The laboratory exercises are designed to stimulate students interest, motivate them to learn concepts, and provide them with exposure to practical EMC applications. Laboratory exercises are also an integral part of an EMC elective course. This paper describes the laboratory development and discusses experiments that can be integrated into these three courses for teaching fundamental electromagnetics as well as EMC.

Transient Wave Mixing And Recording Kinetics In Photorefractive Barium Titanate: A Nonlinear Coupled Mode Approach, Partha P. Banerjee, John M. Jarem

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

By using rigorous coupled-wave diffraction theory along with a time-dependent nonlinear formulation, we analyze two- and multiplewave coupling and the grating kinetics in BaTi03 with different boundary interfaces. Efffects of electrostatic and optical anisotropy have been included in the analysis. Significant mode conversion to higher orders is observed only when the boundary interfaces are highly mismatched.