Computer Engineering Commons^™

Nonlinear Guidance And Control Of Unmanned Aerial Manipulators For Delivering A Payload On A Moving Platform, Ravi Gyawali

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

Unmanned Aerial manipulators (UAMs) are a class of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) equipped with a manipulator. By combining the aerial mobility of a UAV with a manipulator's dexterity, these hybrid systems can perform a wide range of complex tasks while reducing risks and costs. As a result, they are increasingly being utilized for military, industrial, and agricultural applications.

The thesis presents a novel approach for a multi-UAM system to collaboratively deliver a payload on a stationary or maneuvering platform. A sliding-mode-based guidance law, sourced from existing literature, is integrated with a combined control technique for the UAVs and their respective …

Adaptive Beyond Von-Neumann Computing Devices And Reconfigurable Architectures For Edge Computing Applications, Mousam Hossain

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

The Von-Neumann bottleneck, a major challenge in computer architecture, results from significant data transfer delays between the processor and main memory. Crossbar arrays utilizing spin-based devices like Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory (MRAM) aim to overcome this bottleneck by offering advantages in area and performance, particularly for tasks requiring linear transformations. These arrays enable single-cycle and in-memory vector-matrix multiplication, reducing overheads, which is crucial for energy and area-constrained Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and embedded devices.

This dissertation focuses on designing, implementing, and evaluating reconfigurable computation platforms that leverage MRAM-based crossbar arrays and analog computation to support deep learning and error …

Addressing Challenges In Utilizing Gpus For Accelerating Privacy-Preserving Computation, Ardhi Wiratama Baskara Yudha

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

Cloud computing increasingly handles confidential data, like private inference and query databases. Two strategies are used for secure computation: (1) employing CPU Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) like AMD SEV, Intel SGX, or ARM TrustZone, and (2) utilizing emerging cryptographic methods like Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) with libraries such as HElib, Microsoft SEAL, and PALISADE. To enhance computation, GPUs are often employed. However, using GPUs to accelerate secure computation introduces challenges addressed in three works.

In the first work, we tackle GPU acceleration for secure computation with CPU TEEs. While TEEs perform computations on confidential data, extending their capabilities to GPUs …

Internet-Of-Things Privacy In Wifi Networks: Side-Channel Leakage And Mitigations, Mnassar Alyami

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

WiFi networks are susceptible to statistical traffic analysis attacks. Despite encryption, the metadata of encrypted traffic, such as packet inter-arrival time and size, remains visible. This visibility allows potential eavesdroppers to infer private information in the Internet of Things (IoT) environment. For example, it allows for the identification of sleep monitors and the inference of whether a user is awake or asleep.

WiFi eavesdropping theoretically enables the identification of IoT devices without the need to join the victim's network. This attack scenario is more realistic and much harder to defend against, thus posing a real threat to user privacy. However, …

Towards Performance Guarantee For Federated Computing, Stoddard A. Rosenkrantz

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

In federated computing environments, where multiple independent devices collaborate without centralized resource control, ensuring reliable and predictable performance is crucial for meeting Service Level Objectives (SLOs). This dissertation presents a novel framework for achieving SLOs by utilizing measured subtask response times, which are obtained and processed locally on the client devices. Each device generates a performance curve based on its subtask response times, and only the essential parameters of this curve are transmitted to a centralized client selector. The client selector then uses these parameters to determine which devices are best suited to meet predefined SLOs for specific tasks, ensuring …

A Few-Shot Multi-Modality Traversability Segmentation Framework For Indoor Robotic Navigation, Qiyuan An

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Traversability in autonomous robotic navigation refers to the ability of an autonomous agent to safely navigate over a given terrain. It plays a critical role in enabling robots to navigate over unseen or unknown terrains. Traversability segmentation aims to find an arbitrary-shaped mask covering the traversable regions (termed free-space). Current research for traversability segmentation can be divided into two scenarios: outdoor and indoor environments. Compared to the outdoor environments mainly consists of paved roads, indoor environments present unique challenges for traversability segmentation, because of diverse lighting conditions, glass doors, various floor colors and textures, arbitrary shaped appliances and furniture, presence …

Classification Of Sow Postures Using Convolutional Neural Network And Depth Images, Md Towfiqur Rahman, Tami M. Brown-Brandl, Gary A. Rohrer, Sudhendu R. Sharma, Yeyin Shi

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

The United States swine industry reports an average preweaning mortality of approximately 16% where approximately 6% of them are attributed to piglets overlayed by sows. Detecting postural transitions and estimating sows’ time budgets for different postures are valuable information for breeders and engineering design of farrowing facilities to eventually reduce piglet death. Computer vision tools can help monitor changes in animal posture accurately and efficiently. To create a more robust system and eliminate varying lighting issues within a day including daytime/ nighttime differences, there is an advantage to using depth cameras over digital cameras. In this study, a computer vision …

Exploratory Prompting Of Large Language Models To Act As Co-Pilots For Augmenting Business Process Work In Document Classification, Jose Ramon Ilagan, Joseph Benjamin R. Ilagan, Claire Louisse Basallo, Zachary Matthew Alabastro

Quantitative Methods and Information Technology Faculty Publications

Businesses deal with different types of documents containing unstructured documents. The data in these documents must be converted into digital forms other automated systems could only process. One generic use case is document classification, which usually involves manual transformation due to human understanding needed in the process. These documents go beyond those generated through regular business transactions and operations and also include web-based content such as online news, blogs, e-mails, and various digital libraries. Recent developments in robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI) aim to automate the otherwise expensive, time-consuming, and repetitive manual steps. Through more powerful natural …

Algorithms For Safe And Robust Motion Control Of Autonomous Ground Robots And Vehicles, Manavendra Desai

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation explores, investigates, develops and experimentally validates algorithms for safe and robust motion control of ground robots and vehicles. The emphasis is on design of controllers for ground autonomy with safety either embedded by design or enforced by appropriately wrapping a safety net around an existing nominal controller.

Ground robots have been considered for their importance in compensating for labour or personnel shortage for material handling in the manufacturing, logistics and healthcare sectors. On the other hand, ground vehicles have been considered for the existing potential of making driver assistance systems safer and more intelligent, particularly in at-the-limit driving …

Post-Capture Synthesis Of Images Using Manipulable Integration Functions, Paul Eberhart

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

Traditional photographic practice, as dictated by the properties of photochemical emulsion film, mechanical apparatus, and human operators, largely treats the sensitivity (gain) and integration interval as coarsely parameterized constants for the entire scene, set no later than the time of exposure. This frame-at-a-time capture and processing model permeates digital cameras and computer image processing. Emerging imaging technologies, such as time domain continuous imaging (TDCI), quanta image sensors (QIS), event cameras, and conventional sensors augmented with computational processing and control, provide opportunities to break out of the frame-oriented paradigm and capture a stream of data describing changes to scene appearance over …

Manifold Learning In Robotics: A Tutorial And Survey, Marcus Hawkins

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

In this article, we hope to represent the current state of the art of manifold learning in an understandable and approachable way. The authors will present a general overview core algorithms associated with linear and nonlinear dimensionality reduction techniques, give rudimentary definitions from differential geometry, and tenets of robotic perception, manipulation and path planning. Some of the historical applications of these algorithms will be presented, as well as conjectures about future uses, through examples from peer-reviewed journals.

Exploring Machine Learning Techniques For Embedded Hardware, Neel R. Vora

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

This thesis delves into the intricate symbiosis between machine learning (ML) methodologies and embedded hardware systems, with a primary focus on augmenting efficiency and real-time processing capabilities across diverse application domains. It confronts the formidable challenge of deploying sophisticated ML algorithms on resource-constrained embedded hardware, aiming not only to optimize performance but also to minimize energy consumption. Innovative strategies are explored to tailor ML models for streamlined execution on embedded platforms, with validation conducted across various real-world application domains. Notable contributions include the development of a deep-learning framework leveraging a variational autoencoder (VAE) for compressing physiological signals from wearables while …

Stock Price Trend Prediction Using Emotion Analysis Of Financial Headlines With Distilled Llm Model, Rithesh H. Bhat

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

Capturing the volatility of stock prices helps individual traders, stock analysts, and institutions alike increase their returns in the stock market. Financial news headlines have been shown to have a significant effect on stock price mobility. Lately, many financial portals have restricted web scraping of stock prices and other related financial data of companies from their websites. In this study we demonstrate that emotion analysis of financial news headlines alone can be sufficient in predicting stock price movement, even in the absence of any financial data. We propose an approach that eliminates the need for web scraping of financial data. …

Development Of A Collaborative Research Platform For Efficient Data Management And Visualization Of Qubit Control, Devanshu Brahmbhatt

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

This thesis introduces QubiCSV, a pioneering open-source platform for quantum computing field. With an emphasis on collaborative research, QubiCSV addresses the critical need for specialized data management and visualization tools in qubit control. The platform is crafted to overcome the challenges posed by the high costs and complexities associated with quantum experimental setups. It emphasizes efficient utilization of resources through shared ideas, data, and implementation strategies. One of the primary obstacles in quantum computing research has been the ineffective management of extensive calibration data and the inability to visualize complex quantum experiment outcomes effectively. QubiCSV fills this gap by offering …

Adaptive Load-Aware Elastic Data Reduction And Re-Computation For Adaptive Mesh Refinement, Mengxiao Wang

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

The increasing performance gap between computation and I/O creates huge data management challenges for simulation-based scientific discovery. Data reduction, among others, is deemed to be a promising technique to bridge the gap through reducing the amount of data migrated to persistent storage. However, the reduction performance is still far from what is being demanded from production applications. To this end, we propose a new methodology that aggressively reduces data despite the substantial loss of information, and re-computes the original accuracy on-demand. As a result, our scheme creates an illusion of a fast and large storage medium with the availability of …

A Learning-Based Framework For Autonomous Robotic Operations In Resource-Denied Environments, Joseph M. Cloud

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Establishing a sustained human presence beyond Earth necessitates the development of autonomous systems capable of extracting and utilizing local resources. On the Moon, in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) is essential to reduce the dependency on Earth-based supplies. Leveraging lunar resources such as water ice for life support and fuel production or regolith for surface construction will enable long-term lunar missions and future deep space exploration. NASA's Artemis program is targeting the lunar south pole (LSP), an area with raw, yet abundant resources available. The harsh environmental conditions present significant challenges for humans operating and installing surface infrastructure. Autonomous robotic systems are …

Web-Based Visualization Of Spatial And Spatio-Temporal Data Using Integrated Datasets, Mohammad Shaito

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Currently, spatial geographic data can be collected for many applications that involve data on the planet earth. These collected data typically have coordinates (x,y), or longitude and latitude in map space, and thus can be located and displayed on maps. Data alone represents facts and has no meaning on its own but becomes meaningful when it is associated with application knowledge, such as elections, crimes, disease, etc. For example, there is no meaning behind those numbers (1, 23, 125, 355, . . .), yet they are data that can gain meaning when correlated with the total number of cases of …

Bringing "Virtual" To "Reality": Enhancing Security And Usability On Vr System And Applications, Huadi Zhu

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

With the rapid advancements in computer science, electronics, optics, and related fields, virtual reality (VR) gradually penetrates into our daily lives, and is predicted to become a core technology in the near future. Despite its potentials, however, existing designs and solutions for VR applications remain at the infant stage, introducing limited usability and efficiency for real-world users. Besides, the increasing prevalence of VR presents new security and privacy threats due to the vast amount of information stored in or accessible through VR devices. To bridge this gap, we exploit and combine techniques from computer science and human biology, as well …

Strategies To Mitigate Efflorescence In Walls Constructed Using Clays Bricks; A Review Article, Marwa Abdulkareem. Anber, Soran Abdulrahman Ahmad, Naros Rahman Mahmoud, Kawan Fuoad. Kayani, Mohammed Ali Abdulrehman

Al-Esraa University College Journal for Engineering Sciences

_{The construction of buildings, especially residential housing for communities, is a significant industry on a global scale. Masonry units such as bricks, blocks, and stones are often utilized materials. Bricks are highly regarded because to their widespread availability, cost-effectiveness, and excellent insulating capabilities. Nevertheless, the presence of efflorescence presents a difficulty in the construction of brick walls. Efflorescence refers to the process in which salts move to the outer layer of the brick, resulting in the formation of white deposits and negatively impacting its visual appeal. Efflorescence is caused by various circumstances, such as the existence of salts in bricks, …}

The Importance Of Cryptography In Cloud Computing, Saja Alaam Talib

Al-Esraa University College Journal for Engineering Sciences

Cloud computing has grown as a widely accepted concept simultaneously, as the alarms for the security of data and information. This paper seeks to establish the comprehensive roles of cryptography in tackling these issues in the Cloud environment. The study begins with the historical background of cryptography and then moves on to analyze trends in information technology before discussing on the challenges to security in cloud computing. The goal of its publication is to highlight the importance of using cryptographic technologies for the protection of information confidentiality, its integrity and compliance. The combination of literature review and the case study …