Electrical and Electronics Commons^™

Aphonic: Adaptive Thresholding For Noise Cancellation In Smart Mobile Environments, Ruairí De Fréin

Articles

We propose a signal-channel, adaptive threshold selection technique for binary mask construction, namely APHONIC, (AdaPtive tHreshOlding for NoIse Cancellation) for smart mobile environments. Using this mask, we introduce two noise cancellation techniques that perform robustly in the presence of real-world interfering signals that are typically encountered by mobile users: a violin busker, a subway and busy city square sounds. We demonstrate that when the power of the time-frequency components of the voice of a mobile user does not significantly overlap with the components of the interference signal, the threshold learning and noise cancellation techniques significantly improve the Signal-to-Interference Ratio (SIR) …

Design And Investigation Of De Vries Liquid Crystals Based On 5-Phenyl-Pyrimidine And (R,R)-2,3-Epoxyhexoxy Backbone., S.P. Sreenilayam", D. Rodriguez-Lojo, V. P. Panov, V. Swaminathan, J. K. Vij, Yuri Panarin, E. Gorecka, A. Panov, P.J. Stevenson

Articles

Calamitic liquid crystals based on 5-phenyl-pyrimidine derivatives have been designed, synthesized, and characterized. The 5-phenyl pyrimidine core was functionalized with a chiral (R,R)-2,3-epoxyhexoxy chain on one side and either siloxane or perfluoro terminated chains on the opposite side. The one involving a perfluorinated chain shows SmA^{*} phase over a wide temperature range of 82 °C, whereas the siloxane analog exhibits both SmA^{*} and SmC^{*} phases over a broad range of temperatures, and a weak first-order SmA^{*}-SmC^{*} transition is observed. For the siloxane analog, the reduction factor for the layer shrinkage R (relative to its thickness at the SmA^{*}-SmC^{*} transition temperature, …

Solar Irradiance Forecasting And Implications For Domestic Electric Water Heating, Christopher Nutter

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

As the effects of burning fossil fuels continues to present its prevalence, the interests in alternative forms of energy is expanding. Within the home, the domestic electrical water heater accounts for approximately 17% of its energy consumption. Reducing the amount of energy required to produce hot water from this thermal system alone can have a significant effect on reducing its carbon footprint. In this presented work, a modeled domestic electrical water heater was supplied photovoltaic and on-grid electrical power to increase its energy efficiency. As photovoltaic (PV) energy is directly related to solar irradiation, it is important to receive accurate …

Optimising The Performance Of Cement-Based Batteries, Aimee Byrne, Shane Barry, Niall Holmes Dr., Brian Norton

Articles

The development of a battery using different cement-based electrolytes to provide a low but potentially sustainable source of electricity is described. The current, voltage, and lifespan of batteries produced using different electrolyte additives, copper plate cathodes, and (usually) aluminium plate anodes were compared to identify the optimum design, components, and proportions to increase power output and longevity. Parameters examined include water/cement ratio, anode to cathode surface area ratio, electrode material, electrode spacing, and the effect of sand, aggregate, salts, carbon black, silica fume, and sodium silicate on the electrolyte. The results indicate that the greatest and longest lasting power can …

Omni-Directional Infrared 3d Reconstruction And Tracking Of Human Targets, Emrah Benli

Theses and Dissertations

Omni-directional (O-D) infrared (IR) vision is an effective capability for mobile systems in robotics, due to its advantages: illumination invariance, wide field-of-view, ease of identifying heat-emitting objects, and long term tracking without interruption. Unfortunately, O-D IR sensors have low resolution, low frame rates, high cost, sensor noise, and an increase in tracking time. In order to overcome these disadvantages, we propose an autonomous system application in indoor scenarios including 1) Dynamic 3D Reconstruction (D3DR) of the target view in real time images, 2) Human Behavior-based Target Tracking from O-D thermal images, 3) Thermal Multisensor Fusion (TMF), and 4) Visual Perception …

Secure Cloud Controlled Software Defined Radio Network For Bandwidth Allocation, Isaac J. Cushman

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to investigate the impact of mobility of wireless devices for opportunistic spectrum access and communications using National Instrument Universal Software Radio Peripherals devices. The overall system utilizes software defined radio networks for frequency allocation, cloud connectivity to maintain up-to-date information, and moving target defense as a security mechanism. Each USRP device sends its geolocation to query the spectrum database for idle channels. The cloud cluster was designed for complex data storage and allocation using a smart load balancer to offer ultra-security to users. This project also explores the advantages of data protection and security …

Real-Time Internal Temperature Estimation And Health Monitoring For Igbt Modules, Ze Wang

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Field experiences have demonstrated that power semiconductor devices, such as insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs), are among the most fragile components of power electronic converters. Thermomechanical stresses produced by temperature variations during operational and environmental loads are the major causes of IGBT degradation. As the devices are often operated under complex working conditions, temperature variations and the associated damage are difficult to predict during the converter design stage. A promising approach—online health monitoring and prognosis for power semiconductor devices—that can avoid device failure and effectively schedule maintenance has attracted much interest.

This dissertation research focused on real-time accurate internal temperature estimation …

Safety Airway For Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Using A Gas Particles Behavior Analogy, Pablo Rangel

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) implemented the Part 107 legislation to allow the flight of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) for commercial use (i.e. package deliveries, power transmission line inspections, etc.) in the National Airspace System (NAS). As a consequence of the newly introduced rules, there is an increased risk for accidents involving injured bystanders or damaged to property. The work within this document defines a UAV to UAV safety distance model that acts as a range sensor enabled "elastic bubble". The length of the UAV safety bubble contracts and expands upon changing airway wind speed conditions. It also …

Bragg Gratings In Polarization Maintaining Optical Fiber As Three Dimensional Strain Sensor, Joel Quintana

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Fiber-Bragg Gratings (FBG) for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) have been studied extensively as they offer electrically passive operation, electromagnetic interference (EMI) immunity, high sensitivity and multiplexing as compared to conventional electric strain sensors. FBG sensors written within polarization maintaining (PM) optical fiber offer ad- ditional dimensions of strain measurement, greatly reducing the number of sensors needed to properly monitor a structure. This reduction however, adds complexity to the dis- crimination of the sensorâ??s optical response to its corresponding applied strains. This Dissertation defines the set of algorithms needed to measure planar strain using PM-FBGs exclusively. It defines the minimum number …

Organic-Inorganic Graphite And Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Based Composites For 3d Printing, Jorge Alfredo Catalan Gonzalez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This project was multipronged to help fuse together topics of additive manufacturing and two-dimensional (2D) layered materials, and studying the mechanical and electrical properties of the composites produced. The composites are made from the thermoplastic polymer acting as a matrix and the graphite and 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) serving as the filler or reinforcement. Different concentrations of TMD's were added to the matrix to study the effect of composition on the mechanical and electrical properties. To shed insights into the mechanical properties, test coupons were produced as "dog bone" structures for tensile testing using the ASTM D638 type 5 …

Advances In Chemical Vapor Deposition Growth Of Molybdenum Disulfide For Photodetectors And Flexible Electronics, Carlos Francisco De Anda Orea

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The conversion of light into electrical signals is at the basis of technologies that affect our daily lives. Applications, including video imaging, optical communications, biomedical imaging, security, night-vision, gas sensing and motion detection have reached a high level of maturity due to the development of high-performance materials, large-scale production, and integration technologies. Currently conventional photodetectors made of Silicon (Si) or III-V compounds are about to reach their maximum efficiency, and every time it is harder to get a noticeable improvement in performance of sensors based on these materials, not to mention the complicated fabrication methods to achieve just a few …

Automatic Patch Classification And Diffusion In Adaptive, Luis Alonso Ponce

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Multi-Frame image restoration is a form of Super-Resolution (SR) which consists of combining multiple Low-Resolution (LR) images in order to reconstruct a single High Resolution (HR) image. In this Thesis we improved a spatially-adaptive SR scheme, based on the framework of Optimal Recovery (OR), whereby the block-by-block processing is done based on the properties of the corresponding local LR image data patches. The bandwidth parameter is adapted based on the local variance of each corresponding block from all LR images that contribute to the HR image block to be reconstructed. Also, an optimal regularization parameter needs to be chosen for …

Investigation Of The Use Of 3-D Printer Platform As Building Block For Rapid Design Of Research And Manufacturing Tool, Handy Chandra

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This thesis attempts to show how an open source 3-D printer platform, the self replicating rapid prototype (RepRap), could be used to accelerate the development of research and manufacturing tools. Two projects are shown as examples, both utilizing components of the 3-D printer platform.

The first project is to develop an instrument capable of performing automated large-area four-point probe measurements. A modified RepRap 3-D Printer with a four-point probe in place of the 3-D printer head is utilized as a precision positioning platform. The printer together with custom designed measurement circuit and software performs automated measurement on multiple points on …

Implantable Wireless Sensor Networks: Application To Measuring Temperature For In Vivo Detection Of Infections, Praharsh Madappaly Veetil

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

It is has been proven that infection in the body cause a local temperature increase due to localized inflammation. Therefore, a method to provide early diagnostic or long-term tracking of this infection will provide great benefits to patients with diabetic foot ulcers or sickle cell disease, and those receiving hemodialysis where they suffer from a weakened immune system. The goal of this project is to develop an implantable wireless temperature sensor based on a wireless sensor network system for monitoring infections in situ. The analog signals from the thermistors are digitized and wirelessly transmitted to a computer with an ez430-rf2500 …

Second-Life Battery Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy Modeling And Application To A Residential System, Busra Ovali

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This study presents the modeling of a used hybrid electric vehicle battery (also called second life battery), and its design and simulation for a standalone residential photovoltaic system. For this purpose, the battery was tested through capacity and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy tests (EIS). These tests were done with variable temperatures (0ºC, 15ºC and 30ºC), and results were used to fit an equivalent impedance circuit. This model was used to incorporate a second life battery to a PV system, which was simulated by using daily irradiance and load data for Tucson (AZ) under most various month (May).

Heterogeneous Multi-Sensor Fusion For 2d And 3d Pose Estimation, Hanieh Deilamsalehy

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Sensor fusion is a process in which data from different sensors is combined to acquire an output that cannot be obtained from individual sensors. This dissertation first considers a 2D image level real world problem from rail industry and proposes a novel solution using sensor fusion, then proceeds further to the more complicated 3D problem of multi sensor fusion for UAV pose estimation.

One of the most important safety-related tasks in the rail industry is an early detection of defective rolling stock components. Railway wheels and wheel bearings are two components prone to damage due to their interactions with the …

Minimum Time Control Of Paralleled Boost Converters, Shishir Patel

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Demand for electrification is booming in both, traditional and upcoming generations of technological advancements. One of the constituent blocks of these electrified systems is Power conversion. Power conversion systems are often constructed by paralleling multiple power converter blocks for high performance and reliability of overall system. An advanced control technique is developed with an aim to optimize system states of heterogeneous power converters within minimum time while maintaining feasible stress level on individual power converter blocks. Practical implementation of real-time controller and performance improvement strategies are addressed. Experimental results validating high performance control scheme, and sensitivity analysis of system states …

A Testbed Design For Monitoring The Long-Term Spatial-Temporal Dynamics Of Underwater Acoustic Channels, Krishna Chaitanya Poduru

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The underwater acoustic network testbed helps to validate the theoretical results and bridge the gap between experimental results. Characterizing and modeling the spatial-temporal dynamics of underwater acoustic channels is essential to developing efficient and effective physical-layer communication algorithms and network protocols. This work dedicates to designing a testbed system to measure the spatial-temporal dynamics of underwater acoustic channels. The collected measurements will shed insights into the spatial-temporal correlation of underwater acoustic channels and will be used to evaluate the theoretical algorithms that are designed to model the spatial-temporal dynamics and to exploit the spatial-temporal dynamics for more efficient and effective …

Integrated Circuit Wear-Out Prediction And Recycling Detection Using Radio-Frequency Distinct Native Attribute Features, Randall D. Deppensmith

Theses and Dissertations

Radio Frequency Distinct Native Attribute (RF-DNA) has shown promise for detecting differences in Integrated Circuits(IC) using features extracted from a devices Unintentional Radio Emissions (URE). This ability of RF-DNA relies upon process variation imparted to a semiconductor device during manufacturing. However, internal components in modern ICs electronically age and wear out over their operational lifetime. RF-DNA techniques are adopted from prior work and applied to MSP430 URE to address the following research goals: 1) Does device wear-out impact RF-DNA device discriminability?, 2) Can device age be continuously estimated by monitoring changes in RF-DNA features?, and 3) Can device age state …

Phased Helical Antenna Array For Cubesat Application, Kameron Lacalli

Undergraduate Honors Theses

CubeSats communication links are typically slow due to their power and size restrictions. However, a low power, high speed down link connection can allow for greater data collection and relaying, pushing the capability of 1U CubeSats beyond what is traditionally thought possible. Investigated here is the feasibility of a 11 Mb/s down link connection on a 1U CubeSat, accomplished via 2x2 helical antenna phased array operating on the 802.11 standard. Using a phased array also allows for beam steering to secure connection with the ground station when the on board ADCS may not provide precise pointing capability of the CubeSat, …