Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons^™

The Size Ellect On The Infrared Spectra Of Condensed Media Under Conditions Of Id, 2d And 3d Dielectric Confinement, Igor I. Shaganov, Tatiana S. Perova, Vasily A. Melnikov, Kevin Berwick

Articles

A general expression for the dielectric loss spectrum of an absorbing composite medium was obtained from a Maxwell-Garnett general equation. This expression was simplified for the cases of one, two and three dimensional dielectric confinement in both ordered and disordered thin layers, rods (wires) and spheres of absorbing medium which are considered as mesoparticles or mesoscopic molecules. This theoretical approach was verified experimentally using high purity organic liquids with strong absorption bands in the infrared range. Three organic liquids, namely benzene, chloroform and carbon disulphide, were measured in various dielectric confinement configurations using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy with a …

Double Quantum Dot Photoluminescence Mediated By Incoherent Reversible Energy Transport, S. Yu Kruchinin, A. V. Federov, A. V. Baranov, T. S. Perova, Kevin Berwick

Articles

We present a theoretical study of the stationary photoluminescence of two, direct-gap, semiconductor nanocrystals, taking into account electronic excitation energy-transfer processes due to electrostatic interaction. The results obtained here allow for the incoherent reversible energy transport that occurs when the intraband relaxation rate in a quantum dot acceptor is comparable to, or less than, the energy-transfer rate. We investigate the secondary emission of two different electronic level schemes that can be realized experimentally, obtain analytical expressions for the luminescence differential cross section, and perform an analysis of its spectrum. It is shown that when excitation is not in resonance with …

A Macrobending Singlemode Fiber Refractive Index Sensor For Low Refractive Index Liquids, Pengfei Wang, Yuliya Semenova, Yong Li, Qiang Wu, Gerald Farrell

Articles

An all-fiber refractive index sensor with a simple configuration is proposed and investigated. The proposed fiber refractometer consists of a full-loop structure of bare high-bend loss singlemode fiber-1060XP, employing the well-known whispering gallery mode (WGM) effect induced by the evanescent wave excitation to measure the refractive index of an external medium. A competitive sensitivity is achieved (average 725.76nm/RIU at a bend diameter of 19.3mm) compared with other fiber-optic sensors, plus benefits resulting from simplicity, low cost and ease of fabrication.

Study Of The Effect Of Source Signal Bandwidth On Ratiometric Wavelength Measurement, Qiang Wu, Yuliya Semenova, Ginu Rajan, Pengfei Wang, Gerald Farrell

Articles

We derive an analytic equation for a ratiometric wavelength measurement system and analyze the influence of the optical source signal bandwidth. Our investigation shows that in a particular optical sensing system, the higher the bandwidth of the optical signal, the better resolution the system will achieve. Experiments based on two types of optical signals (output signal of a tunable laser and a fiber Bragg grating) were carried out, and experimental results verified both the simulation results and the theoretical analysis.

Fuzzy Logic Learning For Predictive Feedback Estimation In A Radiant Heat System, Matthew R. Rickey

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

High temperature thermal testing is used to validate the effectiveness of thermal protection systems (TPS) and to simulate aerodynamic heating in high speed flight vehicle structures. Silicon controlled rectifiers (SCR) are utilized to drive resistive heating elements and producing temperatures up to 5000 degrees Fahrenheit. Thermocouples used to provide feedback to the control system have a high probability of failure at extreme temperatures. Traditional solutions include switching to redundant thermocouples, changing to an open-loop control scheme, or using power as the control signal. The first methods is limited in that redundant thermocouples are also not completely reliable. Both open-loop control …

The Effects Of Harmonics On Power Quality And Energy Efficiency, Alan Harrison

Other resources

By making our electricity supply more secure, reliable and versatile will mean that we reduce our reliance upon oil, gas and solid fuels, which mostly exist outside of Ireland and the European community. The majority of our fuel is imported and this makes our economy dependent on outside interests and out of our control. Even more importantly as the world’s fossil fuel reserves are running out and electricity demand is ever increasing.

If we make our electricity networks secure and designed to the highest standards we can import and export electrical energy more easily as our demands change, for example …

Speed Control For Simple Heat Engine, Kat Devirgilio

Honors Capstone Projects and Theses

No abstract provided.

Toward A Distributed Actuation And Cognition Means For A Miniature Soft Robot, Xiaoting Yang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents components of an on-going research project aimed towards developing a miniature soft robot for urban search and rescue (USAR). The three significant contributions of the thesis are verifying the water hammer actuation previous work, developing an estimator of water hammer impulse direction from hose shape, and creating the infrastructure for distributed cognitive networks. There are many technical issues in designing soft robots, in terms of perception, actuation, cognition, power, physical structure and so on. We are focusing on actuation and cognition issues in this thesis. We investigated water hammer actuation as an alternative system which provides a …

Facility Power Usage Modeling And Short Term Prediction With Artificial Neural Networks, Sunny Wan, Xiao-Hua Yu

Electrical Engineering

Residential and commercial buildings accounted for about 68% of the total U.S. electricity consumption in 2002. Improving the energy efficiency of buildings can save energy, reduce cost, and protect the global environment. In this research, artificial neural network is employed to model and predict the facility power usage of campus buildings. The prediction is based on the building power usage history and weather conditions such as temperature, humidity, wind speed, etc. Different neural network configurations are discussed; satisfactory computer simulation results are obtained and presented.

Multi-Node Toa-Doa Cooperative Los-Nlos Localization : Enabling High Accuracy And Reliability, Zhonghai Wang

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

This dissertation investigates high performance cooperative localization in wireless environments based on multi-node time-of-arrival (TOA) and direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimations in line-of-sight (LOS) and non-LOS (NLOS) scenarios. Here, two categories of nodes are assumed: base nodes (BNs) and target nodes (TNs). BNs are equipped with antenna arrays and capable of estimating TOA (range) and DOA (angle). TNs are equipped with Omni-directional antennas and communicate with BNs to allow BNs to localize TNs; thus, the proposed localization is maintained by BNs and TNs cooperation.

First, a LOS localization method is proposed, which is based on semi-distributed multi-node TOA-DOA fusion. The proposed technique …

2009/10 Research, Development, And Activities, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

Electrical and Computer Engineering Newsletter

• Design of iPhone Game Applications for the Eyes on the Earth Initiative
• Printed Electronics Research and Sensor Development
• Dual-Use Ground Vehicle Condition-Based Maintenance
• TS-Type Fuzzy Automaton for Software Agents
• NEW DEAN – College of Engineering & Applied Sciences
• Nonlinear Circuits and Systems Laboratory
• ECE supporting Sunseeker Solar Rayce Team
• DOE Strategic Training and Education in Power Systems (STEPS) Funding

Ab Initio Simulations Of Hydrogen And Lithium Adsorption On Silicene, Tim H. Osborn

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

The energies and temperature-dependent dynamics of hydrogen and lithium chemisorption on a silicon nanosheet, called silicene, were studied using density functional theory and molecular-dynamics (MD) simulations. Silicene has a buckled honeycomb structure, and has been fabricated as suspended monolayer sheets and nanoribbons in recent experiments. We calculated the adsorption energies of hydrogen and lithium on silicene for different adsorption ratios between 3.1% and 100%. The studies will clarify the characteristics of these novel and promising nanomaterials, and pave the way for their applications.

For Hydrogen, the adsorption energy had a maximum of 3.01 eV/H for complete hydrogenation, and decreased by …

On Iterative Decoding Of Two-Level Superposition Codes For Cooperative Broadcasting Based On Qpsk And 4-Pam Constellations, Robert H. Morelos-Zaragoza

Faculty Publications

This paper considers iterative decoding of two-level superposition codes used in cooperative broadcasting over wireless networks. The coding scheme consists of two low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes combined using Plotkin's |u|u + v|-construction and provides two levels of error protection. Coding for cooperative broadcasting differs from conventional single-source broadcast coding. Instead of binary addition of subcode codewords performed by a single-source encoder, in superposition coding two modulated subcode sequences, produced by two coordinated and independent sources, are combined at the antenna of the receiver. Expressions are derived for the bit metrics, or log-likelihood ratio values, used by an iterative decoder for …

Analysis And Design Of A Feedback Controlled Adaptive Pneumatic Cast, Susan Renee Mueller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A pneumatic system with PID control for an actively controlled cast is designed. The cast is intended to aid healing of diabetic foot ulcers by relieving pressure from the sole of a patient's foot and distributing it to the calf. This is accomplished by a pneumatic system which maintains set pressure in multiple air bladders. The research began by defining an electrical circuit analogous to a single supply subsystem. Tests are performed to determine the coefficients for each component. These coefficients are used in a mathematical model to better understand the response of the system to pressure input. A controller …

Exploiting Glottal Formant Parameters For Glottal Inverse Filtering And Parameterization, Alan O'Cinneide, David Dorran, Mikel Gainza, Eugene Coyle

Conference papers

It is crucial for many methods of inverse filtering that the time domain information of the glottal source waveform is known, e.g. the location of the instant of glottal closure. It is often the case that this information is unknown and/or cannot be determined due to e.g. recording conditions which can corrupt the phase spectrum. In these scenarios, alternative strategies are required. This paper describes a method which, given the parameters of the glottal formant of the signal frame, can accurately parameterize the glottal shape source and vocal filter for a broad range of voice quality types and which is …

Live Video Database Management Systems, Rui Peng

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With the proliferation of inexpensive cameras and the availability of high-speed wired and wireless networks, networks of distributed cameras are becoming an enabling technology for a broad range of interdisciplinary applications in domains such as public safety and security, manufacturing, transportation, and healthcare. Today’s live video processing systems on networks of distributed cameras, however, are designed for specific classes of applications. To provide a generic query processing platform for applications of distributed camera networks, we designed and implemented a new class of general purpose database management systems, the live video database management system (LVDBMS). We view networked video cameras as …

Fast-Response Liquid Crystal Displays, Meizi Jiao

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

After about five decades of extensive material research and device development, followed by massive investment in manufacturing technology, thin-film-transistor liquid-crystaldisplay (TFT-LCD) has finally become the dominant flat panel display technology. Nowadays, LCD performances, such as viewing angle, contrast ratio, and resolution, have reached acceptable levels. The remaining major technical challenges are response time, light efficiency, and sunlight readability. Fast response time is desired to reduce motion blur and to enable field sequential color displays using red (R), green (G), and blue (B) LEDs (light emitting diodes) without noticeable color breakup. Sequential RGB colors would eliminate the commonly used spatial color …

Interactive Music Archive Access System, Martin Gallagher, Mikel Gainza, Derry Fitzgerald, Dan Barry, Matt Cranitch, Eugene Coyle

Conference papers

The goal of the Interactive Music Archive Access System (IMAAS) project was to develop an interactive music archive access system which was capable of allowing an end-user to easily extract rhythmic, melodic and harmonic musical metadata
descriptors from audio, and allow the user to interact with the archive contents in a manner not typically allowed in archive access systems. To this end, the IMAAS system incorporates a range of real-time interaction tools which allow the user to modify the retrieved audio in a number of ways including the ability to isolate individual instruments in stereo mixes, pitch and timescale modification, …

Dissociative Cdse/Zns Quantum Dot-Molecule Complex For Luminescent Sensing Of Metal Ions In Aqueous Solutions, A. V. Baranov, A. O. Orlova, V. G. Maslov, Yu. A. Toporova, E. V. Ushakova, A. Federov, M. V. Artemyev, T. S. Perova, Kevin Berwick

Articles

The optical properties of dissociative luminescent sensors based on a complex consisting of highly luminescent hydrophobic core/shell CdSe/ZnS quantum dots (QDs) and 1-(2-pyridilazo)-2-naphtol (PAN) molecules in organic solutions and a polymer film are reported. It is demonstrated, using Ni²⁺ and Co²⁺ ions as an illustrative example, that the QD/PAN sensor may have applications in the quantitative luminescent sensing of metal ions in aqueous solutions.

Sift-Me: A New Feature For Human Activity Recognition, Guosheng Wu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Action representation for robust human activity recognition is still a challenging problem. This thesis proposed a new feature for human activity recognition named SIFT-Motion Estimation (SIFT-ME). SIFT-ME is derived from SIFT correspondences in a sequence of video frames and adds tracking information to describe human body motion. This feature is an extension of SIFT and is used to represent both translation and rotation in plane rotation for the key features. Compare with other features, SIFT-ME is new as it uses rotation of key features to describe action and it robust to the environment changes. Because SIFT-ME is derived from SIFT …