VLSI and Circuits, Embedded and Hardware Systems Commons^™

Independent Component Analysis Enhancements For Source Separation In Immersive Audio Environments, Yue Zhao

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

In immersive audio environments with distributed microphones, Independent Component Analysis (ICA) can be applied to uncover signals from a mixture of other signals and noise, such as in a cocktail party recording. ICA algorithms have been developed for instantaneous source mixtures and convolutional source mixtures. While ICA for instantaneous mixtures works when no delays exist between the signals in each mixture, distributed microphone recordings typically result various delays of the signals over the recorded channels. The convolutive ICA algorithm should account for delays; however, it requires many parameters to be set and often has stability issues. This thesis introduces the …

Fpga To Power System Theorization For A Fault Location And Specification Algorithm, Christina Yeoman

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Fault detection and location algorithms have allowed for the power industry to alter the power grid from the traditional model to becoming a smart grid. This thesis implements an already established algorithm for detecting faults, as well as an impedance-based algorithm for detecting where on the line the fault has occurred and develops a smart algorithm for future HDL conversion using Simulink. Using the algorithms, the ways in which this implementation can be used to create a smarter grid are the fundamental basis for this research. Simulink was used to create a two-bus power system, create environment variables, and then …

Fpga-Based Implementation Of Dual-Frequency Pattern Scheme For 3-D Shape Measurement, Brent Bondehagen

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Structured Light Illumination (SLI) is the process where spatially varied patterns are projected onto a 3-D surface and based on the distortion by the surface topology, phase information can be calculated and a 3D model constructed. Phase Measuring Profilometry (PMP) is a particular type of SLI that requires three or more patterns temporarily multiplexed. High speed PMP attempts to scan moving objects whose motion is small so as to have little impact on the 3-D model. Given that practically all machine vision cameras and high speed cameras employ a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) interface directly to the image sensors, …

Providing A Persistent Space Plug-And-Play Avionics Network On The International Space Station, Zachary A. Jacobs

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

The CubeLab is a new payload standard that greatly improves access to the International Space Station (ISS) for small, rapid turn-around microgravity experiments. CubeLabs are small (less than 16”x8”x4” and under 10kg) modular payloads that interface with the NanoRacks Platform aboard the ISS. CubeLabs receive power from the station and transfer data using the standard terrestrial plug-and-play Universal Serial Bus (USB). The Space Plug-and-play Avionics (SPA) architecture is a modular technology for spacecraft that provides an infrastructure for modular satellite components to reduce the time to orbit and development costs for satellites. This paper describes the development of a bus …

A Silicon Carbide Based Solid-State Fault Current Limiter For Modern Power Distribution Systems, Erik Darnell Johnson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The fault current limiter represents a developing technology which will greatly improve the reliability and stability of the power grid. By reducing the magnitude of fault currents in distribution systems, fault current limiters can alleviate much of the damage imposed by these events. Solid-state fault current limiters in particular offer many improved capabilities in comparison to the power system protection equipment which is currently being used for fault current mitigation. The use of silicon carbide power semiconductor devices in solid-state fault current limiters produces a system that would help to advance the infrastructure of the electric grid.

A solid-state fault …

Design And Analysis Of An Adaptive Asynchronous System Architecture For Energy Efficiency, Brent Michael Hollosi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Power has become a critical design parameter for digital CMOS integrated circuits. With performance still garnering much concern, a central idea has emerged: minimizing power consumption while maintaining performance. The use of dynamic voltage scaling (DVS) with parallelism has shown to be an effective way of saving power while maintaining performance. However, the potency of DVS and parallelism in traditional, clocked synchronous systems is limited because of the strict timing requirements such systems must comply with. Delay-insensitive (DI) asynchronous systems have the potential to benefit more from these techniques due to their flexible timing requirements and high modularity. This dissertation …

Smart Wall Plug Design For The Dc House Project, Edward Constant Sibal

Master's Theses

The DC House project at Cal Poly State University faces a challenge of supplying DC voltage to household appliances. Each appliance in the DC House constitutes a DC load that has a unique voltage and power rating, hence the need to develop a smart DC wall plug that will automatically adjust to the operating voltage required by any DC load. This thesis entails a proof of concept design of the smart DC wall plug which can automatically detect an appliance’s voltage rating. The design employs a dc-dc converter in conjunction with a microcontroller to sense load current to properly adjust …

The Development And Packaging Of A High-Density, Three-Phase, Silicon Carbide (Sic) Motor Drive, Jared Hornberger

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Technology advances within the power electronics field are resulting in systems characterized by higher operating efficiencies, reduced footprint, minimal form factor, and decreasing mass. In particular, these attributes and characteristics are being inserted into numerous consumer applications, such as light-emitting diode lighting, compact fluorescent lighting, smart phones, and tablet PCs, to industrial applications that include hybrid, electric, and plug-in electric vehicles and more electric aircraft. To achieve the increase in energy efficiency and significant reduction in size and mass of these systems, power semiconductor device manufacturers are developing silicon carbide (SiC) semiconductor technology.

In this dissertation, the author discusses the …

Study Of Current Optocoupler Techniques And Applications For Isolation Of Sensing And Control Signals In Dc-Dc Converters, Jake Williams

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is a need for power switches that can operate at high voltage, high temperature, and high switching frequencies with low losses. Power switches fabricated from wide bandgap materials such as silicon carbide (SiC) or gallium nitride (GaN) can outperform conventional silicon switches due to material property advantages. Another common problem in grid-connected applications is the need for high voltage-isolation of gate drivers and control circuitry while operating efficiently at the high switching frequencies, high power density, and high temperatures made possible by wide bandgap devices. Transformers cannot operate at the temperatures of these wide bandgap devices and a new …

Low Power Data Acquisition For Microimplant Biometric Monitoring Of Tremors, Tania Khanna '01

Doctoral Dissertations

In recent years, trends in the medical industry have created a growing demand for implantable medical devices. In particular, the need to provide doctors a means to continuously monitor biometrics over long time scales with increased precision is paramount to efficient healthcare. To make medical implants more attractive, there is a need to reduce their size and power consumption. Small medical implants would allow for less invasive procedures, greater comfort for patients, and increased patient compliance. Reductions in power consumption translate to longer battery life. The two primary limitations to the size of small medical implants are the batteries that …

Flexible Circuits For Aerospace Applications With Special Emphasis On Rf Connectors, Abhishek Nareshraj Singh

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The current work focused on the study of flexible electronic circuits for use in aerospace applications with emphasis on RF Connectors. The electrical and mechanical performance of the flexible circuits was studied and compared to a standard coaxial cable for feasibility study in avionics space. Also, Anisotropic Conductive Films (ACF) are studied for connecting the flexible RF connectors and their performance studied for electrical and mechanical behavior with change in bonding parameters.

Comparison Of Various Pipelined And Non-Pipelined Scl 8051 Alus, Jingyi Zhao

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper describes the development of an 8-bit SCL 8051 ALU with two versions: SCL 8051 ALU with nsleep and sleep signals and SCL 8051 ALU without nsleep. Both versions have combinational logic (C/L), registers, and completion components, which all utilize slept gates. Both three-stage pipelined and non-pipelined designs were examined for both versions. The four designs were compared in terms of area, speed, leakage power, average power and energy per operation. The SCL 8051 ALU without nsleep is smaller and faster, but it has greater leakage power. It also has lower average power, and less energy consumption than …

Touchspice Vs. Reactive-Spice: A Human-Computer Interaction Perspective, Joshua Martin O'Hara

Master's Theses

Traditional SPICE simulation tools and applications of circuit theory lack real-time interaction and feedback. The goal of this thesis was to create an interactive physical environment to allow the manipulation and simulation of discrete electrical components in near-real-time while optimizing and streamlining the human-computer interaction (HCI) elements to make the user experience as positive and transparent as possible. This type of HCI and near-real-time simulation feedback would allow for the instant realization of how the parameters of each discrete component or hardware module affect the overall simulation and response of the circuit.

The scope of this thesis is to research, …

Ultra-Low Voltage Digital Circuits And Extreme Temperature Electronics Design, Aaron J. Arthurs

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Certain applications require digital electronics to operate under extreme conditions e.g., large swings in ambient temperature, very low supply voltage, high radiation. Such applications include sensor networks, wearable electronics, unmanned aerial vehicles, spacecraft, and energyharvesting systems. This dissertation splits into two projects that study digital electronics supplied by ultra-low voltages and build an electronic system for extreme temperatures. The first project introduces techniques that improve circuit reliability at deep subthreshold voltages as well as determine the minimum required supply voltage. These techniques address digital electronic design at several levels: the physical process, gate design, and system architecture. This dissertation analyzes …

Delay Insensitive Ternary Logic Utilizing Cmos And Cntfet, Ravi Sankar Parameswaran Nair

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As digital circuit design continues to evolve due to progress of semiconductor processes well into the sub 100nm range, clocked architectures face limitations in a number of cases where clockless asynchronous architectures require substantially less power, generate less noise, and produce less electromagnetic interference (EMI). This dissertation develops the Delay Insensitive Ternary Logic (DITL) asynchronous design paradigm that combines the designs aspects of similar Dual-Rail asynchronous paradigms and Boolean logic to create a single wire per bit, three voltage signaling and logic scheme.

DITL is designed at the transistor level using multi-threshold CMOS and carbon nanotube (CNT) FETs to develop …

Low Power Sigma Delta Converter, Noel P. Martinez, Praveen K. Palakurthi, Eric Macdonald

COURI Symposium Abstracts, Summer 2012

Sub threshold technology allows for circuits to run at their best efficiency with the lowest amount of energy possible. The aim of this research was to combine this technology along with radiation hardness, or the ability for circuits to resist radiation without getting corrupted data. A chip that can convert digital data into analog data (DAC) was created and programmed using verilog, a Hardware Description Language (HDL). With verilog, we created digital data that would eventually be fed into the chip using a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) board. We tested our digital data using a test bench on the computer …

Adaptive Energy Management Scheme In Real-Time Energy Harvesting Embedded Systems, Shruti Khare

Master's Theses

The main purpose of this thesis was to develop an online adaptive energy management scheme for energy harvesting embedded systems. Two energy prediction schemes were used, namely Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (EWMA) and Adaptive Forward Prediction (AFP), to schedule all the tasks with least deadline miss rate. The AFP scheme has a mean relative error of 6-10% which is much lower than exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) algorithm with an error of 30%. The large difference in the error percentage between the two prediction algorithms is due to the adaptive nature of AFP as it tracks small changes in input …

Modernizing The Microcontroller Laboratory With Low-Cost And Open-Source Tools, Kenneth J. Hass, Juliana Su

Faculty Conference Papers and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Control System For Glucose Detector System, David Smith

Electrical Engineering

In this paper I design and test on a prove of concept level a control/timing circuit for a blood glucose detector built in a previous senior project. The specifications of the design given are to properly power the detector with a low power source. The design is completed on a transistor level basis using Cadence Virtuoso Software. The system is design from the ground up; designing, building, and testing smaller circuits first then combined into increasingly larger circuits till the completed circuit is finished. The design used to based off of the 555 Timer and uses differential pairs, CMOS designed …

Iphone Breathalyzer: Point Oh Wait!, Gurpal Bhoot

Electrical Engineering

This final year project combines hardware and software components to create an alcohol breathalyzer that is compatible with the iPhone. The final design of the circuit and the iPhone application is original and combines multiple components to create the final product. Most of those components are seen in a simplified version of a breathalyzer, while the added components take care of the interface to the iPhone.