Digital Commons Network^™

Device Structure Effects On Electrical Crosstalk In Backwall Illuminated Cmos Compatible Photodiode Arrays, Paul Vernon Jansz

Theses : Honours

This research has made a comparative investigated of crosstalk in backside illuminated and frontside illuminated single junction photodiode and vertical double junction photodiode CMOS compatible pixels, using a commercial 2D device simulation package, SEMICAD DEVICE (1994). Comparison of pixel total, electron and hole quantum efficiency response and Absorption Volume data is undertaken. This is so that the underlying carrier drift-diffusion dynamics responsible for optimal pixel response resolution may be qualitatively understood, allowing prediction of even more optimal photodiode pixel configurations. The effect of varying the double junction and single junction photodiode pixel's geometry on response resolution is considered. Only for …

Use Of Machine Learning Based On Constructive Induction In Dialogs With Robotic Heads, Marek Perkowski, Tsutomu Sasao, Atsumu Iseno, Uland Wong, Martin Lukac, David Ng, Miranda Fix, Karl Kuchs, Mikhail Pivtoraiko, Michele Folgheraiter

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Paper presents our research progress and experiences related to designing inexpensive natural-size humanoid caricature and realistic robot heads - actors for robot theatre, agents for advertisement, education and entertainment. We concentrate on Machine Learning techniques used to teach robots behaviors, natural language dialogs and facial gestures.

Power System Basics For Business Professionals In Our Industry, G. Gross, Peter W. Sauer, Mariesa Crow

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The rapid changes in the business aspects of the electricity industry are making it necessary for engineers to communicate more frequently and more effectively with nontechnical people. With the heightened interest in electric power and energy systems, a broad range of "nonpower" people has expressed a need for a primer on power engineering fundamentals presented in a nontechnical manner. In response, the IEEE Power Engineering Society sponsored the preparation of such a course targeted towards the "business professional." The first offering of this course was in July 2002 as part of the IEEE PES Summer Meeting in Chicago. Power System …

Rate-Based End-To-End Congestion Control Of Multimedia Traffic In Packet Switched Networks, Mingsheng Peng, S. R. Subramanya, Jagannathan Sarangapani

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper proposes an explicit rate-based end-to-end congestion control mechanism to alleviate congestion of multimedia traffic in packet switched networks such as the Internet. The congestion is controlled by adjusting the transmission rates of the sources in response to the feedback information from destination such as the buffer occupancy, packet arrival rate and service rate at the outgoing link, so that a desired quality of service (QoS) can be met. The QoS is defined in terms of packet loss ratio, transmission delay, power, and network utilization. Comparison studies demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme over New-Reno TCP (a variant …

Computational Enhancement Of Genetic Algorithm Via Control Device Pre-Selection Mechanism For Power System Reactive Power/Voltage Control, G. Krost, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy, G. A. Bakare, U. O. Aliyu

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, the application of a novel and computationally enhances genetic algorithm (GA) for solving the reactive power dispatch problem is presented. In order to attain a significant reduction in the computational time of GA, a systematic procedure of reactive power control device pre-selection mechanism is herein proposed to choose a-priori subsets of the available control devices, which maximally influence buses experiencing voltage limit violations. The GA reactive power dispatch module then accesses such judiciously pre-selected control device candidates to determine their optimal settings. A pragmatic scheme aimed at further curtailing the number of the final control actions entertained …

Fuzzy Logic In Collective Robotic Search, Nian Zhang, Donald C. Wunsch

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

One important application of mobile robots is searching a geographical region to locate the origin of a specific sensible phenomenon. We first propose a fuzzy logic approach using a decision table. A novel fuzzy rule based was designed. And then a fuzzy search strategy is adopted by utilizing the three tier centers of mass coordination. Experimental results show that fuzzy logic algorithm is an efficient approach for the collective robots to locate the target source. In addition, noise and the position of the target affect the searching result.

Implementation Of Adaptive Critic-Based Neurocontrollers For Turbogenerators In A Multimachine Power System, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy, Donald C. Wunsch, Ronald G. Harley

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents the design and practical hardware implementation of optimal neurocontrollers that replace the conventional automatic voltage regulator (AVR) and the turbine governor of turbogenerators on multimachine power systems. The neurocontroller design uses a powerful technique of the adaptive critic design (ACD) family called dual heuristic programming (DHP). The DHP neurocontroller's training and testing are implemented on the Innovative Integration M67 card consisting of the TMS320C6701 processor. The measured results show that the DHP neurocontrollers are robust and their performance does not degrade unlike the conventional controllers even when a power system stabilizer (PSS) is included, for changes in …

Pcb Emc Design Guidelines: A Brief Annotated List, Todd H. Hubing

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Some of the worst printed circuit board design choices are made by engineers who are trying to comply with a list of EMC design guidelines. Nevertheless, a short list of design guidelines can be helpful at times. This paper reviews some of the more general EMC design guidelines for printed circuit board layout.

A Nested Sensor Array Focusing On Near Field Targets, Y. Rosa Zheng, M. El-Tanany, R. A. Goubran

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A nested virtual array subband beamforming system is proposed for applications where broadband signal targets are located within the near field of the array. Subband multirate processing and near field beamforming techniques are used jointly for the nested array to improve the performances and reduce the computational complexity. A new noise model, namely the broadband near field spherically isotropic noise model, is also proposed for the optimization design of near field beamformers. It is shown that near field beamforming is essential for better distance discrimination of near field targets, reduced beampattern variations for broadband signals, and stronger reverberation suppression.

A Study Of The Probe Induced Disturbances On The Near-Field Measurement, Jin Shi, Richard E. Dubroff, Kevin P. Slattery, Masahiro Yamaguchi, K.-I. Arai

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Numerical simulations were used to investigate the disturbance introduced by placing a small magnetic loop probe in the near field of a driven loop. In the absence of the loop probe, the numerical simulations were compared with an approximate closed-form analytical expression for the magnetic field produced by the driven loop. The agreement between the approximate analytical results and the simulation was good. The next set of simulations was based on a physical model that included the probe and showed that the probe does exert an effect on the field being measured. Examples of these simulations and their implications on …

Definition Of A Robustness Metric For Resource Allocation, Shoukat Ali, A. A. Maciejewski, Howard Jay Siegel, Jong-Kook Kim

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Parallel and distributed systems may operate in an environment that undergoes unpredictable changes causing certain system performance features to degrade. Such systems need robustness to guarantee limited degradation despite fluctuations in the behavior of its component parts or environment. This research investigates the robustness of an allocation of resources to tasks in parallel and distributed systems. The main contributions of this paper are (1) a mathematical description of a metric for the robustness of a resource allocation with respect to desired system performance features against perturbations in system and environmental conditions, and (2) a procedure for deriving a robustness metric …

Speaking And Writing Proficiency Of International Graduate Students In Elective, Mentoring Environments, Steve Eugene Watkins, Randy Green

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Technical communication skills are critical for non-native speakers who must study and interact in English-only professional settings. Often, formal instruction to pass admission thresholds and other minimum requirements are not sufficient to attain proficiency. This paper describes elective, long-term programs that provide systematic opportunities for both speaking and writing development. These programs are tailored to international students through the key features of individualized activities, applied task-oriented practice, and social interaction. The elective programs attract and retain participants with interest and need for high-level language proficiency. Program evaluations show that participating graduate students give primary credit for their growing fluency to …

Statistical Simulation Models For Rayleigh And Rician Fading, Chengshan Xiao, Y. Rosa Zheng, N. C. Beaulieu

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

New simulation models are proposed for Rayleigh and Rician fading channels. First, the statistical properties of Clarke's fading model with a finite number of sinusoids are analyzed. An improved Clarke's model is then proposed for the simulation of Rayleigh fading channels. Based on this improved Rayleigh fading model, a novel simulation model is proposed for Rician fading channels. The new Rician fading model employs a zero-mean stochastic sinusoid as the specular (line-of-sight) component, in contrast to all existing Rician fading simulators that utilize a non-zero mean deterministic specular component. The statistical properties of the proposed Rician fading model are analyzed …

A Discrete-Time Model For Spatio-Temporally Correlated Mimo Wssus Multipath Channels, Chengshan Xiao, Jingxian Wu, Sang-Yick Leong, Y. Rosa Zheng, Khaled Ben Letaief

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, a statistical discrete-time model is proposed for simulating wideband MIMO channels which experience spatially and temporally correlated, widesense stationary uncorrelated scattering (WSSUS) multipath Rayleigh fading. A new method is also presented to efficiently generate the correlated MIMO channel coefficients, which can be used for accurate simulation of physical continuous-time MIMO channel. The statistic accuracy of the discrete-time MIMO channel model is rigorously verified through theoretical analysis and extensive simulations in different criteria.

A Numerical Investigation Of Interior Resonances In The Hybrid Fem/Mom Method, Yun Ji, Hao Wang, Todd H. Hubing

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The interior resonance problem that can occur when using a hybrid finite-element method/method of moments (FEM/MoM) method to model electromagnetic scattering problems is investigated. Calculations of the bistatic radar cross section of a coated dielectric sphere are presented using different formulations, solution approaches, and solvers. The solutions using the electric-field integral equation have significant errors near an interior resonance frequency. When the combined-field integral equation is employed, satisfactory solutions can be obtained that do not depend on the particular solution approach or solver.

A Statistical Simulation Model For Mobile Radio Fading Channels, Chengshan Xiao, Y. Rosa Zheng

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Recently, a Clarke's model-based simulator was proposed for Rayleigh fading channels. However, that model, as shown in this paper, may encounter statistic deficiency. Therefore, an improved model is presented to remove the statistic deficiency. Furthermore, a new simulation model is proposed for Rician fading channels. This Rician fading simulator with finite number of sinusoids plus a zero-mean stochastic sinusoid as the specular (line-of-sight) component is different from all the existing Rician fading simulators, which have non-zero mean deterministic specular component. The statistical properties of the proposed Rayleigh and Rician fading channel models are analyzed in detail, which shows that these …

Spectrum Visualization And Measurement Of Power Parameters Of Microwave Wideband Noise, Marina Koledintseva, Alexander A. Kitaytsev, V. A. Konkin, V. Radchenko

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A method for an adequate visualization of a microwave intense noise envelope in a wide frequency range (several octaves), measuring of its power parameters, and detection of a narrowband signal with unknown frequency and power against the noise background is presented. This method is based on an application of a nonheterodyne principle of microwave frequency (and power) conversion using a gyromagnetic converter, which operates in two regimes in turn: the resonance detection and the cross-multiplication. A block-scheme and an operation of a two-channel measuring device combining the mentioned functions are discussed.

Locating Moving Objects Over Mobile Sensor Network, Arvind Nath Rapaka, Sandeep Bogollu, Donald C. Wunsch, Ravindra Nath

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The purpose of our on going research would be to track entities, which enter their field of vision over the sensor network. Based on their sightings, they maintain a dynamic cache that can be queried by a base station- a stationary orfixed node. Since transmitting messages consumes a lot of energy, as against local processing and moreover the limited energy in sensor node does not allow heavy duty computing, we need to develop algorithms that will ensure efficient computing and minimal transmission without degradation of performance. and also data is stored locally, and memory is finite, the nodes must choose …

Control Of Cascaded Multi-Level Inverters, Keith Corzine, Fang Zheng Peng, J. Wang, M. W. Wielebski

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A new type of multi-level inverter is introduced which is created by cascading two three-phase three-level inverters using the load connection. This new inverter can operate as a nine-level inverter and naturally splits the power conversion into a higher voltage lower-frequency inverter and a lower-voltage higher frequency inverter. This type of system presents particular advantages to naval ship propulsion systems which rely on high power quality, survivable drives. New control methods are described involving both joint and separate control of the individual three-level inverters. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of both controls. A laboratory set-up at the Naval Surface Warfare …

A Comparison Of Dual Heuristic Programming (Dhp) And Neural Network Based Stochastic Optimization Approach On Collective Robotic Search Problem, Nian Zhang, Donald C. Wunsch

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

An important application of mobile robots is searching a region to locate the origin of a specific phenomenon. A variety of optimization algorithms can be employed to locate the target source, which has the maximum intensity of the distribution of some detected function. We propose two neural network algorithms: stochastic optimization algorithm and dual heuristic programming (DHP) to solve the collective robotic search problem. Experiments were carried out to investigate the effect of noise and the number of robots on the task performance, as well as the expenses. The experimental results showed that the performance of the dual heuristic programming …

Distributed Sensor Network For Civil Infrastructure Health Monitoring, Jose Humberto Mata Hernandez

Masters Theses

"This thesis focuses on the development of a robust, low power consumption and cost effective wireless data acquisition, system to be used for civil infrastructure health monitoring. The complete solution that has been developed for this application integrates micro-electromechanical sensing elements (e.g. PVDF sensor); a wireless data acquisition system based on a Bluetooth-enabled radio, a microcontroller with analog to digital conversion capabilities, a power source including a solar cell array for long term operation, and a weatherproof enclosure for on-site installation. The complementary part of the solution is a weatherproof On-site Remote Access Point (ORAP) which collects, stores, and transmits …

Common- And Differential-Mode Signaling And Filtering, Zhe Li

Masters Theses

"Common-mode chokes are widely used as suppression filters against interference of common-mode noise in high-speed differential signaling. This thesis focuses on investigating the characteristics of common-mode chokes. Mixed-mode S-parameters are presented as a useful concept for explaining the modal operation of differential circuits.

Three methods for measuring common-mode and differentia-mode S-parameters of common-mode chokes are demonstrated. The three methods involve (1) ABCD chain matrix, 2) using hybrid couplers and 3) modal decomposition. Each measurement method provides a specific level of accuracy. The modal decomposition method can work up to 10GHz.

SPICE equivalent circuit model of common-mode chokes and the extraction …

Automated Segmentation Of Radiodense Tissue In Digitized Mammograms Using A Constrained Neyman-Pearson Classifier, Jeremy Thomas Neyhart

Theses and Dissertations

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer related mortality among American women. Mammography screening has emerged as a reliable non-invasive technique for early detection of breast cancer. The radiographic appearance of the female breast consists of radiolucent (dark) regions and radiodense (light) regions due to connective and epithelial tissue. It has been established that the percentage of radiodense tissue in a patient's breast can be used as a marker for predicting breast cancer risk. This thesis presents the design, development and validation of a novel automated algorithm for estimating the percentage of radiodense tissue in a digitized mammogram. …

Chaotic Free-Space Laser Communication Over Turbulent Channel, N. F. Rulkov, Mikhail Vorontsov, L. Illing

Electro-Optics and Photonics Faculty Publications

The dynamics of errors caused by atmospheric turbulence in a self-synchronizing chaos-based communication system that stably transmits information over a ∼5  km free-space laser link is studied experimentally. Binary information is transmitted using a chaotic sequence of short-term pulses as a carrier. The information signal slightly shifts the chaotic time position of each pulse depending on the information bit. We report the results of an experimental analysis of the atmospheric turbulence in the channel and the impact of turbulence on the bit-error-rate performance of this chaos-based communication system.

Training Radial Basis Neural Networks With The Extended Kalman Filter, Daniel J. Simon

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Radial basis function (RBF) neural networks provide attractive possibilities for solving signal processing and pattern classification problems. Several algorithms have been proposed for choosing the RBF prototypes and training the network. The selection of the RBF prototypes and the network weights can be viewed as a system identification problem. As such, this paper proposes the use of the extended Kalman filter for the learning procedure. After the user chooses how many prototypes to include in the network, the Kalman filter simultaneously solves for the prototype vectors and the weight matrix. A decoupled extended Kalman filter is then proposed in order …

Yet Another Algorithm For Pitch Tracking (Yaapt), Kavita Kasi

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This thesis presents a pitch detection algorithm that is extremely robust for both high quality and telephone speech. The kernel method for this algorithm is the Normalized Cross Correlation (NCCF) reported by David Talkin [16]. Major innovations include: processing of the original acoustic signal and a nonlinearly processed version of the signal to partially restore very weak F0 components; intelligent peak picking to select multiple F0 candidates and assign merit factors; and, incorporation of highly robust pitch contours obtained from smoothed versions of low frequency portions of spectrograms. Dynamic programming is used to find the ''best" pitch track among all …

Phase-Sensitive Detection Electronics For Wavelength Modulation Spectroscopy Experiments, Tyrone Pate

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Wavelength modulation spectroscopy (WMS) is a non-intrusive detection technique, which enables the measurement of several parameters such as pressure, concentration, and temperature of a species of interest by analyzing the latter's absorption lineshape profile. The method employs a synchronous modulation and detection apparatus to increase the signal to noise ratio and hence the sensitivity of the measurement. Phase-sensitive detection and demodulation of the signal is performed at the modulation frequency and its harmonics. Research at ODU demonstrates that each particular measurement can be performed optimally at an appropriate harmonic of the modulation frequency. The most suitable harmonic depends on many …

Study Of Transport Properties Of Inas Using Monte Carlo Simulation, Satyanadh Gundimada

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The present research is aimed at ascertaining the usefulness of InAs semiconductor material for single photon avalanche photo detectors operating in the Geiger mode at 2 μm wavelengths. InAs is considered as the material suitable for the purpose because of its less bandgap and lower effective mass of the electrons when compared to other semiconductor materials presently in use. Hence, theoretically transient transport properties of bulk InAs are superior and the velocity overshoot phenomena stronger. InAs is a relatively less explored material when compared to other materials like GaAs. The choice of the material is justified with thorough exploration of …

Network Traffic Anomaly Detection Based On Packet Bytes, Philip K. Chan, Matthew V. Mahoney

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Hostile network traffic is often "different" from benign traffic in ways that can be distinguished without knowing the nature of the attack. We describe a two-stage anomaly detection system for identifying suspicious traffic. First, we filter traffic to pass only the packets of most interest, e.g., the first few packets of incoming server requests. Second, we model the most common protocols (IP, TCP, telnet, FTP, SMTP, HTTP) at the packet byte level to flag events (byte values) that have not been observed for a long time. This simple system detects 132 of 185 attacks in the 1999 DARPA IDS evaluation …

A New Approach To Robot’S Imitation Of Behaviors By Decomposition Of Multiple-Valued Relations, Uland Wong, Marek Perkowski

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Relation decomposition has been used for FPGA mapping, layout optimization, and data mining. Decision trees are very popular in data mining and robotics. We present relation decomposition as a new general-purpose machine learning method which generalizes the methods of inducing decision trees, decision diagrams and other structures. Relation decomposition can be used in robotics also in place of classical learning methods such as Reinforcement Learning or Artificial Neural Networks. This paper presents an approach to imitation learning based on decomposition. A Head/Hand robot learns simple behaviors using features extracted from computer vision, speech recognition and sensors.