Digital Commons Network^™

Linear And Non-Linear Control Of A Quadrotor Uav, Andrew Neff

All Theses

This thesis describes two controllers designed specifically for a quadrotor helicopter unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). A linear controller and a non-linear controller are discussed for use on the quadrotor helicopter using feedback that is obtained from microelectromechanical systems and GPS.
The linear controller is an orientation based PID controller that controls the angles of the quadrotor UAV. The controller was first simulated and the results displayed graphically using FlightGear. Experiments were conducted using this controller on a DraganFlyer X-Pro quadrotor helicopter to prove the proposed method used for closing the feedback loop.
The non-linear controller is developed using Lyapunov stability …

Isomap Tracking With Particle Filter, Nikhil Rane

All Theses

The problem of tracking an object in an image sequence involves challenges like translation, rotation, scaling, varying ambient light and occlusions. A model of an object is built off-line by making a training set with images of the object with different poses. A dimensionality reduction technique is used to capture the variations in the training images. This gives a low-dimensional representation of the data. Isometric feature mapping is the dimensionality reduction technique used to capture the true degrees of freedom in the data. Once the data is reduced to low-dimensions it forms a part of the state-vector of the object. …

Attestation-Based Remote Biometric Authentication, Thomas Polon

All Theses

Migration from password and token-based authentication in distributed systems requires fundamental changes to the authentication process. A person's biometric data is not a secret, which presents a fundamental difference with other authentication methods. Matching a sample with a database template is secondary to establishing trust in the integrity of the sample. The process is similar to establishing a chain of custody for judicial evidence. In computer systems this is accomplished using attestation architectures. In this paper, a design for a secure remote biometric login system based on an attestation architecture is analyzed. The system uses a commercially available Trusted Platform …

Electrical Skin Impedance At Acupuncture Points, Sean Pearson, Agatha P. Colbert, James Mcnames, Meggan Baumgartner, Richard Hammerschlag

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objective: To test whether electrical skin impedance at each of three acupuncture points (APs) is significantly lower than at nearby sites on the meridian (MP) and off the meridian (NP). Design: Two instruments—Prognos (MedPrevent GmbH, Waldershof, Germany), a constant-current (DC) device, and PT Probe (designed for this study), a 100-Hz sinusoidal-current (AC) device—were used to record electrical impedance at three APs (right Gallbladder 14, right Pericardium 8, and left Triple Energizer 1), and two control sites for each AP. Each AP, MP, and NP was measured four times in random order with each device. Setting: The study was conducted over …

Non-Laser-Based Scanner For Three-Dimensional Digitization Of Historical Artifacts, Donald D. Duncan, Daniel V. Hahn, Kevin C. Baldwin

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

A 3D scanner, based on incoherent illumination techniques, and associated data-processing algorithms are presented that can be used to scan objects at lateral resolutions ranging from 5 to 100 m (or more) and depth resolutions of approximately 2 m. The scanner was designed with the specific intent to scan cuneiform tablets but can be utilized for other applications. Photometric stereo techniques are used to obtain both a surface normal map and a parameterized model of the object’s bidirectional reflectance distribution function. The normal map is combined with height information, gathered by structured light techniques, to form a consistent 3D surface. …

An Emotional Mimicking Humanoid Biped Robot And Its Quantum Control Based On The Constraint Satisfaction Model, Quay Williams, Scott Bogner, Michael Kelley, Carolina Castillo, Martin Lukac, Dong Hwa Kim, Jeff S. Allen, Mathias I. Sunardi, Sazzad Hossain, Marek Perkowski

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The paper presents a humanoid robot that responds to human gestures seen by a camera. The behavior of the robot can be completely deterministic as specified by a Finite State Machine that maps the sensor signals to the effector signals. This model is further extended to the constraints-satisfaction based model that links robots vision, motion, emotional behavior and planning. One way of implementing this model is to use adiabatic quantum computer which quadratically speeds-up every constraint problem and will be thus necessary to solve large problems of this type. We propose to use the remotely-connected Orion system by DWAVE Corporation.

Bist Design For Ccd Based Digital Imaging System, Bin Jin, Nohpill Park, Serge N. Demidenko, Minsu Choi, Fabrizio Lombardi

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents a BIST design for CCD-based digital imaging system. Pixels on a CCD are not free from defective or faulty pixels due to numerous causes such as imperfect fabrication, excessive exposure to light, radiation, sensing element aging, and excessive mechanical shock, to mention a few. Today's high demand for high resolution CCDs is dictating defect/fault-tolerance in such devices. Especially, traditional on-device BIST cannot be readily employed on the imaging devices such as CCD due to the unique requirement that no pixel can be utilized to repair or bypass a defect on any other pixels. Therefore, the BIST technique …

Analytical And Intelligent Techniques For Dynamically Secure Dispatches, Aftab Alam

All Dissertations

The NERC August 14th Blackout report brought out by the task force cited 'failure to ensure operation within secure limits' as one of the main reasons. Many of the numerous recommendations focused on the need for better real-time tools for operators and reliability coordinators. In the absence of such tools the operators are limited to operating in conservative secure operating regions established using offline studies. At the same time, with the fast inception of deregulation, the need to ensure a reliable and secure power system has become all the more vital. The success of a competitive market is dependent upon …

Low-Complexity Iterative Detection Techniques For Slow-Frequency-Hop Spread-Spectrum Communications With Reed-Solomon Coding., Harish Ramchandran

All Dissertations

Slow-frequency-hop (SFH) spread-spectrum communications provide a high level of robustness in packet-radio networks for both military and commercial applications. The use of a Reed-Solomon (R-S) code has proven to be a good choice for use in a SFH system for countering the critical channel impairments of partial-band fading and partial-band interference. In particular, it is effective when reliability information of dwell intervals and individual code symbols can be obtained and errors-and-erasures decoding (EE) can be employed at the receiver.
In this dissertation, we consider high-data-rate SFH communications for which the channel in each frequency slot is frequency selective, manifesting itself …

The Use Of Accelerated Full-Wave Modeling To Analyze Power Island Coupling In A Hyperbga Scm, Jason Morsey, Alina Deutsch, J. P. Libous, C. Surovic, Barry J. Rubin, Lijun Jiang, L. Eisenberg

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Presented here are results and recommendations for reducing coupling between adjacent power islands based on full-wave simulations of a HyperBGA SCM (single-chip module). These simulations highlight the use of IBM's internally developed accelerated full-wave solver based on the precorrected fast Fourier transform approach. Speedups of 100 x and memory reductions of 12 x are shown for real engineering problems, as compared to direct integral equation solutions. © 2007 IEEE.

Single-Phase Ac Impedance Modeling For Stability Of Integrated Power Systems, Jing Huang, Keith Corzine, M. Belkhayat

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

To date, the only power system stability requirement that can be decomposed or quantitatively "flowed" down to component design requirements are impedance based. Impedance based requirements have been advanced for both dc and three-phase ac but none for single-phase ac interfaces. What are ultimately needed are universal stability requirements that are applicable to dc, single-phase ac, and three-phase ac interfaces as well as a measurement tool which can be used to enforce the requirements at all interfaces without changing the fundamental structure of the impedance measurement device. These advanced techniques should be applicable to all voltage levels currently in use …

Stacked Generalization For Early Diagnosis Of Alzheimer's Disease, Hardik P. Gandhi

Theses and Dissertations

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurological disorder characterized by nerve degeneration and neuronal death. The diagnosis of AD at an early stage is a major concern due to growing number of elderly people affected by the disease, as well as the lack of a standard diagnosis procedure available to community clinics. A biomarker that will allow early diagnosis of the disease would be beneficial. Such biomarker should be noninvasive, simple to obtain, safe, inexpensive, accurate, and most importantly, must be made available to local health clinics for maximum effectiveness.

Recent studies have used wavelets and other signal processing methods to …

Do Current Erasure Programs Remove Evidence Of Bittorrent Activity?, Andrew Woodward, Craig Valli

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This research in progress aims to evaluate the effectiveness of commercial programs to erase traces of the use of BitTorrent software. The erasure programs MaxErase, P2PDoctor, Privacy Suite, Window Washer and R-Clean and Wipe were used on a machine that had used the BitTorrent client Azureus to download two torrent files. The drive was imaged and then searched for torrent files. The registry was also examined on the source machine. The program R-Clean and Wipe left evidence in both the registry and the image of the name and type of files that had been downloaded with this software. Of greater …

Monitoring And Surveillance In The Workplace: Lessons Learnt? – Investigating The International Legal Position, Verine Etsebeth

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

When considering the legal implications of monitoring and surveillance in the workplace, the question may be asked why companies deploy computer surveillance and monitoring in the first place. Several reasons may be put forward to justify why more than 80% of all major American firms monitor employee e-mails and Internet usage. However, what most companies forget is the fact that the absence or presence of monitoring and surveillance activities in a company holds serious legal consequences for companies. From the discussion in this paper it will become apparent that there is a vast difference in how most countries approach this …

The General Digital Forensics Model, Steven Rigby, Marcus K. Rogers

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The lack of a graphical representation of all of the principles, processes, and phases necessary to carry out an digital forensic investigation is a key inhibitor to effective education in this newly emerging field of study. Many digital forensic models have been suggested for this purpose but they lack explanatory power as they are merely a collection of lists or one-dimensional figures. This paper presents a new multi-dimensional model, the General Digital Forensics Model (GDFM), that shows the relationships and inter-connectedness of the principles and processes needed within the domain of digital forensics.

Keywords: process model, computer forensics, expert learning, …

Teams Responsibilities For Digital Forensic Process, Salma Abdalla, Sherif Hazem, Sherif Hashem

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This paper presents a detailed digital forensics process model and the responsible teams to perform it. The discussed model presents three teams and a forensic leader who coordinate between the three teams; these teams are physical crime scene team, laboratory examination team and courtroom team. These teams are responsible of achieving the digital forensic model by applying five main phases which are preparation phase, physical forensics and investigation phase, digital forensics phase, reporting and presentation phase and closure phase.

Most of the existing models in this field are either theoretical that deals with data processing or based on a legal …

Guideline Model For Digital Forensic Investigation, Salma Abdalla, Sherif Hazem, Sherif Hashem

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This paper proposes a detailed guideline model for digital forensics; the proposed model consists of five main phases, Preparation phase, Physical Forensics and Investigation Phase, Digital Forensics Phase, Reporting and Presentation Phase, and Closure Phase.

Most of the existing models in this field do not cover all aspects of digital forensic investigations, as they focus mainly on the processing of digital evidence or on the legal points. Although they gave good information to base on it a guide, but they are not detailed enough to describe fully the investigative process in a way that can be used by investigators during …

Finding Relevant Pdf Medical Journal Articles By The Content Of Their Figures As Well As Their Text, Ammon J. Christiansen

Theses and Dissertations

This work addresses the need for an alternative to keyword-based search for sifting through large PDF medical journal article document collections for literature review purposes. Despite users' best efforts to form precise and accurate queries, it is often difficult to guess the right keywords to find all the related articles while finding a minimum number of unrelated ones. Failure during literature review to find relevant, related research results in wasted research time and effort in addition to missing significant work in the related area which could affect the quality of the research work being conducted. The purpose of this work …

Preserved Enzymatic Activity Of Glucose Oxidase Immobilized On Unmodified Electrodes For Glucose Detection, Gang Wang, Ngee Mei Thai, Siu-Tung Yau

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Glucose sensing electrodes have been realized by immobilizing glucose oxidase (GOx) on unmodified edge plane of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (epHOPG) and the native oxide of heavily doped silicon (SiO₂/Si). Both kinds of electrode show direct interfacial electron transfer due to the redox process of the immobilized GOx. The measured formal potential of the redox process agrees with that of the native enzyme, suggesting that the immobilized GOx has retained its enzymatic activity. The electron transfer rates of the GOx immobilized electrode are 2s⁻¹ for GOx/epHOPG electrode and 7.9s⁻¹ for GOx/SiO₂/Si electrode, which …

Polarization Dependence Of Bend Loss For A Standard Singlemode Fiber, Qian Wang, Ginu Rajan, Pengfei Wang, Gerald Farrell

Articles

Polarization dependence of bend loss caused by the polymer coating layer for a standard singlemode fiber (SMF28) is investigated theoretically and experimentally. Bend loss for SMF28 for both the TE and TM mode is calculated separately. Normalized polarization dependent loss is proposed for the characterization of the polarization sensitivity of bend loss for different bend radii. Corresponding experimental tests are presented, which agree with the theoretical results. Both the theoretical and experimental results show that the polymer coating layer has a significant influence on the polarization dependence of bend loss.

Multiplexing H.264 Video With Aac Audio Bit Streams, Demultiplexing And Achieving Lip Synchronization During Playback, Harishankar Murugan

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

H.264, MPEG-4 part-10 or AVC [5], is the latest digital video codec standard which has proven to be superior than any early standards in terms of compression ratio, quality, bit rates and error resilience. However, the standard just defines a video codec and has no mention of any audio compression. In order to have a meaningful delivery of the video to the end user, we need to associate an audio stream along with it. AAC (advanced audio coding) [1] is the latest digital audio codec standard defined in MPEG-2 and later in MPEG-4 with few changes. The audio quality of …

Rna Gene Finding With Biased Mutation Operators, Jennifer A. Smith

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The use of genetic algorithms for non-coding RNA gene finding has previously been investigated and found to be a potentially viable method for accelerating covariance-model-based database search relative to full dynamic-programming methods. The mutation operators in previous work chose new alignment insertion and deletion locations uniformly over the length of the model consensus sequence. Since the covariance models are estimated from multiple known members of a non-coding RNA family, information is available as to the likelihood of insertions or deletions at the individual model positions. This information is implicit in the state-transition parameters of the estimated covariance models. In the …

Spontaneous Mode Locking In Mixed-Broadened Laser Oscillators, Pitak Chenkosol, Lee W. Casperson

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

A theoretical model is reported for spontaneous mode locking in mixed-broadened laser oscillators. Experimental observations of this effect have been available for many years, but no rigorous interpretation has been given. Numerical calculations emphasize the case of a high-gain xenon laser, for which extensive experimental data have been published. Complex pulsation characteristics are observed as the cavity length and pumping rate are varied, and the theoretical results are in good agreement with the experimental data.

Teaching Asynchronous Digital Design In The Undergraduate Computer Engineering Curriculum, Scott C. Smith, Waleed K. Al-Assadi

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

As demand continues for circuits with higher performance, higher complexity, and decreased feature size, asynchronous (clockless) paradigms will become more widely used in the semiconductor industry, as evidenced by the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors' (ITRS) prediction of a likely shift from synchronous to asynchronous design styles in order to increase circuit robustness, decrease power, and alleviate many clock-related issues. ITRS predicts that asynchronous circuits will account for 19% of chip area within the next 5 years, and 30% of chip area within the next 10 years. To meet this growing industry need, students in Computer Engineering should be introduced …

Simulation And Modeling Of Nerve Impulse Propagation And Its Blockage By External Electrical Stimulation, Nidhi Nahar

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The electric nature of biological tissues permits the transmission of signals for information and for control and is, therefore, of vital importance for life. The latest scientific achievements and nanoscale probing techniques now allow scientists to research at the subcellular level by measuring the electric current flows through a single ion channel of the cell membrane with the patch-clamp method. With the latter approach, the effects of electrical stimulation can be quantified, understood, and applied to molecular biology and the development of medical diagnostic and therapeutic methods.

In this thesis, the Hodgkin-Huxley approach for unmyelinated fibers, coupled with a transmission …

Long-Range Target Classification In A Cluttered Environment Using Multi-Sensor Image Sequences, Cenk Yaman

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Accurate identification of unknown contacts is crucial in military intelligence. Automated systems which quickly and accurately determine the identity of a contact could be a benefit in backing up electronic signal identification methods such as Identification Friend and Foe (IFF) systems. Radio Detection and Ranging (RADAR) images are often undesirable in military applications since they reveal the location of the imaging system. So we explore the use of visible and infrared images of which are generally more consistent than RADAR images and for which it is easy to compensate for environmental effects. Recent advances in visible and IR imaging technology …

Wimax Software Defined Radio, Assad Saleem

Masters Theses

As processors and configurable devices are getting faster and smaller, they are giving rise to better solutions for various communications systems and standards. In this paper, the implementation of a software defined radio for WiMAX is presented. This paper highlights the system model for simulation to achieve better understanding of the system, which was developed in MATLAB. Also, included in the paper is the discussion of the physical implementation of this communication system. The system is build around National Instruments’ PCI 5640 hardware which features a Xilinx Virtex-II FPGA. Naturally, LabVIEW was the tool used to implement the hardware/software co-design.

Time-Frequency Transform Techniques For Seabed And Buried Target Classification, Madalina Barbu, Edit J. Kaminsky, Russell E. Trahan

Electrical Engineering Faculty Publications

An approach for processing sonar signals with the ultimate goal of ocean bottom sediment classification and underwater buried target classification is presented in this paper. Work reported for sediment classification is based on sonar data collected by one of the AN/AQS-20’s sonars. Synthetic data, simulating data acquired by parametric sonar, is employed for target classification. The technique is based on the Fractional Fourier Transform (FrFT), which is better suited for sonar applications because FrFT uses linear chirps as basis functions. In the first stage of the algorithm, FrFT requires finding the optimum order of the transform that can be estimated …

Maximizing Communication Concurrency Via Link-Layer Packet Salvaging In Mobile Ad Hoc Networks, Chansu Yu, Kang G. Shin, Lubo Song

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Carrier-sense medium access control (MAC) protocols such as the IEEE 802.11 distributed coordination function (DCF) avoid collisions by holding up pending packet transmission requests when a carrier signal is observed above a certain threshold. However, this often results in unnecessarily conservative communication, thus making it difficult to maximize the utilization of the spatial spectral resource. This paper shows that a higher aggregate throughput can be achieved by allowing more concurrent communications and adjusting the communication distance on the fly, which needs provisions for the following two areas. On the one hand, carrier sense-based MAC protocols do not allow aggressive communication …

Derivation And Application Of A Conserved Orbital Energy For The Inverted Pendulum Bipedal Walking Model, Jerry E. Pratt, Sergey V. Drakunov

Publications

We present an analysis of a point mass, point foot, planar inverted pendulum model for bipedal walking. Using this model, we derive expressions for a conserved quantity, the “Orbital Energy”, given a smooth Center of Mass trajectory. Given a closed form Center of Mass Trajectory, the equation for the Orbital Energy is a closed form expression except for an integral term, which we show to be the first moment of area under the Center of Mass path. Hence, given a Center of Mass trajectory, it is straightforward and computationally simple to compute phase portraits for the system. In fact, for …