Digital Commons Network^™

High Efficiency Energy Storage System Design For Hybrid Electric Vehicle With Motor Drive Integration, Shuai Lu, Keith Corzine, Mehdi Ferdowsi

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper proposes a new energy storage system (ESS) design including both batteries and ultracapacitors (UC) in hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) and electric vehicle (EV) applications. The conventional designs require a dc-dc converter to interface the UC unit. Herein, the UC can be directly switched across the motor drive dc-link during the peak power demands. The resulting wide voltage variation due to UC power transfer is addressed by the simple modulator introduced in this paper, so that the motor drive performance is not disrupted. Based on this new methodology, the paper further introduces two ESS schemes with different topologies, UC …

Design And Realization Of A Single Stage Sigma-Delta Adc With Low Oversampling Ratio, Yongjie Cheng

Theses and Dissertations

Due to the rapid growth of the communication market, a large amount of research is in process toward a high speed and high resolution sigma-delta A/D converter. This dissertation focuses on the design of a single-stage sigma-delta A/D converter with very low oversampling ratio for the wireless application. An architecture for a multibit single-stage delta-sigma A/D converter with two-step quantization is proposed. Both the MSB and LSB signals produced by the two-step quantization are fed back simultaneously to all integrator stages, making it suitable for low oversampling ratios. The two-step ADC avoids the problem that the complexity of an internal …

A Data Fusion Approach To Automated Vehicle Detector Testing, C. A. Maccarley, N. Nesse, J. Slonaker

Electrical Engineering

Vehicle presence detectors have become critical elements of traffic management systems, including applications ranging from intersection signal control to freeway congestion monitoring. The need to assess the accuracy and attributes of each of the many types of sensors motivated the California Department of Transportation to construct the Traffic Detector Testbed on I-405 in Southern California. With up to ten detectors of different types under concurrent test in each of six lanes, a means for automating the testing process became imperative, since traditional human-verification methods were not practical. This paper describes the design and implementation of an automated data acquisition and …

Obstacle Avoidance For Small Unmanned Air Vehicles, Brandon R. Call

Theses and Dissertations

Small UAVs are used for low altitude surveillance flights where unknown obstacles can be encountered. These UAVs can be given the capability to navigate in uncertain environments if obstacles are identified. This research presents an obstacle avoidance system for small UAVs. First, a mission waypoint path is created that avoids all known obstacles using a genetic algorithm. Then, while the UAV is in flight, obstacles are detected using a forward looking, onboard camera. Image features are found using the Harris Corner Detector and tracked through multiple video frames which provides three dimensional localization of the features. A sparse three dimensional …

Lightweight In-Plane Actuated Deformable Mirrors For Space Telescopes, Michael J. Shepherd

Theses and Dissertations

This research focused on lightweight, in-plane actuated, deformable mirrors, with the ultimate goal of developing a 20- meter light gathering aperture for space telescopes. The 0.127 meter diameter deformable mirror small scale testbed was modelled infinite elements using MSC.Nastran software and then used as a basis for a quasi-static controller. Experimental tracking of Zernike tip, tilt, and defocus modes was accomplished. The analytical solutions to plate-membrane and beam-string ordinary differential equations were developed. A simplified approach to modelling the axisymmetric cases was also presented. A novel static control strategy, the Modal Transformation Method, was developed to form Zernike surfaces within …

Performance Of A Variable Speed Double-Fed Induction Generator Wind Turbine During Network Voltage Unbalance Conditions, Joseph Kearney, Michael Conlon

Conference papers

The issues of the negative performance of DFIG’s due to supply network voltage unbalance are outlined in this paper. The paper shows the effects that voltage unbalance can have on a DFIG, using the power simulation program DigSilent. The results from simulations show that voltage unbalance affects the both the induction generator and the rotor converter, due to the high unbalanced currents generated. The ability to modify the control strategy of a DFIG to compensate for voltage unbalance is outlined and a proposal to build a test-rig suitable to implement such a system is suggested.

Covariance Searches For Ncrna Gene Finding, Jennifer A. Smith

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The use of covariance models for non-coding RNA gene finding is extremely powerful and also extremely computationally demanding. A major reason for the high computational burden of this algorithm is that the search proceeds through every possible start position in the database and every possible sequence length between zero and a user-defined maximum length at every one of these start positions. Furthermore, for every start position and sequence length, all possible combinations of insertions and deletions leading to the given sequence length are searched. It has been previously shown that a large portion of this search space is nowhere near …

A Three-Phase Soft Switching Rectifier Based On A Zcs Zeta Converter, Kai-Tak Wan, Mehdi Ferdowsi

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A new three-phase high power factor rectifier based on Zeta converter is presented. A resonant inductor and capacitor are added to the circuit to create zero-current switching condition for the switch. The circuit is operated in the PWM mode by putting a parallel switch and diode in series with the resonant capacitor. Different operating modes of the new topology are presented in detail. The simulation results verify the analysis.

A General Purpose Framework For Wireless Sensor Network Applications, Ayman Z. Faza, Sahra Sedigh

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Wireless sensor networks are becoming a basis for a rapidly increasing range of applications. Habitat, flood, and wildfire monitoring are interesting examples of such applications. Each application has different requirements in terms of node functionalities, network size, complexity and cost; therefore, it is worthwhile time investment to design and implement a general purpose framework for wireless sensor networks that would be adaptable to any monitoring application of interest with a minimum amount of effort. In this manuscript, we propose a basic structure for such a framework and highlight a number of challenges anticipated during the course of this doctoral research.

A General Framework For Analyzing, Characterizing, And Implementing Spectrally Modulated, Spectrally Encoded Signals, Marcus L. Roberts

Theses and Dissertations

Fourth generation (4G) communications will support many capabilities while providing universal, high speed access. One potential enabler for these capabilities is software defined radio (SDR). When controlled by cognitive radio (CR) principles, the required waveform diversity is achieved via a synergistic union called CR-based SDR. Research is rapidly progressing in SDR hardware and software venues, but current CR-based SDR research lacks the theoretical foundation and analytic framework to permit efficient implementation. This limitation is addressed here by introducing a general framework for analyzing, characterizing, and implementing spectrally modulated, spectrally encoded (SMSE) signals within CR-based SDR architectures. Given orthogonal frequency division …

Fusion Of Imaging And Inertial Sensors For Navigation, Michael J. Veth

Theses and Dissertations

The motivation of this research is to address the limitations of satellite-based navigation by fusing imaging and inertial systems. The research begins by rigorously describing the imaging and navigation problem and developing practical models of the sensors, then presenting a transformation technique to detect features within an image. Given a set of features, a statistical feature projection technique is developed which utilizes inertial measurements to predict vectors in the feature space between images. This coupling of the imaging and inertial sensors at a deep level is then used to aid the statistical feature matching function. The feature matches and inertial …

Navigation Using Signals Of Opportunity In The Am Transmission Band, Jonathan A. Mcellroy

Theses and Dissertations

Maintaining a precision navigation solution both in a GPS hostile jamming environment and also in a GPS non-compatible terrain area is of great importance. To that end, this thesis evaluates the ability to navigate using signals from the AM band of the electromagnetic spectrum (520 to 1710 kHz). Navigation position estimates are done using multi-lateration techniques similar to GPS. However, pseudoranges are created using Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) distances between a reference receiver and a mobile receiver, allowing the mobile receiver to obtain absolute position estimates over time. Four methods were developed for estimating the cross-correlation peak within a …

Dual Fine Tracking Control Of A Satellite Laser Communication Uplink, Louis A. Noble

Theses and Dissertations

A dual fine tracking control system (FTCS) is developed for a single aperture optical communication receiver to compensate for high frequency disturbances affecting tracking of two incident laser communication beams. The optical communication receiver resides within a payload module aboard a geosynchronous satellite, while each laser communication transmitter is housed within a module aboard a high altitude unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). In addition to platform specific disturbances, the impact of atmospheric optical disturbances affecting tracking error are investigated. The system dynamics and FTCS are modeled and evaluated in MATLAB and SIMULINK. An optimal controller is developed to mitigate these disturbances …

Fast Scene Based Nonuniformity Correction With Minimal Temporal Latency, Christopher A. Rice

Theses and Dissertations

The focus of this research was to derive a new algorithm for correction of gain nonuniformities in LIDAR focal plane arrays using as few frames as possible. Because of the current low production rate of LIDAR focal plane arrays there is a natural tendency for extreme nonuniformities to exist on a pixel by pixel basis as the manufacturing technique has not yet been perfected. Generally, nonuniformity correction techniques require a large number of frames and/or have obscure requirements on the translational shifts in the input image frames. This thesis presents a solution for finding multiplicative nonuniformities that exist in a …

Distributed Control Of Hybrid Motor Drives, Keith Corzine, Shuai Lu, T. H. Fikse

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The hybrid inverter fed motor drive with two cascaded multilevel inverters is an attractive option for high performance high power applications such as naval ship propulsion systems due to a number of unique features. There is a natural split between a higher-voltage lower-frequency "bulk" inverter and a lower-voltage higher-frequency "conditioning" inverter in the cascaded system which matches the availability of semiconductor devices. Furthermore, the bulk inverter may be a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) motor drive meaning that only the conditioning inverter needs to be custom made. However, a drive involving a COTS bulk inverter would require a distributed conditioning inverter control which …

Dynamic Maximum Power Point Tracking Of Photovoltaic Arrays Using Ripple Correlation Control, Trishan Esram, Jonathan W. Kimball, Philip T. Krein, Patrick L. Chapman, Pallab Midya

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A dynamically rapid method used for tracking the maximum power point of photovoltaic arrays, known as ripple correlation control, is presented and verified against experiment. The technique takes advantage of the signal ripple, which is automatically present in power converters. The ripple is interpreted as a perturbation from which a gradient ascent optimization can be realized. The technique converges asymptotically at maximum speed to the maximum power point without the benefit of any array parameters or measurements. The technique has simple circuit implementations.

Maximizing Miniature Aerial Vehicles, Stephen Griffiths, Jeffery Brian Saunders, Andrew Curtis, Blake Barber, Timothy W. Mclain, Randal W. Beard

Faculty Publications

Despite the tremendous potential demonstrated by miniature aerial vehicles (MAV) in numerous applications, they are currently limited to operations in open air space, far away from obstacles and terrain. To broaden the range of applications for MAVs, methods to enable operation in environments of increased complexity must be developed. In this article, we presented two strategies for obstacle and terrain avoidance that provide a means for avoiding obstacles in the flight path and for staying centered in a winding corridor.

Unified Architecture Of Mobile Ad Hoc Network Security (Mans) System, Li Ling

Dissertations

In this dissertation, a unified architecture of Mobile Ad-hoc Network Security (MANS) system is proposed, under which IDS agent, authentication, recovery policy and other policies can be defined formally and explicitly, and are enforced by a uniform architecture. A new authentication model for high-value transactions in cluster-based MANET is also designed in MANS system. This model is motivated by previous works but try to use their beauties and avoid their shortcomings, by using threshold sharing of the certificate signing key within each cluster to distribute the certificate services, and using certificate chain and certificate repository to achieve better scalability, less …

Automatic Modulation Classification Of Communication Signals, Zaihe Yu

Dissertations

The automatic modulation recognition (AMR) plays an important role in various civilian and military applications. Most of the existing AMR algorithms assume that the input signal is only of analog modulation or is only of digital modulation. In blind environments, however, it is impossible to know in advance if the received communication signal is analogue modulated or digitally modulated. Furthermore, it is noted that the applications of the currently existing AMR algorithms designed for handling both analog and digital communication signals are rather restricted in practice. Motivated by this, an AMR algorithm that is able to discriminate between analog communication …

Fabrication And Characterization Of Back Illuminated Cmos Photodiode Array, Amitra Banerjee

Theses

With the rapid development in low-cost CMOS technology, silicon photodiodes are currently recognized as promising choice for the imager core. In this research, the arrays of back illuminated photodiodes were designed, fabricated and demonstrated with CMOS imager fabrication process on silicon wafers. The main purpose of this work was to improve the contribution of these arrays on the imaging systems before committing their design on the chips.

In this CMOS process, first the n-well, p-well, n+and p+ regions were simulated and fabricated by several implantation processes. The n-well region was implanted by phosphorus at an energy of 170 keV and …

3d Interconnects For Die And Wafer Stacks, Rachita Dewan

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

3D integration results from the ever demanding trend towards smaller and lower-profile, lighter and lower cost packaged devices requires further package miniaturization. With the present System-on-chip (SOC) technology reaching its limitation in terms of functionality and cost, effort are being concentrated on exploring the third dimension, i.e. 3D integration. It provides a volumetric packaging solution for higher integration and performance and results in size and weight reduction. Approaches to achieve 3D integration are die and wafer stacking. A key technology to realize the potential of stacking is implementation of vertical electrical interconnects between die and wafer stacks. This thesis discusses …

A Compact Digitally Controlled Fuel Cell/Battery Hybrid Power Source, Zhenhua Jiang, Roger A. Dougal

Faculty Publications

A compact digitally controlled fuel cell/battery hybrid power source is presented in this paper. The hybrid power source composed of fuel cells and batteries provides a much higher peak power than each component alone while preserving high energy density, which is important and desirable for many modern electronic devices, through an appropriately controlled dc/dc power converter that handles the power flow shared by the fuel cell and the battery. Rather than being controlled to serve only as a voltage or current regulator, the power converter is regulated to balance the power flow to satisfy the load requirements while ensuring the …

Characterizing Package/Pcb Pdn Interactions From A Full-Wave Finite-Difference Formulation, Shishuang Sun, David Pommerenke, James L. Drewniak, Kai Xiao, Sin-Ting Chen, Tzong-Lin Wu

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A novel approach of equivalent circuit model extraction is developed for modeling of integrated package and PCB power distribution networks (PDN). The integrated PDNs are formulated from a full-wave finite-difference algorithm, and the resulting matrix equations are converted to equivalent circuits. The equivalent circuits, as well as the decoupling capacitors and the attached circuit components, can be analyzed with a SPICE-like solver in both the time and frequency domains. The modeling of dielectric loss is also addressed. The method is used to model three PDN problems including a simple power bus, a BGA package mounting on a PCB, and a …

Predicting Tem Cell Measurements From Near Field Scan Data, Haixiao Weng, Daryl G. Beetner, Richard E. Dubroff

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A procedure is proposed for predicting TEM cell measurements from near field scans by modeling near-field scan data using equivalent sources. The first step in this procedure is to measure the tangential electric and magnetic fields over the circuit. Electric and magnetic fields are estimated from probe measurements by compensating for the characteristics of the probe. An equivalent magnetic and electric current model representing emissions is then generated from the compensated fields. These equivalent sources are used as an impressed source in an analytical formula or full wave simulation to predict measurements within the TEM cell. Experimental verification of the …

Influence Of An Extended Stub At Connector Ports On Signal Launches And Trl De-Embedding, Jianmin Zhang, James L. Drewniak, David Pommerenke, Bruce Archambeault, Zhiping Yang, Wheling Cheng, John Fisher, Sergio Camerlo

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Characterization of PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards) is usually associated with measurement using a VNA (Vector Network Analyzer) in the frequency-domain or a TDR (Time Domain Reflectometer) in the time-domain. The often used signal launch techniques on PCBs based on the VNA or TDR measurement in the microwave frequency range use SMA or 3.5 mm connectors, in edge-launch or vertical-launch fashions. The signal transition between the launch port and the DUT (Device Under Test) introduces errors in the measurement, which is dominant when compared with a transmission line itself on the PCB as the technologies of PCB manufacturing well developed today. …

Cascaded Multilevel Converters With Non-Integer Or Dynamically Changing Dc Voltage Ratios, Shuai Lu, Keith Corzine

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Multilevel converters made of cascaded cells (MCCC) offer a high number of voltage levels with a given switch count. Many variants of the MCCC topology have been introduced over years. Mostly, only integer DC voltage ratios between the cascaded converter cells have been applied to its PWM modulation. This is mainly due to the non-uniform distribution of voltage vectors with the non-integer DC ratios. It poses difficulty to the conventional SVM modulators relying on locating the equilateral "triangle" made of three nearest vectors enclosing the reference vector. In this paper, an original modulation method is introduced to operate with any …

Cross-Layer Issues In Mac Protocol Design For Mimo Ad Hoc Networks, Michael A. Jensen, A. Lee Swindlehurst, Michele Zorzi, James R. Zeidler, Adam L. Anderson, Bhaskar Rao, John Proakis, Srikanth Krishnamurthy

Faculty Publications

In this article, we discuss research and design issues that arise in the development of networking protocols for an ad hoc network where nodes are equipped with multiple antenna elements and have the ability to perform signal processing operations as required by adaptive beamforming, interference cancellation, and space-time coding.

Video Stabilization And Target Localization Using Feature Tracking With Video From Small Uavs, David Linn Johansen

Theses and Dissertations

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) equipped with lightweight, inexpensive cameras have grown in popularity by enabling new uses of UAV technology. However, the video retrieved from small UAVs is often unwatchable due to high frequency jitter. Beginning with an investigation of previous stabilization work, this thesis discusses the challenges of stabilizing UAV based video. It then presents a software based computer vision framework and discusses its use to develop a real-time stabilization solution. A novel approach of estimating intended video motion is then presented. Next, the thesis proceeds to extend previous target localization work by allowing the operator to easily identify …

Microwave Remote Sensing Of Saharan Ergs And Amazon Vegetation, Haroon Stephen

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on relating spaceborne microwave data to the geophysical characteristics of the Sahara desert and the Amazon vegetation. Radar and radiometric responses of the Saharan ergs are related to geophysical properties of sand formations and near surface winds. The spatial and temporal variability of the Amazon vegetation is studied using multi-frequency and multi-polarization data. The Sahara desert includes large expanses of sand dunes called ergs that are constantly reshaped by prevailing winds. Radar backscatter measurements observed at various incidence and azimuth angles from the NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT), the ERS scatterometer (ESCAT), the SeaWinds scatterometer aboard QuikScat (QSCAT), and …

Arq Techniques For Mimo Communication Systems, Zhihong Ding

Theses and Dissertations

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication systems employ multiple antennas at the transmitter and the receiver. Multiple antennas provide capacity gain and/or robust performance over single antenna communications. Traditional automatic-repeat-request (ARQ) techniques developed for single-input single-output (SISO) communication systems have to be modified in order to be employed in MIMO communication systems. In this dissertation, we propose and analysis some ARQ techniques for MIMO communication systems. The basic retransmission protocols of ARQ, stop-and-wait (SW-ARQ), go-back-$N$ (GBN-ARQ), and selective repeat (SR-ARQ), designed for SISO communication systems are generalized for parallel multichannel communication systems. The generalized ARQ protocols seek to improve the channel utilization …