Engineering Commons^™

Docking System Design And Self-Assembly Control Of Distributed Swarm Flying Robots, Hongxing Wei, Ning Li, Yong Tao, Youdong Chen, Jindong Tan

Michigan Tech Publications

This paper presents a novel docking system design and the distributed self-assembly control strategy for a Distributed Swarm Flying Robot (DSFR). The DSFR is a swarm robot comprising many identical robot modules that are able to move on the ground, dock with each other and fly coordinately once self-assembled into a robotic structure. A generalized adjacency matrix method is proposed to describe the configurations of robotic structures. Based on the docking system and the adjacency matrix, experiments are performed to demonstrate and verify the self-assembly control strategy.

The Case For Open Source Appropriate Technology, Joshua M. Pearce

Michigan Tech Publications

Much of the widespread poverty, environmental desecration, and waste of human life seen around the globe could be prevented by known (to humanity as a whole) technologies, many of which are simply not available to those that need it. This lack of access to critical information for sustainable development is directly responsible for a morally and ethically unacceptable level of human suffering and death. A solution to this general problem is the concept of open source appropriate technology or OSAT, which refers to technologies that provide for sustainable development while being designed in the same fashion as free and open …

Minimizing Residential Distribution System Operating Costs Through Intelligently Scheduled Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle Charging, Nathan Steven Fettinger

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

Rising fuel prices and environmental concerns are threatening the stability of current electrical grid systems. These factors are pushing the automobile industry towards more effcient, hybrid vehicles. Current trends show petroleum is being edged out in favor of electricity as the main vehicular motive force. The proposed methods create an optimized charging control schedule for all participating Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles in a distribution grid. The optimization will minimize daily operating costs, reduce system losses, and improve power quality. This requires participation from Vehicle-to-Grid capable vehicles, load forecasting, and Locational Marginal Pricing market predictions. Vehicles equipped with bidirectional chargers further …

Managing Server Energy And Reducing Operational Cost For Online Service Providers, Xinying Zheng

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

The past decade has seen the energy consumption in servers and Internet Data Centers (IDCs) skyrocket. A recent survey estimated that the worldwide spending on servers and cooling have risen to above $30 billion and is likely to exceed spending on the new server hardware . The rapid rise in energy consumption has posted a serious threat to both energy resources and the environment, which makes green computing not only worthwhile but also necessary. This dissertation intends to tackle the challenges of both reducing the energy consumption of server systems and by reducing the cost for Online Service Providers (OSPs). …

Online Distribution Management Framework By Incorporating Wind Generation, Bhairavi Pandya

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

In distribution system operations, dispatchers at control center closely monitor system operating limits to ensure system reliability and adequacy. This reliability is partly due to the provision of remote controllable tie and sectionalizing switches. While the stochastic nature of wind generation can impact the level of wind energy penetration in the network, an estimate of the output from wind on hourly basis can be extremely useful. Under any operating conditions, the switching actions require human intervention and can be an extremely stressful task. Currently, handling a set of switching combinations with the uncertainty of distributed wind generation as part of …

Body Sensor Network For In-Home Personal Healthcare, Sheng Hu

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

A body sensor network solution for personal healthcare under an indoor environment is developed. The system is capable of logging the physiological signals of human beings, tracking the orientations of human body, and monitoring the environmental attributes, which covers all necessary information for the personal healthcare in an indoor environment.

The major three chapters of this dissertation contain three subsystems in this work, each corresponding to one subsystem: BioLogger, PAMS and CosNet. Each chapter covers the background and motivation of the subsystem, the related theory, the hardware/software design, and the evaluation of the prototype’s performance.

Robustness Of Speckle Imaging Techniques Applied To Horizontal Imaging Scenarios, Jeremy P. Bos

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

Atmospheric turbulence near the ground severely limits the quality of imagery acquired over long horizontal paths. In defense, surveillance, and border security applications, there is interest in deploying man-portable, embedded systems incorporating image reconstruction methods to compensate turbulence effects. While many image reconstruction methods have been proposed, their suitability for use in man-portable embedded systems is uncertain. To be effective, these systems must operate over significant variations in turbulence conditions while subject to other variations due to operation by novice users. Systems that meet these requirements and are otherwise designed to be immune to the factors that cause variation in …

Implementation Of Porous Silicon Technology For A Fluidic Flow-Through Optical Sensor For Ph Measurements, Kumar L. Vanga

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

This work presents an innovative integration of sensing and nano-scaled fluidic actuation in the combination of pH sensitive optical dye immobilization with the electro-osmotic phenomena in polar solvents like water for flow-through pH measurements. These flow-through measurements are performed in a flow-through sensing device (FTSD) configuration that is designed and fabricated at MTU.

A relatively novel and interesting material, through-wafer mesoporous silica substrates with pore diameters of 20 -200 nm and pore depths of 500 µm are fabricated and implemented for electro-osmotic pumping and flow-through fluorescence sensing for the first time. Performance characteristics of macroporous silicon (> 500 µm) implemented …

Utilizing Gaussian-Schell Model Beams To Mitigate Atmospheric Turbulence In Free Space Optical Communications / By Kyle R. Drexler., Kyle R. Drexler

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

Turbulence affects traditional free space optical communication by causing speckle to appear in the received beam profile. This occurs due to changes in the refractive index of the atmosphere that are caused by fluctuations in temperature and pressure, resulting in an inhomogeneous medium. The Gaussian-Schell model of partial coherence has been suggested as a means of mitigating these atmospheric inhomogeneities on the transmission side.

This dissertation analyzed the Gaussian-Schell model of partial coherence by verifying the Gaussian-Schell model in the far-field, investigated the number of independent phase control screens necessary to approach the ideal Gaussian-Schell model, and showed experimentally that …

Conversion Of A Micro, Glow-Ignition, Two-Stroke Engine From Nitromethane-Methanol Blend Fuel To Military Jet Propellant (Jp-8), Andrew L. Wiegand

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

The goal of the thesis "Conversion of a Micro, Glow-Ignition, Two-Stroke Engine from Nitromethane-Methanol Blend Fuel to Military Jet Propellant (JP-8)" was to demonstrate the ability to operate a small engine on JP-8 and was completed in two phases. The first phase included choosing, developing a test stand for, and baseline testing a nitromethane-methanol-fueled engine. The chosen engine was an 11.5 cc, glow-ignition, two-stroke engine designed for remote-controlled helicopters. A micro engine test stand was developed to load and motor the engine. Instrumentation specific to the low flow rates and high speeds of the micro engine was developed and used …

Improving The Performance Of Gis/Spatial Analysts Though Novel Applications Of The Emotiv Epoc Eeg Headset , Justin Carter

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

Geospatial information systems are used to analyze spatial data to provide decision makers with relevant, up-to-date, information. The processing time required for this information is a critical component to response time. Despite advances in algorithms and processing power, we still have many “human-in-the-loop” factors. Given the limited number of geospatial professionals, analysts using their time effectively is very important. The automation and faster humancomputer interactions of common tasks that will not disrupt their workflow or attention is something that is very desirable. The following research describes a novel approach to increase productivity with a wireless, wearable, electroencephalograph (EEG) headset within …

Arc-Flash Analysis Of Utility Power Systems, Kevin A. Demeny

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

The electric utility business is an inherently dangerous area to work in with employees exposed to many potential hazards daily. One such hazard is an arc flash. An arc flash is a rapid release of energy, referred to as incident energy, caused by an electric arc. Due to the random nature and occurrence of an arc flash, one can only prepare and minimize the extent of harm to themself, other employees and damage to equipment due to such a violent event. Effective January 1, 2009 the National Electric Safety Code (NESC) requires that an arc-flash assessment be performed by companies …

Design, Construction, And Testing Of A Research Quality Electric Machine Testbed, Trever James Hassell

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

With energy demands and costs growing every day, the need for improving energy efficiency in electrical devices has become very important. Research into various methods of improving efficiency for all electrical components will be a key to meet future energy needs. This report documents the design, construction, and testing of a research quality electric machine dynamometer and test bed. This test cell system can be used for research in several areas including: electric drives systems, electric vehicle propulsion systems, power electronic converters, load/source element in an AC Microgrid, as well as many others. The test cell design criteria, and decisions, …

Data Driven Intelligent Agent Networks For Adaptive Monitoring And Control, Wenjia Liu

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

To analyze the characteristics and predict the dynamic behaviors of complex systems over time, comprehensive research to enable the development of systems that can intelligently adapt to the evolving conditions and infer new knowledge with algorithms that are not predesigned is crucially needed. This dissertation research studies the integration of the techniques and methodologies resulted from the fields of pattern recognition, intelligent agents, artificial immune systems, and distributed computing platforms, to create technologies that can more accurately describe and control the dynamics of real-world complex systems. The need for such technologies is emerging in manufacturing, transportation, hazard mitigation, weather and …

Security, Privacy And Applications In Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks, Zhengming Li

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

With wireless vehicular communications, Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) enable numerous applications to enhance traffic safety, traffic efficiency, and driving experience. However, VANETs also impose severe security and privacy challenges which need to be thoroughly investigated. In this dissertation, we enhance the security, privacy, and applications of VANETs, by 1) designing application-driven security and privacy solutions for VANETs, and 2) designing appealing VANET applications with proper security and privacy assurance.

First, the security and privacy challenges of VANETs with most application significance are identified and thoroughly investigated. With both theoretical novelty and realistic considerations, these security and privacy schemes are …