Engineering Commons^™

General Design Procedure For Free And Open-Source Hardware For Scientific Equipment, Shane W. Oberloier, Joshua M. Pearce

Department of Materials Science and Engineering Publications

Distributed digital manufacturing of free and open-source scientific hardware (FOSH) used for scientific experiments has been shown to in general reduce the costs of scientific hardware by 90–99%. In part due to these cost savings, the manufacturing of scientific equipment is beginning to move away from a central paradigm of purchasing proprietary equipment to one in which scientists themselves download open-source designs, fabricate components with digital manufacturing technology, and then assemble the equipment themselves. This trend introduces a need for new formal design procedures that designers can follow when targeting this scientific audience. This study provides five steps in the …

Design Of Post-Consumer Modification Of Standard Solar Modules To Form Large-Area Building-Integrated Photovoltaic Roof Slates, Joshua M. Pearce, Jay Meldrum, Nolan Osborne

Department of Materials Science and Engineering Publications

Building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) systems have improved aesthetics but generally cost far more than conventional PV systems because of small manufacturing scale. Thus, in the short and medium term, there is a need for a BIPV mounting system that utilizes conventional modules. Such a design is provided here with a novel modification of conventional photovoltaic (PV) modules to allow them to act as BIPV roofing slates. The open-source designs for the mechanical components necessary to provide the post-consumer conversion for a conventional PV module are provided, and prototypes are fabricated and installed on a mock roof system along with control modules …

Ambiance-Dependent Agglomeration And Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy Response Of Self-Assembled Silver Nanoparticles For Plasmonic Photovoltaic Devices, Jephias Gwamuri, Ragavendran Venkatesan, Mehdi Sadatgol, Jeyanthinath Mayandi, Durdo O. Guney, Joshua M. Pearce

Department of Materials Science and Engineering Publications

The agglomeration/dewetting process of thin silver films provides a scalable method of obtaining self-assembled nanoparticles (SANPs) for plasmonics-based thin-film solar photovoltaic (PV) devices. We show the effect of annealing ambiance on silver SANP average size, particle/cluster finite shape, substrate area coverage/particle distribution, and how these physical parameters influence optical properties and surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) responses of SANPs. Statistical analysis performed indicates that generally Ag SANPs processed in the presence of a gas (argon and nitrogen) ambiance tend to have smaller average size particles compared to those processed under vacuum. Optical properties are observed to be highly dependent on particle …

General Design Procedures For Airport-Based Solar Photovoltaic Systems, Anurag Anurag, Jiemin Zhang, Jephias Gwamuri, Joshua M. Pearce

Department of Materials Science and Engineering Publications

A source of large surface areas for solar photovoltaic (PV) farms that has been largely overlooked in the 13,000 United States of America (U.S.) airports. This paper hopes to enable PV deployments in most airports by providing an approach to overcome the three primary challenges identified by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA): (1) reflectivity and glare; (2) radar interference; and (3) physical penetration of airspace. First, these challenges and precautions that must be adhered to for safe PV projects deployment at airports are reviewed and summarized. Since one of the core concerns for PV and airport symbiosis is solar panel …

Effect Of Label Noise On The Machine-Learned Classification Of Earthquake Damage, Jared Frank, Umaa Rebbapragada, James Bialas, Thomas Oommen, Timothy C. Havens

Michigan Tech Publications

Automated classification of earthquake damage in remotely-sensed imagery using machine learning techniques depends on training data, or data examples that are labeled correctly by a human expert as containing damage or not. Mislabeled training data are a major source of classifier error due to the use of imprecise digital labeling tools and crowdsourced volunteers who are not adequately trained on or invested in the task. The spatial nature of remote sensing classification leads to the consistent mislabeling of classes that occur in close proximity to rubble, which is a major byproduct of earthquake damage in urban areas. In this study, …

Fabricating Ordered 2-D Nano-Structured Arrays Using Nanosphere Lithography, Chenlong Zhang, Sandra Cvetanovic, Joshua M. Pearce

Department of Materials Science and Engineering Publications

Recent advances in the use of plasmonic metamaterials to improve absorption of light in thin-film solar photovoltaic devices has created a demand for a scalable method of patterning large areas with metal nanostructures deposited in an ordered array. This article describes two methods of fabricating ordered 2D nanosphere colloidal films: spin coating and interface coating. The two methods are compared and parameter optimization discussed. The study reveals that:

• For smaller nanosphere sizes, spin coating is more favorable, while for larger nanospheres, the angled interface coating provides more coverage and uniformity.

• A surfactant-free approach for interface coating is developed …

Harmonic Distortion Minimization In Power Grids With Wind And Electric Vehicles, Ritam Misra, Sumit Paudyal, Oguzhan Ceylan, Paras Mandal

Michigan Tech Publications

Power-electronic interfacing based devices such as wind generators (WGs) and electrical vehicles (EVs) cause harmonic distortions on the power grid. Higher penetration and uncoordinated operation of WGs and EVs can lead to voltage and current harmonic distortions, which may exceed IEEE limits. It is interesting to note that WGs and EVs have some common harmonic profiles. Therefore, when EVs are connected to the grid, the harmonic pollution EVs impart onto the grid can be reduced to some extent by the amount of wind power injecting into the grid and vice versa. In this context, this work studies the impact of …

Off-Line Handwritten Signature Recognition By Wavelet Entropy And Neural Network, Khaled Daqrouq, Husam Sweidan, Ahmad Balamesh, Mohammed N. Ajour

Michigan Tech Publications

Handwritten signatures are widely utilized as a form of personal recognition. However, they have the unfortunate shortcoming of being easily abused by those who would fake the identification or intent of an individual which might be very harmful. Therefore, the need for an automatic signature recognition system is crucial. In this paper, a signature recognition approach based on a probabilistic neural network (PNN) and wavelet transform average framing entropy (AFE) is proposed. The system was tested with a wavelet packet (WP) entropy denoted as a WP entropy neural network system (WPENN) and with a discrete wavelet transform (DWT) entropy denoted …

The Influence Of Bmss On The Characterization And Modeling Of Series And Parallel Li-Ion Packs, Sandra Castano-Solis, Daniel Serrano-Jimenez, Lucia Gauchia, Javier Sanz

Michigan Tech Publications

This work analyzes the effects of a BMS (battery management system) on the characterization and modeling of series and parallel connections of Li-ion cell packs. The Li-ion pack studied consists of four series modules connected in parallel. This pack has been characterized by means of charge, discharge and frequency tests. As a result of these tests, series and parallel influence on battery parameters have been determined. A model considering the effects of a BMS is established and compared with a model based on a single-cell approach. Experimental validations show that the single cell based approach gives poor results in comparison …

Autonomy At The End Of The Earth, Jeremy P. Bos

TechTalks

Despite press accounts to the contrary, significant challenges remain in the development of true autonomous vehicles. Though these challenges are many and varied my research focuses on two areas. First, operation of autonomous vehicles in inclement weather with emphasis on ice and snow. The other focus is on developing functionally safe mobility solutions. In this talk, I will briefly describe some approaches I am developing to solving these challenges.

Multi-Sensor Fusion On Mobile Platforms, Timothy C. Havens

TechTalks

An important goal for many mobile platforms---terrestrial, aquatic, or airborne---is reliable, accurate, and on-time sensing of the world around them. The PRIME Lab has been investigating multi-sensor fusion for many applications, including explosive hazard detection and infrastructure inspection, from terrestrial vehicles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). New developments in multi-sensor fusion using radars, imaging sensors, and LIDAR will be discussed that encompass advancements from novel signal processing approaches for mobile ground-penetrating radar to more theoretical approaches for optimal fusion of measurements from multi-modal sensors. This talk will explore the area of sensor-fusion both from a practical, application-focused standpoint and also …

Electrical And Computer Engineering Annual Report 2017, Department Of Electrical And Computer Engineering, Michigan Technological University

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Annual Reports

• Early Career Awards
• Faculty Directory
• Faculty Highlights
• Special Report: Mobility at Michigan Tech
• Faculty Publications
• Staff Profile & Directory
• Graduate Student Research
• Accelerated Master's Degree
• Graduate Student Awards & Degrees
• Undergraduate Highlights
• Senior Design
• Enterprise
• Undergraduate Student Awards & Advisory
• Grants & Contracts
• Departmental Statistics
• A Pioneer's Story

The Circuit, Spring 2017, Department Of Electrical And Computer Engineering, Michigan Technological University

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Newsletters

Table of Contents:

• Early Career Awards
• Spotlighting: Leonard Bohman
• Visiting Faculty
• Bridging Past and Future Through Automation
• Robotics Systems Enterprise
• Inspiring the Next Generation
• Tech Team Wins Team Tech
• Ramping Up Automotive Controls
• Bucheger Moves Senior Design Forward
• Student News
• Alumni News

Model-Based Control Of Hybrid Electric Powertrains Integrated With Low Temperature Combustion Engines, Ali Soloukmofrad

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Powertrain electrification including hybridizing advanced combustion engines is a viable cost-effective solution to improve fuel economy of vehicles. This will provide opportunity for narrow-range high-efficiency combustion regimes to be able to operate and consequently improve vehicle’s fuel conversion efficiency, compared to conventional hybrid electric vehicles (HEV)s. Low temperature combustion (LTC) engines offer the highest peak brake thermal efficiency reported in literature, but these engines have narrow operating range. In addition, LTC engines have ultra-low soot and nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions, compared to conventional compression ignition and spark ignition (SI) engines. This dissertation concentrates on integrating the LTC engines (i) in …

Control Of A Powered Ankle-Foot Prosthesis: From Perception To Impedance Modulation, Guilherme Aramizo Ribeiro

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Active ankle prostheses controllers are demonstrating gaining smart features to improve the safety and comfort offor users. The perception of user intention to modulate the ankle dynamics is a well-known example of such feature. But not much work focused on the perception of the environment, nor how the environment should be included in the mechanical design and control of the prosthesisprostheses. The proposed work aims to improve the feasibility of integrate the environment perception integration intoto the prostheses controllersler, and to define the desired ankle dynamics, as mechanical impedance, duringof the human walk on different environmental settings. As a preliminary …

Easily Verifiable Controller Design With Application To Automotive Powertrains, Mohammad Reza Amini

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Bridging the gap between designed and implemented model-based controllers is a major challenge in the design cycle of industrial controllers. This gap is mainly created due to (i) digital implementation of controller software that introduces sampling and quantization imprecisions via analog-to-digital conversion (ADC), and (ii) uncertainties in the modeled plant’s dynamics, which directly propagate through the controller structure. The failure to identify and handle these implementation and model uncertainties results in undesirable controller performance and costly iterative loops for completing the controller verification and validation (V&V) process.

This PhD dissertation develops a novel theoretical framework to design controllers that are …

Model-Based Control Of An Rcci Engine, Akshat Abhay Raut

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Reactivity controlled compression ignition (RCCI) is a combustion strategy that offers high fuel conversion efficiency and near zero emissions of NOx and soot which can help in improving fuel economy in mobile and stationary internal combustion engine (ICE) applications and at the same time lower engine-out emissions. One of the main challenges associated with RCCI combustion is the difficulty in simultaneously controlling combustion phasing, engine load, and cyclic variability during transient engine operations.

This thesis focuses on developing model based controllers for cycle-to-cycle combustion phasing and load control during transient operations. A control oriented model (COM) is developed by using …

Electromagnetic Signal Feedback Control For Proximity Detection Systems, Adam K. Smith

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Coal is the most abundant fossil fuel in the United States and remains an essential source of energy. While more than half of coal production comes from surface mining, nearly twice as many workers are employed by underground operations.

One of the key pieces of equipment used in underground coal mining is the continuous mining machine. These large and powerful machines are operated in confined spaces by remote control. Since 1984, 40 mine workers in the U. S. have been killed when struck or pinned by a continuous mining machine. It is estimated that a majority of these accidents could …

Detection Of Fatigue Damage In Shear Connections Using Acoustic Wave Propagation, Zichao Wang

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Fatigue damage is an important concern in structural steel connections where frequent load reversals are expected. Detection of fatigue damage is typically done with infrequent visual inspections that are subjective and limited to surface features. A permanent embedded structural health monitoring (SHM) system could be helpful in detecting damage as it occurs. Current methods for detecting fatigue damage include inference of fatigue life expended through cycle counting from long-term strain measurement campaigns, and through short-term impedance measurements. The first approach has the advantage that it is relatively simple from an algorithmic point of view, but it is an indirect measure …

Using Lower Extremity Muscle Activations To Estimate Human Ankle Impedance In The External-Internal Direction, Lauren N. Knop

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

For millions of people, mobility has been afflicted by lower limb amputation. Lower extremity prostheses have been used to improve the mobility of an amputee; however, they often require additional compensation from other joints and do not allow for natural maneuverability. To improve upon the functionality of ankle-foot prostheses, it is necessary to understand the role of different muscle activations in the modulation of mechanical impedance of a healthy human ankle. This report presents the results of using artificial neural networks (ANN) to determine the functional relationship between lower extremity electromyography (EMG) signals and ankle impedance in the transverse plane. …

A Host Board Design For An Experiment System Of Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks, He Huang

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Evaluation of theoretical innovation in field experiments plays an important role for research in Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs). During the experiments, the problems of power consumption, costs, and assembly of underwater nodes concern researchers all the time. This project develops a host board for an UWSNs field experiment system. This host board solves the above problems by deploying power management module, utilizing cheap and low power consumption chips (Raspberry Pi and MSP430), and rationalizing layout.

The main functions of the host board include battery monitoring, on-board DC converters, remotely power supply control, data ports bridge, and pluggable module for …

Performance Comparison Of Binarized Neural Network With Convolutional Neural Network, Lopamudra Baruah

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Deep learning is a trending topic widely studied by researchers due to increase in the abundance of data and getting meaningful results with them. Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) is one of the most popular architectures used in deep learning. Binarized Neural Network (BNN) is also a neural network which consists of binary weights and activations. Neural Networks has large number of parameters and overfitting is a common problem to these networks. To overcome the overfitting problem, dropout is a solution. Randomly dropping some neurons along with its connections helps to prevent co-adaptations which finally help in reducing overfitting. Many researchers …

High Performance Multiview Video Coding, Caoyang Jiang

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Following the standardization of the latest video coding standard High Efficiency Video Coding in 2013, in 2014, multiview extension of HEVC (MV-HEVC) was published and brought significantly better compression performance of around 50% for multiview and 3D videos compared to multiple independent single-view HEVC coding. However, the extremely high computational complexity of MV-HEVC demands significant optimization of the encoder. To tackle this problem, this work investigates the possibilities of using modern parallel computing platforms and tools such as single-instruction-multiple-data (SIMD) instructions, multi-core CPU, massively parallel GPU, and computer cluster to significantly enhance the MVC encoder performance. The aforementioned computing tools …

Feature And Decision Level Fusion Using Multiple Kernel Learning And Fuzzy Integrals, Anthony Pinar

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The work collected in this dissertation addresses the problem of data fusion. In other words, this is the problem of making decisions (also known as the problem of classification in the machine learning and statistics communities) when data from multiple sources are available, or when decisions/confidence levels from a panel of decision-makers are accessible. This problem has become increasingly important in recent years, especially with the ever-increasing popularity of autonomous systems outfitted with suites of sensors and the dawn of the ``age of big data.'' While data fusion is a very broad topic, the work in this dissertation considers …

Polymer Waveguide Manufacturing And Printed Circuit Board Integration, Brandon Swatowski

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

In this age of ever increasing data rates in communication systems, optics are becoming more commonplace for long length (>10m) signal transmission in High Performance Computing (HPC) systems due to their bandwidth capabilities which are higher than their electrical counterparts. In these optical based communication systems, Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSELs) are the most commonly used communications lasing medium for multimode fiber applications. These lasers are active in the 850 nm region, with speeds commonly at 10 Gbps/channel. VCSEL vendors are now commercializing lasers at 25 Gbps/channel as well, with research groups actively pursuing rates beyond 40 Gbps/channel, …

Minimum Time Control Of Paralleled Boost Converters, Shishir Patel

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Demand for electrification is booming in both, traditional and upcoming generations of technological advancements. One of the constituent blocks of these electrified systems is Power conversion. Power conversion systems are often constructed by paralleling multiple power converter blocks for high performance and reliability of overall system. An advanced control technique is developed with an aim to optimize system states of heterogeneous power converters within minimum time while maintaining feasible stress level on individual power converter blocks. Practical implementation of real-time controller and performance improvement strategies are addressed. Experimental results validating high performance control scheme, and sensitivity analysis of system states …

Consensus Based Distributed Control In Micro-Grid Clusters, Syed Ahmed Fuad

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

With the increasing trend of utilizing renewable energy generators such as photovoltaic (PV) cells and wind turbines, power systems are transforming from a centralized power grid structure to a cluster of smart micro-grids with more autonomous power sharing capabilities. Even though the decentralized control of power systems is a reliable and cost effective solution, due to the inherent heterogeneous nature of micro-grids, optimal and efficient power sharing among distributed generators (DG’s) is a major issue which calls for advanced control techniques for voltage stabilization of the entire micro-grid cluster. The proposed consensus based algorithm in this thesis is a solution …

An Optimal Energy Management Strategy For Hybrid Electric Vehicles, Amir Rezaei

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs) are used to overcome the short-range and long charging time problems of purely electric vehicles. HEVs have at least two power sources. Therefore, the Energy Management (EM) strategy for dividing the driver requested power between the available power sources plays an important role in achieving good HEV performance.

This work, proposes a novel real-time EM strategy for HEVs which is named ECMS-CESO. ECMS-CESO is based on the Equivalent Consumption Minimization Strategy (ECMS) and is designed to Catch Energy Saving Opportunities (CESO) while operating the vehicle. ECMS-CESO is an instantaneous optimal controller, i. e., it does not …

A Testbed Design For Monitoring The Long-Term Spatial-Temporal Dynamics Of Underwater Acoustic Channels, Krishna Chaitanya Poduru

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The underwater acoustic network testbed helps to validate the theoretical results and bridge the gap between experimental results. Characterizing and modeling the spatial-temporal dynamics of underwater acoustic channels is essential to developing efficient and effective physical-layer communication algorithms and network protocols. This work dedicates to designing a testbed system to measure the spatial-temporal dynamics of underwater acoustic channels. The collected measurements will shed insights into the spatial-temporal correlation of underwater acoustic channels and will be used to evaluate the theoretical algorithms that are designed to model the spatial-temporal dynamics and to exploit the spatial-temporal dynamics for more efficient and effective …

Implantable Wireless Sensor Networks: Application To Measuring Temperature For In Vivo Detection Of Infections, Praharsh Madappaly Veetil

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

It is has been proven that infection in the body cause a local temperature increase due to localized inflammation. Therefore, a method to provide early diagnostic or long-term tracking of this infection will provide great benefits to patients with diabetic foot ulcers or sickle cell disease, and those receiving hemodialysis where they suffer from a weakened immune system. The goal of this project is to develop an implantable wireless temperature sensor based on a wireless sensor network system for monitoring infections in situ. The analog signals from the thermistors are digitized and wirelessly transmitted to a computer with an ez430-rf2500 …